Roseyland

I worked out tonight. Please… Please.. hold your applause. I want to be the type of person that works out regularly, and I manage to do so for months at a time, but I also manage to go months without working out. Let’s take a trip back in time. When I was in high school, I was on the swim team. I used to swim fairly intensely for 2 hours a day 5 days a week for 10 months of the year. I was in great shape. When I think of how many calories a day I must have burned then versus what I burn now, I cry a little.

In college, I didn’t work out much, but I was still fairly active. For one, I walked all over campus every day, and I rode my bike a little. I gained a little weight in college, but honestly, I probably needed to gain that weight. After college, things got a little worse. In grad school, I spent more and more time in front of a computer, and when I had to start cooking for myself, I ate less and less healthy. At one point, I weighed myself and found out that I had gained 40 pounds since high school. This was a little alarming, so I started going to the rec center on campus, and after a couple months I got myself back to a healthy weight.

Then I entered the working world. My job requires virtually no physical activity whatsoever. Unless you count typing. The most exercise I am forced to get is the two and a half minute walk from my car to my desk. Yes, I have timed it. When I first moved to St. Louis, I joined the Edward Jones YMCA, which is awesome. Seriously, if you live in Maryland Heights, you should check it out. When I moved to Brentwood, I joined the YMCA just down the street, but it wasn’t as nice, and I stopped going. This led to a long period of no exercise. Then a couple years ago, they opened a fitness center at work. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s very convenient. I got into a good habit of working out regularly for nearly a year, but then I got distracted, and I quit.

The problem is, the gym just isn’t fun. You end up doing the same thing every day, and day after day it gets old. I have a new plan though, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to stick with this plan a little longer. Here it is:

• 10 minutes on the elliptical machine doing some form of interval training. This means you go fast, then slow, then fast, then slow.
• Around 15 minutes on the weight machines. I’ll do 1 set of 12 reps on 7 different machines. I’ll alternate which machines i use on different days.
• 10 more minutes of interval training on the elliptical machine.

This is different from my old workout, where I would spend 30 minutes on weight machines, and then 30 minutes on the elliptical at a constant speed. I’m hoping the new plan will be faster paced, and thus less boring. I’ve heard that it’s better to split up your cardio, so that your pulse is elevated during your entire workout. I’ve also heard that doing some form of interval training for your cardio burns more calories than going at a constant speed.

I tried this new plan tonight, and it definitely went faster. It was nice not having to drudge through 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, and I have to admit, the interval training felt more intense. Plus, it was a lot more fun. The biggest benefit to this new plan is that I’m in and out of the gym in less than an hour. This makes it much more likely that I’ll stick with it, and more likely that I’ll start up again if I miss a few weeks. Wish me luck. And, um, you should probably get back to working out too. You can’t fool me, I know how many hours a day you sit there reading blogs. Go for a walk.

I love Google Earth and Google Street View. You can pretty much walk the streets of any city in the World without leaving your couch. The more I can do from my couch the better. Today, I’m going to take you on a tour of everywhere I have lived via Google Earth. Yes, I know there are addresses on these pictures, but nobody I know lives in these places today, so stalk away.

As far as I know, this is the first place I ever lived. It’s a condo in Lincoln, Nebraska. My Dad actually lived here until just a few months ago, and I have spent many summers and holiday breaks in this condo.

My parents got divorced when I was three or four. For awhile, I lived with my Mom in an apartment, but I have no idea where that was. Then, when I was in kindergarten, we lived in this house. I’m amazed I was able to find it, but it was actually fairly easy. I remember that my aunt lived in the basement of this house for some time. She would tell me ghost stories about a ghost named VooDoo, and then I would have nightmares.

My Mom remarried when I was 5, and my Mom, Stepdad, and I lived in this house when I was in first grade. I remember that it was near a drive-in movie. I could see movies from my front yard. I couldn’t hear them, but I could see them.

After first grade, we moved to Edmond, Oklahoma. We lived in the duplex apartment with the red car in front of it. This was a semi-fun place to live. I spent a lot of time riding my bike and playing in the wooded area towards the bottom-left of the picture. I remember catching horny toads and playing in red dirt. Oklahoma had lots of red dirt. I also remember the people in Oklahoma being a little weird. I personally don’t think I’d ever live there again.

Then in third grade, we moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, where we lived in this apartment complex for the first year. This was awesome for a kid. This neighborhood was called the Ridges, and it was very hilly and rocky. I used to climb on these rocks a lot. I scrapped many knees here. There were also lots of cactuses, and I put my hand in several of them.

In fourth grade, we moved to this house in Grand Junction, Colorado. This is where I lived until I left for college. There were not as many plants in front of the house when I lived here, but the rock yard was there. The Colorado river was near by and I used to ride my bike down there all the time. I also played a lot of Nintendo in this house.

After high school, I went to Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. I lived in the Freese hall my freshman and sophomore years, which is the dorm on the left. Freese was a co-ed dorm and Doane had a beautiful campus. Notice the lake and trees. It’s pretty.

During my junior and senior years, I lived in Colonial Hall with seven other guys from my fraternity. Colonial was made up of quads, which are four dorm rooms with a shared living and bathroom. Good times. I wish I could say more, but I’d rather leave some things undocumented. Right now my quad-mates are thinking, “Like what? the time you stayed in to do homework when we went to the bar?”. Yes, exactly. Nobody needs to know these things.

After Doane, I got my engineering degree at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. I was at WashU for three semesters, and I lived in the Millbrook apartments during this time. I did a lot of studying here. Not much else.

After WashU, I went to grad school at the University of Nebraska. So we’ve come full circle back to Lincoln, Nebraska. This is the apartment complex I lived in. I had a studio apartment, which was small, but suited me well. I get a kick out of the efficient use of space.

After grad school, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri and lived in this apartment complex. These apartments were nice, but I got tired of paying rent, so I bought a condo and moved out.

This is the neighborhood I live in today. I can’t show you my actual condo, because you’d probably stalk me and eat my brains. Not cool.

Well that was fun, it’s amazing how fast that went by. It’s like my life just flashed before my eyes. Am I dead? Nope, still here, few! If you liked this post, you might also like this post with various pictures of me over the ages. See you tomorrow for another fun filled NaBloPoMo post!

Here at Roseyland we pride ourselves on being a bastion of high brow intellectual discourse. Tonight we will be engaging in a thinking game colloquially referred to as Kill Fuck Marry. (No, that isn’t an appropriate use of the word colloquially, but it felt right, deal with it). This is where you are given a list of three people and you have to choose one to kill, one to fuck, and one to marry. Tonight’s lists of killing, fucking, or marrying candidates are brought to us by Matt of Doane College and Delta Kappa Pi fame. Matt was nice enough to propose this game in a comment to my last blog post. Let’s begin!

A). Marisa Miller, Heidi Klum, Jessica Biel

Okay, look. I don’t read People, or US Weekly, or watch TMZ. I’m also horrible at names and faces. Who in the hell is Marisa Miller? Let me do a Google image search… Oh dear god. Wow. Good for her. This (possibly NSFW) is nice. And this. And this. Yeah, um, I’m gonna fuck her.

So that leaves Heidi Klum and Jessica Biel. I know Heidi because she a judge on that runway show that has nothing to do with airplanes. She’s quite fit as well. (Psssst… “fit” is British for looks fuckable. You may now consider yourself cultured). I know that I know Jessica Biel, but I can’t seem to bring up her image in my mind. Let’s do another Google image search… Jessica’s nice, but not my thing. I’ll kill her and marry Heidi. I think I’d enjoy the German efficiency Heidi would bring to our union.

Next List.

B). Lady GaGa, Kathy Griffin, Scary Spice

I think I preferred the last list, can we just do it again? No? All-right. I’m actually somewhat of a Kathy Griffin fan. I love here Life on the D List show on Bravo. I also like Lady GaGa’s song Just Dance. It’s a good song to get you going on the way to work in the morning. I don’t know much about Scary Spice, but I do remember the Spice Girls.

I’m going to marry Kathy. An odd choice given that she’s the oldest of the three, but she’s funny and I think it would be cool to hang out with her on a daily basis. Plus her last husband was kind of a dick, so she deserves a good guy like me. I’m going to kill Lady Gaga and fuck Scary Spice. Lady Gaga just seems a little out of control. I don’t do out of control. Supposedly Scary Spice was named “Scary” because she has a take charge up front personality. That could make for a unique bedroom experience. I’d like to try it out.

Next List.

C). Rosie O’Donnell, Barbara Streisand, Amy Winehouse

I have to kill Rosie. I actually like Rosie when she doesn’t let her mouth get too far ahead of her brain, but that never last very long. My biggest issue with Rosie is this. I’ll spare you the gory details, but basically Rosie did her own little expert structural engineering analysis and determined that the U.S. government must have been responsible for 9-11. I don’t do crazy, so I’m afraid Rosie has to go.

Every time I see Amy Winehouse, I think she’s a drag queen. An attractive drag queen, but still a drag queen. Also, isn’t she some type of raging drug addict? Or has she recovered? Either way, I can’t marry her. I could fuck her though, so I will. I guess that means I’m marrying Barbara. She older, but super rich. I can deal with that.

Well that was fun. Feel free to critique my selections. Remember, we are all about intelligent discourse here at Roseyland. Also, I should warn you, this blog post uses the word “fuck” a lot. This is out of character for me, but the nature of the game Kill Fuck Marry makes it necessary. If such language offends you, please don’t read this post.

See that guy on the right? That’s my senior year college roommate John. The guy on the left is his gay partner/lover Rob. If you look close, you can see that they are wearing nothing but body paint, man panties, and shoes. They are dressed up (or down) as corn for Halloween. I assume they went with corn because they are both from Nebraska. There is a lot of corn in Nebraska. Their dog, Chi, is dressed up as a pumpkin. In the picture below, you can see Chi dressed up as a purple monkey. It looks like Chi got two costumes this year. Lucky dog.

The next picture is John and Rob’s refrigerator in preparation for Market Days. Market days is this gay and lesbian street festival in Chicago. Apparently it’s a big deal. Notice the obscene amount of gay pride themed jello shots.

So why are we here? I don’t know. Somehow I saw that picture of John painted as gay corn on the cob, and I just had to blog about it. John is one of my favorite people in the world. I lived with him and four other guys for two years in college. We all pledged to the same fraternity as freshman, and it has been good times ever since. All of these guys are a million times more interesting than me, but John is particularly interesting, because he’s gay. Well not just because he’s gay, but also because he was a huge republican in college. He worked on republican candidates campaigns, he went to the Republican National Convention in 1996, and he screamed with girlish glee when he found out that Bill Clinton put a cigar in Monica Lewinsky’s vagina. That probably should have been our first clue.

John was also student body president for two years and president of the young republicans for 3 years (I think). We used to debate politics a lot in our quad. John was always the staunch republican. To be fair, John was never a fan of the religious right. We both shared a deep distaste for Pat Robertson and his ilk. I guess what I’m trying to say is that John being a super republican in college makes it all the more wonderful that he is now a gay man living an all out gay lifestyle in Chicago.

I wish I could tell you about the time that John got drunk, threw a pear against the wall, stripped naked, put on a life vest, and tried to strangle me over a can of mandarin oranges, but I promised not to blog about things that could get people arrested. So there you have it, the abbreviated story of my gay republican college roommate John. I’d like to thank John and Rob for letting me post this and use their pictures. You guys are awesome. I’ll come visit someday.

As I write this, it is November 1st, 2009 at 6:31 PM, and I have just now decided to participate in NaPaBloMo. This is where you blog every day for the month of November. I haven’t been blogging lately. No real reason, except that I was just plain burned out. I loved the blog post I wrote about my London/Paris trip this summer. It was a great way to document my trip, and I actually go back and read those post a lot. Which is weird, because I wrote them. Unfortunately, with all the pictures and everything I wanted to say, those post wore me out.

I’ll be honest, I’m probably going to fail at this blogging every day thing. For one, I know that I’m going to be out of town for Thanksgiving, and I might not even have internet access. Can you write blog post ahead of time for NaPaBloMo? Or, can you write a blog post everyday, but not post it until a few days later? Which would be more ethical? Maybe I should just stay home with the cat for Thanksgiving.

Three paragraphs into my fist NaPaBloMo post I guess I should finally get to the topic of the post. V. This Tuesday, November 3ed, the new ABC series V starts. In case you don’t know, this is a remake of the original V mini series that aired in 1983, when I was in second grade. I loved V. I wanted to be one of the aliens. I wanted to wear a red jump suit, eat mice, and peel off my face to reveal my true lizard self. I frequently told people I was an alien, and I would draw lizard scales onto my skin using magic markers. Man, those were the days. The Scfy channel has been running a marathon of the original series today, and I have watched a lot of it. For some reason, it doesn’t hold the attraction for me that it once did. I guess it’s possible that I have changed since 1983. I mean I haven’t tried peel my face off in ages.

I do plan on watching the new V series on ABC. I’m not sure if I will like it or not. The previews look decent, but I’m really not much of a Sci-Fi fan. Still, the blond chick in it looks hot. I’ll route for whatever side she is on.

Hey! I made it past day one of NaPaBloMo!!! Only 29 or 30 days left. No, I don’t know how many days are in November. It’s probably 30, since October and December both have 31 days. Okay, so I guess I do know. Never mind. See you tomorrow.

I got things I want to say. Here they are:

• Look! It’s a picture of a cat being all cute! This will probably be your favorite part of this post.

I have a special treat for you today. My college admission essay. I came across this when I was migrating data to my new MacBook back in October. I wrote this in the fall of 1994 when I was 17 years old, and it is one of the earliest examples of my writing that I have. It’s a little embarrassing to share this, but what the hell, it’s only the internet. Anyways, here it is, completely unedited. I’ll offer my thoughts after the essay.

I started swimming my freshman year and my life has not been the same since. Swimming has taught me more than any other activity that I have been involved in. Commitment, dedication, and determination are just a few of the values that I have gained from swimming. I believe that the most important thing swimming has taught me is the importance of setting goals. When I started swimming, I quickly learned that I could accomplish much more if I set specific goals to work toward. This encouraged me to set goals, not only in swimming, but also in my life. One of my goals is to achieve a high level of education so that I can become an engineer. As an engineer, I can contribute greatly to society, which is one of my personal goals. With these goals I am sure that I can overcome any difficulties that get in my way. (continue reading…)

Back in October, I went back to college for homecoming and my fraternities 125th anniversary. I couldn’t wait to blog about it, yet somehow I’m just now getting to it. Hmm… I considered just scrapping this post, but I knew you would want a tour of my college. It is the greatest college in the universe after all. I went to Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. Doane is a small liberal arts college with about 1000 students and Crete is a small town of about 5000 people. Doane had a great community. Everybody knew everybody and all that stuff. At Doane, I was a double math and physics major with a minor in computer science. I was also a member of the Delta Kappa Pi fraternity. Which is odd, because I’m not really the frat guy type. My fraternity was great though. It gave me this incredibly active social life that required zero effort on my part. I’m a big fan of things that provide big rewards for minimal effort. I should totally put that on my resume.

Let’s start the tour, please keep your arms in legs inside the tram at all times. This first building is the new education building (I think). This building did not exist when I in school. It looks very prestigious though, I’m impressed. Doane has a lot of education majors, and they spend their entire college careers cutting shapes out of construction paper, or so it seems.

(continue reading…)

Once upon a time, I had grand visions for this blog. I was going to talk about politics, religion, deep deep spiritual things. I was going to have this great perspective that would leave people in awe. Also, I was going to be funny, really really funny. Hillarious in fact. I figured it would spawn a book deal, TV show, and eventually movies. Then I realized that all that was going to take work, so now I’m just here to play games.

Today’s game is brought to us by Jeannette. She asked me to interview her in a comment to this blog post. I interviewed her (here). Then she asked me interview questions, which is totally breaking the rules will probably get us both kicked off the blogosphere, but whatever, I’m not in the mood to blog about the scotch-a-roos I made two months ago. So here we go again. Wheeeeeee! (continue reading…)

Bri of Under The Arch asked if anyone wanted to be interviewed in this post. I’ve been suffering from a serious lack of blogging motivation, so I jumped at the opportunity. By jumped, I mean that I posted a comment asking to be interviewed. I may have also literally jumped, but I’m not sure. I figure it’s just answering silly questions, how hard can it be? If you want to play along, follow the directions at the end of this post. (continue reading…)