My iPod was dead, long live my iPod

Good news this week around NOTM,Y, as my iPod returned to the land of the living. The good folks at Best Buy returned it in a hair under three weeks after submission for repairs, and all is right with the world. Flight of the Conchords, The Black Crowes, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, System of a Down, and the sultry sounds of "Run, Blake, Run" are back at my fingertips. Luckily for me, this means that convincing myself to get on the elliptical during the work day is no longer a chore, but a chance to rock out for thirty minutes, gone from the seemingly endless hours at my cubicle. We're a bit behind budgeted pace just over the halfway point in the year, and the powers that be are extremely concerned about the almighty bucks. This resulted in a mandate that I be in my career station and ready to work no later than 8am, which sucks for a night owl like myself. Most of my best work is done at night, or at least that's what I tell myself when I'm blogging before bed. Combined with a brutal graduate school schedule the past four weeks, this has led to some really long days. The bad news from this development? I'm pretty flippin' tired all day long, and would rather do about a thousand things than drag my butt over to the gym, work out, shower, and return to the office. The good news? About the only thing that sounds less appealing than that gym trip is staying in the office and doing some more work. So I've been exercising as catch can, which boils down to some prophylactic work on the elliptical instead of the hard core ninety minute workouts that seem to lead to serious weight loss. I guess I will take what I can get until school drops down to one night a week in ten days. That's my target date for a more regular gym schedule. I've got a nine week window where my only evening obligations, other than perhaps the occasional dinner out with friends, are Wednesday night lectures for Marketing Research Methods. Break out the party hats and the weightlifting belts! Woo hoo! I'll be sure to supply the tunes for this particular party.

In the meantime, thanks have to go out to Alex for passing along an article on an effective tip for weight loss from a recent study, the food diary. It sounded like a foodie's obsessive record of his favorite chefs and meals when I first read the title, but instead was a different, compelling reason to write down everything you eat. By keeping track of your calories, you can more easily monitor your intake and recognize bad habits when they start to occur. Not sure if I'm going to work this into the blog or not, but the idea is being utilized behind the scenes at NOTM,Y and hopefully will lead to some results in the near future. Thanks for the support, Alex. Keep 'em coming. Back soon with a new feature here on Not On the Moon, Yet. The Weekly Weigh-In! *dramatic descending piano chords* Get ready for the weekly-ish post that will be a core feature of this here blog, where the shit hits the road, the rubber meets the fan, and any other mixed metaphors you can think of that sound like they mean serious business. I'll be holding myself accountable for the good, the bad, and the ugly of the past week in my quest to lose one pound for every year of Cubs futility over the past century. Stay tuned, campers...

Uncle Blake

The challenge begins

Hey y'all. Hope you had a good holiday weekend, especially those of our ex-pat readers who celebrated overseas with Dolly Parton. I spent a few extra hours sitting on the barstool that didn't need to happen, but saw some friends, had some good conversations, and went for a series of walks on Saturday that made me feel a little less guilty about all of Thursday night's excesses. Ended up walking down to a friend's house, then walked around Southport and Addison for a bit. Great excuse to skip the gym this weekend apparently.

Seems like there is always a good excuse that prevents me from getting to the gym on the weekends. "Went out drinking the night before. Got too much homework to do. Weather's too nice to do anything but sit by the pool and drink beers. VH1 is having a Rock of Love marathon and I haven't seen enough drunken strippers with severe emotional retardation this week." I can actually deal with most of that as acceptable collateral damage in this particular quest. Well, maybe not the Rock of Love marathon. What is up with that show and America's strange fascination with watching a train wreck? I digress. My bigger problem is the midweek excuses for skipping the gym. My intentions for most every week start with at least three trips to the gym. As of now, I'm still going to school part time, which is two nights a week. I always tell myself that I'm going to get up early on school days and get the exercising out of the way prior to work, then make it after work for lifting and cardio on at least one or two other days, leaving Friday, Saturday and Sunday free for some serious personal time. Somehow it never really works out. Especially when things like tonight happen. Got offered some Cubs tickets for the game, and hadn't been in a month or more. Decided that I was going to go to the game, and hit the gym at lunch. Only problem was, as usual, work got pretty busy, and the gym trip got cancelled. Whoops. Witness a busted workout plan for the week, kids. It ain't for the faint of heart.

Now pretty obviously, this is a simple matter of prioritization during my week. Not rocket science, right? No Cubs games before working out. No drinks with coworkers before working out. No deciding I'm tired and going home before working out. Making the workout a priority is now the new priority. Just a matter of deciding that this is the time once and for all when things are going to change, and I'm going to take some time for myself rather than trying to get things done for every other person who asks for something of me. Very mature, right?

By the way, Cubs win tonight. We're on our way to the World Series....

Raison d'etre

So we're gonna get things kicked off here at Not On The Moon, Yet after a false start a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing how poorly things go when you start a new endeavor after a happy hour on Friday. I've been working my way towards this particular corner of the internet after a lot of reflection in 2008. Turning 30 will do that to a person. You see, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my future this year. My twenties are over, and life has inexorably changed despite the most fervent wishes of my younger self that nothing ever change. Friends have gotten older, most of them are married or on their way to it, my job has become something more than the time I spend in between drinking sessions, and school has gotten to be the main focus of my evenings. In short, I'm growing up. And while the younger me was outwardly full of piss and vinegar, having a good time and not shy about letting everyone know, the older me has come to realize that not everything is an excuse to party and let go. The older me knows that hard work is frequently necessary to achieve something, but that it feels pretty damn good when you do so. And in the spirit of that hard work, I'm bringing you this little confessional.

I'm sure all you Simpsons fans out there already picked up on this, but the URL of this thing of mine is the first clue what this is all about. It's a pretty obscure reference to an episode of the Simpsons in which Troy McClure's latest educational video is about the gravitational difference between the earth and the moon. After revealing that the moon's gravity causes a person to weigh one-sixth of what they do on earth, a rather chubby young man reaches for some sort of sweet, at which point Troy intervenes and tells him, "you're not on the moon yet, tubby." One of the consequences of all that partying and letting go in my twenties is that I've put on a rather significant amount of weight, and as I've grown up, and denial can no longer allow me to ignore the labels on my pants and the sudden narrowing of the CTA seats here in the Windy City, I've realized that it's time for this weight to come off. Part of it is for health concerns, part of it is for aesthetic appeal to the ladies, part of it is that I really hate wind resistance, but no matter the full list of reasons for it, I'm going to use this forum as a tool to record my progress, motivate myself, discuss the challenges of losing weight and being overweight, entertain any readers who find this site, and hopefully get some gratuitous support from the wide world out there. And maybe, just maybe, land a book deal that'll help me pay for a personal trainer. Those thieving bastards are expensive, yo.

So welcome to Not On the Moon Yet. Stick around, and don't be afraid to show your support.

Cheers,
Blake