Yesterday Kyle and I were driving to get “Boys Regulars” when the subject of “Toy Story” came up. Fast forward to what blew me away – the film was released in 1995. Since it’s Sunday morning, some of you may not be doing math in your head right now, so…

2020 – 1995 = 25

It looks like “Interactive Woody” rises on command, too.

Twenty-five years? Where did they go? Oh, and Toy Story 3? You know, the one that made you cry when it looked like Buzz, Jessie, Slinky Dog, Rex, Hamm, the Potato Heads, and Woody were going to end the trilogy in an incinerator? Well, if you didn’t, you should have cried. Anyway, that one came out in 2010 and you’re on your own on the math. And speaking of Woody, Beth told me that earlier in her career, the company she worked for had some kind of a promotion with a toy called “Interactive Woody.” Let’s just say that had fun with that one.

What else happened in 1995?

• 168 people were killed at a Federal building in Oklahoma City, including 8 Federal Marshals and 19 children. The act of domestic terrorism was led by an angry white guy, Timothy McVeigh. He considered government officials “fascist tyrants” and “storm troopers” and proclaimed, “ATF, all you tyrannical people will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous actions against the Constitution of the United States. Remember the Nuremberg War Trials.”
• OJ Simpson, who was obviously guilty was found innocent.

The more things change…

No, that’s a typo. It’s eight, as in down eight pounds against a monthly goal of five toward sixty-one this year. It’s a good start but lots of people have good beginnings to a New Year’s resolution. February got off well, too. Yesterday I pushed through a sub-nine minute mile on the elliptical, but my left hip and knee ached through the night to thank me. Taking weight off those joints is a big part of this effort. Still, while exercise is good for cardiovascular, pulmonary, and muscular health, it’s a fairly small part of weight loss as my NordicTrack readout shows.  That 381 calories was replenished and then some in about the five minutes it took Beth and me to finish off an amazing Burratta appetizer at Dario’s, the best restaurant in the area – though we haven’t been to the new Brady’s yet. Dario’s has been at their River Street, Fitchburg location for years, but we didn’t check it out until a couple of months ago. O M G… I’ll do a review at some point – I want to do it justice. Sorry, this post is rambling, but it’s a blog, not Hemingway. Really, this one is just a weight loss check-in. Oh, and here’s another calorie-curbing tip: Don’t bring the 8″ Double Layer Variety Cake to your daughter’s after dinner. My small slice of carrot and chocolate = about 680 calories… Tip #2: When dining out, eat half your entree and bring the rest home for lunch or dinner later in the week. Really. You ate enough.

“There is a moment…” 

–Dr. Mann

Note: My reading of the scale yesterday must have been an early morning hallucination. Anyway, back at it.

In the 1991 comedy, “What About Bob?” Richard Dreyfuss and Bill Murray play a psychiatrist and patient. The movie works, of course, because the doctor is crazier than the patient and the two actors have great chemistry. One of the comic props in the film is the book, “Baby Steps,” written and shamelessly plugged by Dr. Leo Marvin, played with perfect smugness by Mr. Dreyfuss.

• Baby Steps?
• It means setting small reasonable goals for yourself one day at a time.
• One tiny step at a time
• Baby steps

Baby steps seem appropriate to describe the process for trying to lose weight. Here are some of the baby steps that I’ve learned from so far:

• Baby steps a single serving of oatmeal will do…
• Baby steps don’t stop at the bagel store…
• Baby steps I don’t need a second helping…
• Baby steps or a third…
• Baby steps just one or two of Kyle’s fries will do…
• Baby steps tonight I’ll have water instead of a beer…
• Baby steps I don’t need to eat when I’m bored or as a distraction…
• Baby steps eat what you want, just take a little less…

These baby steps have me down 7.8 4.8 pounds halfway through the month against a five-pound goal to 253.2 256.2 without a functioning NordicTrack… (That’s another story…)

If I can keep this going for the remaining 95.9% of the year that remains, I may be able to say, just like Mr. Murray’s Bob Wiley, “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful… I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful… I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful…”

A guy I follow on LinkedIn and Instagram posted recently about “B2B marketers trying desperately to link 2020 (year) and 20/20 (vision) to help peddle their products…” Sure, it may be 20/20 hindsight by then, but I look forward to his “2020 Top 20” of simpleminded 2020 – 20/20 analogies toward the end of 2020.

Since it’s January 1, 2020 as I began to write this, let’s do a resolution post. I’m not a fan of them mostly since they don’t happen, but nonetheless…

I resolve to lose 61 pounds in 2020.

The awful truth on New Year’s Day 2020

Sure, it seems like a lot, but it’s only 5.083333333333333 LB’s a month. I’m pretty sure I can put that on in a weekend.  Hey, the odds (and the fans) were against Roger Maris in 1961, but on October 1^st of that year, he belted home run #61. The baseball establishment then put a freakin’ asterisk next to it in the record books because he did it in a 162-game season when Yankee God, Babe Ruth swatted 60 in only 154 games.

So why go public?  Well, it’s not like people I know don’t know I’m fat.  Hell, I’ve been battling this since my mother traumatized me back in the 60’s in the “husky” pants section. And the last time I successfully lost tonnage was in a public contest at work, so I figure that if I don’t put it out there to my audience of 3 or 4 people, there’s even less chance of it happening because only I’ll know of my abject failure.

I could go on and on about this, but the new year is slipping away. I’ll update my progress or lack thereof here and share any insights I learn about what works for me and what doesn’t. Here’s a starter set:

• Losing weight is about portion control – just eat less
• Delicious and satisfying white carbs like pasta, rice, bread and sugar are your enemy
• THINK about why you’re peering into the fridge before taking any action
• Stress eating can be reduced by reducing stress in other ways – exercise, meditation

There’s my resolution. I wish you luck with yours.

Beth and I watched “Ad Astra” Saturday night, and while it was no “Interstellar” or even “The Martian,” it was a decent mental escape for a couple of hours – an interesting but wobbly story woven around an emotionally inaccessible man longing for human connection – set in space. “Daddy Issues in Space,” if you will. Story aside, the film provided some gorgeous art direction of planets, space pirates, space monkeys, a Nathan’s Hot Dog Stand on the Moon, and Liv Tyler again playing the girlfriend of a dude that goes to space. The real drag on the movie was a consistent “oh, come on” factor -from a 79-day Mars – Neptune flight to body-surfing Neptune’s rings on a metal sheet to a space-boost from a nuclear explosion, I just knew the science wasn’t quite there. Oh, and even Brad Pitt’s getting old. 

Dean: “Oh, it’s a database program.”

Me: “I see. How do I use it?”

Dean: “Just type dbase at the C prompt.”

Me: (1 minute later) “There’s just a flashing dot at the bottom-left of the screen.”

Dean: “That’s the dot prompt.”

Me: “What am I supposed to do with it.”

Dean: “Oh, you need to type Do something or other.”

Dino got me started and introduced me to his son, Jeff, one of my best friends and a frequent character here on the blog. Eventually, I learned to create the database structure for the raw data Merrill gave me and then to write a program that would calculate the “billable utilization” of our field service technicians out servicing Astra computers, “Spinwriter” printers, and other NEC hardware like Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS). My bosses’ boss (who soon became my boss) had set a utilization target of 65%. That meant that in a 40-hour week, our techs were striving for 26/40 hours to be spent on billable work.  More on that later. I confirmed the numbers semi-manually using the SuperCalc spreadsheet program and then wrote a memo explaining it all in the word-processing software, Wordstar. The paper memo and report would be submitted to the boss weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. etc. etc…

With that display of some competency, my job responsibilities expanded and I spent time writing RFP responses with my other pal, Dave, eventually including Executive Summaries for our AFIS bids and creating slide presentations (on 35mm slides) using the programs GEM and Harvard Graphics for my boss to present at our annual User’s Conference. By the time I was doing presentations in the early 90’s, the mouse was still a new thing, and it took many more clicks than it does today to get things done. My right shoulder still has a knot from that first presentation back in 1991.

These skills acquired during the formative years of my career have been a huge part of my good fortune to have been gainfully employed for the past 3 ½ decades. They still serve me well today:

1. Data analysis – Whether dBase or Access, Supercalc or Excel, the ability to work with data has grown in importance over the years
2. Writing – I’ve always enjoyed writing and storytelling – it doesn’t matter what your data says if you can’t explain and make a case for it
3. Public speaking – This takes courage, confidence, and creativity – About 75% of us are terrified by this, but having confidence in the information you’re presenting helps, and being creative about how you present (imagery, graphics, humor) helps the audience engage more with your content

By early 2000, it was decided that the AFIS division of NEC, located in Boxborough, MA would relocate to Sacramento, CA. For family reasons, I couldn’t make that move, but because Dino knew a guy from his PictureTel days (Pete), I got to interview with Kronos. My initial lunch interview with Pete went pretty well, although between the din in the room, Pete’s wild hand gestures, and me wondering if he was going to eat all of those fries resulted in little content retention by yours truly. The second round of interviews included the HR Manager for chit-chat, Pete’s boss, Joe, the Services Division VP for a cool discussion about Woodstock and construction work in sub-zero temperatures (him, not me), the guy I would replace for more chit-chat, and then the gauntlet, Ray Riley. Ray looked like… Well, there’s Ray. I recall the discussion as all business, and one question vividly, “What do you think the billable utilization should be for professional services employees?” Ray looked at me the way Nolan Ryan might have looked at a guy after buzzing him with a little chin-music, or Sandy Koufax after freezing a batter with a knee-buckling curveball. Oh yeah, Ray thought he had me. “Well Ray, I once wrote a program in dBase to calculate field service billable utilization from a dump of mini-computer data, and our target was 65%.”

I’ve been at Kronos ever since.

No, not a Downbound Train or Waitin on a Train, but trains do make good metaphors.

Meditation is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, yet I still suck at it. You can be awful at it and still derive benefits. The “practice” of focusing on the breath and bringing one’s focus back to the breath whenever random thoughts occur trains the mind to quell anxiety on demand (just breathe) and it’s a natural anti-depressant. Meditation advocate Dan Harris calls meditation “bicep curls for the mind.” Yessir. When I unknowingly board a negative train of thought I’m now able to more quickly jump off and wave it goodbye. Several years ago, I did pursue a more conventional route with a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI). I recall the SSRI created a mental “floor” that prevented burrowing into a self-destructive black hole of thought. That was mildly helpful, but I didn’t like the feeling and the side effects were significant. Being a Sixty Minute Man isn’t very cool after all.

One acceptable downside of practicing meditation for me is that trains of thought that used to explosively crash and create ideas for writing now run on gleaming parallel tracks. I still muster creativity on-demand at work, but these random thought collisions and creative clean-ups are rare now. Or it could be the absence of angst. That used to drive this bus, but it’s just fumes now.

I try to log interesting trains of thought in a “Blog Ideas” document for later cultivation and harvesting here. One is “Work, Sleep, Family, Fitness, or Friends: Pick 3,” a post on LinkedIn. I reject the premise, and here’s why:

Work – This may be the key to it all. Sure, I’d be a Theoretical Physicist if I could, but the salary sucks and well, math. I’m still loving work and I appreciate the work-life balance to get my work done and have a life. Every Saturday and Sunday morning usually includes some work time, but if a family commitment occurs during a 9-5 “work-week,” I can make it, uh, work. Oh, one note on this. If you’re working say, at 10pm for whatever reason, don’t send emails or post on your companies chat area. You just look like a showboating jerk.

Sleep – I usually get a solid 8 every night, typically from 10pm-6am, although at my age, there are the occasional 3am contemplations of life and the universe. If you have any trouble sleeping, try CBD oil. The best I’ve found is Straight Hemp Full Spectrum Hemp Oil. Oh, and another benefit, I think, of the CBD oil is pain mitigation – more on that later.

Family – My priority since I’ve had children, and now with grand-children even more so. Every night, Beth and I have dinner with Kyle, and I make sure to be part of most family “stuff,” including school open houses, softball games, family gatherings, and Friday pizza night.

Fitness – Speaking of “pizza night,” I could slice that back a bit. At this point in life, tonnage maintenance is more about health than vanity, though the latter still carries weight. I mean one day, the crepey sag you used to see on older guys at the gym is hanging from your arm. Just a few years ago, I would scoff at the lament of men senior to me about the “aches and pains” of their existence. I was so impressed that the maladies had never crept into my flesh and bones. Until they did. While the New Year’s Eve triple toe loop splat of 2016 seared me with pain, I’m referring to more of a “creeping malaise” (thanks, Roger Waters) that’s crept into my hips these past couple years. Despite the pain and stiffness of arthritis, I stretch/yoga, lift a couple of dumbbells, and get cardio on my elliptical usually 2 times a week. A third session is warranted, so maybe I can get Beth and Kyle to participate one night during the week… Oh, and the meditation. Just do it.

Friends – With my focus on the areas above, this category suffers. I’m not great at keeping in touch with friends, but I have two I’m in contact with every day via group text. I’ve read how important it is for middle-aged (the middle is big) men to have social contact, so I’m lucky to have friends like Jeff and Dave.

I’m sorry that’s the best I could muster after a 10-month blogging hiatus. This is the last day of a 13-day vacation completely unplugged from work. I haven’t looked at a work email since around 5:30 on July 31st, and I have no idea how I’ll feel when I walk back into that office tomorrow. Different, I suppose, but I’m not going to spend any time on that train. There’s still batting cages with the grand-daughters, ice creams, and shark cages with a theater showing of “Jaws” before this 13th day ends.

Oh, one last thing. For any of you wanna-be Theoretical Physicists or purveyors of natural beauty, check out the Milky Way from Sand Beach in Maine’s Acadia National Park. That was a vacation highlight along with “New Jersey Lady Rest Stop in Maine,” and the beauty of Cape Cod, including the art of Mindy & Ronni Reasonover.

As of today, thirty-five billion, one hundred and thirty-six million miles to be somewhat exact. Well, that’s the number I’ve traveled on this rock in its orbit around our star at about 18.5 miles/second, accounting for the fact that the orbit is slightly elliptical. Of course, I’m discounting the 7.0128E+11 miles I’ve traveled with our solar system through the cosmic background at 370 miles/second because that would make me feel really old and probably a bit dizzy. There are many ways to look at 60, but the experience of getting there has recently taught me to look neither back nor forward, so we’ll stay right here in this moment. Relatively close to it, anyway.

This week, a familiar face peered at me above the frosted “privacy glass” of my office. I’ve known the guy for most of my time at Kronos, but I wouldn’t say we’re close, but friendly. He said, “Since you’re a person I trust, I…” What a wonderful thing to hear from another human being.

Speaking of human beings, there’s a new one in our family. Luca arrived on October 5th, and perhaps even more than his mother Megan, father Mike, or sisters Maddie and Aza, Uncle Kyle is the family member most excited and outpouring of love. It recently occurred to me that Kyle may never hold a child of his own, so little Luca will be the recipient of a whole lotta love…

Simultaneously, I’m reading (Beth chuckles at how slowly…) How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan, and listening to Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright. I highly recommend both. As much as I enjoy contemplating the Cosmos and fanaticize about getting out there, the journey inside is equally infinite, yet highly accessible. I’ve written about meditation here before, but like clearing space junk orbiting our planet or plastic from our oceans, emptying the trash out of your mind is good daily maintenance. You should try it.

Anyway, other topics I’d lined up for this post include, “Podcasts,” “Exercise – yoga – arthritis,” and “Luke Voit,” but I’ll save those for my next missive in six months… Instead, since birthdays sometimes involve the exercise of a personal inventory…

1. Mind: Still functioning, but the hard drive retrieval time is intermittently slow and sometimes doesn’t return data at all.
2. Body: More mass than it once had, and not the good kind. Exercise is still conducted consistently, but frequency could be improved. Right hip is not hip to movement.
3. Work: Still love it. Thinking the next chapter may be related to the books I’m reading.
4. Family: Strong. Kyle, Megan, and Jessica are all doing wonderfully. It’s not been every year I could claim that, so I appreciate it now. A birthday card from Megan says, “You’re my best friend.” I must have done something right there. Maddie’s card was addressed to “Glampa,” and nobody calls me that. She’s a smart smartass. Genetics…
5. Love: There’s a line in the film, “Interstellar,” “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” Even though Forrest Gump claimed, “I know what love is,” I think that like time and space, it’s a mystery and almost unknowable with 100% certainty. Still, I’m a life-long learner, and I’m willing. What I do know for certain is that it sure feels like there’s a lot of it in me and around me. I wonder if the writer of “Love Makes The World Go Around” had a side gig as a physicist? Oh, man. I just looked it up. While songwriter Ollie Jones was not a physicist, he penned the song that Perry Como popularized in… 1958. That’s far out, man.
6. Happiness: Please reference 1-5 above.

Oh, and thanks, Mom for having me.  It’s been an awesome ride.

You’ve heard the golf metaphor, he or she is “on the back nine” to describe a person in the second half of their life? Well, for reasons completely unrelated to reality, I’ve always thought the year of my departure from this plane of existence to be 2042. As a young man last century, I calculated (I did the math in my head… Yeah, impressive) that in the far-off year of 2000, I’d be 42. Then I figured half a life in one century, half in the next for 84. Yeah, complete nonsense that’s of no use except for blog fodder and freaking myself out once late 2041 rolls around.

Anyway, the golf analogy. Dividing my current age by 84, then multiplying by 18 puts me between the 12th and 13th hole of my life. Actually, for those calculating at home, I’ll be at the 13th tee on June 20, 2019, and will likely slice. For now, I need to stay focused on every moment of the 12th.

“As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.” – Ben Hogan

Still, it’s fun playing with numbers and interesting to look ahead. But like in golf, if you look ahead or behind, and don’t pay attention to the shot you’re on, chances are you’re going to mess it up. Plus, all of us are constantly just teetering on the edge never knowing when life is going to drop. So…

“I’m going to give you
a little advice.
There’s a force in the universe…
…that makes things happen.
All you have to do is get in touch with it.
Stop thinking. Let things happen…
…and be…the ball.”

I’m not sure when it happened, but meditation took my mojo. My writing mojo, that is. Meditation – the practiced ability to observe and stop in space the colliding asteroids of thought has the downside of neutering certain elements of creativity. Specifically, for me, the constant chaos of spinning thoughts exploding off each other in grey space created ideas of expression, but now that space is tranquil, and conceptual creation quiet.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’ve self-lobotomized. The simple, but very difficult practice of focusing on one’s breath and bringing that focus back every time it’s lost to some random thoughts creates a discipline of mind with all kinds of benefits. You can look it up.

Anyway, this morning I intended to write a ripping review of a recent awful car-buying experience to post widely on social media, but the suicides this week of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain give me pause. Life is hard. For everyone. It doesn’t matter how much fame and fortune you may have achieved, the voice in your head may still tell you that you’re a worthless fraud. It’s not my job to pile on, so I’m not going to reveal the dealer publicly, but I will give them this feedback privately.

So I’ll write this review from a more neutral perspective hoping maybe you can avoid some of the frustrations I experienced helping my daughter buy an SUV.

Here are 5 simple rules for buying a vehicle from a dealer:

1. Car dealerships sell cars all day, every day – hundreds or thousands a year. You buy maybe a dozen in your life.
2. The dealership is trying to maximize the profit they make on every vehicle. That’s their job and it doesn’t make them bad people. Your job is to get the best price you can without losing your mind.
3. Ask to see, and then examine the Carfax AND the service history of the vehicle.
4. You need to pay close attention to the numbers. If you’re negotiating the price (and you should be) of the vehicle, during the process you’ll likely be presented multiple “price sheets” from the dealer with changing numbers each time. They may look something like this:
   My eyes naturally went to the bottom (“Amount Financed”) line, but as I learned, it’s important to scrutinize every line. For example, the bottom line may fall closer to where you want it (good), but close examination shows that most of the decrease happened because the “Cash Down” (money you pay out of pocket up front) increased without your consent by $2,500 (not good at all). I didn’t catch that until round 3, but it’s a good thing I did. As you can see, “Savings” (discount off of the “sticker price”) and Trade Value are the significant drivers of decreasing the final price you’ll pay. As a side note, in my opinion, the “Doc Fee” is simply dealer profit, but they won’t negotiate on it, and “Fees” are typically for registration, plates, and inspection, which brings me to…
5. DO NOT take delivery of a vehicle without the registration in hand, confirmation from your insurance company that the vehicle is registered and insured, and you have an inspection sticker on the vehicle. Otherwise, nine days later you may discover that the loan on the vehicle you traded-in has still not been paid in spite of the 3 emails sent to the General Manager, and the vehicle your daughter is driving is unregistered and uninsured. Oh, and don’t take delivery when the vehicle hasn’t been detailed and the gas tank is on “E.”