ThatswhatIsaid

By Tim

Just yesterday my friend Neil from work and I went to the beach, sans surfboards.  He just wanted to go swimming in the salty water to try and dry out the poison ivy rashes he got from when we did community service. 

We had no bathing suits with us, so we thought about buying suits.  Pretty dumb idea, since they run about 50 bucks, and I have 3 pairs sitting at my apartment.  I realized however that we had our gym shorts, so I went with those.

Neil is very self conscious.  He keeps saying how he thinks we would look stupid with our crappy gym shorts, but we go out anyway.  After swimming around for awhile I decide that it would be really fun to rent a body board.  

 After I got into surfing I discovered professional body boarding, and how cool it looked.  Body boarders wear flippers on their feet for speed and can do some crazy aerial tricks!  I used to think they were only used by little kids and parents who refer to them as “boogie boards.”  (It actually still is the case where I go)

So I get a board for only 7$ for the day, even though Neil tried to talk me out of it for fear of me looking stupid.  I had a pretty good idea of how to ride it well from footage I’ve seen, so I caught on pretty quick.  I ended up shredding some waves as good as I would on a surfboard! 

All the good waves are generally in one area, which will be swamped with surfers.  I wanted a piece of that pie, so I headed right on over.  Of course, there were no body boarders, just sufers.  So knowing this, I know I’ll probably get a couple of funny looks, but who cares!  Well, one person did.  Neil tried so hard to get me not to go over towards the surfers!  It was too funny, he just sat on shore shaking his head at me while I had an awesome time. 

Even when we have our boards, him and anyone else I am with is too afraid to go surfing near the better surfers.  “What if I look stupid?”  “What if I get in the way?”  Well all the good surfers are generally near the big waves, and it makes you get better much faster practicing in the better waves, and just from seeing the more skilled surfers technique. 

People have the same lame mentality about many situations.  I can’t  think of times I’ve gone out to do something and had a horribly bad time.  Things don’t always go perfect, but nothing ever happens to give me reason to be sour or angry.  At best I will get a good story if shit really hits the fan.  I know people who won’t even leave home out of fear that they might not have a good time.  As a result they get lonely, lazy, and their quality of life degrades.  I believe this happens all the time with older people, but I am talking about people my age!  I’m only 22, people my age should be doing all kinds of fun stuff. 

A lot of these things that people say will make you look uncool, such as my makeshift bathing suit, probably do look uncool in most peoples eyes.  But I really don’t care, especially when it is a zero social consequence event, like being at the beach.  Unfortunately you kinda have to go with the flow in a work environment, which is one reason work sucks. 

Obviously the point of this little story is that people get way to caught up in what people are going to think of them.  I had a good time doing what I wanted to do, which I strive to always do.  When I don’t do my own thing I usually end up regretting it.   

By Tim

I have a small dilemma; I have no time anymore!

Since summer started I have been working full time, which takes up an average of 42.5 hours a week.  There is also the commute time of 45 minutes each way, which added to hours worked comes out to 50 hours a week. 

I can also include time it takes to get ready each morning, which is half an hour.  This makes my total work time 52.5 hours a week. 

Asides from working, I have been very busy.  I started surfing this summer, and this is one of the best summers for surf in New England in recent history.  I have going about 4 times a week lately.  On days I go surfing, I go straight from work, and don’t get home until around 10. 

I also need my wind down time.  When I get back at 10pm, I am never able to fall asleep immediately.  I end up falling asleep sometime between 11pm and 12:00am, end up waking up at 6am feeling tired as hell, and do it again. 

Last weekend I went on a 20 mile canoeing trip.  Sunscreen was futile against the sun and I got a little burned, which sucks because chaffing from a wetsuit really hurts.  The following two days after the trip I went surfing.  Oh yeah, and I went surfing Thursday and Friday before the canoe trip too.  If I go today, that means I will have done outdoor strenuous activity seven days in a row!

This isn’t a terrible thing.  I am having lots of fun this summer, I’ve become a decent surfer, and I am getting in really good shape.  However I just haven’t had the time to make any sort of lifestyle improvements in that time. 

Right now it is getting to the point of ridiculousness.  I haven’t done my laundry in quite a while, to the point where you start wearing all those goofy shirts that you would normally never be caught in public with!  I am a prisoner of Laundromat operating hours.  I haven’t done grocery shopping in a while either, because I don’t even have time to cook right now.  This means that my diet is not optimal for what I have been trying accomplish. 

I think what I need is to slow down a little right now.  I can barely even move because I am so sore from all this physical activity!  If I were looking at this in terms of working out, it is not good for your body to over do it.  The difference is that surfing and canoeing and other activities are far more fun than working out at a gym.

On the other hand, I am taking advantage of the weather being at its best for what I do, and it probably won’t last all summer.  I might as well enjoy it while I can; I know I have at least a couple more tees that will pass the sniff test. 

By Tim

Today was a full day of work, where work consisted of a few of us interns coming up with all kinds of crazy schemes.

Later I picked up my newly repaired surfboard from the local shop and that evening I spent 3 hours scraping all of the old crappy wax off of it until it looked like new.

But I did make one discovery at work I was totally psyched about, which is Delicious, or http://del.icio.us.  It is kinda old news and been around forever, but I am so glad I started using it!

It is basically bookmarking done online.  That way you can access all of your bookmarks from anywhere.  It’s super organized too.

I am a bookmarking fanatic.  I do limit my time on the internet as to not waste too much time, however I have found all kinds of gems on internet.  Since my memory isn’t fail proof by any stretch, I like to have a log of all my gems.

Delicious uses tagging instead of folders, which I like since I also use Wesabe which I’ll maybe mention another time.  You can also bundle your tags.  For instance I have a bundle called money, which has tags within it such as Investing, business, general.  Each individual tag has it’s own bookmarks that fit that tag.

I spent some time organizing everything, but it makes it so that I can pretty much use the account as a quick reference when I need it.  I tend to get ideas from the internet for things I want to put into action, and sometimes want to pull up an article to get the juices flowing again.

I use the following bundles:

• entertainment

• howto

• money

• shopping

• surf

• tech

So for instance shopping is obviously stuff I want to buy, surf is interesting surf articles as well as a tag about how to make surfboards, something I plan on doing soon.  I also love how to articles, that’s where I have all of my tutorials on software, things I find interesting.

Some of my tags share pages.  For instance an article about how to build a surf board would be tagged under “surf” as well as “howto.”  This makes it so that if something is vague I don’t need to remember which tag it is under.

The only negative is that it is not fully functional at work.  Once you’ve imported all your old bookmarks from your computer, you would generally add more by clicking on a button that is added to your toolbar as an addon for either IE of Firefox.  Unfortunately the security at work is a little strict.

There are workarounds for everything though.  Instead I just bookmark new stuff on my work computer, then import it all when there is anything substantial, similar to the way I did during the initial setup.

This isn’t a plug for the site, you’ll find no link for the site here.  I just wanted to share my experience using it, and how it has optimized my web experience.

By Matt

Everybody’s dream.  Well, everybody but me.

I don’t drink alcohol at all.

Never have.

This is weird to many people, and often leads to an awkward moment or two when they first figure it out.  The conversation usually goes something like this:

Other:  You don’t drink at all?

Me:  Nope.

Other:  Yeah, I have some friends who were alcoholics.  Good job kicking the habit.

Me:  Uh - I never had a problem drinking.  I’ve never drank.

Other:  Wow.  Are you like religious or something?

Me:  No.  I don’t have a problem with what other people do, I just don’t drink.  I still go out and have a good time.  It’s really no big deal.

Other:  *takes swig of beer*  I wish I could do that.

Me:  changes topic

As you can see this conversation is annoying to have.  And I have it just about every time I tell someone that I don’t drink.  To avoid this dreaded conversation as much as possible, I usually just wait till people figure out that I don’t drink.  It takes a few times of going out with me before they figure it out.  It’s a fun game though, because by the time they figure it out, there’s no awkwardness because they’ve also figured out how great it is to roll with me. 

I travel constantly for work.  That means dinner out with colleagues just about every night of the week.  They get used to my diet coke with lime orders.  (Side note:  Johnny Drama has it right, order original drinks and people remember you forever.  I was working in Bessemer City, NC for a few months, left for a year, came back, and everyone at all the restaurants I frequented remembered my drink order.  I was impressed.)

I work for a company that does engineering in the food and beverage industry.  I’ve worked for ice cream plants, cereal plants, salad plants, juice plants, fruit pants, but this project is different.  I’m working for a brewery. 

This is the one time I’ve been disappointed that I “can’t” (obviously, I can I choose not to) drink.  Today we packaged the first saleable keg of beer.  First day of saleable product is always a big deal.  But when it’s a keg of beer, what does that mean?  Keg Party!  Well, not really, but we tapped the keg at work and everyone had a glass of beer.  I sort of just drifted to the background because I didn’t want to go through my awkward conversation with the brewers.  Beer is these dudes lives and livelihoods.  It would be like I was insulting them if I didn’t drink some.

That’s how I’d feel at least.  My family has a candy business, and it’s certainly turned me into a candy snob.  But if I made some candy, and then offered it to someone and they were like “no, I don’t eat sugar,” I probably wouldn’t call them out on the spot, but I’d be pretty bummed inside.

I’m not really sure what I’m trying to get at with this post.  I guess that it’s a tough situation on both sides of the fence.

By Tim

I met someone who really inspired me the other day. He was quite the bullshit artist. I admire that. Someone who can talk their way into getting something they don’t deserve is quite a skill! I’ll leave out the specifics for his protection.

“Bob” really hated his job, and wanted to travel more. He was doing some crappy local job in the town he had been in for most of his life. One day he decided he liked photography.

The first action he took was to take an online photography class. Then he contacted a bunch of his friends in college who were into photography and asked if he could use their single best picture they had. He didn’t bullshit them, he told them his plan. They just didn’t think he could pull it off.

With his new “portfolio” he applied to many different photography jobs. Eventually he got a response from a company that wanted him to take photos for their cruise ships. He took the job, and before he knew it he was living the life, cruising from island to island taking pictures for cruise brochures along the way.

This is so cool to me. Integrity aside, he made his dream come true through action. I don’t doubt his photography skills either, since the company never questioned his portfolio. I’m a huge Tim Ferris fan, and I think that this is a testament (albeit extreme case) to how you can become an expert in anything.

A story like this can really shatter any assumptions people have of not being able to accomplish what they want to do in life. If you put half this much effort into your goals I bet you could accomplish all kinds of awesome stuff!

By Tim

This has been one of my big goals this summer. During the school year I became proficient about working out, but was too busy to put a lot of thought into food. If I develop good habits now it will be easy to continue during the year.

It has always bothered me when people act like it is ridiculous to care about your health. The ones who are proud of being fat or don’t really care about early death. I want to live for a while, which is why I try to eat healthy, remain physically active, and don’t smoke. It all sounds really obvious and natural to be concerned about but most people don’t really care.

The only problem with eating healthy is that there is too much opinion involved in the matter. There isn’t one way everyone agrees on. The new system that the government has issued, mypyramid.gov, is considered far better than the original food pyramid, but is still disputed by many people as not being adequate.

I’ve looked into many different methods, from the extreme to the traditional. I feel like I am almost at the point where I could develop my own diet that would be most beneficial to me without hindering my lifestyle.

The easiest first step for me to start eating healthier is too cut out all of the unhealthy. Eventually I will make an eating plan as well, but I want to do this in steps to make it easier to achieve.

One of the first things I decided to cut was sugar. I got my motivation from here , and also from doing extra research. Also I cut white flour, for the same reasons. This means that I can’t really drink coffee anymore since I don’t like it without sugar. Fortunately I like tea, and I will occasionally use a natural sugar substitute such as honey. Occasionally I will make an exception, but only when it would be very inconvenient to not make the exception.

I’m also cutting out fried food. This combined with flour and sugar means less going to sub shops and getting creative when I eat out.

After getting rid of unhealthy, I try to increase the healthy.

I now snack on fruit much more. I do this when I want something sweet instead of sugar. Some would consider this bad if you are trying to lose weight, but I am already in good shape.

I’m also trying to increase my vegetable intake significantly. I aim for vegetables with every meal now. I also am trying to eat beans more, as I hardly ate them at all until recently.

The other thing I do health wise is wear sunscreen. I have started putting it on my face and hands everyday, since that is quick and easy for me to do in the morning. If it is day off I will be more liberal with sunblock and get my arms and legs as well. This is important to me, as my skin is pale and susceptible to the sun. My mom has had precancerous bumps and moles removed, so being careful is very smart for me to do. And as a perk, it prevents aging! The sun accounts for 90% of skin damage, and routinely putting sunscreen on can prevent a lot of this damage.

I find that even though it takes effort to do all of these, it is absolutely worth it. Asides from health benefits, it also a huge psychological relief to not have to worry about about your health. It is also cheaper for me to make all of my food healthy as it forces me to make my own food instead of eating out all the time. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

By Tim

My brother and I  see eye to eye on most things.  Sports are one of the exceptions.  Matt would read the sports page of the newspaper on his own before most kids would even want to read.  You couldn’t even get me outside to play baseball when I was a kid.

I did play soccer like most kids did in elementary school, and to most everyones surprise I started playing baseball in high school even though I sucked at it.  But even after this I still couldn’t get into professional sports. 

I just don’t get it!  We root for teams comprised of people where most of the players aren’t even from the area that they are representing.  I think the whole idea of trading players is neat in an economic sense, but it doesn’t affect me in anyway.  If I was an investor in a company and this company was bringing something new to the table that would better the the company, I would be psyched because I might benefit.  But I don’t get anything out of sports!  The same crap happens constantly too; a player plays for a team and people grow attached to the player, and then everyone freaks out when they leave calling them a “traitor.”  My old roommate burned his Johnny Damon shirt when he left the Sox.  According to my brother it was pretty obvious that this was going to happen, just my roommate didn’t understand that.  That’s the name of the game; if I was playing a sport and another team offered me more money, I would be all over that!  I’m not calling out all sports fans, just all the annoying ones that seem to surround me.   

I also hate the social aspect of sports.  Anytime I have a conversation with other guys somehow the conversation always defaults to sports.  Anytime there is a silence sports seem to come up.  Even at work!  It’s almost to the point that if you want to get along with your boss you have to commit to being a sports fan otherwise they will think something is seriously wrong with you!  (Or they’ll think you’re gay)  Why can’t people talk about the cool things they do with their life or their goals?   

Talking to girls about sports is even worse.  It is usually a good indicator to me of how lame they are.  If I ask a girl what she has been up to and all she mentions is the latest game, then I know she has a boring life not worth talking about.  Next please!

Anything that has a cult mentality always bothers me.  One of the biggest reasons religion bothers me, and also why sports bother me.  Why would you disrespect someone for supporting a team that you don’t?  If I lived in New York I would probably prefer the Yankees over the Sox.  I would just have to make sure not to represent this if I ever went anywhere near Boston though! 

Now likefans are like this I mentioned, not all sports .  I’m sure that real sport fans like my brother probably feel the same way about about all these annoying jump on the bandwagon people who only become interested if we are winning. 

By Matt

When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Boston, the Red Sox were a never-ending letdown and the Patriots had never managed to get anybody’s attention for long enough for people to be disappointed by them.  The Boston sports scene lived and died at the Gahden.  The Bruin’s were the big bad black and gold that always entertained and the Celtics were the best franchise in the history of sports.  (The Yankees sucked, so nobody gave a shit about them). 

Then something mysterious happened - the early 90’s.

Does anybody like the early 90’s?  It’s seriously like the worst era for everything.  Think about it.  It’s the period that history hopefully forgets.  We’re having an 80’s resurgence now.  Does anybody really want a resurgence of dirty flannels?  I sure hope not.

Somewhere between Roger Clemens coming of age (and turning into a total douche bag), Drew Bledsoe moshing at the Paradise, Ulf Samulson destroying Cam Neely’s career, and the tragic deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, Boston sports pulled a complete 180. 

The Red Sox became relevant, the pink hats took over, and they eventually won the World Series and are on their way to creating a dynasty of their own.  Parcells and Bledsoe took the Pats to the Super Bowl and lost, but the way we viewed them was forever changed.  A few years later, the current dynasty dawned, and it shows no signs of slowing down.  The B’s and C’s got left in the dust.  The Fleet Center opened and nobody came.  It was like the Field of Dreams antithesis.  If you build it, they will suck. 

But now, the Celtics did the unthinkable.  They had the best regular season record in the NBA and are now about to renew another great Boston rivalry.  I love it.   I need to get a BEAT LA shirt.  I’ve watched every Celtics playoff game, and the games have been great.  Though the C’s haven’t looked that good, they are in the finals.

Anyways, I’m not going to break down the series.  This really isn’t a sports blog, but the nostalgia is just too much for me.  I remember watching games at my grandparents house, talking about the original big three with my neighbors, and loving every minute of it.  When I was a kid, I was a HUGE basketball fan.  These last few weeks are the first time I’ve watched basketball with any consistency, since who knows when!  Maybe that makes me a frontrunner, but,  whatever.  That’s the way it is. 

The other way that this relates to most of the topics of this blog, is that watching sports is a tremendous waste of time.  You dedicate hours to each game, just to be entertained.  I really can’t wait till the finals are over so I can use my time more productively.  I guess I’m addicted. 

This begs the question – what is and what isn’t a productive use of time.  I’m sitting in a park on a gorgeous day writing this blog entry, and I feel like I’m being very productive.  But am I? 

I think this is a topic that I would like to explore deeper. 

Why do I feel like this has been a productive activity, but feel shitty after watching a basketball game?

I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

By Tim

I finally got to do one of the things I wanted to this summer, which is of course to go surfing.

My friend Neil and I have been talking about it for quite awhile now. I am not even sure how it came up but I know it was my idea originally. We tried to do it for awhile, but the surf was really flat for a couple weeks.

There is a surf shop I knew about that we had gone to a few times, and one of the times we went they told us they were starting lessons that weekend! The people at the shop were all really cool, and seemed genuinely psyched that we were gonna do it.

On Saturday we were supposed to be there at noon, and we didn’t even leave my house until 11:45am. Since it was a 45 minute drive we called ahead, and they were cool with it. We had a legit reason, Neil got stuck behind a funeral line on the way to get me. (He was probably late to begin with too)

We got there, and this guy named Kyle who was there when we signed up was going to be our instructor. We got into wetsuits, and for some reason as soon as we had them on we felt like we were super heroes or something! The suits are incredibly flexible and comfortable! The suits are much more comfortable if you go commando, which I didn’t do unfortunately. Right as we finished up Kyle told us we would have to wait till 2pm since there was a little lightening.

In this case we decide to go try out the suits an go for a little ocean swim. The suits worked really well, I wasn’t cold at all! We ended up swimming really far out, to the point where the ocean was starting to suck us out. So we started to swim back, which was exhausting, since every time you swam in you would get sucked back some.

When we got in the store the workers and kyle were cracking up, since we went to the water when they said it would be too dangerous to surf. They loved us.

The guys who worked there were your typical stoner surfer dudes, straight out of a movie or something! They were too funny, but we were psyched because it added to the experience. The instructor Kyle was awesome, he surfed year round, all over the world. His dad was a surfer too, so all the trips around the world were with his dad. He was really lucky to be in a situation like that, which he readily admitted.

We finally got to go into the water, and we got the hang of it pretty quick. I’ve done lots of long boarding and snowboarding, so it came to me naturally. One of the other instructors didn’t think it was my first time until I told him! Neil and I were both capable of catching waves on our own with no assistance after about an hour.

Afterwards we went to grab a bite to eat at a little restaurant. We grab an outside seat since we were still wet. I was wearing a bathing suit under my suit, which had become really uncomfortable, so I tried to fix it while we were waiting for food. When I took pulled the suit down from my head down below my waste, I forgot about one important detail: my bathing suit was uncomfortable because it was riding up so high. So when I pulled the suit down it pretty much looked like I was wearing a thong, to the dismay of Neil and everyone else that was eating at the restaurant. I got a few funny looks, and then I proceeded to make myself look a little less ridiculous!

We ended up buying our own gear; everything but boards. I ended up with $215 worth of gear, and also the lesson was supposed to be $45. They ended up not charing me for the lesson, AND gave me a discount on the stuff, which brought the total down to about 190. Not bad for a full suit, water shoes, swimming gloves.

Now that I got a taste for it, I know I’ll be doing this more often. Stay tuned for photos.

By Matt

Super Walmart hasn’t taken over the world…yet.  I’m certainly pro-competition/free market, and Walmart obviously has a huge competitive advantage over the little guys, but when given the option, I’d rather support a local retailer than a big box store.  However, regional grocery stores certainly aren’t doing what it takes to keep my business.  In fact, one of their most common marketing practices is driving me away.

Over the last ten months I’ve called Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania home.  Each of these places has their own regional chains of grocery stores. 

Why does this piss me off?

For every different chain, you need to sign up for their rewards club and carry around the stupid little card to get the sale price.

This is bullshit!  I mean, I understand that they’re trying to build brand loyalty, but it’s a little out of hand when the store only spans a couple of states! 

For a while, some of the stores would let you use their “in-store card” or the cashier would just scan their own for you.  You’d get the discount, and they’d get the reward points or whatever.  Win-win! 

Not anymore.  Now, they threaten to fire their workers if they use their own cards, have inexplicably killed their in-store cards, and most of them are too low-tech to be able to look you up in their system, so you have to actually carry the PHYSICAL card with you to get the “discount” that is advertised on giant bright yellow placards in front of the product you’re buying!

Now it’s lose-lose-lose. 

The employees lose because they have to deal with annoyed customers wondering why they’re paying more than the sign advertised.

The stores lose, because now I seek out the few that don’t use these retarded marketing/brand building schemes.

And most importantly, I lose!  Now I have to either carry around 36 cards for all of the stores I might find myself shopping at, or I have to drive further to a store without this dumb policy.

Every time I go to one of these stores, I try to explain to them how ridiculous this policy is.  I know that the cashier can’t do anything, but if I annoy them enough, they’ll annoy their boss enough to make a change.

Change through annoyance!