My buddy Andy put it thusly:

20:42  * jm_ stardate 12938234: lol i m fat

true story. i’m fat. two hundred and sixty five pounds is my current mass. i wasn’t always fat. i was pretty fit all though high school, put on about twenty or thirty pounds my first two years of college, then started riding my bike more, working out and whoa – i was in pretty damn good shape. at my peak of fitness, i was probably two hundred fifteen pounds, riding my bicycle 50 – 75 miles a week and working out 3 – 5 times a week. i could bench press my body weight, could hoof out fifty pushups and went shirtless all the time in the blistering georgia heat. i ate everything i ever wanted (Matt, remember the time i ate eighteen Krispy Kremes in a row?), drank beer all day long and smoked at least every day.

Fast forward a few years. since then, my house got broken into and my bicycle stolen, so i couldn’t ride it around anymore. it was near the end of college, so i had no fucking money to buy a new one. i finally graduated and moved to chicago, so i didn’t have free access to a gym. the whole time, i was still eating like i was riding forty miles every weekend (and home from work during the week) and yet doing just about zero physical activity. this is me now. Hello, my name is Ted and i am fat.

i’m smarter than the average bear – the whole weight loss phenomena is pretty transparent, if you ask me. i have a giant brain and can reduce any complex system into a simple “yes” or “no” answer. calories ingested minus calories burned equals x. if x is positive, you gain weight. if x is negative, you lose weight. i reckon it’s just motivation and lack of accountability. so here, in front of random strangers, i am saying this:

i am overweight. i am going to lose sixty five pounds in the next year. i am going to do so by carefully monitoring what i eat, monitoring my body mass and exercising.

i like exercise. i’m a big tall guy with a big frame, even as guys go. i like physical activity. i like the way i feel after doing twenty five pushups or biking fifty miles in an afternoon. i like being able to pick up heavy things. i enjoy feeling like i did some work. i want to be that strong scary motherfucker again.

none of this will be done stupid, though. i will not eat bar-shaped food alternatives. i ain’t gonna take creatine or phen-fen or what-have-you. this will be done simply by eating good, nutritious food and getting exercise in the proper proportions. eating lettuce and trying to run a marathon ain’t my style. to make this stick, it’s gotta be a lifestyle change, one that i can maintain. i’m not trying to turn into some oiled-up thinly veiled chickenhawk. i have been in much better shape before and i liked that shape. it suited me well, and i want it back.

i will definately continue to drink beer, just as i continue to brew it. i’ll probably quit smoking as much and make it back into a social/when drinking treat.

i am an engineer and am approaching this like any other problem. what i have is a broken feedback loop – i eat too much and exercise too little – and i first need to push this system into a normal state. first goal is five pounds. stay tuned.

Yes, i know it is damn near the end of Octember and it has been 1.5 months. Shut up. In lieu of any real content, a list:

• Big shoutout to my nigga Mike Storey, who has recently gotten back in touch with me after some years.
• Nother big shoutout to my nigga Raymond for putting up with my dumb ass
• Moved into the world of kegging homebrew instead of bottling it. This so far has 5 gallons of ale currently kegged and another 5 gallons of cider happily bubbling away in the plastic carboy. Prolly gonna get a glass carboy as well and hit up a second fermentation for the cider in there.
• Ditched the splat due to far too much $ for minutes used. Currently rocking tmo’s prepaid, which has waaaay better coverage where i need it. Note to wireless companies: i could not care if you have coverage in bumblefuck, montana, unless i am in that location. Also note that giving incentives to new customers instead of existing customers is a good way to constantly lose customers

got married yesterday. going to london tomorrow. detals later.

xoxoxo

ted

yeah, so i didn’t post anything for the entire month of july. shut up. i’ve got stories and pictures and shit, so it ain’t like nothin’ happened – quite the contrary. as my homie Don Red (while quoting either Perdedor or willrad) said, lack of action on the frontend means hell of bizness on the backend.

nuff said. pix and stories later.

When you’re staring down the barrel of having to refinish the floors of your living room after restaining and sealing all the trim and get it all done in the next 2 weeks, it only makes sense to load the dog in the car and get the hell out of dodge for the weekend. My buddy Gibbity Goo Goo was another year older and deeper in debt and we were to suprise him with a sneak attack. Plans were laid and communication channels swelled without his knowledge, and suprise him we did. If you’ve never been there or heard of it, the Wisconsin Dells is a huge cluster of theme parks nestled in the north woods. Spanning several small municipalities, the water park reigns king and hotels are in direct competition with the big guns for you to take in their chlorinated attractions.
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After spending most of my evening cursing, sweating profusely, bashing into things and chasing the cats out of my way, we managed to install ALL THREE windowrattlers to help keep us comfy during this unseasonably warm spell. Fuck, man, 3 weeks ago it was breezy, dry, with highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s. Perfect. Past two weeks? High 80s to low 90s, humid, sunny. Not bad, just a drastic change. But in my house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics, which i put to use via a compression vapor cycle to cool down the inside of our house.

So i was feeling comfy and satisfied after that & several beers, i made myself a 2230 snack after the night edition of the Simpsons. Four slices of bacon on wheat bread with a fingerful of chunky peanut butter smeared on in between two bites. Daaaaamn that was tasty. The wok did a respectable job of cooking bacon, despite it being Not Cast Iron. The high sides did a fine job of keeping grease splatters down to zero, which certainly helps to do what one should (cook bacon) in circumstances when one should not (while naked). Yes, i got out of bed to eat a peanut butter and bacon sammich. Shut up.

Memorial Day weekend caught me a bit off guard, not in the OH HEY IT’S A 3 DAY WEEKEND WOOOOO KEGGER sense but more in the WHOA I CAN GET A LOT MORE DONE IF I DON’T HAVE TO GO TO WORK ON MONDAY sense. A fine line, true, but one i’m walking. So what /did/ i get done? GENTLEMEN! A LIST:

• drank beer
• worked on bicycles
• cleaned up the house
• sleeped late
• drank beer
• went to the bike store for parts
• drank beer
• lied about in the sun
• drank beer
• grilled meat, drank beer
• cooked bacon, drank beer
• drank beer

god, it was beautiful.

I affixed rear racks to both my lady’s velocipede and mine. The steamroller project is almost done, praise jeebus. It now lacks a seatpost & rear hub that doesn’t slip and god damn if that piece won’t be rideable again. Looking forward to it as well as my next project: a fixed gear. That steel road bike frame my brother gave me ain’t gonna build itself. Still drooling over a Surly 1×1 frame. If you’re lookin to buy me one, i’ll take an extra large frame in Johnny Cash black. I’m gettin a year older in August and hitched in September, so act fast. Ted needs more bikes.

Been especially diggin on the prospect of winter riding but unfortunately all i’ve got right now is 4 months of beautiful weather to deal with. Selah.

Also, Chicagorillas, bicycles are now allowed on Metra (sort of). This is huge, so go ride. Take Metra somewhere. Be nice. Help build bicycle goodwill on public transportation. As far as road goodwill goes… well, better to assert your rights than take it deep just to make friends on the road. Enough for now. Gotta look busy for another 45 minutes so’s i can go home and enjoy a ride. Damn bikes ain’t gonna ride themselves.

I bought The Girl a bike Friday afternoon, so now we can go on rides. She on her 2004 Giant Cypress, me on my late 1970s Raleigh Grand Prix. The phone auction went well, and i’ve funneled the profits from that into parts for my steamroller – a project bike built up from the remnants of my 2001 Gary Fisher Tassajara. It was stolen off David and Chris‘ front porch back in the heady summer of 2002. By some odd twist of fate, i wound up getting the frame back. Some guy saw it laying in a ditch and picked it up. It still had the Georgia Tech Police Department registration sticker on it, so he called them and they emailed me. Every single component on it was wrecked. EVERYTHING. I hauled that frame around for a couple years. Fast forward to 2005.

It’s getting a rigid cromoly steel fork and a singlespeed conversion kit, both from fleabay. All i need to do now is strip, clean, prime & paint the frame (going from its 2001 Gary Fisher Tassajara regalia to Johnny Cash black), then get a bottom bracket, front chainring, pedals, brake cable (i bought some Nashbar brakes on sale last year), chain, seatpost, seat, tubes, tires, blinky lights & grips.

Mein Bruder gave me a japanese-made steel frame (manufactured for Puck) and i’m eventually gonna build that up as a fixed gear. Alls i need for that are handlebars, tape, a front brake, seat, bottom bracket, crank arms, chainring, chain, better wheels w/flip-flop rear hub, cogs, tubes, tires, pedals & blinky lights.

Got my work cut out for me.

I couldn’t agree more.

BUY MY PHONE

Seriously, it’s in good shape, comes with a new aftermarket battery, car charger, original home charger & futuredial usb to serial cable for use with bitpim to put ringers/pix/phone numbers on or backup what you have.