Rock Therapy and Software

I looked in the bathroom mirror Saturday morning and saw this fat pudgy guy standing behind me. It was a little odd because I couldn't see myself in the mirror; kind of vampire-like. This person had a beard, a pronounced receeding hairline, and looked rather pudgy.

I brushed my teeth and he was still there. I looked a little closer as I reached over the counter for something and the guy reached for the same thing. I screamed. Deb came in and asked what was going on. I told her I can see someone in the mirror. ...I said he looked weird and asked what I should do.

She said I need to lose weight, take care of myself, exercise, and that I need to understand that I am getting older.

I then went to Walmart with Ellen and Sarah. There was a table set up for a blood pressure and cholesterol testing. My blood pressure has always been just o.k. This time, and actually a few times before this, it showed that I was in the hypertensive-about to die category. The next catergory worse than this is the "dead for over 48 hours" category. Wow, if that wasn't bad. I then went over to the booth for the cholesterol test. You will have to realize that I am on cholesterol lowering medicine already. Anyway, they measured my cholesterol level and I thought it would be within a good range, certainly below 200. Well, it was actually 231.

If anybody wants to know about cholesterol, the rule of thumb is that we should be under 200. Oh, sure, there's good cholesterol which is HDL and bad which is LDL.

I will have to set another appt. with my doctor to see what I need to do.

Oh, I already know. See Deb's recommendation above, I need to exercise, take care of myself, and eat better. Yeah, I know.

Another thing, the reason we were at Walmart was to get a gift for Ellen's friend, Erin. Erin is my manager's boss's daughter. It was Erin's birthday party and they were doing a roller skating party. Ellen and Sarah have the same shopping genes that I have. They suck at it. I asked a Walmart employee what she would recommend. She didn't have any kid's so she called over this person who has kids. This person with kids was a little weird and she had the worst suggestions. She kept babbling and babbling. I just wanted to knock a shelf on top of her and walk away. I told her I had left my wallet and keys in the photos center, so I had to to get them. (I just used that as an excuse). She would have kept me there for hours giving me absolutely worthless advise. At this time we were running late.

We ended up getting a larger stuffed dog, some "junk" jewelry pack. I call it junk because that's what it technically is. I hope Erin liked it. I hate shopping. We also got a large decorative gift bag, tissue paper to pack in the bag, and a card.

We then rushed out of Walmart and hopped into the car. I gave Ellen the card and envelope and she wrote in the card. I then asked if she was going to write anything on the envelope. She was. She started to write Happy... but she mispelled it. She did exactly what I would have done. She ripped the card out of the envelope, threw the envelope on the floor and put the card in the bag without an envelope. She did a good job.

The odd thing is that I knew I had 3 days to get a gift with Ellen. I waited until the last minute. I guess I will never learn.

We had a credit union board meeting tonight. I politically did all the right things. I solicited member support for the secretary position. I even e-mailed the current chair that I wanted that position. Well the newly elected guy nominated another newly elected guy (I already talked to both of these guys) and so now I had a competitor for this position. The chairman said people can self nominate. It was all going wrong. I knew the stakes were against me. I saw it coming. I nominated myself instead of saving face and leaving this guy take the position unchallenged. The chairman then suggested we do a paper ballot. Well we all wrote on the paper ballots and the person who was counting asked if he should read off each ballot one-by-one.

I knew I was dead in the water so I said no, just count them and announce the elected person. I reminded them that this was not survivor and we did not have to make it dramatic. The other guy was elected for this position.

I think I lost because I'm pudgy and have high cholesterol.