Studio almost ready :D

Another on the todo list ticked off, my upstairs studio has been in disarray for many months, I just wasn't that bothered when the house wasn't my own.  But I've been cleaning, sorting, throwing things out and properly storing shit all week, and it actually is starting to feel comfy again. The big old, no longer used Pedal boards, have been stripped and stored, and the pedals put away. I may sell some on ebay.

Work desk is tidy and set up with mixer units and Mac Mini's updated (I have 2, the old one can't quite hack it any more, but all its apps are transferred to a more recent, but still old 2014 model), and guitars are no longer littering the floor, they are in their cases or on the wall out of the way. Still some sorting out to clear the "bookcase" where all kinds of crud is stuffed but that can wait till next week.

I set up the new (sat doing nothing for a year) humax freesat unit so I now have a working TV/Movie system up there on LCD and on projector. I don't have cable TV anymore, but I might set up another NLEx streaming box up there for catchup TV (it won't stream unless it has direct cable network access).  Tidied up the wiring and DVD/s too, so I can find movies I've not got round to watching yet.

That now gives me, full media access, and netflix on TV or Projector with sound routing out the cinema system.. happy :D

A new (refurbed) Gamer PC is heading its way to me, mainly for gaming, but also for occasional work when my office is too hot.  Its a slightly higher spec than my office PC, but I won't swap it out just yet, I will save up for a mega machine sometime around Xmas bonus time. The Gamer PC will also be able to route its output to its Monitor, or the Projector or a VR headset. I havn't made up my mind if I want a console in there, probably not considering I actually seldom play games these days...hmm maybe.

All that once again makes the studio into a man cave with all my toys, interests and stupid shit in one place.

And finally, all the old useless sky boxes, cable boxes and assorted dead junk are in the car to take to the tip for recycling or dumping.

I can't say its exactly "sparking joy"(I've never watched the show, I just keep hearing people say it)  getting rid of crap, but I am starting to feel a bit happier that the house has less, better clean this up, rooms to deal with.

Ahthankyew

5KG lost...:D 20 to go

I havn't mentioned the diet in a while have I... well its been a bit up and down, I've had a lot of trouble dealing with the hunger part of a diet, which is always the issue with diets I suppose :D I tried all manner of things to avoid hunger, eating small meals often, etc.. but the hunger could claim me and I'd go nibble on a few carrots, or a cake or a curry....it wasn't good.

I was still working on the diet, I was cutting back on my intake and weight is dropping, but slowly, and each cake/curry/pizza relapse would set me back to the start again and undo a lot of the good work in a week. I needed to take a more drastic action.

And that happened because recently I was rather inspired by an old friend John Pickford who has been doing a keto diet and lost a massive amount of weight.. good for him.

I didn't really want to do the Keto thing though I did it years ago and it did work, but for me it never really made me feel good.. But I noted one thing in his comments that was interesting, he only has 1 meal a day.. and its a stunner.. lots of protein, fat as per the keto concept, and minimal carbs,  it all looked good, but there was a key point he mentioned, he also said hunger pangs fade after a while.

Now that got me thinking, instead of fearing and ultimatly trying to quench the hunger pangs , just embrace them, treat them as a withdrawal symptom and try to do one low calorie meal a day.

And yup, it is true, after a few days of genuinely uncomfortable hunger, the pangs do indeed get less and as long as the meal is fairly filling with some protein in it, hunger pangs fade. I'm not saying they go, I could easily nip to KFC right now and demolish a bucket, but the pangs are not overpowering me to do that. I can keep them in check now.

I now focus on trying to have only 1 meal a day, and even then its a very light one, something like noodles and chicken, or rice and beef. And importantly its not a massive portion. So I'm only eating 500-800 kcal a day.. often less.  I can make one chicken breast into 4 or 5 portions of noodle topping. its really not a lot, but having it in there does wonders for the hunger. As does making sure the noodle broth does not boil away, having it as a soupy food makes it last longer, and adding water does nothing to the calorie count.

A packet of noodles is 100kcal and I'm using only a small amount of protein (beef/chicken/pork) to suppliment it and some veg for vits.
Some days I might have  bit more, like a steak, or chicken leg, but I keep the carbs to a minimum, so a small amount of rice or couscous, and the lucky dog gets to have the fat/skin.

Also I'm doing a lot of cleaning and tidying and moving stuff around in the house as I complete my spring/summer clean so I'm being as active as possible

This has seen my weight drop much faster, from 50-100g a week (when not cheating), to 100g or more a day... not suprising as its basically starvation level, but its not uncomfortable.

I'll keep this up, but today I had a little whoo moment as I hit a 5Kg lost target, I hope to lose another 5 before going back to work. Watch this space.



Ahthankyew

I was hoping the bills would drop.

With summer you can usually expect a drop in the bills, no heating means no boiler.. But now we are in the midst of a heatwave with a record 39+ deg expected today.. and I've got my airco, evapcooler and every fan in the house on with all windows and blinds closed... in an effort to drop the temps.

It is hot as hell, and I am trying to do some work in the midst of it, mostly though I find its best to just work at night, as the computer fans themselves kick out a lot of heat and nothing really gets done as you are seeking a non sweaty shirt or trying to keep my bollox cool....its awful.

Time to start doing rain dances in the hope of the thunder that will come to cool us all down..


Ahthankyew

oh this is not normal

Its easy to blame global warming  for the current heatwave...but it is.. global warming

jeeze its hot, it hit 38 today, I have to stop work at 11/12 and hide in the attic for hours till things cool, down, the air con is amazing but very loud. 

My Office PC has died on me once due to overheating, and right now has its fans on full blow, so its going to pop again any second. There's not much I can do about it in the office, the air is too warm, in too small a space, and there's no way to cool it even with an evap cooler and fan blowing in chilled air.

As a stop gap, I've cleared my desk upstairs and now have my laptop and a monitor/keyboard set up so I can work up there, its not ideal, my laptop is more powerful than my PC but it can't run my oculus until I get a decent USB bus on it, but at least I can escape the heat and do a bit of work on some things.

I will probably buy a 2nd gaming spec PC and set it up there, if nothing else I can play games on my big screen but it will also be a decent 2nd workstation. Cost is a factor though I don't play many games at all, but need a min spec, will have to see what I can find on ebay.

I don't really want to work up there though, its very much a play room, so any work done is only because the air con allows progress.

Its a good job I've been clearing the attic out, making space for me to watch movies and play in the cool, even if it is noisy.

The heatwave will hopefully break soon...just waiting to hear the thunder.


Ahthankyew

one room at a time....well half, mabye a quarter.

Its a bit late for a spring clean, but I'm having one, time to spark some joy, or whatever that shit is...  and clear up.. I'm going through each room in turn, and finally throwing old shit out, cleaning up and getting myself ready to do a bit of decorating later in the holiday.

The Spare room wasn't untidy, but it needed to be cleared out ready for guests..the kitchen has been stripped, My Bedroom has been declutered and dusted, the studio is getting rid of a lot of old electronic/move/tv crap that is no longer used..I sold some of it..and will junk the rest.

Aside from making more space in the studio to allow for movie and music nights, I'm also setting up a 2nd workstation up there, using my laptop as a working PC (its actually more powerful than my desktop). This is for 2 reasons... one..music and video and two, Air con... its going to get stupid hot in the next month or so, and I have projects I need to finish, so I want to avoid working in my underwear with my back sticking to the leather chair this year.

I'm going to give the kitchen and lounge a nice coat of paint as well as finally wallpaper (just woodchip) the walls of the studio which have been plasterboard exposed since they were made 10 years ago...its time.

And the back yard, starting to clear that up too, getting rid of the old wood and other crap,  (literally, since Harvey has used it as an emergency toilet a bit too often)

This time next week, I hope to have a nice sparkly clean house.... now if I can just induce some pretty young ladies to come in and inspect my new 20ft well in the basement.


Ahthankyew

And I have the house to myself again. Which is actually good.

So for the last year or so I have had a house guest, my failed attempt to start a relationship with Benta resulted in a situation where for better or worse she had to stay here to complete her Masters degree.

I felt it was up to me to allow her to do that and let her stay in my spare room and allowing her some funding to be able to commute and socialise while she was here...in short, I was paying for her to live here...

It wasn't easy, in fact it was at times quite a struggle, but I did feel it was the right and honest thing to do, since I had brought her here, leaving her life in Kenya behind. I had a sense of responsibility and duty of care. Even though many people said it was crazy, I felt it was the right thing to do.

But, I only agreed to a year... and once that year was over, I was expecting her to make plans to move on, or return to Kenya, her preferred option.

She made no plans, and indeed as a result of failing one course had to do a resit... the problem is she was expecting me to fund that, and to fund her continued stay. That wasn't something I was willing to do, but she avoided that issue for almost 9 months until it was raised and made clear.
Added to that she made arrangments with her university to delay her submissions and internship, not exactly an unusal occurance, but that delay or costs, was not discussed with me.. it was assumed I would "continue to help"!

Over the last 9 months or so, since our attempt at a relationship fizzled out, Benta grew more and more distant, staying in her room, or going out with friends, often staying overnight.. as such communication ceased, and what there was, was mostly via whatsapp, or with passing remarks.. I got a growing sense of resentment from her that was both rude and frankly ungrateful, her selfishness grew as she started to cook and eat her own meals, insisting I buy produce I wouldn't normally get... but she had to eat so I did..

There were several straws, but a few final ones where she demonstrated a total disregard for what was being done for her and a massive sense of entitlement and hate for me, to ignore the simple thigns that I had done for her, that made it clear that my honest care and concern for her was wasted.
There was simply no appreciation for what I had done for her and 6 weeks ago I asked her to leave at the pre agreed time of July 12. A few on line tantrums (blocking communication when she didn't like the answers) followed, but I stuck to my point, She had to leave at the end of her term and make her own way from then on.

As you might expect, she left it late, and a week before the deadline she still argued that she had no where to go, and didn't want to deal with that, and school...

At this point though, I just don't care...my care has been used and abused against me, and it was time for her to deal with the reality of her situation..

Today, a day later than agreed, she packed her things and  I took her to the train station, she said she was going back to Kenya, so thats probably for the best, I don't know where she will get the ticket from but again, I don't care any more. I wished her luck and put the entire painful year behind me.
I do indeed wish her luck, if she's reading this, she had an opportunity to have a totally new life, with or without me, but she choose instead to ignore my efforts, and take advantage of my care and good nature until such a point as I finally had enough.
I feel no shame for ending things and forcing her to move on.. she needs to get a handle on life as it actually is. The irony is if she had just made even the smallest effort to be nice, just be nice, ask me how my day had been, show any interest at all in the person who was making all her opportunities possible, I probably would have funded 3 more months.  But there's only so much entitlement, selfishness, immaturity,  rudeness and disrespect a person can take.

Life isn't that hard to work out... Just don't be a dick to the people who make life better.

I've learned a lot from this too.....I went into it thinking, whats the worst that can happen...... now that I know, I'm never risking it again.

Ahthankyew

Ups and downs.

Today was a good day, after losing my expensive photochromatic prescription glasses a few weeks ago, Robbie at work spotted them on the floor near my chair... yeahhh no need to spend money on a new pair.

I say was...becuase coming home from work I get pulled over by a police car, who tells me I ran a red light... now, this is awkward cos I honestly don't think I did.. but there's nothing I can do or say to convince the very police young man, who was adamant the light was red for over 3 seconds... despite the fact I saw him in theleft turn lane as I slowed to a stop in the forward centre lane behind a van, and on a green light followed behind the van to go through.... I am sure it was green.

But he's having none of it, all the cars on the right were waiting at a red light....which is something I really should have picked up on, had I not been quite flustered at beign stopped.. .yes indeed the cars in the right lane were indeed stopped at a red light.. They don't change at the same time as the forward centre lane...where I was.. and I moved when the van ahead of me moved, on green.

I honestly think he made a mistake and mistook the right red light as a stop forward light...but..what can you do.. I got a ticket and will be fined 240 euros... I'm going to appeal, but...its ultimatly his word against mine. I'm not happyl

grrr


Ahthankyew