Falling off the Diet Wagonwith a Bacon Double Cheeseburger :(

I admit it!!! I was weak, and defeated by this tasty creation!!

Last night both kids were out with friends, and I decided to take a walk around 7 PM. Since I'm doing 90 minutes on the exercise bike minimum each day I found I had quite the capacity for distance and was soon over four miles from my house.

It was a glorious evening for a walk and I was enjoying music from my phone and was glad I had remembered to bring a pair of ear buds.

I soon realized that I had not thought this jaunt through as I found myself down on Patterson Ave. The problem was I found myself exceedingly thirsty! Realizing the long walk home would take me no place a beverage could be obtained until I was practically home I looked around.

There was a small bar nearby, one of my friends had mentioned this place at work a few years back, but not being able to consume alcohol because of one of my meds I never had any interest in checking it out. Fortunately I had my wallet and some money with me so I went inside. I was thinking I could at least get a diet soda to slake my thirst and then walk the hour or so it would take me to get back home.

With my decision made, I went inside. It was a nice enough little bar as bars go, and after I sat down and ordered a soda. I began conversing with Jim the bartender who told me it was an excellent way for the microbrewery that was the mainstay of the establishment to both test their new brews and get the word out on the street about their regular concoctions. Fortunately for me the place was not heavily occupied and no one was smoking. I really abhor second hand smoke!

As I awaited my beverage a delicious aroma hit my nose! I knew in an instant it was beef being fried. I looked upwards and saw a poster on the wall proclaiming this was the home of the best Bacon Double Cheeseburger in Michigan; the RJ Burger!! It took a few moments but I then realized I had seen this place on an episode of one of the many food related shows I watch on the food network. I asked Jim and he concurred. I had told my daughter Danielle when we saw that episode we would have to visit this place one day, and here I was!

The burger in question was made with two half pound patties of the finest quality beef (several cuts in fact mixed in proportions and seasoned with spices they would not divulge according to the poster on the wall) and was topped with sharp Cheddar and Swiss cheeses,. Adding to the glory of this masterpiece was six thick crisp slices of black peppered bacon and a light slathering of their own special Cajun BBQ sauce. It was served on a sesame seed roll which they baked fresh each day.

At that moment the door to the kitchen swung open with a bang! and the waitress (Sally her name based on the name tag she was sporting) came out carrying my soda and one of the burgers for someone down at the end of the bar.

I could not believe the delicious aroma wafting my way from this creation! My mouth was watering and I realized I was famished in spite of the hot dogs I had consumed a couple of hours earlier!! Jim walked over and mentioned I looked hungry and asked did I want to try an RJ burger?

Knowing that Sunday would make 19 weeks on my diet I knew I should not! Particularly since I was planning on eating out on my birthday on Labor Day.

I told Jim couldn't, stretching the truth by stating I barely had enough cash in my wallet for the drink and a tip. I did mention though that I certainly planned on coming back and trying one with my daughter sometime down the road now that I knew about it.

At that moment a beeper went off and a couple of stools down the bar from me a man jumped up and ran out without a backwards glance. Jim told me that he was a doctor and was probably heading off to the hospital.

The kitchen door again banged open and Sally appeared with an RJ burger. "Jim," she said, "This was for Pete and he just ran out on a page, he's not going to be back this evening. You hungry?"

Jim declined stating he had just had just eaten prior to coming on shift. "Well, I can't eat this thing!" she exclaimed, "You know I'm watching my girlish figure!" All I could think of after that statement was that every male patron in the place was, except for me, sadly, who was more fixated on the burger she was carrying than herself!

Jim looked in my direction and stated "This dude mentioned he wanted to try one, and since we're just going to throw it out, let him have it." I raised my hands and started to protest, but he simply stated "Oh, it's on the house of course!"

Sally smiled and placed the RJ burger on the bar in front of me and returned to the kitchen. A door banging moment later she was back with a hot platter of crispy french fries explaining they were part of Pete's order too. She plunked them down along with a bottle of ketchup.

I did not know what to do!!! I was SO hungry and here I was being given this excellent repast on the house! The aromas wafting up from the burger and fries were fantastic! I wanted to be strong, I really did, but now I know what the words 'feeding frenzy' truly mean! I felt control slipping away! Perhaps this was a sign that it was OK to eat it!

As if watching this third person I saw my hands, almost of their own volition, move out and grasp the RJ burger firmly in their clutches! They picked the burger up, and brought it towards me.

I could not help myself at this point! I knew I would be breaking my diet, all that hard work out the window! So many thoughts were running in my head, such as yesterday earlier in the day Danielle and I were looking at some pictures of this past Christmas. There is a shot of me by the kitchen sink, and I was HUGE in it! She mentioned how much weight I lost and I agreed and I started at that picture just totally in sock about how grossly fat I was! I had jokingly made the comment that my butt was still in the other room as my stomach reached the kitchen sink!

But, at this point I just did not care! The smell of the burger driving me crazy and my stomach rumbling loudly I was not to be denied! So, with burger firmly in hand, melted cheese dripping down the sides of it I opened my mouth wide for that first bite that I sensed would be incredibly delicious!!! The great hunger was finally going to be appeased! I brought the burger up to my lips and

I woke up. I was so ticked off! I could not believe that I could not stay asleep at least long enough for that first bite! I was also surprised. I had not been dreaming of food like that for awhile now, though the first two months of the diet it seemed like I did almost every night.

Shame on you for those who did not realize this was a dream! :) While I have been tempted quite a few times on this diet, I have stuck with it. It was quite a vivid dream, and I really wish I could have eaten the burger and then woken up!

What happened to me last night

I had been invited to dinner at the X's house with herself, Scott, and Danielle. Afterwards, the kids went off to play video games and the X and I were watching TV. She was channel surfing after the show we watched ended and a music video came on.

I do not know who the female artist was nor I did not recognize the song, but the twang of steel guitars was present and she sung it with a thick Southern drawl. While the exact words elude me today the subject matter was of a woman who had tired of her husband. She metaphorically ripped his still-beating heart from his chest and, after holding it at eye level for him to see, smashed it under her foot. In other words to his surprise she had told him she no longer loved him and was leaving him.

The X loved this song and was loudly saying things like "Yea!" and "That's the way to do it!" and other such phrases while looking coldly in my direction every few seconds. The song ended, she commented "Was that a great video or what!?!?" and she left the room. I was totally stunned by this, finally knowing the meaning of the word dumbfounded!!!

Needless to say my feelings were incredibly hurt so,without a word and filled with a great sadness, I left the room and exited her house. Incredibly hurt and upset, on the verge of tears in fact, I was not paying attention to where I was going as I fled her residence. I found myself in a very strange frame of mind walking along a road I did not recognize but seemed to me at the time to be reminiscent of the streets in Glen Ridge New Jersey where I grew up. VERY reminiscent! So much so that if I did not know better, since I live in Michigan and had not left the state to my recollection, I would swear at one point I was on High Street in Glen Ridge a block away from Bloomfield Avenue. This was, without a doubt, a very disturbing feeling! I continued walking in a very distracted manner not really paying attention to where I was going though my ultimate destination was to get to my house.

The fact that I was still in Michigan soon became evident as I found myself under a bridge on route I-96, which goes nowhere near New Jersey. Evidently I was so distracted I had wandered off the road or was subconciosuly following a shortcut after being distracted by the familiar nature of the previous road I had been walking on. This new area was a lightly wooded place at the bottom of a small gully so I surmised the bridge was an overpass over this area.

I heard the sounds of music and talking and ventured under the bridge. There were many people sitting, standing, and moving about. There were many conversations going on. To my eye this was a cross between a flea market and a Renaissance Fair because people, mostly female, clad in typical Medieval attire were circulating the crown offering goods for sale, such as hand-made jewelry, finely crafted boxes, and such, and there were many tables and tents with goods on display.

I found a place to sit and continued looking about the area. A very heavy woman passed by and, as she had done to other folks seated in this area gave me a little porcelain plate upon which rested several cookie-like pastries. I ate them while having a conversation with a gentleman I did not know sitting next to me. Upon chatting a bit as to how I had come to be here I discovered his wife had left him as well. Using this as common ground it was soon evident we shared many of the same interests and could easily become friends. He was also dressed in medieval attire such as you would expect a merchant to wear. Around his neck he wore a thick gold chain with an intricate jeweled medallion. He remarked that this gathering happened monthly weather permitting. I pronounced surprise at this news and remarked I had never heard of this in the 7+ years I had been living in the area.

Under one side of the bridge a large area was setup where food and beverages were being prepared and provided to those who desired them. Several large pigs were roasting on spits and the delicious aroma wafting my way was making me hungry. I mentioned to my new-found friend that I was going to journey over to procure some of the roasted porcine goodness and he elected to accompany me there.

When we neared the head of the line the large woman who had given me the plate of pastries appeared, shoved my friend to the ground, and, brandishing a large ornate medieval looking dagger threatened to "split him end to end" if he did not give her yon bejeweled pendant! To emphasize her serious nature she slashed out at him, tearing a rent in his sleeve and drawing blood! People started screaming, I saw several people making hurried cell phone calls!

The woman advanced, acting more threatening, and, on the spur of the moment almost without realizing I was doing so, I grabbed a large metal serving tray and, coming up behind her, smashed her over the head with it! She went down like a sack of wet sand without making a sound and before I could check on her condition the police appeared wanting to know what was transpiring.

I tried to explain what had happened, but I was shaken somewhat and could not raise my voice above a whisper which was drowned out by loud shouts of "I saw the whole thing! He bashed her over the head for no reason!!!" coming from an unseen female.

The crowd parted, and Crystal Bernard (for those of you not familiar with this name she played Helen Chapel on the TV show Wings) appeared, even more loudly repeating her affirmation of my guilt! While I was totally stunned by this her next comments really floored me; "I'm his ex-wife and I know he's capable of these things!". Needless to say I was flabbergasted! I was blown away by the total and utterly absurd untruth of this!! How could she lie in such a manner!!?? Of course I was not capable of these things!!!

I then tried to explain myself to the police, repeating what had happened and mentioned the incident that began this and the way the X had behaved at her house over that annoying music video! Before I knew it I was being roughly handcuffed and led away in total shock! They pushed me into the back seat of the Police Car and the door slammed!

I awoke; amazed at this dream I had experienced and wondering about Crystal Bernard and the role she played here! What was really weird was at that point in the dream she WAS my ex-wife in my mind, though in the beginning of this dream my ex-wife was my real ex-wife. I have not seen Wings in ages! The dreams I have featuring the X prior to this have virtually all been pleasant other than the sadness felt upon wakening. What a disturbingly strange and vivid dream!

Saturday, Media Players, Walks, and such

With the birthday behind me let's turn to today; after arising at 7:30 I had a nice four mile walk this morning, and the weather was sunny, clear and just gorgeous, it seems the next few days will be low humidity and normal temperatures in the 7o's instead of the 80's/90's of last week and high humidity. I love when the humidity is low and the sky is such a vibrant blue as it was this morning!

Yesterday I ordered myself a birthday present, one of the new iPod Touch devices, which is basically an iPhone without the phone portion, so, it is a portable media player with that slick interface, and it has built in WiFi and can surf the web and such as well. This will be the first Apple product I have ever owned; the previous iPods have done nothing for me, but, I have lusted for the interface on the iPhone since its debut, but, not needing a phone, I did not acquire one.

To pay for this present, I am selling off some toys; I sold my Nokia 770 tablet yesterday and am now looking to sell my Zune Player, which, until this new iPod has the largest screen for viewing video, and some accessories. I have the Zune, a docking station, and sports carrying case, and an AC adapter. All of these accessories are new and did not come with the Zine. I think I will ask $150 for the bundle and will probably post it on eBay if I can't find anyone locally to take it off my hands.

Take a walk with Mr. Chris

I arose about 8 AM this morning, and all three kids were asleep. It was about 8:30 when I left the house this bright sunny morning for my four mile walk.

What's that? You wish you could come along? Well, you can! Almost anyway, I took my camera with me this morning as I have been meaning to for quite awhile, so, with witty comments (half witty?) I will show the progress and some pictures of the route.

Please note that clicking on any picture will open a much larger version in a new browser window.

Exiting my driveway we turn right and head for the main road where we will turn right again. This is Cascade and we will be on it for about a mile.




After making the turn, this greets my eyes



What a bright sunny day; good thing I had my sunglasses! I forgot them yesterday and walked with my head down for a good portion of the walk.


A few minutes from my house, across the street is Graceland (nothing to do with Elvis!) and on this side a small cemetery with graves going back to the 1800's, and possible beyond since some are so weathered you can't read them.





Ten minutes into the walk we come across Forest Hills Foods, a store often mentioned in my blog posts. Danielle and I visited there this afternoon in fact, picking up muffins for the kids breakfast tomorrow and a couple of other items including some delicious California peaches and half a watermelon.




Right past Forest Hills Foods is a double-strip mall, on the first one is China Garden where I often get the kids Chinese take out, though I will not eat there (even if I could, it is below my standards, but, kids will be kids)! on the right is an excellent place for home made candy including chocolate covered Twinkies and huge dipped strawberries. The cleaner in the middle has the most ANNOYING radio adds I have ever heard! The second one, not pictured, contains a Beaners (Coffee place) and a Subway.




At this point, the road stretches off into the distance!




This sign disturbs me every time I pass it, it's a sign for a dentist, but, i think perhaps he would be better of making footwear!




As we continue along we are about 20 minutes into the walk, still on Cascade. Note here you can clearly see the mix of old and new construction for different businesses; none of these are residences. Below we have a professional building housing multiple offices, a realtor, and a CPA.






A bit further down the road is a nice sculptured rock garden from a landscaping company; when I walk this way in the afternoon there are usually kids climbing on it.




Across the street is a church; on Sundays if I walk past at the right time, the priest is outside and he and I exchange greetings and pleasantries as I walk.




Below are a couple of other large building as I near the corner where I will turn for the more rustic part of my walk on the bike and pedestrian trial system of Cascade county.





After we pass the second building above, we make a right which takes us off Cascade, the main drag. this is the closest place by my house where I can pick up the extensive bike and pedestrian trail system. I wish I lived closer to it as we've walked a bit over a mile to get to this point. (Tails has just jumped on my lap and is purring in my face....I guess this is her idea of helping. Now she is chewing my beard......)

Instead of a four lane road with a speed limit of 55 MPH, we have a two lane road at 35 MPH and the view off into the distance is like so:




Another difference is there are no office buildings anymore; this is all residential and farmland now, so, when I turn to my right at the 30 minute milestone of the walk I see this:




and a bit further down on the right, this:




and this:




The road continues to stretch off into the distance




Here is a greenhouse place that opens in a few weeks and is open in the colder weather when the majority of the farms are closed. Following that is a picture of the residence of the owners.





At this point the road goes around a blind sharp curve and the pedestrian trail cuts inwards away from the road to circumvent this.




The view is even better now, note the nice house off in the distance at the top of the hill.




Just around the bend, here is view to the right; note you can see the house much better here beyond the corn field.




The path goes on for a bit more here before once again going parallel to the road. At the point, 40 minutes into the walk, we have reached two miles, and it is time to turn back.




At the far point of the walk note the farm across the street below is where the X, Christopher, Scott, Danielle, and I went the first Halloween after we moved out here 7 years ago to get a pumpkin. We went on a nice hayride before picking out the pumpkin. It takes about five minutes to drive here, and about 40 to walk it.




Since I mentioned getting a pumpkin at the farm, here is picture of the three kids from that outing in October of 2000.




This is the end of the walk looking where the path and road continue....while I have of course driven down there, I have not walked the path....though I hope to sometime soon.




As I started heading back my feet began to hurt; I was wearing new sneakers which I guess I should have broken in a bit more, though I did walk 3 miles in them yesterday. The trip back was endless and I discovered that my small toes were getting calloused after I arrived home. At least I did not get any blisters; being diabetic I get very paranoid about my feet!

So, thanks for keeping me company on my long walk today; I wish you could come with me every weekend when I walk it, I would be glad for your company and some conversation!

Note this is the most time consuming post I have done to date; with 29 pictures and HTML editing as blogger is not really too smart when it comes to many images, alignment and such. It took me two and a half hours to complete (I guess I really need a life, huh??) I ended up finishing it after Scott, Danielle, and I watched the latest Ninja Turtle movie.

Nice weather=walking

I was up until about 3AM this morning; ended up doing a Hex marathon yesterday because I had about 10 episodes stacked up. Hex is kind of like a grittier, less campy BBC version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yesterday and today it has been so nice out I have taken a break from riding the exercise bike. Saturday I walked for an hour around the neighborhood; trouble with this approach is with the areas that do not have sidewalks; to reach an hour of walking time I ended up looping around a few places and its hard to track the mileage.

Today I did this walk in an hour for a 3.6 mile walk. The map below shows the satellite imagery. If you just look at the plain map the walk does not look in the least bit impressive. Since I live in one of the areas that Google maps has hi-res images for, you can see some good detail if you zoom in to the max.

Click here for map in a new window

I must build myself up; in less than four weeks I will be out in New Jersey where my loving sister in law will subject me to "The Walk Of Death!"........and.....since I was able to do it three years ago when I was out in New Jersey, I WILL do it this year too....even if it kills me......

After my walk I headed over to Supercuts for a haircut, I'm going to through in some laundry and then head out to Meijer and Costco.

There's just not been much to blog about lately, just working and such, not much to report other than last weeks weight loss; four more pounds for a total of 57 in 18 weeks. 3 more to go and I will have shaved off the 60 pounds I gained after the divorce. Now I am just fat, not morbidly so.......

In retrospect, I must say what a fool I was to let myself go so badly while pining over the X wife. I am a good and loving person, all I can say at this point is its her loss, though, I still do love her so and wish her the best. At least I have things in perspective now though!

Hark to the tale of the Park in the Dark

So far this weekend I have done an hour and thirty-five minutes on the exercise bike, 22 of that in a row at the higher level 6 resistance and 46 total for each workout covering 16 miles each day. These days I start with 2 minutes at level four, then 29 at level five, then 22 at level 6 and so on, finishing up with a minute or two at level five as a cool down.

Yesterday I also walked two miles and will probably do the same later as it is a nice sunny day that should not be warmer than the mid to upper 70's. However, last night on the way home from the X's house, trouble was indeed waiting for me in the unlighted gloomy depths of the park that sits between her development and my neighborhood. As I was leaving her house since it was late she has teased me offering a ride home so I would not be mugged in the park after dark, but, little did she know that there was indeed hidden danger lurking there!

As I had departed her house at 10PM there was still some faint light in the night sky and in her development there are cozy little street lights that cast some lighting making it easy enough to see the sidewalks under your feet. But, as I approached the park I felt a bit of unease as something was clearly different here, the swing sets and benches closest to the street spreading dark and malevolent looking shadows across the grass. The dark trees looking skeletal, evil, and, even dare I think it at the time, alive!

And for whatever reason in its design the park is unlit, It is also shaded by many trees and thus very dark without even a streetlight where it faces the street. As I began cutting through I suddenly heard an ominous hissing, clicking sound which grew louder as I walked faster trying to distance myself from whatever it was, and then SLAM! WHAM! BAM! they hit me full in the face, the back, my legs, almost driving me to the ground!

Ice cold water from several angles as the parks sprinklers activated (I knew that "No use of the park after dark" sign was there for a good reason! As it was very windy and 68 degrees I was quite chilled for the remainder of the walk home forcing me to change into comfortable dry scrubs and leaving my sodden clothing to dry. I settled my nerves with some shilled shrimp dipped in a mixture of Samball Oelek and Chili sauce (very zesty and carb/calories free unlike cocktail sauce!).

I am getting ready to go to the store now and pickup ingredients for one of my favorite all time dinners Triple Play Fajitas! It should be a wonderful meal that will be almost as much fun to prepare as it will be to eat!