The Random Thoughts Review

This morning on the way into work, I was listening to a “book on tape” and the guy was talking about an interview that he had with a man on death row. The subject of the story was fearing death, but he happened to mention that the interview took place while the convict was eating his last meal, which was described as “enough food to feed three men”.

This got me to thinking… What would I want to eat for a last meal? The first thing that came to mind was a Krispy Kreme doughnut. I’m not sure why.. but I’m just being truthful. I made it to a computer browser and looked up last meal on wikipedia.

Wikipedia entry

So, back to the question.. What would I want? Well, we’ve got a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Just thinking about the logistics of the meal.. I wouldn’t want too much of any one thing. I’d rather have a sampling of many divine tastes than a ton of one thing. It goes without saying that calories and nutritional content are not important. So, would I want a salad? Hmm.. I really like a good salad. But, that’s just filler. Maybe a tiny bite or two of a good chef’s salad, with ham, egg, and various types of cheese, with a little bit of French dressing on top. A chocolate covered strawberry would be awesome. It can’t just be any strawberry, though. It needs to have been picked at the peak of perfection. Nice and sweet. Dark chocolate, too. Not insanely dark. 60% cocoa would be dark enough.

A nice buttery piece of corn on the cob, with plenty of salt would taste most excellent. I’d want some of Mom’s baked beans (with hot dogs) to go along with the corn on the cob. Actually, I’d like half a hot dog, cooked on the grill. Let’s just go all out and make it an all-beef hot dog, even.

Two bites of a piece of fillet mignon, with a bite or two of baked potato to go along with it would be very good. I don’t want too much, though. I could see myself quickly getting full at this point. The fillet should be medium-well, and the baked potato needs to have plenty of butter, salt, and pepper.

Drinks are a big thing. Any space that I use in my stomach for liquid is space that can’t be used for other foods. So, I really don’t see myself drinking very much during the last meal. But, I’d have to have my diet Mountain Dew. And, to go along with that, a glass of iced sweet tea (really sweetened, not just a dab of sugar) would be great.

I’d want to have a taste of fried chicken. I prefer the breast piece, but it would have be properly moist. Chicken breast can get dry pretty easily. It has to be moist. Plenty of breading on the outside. Only a bite or two, though.

I feel like I’m just getting started. Speaking of getting started, I’d like a few bites of movie popcorn to eat with my salad. Don’t ask me to explain myself. I won’t ask about the logic of your final meal choices.

I feel like I’m seriously lacking in the dessert department. That won’t do. I’ll go for a single chocolate truffle. I’ll even let Mariya make it, but she can’t put as much coffee in it as she normally does. Don’t want that much kick. I also want cake and pie. For pie, let’s make it a bite or two of pecan pie that Mom has made. For cake.. Oh.. freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with milk! Gotta have that. (well, one cookie with milk. Can’t overindulge) Back to cake.. Let’s go chocolate. One of those triple chocolate things. Not sugar-based icing, though. I want icing that is whipped cream based. It’s a much lighter icing that doesn’t give me as much of a sugar rush. But, let’s throw in a piece of wedding cake while we are at it. On the plate with the wedding cake, I want those really salty mixed nuts that you see at weddings. The flavor combination of sugar and salt really works for me.

So, here we are. The final list. (Ha ha.. final.. Ha.. I’ll be updating this for years)

Starters:
* Chef’s salad, with ham chunks, diced hard boiled egg, and various types of cheese.
* Movie popcorn

Main Meal:
* Corn on the cob
* Baked beans
* Hot dog
* Fillet mignon
* Baked potato.
* Fried chicken breast.

Dessert:
* Krispy Kreme doughnut
* Chocolate covered strawberry
* Chocolate truffle
* Pecan pie
* Chocolate chip cookie with milk
* Chocolate cake
* Wedding cake with mixed nuts

Drinks:
* Diet Mountain Dew
* Iced sweet tea

If you know me… does my list surprise you? Why?

What I’m really curious about, though.. What would you have for your final meal?

Strange things are afoot in Kirbyland. The parking garage is probably 0.2 miles from my actual office here at Beckman. This morning I had made it into the building and was walking down the hallway towards my office.

I was apparently thinking about something else, and when I got about 20 feet away from my office door, I pulled out my car key and pressed the ‘Unlock’ button on the transmitter. Needless to say, my office door didn’t automatically unlock, and I think I was probably far enough away from my car that I don’t have to worry about it, either.

First time I’ve done that. Wonder what today holds…

Another Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and hopefully everyone has lived to tell their tales and think about exactly what has transpired.

I’m sure that there were a lot of people that went on public dates, more than a few people that honestly just hate the whole day and everything surrounding it, some people that didn’t go on dates that should have, some people that would have went on a date if they could have, and some people that went on secret dates.

Cynicism abounds on Valentine’s Day. Some prefer to refer to the day as Single’s Awareness Day (with, some point out, the appropriate acronym). I’ve heard that the time around February 14 is one of the most common times to commit suicide. Some say that V-Day shouldn’t mean anything, and it would be much better to do the Valentine activities throughout the entire year and not just on one day. Touche. But, as with baptism, which is a public declaration of faith, there’s something romantic to be said for playing the traditional games and publicly participating in a day devoted to relationships with one another.

As for myself, I really don’t mind the day. I suppose that hope springs eternal, and I’ve always enjoyed the thoughts surrounding the day. I’ve had good Valentine’s Days, and less than good Valentine’s Days (not meaning bad.. Or maybe I’ve just selectively forgotten the bad ones *shrug*) I enjoyed yesterday. Among other things, I’m optimistic about life and my place in it and I had beautiful snow upon which to gaze. What more could a guy ask for? ahem…

Anyway, hopefully you, kind reader, had a good day as well. Do anything super special? Get proposed to? Propose to someone? Reach any other interesting milestones in your relationship with the apple of your eye? Think about taking a relationship to the next level? Stay inside all day to avoid having to see anyone looking happy?

Regardless of what you did, remember that there’s always tomorrow, and you can make it better than today (or yesterday). (choose your own definition of “better”. It doesn’t matter how you define it)

Do you drink normal, non-diet soda?

If so, cut out 2 sodas a day, and you’ll lose 2-3 pounds a month. Soda contains totally empty calories. No nutrition at all.

(The math: Figure 160 calories per soda: 320 calories/day multiplied by 30 days/month divided by 3500 calories/pound = 2.74 pounds)

( Coke: 140 calories per can, Mtn. Dew: 165, Dr. Pepper: 160)

That’s a pretty easy way to lose weight, if you’re wanting to do it.

In case you were wondering whether or not the situation at work is serious…. Ya, it is.

Today we got letters of non-reappointment that we had to acknowledge receipt of. Basically, they say that we are out of a job as of July 31st, 2007. Fun stuff.

So, ya.. a lot is riding upon us getting a grant from NIH. I feel that the group does good work. Hopefully others will agree.

“non”reappointment letter follows:

Just wanted to write a quick post on what I’ve been attempting to accomplish recently.

We’ve been working on a big proposal at work recently. We’ve been working toward the proposal for a year and a half now or so.. Work activities have been aimed at positioning ourselves in a good spot for writing the proposal and stuff like that.

Proposal deadline was the end of September, and it was decreed back in the spring that we should plan on being around the office for most of July, and all of august and September. So, vacations had to be done before that. And, that’s about how it worked out. Starting in July, meetings really started to pick up. Daily meetings, for 2 or 3 hours, for a good part of July. Writing started in early August, and sometime in August was probably the last time that I actually had a 24 hour period where I wasn’t at work.

Work kept intensifying. From august until now, there have been about 550 emails sent back and forth regarding the proposal, and about 250 of them were in the last week alone.

So, anyway, the days at work got longer and longer. Non-work activities started to suffer. A draft version of the proposal was due last Monday, and the preceding weekend took a fair amount of time. This past week, however, was day after day of nothing but work (it seemed). For most of September I have been trying to exercise before going into work of a morning, because the evenings have all been spent at work. This past week was rough, though. As I started leaving work later and later each evening, it really started getting hard to be up at 6:30 to exercise so that I could be back into work at a good time. Wednesday night I think I came home about 11, and, between Thursday morning and yesterday, Monday, I managed to get 14 hours of sleep. Thursday night I actually made it home at 11:30, but got some disturbing mail that kept me awake until about 1am or so. Managed to get up at 6:30 on Friday. Friday night I was at work until 1am. Saturday morning I got up around 6:30-6:45 squeezed in some exercise, went to work, and left from work around 4am on Sunday. Woke up about 7:30 and got into work at about 9:45 Sunday morning, and didn’t leave until 5pm MONDAY. I did leave the building once, at 6am Monday, so that I could move my truck from one parking spot to another. It was kind of cool at that time.

The proposal was effectively done at 8am on Monday. But, I didn’t want to go to bed then. I wanted to get back into a normal wake/sleep pattern as quickly as I could, so I figured I would stay awake as long as I could and then fall asleep, and hopefully be back to normal by Tuesday. As the afternoon rolled on, I started getting tired. I was, I think, rather coherent for most of the day. It really shocked me. I ended up being awake for 34 hours before falling asleep, and, other than having tired eyes, I really think I did OK. Anyway, I left work about 5pm, and promptly crashed my truck into the first car I met. Just kidding! No, actually, I made it home fine and figured that I would start the process of falling asleep. So, I laid down on the couch and started watching some TV. About 10 minutes later I was nodding off, so I went and laid down in bed. I decided to send some email, and went back to bed and promptly feel asleep. This was a little before 6pm. And, I slept until 6:30am. Close to 13 hours of sleep. I woke up feeling quite refreshed.. The most awake I’ve felt upon hopping out of bed in quite a while.

Anyway, this has been an interesting experience. I’ll end this session by saying that my brother bought me one of those Successory desk pieces a few years ago while I was in grad school. It reads:

EFFORT

Some people dream of worthy accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.

Conserve Electrons.

Use Paper!

We all have lists. We often say to ourselves, “I’d like to do that sometime”. I suspect that many of us have a list of things that we’d like to do.. eventually. To this end, I decided to formalize things a little bit and make up a list of Things To Do Before I Die.

Things To Do Before I Die

I make no promises about this list. I revise the right to modify and tweak the list now or at any point in the future. How about you? Do you have things that are on your list that aren’t on mine? (I’m sure you do) Go ahead and comment if so. I might steal the idea and add it to my list. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a lot of things.