General status report

1) I am starting to get into the swing of things with my job. I still have along way to go because this place, technologically speaking, is just huge. I get to ask dumb questions every day. Fortunately, I don't have to ask most of them twice!

2) This parenting thing is really starting to get to me. I am discovering that I get to play the hard man all the time. J and her mother do not really seem to understand the concept of "This is the way it is going to be kiddo!" when dealing with the two three year olds. While I do not enjoy being mean to a small child, I also realize that if you want said child to grow up into a decent human being who has respect for other people and the rules of their environment, you have to enforce those rules pretty strictly early on or there is no hope of enforcing them later. I feel like the one lone good cop in a totally corrupt precinct.

3) My health seems to be cranking along nicely. I finally went in for my transplant clinic appointment and it went well. They seem to be of the opinion that I am exceedingly healthy. While I don't doubt that I am, I am a little nervous about the sort of glib attitude. I have had too many things go wrong in the last two years to take it on faith that everything is going to work out. We'll see how it goes in the next few months.

4) I actually appear to be losing weight. I've already dropped 6 pounds as of my official weigh-in last Saturday. I appear to be on track to lose another 3 pounds or so this week. I figure I'm doing well for now. I also know that I will have to get off my butt and start hitting the gym now if I want to continue this progress. Reducing caloric intake can only get you so far when you're not grossly obese. I'm going to have to make my body start working harder soon. Especially since I have noticed that my knees aren't quite as strong as they were when I was playing Rugby. I need to build up those ligaments and tendons again. I don't want my knee to start popping out of joint again!

New Comic Book Day

As yet another Wednesday rolls around, I, having been up since 3am, feel the need to bitch about the lack of a decent equivalent of The Source Comics and Games here in St Louis. I have discovered a decent comic shop (Star Clipper Comics), but it definitely seems designed to appeal to a different comics buyer then me. Though I have no desire to be in a shop full of overweight, socially inept, basement dwelling trolls, I would like a shop that caters more directly to the comics nerd, rather than to the comics hipsters. Unfortunately, Star Clipper seems to be doing the latter. When I walk into a comic shop, I expect to be able to talk comics with the people who work there. The folks at the store are nice enough, but there seems to be some sort of gap between me and them. Not sure what it is, but it is there. It might be my growing curmudgeonly nature, but I don't think so.

Anyway, I miss The Source because on Wednesday, there was a palpable, electric thrill in the air because the new books were out on the shelves. The staff was there in full force and the comics geeks were too, debating the merits of everything out on the shelves, new and old. Star Clipper has a much more sedate feel that doesn't seem right to me on new comic book day.

I have also found a small local shop. I don't think that one will work for me because:

a) The place is pretty small. Accordingly, the selection is a bit limited. Not a problem for your average Marvel/DC fanboy, but not so good for me.

b) The stock and the owner's mindset seems to be aimed squarely at the mainstream comics reader. Nothing wrong with that, because that is what sells, but I like the more offbeat stuff. Hell, the books I am looking forward to the most these days is the Virgin Comics reboot of Dane Dare and most of the Warren Ellis/Avatar comics (especially Gravel!). Not something your average comic book fanboy would say I think.

Anyway, I am going to stop now because I am bumming myself out. Hopefully, I will resolve this issue sometime soon.

Father's day

I found Father's Day to be a very weird experience. While I am not an actual father, J and family have definitely adopted me as such. It was odd to have small children climbing on me in bed and asking me what I think of the gifts they got me. I'm not sure quite how I felt about the experience.

Ah well. We'll see how I do next year.

That was unexpected

I've decided to start doing the Jenny Craig diet thing so that I can lose a few pounds on purpose this time. While I have managed to drop weight in the past, it was usually associated with a visit to the hospital or at least the need to go to a hospital. :-)

If I can pull this off, I will be lighter than I have been since my freshman year of college. It's a weird thought.