Exeunt Delectation
After several weeks of thousand-page average reading assignments in my seminars, I've finally hit the long-awaited point of respite I'd been anticipating since the first day of the semester. For the next two weeks of my sci-fi seminar the "readings" largely involve listening to music -- crazy fucked-up jazz, trip-hop remixes, and straight-up funk, anyone? -- and, starting next week, my 19th-Century seminar will be tackling primarily the same text for three straight weeks.
You're looking at a calmer, somewhat happier Dave.
Which is not to say that he was totally miserable for the past couple of weeks. Okay, call my bluff and the truth will come out that things haven't always been coming up roses recently. In fact, I'd planned to blog last Wednesday, the 17th, a post that I'd hoped would reflect the joy and satisfaction of realizing the end to my traffic ticket fiasco.
See, when shit like this happens to me, it's nice to know I've got some friends in decently high places that can help me out -- after all, I don't just have a PBA card for nothing, right? In this case, I enlisted the help of two friends, one police officer and one retired State Trooper. Both offered me a great deal of help and advice, and when I went to the court, I was assured that everything was "taken care of."
If by "taken care of," you mean "arranged such that I would plead down to a charge that'll cost five times what the original ticket would have (albeit with no points) and will make prison inmates jealous of the gaping maw that was my asshole."
The Dave of this past Thursday was an exceptionally livid Dave. Sure, the license was technically still clean and I had pled down to a lesser charge, but the fact that I hustled back to New Jersey, skipped a pretty important class, and worried for three months about this thing for it to cost me what I feel is an obscene $445 didn't, in the end, feel worth it. Not by a long shot. And what was even more maddening was the idea that I was swallowed up by a ridiculous bureaucratic machine. Granted, I'm the last person to be debating politics, particularly the politics of small, North Jersey municipalities, but the fact that it cost me one-third of my original charge just to bring the case to court is absurd. It's as if the bureaucracy is set up to bend you over and force you to accept the heavy-handed word of law, even if there is a reasonable explanation and especially if you're not in a position to fight it appropriately. I'm not naïve enough to think that the justice system every actually works in favor of the people, but you'd think for stupid shit like traffic claims it wouldn't be such a damn hassle. Poor innocent me.
Lesson learned, though. If a cop gets behind me again, fuck 'im. Let him wait till I get by, and if he pulls me over again, I'll be sure he gets my PBA card, along with an under-the-breath oath about where, anatomically, he can put it.
On the plus side, I've been trying to channel the rage into a slightly more productive venture: the on-campus fitness center. After weeks of weight fluctuations finally stopped and settled me at the high end (isn't it always?) of the weight range I'd been wavering amidst since August, I got pissed off enough to finally do something about it -- a strategy that, in the past (including but not limited to weight-loss attempts), has worked rather swimmingly for me.
So since Thursday, I've been to the gym every day for a half-hour, cycling and elliptical-ing in an effort to get my cardiovascular fitness back to my old height and start burning off the fat. I've been making attempts to watch what I eat -- in fairness, I've been more concerned with quantity, not quality, as I don't really eat too poorly in the first place, but I do eat way too much -- and have aimed for somewhere between 300 and 400 Calories a day, seven days a week, in the hopes that the gym will take away at least 2500 Calories a week. The way I figure, since a pound of fat is 3500 Calories, all I have to do is cut out a measly 150 Calories of consumed food per day to have a net loss of over 3500 Calories a week. Which should, in a perfect world, lead to me losing a pound or so a week.
Of course, I could get somewhere close to two pounds a week if I were able to correct the abysmal eating schedule I've adapted. While sleeping in four days a week is a pretty sweet deal, what I've found is that they've caused me to shift my meals to later times. Breakfast occurs around noon; lunch happens around 5:00-6:00pm, and dinner (or what feels like a midnight snack) occurs around 10:00pm or 11:00pm. Which means I'm putting shit right into my stomach just before I hit the hay. And then I don't want to eat breakfast on the 6:45am days, so I just skip it and keep pushing the schedule back. If I could get myself back to the point where my last major meal was around 6:00pm -- and, in an ideal world, fix it such that my largest meal occurred in the afternoon, before I go to the gym -- I'd be much better off. Fingers crossed, and I'll keep all three of my readers updated on my progress in future posts.
But really. In a world where Joe Torre is no longer the coach of the Yankees, the Red Sox are in the World Series, and the geneses of my end-of-semester projects remain elusive and cloudy, can you really blame a guy for needing to down a roast beef sub at 10:00pm? I didn't think so.
You're looking at a calmer, somewhat happier Dave.
Which is not to say that he was totally miserable for the past couple of weeks. Okay, call my bluff and the truth will come out that things haven't always been coming up roses recently. In fact, I'd planned to blog last Wednesday, the 17th, a post that I'd hoped would reflect the joy and satisfaction of realizing the end to my traffic ticket fiasco.
For the uninitiated, here's what went down: back on July 21, move-in day, I was traveling westward on I-80 just past Rockaway Mall. I was in the fast lane, with my cruise control set to 65 since my car had less than 400 miles on it at the time. Behind me, a state trooper quickly turned from a speck in my rearview to a vehicle close enough that I felt it was best to get out of his way. I sped up a bit and came over, apparently not lifting my turn signal high enough to register it.Instead of driving home after my 2:00pm court date, tossing back a celebratory beer and enjoying a delicious steak dinner cooked in honor of the prodigal son finally returning home again, I was instead muttering, cursing, and trying to down the brews as quickly as I could to drown my sorrows.
Said officer proceeded to get behind me and pull me over after a mile of suspense. He told me I was doing 80 mph (bullshit) and that I'd come over without a blinker. I explained it to him in the precise manner I just explained, insisting that I was only trying to get out of his way and that I thought the blinker had gone on. He returned with a ticket, and a maddening explanation: he could have given me two tickets worth six points, so I should be appreciative that I ended up with what I got. Oh, and have a nice day.
It goes without saying that my rage was palpable. I hadn't even thought to give the guy my PBA card because I didn't even know why he was pulling me over, and I personally felt like it was a little bit of entrapment. So I decided not to pay it, but to fight it. I was given a court date of October 17th, in Wharton Borough court, a date that came, at last, this past week.
Which brings us back to...
See, when shit like this happens to me, it's nice to know I've got some friends in decently high places that can help me out -- after all, I don't just have a PBA card for nothing, right? In this case, I enlisted the help of two friends, one police officer and one retired State Trooper. Both offered me a great deal of help and advice, and when I went to the court, I was assured that everything was "taken care of."
If by "taken care of," you mean "arranged such that I would plead down to a charge that'll cost five times what the original ticket would have (albeit with no points) and will make prison inmates jealous of the gaping maw that was my asshole."
The Dave of this past Thursday was an exceptionally livid Dave. Sure, the license was technically still clean and I had pled down to a lesser charge, but the fact that I hustled back to New Jersey, skipped a pretty important class, and worried for three months about this thing for it to cost me what I feel is an obscene $445 didn't, in the end, feel worth it. Not by a long shot. And what was even more maddening was the idea that I was swallowed up by a ridiculous bureaucratic machine. Granted, I'm the last person to be debating politics, particularly the politics of small, North Jersey municipalities, but the fact that it cost me one-third of my original charge just to bring the case to court is absurd. It's as if the bureaucracy is set up to bend you over and force you to accept the heavy-handed word of law, even if there is a reasonable explanation and especially if you're not in a position to fight it appropriately. I'm not naïve enough to think that the justice system every actually works in favor of the people, but you'd think for stupid shit like traffic claims it wouldn't be such a damn hassle. Poor innocent me.
Lesson learned, though. If a cop gets behind me again, fuck 'im. Let him wait till I get by, and if he pulls me over again, I'll be sure he gets my PBA card, along with an under-the-breath oath about where, anatomically, he can put it.
On the plus side, I've been trying to channel the rage into a slightly more productive venture: the on-campus fitness center. After weeks of weight fluctuations finally stopped and settled me at the high end (isn't it always?) of the weight range I'd been wavering amidst since August, I got pissed off enough to finally do something about it -- a strategy that, in the past (including but not limited to weight-loss attempts), has worked rather swimmingly for me.
So since Thursday, I've been to the gym every day for a half-hour, cycling and elliptical-ing in an effort to get my cardiovascular fitness back to my old height and start burning off the fat. I've been making attempts to watch what I eat -- in fairness, I've been more concerned with quantity, not quality, as I don't really eat too poorly in the first place, but I do eat way too much -- and have aimed for somewhere between 300 and 400 Calories a day, seven days a week, in the hopes that the gym will take away at least 2500 Calories a week. The way I figure, since a pound of fat is 3500 Calories, all I have to do is cut out a measly 150 Calories of consumed food per day to have a net loss of over 3500 Calories a week. Which should, in a perfect world, lead to me losing a pound or so a week.
Of course, I could get somewhere close to two pounds a week if I were able to correct the abysmal eating schedule I've adapted. While sleeping in four days a week is a pretty sweet deal, what I've found is that they've caused me to shift my meals to later times. Breakfast occurs around noon; lunch happens around 5:00-6:00pm, and dinner (or what feels like a midnight snack) occurs around 10:00pm or 11:00pm. Which means I'm putting shit right into my stomach just before I hit the hay. And then I don't want to eat breakfast on the 6:45am days, so I just skip it and keep pushing the schedule back. If I could get myself back to the point where my last major meal was around 6:00pm -- and, in an ideal world, fix it such that my largest meal occurred in the afternoon, before I go to the gym -- I'd be much better off. Fingers crossed, and I'll keep all three of my readers updated on my progress in future posts.
But really. In a world where Joe Torre is no longer the coach of the Yankees, the Red Sox are in the World Series, and the geneses of my end-of-semester projects remain elusive and cloudy, can you really blame a guy for needing to down a roast beef sub at 10:00pm? I didn't think so.
posted by Dave at 10/22/2007 04:35:00 PM
3 Comments:
2 comments:
a) good luck with your exercise/weight loss plan :o)
b) i believe " a world where Joe Torre is no longer the coach of the Yankees, the Red Sox are in the World Series,..." could have been expressed as "all is right with the baseball world"...just kidding, i just like annoying you :o) (dont worry, im actually rooting for colorado)
You're rooting for Colorado? Who are you and what have you done with my Lara?
well, once the mets decided to suck at life, i said "i'm going for colorado"...then it turned out that the rockies were actually doing good, which was a pleasant surprise...and, although i wouldn't be angry if the sox won, i'm sticking by colorado... :o)
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