Ravings of an Undead Cheese Minion

Starting these on 9/30 for an extra day, here goes nothing: Lifting Achieve 10% body fat Lift 5-6 days a week How I will achieve this:  Automatically by my routine. The 6th day will be super light and short before long running. Even 10-15 minutes is worth doing.  Running Hit 4-5 miles per day during the week and 14-16 on Saturdays Run the St. George Half and the Haunted Half How I will achieve this:  Automatically by my routine. I'm already hitting that mileage.  Rendering Do all the Drawtober prompts. This is slightly more than 1 piece of art per week.  Finish Pixar in a Box Do 25 CtrlPaint videos and exercises (trying for 31 or even the full thing) Finish basic Maya review.  Continue with daily warmup sequence, Drawabox, etc.  Watch shows every night.  Game for 30 minutes a night at least, and 45 minutes on Friday/Saturday, optionally with some gamedev time too, and time to review Pokemon strategies. Exception: Monday night due to school and work, 5-10 minutes is fine. Sunday is

I finally got to the pool at 7:55 PM this evening. 72 degrees, late September, and the sun had set. So the pool was finally empty. Mainly I was just happy my apartment hasn't gotten around to closing it for the season yet. I didn't realize that you can even see stars in Orem with all the light pollution, but I could see two of them, floating on my back in that pool. And when I swam, the water danced with the same caustic patterns that form in the daytime. Only in the incandescent lights, they glowed.  I would sometimes stop swimming, plug my nose, and sink to the bottom of the pool on my back. Then I would let my body's natural buoyancy carry me to the surface, looking upwards at the night sky with the blurry lights of the apartments surrounding a black void. It felt like I was flying to space on a rocketship, and I dreamed of alien planets and faraway worlds. And sometimes I would swim up to the steps, pretending that they were a sandy shoreline. It was nice, to forget abo

And with it goes the last chance that I'll ever move to the Bay Area.  I was really hoping to go again, and also get on that tiny little roller coaster at the zoo. I loved San Jose when I visited for Adobe -- it was a beautiful, warm place, one of the happiest half-weeks/weekends (? it was like 3 days from Thursday to Saturday lol) that I've had in a very, very long time. Back then, last summer, San Jose had California's Great America and Raging Waters. I took a ton of Lyft rides to get to both.  Those two parks alone, coupled with some great restaurants, beautiful weather, safety, and Adobe being there, would have been enough for me to move there. But CGA is probably going to close soon (replaced by condos...) and Raging Waters just announced that they are not going to open in 2024 for some reason. So, screw that area lol, and the people who don't care about the amusement industry over there. 

I’m feeling way better than I was earlier today, so apparently what I needed was a Chipotle burrito, because I felt way better after eating one. And then I went to splash summit and was the only one in the lazy river so that’s cool.  Here’s an ideal Friday night for me:  Dinner while watching something good.  (Optional) Maybe doing some water slides, fall festivals, or other amusement rides, maybe not. Regardless, don’t stay for more than an hour, because it’s Friday and I’m tired.  Get home, quick clean for 5 minutes or so, take a nice long shower. Prepping my workout stuff for Saturday. Pajamas ON.  Productivity: I can do a bit of art, writing, coding, cybersecurity, math, Duolingo, stuff for the homelab I want to build, music, etc. if I feel so inclined. Just one, or all of the above. But, I’d only do this for 15-30 minutes max. Just a shakeout. Listen to some nice music if creating.  Reading, either outside on my hammock, or inside on my couch.  A nice gaming block consisting of bo

Dang it. They always  open the weekend after Labor Day, and it's always fun to go when it's still nice and summery out. I get really sad when my summer activities end, so I try to get a headstart on the fall stuff ASAP.  But not this year. I just checked and I guess I have to wait until the 15th. I always liked going to Cherry Hill on closing day (Saturday) after going to Wilkerson Farm on Friday night, with my wristband still on. It felt like a great seasonal transition...But, Cornbelly's Spanish Fork does open then. So, I guess I'll do that.  Fall is ridiculously short here and it's impossible to fit in everything in October, which is why I wish we could extend stuff backwards into early September. But for some reason nothing seems to start until mid-to-late Sept. 

I technically was supposed to leave Utah next month, but that got nixed around February/March, when I realized there was no way I was going to finish my thesis by April. So right now I'm here till next October (2024). Or maybe it was August; to be honest, I can't really remember because it's Friday and my brain is soup.  Additionally, I struggled because all my friends are here, and I don't want to start that process from scratch again. I don't make new friends easily (understatement of the decade there). I also LOVE how many tiny little water parks there are all over the valley. It's awesome.  But, the seasonal depression is already hitting me hard, and I know I can't keep living like this. Plus, pretty much everyone here is married with kids, or unmarried/divorced with kids, and 99% of people got married at like 21 to someone they knew for 4 months. Utah has an accelerated timeline and it just doesn't work for me. Once upon a time I believed in the str