Tom Skilling is the greatest meteorologist the City of Chicago has ever had. He began his amazing 45-year run on WGN-TV in 1978, a few months before I was born. I don’t think a day of my childhood went by without ‘Chicago’s Very Own’ WGN, on one of the TVs, though that might have been more because of Bozo. To this day, I can’t trust anyone else’s weather forecasts. Tom’s, not Bozo’s.
Continue reading “Happy Retirement, Tom Skilling!”Today was the same, but different. Wake up and go to work. Just like any other day. Except, today the alarm was set for 4:00 am, instead of almost noon. That doesn’t matter though. I can’t remember the last time I slept until my alarm rang. For the last 2 and a half years, I’ve worked the afternoon/evening shift, 32 hours per week, and would set my sleep schedule accordingly. Now, I’m working the morning shift, for 40 hours per week. Early morning wakeups are going to take some getting used to. A co-worker received a well-deserved promotion, which allowed me to move into his old shift. It’s the same job, with the same things to do. There’s just more of it to do. Which is OK. I’m not going to complain about being kept busy.
Continue reading “Same, But Different”If you read my previous post, I mentioned that the post office can’t manage to do its job in any reliable form right now. I know COVID has put a strain on things, but I also know that our problems with the post office started long before that damn virus decided it wanted to wreak havoc on all of us. For years now, we’re lucky to receive mail 2-3 times a week.
Continue reading “The Post Office Sucks! And Other Things…”My doctor’s appointment came and went. Or, did it?
I arrived for my appointment only to be told, “We had to reschedule your appointment because the doctor is on vacation for over a month”. Lovely. Was anyone going to let me know this? But wait, there’s more. They tried to notify me by mail, but the post office couldn’t manage to deliver a simple letter, across town, within the 18 days between the date on the letter and the date of my appointment. Thankfully, I was able to receive my blood test results. Unfortunately, those results show I’m still prediabetic. I’m sitting here feeling somewhat defeated. What else can I do? At this moment, I’m almost 35 pounds lighter than the last time I saw my doctor at the end of May and have barely touched sugars/carbs. I’m walking a bit more than usual and am down two pants sizes. I’m also less than half a pound away from what is considered a healthy weight, or so the BMI calculator tells me. I’m still tossing around the idea of joining a gym and it seems my wife is considering it, too. I guess I keep on dieting and see where things go next.
With only four days to go until my next blood test, I’ve officially lost 30 pounds! It’s been roughly 14 weeks since I started dieting, to hopefully kick the crap out of my prediabetes diagnosis. I’d have to go back almost 20 years to be at a weight anywhere close to where I’m at right now. It’s been quite a trip; My pants size has shrunk, but my belly is still present. According to my lovely wife, the belly has shrunk, too. I guess I don’t see it shrinking as substantially as she has. Regardless, I was pretty ecstatic this morning when I stepped on the scale. This milestone has been teasing me for a couple of weeks, but to finally hit it, is very gratifying. I’m still tossing around the idea of joining a gym, though. The impatient part of myself will have a hard time dealing with the almost two-week wait before getting the results of the blood tests. I’m hoping to celebrate good news after those two weeks, but also slightly concerned the results won’t be nearly as good as they could be.
I’ve lost 20 pounds! Not too shabby for about 9 weeks of dieting. It’s a nice milestone to hit, but I’m not done yet. The next blood work appointment is in 6 weeks. By then, I want to be down at least another 10 pounds. The prediabetes diagnosis was a good kick in the ass to get me motivated.
Continue reading “20 Pounds!”It’s my grandson’s first birthday! Peyton is growing so fast. We don’t get to see him nearly as much as we would like these days. His parents are separated and my son is doing everything he can to see Peyton as often as possible. He’s juggling a 50+ hour a week job and missing his son every day. A 90 mph round trip to visit Peyton with the traffic we deal with around here all the time makes it difficult.
I’ll end this post by saying, Happy Birthday Peyton! I wish I could’ve been with you today. Papa loves you.
You know you’re getting old when you wake up in the morning, only to realize you hurt yourself in your sleep. I’m heading towards 50 years old, but not quite that fast. I’m still closer to 40 than 50. But, sure as hell, I woke up today, stood up from the bed, and it felt like my foot got trapped in a vice or something. Walking was pain-free, but flexing my foot to put on my socks was uncomfortable. Then, I get to work, get out of the car and now my foot says “Nope!, We’re going to limp all the way to the office”.
Continue reading “Getting Old”Sometimes it just rains, and other times it’s a damn tsunami! Chicago traffic sucks. Downtown traffic sucks 10x worse. Last week, while running late for work, I took the turn into the parking garage a bit too tight and lost a battle with a concrete pillar. I scraped the hell out of the passenger side of my car, dented the back door, and crunched the front of the rear quarter panel. The worst part for me is that I’ve entered this garage 100s of time over the last few years and never came close to hitting anything.
Continue reading “Tsunami!”… It Pours! 15 Months of COVID has been rough enough most of the time, and too damn rough the rest of the time. Things are slowly returning to normal, whatever that is. While that recovery has begun, Life feels like right now is a good time to rain on my family’s parade repeatedly.
In late January, I hurt my shoulder while shoveling snow. After a week of pain, I made a doctor’s appointment I was absolutely dreading because I hadn’t been to a doctor in over 20 years. It wasn’t as bad as I feared until my follow-up appointment to go over my blood tests. A few weeks ago I was officially diagnosed as pre-diabetic. I have a family history so the diagnosis was expected but I still wasn’t ready to hear it.
Continue reading “When It Rains …”