June 25: A Meatless Game Day

The Timber Rattlers are on a homestand this week and the Brewers come home for the weekend, so Laura and I are spending much of the week at the ballpark. Monday night I covered a T-Rats game as media, we're going to T-Rats games Wednesday and Thursday nights and heading down to Milwaukee on Friday.

Spending that much time at the ballpark is going to make eating reasonably this week an interesting challenge. The food at Fox Cities Stadium is good, but my usual top choice (a bacon cheeseburger with fries) is exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to avoid lately.

Adding another wrinkle to the plan is the fact that yesterday was Meatless Monday.

As I mentioned on Saturday, though, I went to the farmers market this weekend and picked up a pretty good assortment of healthy produce. So, instead of eating at the ballpark last night I made a very vegetable-heavy soup out of the following:

• An onion
• Two carrots
• Two celery stalks
• Some garlic scapes
• A zucchini
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Roasted Peppers
• Blue cheese
• Basil
• Chicken stock (a slight Meatless Monday cheat. I could've used vegetable stock but didn't have any on hand)
• Gnocchi

We had to eat dinner pretty early (around 4) to make the plan work, but it turned out reasonably well. The soup (pureed) was kind of an awful color but tasted good and was certainly healthier than what I would have eaten otherwise.

Did I exercise today? Yes and no. I didn't run. Running every day just seems to pound on my legs and make me dread going out. So I've decided to try a new running routine: Seven days on, one day off. Tuesday will be the first day back on.

I did, however, play eighteen holes of disc golf (before 7 am, thanks insomnia!) and go on a 1.9 mile dog walk.

June 24: Eating Out A Little Better

Every other Sunday is the last day of Laura's week of work, and we have a routine where I deliver dinner for Laura and her co-workers that night. We almost always do takeout (it makes it easier to get something everyone will like), but our options are somewhat limited. We seem to rotate pretty steadily between pizza, Chinese and subs. As you might imagine, I don't typically pursue the healthy options.

So tonight, instead of grabbing something nutritionally disastrous, I grabbed dinner for Laura's office at Panera and had a salad. It wasn't the healthiest salad ever (it had steak and blue cheese on it), but it's better than I usually do.

Did I exercise today? Yes, I ran 1.5 miles around noon today. We also walked the dog 1.6 miles this morning.

June 23: Eating Fresh

Today, as I do every summer Saturday, I woke up and my first stop was the farmers' market. Here's what I brought home this week:

From left to right that's asparagus, blueberries, zucchini, goat cheese, sourdough bread, red potatoes, tomatoes, salad greens and peaches. 

By itself this haul is not a monumental accomplishment. Having these things in the house, though, will hopefully help me cook homemade healthy meals over the next few days. Meatless Monday is only a couple of days away.

I'm having a real issue today with exercise. I've loaded up on excuses: First I didn't get up early enough to go before the farmers' market, then I was too full, then it was time for lunch, then it was raining, then I had a party to go to and now the Brewer game is on. I've had a bunch of sugar today and the most strenuous things I've done were picking strawberries and playing an hour of Root Beer Tapper. I'm hoping I'll feel like going for a run after the Brewer game.

Did I exercise today? Not yet. Yes, I waited until after 10 pm but did get a 1.1 mile run in.

June 22: Working Out Together

As I mentioned yesterday, I used a rare in-season off day to get ahead of schedule and buy myself some extra time today. I used that time this morning to take my wife on an hour-long hike in a nature preserve near our house.

It was nice to get a chance to spend some time together this morning, because our early schedules typically don't line up. Laura starts work at 11 am, and 6:30-noon or so is usually the busiest part of my day. On her work days I usually see Laura for a few minutes when she brings me breakfast (if she has time), and again as she's on her way out the door. Most of the time I'm too engaged in my work to have much more than passing conversation.

Anyway, today we got to spend an hour together and we both got some much-needed exercise out of it. It's a good day.

Did I exercise today? Yes. I haven't been able to find a distance-labeled map of the trails we walked this morning, but I think we hiked about two miles over most of an hour. I also ran 1.14 miles when we got home to keep my running streak alive.

June 21: Taking Advantage Of Opportunities

Today is kind of an unusual day schedule-wise, but the opposite of the way yesterday was. Yesterday I had to pare down my responsibilities in order to find time to prioritize getting a run in. Today I had lots of time.

The Brewers are off today, the Timber Rattlers are out of town and, as such, I had a rare in-season day without baseball to watch or cover. I finished most of today's immediate responsibilities before 1 and after a run, my calendar was open.

I took advantage of the chance to run some errands this afternoon, then came home and used the evening to get some work done in advance to hopefully lighten up my schedule a bit over the coming week. As of this writing I've produced six posts tonight that will run on Brew Crew Ball over the coming days, and I hope to finish one more once I'm done here and start work on tomorrow's daily responsibilities so I'll have time to go exercise with Laura in the morning before she has to go to work.

"Working ahead" was supposed to be today's only goal, but as it turns out I also got some extra exercise in. It's a beautiful night in Appleton tonight so I took a break from writing to take the dog for a long walk in addition to my run.

I have no idea how much of this is physical and how much of it is mental, but today I noticed I'm feeling better. My energy level is up, my soreness level is low, I'm more cheerful and the more mundane parts of my day didn't bother me as much today. I could just be having a good day, I guess.

Did I exercise today? Yes, I ran 2.08 miles early this afternoon and, as mentioned above, I also went for a 2.28 mile walk tonight.

June 20: Keeping The Streak Alive

Today is kind of a tough day, schedule wise: I got home from the ballpark after 1 am and I'm responsible for previewing and recapping a day game at 1 pm. In the middle I had to take a car in for repairs, and my lawn is in pretty serious need of mowing.

Today would have been a pretty easy day to use my schedule as an excuse to not worry about this project and just drop back into a normal routine for a while. I didn't, though: instead of spending all morning buried in my work I lightened my plans a little bit and still found time for a short run.

That single short run (about 1.2 miles) isn't going to change my life, of course. But it is a little better than what I'd normally do on a day like this, and that's the point of this project.

I went to last night's game with a friend who's seen this space and asked me, "So, you're eating better these days?" I am, but this project is about more than that. Sometimes it's going to be about exercise. Sometimes it's going to be about time management, or life/relationship maintenance, or other things I need to work on to help improve the quality of my life.

June 19: Doing Better At The Ballpark

As a pretty dedicated baseball fan who happens to be paid to write about it, I spend a fair portion (probably an average of two days a week) at the ballpark. Before this season I bought a scorebook with room for 26 games in it. I've already filled that scorebook, used the spare pages from an old one, bought a scorecard and gone a couple of games without keeping score. That's 31 days at various ballparks since March.

Unfortunately, eating well at the ballpark is a real challenge. Most of the foods you think about when you go to the ballpark are things that would kill you if you ate them every day (and you'd die ridiculously in debt from paying for them, too).

So my task for yesterday, as I headed down to Milwaukee to watch the Brewers and Blue Jays, was to find a way to eat a little better on a game day. Sadly, it didn't go very well.

The Brewers do have a pretty nice stadium map showing where you can find various food throughout the ballpark. What they don't have is many stands serving interesting healthy food. You can grab a premade wrap or sandwich or a Caesar salad at the "Grab and Go" stand or...you can wander around the ballpark for a long time lamenting the lack of healthy options, I guess.

After pursuing the latter option for a while, I finally settled for the most uninteresting grilled chicken sandwich I've ever had in my life. It consisted of:

• A white hamburger bun.
• A piece of chicken.

That's it. Now, you're probably not thinking "Yeah, I'd pay $6.75 for that." I did, but I won't again. And you may not be surprised to note that after eating a piece of chicken on processed white bread, I was still hungry. So I wandered for a while again, got disappointed by the options again, grabbed a bag of peanuts and went to my seat.

As I was opening the bag of peanuts, I noticed something that surprised me. The 8 oz bag of peanuts contains six "servings," and each one contains 14 grams of fat. That single bag of peanuts, by itself, contains over 130% of your recommended daily allowance of fat. I ate about a third of the bag at the park last night and this morning I'm throwing the rest out.

It's worth noting that Miller Park has a pretty lenient carry-in policy. The people around me during the game last night certainly took advantage of the ability to bring in Subway, bags of chips, bottles of water and whatnot. It looks like that's more or less the facility's only viable healthy option.

Did I exercise today? Yes, I ran 1.6 miles. Running outside in June is proving to be a real issue. I'm working on finding ways to adjust my schedule to run at better times.

June 18, 2012: Meatless Monday

Today's single goal is more or less covered in the title: I meant to go through the whole day today without eating meat. I had a little with breakfast (leftover quiche derailed my plans), but that's all.
  
Going meatless for a day by itself isn't really a healthy change. I could have, for example, gotten by with three servings of mac and cheese today (I know a thing or two about mac and cheese) and technically met this goal. That's not the point, though. The point was to replace a couple of servings of meat with something healthier, like some fruits or vegetables. Here's what I ate today:


Lunch:

• A panini with nine grain bread, homemade pesto with asparagus, spring garlic, basil, greens and nuts and a slice of Muenster cheese.
• A salad with greens, a few crumbles of blue cheese and half a peach.
• The other half of the peach
• A piece of low-sugar homemade strawberry rhubarb crisp.

Dinner

• Pasta with more of the pesto mentioned above
• Broiled sesame garlic snow peas.

Add in breakfast (half a peach with yogurt and granola, a slice of quiche and a single piece of cinnamon cobblestone) and I got something like five servings of vegetables today, plus 3-4 of fruit depending on how you count the peaches.

This wasn't my healthiest day ever (especially since I blew my goal with breakfast) by any means, but it's a start.

Did I exercise today? Yes, I ran 1.5 miles. Going to try to run every day for a while again.

Time To Try Something New

It's been a while since I've used this space. I tend to get so wrapped up in my work elsewhere that I forget it's here. By the time I'm done writing there sometimes I don't feel like writing anymore. But sometimes I need an outlet for things that have nothing to do with the Brewers or baseball, and now is one of those times.

My health has never been perfect...in fact, it's been in something of a slow, steady decline more or less nonstop for about a decade now. I distinctly remember the first time I stepped on the scale and weighed over 200 lbs. I remember being caught completely off guard the first time it showed 217. Then 230. And 248. And now it's around 270.

A slow, steady decline has become the status quo for me because it's comfortable and easy. I don't worry about what I eat, I exercise when I feel like it (and I most certainly don't when I don't), and it's rarely become a major issue for me because I'm usually not getting too fat to be comfortable...I'm just slowly packing on pounds at a pace that allows me to get used to being this fat before getting fatter.

I've tried a variety of things over the years but I've never stuck with them very long because I don't think wholesale change is sustainable. Making major adjustments in your life is great when you're motivated, but you're going to have days where you're not. And when you've been depriving yourself of something you want, for example, a month without ice cream, that first bowl/scoop/carton is all too easy to fall back on. When you're already unhappy, failing there won't make you feel worse. And there's nothing more demotivating than going from X pounds to X-10, then falling off your routine and crashing back to X+5.

With that said, I need to do something. I had a moment over the weekend where I put on a piece of clothing I've owned for years, it no longer fit but I had to wear it all day anyway. It really made it hit home that this slow, steady decline may be comfortable but it's not headed somewhere I want to go.

So, now that this intro has you thoroughly depressed, here's my plan: Each day I'm going to do better in one way. Every day I'll pick one thing that's preventing me from living in a more healthy way and for one day I'll focus on improving it. It's that simple. No major diet changes, no life overhauls. Just a conscious effort to focus on and remove individual unhealthy habits, 24 hours at a time.

Some days the changes will be bigger than others. Today's was a small one, in the grand scheme. Some days I'll have time to write about them and some days I won't. As I mentioned above, I don't always have the time/desire to write once my other obligations are done.

I'm reviving this site more as a personal space than a community, but you're certainly welcome to ride along. I'd welcome your ideas for things I can try for a day, your support or your notes on things I'm working on. If you're interested in reading about this or seeing how it turns out for me, bookmark the page and keep an eye on it.

An open letter to the ice cream truck

Dear Ice Cream Truck,

As you can likely tell by my waistline, I'm a huge fan of your product, in more ways than one. You and I have always had a special bond - that shrill musical number you play could wake me from the deepest slumber and immediately send me scrambling for cash.

With that said, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to connect with you. You were designed to attract children playing outside, but my increasingly sedentary lifestyle makes it less and less likely that I'll be outside when you're in the neighborhood. Of course, when asked why I'm not outside getting exercise, I'll cite factors like an increased skin cancer risk, but really I just can't miss tonight's extra special episode of Obnoxious Housewives of Wherever, the opening segment of So You Think You Can Wretch, or three innings of a 9-2 baseball game. Without them I'll have nothing to discuss with my co-workers tomorrow.

As I slowly work my way towards getting too fat to leave the house, the concept of a magical vehicle that delivers ice cream is increasingly attractive. You have saved me a five minute walk (Who am I kidding? I drive there.) to the store for sugar and fat many times. However, your business model is now hit-and-miss with me, as I'm not always in a position to gather cash and waddle out to the street before you drive by at five miles per hour.

As such, I'd like to offer a suggestion: Next time, just pull in my driveway and honk the horn. If I don't answer, the key is under the mat - please put ice cream in my freezer and take the cash on the counter. If you could be so kind as to check and make sure I haven't had a heart attack or gone into a diabetic coma, that'd be great. If you're too busy to check on me, no big deal...the Schwann's man will be here tomorrow.

Sincerely,
America

The NFL Draft Drinking Game

This is probably the simplest drinking game you'll ever play, but before you start, this disclaimer: If you play it for the full two days of the draft, you might die, and I'm not responsible for it if you do.

The rules:

Every time a player's height and weight or 40 yard dash time is mentioned, drink.

Passionate fetch

I have a dachshund. Like a light switch, he is either on: infinitely active, playful and destructive (mostly destructive), or off: asleep on the couch. All of his 13-month lifespan has been spent in one of these two states. Simply put, Gorman doesn't half-ass anything. He's either all in or all out.

And when he's all in, fetch is where it's at. If you're hanging around and he wants to play fetch, there is no acceptable excuse not to. A toy will be set near your feet. You will notice it, because a barking dachshund quickly draws your attention.

But then he makes sure you're all in too. If you make a weak effort to pick up the toy, he'll pick it up before you get to it. Absolutely no inferior effort will be tolerated. If you're making a pedestrian effort to get the toy, he'll take it and work on destroying it somewhere else. Then, he'll give you a moment and come back to see if you've learned your lesson. If you're quicker this time, you might get the toy, assuming, of course, you can win the tug of war for it and escape with your fingers in tact.

Suddenly, you are the center of Gorman's world. He will watch you until the first time you fake a throw. Then, he'll turn and watch intently in the direction the toy will eventually fly, like you're showing a fascinating movie on the wall across the room. Finally, the toy takes flight and Gorman is off with lightning speed, cruising around the corner into the kitchen and sliding across the tiles. With luck, the toy stopped harmlessly in the middle of the floor and is accessible. If it landed on a counter or in a cupboard, Gorman will inform you of that by whining and barking incessantly until the errant throw has been retrieved. If you forgot to close the pantry before playing fetch the target might be buried in there, but rest assured, Gorman will guide you to it.

The game can continue for hours, in fact it will, because you'll get barked at again if you're trying to stop. A few lame throws, though, can end the game quickly. Eventually, you'll make a weak effort and Gorman will just stare at you, like an enthusiastic lover who can't understand why you're just not that into it. Then it's back to the couch, to wait for someone more interesting to come home.

Maybe Linens After Midnight?

Here's today's joke. I'm on the road this weekend, and my fiancee is working on wedding plans. We're pretty close to done, so it's just minor stuff remaining. This morning, for example, Laura and her mom are off looking at linens.

Here's the problem, though: Their linen place has a boring name. Special Memories or something similar, I've already forgotten it. I feel like I can help. As a service to you, the occasional reader who may be thinking of starting a linen store, here are the eight sure-fire success linen store names I've come up with this morning:

Linen Rome
Linen Let Die
Pickin' and Linen
Napkins and Not Much Else
Linengrad
Enlinenment
Linen on a Prayer
Workin' Hard For a Linen

I haven't copyrighted any of them, so they're all yours.

Trying something new.

Ok, let's try this.

I'm not really doing politics anymore. I do write a lot about baseball over at Brew Crew Ball, but, as one might guess, it's pretty much exclusively baseball.

The original name of this blog was Stuff I Don't Put On Snowbaseball.com. The concept was pretty simple: I put my baseball-related thoughts on my baseball site, and everything else here. It's always amazing to me when life comes full-circle. Years later, here I sit, with a different website for posting my thoughts about baseball, but with something left to write: jokes.

I don't know how often I'll post here - probably whenever I think of something funny. At any rate, thanks for reading and enjoy.

KL

The final chapter

Every time I open Firefox, it brings me to this blog. Sometimes, I think maybe I'll come back to it and start writing again. Lately, though, it makes me a little sad, like the story you'd been following for years ended and I didn't tell you how. I've learned never to say never, but it seems relatively likely that this will be my last post in this space.

Anyway, here's how the story ends. I moved to Maquoketa and struggled for some time to find work before I found the job I'm holding now, Iowa organizer for Common Cause. I love my job, I work with incredible people and, months after it appeared my life in politics was over, I'm back to working to get big money out of politics. Visit Common Cause's Iowa page for more.

That link took me almost 2 full minutes to set up. It's been a while since I've blogged, and it shows.

Anyway, I love my job with Common Cause, but it makes it doubly challenging for me to maintain a space like this...if I didn't hold myself completely opinionless on candidates, I'd be risking an electioneering charge. I could write a boring blog, but what's the point?

I guess I could also close this blog down and start an anonymous one where it wouldn't be an issue, but I'm scared I'd fall prey to the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory. I think we all know someone who's gone too far anonymously and now writes a steady stream of inane, inflammatory, lowest-common-denominator drivel. I won't even bother linking to him.

At any rate, if you're looking for more of me for whatever reason, here's the basics:

I do on occasion write personal stuff on my Myspace blog. I still check the email address listed in the sidebar. I stopped reading blogs for a while but I'm back to it now, so if you write something that intrigues me I may comment on it.

But, barring something unforseen, this is my last post on Things I Don't Put On Snowbaseball.com Diary of a Political Madman News and Notes From A New Life.

KL