Chaosplay

Let me just be clear, this is a joke, don’t do it!

In last week, I have lost almost 6 pounds, doing nothing but sitting in front my computer at least 12 hours a day. I haven’t even been to gym which I used to do everyday.

Plan is simple, don’t eat until you have headache due to hunger. And when you do, eat anything you want,  just make sure you can finish it in less than five minutes.

I am pretty sure this is the most unhealthy way to lose weight. I have been working so much that I just keep missing my meals everyday and pretty sad about losing weight.

Some math that I love:

1 week ago

• Weight: 167lb
• Fat %: 13%
• Fat weight: 21.71lb

Now:

• Weight: 161lb
• Fat %: 12.4%
• Fat weight: 19.96

Fat lost: 21.71 – 19.96 = 1.75lb

Muscle/water lost: 6 – 1.75 = 4.25lb

Yep, pretty unhealthy way to lose weight.

I talked about an epiphany in Fulfilled vs Excited post. What epiphany was that partying all night or vacation would leave me feeling empty next day or week. But working on a project or reading a book on a new API makes me feel fulfilled. But I wasn’t so sure what it meant. Tynan posted a great post on his blog about same subject but he makes a lot more sense:

Who’s happier at the end of the day: a guy who spent twelve hours restoring his Mustang or a guy who sat on the couch and watched TV all day?

It’s so true. Movies, video games and other such activities are like energy drinks, a crash follows. But doing what engages you is like a going to gym everyday and getting in better shape. Of course, everyone needs some energy drinks now and then but they should not become your only source of energy to stay awake. Similarly movies or video games or even sky diving are great to give you a high but you need something more engaging to feel fulfilled or happy.

Last year, in Coolest Professions post, I listed my ideal jobs: Archeologist, Photographer & Writer. Now 6 months later and slightly wiser, I can see what I really liked about these jobs. Here is the partial list:

Archeologist:

• Adventure & risk – I know it won’t be as exciting as Indiana Jones & Tomb Raider but still it is one of more exciting profession out there.
• Sun – I love sun & outdoors.
• Discovering & exploring – I love learning new things, & I have diverse interest in history, culture, evolution & religion.
• Desire to tell great stories one day 

Photographer:

• Creation/Art – Some people may say photography is simply capturing. But I don’t care what you call it. Creating or capturing great photos doesn’t happen by accident. I love to create something great.
• Independence – Photographers can take their job wherever they want to go. They can work when they want. They can take a vacation & call it work. And they are their own boss.
• Cameras – This is probably lame but I love modern camera & all the things you can do with them.
• Coolness – Another lame excuse but their is certain degree of coolness attached to photographers. I guess I want to be cool too.

Writer:

• Independence – Just like photographers writers are free to do what they want, when they want, & where they want.
• Creation/Art – I am sure everyone will agree that writers create
• Beaches & Sun – I just imagine poor writers with not enough money for rent but they can work from a beach. They win!

Looking at this list, I realized that independence, outdoors, exploration, travel, coolness, creation, & technology is important to me. I wondered what job can give me all these elements.

As some of you know, I will be starting my own business (God willing) in September when I laid off. I haven’t figure out exactly what I will do but a few thing I want to do are website design & development, social media applications & cell phone applications, basically working from computer. I think this will fit exactly with element above. I can work whenever & wherever. I am sure I can do some design work by beach or lake. I always wanted to play with some many new technologies but never could find any time. Now I can finally learn Ruby, write G1 apps. And I will get to create new stuff. And all of this is cool, especially if I succeed and become rich

So the coolest profession in my opinion is an entrepreneur!

Being data geek, I love collecting it from my personal life. Recently, I start tracking each hour how I spend it daily. And of course, graphing the data:

I don’t think I sleep a lot. Average during weekdays is 7 hours. But I still want to cut down on my sleep. The first search on Google leads to this article. Unfortunately, this article is about modafinil, a prescribtion drug for nacrolepsy. It seems like this drug may work wonders without too many side effects but I was looking for more natural way of sleeping less.

Second search result has more natural recommendations. Basically, it recommends increasing your quality of sleep and slowly waking up early each day. good recommendation but too hard for me to implement especially with my on call schedule.

Finally, I like this guys recommendation. he basically says instead of having a fixed bed time, which I do, have a flexible time. Just go to bed when you feel sleepy. Instead have a fixed wake up time, which I do have but I over sleep a lot. So you wake up at same time every day no matter what.

Well this week I will try this approach and see how it goes.

last week was nightmare. I changed my work schedule to go in late and work late in the evening. I thought it would give me all the time to do my own things in the morning but I ended up just sleeping trough the mornings. There is not much I can do late at the night. So today I asked my boss to go back on original schedule.

I was on my way to home right but there was huge traffic jam on 360. So I decided to stop by Starbucks. I should have gone for rock climbing.

I didn’t run at all last week. So bad!

And I couldn’t work on my SCJD project and facebook project.

I was super busy with work stuff. I did manage to eat at new and different resturant everyday last week. Let me see, here are some of the places I ate at:

• Cool River Cafe
• Budz Spuds (near work)
• Astoria Coffee Shop (in Addison Circle)
• Boun Giorno
• Coffee Haus
• McDonalds

I have decided to get my own place. I already found the place. I think I will move in there on July 1st.

I just realized that I spend $8.00 to go to work and come back. Ouch!

My vacation got pushed to August. Oh well!

Ralph is back in town.

I guess I will work on SCJD now.