'Tis the Season

...to give away free WiFi, if you're Google! Check out this article today about Google's intentions to give away free WiFi to travelers in airports across the country this Christmas season.

"How kind!", you may be saying. Maybe Santa Claus joined their board!

Call me cynical, but I think they've got some legitimate business interest in the free WiFi offer. I'm wondering if they're testing to see to what extent the money gained through increased use of Google by travelers (and therefore more advertisement revenues) will offset the outlay for providing the free connectivity. Perhaps they'd just like to analyze the Internet usage patterns of road warriors as well.

I'm hoping that (1) this is Google's purpose, or something like unto it, and (2) that it is a wild success for traveler and Google alike. Suppose it was actually profitable for Google to offer the free WiFi! Maybe they'd roll it out on a wider, more permanent basis. That'd be a win for everyone.

Hey, I can dream, right?

A Duty of the Body Politick

I am reporting for jury duty today at the New York Supreme Court here
in Manhattan. Below you can see the shot I snapped of the courthouse.
Quite an impressive structure! The quote on the facade reads, "True
administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government."
As of yet all I've had to do is fill out a questionnaire and wait.
Supposedly there's free WiFi in here so if I can I'll update this post
throughout the day!

The Greatest Gainer

It's been slow in the making, but it's arrived: Russell and I have launched our blog about our friendly contest to see who can gain 10 lbs. of muscle first! The game is ON! Check it out:

The Greatest Gainer blog

Props to Russ for the awesome logo... Maybe this will be the next reality TV show craze!

Found at the Bookstore

I thought it funny that these two books were next to each other at
Borders...

Your Tax Dollars At Work

A light burned out--literally--here at work and some wires got singed.
This being Greenwich, CT, there was an overkill response. It's just
kind of funny to me because our office is just off Putnam, a busy
street in Greenwich and I must hear fire trucks go by a half dozen
times a day. I guess that gives me a pretty good idea of how many cats
get stuck in trees around this town!

"Further Weight Loss is Not Advised"

Anyone who knows me also knows that I could stand to gain a few pounds. It's true! I'm what they call a "hard gainer"--putting on weight is quite a chore. Probably those of you out there with slower metabolisms are now hating me, but the fact is that being an underweight guy is pretty much as uncool as being overweight.

Thanks to a friend at my last job, I came across "Body For Life" by Bill Phillips. The book really just made a lot of sense to me. Do cardio and weights, and for your diet balance carbs and protein while avoiding fats and sugar, eating more and smaller portions. So simple right? I gradually started following the program, using their ready-made charts to keep track of my sets at the gym and paying attention for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE to what I ate.

Seriously. Before I started the BFL program, I never paid attention to the Nutrition Facts on anything I ate. I always just ordered or bought what sounded yummiest. Well, I'm older than 25 and the warranty is off, so to speak, and sure enough I noticed that the trousers that I would have fit into so easily at 19 were not fitting so well anymore. It was time for a change.

Can I just say that avoiding sugar and fats in American food is NOT easy. They sneak it into everything! One sinister example: Larabars. This bar LOOKS like its supposed to be something healthy, and it wears its "100% organic" label with a particular pride. I bought it at Westside market, thinking it would something similar to a Clif Bar (love those, by the way). But a quick check of the ingredients shows that those Larabars are basically just a big chunk of sugar and fat! The only thing they have going for them is a fair amount of fiber--but other than that you may as well buy a freakin' Snickers bar! So much for the supposed health advantages of organic food. They're not above using the same unhealthy things to reel you in as everyone else.

Anyway. So I made the difficult transition to paying attention to what I eat, together with exercising 6 times a week (3 times doing weights, 3 times doing 20 min. of intense cardio on my awesome road bike). The result?

I've lost 14 pounds and about 1 inch of waistline.

That's right. I dropped nearly 10% of my weight! Not good. I wanted to go the other direction! But the reduction of waistline was nice.

This came up recently in the physical I had last week--the doctor commented that my body mass index was well within the healthy range for my height and weight, but, as he said in the written report, "further weight loss is not advised and exercise to add bulk has been recommended." Um, yeah! Knew that.

That's where my roommates enter the picture--as it turns out, we're ALL hard gainers. And we need motivation. So in the very near future, we're going to be having a roommate vs. roommate contest to see who can gain 10 lbs of muscle first! The rules are to gain 10 lbs without gaining any fat mass (as measured by a pinch test). I'm going to win. In fact, just today a guy in the locker room said to me, "You look like you know what you're doing!" I think I'm on the right track.

So look for a link here to our new blog which will track our progress--it should be exciting. And you should all cheer me on!