fine whine

I gave blood again today. This time around I didn't even try to time myself, though I know for sure that I beat at least two people. The volunteers were particularly chatty this time (but in a friendly and engaging way) so the whole process took about half an hour longer than it should have, but all I was supposed to be doing was working, anyway. It's not like I also left half an hour early to make sure I'd be virtually parked on the roads and make it home even after my usual time. Ah well, this is winter in central Ohio.

Winter in central Ohio wasn't quite the same last year, as there is one key difference between this December and the last. This time around I have a driveway, and the accumulated five inches of white stuff today needed to be shoveled. And wouldn't you know it, Jessica's ride from downtown took quite some time so the task was left to me. On the upside, her kind co-worker found herself pulling into a clear driveway on an otherwise snowy street. It's the little things that count.

Speaking of counting, tonight as I watched the final hour (and most of the DVD extras) of Shaun of the dead I knocked out another seven hundred calories over just over four miles. Sure, I was taking it easy, being tired from shoveling and probably a bit weaker for being a pint low, but there was just too much good stuff in that film for me to quit.

And it's not like I was going to park my sweaty self on the couch.

The movie's great, by the way. I understand now what people mean when they say that it is two films in one, a comedy and a zombie flick. The two intersect but it is not a zombie comedy (unlike the very underrated My boyfriend's back which I do so enjoy), oddly enough. It's a comedy that just happens to be set inside a zombie movie. And it's a brilliant one at that, even with its (slight) self-awareness and jabs at other movies (pay attention at the end for a newscaster shooting down the theory that it was caused by monkeys infected with rage). It's got a lot of heart and humor, and if I were to make a best of 2004 list it'd certainly be on it.

It's also nice to see the actors who played Dawn and Tim on The office getting some more work and showing some ability to not be pigeonholed as their BBC characters.

As for the basement situation, it's temporarily on hold. Obviously the house isn't going to drop out from under us this very week, so we've got a bit of time to sort things out. Clearer minds have prevailed, and we're going to shop around a bit before committing for sure to the seventeen thousand dollar solution.

Namely, I think we've realized that the best way to get somebody to take an honest look at the basement is to find somebody who gets paid to take honest looks at basements, not somebody who gets paid to fix basements with costly solutions and cunning uses of sketches. This is not to say that we won't be spending the cost of a new Mini Cooper, but this way we'll know for sure that we should opt for that instead of a perfectly adequate Kia-priced fix.

Well, I realize the title up there says "fine whine" but I'd like to think I don't whine too much. Heh. So there's always been this crack in the wall of the basement, right? Before we bought the basement wall and the rest of the place with it, the home inspector had looked at the crack and figured that the caulk/cement stuff that had been put into it was an adequate patch, and we'd need worry only if it seemed to get worse.

Well, it got worse.

It turns out that we weren't in any danger of our wall bowing, as he and we had thought, but the whole north end of the house is sinking, slightly, slowly. Apparently this would explain the stair-stepping pattern of the crack on the wall and also quite possible the cracks in the basement floor too. This also explains the just over seventeen thousand dollars we will be throwing at the Basement Guys to "pier up" the house and also rip up the outlying two feet of the basement floor to fix the pipes and gravel that haven't quite been getting all the water under the house down to the sump pump. When it's all over we'll have a rock-solid foundation again (with a lifetime warranty, this time) and far better drainage.

Unfortunately Jessica's not taking this very well. I'm not happy about it either, but I can't see much else I can do but get it fixed and move on. I'm looking forward to having the basement problems solved and future ones compeletey headed off. There's just that minor (heh. Who am I kidding? It's major major) expense of the seventeen thousand dollars and change.

In other news, I've been rocking out on the treadmill like nobody's business. Tonight while watching the John Frankenheimer (forgotten) classic Seconds I worked off another six hundred calories in just about fifty-two minutes. I'm pretty sure that covers my whole dinner since I drank water and chowed down on a bunch of Macaroni and Cheese.

Yesterday I'd done four hundred (and had sandwiches and some rice) and the day before three hundred, but I can't imagine I'll keep just upping the total every day willy nilly. I've got another sixteen or seventeen days of this before it becomes a habit, and even if I notch it up another hundred each day that still puts me over two thousand in January. I'm interested in getting healthy, but not so committed as to give up more than two hours of my night to do so.

Of course, it's entirely possible that we will have trucked the treadmill back to Sears well before then for the cash. So it goes.

It's after one in the morning and I just finished walking three miles or so. It's not quite freezing out, though we are expecting snow later today. I wasn't walking outside, though, but in my family room on our fancy new treadmill.

My three or four hundred calories were burned while I watched the forgotten Chris Rock vehicle (and sort-of-remake) Down to earth. It had some decent laughs, but really I think the whole thing was about Chris's not-so-great acting career and his thoughts on why nobody thinks that highly of him.

Or perhaps I'm reading too far into it.

Anyway, the movie's pretty forgettable and it doesn't even push the good ideas as far as they should go. The three hundred calories, though, matter a bit more though, as long as I can keep to it. They say that new habits take three weeks or some such, so if I get started now I'll maybe be good at getting back in shape come year's end (or beginning, I guess).

So I went to New York City today for the first overnight visit on the company's tab.

It took me over a year to write about it, so I forgot most of it. This evening I'll bid farewell to a longtime co-worker, walk the completely wrong direction to my hotel, and then smell the sewers of Times Square. More tomorrow.

I wrote nothing today.

I should've taken today off, except we're so gosh darn busy. This is only the second Friday I've worked in November and December, and it'll probably be the last, as I am scrambling madly to use up my paid time off.

Sometimes I wish we could just be at work and get paid double for the time. And sometimes I wish I weren't here at all.