Well it "started" as a quickie post

I'm working on my ambidextrous skills... not so much by choice. I'm a rightie, but today I'm switching my computer mouse over to the left hand. I've begun (again) to have pain in my right wrist, which hasn't gone away now for about a week or two now. It's a dull, nagging ache and is likely due to the repetitive motion of mouse clicking, the dreaded carpal tunnel. A few years of swinging a steel framing hammer in my younger years probably have had an effect on my wrist as well. I'll see if through "switch-hitting" I can give it some much needed down time. The click and select isn't giving me problems as much as copy and paste keyboard shortcuts are. I've always used the left hand while the right is occupied on the mouse, and the damned CTRL+C or CTRL+V just doesn't flow as freely using the right hand. I suppose I could remap, and really screw myself up! Yes, it sucks to get old.

Another haunting pain is a direct result of renewing my running routine. Since I started back up very seriously a few months ago on the treadmills here at work, I've come along further than I thought I would. I'm back up to running a little over 3 miles in a 30 minute time frame about 5 times per week. I've lost a little more than 20 pounds. : ) Another 20-30 to go and I'll be carrying a stick to keep all the babes away. NOT!!! The unfortunate side effect is of course another source of pain. This week it's my right leg, to the inner side of the knee. Inflammation, ache, and now I'm finally living better through chemistry, sucking down the ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation and make it less painful during continued running. Yes, I am continuing to run on it. As with all runners, if we didn't run, when we had a little pain, we'd soon be walkers or worse, couch potatoes! It's funny to feel a pain start up in one leg and slowly migrate itself around your body until it finally exits out the opposite leg. Someone once joked about that to me, but it is true. The body will overcompensate to favor the uninjured body part, but in the process put undo stress elsewhere causing additional problems and pain. YEEEEEAAAAAAH running!!! Anyway, I have loose goal of eventually getting down to around 175. From there I'll re-evaluate. But 175 is totally doable! At the height of my running in my past life, when I was putting in 30-40 miles per week on the pavement, and running a few long distance races, I got down to 148 pounds. BUT, Teresa reminds me that she didn't like how I looked at that point. More sickly than she cared to see me. Although the spandex running shorts and pants did garner a bit more of her attention. (How U Doin'!) I feel pretty motivated this time, despite the fact that I haven't been running outside this time. I decided to treadmill it so I would keep track of myself better, know the kind of pace I was keeping, and take the excuses of inclimate weather out of the equation.

I've also been lifting weights regularly 3-4 times per week, in addition to the 5-ish days a week of running 3 miles. But none of this stuff happens overnight though. It took time to pack on the weight, it'll take time to offload it as well. Regardless, I feel better, and from some of the comments I've received lately from some friends I hadn't seen in a while, they told me that I looked like I'd lost a lot of weight. That made me feel pretty good, and put a little extra spring in my step the next time I climbed on board the treadmill. But in the end, I'm doing this for me, and for no one else, and it's all about personal gratification. I'd say I'm "pleasuring myself" but that'd be a completely different topic that I just don't wanna cover! : ) Probably another possible cause of the carpal tunnel, huh!!!

Oh, and I promise some poker content will show up on this here poker blog... soon. I just haven't had time to play online, and live play has been merely a fond memory. Saturday though, the crew converges for NDPT #18 at my house, so there will be some cards in the air that night. After such a long hiatus, I'll likely bust out first...

Regards,

cheer_dad