Goodies

Happy Holidays!

Rob brought a bunch of goodies to the office. I'm not talking about a homemade fruitscake or a measly 4-oz. plate of peanut brittle -- I'm talking about a Family-Size pizza tray heaped to the ceiling with fudge, peanut butter cookies (with kisses), Santa sugar cookies, toll-house bars, divinity, rum balls, and my all-time favorites: chocolate-PB-oatmeal no-bake cookies. He told me in very firm tones that these cookies HAD TO BE CONSUMED, or else there would be consequences. Since Rob is the technology guru, and has vast cosmic powers over the network and every single computer in the company, well, his orders must be obeyed.

Fortunately, I had help from some of the other employees, but I'm pretty sure I did most of the heavy lifting, so to speak. Yummy!

Ah, but what does this bounty mean in terms of maintaining my youthful figure? Well, it means that I'm even more motivated to stick with my "two-a-day" workout plan.

When I left Lockheed Martin, I was really excited about the opportunities that would exist once I escaped from the "work overtime until you die" culture and its toxic attitudes. I figured that with a reasonable work schedule, I'd be able to do my normal morning workouts, and then could do some sort of second set of exercise after I left the office. And sure enough, my schedule did indeed allow for such activities.

Unfortunately, my internal clock had other ideas. And the season probably didn't help, with that whole "sun going down at 4pm" thing. When I finished my workday, all I wanted to do was go home, eat dinner, and go to bed.

But that's not necessarily bad news. I found that getting to bed early allowed me to wake up early, and with plenty of energy. So, the new strategy became doing both workouts before going to the office. It's still in the experimental stage, but I'm trying to run before swim practice, and so far it's working out well. I'm only running a couple of miles (on some days, it's the elliptical), but I'm doing it with consistency. And I'm feeling pretty good about it.

So, bring on the cookies, dudes!

Oh, and speaking of which, did you recognize all the folks in the graphic at the top of this post? On the far left, we have Cookie Kwan, the top real estate agent in Springfield. Next to her is Cookie Gilchrist, who played for the Broncos in the mid 60s. He was the first AFL player to gain 1000 yards in a season, and was a noted crusader for civil rights.

Next to Gilchrist is Cookie Rojas, star 2nd baseman for the Kansas City Royals during the George Brett years (which incidentally, is the time period in which I became a baseball fan). And then we have the unnamed creature from the ice planet Hoth, who got his arm cut off by Luke Skywalker (after this photo was taken, obviously.) I included him in this tableau just because he's eating a cookie for some reason. (Couldn't find a rebel fighter to eat, I guess.) And finally, we have Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, who was the cool rebel hair-combing guy on the "77 Sunset Strip" TV show. He also had a hit single with Connie Stevens, who was one of my favorite actresses throughout the 70s. So, in the Christmas spirit, I shall wish you the tastiest of goodies throughout the holiday season. Enjoy the video, and have a great day!