jcm's blog

Photo: Jon Masters, in his newly clean apartment.

So I’ve been cleaning and re-modeling my apartment some more, partly to distract myself (I’ve got a lot of stuff to finish, but I’ve been feeling sick) and partly because it just needed doing. This place is so much better than it was when I moved in, or when this self-improvement project first began.

Photo: Too much coffee.

I bought another coffee machine the other day – a filter coffee machine – having decided I spend way too much in Starbucks. So, I now have, in my kitchen (not counting spares…):

* an espresso machine
* a filter coffee machine
* several French Presses (UK: cafetieres)
* various other forms of coffee

I drink too much coffee (so says the sign I put up in my cube in the office), but everyone has a vice. I bought some tea strainers too – and other pretentiousness – in order to have greater variety, especially if I’m entertaining guests (who presumably expect me to have tea on hand).

Anyway. I finally feel like I’m “moved in”, and it’s only taken me the best part of a year to reach this point. I’ve got one room ‘o’ junk that needs to be sorted out – aka the study – but that will happen, because I’m much happier when the place is clean and tidy. I’ve finally realized this, after so many years of just not understanding the need for tidiness…as my dear beloved sister (and my friends) will attest to, when not asked.

Jon.

Photo: 5 black bags filled with clothes, donated to the Salvation Army.

So today, I donated 5 black bags filled with clothes to the Salvation Army in Cambridge. They can make more use of XL/XXL sizes than I can. I’ve also been remodeling my apartment recently, and have a few photos of where things are headed – I still think it’s a little bland in places.

Photo: What’s in your closet?

I now only own size medium (and a few size large that are small enough to get away with) t-shirts, shirts, and a wetsuit. I also have only size 30 jeans, trousers, and other clothing. In short, I’m not nearly as fat as I used to be back in March, when this project first started. There’s more to go, but there’s always more to be done, when it comes to diets.

Photo: An anthropologie of apartment ornamentation.

A visit to Ikea here, and a visit to Anthropologie there, and I have a few accents for the apartment – a little augmentation in the ornamentation. Once I have some giant photos of my family in Europe, I’ll add one or two more picture frames.

I’ve started playing with my B4 XO, but not much progress yet.

Jon.

LinuxWorld interviewed me concerning the Driver Update Program in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and the future for driver updates in enterprise Linux.

Link: http://www.linuxworld.com/podcasts/linux/2007/072407linuxcast.html

Jon.

I recently lost a lot of weight. A lot. Like a whole new person kind of weight loss, and as a result I’m now a “medium”. On Sunday, I tried on a variety of clothes I haven’t worn in months, just for amusement, as I filled 4 huge tashbags (UK: “black bags”, “bin bags”) with old clothes. Anything larger than a size 30, or larger than a “medium” must go.

Some of this stuff isn’t very old at all – e.g. at least several pairs of Banana Republic jeans purchased this year – and it’s all clean and in great condition, just it doesn’t have a place in my wardrobe any more. So, if you know of a good charity I can give washed, clean clothes to, I’ll happily drop them down there this week (sooner the better).

Jon.

Photo: One of my colleagues makes it look easy.

So I’d never been water skiing before, and the opportunity arose today to use the wetsuit that has been sitting in the trunk of my car for the past couple weeks without use. It was awesome. I had a great time. Of course, I sucked, but that’s not the point. It was exciting, and new, and something that generally was far more fun than I had thought it would be.

We headed up to the Merrimack River, and hooked up with a mutual friend of my colleagues, who happens to have a nifty little speedboat. Of course, the guys I went with are hard core types who were quickly performing various stunts, while I tried to figure out how to not slam into the water at high velocity…not that I cared being the beginner amongst the bunch. Everyone has to try something for the first time once in their life

Jon.

So, three months on, project Brave New Jon enters phase two. What started as a means to pine over an ex-girlfriend changed into a self re-invention exercise, and now that I feel I’m well and truly over her, it’s time for this project to change again. Now, it’s all about making myself a better person, and not about anyone else.

I’ve decided to keep my modified diet going. I really quite like the veggie thing, and although I’m not likely to become a vegan (read: I like my non-soy lattes), I don’t really feel any pressing need to start eating carb. heavy foods, seafood, and all that stuff. I’m not opposed to having an occasional sushi dinner, or a visit to Legal Sea Foods, but there’s no desperate urge to do that either. I haven’t eaten any bread, cheese, fish, or even potatoes in over three months – my diet is largely a Californian fruit and nut diet, complete with protein-rich smoothies. I am not opposed to carbohydrates in general, but they’ll get re-introduced gradually, and really only when I’m out at dinner with friends, and so on. I have much more energy than I ever did before.

My daily regimen now includes a visit to the gym, a lot of walking, running, or other physical activity. I am trying to go down to the gym when it opens in the mornings, or in the evenings, and I might even get to the two-a-day ideal at some point in the future. I’ve decided I’m sticking around the 30/30 jean size now and I’m not desperate to change that. It’s a nice round number. There’s a strong need for further toning…and that’s simply got to happen this summer. I am spending at least 20 minutes a day on weight machines, and I will try to increase that, and my other upper body building activities. I want to try being much more physically fit and healthy than before.

I can probably stop buying so many new clothes all the time now. I went down to the Banana Republic outlet in Wrentham, MA, bought a couple of new pairs of jeans and other random crap, with the goal of rebuilding my wardrobe properly. I definitely enjoyed being able to go down there and not have to buy that stuff on Newbury St. or in the Galleria – Banana Republic get enough out of me as it is, and the price difference between retail and outlet is almost obscene Of course, the new Jon also admits to frequenting a bathroom outlet store and buying a toilet lid cover for asthetics too. I’m trying to turn this apartment into something more than a “geek” pad…something more respectible. I still need to affix additional picture hooks…and hang these giant photos…it just needs some planning, in order to avoid damaging the walls.

Buying a car was a really useful thing to do. I have driven several thousand miles in the last couple of weeks, in two different countries, and many different States and Provinces. I will try to do a lot more hiking, climbing, and other activies that were previously much harder to get involved with. I can also now more reliably be in the office during the week, which is useful.

Jon.

Photo: A quiet afternoon stroll along Nantasket beach.

So one of the cool things about owning a car is that you can do utterly random driving on an afternoon, when you feel like getting away for a few hours. I drove to Nantasket beach for the first time yesterday, then went to see my first ever (like, evar, dudz) drive in movie.

The drive from here to Nantasket beach isn’t much more than an hour (though it’s one of the routes TomTom has fun with, given its European maps…I’m learning that they need to improve their Boston one-way street/road data sources, as well as other mapping data – why can’t they just provide a UI for reporting inaccuracies? I’m going to try to find one of the open source facing developers and ask them for that feature…it can already connect to the Internet via your cellphone…so it’s trivial). I wasn’t in a hurry, and I got there in time to enjoy a quiet afternoon stroll.

Made a change from the hour I spent in (the all new!) AT&T yesterday. Yes, it took one hour to move my “Go Phone” over to a contract, and enabling roaming on my “new” account was fun. I had to call customer service, from within the AT&T store (they couldn’t actually do it), then confirm my details and listen as they asked me about items on my credit report to confirm my identity. It’s amazing how much these people know about you once they have your social – and don’t go saying it’s just in the US, because that’s hardly true at all. After discussing my car loan with my cellphone provider…always very fun…I got roaming. With their utterly pointless security hysteria done, I am now free to pay ludicrous rates to use my cellphone when I’m next in Canada, but it’s still cheaper than roaming in the UK ever was

After I had been to Nantasket, I drove over to Mendon (the one in MA, not the one in NH – but where’s that, Jon? right. Yeah. Nobody knows where that is, but I assure you that it does actually exist), for my first ever drive in movie experience. I got there between the first and second movies (I had gone for the second…I was actually early arriving) and so they let me sit and watch half of Harry Potter before I drove over to the other screen for my movie. Of course, there would be some jerk delaying a few of us getting over to screen 2, and thus missing the opening scene. But that’s par for the course. I certainly enjoyed having the top down, stereo cranked up on the movie FM, and living yet another great American experience. Seriously, drive in movies are fun.

I drove back to Boston at 2am, with the top down, listening to silly music, and loving every single minute of it.

Jon.