Alright, full disclosure. It’s 07:54 in the morning and the upstairs scale says I weigh 259.8. The scale down here, the one I just bought for this site, says I weigh 260.6. Fucker. I know if I wait long enough this morning, I can probably bring that down to under 260 and finally put a stake in the heart of the 260’s. Geez they’ve been brutal. Like killing a damned horcrux. So, yeah. I’m going to wait a little bit before stripping down and doing the official photo for this week’s featured image.

Last week was OK. Foodwise, it was a sandwich heavy week. I did two reviews over the weekend and also a lot of the filming for the Really Ugly Diet Curry, Diet Naan, Turkey Italian Sausage Stuffed Bell Peppers and what I was calling an “open faced taco snack” until I remembered the word “tostada”.

I was trying out my new police body cam for filming and for the most part, it seems to have done well, with the exception of the oven shots. That means, at the very least, I’m going to have to reshoot the baking of the low-carb/calorie tortillas for diet filler bits. But everything else turned out well enough.

I did have this fun part where I was cutting up red bell peppers for the curry and I pointed out a scar on my left middle finger from where I cut it doing exactly the same thing. I had a friend at the time ask why I cut through the waxy side of the red pepper instead of the inside. I told him I never gave it any thought, just something I always did. So I tried it his way and immediately shaved off a knuckle.

Right after I pointed out the scar to remind me to tell that story, I went back to dispatching the veg and immediately cut myself, just above that other scar. Not badly, it started bleeding very slowly and I kept turning my hand away from the camera in the hopes no one would notice. Then it started bleeding for real. If you see the videos, you’ll note that I spontaneously start wearing a latex glove on my left hand as we don’t have finger cots here at the house. You’ll also note that the middle finger of that glove gets redder and redder as time progresses. Like I said, not a bad cut, just a graze, really, but a little blood goes a long way on camera. Good times.

I hope to get the videos and recipes posted by the end of the week. It depends on how much spare time I have. The trouble is, after sitting here all day starting at screens, it’s hard to edit video. It’s a time consuming process and in order to be effective, it needs to not be broken up. Would be much easier if I could do it during the day during my slack time.

There we go. 259.4. Finally. 3.2 pounds for the week. That means that since January 8, I’m officially down 22 pounds. At least twice that more to go. At this point I’m just thrilled to be out of the 260’s. Because some people will ask, no, I don’t feel better. I didn’t feel badly before. I can move better and that’s nice. Also, I seem to have lost a lot of weight in my face, based on my appearance on YouTube. The 2X shirts I bought to accommodate my expanding girth are fitting less snuggly, particularly in my less substantial man-teats. My old shorts dad shorts are still tight, but not a tight as they were the when the wife ordered me another pair of temporary “shorts of shame”. I’ll try to get into some office pants later on the off chance I need to go to an office. Speaking of which…

While I consider myself semi-retired, which is to say, my corporate ambition has been taken behind the barn and shot in the head. While ambition, in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, it’s easy to exploit by others and it’s equally easy to lose oneself in. So I’m done with all that. All I really want to do is to work enough to cover my expenses and focus on this ridiculous-ass endeavor. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all that already. But, all that being said, I still have to have an income and so I work an hourly gig from the house which, if I can avoid conflict, I should be able to ride out until it is no longer necessary because my retirement income can cover my expenses or I am dead.

But there is trouble afoot. It’s that conflict thing. The person who gives me my work is very passive aggressive, paranoid and when out of passive aggressive paranoia, volatile.

When I was talking to my handler a while back, he mentioned the possibility of me working with a different PM and I said, “Maybe later. Let’s see where this goes.” I got a little fed up last week and reached out to him again and said I might be interested in a month or so and he emailed the exchange to one of the owners of the company and the new “Director of Engineering”. The next morning, I had a meeting with the new DoE and have chosen to stay with the volatile, paranoid, passive aggressive.

The people I interact with don’t seem to realize my background, mostly because I hide it, but I had to bring it up in this conversation. I needed to explain to him that while I appreciate his vision, I’m reasonably certain this isn’t the place to realize it. It’s not that kind of business. We fab, not manufacture. He then proceeded to speak in in buzzwords and slogans and bromides, indicating he’s never actually had the chance to pursue his vision and that he bullshat his way into this gig. I got off that call as quickly as possible – too many red flags and I can smell toxic a mile away.

Anyway, my current PM, has not brought it up yet, but I’m waiting. I said nothing negative about her. In truth, I actually respect her as an engineer and she rather reminds me of me when I was younger. Cocky. Insufferable. Volatile. Extremely competent in my area of expertise. I don’t think I was ever passive aggressive. If she never finds out about it, which seems unlikely, great. But if she does, I’m fucked.

So I may need to fit into office pants again for a bit, though all things considered, I save money working from here and can charge less. We’ll see what fate brings.

I got what I thought were some nice shots from the new park where I walk. Thought I might include them right about here.

Catch ya’ll next week at the latest. ADC