Mission Accomplished!
by zzajac on Aug.30, 2010, under Challenges
Yesterday was the official end of the great no drinking for a month challenge. I decided that given my birthday and all on Friday that I’d push up the end of the challenge to Thursday. I wanted to enjoy my birthday but also I had the chance to do some massive drinking and see how that felt and what not. Although pushing up the ending of the challenge wasn’t my intended goal it really helped to develop some feelings on the whole thing.
I liked the challenge and I think from it good things occurred. I learned a bit on how to socialize without having a drink in hand. I know it seems easy but, sometimes you just haven’t developed those tools. The outlook that the challenge provided was great. There were no large swings in my physical or mental activity world from removing it. Perhaps those would have appeared if I continued on it for longer which was seriously considered towards the end.
My reintroduction to alcohol was a very cold turkey approach. My first night i had a glass of wine with a delcious italian dinner shared with Judy. It worked very well with the food and was a nice touch. The following day (my birthday) I drank for about 10 hours. YES 10 hours! WHOOO that was a long and eventful day. Although some celebration was cool, it was way to much drinking. I plan to do more on saturday for a charity pub crawl but the day prior really racked me and left me at home in recovery mode. I then finished the weekend with another long day of drinking as it was the kickball championships.
Through all the drinking events, a new filter was applied. “Do I even like doing this anymore?” was a question that came up constantly. Obviously for science i had to continue my tests up till sunday at midnight. The answer i’ve come to is quantity isn’t a factor in my going out. It’s more or less quality of the time spent with people there. While drinking, those types of thoughts don’t always spring up but they started to for me after my little break. Instead of waking up feeling that I didn’t accomplish anything, I know wake up knowing that I had a good time with friends and didn’t waste it.
The challenge is good and I think all folks should try it once. It should even be mandatory if you are in a situation such as mine and haven’t socialized outside of a bar. There are lots of fun things to do and enjoy while socializing but sometimes drinking puts a blinder to those. I no longer go out for drinks, I now will be going out to talk and catch up on the cool lives of my friends and co-workers. So what’s the next challenge you ask? Weight loss time!
Whoa 27 Years?
by zzajac on Aug.27, 2010, under Me
Whoa, today is my 27th birthday! Amazing how those years fly by when you step back and look at them. Well they haven’t exactly flew by, just continued to go by at their normal pace. I do enjoy birthdays though, thanks to all the wonderful friends and family I have and their birthday wishes I get posted to every internet enabled account I own!
First question, do ya feel different? I do but not from the birthday. Lately, I’ve been on a bit a of a quest (if the posts haven’t shown) to figure out what’s going on in my life. Usually I have a strong stable person to hang on to when things get a bit chaotic, but since moving out here my stable person (Judy) has been on her own finding herself quest. That leaves me to walk away from the wall to the center of the room with no support.
Yesterday was the return of what I call MadZak and I’m very much glad I’m back. The return signals a new era of my life, with constant focus on self improvement and enjoyment. The goal is removal of negativity as it has become somewhat natural for me to accept it. Not no more! Happy and fun is my new game and MadZak is the name…
So after 27 years what wisdom have I developed to help the rest of you (even though I’m always the youngest) get to your 27th with some good tidings? Have Fun! Be responsible about the fun, but freaking have it! This world is way to wrapped up in judgments and thoughts of failures. I honestly believe that people really don’t care that much about what you do. If they do, it’s going to last about 5 minutes and then they will go right back to where they where prior to your involvement. For you to worry about what they think, say, or feel is completely worthless. Just don’t be a jerk, as karma can be a bit of a bitch!
I hope you enjoy your yearly growths (birthdays) as much as I do. I sure do enjoy the love that’s thrown around during the years and especially on the day!
I’m Not a Specialist
by zzajac on Aug.25, 2010, under Me
Growing up I always enjoyed change and doing new things. There were few constants in my life other than some friends and my family. I found myself going from activity to activity for the majority of my day which worked good to keep my interest. For things that I was forced to do longer than I wanted, I would end up not liking very much.
I believe it was this behavior that created the none specialist you see today. I have a hard time focusing solely on one area for extreme durations, you know the extreme durations needed to become a specialist. I, in turn, like to keep my skills broad and try out new things constantly. A great example of this is my programming skills.
In terms of programming languages, I know (some more than others) php, python, java, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, objective c, c#. In that list there are six primary languages! If I was a specialist in all of them I would probably be over 40 years old just to have the time to specialize. I know that I am about average in all of those languages (only the people who made them are experts) and being average allows me to use concepts from them all.
Not specializing in my life has given me many of experiences and allowed me to fit into many situations. My life has been about constantly trying to fit in with people, which could be why I choose to not specialize. Being okay in a bunch of things is a nice glue for adaptation in society. It gives me the unique ability to have a little something to talk about with everyone.
The best thing about being so general and not specific is the ability to explore areas that may be uncomfortable to those happy in their world. Getting to know ideas that can shatter a specific area of knowledge is less scary. This is why being a “jack of all trades” works well for me and my level of risk. I am very happy to be average and in no way want to become a guru of any sorts.
The Apple Experience
by zzajac on Aug.17, 2010, under Me
Although it is very true that I like apples as in the fruit, I’m very much fond of apple computers. My love for apple started back in college and I can say it OSX (the operating system like windows is to pc’s) that hooked me. Not only was it very pretty, which I’m a sucker for something good looking as you can see by my wife, but it was super functional. I had a job during college working on a Internet school site and the company furnished it’s developers with a mac. I remember getting the new mac and sitting in front of it and going Wow, this is very polished. Unfortunately mac’s were out of my price range during college.
That soon changed when I got into the real world and had some real cash coming in. I bought my first mac about 4 months after Judy bought her macbook pro. I bought a 24 inch iMac and fell in love all over again. Converting from windows to this was very easy especially after messing around with Judy’s for a few months. By this point, OSX had made some major improvements and even gaming support had trickled in compared to the dark ages that I had going above. Shortly after the iMac, I had to get something mobile and ended up getting a MacBook Pro. Shortly after, we purchased the Apple TV as we started our digital media transition project. This set of hardware worked great for about a year then my laptop started to have troubles. Apparently I got a bad unit as for the next 8 months I spent shipping it off to the apple repair shop to get stuff fixed over and over again. Judy’s laptop was still running like a champ so I wasn’t turned off by the repairs.
Unfortunately the laptop ended up chewing up battery life so I gave it to my mom to use at home and Judy and I both purchased the at the time new MacBook Pros and Judy gave her old laptop to her brother. We also at this time purchased iPhones 3g’s. The mac love didn’t end there, the following year I managed to gather enough funds to provide myself with a mac pro and we gave my iMac to Judy’s parents. A year later we purchased a mac mini server, two ipads, and two iphones. Next up I want to get two Mac Pro’s (12 cores of goodness) to replace our laptops. As you can see it’s a history of apple hardware which Judy and I have. We have never looked back at windows and I doubt we ever will.
The entire apple experience is great. I spend next to zero amount of time administrating anything. The old saying of “It Just Works” is completely true, and even more so when it’s working with other hardware that’s of the same brand. The hardware isn’t the only thing that we use of apples. We have most of all the software and are really in love with it. Easy to use, looks good, does exactly what we need and not much more. It provides us a stable set of tools for our video editing and also programming. It’s built on Unix which is my favorite part as it made *nix a more usable item in the house. They have really streamlined our home computing and it was the best shift in technology we’ve made.
You can call us Fanboys or Fangirls and claim how this is better than that. I can say completely that Apple’s w fits our needs far beyond anything else could and we’ve tried everything else. One day I might look back at this and go “Wow can’t believe you liked apple when there is ___________” but I have hunch I’ll end up saying “Wow moving to apple was the best tech decision you ever made” You can take that one to the bank (I did literally this stuff is expensive but worth it!)
I’m a Cat Person
by zzajac on Aug.16, 2010, under Me
Last night, Judy and I were watching some Hulu plus TV and on the last episode of A&E’s Obsessed there was a woman with extreme OCD with fear of dogs being abused. This woman couldn’t even listen to dogs barking without having an anxiety attack! She ended up overcoming her fears and being able to help at shelters and not be so caught up in her animal abuse compulsions. The show got me thinking about my preferred pet, which if you have not guessed yet is the cat.
Growing up I first had a dog named Nikki. She was a mut with a strong golden retriever influence. She was very beautiful and fun to hang out with. Like most dogs, she was my best friend and I took her everywhere. About 2 years later, we took in a stray kitty from the area and she ended up giving birth to a litter which is where I picked Brownie out. Brownie was a black and brown calico and Nikki and I raised her from the ripe ole age of 0. Both of them were friends and protected each other as much as they could. Brownie would bark at birds cause Nikki would bark at things outside. They were very awesome while growing up.
Why dub yourself as a cat person then when you had and loved both? I really don’t know why I say i’m a cat person. Sure I had four cats at one point and it would appear in social context the number dictates the kind of pet lover you are, but really it was just luck that I stumbled upon four cats being available. I think I would more associate with cats and their behavior and that’s why I am a cat person. If you look at cats, they are very much in the mindset of doing what they want. They are also not high maintenance in terms of affection, food, and bathroom stuff. You can leave a cat at home for a weekend with a large bowl of food and water and have someone check once. For a dog you’d need to have that same person feed and walk your dog and spend some time with them to make sure they aren’t too lonely. Dogs are very clingy.
I will say that our cats do know when I come home and are at the front door along with Judy to greet me. They also get a bit temperamental when I’m not giving them food exactly at 7am and 5pm (Mostly Hank). But in the end they come over when they want affection and they let us know when they don’t. Don’t get my wrong I love dogs very much, it’s just they require a lot more hands on time and having a job and side work removes a lot of that time. Also living in the city isn’t the best place for a dog in my opinion. I feel dogs really want grass to roll around in and not concrete. Many peoples dogs have adapted just fine in the city though so that might be because I had grass for them. Cats work fine on the 9th floor of a high rise and I don’t have to elevator down 2 – 3 times a day to take them out. They instead just watch the birds at the window and have a good ole time!
I love all animals and would be happy with a dog, but cats seem to fit my lifestyle much more and after having these cats, I don’t think a dog could touch their personalities.
To Blog or Not To Blog
by zzajac on Aug.13, 2010, under Choices
That is the question… As you readers may have noticed, I’ve been cranking out about one post a day on here. I also have a few other blogs that are starting to spin up, such as MadZak for cooking, JudyandZak for my family, and one for Verudia will also jump into the mix soon. I kind of wondered myself why I decided to start 3 blogs and luckily I had the
answer, cause I can. Sure I can combine the four major areas of my life me, my family, cooking, technology but why not have separate areas dedicated to them so folks who don’t care about cooking can ignore that part?
What I wanted to do was offer the ability to pick and choose the topic area you care about. Folks wanting to know about personal Zak may not really care about my cooking. Some folks don’t care about personal but care about the family. You get the picture, it’s like choosing a restaurant. You rarely see a restaurant that serves Mexican, Italian, and Chinese. It’s either a fusion joint, where they try to blend or it’s specific to the area of food they excel in. I’ve always been a bit of a multi area kinda guy. Rarely have I specialized in anything, but I think that’s a good way to stay well rounded and open
to newer things.
Newer things is the theme this month. Could it be because my birthday is coming up in a few weeks that I decided to attempt to change all these things in my life? Possible I guess. Although these new things all seem to align in the month of my birthday, it feels more like I’ve settled into Seattle and am comfortable to get back to working on my life. The posts are part of that process for me. They allow me to release what I’ve been thinking about, share with people who may learn something or be inspired from them, and also keep a nice record to refer to later. The frequency is a good testament to the fact that I had a lot on my mind.
The finally reason these blogs are spinning up is because growing up, I was not a math guy. My math skills topped off right before calculus and even then things were getting to be a hassle. One thing that I did excel at was writing, although if I recall correct, I freaking hated it very much. My english papers (minus spelling) were my strong suite and also my ability to speak or perform infront of people. Thanks to theater I was given many chances to be in the spotlight and was forced to confront those fears that we all have about standing up infront of people.
These blogs are kind of like my stage for adulthood. I don’t have enough time to dedicate to real theatre and my writing requirements are zilch in this world. The blogs are here to give me back that feeling of accomplishment and also progress my writing to a higher level. Soon these posts will be more organized and written to be more engaging, but they will also give you the readers a view in to the key areas of my life. That level of sharing is very awesome, and even more awesome when folks comment about the items I write.
I’m a Kickball Star!
by zzajac on Aug.12, 2010, under Me
Yup you read that right. I joined a kickball league through work and have started to play weekly games since July. Although the title says I’m a star, the standings of our team and watching me play states otherwise. So why would I join kickball? Anyone that knows me, knows that I hate sports (exception of soccer) and I certainly haven’t been sporty since junior high. I actually wondered that myself, joining kickball was not my normal course of action in life. By the way it is extremely hard to find information on how to play kickball on the internet. Yes of course I went to the internet to find out how to play… it’s my liberian for my life!
If you don’t know what kickball is, it’s like baseball but with a large rubber ball that you kick rather than bat. Most of the rules are the same but the game is changed a bit thanks to the ability to kick and throw the ball. I would consider it a common sport amongst grade school gym classes and rarely do we see adult leagues. So with our standings of zero wins to six losses I can safely say I’m a star?
Don’t worry, losers can be stars in this world too! Kickball was a unique choice for me. I find myself more of a dodge ball guy (apparently they have weekly leagues for that too…) but kickball usually rolled up second of choice in my hope for gym class. Doing it today has a strange connection to my childhood. You feel a bit silly when you are kicking this ball with an attempt to plaster it out of the field but the competition coming from every second of a game is very adult. Is that why I choose to do it? To reconnect to my childhood?
No, I choose to do it because it was time to do something I probably wouldn’t. I felt it was time to step outside of my little comfort world and experience something while having a little fun. Kickball accomplished that and provided a break from the weekly routine of work/game/sleep/eat/chores. I figured it would also be good for my health, which I’ve started to take more seriously since moving here. Last but not least, It also gave me a chance to meet up with people from work outside of the work environment.
Yes kickball was a weird choice for me and even Judy asked why I was joining the kickball team and my answer was “don’t know, but it seems fun.” Well it is fun and I enjoy it very much. I am finding it to be good exercise and it is helping, not planned, deal with losing constantly. Everyone in the league is cool with some hecklers, but in the end we are all out having a good time and it’s hard to find competitive activities that feel that way. I think kickball opened up a new area of life for me to explore. I walked outside of the comfort zone and the grass we green and not jagged thorns, which makes me wanna hang out here more often. So I think I will!
Why Most Good Comedians are Fat
by zzajac on Aug.11, 2010, under Observations
I may be bias as to who are considered good comedians, but after looking through videos of my favorites over the weekend I noticed a pattern. My favorites are (in no order): Chris Farely, John Goodman, John Candy, Lou Costello, Cedric the Entertainer, Ralphie May, John Belushi, Gabriel Inglesias, Curly Howard, and Rodney Dangerfield. If you are to look at the pictures of all those wonderful entertainers you’d see the same pattern I recently saw, they are fat. Fat means to me someone who is way above the recommended weight for their age/sex/height. Some folks even consider me funny when asked to describe characteristics I have. The question is why are the fat guys the funnier guys?
I’m sure this question has been asked before many of times and provided answers as well. I am no skinny guy, and definitely qualify as fat based on my definition. Having also friends who think I’m pretty funny and being told that I could do comedy puts me in their situation (no their level of funny though, those guys are PROS). I thought for awhile about why I may be funny and then it dawned on me. Being fat in a society that kinda casts out fat people is a tough social obstacle to overcome. Growing up is where this is hit up the most as kids like to pick on other kids due to the lack of tools developed to handle their own problems.
Many situations stand out from my childhood that were significant to my weight and where I was the brunt of a joke. I can remember in junior high basket ball as I’m getting winded from running up and down the court an individual asking me if “I need a bra to keep my boobs from hitting me in the face.” Another point in grade school where I asked a girl out and she said “if you lose 17 pounds over the summer i’ll go out with you the following year.” One more was when I wanted to play on one of those cool little electric cars that kids had during those days and the mom said “You are too fat to ride in that, you’ll break it.” Remembering these items kind of hurts and I’m sure I can recall a bunch more, but I believe they are the direct reason people think I am funny.
In those situations how do you respond? In the basketball one, I told the guy to fuck off. Asking the girl out I worked hard to lose weight (desperate I know) but couldn’t meet the limit and gave up. The electric car, I made a joke about it involving something with Godzilla. See that last one? that’s the link… When you have these kind of outcast situations, the one thing that makes the situation better is a joke. The joke will lighten the mood, and if that joke is about yourself then the other folks will laugh and you will laugh and everyone will feel more comfortable.
But I wasn’t more comfortable, they still hurt. That was okay though, I saw how to move on from the hurt and deflect the bad with comedy. This is exactly why good comedians are fat. They are using comedy to overcome the social stigma since they were fat as a child or even became later in life. Someone who has 20+ old years of making fun of themselves to fit in with people is now a natural at doing that for their job. They are also more comfortable in front of people because they have developed this wall to deflect the nay sayers.
Developing the wall is the important part of the formula. Makes you quick witted, able to fire back at someone who is heckling, yet able to hide your real self from the laughter. Folks say they are laughing with you, but really if the joke is about you, it’s at you. There is no person that could set themselves up for ridicule like these comedians do without the ability to block it. I really respect those guys as they turned a defensive tactic into a job. I also respect myself and how I handled growing up with those fat situations.
The one thing I wish I did more of was told people to fuck off rather than join in on the laughter by cracking a few jokes on myself. That’s not how you build self esteem and that’s not what us fatties should be doing to defend ourselves. Moving on is the real answer and it looks like I just did myself!
