Thoughts on health, diet, life as an autistic and general change. Some crossover into Tantra.
Sunday 26 June 2011
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Celebrations!!!
Well my exams are over...and there is good cause to believe I made better than 51% on my subjects.
So last night I "partied"....one beer and a movie and some meat. The beer was very good, a Pale Ale from Grand Ridge Brewery which is in Mirboo North in Gippsland. The meat was the leftover Chicken Kiev that my son didn't finish and the movie "Blackhawk Down".
The fitness regime stays intact!!!
Today I'm cooking Quinoa and Brown Rice to take to Bodhivana Monastery...kinda makes up for the meat.
I'm free! Free! Free I tell you!!! Until next semester.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Need for change
I do however have the need to continue growing as a person. This is where having a much younger wife helps no end. It isn't true that younger wives make you feel young...well at least not for me. What is true, is that they give you reasons to keep growing as a person, to not give in to the forces of inertia and conservatism.
Thus I am continuing my programme of fitness. I'm not the lean, toned god I want to be...and I can assure you, the day I am, there will be photo's of me up on this blog, but there is the need for change.
So many of us lead lives that are boring and stale. Why? If we are only here once, then shouldn't we out doing the things that we want to be doing? Perhaps it is the Aspergers, but my comfort zone is when I am out there doing things that are pushing the envelope. This perhaps why at my age I'm trying to effectively turn the clock back twenty years and have the physique I had when I married my first wife...and which her cooking promptly destroyed.
I have to go...there's a park needing a frisbee thrown in it.
Wednesday 8 June 2011
Yummo!
Here's a recipe for a very healthy, very quick and very cheap dessert.
1 Cup of Tahini
1-2 Tablespoons of Date syrup.
Pour syrup into Tahini.
Whisk/stir until fully blended.
Enjoy!
You could enjoy this with a good quality vanilla ice cream. The syrup really thickens the tahini very quickly. There is currently some dispute in my house about the above quantities. Basically you can make this as sweet as you like or as nutty as you like. We used Date syrup over Date Molasses as the molasses is very sweet.
Tuesday 7 June 2011
The Fighter
I rented it last week. I was very impressed.
Christian Bale plays a former boxer who is now seriously addicted to crystal meth. Mark Wahlberg plays his brother...the fighter in the title.
Throughout the first 2/3 of the movie there is a film crew from HBO filiming Bale who tells everyone that they are there to film his comeback to professional boxing. They aren't, they're there to film a documentary on crystal meth addiction with him as the subject.
Wahlberg is the fighter whose family including Bale is "managing" the career of. They are also just setting him up for a no win career and arrange very dubious fights.
Eventually Wahlberg meets a girl who is important enough to him for him to listen to her and accept the truth about his career and family.
Bale pulls a sting that only someone that wasted on meth could think of as a good idea. It results with him in prison and out of Wahlbergs face long enough for sense to prevail and a career to start. The HBO documentary airs and Bale realises what a complete wanker he has been, dries out and gets a life.
There on in it's a bit predictable. But I still would give it 4 out of 5.
Christian Bale plays a former boxer who is now seriously addicted to crystal meth. Mark Wahlberg plays his brother...the fighter in the title.
Throughout the first 2/3 of the movie there is a film crew from HBO filiming Bale who tells everyone that they are there to film his comeback to professional boxing. They aren't, they're there to film a documentary on crystal meth addiction with him as the subject.
Wahlberg is the fighter whose family including Bale is "managing" the career of. They are also just setting him up for a no win career and arrange very dubious fights.
Eventually Wahlberg meets a girl who is important enough to him for him to listen to her and accept the truth about his career and family.
Bale pulls a sting that only someone that wasted on meth could think of as a good idea. It results with him in prison and out of Wahlbergs face long enough for sense to prevail and a career to start. The HBO documentary airs and Bale realises what a complete wanker he has been, dries out and gets a life.
There on in it's a bit predictable. But I still would give it 4 out of 5.
Sunday 5 June 2011
A letter to my Father
6/06/11
Dad
Hello. How are you?
I have received an invitation to your 80th birthday party. Unfortunately I will be unable to attend due to the simple fact of being in Western Australia on the 10th of July.
I will be on retreat in a Buddhist monastery until the 12th. Then I catch a midnight flight home, typically they're shunting me through Sydney.
I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome in February. Aspergers is a form of Autism. Basically my brain was wired differently in the first couple of weeks after conception. I have serious difficulties reading social cues and it could well be a reason why I've needed to have my own name. It hasn't been a rejection of you, it has simply been me needing an identity that felt right for me...and that is a very Aspergers thing to do.
I am finally studying at University. Mark may have told you that I am studying for a Bachelor of Arts in Languages at Monash University. Indonesian is my major (the major area of study), though I am thinking of adding either German or Greek as a minor. I remember you encouraging me to pursue Japanese and become an interpreter. Well these days I'm slightly deaf due to machinery use over the years, so I'll most likely become a translator of Indonesian. Monash Uni has the largest Arts faculty in Australia and I am very much looking forward to exploring everything from Indonesian studies through to philosophy to possibly a semester in Ancient Greek Drama.
I have both a new wife and a son. Ariel is just over a year old and I must admit that I love being a father. Selina and I intend to start trying for hopefully a sister next year. I'm also glad that I didn't have children with Seesee, my now most decidedly ex-wife. I wasn't ready for them and she wasn't the person to have them with.
Selina is both a lot younger than I am and the light of my life. I am deeply happily married. I am also the fittest and happiest that I have ever been.
I had some nasty kidney stones last year and they caused a major rethink in regards to both health and lifestyle. These days I'm vegetarian and exercise as often as I can. Having a gorgeous young wife also helps in regards to motivating me to pursuing a healthy, active life.
I have no news of Christopher and nor do I particularly want any.
I will end with this. I know this may not have been the most welcome intrusion into your life. I did, however want to try one last time at having some sort of a relationship with you.
Russell
Dad
Hello. How are you?
I have received an invitation to your 80th birthday party. Unfortunately I will be unable to attend due to the simple fact of being in Western Australia on the 10th of July.
I will be on retreat in a Buddhist monastery until the 12th. Then I catch a midnight flight home, typically they're shunting me through Sydney.
I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome in February. Aspergers is a form of Autism. Basically my brain was wired differently in the first couple of weeks after conception. I have serious difficulties reading social cues and it could well be a reason why I've needed to have my own name. It hasn't been a rejection of you, it has simply been me needing an identity that felt right for me...and that is a very Aspergers thing to do.
I am finally studying at University. Mark may have told you that I am studying for a Bachelor of Arts in Languages at Monash University. Indonesian is my major (the major area of study), though I am thinking of adding either German or Greek as a minor. I remember you encouraging me to pursue Japanese and become an interpreter. Well these days I'm slightly deaf due to machinery use over the years, so I'll most likely become a translator of Indonesian. Monash Uni has the largest Arts faculty in Australia and I am very much looking forward to exploring everything from Indonesian studies through to philosophy to possibly a semester in Ancient Greek Drama.
I have both a new wife and a son. Ariel is just over a year old and I must admit that I love being a father. Selina and I intend to start trying for hopefully a sister next year. I'm also glad that I didn't have children with Seesee, my now most decidedly ex-wife. I wasn't ready for them and she wasn't the person to have them with.
Selina is both a lot younger than I am and the light of my life. I am deeply happily married. I am also the fittest and happiest that I have ever been.
I had some nasty kidney stones last year and they caused a major rethink in regards to both health and lifestyle. These days I'm vegetarian and exercise as often as I can. Having a gorgeous young wife also helps in regards to motivating me to pursuing a healthy, active life.
I have no news of Christopher and nor do I particularly want any.
I will end with this. I know this may not have been the most welcome intrusion into your life. I did, however want to try one last time at having some sort of a relationship with you.
Russell
Saturday 4 June 2011
The Plan!
I have finished my job delivering newspapers on decidedly bad terms, but now that I have my mornings back I can begin implementing a plan for a much healthier and indeed holistic life. I am now at a point in this lifetime where using the car is an option and not a necessity and it's an option I'd rather not exercise. What I do want to exercise is my body and my mind.
It is interesting just how cheap it is to live healthily in Australia, well at least in Melbourne it is.
The Farmers Markets sell fruit and vegetables that are fresher than those in the supermarkets, have lower food miles, are often of varieties that aren't sold in the supermarkets, are an equivalent cost if not cheaper and frequently taste much, much better. The meat at the Farmers Markets is often similar. We know that at the Collingwood Childrens Farm Markets there is at least one seller of meat from a rare species of pig. Fernleigh from near Daylesford sell meat from Wessex Saddleback pigs which were at one point extinct in Britain and the meat from these pigs would have to be the best pork I've ever eaten.
As for exercise. Yesterday we visited an el cheapo shop and bought frisbee for $2. Mavis Hutter Park is about 1 1/2 km from my place. Today, weather permitting, we will walk to the park and throw the frisbee around for half an hour...or until we are knackered, whichever comes first. Skipping ropes are about $10.
Walking is free. Melbourne has 700 kms + of public walking trails and fully 90% of them are easily accessible by public transport. Buying a guide to these trails is at most $50 and there are maps on the Internet www.suburbguide.com.au/category/bush-walking-track/location/s-melbourne
Buy a bicycle. A lot of the bike paths in Melbourne are dual use. www.bikepaths.com.au
Even weights although initially expensive work out to be quite cheap in the long run. It's nigh on impossible to break 20 kg of steel and the dumbells last years.
Meditation is cheap. There are quite literally thousands of talks and free books on meditation online. Websites like: Buddhanet.net, bswa.org. have links to quite literally terabytes of information on meditation and Buddhism. A quiet place, a comfortable cushion and away you go.
Pressure cookers are cheap. I bought mine during the Hindu festival of Holi when it had a 10% discount. My $ 70 pressure cooker turns raw chickpeas into hummus bi tahini inside an hour and a half. So today I'm having a wonderfully garlicky, lemony hummus bi tahini and a fresh French stick from the Vietnamese owned bakery around the corner for lunch. Chickpea have the same protein content as meat and last a damn sight longer out of the fridge.
Water is cheap and actually refreshes you. Beer and wine may initially and in small quantities make you feel good, but in the long run and or in large quantities they are every bit as bad for you as softdrinks. And the "diet" soft drinks are worse for you than the non-diet varieties. The low sugar drinks have Aspartamine in them as a sweetener and that stuff is plain toxic. If you want a caffeine hit try tea or coffee without sugar in them.
My plan is to meditate on average an hour a day. I intend to exercise more days a week than not and when I return to Uni next semester this will mean that I should be walking five days a week with a pack weighing no less than 5 kg and often pushing my son (who will never get lighter) in his pram for about half that distance. In the evenings I plan to do weights and skipping.
The mostly vegetarian diet is by nature a lean diet. I haven't touched junk food in the form of KFC or McDonalds in over a year and the last time I ate it I understood why it's called junk food...it tastes like garbage and is bad for you.
I am extending my library with biographies, histories, poetry and novels. The body is in for an overhaul and so is the mind.
The intended outcomes are two:
It is interesting just how cheap it is to live healthily in Australia, well at least in Melbourne it is.
The Farmers Markets sell fruit and vegetables that are fresher than those in the supermarkets, have lower food miles, are often of varieties that aren't sold in the supermarkets, are an equivalent cost if not cheaper and frequently taste much, much better. The meat at the Farmers Markets is often similar. We know that at the Collingwood Childrens Farm Markets there is at least one seller of meat from a rare species of pig. Fernleigh from near Daylesford sell meat from Wessex Saddleback pigs which were at one point extinct in Britain and the meat from these pigs would have to be the best pork I've ever eaten.
As for exercise. Yesterday we visited an el cheapo shop and bought frisbee for $2. Mavis Hutter Park is about 1 1/2 km from my place. Today, weather permitting, we will walk to the park and throw the frisbee around for half an hour...or until we are knackered, whichever comes first. Skipping ropes are about $10.
Walking is free. Melbourne has 700 kms + of public walking trails and fully 90% of them are easily accessible by public transport. Buying a guide to these trails is at most $50 and there are maps on the Internet www.suburbguide.com.au/category/bush-walking-track/location/s-melbourne
Buy a bicycle. A lot of the bike paths in Melbourne are dual use. www.bikepaths.com.au
Even weights although initially expensive work out to be quite cheap in the long run. It's nigh on impossible to break 20 kg of steel and the dumbells last years.
Meditation is cheap. There are quite literally thousands of talks and free books on meditation online. Websites like: Buddhanet.net, bswa.org. have links to quite literally terabytes of information on meditation and Buddhism. A quiet place, a comfortable cushion and away you go.
Pressure cookers are cheap. I bought mine during the Hindu festival of Holi when it had a 10% discount. My $ 70 pressure cooker turns raw chickpeas into hummus bi tahini inside an hour and a half. So today I'm having a wonderfully garlicky, lemony hummus bi tahini and a fresh French stick from the Vietnamese owned bakery around the corner for lunch. Chickpea have the same protein content as meat and last a damn sight longer out of the fridge.
Water is cheap and actually refreshes you. Beer and wine may initially and in small quantities make you feel good, but in the long run and or in large quantities they are every bit as bad for you as softdrinks. And the "diet" soft drinks are worse for you than the non-diet varieties. The low sugar drinks have Aspartamine in them as a sweetener and that stuff is plain toxic. If you want a caffeine hit try tea or coffee without sugar in them.
My plan is to meditate on average an hour a day. I intend to exercise more days a week than not and when I return to Uni next semester this will mean that I should be walking five days a week with a pack weighing no less than 5 kg and often pushing my son (who will never get lighter) in his pram for about half that distance. In the evenings I plan to do weights and skipping.
The mostly vegetarian diet is by nature a lean diet. I haven't touched junk food in the form of KFC or McDonalds in over a year and the last time I ate it I understood why it's called junk food...it tastes like garbage and is bad for you.
I am extending my library with biographies, histories, poetry and novels. The body is in for an overhaul and so is the mind.
The intended outcomes are two:
- I seriously want Dishy Daddy status and the accompanying health benefits within 6 months. Dishy Daddy status is having the only visible sign of my 46 years being the grey/white hair. Everything beneath that hairline is going to be lean and toned. I have absolutely no time at all for those men who make it to 40 and then drop the ball and rapidly become fat, boring wastes of space.
- An extended lifespan. I am married to a certifiably gorgeous 22 year old. Any idiot, including this one would want to live into a happy old age with this girl.
Friday 3 June 2011
I'm a Rebel
They advise that we all have a meat free day a week to help with obesity, global warming etc., well I'm a vegetarian who has decided to have a veggie free day a week.
The vegetarianism comes from one very simple cause cause....kidney stones. BIG kidney stones.
Once you have a stone that is 12 x 17 mm (1/2 x 3/4") you tend to gain focus on how not to have any more of them. The main cause of kidney stones is animal proteins. Yep you can see the logic right now. It's about as subtle as being hit by a bus. I've removed the meat from my diet...well 90% of it. So today is the day when I'll have fish & chips. I don't much like beef, and seeing that I want to achieve Dishy Daddy status in less than 6 months, the fattier meats like pork aren't on my list of "Must Eats".
Odd entry, but then I had the longest period of uninterrupted sleep in over a year...and 9 hours of it has left me feeling more than a bit hazy.
The vegetarianism comes from one very simple cause cause....kidney stones. BIG kidney stones.
Once you have a stone that is 12 x 17 mm (1/2 x 3/4") you tend to gain focus on how not to have any more of them. The main cause of kidney stones is animal proteins. Yep you can see the logic right now. It's about as subtle as being hit by a bus. I've removed the meat from my diet...well 90% of it. So today is the day when I'll have fish & chips. I don't much like beef, and seeing that I want to achieve Dishy Daddy status in less than 6 months, the fattier meats like pork aren't on my list of "Must Eats".
Odd entry, but then I had the longest period of uninterrupted sleep in over a year...and 9 hours of it has left me feeling more than a bit hazy.
Hampton East Newsagency is For Sale
David Backholer this is for you
You can imagine where this would put a kink in someones lifestyle. I was out of bed at 4 a.m six mornings of the week and 3 a.m on Saturdays in order to both deliver the A2 section of The Age and actually finish at a reasonable time.
About six months ago my now most decidedly ex-boss started getting quite stupid. He was getting really picky over my missing a paper or two a day....out of about 250 papers, that were often delivered in an hour & ten minutes...see the percentage. His wife even admitted that she knew there was a very good chance that the papers were getting stolen. I was studying Indonesian at Open University at the time and with assignments, a six month old son and periodic kidney stones you can see where a man might just be preoccupied.
At any rate as last year became this year the nitpicking increased and by this time I'm studying at Monash Uni, only two subjects, but it's twice the workload of last year and due to severe changes in my diet due to the kidney stones I had become severely anaemic. So here I am feeling like shit, just dead tired the entire time with a son who is now teething and thus killing off any hope of a full nights sleep and this wanker is both giving me these little love notes and responding with "It's not my problem" and "I don't care" every time I mention why some fucking cow who usually isn't out of bed much before 10 a.m didn't get her paper.
The clincher came about a month or so ago with a love letter that read, I quote" Russell you've missed ten papers in ten days. Not good enough!" I thought FUCK YOU!!! I had only delivered about 2500 papers in that time and as a percentage it was about the size of this guys dick...yep vanishingly small. So I explored my options in regards to Austudy, and found that if I studied three subjects or more a semester that I would :
a) be financially better off because I wouldn't be using my car as much. I live about 5 km from Monash Uni's Clayton Campus and often walk to & from Uni. So you can see the health benefits immediately...I could end up walking about 50 km a week next semester and that won't hurt me at all.
b) I'll get my mornings back. I used to get up at 5 a.m to meditate and have a calm, rational start to my day. Now I can still get up at this time to meditate, but I can also study before my beloved son wakes. Another positive to my life. I can hear the hail on my bedroom window and rather than drag my arse off to work for some cunt who doesn't appreciate his employees, I can now just snuggle with my wife..
and
c) I don't have to look at some pale, pudgy, grump who only thinks of himself.
So on Tuesday I give three weeks notice...as demanded in the wank of a contract he put me & the other delivery drivers on last year. And David Backholer gives me three days..."You can finish up on Saturday. I don't want anyone here who isn't interested in the job". You might be able to understand that my care factor dropped a bit. Well actually it dropped a shit load. And this morning I show up and get
"Russell yesterday you delivered....".
I interrupt with
"David you are almost talking to the wrong person".
"Don't you care about the job?"
"No, I gave you three weeks notice and you gave me three days".
I also think "this guy is incredibly fucking stupid. He effectively sacks me and then expects me to give a fuck about this business he's been trying to sell since September of last year."
He then decides that I should finish up then. I express my opinion of people who whinge and bitch about their workload and still manage to turn down three weeks notice that I intended to do the nice thing and help him through his wife Susans absence whilst visiting family in the US.
His problem now is that I have loaded about 30 Ages into my car. I "delivered" the papers as I drove down Bluff Rd.
His other problem is that anyone who searches for either him or the newsagency on the Internet will now know what his wife couldn't help but tell me...she likes bitching as well...and that is The Business isn't worth buying!. I know, I worked there for almost three years and the takings have been down every month for the last three years. Susan Backholer likes to talk and talked plenty about the state of the business and how she wanted to retire. If it hasn't sold after nine months, the business is a lemon people.
So now my fucking genius of an exboss has two newspaper rounds to do and a shop to take care of whilst his fat fucking heafer of a wife is over visiting her fertility challenged progeny in the Land of The Obese and Bad Attitudes.
Do I care about this guy?
I'll leave you to figure that one out.
Well this is my rant. I do feel better now.
Thursday 2 June 2011
The Objective
A second try
No doubt what will be written here will matter only to me.
I intend to post essays from Uni, reviews of books & movies, my progress or lack thereof towards Dishy Daddy status and general wuffle about life as a Middle Aged Dad. And generally what interests me.
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