Addendum -- Runner's Lungs

So I should add that in addition to having not worked out for a few months prior to the move, I haven't run in about three months since I was peaking at consistent 8-10 mile runs. After just getting back from a run this morning, I realize I really need to build up my runner lungs again. Granted I ran about 4 miles or so.....but it sucked, and by that I mean lung bursting, asthma inducing, eye gouging suckage! Man I love running! (And that's the funny part.....I really do.)

Pumping Up....Working Out.....Getting Fit!

Those of you who know me well, know that I am short (5' 7" on a good day.....and I mean a really good day), fairly skinny/trim, and not that strong. As a friend of mine wrote in his journal when we were back in middle school, "Scott is a great friend, but he is very weak!" I do like to view myself as pretty fit and in exceptional health, but that doesn't change the above assessments.

Clearly this has been a point of some self-consciousness over the years and a self-image issue. I have some thoughts on the deep-seeded subconscious psychoanalytical reasons for this, but I won't bother you with the therapy session now. While I can't affect the height as much as I've tried, and the weight is actually in a very good place (about 14-15% body fat right now, which I would like to reduce to under 10%), I do want to work on getting stronger, fitter, etc.

About two and a half years ago, I signed up for the gym through my previous employer and had the option of going to any New York Sports Club in the area. I found a very nice one right close to Penn Station in New York and began going to that facility. At first I was doing great. For about the first six-seven months, I was going at least twice a week and noticing considerable improvement in my strength and definition. However after these seven months, my dedication started to waiver and the amount of visits decreased until weeks or even months would go by between visits. A lot of this had to do with the increase in my work schedule. As I was advancing within my company it was more and more common for me to be working 12-14 hour days. With the 1 1/4 commute home, I never wanted to go to the gym after work, and by the time I got home and actually relaxed for an hour or so, it was so late that waking up early wasn't what I would call my ideal option. Now I understand that if I really wanted to...I could have gotten up and gone to gym each day. I fully believe in self-responsibility and the fact is that I chose to sleep over getting up early and chose going home after work instead of going to the gym. As The Zep says, "Nobody's fault but mine."

But alas, these late hours were part of the reason that led to my move (a very slight part, but one none-the-less) and when Mel and I were looking for apartments, one of the key factors for me was whether the complex had a gym. Well, the place we chose has a fantastic gym with every piece of equipment that I need/wanted, from free weights to machines. I figure that having a gym like this adds about $100 or so of theoretical money to each month's rent that I was literately throwing away when I was in New York. Now that I have a gym in the complex within a five minutes walk I feel I will be consistently exercising. So far, I have used the gym every single day and with its great hours, plan to keep using it every day even once I start working. This a goal of mine, part of the personal changes I want to make and I plan on keeping it.

I also look forward to being able to run more often. One thing I can say that I am proud of is that I do consider myself to be a runner. Now I should give a quick shout out and say that if you want to read about a true runner, you should check out the blog of one of my best friends, Jared, who is training for the Iron Man. His blog is at: http://tri-guyj.blogspot.com/

Anyhow, back to the real star of this blog. I have been running consistently for about the last year. At my longest I have run around 10-11 miles and at my fastest got up to consistent 7:30-7:45 miles. My goal is to run a half-marathon in the nearby future and to one day run a full marathon. The weather here is beautiful and the layout of the town is perfectly ideal for me to continue and improve on my running.

So there you have it, along with trying to keep myself emotionally and mentally fit, I am also using this move to keep myself physically fit as well. I look forward to keeping you up to date with the progress and hopefully I can blog about some road races in the future. Ok...enough for now. I shall blog with you later.

-Nice Guy SMA-

Big Changes

Today, I became Californianized. At approximately 4:30 PM Pacific Standard Time, I signed the DMV forms, took a quick picture, and surrendered my New York License. I find it funny that it took me two-plus years of living in New York before giving up my Connecticut identity and when I did, I did so only because I was now married. But upon moving to California, I switched identities within four days of becoming a resident. Yes, my friends I am now a Californian.

Ok.....hold on...back up a minute. I know what you're saying, You're two weeks late in posting a blog and you lead off with a story about the DMV! Well....hear me out...I feel that this story is the perfect introduction to the changes that I am embarking on and the new mindset that I am chasing.

The past two weeks have been crazy and a whirlwind of changes and things to do that I could not and did not expect upon making the decision to move out here. Let's see in short, we got a new apartment, went used car shopping (a truly horrible experience), bought a used car, began job searching, interviewed, moved in to a furniture-less home, slept on the floor the first night, bought an air mattress, saw my wife leave back to New York and our sole source of financial income, and began to discover a town and state foreign to me.

So to answer the quick questions, the town is Alameda, CA on the East Bay, the car is a 2002 Toyota Corolla, the apartment is a nice 1-bedroom in a beautiful complex right on the San Francisco Bay, and the job search....well....I'm not going to mention any specific names of places, I'll just say that things are going ok....and will hopefully go better now that I can fully commit time to networking.

All these things were changes and events I expected to make, but I guess I never thought about how major, time consuming, and slightly draining they actually ended up being. I'm not sure if I have ever made any decisions on this grand of a scale before. I figure choosing college is the closest, but even in that case I applied for multiple schools, had months to choose and had advisers and parents helping me with their knowledgeable suggestions. This has been just Mel and me, and now it is just I for the next few months. I am ready for what's coming next, but man have the past two weeks been crazy. Like I said, this has been a whirlwind. But, I guess that brings us to today and the surrendering of my New York State License. Even though this has been a lot to process all at once, this is a choice that I am ready to go for in full force. I can tell straight away from just two weeks here, that I love this area already. The vibe is clearly different from New York, anyone can tell you that, but it is still a great vibe. I enjoy seeing different people from all communities and races interact so casually (one reason why we chose this great town), I enjoying looking someone in the eye and saying hello (not turning the other way), and I'll be honest with you, I love the weather. There was a day last week when I walked outside and it was a bit chilly at around 50 degrees or so. I had to remind myself that it was FEBRUARY and then promptly received a call from my mom telling me that it was snowing about 7 inches in Connecticut.

So there you go......it took me two years to say I was a New Yorker.....it took me four days to say I'm a Californian. I'm not forgetting my roots, I am just ready to make this change. And here's another change I look forward to making.....not posting only every three weeks. Now that I am settled in and have an Internet connection, (a major hindrance in trying to post) I promise I will blog more frequently and keep you updated with all going on. Alright....rock and roll....and I'll will blog with you soon.

-Scott-

Brand New Day

So here we are…welcome to my new blog. This will be the home of Scott Adams on the web for the next little bit. I decided to start a blog for a number of reasons.

1) A number of friends have been writing blogs for a while, and I wanted to try and capitalize on their fame and steal a few of their readers.

2) I felt the narcistic need to increase my own personal Google hit count.

3) I thought that as I move forth with my major life change, this would be excellent forum to document my journey. A way to keep a public journal as I move west looking to discover a little bit more about myself and capture my own manifest destiny.

As I’m sure you all know, if you are reading this blog, after 28 years of living on the East Coast, I have decided to take a chance, roll the dice and move out west to San Francisco. And yes, I am moving out there with no job and no place to live. When you put in that context it sounds like a really bad idea….hmmmm. I should say that my sister in law lives out there, one of my closest friends from high school is in the area, and I do have a few job leads. So in that sense, it’s not completely insane.

Now why am I making this move and why am I thus writing this blog? Moving out west has been a dream of mine for many years. When I was applying to colleges ten years back (I feel really old stating it that way), a number of my top choices were in California. When it came down to making a decision it was between USC and Syracuse. I decided to play it safe, stay closer to home and buckle down for four of the worst winters I have ever experienced. After graduating college, I could have flown to LA, but love kept me grounded and I attempted to find my way in the mass of people known as New York City. This I will say was probably one of my better decisions as I am now married to the most wonderful woman in the world, learned, after visiting, that LA is definitely not for me, earned my Master’s in Film Theory/Criticism and started a great career in animation and post production.

Well here it is again, a choice that has come up before me and one I must make. On one hand, I could play it safe and stay at my job, not having to risk anything and knowing that I will be financially secure and able to eventually settle into a house and a family, etc. On the other hand is the risk, but also the knowledge that I took a chance, followed a dream, possibly and hopefully chased down a more fulfilling career, and attempted something that will lead to greater happiness, even if that happiness is not in the immediate. This is the reason that I am making this move and the reason why I will be writing this blog. I am interested in documenting this experience, my job search, my ability to fit into a new community, and my own growth as Mel and I live apart, even just for a short time being, and I search for that next step in my career.

I look at this as my “Into the Wild” moment, just with more people and hopefully with no poisonous tree-roots. It’s my chance to discover a side of me that I feel was lost by living in the constant mass of New York City. While I love New York dearly, it is my feeling that a touch of humanity is lost by flowing through the break-neck pace where you either get out of the way or keep moving with the crowd. I see this as a chance to strip away some of those east-coast notions and slow down a bit, enjoying life ever-so slightly more. I think it is appropriate that I making this move on the first full week of Lent. Some of you may know that I am a pretty devout Catholic. And while I try my hardest to not be preachy and believe that all religions can co-exist and interact, as a Catholic, Lent is the time in which one pushes away all of the distractions and vices that cloud the human condition. In a similar way, I am looking to find a little bit of the innocence and personal fulfillment that I may have lost over the years. Maybe this is way too lofty of an idealized goal and maybe I am seeking something that will not and can not exist outside of a conceptualized notion. If that’s the case, well then I guess I’ll just write about how cool the city is and how awesome it is to be so close to wine country.

I do hope that you will continue to read this blog and leave notes to say hello and keep up with my adventures. While my main focus is on my journey and discovery, I plan to ruminate on all things from entertainment to politics to sports, and random happenings. I will try not to get too deep, but will hopefully try to make this a blog one with an inspiring message. So, check back here in a week after I fly out and get set up. (I leave Feb 12)

Now I shall end this initial post like this. In college, as President of my co-ed service fraternity, I always tried to end meetings with one parting thought. While I cannot promise this for every entry, I will leave with one such today:

It is often in our lives that we don’t chase down a dream or what we know may make us happy because we are too settled in our ways. We are either content in the routine or scared to try something new. When I reach this point, I think about a quote from Edward Abbey that a friend told me years ago and has been a guiding principal of mine since:

“To live life is to take risks; to always be safe and secure is death.”

Alright then, it’s time to head out. I will write again in a week or so as a new resident of the West Coast! It’s been a long time coming……Westward Ho!!

-Nice Guy SMA Out!