April 28, 2004

Dear Governor Carcieri:

I am a 28-year-old professional living in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. I have lived and worked in the Providence area for seven years.

I am very fond of this area, and would like to buy a house and start a family here someday. Unfortunately, housing costs in this area have become unreasonable. I am at the point where I may be forced to move to another state to realize my dream of owning a home. If enough people like me come to the same conclusion, it will handicap the Rhode Island workforce for years to come.

Please let me know what you intend to do about the shortage of affordable middle-class housing in this area.

Very truly yours,



Patrick J. Canole

Feel free to link to my blog or forward it to any of your friends if you think they might like it (especially if you have friends in the publishing industry).

I'm skipping Part 2 of the "A Week Without Sugar" update. It was self-indulgent and boring.

Here's the summary:

A lot of things have sugar in them.
Writing down everything you eat is a pain in the ass.
I lost 5 pounds.

Remote Car Starter Guy

There's a guy in the next building over who loves his remote car starter.

He's probably in his late 50's or early 60's. I've only seen him 3 or 4 times. But I can pretty much guarantee that his Taurus is going to be running when I leave in the morning.

Sometimes, I'll go "pre-heat" my car on a really cold morning. I'm not above that. But I usually just start my car, go back into the house to brush my teeth, and get going. Remote starter guy lets his car run a good 20 - 30 minutes.

And not just on cold mornings. It was sixty degrees a few mornings this week and he was still letting his car warm up for 20 minutes (Dude... gas is two bucks a gallon right now...)

Will I be that nuts when I get older? I actually worry about these things.

Wackiness.

No Sugar Week (Part 1)

Candy. Cookies. Baked goods. These are my weaknesses. I’m ashamed to admit the percentage of my caloric intake that comes from sugary foods.

So I figured I’d try to go a week without just to see if I could do it. I still ate fruit (none of that Atkins crap for me... fiber is very important), but I'm going to try to go at least be a little smarter about what I eat and avoid processed sugar wherever possible. No soda. No cookies. No granola bars. No chocolate.

I will use my weight as a measuring stick... I’m not one of those people obsessed with what they weigh, but for our purposes here, it will serve as a measuring stick.

I wrote down everything I ate (I’m not going to repeat it all here... It gets very boring and repetitive...), but I also figured, if I’m going to suffer, I should at least get a few blog entries out of the process.


Day 1

171 pounds (I’m waaay down from where I’d like to be… I’ve lost a lot of muscle this winter).

I have raisin bran and orange juice for breakfast (which is a good amount of sugar right there, but I figure the fiber takes some of curse out of it).

I had a headache all afternoon. I miss my snacks.


Day 2

170 pounds.

I'm doing better this morning. Until somebody brings in donuts to work. Then my mouth starts watering thinking about donuts. I've got to stop thinking about donuts.

(I end up making it through the morning and not eating a donut).

I also discover Caffeine Free Diet Coke. There’s really not much left to Coke once you take out all the sugar and caffeine.


(stay tuned for Part 2...)

Warning - adult content:

Pat's toe

I broke my toe in karate last night.

I was just doing some warm up kicks over the in the corner before class and I caught the edge of my foot on a mat. I knew right away that something was wrong.

It was my right pinkie toe. I looked down and it was pointing waaay to the right (almost to 3 o'clock). It hurt like a mofo.

I felt pretty stupid. And damn that hurts.

At the very least, I was able to drive myself to the hospital...

There was a 1-year-old girl in front of me in the emergency room who had fallen down the stairs and broken her leg. The poor thing was screaming her head off. I felt like such a wuss seeking medical attention for my little toe.

I was there for about an hour and a half. They took an x-ray and taped me up. If I had known that’s all they were going to do, I would have done it myself and saved the $50 co-pay. But the way the toe was pointed off to the side like that, I wasn’t sure it was going to stay attached on its own. And they let me keep the x-rays.

So far, 2004 has been quite the year for health issues.

Bluh.

Today's tip of the day is:

Don't leave peanut butter crackers in your car (especially if you live in a wooded area).

I've bought two pairs of shoes in the last week.

I feel so metrosexual.

Things I'm into lately:

- writing
- "The Sopranos"
- sleep
- photography
- "Home Movies"
- Moneyball
- NFL draft rumors
- "Six Feet Under"


Things I'm not into:

- mustaches
- rain
- unseasonably cool weather

Planning a wedding... Wow... What a pain in the ass that is.

And there's no use in complaining. Your single friends don't want to hear about it. And your married friends just want to say "I told you so".