On Target and Off Target

By 6:30am MrGrumpy was at work, it does make for a long day, but gives him opertunity to have read all his email and be ready for his 7:00am conference call.

At lunchtime MrBombsAway called MrGrumpy to see if he wanted to go to the range at lunch time (no not golf, shooting).
MrGrumpy was quite please with his accuracy, there were a couple of stray shots, but nothing much.

MrGrumpy may have been on target at the shooting range (mainly) but his number of steps an will power were well off target, due to him giving in to a craving for pizza... He only ate half, saving the rest for tomorrow, but even half blew his calorie budget by 650 calories... When he got home he felt guilty enough to go out for an after dinner stroll... an extra 9000 steps brought him back within budget (just). Of cause if he wants to eat the rest of the pizza tomorrow he will have to do at least another 12500 steps.

Another Monday, but a good week begins

Just as most other Monday mornings, MrGrumpy's arrived at the CubeFarm by 7am. This week will be quite short as he and MrZee are flying to the UK on Thursday afternoon.

MrGrumpy can't believe that 9 weeks have passed since he returned to California.

Today at lunchtime MrGrumpy walked about a mile and met up with MrCrazyRunner, they went to StJohnsBarAndGrill for BBQ chicken and fries.
MrGrumpy was tempted to have a pint, but restrained himself to Diet Coke.

MrGrumpy goes Golfing

MrGrumpy had a plan for today, well the afternoon at least. He was going to play golf at SantaTeresa course, he had found this via a BeginnersGolf group on MeetUp.com.

But he would need some supplies, water, cereal bars etc, so he took a walk to the local store. When he got there he decided to get some coffee at Peets Coffees and Teas. He saw a Light Frotto (100 Cal), which he incorrectly thought would be some type of latte, it was a iced coffee, blended to make it more like a milkshake. Not really what he had wanted for breakfast, he sat outside and drank it anyway.

After drinking his coffee milkshake and getting supplies for the afternoon he headed back, by the time he got home the dull and overcast day and reverted back to what he normally expects, sunshine and blue skies.

He arrived at the course in plenty of time and decided to hit a few on the range first, he had to rush the last 15-20 as he was getting close to the meeting up time. At the pro-shop he met up with the rest of the group, there were 11 playing, three groups.

MrGrumpy was in the second group, without going into details, the game was pretty bad, he played very consistent, but it was a consistently bad. Only a rare clean hit would encourage him on. On the last  couple of holes he did manage to hit a couple of semi-decent shots, but they were soon let down by poor chips or putting.

A Non Day

MrGrumpy had to do his washing today, but other than that he had no plans.

He has found that when travelling he did not have carry on luggage which would hold his laptop and some clothes,  he thought it was about time to get some,  so against his better judgement he went to the mall.

MrGrumpy does not like shopping at the best of times, malls make it even worse, he generally wanders around Zombie like searching for whatever it is he is looking for. Today was no different, he checked out the usual department stores. There are plenty of carry on sized bags, but then you have to check the size, 22", 21" or 20", 2 or 4, hard shell or soft, tote or case, the choices are endless. All he wanted was something that would fit and also hold clothes + laptop (or two) + chargers etc. Finally he narrowed it down, 20" TravelPro Crew9 is the best choice as it fits in the overhead bins (wheels first) on both domestic and international flights.

After getting a case, the next problem was finding his way out of the maze that is the mall. It all looks the same and even when he did find an exit, was he at the car park, of cause not, back into the maze and find another exit... If there is one thing MrGrumpy dislikes more than shopping in a mall, it is choosing what to eat! Combine these two and you have MrGrumpy's perfect storm of a nightmare. He was faced with about 15 choices at the food court, after several circuits of the various vendors, he picked one. He had a grilled shrimp burrito, no chips (as they would add 230 calories) and a CokeZero. It was not a bad choice, it filled him up and was only 730 calories.

He retraced his steps back to the car and headed towards home. The route took him past all the car dealers, he was not in any rush to get home, so stopped down the street and decided to take a walk to see what and how much cars were going for. He was not looking to buy, he was just interested in seeing what he could / would think about buying if he were in the market for something newer than his trusty 1998 Mustang. There was not that much that he was really interested in, a few Nissan 370Z, Mustangs, Dodge Challenger, quite a few V8 trucks (which all look about the same, just with different badges and engines in).

He got back into his Mustang and drove home, all this walking at the mall and browsing the cars had boosted his steps for today, over 18,000 (about 8.5 miles). Today was warm but mostly cloudy, about the first weekend since he has been here that it has not been wall to wall blue sky.

MrGrumpy's 150% Rule

Always give 150% at work: 25% Monday, 30% Tuesday, 50% Wednesday, 40% Thursday, 5% Friday.

MrGrumpy wishes this were true, for the last few months he has been working more like 150% / day, but he is not complaining. Working almost completely in isolation he has become more focused has a clearer view of what he wants his future direction to be.

As he comes to the end of the extended Season 2, he needs to start putting things in place to ensure the difficult Season 3 and beyond get full backing from the studio.

With this being a Friday he will not be working doing 150%, he limits Fridays to 100% max.

He has not yet seen the latest MrBatMan movie and would like to see it in IMAX before it ends up on the dreaded AMC Mercado Screen 7 (with the duff right audio channel and scratched screen).

After seeing MrBatMan, MrGrumpy went to TGI Fridays and had Steak, Mash and Broccoli (yes a vegetable, but when dipped in the JackDaniels BBQ sauce it became palatable).

Next MrGrumpy went looking at carry on luggage, there was too much choice, so he decided to leave it for now.

As MrGrumpy had not seen any movies for a couple of weeks, he decided to go back to the cinema and watch Total Recall, so that was two movies today, he has now almost caught up.

Fist DonutThursday for a few weeks

MrGrumpy was around for a DonutThursday, he had some fruit and a danish (for a change).

The day soon passed and he went to downtown Sunnyvale to meet some of the golfers he had met last weekend.

He got back home quite late (for him) it was 10:50pm, time to talk to LittleMissNaughty and then go to sleep...

Mid Week Again

MrGrumpy is struggling to work out where the weeks go, it is Wednesday again and he can't work out where Monday & Tuesday have gone, he know that his todo list just as long as it was on Monday morning, even as he ticks off one item, four or five seem to get added...

This Evening MrGrumpy had to do his expenses for the last couple of trips, he hates doing expenses, but as he has to pay the bill on his credit card now, he will be even more out of pocket if he leaves it.

7PM again, time for MrGrumpy to leave his Cube and head home, watch some Netflix and then sleep for a few hours before returning for his first DonutThursday in three weeks...