Shelter In Place and eRacing

What a strange time it is, with the unexpected advent of the Covid-19 pandemic the majority of people are working from home and have restricted movement. For the last two three weeks I have not left the house. I'm hoping this ends soon and we start to seem some signs of "normality" return, I think some things will change, but I suspect once its over, people will revert to type, pretty soon...

Decided now the media room / home office is tidy and organised to take virtual racing a bit more seriously, actually joining online races and trying to improve my virtual racing skills... (Racing And Grumpy Expat)  or R.A.G.E for short...
It is quite difficult to get started as lower ranked players generally don't take it seriously and just punt you off into the weeds, frustrating, but then if you get better you should be nearer the front of the grit and racing with more the experienced and faster drivers, this make the challenge worth the effort (so far). Just in my first week of joining online races, so lets see if I can keep up the commitment.
 

Low Carb Life...

Amazing as it may seem, MrGrumpy is still here... (in sunny California...)
Things have changed recently as I was diagnosed as type 2 diabetic (A1C of 7.4) and therefore decided as an engineer I needed to see what I could do to fix it...
I knew it would involve diet and exercise and after some research decided on a mix of low carb and intermittent fasting to start with...
Well we are 7 weeks in and I have lost 24lbs and blood sugar is averaging about 100mg/dL will go for some lab tests in about a month, hoping the A1C is reduced significantly.
It's pretty hard to stop eating everything that you have grown up eating, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, crisps, crackers, beans... it takes all my will power to ignore these and find something alternative. At least I can still eat bacon, eggs and cheese...
The hardest still is eating out and finding something that is not too high carb, sometimes it's just easier to fast for a few more hours and ignore the hunger (it does go away, eventually). Water and black coffee are my saviors...

Something new...

After a long time, looks like travel will be back on the agenda... Next week will be a quick trip to China. It will be a first for me, not the first time to China, but the first time I will have crossed the International date time... all this assumes that my Visa / Passport arrives back from the Chinese embassy on Friday afternoon...
Would have preferred more notice and chance to prepare for the work I will be doing in China, but that always seems to be a luxury that is never achieved.

I will be difficult to keep in touch with home as there is a  +15 hour time difference.

Year 6...

So MrGrumpy has survived 6 years in California, he is less Grumpy, well most of the time. The exception is during his new commute to / from Mountain View on the 101 (a road that has a parking lot like rush hour for about 16 hours a day!)...

OOps, seem to have missed last year...

Wow, my last posting on here was 2016... well it is now 2018 and almost 6 years since I started this blog.
I don't expect anybody still follows it, it's more a place for me to remember what has happened now.
Well 2018 is becoming an interesting year, during 2017 we finally got our green cards and now Little Miss Naughty has a little job to keep her busy.

Ms Spooky (Aka Smokey) is still doing nothing and her attempts at emulating the world's most idle cat are as good as ever.

London calling...

Well not long now and we will be heading from San Jose to London Heathrow...

It has been two years since we were back in the UK, it only seems like a few months, it will be great to catch up with friends and family, the three weeks will be gone before we know it.

Not looking forward to the long flights, airports, security and immigration, it has been nice not to travel for a while, you soon forget how painful and slow everything is that involves air travel. But at least it is not quite as bad as visiting the DMV...

The Past Year...

"Time passed, stuff happened, things broken, things fixed..." is MrGrumpy's executive overview of the past year...