Well I don’t really have to walk.  I took a big step last month and sold my beloved car.  I loved my car almost as much as I love my cat.

My car was a shiny yellow mustang GT with over 300 horse power.  It made a glorious noise and the ladies dug it.  I made a short tribute video to it.

My Car from Wonky73 on Vimeo.

I sold it for several reasons.  First off, I was still paying it off.  I felt the money could be much better spent in debt reduction and saving up for the future life change. “Life change”, that sounds very Oprah of me.  I’ll need to think of a more manly phrase.   I also hardly drove the thing.  I’ve become green without meaning to.  I take the bus most of the time and plan on biking to work now that’s the weather is warmer.

I am not completely automobile less. I have borrowed for an extended period of time my parents unused truck.

I should save a lot of money with this move.

Wonky out.

For a few months I had been experiencing some pain in my lower right tooth, the big important one that chews the food.  Luckily I have dental insurance.  But I kept postponing getting it checked out.  Most of my experiences with the dentist have been, if not enjoyable, pretty dull.  My mouth is filled with fillings all installed with a minimum of pain of difficulty.  So there was no rational reason why I kept putting up with this dull pain and inability to chew on one side of my mouth.  Finally, my brains overrode my stupidity and I went in.   I did experience a little trepidation when I found out I would need a crown.  I’ve never had one of those and wasn’t sure what to expect.

The experience once again wasn’t bad.  I was in and out in an hour with a shiny plastic temp crown in place.  The very next day the pain I’d been living with disappeared.  So what’s the life lesson?  Don’t let fear keep you from doing unpleasant things that will make your life better in the future.  Hmmm I wonder if this in anyway ties into my foot problem below???  Probably not.

The second life lesson learned from the dentist?  Well seeing as how a day after my tooth felt fine, I decided to ignore the advice of the dentist and to eat like normal.  I chowed down on normal hard foot eating on both sides of my mouth.   Next day my tooth was sore again.  So, listen to your dentist/doctor.

Running

I’ve added a new twist to my workout regime today.  I have started the couch to five K running challenge/system.  If you look at that page you’ll see it starts out really easy.  I haven’t run regularly for about five years but I’ve been working out on the elliptical machine three days a week for many months.  So I doubted it would be a challenge. I headed out into the misty drizzle with hope in my heart and a c25k techno podcast on my ipod. The experience proved harder than I thought but not terrible. The main problem I experienced was the reason I stopped running five years ago.  My wonky foot hurts when I run, or even walk fast.  I tried to alleviate it some by running on the grass and not the path.  That helped a little.  As I write this an icepack sits on my foot.   Hopefully Tuesday’s run will be better.  I finished up with three sets of pushups.

Continuing on the health theme, here’s today’s healthy eats.   Homemade pizza topped with onion, red pepper, and zucchini.   And by homemade I mean the dough and the sauce where made by yours truly. Nummy. Though the zucchini didn’t quite fit the flavor I wanted.

When I began the Slackers Guide to Self Improvement I wrote four words on my whiteboard. They are still there. They describe the four areas in which I am determined to become healthy. In no order of importance they are: health, spiritual/creative, financial, and mental.

I’ll give a quick rundown of some of what each category entails.

For health my main goals are a healthy heart, to increase longevity, and to be skinny again.  I try not to eat out.  I’ve begun cooking a lot of my own meals and eating a lot of fruits and veggies.  I also work out 3 – 6 times a week.

Reviving my writing ambitions comprises a big part of the next step.  I’ve put aside an hour each day dedicated to one of my creative pursuits.   Not only writing, but I’ve begun sketching again, and doing more photography.

The goal financially is to climb out of debt and get some savings.   This is were the Real Making do comes in.   I buy nothing.  Seriously.. I’ve bought nothing since november except for food and essentials.  I even sold my car, which will be the point of an upcoming entry.

For mental health, I am doing less frivolous things. Mainly I’ve cut way back on video games and way less tv.  I canceled my cable which really helps with less tv.  Positively, I am learning french.

These are only a few snapshots of what I am doing.

And just for fun because you all want it, a video of Jobu.

I have a dream. I’m not going to tell you what that dream is right now. Several years ago I decided to pursue that dream. I did this almost out of the blue and without much forethought. Not anybody who knew me could predict the outcome. I was my usual lazy and unmotivated self and it ended up being just an extended vacation. So this time I am doing the Slackers Guide to Self Improvement before I make the life change. I am not doing these changes for the mere sake of the change itself. For example, I am not trying to live frugally just for the sake of spending less money, but so that I can live on less money. This goal seems to have motivated me to change more than just wanting change for change sake. Only time will tell.

A short audio only video where I rant about some news stories. Story links after the embed

Hummer story

http://www.france24.com/en/20100224-gm-hummer-business-line-auto-industry-sichuan-tengzhong-usa

Greek stories

http://www.france24.com/en/20100224-thousands-workers-march-against-wage-freeze-tax-increases

http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20100224-greek-demonstrators-say-plutocracy-should-pay-crisis-austerity-plan

http://www.france24.com/en/20100216-eu-athens-national-spending-greece-deficit-crisis-eurozone-markets-money

Google story

http://www.france24.com/en/20100224-google-executives-happy-slap-video-italy-privacy-legislation-court-down-syndrome

Where in a show you some paper and talk about Greece

This article gets a little weird at times but does a good job of capturing why I started the slackers guide to self improvement.

Courageous people are still afraid, but they don’t let the fear paralyze them. People who lack courage will give into fear more often than not, which actually has the long-term effect of strengthening the fear. When you avoid facing a fear and then feel relieved that you escaped it, this acts as a psychological reward that reinforces the mouse-like avoidance behavior, making you even more likely to avoid facing the fear in the future. So the more you avoid asking someone out on a date, the more paralyzed you’ll feel about taking such actions in the future. You are literally conditioning yourself to become more timid and mouse-like.

But there’s something else going on behind the scenes, isn’t there? That tiny voice in the back of your mind recalls that this isn’t the kind of life you wanted to live.

Don’t die without embracing the daring adventure your life is meant to be. You may go broke. You may experience failure and rejection repeatedly. You may endure multiple dysfunctional relationships. But these are all milestones along the path of a life lived courageously. They are your private victories, carving a deeper space within you to be filled with an abundance of joy, happiness, and fulfillment. So go ahead and feel the fear – then summon the courage to follow your dreams anyway. That is strength undefeatable.

Yes at times it reads too much like an Oprah special but it does spell out the thinking that led to the slackers guide to self improvement.  A couple of years before I started this adventure   I had the realization that I was getting old, was out of shape, in debt, and doing nothing of importance with my life.  My life was work, eat, video games, sleep, work, and repeat.  You can read my journal entries from the time about how I wanted to change.  I referred to it as living with intention. Not just drifting through life waiting to die, but having a purpose and a goal that would drive my decisions and life.  It took me two years to actually start doing that and I admit it’s not been an entirely smooth effort.  Old habits keep asserting themselves.  Curse you bw3 and you vile video games.  But progress is being made.  Note I haven’t mentioned yet what my goals and drives are, maybe some day in the future.  Till then.. wonky out.

I bake bread. Yes it’s boring. But does contain Jobu.

Where have I been for half a month?  Busy rolling out the new website at work.  When not busy with that I’ve been playing video game to unwind.  But that’s all live now. So I have time again.  I actually have on my hard drive the unedited video files for the next video.   I should check when I shot that stuff. Hold on. …..  wow.. that video was shot January 3rd.  So maybe I’ll get that video edited tonight.  So I am back. I want to post things more often not just the weekly video.  So I am hoping to get three post a week up, maybe two.    You’ll notice that I stopped the daily picture posts.  Mostly because I am lazy but there is a non lazy excuse.  I noticed they were dominating the blog and pushing the videos off.  Since the slackers guides are the whole point for the blog.

Wherein I try to fit my life into a duffel bag and a backpack. I also forget to mention the fact I’d be leaving a bunch of books behind.