Rule 32: [Hardee's Breakfast]

Oh man oh man. For those not in the know, the de facto Hardee's Breakfast consists of an order of hash rounds and the heavenly, magical, and amazing Cinnamon m' Raisin Biscuit. The last time I had the joy of partaking in this holy ritual, it was on my way to Ohio in 2008. The hash rounds are pretty self explanatory. Little, round bite-sized morsels of potato-y goodness that were they not capable of choking you would best be inhaled. The main event, as I like to think of it, is of course the Cinnamon n' Raisin Biscuit -- a warm, flaky biscuit layered with cinnamon and the occasional raisin-y treasure topped off with a heaping dose of gooey frosting. So perfect is the Hardee's Breakfast that when I die, I fully expect that upon reaching Heaven this will be the first meal waiting for me.

Perhaps it would be sensible to elaborate where this unhealthy love of this most worthy of breakfasts stems from. Firstly, from the time I was six years old and in school, a Hardee's existed not two blocks from my childhood schoolyard. Those of you who know me well know that I have a knack for never being on time.... ever. This is the root of that quirk. No matter how late we were running, it was mandatory that I ingest a Hardee's Breakfast before trudging into boring, old school. This is how my mornings began for years and years until, from what I can tell, the Hardee's franchise collapsed on itself. That childhood Hardee's is now a Taco Bell, but the ghosts of my breakfast delight linger on. The final factor in my love of this treat is in the fact that I am rarely awake early enough coupled with the fact I eat breakfast maybe twice a year. Today when consuming my delicious breakfast from what I consider for all intents and purposes the LAST Hardee's in Wisconsin, I was a six year old boy again running late for school and finding it hard to see past the frosted biscuit in my hand. Awesome.

Rule 32: [The Strawberry-Banana Smoothie]

This is the beginning of a brand new series I am starting. The title of this article, Rule 32, is a kind of in-joke for those in the know. The phrase 'enjoy the little things' has been around for a long time. Naming my article Enjoying the Little Things might have worked, but calling it Rule 32 is much more clever. For those of you still not in the loop, Rule 32 hails from the movie Zombieland in which the main character survives the zombie apocalypse by strictly following a list of rules. He adopts Rule 32 after finding the silver lining in a terrible situation thanks to his psychotic comrade Tallahassee (played to Natural Born Killers perfection by Woody Harrelson). Thusly, I have named this new feature Rule 32.

The point of these writings is to capture little moments in my own life which I think merit special recollection.

Milwaukee was boiling north of 94 degrees yesterday and when you live in a 200 year old house as I do, air conditioning is not a foregone conclusion. Needless to say, it was a day of doing nothing in the attempt to maintain a body temperature that didn't feel a lot like my internal organs were liquefying. Eventually it dawned on me that not only can I drive, but local fast food establishments serve ice cold treats for convenient prices everyday. It wasn't long before I found myself at McDonald's purchasing a Strawberry-Banana Smoothie. A smoothie in and of itself is not a life altering thing, but on a day where even being outside for five minutes leaves you gently coated in a thick layer of sweat, a smoothie can be the most beautiful thing in the world. It tasted better than it had any right, and that ten minutes while I consumed it served as an oasis in an otherwise intolerable day. These little moments can be the high point of a week if you let them, and for me it was just that.

So here's to the smoothies of the world and the salvation they offer on a day so hot and sunny you forget what it feels like to function normally.

Why Joining A Gym Will Make Me Fat

It's a semi-little known secret that once upon a time not so many years ago I weighed just slightly over 200 pounds. At a height of five foot nine inches tall, this weight would fall under an 'obese' rating on most BMI (Body Mass Index) scales. I should disclaim that this weight was the absolute highest weight I ever weighed myself at, and it is very likely that it was not an entirely accurate measurement. Ideally, I imagine that my actual weight was somewhere in the realm of 210 to 215 pounds. Obviously this is nothing to scoff at, but I am attempting to acknowledge the discrepancy. Of course, this is not the reason that I'm writing today. The truth of the matter is that over the course of about a year and a half I was able to lose roughly eighty pounds, lowering my weight to a range of anywhere from 135 to 145 pounds. This range continues to be my average currently, and the maintenance thereof a conscious effort in my day-to-day routine.

For the first time in almost five years I find that delicate struggle to maintain a healthy weight and healthy practices in jeopardy and tonight while I mercilessly packed away sugary snack after sugary snack, I deduced precisely the culprit -- joining a gym. Let it be clear that for the better part of four years, exercise has been a key facet of my lifestyle. Whenever possible, I have made an effort to run at least two miles a day. Additionally, I throw in a moderate number of push-ups and sit-ups whenever and wherever possible. The important thing to note in this is that while running is important to keeping my weight low, diet and portion sizes have been tantamount not only to the initial loss of weight but the sustained maintenance over time. The reason portion size and the particulars of my diet are so essential lies within the admission that while I now have what many would consider a slender build, at heart food is an overriding passion. Whereas a normal human being will eat that which they find tasty and subsequently stop when they feel full, I find myself eating for the pleasure derived from the flavors and diversity available at any given time. In simpler terms; I'm a fat kid at heart.

As many former "fat kids" can attest, the paranoia that one day they could return to their robust glory is almost enough to stem all the bad habits and tendencies towards excess they may otherwise indulge. I would happily count myself among this demographic, and while I will not claim that my life is any happier than it was when I was overweight, I will admit a powerful urge to not revert to such a state. This past January, I took it upon myself to enroll at the local YMCA in an attempt to continue running and exercising regularly in the usually dormant winter months. Having never been a proper member of a legitimate fitness center since my newfound embracing of a healthier lifestyle, I assumed that having easy access to a fitness establishment would push my exercise routine to untold heights. The truth, as it were, is a much more complicated affair.

I refer now back to the idea that one of the motivating factors in remaining in shape after years of being otherwise is a fear of going back. Regularly going to a gym is a unique experience. The rush and satisfaction of pushing your body's limits and getting stronger and more fit is second to almost none in the list of life's personal accomplishments. The more time and effort put into a gym, though, the more you begin to feel impervious. Thus was the case as far as I am concerned. As the first months of increased physical exercise came to a close, a new feeling of security washed over me. I must be clear that 'security' as I use it here is not meant in a safe and comforting manner equal to the security felt surrounded by loved ones. Instead, this 'security' was one in which the idea that I could ever return to being out of shape seemed an impossibility to me. Truthfully, with the amount of exercise I do on a normal trip to the gym the idea is almost justified. Almost any amount of regular food intake should plausibly be burned away under the rigors of a strenuous workout. The problem of course is twofold. Firstly, it would be unwise to assume that a moderate amount of exercise is excuse enough to stop avoiding sugary snacks or foods containing loads of empty calories that the body cannot properly utilize. Secondly, it would seem I had forgotten the fact that without the focus of concern of the things I ate, I subconcsiously began eating whatever I felt like. Essentially, the gym became my excuse to eat whatever, whenever I wanted.

And so I find myself at a crossroads. I am nowhere near what any rational mind would consider "out of shape", yet I have a weary mind towards the prospect I'm slowly losing the temperance with myself necessary to keep my less desirable habits in check. I do acknowledge the fact that since joining the gym my own fitness level has steadily risen, but it is at the cost of judicious eating habits. And so I find myself wondering if there are others out there with the same predicament. Every day I see people at the gym who are slightly on the heavier side, who seem to push themselves even harder than I do and yet week after week I observe no differences in them. Of course, this is complete conjecture on my part and for all I know the differences are vast yet imperceptible to me due to frequent exposure. Regardless, for the first time in four years I find myself asking if heightened physical activity is the best course of action. Is it possible that memberships to fitness establishments in general carry an air of freedom to ignore otherwise unhealthy habits? Does the knowledge that one belongs to an overwhelmingly identifiable bastion of health cast a blind gaze towards the fact all other outlets of one's life are the opposite? I am personally puzzled by the thought and while I do not yet have the answer, I hope that somehow the mere fact I can rationalize the thought is a sign that I am that much closer to an answer.

Consider for a moment instances in your own life in which you purposefully do something that should represent something overwhelmingly positive in order to justify a much more damaging and negative behavior? Personally I think it's a sign of the human condition and our ability to sabotage ourselves without even knowing it. It goes a long way towards informing personal insight, regardless of how it manifests in your life.

Why We Eat the Holidays.

It's the holidays again and, for me at least, that means an excessive amount of opportunities to eat. Why is that I wonder? Firstly, I imagine that having Thanksgiving lead into a whole month of Christmas frenzy can only promote festive treats and festive meals of colorful cookies and candies. Secondly, and this point may indeed only apply to those of us living in the frozen North, winter is not the most friendly time to be going outside and partaking in various tangents. At the very least it becomes that much tougher to convince oneself to get up and go outside instead of just staying in, having a cookie or six, and watching an old movie. Food is such a fascinating social element in human interaction. Simply speaking we eat to give ourselves energy to keep living, but it's not hard to see that food and the consumption thereof has a much greater significance in the lives of almost everyone on the planet. We eat on a first date; we eat when we get together with family; we eat at work to celebrate nondenominational holidays; we eat when we're happy and sad; we even eat when we have nothing better to do -- people eat for so many reasons and factors that the idea transcends the act.

An average human being eats over one thousand pounds of food in a year. On the basic level, our bodies urge us to do this for 'building blocks' needed to grow and repair our bodies and for fuel to give us the energy to go about our business and eat more. But is this the reason we eat, and if so why then do we eat more during the holidays? Some have suggested that many times we eat in a 'zone' of 'biological indifference' wherein we are neither hungry nor sated. The next time you sit down to eat, examine if you're legitimately in need of sustenance or if indeed you are responding to environmental cues. "Environmental cues," you ask? These can be any number of things ranging from the company with which you dine to emotional state and even - surprise, surprise - the time of year (more appropriately categorized as 'social circumstance').

The holiday season in particular fires on all three of the aforementioned cylinders of the eating engine. Obviously during the holidays family is in town, old friends come home, and as previously mentioned there are an abundance of treats and sugars to ingest. If we meet with a group of friends at an acceptable social gathering place like a restaurant, the stigma falls to us that we are required to eat. We do so in most cases without even being aware of what it is we're eating or if we even need it. The very nature of the holiday season can evoke the emotional triggers that cause a flux in eating patterns. From experience the string of seasonal merriment can affect a range of emotions from bliss to absolute melancholy. Being such a staple of our day-to-day stimuli, eating easily becomes a safely habitual haven for those of us overcome by either end of the spectrum of feeling. Our emotional state and the amount and types of food we eat are so closely tied together largely because of a closeness in the experience of existing. In essence we eat to stay alive and we experience emotion because we live. The conflux of the two activities, while seemingly unrelated at first glance, inevitably becomes much more apparent given the greater complexities at work in our minds and lives on a continuing basis.

In most of ones life, eating is never such a pervasive topic in a normal day of thinking, but that is not to say it is not prominent in our thoughts. It is prominent but in an almost subconscious way. It is such a primal instinct that it bleeds through to the more actively engaged impulses in the course of a day. Simply because of this fact eating and, by extension, food affect and in turn are effected by almost every stimuli we encounter be it internal or externally prompted. These reasons are chief among the factors that make topics such as weight-loss and healthy diets so frustrating to corral. While it is easy to assign logic to how we should relate to food; the biological tangle of stigmas, environmental cues, and ingrained behaviors make it a much more complex topic.

So why are the holidays usually such a catalyst for us to partake in consumption? I think it comes down to a perfect storm of stimuli. Christmas time has a way of throwing everything that makes the act of eating part of our daily lives at us in greatly exaggerated amounts. To me, the increased frequency of eating indicates that we are indeed alive and living. If this is the case, it means that things could be worse and maybe we should all be looking forward to a new year and a chance to experience everything life has to offer while we have the opportunity.

Would you believe I write outlines for these kinds of posts?

Diversion: Dinner Parties and Shiny Shores

The new post I'm writing is proving extremely difficult to get through. It very much feels like a school paper which means, I imagine, the few of you who do end up reading my humble rantings will probably become fewer. Anyways, in an attempt to keep new content rotating onto these intertube pages I have decided to slip in with some MORE sunrise pictures (because I'm staying up longer and longer and sleeping less and less) and a few snaps from a recent dinner party I hosted for my friends at my apartment.

Firstly, here are some sunrise shots from a new but favorite location, and taken with a much fancier camera. As everyone knows, the fancier the camera, the better the pictures you take. Right? These pictures fall right into my 'World in my Mind' series in that I've tweaked them passed the point of being realistic outside of my own brain. Honestly though the scene was pretty magic before I got my fingers on them.


On this one I only slightly tweaked the contrast levels and I also desaturated the picture. I took some color out because, while the picture does not convey this, it was absolutely freezing out Wednesday morning. I feel like taking away some of the color made it feel like less of a warm, cozy morning at the beach.


I didn't really mess with this one so much. I just upped the red and darkened the shadows. Like I said, it was cold out, but looking at these pictures off my camera it really could be a warm day.


This last one I didn't retouch at all. I snapped this as I was leaving the lakefront, and honestly I can't think of a better way to start a morning.

Last order of business is a quick snapshot of this spaghetti casserole thing I whipped up for a meal for some people. It's not quite scenery, but I feel like it definitely classifies as art.