Where Hopper's Been At

Yes, I took a few weeks off.

Went by in a blur, and I had to take a half-month off to recuperate.

Finished the tax season strong, about a dozen more returns than the prior year, although a much more negative experience with the clientele. But I don’t wish to discuss that. Pending my final numbers, we’ll see whether I continue with this or not come next January.

But I did gain a ton of stress weight. A lot of pizza, a lot of Fosters oil cans, a lot of sweets. I weighed myself the morning of April 16 and discovered I was the heaviest I’ve ever been in my entire life. So immediately I began a diet and exercise regimen: walking 1-2 miles morning and evening, two sets of weightlifting six days a week. No more pizza, beer, soda, and extremely limited sweets (only had one DQ Blizzard and two of my daughter’s sugar cookies in the last two weeks). Lost a few pounds so far, but not as much as I expected. Old age, slowing metabolism and such, I guess.

Read a couple books on General George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. Really just to fill in gaps in my knowledge. Once I’m done with my current Custer read (I’m about two-thirds done now) I’m gonna tackle Vietnam. Again, to fill a gaping hole in my knowledge. The Vietnam War so rocked our culture it still resonates in our foreign and domestic policies, and it is still one of the most consistently reinvented and reinterpreted events to shape our world. It’d be nice to know the true events of the military conflict.

Tough to relax with my daughters’ busy curricular and extra-curricular lives and the wife’s never-the-same-day-twice work schedule. But we did find time to take in a Yankee game and get down to Cape May for a long weekend. Also adjusting to an upgrade at my day job – got an office with a window! First time I’ve had a window since February of 2009. And we’re strategizing about that possible move down south. In this case, cleaning out the garage (and tossing about 75 percent of what’s in it), following by purging the mess that’s in the basement. Once the basement’s cleared out, I want to install a mini gym and set up my amp and guitar so I can do my thing without disturbing the girls and the dog.

Lot to do this summer. I also want to finish my second novel and re-work / re-market the first one. I’ve neglected my fiction writing for three years now. Then there’s the dozen short stories, and a list of thirty-five nonfiction topics I have tallied and must decide on which to tackle. Should be a very busy next couple of months. Yep.

My goal here is to post something twice a week. Much funny stuff happens to me, and much stuff of interest comes across the bow, that if I had the time, energy, and inclination to post daily, there’d be a pretty fine blog up and running here. But I’ve moved on to other things, and other things have moved on to me, necessarily demanding my focus, so twice-a-week blogging is an admirable goal for this stage of the Hopper, over a decade in existence.

Catch ya later!