The Backslide

I know I've been gone a while. But it feels like every blog post starts with my apologizing for the lack of blog posts. Gets kind of annoying, right? Sorry. Moving on.

Last couple of months have been jam-packed with travel. Weddings galore, work trips, weekend getaways, you name it, we've been there. It's been fun, that's fo sho, but man, I feel like today is the first day in months that I'm just sitting at the house and unwinding. But I can't get too comfy, I have a conference in NYC on Monday/Tuesday and then two business trips in October, one in November, and an India trip in December. The Medallion counter is at 120k. 5k til diamond. Championship!

Speaking of championship, we're fully into the fantasy football swing of things. This year, unlike the many years prior, I have entered myself into three leagues. Three leagues is kind of a pain. I've been terrible at keeping track of all the bye weeks and making my moves on the waiver wire, etc. I fret that my mere presence in three leagues will ultimately spell my downfall. Every Sunday, my rooting interests are waaaay too wide to ever be fully on top of. At any one given time, I have some 7-8 guys going on the three different teams, and usually, a guy I own in one league is a guy I'm going against in another league. So there's the whole conflict of interest issue. I don't know. It's too much. That being said, Week 1 I went 1-2 after losing Fred Jackson and Greg Jennings in my Yale league (that's the lowest money league, and I may go winless there. Through two weeks, I have scored 180 points. Another guy in my league put up 165 THIS WEEK). Week 2 treated me a bit better--went 2-1 and the one loss was by 3 points. A Matt Bryant FG would have put me over the top. So sad. Instead of waxing poetic about my woes, some pre-season quotes from yours truly that may give you a glimpse of my lot in fantasyland:

"Man, Dexter McCluster is going to be legit this year. I need to make sure I draft him in every league I'm in."
"Two of my leagues are PPR leagues. Wes Welker? First Round? Yes, Please!"
"Darren Sproles? Eh, whatever. Julio Jones? Eh, whatever."
"Fred Jackson was a beast last year. I need to make sure he is on my team. Also, that guy Steven Jackson is awesome. I should draft him comically early in two of my leagues."
"Jamaal Charles looks fantastic. I am going to take him instead of Darren Sproles in my PPR, high money league. Sure he's coming off a torn ACL, but he USED to be awesome."
"This is going to be Jake Locker's year. I can feel it."
"I think Michael Vick's turnover issues have been solved."

And the icing on the cake, courtesy of Bashon:

"Dude, bench Welker and start McCluster. You start McCluster, you'll win your game."

Well...shit.

Thursday Night Football update: I sneakily put in waiver wire claims in a couple of my leagues for Andre Brown of the New York Giants this week. He adroitly spelled Ahmad Bradshaw last week, who came out with a neck sprain. Figuring that I could at least squeeze one week out of Brown (because things like sprained necks in the NFL magically heal in less than two weeks), I snatched him up. Good work, right? The guy right now has like 90 yards and a TD at halftime. In fact, a tweet:

	ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo)
9/20/12, 8:14 PM Andre Brown had 77 rush yards in 1st quarter, the most 1st-quarter rush yards by a Giants player since Tiki Barber in 2005

Only problem is, I was so busy conversing with TheWife over dinner that I forgot today was Thursday and that the NYG were going at 8:30. Of course, when I realize this, it's 8:41. So here I am staring at my benched Andre Brown with 16 points at the half while McCluster is projected to get me 7 points against the SAINTS! THE F@#&ING SAINTS WHO GIVE UP 500 YARDS A GAME!! DOESN'T EVERYONE SCORE 20 POINTS AGAINST THE SAINTS??? I HATE FANTASY FOOTBALL.

Anyway, enough fantasy football. The last few weeks of intense travel have also seen me jump off the Paleo bandwagon with gusto for some reason. I rediscovered the joys of pizza, taco bell, spicy basil chicken, pad thai, chicken and rice, meatball subs, Irish car bombs, you name it. Felt like crap for a solid two weeks. But I think I've corrected the backslide and have now logged 5 workouts in the last 7 days and am planning on another one tomorrow. And the diet is back in check. I think I gained like 2 lbs or something. So right now, I'm at 178. I'll get back to the 175 area and then make a concerted push to beat the plateau and get to 170.

That's all for now. Gotta go take the trash out.

Jetlag

Well, here I am at 4:42am after about 95 minutes of tossing and turning in bed. Finally I just caved and got up, caught up on some emails, did some morning reading, checked in on my fantasy football leagues and planned out my day. Something about jetlag reminds me of all those summers as a kid, returning from a long stint in India to visit the grandparents and cousins. There is the comfort and familiarity of being home and getting back to normal life; but it's coupled with the complete novelty of being awake at the oddest hours. Only with jetlag am I understanding exactly what our neighborhood looks like as the sun rises. Only with jetlag am I basking in the fluorescent glow of my laptop in bed while watching Bridesmaids on TV in closed captioning (so as not to wake TheWife, who slumbers angrily and aggressively). Only with jetlag am I standing in front of the fridge at 3:25am deciding between a slice of pizza or a muscle milk shake.

Some people say jetlag sucks, but I'm actually kind of liking it this time, if only for the productivity. Primarily, being up at this time means I can communicate with my team back in India on a real-time basis, which is nice. No more sending emails at 11am and waiting until 1am for a response. Makes work a bit easier to get done. I was in bed by 10 the last two nights and up at 2am yesterday, 3am today. I figure since I'm up, I might as well hit the 5:30am Crossfit class. It's lightly attended and it's great to come home at 6:30am with the day's workout already in the bag. I've got some dry cleaning to pick up, need to hit the grocery store, post office and bank, need to mow the lawn and weed the flower beds, and I need to clean the kitchen. And realistically, I'm thinking I can be done with all this by noon. Just in time for the devastating wave of sleepiness to knock me out on the couch at 2pm. Yesterday, I fell victim to the mid-day jetlag nap, a paralyzing 5-hour session in broad daylight. Just awful.

I think the reason the jetlag is so bad this time is because my trip to India was abbreviated. Just four days there and then right back here. So my body never fully got on India time, and once it was getting there, it needed to get back on US time. I think my body has just said "F it" and  decided to be stuck somewhere between Bermuda and Spain. And like a good Spaniard, I obliged and said yes to the mid-day siesta yesterday. Let's see if I can play some D today, like La Roja, and stay awake.

Ok, I should head out to the gym. Looks like I'm officially at the 175 goal now. Feeling very good. I guess losing nearly 30lbs in a year will do that!

More to come later. Adios.

Let There Be Light!

Whoa! The Ranga Blog has gone darker than TheRanga after a week in the Dominican! Apologies, folks! Been very busy with travel the last few weeks and wasn't able to sit down and put the pen to paper like I wanted to. Even now, I'm squeezing in this blog post from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, en route to JFK after another week-long trip to Bombay. But, darkness be gone. Let's go!

Bombay was good, but definitely dry for this time of the year. Apparently the monsoon should be in full effect, and I only saw a shade of a drizzle in my 5 days there. Not good for the crops, not good for farmers' incomes, not good for social stability, not good for politicians, not good for the economy. And it looks like Bombay isn't even getting the brunt of it. Some areas in north and east India (the same areas that triggered the two massive power outages a couple weeks ago, most likely because they were drawing on tons of power to irrigate their parched fields) are running monsoon rains 70% below historical averages. While India can definitely weather another couple of bad monsoons due to good harvests in prior years, the recent trend of disappointing monsoons has to be disconcerting. Is it climate change? Is it all the biomass (read: incinerated cow dung) floating around that is keeping the air from becoming saturated with moisture and dropping to the ground? Who knows. But it starkly highlights how verily one of the world's largest economies sits at the behest of mother nature. On a similar note, the recent drought in the US is creating a similar firestorm here--brace yourselves for higher corn prices, which means higher meat and poultry prices (because American animals aren't fed grass like they should be, but rather loads and loads of corn meal) and probably higher gas prices as the ethanol component of gasoline will become more expensive. And here we thought we were getting a reprieve at the gas pump.

Last time I flew to India, I regaled you with the story of the old gentleman who crabbily yelled at me in some mutilated form of Hindi and English the entire flight (remember, the guy who asked when I boarded, and I thought he was asking when I was born? Yes! That one!). This time, no such humor was involved on TheRanga's flight.

I found my seat, and lo and behold, I was again to be near an elderly gentleman who was so lost that he was actually sitting in my seat. Noticing that the man had a broken arm, I offered him my aisle seat in case he wanted more space, but he declined and moved to his window seat. After we got settled into our seats, we made the usual bit of small talk while taxiing. He asked me where I was headed, what I do, etc. Not wanting to have a one-way conversation, I reciprocated and asked him where he was off to. "St. Louis," he told me. "What will you be doing there? Vacation?" I asked. He paused a second, and then said this:

"About one fortnight ago, my daughter passed away in a bus accident in St. Louis. The bus hit a bridge pillar and we lost her immediately."

Um, holy shit. "Oh my god, I said. How did that happen?" I didn't really know what else to say.

"I believe the bus punctured a tire and veered off the road. We three were in the corner so were most severely injured. My daughter went immediately--she was the only victim on the bus. My wife's left leg was shattered, so she is still in the hospital there. As I've only sustained a broken arm, I took the body back to Mumbai this week for cremation and now will go back to be with my wife until she heals."

He then went on to tell me that his daughter had just finished her first year of a grad program in public health and had studied to be a dentist in India before that. She was 25 years old, he told me. Then he told me the reason he was asking me questions is because he thought maybe I would know US law and offer some advice on if/when/how he can get lawyers involved to seek some damages for the accident. Apparently the bus company has not uttered a word to him or his family throughout these last two weeks. Poor guy, throughout all of this, he also has to worry about finding a lawyer in a completely foreign country to deal with the bus company that just killed his daughter.

Anyway, I did some digging when I got to Amsterdam and sure enough, here it is. It seems that this particular family was seated a level above the driver in the front row of the bus, so the three of them got the brunt of the impact during the accident. What is more heartbreaking is that there are people filing lawsuits already against MegaBus, claiming personal injury and emotional distress from seeing a girl killed, etc. And yet the father of the girl who was killed doesn't even know how to contact a lawyer in the US. Unbelievably sad. And I'm trying to think of a way I can help, but I can't. Anyone, ideas? Perhaps you law-folk?

Sorry to re-open the blog on such a dour note. Upcoming posts will be much rosier, I promise!

Sunday Special

Had quite an eventful last two weeks here. Best friend from back home came to visit me and TheWife for a week spanning July 4 and the ensuing weekend. Had a nice relaxing few days here at the house, punctuated with a Jekyll and Hyde round of golf at a nearby course. Shot SIXTY ONE on the front nine, and then 45 on the back. And that 45 included an 18th-hole blowup for an 8. Play that one like a normal golfer and I'm looking at carding a 41-42 on the back. Feels nice to at least know that type of golf is still somewhere within me. After the down time in CT, we headed to NYC, where we did a mini-tour of restaurants owned/operated by "Chopped" judges (if you're wondering, "Chopped" is a great show on the Food Network). We hit up Butter for dinner on Saturday night and then Stanton Social for brunch on Sunday morning. Both were excellent. Stanton Social has some of the best mac and cheese I've ever tasted. Capped off the weekend with some billiards and ice cream in Soho and headed back to CT.

Spent the last week in CT catching up on work, planning upcoming travel, and trying to atone for the week-long eating binge I allowed myself. Unfortunately, I gained about 2.5-3 lbs and was squarely back at 179-180 at the beginning of the week. Thankfully, though, I hit CrossFit Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday while trying to rein in the eating. Eating still hasn't been as paleo as I would like, but that's ok. Back on the horse this week.

Took a nice drive through the tri-state area yesterday to Somerset, NJ for a niece's first birthday party, then made a beautiful sunset drive out to Allentown, PA (actually, Orefield, but who's really keeping track?). I remember an old co-worker from Philadelphia once told me that "Pennsylvania is basically Pittsburgh on one end, Philadelphia on the other end, and Kentucky in between." Well, however you may view it, Pennsylvania really has some picturesque countryside, and TheRanga appreciates that. Some of the landscapes and panoramic valley views on 78 west were simply breathtaking, which made the drive a lot more digestible.

Anyway, got to Orefield, where I met up with JayMoney, Bashon, and Bashali for some good home-cooking and Johnny Walker Black. Stayed up til 4 am just shooting the breeze about nothing in particular. Reminded me of those nights in college where everyone is having so much fun hanging out and knows we should be going to bed soon, but no one wants to be the square who calls it a night. So the night just continues on and on with more stories and jokes until finally someone cracks. Anyway, yours truly over here simply fell asleep while being spoken to and that virtually put the lid on the night. Shameful. Shades of Dad, who is notorious for asking a question and then snoring during the response.

Slept in til 10 this morning, had some delicious pau bhaji, set a new record on Temple Run (5.4 million!), and headed out around 2:30pm. Got back to the house about 7, hugged TheWife, endured the last half of the feature film "It Takes Two" starring Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, which was TheWife's hand-picked selection for her Sunday night entertainment, made an omelet for dinner, and began watching a real people movie called Fargo.

Not much on tap for the week--more work to be done, trips to be planned, workouts to be completed. Big upcoming travel schedule. At this point, here's what I have:

July 20-22: Chicago (TheWife has an interview there)
July 24-29: Seattle/Tacoma (work/wedding to attend)
July 30-August 3: DC, Nashville, St. Louis, Atlanta, NYC (work)
August 10-17: India (work)
August 24-26: Asheville, NC (wedding)
August 31-September 3: Long Island (wedding)

Going to be somewhat exhausting, but hopefully fun!

Finally, the Assault update. Like I said, I'm around 179 unfortunately, but hey, I had a good week, and I still weigh 24 lbs less than I did a year ago, so I'm not too worried about it. More focus on the eating side of the equation this week with some intense workouts built in and I'll be back at 175 in a couple weeks, me thinks.

Current weight: 179.0
Target weight: 175.0
Time frame: 2 weeks