Friends Past

The other day I was thinking about old friends.

I will admit to having many failings, but the one I probably would most want to change is my penchant for leaving friends behind when I move to the next phase in my life.  I don't keep in touch with anyone from my school days, college, or previous jobs.  I still see some of them, but only because they are family friends.  I have a nice set of friends at work, some of whom I've worked with on a number of projects.  I've been at Sun for a long time, but the current work situation (pending Oracle acquisition, or layoffs as what's left of Sun spirals into oblivion) may change that, and I will probably lose track of some of these folks.  My social friends are remnants of a once-large group we called the Kroo.  My thoughts about that deserves its own entry, or several.

I may get around to writing about my work buddies, but I thought I'd start with earlier times.  Some of this is getting pretty fuzzy, and very likely my recollection is more of a fond reminisce than the actual way things were.  But these are my memories, and who's to say what the reality is?  I'm even going to do this without pulling out the old yearbooks to jog my old memories and feelings.

I've mostly been a loner, and I didn't have what these days is called a "bff" until I got to junior high.  Don't get me wrong, the loner stuff is partially by choice, and I'm fine with it.  It's probably why I don't have a problem living by myself all these years.  It might be why I'm living alone, though.  Alone but not lonely, as they say.

Mark was my best buddy through much of junior high and high school.  We shared the same sense of humor and amused ourselves by making sound effects of our favorite music.  He had an older brother that had the latest Cheech and Chong albums, and weird stuff like The Tubes.  I'd go over to his house and we'd play basketball, or catch / "3 flies up" / "500" with tennis balls, baseballs, whatever.  We got in trouble breaking various neighbors' windows with errant throws.

Bonus for me, one of his next door neighbors was Ana, a year younger than us, that I always thought was cute and nice.  Never did anything about that, though.  Maybe the first in my streak of non-followup.  But that's a different story for a different time.

Mark was into history and sports.  He memorized everything.  Nobody knows who was second in rushing in the NFL in 1954, or who the Vice Presidents were.  But Mark did.  Since I happened to be pretty darn good at math and science, we covered a lot of ground for our school's "Knowledge Bowl" team.  Our biggest hole was with language arts.  (Knowledge Bowl is a takeoff on the old "GE College Bowl" on TV that pitted teams from colleges in a question-and-answer tournament.  It may be called other things, but I'm sure it survives to this day at schools across the country.)  Mark and I went to debate camp together the summer before our senior year, to learn and practice to become the lead debate team for our high school.  We didn't do all that great, partly because of a running dispute I had with the speech teacher / coach.

After I graduated from high school, we went off to different colleges, and never saw each other again.  I heard he became a lawyer in Orange County, and married one of our classmates.  Someone told me he was really sick for a while and finally died, but I don't have any details about that.

My other main friends during high school were Charles, Bill, Joey, and Sev.  One summer Sev and Charles decided they wanted to play tennis, and make the tennis team.  So just about every day that summer, we all met at 1pm at the public courts a couple of blocks from my house to play, play, play into the evening, sometimes until the lights were shut off at 9 or 10pm.  The courts were painted concrete, and summers in San Diego could get really hot-- you'd get the direct sunlight and the heat radiating up from the courts.  Sometimes it felt like my shoes were melting on my feet.  Those were the days...

Charles was tall, black, well-spoken.  He had a presence about him, a leader.  He was our class president-- there was simply no one else in our class that could have been.

Joey was half Filipino, half Mexican.  He was into arty stuff, and mostly hung out with the drama folks.  He brought a different point of view to the group.

Sev, another Filipino, was/is probably the smartest of all of us, in terms of book knowledge.  He was chosen "Most Likely to Succeed".  I don't know if he ever made it big.  He learned Portuguese, partly to be different from everyone that was learning Spanish.

Bill, "the white guy", was something else.  He probably had a photographic memory, but he was lazy.  In some of our classes together, I would take notes and study, but he'd just sit and listen (if he was interested).  Then he'd do as well as me, or even better, at tests.  It was a frustrating.

The reason I mentioned the races/nationalities of these guys is just a way of saying that I've always been pretty color blind when it comes to picking friends.  My dad used to call us "The U.N."  I liked that, and thought that was pretty clever.  Although where I grew up wasn't very rich, or maybe because of that, there were a lot of minorities at school, large populations of Mexicans and Filipinos, sprinklings of others.  How I interacted with someone differed more if it was a boy vs. a girl, than any particular nationality.  Although I had female friends, I wasn't as close to any of them as I was with The U.N.

After a summer of learning tennis on our own, from the ground up, we all tried out for and made the tennis team.  Joey and I mostly played doubles, the others played singles.  We did learn to be fairly respectable, but there also wasn't that much competition for tennis.  At the end of our senior season, I was voted captain-- I got a star for my varsity letter.  Never got the letterman's jacket, though-- even though it was just tennis, I didn't want to be known as a jock.  I was quietly very proud that my teammates thought that much of me, quietly because I was somewhat embarrassed by it.  I didn't like drawing attention to myself.

Charles and Sev went to UCLA, while I "betrayed" them by going to USC.  I think Joey went to UCSD or SDSU, but I don't think Bill went to college.  I saw these guys occasionally during the summers in between, and at separate times Charles and Sev rented a room from me when I was working in San Diego, but I haven't seen any of them since I moved up to the Bay Area 20 years ago.  I helped organize our 10 year reunion, but have not made it to any of the ones after that.

Everyone always thought Charles would become a lawyer or politician, but he got a job as an insurance adjuster after college, and I believe he's still in the insurance biz.  I'm sure he's moved up the corporate ladder.

Sev was writing and self-publishing when I last saw him.  I thought that was a waste of his talent because he wasn't making much money.  But what do I know?  Maybe he was just ahead of his time.

I don't know where Joey or Bill ended up.

Guys, where ever you are, here's to you!  My best wishes and I hope you're doing well.  Go, Class of '77!

A brief update

• on the elliptical now at 20 minutes, at pretty high resistance and varying inclination, twice a week
• I've lost more than 10 pounds since this all started (I may need to find my old belt; I'm on the innermost hole on my current one.)
• blood pressure is generally down; when I measure it late night, I get 110-120 / 65-80. I know it's higher during the day, maybe as much as +20/+15, but it's progress!
• I've generally been trying to have only one big meal during the day, usually lunch. Dinner is usually a small bowl of something, but if I feel hungry I make popcorn or I'll boil up some frozen corn or broccoli.

Last weekend, I lapsed a bit-- I got a craving and made some barbecued pork loin. It was soooo good, but I know it's because of the fat. Surprisingly, my bp that night wasn't much higher. Maybe my body is starting to adjust, and is getting better at metabolizing.

Lawrence suggested getting a stationary bike. I like the idea-- I can put it in the family room, which is where I spend most of my time. I'll try to get into the habit of hopping on while I'm otherwise just watching TV in the evening or on the weekend. I've started researching, and will get one soon.

more thoughts about my health

This past weekend I spent some time with my dear friend Dana.  As usual, we found a lot of things to talk about and I didn't get home until pretty late.

One of the topics was about (my) health.  We talked about an attempt we made a couple years ago for our group to become more health conscious.  This was called Healthy Pigs, because it was during the Year of the Pig.  The group met approximately once a month, pot luck style, and everyone was supposed to bring a healthy dish, or a healthier version of dishes we always had.  For instance, Lawrence made a version of his almond jello with lower calorie ingredients.  We each set goals-- mine was to lose 20 lbs. for the year, which I actually achieved.

Unfortunately, not everyone took their goals seriously, and although the dishes individually were healthier, the quantities were too much.  The meetings became less frequent, and within a couple of months in the next cycle (now renamed The Rats That Roared, in honor of The Year of the Rat), we gave up.  And I quickly regained the 20 lbs. and more.

We've started talking about resurrecting this effort in some form.  Let's see how it goes.

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The biggest problem I have with plain old exercising is that it's boring.  Although I may be able to coax myself into going to a gym, the repetition is mind-numbing.  If the accomplishment is measured by the number of repetitions, I will quickly lose interest.  I admire the folks who can read magazines while on the exercise equipment-- although I'm reasonably coordinated, my reading comprehension would be pretty low while I'm pedalling away.

So, having said that, last week I started going to Sun's fitness center again, twice a week for now.  Elliptical, I'm only good for 15 minutes.  I can probably go a little longer, but I don't want to go too hard just starting out.  The bigger problem is I'm having trouble regulating my heart rate.  At my age, the workout max is ~145bpm, but mine has gone to ~165 for minutes at a time.  (My resting heart rate is actually pretty good, in the low 60s.)

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The reason I like participating in sports like tennis and volleyball is that it's interactive and somewhat unpredictable.  Even if you don't have the same amount of ability, you still have a chance if you can out-think and out-wit your opponents.  Ping pong is more enjoyable than a treadmill, and can be quite a workout.  I'll play just about anything that involves a ball and a stick.  The problem with sports is getting enough friends together on a regular basis.  Over the years, as more and more friends got married and started families, their availability became a lower and lower priority.

There are other physical activities I enjoy, like snow skiing.  But this one is more about the scenery and less about the physical exertion.  I much more enjoy fast gliding than I do the bumps.  It's a lot of work jumping around moguls, and getting up after falling (which for me happens often when navigating bumps).  Not too many of my friends can take off a weekend anymore (that family priority thing again), although last season a bunch of the families took a ski trip together, many of the same families that I went camping with a couple of weekends ago.

Some alternatives I'll probably consider are hiking and biking.  There are lots of local biking and hiking trails. 

My brother-in-law Jaime started biking not long ago, and he looks great, trimmer than before.  He's gone a bit hard-core, though-- he's been doing some long road courses.  He has espoused its virtues to me, and has even said he'd deliver a bicycle to me if I wanted.  My friends Frances and Cliff (used to?) go off-road biking and have invited me in the past.

Even "urban hiking" is ok, as long as it's not just me.  The good thing is that, unless you're doing a really strenuous walk/hike, you can have a fairly stimulating (for the mind) conversation at the same time.

To bring this full circle, I think Dana tricked me.  She lives in The City, pretty close to restaurants and Chinatown.  We walked to dinner, but walked back and forth along a few blocks under the premise of choosing where to go.  I think she knew where she wanted to eat on the first or second time, but got me to walk maybe an extra quarter mile while we considered our options.

Bam! (Or, Turning 50... So Far)

I actually don't care much about birthdays, at least not my own.  I mean, it's not like you turn a certain age and BAM! your life changes.  Well, ok that might be true for certain ages (16, 18, 21 immediately come to mind) but I'm long past those.  I do like celebrating birthdays though, mainly for the excuse to get together with my friends and family.

This year I turned the big 5-0.  It was so big, there were parties and other events on 2 consecutive weekends.  I really have to pat myself on the back: I could not have chosen a better family or set of friends.  I was pleasantly surprised when my family decided to come up from San Diego, especially because of my dad.  He got rid of the travelling bug long ago after 20 years in the Navy, and since he's getting up there he doesn't get around very well on his own.

(a little reminder to myself: write more about the circumstances surrounding all the parties, and more about the parents...)

Not long after turning 50, I woke up one day with what felt like a sprained ankle.  I just thought that maybe I slept in a funny position and cut off the circulation.  But it got worse and worse over the next few days, and strangely had moved from the ankle down to the heel.  I even worked the next week from home just to stay off of it.  Finally, I went to go see a doctor.  (If you know me, you'd know that's a big deal.)  The diagnosis was tendonitis of the achilles.  (It turns out that the treatment I had been giving for what I thought was a sprain, soaking my feet in hot water to increase the circulation, was exactly wrong for treating tendonitis, which needed to be iced.)  The next week, after the ice, my foot felt great.  Then the week following, I woke up one day and it was bad, so bad that I couldn't put any weight on it.  That followup doctor visit became more extensive-- walk around on crutches, get my blood/urine/stool analyzed.  (Blood tests have always been a bit traumatic for me, but it actually wasn't so bad this time.  Urine test, no big deal: just piss in a cup.  Stool test is kinda weird-- you float a piece of paper in the bowl, dump on that, "swab" the feces.  Just thought you'd like to know, in case you ever wondered.)

Within a few days, the test results were in, and in This Modern Age, were available online.  Most of the numbers looked ok to me, but what do I know.  In the next doctor visit, she did the interpretation.  The ankle issue is likely gout.  (Gout?  Didn't they eradicate that in the era of sulfa drugs?)  So here's the BAM! part:

• cholesterol's too high
• blood pressure's too high
• BMI is in the "morbidly obese" category
• borderline diabetic
• pre-osteoporosis
  

Yeesh.  It all comes down to this: adjust the diet, get more exercise, and lose weight.  It's not like I didn't see it coming.  And it's not like my good friends and family hadn't mentioned it.  I'd always used a combination of denial ("I don't want to see a doctor because I don't want to hear what he's going to tell me") and a lot of faith in my body's ability to deal with the crud I was feeding it.  Despite not being a trained medical professional, I've always been able to figure out on my own what my body needed, and how to get well when I got sick.  I'd always thought, I know I'm going to have to eat more sensibly at some point, but until then I'm going to eat what I want and enjoy it with no guilt.  (I'm generally a guilt-free person, which probably makes me a not-very-good Catholic...)

The doctor has scared me to life (which isn't to be confused with being scarred for life).

• reduce portions
  
• cut down on sweets
• cut down on salt intake
• cut down on red meat (this is the tough one for me)
• brown rice instead of white rice
• whole wheat bread instead of white bread
• eat more fruits and vegetables
• reduce milk from 2% down to 0% (this one's going to be tough, too)
• avoid fried and otherwise processed foods
  
• aerobic exercise 3-4 times a week, 30 minutes of elevated heartrate
  

I'm working on it, making small strides.  Fortunately, I'm not so far gone that I need to do anything particularly drastic.  I've been prescribed hypertension medicine, and am taking Vitamin D supplements, which hopefully are temporary until I get the weight down-- the weight is the key to everything.  It is obviously directly related to the cholesterol and the BMI, but it's also affecting the my body's ability to break down the uric acid (gout) and metabolize the Vitamin D in the milk (osteoporosis).

The journey begins.

grumble...

blogger.com wouldn't let me log in (and therefore, not let me post comments) unless I "accept third party cookies" in my Firefox prefs.
I feel this could be a security hole, so I'm not very happy about this.

why...

I never thought I'd write a blog.

I rarely think anything that I think is notable, and feel it's somewhat presumptuous to think anyone would find my thoughts interesting. But now that one of my sisters and her older daughter have started blogging, I gotta get with the program! I admit that I like telling stories, and this is the modern way of doing it. Plus, I'm getting a bit older, and this is a place for me to jot down thoughts that may be interesting only to me or my immediate family.

What the heck is a gate slinger? It's what I do. I am a hardware logic designer in Silicon Valley. It's a bit hard to explain to someone not in the profession, but my job is to basically take a "function" and describe it in a way that can be built into one of those ubiquitous little computer chips. For example, if you've ever wondered how your PC knows how to correctly add two numbers together, I know exactly how it does it. I'll probably write about some things at work and some of the colorful characters I've encountered. Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth in Dilbert.

(I have to give credit to an old buddy for coming up with the term "gate slinger". I'll write about that at some point.)

I'd like to think I'm pretty good at logic design, since I've been doing it my entire career (almost 30 years now...). Other folks who've been doing this as long as I have, have either moved into management or into higher technical positions, but this is my calling in life. I don't have any aspirations to do anything else, and God willing, I will be able to do this for the rest of my professional life, about 15 more years.

As a happy coincidence I just noticed, GSM (Gate Slinger Musings) is also my dad's initials.

Cool.