Bananas...

Bananas, bananas,
the magical fruit.
The more you eat,
The more your toot.
~
What? I often forget I have this forum. Don't look at me mister. You created this nightmare.

;)

Bananas

I'm finally starting to feel human again... thanks to bananas. Who would have guessed? Yes, that was the advice everyone gave me. No, I didn't try it until Wednesday. I was talking to one of the personal trainers at work about my plight when he told me to eat some bananas. He explained in depth how they work on the digestive system and practically guaranteed me that I'd start to feel better.

So last night I hit the grocery store for more Powerade and picked up a small bunch of bananas. I had one for dinner, and then another this morning. The tummy rumblings have gone away and I've started to get some of my energy back. In fact, I felt brave enough to even try eating real food for dinner tonight. Granted it was only plain pasta with no sauce, but that's a big step from having no appetite at all.

Bananas saved my life. That might be an over exaggeration, but not too far from the truth. They are the miracle food.

On the run... again and again

I ate something bad for dinner Saturday night. Very bad. To spare you the gory and unpleasant details, let's just say that I've spent the last two days wearing a path in the carpet from my bed to the bathroom. Just today I felt confident enough to try eating again... having two pieces of bread and some cheese cubes. So far so good on that deal. The frequency and severity of the trips have decreased, but no where near feeling even close to being human. Although not keeping track, I've probably slept 14-16 hours per day over the last two days.

I don't think I've ever been this sick in my life. I had a bout of food poisoning about 10 years ago, but it didn't last nearly this long or have me this wrecked. I've gone through two 2-liter bottles of diet Ginger Ale trying to keep some fluids in me. I'm out of that now, and have switched over to the last few cans of Coke Zero in the refrigerator. There's no chance of me even risking leaving the abode of bobness to restock. Early on there were times I wouldn't even make it back to my bed before I was up again on the way back to bathroom. I wouldn't risk a trip outside my front door.

I've got a previously scheduled doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. With any luck I'll be able to make it there without any incidents and he'll be able to put an end to this nonsense. If anyone has any ideas to help, I'd much appreciate them. I've tried to keep this as non-descriptive as possible, but I'll apologize in advance if I've grossed out too many people. Gotta run... if you know what I mean.

Theme Thursday - Vacation

What are your vacations like? I was posed this question a few years ago. Most of my vacations as an adult have always been planned well in advance. Since most of them revolved around golf, it was a lot of research of locations, hotels, flights, restaurants, everything. Similar to the workplace, vacations were structured and scheduled. What happens if you find something or someplace you didn't know about? A good question, but one for which I had an answer. I would schedule a free day to do whatever I wanted, try a recommendation from the locals, or do nothing. Yes, even my spontaneous time was planned.

Lately though, vacations have evolved into something different. Most have been trips home to see just mom and just brother, so they are very loose and unplanned. I'd rather spend time with them doing whatever they want to do than make a bunch of plans and have every second scheduled. Vacations not involving the family generally revolve an event or events like hockey or ball games or concerts. Although those have some structure to them, the rest of the time not involving the event isn't planned anymore. Even though I lived in New England for nearly 10 years, I spent two whole days in March walking around Boston seeing and doing things I never found the time for when it was so close.

I guess over the years I've gotten more adventurous with my free time. Not adventurous like cliff diving or hang gliding, but more adventurous in being less planned and more off the cuff. In the past year I've even taken off for a weekend on less than a week's notice. In my past I would never have been that spontaneous. I'm not really sure why things have changed, they just have. What my vacations will look like ten years from now I have no idea, but they probably won't be like they are today. It should be an interesting ride... or walk... or flight... or train... or who knows.

The who cares test

Sunday afternoon I spent almost all afternoon working on my resume. I devoted a good four hours to writing, revising, contemplating, adding, subtracting, re-adding and re-editing. I had sent my old version to a trusted friend earlier in the week and she gave me a great deal of awesome advice. Since she had been out looking recently, I figured her input would be timely. I had not overhauled my resume for about 10 years, and having a fresh set of eyes was very enlightening. For someone who has read thousands of resumes over the past ten years, it's amazing that I didn't notice the shortcomings and omissions that were right there on mine.

I think her best advice was to take a look at every line and see if it passes the "who cares?" test. I had never viewed it from that perspective before yesterday. How do I look at a record of my professional career and honestly evaluate whether if there are things that make people say "who cares?" Those accomplishments obviously mean something to me, but do they matter to anyone else? I found quite a few "who cares?" in there. But in working through it, I also uncovered a number of feats that should have been highlighted more.

Looking back at the entirety of my career to date, I noticed some things I wanted to accomplish aren't there. But even more importantly, I saw a lot of things I never would have dreamed I would be able to achieve. When I cut through all the crap, I was pretty darned impressed by the person on the paper in front of me. I would hire just bob if I was looking for someone with his skills and experience. For someone like me who has self-esteem issues, it was a great exercise to emphasize the good things without even considering the negatives. Hopefully the next person who reads it will think it passes the "who cares?" test too.