The World of Scott Mindeaux

Did the Disappearing Act Again…

Well it seems that I have fallen off the edge of the earth again… I have not posted on my blog in quite some time and I am REALLY, REALLY sorry. As many of you know I also have a food blog – FoodieInDisguise.com. I have been concentrating on posts there and neglecting my life outside of food.

Let’s see, the last thing I wrote about was about Downton Abbey and Torchwood. Who would have thought how much attention Downton Abbey has been getting over the last couple of months. American fascinated about the life of aristocrats and their servants. They even won a couple of Emmys! I am anxiously awaiting season 3.

Since my layoff, I have spent all of December, January and February looking for work. It is rough out there!! There ARE jobs. Lots of jobs actually. But you’re competing with hundreds of applicants. If you don’t get your resume in right away, it could get lost in a stack on a recruiters desk or stay unread in the HR managers email. You have to play this game of not being too early for fear of being buried, but not too late that they have already selected their first run candidates.

I went out on a few interviews. Some good, some bad. I applied for a position as a Jr. Mac Administrator position for a well known geographically based iPhone app that helps you located “people and friends” that a nearby. You know, the app wiht the black and yellow skull logo. Well I went into that interview and I wasn’t prepared. I totally fucked that interview up and the sad part is that I did know all the answers. I had been so out of practice, I literally forgot the answers. Out of practice you ask? Well, I haven’t actually been doing IT support work since November 2010, just before I took responsibility for moving Ignite to their new 30,000 square foot building. After successfully moving the company, I took more of an operations/facility role. So in essence, I haven’t been practicing Mac Admin for over a year. When I got there they also asked me a slew of OS X Lion questions. We were still Snow Leopard at the agency and I didn’t have any game with Lion in a corporate environment. Sure, I used it at home, but not like I would if it was deployed at the office. So, obviously I didn’t get a call-back. I knew I messed that one up. In hindsight it probably was a good thing. I struggled for a bit about how to explain where I worked. My duties and actual job would probably always be overshadowed by the fact that I worked for “you know who”. Let’s all be real here, that app is not as innocent as the iTunes store describes the app. [smile]

A couple more opportunities came across, some out of state and some in-state but in places like San Diego, San Francisco and the East Bay. I even thought about leaving IT again and pursuing something in culinary. Unfortunately, those opportunities were far and hard to find.

Being on unemployment sucks. Things have been very difficult lately. Rent and Cobra alone is more than what I take home in unemployment. I had already struggled thru some of my savings when I was out on medical leave last summer. I even had to sell things on Craigslist just to make ends meet. So where are things?

Well, let’s just say an awesome opportunity will be making itself known on March 1. It’s exciting and I can’t wait to see what that will turn into. Details after I hear back!

So what else has been going on? Ugh. I have gained 15 pounds back. I went from 275 to 227 and back up to 243. I think I went into a tailspin after the layoff and went back into bad habits. I started slacking off from going to the gym and eating all the wrong foods. I have started to get back on the diet (modified Paleo) and started going back to the gym again. It will be nice to have a routine again when the March 1 thing comes through. So let’s see how fast i can get myself back to 227 and then keep steady for a loss below 200!  Can I do it???

I am so behind on some of my cable shows. I had to stop paying for cable since I didn’t have the money for it. So I have missed a good chunk of shows from Bravo, Cooking Channel and The Food Network. It has been 3 months since I have watch a cooking show. I’m having withdrawals. Yes I have found some content online, but nothing is more relaxing for me than waking up on a Saturday morning and watching The Barefoot Contessa or an episode of Eat Street. I heard there wasn’t much to miss on LOGO, but I have missed out on the Housewives in Beverly Hills, Atlanta and The OC as well as a Season of Tabitha taking over something!

So stay with me whoever you are. I hope I still have at least one reader on my site. I have been blogging since 2000 and it has been a fun ride so far. Let’s fill the rest of 2012 with some positive news and a leaner me!

Another Kickstarter Find: Sensu Brush

I have been on the hunt for various styli (stylus plural) for my iPad and iPhone. I just received my Jot stylus from Adonit (another Kickstarter venture) and will review soon. In the meantime, here is a true brush for the artist in you and your iPad:

You can visit the Kickstarter site for Sensu at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/797362124/sensu-brush-a-true-painting-experience-on-your-ipa?ref=live

Rehab, Macs and “What is a Gym”?

So for the last few weeks, I have been in Cardiac Rehab – a program designed to strengthen my heart and get my body re-adjusted to its new “world”. Mostly it consists of cardio workout along with weights and stretching. Things have been going on pretty well and if you follow me on Facebook or Foursquare, I have been posting my workouts online. My blood pressure has been climbing since late June and I think that is good. Sometimes it is too high and that has me worried. Seems when the medication isn’t active in my system, my BP isn’t managed. I might have have to have my meds adjusted to cover more of the day rather than just the hours after each medication round.

My blood sugars seem to be good. I have been hovering in the  low 100s. I see my endocrinologist in a couple of weeks and it would be nice to see my A1C numbers around 7. I’m hoping for the best. The A1C is an average of 90 days of glucose readings. The ideal target is 5-7. Let’s just say my last labs back in Q4 of 2010 was above 10 (not good).

As for the weight, I have been hovering in the 230′s for the last couple of weeks. This is down from 275 earlier this year. My goal is to get to 220′s by the end of the year and then target another 15 pounds for Q1 of 2011. I have been weighing myself on a daily basis and one of the nurses at rehab said not to do that. I will be come fixated on the numbers and it is normal for the human body to fluctuate day-to-day. She recommends weighing once a week. I have been keeping a chart of my progress and will adjust to a weekly schedule.

I have been eating much better since the heart attack. 90% of my meals are cooked from fresh ingredients. No processed foods. I go to the market every couple of days to buy ingredients for meals. I try to make each meal so I can have leftovers later in the week. So what is the other 10%. The other 10% is when I’m out with family and eating at a place that I’m not quite sure if the food is fresh or processed foods. For example, birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, I know that their pizzas (while handmade) are probably made with meats and cheeses that are processed. Processed foods are way higher in sodium content. In fact 75% of the sodium that Americans get, come from processed foods. Frozen dinners are the worse culprit of all. Sodium is a preservative. So there are times, when i can’t make an informed decision on what to eat and there will be times where I don’t want to chow down on a bowl of greens. I’ll admit it, I can’t always eat a salad every time I’m at a place that is questionable. If the “unknown” factor is down to 5-10%, I’m ok with that, but the overall goal is food made locally and with fresh ingredients. For those that don’t know I have a good blog, I have been posting some of my meals and recipes on that site. Check it out at www.foodieindisguise.com

Well recently Apple has released new MacBook Airs. I want one. I want one really bad. This new models are faster than their predecessors with an 11″ and 13″ model. Mac OS X Lion is also out. I installed in on day one and haven’t had any problems whatsoever. The new gestures and navigation need some getting used to, but if you want to you set your setting to be the old way too. I think I will buy a Magic Trackpad so that I’m just navigating thru gestures and get rid of the mouse.

Here’s something you never knew about me. I have never set foot in a gym. The last time I was in a gym was probably my junior year of high school. Since then, I have never been in one. Almost everyone I knew in my life had a gym membership. I always was afraid to go into gyms. In my eyes, gyms were for people that were already in shape. I know, I know very silly, but that’s how I saw it. Gyms were a social activity for the fit and active, not for guys like me who need to work out. For years, I have always ga-fahed at going to a gym. Who wants to see someone like me on a recumbent bike or on the treadmill? You know what? Why should I care? For years I have put it in my head that I couldn’t go cuz I was afraid of being someone that would be ridiculed by all the good looking people at the gym.  Well fuck that. I need to live. I WANT to live and in order for me to do that, I need to keep working out, keep losing weight and start putting on some muscle mass. I’m not doing this for them, I’m doing this for ME.

There is a brand new LA Fitness Club being built 3 blocks from my house. It will be their new flagship location at over 62,000 sq. feet of exercise space along with racquetball courts, basketball, swimming pool, yoga studio, juice bar and a Kid’s Zone – to name a few. I walked into the Pre-sale office they setup here in the shopping center and went to get more information. The general manager was the one who was there and I felt like he was like a used car salesman, but I didn’t let that distract me from the reason I was there. I signed up for a membership. Yes, that’s right. For the first time in my life, I was a member of a gym. My membership is good at any LA Fitness. I can bring a guest and a couple of times a year, I can bring guests in free. He showed me a layout of the floor plans and this place is HUGE! A spin class specific area, courts, all the electronic machines had dedicated LCD monitors that you could hook up your iPhone or iPod and watch and listen to music. If you want you can just choose something to watch on them as they will have channels. The club is two levels. They are scheduled to open in less than 10 days.

Does anyone want to go with me and do my workout with me?

Well that’s it for now, I’m headed to bed. Have cardiac rehab in the morning…

Heart Ultrasound, Spotify and Strawberries

So today I got some great news from my cardiologist. Today I went in to have an ultrasound (echocardiogram) done of my heart. Similar technology for fetal ultrasounds. They needed to look at my heart to see if it was pumping properly and to see if there was any discrenable damage. As you recall, my right artery was completely occluded (clogged). There were unable to install a stent or open up the artery. This had me worried as well as my doctors. My cardiologist said that many people live on with just the two left arteries. After the ultrasound, the tech did a lot of “hmmms” and “hmmmms” which worried me. The tech brought me to the front (where I passed out on my last visit) and the person at the desk looked at me, I smiled and said that I wouldn’t be passing out this time. The tech brought me to the same exam room I was in the last time, room 4.

Dr. LaMont came in and had my results. He reviewed my meds that told me the good news. He said that my heart had returned to normal rhythm and that if he didn’t know better, he wouldn’t have known I had an attack. Now, remember the occluded right artery, he said that when the heart is damaged like that, new capillaries or arteries grow to the right side to compensate for the clogged artery. I was like, “wow…it knows to do that??” He said that my heart looked good and that he was now able to take away some of my meds. The one med he took out of my regimen was the Amiodarone from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals. He said I no longer needed this and that they try to wean off patients off it as it is toxic over time. I was on it for 2 months. The Amiodarone was also responsible for a level 1 interaction with my “statins” which could cause muscle damage. Yikes! Well that is gone. My Lisinopril for my blood pressure was increased to 2x a day and lowered my Isosorbide (Coreg) to just one time a day.

Today I received my Spotify invitation. I’m still on the edge about a subscription. I have only had it for a few hours so I’m still testing things out. I have to say that this thing is speedy! I have listened to quite a few tracks on it and the response time and quality is quite impressive. I’m trying to figure out if I need it and what the quality will be like on a 3G connection on my iPhone. I’ll upgrade to the Premium tomorrow and if I don’t see value in it, I will downgrade myself.

So a few weeks back my friend Shannon from the office brought me some groceries while I recover at home from the heart attack. In that set she brought me some fresh strawberries, angel food cake and fat free whipped cream. I have to say I have been enjoying this little “strawberry shortcake” for several weeks. Not the same set from when Shannon was here, I have gone out and bought more strawberries and angel food cake. Now, this isn’t a “shortcake” in the truest sense. I place a slice of angel food cake down, whip cream and then sliced strawberries, then another slice, whip cream and strawberries. Absolutely awesome! Fat free whip cream 5 calories, angel food cake 72 calories and the strawberries come in at 49. The whipped cream is fat free as well so that is a bonus! Now the pics below show a “family style” plating. My 2 sisters and their kids were over and we had this for desert!

Cardiac Rehab, Stir Craziness and Torchwood

Well it has been a few days since I have posted. So this past week I started Cardiac Rehab at the Saddleback Hearth Institute and Wellness Center. Cardiac rehab is basically getting my body back up to strength thru a progressive schedule of cardio and weights training. I’m attending Cardiac Rehab three times a week. I showed up for my first appointment which mostly is comprised of an interview to assess my mental state and to discuss nutrition and what is expected. I’m generally in a good mood these days, but bored as hell! I have been home now for almost two months and going stir crazy! The only time I’m really out of the house is to do a grocery run and to do my daily 10 minute walks. My “trainer” Hilary suggested that over time I increase the amount of time I walk and to start incorporating some of the exercises on my off days (Tuesdays and Thursdays and the weekends).

My routine consists of the following to start. Over time, the time spent will increase and weights will increase. First is a weigh in, then a blood sugar and blood pressure reading. I start on the treadmill with a 2 minute warm up and then 12 minutes at a whopping 1.7 mph. During my “walk” I have my blood pressure checked while my heart is beating faster. After the treadmill, it’s the hand pedal machine. I pedal with my hands with some tension for about 5 minutes – I’m guessing that’s for upper cardio. When I’m done with that I’m then on what I :think: is called a Recumbent Seated Elliptical Machine. It’s like a standup elliptical where you are stepping but also have upper body handles that you hold on to – but you sit. See below:

I’m on this machine for about 10 minutes with a goal of 75-80 motions per minute. Then it’s another blood pressure check and then free weights. It consists of about 6 different exercises with a 5lb weight in each arm. This past Friday I was doing the shoulder shrugs and everytime I did them there was a “snap” in my left shoulder. I freaked out and they asked if there was any pain associated with it. I said no and they said it is normal. The remaining exercises each have 10 reps each. Next we move to the toning band exercises. – again 10 reps.

When we’re done with that we move to cool down stretches that target the calves, thighs, hamstrings and quads. Then I’m done! All in all about 45 minutes. Over the next 11 weeks the times and difficulty will increase. I’m the youngest one in my class. Most of those attending are seniors.

So this week is the start of some new shows for the summer season. On Mondays we have the return of Eureka and Warehouse 13 on the SyFy channel as well as a new show called Alphas which I think will be a good show. On HGTV the reality show HGTV Design Star when folks compete for their own TV show starts. The Next Food Network Star has already started and those are on Sundays. This is the show similar to HGTV’s where you get your own cooking show on the Food Network.

I’m also VERY PLEASED to announce the return of Torchwood. Technically their 5th season, Torchwood takes place here in America. Russell T. Davies is still directing. Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper come across the pond to investigate the world-wide phenomenon that no one is dying – with one exception Jack (who was forever immortal) now is mortal. It’s actually a bit gruesome with no one dying. Even those that are dismembered or burned to a crisp, seem to still be “alive” it was kinda creepy. This new season finds Torchwood on the Starz network instead of BBC, which is very bizarre to me. I don’t get Starz so I have to rely on “alternative” methods to watch my show.

New shows I continue to watch are Suits with the very handsome Patrick J. Adams and Necessary Roughness both on USA. Oh one more…Sarah Richardson has a new show on HGTV called Sarah 101. I luv Sarah! Her previous two shows: Design Inc and Sarah’s House are favorites of mine.

So to end this entry. Do you think Apple is releasing Mac OS X Lion (10.7) on Thursday? Rumors have it that the stores will be hosting an “overnight” to reconfigure the stores for Thursday morning. Do you think we’ll get new MacBook models? I’m also waiting on word of the outcome of rumors of an iPad HD and the iPhone 5. I’ve been running beta of iOS 5 and it’s still kinda buggy, but overall it is feature rich and will be a great iOS update this Fall.

Now…

Apple releases a new iPad 2 ad…