  I was at the gym yesterday and for the first time in my life it really struck me just how poisonous music is. I was running on the treadmill and mulling over some issues about work and this one consulting project, and suddenly When I Come Around by Green Day came on. I really love that song. Rock is something you enjoy vicariously; you picture yourself in place of the musician/vocalist. It's an axe on serious thought. I've mostly quit listening to pop and rock type music, though I do pull out my favorites every once in a while. I took the advice of one alim and switched to "safer" music - art music like on classical or eclectic radio stations - as a way of easing me down off of music.
Don't laugh, but the gym I go to is Bally Total Fitness on 59S exit 90A. Yeah it really is more of a gym for women, the high aerobics to weights ratio makes that clear. There's no pool, no track, not much in the way of hot water, and I signed a 3 year contract last July. Oh yes, I have an excuse: I can walk to Bally from work in about 3 minutes. Now when I'm having a bad or particularly tedious day (and yes just about every day is tedious here) I can take lunch off and go run 3 miles on a treadmill or lift some weights to tighten my muscles and keep me in my chair, but in reality I haven't really been taking advantage of this benefit.
I spent over 2 hours working out yesterday because I was procrastinating work on a data-driven IVR prototype system I'm putting together in an attempt to get the developers at work to notice the modern software engineering principles that exist. Like perhaps they'll actually acknowledge the existence of OOP and OOAD at last. This is one thing I truly cannot afford to procrastinate on though; today I overheard Z. talking to some developers and more importantly the VP about his own data-driven system. I can't let him put his design into use. I can't work on software that works the way these people would build it.
After my looong workout I went to the mosque for the aqeeqah of this nice Nigerian brother's son (or daughter). His wife was sick and stayed at home with the kids, so I never got to meet them. This brother works on an oil rig somewhere in Africa as an engineer of some sort. He's often gone for stints of several months at a time, working along side just a few comrades out of sight of any land whatsoever. I met B., this arab brother at the masjid last night and guessed that he was Syrian right off the back because he could easily be Abdul H.'s brother. Perhaps Abdul H. himself if he grew a beard, rode a Harley, and worked as a construction contractor. The funny thing is this guy thought I was Jordanian (probably why he caught my attention and said salaam as I was about to leave). I remember looking vaguely Mexican in high school and folks thinking I was Punjabi because of the eyes, but this was new.
A bit disturbing perhaps, aren't Jordanian men supposed to look evil? Yeah that's really bad to say, but I recall Abdul H. mentioning that as a stereotype. He does great impressions of arabs from different countries. He's really funny when he does "the young pretty Syrian girl". Apparently Syrian arabic is really deep and heavy and very un-ladylike. New approach to managing my time at work: a self-enforced 5 minute break every 1/2 hour.
Surely spending 1/6 of my time on break will kill my productivity? No, sadly I think I waste more time currently, daydreaming and being aimlessly perfectionist-ic. And I think going to bed at 11:00pm every day will help as well. The absence line at work is 555-4901 urlLink * . I think I'm going to call in sick on Wednesday to go to the Microsoft Security Summit. Yeah I could have very easily legitimately taken that day off as training, but I never filled out the paperwork or talked to the right people.
Somehow this links in with "it is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission" but I'm not sure exactly how it would apply. MSS should be pretty lame and humdrum. I mean, it's not supposed to be an exciting event, is it? I don't want to check Feedster for others' opinions till after MSS and I've written about my own reactions. * Yeah, like I'm going to post a confidential number online. But I needed to write down those last 4 digits somewhere I can check Tuesday night. 
