Still Kickin'

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Yeah, I'm still kickin'! Most of my online activity has been taking place either on my Twitter account or the More In Sanity Facebook page, but I've also posted several interesting things on my personal Facebook page (which you probably can't read all of), or on others' pages.Sign up to be a follower or a liker or a subscriber to keep up with most of my shenanigans. It's worth it, unless you're a hater or a schmuck, but no one who enjoys this site is one of those.

Some of you know I've been driving a truck again for the last few months, which is my excuse for not stopping by here more often; I've definitely been busy. Gotten a little work done on a couple of my stories, came up with a few more (:rolleyes:), and have been working on a business plan for a friend who may be selling some tasty confectionaries in the near future, which she makes now and then for only her favorite friends. (Is it any wonder I can't quit chocolate and sugar?)

I did manage to finish up a piece I'd started writing a few months ago, which will be posted Monday morning, and I may be releasing a few more in the coming weeks, but for the time being, I'm probably not going to be as hot and heavy as I have been in the past. Using Facebook to share my thoughts is SOOOO much easier for both me and my fans who respond that I will probably use it for the bulk of my activities. When time is limited, you have to use it carefully. But this place can still do a lot that Facebook can't, so I won't be changing where the URL points any time soon.

Stay tuned, because in the coming weeks there will be more articles and perhaps even some big changes if certain plans work out. And now to go update my wifi.mopjockey.com page...

Have a good weekend!

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Two of my Weight Loss Secrets

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Depending on what my "frame size" is - that is, whether I'm big-boned, small-boned, or in the middle - the supposed ideal weight for a man of my height is 155, 165, or 175 pounds. When I was at my peak weight of 260 pounds - not really all that fat compared to a lot of people, especially most truckers - I said to myself that I needed to lose 100 pounds, mostly because it was a nice round number which was close enough to the truth. I dropped 56 pounds the first year without any serious effort, but then the weight held steady, and what's worse, I decided to stop driving, mostly because I was tired of getting ripped off by my company, but also because I wanted to put the finishing touches on my novel and then get it sold. I'd need a lot of time to study up on how to do all that, and driving (especially without getting paid for it) was wasting that time.

So consequently, I started regaining some of the weight I'd lost. I knew what the problem was: I was starting to over eat and my activity level had gone down. Finally, I managed to get it under control by making some minor changes to my diet and my behavior and the weight started falling off again. Then we took a trip out west and I stopped the diet, thinking we'd be extra active to make up for it.

Tip: Don't take trips with people who can't walk more than 2 miles in a day and who want to start the day at 9:00 and give up on the day at 4:00. You won't see much and you won't lose much weight from activity. I expected the guy twice my age and weight to cause a problem, but not the guy half my age and weight.

But anyway, I regained about 15 pounds in just those 3 weeks, so I had to drop them again.


The morning of Christmas Eve was a Saturday, and was the day I allow myself to eat anything. And I do. I really need to employ a little more self-restraint, especially since I'm so good at it the rest of the week, but so far I haven't been able to do it very much. But anyway, Saturday mornings, before I pig out, are the time of the week I weigh the least. I've had all week to eat right and get in my exercise and such, and hopefully take care of my bathroom business before the weigh-in and before the eating contest.

My weight was down to 190, which means I was down a total of 70 pounds from my peak at 260. Sure, I'd lost about half of those pounds several times, but at least it was easy to do once I got back into my routine. A few weeks ago I bought some new pants at size 34, a size I haven't worn since high school - about 20 years. Everyone who hasn't seen me in a while says I'm skinny and don't need to lose more weight. I look at myself in the mirror and I look a lot better, but I still need to knock several more pounds off. I still haven't fully committed to a real body-building workout yet, but at least my walking levels have held steady or increased.At least I know that if I can find a way to make a habit of working out the way I've made a habit of eating right and walking, then I'll be able to do it just as easily.

Ok, so you're caught up on that particular soap opera of my life, and it's high time I tell you about those secrets I promised.

On Saturday, I typically eat a lot of chocolate and cookies and other stuff. I can put on anywhere from 5 to 10 pounds over the course of the day, but it's almost all water because I'm drinking a lot of extra water to keep myself hydrated. During the week I drink about half a gallon a day, maybe a little more, but on Saturday I typically drink about a full gallon. A gallon of water is 8 pounds. During the week, I - pardon any crudity - pee a lot. I seem to get rid of as much water as I bring in. But on Saturday, although I'm drinking more water, I'm in the bathroom less, and when I am in there, my pee isn't as mildly yellow as it is during the week. Mild yellow means it's mostly water, which means I'm drinking the right amount of water. Faint yellow or nearly clear means too much water, and deeper yellow means not enough water. If it's REALLY yellow, you REALLY need to drink some water!

I also noticed, while I was scarfing down some of those Reese's Christmas trees that I was not just drinking a lot of extra water as I lost nearly all self-control, but I was actually feeling VERY thirsty as I did so. It was then I realized, this was NOT the first time that had happened. I'm almost always thirsty on Saturday, particularly after eating a lot of sugar.

Well, the ingredients list has a lot of sugar, of course, but there's also a lot of sodium, which is essentially salt. Salt in your body retains water, which means the rest of your body isn't getting enough water, even if you drink a lot of it. It also means you're gaining weight. Every glass of water is a pound, and if you're not peeing it out, you're getting heavy and bloated. For a guy my size, it's not noticeable, but if you're a hot chick, or even a mostly in shape gal, you don't want to be holding on to all that water because it will make your slinky dresses a lot tighter and your face pudgier. And if you're in the military or you work at Hooters and have to do regular weigh-ins, all that water you're retaining will count against you.

The simple solution is to LAY OFF THE SODIUM! And the sugar, too, as I'm convinced it's a large part of the problem.

I've also noticed that on Sunday I don't lose the weight; it's not until my long walk Monday that I start to lose it, and that's because I'm sweating it out. Salt apparently doesn't leave your body through your bladder, it leaves through your sweat glands, so if you never work up a good sweat, you'll be holding on to that water for a few days.

So Secret #1 is: sugar and salt make you gain weight by making you retain water. And if you think you can be clever and drink something else, like pop or Gatorade, it's WATER your body needs, and those things don't contain enough of it, so you have to drink MORE, which means you're also adding a LOT of CALORIES. Water has no calories. Water helps you burn calories, if you have enough of it in you. Therefore avoid sugar and salt.

And Secret #2 is: once you eat salt, you can't get rid of it except by sweating it out, and this takes a bit of time and a lot of people don't enjoy the process of sweating unless the opposite sex is involved. But sweating IS a good way to get rid of the other salt your other food contains and which you can't avoid. Walking for a couple hours twice a week should do it, and I don't mean casually strolling. Sweat! Obviously you'll sweat more in warm weather than cold, but you don't want to sweat too much in the cold and then get sick, so practice and find what's best for you.

I guess I'm lucky in that my weekly diet is very low salt and low calorie. Even though I'm walking only 15-20 miles a week every other day, I'm still losing a pound or two every week... well, 6-12 pounds a week, but measured on Saturday mornings it's a pound or two. If you're not doing that, you'll have to be a lot more careful about the junk you're eating. Don't be especially surprised if dropping the pounds from that cake is hard; you're probably not drinking enough water and active enough to sweat it out, and you're probably eating a lot of other crap that's clogging things up too.

But hey, that's what you wanted to do. I've given you solid advice in the past, including the book which helped me finally get myself mostly under control, and I've also shown you that it works, so don't blame me. It's not too late. You can still do what I'm doing. Heck, you'll probably be better at it than me!

But you have to try it first.

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Merry Christmas!

Tweet.

Depending on what my "frame size" is - that is, whether I'm big-boned, small-boned, or in the middle - the supposed ideal weight for a man of my height is 155, 165, or 175 pounds. When I was at my peak weight of 260 pounds - not really all that fat compared to a lot of people, especially most truckers - I said to myself that I needed to lose 100 pounds, mostly because it was a nice round number which was close enough to the truth. I dropped 56 pounds the first year without any serious effort, but then the weight held steady, and what's worse, I decided to stop driving, mostly because I was tired of getting ripped off by my company, but also because I wanted to put the finishing touches on my novel and then get it sold. I'd need a lot of time to study up on how to do all that, and driving (especially without getting paid for it) was wasting that time.

So consequently, I started regaining some of the weight I'd lost. I knew what the problem was: I was starting to over eat and my activity level had gone down. Finally, I managed to get it under control by making some minor changes to my diet and my behavior and the weight started falling off again. Then we took a trip out west and I stopped the diet, thinking we'd be extra active to make up for it.

Tip: Don't take trips with people who can't walk more than 2 miles in a day and who want to start the day at 9:00 and give up on the day at 4:00. You won't see much and you won't lose much weight from activity. I expected the guy twice my age and weight to cause a problem, but not the guy half my age and weight.

But anyway, I regained about 15 pounds in just those 3 weeks, so I had to drop them again.


The morning of Christmas Eve was a Saturday, and was the day I allow myself to eat anything. And I do. I really need to employ a little more self-restraint, especially since I'm so good at it the rest of the week, but so far I haven't been able to do it very much. But anyway, Saturday mornings, before I pig out, are the time of the week I weigh the least. I've had all week to eat right and get in my exercise and such, and hopefully take care of my bathroom business before the weigh-in and before the eating contest.

My weight was down to 190, which means I was down a total of 70 pounds from my peak at 260. Sure, I'd lost about half of those pounds several times, but at least it was easy to do once I got back into my routine. A few weeks ago I bought some new pants at size 34, a size I haven't worn since high school - about 20 years. Everyone who hasn't seen me in a while says I'm skinny and don't need to lose more weight. I look at myself in the mirror and I look a lot better, but I still need to knock several more pounds off. I still haven't fully committed to a real body-building workout yet, but at least my walking levels have held steady or increased.At least I know that if I can find a way to make a habit of working out the way I've made a habit of eating right and walking, then I'll be able to do it just as easily.

Ok, so you're caught up on that particular soap opera of my life, and it's high time I tell you about those secrets I promised.

On Saturday, I typically eat a lot of chocolate and cookies and other stuff. I can put on anywhere from 5 to 10 pounds over the course of the day, but it's almost all water because I'm drinking a lot of extra water to keep myself hydrated. During the week I drink about half a gallon a day, maybe a little more, but on Saturday I typically drink about a full gallon. A gallon of water is 8 pounds. During the week, I - pardon any crudity - pee a lot. I seem to get rid of as much water as I bring in. But on Saturday, although I'm drinking more water, I'm in the bathroom less, and when I am in there, my pee isn't as mildly yellow as it is during the week. Mild yellow means it's mostly water, which means I'm drinking the right amount of water. Faint yellow or nearly clear means too much water, and deeper yellow means not enough water. If it's REALLY yellow, you REALLY need to drink some water!

I also noticed, while I was scarfing down some of those Reese's Christmas trees that I was not just drinking a lot of extra water as I lost nearly all self-control, but I was actually feeling VERY thirsty as I did so. It was then I realized, this was NOT the first time that had happened. I'm almost always thirsty on Saturday, particularly after eating a lot of sugar.

Well, the ingredients list has a lot of sugar, of course, but there's also a lot of sodium, which is essentially salt. Salt in your body retains water, which means the rest of your body isn't getting enough water, even if you drink a lot of it. It also means you're gaining weight. Every glass of water is a pound, and if you're not peeing it out, you're getting heavy and bloated. For a guy my size, it's not noticeable, but if you're a hot chick, or even a mostly in shape gal, you don't want to be holding on to all that water because it will make your slinky dresses a lot tighter and your face pudgier. And if you're in the military or you work at Hooters and have to do regular weigh-ins, all that water you're retaining will count against you.

The simple solution is to LAY OFF THE SODIUM! And the sugar, too, as I'm convinced it's a large part of the problem.

I've also noticed that on Sunday I don't lose the weight; it's not until my long walk Monday that I start to lose it, and that's because I'm sweating it out. Salt apparently doesn't leave your body through your bladder, it leaves through your sweat glands, so if you never work up a good sweat, you'll be holding on to that water for a few days.

So Secret #1 is: sugar and salt make you gain weight by making you retain water. And if you think you can be clever and drink something else, like pop or Gatorade, it's WATER your body needs, and those things don't contain enough of it, so you have to drink MORE, which means you're also adding a LOT of CALORIES. Water has no calories. Water helps you burn calories, if you have enough of it in you. Therefore avoid sugar and salt.

And Secret #2 is: once you eat salt, you can't get rid of it except by sweating it out, and this takes a bit of time and a lot of people don't enjoy the process of sweating unless the opposite sex is involved. But sweating IS a good way to get rid of the other salt your other food contains and which you can't avoid. Walking for a couple hours twice a week should do it, and I don't mean casually strolling. Sweat! Obviously you'll sweat more in warm weather than cold, but you don't want to sweat too much in the cold and then get sick, so practice and find what's best for you.

I guess I'm lucky in that my weekly diet is very low salt and low calorie. Even though I'm walking only 15-20 miles a week every other day, I'm still losing a pound or two every week... well, 6-12 pounds a week, but measured on Saturday mornings it's a pound or two. If you're not doing that, you'll have to be a lot more careful about the junk you're eating. Don't be especially surprised if dropping the pounds from that cake is hard; you're probably not drinking enough water and active enough to sweat it out, and you're probably eating a lot of other crap that's clogging things up too.

But hey, that's what you wanted to do. I've given you solid advice in the past, including the book which helped me finally get myself mostly under control, and I've also shown you that it works, so don't blame me. It's not too late. You can still do what I'm doing. Heck, you'll probably be better at it than me!

But you have to try it first.

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Sunday Funnies 11-10-23

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Welcome back for our weekly summary of everything important that you can't just scroll down and read! Just eight days to Halloween; do you have your house decorated and your costume designed and your party scheduled? If not, you'd better get it done quick.

We've had a cold snap here in Florida this weekend. Last Friday for my morning walk, it was so cold I felt like my brain was freezing. Still made about 5 miles, but I was miserable doing it. Fortunately it's warming up a little, and yesterday's and today's mornings were slightly less cold, so I'm not worried about Monday.

There were an awful lot of stories I thought were important enough to share over on our associated Facebook page, which you should check out and hit that big LIKE button at the top. So many, in fact, that I felt there was getting to be a bit of information overload, so I didn't share everything I really wanted to. Here are the most important things which happened last week:

86% of Bailout Money Used for Executive Bonuses -  How many times do we have to fall for this before we figure out we're getting ripped off by the corps AND the congressmen voting in favor of these?

5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall St. Is Helping Bust - Amazing. Simply amazing.

Awake The State November 1st! - All 50 state capitals are going to experience demonstrations.

The Artful Dodgers - How those who most need to pay their taxes get away with paying none.

Wall Street’s Second Occupation: The Rise of the NYPD's Homeland Security State - I believe they had something like this in Germany in the early 1930's.

Janet Reid's Most Terrifying Contest Ever! - I managed to get my entry in third out of almost 200. No idea when we'll hear who won, but if you pester Jet enough, maybe you can convince her I should win.

How to Regain Our Democracy - Very simple solution.

Presidential Candidate Buddy Roemer Calls for Withdrawal From NAFTA, WTO - These are basically illegal treaties in which we give away what we have and get nothing in return. They gotta go. Roemer is the only candidate who wants to get money out of DC to end taxation without representation.

Judge Judy - Here's Who You Support With Taxes - She's far more patient with him than I would be.

Stimulus Money Used to Employ Foreign Guest Workers Instead of Americans - Are you sure this isn't treason?

That will definitely keep you busy today. Have a great Sunday!

Sunday Funnies 11-10-16

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A lot's happened this past week. First off, I found a nice intermediate step between the previous rendition of the site and the super-modern, user-reconfigurable version (which I really want you to have, just as soon as they enable the important stuff), and that is what you see now: nice lines and boxes and a very clean, professional look. I'm extremely happy with this, although it forgot to import all my keywords and meta tags; thank God I saved the code from the previous rendition! I've probably got 1000 keywords to help the search engines find the stuff you're looking for! The site should stay about the same for a while.

Second is that Biketoberfest is winding down today. There are a few things still going on, but come sunset, bikes will return to their normal level of ubiquity. Had wonderful weather for this extended weekend, and from the looks of my riding around, there were about as many people here as there usually are for my birthday party, aka Bike Week in March. (Bike Week always falls on my birthday, except, apparently, for next year.)

Third is that I checked out the new Occupy Daytona Beach group last week. Fifty people showed up last Monday for its first meeting, and over 100 showed up for yesterday's informational/rally/demonstration, which itself was part of a WORLDWIDE event taking place in almost 1000 cities.

As I said at the meeting, it takes a lot of courage to show up at these things. When you see the attrocities being committed in New York City against these people, such as a cop running over an observer with his motorcycle and then beating and arresting him, it makes you wonder for your own safety. When you have hypocritical retards like Ann Coulter - a woman who lauded Timothy McVeigh's terrorist attack on Oklahoma City (which you'll read about later this week) - are slinging hateful insults and telling regular people to commit irrational acts of violence, you have to wonder for your own safety. And when you even have various elected officials calling for violence and even murder against the protesters, it's almost enough to go back to being a sheep, awaiting your turn to be fleeced and slaughtered.


So yes, it takes a hell of a lot of balls (or a hell of a lot of nothing left to lose) to show up and demand your rights, and I applaud and admire this kind of bravery. I applaud even more those people who have taken it upon themselves to organize and support them. Organizing the gatherings and leading them is a big job which makes them even more of a target of ridicule and hate by hypocritical pundits who have never contributed anything meaningful to society.

I've had a handful of people thank me for my time in the Navy, and I'm grateful to know they're grateful for what I did, but I was fortunate enough to have never faced the kinds of dangers the protesters in New York City are facing from the people who are supposed to be protecting them. I have a lot of respect for these people, and thank them for making the sacrifices which will see this Movement through to the end.

Fourth, on a more personal note, the site's traffic has increased significantly in the past few months, with this week possibly setting a record. I have no doubt that October will set yet another traffic record for the site. We had about 20,000 visitors the first year Google started counting them for me, a number I never thought I'd see when I started doing this 12 years ago, and another nearly 8000 visitors in the past three and a half months, so we're well on the way to see a large increase next year. Amazing! And it's all thanks to you guys, finding the place, liking what you see, and spreading the word to your friends.

Thank you!

Now on to the important news links which were posted on the new More in Sanity Facebook page you may have missed.

Bank On It: They're Scared - The 1% is starting to realize they're about to lose their iron grip on the public's minds.

Roemer joining Occupy Wall Street protest - The only Presidential candidate who "gets it", Republican Buddy Roemer supports OWS.

Alan Grayson: The Best 2 Minutes On Why We Should All #OccupyWallStreet - Democrat Alan Grayson explains OWS in terms any genuinely fair-minded individual can understand.

Microsoft finds 64 billion fewer spam messages one month after botnet takedowns - It's getting harder and harder to call them evil.

Americans believe Tea Party is Counterproductive - They betrayed what they claimed to stand for: us.

Grayson on Occupy Wall Street: The last human thing left to do.... show up. - More wisdom from Alan Grayson.

86% of Bailout Money Used for Executive Bonuses - How corporations rape America.

30 Citibank customers arrested for closing their account - Bonus fascism!

And lastly, near as I can tell, this is the Congressional Oath of Office.

The Congressional Oath of Office:
I pledge allegiance, to my political party, to ruin the United States of America, and to the scandal, for which it lies, one nation, under our thumb, with liberty, and justice, for those who help me do it.

Coming up this week: more good stuff! Keep on keepin' on, and work up the courage to click the LIKE button on the More in Sanity page! I know you can do it.

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Last Week's Installment: Sunday Funnies - 11-10-9

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Sunday funnies - 11-10-9

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Since starting up the Facebook attachment (which I just spoke about in the previous post), I've found it's very easy to just throw up interesting links. However, Facebook doesn't have a very good history function, nor a good search function, so when those very important posts fall too far down, they're pretty much lost to all who aren't internet archaeologists.

So I just now sez to myself, "Self," I sez, "why not preserve the best of them thar linkies up in here in this website?" That might be funnier if you can imagine me doing it in my Mr. Turner voice. If you've had the privilege to hear it.

But anyway, here are the best links of the week, not counting the links back to here.

Bombshell: DOJ Considering Elimination of ATF

What’s behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests? - Jesse Ventura (yes, that one) pointed this out.

TrainStation - A very rare find: a Facebook game worth playing.

Daily Show: Parks and Demonstration - John Stewart's take on the Wall Street demonstrations.

Ohio Pork Industry Hurt by Prison System Decision - Political Retardation strikes again.

Bank On It: They're Scared - More on the Occupy Wall Street movement, just released today.


Quite a collection there. Once you're done checking them all out, how about heading over to our new Facebook page and hitting the LIKE button for us? Click here to see it. Do it. Do it nooooooow.

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Good Numbers, Gooooood Numbers

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As you know, I added some Facebook love to the site. I then campaigned to get 1000 LIKEs. A lofty goal, no doubt, especially since I don't have even 1/3 that many FB friends, but sometimes if you shoot for the stars, you hit the moon. I did pretty good, considering, but the opportunity to set a record is gone.

I'd still appreciate a LIKE, if you don't mind taking a second to do it. The more LIKEs we get, the harder we'll try to be likeable. (In a manly, macho sort of way, not a toady, mealy sort of way.)

I also spent some time checking out some of the new ways available to display a blog. They've come up with an absolutely GORGEOUS front page, which I used briefly Friday, until I discovered that some critical functionality was missing and had to switch back. It's a shame, it was really awesome. Hopefully in the future they'll fix that and I can use it.

But there's some unmitigated good news, too. Not just that Sarah Palin has taken her misbegotten  pre-campaign donations and withdrawn from the Presidential race, but rather that the site's numbers are up big time!


This started happening back in August, when we shattered our old record for views, which had been set back in July 2010, the first month Google offered statistics tracking. The 31 days of August 2011 saw a dramatic climb in visitors! For September, the number stayed about the same, which surprises me since I published only one story in that time. And so far this month, the number of visitors has been on the rise, which means I'll bet October is an even bigger record breaker!

The October numbers are definitely influenced by the Facebook connection, and I expect to get the numbers to rise even further, especially since I've got a ton of new articles written and coming.

I'm liking the Facebook addition so far. It's very easy to put out little blurbs. Kind of like Twitter, but not obnoxious, and more capable. I can throw a bunch of pictures up in a gallery very easily, or jot down some interesting blurb, or release a cool link. Facebook works well for that. Facebook isn't nearly so good for things like longer articles, or static information pages like the Civ4 page or the Expose Yourself articles list.

So I'm pretty happy to see this upswing in interest.

And it's all, of course, thanks to you, the loyal reader and supporter. Without you, all this I do would be pointless and to no benefit to anyone.

Keep tuning in, there's a lot more to come! Check us out tomorrow!

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Right lane allergy

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I have lived near major interstates pretty much all my life, especially my adult life. By this I mean an interstate highway which has 3 or more lanes per direction which is within 2 miles of my house. A good example of this is the Bohrman Expressway in northwest Indiana. I-80/94, the fastest non-toll road into Chicago, has had 3 lanes for as long as I can remember. (A few years ago, they added a fourth lane to it.)

In a place like northwest Indiana, where the traffic is thick and the exits are only a mile or two apart, or over in Chicago where it's considerably worse, I can see why people might develop an allergy to being in the right-most lane. That's where the entry and exit ramps are, and keeping out of that lane means you're not in anyone's way.

But here in Florida, on the stretch of I-95 that I live near where there are 3 lanes to travel in and the exits are few and far between, I still see people exhibiting this allergy.

Most of the people here are from the New York area, so they probably know how to drive almost as well as I do, which makes it surprising that they would discriminate against a lane when, where they learned to drive, all lanes are needed to get anywhere.

I've driven all over the country (excepting 4 states) and seen this happening everywhere. I even see it on the vast majority of roads which have only 2 lanes in each direction, and the frequency seems to increase every year. What is this fear people have of driving in the right lane? I can see no reason why people would feel compelled to stay out of it, but as I write this (last weekend of September), I'm on the road to attend my niece's graduation from law school and my dad hasn't been in the right lane for more than the 2 seconds it took to get across it when we got on the road half an hour ago.

You're supposed to be in the right lane unless you're engaged in passing someone, or if there's an emergency vehicle on the right shoulder. Most people also have the courtesy to move over if someone's trying to enter the highway. But the rest of the time, you're supposed to be in the right lane.

Why? Because doing so promotes better traffic flow. It allows the drivers anxious to get speeding tickets to get past those who drive in 2nd gear. And it's the law, if that matters.

You probably hate getting stuck behind a long line of cars, like everyone else does. If the rules of the road didn't tell us to keep right except to pass, the highways would be unbearably clogged with even half the traffic they now carry. I see it in places where this is ignored.

So do us all a favor and keep right, except to pass. And when passing, if you have to speed up a little bit to complete the operation in under 10 seconds, please do so. It's not just common courtesy, it's the law.

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A Few Small Changes

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Now that we've had a month of rememberance, it's time to get back into the swing of things.

Over the past few months, I've been a little sparse. Part of this is due to Facebook sucking up some of my time (it seems even more well-designed at helping people get the word out to the masses than Google's blogging system), part of it is due to getting some writing done on three different books, and part of it is that I was focusing a lot on some personal issues, such as my weight-loss efforts (going well; I'm down 60 pounds from my peak). I also spent a lot of time with friends.

Last weekend, I took a trip up to Jackson to see my favorite niece graduate from college, and then got whooped up on by her little boys at putt-putt, who are 5 and 3 (and don't really like to putt). Good to get to spend the day with them and to hook up with some other friends whilest up there.

Riding in the car, I had a few hours available, and most importantly, the inspiration, to crank out a handful of articles, and in the past week since getting home, I've been doing a lot of reading. So basically, I've got some things to say over the next few weeks/months to keep you entertained. I've also got a slightly different direction to take the site in, a new angle to see things from.

Be here first thing Monday morning.

(And while I'm thinking of it: happy birthday to my lady-friends in Mississippi: one turned 17 yesterday and another turned 29 today.)

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Sugar Rush

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Some friends of mine are discussing Skittles-filled doughnuts and I cringed at the thought. "Too much sugar," I'm tempted to scream as I run away. "I'd get one heckuva sugar rush. I prefer my sugar to be a little more subtle, like half a pound of chocolate, or candied peanut butter, or soft chocolate chip cookies. Skittles are pure sugar."

It then occurred to me that a good chocolate bar probably has as much sugar as a bag of Skittles, so what was the difference?
Well taste, obviously. I won't get a sour-cringe from chocolate. But I realized there are other sweet foods I prefer which give me less of a sugar rush.

For instance, I've always prefered clear soft drinks like Sprite and Slice over the darker ones, like Pepsi and Coke. Even root beer, my favorite, isn't as sweet as a cola. I've also never much cared for fruit-flavored drinks. On the Bataan, when I wasn't drinking water or paying for an overpriced can of pop, I'd drink Red from the galley. Not sure what flavor it was supposed to be, but it wasn't as tart as Orange, and much more appealing to look at than Yellow or Green. We sometimes used it for cleaning brass.

I've also never enjoyed death-by-chocolate desserts. You know, those things made with three or four (or more) types of chocolate treat (chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate shavings, chocolate ice cream, and topped with chocolate syrup being the most common I've seen, but strangely can't find a picture of). Nope, I'll go for a scoop of vanilla on a warm chocolate chip cookie and some caramel on top. (Lines of chocolate syrup will do in a pinch - Red Lobster and Taste of Portugal have a dessert to die for!)

Over-sugaring gives me a headache, and has been known to make me sick. (Fitting, since caffeine is slightly poisonous and sugar is very acidic.) Even the Cadbury Creme Eggs are getting to be too much sugar. That said, I can eat a half-pound milk-chocolate bar or bunny with ease.

For the most part, I've given that stuff up. I've been restricting my junkfood intake to Saturdays only, and lost about 15 more pounds without too much trouble. I ate less junk last Saturday and this week lost three more pounds because of it. I don't normally brag about three little pounds. After all, two Saturdays ago I put on eight pounds in a single day. Most of that was water - I drank about a gallon over the day - but I also ate a lot. I've also had days where I've LOST five pounds in the space of 5 minutes. No, really. Guess how I did it.

I will continue to eat less junk, though I'm not going to cut it out completely because I still feel like I need an outlet for my chocolate and pizza cravings and there's no sense setting myself up to feel like a cheater. Having an anything goes day once per week is genius! I need a good calorie spike on Saturdays, but that doesn't mean I have to eat a week's worth of calories on Saturdays.

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Turtles with Warm Butts

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Similar style to the truck I drove, you can
see the space between mirror and cab.
This one's decked out like Optimus Prime!

I was watching an episode of American Dad a little while ago in which a rabbit and a tortise are having a race, and it reminded me of once when I was driving my semi-truck and, in the middle of the highway, there was a turtle trying to cross. He was just moving into my lane and I saw him just in time to dodge a little to the right. I wasn't sure if I'd miss him or not, but I looked in my rearview mirror at my trailer tires and saw them fly past the turtle closely enough to warm his butt without hitting him.

I was elated to see I'd managed to miss him when I didn't think I would. The feeling lasted about two seconds, until the car behind me ran him over.

And this reminds me of seeing birds performing death-defying dives at vehicles and flying out in front of them. One event in particular happened while I was driving a Peterbilt 379P, which has a boxy frame, narrow cabin, and prominent exhaust pipes on the sides. This bird flew right in front of my cabin as I was rolling at speed down the highway.

In the first instant, I thought, "That's gonna be close!" Next, it flew BETWEEN my mirror and the windshield, and I had an instant to think, "WOW! What a lucky bird!" Unfortunately, an instant later, the truck's wind shear trapped the bird and slammed it into the exhaust pipe with a clang. I don't expect he walked away from that one.

I've had a few other birds suicide on my windshield, but fortunately no big ones, like eagles. Hopefully that's more because they're smart than because they're rare. And a cousin of mine used to have a car which had deer run into it several times. I advised her to sell her deer magnet to a hunter.

I recall hearing a story of a trucker in Alaska whose way was blocked by a moose. He blew his horn to scare it off the road and, taking it as a challenge, the moose charged him and rammed the truck. So if a moose ever gets in your way, don't honk your horn at it. You probably shouldn't do that to buffalo either; forewarned, we didn't test their docility while we were at Yellowstone.

Over the course of May, I got to do some traveling out west. I took a ton of pictures, and I also took notes while we were out, so I've got a lot of story-telling for you, as soon as I get the time. Since I got back, I've been kind of busy, especially in the last couple weeks, writing on one of my books and working on one of my other personal projects, so I haven't had time to devote the usual level of attention to the site. (I've got half a dozen partially written articles awaiting some attention.) And so long as this roll keeps on rolling - I've written about 100 pages just in the past 2 weeks, and that's a lot - I'm going to continue to focus on it. I know you're all dying to see my books on your shelves as much as I'm dying to put them there.

I'm sure a lot of you are good at being creative on demand, but for me, when I get the bug, I have to do something with it before I lose it. It's like having a wonderful dream; if you don't write it down right when you wake up, you lose it. Sometimes even that isn't enough. So while I've got just about the whole book in my head itching to get out, I need to do as much writing on it as I can.

A lot of writers, once they manage to overcome their writer's block for long enough to get some things on paper, get bogged down in editing their work. They may initially decide the night was dark and stormy, then later realize it needed to be cold enough to snow, and that changes a few other things, and pretty soon, they're spending more time correcting the stuff they wrote earlier than writing new stuff. I get that urge too.

But I saw a very helpful piece of advice in a book about how to get a book written in 30 days: when moments like that come up, make a notation to yourself right there about what you want to change, and then continue on writing as if that change has been made. This allows you to continue with your stream of consciousness before you lose it, so you can get more written down. Then, when you're resting your creative muscles, you can go back and make those necessary changes.

Another thing that is invaluable is doing a LOT of reading for fun. I've recently met someone who hasn't ever done that, and so her writing and critiquing abilities are suffering for it. She's learning fast, but there are still a lot of things you can only learn by looking at the examples of other people's work. I may not know what most of the rules of grammar are called, but I largely know how they work. You won't often find a comma or apostrophe out of place in my writing, and my nouns always agree with their verbs. Tense, point of view, and that kind of stuff are second nature to me. Why? Not because I paid any attention in English class - no, my English teachers admired me only for my creativity, when I had the guts to show it - but rather because I did a LOT of reading as a kid, and continue to read as an adult.

Reading for enjoyment, not for business. If you want to know how to write an engaging piece of fiction, you have to read a lot of it. If you want to know how to write technical manuals, you have to read a lot of them. It's called practice. And so I've lent that friend some of my books so she can see how other people write and learn from their styles. Hopefully she'll enjoy them and not critique them.

So you're wondering what all this writing advice has to do with animals too dumb to try to avoid loud, fast-moving vehicles. So am I. Looks like a chain of things I was reminded of after watching TV.

Hope everyone had a happy Aphelion last Monday. I meant to write about it, but I was too busy dodging bottlerockets.

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Atlantis Airborne

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Space Shuttle Atlantis has blasted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center just a few minutes ago on its final launch! The weather around here wasn't all that great - too many clouds and the possibility of continuing storms - but the weather around Titusville was good enough that, with only a minor delay, the shuttle launched. I imagine the million or so people who came to see it would have preferred a clearer sky, but I doubt any of them regret their cross-country trips to witness this historic event. It was a very emotional moment for a lot of people.

I didn't go down there, nor did I head over to the beach. When you watch it on TV, you get the best views and you get to see the view FROM the shuttle! Having attended several launches from multiple locations, I know how awesome it is to watch a launch without benefit of the TV, even when the clouds swallow it immediately. If you're close enough to see it, you're also close enough to feel it. You'll also hear it, although if you're far away, it will take a while for the sound to reach you, and hopefully you're not in a loud place.

Up close, it's the biggest blowtorch you've ever seen. You can FEEL the heat from the engines, even from several miles away. (I'll swear up and down that you can feel it from 50 miles away!) Then comes the rumble, loud enough to overwhelm any other sounds.

As the shuttle climbs on a pillar of fire, disappearing far faster than you can really imagine, that sound slowly fades, but you can still feel it pulsing the air. It takes only about two minutes before that gigantic burst of light is so far away that you can't see it any more, and the world resumes moving.

If you're farther away, you can watch the launch, and it's incredible to watch it move across the sky so rapidly, but then when the sound reaches you, it's like experiencing it a second time.

But, no more will you be able to experience this. Maybe in the future there will be a replacement vehicle, but in the meantime, we will have to tide ourselves over with smaller rockets.

Good luck, Atlantis crew!

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Three Miles, Island not Included

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This morning I ran three full miles.

Ok, jogged. Whatever.

My previous record was 2.1 miles. My record before that was 1.5 miles, then 1.2 miles, then 0.7 miles, and then 0.3 miles. These are jogs, with no break. They're rather slow jogs, yes, but they're jogs. Finding the proper speed is important.

Last Friday, my 80 year old walking partner and I walked 7.5 miles. Our previous record was 6.6 miles. He didn't feel like walking today, so I decided it was time to see how far I could run, and you see the results.

I'm not doing intense training here, folks. I'm just getting out there and doing it, putting in practice some techniques and habits I've developed over the years, and which are finally paying off. Here are some of them:

Habit 1: Eat breakfast, no matter what. Even if it's just a handful of peanuts (unsalted, of course) on the way out the door, eat something within 30 minutes of waking up.

Habit 2: Drink water. I've trained myself to reach for water every time I feel thirsty OR hungry. For one, most people mistake thirst for hunger; downing a glass of water will almost always eliminate the feeling of hunger. For another, it takes 20 minutes for food hitting the stomach to register and for your brain to tell you you're full. Quickly downing some water not only prepares your stomach for food, it also sends this signal so that when the food does start coming, you won't need to eat as much of it to feel full. When you feel full (BEFORE you're stuffed), stop eating. An easy way to improve your digestion and drink more water without noticing is to have a glass before, during, and after each meal.

Habit 3: Eat something approximately every 3-4 hours. It doesn't have to be a full meal; snacks count.

Habit 4: Avoid sugar, salt, bleached flour, and starch. I've finally broken my habit of ordering pop at restaurants - thank you guys for jacking up the prices to obscene levels - and I avoid things like bread, potatoes, salt, and sugar. Not all calories are created equal. If you eat 1000 calories of sugar a day and I eat 1000 calories of green vegetables, who do you think is going to feel healthier after a month? Who do you think is going to lose weight, and who is going to gain it?

Habit 5: Eat vegetables. I'm terrible at this. I hate a lot of vegetables, especially the best ones. I get mixed vegetables and stir them in with the rest of the food so I don't notice them as much. I also have been drinking  lot of vegetable juice. I have to get the Great Value brand from Walmart because V8 tastes awful and costs twice as much. I drink a glass or two a day.

Habit 6: Stay active. When I worked on the ship, I could walk a few miles a day on my routine to go fix computers, up and down stairs, back and forth to the shop, and so forth. Plenty of activity. When i was a truck driver, I had to climb in and out of the truck a lot and do some walking. I had to keep my head from bouncing all over. I'd park in the farthest spots and stop frequently for bathroom and walking breaks. Now, as a writer, staying active is a little tougher. You have to take the time to actually do it. I walk about 15-20 miles a week, I ride a motorcycle wherever I need to go (weather permiting), which does take some effort. My friend plays a lot of basketball with his kids. If I loaf, I soon look like a loaf.

Habit 7: Cheat once a week. ANYONE can put off their favorite sugary, carb-loaded, starchy junkfoods (and fruit) for a few days. Get in the habit of telling yourself, "I'll eat this in five minutes," and then go do something else for a while. Get in the habit of walking down the most evil aisles in the grocery store and JUST check the prices, then walk away. Get in the habit of eating whatever you want on one specific day of the week. Eventually, you'll be able to push away any temptation, because ANYONE can put off eating crap for a few days. And then don't buy the junk until that day, don't even have it in your house. If you have others in the house who don't love you enough to support your decision to lead a healthier life, you can still get them to hide the worst stuff so you don't notice it. Or move out. And make sure you're active during your cheat day to keep your metabolism up.

Habit 8: Don't beat yourself up. You're going to make mistakes. Don't take it as a reason to kill yourself, or to give up, or as proof that you can't do it. Accept it as part of yoru record. Do you think that when I told myself (and all of you) last year that I wanted to be able to jog 2 miles, that when I wasn't immediately able to do so, I gave up? Heck no! I kept track of what I did and noticed that each time I made improvements. I patted myself on the back for getting closer to my goal. And when I achieved it, I set a new one: to be able to do 3 miles, which I achieved in one stroke.

Those are just EIGHT of the habits I now use to improve my health. And I developed them by asking, "What's the smallest, measurable change I can make?" Try it. What's the smallest measurable change you can make to improve your health?

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Something Big Coming Up

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You've probably noticed that lately, I haven't published as much as I usually do. Things have been pretty busy with my writing, updating some of the site's content, making new friends in the Ohio Police Department, and a couple other projects that may change the world, so I haven't deluged you with as much excitement as I normally would in this particular channel. And with something new coming up for the next few weeks, I'm still going to be a little rare for a little while. I'll definitely have some interesting stuff for you, it just won't be quite as frequently as you're used to until next month.

Before I sign off for the day, I've got something special for you coming up in the morning which will keep your gigantic brains occupied until I can be here full time again.


See you soon, and thanks for all the support!
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To Your Health - Part 5

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I hadn't expected to write a fifth part to this series, but with the recent developments, I think it's a good idea, and I feel like I have to share the good news: Over the past two weeks, I lost eight (8!) pounds by eating all the junk food I wanted!

Okay, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking my calendar broke and I still think it's April 1st and you're still upset that Mopjockey.com isn't actually the official website of Florida (yet). I couldn't possibly have feasted on chocolate and Doritos for the past week, could I have?

After you've petitioned Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio on my behalf, check this out:

A month ago, I clued you guys in on Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Body. I spent a bunch of time reading it and thinking about how to apply the precepts, and remembered key parts of my own weight-loss story in which I lost over 50 pounds throughout 2009. A lot of the ideas in Tim's fat-loss section meld nicely with my own experiences from that year. During that time, I ate basically the same, reasonably healthy meals over and over, and occasionally sucumbed to my craving for chocolate.

That's exactly the way Tim suggests you eat: the same meals, over and over, and then once a week go nuts without any guilt. For maximum fat-loss, he gives a handy list of the most effective foods you can choose from. Follow the plan for six days, and then on the seventh you get to eat anything and everything you want!

Two weeks ago, I assembled my particular choices of foods (which I'll tell you in a minute) and mostly stuck to them. I wanted to see how well I'd like them, and how hard it was to stick to the diet. I was pleasantly surprised to find it tasted okay, and it wasn't too hard to stick to it. I did "cheat" a couple times, but largely kept to it. And then on Saturday, I ate like a total pig.

I started my day with two huge candy bars, totalling nearly a pound of chocolate, and that was just breakfast! Over the course of the day, I had about half a package of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie dough, some cookies, half a bag of Doritos, some pizza, and some other stuff. I was full the whole day, practically forcing myself to overeat. I didn't quite take it to the point where I got sick, or felt any pain from having too much food in my belly, but it was a heckuva gluttonous day! I ate enough that Sally Struthers will no longer speak to me.

Then this past week, I stuck strictly to my diet, straying only once because I had to have something for breakfast and didn't have time to peel a couple eggs, so I had a cup of fruit. Here's my diet:

Breakfast: Two hardboiled XL eggs, topped with cinnamon and a variety of spices to combat the blandness.

Lunch: A can of tuna, half a can of black beans, and half a can of mixed vegetables, again topped with cinnamon and a variety of spices to combat the blandness. Adding tomato sauce helped a lot, but it's okay without it.

Dinner: Three slices of chicken or turkey lunchmeat OR some low carb peanut butter, on half a low-carb lavash bread wrap, plus 8 ounces of Vegetable juice and sometimes a few bites of raw broccoli.

Second Dinner: Repeat one of the above smaller meals, or 2-3 handfuls of unsalted peanuts.

And, of course, all the water I needed to feel full, generally about 12 ounces or so during each meal and probably another 24-30 between them. There's a small amount of variety to the above, but that's pretty much the whole menu for me. I've had some carrots to fight off between-meal hungers, which are recommended. Tim's list is bigger, but I took his advice to keep things as simple as possible and just stuck to these. I did basically the same thing the year I lost 56 pounds.

There aren't a whole lot of calories in the above, but more importantly, there aren't a whole lot of carbs, nor a whole lot of the "white poisons" (sugar, salt, flour, potatoes). I'm not being super-strict, because each meal is supposed to have a protein (meat, fish, or egg), legume (beans), and vegetable (mixed vegetables being best), but I'm not eating the forbidden foods either. (Not counting this particular bread, which is super-low carb.)
 
Each meal is somewhat boring, but they're also no-brainers to heat up or make and eat in a couple minutes.
 
I initially tried three eggs in the morning, but oddly, that was too much, and even with two I feel full enough for hours afterward. I eat about every five hours too. I also tried red beans, which were okay, and tried green beans as my vegetable, which were also okay, but decided to stick with the black beans and mixed veggies, and went to the veggie juice for my third meal.
 
And then, yesterday, I once again pigged out. I had lost eight pounds, and it was BECAUSE I had eaten so much crap the previous Saturday!
 
See, my diet is low calorie and low carb, and eating that way consistently will slow your metabolism. Going wild once a week keeps the metabolism high, so that you can continue to burn off the fat on the days you behave. Between a week of loose experimenting to see what I'd like and a week of strict adherence using what I did like, I lost eight pounds.
 
What makes this even more incredible is that I'm NOT exercising much at all. I walked five miles Monday and Friday, and two miles Wednesday. Otherwise, I've been chained to the computer.
 
But what's going to keep the pounds off? I lost over 50 pounds in 2009, and regained about a third of them very slowly over 2010. How to make sure the weight lost isn't found again, and retain the no-brainerness? You have to kill off the bad fat cells. Tune in next time to find out how.
 
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More awesomeness to whet your dhrystones:
To Your Health - Part 4
In my Quest to Offend You
Hey baby, what's your sign? (Updated!)

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We are the Official Website of Florida!

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Good news! In a press conference this coming Monday, Florida Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio will announce in a bilateral agreement that we, Mopjockey.com, are the official website of Florida!!! OMG! Senator Nelson just called me up this morning to give me the good news and I had to tell you all about it right away! After I gushed for a while, I asked him why we were receiving such an honor, and guess what he said?

Go ahead, guess!


Because of all the websites whose owners live in Florida, this one, Mopjockey.com, has consistently garnered the most traffic and raised the most awareness of the solutions to the state's, country's, and world's problems.

Yeah, amazing, right? All a guy could ever want, and recognition for it too! Check out some of the reasons Bill enumerated:

The "Expose Yourself" articles, first and foremost.
Our local astronomy series, recently updated.
Our ever-popular To Your Health series, also recently updated.

And then there's all the celebrities I've met and whose careers I've boosted over the years, all the political commentary, and all the excellent, life-changing advice (which you can find listed by clicking on the appropriate article categories along the left side).

Now I have to pack for a quick trip up to Tallahassee, the state capital, where they'll present me with the award at a public ceremony, which I suspect will be attended by a certain former President from Florida, and I'll be up all night designing special site badges!

Thank you all for your support, and I'll see you on Monday! Those of you in the Daytona Beach area, come on down to the City Island Library at 12:15 tomorrow and you'll see J. W. Thompson speak about how to improve the size of your Facebook audience and get them interested in your books.

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More awesome and inspiring articles not published on the 91st day of the year:
Centennial Celebration
Breaking personal records is fun!
What makes for good TV?

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What do half a million bikers look like

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I want to thank everyone for making the 14th anniversary of my 25th birthday the best party I've had in a long time! I've got big plans for next year, when I hit the BIG ONE FIVE! Even my stalkers paid homage by leaving me alone for the duration. You can't ask for more than that, can you?

A few months ago I finally checked out Facebook, and through it, re-met a bunch of guys I used to know in the Navy while I was on the Bataan, including one sweet little heartbreaker who can't stop telling me how funny and smart I am. (I don't mean the married ones.) We've got a lot in common, but she lives a few hundred miles away and I promised myself I wouldn't take any big trips until I got something published, so now I want to get that done so I can see if she'll make good on all her flirting.

Then last week, half a million bikers came to see me for my birthday. Some of them also celebrated Daytona Beach's 70th Bike Week. I took one of my lady friends downtown that first weekend to check everything out. She makes for a great biker babe, if you guys are looking for a girl who's smart and about to publish a book about anceint Egyptian religion and prophecies that came true. Cool stuff! And she's almost done with the second draft. I gotta tell ya, guys, it's great someone as smart as her trusts me to edit her work. Don't get any ideas, though, because I'm not doing this professionally. (Unless you hit me with a really big check!)

We saw a ton of super-awesome bikes, including one that looked like it came out of a 1940's junkyard (I call it the Redd Foxx bike), a dragon bike, an airplane bike, and some unbelievable paint jobs. And some really interesting bikinis. Yes, those are painted on.

Then my favorite nephew arrived with a couple of his best buds, and they tore up the skateboard park something gnarly! I took a few videos of them. They'll blow your mind!

I took them downtown too, and we did some club-hopping, where we had to fight off all the girls. Much as we wanted to, we couldn't take home every girl who wanted to come. Most had to stay behind and wait for our return. A quick tip, ladies: jealousy is hot as long as it's not destructive. You start tearing up property, and I don't want anything to do with you. The exception is when it exposes more female flesh.

We rode around town a couple more days while the weather cooperated, and whipped out the MegaMonopoly and Munchkin when it didn't. I'm proud to say there's still something I can whoop them at, and it's called games. Not every time, but I won more than my share. I'm really glad I got to hang out with them and get reconnected with that part of who I am. All you people who are getting old, go hang out with your kids for a while without judging them and just absorb what they have to offer. Be a part of it. You'll be amazed at yourself.

Finally, the boys left yesterday, giving me some time to catch up on my writing. I'm so behind! I had to whip out this article so fast I couldn't even spell-check it, and now I need to write a couple more good ones and put them in the queue so I can then get back to work on some really good books.

What if the Civil War had started in 1821, before the North had a strong industrial base to defeat the South with? What if a woman who thinks she lacks only a husband fell in love with her disinterested rescuer while they both had to dodge a killer? What if a woman fell in love with her own stalker and had to rebuild her ruined life and career? What if a man had to ask his wife to become a stripper to feed their kids and one of her clients abducted her for a white-slavery ring? If the Sun was going to blow up in 30 years, would we be able to escape to other stars in time?

A lot of good ideas start with asking yourself what would happen if.

Not just books, either, but even in your real life. If life was simple, what would it be like? If you had no limits on time or money, what would you be doing? So what's stopping you? What if you could overcome those limits, would you go for it? What would it take to overcome those limits?

I ask myself these kinds of things once in a while. I should do it even more. So should you. And then let your mind come up with the answers in its own good time. Usually it just takes a few minutes to a day or two.

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Centennial Celebration

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This here post is my 100th since moving the site to Blogger.com, barely 14 months ago, and we've come a long way, baby! A lot has changed, in front of the scenes and behind them. To celebrate this, and our next 100, and because I've gotten several questions about this lately, I'm going to tell you a little about the story behind the story.

In 1995, I joined the Navy. It was great for a while, but things slowly got out of hand, and it was starting to get hard to maintain a sense of humor about everything. Finally in 2000, the powers that be finally had enough sense to put me in the computer repair department, which was where I was supposed to have been put in the first place. By then, though, I was pretty sick of everything - I wasn't nearly the positive person back then as I am now and didn't fully appreciate all the good stuff I had going for me - and needed to blow off a little steam. What better idea than to register a really cool domain name?

So I cranked up the internet, which was still pretty new back then, and found register.com. There was only one name I wanted to register. It was a name that was cool, that I'd been using for some time on the internet elsewhere. So I tried to register theds.com.

Unfortunately, it was already taken.

I had checked it out, and taken a few days to think about whether I wanted to go through with it or not, but when I came back to do the deed, the name was taken. Who would take a name like theds.com? No, Nintendo was still many years away from creating their DS gaming device. Rather, it was a for-pay cracking group known as The Damned Souls. I don't have any problem with people unlocking my games for me so that I don't need no stinkn' CD in the drive to play; I've really got better things to do than carry my CD collection with me everywhere I go. But those guys didn't do it for the love of the work, they did it for money. Worse, they sold copies of the games they cracked, an act that until recently was considered downright despicable.

Crushed, I had to think of another name to register.

What to use? What would say "squid"? What would allow me to rag on the bad times I had in the Navy, or celebrate the good times if I wanted? What described my experience best?

It was then I hit on mopjockey.com.

Immediately I had grand dreams to fulfill. I'd created several parodies about the Navy and the Bataan and my time there, and was itching to post them up for my friends to enjoy. However, in my desire to do things perfectly, I never got around to getting my stuff posted. I just had some piddly three-page thingamabob barely one step above "Hello World". For the first several years, the site was pretty well neglected. I probably got 100 hits that weren't mine in the first four years.

A few years later, I got sold some web space and decided to revamp the site. I posted up a lot of cool stuff about myself and my knowledge about computers and everything else I'm good at. I had about 10 pages of interesting information, and over the course of the next four years, I had accumulated about 1500 hits other than mine. I also introduced a forum and had a few people use it now and then. Clearly I was doing something right to have so much more interest.

In early 2009, as I was getting started with driving for my last trucking company, I started getting much more serious about the site because I had a lot of good ideas to post. I revamped the site again and put up about 30 pages of cool information about the Navy, trucks, some of my favorite computer games, and a handful of opinion pieces.

But then, a few months later, just before I visited the Stonehouse, my webhost suddenly went belly-up. For about three months afterward, I had no site. Since I was on the road, and my computer also died during that time, I had no time or ability to look for another one. I briefly tried to make use of Godaddy's free host, but like Register's free host, it had a spammy banner ad on it that messed up the site, so I was forced to park it there with minimal content.

Luckily, by now, the state of the internet had progressed significantly, and so in late 2009, I discovered that Google had bought Blogger.com and was offering free blogs. Before this time, I didn't pay blogs any attention, but one of my cousins whom I visited in September pointed me to Nathan Bransford, who then pointed me to several others, and when I saw how pretty those were, I knew it was a Sign From Above.

Articles were easy to post, pictures were easy to add, and no need for a seperate forum - people can comment directly on the articles, and they don't even have to register if they don't want to! Plus, I've got followers! Yay! But most importantly, I've got great stuff to write and I've gotten tons of praise for it. That's how you know you're doing good, when people you barely know are telling other people you barely know how awesome you are without prompting them to.

Back in June, Google started offering site metrics for free, and in the intervening six months, I've gotten a considerable amount of traffic, far more than I realized.

Today, Mopjockey.com is in transition. It started out as a bunch of jokes about the Navy, jokes which never got published (but still might one day). In the future, it will be a respected place, a place where people go to read (or watch) all kinds of fun, useful stuff. For now, though, it's a testbed. I'm trying out different things. I've started doing interviews with famous people, I'm lining up guest authors, I've given speeches, and I've got several different series in the works. One was about health, another about the solar system. And I irregularly comment about the craziness that goes on around the world or around Daytona Beach.

We're finding ourselves. And it's not going to take 14 months to make another 100 posts. Several have joined us already. You can too. Welcome to Mopjockey.com, where we offer More in Sanity. I'm your host, Jaycee Adams, and I promise the next 10 years will be a lot more exciting than the last 10.
















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