Big Tony

I am getting invitations to visit LV from Cortney, Gary and Garret, and with Xin driving to meet with his friends Seth, and Ficher. Victor asked if I was up to going to Tahoe yesterday, and Shin Wen is going on Monday. I met up with Howard and Shin Wen while at the Duke in Cupertino Village, Seven near downtown SJ Arena, Paragon @ Montgomery Hotel, and V @ the Hotel in Santana Row. Basically, the woman got hotter as the night approached, and it had nothing to do with the number of drinks, accumulated.

I AM smoking while I drink, but not much, since Mikio is the one with the cigs, and lighter, and I have refrained from buying my own. It’s not the best of strategies, but it works.

Anyways, the point is that all of a sudden, it’s not so boring here anymore. Yet, I am sure that if I actually went on all the trips, I would 1. go over my trip budget, 2. destroy my detox, 3. not exercise and 4. go astray once again. It would be counterproductive to all the relaxation I have had. For god sakes, I am turning 31, chicks, tits, ass, and hanging out with friends shouldn’t be such a big draw anymore.  My left brains says one thing, and my right brain agrees, but the part that produces C₁₉H₂₈O_2, (that’s testostrone), is still having a hard time letting go.

On the same logic, I still refuse to add my name to the car insurance, so I won’t try to run amuck with the Lexas, and crash the third of our family cars. Once upon a time, eons ago, my mother went to a fortune teller who told her that I had an aura of blue radiance sorrounding me , and that’s why I escaped a serious car accident unscathed. That, if I drove before 32, I had a high chance of yet another car accident. The fortune teller, was referring to a 400 degree spin down the cliff side speed ways of black mountain while leaving LA. I was hit by a bus, clipped 2 other cars, spun, and rammed a semi-truck into the side of the mountain while going 60 miles down the highway. All of this without even a whip lash. I suspect I am tempting some god of fate to shit on me, to even  discussing my good fortune, and so am righteously paranoid.  I have opted to not be superstitious, but to fear fate, and not stray far from what a wise man once told my mother.

Actually, he also said that I will only have success with investing and business partners after I turn 32, and obviously I hadn’t listened.

In any case, I am still without a car, but riding my bike around, which for the most part fits into the whole healthy routine.

I am sure not picking up any chicks on the bike tho, even tho, there isn’t any around the Shire anyways, still the thought of being able to , strokes my ego somehow. Ah, the burdens of being a man.

My blood pressure was normal today. It’s a good thing. For the future, I am thinking of doing 3 month in Cal, and 9 month in China, and adjusting to 6 month in either places in 5 years, all the while making enough active and passive income to lead a good quality of life. It won’t be easy, but perhapes the focus on how I live, rather than what I accomplish will turn out to be one of the more important realizations of my 30s? no?

BTW: I got T-Mobile "togo", but they tell me that it’s the bitch brother of Xangular , who is now also AT&T, but all have bad reception. All I know is that for the first time, my voice mail worked, and I didn’t have to do jack shit to set it up.

Here is to not doing Jack Shit!!!!!!!! Cheers!

Apparently, friends have actually had enough spare time to read my blog, which I am a bit embarrassed about, and a bit …. well, happy about. Still, I really want to make this abundantly clear, all the evil, shit that seem to happen around me during my course of de-tox, all happen for a good reason. The redemption of man, is a hard road to travel on, and yes… I must plough forward…….Beyond the Gold flowers, and 8th of a bag, LV , and hot females.

Tony

As a reality check to my life/work/health balance, and the reason to my detox, I googled for the "internet wisdom" that is hopefully to shape my future life. (Kevin, this post is in your honor.)

The healthy balance for TONY: (Funny to have learned all of the following, in less than 4 hours on a very slow dial up. It just goes to show what, a little relaxation and a different state of mind, can bring oneself to explore and see.)

(Breaking it DOWN)

The natural life/work/healthy balance would be to have 8 hours of sleep/ 6 hours of work/ 2 hours of active exercise / 2.5 hours of efficient general life, and 5.5 hours of quality life, spent with friends or in active learning. 

The key would be to make "general life" portion of the day more efficient, and not waste time on any other non-essential issues. Even the "6 hours work" will need to be efficient and productive enough to provide both active and passive income for a quality life style and for an early quasi-retirement.

However, the gem is the "5.5 hours" and who (singular or plaural) this time is spent with. Who how, and what will enrich Tony’s life, so that a feeling of a "balanced" and harmony is had.

Cal intake:

Looks like I will need to limit my daily cal intake to about 2700 cals for the time being, until my weight decreases and I will need even less cals/day. Break down is 85g in total good fat, 350g in low GI carbs that do not spike my insuline level, and 100 in protein. Essentially, this is a 3X 700/ cal /meal diet, with 2 x 300cal snacks.

An increase in moderate and heavy activity level should burn 500 cal/day or about 2 x 250-300 cal/hour. Hopefully, I will move on to the heavy activity in the next 2 weeks.

I am calculated to have a Medically Healthy body weight range of: 149 to 183 pounds (currently 237)

To reach this, it will take approx. (237-183= 54lbs. 54lbs/2 = 27 weeks. 27/4)=7 month.

My US ideal weight is 198 lbs. For immediate health purposes, I will need to lose 5% of my body weight. (about 15lbs).

Realistically, even when I was 18 and playing football, my natural ideal weight never went under 205lbs.

(So the gates are clear. 237lbs to 222lbs to 205 lbs to 180lbs within a 7 month-1.5 year period.)   

I would image this would incorporate close to 1-2 hours of moderate to heavy work out/day to burn about 300 cal/hour and a decreasing cal intake of 3100-2400 to reach.

Sedentary Activities Energy Costs in Cals/Hour*

Lying down or sleeping - 90
Sitting quietly - 84
Sitting and writing, card playing, etc. - 114

90cal/hour x 24/hour = 2160 cal is the basic expenditure/day. (This is approx, what it is to work in an office, go home , watch tv and go to sleep)

To lose weight, we will need to expend 3000 cal/day or about 150 cal/hour awake and 180 cals/hour in the 10 hours not working or sleeping.

Moderate Activities (150-350 cal/hr)

Bicycling (5 mph) - 174
Bicycling (6 mph) - 240
Canoeing (2.5 mph) - 174
Dancing (Ballroom) - 210
Gardening - 323
Golf (twosome, carrying clubs) - 324
Horseback riding (sitting to trot) - 246
Light housework, cleaning, etc - 246
Swimming (crawl, 20 yards/min) - 288
Swimming (25 yds/min) - 275
Tennis (recreational doubles) - 312
Volleyball (recreational) - 264
Walking (2 mph) - 198 to 240
Walking (3 mph) - 320
Walking (4 1/2 mph) - 440

Golf, light house work, and walking 2-4.5 miles seem to be great exercises.

Vigorous Activities (over 350 cal/hr)

Aerobic dancing - 546
Basketball (recreational) - 450
Bicycling (12 mph) - 410
Bicycling (13 mph) - 612
Circuit weight training - 756
Cross-country skiing (5 mph) - 690
Football (touch, vigorous) - 498
Ice skating (9 mph) - 384
Jogging (10 minute mile, 6 mph) - 654
Jogging (5 1/2 mph) - 740
Jogging (7 mph) - 920
Jumping rope - 750
Racquetball - 588
Roller skating (9 mph) - 384
Running in place - 650
Running (10 mph) - 1280
Scrubbing floors - 440
Swimming (50 yds/min) - 500
Swimming (crawl, 45 yards/min) - 522
Tennis (recreational singles) - 450

Circuit weight lifting, and jogging seem to be great ones as well.

My health specs come out to:

Healthy Body Weight Range

Legend
Weight range:
My weight:

Medically Healthy body weight range is: 149 to 183 pounds (currently 237)

This will take approx. 237-183= 54lbs. 54lbs/2 = 27 weeks. 27/4=7 month.

Body Frame Size (This is surprising?)

You have a small frame size for your height

Explanation
Your skeletal frame size is most easily measured where there is little overlying skin and muscle, such as at your wrist or elbow. The elbow breadth could be more accurately measured by placing a calipher (a pliers-like instrument used to measure thickness), on the prominent bones on either side of your elbow.

• Persons with a small frame should weigh closer to the lighter end of their healthy body weight range.

Body Mass Index

Legend
My BMI:

Explanation
Body Mass Index calculates how much body fat you have.

• Healthy BMI means you have a healthy amount of body fat for your age.
• Overfat means your amount of body fat is too high which puts you at risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, gall bladder disease and some cancers. You should consider losing weight by eating less food and exercising to decrease your amount of body fat.

Waist to Hip Ratio

Ratio: 0.95 - Apple shape: increased health risk

Explanation
This tells you where most of your body fat is located.

• Apple shape (a ratio of .95 or greater) means your body fat is located above your waist which indicates a higher health risk for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and some cancers.

Nutritional Facts

Your Nutrition Facts
Calorie Daily Value 3,120	Calories from Fat 940
Total Fat 104 g
Saturated Fat 34 g
Cholesterol 300 mg
Sodium 2,400 mg
Potassium 3,500 mg
Total Carbohydrate 429 g
Dietary Fiber 25 g
Sugars 78 g
Protein 117 g
Vitamin A 5,000 IU	Vitamin C 60 mg
Calcium 1,000 mg	Iron 18 mg
Vitamin D 400 IU	Vitamin E 30 IU
Thiamin 1.5 mg	Riboflavin 1.7 mg
Niacin 20 mg	Vitamin B-6 2.0 mg
Folate 400 mcg	Vitamin B-12 6 mcg
Biotin 300 mcg	Pantothenic Acid 10 mg
Phosphorus 1,000 mg	Iodine 150 mcg
Magnesium 400 mg	Zinc 15 mg
Copper 2 mg

Made a pledge to myself that I take a 1 year personal travel trip when I turned 30. I am turning 31, and luckily I have started my trip, with a health reality check in the Bay Area. I am only giving myself 6 month max for travel, which means that I won’t settle into another groove until after Oct vacation.

Xin drove the quick trip to Santa Cruz, and we walked the preserves, and got Togo sandwiches. He use to ride his scooters 1.5 hours through the mountains to reach the beach. We ended up at the UC Santa Cruz Seymour Marine Discovery Centerwhere ever researcher there is a National Geographic hero. The largest blue whale bones are exhibited here. 87feet. It still has 2 little vestage legs at the back of the skeleton that showed, that the whale once walked the earth, as a Dinosaur.  Great exhibits, beach cliff, breaking waves, whale watching in the Monteray Bay Cove. Peaceful.

Coming back, it was St Patties day here , and we drank scotch @ Britinica Arms in my hometown. Wanted to see if Lynbrook High alumns would show, but didn’t actually see anyone whom I recognized. I truly been gone a long time.

I broke down and got a T Mobile chip for my phone, and will have a US mobile, soon. It seems I can receive sms too. 408-207-6222, but don’t have that many minutes. Friday promises to be a wild night, as my 24 friends on my contact list start reving up to go out on the town.

Still really haven’t figured out how to turn off to smoking when I drink scotch. I will have to do that soon. Not buying cigs help quite a bit.

Exercising no longer makes me sore. I am quite happy about that, besides the fact that I can still kick ass on the Bad. courts. Saturday morning seem to be football with the good old boys, I will see how my skills come back then too.

Seem to have a LV trip calling me , and Lainny is coming next week. Not a bad trip so far…. and well, the commune with the magic mushrooms north of SF, may change that, I wonder if I would actually look for Bernie there. Running naked through the woods for a week, doesn’t seem to make the shrooms very magical.  Maybe there is a certain liberations with no clothing and running through the woods that is magical? More later , if I do go look for Bernie. (Idea tickles.)

Tony

Saw a bunch of my high school and college friends the last two days. Amazing how people rarely change, even after 10 years. Guess everyone’s core doesn’t, and learned behavior may, and somecircumstance change, but even the nature of the individual circumstances seem to follow a predictable pattern, i.e.:  some have kids, some are just married, some are becoming partners in their firms, and B-School is upon some others. Even as mothers, little seem to really change. I am quite happy about this actually, because although Shanghai seem to move fast, really it’s still @ a stand still, and I would hate to come back to my hometown to find that the usual suspect have mutated and the city evolved, and I am disconnected from that which defines the town for me. 

They say I look the same, but the kids (who are no longer, because they are all 29 and 30 now) have said that I have changed. I don’t know why that would be, my brother still tells me that I don’t plan, I am still running out to meet 3 different friends @ 10pm,  I have no mobile, and no ride…and I am stick sneaking brandy out in hip flasks, sure feels like high school to me all over.   

The other day, we went to hit the birdie around on some professional courts, and I still jumped around like, I was a 16 year old. My brother and friend mentioned that they would be sore the next day after 1.5 hours of zooming around on the courts. I causally commented that “I could do this shit all day". I have been in pain the last couple of days…… I guess things have changed, I am turning 31.

Incidentally, my friend’s sister Kelley is in

Shanghai

right now, work @ Azul. She has apparently been in town for the last 6 month, and since I won’t be back for a while, it would be cool if some of the girls would ask for her if eating there. She is awefully independent, so a hello, how ya doing, babe would be showing enough love.

More tales of the half-Koreans later.

LOL Tony,

This is the first day of the second week of my travels. GDC was a sausage feast of sorts at Moscone in SF. Ngage Nokia had their after party @ Castro district, and Intel had Primus Guitarist play at theirs with a chocolate fondue fountain. Sake Lab, and Broadway Showgirls, Crazy Horse, Gold Club, and that half Korean, part Sicilian, part Swedish cutie, and the other half Irish, half Korean sweetie showed us a really good time. As my opening line, I invited the partial Sicilian to visit Shanghai, and as a dancer does, she whispered that she did not "yet" know me well enough…… oh, how the same games are played even on this side of the pacific. SF is not that different from SH as I soon discovered with a place called Gold Flower. Unfortunately I passed out from jet lag before feastivities could actually begin, but I remember seeing through sleep eye lids, a lady? with very distinct jaw line, and awfully big hand/knockles. My friend dragged me back to our Hotel after the 3am last call and while falling asleep in my hotel room, memories of Koi Samui flooded my dreams, nightmare of the ladies that were boys, and I begin to wonder if this is the right place to have come to detox.

My brother has been wonderfully supportively and patiently militant about my diet and exercise. His cute condo and sleeper community reminds me of the Shire in Lord of the Rings. White noise or your own heart beat scream in your ears, and the dial up with only one phone line in the house, and no cable/sat channels, is turning Tony introspective once again. It was at least a wise decision to get my Dell Latitude.

I have opted to harvests Friendster, and create a BBQ outing on April 2nd. However, I arrived in town with only 2 phone numbers to my name. Luckily I have collected up to 22 now, and people actually are willing to answer my phone calls even during work hours. I usually quickly dispense with the "catching up" by mentioning that " I am sensitive about discussing my health", and quickly go on to the ramblings about the half Koreans. 

Whomever said that Bay Area has no females, obviously has no skills. Went to the Cliff House and Four Seasons, and while cruising Broadway, saw quite a number of hotties. Yes , quite a number more qualified asian american hotties than I would see in Shanghai, even tho a large number of them already resides in our social groups.

I am thinking of running a poker game in the Bay Area just for kicks and giggles, but am afraid that it will get out of hand. My brother will not be tolerant about things like that.

And am comtemplating throwing some chum change at some cool investments, just so I can say I have skin in those games. Hopefully, it doesn’t commit me to anything I haven’t already made my mind to.

My baby sister maybe coming next week to visit me in Cupertino. It’s weird, she calls today, and for some reason, I follow up faster on our conversation than on anything all week. Will of the cave man to protect is still strong, I guess.

Speaking of cave man, Mens Health has an article on balancing Testosterone. Lower than 270 or higher than 1000, you have hypo or hyper gonadism. Apparently it’s not good to have you nads all hyped up. More prone to death, std, xxx-activities, drinking, smoking, gambling, and other high risk shinanigans. I wonder how hyped my nads are, because the description of the results of hypergonadism is not far from what I have experienced as "living" overseas. Apparently higher education, and just the thought of marriage will lower and balance out the nads. I am on the fence on this one. We will see which one agrees with me more, beyond my current health reasons.

So far, Last count 240 down to 237 lbs. I am eating like a giant rabbit, but a rabbit never the less. No meat actually lowers my nads as well. Hum…. I better go left some weights, and beat someone senseless at a game or something… Wouldn’t want to change that fast.

Tony