Well Fit

At my company we have a good program for health and wellness. Our health insurance is "performance" based. There are four discounts versus full price that are possible for both the employee and their spouse. Those discounts are: body mass index (BMI), cholesterol, blood pressure, and smoking. As a result of this performance based system we are evaluated every year. The evaluation is always in February when everyone is at their fattest and laziest. I have my screening next Wednesday and they always draw blood. It is always a good time. I hate needles, well I don't really hate needles, I hate being stuck with them. I don't care if someone else is getting stuck. I even gave shots to animals on the farm when I was younger.Getting stuck with a needle is just not good.

To illustrate this point I have a story. During the diagnosis for cancer I was giving some blood samples at a local hospital. The Chief was with me in the room where I was giving blood. I told the nurse that I have a tendency to pass out when I get stuck with needles. The nurse says that is not a problem and has me sit on top of the exam table covered with paper. She asked the Chief to sit in the chair next to the door. Next she puts the tourniquet on my arm, cleans off an area with an alcohol swab and proceeds to stick me. The stick did not hurt as bad as a bee sting, she did a very good job. She gets the first vial full and changes to the next one. The next thing I remember is being picked up off the floor.

The Chief told me that the nurse taking the blood from me had a complete come apart when I passed out. Complete with yelling for help and nearly pulling some of her hair out... I guess the next time someone tells her they pass out when they get poked with a needle, she will believe them.

Anyway, back to the health screening. My company does a good job of making it as painless as possible even though the screening is in February. There are a number of contests and fitness classes that are available to any employee and in some cases spouses. The current contest is not really a contest, the person with the highest total does not get anything special. It is a mile club, the more miles you travel by foot, walking and running, the more prizes you get. The contest lasts for six months. The milestones are 100, 250, 500, 750, and 1000 miles.

The prizes are:
100 miles - Company Logo water bottle
250 miles - Company Logo microfiber sweat towel
500 miles - Company Logo soft sided lunch box
750 miles - Gym bag - I didn't see a logo but I might have missed it.
1000 miles - $50 gift card to a local athletic apparel store

The gym bag is very nice. It has a shoe compartment to keep shoes separate from the rest of the clothing. It also has a smaller compartment for wet clothing and another smaller one for misc. stuff.

There is a progress board that has the milestones and a caricature of each contest participant in the area. Every month, everyone turns in their mileage total. Someone then moves the caricatures past the milestones and in order of mileage logged.

There is also a large label that says "Mile Fit for Life." The individual letters are taped up and some of them fall down from time to time. One afternoon I walk by the "score" wall and see this:

I am really upset that I did not think of it. Although, a couple people asked me if I did it...

The contest finished last week. I made it past 1000 miles. My total was 1049 miles including both walking and running. There was a lot of walking around London and Tokyo during business travels.

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It Really is J-Mart

Brownsville, TX... Traveling for business and I have plenty of time to run and work out because the schedule is not working as was intended. The problem is that I need some water to drink and the water from the faucet tastes like pool water with a hint of old stale aquarium. So I need to go and get some water from a major chain department store. This is the same department store that had many store closings in 2002. It also appears there are to be more store closings in the near future... I can see why the stores are closing and guess what else, I'm about to tell you.

First, the trip to Brownsville, or to McAllen because that is as close as Delta can get, then an hour drive to Brownsville. I had a connection in Atlanta. I board the plane and there is a guy sitting in the aisle seat next to me. He is the guy that needs the seat belt extender. On the positive side, even though he was large, he didn't crowd me, he didn't stink, and he was very nice.

After the boarding door was closed the pilot gets on the intercom and tells us there is a hydralic leak in the left hand side landing gear and that in order to fix it, the plane needs to be raised off the tarmac. Oh, yeah and they can't do that with people on the plane. So we deplane and move 4 gates down the terminal and wait for an hour for our next plane.

We start boarding and I'm dreading sitting in the same seat, not that there is anything wrong with the guy next to me but I wouldn't be terribly comfortable. He boards the plane about 5 people before me and as he is boarding he is arguing with the gate attendant. Whatever he said made the gate attendant walk with him all the way down the jetway and onto the plane. I get on the plane and ask what it was all about and he tells me that there were some people in business class that were denied boarding after the boarding door was closed. It was the door to the jetway, not the door to the plane - I don't think they ever closed the plane's door before the maintenance issue. As a result of them being denied boarding, two people from the upgrade list were moved to business class from economy. I guess the guy sitting next to me also saw some random person from economy put into a business class seat and he was annoyed by this (I'm not even sure how he knew the third person upgraded was not on the upgrade list). He was also correct. I was the third person on the upgrade list and the gate agent had the last person move and I was upgraded to business class. I'm not really sure what that was all about and I might have some of the details wrong but I got upgraded and a decent lunch out of the ordeal. It was nice because I was hungry too. It was an Asian chicken salad and some fruit.

I drive to the hotel and get caught up on my email then go for a run. After the run, I shower and watch some TV before going to dinner. I walk from the hotel and go to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Then on the way back I stop at the department store.

Water was not the only thing on my shopping list. After the laser eye surgery, my eyes are a little dry from time to time. It doesn't really bother me too much except it causes my vision to be a little fuzzy. Like when I had been on an overnight flight in my contact lenses. I called my eye doctor and asked what to buy since I'm out of town (they offered some free samples, if I could come and get them). They recommended 3 different brands with the common factor being drops that are preservative free. Eye drops are added to the list in addition to the water. I was also looking for some ice cream but they didn't have any.

The store is very clean and orderly, the first 10 employees I found were all straightening shelves and cleaning up. I walked all around the store before I found the food section. They were having a sale on bottled water (as every store is...) so I picked up 3 bottles of water, one liter each. I carry these to the pharmacy and find the correct drops, which by the way are the #1 Doctor Recommended Brand - according to the box.

I take my 4 items to the check out and pay for them. The cashier sets the 3 bottles of water on the end of the counter next to the eye drops instead of putting them in a plastic sack. She then hands me the receipt and starts ringing up the next customers's purchases. OK so I have to bag the items myself. I look around and there are no plastic bags anywhere. The metal frames that normally hold plastic bags are empty. All of them, there is not one plastic bag to be found in any check out lane at this store. I look over and the customer in the next check out lane is packing their purchases into a bag from The Gap. Really, no bags? WTF. I'm surprised this store is not on the closing list since they cannot afford plastic bags for less than a penny a bag.

Jenius.

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Japan and Korea Phone Pictures

I made it back to the USA and finally transferred the pictures from my phone to my computer... I must apologize in advance for the poor quality of the pictures... they are from my dumb phone.

The first thing to show is the "tubes" from the restaurant. Again, they were not too bad, a little chewy and greasy but definitely edible.

I have never seen how wasabi is used. It is obviously a root. One method of preparing it is to rub the root across a piece of shark skin. The material ground off the root is then scooped off and put into the food being eaten. What I didn't realize is that the root itself is green. I thought it was colored horseradish.

The next food item is the deep fried octopus and flower balls. Here they are with the dipping sauce and garnish. It is kind of funny, after eating one of them, a few minutes later I wanted another one.

The last food item is from the same restaurant as the octopus and flower balls. It was the American Plate and had fried chicken strips, fried potato wedges, and the Japanese attempt at cheese curds. The cheese curds are at the top of the plate and look a little like eggs. It is yellow cheese fried in an egg roll type wrap.

This last picture is actually from Korea. It was in the airport. It leaves some of the guesswork out of picking the correct toilet. Green means empty and red means "Grumpy in Progress."

I think we need some of these in the restrooms at work.

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