Year: 2017

September 20, 2017

Pumping Iron

Recently I’ve started going to the gym regularly, and I’ve started punishing my weak flesh by lifting heavy pieces of metal. I know, I know … it sounds like the Body Snatchers grabbed me, and now someone else is inside Thomas. I am by far the most comfortable person I know, and I am lazy to a fault.

But the fact of the matter is that in the last three years I’ve managed to pack on 40 kilograms more than I’m supposed to be lugging around. It’s not all due to sloth, though. That year and a half where I was completely sidelined because of stress and anxiety certainly didn’t help, and the amount of comfort eating I did in that period exacerbated an already shitty situation.

So here I am, lugging my fatty corpus to the gym on a regular basis. I plan on dropping the first 30 kilogram in about a year and a half. If I can keep it up. Cross your fingers, eh?

June 22, 2017

On being alone

I fucking hate being alone, and with the way my brain is wired, I am very good at ending up feeling alone. I can sit in a room full of people whom I know and with whom I share a common interest, and feel absolutely 100% disconnected from them. Yay. Awesome.

So, a couple of months back I ended the relationship I was in. From where I was standing I thought we were working together to try and fix the problems we were having. I thought we had made a commitment to give it an extra shot and work on our communication issues. I was wrong.

So, here I am again. Or … I’ve been here all along when I look back. I don’t feel like I’ve been in a relationship for the past two years. Maybe the first one. Maybe only the first half of the first year. There was certainly a distinct downward trend from there.

I’d like to say I miss her, specifically. But that feels disingenuous. I don’t feel I was treated fairly or even well at the end. And so it’s hard to be too sad about a relationship ending. It had run its course (Christ, I hate that phrase … it’s also a lie; one of us took a hatchet to it and didn’t try to resuscitate). Good riddance.

At the urging of some of my friends and an effort to prove to myself that I am not completely unlovable, that some person somewhere might find me attractive, I tried my hand at online dating (Tinder, OkCupid, etc). That was a total and utter slap in the face with a wet Sunday newspaper.

I see my friends enjoy intimacy (not sex necessarily, but physical closeness) and getting the attention that is not around in my life. And I can feel that need growing.

All of this is bullshit of course. I know this from an intellectual standpoint (or, I tell myself that’s the case anyway). But I don’t feel it. And that’s really the important part.

Based on my own history that means it’ll probably be another four to six years before I see anything of the sort again.
If I ever become well and truly depressed, this is the reason.

June 20, 2017

Work & Play

On and off (more on than off) I’ve been running my own business since 2006. I’ve never been much for formalized things, and so I’ve never really maintained an actual office for my business. It was never my idea that it was something that should grow into a massive corp, and so being just me suited me just fine.

It, however, also meant I worked from home when I wasn’t on-site with a client. And that, my friends, is a world-class grade A shitty idea.

The problem that follows with working from home is not really having clear lines of demarcation between work time and free time. The life as a freelancer is already guilt-ridden enough (should I read that new Scalzi novel, or should I not really rather be working on that new client project).

January last year I took over my first company lease. There were several reasons for this. I had moved in with the Doctor, and her flat is super tiny. Combine that with the fact that she would come home after night shifts and need to sleep, and suddenly working from home was no longer feasible. The lease was, fortunately, located in the same building as the Doctor’s flat. And so I took over the first official office space for my company, a full 80 square meters in the basement of the building.

That worked well for a while, and it was awesome to have an official home for Campground, it quickly became untenable. The offices were in an old building, and the landlord hadn’t been good with upkeep, which meant a lot of work needed to be put in to make it into a viable office space. Still, I signed the lease, with the promise from the landlord, that they would get on fixing the problems swiftly. They never did.

Frustration grew, and I have ended up terminating the lease. Instead, I have now moved into swanky offices in the heart of Copenhagen, in Jorcks Passage, where I’ve sublet some space from some old clients, Cape CPH. Things are finally looking up.

May 15, 2017

Removing ego from work

April 21, 2017

Unexpected productivity

For Christmas Liv gifted me a calendar. This particular one was a collection of daily strips from Ekstra Bladet, a publication I would usually avoid at any cost. But, y’know, it was a gift from a dear friend and so it has a space on my desk.

Up until now, I’ve been occasionally pulling strips off the calendar to keep it updated. Don’t ask me why. But yesterday I started something new.

I’ve moved into a new office (which I’ll get around to writing about soon, I hope), and I’ve added a new item to my routine. I pull off the day’s strip, flip it over and use it to make a to-do list for the day. If the list can’t fit, items get pushed. It automatically limits the number of tasks I can commit myself to in a day, and gives me a physical list on my desk where I can cross off items as I complete them! Score!

April 13, 2017

Being a Blood Bowl beginner

In my neck of the woods playing one or more of Games Workshops (now renamed Warhammer to make everything stupid and confusing) games has been a hallmark of the nerd.

It’s worth keeping in mind that GW’s games are not so much games, as they are reasons for boys of many ages to collect small figurines of fantastical characters and then painstakingly paint them. The games are merely an incentive to buy the required collectibles.

I’ve never actually played many games. When I was a teen and Warhammer 40.000 was all the rage in my circle of nerds I had amassed the figures of two not insignificant armies (Imperial Guard and The Eldar, if you’re interested). Guess how many times I actually played any of those armies? Yup, that’s right. Zero.

To me, it was the universe that really roped me in (they know what they’re doing at GW … the bastards). The story of the Horus Heresy, and the mighty Astartes (Space Marines, if you want to be colloquial). Absolutely fascinating, and it still is today. For something as weird as the 40k universe, it has an uncanny ability to draw me in.

Now, considering that I never really got around to playing the games, one would suspect that I’d be somewhat inoculated against their charms now that I’m older. And I am, somewhat. But I have also been looking for something I can spend time on that’s not in front of a computer. Because I spend way too much time in front of the computer. Like, really, way too much. And it would be cool to have something that I could also bond with friends over. So when Troels asked if I wanted to join an informal Blood Bowl league (appropriately named “The Old Farts League”) I figured why not? I’d get out of the house and see other people, and when at home I could hunker down with paints and what not and make my new figurines look all pretty and shit.

Orc Lineman

Tonight I played my first match (and also my first GW game) ever. It was fun. I played a friend of a friend named Kasper, and he was super chill and cool with teaching me the ropes. And so, now, the Kan of Whoopaaaaaaaaggghhh has been born. They’re not very frightening. In fact, since I don’t have my own miniatures yet, they exist only on paper (and on our league website, but yeah, shut up).

What I like about Blood Bowl (which is essentially a fantasy version of American football where orcs, elves, dwarves and humans all have their teams) it’s as much about winning by scoring touchdowns, as it is about beating your opponents players into a bloody pulp on the pitch. Who cares whether you make a touchdown if nobody has any legs left on the opposing team?

I’m already looking forward to my next match. It’s going to be a lot of fun!

February 2, 2017

New York, New York

So … it’s 6.30 AM (cuz, ya know, America). I’ve slept for about five hours. Local time back home is a bit after lunch. I think my internal clock is fucking with me.

But … I’m here in New York. Which is kinda weird. Landed late last night, and didn’t get to the hotel until 10:30 PM. And that after a 7-hour flight, and a full day of work I was kinda bombed and figured that I’d be able to sleep as much as I wanted. Haha! Nope!

But it was so cool watching the skyline when I drove into the city last night. I haven’t been here since ’97, and I have no real memories of the city as such. Only single highlights like running into a classmate on 6th Ave, or the hotel we stayed at.

I’ve also already had my first culture shock. Getting in late, being hungry as hell I walked down the street to a Wendy’s figuring some junk food would be okay right about now. Was asked if I wanted to upgrade the meal to a “large”. Said yes because, again, famished. Large in America is not large. It’s fucking humongous. My arteries were screaming just by looking at the drink (40 oz of Dr. Pepper, for those interested, because, ya know, America).

Also, the hotel (Hudson Hotel) I’m staying at, these first few of days … boy, oh boy. I did not see that coming. First, of all, the room; it’s very nice, clean, modern. It’s also tiny. But it’s got everything you’d need. Nice clean shower, a small desk, and comfy bed.
But the lobby. Wow. That was a “treat”. Basically, the lobby also serves as a kind of bar/nightclub pumping out terrible and loud techno music. I’m not all about that bass. Also, get off my lawn.

Today is a relatively light program. A bit of sightseeing (Museum of Natural History, because dinosaur bones), a bit of shopping (MOAH T-SHIRTS) and so forth.