my life » fast food

Quick update

Devon — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:55:45 +0000

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, so I figured I should write a quick update. Work is a little slow at the moment (read: the calm before the storm), as I’m still waiting on the majority of the foreign markets to submit their forecasts, so I’ve actually been making it home at a decent hour.

First off, I’ve managed to go without fast food for over two months now. Which isn’t saying a whole lot, but I’m still pretty proud of myself. Ditching fast food has been surprisingly easy: after the first two weeks, it wasn’t at all difficult to say no to dollar menus and quick calories. Granted, I only have to cook for myself, not a whole family, and my schedule is completely independent of anyone else’s.

Last week, I was able to attend a performance of BYU’s Music Dance Theatre Showcase, which was terrific, as was the company (by multiple definitions.) They opened with the Glee rendition of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, which is always a classic, and performed other numbers from a variety of musicals. I was a little disappointed that they chose heavily from Legally Blonde and Urinetown, hoping for a few Rodgers and Hammerstein songs or selections from Wicked (Defying Gravity anyone?) instead. The weirdest thing was thing I knew two of the girls in the production – this is either a sign that I’m mixing with better gente, or that I’ve just been in Provo too long. Both are quite possible at this point.

I was planning on taking my bike out for the first ride of the season tomorrow, but with the massive snowfall that we just received, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. That leaves me with apartment hunting and attending the 20th Annual BYU Hunger Banquet. Which reminds me, I still need to find a date for that.

Entering the new year

Devon — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:58:57 +0000

Today marked the first day of the new semester. I’m not particularly thrilled about the prospect of having to cram 6 hours of class and 18 hours of homework into my already packed schedule, mainly because I know from experience that the first two things to suffer are my sleep schedule and my social life, both of which I could use a lot more of rather than less.

So far I’ve done fairly well keeping my resolutions. That isn’t saying much given that we’re only 4 days into the new year, but I’ll take what small successes I can. I’m kind of glad to be kicking fast food out of my diet – I purchased a small refrigerator from my cousin who’s being transferred to our offices in Thailand, so that will help me cut down on lunch expenses. The only true obstacles to completely avoiding fast food will be when I’m traveling. Although if I could find a sit-down restaurant in Malad, Idaho last summer, I should be able to find one just about anywhere. Besides, the McDonald’s in Park City doesn’t stay open past midnight anyway, so what’s the point.

To identify what is and isn’t fast food, I’ve developed a set of questions. If the answer is yes to any of the following, then it’s a culinary no-no:

Can it be purchased at a gas station or convenience store?
Is there a drive-thru?
Does it come wrapped in paper and tinfoil?

Resolutions

Devon — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:40:50 +0000

I’m preemptively making a few resolutions for the coming year. These are the two that I’ve set so far:

No more fast food. Yes, the stuff is extremely unhealthy, but that’s not why I’m going to refrain from eating it. The real reason is because the last time I purchased fast food, I ended up spending over $500 just so I could get my window to roll back up. If that isn’t a sign, then I don’t know what is. Whether I’ll end up eating more cup o’ noodles or ham and cheese sandwiches, I don’t know, but I have determined not to spend a dime at a fast food restaurant in 2010.
Blog at least once a week. I’m horrible at posting to this blog on a regular basis. As of today, I have at least three recipes that I need to publish. To demonstrate how backlogged I am on other topics, I still haven’t posted the pictures from some of the concerts I attended back in July. Pitiful.
Date more. Preferably the same girl on a more frequent basis, but if not, at least just go on more dates in general. In theory, this should be easy, because as a college student with a full-time job, it’s not like I can’t afford to date on a regular basis. The problem is that I simply don’t meet a lot of girls outside of my ward, which severely limits my social life.

There are also a couple of things that I would like to resolve to do but know that there is no reasonable way for me to fit them into my current schedule:

Use my gym membership. I will probably cancel mine in January. I opened a membership last spring, but I stopped going on a consistent basis once classes began in the fall. I’ve just avoided paying the $100 cancellation fee in the hopes that I would, my some far-fetched miracle, actually find time between the constraints of a full-time job, classes, and my meager social and ecclesiastical obligations. In hindsight, I should have just purchased some adjustable weights.
Learn French. A goal of mine since I was 17, but something I’ve never been able to find the time to do. With a major that doesn’t lend itself to elective courses, my only chance to learn French has been through audio courses, which don’t really work that well for me. Thanks to my fluency in Spanish, I can understand a fair amount of written French, but I can’t comprehend or speak it at all. (But I can at least say that last bit!)
Learn to play the guitar. I’d like to get back to playing piano, but it will be a long time before I have either the space or the capital for even a budget upright. Until then, I’d like to learn to play the guitar. One of my good friends once told me “For as well as you can play Guitar Hero, you might as well just learn to play a real guitar.” The problem is, I don’t have time to play video games at all, let alone find a tutor who’s available in the evenings.

Those last three are more like future resolutions – things I’ll resolve to do once I’ve graduated and have at least a little more free time in the evenings.

$531.63 – Most Expensive Meal, Ever

Devon — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:35:46 +0000

I decided to make a quick food run last night as I was getting ready to finish off the last of my finals. As I’m pulling away from the take-out window, I go to roll up my driver’s-side window … and nothing happens. Thinking it was just a loose switch, I toggle it a few times, hoping to see the usual response, but to no avail. As I don’t have a garage to park in, the absence of a window presented a bit of a problem, so I set to work the second I got home trying to diagnose the problem. By one o’clock, I had given up on trying to reseat the window and resorted to packaging tape and a portion of a dry cleaning bag and went inside to try and make some progress on my final. I finally fell asleep around 5am, only to wake up a couple of hours later. I made a last-ditch attempt at raising the window by shorting the motor circuit, which didn’t work, either, and proceeded to call my usual mechanic and then the Honda dealership.

Less than 24 hours later, I have my window back in working condition, but I think I already spent all of my fast food budget for 2010. Maybe my car is trying to tell me something. I love you, Honda, but sometimes I wish you’d be a little more subtle.