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One would think the home office lifestyle would be conducive to hitting the gym and getting in tip top shape. One would think!

But now a certain new annoying coworker with 5% body fat (I call him Chubs, or “skinny little f*ck” depending on mood) is on my [big] ass all the time about going to the gym.

I have a new weight loss technique: weigh yourself with your sneakers on. Then assume your sneakers weigh however-many-pounds-overweight you are that day.

Today will be a good day on the scale since it’s raining– wet shoes are HEAVY

W’s update: According to CNN, recessions result in lower death rates. “…Having no job means more time to hit the gym or just go for a walk. Exercise leads to weight loss, and research shows that it correlates with less smoking (though which causes which isn’t clear). Being unemployed or underemployed also means more time for sleep, which improves health.”

H is mutli-platform, multi-channel, and multi-media. She is all over Facebook, twitter, the blog, etc.

What this also means, is that every move, comment or misadventure I have, could potentially be blog fodder. I’ve often began to tell a friend a story or anecdote to which they reply “I know – I read H’s post”.  The other, more dangerous, downside is that some of my more embarrassing items may also become public knowledge.

Thus, I’ve had to institute the “social media ban” clause to our relationship. ie. I often need to tell H – “no uploads about this!”

ie. I made H retract a FB status update detailing how I was watching German porn until 3AM, while in Nuremburg for business (for the record: not true).

H UPDATE: While W was trying to write this post, he called to me “hey, what was that thing I did that I instilled a social media ban on?”  I couldn’t recall… all I could come up with was “I think you did something really girly”.  See, if it was facebooked, that memory would live on forever.  Now?  gone.

“If blogs and Facebook had existed throughout history, whose updates would you be most interested to read?”

Break out the whiteboard!

We both agreed that Ben Franklin would probably be the most interesting to “friend” – always full of little witticisms, inventive thoughts and snarky comments about the British. I’d be one of the first to follow @bfranks76 on Twitter. And what would his blog be titled? H favored “Speaking Frankly“. My vote would be for “All About the Benjamin”.

I bet the “Lincoln Logs” would be a great blog.

I have a fascination with world explorers. So I also think that Magellan’s blog (“Straight from Magellan”) would be some good reading.  My guess is that it would be a bit pretentious and obnoxious though with Ferdinand always bragging about all of the cool new places he’s been. I am sure he’d post lots of drawings of him with exotic women and boast about how many cheap spices he just bought.

Yes, this is what happens after hours at the Home Office. Please add a comment if you think of any others (of course, extra points for explorers).

H:  “There was a consortium and it was decided that you are walking the dogs”W: “A consortium?”

H: “Is that not the right word?  Is that not how it’s pronounced?”

W:  “No, it’s right. I’m just disturbed that you were holding a consortium with the dog”

  

 One of my fav new past times is googling “meeting”– then lamenting about how this is how I wasted away my 20’s.  Why didn’t someone tell me to work on a cruise ship or something?

We lifted a white board from a previous employer (really, am I afraid to say which one in fears that they will send a repo man?).  At first I questioned what the hey it would ever be used for and where it would be kept.  But I quickly realized it would be used for brainstorming, of course.  And it’s best to not mount it anyway, so you can relocate it to wherever said brainstorming would take place!*

Is there anything as gratifying as checking something off of the white board? This photo was taken after a day trip upstate– I sent the pic to my friend who we met for coffee so she could see what she helped us accomplish. Note that the first item on the list , a visit to Bed Stuy, ended up being a really bad idea  and is so noted (at least I don’t have to hear about W’s dream of buying a cheap brownstone anymore)

Just a couple days ago W was lying in his hammock when he exclaimed out of nowhere, “Why bother with an aerobed?  Let’s put guests on the hammock!”  I stopped what I was doing and ran inside.  Glad the white board isn’t mounted!

Note that I don’t think the shopping list has any business being white board material, and that it was W’s doing.  Funny enough, I had a single post it note up in the kitchen to be used for this purpose, but W started writing big projects on it.  So the list was kinda ended up looking like:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Butter
• Rearrange furniture in living room
• cereal
• bread
• organize bins in basement

To mock him I started adding things like “plan for retirement.”  I just find it ironic that with the big idea white board he’s adding tactical to-dos.  It did end up proving to be a good prop when I walked out the door with the white board when going to Pathmark yesterday.

* I later remembered that when working at Forrester we were sold on our new “dynamic” office. “The walls will be made of white boards for impromptu idea generation!”  “If an idea is sparked, you can move the walls around to corner off your small working group until project completion!”  “It will be a veritable hotbed of creativity!”  In actuality, the movable walls were just giant cumbersome panels and if you wanted to slide any over you needed to give the facilities department 2 weeks notice and then suffer their wrath.