Robert Ford Fiction

Category: Blog

  • Mutant Diet Phase 11 Finale

    Mutant Diet Phase 11 Finale


    Somehow Matter Eater Lad is appropriate for this Phase. New Cabinet in Ottawa. I wonder.

    Mutant Diet Phase 11 Finale
    This is the finale to a diet/fitness phase that wasn’t. I fly to Toronto tomorrow and by the time I’m back, the festive season is upon us — what I call Damage Control in diet/fitness language.

    The cold I reported on came back with a vengeance and I don’t get enough sleep. The rest of my issues are follow on problems from that.

    The big challenge is anger toward self. In other words I have to control the urge to punish myself by way of, say, self-dismemberment.

    However, the training is not too awful given the circumstances. I had a session today where I learned how to boost my deadlifts without hurting myself. One easily forgets it’s a leg exercise more than a back exercise. And my legs don’t care how much they lift. So if I stay strong, I won’t lose my way completely.

    For the festive season, all I need to do is keep strong and try not to go hog wild.

  • Mutant Diet Phase 11 Day 4

    Mutant Diet Phase 11 Day 4


    I’m looking forward to the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover this year. Ottawa‘s halls of power empty until after Oct 21. Vote like your life depended on it.

    Mutant Diet Phase 11 Day 4
    I think I’m on track despite a work social. I was tempted by beer, refrained and chose (for me anyway) the lesser evil of red wine. It tasted like I hadn’t had anything in ages, which was not true. It was less than a week. Odd.

    I figure that if I’m a bit hungry or craving food before bed, I’m still in the range.

    I’m beginning to suspect my new-ish behaviour of shutting off the food and beverage service at around 8 PM is more important than I suspect.

  • Mutant Diet Phase 10b Day 6

    Mutant Diet Phase 10b Day 6


    Deadpool and a guy named Snake Eyes. I feel more like Snake Eyes. Warm water fish off of Nova Scotia.

    Mutant Diet Phase 10b Day 6
    I am very angry because I pulled the muscle that connects to my right shoulder blade. I was doing a ropes warm-up with excellent posture and then about 10 seconds into it, bang. Spasm in the shoulder blade, I dropped the ropes and became very angry. The day before the trainer and I had really worked on the area and I thought I was sufficiently recovered.

    Today is the first weekend day and I tried sleeping in and resting but it kind of made me miserable.

    We see Bard on the Beach tomorrow night instead of a yoga class. I wonder. Maybe I should go earlier in the day and try to literally straighten this mess out.

  • Mutant Diet Phase 2 Day 44

    Mutant Diet Phase 2 Day 44


    Today I needed a superhero montage with Spider-man. I’m wishing I could see PEI Beaches this summer.

    Mutant Diet Phase 2 Day 44
    Today I see the trainer and weigh in and I know some carbs and stress have crept in and honestly I’m expecting no movement on the scale. Maybe worse. And it’s not because I’ve been that bad but given my body’s effective use of carbs and sugar, I don’t hope for much.

    I really wish the weather would warm up just a couple of degrees to increase my step count. I’m thinking for this phase I won’t bother charting the steps because to compare them to the Fall would be pointlessly stating the obvious.

    Time to focus on what I can do well between now and my trainer session.

  • Heart chilling Air Canada Christmas Tale

    Heart chilling Air Canada Christmas Tale

    On our flight to Toronto the inflight entertainment system and controls for reading lights as well as controls for J class seats were off.

    Due to the time of year and cost I wrote a letter. On a barf bag. Other factors included:

    • The fact the chief steward was not allowed to do anything in flight re catering
    • The fact the little promo codes handed out would force me to make individual bookings next time (if there is one) for each of us.
    • We’d already been held up at the gate due to another technical issue making us leave late
    • And they messed with our schedule back in October, forcing us to leave later, which I had to wait on hold for 40 minutes to sort out.

    BarfBag2

    ————
    Dec 21, 2014

    Dear Captain,

    The issues on this aircraft are completely unacceptable. Compensation for future travel is lame (esp @ $1000 per ticket). I have two soon-to-be VERY bored children. My suggestion at this point is to at least offer free meals and real drinks. I am not willing to wait until I get to a website to complain to a faceless machine. Due to the heat build-up in the cabin, the fact this is written on a barf bag should retain suitable symbolism.

    Thanks,

    Robert 26H

  • Just posted this site to the whole world

    Just posted this site to the whole world

    It’s kind of exciting. Although my audience is highly friends-and-family, it’s fun to have posted on Facebook this site’s existence. I always publish on December 1 and considering the first story in 1984 was on an IBM Selectric, there’s a bit of magic to the technology change. I don’t think I’m mailing anyone a printed copy this year.

  • 2013 Story is live … first one for the new site

    2013 Story is live … first one for the new site

    Well, that was fun. The best part is that I know where I put the files! I’m kind of pumped to have the story on a site where everyone can easily get back to it. Of course it’s a tree falling in the forest as no one knows where the forest is. On December 1 I will send out my usual email.

    Next year will be the 30th year. I wonder what to do for that.

  • 2013 Story in progress

    2013 Story in progress

    Never plan to have a stomach flu when preparing for December 1 deadlines. Virtually no one knows this site is ready. But I did have a draft of 2013’s story all ready. My wife took a run at it and I realized from her feedback that the whole opening isn’t working. It makes the connection between the two characters rushed, which is no fun. The short story format pushes you to keep the story to a sensible size.

    But back to the editing phase.

  • Finally Got the Files Loaded

    Finally Got the Files Loaded

    I am relieved that I got all the files converted. I’m not announcing this site until Dec 1, but it was such a pain to go from Word to WordPress. It was made worse when I used typographic techniques (like changing fonts). The various tools to convert Word to plain HTML either are super clean or — especially Microsoft — leave too much dreck.

    It was fun trying to find thumbnail images for the stories after 1995. Catherine did the drawings for the first 11, which were self-published in 1995.

    OK. Back to some real work.