Fatboy

Why did I not pack a pair of gym shorts or swim trunks? I feel all fat and bloated. The hotel here has a mini workout room (treadmill, rowing machine, elliptical trainer) as well as the standard swimming pool and jacuzzi. I guess I'll have to work out extra-hard back home to work off all this excess baggage.

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It's a pain working on the eastcoast while the body and mind are still set on westcoast time. So far this week, I've been in 'the office' until about 5pm. Pacific time. That's like (carry the one) 8pm eastern time. I really love the 13 hour workdays. Not.

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traveling with this group of people means (unfortunately) that I also have to hang out with them after hours. I guess it's a team thing. So that's like dinners at 8pm. On the company card. Cheesecake Factory yesterday. Joe's Crab Shack tonight. I really feel bloated. And of course as I write this, it's 11-ish eastern time, but my laptop clock says 8-ish. Which means I won't be sleepy for another 4 hours. Maybe I'll just walk around the hotel.

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My room is on the top floor of this particular Embassy Suites hotel. All of the smells from the kitchen and bar sort of waft it's way up to the top and then lingers there. I have to stuff a bath towel under my door to stop (or at least slow down) the seepage of stank into the room. I still hear the annoying waterfall in the lobby area.

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I make it a habit of avoiding alcohol on business trips. (Actually, I avoid alcohol at home too, but that's a whole different story) One time, many many years ago, a coworker friend and I had to take a business trip together. For 5 days straight, we ate lavishly and drank heavily. Lobster one night, mahi mahi on another, crayfish etoufee, prawns, scallops, different microbrew beers each night. The company paid for it, so what the heck! On the last day in town, I developed a horrible sore ankle. I swear, I could barely walk it was so painful. I didn't twist it or roll it or bump it on anything, so what was the pain about? The pain throbbed and pinched and stuck at my leg all through the rental car return, the walk through the airport, the entire flight home, and it never got any better. In fact, it would stiffen up and hurt even more if I didn't keep it moving somewhat. I didn't think about icing it during the flight, but would that have helped? The next day, I had to call my doctor for an immediate visit. He took a look and sent me to a specialist. The orthopedic specialist poked and twisted and wrung at my ankle. He asked one simple question after he made his diagnosis. "Have you had a diet recently high in seafood and alcoholic beverages? Like lobster or crayfish?" Umm, yeah. Like for a week. "You have gout. Take this prescription...."

??? Dayam! Gout? So I went and looked up all I could about gout (hey, that rhymes). Sure enough, everything I did for the week, plus the fact that my dad had battled gout on multiple occasions, pointed me off into this sudden affliction. That was quite a lesson.

From WebMD:
"Gout can seem to flare up without specific cause or can be brought on by factors such as being overweight, eating meats and seafood that are high in chemicals called purines, taking certain medications (especially aspirin and diuretics), and drinking too much alcohol."

I don't think I've ever had seafood with any alcoholic beverage since then.

The other thing I realized from that horrible trip was the fact that I really did not drink enough water. Plenty of coffee and soda, but not enough plain old H2O. So on this trip, I did stop by a grocery store for a sixpack of Aquafina. Best to avoid any further ankle and joint problems.