Life As Nick Starr

Wow…I am below 170. I can’t believe it. Sticking to my diet and doing lots of cardio at the gym. I also spent Saturday walking around San Francisco for a good 5-6 hours before the Flickr 4 party. I had a great time at the party (got to meet Stewart Butterfield the founder of Flickr and guy who personally banned FlickrLicio.us from using Flickr to host my Babes of Flickr site), and then at dinner afterward, and then the party across the street after that…needless to say it was a long, but very fun night.

I didn’t even get home till around 4 or so in the morning, and I slept until 2pm the next day. I was so wiped out, I barely made it to the gym, but I did go in and started working on some bench pressing, and other weights. I have been concentrating on cardio as I have/had a lot of fat to lose. I didn’t want to replace the weight with muscle mass yet, but I think I am low enough to start trying to build up some muscles and hope they replace the fat.

I am feeling better about myself, still not where I want to be, and 160 might be a goal that while attainable, might not have me in the shape I would like unless I start to build some muscle mass. I think that my goal should be able to be reached….but getting to where I feel comfortable with my shirt off is a new goal.

Other then that, I’m getting a lot of requests from people asking if I am glad I moved and if I am enjoying the area. The answer is a resounding yes, I am glad I am out here in the San Francisco bay area (besides the weather which is so cold at night and hot during the day). Besides my rough start, it has been all uphill from there.

Until later…buh bye.

Yes, yes I know I have been majorly slacking in terms of blogging, and NickStarr.com has turned into more of my personal updates from my trip across country, and adventures since then. I have also been twittering like mad and thus haven’t had much time to blog here, but I hope to change that, you know being a new year and all.

Today I joined 24 Hour Fitness….now when I was in Florida I was a member of the YMCA, but I almost never went to work out. I’ve really been feeling the need to get into shape so I’ve started dieting and thought that adding a regular workout would help aid the process.

There is a 30 minute circuit branch of 24 Hour Fitness branch very close to my work, and I decided I would go check it out a few weeks ago. There was this amazing sale for $29 down, $0 processing fee, and $29/month…Compared to their $45-$55 a month this sounded too good to be true. I went and liked the facility, but when I got back to work the offer was gone…

24 Hour Fitness has a sale every Monday from 9am-1pm PST, and I got back and finished my order around 1:05pm….sucks. A few weeks later and they now have the same sale, this time for 48 hours (so get your order in by tomorrow before it is gone again). I signed up, paid my $89 total out the “door” charge online….BTW there is something ultimately wrong about signing up online for a gym.

During lunch today, I drove down to the gym and met one of the guys who runs the place. He showed me each piece of equipment and had me do a minute on each. That is how this circuit thing works…5 minute warm-up on the elliptical, then 1 minute on each of the 25 machines.

Let me tell you what, I was counting the machines, and by number 7 I had already broken a sweat and it didn’t get any easier from there. I think I worked muscles that I didn’t even know existed. The worst is at the very end, there is this giant ball you have to put between your legs (which are killing you already at this point) and lie on your back and bring your legs up and then down to the floor. I didn’t make the full minute on that one.

I was planning on going every day during lunch, but after today’s “experience” I might cut it down to a more manageable 3 times per week. I want to check out the main facility which is closer to where I live to see all of the other equipment they have. I also think I will stick to mainly cardio type things there, as this circuit training facility seems to do a good job at kicking my ass as it is.

Ultimately, the goal is to get in shape, but also to feel good about how I look. I haven’t really liked what I see in the mirror for years now, and now that I am getting older (yes I am less then 3 years from 30) I would like to try to get prepared for the years where the metabolism doesn’t work as well as it does now (which if you have seen me isn’t very well). Here is a recent picture of Kara Murphy and myself at Matt Mullenweg’s (of Wordpress) 24th birthday day party.

All of that being said, look for more personal updates about life and things that are going on in the future on this blog, and you can always add the feed to your favorite RSS reader here: http//LifeAs.NickStarr.com/feed/

Until next time….buh bye.

This past week has been crazy and chaotic. Tuesday was my 27th birthday, Friday was my brother’s wedding, and on Monday (hopefully) I am driving the 3,000 miles to California to move.

I’ve had a storage unit with a lot of my stuff including some big couches, bed, etc for some time now. We got most of the small items out over the last month or so, and some of the large stuff out the other day. With the wedding though there has been no time with the truck to get everything out.

The truck is now down in south Florida with my brother as he is on his honeymoon. The storage unit was supposed to be cleared out by today, the last day of the lease. There is still 2 couches, a bed and bench/coat rack in there. I don’t know anyone else who has a truck that can help me get it out. My brother’s friend was supposed to help today and he was going to keep the couches, but he has been MIA most of the day.

On top of all of this, my check engine light came on today. I believe that the guy who pumped my gas didn’t put the cap on, thus causing the light to come on, but I am going to see about heading out to the dealership on Monday early to double check.

It’s been quite the stressful week. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the 51″ Sony HDTV that I paid over $1,600 for a few years ago has gotten ZERO feedback when I’ve listed it on Craigslist twice. I am going to see if I can get a pawn shop locally to give me a few hundred for it.

UGGGGGG! I can’t wait till all of this madness is over, the tv is gone, the stuff in storage is gone, and I am on my way to California.