Enjoy the Beefcake. The First One's Free

So I’ve debated weather to do post this for awhile now and figured that I should just go for it. We are all friends here, right? OK, whatever.

So the masses of you that read this blog regularly have probably been wondering, maybe even aloud and daily, “Mat just isn’t posting as often as he used to. I hope he’s OK. Maybe he’s busy doing something?” Yes, the truth is that I have been keeping myself very busy with two rather large projects.

One is an ongoing big, big project of remodeling the house. I’ve finished the living room and am now in the dining room prepping, painting, re-sheetrocking and replastering. This is gonna go on for awhile but I have just about finished the first Living Room post and photos. Stay tuned and curious.

The other big project is something that I’ve been putting off for sometime as well, like for 20 + years. I still remember the days of chugging a Coke and having a Butterfinger Big Bar for breakfast, thinking, “Someday I’m going to exercise and eat right… but not today. Later.” Well later finally hit me as I got so sick and tired of looking at my saggy white ass and being tired all the time. I realized it wasn’t going to fix itself so I needed to do something about it.
That was the hard part, what to do. I half assed a plan and gave it a good shot about five years ago. I told myself that I would give it 3 months of working out and eating well and see what happened. It went OK but I stopped seeing results after about a month and gave it up after three. In retrospect it was clear that I had plateau’d and needed some help to get past it. Anyway, frustrated I lapsed back into a not horrible diet and no exercise (this is supposed to be a before photo but I'm too embarrassed to post the real one).


Flash forward to almost three months ago. Starting the new job recently gave me a fresh start on things and I figured I’d throw getting healthy into the mix as long as I was changing everything else I was doing anyway. I was talking to a co-worker about it and he said, guardedly, that he had felt the same way a few years ago and bought into this infomercial DVD work out plan. He warned me it seemed TOTALLY cheesy but I had to trust him. He repeated this several times so I knew it must be really bad. Well, it did, in fact the kind of thing that I, and most of you, spend our entire life laughing at and avoiding. It’s called Power 90. I decided to go for it anyway. Not much to lose.

OK, all that said, I feel like I need to post some photos cause it actually did work. It isn’t anything really unique or groundbreaking but it gave me the structure that I needed to get moving. Basically work out for 90 days, 6 days a week, for 30 to 50 minutes a day (alternating cardio and lifting). Also eat good food 5 times a day (no white anything – bread, sugar, cream…) lots of vegetables, no processed fast food and lean meats. The results are that I’m down to 165 from 182.5 in 73 days. I missed 2 days and had a couple of meals I shouldn’t have but in general stuck with the plan about 98% of the time (total guess). I’ve got tons of energy and am in the best shape of my life. It feels great but kind of weird when I look at myself because it has been so dramatic and so quick. I’ve still got 2 weeks to go and am having trouble sticking with it cause I feel like I’m where I want to be. So it makes me realize that I’ve got to figure out a new life that incorporates a way of living that supports this lifestyle to make it really stick. Old habits die hard for sure. I’ve got 40 years of them to work through but this was the first and maybe the hardest step. Enjoy the beefcake!

S.F. Heat

It's this hot in San Francisco!!

Some kind of heat wave is here in S.F. for the week and the cats are just melting. I actually had to turn the bedroom fan on and have been sleeping with the windows open.

Favorite new old song / were they serious?

So between coats of paint on the living room walls and ceiling (I know, I know, I'm working on the posting), I had a few minutes to search the web and found my favorite new old song. Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra signing "Some Velvet Morning". I had to do a few things to pull it out of Youtube.com but here it is in all it's 70s, sideburned and mustachioed glory. It makes me wonder if they were really serious when they did this or did they know that it was over the top hokum? Wearing all black, riding a black horse across the beach and staring pensively off camera. Anyone?

It's a Mystery! (or Grace's 7th Birthday)

March brought me down to LA for Easter and Grace's 7th birthday. As usual, Mandy had planned out an excellent party. The theme was Mysteries, you know like Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes. So treasure hunts, pin the tail on the (?) convict and Mersham pipes were the order of the day.


The following day we enjoyed a nice Sunday Easter brunch and the Haute Dog Easter parade in Long Beach. Check out the photo gallery here

Birthday and Easter photo gallery

Sunday in the Park

San Francisco usually gets the rap of being cold all the time. Drizzly fog and greyness. And generally this has some truth to it but last Sunday was the exception. Warm breezes, spring fragrances, naked people playing in the park and non-stop techno beats. What I'm getting at is that we get so few days of luxurious warm weather that when one comes along, Dolores Park explodes with activity. Usually along the top edge, there is an ocean of thong wearing Castro-ians, down towards the middle reaches, picnics and dogs and then some Frisbee and soccer in the plains. Everyone is smoking weed and drinking beer and dancing to some booming system near the playground. It was so good that I headed over to the new boutique ice cream shop to pick up a snack. Check out the dark chocolate and coconut macaroon ice cream sandwich. Damn straight!

Spring in SF

I guess technicaly it might not be spring but both of my plum trees in my yard are lighting up with blooms of tiny white petals. An explosion really. and damn I had to post something cause I'm sick of looking at that crazy haircut situation, which has grown in quite a bit BTW

Hair Fun

So I have this thing that I do when I jump into the pool. I always take a quick leap and while in mid air I try to stop for a split second and think, 'What the hell am I doing?" I don't know how cold the water is? Am I ready for the shock? Then realize that I'm pretty committed at that point and here it comes. Well, I've never really liked my hair, ever. I've done a few things with it over the years and it basically always sucks. Thin, flat and stringy. So if it's not going to cooperate, screw it. It's gone. Here is the before shot. I hadn't had a haircut in about 7 months. It was about 8 to 10 inches long I guess. I decided to just start cutting before I thought about it too much. You know, just jumping in. Oh, also, enjoy the nudity.


Here is the part where I've committed to cutting it. I actually took a second here and realized what I was doing. Trying to think if I could pull off leaving it like this. It is San Francisco after all.


and at this point I realized the comb over wasn't going to work. I've always thought that the comb over was wasted on the old. Any reason why the youngsters don't try it? Basically shave the center part out of a perfectly full head of hair and comb baby. Anyway, it seems kind of stinky and I decided to finish the job.



So here it is, my scalp. It's OK I suppose. Easy to take care of but it doesn't leave you with many hair options. And it seems like cheating a bit. Not much imagination required for that 'concentration camp' look.