Monthly Archives: July 2006

  • I’m Caffeine Free

    Chris BenardPersonal

    Well, I’ve been caffeine free for about four and a half days. I had Diet Coke at Chick-fil-A when Chris and I went there before seeing Clerks II on Friday. To get off topic for a second, that movie was great. Go see it ASAP, unless you’re easily offended that is.

    I’ve been wanting to quit drinking caffeine for quite a while now, but never quite had the impetus to go ahead and commit to really having it again. It’s a huge thing, when you’re used to drinking lots of Diet Coke every single day. My laziness has finally become my friend in battle. I was out of Diet Cokes when I got home after midnight on Saturday morning, and I was way too tired to go to Walgreen’s or CVS to get some more. I figured I’d just get some on Saturday, but I never got around to doing that because I stayed home all weekend. I just was too lazy to get ready and get dressed and drive somewhere to get my addictive drinks.

    People say they get headaches and stuff when they quit. I don’t know what’s up with that. I am drinking a lot of water though. I mean like a LOT of water. I drink a lot of water at work during the day. It’s pretty much a habit at this point, and maybe that helps stave off the headaches. I think I have more willpower than a lot of people. As you know if you know me, I just decided to stop eating less about 1.5 years ago and I went from 270 lbs (122.5 kg) to 180lbs (81.6 kg). I’m willing myself to make this work.

    I don’t even really know why I’m quitting. I’m not advocating the stance that moderate consumption of caffeine is a health risk if you are an otherwise healthy individual. I think it’s really a combination of things. I really don’t like having a metal can subconsciously dictate to me what and when I will drink from it. Also, I spend a LOT of money carbonated beverages, so perhaps I’ll save money, but probably not because I spent it all on Kool-Aid last night (more on that later). Perhaps it’s just a sense of accomplishment I’m seeking. If I can stay off caffeine, I’ve gotten the monkey of physical, chemical dependency off of my back.

    I’ve been drinking a lot of water like I said, but water is bland. That’s more than likely a good thing and an indicator that there are no potent pollutants in the Shreveport water supply, at least none that I can taste. However, that’s pretty boring when that’s all you drink, so I went to Wal*Mart and bought a pitcher, a few little portable drinking containers, Kool-Aid (Fruit Punch Flavor), Crystal Light (Pink Lemonade), and some other Crystal Light type brand that had some other flavor; I don’t care enough to go and see what it was.

    If you have any good fruity type flavors to recommend to me, please leave it in the comments. I’m willing to try any number of things to stay off caffeine.

    Also, yes I know other things, like tea and chocolate, contain caffeine. I don’t drink Tea (yet), and I damn sure am not giving up my chocolate, so I’m not saying I can avoid all caffeine in my life, but I am saying I’ve quit drinking the comparatively massive amounts of it cold turkey since Friday night, and I plan to keep it that way. Wish me luck!… as if that could do any good.

  • I Love My New Job

    Chris BenardPersonal, School, Work

    If you read my blog or know me, you know I quit my job at Highland Clinic about a week ago. I also mentioned the CareerBuilder post they had up to replace me. I linked to a saved version of the post in case they changed it. They did change it. The new version (locally saved copy) is just a help desk position. In other words, the position is for someone who just answers the phone, tries to solve basic problems, and escalates problems to other staff members via the ticketing system.

    This is pretty strange, because this means one of two things. One possible decision was that they no longer need someone who can do everything I was doing, which is highly unlikely considering the unsuccessful interviews already conducted. This leaves only one logical conclusion in light of the two open positions on the career page; they are going to replace me with multiple people. I must admit that I get a pretty big kick out of that.

    In any case, I’m loving my new job as a programmer at New Tech Computer Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morris & Dickson. I’m a C# programmer, and Chris and I are currently redoing the Morris & Dickson website. The resultant code will be used as the basis for future web projects. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun. Check the site in a few weeks when it will have quite a different look.

    It’s good to be able to make money doing what I actually like to do. I’ve been programming since elementary school on a variety of systems and languages. I program projects for myself and other in my spare time, so getting paid to do it isn’t very much of a stretch. As you might be able to tell from my first blog post, I have never voluntarily worked on a weekend at any company, with the exception of yesterday. Chris and I really wanted to complete what we were doing on Friday, so we came in from about 12:30pm to 6:30pm on Saturday to finish refactoring some middle tier code. Next up, I’ll be working on some of the non-programmatic presentation layer so that we can begin work on the web forms part of the site.

    It’s very strange because the day seems to fly by extremely quickly, while at the same time, it feels like I haven’t worked for Highland Clinic in years. It’s amazing how easy it is for a new to absorb my attention so quickly and entirely when it is something that I love doing.

    On an unrelated subject, I just completed my Fine Arts 140 class and got a 95%, an A. I’m about to start my Finance 301 class next week, <sarcasm>which should be loads of fun</sarcasm>. At least my fall semester should be fun. I’ll be taking Computer Science 315, 345, 460, and 480.