It's a new month so that means it's a new budget! (well, fiscally, not a new month in that thick Franklin Planner) OK, perhaps I get a little more stoked than the average user over his Gnucash usage, so much that I want to learn Python to code my own application. It is a resolution for this year that will likely have to be pushed to 2022 for I'm running out of time. I see Python somewhere around wood whittling and Sudoku, funzies just to keep the head sharp and not wind up like my 93-year-old grandfather whose world became blank. When I die at that age, it's because I took a wrong turn at Pamplona!

My other grandfather, Bill I, clocked out WAY earlier at the age of 39 by literally burning out instead of fading away with that barge explosion on the Mississippi River, a tragedy that occurred 71 years ago tomorrow.

Nevertheless, a new budget, and this time around we're turning up the knob on beef liver, making the rotation a ground beef : liver daily thing. We're flipping off the switch to my beloved Kerrygold in lieu of that chalky standard butter and going to turn out our pockets and toss the extra change to try out Costco beef. Sadly, I can only fondly remember yesteryear's ground beef at $1.30/lb and $1.99/lb. That said, back then, I ate 2-3 lbs of the stuff daily when today it's just a single pound. So things even out, even if my diet price has leaped with youthful energy.

Last night, I attempted to switch my phone's OS to either /e/ or to LineageOS but ran into a HUGE showstopper in the very beginning when I discovered that the bootloader for Samsung S10+ for North America only cannot be unlocked because of mobile carriers' demands. I could really rant on this...but, just insert the wagging of my head or a hammer hurling—you get the idea! Again, this is why phones feel more like a rental than something we actually own.

So, I went back and ran my script to move some bloatware from Android. While I removed the obvious ones, keeping 11 apps on my screen as a starting point (and I think I've successfully stopped it from auto-installing bloat like Candy Crap), there's another 415 programs I have to Google individually to determine if it is system critical. And then there's examples like ANT+ stuff, does my Garmin rely on it? Worse case scenario is just another factory data reset and rerun my delete script.

While I need to spend more time on the hidden apps, the only normal Google app that remains on my phone is Google Maps. There's map alternatives out there, but I haven't put any of them into real-world practice.

Of course after wiping everything out, I need an Internet browser, so I'll drop F-Droid over into a directory on my phone and install DuckDuckGo. I'll then add Tutanota for email and Aurora Store as a Google store alternative so I can grab Garmin Connect, Spotify and Bitwarden. Honestly, I want to think in terms of app minimalization for when I drop smart phones altogether, I won't miss the extended functionality (and only out of convenience do I install most of these apps).

Years ago, when I first heard that there was basically an app for each website, I thought it was NUTS. I mean, that's the whole point of a browser as it serves as a cross-platform wrapper for content!

Overall, all of this feeds into my mindset of the return to country: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And while I had my moments of tech out there, especially with respect to connecting a Yagi antenna for LTE access to the Internet that was then shared throughout the house, I may need to retool myself for the future.

I ran across this song the other night when my head was slapped silly from the pressure of an incoming stone. Remarkably, merely placing my phone atop my forehead with this song playing was soothing. Looking back, perhaps I should have opted for the USB sleep mask instead.

I've got 3 days before my first event comes, The 500th Night Diet 5K, the race that celebrates my diet streak of 500 days. I suppose it's just a tad presumptuous to already have the T-shirt ready to go, though old cravings of Behemoth Bill have fallen off me like the molting off a snake.

That said, weirdly enough, I had a dream last night where as a cast member of Impractical Jokers, I drank Pepsi AND shaved my beard off—somebody ate my Twinkie in front of me in a public restroom, too! You can imagine my relief when I bolted up in bed! The Pepsi thing is weird since I'm a Coke guy, until I realized my recent Crystal Pepsi consideration for a design. Of course, Crystal Pepsi was that odd beverage reaching it's zenith with Van Halen's Right Now Super Bowl commercial in 1993, an ad that I specifically remember watching on TV in my 9th grade English class, likely adjacent to that girl with a Michael Bolton Time, Love and Tenderness obsession. <Insert Office Space commentary here>

Yes, you cannot take an overview of a 500-day diet streak without going down a rabbit hole or two! And yes, while I already weigh less than I did in 8th grade (and I was 5'6), I'm gunning for 9th grade's 170 at my current height of 5'9. Further still, FOR YEARS, I've been wanting to hit that mark I had my senior year at 163. In 7 days, I'll be weighing in to see how The 24th Expedition fared—I predict I'll be in the low 180s.

Ideally, I want to hit my weight goal in 64 days when 2022 arrives, though that might be unrealistic. How awesome would it move on to the next phase of training and wrap it up into a New Year's Resolution?

Ultimately, it's out of my hands: I'm just a carnivore and let my body's hormones choose my composition. It amuses me that at 43, I'm now in better shape than I was in most of my 20s and 30s.

This scene from 1994 has never been loss on me:

YouTube Link

It's liver day! While right now, I'm on a 1 lb daily BEEF:BEEF:LIVER schedule, I wouldn't be opposed to returning to a BEEF:LIVER rotation. It really depends on the price of ground beef with respect to liver's stability.

Honestly, I have NO idea why liver is SO cheap, ESPECIALLY as it relates to its nutrition and its relative size in a cow. Look, how much meat can we get off a cow? Like 500-600 lbs? And how heavy is a liver, like 10-15 lbs? Thus, while I can live for 500 days on that single cow I can AT MOST only eat liver for a couple of weeks.

And yes, OF COURSE, the occasional ribeye is an awesome-blossom treat! But, feeding frenzy funzies is where it ends. You'd think liver would run at those kind of prices! Limited supply AND greater value? I mean, if there was EVER a recipe for a price hike...thus, when ground beef—GROUND BEEF—spikes above liver, the decision is easy that THIS caveman can do it!

Grind City

Eggshells are BACK, baby! In the past, I found their application to be...needy: boil AND bake? Who wants to do THAT everyday?

Enter my beloved air fryer: an Instant Vortex 6-quart. For my diet, I could get rid of every heat source sans the water kettle from my kitchen and stay in rhythm with just my air fryer. It's my daily workhorse!

So, I grabbed eggshells destined for the trash heap, rinsed and threw them in the air fryer for 6 minutes at 400° F. I then let an old coffee grinder rip, resulting in a fistful of fine sand. I tossed a tablespoon of it in my butter coffee and later ate a tablespoon of it straight up. Upon the initial landing beneath the tongue, it gives that ever-so-delightful I'M GOING TO DIE dry note! It has a hint of a nutty/roasted flavor.

Why have I added eggshells to my diet? While it is cheap and adds NO added expense to the budget, it also packs a nutritional HAYMAKER! Check out this Dr. Axe article: Can You Eat an Eggshell? Surprising Benefits & Uses of Eggshells. For me, it'll contribute to my recovery from my no-go for flight back in May...

...AND/OR from January's vertical climber;

...AND/OR the injury from the deck pull in December;

...AND/OR the build up of a cascade of forearm strikes to the heavy bag before that...

...well, this left arm has taken a 2021 beating! Let's get to cracking eggs together!