day off

woke up at 7...went to have breakfast, discovering a cereal shortage. the only thing available was corn flakes. looked for some yogurt, there was none. went for a bagel--all out. the fruit tray was also empty. what they did have was a giant tub of gravy, and tray after tray of sausage and bacon.

roommate sleeps in on sundays, so i tried to quietly call home, then took the computer out to attempt some skyping...they do a good job of making that difficult here. after about 2 hours of trying to stay out of my room, so my fighter pilot roommate can get his much needed rest, i gave up and decided to take a dump in our bathroom...i'm sick of using the communal toilets for my sunday morning trips to the bathroom, in order to avoid waking anyone up...it's 10am...time to get up. called home, until jack woke up.

went to the gym...lofty goals of 2 hours with a spinervals video on the big screen. had the tv set up, went to put the pedals on the only spin bike in the gym, discovered someone decided to screw up the crank...so, i moved over to a nautilus electronic lifecycle machine, and it was jacked up...so i eventually ended up on another lifecycle, one where i couldn't watch the video...ended up doing an hour listening to a NPR podcast about 'the end of food.'

that got me to thinking about how much food is wasted here...last night, we had a cookout. i requested enough food for 30 people. from the limited menu, i selected chicken, burgers, potato salad and baked beans. at first i thought i should've requested more, just in case someone wanted seconds. we ended up with a giant tray full of chicken (about 50 piece), a huge bag of frozen burgers, a bushel of baked beans and a 50lb tub of potato salad. food service rules here don't allow us to return unused food.

so 3 of us grilled...outside, in 110 heat...not fun. even after everyone stuffed their faces, we had a shitload of food left. the food wasn't good at all...the chicken was someone rubbery and had a weird glow on the inside, and the burger was low grade beef that probably contained a lot of filler. considering there are food riots going on in several countries, i felt pretty guilty throwing out about 40lbs of potato salad, 2/3 bushel of baked beans, unripened sliced tomatoes, wilted lettuce, and graying onions. someone might have liked that.

after the gym, went to the chowhall. was hoping for a quiet meal, but that never happens. meat loaf was served. got me to thinking that i should count meat loaf as salisbury steak. there's really not a lot of difference. salisbury might be a little purer of a meat product, as meat loaf usually has some filler. both look pretty disgusting. i'll take a picture some day...believe me, there will be plenty more opportunities to take pictures of this shit.

did some laundry...finished a book...watched an episode of 'curb your enthusiasm'...walked over to the room where everyone plays world of warcraft, because it's too damn hot to sit outside, built a facebook account, updated the blog...that's it. my day off.