Mr. Costanza. ..your legs have sustained extensive trauma. Apparently your body was in the state of advanced atrophy, due to a period of extreme inactivity.
But with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, I think there’s a good chance you may, one day, walk again.

Ah, such high hopes for the summer. Read a book! Frolf! Spend some time getting to know Amanda Peet!   And what do I have to show for it? A big bucket of meh.  An advanced atrophy indeed.  While I’ve taken a huge step toward finally addressing my weight, with the help of a friend, I’ve done little in the way of visiting the gym.  I’ve gone once, in fact.  I got so dizzy, I fell off the treadmill.  Yowza!

On the plus-side, a project has crept up upon me in the last ten days or so which could make this truly a summer to remember.  Or at least one to look back upon and say “wow, that’s the summer this happened.”  It’s required rehearsals, rewrites, and talking to myself in the shower.  Now I talk to myself in the shower lots, but never aloud.  If I pull this off, I’ll be the happiest kid in town.  If I don’t, I’ll go down knowing I took my absolute best shot.  What is this project, you ask?  It will be revealed soon enough.

I have this bad habit of sitting and watching time run out without actually doing anything about it.  In my head, it’s already October.  But there’s still county fairs and a state fair to attend.  My freaking 20 year reunion is coming up too!  Why on earth would I want to sit around and wait for the sun to disappear and the leaves to begin falling?  The summer is too short for that.  So it’s back to it.  With renewed resolve.  By gosh, I’m gonna have a story to tell you before this is all over.  I promise.

This year I got a running start into my vacation by virtue of the fact July 3 was a company holiday.  So I haven’t worked now in over a week, and man do I feel good.  I did manage to accomplish a lot of Summer of Bean activities as well, so let’s do a rundown.

The Hangover:  The End of the Trail season actually begins in mid-June with a couple of high school and youth tournaments.  During this time, you’ll generally find me inside the tournament headquarters feverishly working on the programs for the two big tournaments.  We also find plenty of time to have fun as well.  A few years ago, we were all about sticking Mentos into Diet Coke bottles and watching the subsequent chemical physical reaction.  Other years we’ve created fantastic inside jokes.  This year was all about movies.  Well, one in particular.  My friend was all about Transformers 2.  ”Better than the first,” he continued to exclaim.  I had to go see it.

Right.  I pointed him to Rotten Tomatoes and also discussed some of the speculation that the thing had racist and anti-Semitic themes and explained that there was no way I was going to pay Michael Bay $10 to watch him abuse John Turturro like that.  I told him I’d check out The Hangover instead.

The Hangover has been the summer’s break-out hit to this point.  I say break-out because it came from sort of nowhere and steadily gained an audience through idiots like me on Twitter and their blogs.  The word of mouth was tremendous.  I caught it on Friday night down at the Eastport Plaza, my favorite theater in town.  I arrived just as the previews began expecting to find an empty theater.  It was packed.  After stepping on a couple of toes, I found a seat.

I won’t give anything away except to say the movie is wildly original and freaking hilarious.  There were times when I was the only person in the theater laughing, but that’s to be expected sometimes.  The writing and the acting were both solid.  Everyone’s been talking about Zach Galifianakis’ performance, which was damned good, but when I go back, and I will, I’ll be going back for Ken Jeong.  He absolutely kills his role and, on further review, makes a solid cameo in Knocked Up.  According to his IMDB page, we’ll be getting to see a lot of him in the next few years.  I hope so.  He’s good.

I Love You, Man:  I’m embarrassed to admit that I completely missed out on the first two three four(!) seasons of How I Met Your Mother on CBS.  It’s not like Anna and Jason haven’t been trying to tell me since day one.  They have.  It’s just that my remote control constantly forgets CBS is even on the air anymore.  Why that is, I couldn’t tell you.  I guess I’ve been trained since the 80s that the only funny and clever things worth watching on TV have been on NBC Thursday nights or Fox on Sundays.  That’s it.  Monday nights on CBS have been where NBC retreads have gone on to second acts.  Turns out I was completely wrong.  HIMYM is spectacularly funny and well written.  Now I have to go back and watch the first four seasons so I can know what I’m watching when Season Five rolls around in September.

Why am I telling you all this?  Because Jason Segal, the second lead in I Love You, Man also plays one of the main characters in HIMYM.  Aside from the thought of Rashida Jones in a bikini (if you’ve seen the movie, you know of what I speak), Segal is the film’s only redeeming quality.  Thinking back on it, I’m not sure if it’s more a product of his acting or the role.  Either way, he did his best to save the thing, but I just didn’t buy it.  I Love You, Man was sold as a guys answer to a chick flick.  It’s not.  It’s a chick flick that explores what makes men tick.  If chicks haven’t figured that answer out yet, I don’t think they ever will.

Basketball:  The End of the Tail is old home week for me.  Like I said, I’ve been doing this since high school and a lot of the faces I see every year have been coming just as long.  Generally we all sit and swap the same stories year after year, but every now and then a new one bubbles up.

One of the guys who helps run the thing is a retired NBA official.  He does a lot of college work these days but is still on a first-name basis with most everyone in the fraternity.  The subject of ejecting coaches came up, as it always does.  Coaches, he said, generally want to get thrown out of a game because they don’t want to get blamed for what’s happening on the floor.  When your team is getting drilled by 30, you don’t want to stick around.  So a few well-timed comments to the referee, and it’s over, right?

As the story goes, one night in the late-seventies down in Atlanta, the home team was down by double-digits early.  The coach saw his team wouldn’t be putting in an effort that night and he wanted to beat them to the locker room.  So he starts chipping at the officials.  They paid him no mind, figuring he was just letting off steam.

But he was serious.  And one time down the floor, he let fly with a few magic words that would get any coach run anytime.  The lead official walked over to the coach and said, “listen, if I have to be out here to watch this turd of a game, you do too.  Now sit down and take it like a man.”  At that point the coach called the official a motherfucker to which the official replied, “that may well be, but I ain’t throwing you out.”

The coach got the message, and went back to the bench.  He didn’t say a word the rest of the night.  Genius.

Smokin’ At The Ocean:  The tournament ended on Thursday which meant I still had another weekend to go before vacation was over.  I decided to take a leisurely Friday and mosey down to the coast for Smokin’ at The Ocean at the Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City.  Many of you know I took second in last year’s media rib eating contest.  While I was invited to participate again this year, I politely declined.  I think I’ve had my fill (if you’ll pardon the expression) of eating contests for a while.

Before I left Friday morning, I hit the Surftides website to see if there were any rooms available there.  As it happened there were.  They’re located right on the beach and their rooms all feature balconies with great ocean views.  I decided to go cheap this time around and get the $99 room.  From the description, it sounded like I’d be facing the parking lot which was fine.  I figured I was saving around $150 on the trip.  And did I really need the ocean view?  Answer?  No.

Boy was I shocked.  They gave me a room at the end of the building.  It was set maybe 30 feet back from the oceanfront side of the property, otherwise the view was the same.  The beautiful Pacific was right there.  Had my own balcony and everything.  What wasn’t to love?  Seriously.  If you’re ever in Lincoln City, Surftides is the only place to stay.  Thank me later.

I headed over to the casino after a few hours and sat down to play some blackjack.  I dig the casino at Chinook Winds.  Friendly dealers and great floor staff make it a good experience.  Plus they have single deck blackjack, which is tons of fun.  It takes some getting used to though.  It’s a much quicker game and doesn’t have the flow of the multi-deck shoes.  And weird freaking things happen in single deck that you wouldn’t see at a regular table.  For instance, after being dealt a 4 and a 2, I took a card which turned out to be a 5.  That gave me 11.  All I needed was a face card and I was home free, right?  Well the dealer gave me another 5.  The guy next to me starts grumbling that he needed one of my two 5s.  Tough darts.  So I’m sitting there with a 16 against a dealer face card.  I have no choice here but to take another card.  So I hit and wouldn’t you know it, another 5 comes up.  Three in a row!  I got my 21 and promptly shut up.  The guy next to me was incredulous.  Turns out he had the other 5.  He needed a 5 to make 20.  Instead the dealer gave him a 6 and HE shut up.  And so it went.  Single deck is a weird game.

Unfortunately the whole gambling experience didn’t turn out well for The Bean.  I lost a few hundred dollars and for a few hours wasn’t sure what was left in my bank account.  Turns out I was fine and could afford it, but it made for a sleepless night on Saturday.

The real reason I went down was to check out the barbecue competition which ended up being a real downer this year.  The last few years there have been over a dozen different competitors showcasing their wares, plus a bunch of other sauce vendors and such.  This year there were just two guys cooking and two guys hawking sauce.  That was it.  Very disappointing.  I’m sure the economy had something to do with it, but still.  Yikes.

Joey Chestnut was also there to defend his rib eating belt, which he did by eating almost nine pounds of ribs.  I love ribs and all, but yuck.  That’s just too much.  Unfortunately I didn’t stick around for the competition due to the previously noted sleepless Saturday.  Perhaps next year.

So now the Summer of Bean carries on.  Tonight I’ll be attending the AAA All-Star home run derby with a close advisor.  And Wednesday I have an appointment with a personal trainer.  We’re gonna kick the exercise thing up a notch.

Dig:

I’m at the casino and sit down at the slot machine.  On my first pull I win $1,000.  I turn to my friend (Pete?) and at once celebrate my good fortune and chastise myself for not having risked more more.  Had I risked my entire $25 investment in the machine on that first pull, I would have won $25,000.

I immediately cashed out of the machine and took my winning ticket to the cashier.  I asked for 9 $100 bills and and 5 $20s.

Everything is fine up until here, right?  Well get this.  The cashier counts back my money, which I pocket, and then hands me a remaindered copy of a Vonnegut book.  Don’t ask me the title, I don’t know.  The book is a cheap paperback with no spine, just the pages.  The cashier apologizes for the condition of the book and says the first eight chapters are all in order, but the last one is pretty jumbled up.

I look, and he’s right.  The pages of the last chapter are all out of order.  As I tried to put them back together, I woke up.

So what do we have here?  We’ve got found money.  We’ve got a tinge of regret for not having risked more in order to get a bigger reward.  And we have a book which is in bad but readable condition except for the last chapter.  What the heck?

I didn’t know it at the time, but my first real experience with it was when I was a kid.  My dad usually spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons on the couch, Andy Capp-style, facing the couch back, arms folded against his body.  He napped for hours.  And as my brother and I watched TV, Dad would snore away.  Sometimes he would quit breathing for several seconds.  After a bit, he would finally take in a deep breath, and the cycle would start again.  This would go on for hours.  I had no idea this was apnea.  And I had no idea it killed.

My brother called me some years later and told me about his own experience with apnea and how he’d gone in for a sleep study and now had the CPAP mask.  My brother!  He’s 2-1/2 years younger than me and a hundred pounds lighter.  And he has apnea?  Crap.  That meant it was a matter of time before I’d need to face the same reality.

My wake-up call (pun unintended) came in two parts.  First, my dad announced a few weeks ago that he’d undergone his own sleep test six weeks ago and he would be getting his own CPAP mask.  Then came that night I woke up gasping.  It was time.  With my 38th birthday coming up, I figured I’d been ignoring my health long enough.  I needed to get this thing under control before it did me in.  The late-thirties seem to be about the time the really bad stuff starts.  Especially when you’re 300-plus pounds.

I made the doctor’s appointment the morning after my episode.  I had to wait a week, but I finally got in.  It was a quick consultation with the doctor.  I just wanted to get my referral and get out of there.  Of course a doctor can’t look at a guy my size and let me get away without a lecture about my weight.  I told him I’d been exercising regularly and watching what I eat.  He asked me what I did for a living.  I told him I’m a cubicle dweller.

“Well,” he said, “you should probably limit your caloric intake to about 1500 calories a day.  You really don’t need any more than that, particularly if you’re in a sedentary occupation.”

1500 calories?  Was he kidding?  Holy crap.  That was about half what I’d been told I needed to consume to lose weight.  But what he said really made sense.  He suggested it was easier to control calories on the front-side than it was to burn them off once they’ve been consumed.  To me that was a really interesting point and something I’ve meditated on for a few weeks now.  I haven’t been 100% faithful to his advice, but I’ve been better.  No more fast food.  No more M&M’s from the vending machine.  It hasn’t been that hard.

After the lecture, I got my referral.  And I succumbed to his suggestion that I get a full physical.  My insurance covers it 100%, so why not?  I got a call  from the sleep center the next day and made my appointment.  It was this last Saturday night.

I hate hospitals.  My mom was a nurse so I kind of grew up around them.  They smell funny.  And there’s always drama.  Ask my friends, they’ll tell you…I hate drama.  Walking into the place Saturday night, I was immediately greeted by both the smell and someone’s drama over their gout.  Blah.

The sleep center, thankfully, was segregated from the rest of the hospital.  It almost resembled a motel.  Clean rooms with regular beds.  And quiet.  Oh the quiet.

They took me to my room, had me fill out a couple of questionaires and watch a video.  The video was about 15 minutes long or so.  It showed a dramitization of how the evening would unfold.  They’d put sensors on me, stick me in bed, and video tape me choking.  Good times, right?

As I watched the video, it all became clear to me.  The guy playing the patuent in the video was playing me.  Couldn’t sleep.  Was having trouble concentrating during the day.  Falling asleep while he was driving home.  Waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.  Like lots.  Weird.  It was funny, the technician came in after the video was over and asked me to tell him in my own words why I was there.  This was for the insurance.  I just looked at him, my eyes wide, and told him everything I’d just seen on the video was me.  Everything.  He chuckled, wrote something down on the form, and left the room.

A few minutes later, he returned and started applying electrodes to my head.  As he took the tape measure out, I asked him if my head was the largest he’d ever measured.  He took the circumference and said 62 cm.  He’d seen a few folks with 62 cm skulls in his day.  But after a few seconds, he said everyone else who’d measured 62 cm had hair.  I don’t.  He said with hair, I’d probably be 64 or 65 cm, so yes…I was the largest head he’d ever measured.  So I have that going for me.

Once he had me wired up, he left me alone to watch the rest of SportsCenter and think about hitting the sack.  Finally around 10pm I did just that.  And I quickly fell asleep.

Unfortunately it didn’t last.  After about a half hour I woke up, and I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning.  I may have slept for a few hours that night, but that’s it.  They came and woke me up at 6am on Sunday.  The tecnician told me I didn’t qualify for the CPAP mask.  At least not initially.  I needed to have something like 20 incidents in an hour as I recall.  And I didn’t come close.

“I had a few,” I protested.

He agreed, I did.  But not enough.

So it comes and it goes.  And frankly I’m happy.  I didn’t want the mask.  I wanted the mouth piece.  It seems less cumbersome and more portable.  Not to mention cheaper.  While I’ve decided expense won’t really be a factor here, there’s no price on health, I’d still prefer the mouth guard.  It looks like my wishes may be fulfilled.

The technician said it would take a week or ten days to get the results of the test back to my physician and we’d figure out what to do next.  In the meantime I wait.  And exercise.  And try and figure out how to get by on 1500 calories a day.

It seems a lot longer than two years since I declared the last Summer of Bean.  A lot has happened in that time.  I read The Dip and decided to try and live it.  I left a relatively stable job and struck out on my own to see what that felt like for a while.  I was published in the Portland Tribune, still one of the biggest and coolest things ever to happen to me.  And…  Well…  That’s about it.

So we take another swing at the Summer of Bean.  It’s all based, of course, on Seinfeld’s Summer of George, the summer in which George had been laid off by the Yankees and received three months severence.  You can read the Wikipedia entry here.  The episode’s script is here.  You’ll notice the categories on the right are based on the Wikipedia list.

1. Reading a book, from beginning to end and in that order.
2. Playing frolf. He plays at least once.
3. Watching television programming.
4. Relax and de-compress.
5. Mid-morning naps.
6. Insignificant telephone conversations.
7. Banging his head on tables.
8. Assisting Jerry in maintaining his relationship with Lanette (Amanda Peet), a younger woman Jerry is dating. 
9. Growing a mustache.

Not a bad list, no?  I’ve made some alterations, but I’m pretty faithful to the Wiki entry.  For example, rather than helping others out with their dating issues, I’ll be dating a reasonable substitute for Amanda Peet or at least attempting the same.  And as for the mustache, been there, done that.

 If you Google “Summer of George“, you come up with a couple of other websites with cool ideas based on a similar philosophy.  I may try and work a few of those things in too.  We shall see.

So this is going to be all about self-discovery and self-improvement.  A very mid-life thing to do.  Thanks for tagging along.