Another day off in NOLA

Greetings from NOLA. Another fine day in the big city for this big guy. I spent most of the afternoon with my brother, Mike. We moved a piece of furniture to my sister’s house, went out for some lunch and then donated some building material to a local organization called the Green Project. My brother describes the organization as sort of a Goodwill, but for building material. Pretty cool, I think. Only a couple of fat guy related items for the day, though. When Mike and I were moving the piece of furniture, both the cabinet and I couldn’t fit through an eight foot opening in the fence…pretty sad. On a better note, my brother borrowed his girlfriend’s Honda Fit to move the cabinet in and I must say, for such a small car on the outside it had ample room for this fat guy on the inside. And with me, my normally sized bro and the cabinet, it had a decent amount of zip. The restaurant that we ate at was pretty good. I had what was essentially a high end hot dog cut in half, covered with chili and cheese and served on a hamburger bun. Pretty good and reasonably priced at $6.49. And I must commend the restaurant for having FGA (Fat Guy Approved) chairs. Solid wood, thick legs, and no arms. The one quibble I have with the restaurant is that when I ordered my drink (Barq’s rootbeer) it came in a singe serving glass bottle. As a fat guy, having that type of information is critical. I need a bottomless pit of liquid refreshment. I drank my rootbeer, then switched to water. All in all, a good day.

See ya next time.

Too Cool!!

This may be against all etiquette and decorum of the internet, but I just looked up this blog on my first generation iPhone. I know, pretty neat stuff. A quick thought or two on the iPhone as it relates to fat guys…fat fingers so it is hard to text message (God, I have never been comfortable with that word, “message”, to many chances to misspell the word and look like and idiot..I mean, right now I don’t know if I am describing another word for communication or deep tissue therapy). Also with the iPhone you never have to search for something to read in the bathroom (don’t deny it, other iPhone users).  But I will say that for both fat guys and nons, the iPhone is a great tool.  Now when one of the three people on my contacts list calls me, their picture pops up, and I can always stay up on the latest news with the NY times mobile website when I have to go to the bat…..well, you get the picture (or you would if you have an iPhone).

Signing off. Stay fat, holmes.

PS: I ran spell check on this post and misspelled misspell (left out an “s”).

I welcome myself to the world wide web

Well, what do we have here. My fist blog, that’s what it is. My first thought….are people going to be mean to me if I make a grammatical or spelling error? Because I can tell you right now that those areas are not my strong points. What a disappointment I must be to my parents, a former teacher and a man who eats the NY Times crossword puzzle for lunch. Interesting tidbit….in the previous sentence it took me three tries to spell puzzle correctly even with the use of spell check.

As you may have guessed from the title of this blog, I am a fat guy who lives in New Orleans, LA. But in New Orleans fat guys are a dime a dozen (or dime a ton, to be more accurate) so interesting stories, unique experiences or thoughtful insights about being a fat guy in New Orleans probably won’t be coming any time soon.

What I will do on this blog is give you, the reader, a peek into the seamy underside of the life of a fat guy in New Orleans. Come to think of it, being a fat guy in the heat and humidity of New Orleans, I have a lot of seamy undersides. On that note, just a word to the non-fats out their, fat guys sweat. My front sweats, my back sweats, my top and bottom sweat. Just because I am sweaty and red faced doesn’t mean you non-fats have to constantly say “are you okay? Can I get you a glass of water?” I am doing just fine….and make that a chocolate milk….half gallon size please…..whole gallon.

Alright, I got a little off track for a moment there, but this blog will be about all (some) of my experiences, fat and non-fat alike. Quick example….this past Friday I was in a meeting at work with my boss and co-worker and the chair I was sitting in kept making all sorts of cracking and groaning sounds. Now my chair confidence ratio in this particular chair was pretty high but, along with focusing on what was going on in the meeting, I had to keep in my mind on the chair. Any sort of bending of the frame or buckling of the cushion, and I would have to react like a cat.

I’m sorry, but I just threw out a fat guy term that some of you nons may not be familiar with; chair confidence ratio. The concept of chair confidence ratio is simple…as a fat guy, is that chair going to keep me supported and comfortable for the duration of my seated experience or is the chair likely to fail under the strain of my largess (I know that is not a proper usage of the term largess, but, please, let me have this one). Now, let me give you a couple of quick guidelines to asses a chairs confidence ratio. Let’s start with construction material. Is the chair made of metal? If so, you’re off to a good start. Wood? It depends. Is it made of hearty slabs of hardwood or are the legs pretty thin and the seat area just has thin supports for cheek retention. And I can tell you right now, any chair that derives any structural support from wicker or cloth is a death trap for a fat guy. I will addresses chairs with arms another day, but I can tell you this, even if you have a high chair confidence ratio in a particular chair, it can all be foiled by your inability to even fit in said chair. And that leaves one of the most dreaded options for a fat guy, standing.

Well, I guess that is enough info for my fist post. To all of you fat guys out there, stay strong (and/or fat).