Those of you that are observant AND have a Photography 139 email subscription, may have noticed that the emails that have come out have been a bit off this week. MailPoet (the client I use to send out those emails) had an update and that has jacked everything up. I think I have it fixed and the emails should look correct again, but I might do some more dinking around with it. It was probably past time I messed with it anyways.

A few Fridays back Jesse, Jay, and I suspended our Catholic Fish Fry Tour and paid a visit to The Waterfront in Ankeny. It was one of those Fridays that I thought I was going to have to cancel because I get stuck on Fridays late at the Computer Mine rather frequently these days. Which is a great joy, because I LOVE having to cancel plans with friends to work late. This also happens on Tuesdays. Which means I no longer make it to Bible Study or to movies with Nader. If you have noticed my increased negativity towards Canadians on the Snapchat lately, this is why.

I was able to go and didn’t have to cancel on this Friday. But when I did think I was going to have to cancel, I decided I was just going to watch ON THE WATERFRONT instead. Thankfully Marlon Brando will have to wait.

I’ve never really ripped a restaurant or food truck or concession stand or pancake feed in one of these reviews… that streak will end here.

Here are some pictures from the experience:

Calamari

Rice Pilaf

Blackened Mahi Mahi

I’m just going to cut to the chase. This was an extremely disappointing experience. The only thing that I truly enjoyed was the calamari. It was fantastic. I can’t hate on the baked potato. But I mean, if a restaurant can’t bake a potato, what are we even doing here? The rice pilaf was incredibly bland. Maybe I’m expecting too much from rice pilaf, but it didn’t deliver. But the greatest disappointments was the mahi mahi. It was incredibly soggy. SOGGY!

I won’t say that my expectations were heightened because we were at a fancypants (by my standards) restaurant. I don’t like fancypants (by my standards) restaurants. Give me a greasy spoon. A local tavern. A 50 year old diner. This is where I live. After all, most of my food adventures (used to be anyways) revolve around the pork tenderloin. The least uppity and least elitist sandwich to ever grace God’s green earth.

Although I’m definitely not an elitist, I also do not stick my nose up at fancypants restaurants. I’ll give them a fair shake. However, if I’m paying $27.95 for some fish, it better not be soggy and it better have some flavor.

I wasn’t the only one to leave disappointed as they didn’t have the crab that Jay came for so he settled for some kind of shrimp pasta.

My exact words when we left were “I wish we would have went to Long John Silver’s.”

And that isn’t a slight on Long John Silver’s. I love me some Long John Silver’s. I miss the one in Ames.

I won’t bother telling you where to find The Waterfront. It is in Ankeny. You want to overpay for bland food, you can find it on your own.

Enough of that noise.

How is my efforting to live a healthy lifestyle going?

Well, there is no way around it. I had a rough week. I definitely didn’t eat well. I had a lot going on and probably didn’t exercise enough. I spent a lot of time in cars. I spent a lot of time in the Union Street Theater watching movies and basketball. I’ll repeat, I didn’t eat well. But this journey will never be a straight line.

This week my weight went up. +1.9 pounds. I am now down 20.2 pounds since starting Noom.

But I try not to get too high when I lose 5 pounds like 2 weeks ago or too low when I put on a couple pounds like this week.

But weight isn’t the only measure (or even the most important measure) of positive results. This week my stamina and speed was definitely up in my HIIT workouts. So not all bad this week.

That is all to report for now.

Next Sunday’s food adventure will involve another stop on the Fish Fry Circuit.