6 posts from January 2008

I always have two calendars at my desk at work.

One is a Dilbert daily desk calendar. I get it every year from my mother-in-law for my birthday. It's cool because my birthday is December 31st, and, well, when do you need a new calendar? The next day! I come in every day, tear off yesterday's comic and read today's comic. It's been that way for ten or eleven years now.

The other calendar I have is a wall calendar. This one is for a purpose, I need to know what the dates are for last week when I run my reports for last week. I also need to be able to check that dates are correct against the calendar on occasion. I typically get a monthly calendar every year after the first of January when they go on sale.

Well, last week I was at Borders and all calendars were $4. That's typically 66%-75% off depending on the calendar. Right off the bat a calendar caught my eye. It was Domo-kun or "Domo" the mascot of the Japanese TV network NHK. Domo is fun and the dates on the calendar were in big bold numbers. It was perfect for me. Then today I noticed a problem with the calendar.

Look closely and you will see the problem:

That's right, there is no January 28th. There are two January 26ths but no 28th. The only reason I caught this is I was researching why a record with a date of the 28th wasn't properly handled by my report. Only I couldn't find the 28th. Everyone at work got quite a chuckle about this. I've never had a calendar that was wrong. It's just unprecedented. Clearly someone at Andrews McMeel publishing was asleep the day they were proofreading January.

Coincidentally my Dilbert calendar is also published by Andrews McMeel and I've never noticed an error with it.

Its funny how identity on the web works and how you get noticed.

I've been online for years. For a long time I went under the name bryus. I did this because I wasn't comfortable with putting my name out there. I built a reputation within the PDA/gadget community with this name. Alan Williams asked me to write for PDAAvenue.com. When that folded Joel Suplido recruited me to PalmOneCity.com which later became 1src.com.

Later Alan, asked me to join the staff at his new site DailyGadget.com. I haven't written anything there for a while, but I am still active in the forums.

Through these years I have created user accounts on dozens of forums and blogs as bryus. I just did a little ego surfing on Google and my bryus profiles show up all over the first few pages. However, if I plug in my name Bryan Lucas, what do I get? Not much. The third item down in my blogger profile and my Amazon profile is tenth.

Now, the reason I bring this up is this. My lovely an talented wife, Bonnie recently started a blog. By recently I mean she started it on December 31st with a welcome post. Her second post was on January 8th. She put up a picture of a Photoshop project that she is very proud of. She even entered in a Photoshop contest. She wanted to get the word out and get a lot of people to see it. I helped by sending a link out to all my friends online and at work. Bonnie sent the link to all her friends and relatives. By the end of the week she had a lot of unique visitors to her blog. Her web presence is growing.

Before this started her Google search results didn't even find her, she didn't exist on the web. Now, she's number ten on the first page. It only took about three weeks.

Oh, and heres the link to her blog, Bonnie's Designs.

My house backs up to the major thoroughfare through my neighborhood. As a consequence I get a lot of base driving by at all hours. I have dreamed about a device like this for years.

I weighed in at 255.4 this morning. I also checked my body fat (I have a Tanita bodyfat scale) and it was 33.3%. This is three pounds off my starting weight last week. However, I am still looking for a "true" starting point. I am thinking that about 255 is probably close.

Then I did a Body Mass Index calculation and came up with a BMI of 33.6. I used the Department of Health and Human Services' calculator.

Then, I looked up the value on their scale:

• Underweight = <18.5
• Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
• Overweight = 25-29.9
• Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

And I am in the Obesity category.

In order to get into the "Normal Weight" category I need to get down to 189 and I don't know that I can realistically do that. Of course, their scale would also put me in the low end of the "Normal Weight" category at 140 pounds. I think I would be anorexic at that weight. That's why I am shooting for what I think is a more realistic weight of 200. That's based on Dr. Phil's body weight standard of 182-202-222 for my height. Specifically the 202 is for my build.

A Little History

I was 170 from 1989 to 1993 before I started gaining weight. That's a BMI of a very healthy 22.4. That was when I was 18-21 and in the best shape of my life. I ran cross country in high school and I biked a lot. Then I went through Marine Corps boot camp. After that, I was single without a car and walked every where I went. Heck, I could eat a Subway foot-long, double-meat, BMT sandwich with the works a couple of times a week and not even notice it in my waistline.

Then, I got married, and it all changed. I had to get a car for grocery shopping, driving to work, etc. I had food readily available at home, I'd had to go out for food when I lived in the barracks. I stopped being so active and started eating more. It's a habit I haven't been able to break in nearly 15 years.

It's the first week of January and it's time for those resolutions again. This year I have a big one, one that I have had before, but it's gained special priority in the last few months.

I NEED to loose some weight. I have gained weight in the last several months from lack of activity and an inability to keep every edible bit in site from flying into my mouth. It's gotten ridiculous lately and when I got on the scale yesterday it was up to 257.4 pounds!!!. I know I have been 240-250 pounds for the last year or two but this recent spike up towards 260 is really bothering me.

I have been lethargic and chronically tired for months. I don't get any exercise other than walking around the halls in my office. One lap is approximately a quarter mile. For a while in the fall I was taking walks out side and inside trying to get a few miles a day in. However, even that has dropped off in the last month or two.

It's come down to this. I am fat. Yep, I said it. I just turned 36 on Monday and I am in sad shape. 6ft 1in and 257+ is not healthy unless you're an elite bodybuilder and with my 44 inch waist and even bigger gut, that doesn't describe me.

All the experts will tell you that in order to accomplish a goal you need to do a few things.

1. Have a specific goal. Saying you want to loose weight is to vague. So my specific goal is to reach 200 pounds.

2. You have to have a plan to make that goal. Mine is to loose 1 pound a week. That's 52 pounds and if I can loose 52 pounds I will be right about where I want to be. I don't think 1 pound a week is an unreasonable goal.

In order to facilitate all this I am going to be working hard to cut down on the snacking and increase my exercising. I will be playing Wii Sports to help with my fitness level as well as increasing my walks and adding some weight training.

I am also going to try to re-read Dr. Phil's book "The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution" on my Palm. I read it when it first came out and it had some good information in it. I think re-reading it will help to remind me what I need to do.

UPDATE: I forgot to add, today my weight was 246.2. I know I shouldn't weigh myself daily but I want to get a better idea of my baseline weight as I get started.

The presidential election is officially on and the first vote is in.

After all those debates and months and months of lead up the winners of stage one are Obama and Huckabee. I'm not a fan of Huckabee but I really like Obama so overall I am happy with this first round of results.

It's funny to see the all the Republican favorites, Guliani, Romney, and Thompson all come up short. Granted Romney is a close second, still, it's interesting to see.

The Democrats on the other hand aren't a surprise to me. Obama, Clinton, and Edwards being so close together has been the general consensus for a while.

Another thing that makes me optimistic about this election is the voter turnout numbers for Iowa. The Democrats had a record turn out of 280,000 according to CNN. Of those many were 17-29 an looking for change.

On the other side Huckabee got strong support from strongly religious voters. It's always been scary to know that there is a large group of voters who are so profoundly ignorant as to vote for someone based on his religious beliefs.

Well, I guess we will find out more next week when New Hampshire votes.