Spring Fling

It's that time of year again.

The last couple of years it's been a cardinal, I think. Maybe I remember wrong. But this year, it's a robin.

In the morning, when the light is just right (wrong?) this robin keeps flinging himself against one of our living room windows. Hurling himself over and over again at what I assume is his reflection.

He lands in the pine tree a few feet outside the window, eyes the window, and attacks. Thump! Thump! Thump!

It's funny at first. After a while it becomes pretty annoying.

The switch on my Rio Riot broke. I had a hunch it would at some point. I asked around about Single Pole, Triple Throw switches -- couldn't find any the right size. Well, since one of the settings was for "Lock" which I don't use, I decided to go with an SPDT switch. Got one at Radio Shack -- a little too big but I figured I'd make it fit.

So, I went to put it in last night. Used some enameled wire to solder to the contacts and ran them to the switch -- worked great.

Until I started to put it back together.

in all the jockying around I had to do to get the switch to fit, one of the wires broke. I knew that was a possibility since it's just mono-filament copper wire. I just didn't think I'd have to do that much wiggling.

So, I decided to pull it off. First big mistake. Should have de-soldered. But I didn't think the solders were that good and I thought the wires would just pop off. That was true for one of the contacts... not so much for the other. It ended up ripping the contact off of the printed circuit board.

Fortunately, I found the copper path (which had partially peeled up) that lead to that contact. But it was fragile. I tried supergluing it back down to the board. I soldered some multi-strand insulated wire to that and the other two contacts and hooked up the switch. Worked fine. Turns on, turns off.

I ended up having to modify the shell a bit to accomodate the switch. So, three hours later....

Put the whole thing back together. It turns on. Matter of fact, it now won't turn off. Which was my problem before I ever started. Further, while the computer recognizes the Rio Riot, the Red Chair software I'd bought to manage it would not connect to it. And on top of that, the selector rotary dial doesn't work.

It may be hosed.

And I got an email from Jeff this morning telling me he found some switches that might work better. That's what I get for my impatience.

Iraq

Well, I wanted to wait until everyone who wouldn't be upset if they didn't hear it first hand had heard it, but some of Brian's unit (including Brian) got called up to go to Iraq later this year, apparently to train Iraqi soldiers to help them secure their own country.

Well, that's what everyone says is the most important thing to do, no matter which group you side with.

Unless you side with terrorists, of course.

Brian's eager to do his part. If you have an extra thought or prayer to share, though, please feel free :-)

Take Me Back to Chicago

Back in college my favorite group was Chicago. Now, mind you, when most people think of Chicago they think of one of about 5 songs, usually. And their popular songs are great (especially through the 70's) -- but I'm talking about the incredible, soulful jams that only people who've heard the whole albums would know. Like "South California Purples" -- especially the live version on Chicago 4.

All the albums through Chicago 8, (9 is a greatest hits album), then 11 is pretty good. And after that, the only one that stands out is Chicago 16 -- not because it's anything like the first 8, but because of it's sheer excellent pop polish. Right after that they added more sugar to the pop and they crashed fast and hard with 17. Which, ironically, was the only time I got to see them. At that point, to me, it wasn't even Chicago anymore. I figured 17 was a good breaking point because Cetera left after that one -- not that he wasn't largely responsible for the schlocky sound of 17. (No offense to Peter - they were very GOOD at the schmaltzy sound, I just don't particularly care for it.)

Anyway, I've been listening to them on Rhapsody the last couple of days. I have all of these (up to 17) on vinyl, but they vinyl collection's kinda hard to get to, and records are just more trouble than CDs and mp3s.

Chicago V, VI, VII, and VIII are probably my favorites. After Chicago 8 (with the exceptions of 11 & 16) there were a few pretty good hit songs but the rest of the stuff between was musically ... um... boring? Nothing like the great music you'll hear on VII, for instance.

Freakin' great stuff with actual melodies (which you pretty much don't hear anyomore outside of country music) and texture and improvisation. Fancy Colours indeed!

Anyway, it's reminding me a lot of my college days (good and bad) -- how many people who went to college in the 1980's are reminded of them by old Chicago music from the 1970's? Kinda funny.

Hangovers... I remember those

I guess I got a little overconfident this weekend with the whiskey. My tolerance is not nil, and there's always been this little meter on my brain that tells me when to slow down. Plus I usually drink a lot of water.

Well, apparently that meter was broken Saturday night, and I was too out of it and queasy to drink the gatorade/water when it was offered.

I felt a little woozie going to bed - but it took me all day Sunday to recover. I did manage to get up and make the Snoopy Waffles for the kids. That's one thing they really look forward to at our house, and with all of the adult time we try to work in I wanted to make sure that they at least felt like coming here was something special. But as far as my stomach and head... what a waste of a day. Gonna have to get that meter checked. I haven't had one of those in a long time. And it hadn't been long enough.

Had the Groves over Saturday/Sunday. Did some marinated chicken on the grill for dinner. Mark and I wandered back into the woods in the creekbed behind our house with the kids. Nathanial thought it was "camping". Of course Mark and I both have fond memories of traipsing around in our respective woods and playing in creekbeds when we were little. And naturally there was a lot of "look what I'm doing! Papa! Unco Pheo... look!"

There were naturally the requisite music sessions. I picked up a Cmaj7 from Cami, which is cool, and we learned what to call the funky chord (or one name for it) in "Horse With No Name" -- apparently it's a D+6+9. Which does NOT make it a D15 ;-) It's good to have songs everyone knows -- and "Peaceful Easy Feeling" is always a fun one to do. A little "Uncle John's Band", too. Cami's pretty proud of her finger callouses -- I remember those days. Mine are apparently pretty good as mine never really never got sore all weekend.

We watched "The Incredibles" last night. We missed it in the theaters. It was quite funny. Got some pretty good socio-political jabs in there, too.

We'll, I'm off.

Altan

It's St. Patrick's day. Yes, I'm wearing a green shirt. Ok, AND a green earring.

Altan is probably my favorite Celtic group. I fired up Rhapsody this morning, and lo and behold Altan has a new album out this year called "Local Ground". Forunately, with Rhaspody, I get to listen to it now.

Of course, it's excellent. :-)

I brought in some of my Celtic Fiddlefest CDs as well, and some Chieftains.

It promises to be a very green day. (No, I left THEM home today :-) )

Mike the TD

Vicki's cousin Mike -- like a second cousin or first cousin once removed or however that works.... came into town yesterday. He's a free-lance technical director for Television shows. He was here working the NIT tournament for ESPN (Mizzou was eliminated last night in the first round -- big surprise there).

He showed us the inner workings of the "trailer" -- basically a big control room in a tractor trailer. When they park it, one side extends like an expensive RV to make the interior bigger -- and they put stairs on to get in and out of the doors. Cameras and expensive electronic equipment is stored below -- and inside is this television studio. There were about 70 8" television monitors in there, and he sits in front of this massive control board. The producer sits to the far left, the director in the middle, and Mike -- the Technical Director -- sits in the control seat.

The producer decides which direction the telecast is going to go -- what kinds of things they will focus on. The director decides which shots & graphics will best fit that story, and it's Mike's job to make it happen. All those screen wipes, graphics, and bugs that come up on your screen... scores, stats, replays... all Mike. Cool.

We took him to Murry's for dinner -- he had about a 90 minute break after the place got set up, then he had to be back in the trailer 2 hours before the show.

Had a nice time with him at dinner. He showed us some family pics on his laptop -- and we went home. He's already in Vegas for the next game today.

Weekend Update

Well, I spent a lot of Saturday and a little of Sunday cleaning the garage. I got some containers to organize -- did some organizing, threw some stuff out, and I'm still at it. Another day or two half days ought to do it.

I hurt my back walking the trail with Vicki last weekend -- an old injury from picking up a concrete bird bath pedestal many years ago (lift with your legs! Not your back!). As long as I keep my back muscles strong, it's not a problem -- guess they got weak, and I walked funny for 5 miles in shoes that didn't fit right....

Still hurts.

Got sound working with the WinTV card... and my first project is to transfer Vicki's Tae Bo tapes to DVD before they deteriorate more. Still haven't figured out how to get the software to compress to MPEG while recording (instead of AVI). The current recording method requires about 1.7 - 2 gig a minute at 640x480.

However, the Nero authoring tool is cool -- you can actually insert DVD chapters into what you recorded.

Our main DVD player, it turns out, isn't smart enough to play video CDs, so I have to burn them in real DVD format.

New Monitor

I try not to talk about work on this blog.... however, I did get a new monitor at work today, so now I have two. So that's kind of exciting. I have joined the Über Geek Club, I guess.

Anyway, for those of you curious, here's me at work in my office -- with my new monitor.




What am I gonna do with all that real estate?

Dierdre Flint

I got a hilarious email this morning with a link to a song by a lady named Dierdre Flint. Ok, the song was hilarious, not the email. It was about all the junk you get in your email, done to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman.

It's called "The Irish Email Song".

The irony of getting the link in an email is not lost on me.

I looked her up on the web. She's hilarious. There are several other songs out there that are just as funny.

I don't generally plug stuff on my blog, but -- I enjoyed this too much.

Horses

I forgot to mention, when we were out at Mom and Dad's over the weekend, Joel and dad moved this concrete statue of a horse, maybe 3 feet high... it had been up near the porch. They moved it down into the yard by the bird feeder.

Now this horse is posed reared up on its hind legs. Still, it's small, concrete, and doesn't move. I wouldn't have thought that real horses would pay it any attention.

Well let me tell you, they got pretty riled up about it.

Prancing, running around with their heads held high and their tails sticking out, stopping and snorting at it... it was hilarious.

Here's a few pictures I took while we were out there for those of you looking:

Weekend

Went out to Mom and Dad's Saturday and took out the shelf and TV they "ordered" through us ;-)

It was a nice day and a pleasant visit. Joel and Dawn came out as well. Had BBQ'd chicken for dinner. Sat and talked, looked at a slide show of pictures on the new TV/VCR/DVD combo, took a little tour of the place on the 'gator. It's kind of like a little 4-wheel-drive utility golf-cart.

The afternoon sun was nice on the porch, which faces pretty much west. I grabbed my guitar out of the trunk and sat and played it while we talked for a while. Did little things like flip a gate (that was upside) down over, put the shelf up, clean the cast-iron grill (which will now need re-seasoning).

Sunday we did some stuff around the house, then went and drove by a house that is for sale near Rocheport (not a very nice house) and took about a 5 mile walk on the MU/Columbia walking trail down the hill from us. It was 67 degrees yesterday. We're expecting snow tomorrow night. Welcome to Missouri.

I played with my new WinTV card last night. Couldn't get the sound to work. Guess I'll have to read the manual ;-) In my defense, I did read it some last night. Might not integrate with my external sound card right.

Been playing with "New World in the Morning" and "Durham Town" on the guitar -- both of which force me to work on my barred "F", which is getting better but I've been saying that for two years now so you can see how slowly it's getting better. Still, I think I'll have it in another 9 or so months and then the fretboard will be opened up a bit more for me.

Arlo Guthrie

Some Arlo Guthrie tickets fell into our laps yesterday afternoon for the show last night at Jesse.

I wasn't all super-excited or anything, but I like Arlo's stuff and the tickets were free, so I went, sans expectations. Which, incidentally, is a good way to go into anything like this -- if you want my advice.

Not surprisingly, the show was very good. Arlo is a great story teller and he's a pretty genuine human being. He talked about his first public gig (outside of coffee house gigs) being in Columbia, MO in 1965 -- 40 years ago. He had also written a song about how as he gets older -- friends die off, and he dedicated it to Gerome Wheeler (not by name, but a local musician who just died and he clearly knew who he was). Wonder if he knows Lee? Wouldn't surprise me.

No "Alice's Restaurant" -- which I'm sure dissapointed a lot of people who went there to hear that -- can you imagine how sick and tired he must be of that song? I mean, he DID do others. Lots of them.

Well, now it looks like we get to go to see Trinity Irish Dance on the 31st with Mary.

We are lucky people.

Heartburn (not) on the Diet

Since being on this South Beach thing, neither Vicki nor I (neither, nor indeed!) have had heartburn. It was something we both had frequently before. We have had none -- zero, since we began this diet Jan 24. Used to be several times a week. Tagamet and Tums were staple items in our house. And it ain't the caffienated coffee, because I'm still drinking that same as before.

Now we weren't on a high fat diet before, but we sure ate a lot of pre-prepared foods - which, as I mentioned before, is the down-side of this diet. More food preparation. More time in the kitchen. Not that we spent a lot of time in it before. What I try to do is cook chicken breasts en masse, then cube them and flash freeze them to use on salads. I do a couple of heads of mashed cauliflower at a time as well and freeze it in little containers, about 2 servings per. And when I chop vegetables (peppers, squash, eggplant, onion) I chop a bunch up, and flash-freeze for later convenience.

Wondering what I mean by flash-freeze? Spread the chopped up stuff on a cookie sheet or similar flat item, one layer thick if you can, and freeze it. Then pull it out and put the frozen stuff in a ziplock or other bag and throw it back in the freezer. The reason you do it this way is so that it doesn't all freeze together and you can take as much or as little out of the bag at a later date, depending on what you need.

So what we'll do is grab a few hands-full of vegetables from the freezer and saute them, heat up some of the pre-prepared mashed cauliflower or other frozen veggie and do some lean ground sirloin or fish or pork chops (the "miriacle thaw" comes in real handy here when we don't think ahead to thaw something) on the little Foreman Grill and dinner can be prepared pretty fast with all that chopping out of the way.

I also chop up buckets full of lettuce and veggies ahead of time for the salads we have for lunch. Then in the morning throw about 3 or so cups of lettuce in a container, 1 cup of frozen chicken breast cubes, grab some sugar free jello (and now that we're on Phase II) an apple and a slice of whole wheat bread -- and lunch (and morning and afternoon snacks) is done. Vicki grabs celery and that famous Laughing Cow cheese.

And I make up the breakfast quiches ahead of time as well. Grab a few of those and a slice of canadian bacon and your V8 and you're good to go. Boiled eggs are also a staple I keep done up ahead of time. The key is to make efficient use of your time in the kitchen so that you have to spend less time when you get up or get home tomorrow night and make it much easier on yourself to make good food choices. When alf the preparation is done ahead of time, it's easy to have a good (and good for you) meal.

Just as an example, the other night I spent an hour in the kitchen making bread (bread machine) cooking chicken breasts, boiling eggs, and making Jello, and slicing lettuce and radishes. A couple of nights before I steamed up two heads of cauliflower -- didn't feel like mashing them right then, stuck them in the fridge. Last night I decided to use some, so I went ahead and mashed ALL of it -- which didn't take too long -- while I was preparing the rest of dinner -- and froze what we didn't use last night.

It's been good for us. I lost my 12 lbs, Vicki's lost about 12. I am back to being able to have a beer at night, too :-)

Oh, the other thing we discovered (well, this was before we went on the diet, but it's come in real handy on the diet) -- flavored sparkling water. Mendota and La Croix -- natural fruit flavored sparkling water. No calories. No artificial flavors. No sodium. Just mildly naturally flavored fizzy water. Feels more like a snack, and I like it as well as soda. Maybe even better. Mendota has lemon and lime and La Croix has lemon, lime, orange, and berry (they both have unflavored) -- all of which are good.

So, like they say, this is not so much a diet as it is "changing the way we eat". Changing what makes up the majority of our diet. You're not really "depriving" yourself, you're eating a better balanced variety of food -- most of the time it's not pizza or breaded cheese sticks -- but it can be sometimes, in the long run.

Sunspots

Remember when we blamed everything on sunspots?

The joke actually refers to a phenomena we ought to keep in mind, namely, statistical corellations don't necessarily "prove" anything. They're useful, but they, by themselves, can only point us in the direction of what is actually happening and they really don't tell us what is going on. Too often a statistical correlation is used as "proof" of a theory.

Anyway, what brought that on was -- my external 10GB hard drive failed while we were in Florida. The drive itself was free (to me) -- it came from a friend who said it was a questionable drive in the first place. At any rate, my neighbors have been having problems with spyware on their computer -- they've probably been rooted (taken over, owned), so I'm helping them with that. My mother-in-law had trouble installing the new MSN Messenger update, and I can't seem to connect with her computer anymore with VNC for some reason to help fix it myself. And on top of all of that, my 120GB storage drive at home fizzled out Monday morning.

It's gotta be sunspots.

Well, that drive held most of my digital photographs. And all the music I've ripped from CDs. Not that I couldn't rip it again, but it's a pain. The most important things wer the photographs. And I've been meaning to buy a DVD-R to back up my pictures and MP3's (they can store so much more than CD-R's) but you know I never quite got around to it.

So I bought a piece of software (R-Studio) that allows you to recover files off of damaged drives. I was getting lots of CRC (Cyclical Redundancy Check) errors on it -- which basically means when it tried to read certain spots on the disk and checked to make sure that it read the right thing, in couldn't get the same thing twice so it reported a problem. To make a long story short, the drive is going bad fast -- it's pretty much unusable.

I bought the $80 version of R-Studio, though the $50 NTFS-only version would've done the job (since that's what the format of the disk was). I sprang for the extra $30 because this version will read stuff from any disk format I use, including the old FAT system, SmartMedia, and Compact Flash...

At any rate, I got the pictures and the music off of it. I also ordered a replacement 40GB drive for the 10GB external drive, and I just ordered a new 120GB internal drive AS WELL AS a DVD-RW so I can BACK MY SHIZZIZLE up(!) efficiently.

I made a CD for Mom with the new MSN Messenger client with an AUTORUN file so that it should just start installing when she puts it in the computer. Mailed it to her.

On top of all that, my identity got stolen. Someone got my card number and my ssn and changed my password on a credit card site, changed my address to a New York address, and ordered over $2,000 worth of stuff on it.

Fortunately, the credit card company blocked the attempt. And I no longer have that card. Need to talk to them about their security. I would like someone to have to know at least three things about me on top of my credit card number before they could change my password. Make it a LITTLE more of a challenge.

Now lots of things could've caused that... a trojan sniffer program on my computer, some dishonest employee of a merchant that used my credit card AND then went and found out what my ssn is (it's not really very private these days).... Anyway, I'm fairly careful about these things, and if it can happen to me....

She packed up her bags and she took off down the road
She left me here stranded with the bills she owed
She used my address and my name
Man, that was sure unkind
Sunspot baby, sure had a real good time.

-- Bob Seger

Got a fakebook the other day that has "Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy" in it. I was struggling to figure the bridge out. Everything in that book was in C... I got the bridge, then transposed the whole song into "G", and dropped the diminished chords. Sounds pretty good. What a fun little ditty. I've always liked it. Love the quintessential June Christy/Stan Kenton version of it.

Molly Bowden

We came home to the sad news that local police officer Molly Bowden didn't make it. She was shot about a month ago by some evil freak who felt the cops had it in for him, so he concocted up this fantasy about killing a cop and carried it out.

That freak died the next morning when he shot himself while police tried to apprehend him. Could have saved a lot of people a lot of pain had he decided to do that about 12 hours earlier.

Molly was the daughter of some friends of ours, and we'd had the pleasure of meeting her socially a couple of times. I remember she and Vicki would feed off of each other and just get real goofy. She was a joy to be around. Real neat lady. Anyway, this is not supposed to happen to good people, but as we see too often, it does...

I was coming back from the grocery store today and happened upon a pile of flowers and balloons and such on the side of the road. At first I thought it was another cross and boquette for someone who died in a traffic accident, then I realized it was an unusually large pile of flowers and such. And I remembered the report in the paper and that that must have been where Molly had been shot.

For those of you who don't know about it, you can read the story here.

What a sweet and pretty young lady she was. Our thoughts go out to her family.

Florida

Back from Florida already. Were we ever there? Well, we do have the pictures to prove it.






We drove down on Thursday... made it to Cordele, GA by 11:00pm ET. Got up and did the other 3.5 hours to Ocala, FL, where my Aunt.. you know, the one with the spaghetti sauce? She lives near there.





The one with the twinkling eyes and a certain zeal for life.... That would be the one. She and Ed live in a nice house on a golf course (a pretty nice one -- house and golf course) down in sunny Florida. We, of course, as usual, did our level best to bring inclement weather with us when we visit such places -- the high there on Friday was 58. I think it was 50 in Columbia. Still, we weren't there to sun ourselves, we went to visit.

Friday evening we had dinner at a cool seafood place just down the road a piece by a creek with big cypress trees and spanish moss hanging everywhere. The food and atmosphere were great.

Spanish moss became kind of a fascination with me. I'd only seen it before in Chatanooga, TN, although I knew it was all over the southeast coast of the US. I had to do a little research on it, and I've since found out that it is not a parasite, it is actually an epiphyte like many orchids are -- it grows ON other plants, but only uses that plant for support, not nutrition. It has no roots and feeds out of the air. It has chlorophyll. It is related to pineapples. It can smother a tree -- killing the light it needs, and when wet gets very heavy and can break branches.




We went to Homossossa Springs Saturday and checked out a Manatee preserve where they also had lots of native animals. Got to take a boat ride down Pepper Creek -- kind of reminded me of something out of Crocodile Hunter -- although we saw no crocodiles or alligators or pretty much anything but birds and turtles. But the vegetation was pretty cool. A couple of the pictures above are from there.

I had to go to the Gulf Coast, and we hit it in the afternoon. With the shallow shelf off of the Central Florida coast, there's really no surf -- it could have been a big lake, really. I've seen bigger waves on lakes, truth be told. But there were a couple of flocks of gulls, different kinds, and some sandpipers. A lady and her kids were giving them crackers and they would come take them from their hands.




I got a nice shot of Vicki being swarmed by them in the frenzy. A couple of more nice ones below.




That evening Aunt Pat made us some of the famed spaghetti sauce, and garlic bread served with a cabernet, and it was a great dinner off of our diet.

Oh, the diet -- we've lost 10 lbs apiece, and we were pretty good over the weekend with the exception of some alcohol and the pasta.

Sunday we pretty much putzed around. Put more memory in my Aunt's computer, watched people play golf, sat and talked, and Vicki and I went for a walk in a nearby nature perserve where I took more pictures (imagine that) and we went home for a fabulous steak dinner.




Monday morning we started what was to be another day and a half trip back, but when we realized we could be home by 1:00 AM, we decided to make the mad dash all the way home and took today to recover.

Turns out you can stick to South Beach pretty well while you're out. Hardees, Burger King, and many fast food places as well as Cracker Barrell have options for you. We're back, and back on the diet. I could stand to lose another 2 or 3 lbs, but I'm not too worried about it at this point. Vicki's determined to stay on it, so I'll be eating South Beach food with her for the forseeable future. Won't hurt me a bit.

And one parting shot, the four of us down in Aunt Pat's dining room to prove we were all there...

Diets

I've never been on a diet before. I lost weight through regular exercise (rode my bicycle to work and back most days for about a year) several years ago. I've been working out since and have increased muscle mass -- that helps you burn calories when you're just sitting still.

At any rate, Vickster's wanting to lose weight, and was heavier than I've ever been (part of it's the muscle, but part of it definitely isn't). So, this time through, I decided to go on a diet with her.

Now if you know me, I'm a big proponent of personal responsibility and self-control. And I'm here to tell you that after 4 days, it really isn't easy. But... it is doable.

To quote Mark Knopfler, "Sometimes you gotta be an S.O.B., if you want to make a dream a reality".

And in this case, the person you have to be an S.O.B. with is yourself.

So we're doin' South Beach. It's easier to deal with meals, since you're basically changing the kinds of foods you eat instead of eating less food or starving. But for a guy who's used to being able to grab anything anytime -- especially a beer, the first two (or three) heavily carb restricted weeks is, I must say, tough. I like a bit of whiskey in the evening. The bread in the store smells better than ever. The beer looks fresher somehow, foamier. More refreshing. I'd say the hardest part for me has really been not being able to grab a little glass of whiskey in the evening.

The first day, I was a little hungry by late morning, but not bad. The food is good, but it is a pain to fix -- not really relative to other cooking, but frankly we haven't cooked much in the last few years. So any food preparation, chopping, mixing is more work than we're used to. Cuts into guitar playing time, for sure.

I imagine eventually we'll get used to the recipies and do what we've been doing with other foods. Cook a big dinner, and scarf on it for several days. We're already doing some of that. The fake mashed potatoes (mashed cauliflower) is very good, and we made several days worth. We can cook up a bunch of chicken breasts ahead of time to reheat, and stuff like that. It'll get better. And we won't be on this "75 grams of carbohydrate a day, and as little of it sugar as possible" part forever.

So between wanting some of your favorite things, and the pain of fixing stuff you're not used to fixing, and re-learning shopping habits -- it's not easy. Not only do you have to say "No", to the little voice in your head, you have to argue with it, too. And most importantly, you have to win.

So far, I can say I've won. And it's paying off. Drop your blood sugar to minimal levels, and after a couple of days of depleting your liver's glycogen, your body is left with no choice but to burn fat. And you really have to be a butthead with yourself to keep your blood sugar low. One sugary snack or baked potato or pile of chips or crackers, or beer and you're back to square one.

I weighed myself every morning the week before we started, and the scale was consistent. I went up and down in a 4 lb range, but usually near the bottom of that range. On the morning of the third day, I was down 3 lbs from the bottom of the range. Next day, same thing. Today, another 2 for a total of 5. Pretty slick.

After the first two (maybe three) weeks, we'll switch to the more relaxed phase of the diet. Now, since my goal is only 10 or maybe 12 lbs... I expect I'll be there by the end of phase 1. But I'll keep trying to eat the new kinds of food most of the time -- and I will probably be able to go back to moderate beer/whiskey consumption.

So, here's my dieting tips.

Be an S.O.B. with yourself. Set up rules and follow them. Don't try to rationalize why it's ok this time to have this, or try to figure out how you can eat something more, too, or a boatload of something because its an allowed food. Don't try to bend the rules. The spirit of the diet won't drop fat off of you. The letter of it will.

My other one is, exercise with your diet. It'll work better. It's hard to snack when you're exercising, and your snack drive is much lower after exercise.

Depending on your willpower, pick a flexible diet. It's probably good to pick one with a meal plan if your willpower is low. That way it's easier to tell yourslef 'I am eating this, and that's it'. The more willpower you have, the less flexible diet needs to be, IMHO.

The reason we picked South Beach is -- it's a combination of a short, fairly inflexible (but still varied) diet with meal plans in the book -- followed by a more flexible, sustainable diet that's still low in calories, especially sugar and fat calories. That make sense to me.

Twenty Two Years....

Twenty two years ago, for my 19th birthday, my college roommate and I and another young freshman girl friend of ours got together for a mutual birthday party... all of our birthdays are within one week of each other....

I don't know that any pictures survived from that party, but a year later, we looked something like this:

And what's with the ultra-hip "Ben Stiller playing a cheezy 1970's hipster" look I have there, anyway? Trying to pretend I'm some sort of wild man, I'm sure.

And the next year (below), Mark's looking like the handsome and innocent boy next door, Lois, looking quite fetching in an early "Madonna" sort of way -- and apparently Geraldo Rivera showed up in my place. Good thing I got back in time from raising that safe from the Titanic. I notice I was taking the rare opportunity to at least put my arm around a pretty girl. Screw the cake, man. And no wonder. (Go back to the picture above if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

The years went by, and we did this until we graduated. Mark left town for radio gigs in Kansas, and Lois went to St. Louis to have a string of bad relationships as pennance for all the sins all three of us committed in college. Thank you Lois, you're a savior. The tradition, we all thought, ended when we left school.

But, five or so years later, Mark, fed up with the dusty plains of Kansas and its associated blah radio culture, came back to Columbia to start anew, and get a graduate degree in philosophy. We got an apartment together, and the mutual birthday party was reborn.

Radio called him back and he found a wonderful girl in Cami. I started doing computer support at the University and met Vicki -- who lived in the fourplex we had moved in to. And Lois dumped the last of the butt-heads and her sister hooked her up with this great guy we now all know and love in Mike.

We've pretty much done it every year since. Even when Mark and Cami lived in Texas. We've gone through the growing up of my two step kids, and the births of four new kids in the group, two for Mark, two for Lois, and here we are, forty one years old, still doing it. Well, the parties anyway ;-)

Somehow, it seems to take less alchohol now.

We had a great time. Mike, Mark, and I all play some sort of stringed instrument, and Cami just picked up a guitar and is doing well. We sat around, fetched kids, made food, listened to fascinating narratives by very young children about anything from why the Incredible Hulk can beat anyone up (hint: it's because he's the Incredible Hulk) to how to make little butterflies with beads and an iron.

Stayin' up late, talking, playing music... yeahhhhhhh.

Mark made some killer bbq sauce and grilled up some fantastic chicken & portabellas (in the -20 degree howling windchill outside) Lois deluged us with a ton of very tasty cob salad. We brought our snoopy waffle irons and batter & canadian bacon for one breakfast, while Cami treated us to great breakfast burritos the other morning. Mike made balloon animals for the kids, and put on a cool magic show for everyone Sunday afternoon to top it all off. Laughing. Joking, Strumming, Singing. Cool shizzle.

Happy Birthdays to Us.

(thanks to Lois Lane for the pictures!)

Superglue Bandaid

Cleaned out my old office yesterday -- moving to a new cube.

I've been drinking sparkling water at work... this Mendota stuff that comes in cans. The price is right, and so are the calories. Somehow, sparkling water satisfies as a snack -- the carbon dioxide is kind of filling, the fizz makes you slow down so you enjoy it longer, and water's good for you. Win-win-win.

I had an empty drawer. The first day, I needed a place to toss the can. Don't want to throw it away, you know. Recycling's good. Tossed it in the drawer. Deal with it later.

Four weeks later, as you might imagine, I had quite a drawer full.

So I brought a recycle bag in from home, and started crushing them with my heel. One stomp, and blam! Flat. Most of the time.

I caught one at an angle and it didn't flatten satisfacorily. I reached down with my right hand and grabbed it to squeeze it the rest of the way flat.

My thumb caught on the inside of the tab hole, and I sliced my thumb open but good.

I know what you're thinking. "Sue."

Well, that would be the modern American Way, wouldn't it? But if you know me, you know I think people should take responsibility for their own stupid mistakes, and I try to behave as I expect others to. So I put a bandaid on after holding it tight for a few minutes.

Well, the bandaid kept coming off, plus, because of where the cut is, I had trouble typing. And I have my guitar lesson today. And there's this weekend's jamming with Mike and Mark to consider. And the bandaid wasn't keeping the wound closed either.

Then it hit me... superglue. It's durable. It's fast. It sits on top of the skin, and it will hold the wound closed. And it will allow me to do the things I need to be doing.

So last night, after shedding my fifth lousy bandaid, I cleaned the area, put some superglue on a piece of paper, and closed the wound tightly. Then I simply dipped the wound in the dab of superglue and let it dry a few mintues.

Bam!

All the advantages of a bandaid, and most of the disadvantages are gone. It won't get in the way. It'll actually hold better, allowing for quicker healing. It keeps dirt out. It keeps moisture in. I can type. I can hold a pick, and even strum a guitar. I have to replace or re-enforce it a couple of times a day, but hey.

Just don't let it seep INTO the wound before it dries.

A little post bandaid research suggests that superglues made of octo-cyanocrylate are the least irritating to the skin.

(disclaimer - do this at your own risk. I am doing it at my own risk.)

Prison and Exile

Well, the Bart problem isn't getting any better. I put a rubber runner down over the weekend, and he's just taken to "going" on that. At least it doesn't get in the carpet, but that's not the point. He was supposed to look at it and go "oh, that's not absorbant. I know a better place (hint: how about the litterbox?)"

So last night, I put a mild bleach solution in the carpet cleaner and went over the whole carpet area, and put some fans on it to dry it out. I know. "You'll ruin the carpet." As if the cat pee hasn't already.

It did a pretty good job except for in his favorite spot, which I saturated with enzyme this morning.

Bart spent the night in prision last night. Hey, it's better than a shotgun, which is moving up on my list of solutions. We closed him up in the laundry room where he has access to his food and water and to the litterbox area under the stairs. Got his old basket down from the attic and put a towel in it with a light sprinkling of catnip.

He was meowing loudly this morning. I let him out for about an hour -- watching him carefully. Then I locked him back up. He's going to spend the next several days this way. He's already meowing again. Tough. The alternative is lead to the head, buddy, take your pick.

He might even get exiled to Brian's house for at least a short time period. Even if Brian will take him over the weekend.

He's got to get out of the habit, and I have to eliminate the smells from his "adopted" litter area. I'll also change his litter to something less scented. That might be a part of the problem as well.