Week 269 Update

I wasn't happy with my 192.0-pound weigh-in on Saturday. The weather outside had been very hot, and my own temperature was having trouble stabilizing for a while, especially when I got out into the heat. On Saturday the hot trend continued as we got up to 87°, but it wasn't getting up towards 100° and that was a blessing.

However, even with the warm weather, Dotti and decided on Saturday to spread our wings a bit, and go for an outing. I noticed that the air was very clear, and thought it might be fun to go up to Rocky Butte and maybe some other locations that had high elevation, so that we could take some nice pictures of the Portland area and the mountains. Dotti agreed, and we were soon off, heading for the eastside 612-foot extinct volcano: Rocky Butte.

After that we drove up to Pittock Mansion in Portland's west hills. The mansion sits at about 1000 feet above Portland. We had been to Pittock Mansion many times before, but this was the first time that we had clear day for pictures.

While we were in the yard area taking pictures, a young lady approached me and asked if I would take her picture and email it to her later. I said that I would be glad to. I took 5 pictures in all, a couple with her by herself, with Portland and Mount Hood in the background, and then 3 more with her mom. When I emailed her the pictures she said wrote back to thank me, and she added that she had already sent one of the pictures I took off to several medical schools that she was applying to. Very cool!

The day was a real treat, and Dotti and were very happy with our first major outing since getting sick. We still aren't completely over it, but the bug is at least backing off some.

In the evening, I was drawn outside by the fireworks I heard going off. I thought it might be fun to take some pictures and then I spotted the moon. It was a very clear sky and the moon was just begging to have its picture taken, and so I obliged it.

Sunday I was up to 193.0 on the scale. I decided to start eating my meals at regular times once more, because I hadn't been doing that. Haphazard eating is not the best way to track what I am doing. I went up again on Monday to 194.0, but things were a little better for the rest of the week. Monday I was down to 191.0, and I bounced around 190.0 and 191.0 the rest of the week until today when I dropped down to 189.0 pounds.

Monday, was July 3rd, and our neighbors were starting to get serious in setting off their fireworks. I broke out my camera, and I originally set out to take some fireworks pictures, and so I tinkered around with different shutter speeds to see what would be good. I noticed that the clouds were getting heavy in the south and the east, and I started to see flashes of lightening. It hit me that maybe I could catch a bit of that in my camera.

I spent quite a while trying to time the shutter with the flash. It wasn't easy. If I waited until the bolt was bright, it was already too late, because it would be gone before the shutter opened. Then I finally I guessed right, and I nailed a good one. It was blind stupid luck. But I was really happy the way it turned out.

July 4

Thirty years ago, in the Bicentennial year of 1976, Dotti and were married on June 10th, and I flew back to Diego Garcia to finish off my year there. I celebrated July 4th, 1976, America's 200th birthday, by serving my country on a hunk of corral in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with 1200 other guys doing the same thing. (It is hard to believe that was 30 years ago.)

The wilderness that this country was created from has been tamed, and the land that would have been nearly impossible to cross in 1776, and would have taken many months to cross in the early 1800s, Dotti and I drove across in less than 48 hours once (Boston to Portland, Oregon). You can fly it in 6 hours. Once there were only a million living on this soil, now 300 million doing so, and the numbers are increasing astronomically. Yes, 230 years have made a tremendous difference. George, Tom, Ben, Henry, and many others set the little nation into motion, and like a snowball down a mountain, it has grown, and grown.

In 1976, when we were celebrating the Bicentennial with Jimmy Carter as our president, I had set aside my slide rule in favor of an electronic calculator less than 2 years earlier. No one had a personal computer yet, and there was no Internet available to the public. In fact the very idea of having my own personal computer was pure science fiction to me, like taking a vacation on the Moon for the summer. Thirty years have made a big difference.

My big celebration in 1976 was when I came home in October, with orders in hand for Midway Island: accompanied, with concurrent travel! (Accompanied meant I could take Dotti with me, and concurrent travel meant that I could take her with me immediately, and skip the normal 6-month waiting period for housing. We were the talk of the Island when we first arrived because of the latter. I told those who complained that if they had done a year on Diego Garcia they could have had concurrent travel too. That usually shut them up. )

This year Dotti and I celebrated together. We took our cameras out and took some pictures of the moon to start off. Here is one of the ones I took:

And then we took some of the fireworks:

Lastly we got a blanket and went out into our back yard and laid down and watched the fireworks until late. It was great! (We even had to put on our coats because the temperature was down into the 50s early, after a high temperature of only 76° for the day, probably is celebration of the Spirit of 76. J )

Our treadmill had developed a safety issue on Friday June 30, where it would suddenly just speed up for a moment and then settle back down. It made us feel like we had stepped on a grease spot on the track when it happened, and were fortunate that we didn't fall. When we realized that the treadmill was doing it, it was clear to us that it would no longer be safe to use it. Since the warranty was up, we went to Sears to get a new machine. Dotti had been very fond of the elliptical trainer during her weight loss journey in 1998, and so we purchased her one of those up too.

The machines were delivered on Wednesday July 5th. The delivery guys put the treadmill together for us, because it only took a couple of minutes to do. However, they refused to do the elliptical trainer because "it takes hours to do." The salesman had told us that it wouldn't take too long to put together, but he lied. (Does working in sales cause one to become ethically challenged, or is it that sales is a magnet for those who already are?) I spent around 4 solid hours putting that machine together, and I was quite tired at the end of the process.

We located the machines in the garage, because we didn't have space in the house for both of them. I had the box sitting in the driveway, and I dumped all the packing material into as I took out all the little parts from the packaging. The sky was overcast and looked like rain might come at any moment all day long. It only got up to 65°, and that made it very nice to work in.

We just lightly tested the machines when I was finished to make sure that they worked. We had problems with both units. The treadmill had a broken control panel mount, and so they are going to send us out a new one. However, in the meantime, they let us keep the damaged one to use. The elliptical trainer is missing a footpad, and Dotti called Sears and argued them into ordering a new part. (They wanted to send an entire new elliptical trainer out, but Dotti told them they would have to send someone out to assemble it, because I wasn't going to do it again after 4 hours of putting this one together. It is really crazy because that part couldn't possibly cost the manufacturer more than $5 to create, and they wanted to give us hundreds of dollars worth of machine instead of ordering the part.) At the end of the day, we had two functional machines because the broken mounts could be ignored for a short while, and we cut out a piece of rubber to simulate the missing footpad and it works pretty well. (One discouraging thing: we have purchased 2 NordicTrack treadmills, and our son LeRoy has purchased one as well. In all three cases the treadmill originally showed up damaged. I don't know how they can make a profit when they have to replaces so many units.) The machines were functional, but we didn't have the energy to use them on that day.

Thursday was a nice cool day again, and it only got up to 69°. We finally got to try out the exercise machines and they worked well. I walked 3.1 miles and felt pretty good afterwards.

We had dinner at Red Robin, and I had a bowl of chili that turned out to be really good.

Friday we were still feeling a little under the weather, but we made it to Costco, where we had a Very Berry Sundae. In the evening I walked another 3.1 miles on the treadmill. Unfortunately, the temperature was up into the 80s again during the day, and the sun doesn't set until after 9 PM. So, I had to wait until late to do my walk. I was tired, and I didn't feel well during the walk. I think a morning walk might be better on a hot day.

I feel like I have my eating back in line, with my meals coming at fairly regular times. This has helped me to bring my weight back down into the 180s, and hopefully will help me to keep it there.

5 years, 58 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3"/239.5/189.0/185±2/BMI:23.62/WK-269