At 5:50 AM I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “188.5 pounds.” (New scale: 185.0 pounds.) I am quite happy with that. I had a good workout yesterday, and my fingers feel a bit swollen this morning, I had a couple of batches of popcorn last night, and I ate right at the top of my points range yesterday. I also drank some of my water late, and so I looked like I was up a bit in my weight when I went to bed last night. Of course I was up and down during the night as a result of the water, and since the scale was sitting right there, I checked my progress as the night wore on. Things were still not looking good at 1:30 AM, but by 4:00 the weight had started to drop, and then when I finally got up for good, my weight was only half a pound up from yesterday morning’s weigh-in.

Dotti and I went to the gym and played racquetball yesterday for over an hour. We both had a good work out. The first few games I was playing to get my kill shots down and Dotti would score between 0 and 2 points, to my 15. The last few games I tried a different tactic, where I would return the ball towards the center of the court, keeping the volley alive, so that we both could do more running around. Dotti’s score went up accordingly to 4, 5 and 6. During the last game, she had really worked hard to get a point, and complained that her heart was really racing, and she looked really flushed. So, I played for short points, and minimum running for Dotti the rest of the game. It didn’t take long and she was looking back to normal again, and I stopped worrying. In the meantime, she ran her score up to 10 on that game.

She is really moving around the court these days. She now is returning shots that she could never have even gotten to just a short time ago, and she is getting her racquet on balls that before she would not have even tried to go for. She is a feisty player and I have a lot of fun on the court with her.

I have done very well lately in not hitting Dotti with the ball during games. When there is a choice between taking a good shot that will have a good probability of winning the point, but a fair chance of hitting her, I have gotten to where I flip the ball up high instead, creating a "lob shot." This technique has worked for many of our most recent outings. I have increased my efforts to be aware of where she is on the court so that my racquet doesn't hit her during my swing. All and all, our games have been very safe, and that has kept those nasty red welts off of Dotti's skin. She still hits me on occasion, but that's okay. I just hate it when I nail her with a racquetball.

I only “tweaked” my shoulder on one shot yesterday, but it recovered right away. Other than that, my arm remained in pretty good shape for the whole time. My elbow felt a bit achy when we were all done, but not bad. This morning my right upper arm and shoulder are slightly sore, but nothing serious. Today, it gets a rest before being put to work for tomorrow’s session.

After racquetball, we went home, took our showers and then headed out for lunch at Subway, and on to the mall for an All American Ice Cream cone. Unfortunately for Dotti, the flavor for the 10 calories per ounce ice cream was Peanut Butter. So, she had to settle for a combination of Dutch Chocolate, and French Vanilla, half of each, in a cone. (It only added a point over what it would have been for the lowest calorie flavor.) It being the Christmas season, the mall naturally was overwhelmed with a flood of people, so we made our escape back into the rain, and then into our warm, and dry van. We stopped at Barnes and Nobel, and then Vintage Books (a local used book store), and spent some happy hours browsing. We found a couple of things to purchase, and headed for home.

We got our first copies of the DWLZ Cookbook yesterday, and they look great! The design on the front cover is super and the recipes are very well laid out. The Cookbook Committee did a fantastic job on this project! It is going to be fun going through the cookbook now and seeing what kinds of treasures are located there.

One of the books that we purchased yesterday was about Windows XP. There is a section in it on networking, and we were hopeful it might help with getting our network back on track. It had one very useful suggestion, and now, while I would not call the network 100% yet, it is in the 90% area, and we can do everything that we really need to do on our network, and our Internet access is back to normal for all three of the computers. Things are finally looking up!

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had 6 inch sub at Subway (6.0 pt.). For dinner, I had two egg sandwiches (2.5 pt.). That came to 13.5 meal points for the day. For snacks, before playing racquetball, I had a WW Just 2 Points Breakfast bar (2.0 pt.). Along the way during the day in the car I had 13 cough drops (4.0 pt.). I also had an All American Ice Cream in a waffle cone (4.0 pt.), a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), one half cup (unpopped) popcorn -- air popped, sprayed with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray, and sprinkled with Splenda (4.0 pt.), half of a Kashi bar that I split with Dotti (2.5 pt.), and later on after I ran out of points, several sticks of celery (0.0 pt.). That came to 17.5 snack points (I felt like I could have used a few more!), and brought my total points for the day to 31.0, right at the top of my current range that I have set for myself for maintenance.

For water I drank 9 cups, or 72 ounces.

For exercise I played 1 hour and 18 minutes of racquetball, and earned 11.7 Aerobic points.

Just 9 days until Christmas!

218 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/188.0/200/BMI:23.5/WK-31/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I woke up at 6:07 AM, and when I stepped up on Mr. Scale, and he said, “188.0 pounds.” (New scale: 184.5 pounds.) Since last Monday I was up a couple of pounds over what I was the preceding Sunday, it is nice to be down a half pound today from yesterday.

Right now things are calm outside, even though the temperature has fallen to 34 degrees, but the weather was really having a party yesterday. The wind was whipping around our apartment building as if the school bully was chasing it. Last evening, the National Weather Service released a “HIGH WIND WARNING,” for the Willamette Valley and South Washington Cascades. It warned that the wind could gust up to 60 miles per hour. Even before that, I had been listening to the wind howl by the window, and I had guessed that it was moving at more than 30 miles an hour when it hit its maximum. When Dotti opened the back door one time to have a cigarette, my ears were feeling the pressure as the wind gusted by.

We are getting a fair amount of rain this week. My rain gauge is back up over 3.5 inches, and I emptied it once since Thanksgiving already when it reached the top at 5.5 inches. So, it looks like we have had about 9 inches of rain the last month or so. Normally, in the month of December we get 6 inches. If things continue on as they have started, It looks like we should have no trouble reaching that level this year. Things have certainly been wet the last few weeks.

Yesterday, Dotti and I went to the grocery store and bought some goodies for my lunch and other general items we needed. Later on in the day, I ended up eating some of the celery we purchased at Albertson's.

It was an off day for the gym yesterday, and my arm appreciated it. Today it feels good, just in time for our run to the gym this evening. We are not quite there yet, but it is beginning to feel a bit more natural planning for the gym days, and I hope that soon it will become a habit that we hardly have to think about at all.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a 6 inch sub at Subway (6.0 pt.). For dinner, I had two tomato sandwiches (1.5 pt.), and one corn on the cob with ICBINB spray (1.0 pt.). That gave me 3.5 points for dinner. My total for meal points was 14.5. For snacks, I had a cup of decaf (1.0 pt.), two cups of hot cocoa (2.0 pt.), two pumpkin pudding desserts (2.0 pt.), 6 cough drops (2 pt.), 20 Body Smarts chews (4.0 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.). I also had several sticks of celery (0.0 pt.). That came to 16.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 30.5, half a point less than the day before.

For water I drank 13 cups, or 104 ounces.

Just 8 days until Christmas!

219 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/188.0/200/BMI:23.5/WK-31/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I woke Mr. Scale up early this morning, about 5:10 AM. He responded by showing me as being up a bit, when he said, “189.0 pounds.” (New scale: 185.5 pounds.) That is up a pound from yesterday. However, that is not a big deal, since Dotti and I had a racquetball session, last night and we didn’t eat until late, and I weighed an hour earlier than the day before.

A little before noon, at work yesterday, everyone in the office was commenting on the fact that the sun had broken through the clouds. It had been days since we had seen the sun. When I was out driving at lunchtime I had to actually pull my visor down to avoid being blinded by that bright object in the sky. But it didn’t last too long. Soon, it was covered back up again where it belongs this time of year. In the evening I was back to using my windshield wipers.

The customer that I usually spend my time at is shut down for this week and next, for the Christmas season. It is very slow for business right now, and the company feels it will save money by having a two-week shut down at this time. So, I spent the day in the office yesterday. While there, Dotti forwarded an email to me that she had received from a lady who had worked for the same company that I do, and even worked in one of the same departments that I did, in the past. We know a lot of the same people in the company, and here’s the cool part, she has been visiting the page for a long time, but out of the blue suddenly realized who I was when she saw my last name on the page, and read some things in my journal about my job. (She had never physically seen me on the job, but had talked with me on the phone.) She had no idea that the web page was connected in anyway to someone she was professionally acquainted with. She has also done a great job on her journey!

When I got home, Dotti and I got changed and then headed for the gym. We played racquetball for about 70 minutes, and got a good workout. We played in one of the “closed in” courts finally, with no windows in the walls. There is an open space way up at the top of the back wall, where people walking by can look in and through which fresh air can circulate into the court.

When we finished the next to last game, we had played for 58 minutes so far, and so I wanted to play another one to get my 10 Aerobic points. Dotti didn’t look too enthused by the prospect, but she agreed. So, I said, “Okay, we will make it a quick one.” I played the last game at the level that I normally would play when my opponent is a good male player, and although Dotti did not score any points (she did come very close once when the score was 12-0), and at the end, she said that she likes it when I play like that because she gets to practice the tougher shots. I was happy to see that my body is getting into better shape, because playing at that level did not overly tire me, even after already playing an hour beforehand. I think that we both are starting to reap the benefits of exercising consistently, as well as having a lot of fun playing the games together.

When I went into the locker room to get our stuff from the locker, I passed by the mirrors at the end of the locker rows, which face the aisle. There is a double set of full-length mirrors, on each row of lockers, set off from each other by something more than 90 degrees I believe. It gives you a view of yourself from two slightly different angles. Walking to the locker I caught my reflection out of the corner of my eye, and thought I was looking a bit thinner. So, on the way back out I stopped and took a good look. In my tee shirt, and even with my baggy sweat pants on, I did look thin. It was one of those moments where you just are hit with the change in your appearance. I had not seen myself in that large of a mirror before, since losing my weight. Of course my face has a few new wrinkles cutting across it from the looser skin, but all in all, I was pleasantly surprised to finally see myself in full view. The journey has been as successful as I could have ever imagined it to be before I started.

On the way home, we stopped at Subway for dinner, and each had a 6-inch sub sandwich. When we got home I was tallying up my points and I forgot to list two cups of decaf that I had at work, earlier in the day. It was not until this morning that I remembered to write time down. Fortunately, I had only run my points up to 29.0, last night, so adding the 2 forgotten points brought me up to 31.0 points, right at the top of my points range.

I always like to step on the scale after exercise, and even though I had eaten my dinner and drank some water, I still weighed myself last night when we got home. I weighed 188.0 on Mr. Scale. It is nice to weigh in the evening and still see a number in the 180s. Of course after I ate a few snacks and drank some additional water during the evening, it pushed me back up over 190 by bedtime, but it came back down again overnight.

So far, I have been able to make my gym schedule every time. I don’t always feel really good about going, before I get changed to go, but once I am on the way and especially after I actually get to playing, I am always glad that I went.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and my Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner, I had a 6-inch sub sandwich at Subway (6.0 pt.). My total for meal points was 18.0. For snacks, I had two cups of decaf at work (2.0 pt.), 12 cough drops (3.5 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.), and half of a Kashi bar that I split with Dotti (2.5 pt.). I also had my normal assortment of celery, cucumber, lettuce and bell pepper on my drive home (0.0 pt.). That came to 13.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 31.0.

For water I drank 9 cups, or 72 ounces.

For exercise I played racquetball for 70 minutes, giving me 10.5 Aerobic points.

Just one week until Christmas!

220 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/188.0/200/BMI:23.5/WK-31/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 5:00 AM, and he said, “188.0 pounds.” That puts me back down a pound, to where I was on Monday. As Crocodile Dundee said, “No worries.” :)

At work yesterday, one of the guys that I work with, but I don’t see too often said, “Is it me or has Al been losing some weight.” Now that was appreciated! :) And of course it opened up the door to a discussion of Weight Watchers and so forth, which is always a good thing. Last week, at my customer’s site there was a guy who made a couple of comments about how much I had lost. I think there is something about the 50-pounds-lost point where people just start to notice a change. It certainly was that way with Dotti when she lost her weight.

The Internet is slowly but surely tightening down, in several ways. On the political side, I can see the government making energetic efforts to try and limit the freedom of speech aspect to this one and only real form of mass media still accessible to the American citizen. Ideas that have not received the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" from the self-appointed thought-judges, are being discussed as being made illegal. The very idea that people can communicate with each other through email, without the government being able to monitor what was said, is driving it’s minions crazy. Therefore, we see laws being debated, or even enacted, that will allow the government to intrude into private email and to limit the encryption techniques that citizens can use. There are other aspects of the Internet that they are attempting to waylay as well. Fortunately these efforts are in their infancy but they will grow into full maturity before too much longer.

Another area where the Internet is beginning to tighten up is financially. A large number of companies jumped into the Internet expecting huge profits, only to find that they were over optimistic. Businesses failed, and many of the freebee sites that provided nice things at no charge, are suddenly having the rug pulled out from under them by the increased costs of operating their servers, etc. The limitations of the Internet to transfer information in large quantities are starting to become manifest. The ever-increasing number of people getting online each day causes the resources of the net to be spread thinner and thinner.

It may be that one day the Internet will be as commercial, and with access nearly as rigidly controlled as the television and the radio are today. That will be a sad day indeed, for it is my belief that the single most negative thing in American life today, even more harmful than drugs, divorce, or crime, is the television and its terrible political and ethical impact on our society. The fact is that the expansion of the influence of drugs, divorce, and crime, and many other negative things as well, has sprung indirectly from the widespread use of the television. If the Internet degenerates into yet one more source of such influence, the results will be most unpleasant for our society.

Due to the contracting availability of Internet resources, DWLZ.com was shut off by our server provider. No "by your leave," just all at once it was down. Too much bandwidth was being used, because there were too many visitors downloading too many files. In 2 weeks we had used over 20 Gigabytes of transfer and that was all we get for the month. Sometime this week, the web page will be moved to a server that allows 50 Gigabytes of transfer, but with the big January bump in visitors that normally comes along, even that will not be enough probably. We are in a mad scramble to get all of our graphic files either off the page, or onto another server, in order to lighten the load on this one. Who would have ever thought that being too successful could pull the page down? I suppose if we had been more mercenary, and been doing things to generate revenue all along, we could have taken the increase in stride and just purchased more bandwidth as required.

We are looking into various possibilities to keep the page online. It has become such a big part of our lives, sometimes even too big a part, that we would feel a great loss if it had to come down permanently. It made us a bit uncomfortable a while back to even put up the banners to give people a way to voluntarily send in money to help out. We have done very little to generate other revenue from the page, even though many people we know have made suggestions as to how it could be making a huge profit, and thinking that we were crazy for not taking advantage of it. That has not been what DWLZ was about. I don’t know if circumstances are going to make us choose between that, and laying the page to rest, but it is a choice that neither Dotti, nor I, is eager to make. It looks like we may be coming up to one of those big decision points in our lives, with a big question mark as to where we are actually going to end up.

On a happier note, Dotti received her HUGE (a little gift exchange that was set up by the members on the Forties Forum) gift from Anny in Canada, and Anny even included something for me. Thank you Anny! I think all of the participants in HUGE had a lot of fun. I know that Dotti really enjoyed both sending her gift out awhile back, and receiving her gift yesterday. Yet another thing about Christmas that is so cool. I just love it!

So far this week I have averaged eating 30.6 points per day. Along with getting two exercise periods in during the same 4 days, that has so far worked to maintain my weight at the very same place: 188.0 pounds. Of course 4 days does not a normal lifetime make, and I am sure more time will yield more indicative data, but it looks like I must be getting close a correct number of points for my current activity level. I know that I am finding myself ready to eat right up until I reach 30 points, and could easily go beyond that if I did not keep an eye on myself.

Disgust is a learned emotional response. Children are not disgusted by anything. They will happily grab a moth or a handful of dirt and put into their little mouths. They will pull their diapers apart, and play with whatever falls out, and think nothing of it. Mommy and Daddy are disgusted by these things, because they, unlike baby, have already learned disgust. Disgust is an emotional wall that is put up, where certain activities appear abhorrent at a level below conscious thought. It serves the purpose of protecting an individual, or even a society, from destructive behaviors.

I have noticed that I have learned disgust for some new things during the last 6 months. Things like a Big Mac, and deep-fried french-fries actually produce a certain level of horror inside of me when I think about eating them. Rich desserts, and many other food items strike me as something that I should be driving a stake through the symbolic heart of. Almost anything that I do not know the exact nutritional value of will create a negative reaction inside of me that will actually temporarily suppress my appetite. My eating choices are very much controlled by what will fit into my points for the day. Anything that I know doesn’t easily fit in, or anything that I am unsure as to whether or not it will fit in, will generate a certain amount of disgust within me, and will thereby stop me from eating it. Sometimes, something being disgusting is a good thing. :)

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and my Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner, I had a corn on the cob (1.0 pt.), hash brown potatoes (3.0 pt.), and 2 egg sandwiches (2.0 pt.), making a total of 6.0 points. My total for meals was 18.0. For snacks, I had 15 cough drops (4.5 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.), and half of a Kashi bar that I split with Dotti (2.5 pt.). I also had several sticks of celery, a cucumber, some lettuce and a bell pepper on my drive home (0.0 pt.). That came to 13.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 31.0.

For water I drank 10 cups, or 80 ounces.

Just 6 days until Christmas!

221 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/188.0/200/BMI:23.5/WK-31/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 5:55 AM, and he said, “187.5 pounds.” That is dead square in the middle of my personal goal range. Last time Mr. Scale said that on a morning weigh-in, was the day before Thanksgiving. (Thanksgiving day itself he said 188.5, and the day after Thanksgiving he said 186.5, but after that my weight went up a few pounds, as I was trying to stabilize my weight at goal.) This time I want to meander down towards the bottom of my range and thereby keep my weekly weigh-ins easily on target.

I am listening to an audio book of “The Scarlet Letter” in the car now. It is an interesting view into the Puritan world of the Boston of a few centuries ago, set in the era about the time my ancestor John MacCoone (there is some debate as to whether that name was originally a corrupted spelling of MacKuen or something like that, but the written records have the name listed as MacCoone, and over the years it was truncated down to Coon) came over from Scotland in 1650. He is buried in Massachusetts, which makes the story even more interesting to me.

The Puritans' rigid devotion to Christian purity was filled with sternness, and a certain unforgiving hardness, that made life very solemn. Their extreme punishments for religious lapses made hypocrisy nearly a necessity of life. Yet from their stern, rigid principles grew a tough and hardy people that did great things. We have gone to the other end of the spectrum today, and while we would find their world restrictive and harsh, they would find ours to be decadent and morally bankrupt. The two views both have merit I think. The Puritan world was overly harsh, and therefore did not lead to a very happy existence for the majority of people. The laxness of today has its price too. I think a happy medium could be struck (perhaps more the way it was in about 1950 or so) where enough moral rigidity existed to hold society from collapse, while still providing enough wiggle room to have some fun. I honestly believe that while our America could spring from the people and attitudes of the tough Puritans, in spite of their faults, I do not think that if they had been like our generation, with our views, that there would have been any chance of America ever coming into existence at all. That, unfortunately, does not say much for our long-term prospects today.

At work yesterday, things were really quiet again. Many of our customers’ sites are shutdown for the holidays, and that means that we don’t even get many calls for parts or part number information or anything else. I played some Free Cell on my computer (I checked my stats and I am back up to 25 games won in a row, but am still a long ways from my record of 103 games won in a row, without a loss.) and did some reading, while waiting by the phone.

The drive home last night was great! The traffic was not bad at all for that time of day. I-5 north was moving along pretty well, and the I-405 downtown-bypass freeway moved exceptionally well. When it joined back up with I-5 again, even that normally slow point was moving pretty well. I got home in just over a half hour, which is very rare indeed. On occasion, coming home from the office, I can get a nice drive like that. However, coming from my customer’s site, even though the drive is only 2 miles farther in length, it has to be a holiday, or in the middle of the night (which I have done more times than I care to remember) to make that kind of time on the drive home.

I remember when we first moved back to the Portland area. I had been given directions to the customer site, and so I made the drive out on the weekend to make sure I could find it okay, and to get a feel for how long it would take to get there. I found it fine, and it looked like about a 30-minute drive. So, I planned for a few extra minutes on my first Monday on the job, and was shocked to find that the drive was now an hour long, and I ended up being a few minutes late. I had remembered the Portland traffic of 1975, and was not prepared for the traffic of 1995.

I played some Snood last night. Once again I had my score up close to 160,000 when the Hexagon City level stopped me. So, I reset the game preferences to where it started on Hexagon City, and I played it couple of times. I cleared it and then went on through the next 4 levels with no problem, picking up over 30,000 points. If I had done that during the original game I would have pushed my score up to around 190,000 and even then it was not a difficult level that stopped me, but some errant shooting. Right now there are two levels that are a pain for me. Olmec, stops me every so often, and Hexagon City; which stops me every time, at least so far on my regular games. (I have cleared it a couple of time when I played it all alone.) I am getting very close to breaking through to 200,000 I think. At least it gives me something to shoot for.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) and my Standard Lunch (7.0 pt.). For dinner, I had two cups of some Zesty Ravioli (6.0 pt.). All told, I had 18.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 8 Crystal Light hard candies that came as a very thoughtful gift from Becca and Alistair (1.0 pt.), 7 cough drops (2.0 pt.), a cup of hot cocoa (1.0 pt.), a yogurt (2.0 pt.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), and three Dum Dum suckers (1.0 pt.). On my drive home last night I had several sticks of celery, a cucumber, some lettuce and a bell pepper (0.0 pt.). That came to 10.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 28.0.

For water I drank 9 cups, or 72 ounces.

Wow! Just 5 days until Christmas!

222 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/188.0/200/BMI:23.5/WK-31/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 5:00 AM, and once again he said, “187.5 pounds.”

I took a vacation day yesterday just for fun. There was nothing going on in the office and I felt like I could use a break. In fact I am taking today off too. It is nice having a couple of days to relax with no obligations.

Yesterday was Dotti’s bowling day, and her bowling team is in first place right now, but it is very early in the league’s season. So, she is doubtful that they can hold the position. However, she is enjoying being there right now anyway. :)

While she was bowling I decided to give another run at Snood. All of my high scores in the list are over 130,000 now and I finally pushed past Hexagon City. I was so excited when I cleared that level, that I ended up blowing the next level (Pair Party), which I should have easily cleared. So, now I have mixed feelings. I feel great that I finally cleared a level (once) that seemed impossible before, but then I only ended up with 174,056 for a score, when I was shooting for much higher.

I can see why I try to avoid computer games as a rule. They are addicting and aggravating at the same time. :( I think that that most aggravating aspect of Snood is that the pieces the game throws up for you to use are randomly selected, and randomness can mean that you get every piece possible other than the one you need. There is one level that requires a particular Snood piece in order to clear the level. I have on occasion, played that entire level until I lost, without ever once seeing that required piece. After having to play many levels just to get to that level, and then to never even have an opportunity to win it, is not something that I would have ever designed into a game that I had written. If the other aspects of the game were not so interesting, that one “feature” would be enough to disqualify it for being something that I would spend my time on. The fact that it only happens on rare occasion, has allowed me to tolerate that aspect of the game. There are 50 levels in the Puzzle game of Snood, and at one time or another I have cleared at least 27 of them. But that leaves a large number that I have not gotten to yet. If I ever walk through all 50 levels, I think I will “hang up the gloves” for good. Probably I will lose interest (or my sanity) before then.

In the afternoon, Dotti and I played racquetball for just under an hour. I wasn’t feeling too well on the court, and was not up to playing as long as usual. But it was good to get the exercise in anyway.

Last night we watched a movie, and I ate all my vegetables that I would normally eat on my drive home from work. They were zero points and tasty too.

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.) but for lunch I had 2 turkey sandwiches (3.0 pt.) and a Kashi bar (5.0 pt.) for 8.0 points. For dinner, I had two cups of some Zesty Ravioli (6.0 pt.). That brought me to 19.0 points for meals. For snacks, I had 3 Dum Dum suckers while playing Snood (1.0 pt.), 2 Crystal Light hard candies and 2 cough drops (1.0 pt. -- the Crystal Light candies are 6.25 calories per piece, so two of them are nearly the same as one cough drop: 12.5 cal. Vs. 15 cal.), a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.), 10 pieces of Body Smart chews (2.0 pt.), a WW Just 2 Points bar (2.0 pt.). In the evening I had several sticks of celery, a cucumber, some lettuce and a bell pepper (0.0 pt.). I had a total of 9.0 snack points, which brought my total points for the day to 28.0.

For water I drank 11 cups, or 88 ounces.

I played 55 minutes of racquetball for 8.25 Aerobic points.

Just 4 days until Christmas!

223 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/188.0/200/BMI:23.5/WK-31/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph

*** Weigh-in for WEEK 32 ***

Week Completed:	___32___
Weigh-In Weight:	187.5
Body Mass Index:	23.4
Aerobic Points for week:	30.5
Week’s Average Points/Day:	29.9
Pounds +/- for this week:	-0.5
Pounds lost total:	52.0
Pounds to go to 10%:	0.0*
Pounds to go to goal:	0.0**
Pounds to go to 20%:	0.0***
Made PERSONAL GOAL: 11/23/2001 †
* Made 10% at 215.5 pounds on 7/14/01 ** Made Goal at 200.0 pounds on 9/22/01 *** Made 20% at 191.5 pounds on 11/3/01 † Personal Goal is 190 pounds.

___________________________

The temperature was 35 degrees, and the wind was gusting past our apartment at 29 miles per hour, as I stepped up on Mr. Scale at 6:00 AM, and he profoundly said, “187.5 pounds.” I had to of course go and check my weight on our new scale as well and it said 184.0 pounds.

Six months and 11 days after our actual 25th anniversary, we finally got around to having our portraits taken yesterday. Aside from the fun of posing with Dotti, it was a heady experience getting on a suit that I had not been able to wear for years. We purchased 3 suits when I went to work for Technicare back in 1981. At that time, I weighed about the same as I did in my old karate pictures, and exactly the same as I did in the picture of me standing next to my company car in El Paso. Needless to say, there was no way I was going to fit into any of those suits comfortably even at 200, and not at all at 240. I pulled out my favorite of the three, a dark blue suit, and tried it on. It fit perfectly! The pants were not snug at all, but neither were they falling down. As Goldilocks said, they were just right. The coat felt good too. It was a Kodak moment.

Dotti wore the same outfit that she had worn when she gave her talk at the conference and looked lovely as always!

We headed over early to the mall, hoping to catch a lull between the shopping storms spinning around the Christmas season. We were able to get a sitting within half an hour of our showing up, a half hour that we constructively spent browsing through a B. Dalton’s bookstore. :) They shot the pictures, and let us choose which poses we want, and surprised us when they told us that the pictures would be ready for pick up on Saturday (this evening) after six. The computerization of photography has sped everything up. The prices are not any cheaper, but the speed is much better!

In the afternoon, I broke out a Superman marathon tape I recorded a year or so ago off of the TVLAND channel. I used to love those shows when I was a kid. I proceeded to watch several of them, all which had been made in 1957. They were silly, but they were fun, and I can still remember how seriously I took them as a boy. My Mom tells a story of when she and my father bought a Superman outfit for me (which I remember) and she says that I tried to fly though the screen door (which I don’t :) ). I guess it is a good thing that I wasn’t prone to climb up on high things at the time.

The only album of Celine Dion that I have, is one that she recorded in French called Dion Chante Plamondon. I was introduced to her vocal skills via a French Canadian station broadcasting out of Sherbrooke, Quebec that we were able to pick up on cable for a while in the Boston area. The station showed a high-energy concert that she gave in French, and I was impressed. So, I purchased the album. Now she has become an American household name, and does most of her recording in English. To get back to the point, on Dion Chante Plamondon, she sings a song called Le Fils De Superman, where a family makes a quick birthday trip to New York for their son, “le petite Jean-Pierre,” who is a big fan of Superman, and of course New York is really Metropolis, “la ville de Superman.” They end up checking into the Woldorf on the 50th floor, and then, during their site seeing, they buy Jean-Pierre “un costume de Superman.” That night, when they all had laid down to go to sleep, he slipped on his Superman outfit and "flew" out of the window of their room. That song always hits me, because I can relate to what little Jean-Pierre did.

All in all it was a nice quiet evening that Dotti and I shared yesterday, and it was over much too soon.

It looks like we are going to be seeing a lot of rain on our drive south tomorrow, but it should all remain liquid, which is a good thing. :)

For eating yesterday, I had my Standard Breakfast (5.0 pt.). For lunch I had a 6” turkey breast sandwich (6.0 pt.). For dinner, I had the final two cups of our Zesty Ravioli (6.0 pt.). That gave me 16.0 meal points. For snacks, I had 2 cups of cocoa during the day (2.0 pt.), an All American Ice Cream cone at the mall after we had our pictures taken (2.0 pt.), 2 Crystal Lite hard candies and 2 cough drops (2.0 pt.), 1/4 cup (unpopped) of popcorn, air popped, sprayed with ICBINB, and the having Splena sprinkled over the top (2.0 pt.), two WW Just 2 Points bars (4.0 pt.), and a Mister Cookie Face ice cream sandwich (3.0 pt.). While watching Superman, I ate an entire bunch of celery (0.0 pt.). That added up to 15.0 snack points, and brought my total points for the day to 31.0.

For water I drank 9 cups, or 72 ounces.

Just 3 days until Christmas!

224 days OP, a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

239.5/187.5/200/BMI:23.4/WK-32/Maintenance Graph/Weight Loss Graph