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*** Weigh-in for WEEK 341 ***
11/24/2007
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| Week Completed: | ___341___ |
| Weigh-In Weight: | 199.0 |
| Body Mass Index: | 24.87 |
| Average Weight for week: | 198.29 |
| Miles Walked for week: | 4 |
| Miles Walked in 2007: | 245.08 |
| Week’s Average Points/Day: | 46.93 |
| Pounds +/- for this week: | ±0.0 |
| Pounds lost total: | 40.5 |
| Made GOAL: 9/22/2001 † | |
* Made 10% at 215.5 pounds on 7/14/01
† Goal is 200 pounds.
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Week’s Data
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Day |
Date |
Weight |
Points |
Water |
Miles
Walked |
| Saturday |
11/17/2007
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199.0
|
42.0
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6 cups (48 oz)
|
0.50
|
| Sunday |
11/18/2007
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198.5
|
53.0
|
6 cups (48 oz)
|
1.5
|
| Monday |
11/19/2007
|
198.5
|
52.5
|
6 cups (48 oz)
|
0.50
|
| Tuesday |
11/20/2007
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199.0
|
36.0
|
10 cups (80 oz)
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0.00
|
| Wednesday |
11/21/2007
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196.0
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36.0
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9 cups (72 oz)
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0.00
|
| Thursday |
11/22/2007
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198.0
|
56.5
|
6 cups (48 oz)
|
1.5
|
| Friday |
11/23/2007
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199.0
|
52.5
|
8 cups (64 oz)
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0.00
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Week 341 Update
At 05:20 I stepped up on Mr. Scale and for the second week in a row he said, "199.0 Pounds!" For the 8th week in a row I have weigh-in inside my target range. I am happy that I have actually done better over this time than I had for the previous month and a half and much better than I did over the first several months of this past year. This is a trying time of year for one on a weight loss or maintenance journey, with lots of opportunity to fail. Calories are everywhere, and they are packaged in wonderfully tempting forms.
This week we have spent in Spokane and as we have grown accustomed to, but never complacent about: Thanksgiving Day we had a wonderful meal cooked by Tammy. This very special lady has a real gift in the kitchen and she produces culinary delights to tempt the gods; and alas we are mere mortals.
I have found that if I approach one of these meals when I am famished, lust is far too weak a word to describe what my stomach will feel when the aroma and visual temptations are spread along the countertop. I had a 5.0-point sandwich a couple of hours before the real meal, and they were well spent points indeed.
Even so, I overdid on Thanksgiving, and ended up eating 56.5 points. That is 10 points over what I consider my upper limit, and 16 points higher than I should be eating on a regular basis. I am embarrassed to say that I let 9.5 points of eggnog do most of the excess damage.
While working to put together the latest piece for Dotti's Newsletter Issue #35, I ended up creating a longer article that I called Successful Feasting where I discussed the dangers of this points-packed and deadly-good nectar. While being forewarned is being forearmed, sometimes we just fall on our faces a bit, at least I do. 
And then I made one last blunder related to the feast; cheesecake. There I said it, the "C" word. No, I was strong on Thanksgiving Day, and I had regular pumpkin pie with Cool Whip instead. However, on Friday, there it was sitting there, winking its eye at me, and flaunting its charms, the brazen little dish.  I had a piece and pushed my points up over 50, for the second day in a row.
The thing that saved me for the week was that I had some low-point days, and that meant that my average points for the week only was a bit high, at 46.93 points-per-day. If sustained that eating level I would gain I am sure, but it is not an egregious failure, and even all my daily weigh-ins were held under 200 pounds.
It does apply pressure on me to do better next week, because if I don't, I will see the scale climb up. On the other hand, Dotti and I are heading home today and will be able to get back into our regular eating routine, and our exercise schedule. This should make it easier to stay on track next week, and even if the scale runs up a bit from what I have already done, I should be able to rein it in and pull it back where I want it by next week's weigh-in. That is goal.
Overall I really enjoyed the week. Saturday Jim and I drove up to Mt. Spokane and took some pictures, as well as enjoyed walking around some of terrain there. It was not what would traditionally be considered a great day for pictures. We climbed up into fog and had to keep the rain off our lens, with marginal success. But it was a great time visiting with my best friend and getting some interesting shots.
 As the car took us higher and higher up Mt. Spokane, my mind was flashing back to the last time we were up here together, back in 2001. I weighed 217 pounds that day, and the extra 18 pounds were easy to spot in the pictures we took. I remember that day as one of our very special outings with our dear friends; and the picture above that I took of Dotti and Tammy together is still one of the ones we have framed in both of our houses.
This time we didn't have a bright sunny day, and we didn't have our ladies with us either. Up, up the car climbed right into the clouds. I pulled off at a turnout and we took some pictures. When we got any distance at all from each other we started to drift into fog, and the haze made it hard to see. Jim is taking my picture, but he is just barely visible.
Jim caught me looking over the embankment trying to find something to shoot. The whole world looked gray up here, and the trees turned black in the fog behind me.
When we got up close, everything looked back to normal, but our hands were getting cold in the low temperatures and the dampness.
As I was getting ready to put my camera back, Jim shot this picture. You can see the windows are dripping with water, and we had to work to keep our lens dry in the rain that was lightly falling.
I couldn't resist catching this little pine cone, cradled by brown needles, which were in turn surrounded by green needles.
Continuing to climb up the mountain, we came to a gated road that had the gate standing open. It looked like it could be relocked at any moment but we decided to take a chance and go up the road. When we got to the end of the road there was the bottom of a ski lift, and this building, labeled the Mt. Spokane Ski Patrol.
Stepping back a bit, the building looked rather eerie in the fog. The light by the door did more to highlight the darkness around us than to alleviate it. As we were taking pictures here, a gentleman came by and told us that he was about to lock the gate and head down the mountain. He was wishing for colder weather, since the water was falling on us in the liquid form, and he was in business to cater to the snow crowds. (I am sure that he won't have too much longer to wait. We saw some snow fall in Spokane a couple of days later, and the big white deposit should be on the way for Mt. Spokane soon!)
After clearing the gate we headed back on the road where we had come, and then turned into a spot called, the Mt. Spokane Nordic Ski Area, where skiers must often frequent during the winter. This sign pointed out where the dry fog covered ground around us would sport various levels of ski challenges for the soon to be arriving fun seekers.
This dirt road on the right is shown on the previous map as an EASY ski trail, and judging from the slope, that is not too surprising. However, today, it would not have been too easy to negotiate on a pair of skis. The steep grade on the left is shown to be a difficult slope and it does look pretty tough to me. But I am a bunny slope skier, so what do I know?
On the way down, we stopped by this little spot along the road with a cheery little stream and a road that looks just like the one that goes past my mom's house.
It is really uncanny how much this reminds me of the road that runs right by my old high school and on to where Mom's house is located. I just love the Pacific Northwest!
When we got back home, Jim snapped this picture. It's nice when other people have cameras too, because I get to see my face from time to time in the photos. (In looking back over the pictures that Dotti and I have of our life together, you would think I wasn't even there most of the time, because I was the one taking the pictures. Of course when I look at that gray hair and all those wrinkles starting to show up, I don't know if this a good thing or not.
In the evening, I went out to grab my camera from the car, and I noticed that the moon was really beautiful. After the cloudy fog, and the rain of the afternoon, this clear sky was very welcome! I could see about half of the part of the moon's surface that was illuminated by the sun, and we were only a few days away from the full moon; with this one due to arrive one month and one day ahead of Christmas.
Sunday, Jim and I had another photographic outing, while Dotti and Tammy were off having fun together.
Upriver Dam
The first place we stopped was Upriver Dam, which lies about 5.25 miles from Jim and Tammy's house, "as the crow flies," and 109° off due north to the south east. This dam controls the amount of water that flows in the Spokane River through downtown Spokane. When Dotti and I were last in town this dam was allowing a lot of water through, and there was plenty of flow over the Spokane Falls. But not today! The dam was closed down tight, with only a trickle of water allowed to pass.
The water gates rotate upwards, and you can see the rust lines on the concrete above, forming arcs where the gates would ride when opened.
Here we have walked around to the behind the dam and are looking downriver towards Spokane. You can see the flow in the riverbed is nearly stopped. The water behind the gates is riding right up to the top and about to spill over. The water supply in the reservoir behind must be close to its maximum level. Only a few more inches of water would cause any additional water to flow on over the top of the dam into the water pathway below.
The Upriver Dam generates over 70 million kilowatts per year, and sells off about 45 million of those kilowatts to Avista Power, and uses the rest to pump water out to 68,000 customers in the area.
Jim was telling me the last time we were here that there is a bit of politics going on during the year, when the city wants to make a good impression on visitors; they push to have the Upriver Dam open up its gates a bit and allow more flow over the Spokane Falls. I can testify that those falls are really gorgeous when the water is running high over them.
Looking south over the top of the dam and off to the left you can see Felts Field, and we saw a few craft take off while we were there at the dam.
The evergreen shows his true colors while the naked tree on the left huddles down for a long winter's nap. It seems appropriate, with that slate sky above.
Mirabeau Park
Next we headed off for Mirabeau Park, about 4.5 miles due east of the Upriver Dam.
When we got there we found a little trail that headed off among the trees. Jack Frost was having his way with the forest floor between the widely spaced trees. The cold air made the brown shrubbery seem to feel right for the season.
We came across a couple of warnings concerning wildlife. There seemed to be a problem with coyotes in this park, and there was a helpful warning that if you felt as though your efforts to comply and not feed the coyotes was going to be overridden by the coyotes desires to partake, you should then dial 911—assuming you were feeling lucky (i.e. the coyote would wait for help to arrive for you before attacking) and you happened to have your phone with you.
An alternate approach might be to hope that the coyotes might get tangled up with the rattlesnakes, or vice versa, and allow you to escape any unwanted invitations to dinner. Okay, so we don't have any moose or grizzlies around (hi Karen  ) but we do our best with what we have to keep life interesting.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the bees and wasps. They have these traps all over the park and some of them appear to be quite popular.
Jim is a retired Navy chief and his hat says it all: "Got Navy? You bet your USA!" 
Moving past the rattlesnake warnings we came to this little pond that was very scenic and there were several fishermen testing its waters. You can see two of them here getting their lines ready.
A real Kodak moment isn't it? Dueling cameras is something we encountered a number of times this week.
Manito Park
Our final stop was at Manito Park, 8.7 miles to the southwest of Mirabeau Park. We must have been retracing our steps from 6 years ago, because the last time we visited this park was the day before we went to Mt. Spokane in July of 2001.
The day in 2001 was sunny and warm, and the lake behind Dotti and I in this photo didn't have that many birds in it. Conditions were significantly different this time around.
Oh, did I mention birds? There were ducks and sea gulls aplenty on this visit to Manito Park. The silly things must of have thought that they were coyotes and approached us looking for food. Cameras don't taste all that great, even to ducks, and they weren't tough enough to take anything attached to us by force, so they finally moved on.
This guy just said, "Fine, if you are going to be that way, I am going to take my bill and go home."
And once again we have the opportunity to compare the differences between our visit in 2001 and in 2007. Notice the beautiful women posing in front of the lovely flower beds stretching off into the distance. The women were nowhere to be found, if you will check the following picture. It was most distressing. We did what we could but it just wasn't the same.
See, there is something definitely missing in this photo. The lovely ladies and the flowers are all gone, leaving nothing but grass and dirt. Okay, they added a couple of decorative stone items, but I ask you, is that a satisfactory trade? No way!
Not only do you see the sundial (I told Jim at the time they must have forgotten to wind it or something because it was broken; it didn't cast a shadow at all! How was a fellow supposed to tell what time it was?) set into a nice surrounding garden, but rose bushes can be seen at the extreme left and right of the picture. They protect the bushes from the harsh Spokane winters by covering them with pine needles from the trees in the background, which were only too willing to donate them to this worthy cause.
Nearby there was the greenhouse, and inside they had flowers, cacti, and tropical plants of various types thriving as if it were an equatorial jungle, the Mojave Desert, or a warm spring afternoon in Spokane, depending upon which part of the building you were in. I actually took a lot of photos of this one bush, because Dotti loves yellow flowers and I wanted her to share this with me, even if she couldn't be here. There were a lot of other plants that Jim and I photographed too, once we got our lens warmed up.
When we first walked in, our lenses were very cold, and the room was fairly warm, and the air was humid. Naturally, our lens condensed the water out of the air very readily, and we couldn't see anything through them. Fortunately, Jim spotted a nice little heater that was blowing plenty of warm air. Soon we had both cameras ready to go with clear lens.
Monday, we had a number of errands to run first, but Jim and I still managed to make a picture gathering trip to another park, just as the sun was heading down towards the horizon.
Cannon Hill Park
When we arrived at Cannon Hill Park (named for a local banker: A.M. Cannon) the sun was low enough to cause some very interesting lighting situations. This tree was almost afire with the sun hitting it directly, while everything around it was in shadow. The tree in the foreground looks as if it were moving through a kung fu or Tai Chi form.
Either this duck was enjoying a tasty bit of grass as a snack, or he felt it made a striking fashion statement allowing it to dangle from its bill that way.
Look at him go. I don't know what it is, but I always have that effect on squirrels. They just turn tail and run as soon as I start clicking my camera at them. They must be incredibly camera shy.
The moon, rising just before sunset, was continuing to advance towards full. (FYI: The waxing moon always moves from a point where it rises with the sun, and then rising later and later after the sun, towards the point of full moon, when it rises just as the sun sets. The waning moon always rises after the sun has set by a greater and greater factor until it finally catches the sun, at new moon, and they rise together, starting the 29 day cycle all over again.)
The moon is always beautiful, whether it appears fainter, backed by blue sky, or sharp and bright lying on the velvet black of night. It is easy to see how the ancients mistook her for a goddess.
Jim is taking pictures on the other side of the Cannon Hill Park pond, and the sun is cutting low across the scene. If you look behind him, you can see an older shoreline, where the pond water level must have been higher than it is today. The entire park area shows signs of there having been a much higher to the pond at one time.
This park once was a brickyard a century ago. The pond bed was formed as a pit for the brickyard.
With ducks, trees, and grass long and brown along the shoreline, this quiet little park is very scenic.
Catching the orange of sunset, the lake and its surrounding vegetation seem warm and inviting, even though the temperature was pretty cool that evening.
Here is another indication of there having been a higher water level to the pond: a dry bridge. There were a couple of these stone structures set on dry ground, with no water even close to them. However, the ground about them showed a raised presentation, where the old shoreline must have lapped up against, and then the bridges would have been crossing over water. What happened to the water? Why did they drop the level to its present location? Hopefully, I will find out one day.
Jim's Birthday at Outback Restaurant
Monday evening we all went out to Outback to celebrate Jim's 51st Birthday.
 The Outback Restaurant has an Australian theme, with a large stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling, and...
right beside our table there was this map of the world and it wasn't hung upside down, no matter what your eyes may tell you.
The intent of course was to show the world from Australia's perspective. Here you see Australia shown at the top and center of the world map, using south as the upwards direction. (Notice the direction indicator to the right of Australia. (Right below that you see the label for the "Indian Ocean" with Diego Garcia just below the world Ocean, and that brings back some memories, though I won't call them fond.)
It appears that the map was done when the Soviet Union was still in existence and when it collapsed, rather than redoing the map to show the breakup, they just changed the name to Commonwealth of Independent States.
Here was my OP meal. Okay, it wasn't the picture of healthy eating at its best, but it was Jim's birthday.
As you can see I have already cut the hamburger in half and I only ate 13 points of burger and fries from the plate. I was in good shape, and thought I would make it out alive from the Outback when someone asked, "Dessert?" Oops!
I had 10 points worth of an ice cream, brownie and hot fudge treat, that made my mouth say decadent incoherent things before my will power took over and covered the rest with copious amounts of salt. Along with the bread that I had before the real food arrived, I managed to inflict 30 points worth of damage in this one meal.
But the food was good, the company was great, and the dessert was incredible! 
I was nice and warned Tammy before I clicked, so I wouldn't catch her eating. She would have rather been enjoying her meal and that is why she was looking at me with that, "Will you hurry up" look on her face.
There is no site on earth that is more beautiful than one of Dotti's smiles. Am I lucky or what? 
And here is the old man himself. I can say that because I am 5 years older than he is, and I know what I am talking about. 
Happy birthday Jim!
Lunch With Jamie
Tuesday I had the very enjoyable opportunity to take Jamie to lunch at Red Robin. This beautiful young lady is the daughter of Jim and Tammy, and not incidentally, the mother of our precious little grandson Hunter!
We met at the dining room table in Jim and Tammy's house and there was my lovely wife typing away on her laptop. She was relaxing and enjoying herself with her bestest friend Tammy.
I took three pictures of Tammy right here, and it was hard for me to choose which one to use. She looked great in all of them, but I decided on this one. She looks like she has a secret up her sleeve as she is looking at Jamie who was standing beside her.
When we arrived at Red Robin, you can see that the day was bright and sunny, and so was my niece's radiant smile. We were all set for a nice visit.
The first bite has been taken, and our meal had begun. It was a good meal and we visited a lot time talking about Hunter and many other things.
She is a really great girl and is very dedicated to Hunter's upbringing. So, we had lots to talk about, and the food was pretty good too.
Dotti's Weight Watchers Meeting
Dotti has been great about never missing a single meeting since she started back to goal this time. We were out of town, but that was okay, because there were a couple of places where Dotti could have gone to a meeting. As it turned out, this is the one she picked, down on Foothills Dr., not far from downtown Spokane.
While she was in her meeting, I drove around the area and took some pictures. Driving towards the east I found a spot where the road came down near the railroad tracks and I worked my way down a gully and up the other side to climb up onto the tracks, and took this picture looking east.
I next climbed back up to the road and took this picture looking west towards Spokane. Notice the vegetation in these two photos. Bushes look sage like and in the distance you can see evergreens and naked trees, with leaves gone until spring. The grass here was green, but there was a lot of brown in the picture.
Riverside State Park - Thanksgiving Day
Jim and I had a couple of things we needed to pick up at the store for Thanksgiving and once we had got the required items we were left with some time before we had to get back and do anything else. So, we went west on Francis Avenue to Nine Mile Road, and turned north. Soon we found ourselves in Riverside State Park, driving along the scenic road inside it.
Across the Spokane River Jim spotted some interesting homes that we thought might be interesting to look at, and he mentioned that he had never driven over there before. So, off we went, across a bridge to the other side and soon we came to point where there was a barricade across the road and a parking area.
We got out and strolled along the road on the other side of the barricade and then finally left the road and took a dirt trail to the river bank.
It was a beautiful sunny day, and the Spokane River was smooth as glass.
We didn't originally plan to do any sightseeing, so we didn't bring our good cameras, but fortunately I had my little Olympus in my shirt pocket, which I almost always have with me. For this picture, Jim borrowed my camera and included a shot of me. The river behind was reflecting nearly as perfectly as a mirror would have, right up to the blue sky. It was a cold morning, but the sun kept it from becoming bitterly so.
The forest paths around Spokane are not as thick with vegetation as the trails in the western Columbia River Gorge, but they have a beauty all their own. Since the trees are farther apart, more sunlight gets through to brighten things up, and on a cold autumn morning, that is a good thing.
When we got back to the car, we still had some time left, and so we did a bit more driving around in the park. We came to a place marked as the Deep Creek and we decided to check it out. Not far from the car I saw this tree that made me think of the leaning Tower of Pisa. In this case, the tree is leaning not only relative to the ground but to vertical as well. If you rotated the ground to where it was perfectly horizontal the tree would be tilted so far over that it would probably fall, tearing out its root system.
Generally, trees will grow vertically straight upwards, regardless of the angle of the ground beneath them. So, what caused this tree to tilt off the vertical? The other trees around it are more or less vertical, but this one is not. Did the ground shift beneath it? It looks like the ground, if it shifted at all, must have shifted the wrong way to have caused this tilt. Perhaps the wind has beat on this tree for some unfathomable reason more than upon its neighbors? Perhaps the root system is giving way under the influence of rain or loose packing beneath the tree? Whatever the cause, it is interesting.
Walking along the road (once again a barricade barred vehicular traffic along this stretch) when we saw this sign, we thought it might be interesting to see where this trail would lead. What is Deep Creek and how far would we have to walk to get there?
Down in the valley, we found that Deep Creek was also a dry creek, at least at this time of year. There was a great deal of evidence that water, and water in great abundance, had flowed through this canyon in the past. Many rocks, some quite large, were polished and rounded by the flow of water. The post you see standing in the middle of the dry bed marks the Centennial Trail, which is actually part of the same 25-mile trail that we had walked along a portion of down by the Spokane River. This trail rivals the Wildwood Trail in Portland in length, and as you can see it also has a lot of forest and wild country to run through.
THANKSGIVING!
Later on we made it back to the house for the festivities. I went outside a couple of times during the evening to take some pictures of the decorations. I just love Christmas and decorations are such a big part of that. Sure, Thanksgiving gets skipped over sometimes, but I wasn't trying to do that. I was just enjoying the lights.
These little penguin lights were cute and colorful, and Dotti liked them so much that she got a few of them for in front of our home in Vancouver too.
The snowman in the window probably doesn't have long to wait before he gets joined by some real snow and even a real snowman in the front yard.
 Officially the full moon was going to happen on November 24th, but looking up past the tree in Jim and Tammy's front yard the moon was definitely working his way towards being full. The sun was down and the moon was not all that high in the sky yet. In two days he would fill out his complete face, and smile down on us.
Whenever I look at the moon and see those large darkened areas, I am reminded of the terrible beating the moon (and therefore certainly the Earth as well) took long ago, when meteors hit the surface and melted it, forming lava seas that we can still see.
Inside the house things were warming up. The dinner was nearly ready to eat and Dotti was sharing a hug with our lovely niece Claudette. Claudette was being funny here because she is 5'11" or so, and Dotti is only around 5'4". You would think that Dotti was the taller one here.
Jim broke out his camera and shocked tested the lens to see if it would crack taking my picture. It was a well made lens though and handled the strain well.
Jim is the official carver, and once again he did a great job on the turkey that Tammy cooked to perfection yet once again. We really get spoiled every time we come up for Thanksgiving Day with an awesome dinner!
My dear son who makes every holiday he shares with us a very special event! We spent the first few days in Spokane staying in his apartment and then the remainder of the visit we stayed with Jim and Tammy.
I didn't put up any pictures of the rest of the family because I am not sure who would want their pictures included here. Tammy's sister's red hair is visible here but that is all. Jim caught me taking pictures of Hunter as he was opening up some birthday presents. Behind my head you can see a photo frame that is dedicated to pictures of the four of us (Tammy, Jim, Dotti, and I) and the nearly 30 years of friendship that we have shared together.
Tammy, our beautiful cook—a master chef in my opinion—and the apple of Jim's eye, as well as being Dotti's dear and "bestest" friend.
Here is our grandson Hunter, and he was a huge part of our time in Spokane. He is intently studying the broccoli intently and he went on to eat it. He gives the best hugs in the world and is amazingly well mannered. We really miss him now that we are back home.
Mamma Jamie is helping Hunter open one of his birthday gifts. (You might recall that two years ago we were in Spokane for the little guy's birth. We had the happy event of Hunter arriving, and also the one time in my life where I carved the turkey—because Jim had injured his hand and was unable to do the carving.)
This is a whole new experience for me having my picture taken so many times at a family function. Jim was keeping his shutter finger busy all evening.
LeRoy and I were watching the show on the living room floor, as Hunter was fighting with the wrapping paper, when Jim snapped this picture.
"I will not be defeated by a piece of wrapping paper!" Said Hunter. Well, at least he was thinking it.
LeRoy found his piece of pumpkin cheesecake, and he was wondering what the rest of us were going have for dessert. 
Grammy Dotti was in Seventh Heaven holding our little Hunter. What a dear he is!
And finally, I wanted to do a tribute to Jim and Tammy's lovely daughters, our nieces who have brightened up our lives so much over the years.
Our Beautiful Nieceson Thanksgiving Day
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6 years, 197 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.
-Al-
6 '3" 239.5/199.0/197.5±2.5/BMI:24.87/WK- 341
Starting weight: 239.5
Target Weight Range: 195 lbs to 200 lbs
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