Week 352 Update

It was 6:55 AM on the 2,465th day of my journey when I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "202.0 pounds!" Let's face it; that is what I should have seen last week. I actually ate fewer points this week, but I think I got what I sowed last week, being up 3.0 pounds.

One of the nice things about Weight Commander is that it doesn't let you lie to yourself. If you are going up on the scale, your graph will tell you so in no uncertain terms. And if you are sustaining an increase the future graph will also tell you right where you are heading over the next 3 months. I am not only at 202 pounds right now, but if you follow the black squares, I am pointed at a much higher location than where I am today.

In fact the future graph is down right scary. It has me up around 226 pounds in May. If I were only causing these numbers through my eating, this would be a very strong wake up call for me. To wind up back in the 220s would mean that I was out of control and I would probably go much higher than that. Fortunately, at least at this very moment, that is not the case.

There is more involved with the 3-pound jump for my weigh-in and the trend for the week that should be mentioned. My right ankle is swollen today and I think I overdid it at the gym this week.

On Monday, Dotti had some physical therapy scheduled at a facility that is located inside the same building that our gym is in. So, we walked over to the gym, which is 1.5 miles from our house. While Dotti did her PT, I went in and shot some baskets, lifted some light weights and then walked just over another mile and a half until Dotti came looking for me because she was done. We then walked home, covering another 1.5 miles on the return. I didn't feel too bad after the workout and even the next day all was well.

On Wednesday, we did it again. I did a bit more on the basketball court, with some jumping as well as shooting, but I didn't think I did that much. I was not working at game intensity at all, or anywhere near it. I did push it on the treadmill, going significantly faster than I had on Monday, but I didn't cover any more "distance." I was tired when we got back home, but I wasn't hurting. We even took it slow going home, stopping at Subway and Borders Books on the way.

Thursday I felt pretty good and I thought nothing was amiss. But my right ankle is puffed up today. It isn't hurting much, just swollen. When that happens, I often go up on the scale a bit and that is probably part of the problem this morning. It was nice getting in some walking for a change, and to shoot some baskets again after a couple of years, but I will have to take it easier as I work up to more exercise.

As I mentioned in my write up for last week, I got a new iMac. I considered Linux, because I already have a Linux computer running. It is older and not up to the level I need so I would have had to get something better to carry the load. Linux doesnÕt have all the programs I need to do the web page with though right now. And that left MAC as my only other option. So, here I am. (I made one concession to the Gates Evil Empire: I bought MS Office for MAC just so I could continue to function normally for DOC and XLS files.)

We drove over to the MAC store in the Bridgeport Village outdoor shopping mall where we took Mom Christmas shopping when she came up to visit us in December and looked things over a bit before settling on the iMac we bought. I really didn't think that I needed a 32" monitor, and a tower, and the iMac had all the horsepower that I need, and the 24" monitor is brilliant and crystal clear. The hard drive is big enough to patrician off a piece for Windows XP (Vista isn't coming anywhere near this computer!) to run all the programs that I just can't do without during the transition period, if I decide to do that.

On the way back to the car we had a number of people eyeing the iMac box, and one guy walking with his wife said with a smile, "Have fun!"

I am not exaggerating much if at all to say that it took longer for me to grab the box in our car, walked from the garage to my study, take the Mac out of the box and physically set it up than it did for the computer to power up, boot up and then get past all the nonsense to where I could run up a browser and get online. After looking back at it, I have to say that nearly everything that I have done as far as installing programs, getting things to run, or to fix problems that pop up, as well as the general computer performance, only two words come to mind: fast and easy. This computer has horsepower, like a sports car, and it has style. I am very impressed.

Of course there is always a downside to everything. It is like the law of increasing entropy or conservation of energy. It just is. I did put on an IBM mouse and keyboard. I had my fill of trying to right click with no joy unless I hit the control key. I am not sure why Apple still ships a one-button mouse, but since my IBM mouse works, I am content. The same thing with the keyboard; the little flat thing that came with the computer was not ergonomically something this old man could work with. But Dotti picked up new keyboard to match the one I have on my old XP computer; and after working with the iMac to identify the keyboard, it has worked very well.

I am still using my XP computer on occasion to perform certain task, but each day that goes by I find fewer things that demand that I do that.

I already have some solutions to problems that I didnÕt expect. My friend Tom (Tom's Journey) pointed me to a place where I could find a replacement for Microsoft Visual Basic. Now, Microsoft itself has discontinued support for its own product, and Vista gives you a warning when you install Visual Basic on it to let you know there may be issues trying to run it on the Windows platform. Even if I had not moved to Mac, this was going to be an issue.

Tom to the rescue with Real Basic; now I can write programs that will compile into three separate possible files simultaneously: Mac, Windows, and Linux! How cool is that? I just have to create the source code and then run a compile, selecting which platform(s) I want to run the program on. The first thing I did was to rewrite my Points Calculator program of course. Now I have a version for the Mac as well. I am going to work on the Thermometer program too , because it has been sad not being able to share that with the Zonie DWLZ supporters who run Macs.

Another hurdle I had to cross was coming up with a text editor to do my HTML work. I had used Wordpad for years, until I found Crimson Editor for Windows. That program is sweet! I was not looking forward trying to find a replacement for it. But I think I did in Text Wrangler. It is really working for me so far.

All in all, I am very happy with the decision to jump to Mac. (One of the things that helped me decide to go with the Mac was the fact that I have never heard a person say, ÒOh, I wish I had bought an IBM instead of my Mac.) Even something as simple as plugging a jump drive, transferring files, and then removing it, is so doggone easy and fast compared with Windows. I plug it in, the icon shows up almost instantly on my desktop. No waiting for it to be detected and then the auto scan starting up and then a menu you have to kill in order to get to the device. I could do it 2 or three times on the Mac in the time it takes my XP to do it once.

Oh, one more thing, and this just knocked my socks off: the screen saver on the Mac is incredible. I have tons of pictures that are extremely high resolution. On my Windows computer I could look at the image shrunk down and lose the detail or I could look at just a piece of it at a time. I am taking our Alaska Cruise all over again now every time that screen saver kicks in. Those pictures are panned and zoomed and it is like seeing them for the first time. The still pictures come alive and almost look like movies. One picture that really amazed me was one that I took from the hill overlooking Juneau that Jim and I walked up. The ships tied up at the pier, the city below us, and the sky all felt so real that I could have sworn that I was looking at it live. My desktop right now is a picture I took of a stump during one of our hikes. The bits of branches, pine needles, moss, and bark look like they are really sitting there within arms reach. A little pinecone is nestled in a depression on top, and I can't see the edge on either side; the screen is filled with the image. I only wonder why I didn't make this jump years ago.

Intertwined with my getting my sea legs on the new computer was Dotti's Newsletter. It was my turn to do the article and so on Monday I fleshed it out and got the first draft done. On Tuesday Dotti pulled her material together (food finds, comic relief, and many other items) for the newsletter and then on Wednesday, wrapped around our gym trip for Dotti's PT, I did the format check, spelling and grammar check, brought my article into its final form, and sent out a test mail to several of our email addresses just to make sure it would display right after being mailed. Dotti gave it one last look over to make sure there were no glaring errors, and at 8:15 PM I hit the send button to the 60,455 people on our list.

My article was too large for the newsletter, and so I put the full article (When the Fire Goes Out) on the page, and trimmed down the work to fit the format better.

Even if we only had one or two subscribers, we would hate to disappoint them with a bad newsletter, and so we both work very hard to try and make it a good issue each time. (Things get hectic for a few days around our house around the 5th and the 20th of each month. ) But with over 60,000 people being talked to each time we mail out a newsletter, it hones the desire to do a good job. That is like a capacity crowd at a major sporting stadium, and I always feel strange when I have done all that I can to make sure that itÕs ready to go, and then I know that all those people will look at our work.

Sure, it is probably going to only be glanced at by most of them, and very few will be going over it with a fine tooth comb, but we donÕt send out stuff to our list other than the two newsletters each month, so the subscribers are not going to look at it as just another thing to delete (at least I hope not) and when they do look it over, we want it to be something that will be helpful to them and also interesting enough to be worthy of the time they spend with it.

I have to say that we had medical scare with our dear friend Tammy and the good news came through that all is well. Tammy, I can't tell you how difficult it was remaining calm while we held our breath waiting upon the news. You are irreplaceable, and that is a fact! Take good care of Dotti's Bestest Friend, my best friend's wife, and my dear friend as well! We all love you and need you, and Hunter would second that about his Grammy!

And speaking of medical stuff, I have a visit to the dentist this week coming up, and he will be doing some work to restore some of the damage that has been done to my dental world. It is not going to be a cake walk, and I am not looking forward to it, but as my friend in Chicago says, " A year from now you will be glad you did it."

6 years, 274 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-
6 '3" 239.5/202.0/197.5±2.5/BMI:25.25/WK- 352

Starting weight: 239.5       Target Weight Range: 195 lbs to 200 lbs