♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
♦ Happy New Year!!! ♦
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
|
Week 399 Update
|
|
| Weigh-In Date: | 01/03/2009 |
| Weight: | 200.5 |
| Body Mass Index: | 25.06 |
| Average Weight for week: | 201.93 |
| Miles Walked for week: | 6.00 |
| Miles Walked in 2008: | 320.82 |
| Miles Walked in 2009: | 0.00 |
| Pounds +/- for this week: | -1.0 |
| Pounds lost total: | 39.0 |
| Pounds From Personal Goal(185 lbs) | +15.5 |
Week's Data
Saturday |
Sunday |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
12/27/08 |
12/28/08 |
12/29/08 |
12/30/08 |
12/31/08 |
01/01/09 |
01/02/09 |
|
201.5
|
202.0
|
203.5
|
202.0
|
203.0
|
201.0
|
201.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CONTROL PANEL
GRAPH |
FUTURE
GRAPH |
60-DAYS
GRAPH |
90-DAYS
GRAPH |
1-YEAR
GRAPH |
TIME CAPSULE |
|
It was 6 AM, on the 10th Day of Christmas (and I am really looking forward to those ten lords a-leaping, if I could just figure out what they are good for—well, I guess it is the thought that counts in a gift 
) when I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "200.5 pounds!"
That makes me overweight by 8 ounces. Okay, it's still overweight, but what's a cup of water among friends? Hopefully, I will drop that and be in my legal zone next time.
My Weight Commander Control Panel Graph has me perched at the top of a long down-run don't you think? I went up for a stretch—click, click, click—and now its time for the fun ride down. It is the last three squares, of both the solid and the hollow variety, which makes me feel that a down run is in the offing. I hope so anyway.
Doom and gloom! Says the
Weight Commander Future Graph. Doom and gloom. I refuse to accept it. I am not going to climb back up to 210 in April. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
My Weight Commander 60-Day Graph seems to be on a fairly straight run towards the top of the mountain. Little positive to see there, except at the very end, where the little lightening bolt points downward. Who knows? Maybe that little indication is the real upcoming trend. I hope so.
My Weight Commander 90-Day Graph doesn't add much. There is a month of level noise tacked onto the beginning of the 60-day graph, which doesn't give us any useful info really. I'll focus on the little lightening bolt at the end one more time!
My Weight Commander 1-Year Graph looks like a cross section cut of one of the local valleys around here. It might be the riverbed around 11/15 on the graph. If you drew a line along the average for the graph it would be pretty much straight across around 201 pounds. It may not be exciting, but it is way better than bumping up against 240 pounds over and over again like I used to do.
My Weight Commander Time Capsule shows that I have only moved 2.5 pounds since I started using the program, and that movement is in the wrong direction. But it is only a small amount of motion, and I was inside my Normal Range when I started. So, it may not be exciting, but isn't depressing either. I just need to apply myself a bit and all will be well.
If you were with us last week, in spirit, through reading, you know that we had a beautiful Christmas Day, layered with lovely white snow, and richly celebrated by house cleaning. It even included fun dashes through the snow in my trusty sleigh! (Okay it was a Honda Accord, but it had snow tires! That has got to count, doesn't it?) My "sleigh" carried me over—or more through, as the temperature went up—the white and drifting snow, over to our storage shed, so we could get rid of the last of our household items stored in our home. After our cheery day of Christmas activities, we hurried to enjoy our delicious Christmas dinner—picked fresh from the shelves of a local gas station mini-mart—dining cozily in our hotel room which had no fireplace, no tree, and no presents. I am sure that is what Bing Crosby had in mind when he first sang, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas."
Anyway, as fun and memory-inspiring as that was, we have given all that up! This week it isn't a white Christmas on our agenda, but a swollen river along side our house, from all that melting Christmas snow! Yep, Frosty the Snowman is gone until next year, and we have had rain and warm, and water going up, up, up.
| SOUTH UMPQUA RIVER |
|
|
| Level Prediction |
Actual Water Height |
|
As the water was climbing up, and we were watching things—things which we considered to be landmarks—become underwater signposts, a bit of concern was starting to build. As you read last week, we had gotten stopped by the level of snow when we tried to drive up to South Umpqua Falls, and that wasn't all that big of an elevation change. How much snow was up higher in the mountains, just waiting to melt and take the fun ride down past our house?
Fortunately, I found a site that predicts where the river is going to rise to and then stop rising. The graph said that the river, which fortunately is being monitored very near to our house, was expected to climb up to 16.47 feet before lowering its fists. I ran out and looked and we had lots of wiggle room above where it was. If it quit at 16.47 feet, it wouldn't even get our wall wet, and then the wall gives us at least another 3 feet of rise protection before we have to start worrying about the basement. We were going to be totally safe during this little excursion of the water.
But naturally, that made me wonder about other future excursions the lovely river might wander into. I had heard that there was a humdinger of a flood through here in 1964 that knocked out bridges and did other fun stuff. This house, or its pre-remodeling caterpillar stage version, was standing on this very spot in 1964. The house survived.
"Was there any flooding damage to the house?," you might reasonably ask. The owners all drowned so we can't asked them. Okay, that isn't quite true. I don't know the people who lived here in 1964, and there are no worthwhile rumors to spread around, so I decided to create one.
Facts! We must stick to facts! So, the facts are, the water this time made it up about a foot above the base of our tree, nearest the deck. If you check the Actual Water Height Graph, you will see that the high point turned out to be around 15.5 feet. The record shown on the first graph is 25.7 feet. That means the water was up just over 10 addition feet from the crest of this exercise. (Okay, there were no activity points for us, other than those running up and down the stairs to check what the water level was doing, but our worry machines got a good workout and so it was technically "exercise." Well, maybe not.) Another 10 feet might put the water up over our wall into our basement, but I think it would leave the first floor alone.
The water rising is a water problem. But water problems come in many forms. All of our drinking water related equipment is down at basement level, and so if the basement floods, we'll have so much water that there will be none to drink, as it were. Hopefully we'll never know, if we are lucky, because the river won't get up to the record again while we are living…or at least living here. 
You may find this hard to believe, but I have often said that there is no way that I am going to live right next to a river, or the sea, because there is a high risk of flooding. It just seems stupid to go looking for trouble when there is so much safely high and dry land to choose from.
I was born in Loma Linda, a little town of about 2,000 people down in Southern California. "Hill Beautiful" is what I was told the name of the town means, and it did have a very beautiful hill in the middle of everything, and I was born on top of that hill, when the hospital was up there. But that is another story.
Mom and Dad bought a house right beside a dry creek bed. Well, it was almost always dry. And it had some nice sloping banks leading to the sandy bottom. The name of the sand was San Timoteo Creek. Okay, from time to time I saw a bit of water in the creek bed, and on the rare occasion that we got a cloudburst, the water would come through at a foot or two in depth. But the banks were 12 or 15 feet high at least. Why worry?
All my friends and cousins were jealous of my creek bed, because it had neat places to play and there was a bridge about a hundred yards, probably less, from my backyard, and we could play under there in the cool shade on those 100-degree California summer days. There was a dirt drive running from the top of the bridge down into the gully, and it was awesome for riding my wagon down. (Surprisingly I never got hurt doing that. )
But my folks and I moved away at the end of 1964. Then in 1969 a flood hit the San Timoteo Creek, and it "damaged or destroyed 400 homes, 300 vehicles, five bridges, and one school." The next time I drove to Loma Linda to look at my old house, it was gone! The flood had destroyed it and the 3 other houses between us and the bridge. They apparently decided to not rebuild, and today that entire stretch of ground is a park. As I said, I always swore that I would never live that close to a river again. And here we are…Well, I guess I can always tell myself "I told you so" if anything happens.
On my To-Do list right now is to make some marks along that tree trunk so I can tell the height of the river as she rises. I will try and get an accurate mark where the high water reached in 1964, just for comparison as well.
Looking out from our upstairs windows we could see the water moving by in a hurry to the right. It created an optical illusion, making it feel like we were moving on a ship and it was cruising along smartly.
When we looked downstream, the river had changed a lot. The little tree on the right used to be based on dry ground. It is actually growing up the bank a bit, and it had a dozen or more feet of grass covered dirt on its riverward side before coming to any water. Now it is swimming in a couple of feet of water.
Now compare this shot with the next one, which was taken on October 31, 2008.
This is the way that I most often remember the South Umpqua. It is a nice quiet smooth river that flows gently on its way to Roseburg, where it meets up with the North Umpqua, and they together form the Umpqua River, and continue on to the Pacific Ocean. Notice all the landmarks, completely dry in this photo, and then check the preceding shot. There is a lot of water going through when the level gets up like that. (It peaked at 22,300 cubic feet per second, which is nearly 140 thousand gallons per second. That is a lot of gallon jugs!)
The river crested and was on its way back downward by Tuesday morning. Monday and Tuesday we took some walks to get some exercise. Then Tuesday night I tried a carmel sucker and it pulled my permanent crowns right off the front. Hmmm. That isn't supposed to happen is it? I called my dentist (who now is 4 hours away, or 8 hours round trip) and asked him for gluing directions. Surprisingly, he actually gave me some! So, Wednesday we were off to town to find some DenTemp and soon my teeth were all once again safe and sound in my mouth.
Friday morning, around 5AM I woke up to this very unpleasant beeping noise.
Smoke alarm? No, thank goodness!
What in tarnation is producing that racket? I rolled over and looked at my computer station, temporarily still in our bedroom—BECAUSE OUR OFFICE BUILDING IS STILL NOT COMPLETED (sorry I had to vent, but I am back in control now)—and the battery backup was crying because it was only receiving 75 volts and it is so used to getting 120 or so. It felt deprived. That shook me awake. Obviously we were having power problems, but this was odd. Usually it is all or nothing. Not 75 volts.
If any motor that is designed for 120 volts tries to operate at 75 volts, it will not only have trouble, it can very well burn up. When an electric motor is starting up, that is when it draws the most current. If the voltage is too low, it will not be able to start up properly, but it will draw all the current it can while trying. It will sit there and cook itself. This is true of things like air conditioners/heat pumps, refrigerators, freezers, water pumps, and many other things. So, generally, the power company will kill power if it can't provide full power. But not this time. We had 75 volts for over an hour before they finally killed the circuit completely. And we didn't get power back until after 10:30 AM.
I did a couple of things. First I went around an unplugged or threw the circuit breakers on any and everything I could think of that has a motor in it. (We have at least one of all the things I listed above, and two of some of them.) Then I set about doing a really important thing: I made a pot of coffee. I found that my coffee pot will brew a nice piping hot pot of coffee with no problem at 75 volts.
Once power was turned full off, I relaxed a bit and we turned off our computers and everything that was on the battery backup, so we could turn off the units so they would stop making a fuss. I broke out my acoustic guitar and enjoyed the chance to play some music for a bit. Around 10:40 AM the power was back on and we could get back to work.
7 years, 236 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.
-Al-
6'3" 239.5/200.5/185.0±2.5/BMI:25.06/WK-399
Starting weight: 239.5
Target Weight Range: 185.0±2.5 pounds
BACK TO WEEK 398 On To WEEK 400
