A FEW MORE THINGS
YOU MIGHT ENJOY
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WEEK 419
Week Ending May 13, 2009
Weight Watchers Goal
(the top of my normal weight range)
200.0 pounds
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Week 419 Update
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| Weigh-In Date: | 05/27/2009 |
| Weight: | 211.0 |
| Body Mass Index: | 26.37 |
| Average Daily Points: | 32.64 |
| Average Weight for week: | 213.29 |
| Miles Walked for week: | 2.00 |
| Miles Walked in 2009: | 50.77 |
| Pounds +/- for this week: | -2.0 |
| Pounds lost total: | 28.5 |
| Pounds From Personal Goal (185 lbs) | +26.0 |
Week's Data
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
Sunday |
Monday |
Tuesday |
05/20/09 |
05/21/09 |
05/22/09 |
05/23/09 |
05/24/09 |
05/25/09 |
05/26/09 |
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213.0 lbs
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213.0 lbs
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214.5 lbs
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215.0 lbs
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218.5 lbs
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216.5 lbs
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216.5 lbs
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CONTROL PANEL
GRAPH |
FUTURE
GRAPH |
60-DAY
GRAPH |
90-DAY
GRAPH |
1-YEAR
GRAPH |
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It was 6:05 AM when I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "213.0 pounds!" I can't get over the feeling that I am living in the past with these numbers I am seeing on the scale. I remember a time, nearly a decade ago, when I was wishing I could get below 210 and making no headway at all. Well, here I am again. 
The solid squares on my Weight Commander Control Panel Graph look a bit like the smile of the Grinch who stole Christmas. It is certainly not a "Happy Smile." Today I weigh 1 pound less than I did 60 days ago, but 3 pounds more than 30 days ago.
What is most frustrating to me is that I am not upset enough about this to do what I know I need to be doing. I NEED to take the time to set up regular meals, EVERY DAY, with plenty of volume with few enough calories to allow for some well chosen snacks, especially in the evening. I know this is what I need to do. I know how to do it. But here I sit, making no progress.
My Weight Commander Future Graph is quite depressing. It projects my weight to be up over 229 pounds by my 58th birthday. There was a time when I could safely ignore such predictions, because I knew that I could fix whatever was wrong at the time. Today, I am actually worried that this prediction, or something close to it, might actually come to pass. If I don't care about being above 210 enough to do something about it, why will I suddenly start acting right at 220, or 230?
I need to get my head into the game. I have to raise the importance of my Journey to the place where it belongs, or I will be at 230 and 240 and more.
My Weight Commander 60-Day Graph is showing just “noise” and no real information. I am bouncing around like a cork on a choppy sea. There is little here to base hope upon. My problem is not physical, it is mental. Attitude is everything. Weight loss itself is simple. The physics of weight loss allow you to be certain that if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will sooner or later lose weight. I know this, and I have demonstrated it in my own life in the past. This is not in question.
Eating fewer calories than I burn is the issue at hand. I eat too many calories, usually due to poor planning. However, when I blew it on Mother's Day, something inside of me "threw a temper tantrum" or something quite like that, and I was so angry with myself that overate a few time on purpose to sort of "make myself pay for my stupidity." Talk about destructive behavior!
Many things in my life right now are in flux and I am hoping that at least most of them will settle out soon, leaving a peaceful tranquility behind for me. Moving twice within 6 months didn't help my peaceful state any at all. Having the problems I did with my mother and having that blow up in our faces was another factor. Dotti's depression in Tiller, as well as my own, didn't just walk away without leaving a price to be paid. Recovery is in progress to be sure, but it is not completed by a long shot.
I can still feel the residue of that pain, and the situation with my mom is not settled out completely either. Until she sells her house, we are living with the fact that I could get a phone call at any time with some horribly bad news, and unlike before, we know that the probability of that happening is much higher than at any other time in our lives.
When things are flowing normally along, a call in the night with very bad news hits you completely unexpectedly. You don't often fret over the possibility, because you discount it, even though any person in America could get such a call on any given day. It could happen, but it probably won't, so most of us almost never think about it. But I think about it. I don't dwell on it day and night, but it never completely leaves me alone. It's there in the back of my mind to poke my mind with a bit of stress when I least expect it.
We haven't completely settled into a routine yet here in Spokane, and I don't even have a clear picture in my mind what such a routine will look like when it finally arrives. That adds its own little bit to the multifaceted flame that is keeping my stress pot bubbling along. Life is better, but not quite where it was in Vancouver. We are moving in that direction, and with LeRoy and our best friends here in Spokane with us, along with our nieces, nephews, and our precious grandson Hunter, the potential for being much better than it was in Vancouver is obviously here.
So, I am taking it a day at a time, and hoping for the best.
It seems that my Weight Commander 90-Day Graph is telling the story of a man who was climbing up, up, up, and then found a way to halt the climb, but not a way to reverse the process. In a way it looks like the place where we live today. Most of Spokane stretches out to the south and the east of us, and we are living on a plateau that is 400 feet up from where Dotti and I used to live on Francis Avenue, back in 1982 just before moving to the East Coast.
Just so, my weight has climbed up from 205 or so, up to around 215, and then hung at that new level. This is not what is usually thought of as a “plateau” on a Weight Loss Journey. I climbed up to this one, and seem disinclined to turn around and head back down the mountainside.
Now, the Weight Commander 1-Year Graph tells a slightly different story. It shows that the problem is not simply a recent excursion up the side of a mountain. Instead it is but another run up the mountain, after a brief visit to the valley in between.
Human psychology is complex to say the least. Destructive behavior should be non-existent, but it is nearly universal in one form or another. Sometimes its eating, smoking, or drinking to excess. Sometimes it is in the partners we choose for our relationships. Sometimes it is in over working or over-exercising. Life holds many methods for destroying ourselves, and while we enthusiastically avoid some of them, we seem determined to pursue others. Why? Now that's the big question, and of course its followup, What can we do about it?
Since I don't have the definitive answer to that just yet, I will move on to sharing a few things that went on this week with Dotti and I.
Thursday, I took Dotti to Tomato Street for dinner. The tables are all covered with paper, that serves as a tablecloth, although there is a real tablecloth under the paper. They supply a can of crayons at each table, and when your waiter comes to the table, he signs his name on the paper tablecloth, and he does it upside down to himself, and therefore right side up for all those sitting at the table. Some of them are quite good at it, producing flowing, and fancy signatures. All of them that we have seen so far have been at least competent at signing their names, even the trainee we had on one visit, who had a veteran waiter looking over his shoulder as he worked.
Well, I had the most beautiful woman on earth sitting across from me, and a surface upon which to draw, along with some crayons to work with, and that led me to once again try to doodle a likeness of Dotti.
 I grabbed a couple of crayons, and quickly sketched out an attempt. It is a pitiful effort, but I share it here nonetheless.
My cousin Fay is an artist, who is very talented. She paints and draws and sells her work. There are many talented members of the Coon family, but I didn't get the cool drawing gene that my cousin inherited. But I like to pretend that I did sometimes. 
Later that evening, I took a 3-mile walk, which was the only measured walking I did for the week.
Friday we had one of our computers fail. It was a MAC, that Dotti had purchased used last year. We were using it for our print server and file sharing center. So, we decided to look up a local Apple service center.
 In Portland we found an Apple Store in Bridgeport Village.
I really liked the statue they had in the shopping center, and just love the beautiful lady standing in front of it in this picture!
Just around the corner from the statue there is the really cool Apple Store, where I got my iMac from, and they have a great service center there as well. It set a high standard but we found another really good MAC support place in the Clackamas Town Center.
The MAC store could handle any heavy duty repair work your computer might need. So, we had great success with the Apple service we found in the Portland area. We had high expectations that we might find something similar here.
 Alas, this is what we found. There was a plastic sign out on Wellesley Avenue that said Enjoy Mac Service and it was formated just like the Coca Cola logo, where it says, Enjoy Coca-Cola. It was a cute touch, but treading on copyrighted logos didn't seem like a good idea to me. Looking at the premises didn't increase our confidence in the business located here. The shop was located on the bottom floor of a building that appeared to be sporting several vacated stores, and it wasn't cleaned up around the lower level doors all that well.
Stretched out along the balcony wall, there was a banner, also showing off the Coke logo rip-off styling, with MACINTOSH shown in huge letters, and proclaiming that this is the place to get service along with the place to buy or rent your own MAC. A phone number was included as well.
Part of the the actual door of the shop is visible in the lower right corner of the photo, showing the number 108 followed by a 'B'. When compared with the other Apple centers we had encountered in the past, this one came up just a bit short of our expectations.
Still, our computer was dead and we decided to give it a shot. We went down to the door and found this material attached to it. The door was locked, and knocking produced no joy for us. So, following the instructions on the sun washed note, we called the number listed. (Note, there was no name, other than MAC Service, and we had strong doubts that was the given name of the proprietor of this stellar establishment.)
There was no answer at the number given, but we optimistically left a message with our cell phone number, and eagerly set to waiting for the return call, which the sign said unconditionally, would be returned promptly.
Perhaps Mr. Service (can I call you Mac?) uses a dictionary with a new definition of the word prompt but I do find it difficult to believe that never replying and promptly replying could fall into interchangeable usage, at least in a place where English is often spoken. Perhaps I am wrong on this point.
Across the street from the somewhat disappointing Mac “Service” shop, lies the Northtown Mall, wherein resides one of my two favorite stores: Barnes & Noble. (Borders Books fills the remaining slot on that short list.)
Nestled in the confines of this book emporium is a Starbucks Coffee shop to which Dotti and I found ourselves drawn, and soon seated therein. Dotti had brought along a few items to mail and I caught her licking the envelope of one of them.
I am so proud to call this lovely creature my wife! She is not only beautiful, but she is intelligent and fun to be around. Every time we go somewhere it is exciting for me, because I know something enjoyable and unexpected will be coming my way. We laugh a lot together, while having plenty of room for serious discussions on a wide range of topics. As I often tell Dotti, she is perfect—as in being the perfect partner for me.
I could sit and look at this face all day long. Behind those eyes lies a brain that is keyed in to enjoying life, tempered by deep caring for others, and a desire to be liked, and likable. I am daily reminded by the thoughtful and caring acts that Dotti presents as gifts of love to me, that I am the world's luckiest man.
Thank you Dotti!
Perhaps you remember my exploits with the ladder and Frostbyte last week? If so, you can see the angel that is hanging in the window over our front door, and which featured so prominently in that story.
When we returned from the mall, we set about mowing the lawn as a joint project. I did the "weed-whacking" around the edges of the yard, while Dotti mowed the front yard, and then we swapped off on the back yard. We just got our mower a few days earlier and this was our first time using it. The grass was a little higher than it should have been, especially in the back, but we should have it under control from now on. Dotti also planted some flowers that LeRoy bought for her, and their yellow little faces are visible here along the walkway and the front of the house.
The upper window on the right is our living room window, and the one on the bottom is for my music room. (One of the things I like about this house is that there are two vacant lots, one on either side of the house and no one can hear when I crank up the amps for my guitar and microphone.) It is, naturally, a two story home, but the lower floor is half submerged beneath ground level, and that really helps keep the rooms downstairs cool.
We are hopeful that the slant on the roof is sharp enough to avoid accumulation of snow during the winter. This past winter many people had to go up on their roofs and knock off the snow to avoid structural damage. One of the local grocery stores was closed for a couple of months due to roof damage caused by too much snow resting on top. This past winter, LeRoy got up on the roofs of more than one building to clear away some snow. I know he would help us out here if we needed it, but I hope we won't need to ask.
Saturday morning, when I was getting dressed, Frostbyte planted himself on the bed and fell fast asleep. He completely ignored the noises around him.
He had his eyes tightly closed and looked so comfy, I laid my pajama top over him when I took it off, to cover him up.
 When I laid the pajama top over him, he cracked open his eyes for just a moment and then shut them down tight once more. I doubt he needed the covering to keep warm, but he didn't mind it either, because he didn't budge a muscle while I finished getting dressed.
Looking out the bedroom window we spied a couple of quail resting on our fence. The male had a large topknot, and appeared to be courting the female, who had a drabber outfit on.
The quail are very common around our house, and I see them on my walks around the neighborhood quite often. We see them on the road when we are driving to and make a point of giving them plenty of time to get out of the way. They are pretty birds.
 Sunday Jim and Tammy invited us over for a barbecue and Jim was waiting for us with his spatula ready, as smoke poured out from under the cover of the grill.
 Later, in the back, Hunter asked if he could use my camera to take a picture. Well, he's three years old, and will be 4 in November. I guess it's time to start breaking him into the world of photography. Anyway, he took the camera, with minimal instruction, he soon had captured this image of LeRoy and I. With both my son and my grandson involved in its creation, I very naturally love this picture!
 Okay, if you have kids and grandkids, or know someone who does, you can understand that I am going to now subject you to a string of 7 more pictures that will have one or both of these two extremely important people as their subject. The first is of Hunter and LeRoy, with Hunter sitting in the back of his Grandpa Jim's truck. He is sitting right next to an engine, which you can't yet see, but which will be featured in the pictures that shortly follow.
I am proud of these two guys! I am really looking forward to the upcoming years, where I will be able to interact with, and share the lives of, both of them. Hunter will be moving on to the life of school, and all the fascinating changes that occur as a part of growing up. LeRoy is in the prime of life and couldn't have turned out any better! Honest, fair, big hearted and smart, LeRoy is all that I could have asked from a son. I am very lucky to be his father!
 Okay, I know we just looked at these two, but you have to admit this is an endearing shot. The guys are having a little man-to-man talk.
 Here Hunter is explaining the deeper meaning of trucks and their relationship to the universe. LeRoy is listening intently.
“Grandpa's truck will go from here to there in nothing flat! Vroom! Vroom!”
 It was a bright sunny day, and LeRoy was standing with the sun at his back. It would have been a clearer shot if I had used the fill flash, but it is hard to take a bad picture when you have a great subject.
 Hunter sees something going on and he looks interested in participating. What was about to occur though was something we wanted Hunter to stay back from, for safety's sake. I think that, judging from his natural instincts today, and his grandfather's incredible mechanical talents—that would be Jim's not mine—Hunter will one day be a super mechanic. He loves cars, trucks and tools already. All he needs now is time to get there.
 LeRoy took the camera and caught a Hunter and Grampy Al shot. Here is one of the reasons that I am very happy we moved to Spokane. I am so looking forward to being a part of Hunter growing up. It is an exciting adventure ahead! The spider man transfer on Hunter's arm shows that he still hasn't tired of his old hero.
 Years ago, when Dotti and I lived in Spokane, I helped Jim with a transmission that he was pulling and reinstalling into his truck. He was the brains and I supplied some brawn to help out. He had a similar look on his face back then, as he was explaining what we were about to do.
 This time the task was a bit larger than a transmission; it was an engine that LeRoy had purchased and that Jim is going to rebuild with LeRoy. Right now it was a question of getting the engine up out of the bed of Jim's truck, and mounted on an engine rack, and finally rolling into the garage, where another day the engine work will occur.
The current engine travel "mount" is interesting. An old tire has the engine cradled snugly, where it won't rock or hit bottom in the bed. Now the engine has to be lifted up high enough to clear the tire, so the rubber carrying mount can be pulled out from under the engine, so the motor can then be moved out of the truck.
 Since the engine is too heavy to just manhandle out of the truck, Jim brought out the pieces of a “Cherry Picker” that he and LeRoy assembled, so it could do the heavy lifting for them.
 The “Cherry Picker” is all together now, and there are three bolts securing the three chains from the engine up to the ring that hooks to the lift. Jim is putting on the mounting bracket that will later slide onto the engine stand, once the engine is clear of the truck.
 Jim is pumping the hydraulic jack handle as LeRoy helps steady the lifting bar.
I have to admit the next couple of minutes provided a bit of adrenalin to my bloodstream as my son and my best friend were hanging around under or around a very heavy engine resting on a platform that was sitting on plywood, to keep it off of the dirt, for ease of moving it on its wheels. Nothing should go wrong, but chains break, and bolts fail, and things happen sometimes. It is like the takeoff during a plane flight. Nothing should go wrong. Nothing probably will go wrong. But if it does go wrong at this point the results would be very bad. So, I was holding my breath a bit, even though I am very confident in Jim's ability to do this right.
 The lift got the engine up, but the tire was still dragging on the bottom a bit as LeRoy pulled it out from under. It took some fighting to get the tire out, but he was victorious in the end.
 Now things were getting to the most dangerous part. The engine is still up high, and the “Cherry Picker” had to roll across the plywood surface in order to rotate clear of the truck bed, before the engine could be lowered to a safer level. In other words, the center of balance of this system was high, and therefore unstable. Rolling around in this situation could create a tendency to tilt and tumble.
 Much better! The engine is turned around and facing the correct direction, and it has been lowered a long ways, which helped to stabilize the system very significantly, as well as decreasing the force that would be applied should the engine fall.
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Weight | Distance
to
Fall | Impact
Force |
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300 lbs | 4 feet | 5,222 pounds |
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300 lbs | 2 feet | 2,610 pounds |
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300 lbs | 1 foot | 1,284 pounds |
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300 lbs | 0 feet | 300 pounds |
They are getting close now! Jim has one of the support chains for the engine in his right hand, and the mounting orifice of the engine stand in his left hand. The protruding shaft sticking out from the engine mates up with that tube, and then the “Cherry Picker” would be lowered and leave the engine resting on that shaft. LeRoy is controlling the height of the “Cherry Picker” with the pump controls.
The engine has been placed on the engine stand, and the “Cherry Picker” disconnected. Now Jim is pushing, as LeRoy pulls and guides the engine stand across the boards the stand is resting on, and into the garage.
 LeRoy was happy that the engine was safely placed until they had the time and parts to begin the rebuild.
 Jim loves this stuff! He is explaining the things that still have to be done before the engine will be coming off the engine stand and into LeRoy's car. On the bookshelf behind him you can see Chilton Manuals, and various other reference books. There is also visible on the right the base of a really cool Easy Rider poster, which, as much as we three guys loved it, is going to have to be left out of this particular picture collection. (Dotti would kill me. )
While standing over by the truck, I used a 300 mm telephoto lens to catch Dotti, Hunter and Jim's mom all sitting over at a picnic table under a tent in the yard.
 When LeRoy was finished with his part on the engine project, he came up to Hunter and asked if the little guy would like to shake hands. Surprisingly, our grandson declined the kind offer. I wonder why? 
 Nope, it's not Frostbyte. This is Smokey, one of Jim and Tammy's two cats. Smokey has beautiful long hair!
 Tammy in the kitchen is a study in excellence that is unsurpassed. Whenever we eat meals prepared by her hands, it is a wonderful meal to remember. While Dotti is smiling over her shoulder, and LeRoy is looking at something near the sink, Tammy is completely focused on the food she is working with on the counter.
 Just looking at the things that we brought to the picnic, it looks innocent enough. Strawberry shortcake was what we had in mind when we brought the stuff, but there was a little something else that was coming, which we weren't expecting.
 The Whipped Cream Wars had begun! Dotti has already been hit with the white stuff, and is asking Hunter if he wants to share in the “spoils.”
 Doesn't this face look sweet and innocent? Our Caudy, aside from the whipped cream already on her cheeks, looks completely above any mischief. However, looks can be deceiving.
 Caudy waves her true colors as she goes onto the attack on poor defenseless Aunt Dotti.
 Laughing uncontrollably, Dotti is covered with whipped cream and more is about to come forth from the weapon Caudy is holding in her right hand.
Is that a look of triumph we see here? 
Bestest friends at Tammy's computer. Are they twins separated at birth?
The barbecue was a complete success and a good time was had by all.
Since it was Memorial Day weekend, Monday was a holiday, and so Jim and I took advantage of his day off to go and shoot some pictures in the morning. He recommended that we try out the Finch Arboretum Woodland Center. I said that sounded great and we headed off towards the west side of town.
When we arrived there were a few cars parked in the upper parking lot, but we had the lower one to ourselves. The sun was shining brightly, and only hid behind clouds now and then, leaving us a lot of light to shoot pictures with.
 When we came around the building, we almost instantly saw some of these ground squirrels, appearing to be very much like prairie dogs. The one standing up held his position for quite some time. He had two other squirrels come up to him and then leave, but he was still standing there. In this picture you can see his little teeth on the bottom sticking out.
 Shortly after that, another squirrel took off on the run, and I snapped a couple of pictures of him running.
 At least 3 of his four legs are off the ground, as he is moving right along, apparently late for an appointment he has just remembered.
 Jim was focusing in on a shot as I snapped this picture. The background was green, and the walk was very pleasant through these surroundings.
Click! Goes the camera, and another picture goes on the card.
 Here is Jim in between pictures. We have a lot of fun finding shots to take and seeing how close we can come to actually capturing what we imagined the images to look like beforehand.
 There is something captivating about the dandelion puff balls. The smallest child loves to blow the seeds off the stem, and the oldest adult still seems to enjoy doing the same thing. It is a natural toy that is universally fun to play with.
 This volcanic rock was laid down long before Mount St. Helens burped its first plume. Still it got no respect from the tree that has left its stump on top, after obviously spending years digging its roots into the stone.
The green grass and trees in the background made a great environment for walking and picture taking.
Near the end of our visit we walked along this path that was graced with sun, shadow, and beauty all around.
A couple of hours after we got home the ladies decided that they would be willing to drive over to Idaho and look at some furniture, to see if anything might capture their fancy.
 In the first store we stopped at, Jim and I found a large mirror and I snapped a picture of the two of us.
 Just down the road a ways, we stopped at another store and there was this comfortable looking chair that Jim decided to test out. Tammy consented to brighten up the picture with her beautiful smile from behind the chair.
 In the meantime, my lovely Dotti had located a chair of her own and was enjoying a little relaxing moment in it.
Above Dotti's head was the sign which read: Mountain Comfort.
We stopped at a couple other places and had a great afternoon visiting with our best friend!
As a closing shot, I couldn't resist this one of Frostbyte showing what true relaxation is all about. Stress is never going to kill this cat!
8 years, 15 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.
-Al-
6'3" 239.5/216.5/185.0±2.5/BMI:27.06/WK-419
Starting weight: 239.5
Target Weight Range: 185.0±2.5 pounds
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