Week 76 Update

Brrr! With winter still officially nearly 2 months off, Eugene is in a cold pocket this morning. It is 27° outside! There is “freezing fog” hanging around the area, and Daylight Savings time seems to be going out on a cold note this year for Eugene. Just a few miles north of here the temperature is warmer. Corvalis, the home of the Oregon State Beavers, arch rivals of the Eugene located University of Oregon Ducks, is up at 34°. Salem, which is about 60 miles south of our home in Vancouver, is sitting at 37°, while Vancouver itself is at a relatively warm 39°. But in spite of all that, Mr. Scale was warm and generous when I stepped up on him at 4:15 AM, and he said, “185.0 pounds!”

When we arrived in Eugene last week, we found the place going crazy with Duck fever. Everywhere we turned there were U of O signs and Ducks tee-shirts. I couldn’t help remembering a year or two ago, one of my customers in Gresham, Oregon had a poster with a picture of a beaver looking up at the camera, with a caption that said something to the effect, “Give me another Duck, the last one tasted great!” (He obviously was of the Oregon State persuasion. :lol ) I have a customer in Corvallis, and one in Eugene, and so I drive by the campuses of both Oregon State and the University of Oregon from time to time. It is fun watching the fans going nuts over their respective teams. :)

Dotti and I did some walking this week. Most of it wasn’t measured, or timed. On Tuesday we did measure a mile and a half as we walked over to the mall and back, and on Friday, we had a really nice walk that was 2.4 miles and we did it in less than 49 minutes. That was good for 3.52 Aerobic Points. For the walk, there were some clouds in the sky, but there was some blue too. It never really threatened to rain, and it was warm enough so that we didn’t need coats.

For maintenance this week, I started off a pound over my target weight, and so I ate lower for my points. I was in the 30s for both Saturday and Sunday. We were also very active those days, so my weight fell off quickly! On Monday morning I was down to 181.5, and so I kicked up my points to 56 for that day. That brought me back up to 184.0, and I held my points fairly close to my normal 43 for the rest of the week. That brought my weight right back to 185.0 for this morning.

I averaged 56 ounces of water per day, which is 7 cups, definitely in the recommended 6 to 8 cup range. I would like to drink a bit more, and will work on that this week.

During my free time I have been working on a program for a friend of mine, and I hope to have it done during the next few days.

For rest and relaxation I have been playing with some chess items. I downloaded a program that lets you practice running a “knight’s tour,” where you move a single knight around the board, hitting each square once and only once. It is something I had played around with years ago and never got anywhere with it, but through trial and error, I finally figured out a full knight’s tour this time. Since it followed a repeatable pattern, I memorized it quickly and now can run it off with no problem.

It is one of two old chess problems that I had tabled years ago but recently have returned to and solved; the first was forcing checkmate with just a king, bishop and knight against a lone king. To keep that one sharp, I set up a chess program with the 4 pieces and then play it out every so often.

I have also been going through Alexander Alekhine’s My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923. I have the “sequel” to that book as well, My Best Games of Chess 1924-1937. Alekhine was world champion from 1927-1935 and then again from 1937-1946 when he died, still holding the crown. Since it is so near, I find it interesting that he was born on Halloween. :) He had an incredible memory, which he exhibited in 1925 by playing 28 games all at once, “blindfolded” (not looking at any of the boards at anytime, doing it all in his head), and he won 22 of the games! When he won the world championship in 1927, during the match, which lasted from September 16 to November 29, he had 6 teeth extracted along the way. (I can feel his pain!) Capablanca, whom he defeated to gain the title, was his one sticking point for the rest of his life it seems. He avoided giving him a rematch, which was an unfortunate black mark on his career. In spite of that, he was clearly a great chess player, one of the best of all time. He also did a very good job annotating his games, so it is instructive playing through them.

1 year, 167 days OP, a lifetime to follow!

-Al-

6'3" 239.5/183.5/185±2/BMI:22.9/WK-76
Weight Loss Graph/Maintenance Graph/Success Story