OUT OF THE BLUE

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I have done some serious rearranging of old entries, which included deleting more than a few– so if Google sent you here and you can’t find what you want, my apologies. Google probably has a cached copy of whatever you were looking for. You can also try looking under “uncategorized”, as I’ve dropped a couple of categories as well.

I’m going to try to post things that are a little more meaningful than just “whatever popped into my head that day”, we’ll see how that goes. School and work are still taking up most of my time.

Is it back to school if you never really left?

Two weeks (holy crap!) into fall semester, I suppose I should post something about being back in college.

Maybe I’ve been a college student too long, but the process of getting an application in, transcripts sent, add slips signed, overrides filled out (and signed), ID card made (“Smile!”), parking sticker attached to the right part of the car, maxing the credit card for books… this process was new a couple of colleges ago. So my blog isn’t going to turn into the story of the vet who went back to school and shared the whole story with you. While that would be an interesting and inspirational theme to work with, vets going back to school is nothing new and it’s really just the next chapter in a longer story for me. I’ve been through a lot to get here. Uphill through the snow both ways, you might say. Or not. Let’s just say I’ve worked hard to get to this point, I’m happy to be here, and quite frankly I have enough interesting homework to do that I don’t have time to sit around thinking about the past for very long.

So there you have the “I’ve gone back to college, again” blog entry. Now, since a) I have nothing due until Tuesday, and b) I’m quickly approaching stressed, tired and hungry, I’m going to the Y, followed by foraging for groceries. If I’m still feeling ambitious after that, I’m going to play with my new TI calculator… which looks like it has enough built in functions to fly an F-16.

Madison WI Traffic Information

As a member of the early 00’s migration to Madison, I can tell you: this small town is looking more and more like a bigger city. Traffic is one example. It’s worse now than when I moved here three years ago. Madison.com has a Wisconsin State Journal article (full text) about the Wisconsin DOT’s new Madison WI Area Congestion Map. You can also view a freeway congestion map for Milwaukee WI and a freeway congestion map for Chicago IL.

Although… do ya really need a map to tell you that I-90/94 from the Illinois-Wisconsin border west is going to be moving slow every Friday from now until school starts in fall?

Crazylegs Classic…

I finished the Crazylegs Classic last Saturday in 58:54, a minute or so ahead of my target time of 60:00.

For people who “are runners”, this is no big deal. For me, this is a milestone. Before this year’s Crazylegs Classic, I had never run in any kind of organized run or walk. Zip. Zilch. Nada. That was for, you know, those cross country and track and runner type people. I was busy doing cool computer stuff, sloshing down Mountain Dew and eating healthy things like Twinkies. Now, I can not only run five miles at a time, I can do it without the need for medical assistance. (In fact, I run five miles three times a week.)

Now, I’ll admit the fact that I knew there was free beer waiting for me at Camp Randall. And that Bud Light tasted pretty damn good. But that wasn’t my main motivation for running the race.

If you’re one of the three or so people who actually follow my blog, you know I’ve been working on losing weight and getting in shape. At a certain point, you have to do something to test yourself. I’ve been running for an hour at a time on a treadmill at the Y, but running outside with other people on real streets and hills is a different thing when you haven’t done it before. You ask yourself, “Self, can I say I’m in good shape now?” And so you pay your money and do things like run the Crazylegs Classic.

And when you finish under your goal time, knowing you trained hard, and ran up all the hills instead of walking, and just plain kept going and got it done… that’s when you can say “Self, you’re in a whole lot better shape than you used to be.”

And when you hear yourself saying “I bet I can run it faster next year…”, that’s when you know you’ve made a change and stuck with it, and it’s going to be permanent.

Suspicious alertness

Now that the weather is turning into something resembling spring, I’ve started taking my daytime walks outside. (A bit of background; I have two 15 minute breaks, and a 35 minute lunch at work. I usually spend that time either walking in the hallways of the office building I work in, or on the streets and bike paths around the building.) It’s a way to burn a few calories (hopefully), and get away from my desk, the office, the whole bit. My job pays the bills, but a walk across the parking lot is generally more exciting, if that tells you anything. I usually have my 2m/70cm HT with me; different days I listen to different things. Whatever.

I noticed two things today. The first, was a guy standing on the bike path, sort of meandering and looking at the marsh. He looked out of place; not moving like he was out there getting exercise, just hanging out. Scoping, I thought. Casing, maybe. I didn’t take the leg of the path that goes under the highway, across the railroad tracks, and over to the other side of the highway. I was worried he’d follow me. The spidey sense tingled, and so I went the other direction, towards the next major street over (a few blocks away). I saw the same guy a few minutes later, headed slowly towards the bus transfer point. I ended up passing him again, but this time I had my HT in my hand. He didn’t say anything, but he gave the HT, then me, a serious evil eye. I wanted to tell the security guard about the guy. I didn’t; but I thought about it. Call me paranoid. The guy looked suspicious, though. He didn’t belong there.

The second thing I noticed today, on my afternoon break, was how freaking quiet it was outside. Just… quiet. Two office buildings full of people, next to six lanes of highway, in the middle of the afternoon, and it was quiet. Something just didn’t feel right; not necessarily a feeling of doom, like the calm before the storm, but just feeling that something was out of place. Misadjusted somehow. Too quiet.

If you have any hopes for a dramatic ending to the story, where the thug looking guy in dreds, and the too good to be true quiet were omens, signs that something was about to happen… well, you’re going to be disappointed. I walked back to the office, the suspicious looking guy probably got on a bus, the day went on and the quiet continued. (The only thing that really changed was that a meeting that I was going to attend tonight was rescheduled for next week.)

Suspicious alertness.

Still staying up late and watching the news

It’s after 2300, and I’m still awake (as usual), sort of halfway paying attention to ABC News Nightline on TV. Sometimes I pay more than half attention, sometimes less, depending on what stories they’re covering.

It’s strange, this news show. Especially lately, with Iran going all hostage-taker again. If you’re old enough (as I am), you might remember when in Milwaukee WI, the news was on at 2200; Jerry Taff (WISN-TV news anchor) wore a “Free the Hostages” yellow ribbon on his lapel every night, MASH was on at 2230, and the ABC News Special Report on the Iran Hostage Crisis came on at 2300. Hugh Downs gave us the number of days, and current developments and news. Lots of days, the only change was that the number of days had increased by one.

Eventually, the Special Report had been on every night for so damn long that they gave Hugh Downs a name for the show. Now, it’s just there, between Seinfeld and Jimmy Kimmel Live. They could probably show reruns, and I’d never notice. Maybe they do. (I’m kidding. It’s not that bad. But it is the warmup for Kimmel.) I sort of remember the show either being axed, or almost being axed, more than once. It’s still on, though.

In 1979 I was 11 years old. I’m pushing 39 now. Nightline has been on that long. And we’ve been putting up with Iran for that long.

All stations, all stations… whiskey, tango, foxtrot, oscar….

Daylight Savings Time

Every spring and fall, the switch between daylight savings time and standard time really messes up my internal clock. My body is in its own time zone anyway; I think a normal day should start around 0930 and end around 0100, so shifting sunrise and sunset times around doesn’t help.

My computer, however, normally handles things just fine. Except this year, when the spring ahead date is moved up. I run an older version of Mac OS X (10.2.8 – yes I know, ancient), so Apple isn’t showing me any love with a patch to make things better. Which is actually all right, because by building OS X on top of BSD, Apple made it possible for others to make good things happen.

Ars Technica has an article entitled “The comprehensive Daylight Savings Time guide for your Mac” that tells me (and you) what I (we) need to know about getting the right patches and updates, including patches for older versions of OS X such as 10.2.x. As for me, I’ll probably be out of whack by an hour or two until at least the middle of April…

Keeping weight off, and losing more

One of the most important things I’ve discovered in this journey I’m on to lose weight (goal is 100 pounds; I’ve lost about 67 of it) is that as you get lighter, the things you have to do to continue losing have to change. Every milestone I make, I’m all of a sudden working with a different body that has different nutrition needs as well as different capabilities. My life outside of losing weight also has gone on, including some changes to my schedule. I’m now working a second job, with shifts in the evening that vary from week to week — meaning I can’t always do three full two-hour sessions at the YMCA like I’ve been doing, and I can’t always get the exact healthy meal or snack that I need to stay with the Biggest Loser diet. I work in a sports venue; the food’s yummy, it’s readily available, and it’s not at all what I should be eating if I’m trying to lose weight, even if I burn a lot of calories while I work. The new challenge of having comfort food available, while also having my workout schedule disrupted, means I have to change my strategy in order to stay on track.

Here are my main issues on days when I work at night:

• I go straight from one job to the next. The easiest thing to do is just grab a brat or hot dog for supper at the night job.
• I have no time for a structured workout that day.
• I get home late, meaning I get even less sleep than normal.
• I have even less time to prep meals and snacks for the next day, so I also don’t eat well enough at my day job.

I think the first thing I need to address is diet; I’m not going to lose weight having brats for dinner, and I’m not going to lose weight by eating the wrong things for lunch and snacks during the day. So, first change is a new rule: if I don’t have time to prep a good lunch and snacks for work, I can get a salad with lite dressing for lunch at work. For snacks, I can take veggies and fruit that don’t require any preparation. I don’t know the calorie count of the salad, unfortunately, but it’s my best option within the building.

Second change is that if I try, I can find something healthy to eat between jobs instead of taking the easy (and not healthy) route. Enter one of my favorite apps, Google Maps. By looking at the route I take between jobs, I’ve discovered that I pass a Subway on the way. I can get a 6 inch Veggie Delite with 230 total calories (30 from fat) at Subway; if I eat at work, just a single Johnsonville brat (without the bun) contains 270 calories (200 from fat!).

Okay– now on to the workout problem. My night job involves a lot of standing around, along with some lifting and carrying of boxes and containers. I do have some time to walk around, though, and since most of the stuff I have to carry is located one or two floors down, I can take the stairs. So I can get some exercise in, although not all at once. But that’s okay; it’s still calories burned. The change I’m going to make is that I’m going to look at my schedule every week, and out of every seven days, Sunday through Saturday, I’m going to find three days when I can get to the Y to do a full workout. The days will need to shift, and I’ll need to do some back-to-back days, meaning I might have to adjust the amount of weights I do on a given day, but I’ll still fit in three trips. As an emergency backup, I can do a Biggest Loser workout at home if my schedule’s just that insane (like it was this week).

Of course, saying I’m going to do this and getting it done are two different things; one of my problems is that I get so busy I lose track of where I am in the schedule. So, two mechanisms for managing all this. I’m going to use my personal planner to hold my work, workout, and other activity schedule, including meals away from home. If I have a plan, I can follow it; it’s when I don’t have a plan that I get into trouble. Second, for things where I need to be reminded that something’s coming up, I’m going to expand my use of Yahoo! Calendar and its incredibly useful calendar reminders that go to my cellphone.

I don’t have an answer for the lack of sleep issue; I’m under a lot of stress right now, making more changes than just losing weight and getting in physical shape. I’m also working on getting in emotional and spiritual shape as well. Sleep tends to lose in the battle for the 24 hours a day I have to work with… stay tuned for more on that…

laslo[nova] rides again!

Yes, I have started playing Quake II again, very occasionally. I didn’t think anyone would still be playing; and in fact, none of the formerly always busy servers I used to play on respond to pings. So I did the usual Googling, and found a page listing a crapload of Q2 servers here. I’m still exploring to see which ones I get a decent ping on. Not that it really matters, because everyone has a broadband connection now… and if you’re still playing Q2 after all this time, you’re probably pretty damn good at it by now, too. Me, I suck. Rust has settled into the formerly very quick railgunning reflexes I once had. Mind you, I still get some kills, but nowhere near the killing machine mode I was in back in the day. Shuup, LS.
Speaking of LS, a.k.a Lonestarr, I decided to see if the old Nova Clan page was still up. Scary… it’s still there. You can visit the site if you’re really bored… I’m on the inactive list (which LS was supposed to change years ago, and never did). The Australia and Sweden field offices are missing in action. I might just be the last of the Novahicans…

Weight loss results not typical

I keep seeing ads on TV for weight loss pills, diets, and exercise
machines that say “Billybob lost 60 lbs! (Results not typical)”. Seeing
the fine print makes me wonder if the companies that produce these
products are just covering their asses, or if they really don’t think
you’ll lose that much. If they don’t think you’ll lose 60 lbs, and
they’re marketing the product to people who need/want to lose that much, then what’s the point? And more important, how are you supposed to believe the product will actually work for you?

I’m going to go ahead and admit something frightening: when I really,
seriously committed myself to losing weight and getting back in shape, I weighed 276 pounds. I might have actually weighed a little more than that at one point, but that’s what the scale said the morning I started the journey. Today, the scale says 218. I’ve lost close to 60 pounds since the second week of January 2006. Holy cow, I’ve joined the results not typical club.

I am often asked, especially at work, “What’s your secret?” My answer is always the same:

• The Biggest Loser. The weekly series showed me that it
  was possible to make changes and turn my life around. The book and DVD gave me a plan to follow.
• My friends, especially Danielle (who I’ve finally mentioned in my blog), Lee, and Heather, who have been my supporters the entire way.
• Determination. Putting one foot in front of the other.

I’ve learned a great deal so far; this is a review of some of the things that have been working for me. As time goes on, it’s easier and easier to slow down and slip a little off track, so this is also a sort of review and rededication for me. If it’s useful for you, comments are welcome. Here then, are my top tips for losing a bunch of weight:

• EAT. Don’t go without food. Eat enough of stuff that’s good for you.
• You have to learn to cook and plan meals ahead of time.
• You have to find foods that are healthy that you like. Experiment with trying new things and modifying recipes. Admit to yourself that a lot of the comfort foods you like are really not good for you. You’re going to have to find some that are.
• Follow the diet in the book to the letter at first. It’s a big change, and you need the book to guide you. Later on when you’re better at shopping and cooking healthy, you can get more creative.
• Find a Whole Foods or natural foods store, and buy stuff there.
• It will cost you more to eat healthy; fresh and whole foods spoil, so you can’t always stock up like you can with boxes of pasta and other processed foods. You’ll need to shop more often, too.
• Buy healthy stuff in bulk when you can, and divide it into portions. I buy family size packages of boneless, skinless chicken breasts from Sam’s Club, then cut each one in half and freeze them separately with seasonings added in the freezer bag. It’s not only cheaper, but it makes cooking easier. At night I get out a chicken breast to cook for supper tomorrow, add some veggies, and I’ve got supper.
• If you don’t already have one, go get a George Foreman Grill and use it to cook your meats.
• Not going out to eat helps a lot, but changing your diet doesn’t mean you’re less busy with other things in your life. You don’t always have time to cook right, so eating out is something you have to learn to live with.
  • Get to know which restaurants offer lighter alternatives. Most restaurants post their menus online, so do your reading before you go out to eat. Have something in mind ahead of time, so you don’t let your stomach do the choosing once you get there.
  • If you can’t look at the menu ahead of time, be adaptable.
    • Look for the seniors/55+ section of the menu for healthier food. Pretend you’re 60 years old, diabetic, and have high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
    • Learn from vegans. Many burger and fries places now offer veggie burgers that don’t suck, and most places will subsititute a salad, veggies, or small serving of pasta salad for a serving of fries.
    • Hot sauce and salsa are great additions to veggies. Especially with mexican food, see if you can get salsa as a subsitute for meat and cheese.
    • Ask for a to-go box when you order your food, and put half of it away immediately.
    • If you have access to vending machines at work, *don’t carry change*. Bring a cooler with diet soda and healthy snacks instead. Pack a lunch in the same cooler, so you’re not faced with a choice between a not-so-healthy lunch and skipping lunch altogether.
  • Don’t lose hope if your only choice is a greasy cheeseburger, or if you break down and eat too much or the wrong thing(s). Straighten up and get it right tomorrow.
• The diet doesn’t work if you don’t exercise. You will need a pair of dumbbells and a yoga mat. Start with the exercises in the book, and once those get easier, move up to the DVD. Once the DVD starts getting easier, join a gym/health club. (I joined the YMCA. Visit several gyms and pick one you’re most comfortable with.)
  • Make exercise a habit. Schedule times during the week to do your workout, and don’t let anything else interfere. If you do need to reschedule a workout, don’t put it off. Reschedule it for tomorrow, not whenever.
  • Yes, I said join a gym. If you’re really overweight, getting into a gym populated by 2% body fat fitness nazis can seem pretty intimidating; it certainly was for me.
    • Don’t be afraid to be the fat sweaty guy. It will seem like everyone else is in way better shape than you. They’re in the gym working out for the same reason you are, they want to be healthy and look good. Get up on that treadmill and go for it. This is about you, not them.
    • Being a regular at the Y does not make you the jock that used to pick on you for being heavy in high school. You’re still you, just in better shape.
    • Health clubs have TV. You don’t have to miss your favorite shows (like Biggest Loser), because you can watch them while you’re working out. Bring a walkman with an FM radio, so you can hear the audio.
    • Make full use of trainers, classes, etc. offered by the gym. Learn everything you can.
• Your clothes will at some point start to hang off of your body like tarps over a car. I’ve gone from wearing 4X shirts to wearing XL shirts, and even those are too big. I’ve also gone from a 44 inch waist to almost fitting into 38 inch waist pants. Your clothes won’t fit right for a while. Be baggy and be proud.