Steady As He Goes

I splurged a little too much on my diet this week.  I weighed in today exactly the same as last week.  I'll have to be a little more diligent this week.

This last week, I've been very focused on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  I'm very near the end, and I've been trying to finish off some of the mini-quests before moving on to the final dungeon.  I played a lot Saturday and Sunday, getting much further along.  I resorted to FAQs a couple of times to get past some things that were stumping me.  I used to avoid reading FAQs, no matter what, but I've got too many games to play to waste much time trying to figure something out for long.  So, every now and then, I'll peek into a FAQ just to give myself that little extra nudge.  I expect to finish Twilight Princess this weekend.

Metrocon is coming up soon, so I need to make some buttons.  I design the buttons and Misty helps me make them.  Then, we sell then at the convention to raise money for TBA.  The hardest part is coming up with button designs that people will enjoy.  We got a couple popular ones, and I try to come up with cool new designs every year.  We also sell a couple of buttons that match Metrocon's theme every year.  This year, that's "Anime vs Video Games".  That won't be too hard to make.  Once I've got the buttons made, I'll post them on the TBA website and forums.

I'm going to have a couple of long days at work this week, because we're approaching another deadline.  Bugs are being fixed quickly, but there's still a lot of work to be done before the release date.

Oh!  I almost forgot!   During the latest TBA meeting part of the plug that connects to my computer's speaker jack came off in the jack.  I futzed with it during the meeting for 45 minutes before just giving up on it.  My computer has two sound jacks: one in front and one in back, for headphones and speakers, respectively.  While something is plugged into the front, though, no sound is sent to the back jack.  Bleh.  So, I spent a couple more hours trying to get it out the next day.  Finally, remembering my warranty and support plan, I logged into Dell's support website and chatted with a hardware support guy.  He arranged to have a technician come to my house in a day or two and replace the whole panel.  That's awesome.  It makes me really glad I paid for a computer from a real company.  If I had built it, it'd take me days and a bunch of money to get it all resolved.

Current weight: 321.2 lbs
Total weight lost: 6.8 lbs

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
-- Farmers' Almanac, 1978

Now With More Gamercard!

I'm a little late with this one, but I didn't forget.  Work has kept me a little busy, but it hasn't really been that bad.  Things are going pretty well for me, right now, actually.

Metrocon is coming up, so I need to buckle down and get some buttons designed and created for Tampa Bay Anime.  Our last meeting before the con is this weekend, so it'd be nice if I could have something to show for it.  I did manage to get the code set up to automatically list the next meeting date, and I've started gathering tools for updating the website and forum on a more regular basis.  So, that's coming along.

Kay is at an exciting time in her development.  She's grabbing at everything, including her feet.  She doesn't quite crawl yet, but she's trying really hard to get the hang of it.  She definitely squirms across the floor well.  She's already managed to paw at my sound system, so I'm going to have to get serious about relocating my floor-level electronics.  She's started teething, too.  This is a time that I've been dreading.  It's varies in intensity - sometimes it keeps her up at night and she'll cry for an hour.  Other times, she's the same as always.  It's a little nerve-wracking, but it's nothing we can't handle.

We're getting settled into our diet fairly well.  We're starting to miss the foods we used to eat, but we're working together to choose meals that are good for us.  Of course, though, they've opened a Krispy Kreme across the street from us.  And they have drive-through window.  Unfair!

Game-wise, I just bought Puzzle Quest, finally caving to my friends' pressure.  It is a lot of fun, as I knew it would be.  Their characters are much higher level, though, so I'll have to play for a while before I can be competitive against them.  Other than that, I'm getting into Shadowrun for the PC, and I'm trying to finish Zelda for the Wii.  Crackdown, Ninja Gaiden Black, and Lumines Live spend about equal time in my 360 these days.  Also, I occasionally get to play World of Warcraft with Misty.  Good times for gaming.

Current weight: 321.2 lbs
Total weight lost: 6.8 lbs

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
-- Anna Quindlen

Full Steam

The diet is off to a great start -- I dropped three pounds this week. I was a little concerned that WeightWatchers' new point formulation for men might mean I'd have a harder time losing weight, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so far. I'll be wearing XXL clothes in no time!

Kay had another physical this morning. She's growing well, with no problems other than some mild acid reflux. We're keeping that under control, though. The doctor gave her the go-ahead for eating her first solids this week, and Misty was just thrilled about that. It's just rice cereal for now, but it'll be Stage 1 veggies in a couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll manage to get some pics & vids of her eating solids soon.

I've been getting very productive lately. Because Misty and I have started on our diet again, I have a few more reasons to get back to programming. I'm working on "Pantry", a program for organizing and building recipes, meals, and menus. I started on it long ago, making it one of my most-delayed projects. Now, though, I've been working on its design in Google Documents. I expect to be working on code on it soon. Before I release it, I'll want to get my personal web site back in order.

I'm trying to get more proactive about Tampa Bay Anime again, too. I put up a new news post about our current raffle, and I've started a thread asking for comments on our latest meeting. I want to make that thread a recurring thing, to keep our members active on the forum. Also, I'm gonna try to gather anime ahead of time, throughout the week, so that I can be thoroughly prepared for the meeting. My eventual goal is to have all news and threads ready to go on the day of the meeting, so I only have to publish them. I also want to put together little synopses of the shows we're going to see -- stuff I can show before the show to give a little info and context.

Anyway, that's all for now. If I get inspired, I'll post again this week.

Current weight: 322.8 lbs
Total weight lost: 5.2 lbs

The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.
-- Barbara Hall

I'm Not Big. You're Just Small.

Electric Goldfish puts my blog to shame. There's something new up there all the time. Meanwhile, here I am with no posts since March. The trick is to post more often about smaller things. It's inevitable that I'm going to have a lot to post about if I don't write anything for three months at a time. Then again, my natural verbosity works against me. Let's see how I do this time...

Misty and I are back on our WeightWatchers diet. Since we last used it, they've altered the system to work better for men. The end result is that i get to eat even more than I did under the old system. That makes it trickier to work out a menu that works for both Misty and I, but I think we're up to it. It'll get easier as we get back into the groove of it. I hope to have more input into the menu this time. This is week one -- again. This time, I'm starting at 325.6 lbs. My goal is 225, at which point I should be able to wear XXL clothes comfortable. Maybe even XL. It's been so long since I've been that small, I really have no idea. All I do know is that some of my 3X clothes are starting to snug up a bit. That just will not do.

I'm enjoying working at Home Shopping Network. The work is challenging and satisfying, and I have a significant amount of control about how I do it. My managers don't bug me, and I don't have to lead anybody. Plus, I wear jeans and tennies to work every day. Also, for the first time, my work will be used by millions of people all over the world. That excites me.

As you might expect, Kay is a big part of my life right now. I'm proud of her health, intelligence, and spirit every time I see her. I'm taking plenty of pictures to show friends and family, and I'm posting most of them online. I've even put up a video on YouTube. Check it out.



I've already got another one to post. Kay is getting very "talkative", and she just found her feet. Good times!

Anybody wanna start a betting pool about when my next post will be?

Current weight: 235.6 lbs
Total weight loss: 2.4 lbs

That’s the miracle of babies, their ability to lay bare the tender, beating hearts of raging assholes.
--Heather Armstrong