Major Diet Milestone!

This week I reached a major Milestone in my weight loss goals!

I started on Sept 4th, 2006 at 285 pounds. On January 26th, 2007 I weighed in at 235 pounds. This is a net loss of 50 pounds!

This is officially half way to my ultimate goal of 185.

--Time to step up my exercise program!!

RIP Joe Miller

Hang 'em High

I am watching classics westerns a lot lately.

Today it is Hang 'em High, with Clint Eastwood. Great stuff, espicially un-edited without commercials.

The color is just amazing.

Gotta get this one on DVD.

--Clint is the man!!

Diet Update

As of this morning I weigh 237 pounds. That makes 48 pounds lost so far. My best fitting jeans are 40x30's down from tight 44x30's. I am wearing XL shirts comfortably down from XXL+!

I am going to crush the next 2 pounds and spike them in the endzone!

Maybe this time next week I will be celebrating 50 pounds.

--I gotta start working up a victory dance!

Trial set to start for PETA workers caught euthanizing, dumping cats and dogs

By Harriet Ryan of Court TV

The dog carcasses always appeared late on Wednesday nights, wrapped in black trash bags and stuffed in the Dumpster behind the Piggly Wiggly supermarket.

Over a period of three weeks in the summer of 2005, police officers in the small town of Ahoskie, N.C., pulled the bodies of 80 animals from the trash bin. Some were puppies, some were full-grown. Most were mutts.

On the fourth week, officers set up a stakeout, and when a white van pulled up to the dumpster, they pounced.

If the van's cargo — 10 dead dogs and three dead cats in black bags — was to be expected, its occupants were not. The driver and the passenger were employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the vehicle was registered to the organization.

The workers, Adria Hinkle, 28, and Andrew Cook, 25, were arrested and later indicted on 24 felony charges, including 21 counts of animal cruelty, for injecting lethal doses of an anesthetic into strays they had just collected from county shelters and a veterinarian's office. (Click here for whole story)

--PETA are complete hypocrites!

Kissing Hemmingway

My very excellent friend Kim gave us a gift of this nicely framed, black and white, photo of BR and Me.

I took the picture myself, while on a cruise with BR, in Key West, on a day so beautiful and happy every time I look at it I am happier instantly. Like a Pavlovian Dog, I have an instant association with joy.

A few weeks ago we hung this picture in a perfect place. It just happens that every time I get up to pee I walk by it to get to the bathroom on the main level of the house!

-- Will I begin to associate Joy with a full bladder?

There can be only One!

Solar Science Project!

Brenda had to work yesterday so I had the day to myself. So as expected I turned my eyes on SCIENCE!!

I now have deployed my first solar panel. It powers a light in my utility room that is directly over my breaker panel in the server room. I can't believe how well it works!

But now I have a taste... and I like it.

I wonder how big I can go with the solar panel before my HOA will notice?

--She blinded me with SCIENCE!!

What can make Sunday mornings better you ask?

Letting the wife sleep in while I watch SciFi on TiVo?

Pancakes and Charles Osgood you say?

The joy of warm feet and comfy slippers?

A cat in your lap?

Perfectly made coffee?

All these items make Sundays very excellent. But What makes it even better?

--Knowing you also have tomorrow off from work!!

Yet another one of those copy and paste Lists

1. Elaborate on your default icon. Me in 1978, taken at GCC.
2. What's your current relationship status? Very happily married.
3. Ever have a near-death experience? Yes. Almost killed, not the walk into the light thing.
4. Name an obvious quality you have. Bad knees.
5. What's the name of the song that's stuck in your head right now? World, Five for Fighting
6. Name a celebrity you would marry. Michelle Pfeiffer
7. Who will cut and paste this first? Kim
8. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity? Yes.
9. Do you wear a watch? What kind? No.
10. Do you have anything pierced? No.
11. Do you have any tattoos? No. Lots of scars though...
12. Do you like pain? Nope.
13. Do you like to shop? No.
14. What was the last thing you paid for with cash? Soda. From a machine.
15. What was the last thing you paid for with your credit card? Pizza
16. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? Becky
17. What is on your desktop background? A beautiful series of trees.
18. What is the background on your cell phone? A tree lined lane.
19. What was the last movie you watched? The Ice Harvest
20. What was the last book you read? Biting the Moon by Martha Grimes

Diet Update

I stepped on the scale this morning and was back to 239 pounds. Over the holidays, starting on Dec 22nd, I ate way more than usual. It was celebrations with tons of food and drink and deserts and candy and cookies. There were parties at work, parties at friends as well as multiple birthdays!

It feels good to be back on plan.

I am sleeping better. I am "regular". I am never hungry.

--54 pounds to go!

RIP Lilly Munster

Yvonne de Carlo Goes to the big Haunted House in the Sky.

LOS ANGELES - Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments" but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's slapstick comedy "The Munsters," has died. She was 84.

De Carlo died of natural causes Monday at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said Wednesday.

De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and Westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s. Later, she had a key role in a landmark Broadway musical, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies."

But for TV viewers, she will always be known as Lily Munster in the 1964-1966 horror-movie spoof "The Munsters." The series (the name allegedly derived from "fun-monsters") offered a gallery of Universal Pictures grotesques, including Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, in a cobwebbed gothic setting.

--Lilly will live forever. Say Hi to Fred for us.

Too Much Death for a Sunday

My friend Char's mom died on New Years Day. I went to her funeral today. I had never met her. I was there to support Char, but still it's sad. I spent a lot of time today thinking about my own parents, missing them, thinking of my kids.

On top of that my brother Carl (of Little Troll fame) called me yesterday to tell me his ex-wife Bonnie was found dead in her bed on Saturday morning.

When people die, people I know, people I have laughed with, ate and drank with, people I have hugged, people whose homes I have slept in, I always feel... empty.

I can't say I knew Bonnie very well any more. We were friends in the days when Carl lived on a boat. In days when we never worried if we had too much sun or beer. I have not seen her much in the last ten years, since my mom died. I can't even say I liked her too much, for the things that happened between her and my brother. Now she's gone.

--Another voice I'll never hear again. Hugs to you Bro. Sigh...

Time to buy my house damn you!

You want to buy a lovely 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom townhouse!

It's on the market for $279K. Wish us luck! I hope it goes fast.

--Buy it, you'll like it!

Holidays Are Over

It was back to work today.

Because the Government was shut down today for President Fords funeral it was a light day with no traffic.

Tomorrow I start my day by getting three crowns at the dentist.

--Boy the holidays are sooo over...