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jayfurrIt's Tuesday, October 6.
I'm in Des Plaines, Illinois, for work. I fly home Thursday night -- arriving late, unfortunately, but one takes what flights one can get. Thursday is Carole's 39th birthday but I don't know if I'll get home by midnight. Either way, celebrating will have to wait until Friday evening. I have no idea what we'll do -- in past years she's found the idea of going from one downtown Burlington restaurant or bar to another downtown Burlington restaurant or bar until she's had three or four drinks and three or four appetizers exciting. (On my diet, I expect I'd be having a diet Coke or something and watching her partake, but I'm serious about getting below 195 pounds.)
This weekend is supposed to be sunny, but this many days out that doesn't mean a thing and I'm assuming we'll have torrential downpours. Regardless, we need to get in a training walk to stay loose because that'll be the one-week mark... one week before the Breast Cancer 3-Day in Philadelphia.
Next week I'm doing a three-day workshop via WebEx with an east coast customer, so no travel, and that's cool because we'll be leaving right after work on Wednesday to drive down to North Brunswick, New Jersey. The following morning we have to get up and keep going another 90 minutes or so to Philadelphia to pick up my friend and Breast Cancer 3-Day teammate Sandy Bryant from the Amtrak station in downtown Philly.
We've got to all be in Philadelphia on Thursday even though the 3-Day doesn't kick off until Friday (EAAAAARLY) because we're all going to be flag-carriers in the opening and closing ceremonies and that means they need us to show up at the tail end of the Crew Day training to be walked through the routine for opening and closing. I did opening last year, which was a lot of fun, but this year we'll all be involved and we'll be doing both opening and closing, which will really be all sparkly and stuff. We don't actually have to be in Willow Grove, PA for the ceremony training until 3:30 pm so we'll probably go get lunch somewhere and then go take Carole to see the Liberty Bell or something before heading on out to our hotel and the location for opening.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we'll be doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day. If you're anywhere near Philadelphia and would like to come out and cheer the walkers on at opening, closing, or anywhere along the route, you can read all about spectator opportunities here:
http://www.the3day.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PL_Spectator
Sunday night we'll be among the tired souls who take a shuttle back to Willow Grove, a long way from closing, because that's where we'll have left our car and that's where we'll be staying the night before rising early on Monday to drop Sandy back at the train station and heading back to Vermont ourselves.
And then Tuesday morning, early, I hop planes to Chicago and then Portland, Oregon so I can spend the balance of the week in scenic Beaverton with one of our customers out there.
Whee!
In the meanwhile I've got to remain vigilant on the whole losing weight thing. I have no damn idea at all what I weigh right now because the Hilton Garden Inn I'm in LIED to me, LIED LIED LIED, when they said that there was a scale in the fitness center. There wasn't. Every square inch of floor was taken up with exercise equipment so there was nowhere to put one, for that matter. I weighed 198 Sunday morning and I've been a good boy so far this week, sticking to my 1450-1500 calorie diet, and with any luck when I get home on Thursday night I'll have dropped some more. Got to keep my consumption of birthday cake to a minimum because I'd really, really like to be at 195 on Sunday morning for the final weigh-in under my current stickk.com contract (http://www.stickk.com/members/commitment.php/cid/49577). Proud to report I didn't fail to make my goal weight even once during the contract period -- and rendered the whole question of the George W. Bush Presidential Library getting any of my money moot by reaching my original contract goal when the contract was only just half over... and then kept on heading down.
195 is my 'new' goal weight despite my 'contracted' goal weight of 210. I can't change the contract in midstream but 195 is what will cause me to race out of the house and run laps in the driveway going WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP if I get there. For a 6'2" man, a weight of 195 means a Body Mass Index of 25, and 25 is the point at which you're no longer "overweight".
For safety's sake, though -- I mean, we all know how it's supposed to be so damn hard to keep weight off after you reach a weight goal during a diet -- I can't stop there. I need to get down to 190 or 185 and meanwhile, post 3-Day, really start on building muscle tone in the upper half of my body. My legs are in pretty good shape thanks to all the long distance walking.
So anyway...
Life could be a lot worse. In fact, right now about the only thing that's a major bummer in my life is that Carole's state unemployment ran out without her finding a job and now she's on the federal extension unemployment insurance, and I have no wish to trust that THAT will last forever. She's had interviews recently and I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but she's had really positive interviews in the past and still gotten the Miss Congeniality award -- the call that says "we've made an offer but if they don't accept the job you're our runner-up."
Wish us luck with everything.
I'm in Des Plaines, Illinois, for work. I fly home Thursday night -- arriving late, unfortunately, but one takes what flights one can get. Thursday is Carole's 39th birthday but I don't know if I'll get home by midnight. Either way, celebrating will have to wait until Friday evening. I have no idea what we'll do -- in past years she's found the idea of going from one downtown Burlington restaurant or bar to another downtown Burlington restaurant or bar until she's had three or four drinks and three or four appetizers exciting. (On my diet, I expect I'd be having a diet Coke or something and watching her partake, but I'm serious about getting below 195 pounds.)
This weekend is supposed to be sunny, but this many days out that doesn't mean a thing and I'm assuming we'll have torrential downpours. Regardless, we need to get in a training walk to stay loose because that'll be the one-week mark... one week before the Breast Cancer 3-Day in Philadelphia.
Next week I'm doing a three-day workshop via WebEx with an east coast customer, so no travel, and that's cool because we'll be leaving right after work on Wednesday to drive down to North Brunswick, New Jersey. The following morning we have to get up and keep going another 90 minutes or so to Philadelphia to pick up my friend and Breast Cancer 3-Day teammate Sandy Bryant from the Amtrak station in downtown Philly.
We've got to all be in Philadelphia on Thursday even though the 3-Day doesn't kick off until Friday (EAAAAARLY) because we're all going to be flag-carriers in the opening and closing ceremonies and that means they need us to show up at the tail end of the Crew Day training to be walked through the routine for opening and closing. I did opening last year, which was a lot of fun, but this year we'll all be involved and we'll be doing both opening and closing, which will really be all sparkly and stuff. We don't actually have to be in Willow Grove, PA for the ceremony training until 3:30 pm so we'll probably go get lunch somewhere and then go take Carole to see the Liberty Bell or something before heading on out to our hotel and the location for opening.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we'll be doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day. If you're anywhere near Philadelphia and would like to come out and cheer the walkers on at opening, closing, or anywhere along the route, you can read all about spectator opportunities here:
http://www.the3day.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PL_Spectator
Sunday night we'll be among the tired souls who take a shuttle back to Willow Grove, a long way from closing, because that's where we'll have left our car and that's where we'll be staying the night before rising early on Monday to drop Sandy back at the train station and heading back to Vermont ourselves.
And then Tuesday morning, early, I hop planes to Chicago and then Portland, Oregon so I can spend the balance of the week in scenic Beaverton with one of our customers out there.
Whee!
In the meanwhile I've got to remain vigilant on the whole losing weight thing. I have no damn idea at all what I weigh right now because the Hilton Garden Inn I'm in LIED to me, LIED LIED LIED, when they said that there was a scale in the fitness center. There wasn't. Every square inch of floor was taken up with exercise equipment so there was nowhere to put one, for that matter. I weighed 198 Sunday morning and I've been a good boy so far this week, sticking to my 1450-1500 calorie diet, and with any luck when I get home on Thursday night I'll have dropped some more. Got to keep my consumption of birthday cake to a minimum because I'd really, really like to be at 195 on Sunday morning for the final weigh-in under my current stickk.com contract (http://www.stickk.com/members/commitment.php/cid/49577). Proud to report I didn't fail to make my goal weight even once during the contract period -- and rendered the whole question of the George W. Bush Presidential Library getting any of my money moot by reaching my original contract goal when the contract was only just half over... and then kept on heading down.
195 is my 'new' goal weight despite my 'contracted' goal weight of 210. I can't change the contract in midstream but 195 is what will cause me to race out of the house and run laps in the driveway going WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP if I get there. For a 6'2" man, a weight of 195 means a Body Mass Index of 25, and 25 is the point at which you're no longer "overweight".
For safety's sake, though -- I mean, we all know how it's supposed to be so damn hard to keep weight off after you reach a weight goal during a diet -- I can't stop there. I need to get down to 190 or 185 and meanwhile, post 3-Day, really start on building muscle tone in the upper half of my body. My legs are in pretty good shape thanks to all the long distance walking.
So anyway...
Life could be a lot worse. In fact, right now about the only thing that's a major bummer in my life is that Carole's state unemployment ran out without her finding a job and now she's on the federal extension unemployment insurance, and I have no wish to trust that THAT will last forever. She's had interviews recently and I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but she's had really positive interviews in the past and still gotten the Miss Congeniality award -- the call that says "we've made an offer but if they don't accept the job you're our runner-up."
Wish us luck with everything.
