New Week, New Weight Loss Challenge

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Ok, so I’ve been very bad lately.

Not exercising, eating large portions, multiple portions, large, multiple, takeout portions – and it needs to stop. Same old blame game – stress, no time, no motivation, laziness … but it’s time to stop before it’s too late because I’m now starting to gain weight again and I reallydon’t want to put on another fifteen or twenty pounds before I catch on and fess up. So I’m going to start somewhat slow and see where it takes me – here are my goals for next week:

  • no eating out at all (this will by far be the most severe because I ate out almost every day last week, sometimes more than once a day)
  • really fight to control cravings & snacking
  • limited soda (diet), mostly water (this should be easy because I’ve only got one can left in the fridge and I have no desire to go back to the store)
  • exercise on two separate occasions for at least an hour
  • no going to bed at 2:30-3:00am (hard because Sara’s working so late, but it’s partially to blame for my crazy schedule and random eating so I need to get back in line)I want to really try to kick up the exercise in October because I have a follow-up doctor’s appointment mid-month and would love to show that I’ve lost a significant amount of weight, but I also know that I can’t go into next week thinking that I have to workout three or four times because it just won’t happen right off the bat. I think three’s a possibility if I absolutely make it tomorrow, but baby steps for now.

    Here we go again…

a very good weekend

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Sara’s been working just crazy hours lately … try not getting home until 2:00am … by choice, though, to help pay off bills and get us moved next month. The good part about that is the money has been helpful and somewhat of an end is in sight, the bad that we rarely ever get to see each other except for an hour here or there or on the weekend! In fact, this was the first weekend in a while that she’s had both days off, so to say that it was a good weekend is a bit of an understatement…

evening fun at the Magic Kingdom
Last night we went over to Disney (yes, again…) to check out the refurbishments at the Haunted Mansion. Technically they re-opened last weekend, but we only had time for a few hours then and were more in the mood for Epcot anyways, but this was just as good. I think we maybe waited five minutes to get in the door, only because the cut-off was literally right before us, but we were still in momentarily. As for the updates, it was kind of hard for me to distinguish what has changed just because it’s been so long since I’ve ridden, but there were a lot of really cool effects – namely the MC Escher room with the stairs and the floating crystal ball. I’m sure there were other changes, but I wouldn’t know.

Other than that, it rained a bit and we learned where the best places to watch the electric parade and fireworks aren’t, but it was still a good time. We ended up getting park-wide fast passes at Big Thunder Mountain because it shut down right before we were about to board, so we rode Space Mountain instead and then tried our hands at Buzz Lightyear on three separate runs – always good times! Rounding off the evening with ice cream at Ghiradelli at Downtown Disney, it was a nice, little getaway from the stressful world that Tampa has been recently.

Ant Attack
Our kitchen is currently seeing the aftermath of a massive sugar ant invasion. I uncovered swarm after swarm while doing dishes yesterday, which lead to a spraying down of the entire counter area, less the stovetop…which they’ve all made refuge to at this point. Sara sprayed some really nasty stuff around the door where they’ve been coming in when we got home, so while we may be dead from the fumes by morning, with any luck so will the ants. Keep your fingers crossed…

We have an officiant!
Of course, the biggest news is that as of about 3:00pm this afternoon, we now officially have an officiant for our wedding, which given all the problems and roadblocks we’ve had on this road in the past, is quite the relief! I was very pleased because although I’m more touchy about this part because of my own beliefs, the Reverrend was very helpful and is intent on helping us create a ceremony that’s just right for us. As we walked out the door, I told Sara that I wish more religious folks were like him because he ended up being very easy to talk to and needless to say, this part has been particularly apprehensive to me! I also learned more from this guy about weddings in the hour and a half we sat with him than from everyone else who’s tried to sell us their services along the way – I’d definitely recommend him to anyone else who’s in need of an officiant, and our ceremony’s still over a year away!

End with a relaxing evening…
After running a boatload of errands around town, we finally made it home and have enjoyed the last several hours just chilling, eating dinner, watching the premieres of The Simpsons and Family Guy on FOX … the Family Guy rendition of Star Wars is now quite possibly one of my favorite episodes ever! Tomorrow we both go back to work – back to the real world, and all of the chaos that it offers. But hope is in sight on many distinct fronts – I’ve been writing more lately, so my website might go back up this year yet; Sara’s car and my furniture may very well get paid off this year yet, even though we found even more new furniture that we’d like for the new house while we were out today!; and in another month, we will get to pack all of this stuff up and move. Busy times, those are the days of our lives…

career options…

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Everyone else seems to be doing this – looked kinda interesting, so I thought I’d give it a whirl…

1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com
2. Log in as nycareers with password landmark
3. Take the Career Matchmaker quiz and list the top 10 results (I’m posting the top 20 because some of my preferred missing the top 10…)

Those of some actual interest to me are in bold…

1. Website Designer
2. Desktop Publisher
3. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
4. Animator
5. Multimedia Developer
6. Computer Animator
7. Market Research Analyst
8. Critic
9. Communications Specialist
10. Print Journalist
11. Translator
12. Medical Illustrator
13. Public Relations Specialist (not for just any company, though…)
14. Graphic Designer
15. Artist
16. Writer
17. Video Game Developer
18. Webmaster
19. Interior Designer
20. Editor

At least it’s kinda good to know that I’m not better suited for construction work or something!

red sky @ Epcot

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Sara and I went over to Epcot this evening for dinner and fireworks, and during our trip around the World Showcase saw one of the coolest … and most bizarre … sunsets that I’ve seen in a while…

free Netflix trial again…

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http://www.netflix.com/Default?mqso=80015521&nfso=63868963

Netflix is doing free trials again – this time a full month long – and we’re even getting a free rental for each referral this time around, thank you! Sara and I have been using Netflix since last fall and we both think it’s a great service. With the $14.99 plan, we can each have a movie out at the same time and get unlimited rentals per month, so I can sit on mine for three weeks if I want and it won’t slow her down from getting new titles just as fast as she cares to watch them. And I just checked our totals – we’ve rented just under 50 DVDs since last November – which I guess would be about equal to paying Blockbuster $4 a piece for them, except of course for the convenience, the selection, and the fact that Blockbuster is a bunch of evil jerks.

Feel free to use the above referral link if you want to try it out for yourself. As far as DVD rentals are concerned, Netflix is the best there is…

analyze this…

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So I finally installed Google Analytics on a couple of my sites this evening – namely L7 Comix and Just Laugh – just to see how it does. One of my long-standing concerns about running sites in general is that every single stat program seems to come up with different numbers and in not getting anything to match up, I’ve always wondered about the true performance of my sites.

Anyways, I’d heard cool things about Google’s offering when it first came out, but never put forth the time to even try to get in on the beta, so I’ll be curious to see what kind of traffic it wants to report. At least with L7 Comix, the ads are coming from Google as well, so you would think they should be a pretty good indicator; I might even consider moving Just Laugh over to AdSense eventually, too, if they can show me that it might be worthwhile to switch. Then again, that’s another thing on the ever-so-long list of creative tasks to undertake – rebuild at least parts of Just Laugh so that I can at least make a little money off of the people that still visit for the jokes, despite that the rest of the site hasn’t updated in years.

One thing at a time, there, kid… 🙁

what I’m watching…

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Welcome to fall!

Weeds
This show has gotten crazy! Maybe it was just too good over the first two seasons, but after that stunning finale last fall, I had my doubts that they’d be able to continue with a storyline worth following and so far, I’ve kinda been right. I mean, it’s just hard to top such a climactic finale like that, and then to have Nancy running errands for the guy who jacked her last season – it’s kind of my same problem with Entourage this season … too serious with not nearly enough humor underneath. Last season may have been intense, but it also had some great lighter moments, too, whereas this one just seems to have U-Turn cussing, “Where’s my money, bitch?!” every five minutes and because he didn’t earn it, I don’t have any respect for that.

And I know that “the real drug world” probably isn’t very “kid friendly,” but this is TV – lighten up a little!

Top Chef
I literally got hooked on this show during a marathon over Labor Day weekend and watched pretty much every episode ever since. There was another one like this on the Food Network that I probably would’ve enjoyed, but just caught the tail end of, but this one has been fun so far, too. They’ve been cooking a lot of stuff that sounds fancy, but still contains things that I’ve heard of – which is one of the primary factors in obtaining my interest when you’re a cooking-type show!

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Season premiere was last night and … it was ok. I really enjoyed seeing new Curb after almost two years of hiatus (keep in mind that I didn’t really start watching this show until season 4 was on the air and then proceeded to go through the On Demand offerings like mad…), but it just seemed to lack a little punch compared to other episodes. Then again, a single episode in is just way too early to judge, so I’m still hoping for the best!

The 4400
This is the sci-fi show that Sara got me hooked on last year, but I’m sad to say that I’ve been really disappointed with it overall this season. The plotline has been very dark and borderline creepy as those from the future have been playing a more prominent role in the story, and there’s not a whole lot of discovering new abilities as much anymore as everyone’s just fighting with everyone else, and I can watch that on the news any day of the week. There’s only one more episode left this season and I really hope that it can help reverse some of this to help keep my interest, but I don’t know…

Bridezillas
Call it a guilty pleasure, but watching this show I guess kinda makes me appreciate everything that Sara isn’t as far as wedding planning is concerned! I’d love to know what they have to do to pay these people off so they can still use their footage at the end of taping because I don’t see how any of them could have any friends left after this stuff airs! Needless to say, I will not be wearing a crown on my wedding day, nor will Sara subject all of her bridesmaids to trying on a glass slipper prior to her arrival…

Entourage
I’ve got to say, this hasn’t exactly been the best of seasons as far as I’m concerned. I was certainly glad that Ari came back into the picture because he was a key part of the show, but I also just hate the Billy Walsh character to the point where I really don’t care for him being on the show anymore. The show’s supposed to be a light-hearted Hollywood story that always ends each episode with that cheery, the boys are all together and everything’s alright feeling, but when was the last time Vince had a paying movie? I hope they pick things up next season because struggling to pay bills vs. living the rich, movie star life – it isn’t too hard to guess which most would prefer to watch.

Hogan Knows Best
I just started watching this tonight because, yes, another marathon on TV, but out of all of the horrible VH-1 programming that Lori watched while she was here, at least we can say that Hulk Hogan seems to be a pretty decent guy. Some might know that his family has a house nearby in Clearwater – that would be the place shown on the show before they moved to Miami – and the son has been in the paper a lot recently because he wrapped one of his sports cars around a palm tree. But regardless, we all know that I need just a little reality TV in my life at all times – why not let it be a dude with good morals and the ability to dropkick anyone who doesn’t agree with him?!

Looking forward to…
• The Office
• Dexter
• The Simpsons
• Family Guy