Diet - Week 1 Weigh In

242.8 pounds. Not the heaviest I've ever been but within 10 pounds of that mark, so a good time to start moving back down the scale.

I'm not going to measure my waist or anything, that's just too depressing.

And no pictures tonight. Working on a huge deadline for work so that's been consuming me. Maybe I'll snap a pic this weekend. Something really unflattering like you always see as the before photo on those commercials. Y'know, the ones you look at and say, "really, you couldn't find a better picture?"

So, are we having fun yet?

ok, so it's the 21st...

I realize that in my last post I promised something by the 20th and in my usual blogging fashion I have missed that deadline. I realize I also may have built it up a bit too much. Because what I'm basically announcing is...

a diet

Yes, you read that correctly. In about 3 months I'm going to turn 35 and I'm tired of being as large as I am, I'm tired of getting winded walking up stairs, I'm tired of not fitting into T-shirts that I used to be able to wear... but mostly I'm just tired.

Thing is, diets work for me, been on quite a few in my time. It's when the diet "ends" and I gain it all back that's the bad part. And the reason I gain it all back is that whatever I was doing to lose the weight has ended and I'm right back in my old tricks.

So the strategy now is not a diet so much as a complete change in the way I eat. I've been working on a "10 Commandments" type document that I plan to make my eating credo from here forward. I'll post it in my next post once I polish off the rough bits. It's nothing trendy like South Beach or extreme like Atkins, just a list of rules to govern what goes in my mouth based on basic nutrition and the fact that while I know better, I've been ignoring the part of me saying "don't eat that second Twinkie". Heck, apparently I've also been ignoring the part of me saying "don't eat that Twinkie" the first time around.

My goal is to lose 30 pounds in the next 3 months. That's 10 pounds per month or roughly 2.5 pounds per week. I'm going to post my weight here to keep me motivated and honest, maybe even post some pictures. I was thinking about also posting my daily meals, but that might be overkill and I'd probably get sick of doing it and fall back into my old ways if that happened. Any advice or motivation from the 4 people reading is greatly appreciated.

1st weigh in and photo tomorrow. See you then.

What the hell happened to June?

I just realized that it's been almost a month since I last updated this blog. Damn.

Y'know, you start out the year all revved up and swearing that you'll contribute more to the endless rambling of the blogosphere and then you end up doing noble things offline instead and forget about the inter-people.

Seriously though, June was a quick one, not least of which was due to the fact that I spent most of it getting ready for a week-long conference in Anaheim where I was presenting GS1 Data Standards to my company's members. Lots of build-up for a 1 hour presentation that was at lunchtime 4 hours before the opening General Session. Yeah, we had a whole 10 people show up. But hey, they got what they came for. :)

Beyond that.. what else has been going on?

I saw Star Trek a second time. I always find a second viewing interesting because I can completely ignore the story and instead focus on the little details that make a film a richer, even if you were completely oblivious to them the first time around. Like the Tribble in the cage next to Scotty on the ice planet. Completely missed it the first time, but you really can't ignore the "trilling" sound when you know it's there. Apparently there's an R2D2 in the ship wreckage as the Enterprise enters Vulcan space, but I wasn't able to see it.

Perhaps the coolest "little detail" was in fact quite little, but definitely the type of attention to detail that wins points from me: the pattern on the fabric used to make the Starfleet uniforms. At first I thought it was just some hounds-tooth or snakeskin-type design, but at one point you get a really close-up shot of Spock's shoulder and there it is, clear as day:

Yup, that's a bunch of tiny little Starfleet insignias. How cool is that?

Anyway, moving on, back down on Earth, we've been getting along pretty well. My parents spent the last half of June out here with a side trip to Florida in the middle. We all went up to the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord (a hotel with an indoor water park that's only open to guests). Connor loved it (and so did we!) July 3rd we took in the fireworks at the Charlotte Symphony performance in South Park. Connor wasn't so thrilled with that, especially the really loud fireworks and the screamers. I tried to convince him they were just bubbles... loud, exploding, fiery bubbles I guess... and that seemed to calm him down.

Along the way, he turned 19 months old. Here's a bunch of pics from his 19th month.

More posts soon, I've got something big in the works that I'll post on or before 7/20... It will be a huge thing for me, assuming I can pull it off... so I leave you with something to look forward to.

Carl's Guide to TOS Movies in JJ Abrams' Alternate Trek Universe

[Warning: SPOILERS]

For those Trekkers who are consumed by trying to figure out how Abrams will reconcile the events that take place in the first 6 Star Trek movies with the storyline for any possible sequel, I offer the following:

Thrown off course by the gravity of the 2 newly created black holes, V'Ger (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) goes off course and veers away from Earth. It encounters and destroys the SS Botany Bay (The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock), the Whale Probe (The Voyage Home) and the Klingon moon Praxis (Undiscovered Country). Sybok perished on Vulcan, because god forbid we have to relive The Final Frontier. Finally realizing it's waaaay off course, V'Ger course corrects and runs smack into the Planet Killer (TOS: The Doomsday Machine) and they mutually annihilate.


There you have it, case closed, kwitcher-bitchin.

... yeah and monkeys will warp out of my ass.

To Boldly Go...

Saw Star Trek on Saturday. Those who know me gasp and say "you waited until the third weekend?!?!" Well, we had passes and a babysitter so third weekend it was.

Great flick. Yeah, there are some plot holes big enough to fly the ship through and there's a lot of Trek canon that goes out the window and for some reason there's a brewery in the engineering section... but putting all that aside it was a pretty much non-stop ride that I didn't want to end.

But then it did, and it left me wondering: What are they going to do in the sequel?

Because, honestly, that's where the real movie is going to be my friends.

Think about it, this was a reboot. Sure, we knew how the characters originated... um, originally, but with the "alternate timeline" (that they just about bash you over the head with in the script trying to explain it) the origins were altered and had to be revisited. The original crew had to end up on the ship. And the main characters had to have their motivations flushed out for us to empathize with them during their pivotal moments.

But now that that's all out of the way, the sequel's all about the bad guy. Think about it in some recent flicks:

Spider-Man:
First Movie: Green Goblin
Second Movie: Doc Ock

Batman:
First Movie: Ra's Al Ghul & The Scarecrow
Sequel: The Joker

You tell me which were the better baddies.

But the baddest baddie in the whole damn Trek town is Khan, and there is NO WAY that Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman would even dare to touch that for fear of half the Vegas Star Trek Con audience rushing their stage to bludgeon them to death.

Which leaves us to wonder who the next bad guy will be.

My money says that it's going to be a Klingon. Federation's supposed to be at war with them anyway, so it makes sense. Regardless, I'm excited for the sequel.

Live long and prosper. Or should I say "Good Luck".

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Yeah, it's been a while.

And that fact, frankly, has been keeping me away.

Because there's a ton of stuff I'd love to tell you about that's happened since February.

Like Connor's now walking and talking.

And ... well that's been pretty consuming in itself.

So instead of taking the time to type up all the juicy details of the past 3 months, I'm just going to start anew.

Yup. Anew.

Blog Update

I've been reprimanded for not updating my blog. So here's an update.

It's sunny out today, beautiful weather.

I feel good and the family is fine.

Happy, Mike?