Ma and Pa's Blog

Bad tech Karma this AM.   First my Ainol (pronounced “anal”?) tablet crashed.   I was deleting apps to free up some memory when the screen went dark and wouldn’t come back.   Then (within about five minutes) the hinge on my Chromebook Cr-48 totally disengaged — leaving the screen dangling by a couple cables on each side.    What next?

I found the reset key combo online, and that did restore the Ainol.

Then, I found a fix for the hinge.   Unfortunately, it involved reinforcing the brackets with epoxy BEFORE they break.   This was, needless to say, too late for me

While Marty was grocery shopping, I pondered alternatives.   My chosen fix involved a couple sheet metal screws and a strip of oak. Now my Chromebook has a wood trim piece on the exterior.   But, for now, the hinges are secure and work smoothly.

Fingers crossed.

Ben & Steph were there, too — but they evaded the camera.   Sorry, Ben, no pics of the brake job.

After more than a year on “LoseIt” and losing 50 or so pounds, you’d think I’d be pretty good at figuring out this diet shit. But no. I’ve lapsed somewhat in my logging every bite I eat–not serious, mind you: just maybe forgetting to log EVERY ounce of Pinot Noir, or counting each and every almond I ingest. No big lapses, really. And while  I’ve hit the longest plateau in the history of dieting, I also realize I’m going to have to add some exercise, which is a lot easier with the coming of nicer weather. These are not mind-blowing revelations to me.
But I’ve gained almost 4 pounds in the past 10 days and, while I knew I wasn’t eating rabbit food, I also didn’t have any major binges and stayed within my calories allowed. WTF?
Fortunately I’d continued logging my foods daily and, when I looked back on  the past week, I realized I’d been eating more “white” than I have in a year: white flour (rolls and buns), with some sugar (in said rolls and buns) and white rice. Every day, at least one meal had some white. Now, I’d identified this as a problem months ago, but I had not realized what an impact these foods could have on my overall weight loss and general feeling of well-being.
Even after a year, I am amazed at how insidiously this shit crept back into my diet.We walked (strolled) in the park today, and I didn’t eat more than a quarter of the fantastic croissant that came with my lunch salad.
Back on track and I expect to get rid of the 4 lbs. in a week or so. Without giving up my wine.
Since starting this diet, I always said that cheese is the devil. But I have to amend that to add white food. Lesson learned.

We enjoyed a brief visit with Mike, Caleb and Owen yesterday.   As you can see, the weather was fantastic!   We enjoyed some outdoor play, some Uno, the original Muppet Movie, 5th generation Catsup Steak (thanks Mike), and more.    Miss the boys and Mike and Jenn today.   Glad everyone got home safely (the weather did make for most pleasant trips both ways).   Photos are all courtesy of Martha … she really was there.

I’d not seen this before, and thought you’d enjoy it.   Kelly’s practice was named again among the Best Doctors in Cleveland Magazine (see Matt’s Facebook post) .   The video is featured on the practice’s homepage.

I cannot believe that anyone watches movies on commercial TV anymore!  Last evening I tried to watch “Se7en” on Spike Network. Between 10:20 PM and the movie’s conclusion at 11:00 PM, it felt like I watched 3 minutes of ads for every minute of movie;  i.e. 10 or 12 minute conclusion stretched to 45 minutes!  While the ordeal lessened the feelings of tension caused by the movie,  I expect my blood pressure rose even more over the huge waste of time and over the network’s total lack of regard for the viewer.   I <3 Netflix!

We really enjoyed watching Caleb’s game today.   Caleb had a couple shots reach the rim and did a great job on defense.   Good hustle!  Afterward we had a wonderful lunch at Lulu’s — Caleb’s choice.    Owen demonstrated his “tooth wiggle” — it’ll be coming out SOON!  The drive down was a little dicey due to the weather, but the return trip was much better.   In all, it was a very good day.   Thanks for having us, Mike, Jen, Caleb and Owen!

I’ve been away this week … Ma reminded me yesterday.   To recap:

• 2 days uploading vacation pics and video
• 1 day installing and tweaking MintPPC on Ma’s old Powerbook
• 1 early wake-up downloading and installing ChromeOS update on my CR-48
• 1 evening re-installing and updating OSX on the Powerbook

Successes:

• the vacation pics and video are online
• Linux Mint ran on the Powerbook, including wifi, Firefox (Iceweasel), Gimp, AbiWord
• the ChromeOS update seems to have fixed the wifi dropout problem that I was convinced was a hardware problem
• OSX is back and up-to-date on the Powerbook

Failures:

• Linux Mint was worse than OSX on the Powerbook.   Still no current Flash and no Chrome, and there were shutdown, overheating, and fast battery drain issues.
• I was again unaware of my absence until reminded by Ma.

Done “geeking”.

This seems so redundant, but, if anyone’s missed it, we have a blog documenting out recent trip to visit Jeff, Anna-Marie and Sebastian. We had a great visit and great trips coming and going on Amtrak.

Blog Documenting Our Trip

Caleb and Owen seemed to thoroughly enjoy watching Elf with us last evening.   I think the adults were enjoying it as well … at least this one was.   I think it might get added to our Christmas classics short list.