Friday, June 12, 2009

My Weight Loss Journey

Ok, I know that I said that I wasn't going to do any bragging because that always screws it up but I just can't help it.

Ok, here is how it has been going down.  Last year in October I started riding my bike with the intention of eventually getting to the bike trail.  I was doing 1 mile a day and gradually I went to 3 miles then 5 an so on until eventually I was doing 10 miles a day on average.  Then I had my accident.  Ok so I started out at 244 and then I went down to 227.  That's 17lbs.  Pretty good right?  Well then because of the accident I stopped riding until April.

From November 20th the date of the accident until April 14th when I finally started riding again I had gained 10lbs.  So I was now 237.  So I start riding again and now it's June 12th, today was weigh in day and I weighed in at 221lbs.  Well, if you count starting in October at 244lbs then my weight loss is 23lbs total.

Or, you could think of it this way, I gained 10lbs and I lost it again so technically I lost more than 23lbs lol.  Ok yeah I didn't think that would fly.  Or you might think well technically since April at 237 and now I'm 221 I've only lost 16lbs.  Well, whatever, I could from 244 to 221.

But, that was my weight this morning.  You are supposed to weigh yourself in the morning after you do your "duty" in the bathroom lol.  Who made up that rule?  Ok so that was 221 BUT... before dinner I weighed myself again and I was 220 WOOHOO lol.

My point is, I made it out of the 240's, I made it out of the 230's and now, I'm almost out of the 220's and that is all that matters.  I cannot wait to get into the 210's so that I can get into the 200's and so on.

Ok, enough bragging for one day.  If I keep bragging then I will jinx myself and I don't want to risk that lol.

Free Bike Tripod

It seems that our tool shed attached to the back of the garage seems to be more useful than I ever thought.  Before Stargate SG-1 came on today I went out there hoping to be able to make a homemade tripod for the bicycle handlebars and I wasn't quite able to make something that was acceptable.  There was a 50/50 chance that it could still fall off and break lol.

So I came in the house and watched SG-1 and while I was watching it I started thinking more about it.  I wondered if maybe there was a screw that would fit in the camera on the bottom.  So I patiently waited for it to end then ran out there lol.

I was right, there was one that was the perfect size and it was long enough, although it could've been longer but it ended up being the right fit.

I was going to use the technique that I found here and I tried, I had an old dollar light that the light had broken years ago and I kept the mount for it for this very purpose.  I got the nut out, drilled the hole in it no problem.  But, when I put the screw in and then tried to tighten it the plastic broke so that was no good.

So then I went back into the tool shed and I started thinking what to do next.  I have a new dollar light so I thought well, I guess I'm just going to have to use that and just buy another one.  However, as I was trying to take out the nut I glanced over at the cabinet in the indoor patio which has tools in it and saw the garden hose repair stuff.  A light bulb turned on above my head.  I looked at the light mount and told it that it was it's lucky day and that it has gotten a reprieve, for now.

 So I grabbed the green garden hose piece that has 2 screws, 1 on each side and it mounts on the outside of the hose then I took it out to the table in the back where my drill was already set up with the right size drill bit and I held the hose piece inside my finger while I drilled into 1 of the screw holes.  Perfect.

I put a little piece of rubber inside the top part of it then put it onto the handlebar and screwed in 1 side with the screw it came with then I put in my long screw that fits perfectly into the camera and I put a nut on and tightened it at the perfect angle.  Then I put another nut on the screw so when I put the camera onto the screw then I just tighten the 2nd nut to keep the camera in place.

Here is a picture:hpnx1204

So tomorrow when I go out on my bike ride I will have the camera inside the camera bag right inside the Townie Basket and then as soon as I get to the bike trail I will mount the camera and then start filming from there.  It's much safer to ride with the camera attached while on the bike trail.  I'm just too paranoid that I'm going to have an accident on the streets then have the camcorder fall and break into 10 million pieces.  Besides, I'd rather just focus the video on the bike trail and not the streets.

WordPress 2.8 Upgrade Issues

Just giving a heads up that yesterday I tried to upgrade my WordPress to version 2.8 and it gave me nothing but problems.  Before I did the upgrade I backed my entire blog folder onto the computer just in case and it was a good thing that I did because I ended up having to delete the blog folder completely and replace it.

It's not back to the way it was though, I'm having issues with uploading photos and when the blog loads in internet exploder there are errors on the page.

I am going to wait a week to see if WordPress decides to fix the issue and give us a new file to download.  I say "us" because apparently I'm not the only person having issues with it.