Goal!

Yes, that is correct. Last Wednesday I made my WW goal weight! Now I just need to maintain that weight for the next 6 weeks and I will become a Full Lifetime Member of WeightWatchers. I really need to update my picture. I look quite different...at least that's what everybody tells me.

I have now lost 59.6 pounds. Just 2 lbs from my goal! How should I celebrate when I reach it?

Still on Weight Watchers and making good progress.

It has been about a year since I started Weight Watchers at Work. If you had told me I would still be doing this for a year I would have thought you were crazy. But wow! It actually works. In the past year I have lost 55 pounds and am withing 10 pounds of reaching my goal weight. Within the next month or so, I plan to be a lifetime member of WW. Wish me luck.

More on WeightWatchers

Still losing but not as much as I would like. So far, after 4 weeks, I have lost 8 lbs. Not great but not bad either. My biggest problem is not getting any exercise. I need to move more.

Weight Watchers

I joined Weight Watchers two weeks ago tomorrow. The first week I lost 5.6 lbs. Not too surprising. I have a lot to loose. I am watching what I eat more. Eating some fruits and veggies for a change. WW has two plans, Flex and Core. On Core there is a set list (albeit a rather long one) of things you can eat. You can eat as much as you want (within reason). On Flex, you can eat whatever you want. Everything, and I mean everything has a point value (though some things like veggies, salsa, diet drinks, etc. are all zero) and you stay within you point value for the day. You get an extra 35 points to use throughout the week. Since I'm a big guy, I get a lot of points, 39. A slice of bread has 2 points, a beer or glass of wine 2 points. A sausage and egg biscuit from McDonalds has 12 points so I don't do that often though I could if I wanted. I would just have to watch it for the rest of the day. It seems like a really good program. So far so good.

New Appliances installed!

They came, delivered and conquered...the good appliance folks from Lakeside Appliance that is. They arrived about 9:00 AM. First they removed the ancient Jen Air drop in range. They had to do some cutting, sawing, etc. to make room for the new slide in range/cook top. Seems the the existing space wasn't quite wide enough. They did it with great efficiency and little mess. Next they installed the microwave. They had to install a new outlet and drill some holes but it went in pretty smooth. It is a combo convection/microwave and I really like it. Smart, good looking, easy to operate. Next they added a new outlet for the range as the old range was hard wired. That done, they installed the range and moved on the the dishwasher. They went in pretty smoothly as well. They finished up around 12:30 and were on their merry way. Later that day however I realized that our AC was no longer working. I filed a claim on line with the home warranty folks. They had someone here by 8:15 AM the next morning. He checked it out and discovered I needed a new motor for the fan in the outside compressor unit. It was a bit warm for the next couple of days but not too bad. We persevered and by Monday morning around 9:30 they had come back, installed a new motor and capacitor and everything was up and running. I was considering not renewing that warranty contract but now I think I will go ahead.

Tomorrow is the big day. That's right, I am getting delivery of a new GE Profile range, microwave and dishwasher. Yesterday I spent the evening getting the space ready for the Microwave and Oven. I removed the existing range hood and cut away about an inch and a half of the cabinet above to raise the microwave (when it is installed) just a bit. I also cut out the toe kick at the bottom of the range. The existing range is a Jen Air drop-in and the new one is a slide-in. I will report back and let you all know how the install went.

Wow!!!
If you have never tried skydiving, you really should. It is something I always wanted to do and so I did a couple of weeks ago. It was a tandem jump so I had an experienced instructor (over 5000 jumps) strapped to my back. We jumped from 2.5 miles up and did a free-fall for about a minute. It was super! I highly recommend it. Visit the SkyDiveOrange website here: http://skydiveorange.com/

This is the first entry of my new blog. I just finished reading an excellent document from the IBM Center for The Business of Government titled "The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0" and I figured I better "get with it".