Here I am two weeks into the diet 16 pounds down, woohoo! Our cow from Twist Of Fate farm arrived so our stock of beef is plentiful and it tastes great! No more store bought beef for us. Once you go fresh you’ll never go back Same goes for the fresh eggs we picked up, no more weak ass yokes that keep braking.

Gyming continues daily, I had to skip a day this week so I could get my car serviced. I am getting better at squats lol, for some reason that was the hardest thing so far to learn for me. And my right arm/chest is much weaker than my left side. Very strange since I’m a righty, and annoying when I’m trying to keep the bar level benching.

We tried doing our walk at night yesterday, let’s just say we’ll be doing that at the track from now on.

Oh how can I forget to mention Heinz one carb ketchup!! When asked by Jay last week what I missed most I had to say ketchup because it was something I used a lot and had to cut. Low and behold we found my savior at the grocery store. I was afraid I would stop eating hamburgers because they were just too bland with no bun or sauce. I am very happy to squeeze a carb into my rations for this. And it tastes exactly like normal ketchup. No reason to be eating all that sugar in the normal stuff for anybody out there
Well off to the gym for me…

Tags: diet

Once you think Apple can’t do any worse with the iPhone they pull the curtains aside and unleash another angry dragon. I swear they have been reading the Microsoft playbook lately because I can not even put into words how astonished I am with their level of incompetence with the 2.x releases of the iPhone firmware (and any service related: me.com).

So my fun filled adventure started last night around 10pm… I have a first gen iPhone running the joke of a firmware 2.0.1. I plug my iPhone into my computer (which I have avoided like the plague because it takes hours, yes you read that right, HOURS to sync the damned thing).

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Tags: iphone

My ‘06 Acura TL went into the shop today for it’s 50k mile service and to take care of some other minor things. To my surprise I got a nice loaner for the day, a 2008 Acura TL with a Nav and automatic. Pretty close to my 06 just not a manual transmission.

It looks pretty much the same as mine, a few refreshes to the exterior, the gauges in the cockpit are nicely done, I like how they look, and the MID (multi information display) is much better. On mine it’s very bland lettering, I would describe it as alarm clock numbering format. The new one looks like a real font with smooth edges. The buttons to control the MID are moved from behind the steering wheel on the dash to being on the steering wheel itself. Nice change, I like it, no more feeling around with my fingers to find those darn buttons.

Of course I miss my manual, and driving this auto just further cements my absolute need for manual. I had the 2002 and 2003 TLs which offered nothing but automatic, and I could never go back. I am a manual stick shifter at heart. It is interesting to watch the tac and watch the shift points. Under low torque it will up shift around 1500 rpm, higher torque it holds out till close to 3100 rpm. The final-drive ratio is noticeably lower than my manual. At 80mph it’s only pushing 2000/2100 rpms, whereas my manual is pushing 2500/2600 rpms. Oh how I wish I had a seventh gear But on the flip side it doesn’t ever seem to downshift to assist with engine braking power, it’s 98% brakes to slow this auto down. And if you know Acura they are not known for having sufficient brakes on these heavy TLs. Essentially until recently it was the exact same rotor/pad/caliper setup that is used on the Accord lines. Hmm heavier car needs bigger brakes u’d think hehe

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Tags: acura

It really feels like Apple rushed the 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 firmware updates out the door ahead of their time. Hello doesn’t this sound familiar me.com? I won’t even go into that catastrophe of a launch. All Apple did there is prove they can’t run an online service and you are better off shopping elsewhere for your needs. People were without email for more than 2 weeks HAHAHAHAHAHAH OMG I wouldn’t know where to start ripping them a new ass over that one. If 1 hour downtime in email is on the verge of unacceptable by today’s standards, what do you call 2 weeks? Service no longer reliable, pull the rip cord and leave them behind!

Back to the iPhone… there are so many more bugs and crashes than the rock stable 1.1.4. Let’s see if I can run down the list that I can remember off the top of my head.

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Tags: bugs, iphone

Well one week is in the bag since I started the diet and exercising. I’ve lost 10 pounds and 2 inches on my waist. I’m pretty happy so far. I’m still getting up early and walking with Jay, going to the gym every night.

I haven’t really had any cravings, but I’ve got to start experimenting with some new recipes to get some variety in my foods. Maybe I’ll try one of those BBQ sauce recipes. I need some type of condiment to compliment my meals, only so many plain hamburger patties can be consumed with nothing on them before they start to get boring hehe

I found a Jicama at a larger Hannaford a few exists away, still gotta cook that bad boy up and see how it tastes, maybe I’ll do that tonight.

It is a strange feeling for me to be going to bed before midnight and waking up while there is still morning dew covering the lawn. I haven’t woken up early like this since I was in charge of opening the computer labs in the morning at high school haha. Oh the good ol’ days of running the Mac Lab

Well here’s hoping the diet and exercising continues at a good pace!

Tags: diet, exercise

Well the first day of the new ‘lifestyle’ went fine, gym workout was good - arms and back. We were hoping to see someone get litup by lightening but the storm didn’t develop, hehe

I’m transitioning myself to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier, big change for me! I usually work a later schedule so I miss traffic. Then I get sucked into watching episode after episode of TNG. Hopefully I’ll start getting up early enough to start going on walks before heading to work.

And what happens today at work? They decide to throw an ice cream celebration party! I wonder if my hard boiled egg crushed in a bowl would pass as icecream haha

Tags: diet, exercise

I guess it was inevitable that one day I would wake up and decide I had to get over my distaste for the common vegetable and start down the road of getting into shape. Well the day has come and indeed I turned a new leaf today.  I will be putting my own strength and perseverance to the test.

I have in the past few years gone through periods of getting rid of something unhealthy that I consumed too much of, with soda high on that list, but I never really stuck to it. Like many American children I got hooked on soda at a young age and the consumption rate only grew. So I would go on these few month spats where I would slowly move away from soda to energy drinks (gatorade/vitamin water) then eventually to only drinking water. Then once I was down to water I would try to cut down on my sugar intake, yes I have a horrible sweat tooth.

Well this time around I said what the heck, why not go the extra step and make it official… go on a diet and add exercising to the menu. I’ve never really been a workout geek so this will be a new experience in more than one way

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Tags: diet, exercise

So I had released one of my projects under the GPL license and since I was a longtime browser of sourceforge I had decided to use them. Well low and behold they allowed a hostile takeover of the project and then further allowed them to delete all traces of it! All the svn code checkins, source, bug lists, email lists, documentation…. gone poof no sign of them.

Now doesn’t that kind of go against the spirit of OPEN SOURCE!! (Not to mention the GPL License Terms for heavens sake!!!!).

So I moved my project to googlecode.com and couldn’t be happier, googlecode is so much easier to use and much faster. And you don’t have to go through the insane submission and approval process that sourceforge makes you do.

I will never again use SourceForge for any projects!

Tags: opensource, projects

Well it’s been some time since the iPhone 2.0 was released but I just got almost everything working the way I wanted - without having to upgrade to the 3G and without having to upgrade my data plan.

The new 3G iPhone just isn’t worth the increase in monthy cost. At a minimum it is $10/month more and I wouldn’t have any SMS. Another $5 for SMS then possibly another $15/month for enterprise data plan. Sorry Apple and AT&T in this economy I can’t justify the increase in cost for another 2 years for a contract. I’m currently without contract because I’m an old customer and only paying $20/month for unlimited data and 200 SMS is a great deal. 3G won’t be near my home for years and I’ve got a nav in my car, so I’m not really missing anything by not upgrading.

The thing that took the longest to get to work was VPN and exchange with my work. It finally works, only downside is no push since I have to login to the VPN before I can check my exchange email, I think I can live with that.

And the app store is great lots of great free apps, in fact I’m typing this in the wordpress app now

Tags: iphone

It’s that time of year again, the evil snow mounds have melted, the sun is shining, and it’s time to give the car some TLC!!

Lots of new products to use this year, was a lot of fun and a lot of hard long hours. Among the new toys was a wet dry vac, a flex 3401 polisher, a few new Zaino products ZPC, ZAIO, ZCS.

Last weekend I did a full interior details including carpets, leather cleaning and conditioning, dash, etc… I’m glad I didn’t try to squeeze the interior detail in together with the marathon 4 day exterior detail session. My batteries were just about spent come the end of the fourth day, lol.

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Tags: detailing