TNM

Our 1st Mission President: Bray, he finished up in  1996

Old Hickory, TN Co-workers: Christensen / Burt. Ross Brooks visiting us

Laubs are good dancers

Best Videos that agree: +4

No this is not sped up. The last few seconds are the best. James wasn't talking very well, but you can make out "Blitzkrieg Bop"

The last few seconds looks like she really got into the rythem. "All Apologies"

Mamma Mia

You should keep track, online what you did each week

Reasons to agree

1. Writing things online, as apposed to just to yourself, will force you to project outwards, spell better, be more careful, etc.
2. Even if no one will care, it is important to view your own life as important. Your life is the most important thing in the world to you. You only live once. The things you do, even if they are boring, are important. 
3. If you put all your boring stuff on 1 post, and keep updating that post, you can keep from wasting reading it unless they go out looking for that boring post. 
4. The act of forcing yourself to write, will help you realize what is going on. It will make you pay attention. And the unexamined life is not worth living. 

Reasons to disagree

1. Writing online will prevent you from being honest.
2. It can be damaging to think your views are important, without doing the real work of ensuring that your views stand up to criticism, or without putting the effort to say things better than have been said before. You are wasting people's time unless you say something new or better. 

September 28th, 2012

Carried the boy up the stairs, bumping his head each step up the stairs and saying "oops" each time his head bumped the wall... stopped to scare him with swirley's, but he has no fear and laughs at me.

#3 wakes up when I put #1 down, but does not yell / scream / cry like he is often want to do.

Worked extra 15 hours or so this week. Stayed up till 1 AM.



June 19th
Ali caught toads at the park today. There were 2, and they kept peeing on her.

James hit his head and didn't cry until he saw blood. Then he freaked out.

The week of June 17th, 2012:

• James scored another point yesterday in his soccer game. He has learned to set aside any regard for the safety of the goalie, and kicks it in if they drop it.
• I got a VHS to computer adapter, and have backed up all my family videos in a 2nd format. 
• I take the kids to the high school's hill. James takes his razer, and bike. He doesn't go to fast on his bike, and I didn't expect him to get going that fast on the scooter, but I look up and he is holing pretty fast... I tell him (shout at him) to slow down, which of course causes him to crash (sorry James). He got scrapes on his knees, and his hands. He was really tough, and cleaned his wounds himself (I didn't have to wrangler him down WWF style, like I usually do). When he scrubbed one of his knees, it had some blood, but it was mainly the road scid mark left on him, and he did not crayon all over the road...

You should keep track of important letters from your life

Images that agree:

I didn't like my textbooks at school. Shouldn't we have Yelp, or consumer reports for textbooks?

State Parks in Illinois are anticlimactic (compared to Idaho)

Reasons to agree:

1. Illinois doesn't have any mountains. Without mountains you don't have good rapids, sking, waterfalls, canyons, views, climbing, etc.
2. Illinois doesn't have very many clean rivers or lakes.
3. Millions of people go to visit Starved Rock State Park each year.

Reasons to agree: 

Having come from Idaho, I can say that Idaho might be lacking in metropolitan attractions as much as Illinois lacks in scenic natural attractions.

We have been to the Zoos, and Major Museums. Fine dinning isn't a big attraction with little kids, we don't go to plays, musicals, or any of that stuff. We often are looking for places to take the kids, let them look at some natural thing that's cool. In Illinois a 100 foot cliff over a river qualifies as a natural tourist attraction. According to their website, millions of people go to visit Starved Rock every year. 

However there is nothing much better from the natural work to look at here, and so I guess this is all we have... So we have driven there twice: One week before Phil tried coming early, and once Memorial Day, 2012.

Images that agree:

Here are some photos from 2010. J was 5, and A was 2:

The look out from the top of a 100' cliff that looks over a river

Look hard James. This qualifies as a mountain view in this state

Here are some photos from 2012:

French "Canyon"

The Lodge

Back of the Lodge

Coming down from the Lodge to the visiting center

You can see "Starved Rock" in the back.
We climbed to the top of it last week. The view is to scenic overlooks
what Mt. Trashmore is to the Tetons. 

Related Links:

• Near Chicago Tourism

Chicago Suburban Schools are pretty good

Images that agree:

1.  
• Punting Challenge 
2.  
• Climbing the Pole Vault judging thingy 
3. 
4. 
1. Not much of a hill, but enough for James to get some speed

Weight Watchers is the best weight loss program +3

Rumors that this is the chair I was using, are completely false

Reasons to agree: +2

1. After years of trying, I lost 40 lbs. About 2 lbs per week. I'm now at a healthy weight, and feel great. My blood pressure was prehypertension. Now it is 100/80. I enjoy cooking, and have not spent more money on food.
2. I didn't have to go listen to fat old ladies talk about their weight. I went to 1 meeting, got the app for my iPod touch, learned the points program, and didn't go to another meeting. Now that I am 186, I have about 10 more pounds I'm not loosing. and I sort of actually want to go to a meeting or two. I'm a life time member, and so now I can, if I ever want. 

Images that agree: +1

This image proves that weight watchers works

Websites that agree: +1

1. http://www.weightwatchers.com

Websites that disagree: -1

1. http://www.jennycraig.com/

Total Score: +3

Background, and context
5/26/2012

I've lost 26 pounds in weight watchers in the last 11 weeks

Before I signed up I didn't really see how listening to strangers sit around and talk about their weight would help me. But my company paid 1/2 the price, and I figured it couldn't hurt.

But using their "points plus" system of tracking food points, I was able to loose an average of 2.36 pounds per week. They don't force you to go to the meetings, and so I didn't go (that 1st meeting wasn't that bad. They had trained professionals running it). They mentioned the iPod app, and I'm an aspiring technologist, and so I tried it out, and it was pretty cool.

Before I didn't think I was that much over weight (I'm 6'-3". Weight watchers says I should be between 160 and 200 lbs). Now I'm so glad that I have lost 26 lbs, and wish I would have done this much sooner, or never added the weight in the 1st place...

May 10th I weighed 126 lbs. This morning I weighed in at 199.4. In 11 weeks, I lost 26 lbs.

I'm shooting for 180, and so I still have 20 lbs to go. At the end of this I will have lost 46 lbs. That is more than my 2 year old son, who is very big for his age.

Things that worked for me:

1. The weight watcher system uses grams of fat, carbohydrates, fiber, and protein to calculate points for each food. Based on your height and weight you get a certain amount of points. You have to learn the system, but it is really cool to figure out what foods are "good" (according to weight watchers) and what foods are bad. I really could have never done this on my own. I never went to a meeting. I never had to listen to share my feelings about eating or anything like that... 

1. Thinking about what I ate is sort of fun. I don't know that much about cooking, but planning things out and thinking about it is a little bit of work, but it is sort of fun and I'm glad I've done it...

If you want, I have a pretty cool excel document that I set up to help me out. Just send me an e-mail and I'll send you a copy.

I'm really glad Megan figured this all out years ago, let me take my time, and helped make healthy meals!

August 25, 1994 (my Sr. Year) I was 74 inches (6'-3") and 164 lbs. That was 6.4% body fat. By March 2012 I weighed in at 226 lbs. That is 62 lbs in 18 years or 3.4 lbs per year. I WISH I would have tracked it.

That's about it for now...

Sep 28th 2012

I've lost 40 lbs so far... I would still like to loose 10, but don't seem to want to loose the last little bit...

Moving on to other things.

I can now do 100 pushups in the space of 15 minutes, in sets of 10. Think this would be a good goal to maintain  I'm in mid 30s now, and would like to do it in my 40s, 50, and maybe even 60s?

There was a nice guy who came to straighten our carpet, that was probably in his late 50s... That would be cool.