The Atkin’s diet is going ok so far. I’ve lost 3-4 pounds since
Thursday or so. I didn’t really pay attention to what I weighed when I
started, so I’m not sure exactly how much I’ve lost. It isn’t too hard
to stick to for now, but I certainly won’t be staying on it for too
long. I like pasta, bread and dessert too much to stay on a carb-free
diet. Hopefully I can do it long enough to get to where I wanted to be,
but if I don’t loose weight quickly I won’t bother sticking to it. If I
keep up a pound/day I’ll be done pretty quickly, but I doubt I will. I
only have 8 days until I go to Maine, and I seriously doubt I”ll stay
with it while we’re gone. I can always go back to it after though, so
I’m not worried about that.

Other than that, not much new. Sabrina’s birthday is thursday, so
we’ll probably go out for dinner. I don’t know what else we’ll do. We
were thinking about going to the casino, which is always fun.

Decided to start trying the Atkins
diet today. Sabrina started a couple days ago, so we might as well do it
together. It takes around 3 days to purge your body of stored sugar and
carbs, and after that you should loose fairly quickly. It’s a tough
diet to stick with since there is so much that I like and can’t eat
with it, but I don’t plan on doing it as a way of life. I’ve been doing
slim-fast for a year now, and haven’t lost anything for the last 3
months. I had lost 47 pounds at my best, but am down to 41 pounds now.
I gained some back after going to St Paul, and haven’t gotten any of it
off since, and actually still gained a little back after that. I was
hoping switching diets would help start things up again, I only want to
loose around 15 more pounds. Even just another 10 would be ok, since
that was my original goal. I’d like the extra if I can though. If I do
manage to loose it, I doubt I’ll stick with atkins. I have managed to
eat fine with a relatively low-cal diet, and prefer that since I can
eat more of what I like. We’ll see how it goes though.

Sabrina and I went biking today. We were gone almost an hour, and
went just under 10 miles. It’s a fairly leisurely pace, but the
longest ride either of us has done since we started. We were taking our
time because neither of us has gone much lately. When I was doing my
job for Kelly Services I didn’t bike at all because I was gone all the
time and was really tired after I got back. I didn’t do much exercise
at all while I was doing the job, now I have to get back into it again.
And then I’ll probably stop again when we go to Maine at the end of the
month. Hopefully after that we get back we can get back to our diets
and exercise.

I wasn’t expecting the job to end so soon. We had been told it would
be 19 days, but we only ended up doing it for 9 days or something like
that. We put in quite a few hours, but it certainly wasn’t as much as
we expected. We were told on saturday to go home at noon, and not to
come in on sunday, but we’d be back monday. But then monday they called
and said tuesday, and tuesday they called and said we wouldn’t be back
at all. I’m not sure what the problem was, we had heard that they were
having alot of production problems and were really far behind, but
you’d think they would need people more after that, rather than less.
Oh well, we made some quick money and it was pretty stress free. I
don’t know if we’ll be asked to do it again next quarter or not. Since
it ended early we never got to talk about it with them.

I did my second week’s class today finally. It had to be done by
sunday, so I had to finish by tomorrow. I also did most of the stuff
for next week as long as I was at it. I’ll still have to watch the
slideshow presentation next week, but I wanted to wait until the class’
week started on monday before doing it, since you have to sign in on
the week of the class to get credit, rather than doing it alll at once.
This week’s lesson was almost interesting, talking about how to make
queries in Access. I already know how to write out queries by hand, but
this was talking about how to use the query wizard and datasheet view
to do it, rather than writing out the sql for it by hand. I learned a
couple things I didn’t know already, so that’s nice. So far the class
seems fine. I like being able to do it whenever I want.

The job at Moore Wallace is going fine. We started the week off with
very long days, from 6am to 5-7pm for the first 3 days. Yesterday and
today they had cut down on how many people were there because there
wasn’t much work to do, but we still were invited to go. Sabrina’s
father and I are pretty much the quickest and most accurate people
there, so they like to have us around. Today we were done at noon so we
had most of the day free. I wasted it by falling asleep and not getting
up until I had to get Sabrina from work, but it was nice to get a
little sleep. We have Sunday, and most likely Monday, both off because
they are having production problems. I don’t really mind, the money
would be nice, but I like the time off too. Originally they had said it
would be for about 19 days straight, and that’s hard to do for any job,
let alone when you have to be there at 6am. I have to get up about 7 or
8 hours before I had been to go, so it’s a bit of a change for me, and
I”ve been going to bed pretty early to make up for it. I’m not tired at
all while we’re there because we keep busy, but once we get home I’m
pretty much ready for bed.

I did get my first paycheck from it yesterday, so we wen’t out tonight to Ninety Nine
celebrate. I got steak tips, and Sabrina got fish and chips. Both were
pretty good. They’re going to open up a new one right next to the
Michael’s that she works at, so once that is open we’ll probably eat
there more. We’ve gone to a different one 3 times now I think, and it’s
nice, but it’ll be better when we don’t have to go quite as far.
Yesterday we ate at Quiznos,
which finally opened in West Hartford. We’ve been looking forward to it
opening for a while now. We saw it being built into one of the strip
malls a couple months ago and it finally opened a couple weeks ago. We
didn’t know it was open until this week, and so we went yesterday. I
haven’t been to one since I lived in Cleveland, but always liked it
alot. They toast all the subs so its warm and the cheese is melted.
They’re really good, so we’ll definately be going there again. One of
the people that works there thought we had been there before, but we
haven’t. We suspect she worked at one of the other restaurants we
frequent and had waited on us there and happened to remember, but it
was weird to be asked. She seemed familiar to us too, but we don’t know
where from.

I did the rest of the stuff for my class today. I started it on
Monday when the first class became available. There was a slideshow
with sound to watch talking about the first chapter of the text book,
and a quick example database to do some stuff to for homework. It was
about as easy as you can get. The video was about an hour long, which
isn’t bad. It was rather uninformative if you actually read the book,
but it is usefull to watch and see what the teacher considers important
to know. You can also download the slides from the presentation, and
the notes, so you have them while you watch/listen. I had them open and
typed a few more things into them while it was playing so I would have
them. Much easier than sitting in class and taking notes by hand. So
far it’s been a fine experience.

In other news, the job that I thought I would be doing for Kelly Services, and then didn’t think I would, and then thought would on friday, I may be doing on thursday. 🙂 It’s at Moore Wallace,
who does mailings for healthcare companies and other similar things.
I’m not sure what we’ll be doing, but I think it is basically stuffing
envelopes for 8 hours/day. Not bad for $9.50/hr. Plus it includes a
bunch of overtime. The only problem is that it is non-stop until the
job is done, with no days off, so I’ll be working on the 4th of July.
Normally I wouldn’t care, but Sabrina has a 4 day weekend, and now I’ll
be working from 2pm-10pm every day, so we can’t really do anything. The
job should be for about 16 days, so it’ll be close to $1500. Sabrina’s
father and I are both doing it, but I don’t know for sure if we’ll be
doing it starting tomorrow or not. We have to call in the morning and
see if they actually want us there at 2 or not. If not, we may end up
doing it for the 1st shift, 8am-3pm, starting friday. Or it could be
something completely different, we don’t know until we actually get a
confirmation.

I think we’re going to go to Maine for a week at the end of the
month too. We’re planning to go July 30th through August 5th, with 2
nights in Bangor, and the rest in Eastport, so I can see both my parents. We’re also planning to go to the Bangor State Fair.
I like to see the art exhibit that they have each year, and of course
the food. I don’t know if we’ll do any rides or not, but those are
sometimes fun too. We’ll also get to eat at Dysart’s,
which is a truck stop that is open 24 hours/day and has great food.
Breakfast is what’s best there, but the other stuff is good too.
They’re apparently known for their baked beans,
but I don’t eat them so I wouldn’t know. We were thinking about
bringing our bikes with us since it’s so nice to ride around there, but
it might be too much of a hassel. It’s hard to bring bikes on a long
trip and bring them in everywhere, and worry about someone stealing
them off the car or just having them fall off. We’ll see though.

We went out biking again today. I’ve gone pretty much every day
since I got my new bike, and most day’s both Sabrina and I have gone
for at least a little while. We went out to a reservoir today in West
Hartford that has a 3 mile paved bike path around the water, which is
very nice. It’s very scenic, and wasn’t really too crowded. There were
a fair number of people, but spread out over the whole thing it isn’t
too bad.

We filmed a wedding for one of Sabrina’s mother’s friend’s the other
night. There was an official photographer as well, but she wanted a
video of it too. It went fairly well. We got to the church
about half an hour before the ceremony started to figure out where we
should stand and where things were. They had a bagpiper out front when
the bride arrived in the limo, and we filmed all that, and the bride
walking down the isle, the ceremony, the recessional, etc. Then we went
on to the reception, which was at A Villa Louisa
in Bolton, CT. It was a nice enough place, specializing in receptions
and catering. It had a fountain in the front entry way, and also a nice
view. We got video of all the necessary stuff, like the wedidng party
coming in, the toasts, cutting the cake, throwing the bouquet, etc.

The video came out better than I thought it would. I was worried
there wouldn’t be enough light for the camera. It’s a digital video
camera and they aren’t really very good in low light. It was fairly
good anyway, and it got better sound than I expected. I don’t know if
we’ll try to edit the video at all or not. We didn’t have to, but it’s
somewhat fun to do anyway, so we might try to put something together.
It’s pretty time consuming though, and will use up a ton of disk space
on the computer, so we’ll see.

My class at Strayer University
starts tomorrow. It’s on Access databases, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
I have read through the first part of the text book already and it
isn’t too difficult. I already know quite a bit about it, so I don’t
expect much trouble. I’m mostly doing it just to see if I like the
school and the class format before comitting to getting a BS degree
there. We’ll see how it goes.

Well I bought a new bike today. It’s a Trek 7500. I had originally been looking at the Trek 7200, then decided I’d really like the 7500fx,
which is a fitness model. I am planning to ride mostly for exercise,
instead of doing my jogging, so I thought that would be good. I read a
lot of really good reviews for it too, so it seemed good. But it was much
more expensive and I didn’t know about paying so much for a bike. But
Sabrina and I decided that for something that is going to last quite a
while, it was worth spending the extra money for something that was
really good, rather than just ok. So I had looked yesterday to see
which was more like I wanted, and whether it seemed worth the extra
money for a 7500fx, and decided it probably was. The components are
quite a bit better, and its a more streamlined bike. I also like having
the thumb-shifts much better than the grip-shifts, which narrowed it
down to the 7500 and the 7500fx. We went back today to make a final
decision and I rode both of them around the parking lot a few minutes,
and liked the 7500 much better than the fx version. In theory the FX is
better for exercise, but it depends on you riding on smooth roads. The
7500 is a little more all-terrain, and has wider tires for a better
grip. It can be a little more work to push it around, but not so much
that it is an issue. The other big feature of the 7500 is that it has
a suspension fork, and suspension seat-post, which makes for a very
smooth ride on less-smooth roads. Since I’ve spent 28 years looking at
potholes in New England, that was a big selling point. It was a really
big difference in the parking lot, and I could tell it would be nicer
in the long-run to have the suspension.

The people at the store are really nice, the owner was there today
and is who we were talking to. He obviously really likes the bikes and
knows what he is talking about. He was pretty salesman-ish, but clearly
enthusiastic, which is really nice. The place has been around for quite
a while. They also stand behind Trek bikes for quality. They will give
10 years of service if anything goes wrong with it, except things like
flat tires. Anything else they’ll replace if it wears out or breaks.
You don’t even have to bring it back to them if you aren’t around, if
you have to get it fixed somewhere else you can just send them the
receipt and they’ll give you back the money you paid.

So of course it was raining once I got it and I haven’t been able to
really ride around yet, but I’ll try it out tomorrow. I had to get my
helmet out of storage too. I had gotten a new one a few years ago and
never even took it out of the box. Sabrina brought her bike to get a
tune-up and will get it back on wednesday, so we can both go riding
together, which will be fun.

Not much new here. I picked more radishes from the garden, Sabrina’s
father has been eating the greens. Some of the radishes have been nice,
and others are really scrawny. I’ll be surprised if they get any better
after this, they’ve been in there for quite a while, and I doubt
they’ll grow much more even now that it has thinned out some.

Monday Sabrina and I had a picnic up the street at a little
semi-park where there is a historical marker. There are a couple
benches and a picnic table looking over a big field. It was a nice
enough spot. I found it while I was out jogging one day. Sabrina made
lunch and brought it up when I finished my run. She made sandwiches
and macaroni salad, and we also had some cherry’s for dessert. She used
some of the lettuce from my garden in the sandwich too, so that was
nice. It’s the first bit of it that we’ve tried. We saw a deer out in
the middle of the field a bit before we left. It was too far away to
see well, but it was there. I saw one yesterday when I was out jogging
too, it crossed the street a ways ahead of me. And we saw one on the
way back from dinner tonight at the side of the road. It’s been a big
week for wildlife I guess.

Only a couple weeks left until I start my glass at Strayer.
Hopefully it’ll go ok. I’ve read the first 3 or 4 sections of the text
book, and it seems ok. It’s a little bit basic, but it has good enough
examples and does things in an ok order for learning. It’s pretty much
all a giant case-study, which is pretty much the only usefull way to
learn a database. It just seems corny when you are reading it.

Well, we’ve been back a few days now, I just haven’t taken the time
to write an update. The trip to St Paul went pretty smoothly, except
for when we actually got there and the directions I had for the hotel
were wrong. I hadn’t noticed that they went just to the street, rather
than the hotel itself, and the street was too long to figure out which
way to go. We managed to find it anyway, after driving around and
following the directions that we had to the place that the graduation
was, so it wasn’t too big a deal.

St Paul is pretty nice. Where we were was very clean and well kept.
Apparently in the last couple years they have done major work to redo
downtown and just finished so we were seeing it very freshly done. It’s
a little weird because there are Peanut’s characters all over the place
as statues in front of buildings and in parks. Charles Shultz was born
in St Paul, and the Mall of America has Camp Snoopy in it, which is a
little amusement park type place. We didn’t have time to go to any of
the local attractions because we were only there for 2 nights and the
one day we were there was taken up with the graduation. That’s ok
though, except for the mall there isn’t much to do. Where we were
downtown has pretty much nothing in it except business stuff. We
couldn’t find anywhere at all to eat, except in the hotel restaraunt.
There was also a cafeteria style place down the street that had italian
food and a couple other things, but nothing that interested us at all.
The place in the hotel was nice though. The food was good, and the
price was ok. It’s an irish pub called The Liffey. I got a sandwhich
both times we ate there, and it came with a ton of big french fries, so
that was good. We also got dessert both nights, which was also good.

The trip there and back was uneventful. We stayed at two different
Days Inns, which were both right off the highway and easy to find. We
got Domino’s Pizza both nights we stayed in Syracuse, NY, and when we
were in Elkhart, IN, we went to a Chinese buffet that was right next to
the hotel on the way there, and went to an all-night restaurant on the
way back. It was the only thing open by the time we got there. It was
really good though, we both got burgers and it came with soup to start
with, which was good, and a big bowl of crackers to go with it. We got
mozzarella sticks for an appatizer because we were really hungry by
then, but then could only eat half the burger. The burgers also came
with giant potato wedges with bacon and cheese on them. The chinese
buffet was pretty standard, but was good, and inexpensive. The most
surprising thing was that they had serve yourself pork tenderloin, and
whole turkey, and roast, and ham.

In othe rnews, Sabrina picked some of my radishes for me, and they
seem to be doing ok. Some of them were scrawny, but others grew really
well. There are alot of big leaves on the mesclin mix too, but not
really anything to harvest yet. The cucumbers may or may not be doing
ok, the plant is going, but not very much. I’m not holding my breath
for it.