A Day Off

In honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, I got today off from work. As Mel is working evenings this week, and our daycare provider was still working today, we were able to drop Emma off so the two of us could have brunch at Perkins followed by a visit to the Wehrenberg Galaxy 16 Cine to see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. We had both really wanted to see that movie, but it has been difficult to find the time with taking care of Emma. Prior to seeing this movie, I knew practically nothing about Sweeney Todd. All I was aware of was that he was a murderous barber. I really enjoyed the movie despite some of the gruesome scenes in contained. It isn't too often that I have seen movies in which people commit murders while singing songs. After seeing Sweeney Todd, I don't think I will ever look at a meat pie quite the same way again.

Sleep

For the first time in a very long while, Emma slept through the night without waking up even once for just a moment! The previous few nights haven't been too bad as she only awoke once each night, usually around 1:00, and she quickly returned to sleep after being tucked back in and being given her pacifier, but she didn't even need that last night. Of course, having her sleep through the night when it has been a while caused me to have irrational fears that she was not well. Despite those fears, I let her be through the night, only checking on her at 5:00 this morning. She even slept a little later than she usually does, not waking up until 6:00.

Weight Watchers Week 38

I gained some weight this week, but not as much as I feared I would. Business travel always does this to me.

Today's weight: 204.8 pounds
Change from last week: +1.6 pounds
Change from start of Weight Watchers: -26.6 pounds
Change from beginning of 2008: -3.0 pounds
Amount from Goal: 9.8 pounds

Home Sick Today

I stayed home sick today. Mel and I went to bed before 8:00 last night because neither of us was feeling well. I slept really well until Emma woke me up shortly after 3:30 this morning. I was pretty much up with her until I put her back to bed at 5:15, allowing me to get an additional fifteen minutes of sleep before the alarm clock went off. I did get a little sleep while I was holding Emma while sitting in the living room. So after getting up this morning, and still not feeling all that well, I decided to stay home. I did have a little work that I had to complete this morning in order to keep it on schedule, but after completing that, I went back to bed. I was able to sleep from shortly after 9:30 until about noon. Once I woke up then, I did feel quite a bit better. Maybe it was just sleep that I needed.

Flying Home

Today I am flying home from Washington, D.C., to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I can not wait to get home to see Mel and Emma, but I will have to wait a little while as it is just under two hours until my flight leaves Saint Louis for Cedar Rapids. My flight is currently running on time. I really hope that status is maintained.

The photo which accompanies this posting is of the clouds below my flight from Washington to Saint Louis from over 30,000 feet. I thought it looked pretty, so I took out my camera and took a few photos of the sky.

Washington, D.C., Tour

This evening, a few coworkers and I took a tour of Washington, seeing several of the memorials that are located in the District of Columbia. I really wish I had brought the tripod for my camera along. That would have helped out quite a bit at getting good photos in the dark. As it was, I did not bring the tripod, so a lot of the photos I took are a little blurry.

The first stop on our tour at which we could get off the bus was at the White House. It was after I took a couple pictures of the White House that my camera's memory card developed an error, requiring it to be reformatted. Fortunately the only photos I lost, besides those I had just taken of the White House, were very bad photos of the Capitol Building that I took from the tour bus. After reformatting the card, I was able to get another photo of the White House.

The next stop on the tour was at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. I was amazed at how big the memorial was when I walked into it. Sure, I knew it would be big, but I just felt dwarfed by its size. Shown below is the bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson which is inside the memorial.

We then stopped at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial before going to the Lincoln Memorial. It was raining pretty hard when we were there. I was soaked! Here is a photo of the statue of Abraham Lincoln inside the memorial.

Near the Lincoln Memorial, were the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial. I took a photo of the Three Servicemen Statue at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Of all the memorials we visited on our tour. I felt that the most moving memorial was the Korean War Veterans Memorial. The photos I took of it can not do it justice. The dark, rainy night gave the memorial a particularly haunting feel. Below is a photo of a statue from the memorial and part of the wall that is engraved with photos of soldiers.

I really must tour Washington, D.C., some time during the day when I can better see some of the sights. It would be nice if Mel, Emma, and I could come here on vacation some day to see all of the historical sights that there are to see.

And Then There Were Five

It looks like my man, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, is ending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. I really thought that he had a lot going for him. He had a lot of experience having been a secretary of energy, ambassador to the United Nations, a member of the House of Representatives, and a state governor. Maybe he will end up being in the running for vice president for whoever eventually gets the nomination. Now I am just wondering when Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel will end their futile campaigns for the nomination.

Trip to Washington, D.C.

Yesterday afternoon I arrived in Washington, D.C., for a business trip that will last the remainder of the work week. I had never been to D.C. before, and so far I have to say that I like this city. However I haven't seen much of it yet, and probably won't on this trip. I did see the Washington Monument from the window of the taxi as we rode to our hotel located on Dupont Circle. The view of Dupont Circle from my hotel room is shown below.


This morning when we were taking a break from our meeting I stepped outside and saw a familiar flag in front of the building next door. I walked over there, and as I suspected, the building next to the hotel is the Jamaican Embassy. So, as I walked up to the door, I guess I can say that I was on Jamaican soil. I knew I would want to back to Jamaica some time, but that was not what I imagined.

Weight Watchers Week 37

First of all, this week's weigh-in posting is a day early. That is because I am travelling to Washington, D.C., today for work and will not be able to weigh in tomorrow morning. Second, I am glad to say that my weight loss seems to be back on track, at least for this past week. Returning to really paying attention to what I have been eating has returned my weight to about where it was before the holidays. The previous two weeks I didn't do a very good job at trying to pay attention to my food intake. Now the question is, will I lose any weight this coming week? With work travel through Friday, I will probably exceed my daily points allowance, but I am going to try not to overindulge.

Today's weight: 203.2 pounds
Change from last week: -4.6 pound
Change from start of Weight Watchers: -28.2 pounds
Change from beginning of 2008: -4.6 pounds
Amount from Goal: 8.2 pounds

Wrestling

Yesterday I travelled south to Riverside, Iowa, to help out with the Gary Curtis Wrestling Invitational at Highland High School. I taught there from 1999 through 2002, and except for last year when I had a family wedding to attend, I have returned each year to assist with the tournament. I have been responsible for entering all the necessary data into a spreadsheet in order to compute the team scores. This was the first year I helped out in which I didn't know any of the Highland students, as the students I had in my final year there, when they were in seventh grade, graduated last year. Nevertheless, it was nice to see some of the staff there again, and of course, there were former students of mine in attendance at the tournament.

Thank God It's Over!

It's been nice being able to watch TV this morning without seeing a single political add now that the 2008 Iowa caucuses are over! Prior to lat night, I have twice attended presidential caucuses in Iowa, in 2004 and in 2000. This was by far the largest crowd of participants I have even seen at a caucus. The 252 people in attendance just about doubled the previous record for attendance at the Cedar Rapids Precinct 44 Democratic caucus.

While my candidate did not win, coming in fourth place in the state with just 2% of the delegates, I am really glad that Hillary Clinton didn't finish first, or even second! I am sure Hillary Clinton would be a decent president, but I do not think she can be elected. There are way too many people who absolutely despise her. I think this would make it tough for her to pick up votes from independents in the general election. Now if she were the nominee, I would most likely vote for her, especially if her opponent was Mike Huckabee. I am not sure exactly what it is, but Huckabee really scares me. Anyway, while I think that John Edwards is the most electable of the top three Democratic candidates, I won't be too disappointed if Barack Obama wins the nomination.

While watching Fox News at 3:00 this morning as I fed my hungry daughter, a commentator was talking to a Mitt Romney campaign official in New Hampshire. She wrote off his second place finish in Iowa as a result of the high number of evangelical Christians who voted in the Republican caucus since they had "one of their own" to vote for. I find that a bit insulting to assume that people would vote for someone purely because of their religion. However, it may very well be an accurate statement. This campaign official did not see it a big deal that Romney came in second despite all of the money the campaign spent here and his organization compared to Huckabee's lack of money and organization.

On a similar note, a commentator on ABC pointed out that is was interesting how well Obama did in a state in which 98% of the residents are white. What was this supposed to mean? Did he intend to imply that white people would not vote for a black person for president? I find that even more insulting that the comment I addressed in the previous paragraph. I think most Iowans look more at someone's qualifications for public office than his or her race, or even gender.

Anyway, I am very happy that the commercials, mailings, and phone calls will finally stop, at least for a few months!

Caucus Results

Well, the Richardson group couldn't get enough people to remain viable so I joined the Edwards group. In the end, the Obama group ended up with 4 delegates, the Edwards group earned 3 delegates, and the Clinton group ended up with 2 delegates.

Caucus Update

The caucus is now under way. I an currently in the Bill Richardson group. After the first round, we only had 18 out of the 252 people in attendance, 20 people short of the number needed to be viable. At our precinct, the Obama group has just over 100 people, and the Edwards and Clinton groups have a little more than 50 people each. We are trying to get more people, but if we are still short, I'm headed to the Edwards group.

Caucus Night

Well, the day is finally here. Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses are being held tonight, and I plan on being there. And while I do like playing an important part in the democratic process, I will be glad once the caucuses are over. Yesterday when I got home form my mother's house, there were five messages on our answering machine. Each of them was a recorded message supporting a presidential candidate -- two were for Obama, one for Edwards, one for Richardson, one for Dodd, and one for Biden. I have made a final decision on who I am supporting, and I am going to stick with the candidate who I was leaning towards all along, Bill Richardson. I had contemplated changing my decision to caucus for someone else, and I have changed my second-choice candidate from Barack Obama to John Edwards. So, if the Richardson group is not large enough to be viable at my caucus location, Edwards will be getting my support. We'll see how it goes later tonight.

Trip to Waterloo

Since I was home alone with Emma yesterday, the two of us headed up to Waterloo to visit my mother. We had a nice visit, which included lunch out at the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant in Cedar Falls. It had been a very long time since I had been there. I also helped my mom take her Christmas tree down. Her tree comes apart into three segments, and the middle one sure is heavy!

Happy New Year!

The year 2007 ended, and 2008 began, for us at the Wingate by Wyndham hotel in Cedar Falls, Iowa. We all went there to ring in the new year with some of Mel's relatives and friends of theirs. We had a lot of fun while we were there. Emma even got swimming got to for the first time. She really enjoyed it a lot! After putting Emma to bed, the rest of us played various games, including Taboo and Scatergories. It was a really fun evening.

Weight Watchers Week 36

Here's my first weekly weigh-in of 2008. I didn't post last week's weight which was up significantly from the week before. I managed to lose some weight from last week, but my weight is still up from the Wednesday before Christmas. Things should improve this week as I will be tracking all the food I eat.

Today's weight: 207.8 pounds
Change from last week: -0.8 pound
Change from start of Weight Watchers: -23.6 pounds
Change from beginning of 2008: 0 pounds
Amount from Goal: 12.8 pounds

Bye Bye Bennigan's

Since I moved to Cedar Rapids from Iowa City in 2002, including when I lived in Waterloo, my friend Homercles and I have taken each other out to dinner for our birthdays. With just a few exceptions, the dinner has always been at the Bennigan's at Lindale Mall. Now I just read a news story on KCRG-TV9's website saying that Bennigan's, as well as three other stores, will be leaving Lindale Mall by the end of next month. In fact, he, Mel, and I had dinner there just last week. We even have a Bennigan's gift card that we still have a balance on. I suppose we better get back soon to use it, otherwise we'll have to drive down to the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville to use up the balance of the card as that is the closest Bennigan's location other than the one at Lindale Mall. To make this even more disappointing, Weight Watchers recently has begun including points values for some Bennigan's items on its website and in the new edition of its dining out points guide. Maybe something good will replace it though.

Evaluating My 2007 New Year's Resolutions and Some Resolutions for 2008

My first blog posting of the year, on January 2, listed three New Year's resolutions that I came up with to improve my life. Now as the year is drawing to a close, I can only find it appropriate to evaluate how I did on my resolutions.

My first resolution was to cut back on the amount of soda I drink, limiting myself to just twenty-four ounces each day. Well, that resolution was a bust! Most days at work, I begin my day by walking across the parking lot to the Subway restaurant where my coworkers and I can get soda refills in thirty-two-ounce or larger cups for just twenty seven cents! I rarely skip that.

I did make some progress though on my second resolution, to lose weight. My goal was to get my weight down to 200 pounds on my birthday, October 20. I almost succeeded in reaching that goal. A few weeks prior to my birthday, my weight was down to 199 pounds, but by my birthday it was back up to 202.8 pounds. As of my weigh-in on Wednesday of last week, my weight was at 201.8 pounds. It was significantly higher this past Wednesday, although it was still under 210 pounds.

The final resolution I made was to exercise more, at least twenty minutes per day, three days a week. I don't think I ever reached that goal. I did exercise more when I began Weight Watchers at the end of April, but that has dropped off quite a bit.

Now that I have evaluated how I did on this past year's New Year's resolutions, I am going to come up with some for 2008. Some of these will be very similar to my resolutions for 2007.

1. Drink less pop! Currently I probably drink in excess of 100 ounces of pop each day on average. While this is all diet pop, that still can not be healthy. I'm not going to quit cold turkey, but I am going to begin easing off the pop as the year begins. My goal is to drink an average of 40 or fewer ounces of pop per day each week by the end of February.
2. I am going to continue watching my weight and get it down to 195 pounds. This shouldn't be too tough as I am less than 15 pounds from this goal. My timeline for this goal involves losing an average of half a pound each week, a very doable rate. Hopefully the final pounds I wish to shed will come off a bit faster than that.
3. I still need to exercise more. This year for Christmas, Mel got me a pedometer. I have used it the past three days, and except for today when I worked from home, I walked over 7,000 steps each day. I would like to average 10,000 steps per day each week. I want to achieve this goal by the end of February as well.
4. I also need to exercise more using the elliptical trainer and the Bowflex. I want to use these at least three days each week.

Now I know that New Year's resolutions seem to be made to be broken, but I think I can do it this year if I put my mind to it.

I Love Our Neighborhood!

We live in a really nice neighborhood. When Mel, Emma, and I returned home Christmas evening, after being gone for three and a half days, I was expecting to have to clear away the eight or so inches of snow that had fallen since leaving Saturday morning for Mel's parents' house. We were quite surprised to find that the snow had been cleared away, not only from our sidewalk, but also from our driveway. Our neighbor, two houses down the street, Pete, will occasionally use his snow blower to clear the snow from the sidewalk all the way to the end of the block, so that wasn't as much of a surprise as finding or clean driveway was. I suspected that he had been the one who did it. As I was unloading our truck, Dean, our neighbor across the street confirmed my suspicion. So today, while I was snow blowing the freshly-fallen snow from our sidewalk and driveway, I went over to Pete's house to personally thank him as he was out finishing up some shoveling of snow from his property. I got into a nice conversation with Pete. I have lived plenty of places, but I think this is the only place I have lived with neighbors who would be this helpful.

New Foods

On Thursday of last week, Mel took Emma to the doctor for her nine-month check-up. While there we were told that Emma should now be eating stage three foods instead of the stage two foods we had been feeding her. So the past week, we have begun feeding Emma some Gerber Stage 3 baby food. Emma hadn't had any problems recently with the stage two foods she had been eating, but getting her to eat the stage three foods has been a bit of a struggle, especially the chunkier foods.

I have tried a couple different techniques to get Emma to eat her chunkier stage three foods the past couple days before coming up with a plan which worked quite well tonight. First, I let Emma play with a second spoon. When she tried to put her spoon in her mouth, I stuck the spoon with the food on it into her mouth. Next, I noticed that when I wiped her face with a damp paper towel to clean her up, she would open her mouth, so I started doing that, inserting the spoon of food when her mouth was open. That worked alright, but she caught on pretty quickly. Finally this evening, while trying to feed her the Gerber broccoli and carrots with cheese, I started alternating spoonfuls of the vegetables with spoonfuls of banana, which she likes. This actually seemed to work quite well. I will have to try it again tomorrow. Hopefully though, she will soon begin to actually like the chunkier vegetables and meat entrees.

Back to Work

I actually should have made this posting yesterday as I had to return to work already on Wednesday, the day after Christmas. However, I am only working during the morning this week. I am using the rest of my vacation time for the afternoons this week since Mel has to work evenings this week and Emma's daycare provider is taking the week off.

Yesterday for lunch, Mel, Emma, and I got together for lunch with Homercles as well as my friend from Las Vegas, Anna, at the Irish Democrat. It was good to see them, especially since Anna doesn't make it back to Cedar Rapids too often. Hopefully Mel and I will be able to go out to Las Vegas sometime this spring on vacation and we'll be able to see her then.

It was pretty quiet at work today since there are not many people here. I did get quite a bit of work done this morning as I listened to the CD I gave Mel for Christmas, the Jolly Rogers' live album, No Refunds. I have to say that it is quite an enjoyable CD. I also put out some of the things I got for Christmas, such as my Bad President daily calendar. It's actually a sixteen-month calendar, so I had to remove all the pages from mid-September, when the calendar began, until today. The calendar even goes twenty days into next year, ending on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

If you read my blog regularly, you may have noticed that I skipped my weekly Wednesday Weight Watchers posting. Well, let's just say that the Christmas weekend was not very good for my diet. I will be getting back on track this week and plan on resuming the Weight Watchers postings next Wednesday, January 2, 2008.

Merry Christmas

Emma wants to wish everyone a merry Christmas!

Holiday Weekend

I got a slightly early start to the Christmas holiday weekend today when one of the vice presidents at work walked around the office this afternoon telling everyone not to "stay too late." I took this as a code for "go ahead and go home." So I went home early.


We are also getting an early start to our travels this weekend. We had planned on going to my parents-in-law's house on Sunday. however, with the winter storm and the several inches of ice and snow that it is predicted to dump on us, we have decided that we should leave for their house in Humboldt, Iowa, tomorrow morning instead.

While I would have loved to stay home an extra day, and sleep in my own bed for another night, on the plus side, leaving early than we planned means that there is one less day that I will have to deal with political campaigns calling.

Weight Watchers Week 34

All I can say about this past week is this: too many Christmas cookies and chocolates! I really wish my weigh-in day had been yesterday, because yesterday morning my weight was only up 0.4 pound from last week to 200.8 pounds. This morning however, my weight was up an additional 1.0 pound to a total of 201.8 pounds! This next week will be pretty tough with family Christmas celebrations three days in a row beginning on Sunday. And today I will have to stay focused on what I eat at the holiday potluck at work for lunch, and on what I have for dinner at Bennigan's with my friend Homercles tonight. If I don't lose any weight this upcoming week but am able to maintain instead, I will be happy.

Too Busy to Blog

I feel like I have been too busy to blog lately. This weekend I was especially busy. Saturday morning I donated a pint of blood at the American Red Cross blood drive in town. I had been scheduled to give blood at the blood drive at work last month, but I was sick then and was unable to give blood. As my blood type is O-, my blood is in high demand, and while I really hate needles, I am more than happy to put up with them to give blood. It doesn't cost me anything, and it can help others. After my blood donation, I had a few errands to run before returning home.

In the afternoon on Saturday, Mel, Emma, and I went out shopping once again to get the very last things we needed to get before Christmas. While we were shopping at Lindale Mall, we stopped so Emma could visit with Santa Claus. We got her photo taken with him, shown below. She was really good for Santa. It only took two shots before we were able to get a photo of her smiling, although Santa did have to pull her left hand out of her mouth!

Sunday was a somewhat busy day as well. After church in the morning, we took a photo for our Christmas cards. I picked up the cards this morning from Walgreens and plan on getting them out in the mail tomorrow morning on my way to work. Mel and I also went shopping separately in the afternoon. I went shopping for groceries, while Mel, along with Emma, finished up some Christmas shopping for which I could not be present.

Weight Watchers Week 33

My weight loss continued this week with a loss of an additional 0.6 pound, bringing my weight down to 200.4 pounds, for a net change of 31.0 pounds in the past 33 weeks. This does bring my average weight loss to less than one pound per week, but I suppose that is a healthy rate at which to lose weight. From what I have ready, a rapid weight loss is more difficult to sustain over time. Now I have just 5.4 more pounds to lose before I reach my goal of 195 pounds!

A Couple More Ice Storm Photos

Here are a couple more photos from today's ice storm in Cedar Rapids.

The first shows the DirecTV sattelites on the roof of our house, covered with ice.


This second photo shows the tree in our front yard covered with ice.

Ice Ice Baby

The results of freezing rain can be beautiful. I'm just glad that I don't have to go back out in it today! I took a short break from my work earlier this morning and stepped outside to check out the weather. As I was outside taking a few photos of the ice on the trees, I kept hearing snapping sounds in the background as branches broke from trees in the neighborhood and fell to the ground. I also heard what I thought was crackling sounds coming from a nearby electrical transformer, but I am not sure about that. Fortunately I sill have electricity. Without it, it would be pretty challenging to get any work done from home today.

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

And because of the weather, I'll be working from home today. I spent most of yesterday at work unpacking into my new cubicle. It naturally looks very much like my old cubicle, but for some reason, there is a very different feel to it. Currently I can not open one of my filing cabinets because it is locked shut, and the lock has yet to be installed. Hopefully they get that done today or tomorrow so once I am back in the office I can move things from the overhead bin into the file cabinet where it belongs.

Friday Wrap-Up

I was able to make it to work just fine as the roads had been cleaned up pretty well from the snow the day before. It was not a very productive day at work however. Oh, I did get a significant amount of work done, but a group of nine of us went to HuHot in Coralville for lunch as it was the last day in the office for one of my coworkers. It was the person with whom I used to carpool. She is moving to the Dallas, Texas, area this weekend, and will be working from home from now on. Upon returning to the office following out extended lunch, I finished up some work and then completed the packing of my office since the movers are coming this weekend to move our belongings to our new cubicle locations within the building. I'll be having a lot of fun on Monday unpacking all of my stuff and getting everything set up, ready to get some work done.

Because we had to be all packed by 4:00, I was able to leave work early yesterday. Since everything was packed, it would have been pretty challenging to do any work. I was actually done packing by 3:15, so I left at that time.

After I got home, Mel, Emma, and I went across town to do some Christmas shopping. We just about have all of our gift shopping complete now. I do have a couple of things to pick up today, but that should be it. We also stopped by FedEx to pick up a delivery that couldn't be left since neither of us was home when they attempted to make a delivery yesterday afternoon. It was our new cell phones. On Sunday, when our contract with U.S. Cellular is up, we are going to activate the service on our new LG cell phones from Verizon Wireless.

Yuck!

Most of this afternoon snow fell across eastern Iowa. That meant that what is normally a thirty-five-minute commute home from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids took about an hour and a half! For most of my drive, I did not exceed thirty-five miles per hour, and for the first half of the drive, my speed was significantly slower. It took me twenty minutes to go from the exit on Interstate 80 that is next to the Coral Ridge Mall to the exit from I-80 to I-35! That is a distance of just a few miles.

Hopefully the roads are better in the morning. If the roads are really bad, I could normally work from home, but I do need to go into the office tomorrow. We are moving cubicles at work and we have to have everything packed up by 4:00 tomorrow afternoon. I don't have much left to do, but I still have to get it all finished up. In fact, the rest of the packing that I need to do will take less than half an hour. I'm sure the roads will be better by morning though, so this is probably just a moot point.

Weight Watchers Week 32

I did much better this week with watching what I ate, losing 1.4 pounds bringing my weight down to 201.0 pounds. This makes the difference from my starting weight 30.4 pounds. Now I have just 6 pounds to go to reach my goal of 195 pounds!

Upset with Pizza Hut

Around 5:30 this evening, Mel and I decided to order a pizza from out local Pizza Hut on Mount Vernon Road in Cedar Rapids. I placed the order through the Pizza Hut website. Shortly afterward, I received an email indicating that the pizza would be ready for pickup around 5:50. Well, at that time, I drove to the Pizza Hut only to learn that they were closed. Apparently they closed at 5:00 due to the bad weather. I thought that it would have been nice to have been informed that they were closed, either by phone or email, shortly after placing the order. Well, some time during my drive back home, the store called home to let us know that they were closed. We ended up getting a pizza from Papa Murphy's instead.

A Political Dilemma

I have a bit of a dilemma politically. The candidate who I am currently planning on supporting during the January 3 caucus in Iowa wants to eliminate No Child Left Behind. While I think NCLB has many issues, and philosophically I wouldn't be sad if the program were scrapped, my job developing tests owes quite a lot to NCLB. Now I don't think the testing industry would disappear if NCLB were to go away, but I don't think it would be good for business.

The candidate I am supporting is not one of the top tier candidates, so it isn't likely that he will win the nomination, but it does bother me a bit to be supporting someone who has a position which would hurt the business I work for. Now there are other aspects of the candidate that I like for which he has earned my support. I do have a backup candidate who is in the top tier of candidates running who will get my support should my candidate's group not be large enough to be deemed viable at the caucus site I attend and he does not plan on eliminating NCLB, so my job is probably secure in that sense.

Weight Watchers Week 31

Thanksgiving week was a good one to me from a culinary perspective, but not from a weight-loss perspective. I ended up gaining 2.4 pounds this past week, bringing my weight back up to 202.4 pounds for a net weight loss of 29.0 pounds. Not being able to get my weight much lower than 200 pounds is becoming frustrating. I suppose I just need to follow the plan, and it should work. I admit, I have been doing some snacking at work that hasn't been recorded into the Points Tracker. Recording everything I eat is definitely what I want to do if I want to lose the last 7.4 pounds needed to reach my goal of 195 pounds.

Emma Stands

On Wednesday I posted a video of Emma crawling, which she just began doing the Friday before. Then, this past Saturday, Emma began to pull herself up to a standing position all by herself! I tried to get a picture of her standing then, but she fell down before I could get the camera ready. Tonight I finally got a picture of Emma standing. It won't be long now, maybe a month or so, before she begins walking. Then we're in for trouble.

Fist Fight at the Galaxy 16 Cine

The Cedar Rapids Gazette is reporting that the manager and four other employees of the Wehrenberg Theatres Galaxy 16 Cine in Cedar Rapids today. According to the article, a group of moviegoers were being disruptive during the movie. Other patrons complained to theater staff about the group and after not settling down when confronted by the manager, the manager asked them to leave. They then assaulted the manager and other staff who came to his assistance before fleeing the movie theater. One thing the article did not mention, but which I am interested in, is what movie they were viewing. I'm just curious, that's all.

Shopping with Baby

For the third time in three days, Emma and I went shopping. On Friday we went to Westdale Mall; yesterday we went to Home Depot and Wal-Mart; today we went to K-mart, Kohl's, and Lindale Mall. I have noticed that strangers really like to talk to parents about their babies, or even just to talk to the babies themselves. I don't mind as I enjoy talking about Emma to people who will listen. I just find it interesting how strangers will just begin talking to me about her. In shopping with Emma, I learn about other people's babies as well since they will invariably tell me that they have a grandchild around her age. They will then proceed to tell me about the developmental milestones that these other children have achieved. Children, especially little girls, also love to look at and talk to Emma when they see her.

The one thing I don't like though is when they get the baby's gender wrong. Now I understand that it can be difficult to tell baby boys from baby girls, but they could at least ask if it's not apparent. To avoid the possible gender confusion, I try to put Emma in clothes that are obviously "girl" clothes -- pink, purple, or flowered clothing. Now I thought that Emma's red turtleneck shirt with black pants that she was wearing today looked feminine, but apparently that was not the case as I had more people think she was a boy today than usually do when I am shopping with her. I guess I need to go back to the girlie colors next time we go shopping.

There was one really cute moment of our shopping expedition today. After we entered the elevator in Younkers, we were followed by a couple who each had a stroller with them as well. The man of the couple was pushing a double stroller with twin boys who appeared to be about Emma's age. The woman had a stroller with a somewhat older girl in it. As the three of us with our collective four children rode the elevator down, the children all just looked at other, not sure what to think.

95th Birthday

Tonight we all went out to dinner for my great uncle's ninety-fifth birthday. We typically celebrate his birthday in the Amana Colonies, and tonight was no different in that respect. One difference tonight is that we went to a different restaurant than we usually do. We went to the Ox Yoke Inn, and I have to say that it was a good decision. I felt that the food there was better than it is at the restaurant we usually go to. They didn't have as big a selection of salads there, but there was enough, and the hot dishes were really good. I really hope that we go there again the next time we go to the Amanas for dinner.

Black Friday

The Christmas shopping season unofficially began today, and I did my duty as an American in spending money to help the economy. However, my shopping began by returning a pair of jeans that Mel bought last Saturday. After putting the jeans on at home, she discovered that one of the legs of the pair of jeans was an inch or two longer than the other leg. Well, that's no good. I did do some actual buying of goods though while I was out. I bought one Christmas present. I also bought some Pyrex storage containers. It was an eighteen-piece set that had a regular price of forty five dollars. After all the discounts I received on the product, it ended up costing me just eight dollars! Now that was a bargain!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Mel had to work today (as well as tomorrow and both days this weekend) so my mom and sister came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner which we has this evening. It was the first time my mom had ever cooked a turkey, and it turned out really good. It was also the first time I had ever carved a turkey, and I think I did an adequate job getting the meat off the turkey carcass if I do say so myself. I actually enjoyed having a Thanksgiving dinner for which I did not actually have to travel anywhere. It was also only the four of us, plus Emma who slept during dinner, so it wasn't too crowded and there weren't really all that many dishes. And because there were only four of us eating the twelve-plus-pound bird, there is plenty of turkey left over for sandwiches the next day or so.

Emma Crawls!

For about a month now, Emma has been able to get around the room by crawling backward and by scooting forward. Last Friday Emma began crawling forward! Here's a short video of her crawling in the living room.

Write Your Own Caption

I saw this photo of a stormtrooper, an Imperial officer, and Darth Vader in the local newspaper yesterday. It was taken at a local sci-fi convention. I don't want to say anything unkind, so I will leave the comments up to you, the reader.

First Snow of the Season

We had our first real snow of the season yesterday in Cedar Rapids. It actually accumulated some in the grass. Fortunately, all the snow on the driveway and sidewalk melted, so I didn't have to shovel it off. As the snow began to fall yesterday, I noticed my neighbor across the street mowing his lawn! During the summer he typically mows about once every three days. I guess he wanted to get one last mowing in before putting the mower away for the season.

Last night was also the first time that Emma was out in the snow. She seemed a bit confused by the freezing bits of frozen water falling on her face, but it didn't really bother her. She experienced the snow as we were walking into the Irish Democrat to meet a friend of mine for dinner. It was a nice dinner. I tried something other than my typical order last night. Instead of the ribs and chicken strips, I had the Democrat burger. It was good, but I think I like the ribs and chicken strips better.

Walker, Presidential-Candidate Endorser

Chuck Norris has endorsed former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for the Republican nomination for president. And Huckabee's plan to stop illegal immigration, Chuck Norris. There is a pretty long border separating the U.S. from Mexico. I don't really think that Chuck Norris will be able to adequately stop people from entering this country illegally. Who knows, if Mike Huckabee wins the nomination, maybe he'll make Chuck Norris his running mate. Chuck could really kick some diplomatic ass!

Sleeping Through the Night

Monday night and last night were the first nights in a couple weeks that Emma slept through the night, at least for the most part. She did wake up once each of those two nights around 11:00, but giving her pacifier back to her was all it took to get her back to sleep. She even slept in a little bit, not waking up until 6:15 yesterday morning and 6:00 this morning. Emma must be feeling a bit better since being sick last week.

Weight Watchers Week 30

Once again, I was scolded by the Weight Watchers website for losing too much weight this week, losing 3.8 pounds bringing my weight down to 200.0 pounds. This is just one pound above my lowest weigh-in weight since beginning Weight Watchers thirty weeks ago. This brings the difference between my starting weight and my current weight 31.4 pounds.

Will the weight loss continue this week, or will I maintain or gain? We are going to the Irish Democrat for dinner with a friend tonight and having a Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night. Then on Saturday we are going to the Ox Yoke Inn in Amana for my great uncle's ninety-fifth birthday. With all this eating, maintaining my weight loss will be a challenge, but I think I can do it. Anyway, I am just five pounds from my goal, so if I don't lose any weight this week, that's alright too.

Saturday

I had to work for a couple of hours this morning. It has been a while since I have done work on the weekend, not counting travel time for business trips. This work was participating in the training of some subcontractors for the project I am working on.

Early this afternoon, Mel, Emma, and I went shopping. We had to get a birthday present for Mel's cousin's five-year-old daughter. After buying a Barbie doll for her at Target, we went to JCPenney because I wanted to try on some jeans so I would know the style and size to ask for when I complete the Christmas list that my mother would like me to complete. Because of the good price on the jeans, I ended up buying one pair today, although I can still use some more. I also ended up buying three polo shirts. I normally would not have made such a purchase so close to Christmas, but it was a deal I couldn't pass on. I was able to get three thirty-six-dollar polo shirts for $2.54 each! This will make a good addition to my wardrobe as I haven't added many new polo shirts in quite a while.

After our shopping expedition at Westdale Mall, we went to the birthday party at Pump It Up in southwest Cedar Rapids. Pump It Up is a place where kids can go and play on inflatable slides, bouncing areas, and other similar things. The hour and a half we were there was quite enough. The twenty-something children around the age of five seemed to have a great time, although it was a bit noisy.

After the birthday party we headed home so Mel could get ready to go to a RoughRiders game with her friend Penny for Penny's son's sixth birthday party. While Mel was at the hockey game, I had a friend over to visit. We played a few board games. I hadn't seen this friend in a while, so it was good to have him over.

Now that I have finished writing this blog entry, I am going to check if Emma has gotten back to sleep so that I might be able to go back to bed for the evening. Hopefully she sleeps through until morning. That would be a nice change from her new routing of waking up at midnight and at three in the morning as she has the past few nights.

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

Well, actually I do need a badge to get into the building at work, and today I got a new badge. This summer my company changed its identity by eliminating a couple of words from its name, and therefore the company logo also changed. So today some of us got badges with the new company logo. It's nice to have a new badge since the one I had was getting a bit worn and the picture on it was fading. Now my work badge has a nicer looking picture on it.

Back to the Dentist

After my headache didn't subside following my dentist visit last week, I got a prescription for an antibiotic from my doctor, thinking that I had an ear infection. After completing the round of antibiotics, I still had some pain, although noticeably less. However, this pain was located more in the area of one of my teeth, and it seemed to come on more while and after eating. So this morning, my dentist removed the filling that I had in that tooth and replaced it with a filling of medicated cement. So far I haven't felt any pain, but that could be due to the fact that the effects of the local anesthetic hasn't completely worn off yet.

Weight Watchers Week 29

I managed to turn things around this week and lose a significant amount of weight, 5.4 pounds to be exact. The difference between this past week and the prior two weeks is that I actually paid attention to what I was eating and recorded my Weight Watchers POINTS. Now my weight is down to 203.8 pounds for a difference of 27.6 pounds from when I started Weight Watchers. Now I just have 8.8 pounds to go until I reach my final goal of 195 pounds!

Laryngotracheobronchitis

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from my daughter's daycare provider informing me that she had just coughed up some of her formula and did not sound good. So last night, Mel and I took Emma to the doctor where she was diagnosed as having croup, a viral infection that causes a tight, low-pitched barking cough. She is also making a raspy breathing sound called stridor. The doctor made her diagnosis the moment she walked into the exam room and her Emma breathing across the room. For treatment, Emma got a shot in her leg. The shot seems to be doing some good as her breathing is sounding a little better this morning than it did last night. However, due to the fact that she is contagious, she is staying home with me today and tomorrow. That actually works out pretty well for me as I didn't have a lot of work to do today.

So far today, I have done about a hour of work while Emma was napping. Other than that, she and I have been doing a lot of cuddling, trying to comfort her despite the fact that she is uncomfortable. She recently began another nap. Hopefully she feels even better when she wakes up.

Kitchen Stuff

Mel, Emma, and I went to Ankeny today to visit Mel's sister and her family. While that was one of the reasons we went there, we also went to attend the Pampered Chef party that Mel's sister was hosting. I had never attended one of these sales parties before, and that's probably a good thing as there are a lot of kitchen gadgets in the catalog that I would be very tempted to buy. We did end up buying a few items, but there were other things I wouldn't mind getting. Perhaps we can get a few more in the future.

RoughRiders Hockey

Tonight I went to my first Cedar Rapids RoughRiders hockey game. In fact, except for a hockey game of one my of eighth graders several years ago at the Coral Ridge Mall, this was the first hockey game I ever attended. It was fun, but I think I should read up on the rules of hockey before going to see another hockey game. It would probably be even more enjoyable to watch if I understood everything, or even most, of what was going on. Unfortunately, the RoughRiders lost 4 to 2 to the Omaha Lancers. We went to the game tonight because Mel's work got tickets for employees and their families who wanted to attend. We plan on going to another RoughRiders game next month with one of Mel's coworkers, Penny, and Penny's sister, a former student of mine and a former coworker of Mel.

Prior to the hockey game, Mel and I went to dinner at Applebee's. Unlike the previous time we went to Applebee's, I ordered dinner from their WeightWatchers menu tonight. The meal was quite tasty, and it wasn't too bad for me. Unfortunately, we were delayed in getting our check because the people at the table behind use had an awful lot of questions for the waitress, so she couldn't get us our check right away. We ended up arriving at the hockey game just as it was about to begin.

Home Two Days in a Row

I worked from home yesterday as I have been doing on Wednesdays for a few weeks now. Today I stayed home again though because I wasn't feeling too well, and I needed to take Emma to the doctor as well. Emma is just fine. Taking her to the doctor was just a precaution as we thought she could be coming down with an ear infection. However, the doctor didn't find anything wrong.

I, on the other hand, do have something wrong. For about a week now, I have been getting headaches on the right side of my head. Initially I blamed it on a tooth that I have previously had a filling in. I figured that it had developed another cavity. I went to the dentist yesterday for a regular checkup and I asked him to check out the tooth. There was nothing wrong there. Despite that, my headaches have gotten progressively worse over the course of the week. After my dentist appointment, I noticed that the dull, throbbing pain was located more in the area around my inner right ear, so I began to think that I had an ear infection. I tried to get in to see my doctor today, but she didn't have any appointments available. Despite that, my description of my symptoms to her nurse was enough for her to phone a prescription for an antibiotic to the pharmacy. With all errands I had to run today -- taking Emma to the doctor and to daycare, and picking up my prescription -- I managed to get some work done that had to be completed today.

My Blog's Reading Level

After seeing that Brent from Law & Disorder found a website that rates one's blog's reading level, and finding out this his is rated "elementary school," I decided to check out what the website thought my blog's reading level was. Here are the results:

I can't say that I am at all disapointed by the results.

The Google

One of the things that I like to do with my blog is determine how people stumble upon visiting Mathman's Ramblings. The counter I use tracks such information, providing me with web site addresses of the pages from which people follow links to my blog. Sometimes I am amazed at what searches people do to find me and with where I place in some web searches. One recent example is a person from Portland, Oregon, who found my blog around 10:40 last night by Googling "maiden wine bitter dregs." In early September I wrote about the song sung by Spock in an episode of Star Trek, "Plato's Stepchildren," so it didn't surprise me that such a search would lead to my blog, but what I did find a bit surprising is that my blog is the third entry in the search as of 6:30 this morning, preceded only by a link to a YouTube video of the song, and the entry about it on Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki.

Weight Watchers Weeks 27 and 28

I knew the news wouldn't be good this morning when I weighed in once again after not weighing in last week because of my business trip to Atlanta. My last weigh-in before my trip began on Sunday of last week was 202.4 pounds. This morning's weight was 209.2 pounds, for an increase of 6.8 pounds in the past two weeks. This makes the change in my weight since starting Weight Watchers 22.2 pounds, down from the maximum of 32.4 pounds that occurred on October 3 when my weight was down to 199 pounds. This week, I am going to carefully follow the Weight Watchers Flex plan and get the exercise that I need. This should help to get me back on track.

City Election Day

Today is Election Day 2007 and there isn't much to vote on in my precinct in Cedar Rapids. The only race that I can vote on is one at-large city council seat. So, I get to choose between four candidates for one city council seat. Two of them are names I recognize, Tom Podzimek, the incumbent who seems to be doing a fairly decent job, and P. Thomas Larson, who has been running (and losing) in almost every city election I can remember for a very long time. In addition to these two, there are relative newcomers to Cedar Rapids politics, Nancy L. Bruner and Larry D. Sharp. They may have run for office previously, but I honestly can't remember them. Once dropping Emma off at daycare this morning, I will be stopping at my polling place to cast my ballot. I don't anticipate much of a wait in line as the county auditor is not forecasting much of a turnout for the election today.

Return to Standard Time

Last night before going to bed, I went throughout the house setting every clock back an hour in preparation of the the of standard time at 2:00 this morning. Lately, Emma has been waking up around 5:30 in the morning, which works out pretty well on weekdays, since that's around the time Mel and I get up for work, but naturally, Emma doesn't quite understand the concept of daylight saving time/standard time. Of course, there are many adults who don't understand it either. Anyway, despite my trying to explain to my seven-month-old baby that she could sleep an extra hour this morning, she decided to wake up at about 4:15, which to her is about the same time she has been waking up every day. Since I volunteered to get up with her, I do not get the extra hour of sleep that often comes with standard time. Perhaps I'll go back to bed if I can get her to go back to sleep this morning. Now I just have to figure out how to get the baby to adjust to the change back to standard time.

Free Time in the ATL

We got done with the work we had to do in Atlanta yesterday afternoon, but we didn't finish with enough time for me to catch a flight last night, so today two of my coworkers and I did a little sightseeing in Atlanta. We went downtown to see the World of Coca-Cola. I got my picture taken on my cellphone camera with the Coca-Cola polar bear. The World of Coca-Cola was neat. We saw a 4-D movie with a hundred or so fourth graders who were there on a field trip for school. The movie was fun, but my favorite part was the tasting experience which offered over seventy different products that produces for different parts of the world. I tried every one of them except for the varieties that are commonly available in the United States. One of my favorites was Sprite Ice from India. If you drink it really fast, it actually seems to get colder as it is drunk. I also liked the pineapple-flavored soft drink that they sell in South Africa.

After visiting the World of Coca-Cola, the three of us walked through Centennial Olympic Park to get to the CNN Center where we had lunch at Jocks & Jills Sports Grill. We had a good lunch before returning to our hotel which we promptly left to get to the airport.

I got to the airport a little after 2:00, but my flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 7:45, so I had a lot of time to kill. I ended up watching a couple of Star Trek episodes, "Requiem for Methuselah" and "The Cloud Minders," on DVD on my laptop computer. That took up some of the time. I also walked up and down the concourse and had dinner. Fortunately, the flight left on time and I arrived back in Cedar Rapids around 9:00 tonight.

Embassy Suites

Despite the fact that I haven't been sleeping that great, I do like the hotel that we are staying at, the Embassy Suites Hotel Atlanta Airport. They serve a really good breakfast each morning with made-to-order omelets available. The lunches we have had at the hotel have been really good. I've heard that today's lunch is grilled chicken and grilled salmon. I am really looking forward to the salmon. Then, each evening from 5:30 to 7:30 is the Manager's Reception in the hotel atrium with free drinks. I have been limiting myself to no more than two drinks at the reception. Despite that, I think I am still going to be returning home from this business trip at least ten pounds heavier! I have no plans on weighing myself until my next regular weigh-in day though, next Wednesday.

One problem with staying at the hotel near the airport is that I haven't really seen Atlanta at all. I could be staying in a hotel in any city for what I have experienced being here. After arriving at the airport, I took the shuttle to the hotel. I did leave the hotel Tuesday night with a group of my coworkers to walk to a restaurant, Joe's Restaurant and Bar, for dinner. This is the only restaurant within walking distance from the hotel, aside from the hotel's own restaurant of course. But I suppose that is a common issue with business trips, as the last trip I went on, to Philadelphia, was quite similar. At least with the last project I worked on, we drove to our destination, so we had a rental car and were therefore able to get out to a wider variety of places to dine.

Still Not Sleeping Well

I have not slept well at all this week at the hotel at which I am staying in Atlanta. At the beginning of the week, I thought it was due to the temperature in the room as I had a hard time setting it where I want it to be, but at this point I think it is because I am coming down with a cold. I just haven't been feeling that great, and I think it's affecting my sleep. Also, the flight coming into Hartsfield-Jackson Airport at 5:00 in the morning doesn't help much since it sounds like it's right outside the window of my hotel room.

Pumpkin Tax

You know, I could have beaten everyone to the punch a couple of weeks ago when I bought a pumpkin and noticed that I was charged sales tax for it. Apparently the fact that Iowa has begun charging sales tax on pumpkins that it thinks people are going to use for decoration instead of for consumption has made the national news today with stories on CNN.com and FoxNews.com. After getting home from the Hy-Vee Drugstore where I bought the pumpkin, I did a Google search and found a page on Iowa's Department of Revenue website informing me that pumpkins that are advertised for use as decorations are charged sales tax. I could have filled out a form indicating that I was planning on using the vegetable for food (what an amazing idea) and avoided paying the sales tax. I do enjoy eating pumpkin seeds, so if I had planned on doing so, I would not have even had to lie to say that I planned on using the pumpkin for food. If the state pulls this kind of "trick" again next year, I think that's just what I'll do to avoid the 6% tax on the purchase price of the pumpkin.

Happy Halloween!

Being in Atlanta, I am missing out on Emma's first Halloween. As she is just seven months old, I am certain that she won't understand the concept of trick-or-treating at all, but it still would have been nice to have been there. Mel has to work this evening as well, so Emma is going to end up going trick-or-treating with one of Mel's coworkers and the coworker's son. Since neither of us would see Emma tonight, we put her in her Halloween costume a couple weekends ago so we could take a picture of Emma in her first costume and with her first jack-o'-lantern.

Room Service

We didn't wrap up today's work until around 6:40 this evening. After working eleven hours today, I decided to spend about an hour socializing with my coworkers and some of our committee members before returning to my room. With my regular Monday night television viewing beginning in just twenty minutes, I decided to order room service for the first time in my life. I ordered a tasty chicken quesadilla and an order of calamari. It was pretty cool having someone deliver food to my hotel room, despite the added expense. Actually it didn't cost any more than the already overpriced hotel food would have cost had I ordered it in the restaurant, although a seventeen percent tip was already included in the price. Besides, it doesn't really cost me anything as I get to put it on my expense report once I return to the office on Monday. Now that I have had dinner in my room, I will be able to get to work on some other work that I need to complete tonight, extending my eleven-hour workday further.

Good Morning from Atlanta!

I woke up early this morning in my hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia, where I am all week for a business trip. I did not sleep very well last night as it was a bit warm. As I was getting ready for bed last night, I decided that it was too cold in my room, so I adjusted the thermostat. Unfortunately, the options were "warmer" or "colder," so I couldn't set it for a specific temperature as I would like to have done. Apparently I set it for too warm a temperature. Anyway, after waking several times during the night, I ended up getting out of bed at about 5:45. Normally I get up around 5:30 in the morning, but that is Central time, so I essentially got up 45 minutes earlier than I would otherwise. Hopefully I sleep better tonight.

Last night after I arrived at the hotel, I headed down to the hotel bar to get dinner as the restaurant was closed. While there I ran into a couple other people who are here for the same meeting I am here for. After talking with them for just a moment, I learned that one of them previously lived in Cedar Rapids, teaching for over twenty years at one of the Catholic middle schools in town during that time. So, I joined the two of them for dinner before returning to my room for the evening.

I had better finish getting ready as I am supposed to meet some others downstairs for breakfast in ten minutes.

Company

Thursday evening I got a phone call from my sister asking if she could stay at our house this weekend. A couple of her friends in Denver, Colorado, were flying into Cedar Rapids so they could go to Iowa City to see the Iowa football game today and she wanted to come down from the Twin Cities to see them. Naturally we extended an invitation to her, as well as her friends, for the weekend. Mel has to work this weekend, so that meant that my sister got to go grocery shopping with Emma and me this morning. She seemed to enjoy pushing Emma around Wal-Mart in the shopping cart, and Emma seemed to enjoy it too, although she did spit up all over herself while we were at the checkout.

My sister's friends arrived early this afternoon, too late to go to the actual football game, but with enough time to see the end of the game on TV. Later this afternoon, the three of them went to Iowa City to relive their college days. My sister didn't go to school there, but the other two did.

Saw IV

I took a day of vacation from work today so I could spend some time with Mel before she goes to work this weekend and before I leave town on Sunday for a week in Atlanta. We bought Emma some clothes as she still does not have much long-sleeved clothing. We also had lunch at Carlos O'Kelly's. After lunch we went to the Wehrenberg Galaxy 16 Cine to see Saw IV. I must admit, that seeing Saw IV was not my idea, but Mel wanted to see it, and besides, I have seen the previous three movies in the Saw series. Saw IV was not a bad movie, in fact, I enjoyed it for the most part. I admit that I did look away for a few instances as it was a bit gruesome at times. I am sure that this time next year, we will be going to see Saw V.

Weight Watchers Week 26

I was back to having a loss of weight for the week with my weight down 0.4 pound. This brought my net weight loss to 29.0 pounds. I will not be weighing in next week as I will be in Atlanta for work.

A Good Birthday

I had a very good birthday yesterday. Mel, Emma, and I spent quite a bit of time at the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville. After eating lunch in the food court, we made Emma a stuffed bunny at the Build-a-Bear workshop. After a couple of hours of wandering around the mall, we returned home. We ended up going to Applebee's for dinner. I had originally intended on having one of their Weight Watchers entrees, but I decided against it and ended up having a steak instead. They now allow you to choose two of several side dished to go along with the steak and one of a few different toppings. The steak was quite good. I also ended up getting dessert there. Instead one of their larger desserts, I had one of their new dessert shooters. It was a dessert in a large shot-glass-sized container. It was good, and it allowed be to have dessert without overindulging. This was good since Mel had baked a birthday cake for me. It was also quite tasty.

While I didn't get around to planting the flower bulbs yesterday, I did get them planted today. However, I couldn't put them all where I wanted as the ground was a bit too hard where I was attempting to plant half of the bulbs. So assuming that the bulbs all perform as I hope they do in the spring, we should have a very colorful front step to our house as all 108 bulbs are planted directly in front of the front steps to the house!

Thirty-five

Today is my thirty-fifth birthday! We are not planning much to celebrate my birthday. We are going to be going to the Coral Ridge Mall today to go to the Build-a-Bear Workshop there to make a free stuffed animal up to $12 in value. I got a coupon from them a couple weeks ago for my birthday. I'll probably give the animal to Emma as I don't really have much use for an additional Build-a-Bear right now. I do have one that Mel gave to me for Saint Patrick's Day a couple years ago, but I think one is probably enough for me.

According to the Build-a-Bear coupon I received, this Sweetest Day weekend. As I had never heard of this "holiday" before, I did a little research. According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, Sweetest Day, which is the third Saturday of October, is celebrated mostly in the Great Lakes region and parts of northeastern United States. It is supposed to be an "occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed." I have no plans on celebrating this holiday, which seems to me to have been invented only to promote candy sales, but I will still get my free, or discounted, stuffed animal.

We are also planning on going out to eat tonight for my birthday, but we haven't yet decided where to go. I would like to go somewhere that has food that won't ruin my diet. I am so close to my goal that even on my birthday, I do not want to overindulge.

Finally, I think today is the day that I will finally get to plant the flower bulbs that we received almost two weeks ago. I really need to get that done before it gets too cold, and I think the weather should cooperate today!

The Best Laid Plans...

As I was working from home today, and I needed to get the lawn mowed, I thought I'd start working earlier than I usually would so I would finish my work with enough time to get the lawn mowed before picking Emma up from daycare. That plan seemed fine until it started to rain just as I was about to go to the garage to get the lawnmower out. I guess I'll have to wait until later to do the mowing.

Weight Watchers Week 25

As I expected, my weight is up this week -- 1.8 pounds. This brings my weight up to 202.8 pounds for a net loss of 28.6 pounds. I will do better this week. I really want to keep my weight below 200 pounds!

Bad Choices

Despite a lot of poor choices I have made this week with regards to eating, this morning my weight was even with my weight when I weighed in last Wednesday morning.

• For lunch Wednesday, I went to the Cork 'n' Form with my mother and grandmother for lunch. I didn't make the healthiest choice then.
• Thursday night, Mel had some friends over and we ordered pan pizza from Pizza Hut. Once again, I ate more pizza than I really should have, and then we each finished our dinner with a brownie sundae.
• Friday night I had dinner with Homercles at Bennigan's. Sure, I could have made a healthier choice than the burger I had, along with the appetizers that we ordered, but I didn't.
• On Saturday we went to the Amana Colonies for lunch and I ate too much there as well.
• I did better on Sunday and Monday. While I didn't count my Weight Watchers points carefully, I was at least mindful about what I was eating.
• Then tonight, I had dinner with my mom since she was in town for a class she was taking. We went to Red Robin for dinner. The large burger there was quite tasty, but I am sure it will result in my gaining a pound or so for the week. I guess we'll find out tomorrow morning.

Now I should be able to eat out on occasion and not feel guilty about it, and it shouldn't ruin my diet, but having less-than-healthy dinners or lunches five times in a week is a bit much. I need to be able to have an occasional not-so-good-for-me dinner, but this was just too much. Making poor choices when eating out is a real weakness of mine, one that I really need to get under control before I go on a week-long business trip to Atlanta, Georgia, in a couple weeks. My birthday is Saturday, and I would like to go out to eat with Mel and Emma to celebrate, but I think I need to pick a restaurant for once where I can make a choice that will be good without overindulging.

An Unexpected Day Out

Today I had planned on planting the variety of bulbs that I received on Monday from Breck's Nurseries, but before I got outside to work on that I got a call from my mother inviting us all to meet her, my grandmother, my aunt and uncle, and one of my cousins at the Brick Haus in Amana for lunch. After getting that phone call, we quickly got ready and departed for lunch. After eating, Mel, Emma, and I wandered around Amana for a while, stopping at the Fudge Factory and the Chocolate Haus where we picked up some snacks for later this evening. We also ended up buying Emma a toy at Lehm Books and Gifts. Hopefully I can get the bulbs planted tomorrow after church as it needs to get done.

I Wish Someone Would Make Her Shut Up Already!

Ann Coulter this week continued to prove to the world just what an arrogant bitch she truly is. She claimed on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show The Big Idea that the United States would be a better place if everyone in it were Christians. She also said that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians. Gee, I thought that one of the principles that this country was founded on was the freedom of religion. Apparently that's only alright if the religion one subscribes to is a form of Christianity. I am really surprised that she didn't specify a particular denomination of Christianity that all us Americans should follow.

Now I titled this blog entry by wishing someone would make Ann Coulter shut up, but on second thought, maybe that isn't a good idea. She of course has the right to her views and the right to express them. Besides, every time she opens her mouth, it shows just how intolerant and unintelligent some Republicans can be.

Me, Agree with Bush?

President Bush recently recommended that a House committee not vote to label the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces during World War I as genocide. I figured that nothing good would come from putting such a label on atrocities that occurred over ninety years ago! The people who did the killing are no longer alive. The only thing that could possibly come out of voting for this is to antagonize Turkey, one of our allies. And now, since the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted for the genocide label, Turkey has recalled its ambassador to the U.S.

I heard someone earlier today say that we shouldn't only condemn such atrocities when it doesn't inconvenience us, such as the genocide in Sudan. However this seemed like a poor example since this is something that is happening now! If genocide in Turkey were happening today, or maybe a bit more recently than ninety years ago, it might make more sense to condemn them, but it doesn't recall accomplish anything to do so now. Now we have Turkey, one of our allies upset with us, and while I don't think we should be in Iraq, that doesn't change the fact that we are. With a great portion of the supplies being sent to Iraq from the United States passing through Turkey, it would seem to me that pissing off the Turks wouldn't be a good idea.

Screw You, Crawford County

The board of supervisors of Crawford County, Iowa, has decided to ban RAGBRAI, the Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, from its county because of a lawsuit for which they settled with the plaintiff for $350,000. Betty Jo Ullrich, of Davenport, sued the county following the death of her husband, Kirk Ullrich, who died in 2004 while riding through Crawford County on RAGBRAI. Mr. Ullrich got the front tire of his bike stuck in the crack in the center of the road while riding down a hill at a high rate of speed. He was thrown from his bike and killed by the impact. I was actually stopped at the top of the hill two hills back from where the accident occurred. It was the second accident to happen on that hill that day.

Mrs. Ullrich was contending that the accident was, in part, the county's fault since they didn't have the road maintained well enough and failed to warn people about the danger following the first accident. Now it shouldn't take a genius to realize that riding a bike with skinny tires on a road with cracks on it can be potentially dangerous! Since riding on my first RAGBRAI in 2000, I have always paid close attention to the road on which I am riding. It's too bad that Mrs. Ullrich felt the need to sue someone over her husband's death which was probably as much his fault as it was anyone else's.

Even with Crawford County now banning RAGBRAI from the confines of its borders, there are still 98 counties in which RAGBRAI can go for now. Unless other counties follow suit, the rest of the state is still open for the ride. As for Crawford County, I plan on boycotting any businesses there, and I will not be passing through there. Of course, that won't affect them at all since I probably wouldn't have been there anyway, but if they don't want me and my bike there, I'll just stay away. Hopefully this isn't then beginning of the end of RAGBRAI.

Cork 'n' Fork

While I was working from home this morning, my mother called to let me know that she was bringing my grandmother to town to see her eye doctor. Because they would be here around lunch time, I met them for lunch down the street at the Cork 'n' Fork. As usual, the food was quite yummy, although it was a bit cold inside. After lunch, which was a bit earlier than I usually do lunch, I returned home to finish my work day at home.

Amusing Video

I have often wondered if politicians ever get angry when being interviewed for comedy programs such as The Daily Show. Here's a video of New York City Councilman James Oddo , a Republican, being interviewed by Pia Haraldsen for the Norwegian program Rikets Rost. This video certainly answers that question! A short warning, this video contains obscenities

Weight Watchers Week 24

I had a two-pound weight gain this week, which I have to say was expected. With all the eating out I did in the past week, due to being out of town, I did not really follow the Weight Watchers plan at all, only counting points on Monday during the past week. That's alright though, as my weight is still just 201 pounds. I will be able to get it below 200 pounds again in the next week or so.

WFH

Tomorrow is the first day that I will be working from home on a regular basis. I have worked from home before for my current job on occasion, but beginning tomorrow, I will be working from home most every Wednesday. As I may be losing my carpooling companion, this will help make up part of the increase in commuting expenses. I brought enough work home with me that I should be able to keep myself busy the entire day. I have every reason to believe that this should work out well.

One More Day

The services for my grandmother will finally end today. This has been a long week, viewing her body at the funeral home in Hastings, Minnesota, on Wednesday, attending the funeral service in Woodbury, Minnesota, yesterday, and today going to Gladbrook, Iowa, for the burial of her remains. I suppose with friends and family spread out all over, this long, drawn-out process was inevitable. I think this will be the first time I will have seen where my paternal grandfather's grave site.

Anyway, since the services in the Twin Cities were held area with the final services today in Iowa, most of the family decided to travel to Iowa yesterday afternoon. Since we were returning to Iowa, we decided to go back to our house. It was really nice to be back in our own house, sleeping in our own beds. I think Emma slept much better being in her crib.

Visit to the Funeral Home

Yesterday, Mel, Emma, my sister, my mother, and I all drove to the funeral home to see my grandmother before she was cremated. I had never before seen someone at a funeral home prior to cremation, and before we got there, I didn't really know what to expect. Instead of being all made up, lying in a casket, my grandmother's body was lying on a gurney like they would have used to bring her into the funeral home. She was covered with a blanket up to her shoulders, but that was it. We spent about ten or fifteen minutes in the basement of the funeral home where she was before leaving. That will be the last time I see her as she was cremated last night. Her remains will not be at the funeral tomorrow, but someone will be taking them back to Iowa on Saturday for her inurnment.

We spent the remainder of the evening at my aunt and uncle's house in Cottage Grove. My aunt and uncle from the Chicago area as well as their son and daughter-in-law were also there. Everyone enjoyed seeing Emma.

This morning, Mel, Emma, my mother, and I went to the Mall of America to do a little shopping. Apparently most of the clothes we brought with us for Emma, as well as most of the clothes we still have at home, doesn't really fit anymore. So we got some new onesies for Emma. We then met my sister for lunch at Don Pablo's. Later this afternoon, we will probably return to my aunt and uncle's house where my uncle and his son who live in North Carolina should now be since their arrival in Minnesota this morning.

Weight Watchers Week 23

I lost an additional 0.8 pound this week, bringing my total weight loss to 32.4 pounds. I have revised my goal weight several times. At first, I had a goal around 185 pounds, but thinking that was maybe a bit too low for me, I increased my goal to 190 pounds. I set that as my goal because I want to weigh less than 200 pounds, and I figured that 190 pounds is sufficiently lower than 200 pounds so even with slight fluctuations in weight, I will remain in the range of weights that I am happy with.

Now though, I am once again reconsidering my final weight goal. I am afraid that if I do get my weight down to 190 pounds, my new pants with a waist size of 34 inches will be too big and I would have to go down to a size 32 or 33. That in itself is not an issue, but being tall, it is getting more difficult to find pants with the 36-inch inseam that I need. I have found some Dockers in size 34x36, although I had to order them online, and JCPenney does have casual pants in waist sizes of both 32 and 34 that they will hem to any inseam length requested. However, I think that finding jeans in size 32x36 will be extremely difficult, and I think I can probably forget about 33x36. Perhaps I should do some research to see if these sizes are available. I don't necessarily want to set my weight-loss goal based on the availability of clothes, but it is something I need to consider.

Satellite TV

I am beginning to really dislike having satellite TV. Sure, it's great most of the time, and we do get a lot of channels, but I am getting really sick of the disruptions to satellite service caused by inclement weather. We just had a major downpour of rain, during which time, we lost the satellite signal. When the rain calmed significantly, we still had issues with receiving the signal. Perhaps this inconvenience is not too big a price to pay considering that it does cost slightly less than what the cable bill was and we do receive quite a few channels, but when I am trying to watch TV and we are not getting any satellite signal, it is annoying!

Grandma E.

A few weekends ago, Mel, Emma, and I went to see my grandmother in the Twin Cities area. She has been suffering from cancer for the past several months and had stopped treatment. This morning I got the phone call that I had been anticipating for some time. My grandmother had passed away. We had been hoping to return to the care center at which she was staying in a couple weeks to see her again, but that will not happen now. At least she got so see her great-granddaughter Emma again before she passed. My mother had been visiting her this weekend and told me this weekend that Grandma was not doing too well. As I have indicated, I can't say that I was at all surprised, and she is now free from any suffering she had from the cancer, but it is still sad nonetheless.

This is the second grandparent I have lost this year, with my mom's father passing away in March, less than two weeks before Emma was born. My dad's father died when I was in eighth grade, so I have had three only living grandparents for about twenty years now. Now I have just one grandparent left.

I didn't think that I would be too upset when my grandmother, my dad's mother, died, but it has been a little difficult. In the fall of 1997, when I was student teaching in Council Bluffs, Iowa, I lived at my grandmother's condo there. At the time, she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Living with her during that time, I was able to help her out when she needed assistance getting to doctor appointments and with shopping. I had a good time living there. Maybe that is part of the reason this is somewhat difficult.

Perhaps another reason why losing Grandma E. is more difficult than I thought it would be is that I am losing a connection I had with my father who passed away a little over two years ago. Of course having her around wasn't the same as having my father, but it was a connection to him.

Mel, Emma, and I will be heading up to the Twin Cities this week to see Grandma one last time before she is cremated. I am just glad that we were able to see her a couple weeks ago when she was still cognizant of her surroundings and that everyone else in the family was able to make it there to see her.