Drew & Katherine's Big Adventure

I've been quiet about the diet and exercise front lately.   The weight loss has in fact stopped temporarily, with a week's travel and the recovery screwing up both my intake and exercise.   I'm not panicked (yet), but distractions like this after this much loss have been my downfall before.

Which is not to say I've given up.  In fact, yesterday we got out the bikes, checked the tires, and set course to have lunch at University Village in Seattle, a ride ~50% longer than we had previously taken.

The only problem is, we didn't make it.  About eight miles into the eleven mile ride, Katherine found her front tire was going flat.  After a trail side inspection, we decided the stem itself was leaking, and walked the both bikes to the nearest shop, Cycle University.  Nice owner, prompt service, but he didn't have the proper size tube.  So I  hopped back on my own bike, pedaled down to the near by Bicycle Center, got a tube, and took it back to Katherine at Cycle U where she had it installed.

Suffice to say the delay took the wind out of our sails, and once we got lunch next door we headed back.

I did still log ~ 21+ miles, a new daily high for me in the past 25 years.

Easy Money

Katherine says I can never die while working at Google, because no matter how or where it happens, the authorities will blame her.   We have suitable term life insurance out on each other to cover loss of future income (kitten farms don't keep the lights on and the kibble flowing on just purrs), but Google's benefits dwarf that.

Not even mentioned in the article is the actual term life insurance they also pay for, which is generous but more mundane.

Inventory

I feel I am getting more sloppy about my eating and exercise habits, but my weight loss continues at the rate over just over two pounds a week.   I guess I'm not screwing up too badly, especially I've been dropping long enough to see real results in my waistline.  I keep swapping belts, and seeing what old things fit.   The coolest item so far is my SRE Mission Control jacket, which was an excellent for some top down motoring in cool weather yesterday.

(What, your company doesn't give spiffy leather jackets for schwag?   Come work for mine.  Void where prohibited, certain terms and conditions apply.)

Suffice say, it's getting to be that some clothing clean up is order.  Case in point are my belts. I have a selection in varying sizes going back 10 years.  A few months ago, I decided to clean out stuff I don't wear, like any belts too small to wear and T-shirts too ugly to wear.  By the time I got around to actually carting a load to the local St. Vincent de Paul donation center today, not only had the belts that fit changed,  I realized I should dispose of the largest belts and keep the older belts that I have a very good chance of shrinking into.  I also sent away my largest "fat pants", which had only been worn a couple of times.

I must note that our closets do hold ample evidence of the major room for improvement.  I've got at least two jackets from different decades which don't come close to fitting yet, a trench coat old enough to drink which never sees the light of day in rainy Seattle, and jeans I would have to drop the considerable amount I have already sloughed off again before if they might fit again.   (I have no idea why those jeans still exist, I think they were worn last during the first Reagan Bush administration.)


Even so, the closet may need another pass.  But I didn't have time today, and besides the more I lose the more I need add to the pile.

What a nice First World problem.

Updated:  I mis-read the labels on the jeans, inseam versus waist.   Let's just say I'm shorter than I am wide.

YMMV

My weight loss trends remain very good.  However, sometimes, I am amused if not confused by the details.

In particular, this morning I dropped three pounds, after being down a pound yesterday.  That's on top of two pounds Thursday, for a total of six pounds since Wednesday.   I fully expect half of that to come rocketing back in the normal course of events, and actually prefer it would.  My healthy target is to lose 1-3 pounds a week, no more, and it's only more than 2 pounds because I'm exercising in part to avoid muscle loss.  (I also cleared it with my physician.)

Never mind that I had pizza two nights in a row and went over my daily budget at least one day during that period.

I blame portion control and my overall clean living, in particular that I've gotten at least some light exercise in the last 24 days out of the last 30.  Maybe that's how I wore out a connector for the heart monitor, which snapped off today when I unmounted the monitor from the chest strap after riding the exercise bike:

Aw, snap!   One connector for my Polar Monitor is AWOL

Fortunately, like Foghorn Leghorn, "I always keep a spare in my locker".

Slightly more seriously, my longer trend is making me feel like a bit of a freak.    My two month record is over two pounds a week, and doesn't seem to have any short term road blocks.  If that were average results for Weight Watchers and similar sensible plans, the world be a thinner place.  Katherine and I agree, Weight Watcher's metrics just happen to be a natural compliment to my own methods.    This hit home yesterday, as when I poked about the online Weight Watcher tools I came across a page which reported the number of days I had recorded my intake, which was 100% of the days since I started.  Since both I eat and use a computer every day, why wouldn't I record the data?

In any case, I'll try to keep it going while it works.

A Miles Milestone

I have a spreadsheet which reaches back into the mists of time, with my weight recorded at least 115 times a year since 2001, and more sporadic entries going back another 10 years and beyond.   It also has acquired other data over the the years, like the occasional blood pressure check.

I am consistent when and how I weigh myself, making the weight tracking is fairly routine and accurate.  Years ago, I added prediction for any weight loss based on the periods of January, year-to-date, and the last 30 days.   This spring, the "last 30 days" prediction was off by a only days as to when would I hit my first goal (17 pounds lost), not bad for the input I gave it.

The blood pressure measurement is sufficient to assure me that I'm normal.   I am vaguely amused at how my resting pulse has dropped a little during my current fitness kick, but it's not worth tracking more closely.

The absolute worse metric in the spreadsheet I have is "miles exercised".  It started with number of the bicycle miles I had ridden, got the stationary bike added as its own column, then walking, and now elliptical trainer.   These are at best apples-to-hotdog comparisons, but I keep it up in part because it serves as a binary flag for having exercised at all on particular day, and that by itself is useful.

Yet, like swooning over cheap sticker awards for losing 5 pounds, I still care about the number of miles.   In particular, in the past ten years the most miles I've ever recorded is 602, and yesterday this young year moved beyond the rest of the pack and into second place with 308.  By summer's end I could be at a 10 year high.   That would be nice.

(Having done ~ 1500+ road miles on my bicycle in 1985, I suspect my all time record is safe for another summer, if not much longer.)

Fitness, meet Feline Fate

Getting the bike out of the back of the garage is a pain (we actually put cars in there!), and lately I've wanted it accessible.  Thus, it's been tempting fate in the front hall.

Today, feline fate visited the bike as documented on the Summerhill Kitten Farm blog.

My Next Five Year Mission

Five years and two months ago, I moved to the Puget Sound area to join Google as an SRE.  Alas, in the last year, supporting the production side of things has started to burn me out. So, as of today, it's official: I have a new job. I have transferred from SRE to regular software engineering, which puts me back where I belong: writing code.

That I have already been here for for five years is not unique, as I previously stayed at three other employers for over five years each. But it is unique that I now have no interest to go beyond down the hall, since I've never been at any company for six years -- one I left to finish school, another I departed from once they lost their hunger for bleeding edge technology, and the last seemed to view software engineers as an necessary evil.

(That last company was more comfortable with programmers who limited their world view to Microsoft IIS and SQL Server; being a snob, I am not sure they count as software engineers.  So sue me.)

But Google does want people like me, they do hunger for the bleeding edge, and there is the small fact of where it ranks in terms of the best companies to work for.   That's a beauty contest, perhaps, but it's nice to work for an entrant.

My five year mission as an SRE is complete.  So let's see what I can do to earn my keep here for another five years.