Weightloss update.

I weighed in at the Dr's office on the 17th of December. I was dissapointed to see that I had only lost 2 lbs. I saw that my overall weight was 297.5 lbs down from 299.5lbs.

When I get weighed it is not some old fashoined scale. This is a special computerized scale. Not only can it tell your weight but it can tell you where you weight is.

The nutrionist comes in and we beging to talk about my meals, excercise and such. I was anxious for us to get to the weight part. Then I just told her. I only lost two lbs and I was dissapointed.

She began by pulling out the strip of receipt paper that the scale spewed out. It read the follow facts: I had lost 2lbs of overall weight, 12.5lbs of fat weight and gained 10 of "other" weight.

This was excellent news for me. Eventhough I didn't lose a lot of overall weight, I did lose 12.5lbs of fat. I have been swimming and weight lifting so I know I am eating the correct foods and getting the right amount of excercise.

So, that is my monthly update.

Checking In

Wow, its so long since I have posted. The main reason is not laziness, but it was my preparation for surgery.

I had surgery November 7, 2008. It was routine work "under the hood" procedure if you would. As some of you don't know, I have been on this exercise routine since August 23rd when L.A. Fitness opened up across from my office. I normally just swim because I have real bad knees. If I attempt to run, jog or walk, my knees swell up and I am out for at least two weeks.

So, when I started this life change (I don't call it a diet because they fail) I began at a hefty 318lbs of pure unadulterated fat. Even though I had been swimming and started to eat healthier, I couldn't lose any weight. No matter how long I swam or how hard I avoided certain foods, nothing was working.

Then I started to go to a nutritionist. Boy, if you think you are eating healthy, go to one of these nutritionist and they will open your eyes more ways than one! First off, did you know that you have to at least drink 1/2 your weight in water? Yes, I said half your weight in water. It works like this. If you weigh 256 lbs, then you must drink 128oz of water. Why water you ask? According to my nutritionist dehydration is one of the leading causes to many of our diseases.

Let me put it to you this way. Since I began drinking approximately 160oz of water a day, I have been off of my blood pressure medication. Of course it is not only the water drinking but also the 20lbs that I have lost so far and of course, water helps in weight loss. It has something to do with flushing out the bad juice and helping in digestion as well. I just drink the water and I let the professionals argue why its good.

Another thing that I have learned, "if it's white, it isn't right". What do I mean by white? What I mean by white I am talking about refined flours and foods. When food producers refine the flower, they are taking out most of the good stuff out of the foods. Our bodies react severely to enriched flour. Here is a scary thought for you to digest. Did you know that when you eat refined flour, you liver swells instantly? Yes, I didn't even know that. So, it has been whole grains for me and no red meats.

It has been a struggle. These are the changes I have made to put my life style in perspective. I have not had red meats in over 6 weeks. I guess it takes a long time to break down the fibers in red meat. I have had no white flour foods. For pasta I have been eating the spinach spaghetti with turkey ground meats. For my protein, turkey, chicken and fish.

The weight is coming off. I started going to the gym yesterday, Monday 8/7/08. I still can't swim because I still have one scab to work through and then I should be able to go. My goal is to swim 1500 meters every time I get into the pool. Before I had surgery I was up to 750 meters which is the half way point.

Only time and hard work will tell. I will keep you all posted as to my progress monthly. When I go to my nutritionist you will know the results of my weight loss.

Life Lock

I just wanted to get a quick post in about a very important company. Well, it is important in my life. The name of the company is LifeLock and you can visit their website at www.lifelock.com

Just one thing before I begin to put my thoughts down, I am in no way associated with Life Lock and I am definitely not on their payroll.

What is Life Lock? It is a company that monitors your credit and social security number and prevents, yes, prevents fraud and identity theft. I live in AZ. AZ has the highest identity theft in the United States. Identity theft is one of the longest and hardest frauds to recover from and not many laws are created to protect the consumer who's identity has been stolen.

An example: My brother goes to buy a home and he is told that his credit rating is 420. That he defaulted on a home in Miami, Tucson and currently owns a home and an Escalade. First off, he has never been to Phoenix and he drives a Honda. But the creditors don't know that and the credit bureaus don't either. So he has spent $7000 in court, lawyer and other fees just to clear his name. The process is over bearing and the proof falls on him not the credit agencies.

He basically has to send proof, notarized by the courts, that he was were he said he was when the house or vehicles were purchased. This happened 5 years ago and he is still dealing with this issue. Slowly but surely all derogatory credit is being removed. (By the way, this really happened to him and he is still dealing with this. Apparently some illega alien syndicate stole his SSN and has been using it since he was a teenager.)

Did you hear about the raid in Iowa? Immigration raided a meat packing plant in Iowa. Approximately 378 of the 700 employees were illegals living and working in Iowa. Did you know that over 60% of them had taken on someone else's identity? Yes, some American's credit was ruined. Their Social Security numbers have been used and shared amongst the illegal community. The bad part is that the company knew that some of the SSN were fraud and didn't do anything to stop it.

So, why did I decide to give Life Lock a chance? Because I have worked hard to have a high credit rating. I make sure that my bills on paid on time and that I maintain a low revolving credit amount. So life lock basically takes care of everything except getting your bills paid on time, that still lays with you.

Life lock put a 90 day fraud alert on my family's credit with each of the credit bureaus. Then they requested our free credit reports. Yes, this is something that we could do but it is a pain in the rear to get this done. Why not pay someone to do this plus monitor your credit and prevent credit fraud? Another thing, they will pay up to 1 million dollars to cover any court and laywer fees to get your name cleared. Then they ordered our work history with the Social Security Administration. My children's history had to be asked for by us and it is still in the process. But if it wasn't for Life Lock, I would have never known that I could do that for my kids.

The company will order my free credit reports and will place a fraud alert on my credit with all the bureaus for as long as I have them. So, all this plus the ease of mind for $22.50 a month is not a bad investment. And yes, they are also covering my children, one is 10 and one is 5. So it is ease of mind that their credit will be preserved until they learn to use a credit card.

If you have any doubts, then go to LifeLock.com and give it a go. Heck, even the owner of the company posts his SSN because he is that confident and no, I have not checked to see if it was a valid SSN.

Rechargeable Batteries

As many of you know, I believe in protecting the environment. I guess that goes against what many believe being that I am a registered Republican. (Not going to turn this blog political, just saying.)

If you have read, or read, my blog you will see that I do believe in protecting mother earth. From getting Fluorescent bulbs, to reducing my water usage outside on the lawn, to getting the High Efficiency front end loaders. (They use over 50% less water than traditional washers.)

I started using rechargeable batteries over 18monts ago. The reason I waited to post this blog was because of the testing I have been doing with them. I have been using them from remote controls, wireless mice, massage bots and my bluetooth keyboard that I am writing this on. Are they the best thing to use for energy? No.

Why not? They don't last as long as alkaline batteries, per charge. I say per charge because I have had the same batteries for the 18month testing period that I am talking about here. What happens when you are done with an alkaline battery? It goes into the trash filling up the land fills. They corrode, leak and contaminate the ground water. By the way, ground water is essential in AZ!

Now, what happens when your rechargeable battery dies? You recharge it use it and repeat. Yes, while they only last a fraction of the time per charge, you are not wasting landfill space and contaminating the ground.

What have I done to make a little difference in the lasting power? I purchased Hybrid rechargeable batteries. What are Hybrid rechargeable batteries? They have Nickel Metal Hydride (NMih) and Alkaline in them. They can be recharged just as often as regular NMih batteries but they hold the juice better when not being used. That technology allows for more energy when you need it.

Yes, purchasing these batteries will mean a little more expense up front, but in the long run you will save money by not purchasing wasteful energy, Alkaline Batteries. The batteries I have been using are 2AA and 3AAA batteries. I will be trying the D batteries once I find ones with over 4000mah capacity. I need the extra juice being that I use a Maglite at work.

When in doubt, use rechargeable batteries. Think of your children"s future and how we will be leaving Earth for their use. We need energy to survive as humans, but we don't have to destroy the environment using that energy!!!

Today I realized

I realized something today.

There are many Treo users at work. Yes, many people still use the Treo because of it form factor and ease of use of the Palm OS. Palm OS, while old, offers new users an easy way to learn a Smartphone and its OS. Many of the Treo users are long time Palm users going back as far as the Handspring.

But, I realized something today. I am do have some technological knowledge of something. I don't consider myself to be Steve Jobs or or Jeff Hawkins when it comes to technology but I know my way around some technology.

There I was minding my own business and next thing you know I am approached by a co-worker. This co-worker begins to ask me question concerning his Treo 755p. It just so happens that is the device that I am currently using. So we begin to talk about the Treo's features and capabilities. To his amazement, he learned how powerful of a device it is. Approximately 10 minutes into our conversation there were 4 other co-workers listening to my little speech and teachings. What was supposed to be a 10 minute "get to know your device" chat session, turned out to be an hour and a half teachings on the device.

Then and there I realized that I had in fact something to offer. I often hide behind my computer, keyboard or IP address shy about being chastized for the lack of knowledge. However, today I realized that I do have something to give. Therefore, Today I realized.

Power Hero

What is Power Hero? Power Hero is a strong Palm OS application used to save a little juice on your Treo.

I have been using Power Hero for about 5 days now. Let us talk about the first page of Power Hero. Here you will see a graph. The graph will just give you an idea of what the discharge charge rates are. Click on the graph and you will get a bigger graph. In that graph you can also see the capacity of the battery and the charge rate or discharge rate. This is good for people like me who can stare at graphs all day.

To the left of the small graph, you will see 3 tabs, usage info, Power Saver and Scheduling. If you click on the Usage Info it will give you information concerning your battery. Some examples of this are, Remaining Battery Life, Last Plugged in and Last Unplugged. If you click on the I at the upper right corner of the screen, you will be taken to the info screen. If you select Usage Details, you will see the overall usage of your battery performance. Click on the I on the upper right of the screen again and you will get to the Tips screen.

In this tips screen you will see information about the information on the previous screen. If you scroll down Dan puts his hobbyistsofware e-mail address so you can e-mail him this information. This will help him fine tune the software for our Treos/Centros.

Now we go to the Power Saver tab. Here you will find four buttons at the top of the screen. Auto-Off. Simple what is states, you can choose to power off the Network, bluetooth, Infrared and Keyboard Lights after a certain amount of time. Those times can be determined by you.

Auto-Bluetooth: You have three boxes to choose from, Turn on when call received, Turn on when call dialed and Turn on when plugged in. Being that my Treo is finicky with Bluetooth, I have left these settings unchecked.

Signal Saver: I have these both checked. Just in case my phone can't find a signal for 10 minutes, Power Hero will tell my Treo to stop searching for 10 and attempt to find the signal 5 times. Because of where I work, the signal can come and go pretty often. When you have no signal we all know that the phones are designed to look for one constantly. That will certainly drain your battery.

Miscellaneous: In this button you have some more options. The only three I have checked are, Toggle Key lights with side key. Yes, you can turn off the KB lights saving a little bit of energy. Next, "Don't turn Bluetooth off if paired" Very important. Because if you don't, the Auto-Off feature will turn off the Bluetooth after a predetermined time. By checking this you have trumped the last command. Remember, only if paired will this take into effect. Last but not least, I checked the Log drain rate every 5 minutes. I am still trying to determine where the log is or if I need it. The reason I did select it was I believe my graph needs it to log the drain rate.

Now on to scheduling. You can schedule various things in this button. From network off to phone off, bluetooth infrared etc. This screen will be very helpful if you don't want those things turning on at night or during a meeting.

Below the graph you have buttons for the Phone, Network, Bluetooth, Infrared and Keyboard. By simply clicking them you can turn them off or on. This will allow you to have all the Power saving features in one screen. Last but not least, there is a slide so that you can control the Screen brightness.

How has my phone fared with this application? Very well so far. First off, my 755P is a very stable Treo. I have had no issues with it. Now, some applications can cause conflicts and resets but Power Hero is not one of them. At night I have had 30-40% juice left in my battery after a day of heavy use. Now, I have about 50% left. Th at there is a 10-20% savings of battery power.

I have yet to perfect the settings on my Treo. There is more to learn from this application. I believe that I can get more juice out of it for sure. Out of a scale of 1-5 I rate this application a 5. Why so high? The following are the reasons: The application is stable, it doesn't slow down my Treo in other words, there is no lag. It is a very power application putting all the energy saving methods into one screen and one touch.

If you hurry up Treonauts has a Heist sale going on right now. It does end on the 17th of August so hurry up. For only 9.95, Power Hero is a must have application!!!

UPDATE:

I wanted to have an honest review on this application for Palm OS. Still, PH is a very useful application. I am most impressed with the ability to save power on your Treo/Centro all on one screen. The feature rich PH application is a must for all Treo/Centro users

With this said, I did run into some issues with my Treo. Let me start by saying this. I don't believe that the program is flawed nor do I believe that my Treo 755P is broke. My issue happened to be with another great application, USBModem.

See, both applications work well on my Treo. While using PH I had no issues, as stated above. The application worked flawlessly. On Saturday I needed to use USB Modem. I set up my connection and my Treo reset. I tried numerous times to get USB Modem to work with different settings on PH. My belief is that PH had control of the network. When USB Modem tried to disable the DUN and take over the network, PH did not want to give it up.

I decided to uninstall PH and try USB Modem. Guess what? Yup, USBModem worked like it has for the past year. Now, I am not saying that PH is not a good application. But as happens with Palm OS applications, sometimes they just don't play nice together. For now, I chose to stay with USB Modem. Not only because I paid for it, but because I need it to connect my laptop when no WiFi is available.

I did e-mail both programmers with my findings in hopes of a fix. I really want to use PH but I need it to play nice with USBModem.

Weather App

Nifty little application that I purchased for my daughter's Centro and my Treo755P is Weather. Yes, simple yet complicated.

This application allows you to create your own weather channel. For example, I have it update the weather for locations of where I live, work and vacation. The weather application simultaneously updates all locations that I have set for default.

There are default times for updating and then you can set your own times. Usually I like my weather to be updated 4 hours a day. So I set it up where my weather station updates at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.

I get the current weather, 48 hour weather, 7 and 14 day forecast! The weather seems accurate enough except for three days ago. I manually updated the weather and it said that it was clear with a full moon. Well, it happened to be raining and the moon was covered up! But that could do with the weather station being out of commission and not the weather application itself.

Apart from collecting the weather from virtually anywhere you want, you can also set up a wallpaper of your choice. If you wish to take a picture with your Treo or Centro and then use it as a wallpaper, you can. The wallpaper you see in the background of my Weather app is of the rest area east of Indio, CA on my way to TweetupLA.

The cost? $4.95 for a 1 year subscription or like I did, $19.95 for an infinite subscription. Give it try I know you'll like it

Recycle, doing my part.

I called this recycle because I purchased something at Starbucks today. No, I am not affiliated to, work for or promote Starbucks. I don't think that a multi-billion dollar company needs this blogger's help.

But why am I posting about this? Well, let us say that Starbucks sells 1,000,000 plastic cubs of Iced Mocha. Now, let us put those 1 million cups in a land fill. Plastics can take thousands of years to break down but are not biodegradable. If they are, please direct me to the site that says so. Starbucks is the #1 coffee supplier, at least to my taste buds and the taste buds of my co-workers, that is about 400 of us. So you can imagine the unsurmountable amount of plastics that go into our land fills. Now, the 1 million cup number is for the United States. Starbucks is a worldwide company, imagine the numbers now.

So, if you have read my posts on this blog, you can deduct that I am about conservation and saving our earth. So I bought this hard plastic cup at Starbucks today. I have actually been looking for a cup like this since purchasing my hot coffee one months ago. What do I like about this cup? I can use it over, over, over and over again. There is no damaging the environment, other than the production of the cup, every time I go buy a Grande Iced Skinny Mocha.

So, what are you doing to help out? It may not seem like much, but every bit counts. A cup a day, keeps the landfill a little emptier. Let me know what you are doing to help out mother nature. As you know, we Americans are the most wasteful people on earth.

TweetupLA 2

This is my after tweetupla post. I do have to say that I did have fun. I was nervous at first, but after a few minutes I settled into myself.

The entire night was full of conversation and everyone talking about everything from Baseball to Linux! It was a conversation that left me in awe. I thought we would only talk technology and that made me nervous since I am not a tech guru. I know some stuff, but nothing like some of the twits I follow. So to hear some baseball, politics and food, it put me at ease for sure.

I cannot put into words how great of a night it was. The night was entirely full of laughter. It was almost as if we knew each other. I know it is different knowing someone on twitter and RL but it really isn't. What they are on twitter is what you get in RL. I met some aspiring actresses, @demca and @querzny. Then I met the twittertini sisters, @IBTerri and @Wiggly_Lisa. OMG with these two. It was so awesome getting to know them IRL because we have so much fun on twitter. Meeting them was one of the highlights of the tweetupla.

I am not saying that meeting @rissadee wasn't as exciting. She is a great conversationalist and loves Obama. We matched up like oil and water! (FYI, I dislike Obama like the plague.) But she has interesting topics and a very cool @ pics from the tweetup!!! Likewise, I saw @BrooklynBeast again. BTW Beast, I have not forgotten your tequila, I will get it to you soon. Getting to see the first tweetup bud was nice. He even flew all the way from NYC to just to be there, it was great.

So many twits and tweetple that I can't mention all of them! But I do have to recognize @gregbarnett! He and @demca set this baby up and they did one hell of a job. Very well organized with much to drink and eat. Plus, the Studio Bar is a very nice place to hold a party like that. The tweetupla was going to be streamed but @scarab couldn't get the stream to load up. I guess you all had to eat what we tweeted.

I do have to say, tweetupla set a high standard for all future tweetups! BTW, the bartender that @gregbarnett hired was da shiznit!!! She could mix a drink with seaweater and kelp and make it taste good. Yes tweeple, she was that good!!!

Look around the net for other posts and Flikr posts that some may have put up!

TweetupLA

It is Friday and I am only 24 hours away from my meetup tweetup with some Twitter folk. I am excited and nervous at the same time. Nervous you ask? Yeah, it is very different meeting people in person than it is meeting someone on twitter. To me twitter is a "barrier" from RL(Real Life) to my CL (CyberLife). These jitters will go away quickly though.

I am the type of guy that quickly adapts to changing environments and such. I know @BrooklynBeast in person. I met @BrooklynBeast and he is a cool kat and of course the other twitters that we know via twitter will be there. So knowing the beast will be a relaxer as I am sure it will ease the tension. There shouldn't be any tension, but you know, those jitters. Wow, I sound like a boy about to kiss his girlfriend for the first time. RAWR!!!

I can't wait to meet everyone. It should be a blast and we will have fun. The only problem I see is twitter. Twitter has had some serious issues that they can't recover from. I was hoping we could all tweet while we are at the tweetup but it appears that we won't be able to. Twitter is acting sub par at best.

Another thought that I had thinking about this tweetup. I have met people from NYC, @BrooklynBeast and @BrujitaLinda, I am going to meet some more cool twitterers at the tweetup. All these tweetups and I have yet to tweetup with any Phoenix twits. It is not that I didn't or haven't wanted to. The problem is the conflicts on dates that the tweetups have taken place here in the valley.

Well, enough of that. I am packed and ready to go. BTW, @BrooklynBeast, I have your bottle of Tequila bro.

Mexico Vacation

How I have neglected you. By you, I mean my blog. I have been so busy with other things in real life that I haven't made time for writing. When I decided to start a blog, it wasn't to improve on the world, or start a new idea. It was more for me to jot a few thoughts down and help ease my mind. So blogging to me is not what it is to others. To others it is a life event, to me, it is just a few words put down on an electronic device. A few thoughts to vent my mind from everyday stress.

The family and I went to Mexico on vacation. It was more of a "going to a wedding" trip than a vacation. However, we did manage to go to Guanajuato, Guanajuato. Do you know what Guanajuato is famous for? Yup, mines, slaves and Mummies. Let me elaborate before people get upset. I should add, that it is past history and therefore it is mentioned here.

The Spaniards came to the new world with visions of riches, gold, silver and bronze. Their main goal was gold of course. They ended up in the area called Quanax Juato by the natives living in the area. Since the Spaniards couldn't pronounce the name, they called it, Guanajuato. The Spaniards, like most European Countries inhabiting the New World, bought slaves in order to work the mines. I am not going to go into the details of the conditions these poor men worked in, but you can imagine the silicone in the air and lungs. These men didn't stand a chance of survival.

The mummies are another spectacle in Guanajuato. These are not actually mummies, but bodies that are petrified. These bodies were not actually buried in the ground but were buried in walls made of stone. The belief is that through time the water and mineral protected the cadaver from deterioration. What ever the cause this museum is very interesting to come and see. I have attached some photos for your viewing.

If you ever want to go to Mexico on vacation, I recommend a stop by Guanajuato. Very lovely and clean city.

My Hdd

As you can see from the picture, I am holding my laptop's hdd.  Why you ask?  Well, I arrived home one day and went to turn it on. It wouldn't turn on. I checked to see what the problem was and what do I see. Water. Yup H2O.

We all know that H2O is no good around electronics. Needless to say, my laptop was all, well, broke. Sadly I lost all the music I didn't back up. I am hoping to be able to recover some of the files myself.

Tenshots26 helped me out and showed me where I can buy a cable adapter for my hdd. Once I get around to ordering it, I will give it a go. I am hoping to recover most of my stuff plus a few music downloaders I had.  Piece of advice. Don't get water on your laptop.  I know it is common sense, but damn it hurt. I had my baby set up on more ways than one. Eh, what's done is done.

Quicknews

I was finally able to get Quick News working on my 755P. I need to speak on it because this reader for my Palm Treo, is da bomb!

It is not uncommon for people to want to get their rss feeds in the easiest way possible. You can't get any easier than Quick News. The way I did it was to download the OMPL file from my Google Reader. I Hotsynced it to my SD card on my Treo. Quick News has a search function that will search for that OPML file. Once it downloads it, it will place those feeds into Quick News.

You have the option of doing the auto update or manual update. I have mine set to auto update on a certain schedule. You have the option of 12, 6, 4, 3, 2 and 1 hours update increments. Depends on how much your feeds get new messages, is how you will set up your auto updates. The program is pretty stable and has caused no resets on my Treo. There is a 28 day trial for our convenience and testing. By all means, test it, test it, test it before purchasing the key for it.

Now, after the updates, you can begin to view your feeds. Scroll down and read your feeds. This is where I love Quick News the most. If you subscribed to a Podcast or a feed that has a podcast, you will be able to listen to the podcast. You can download it or listen to a stream. All of your downloads can be kept on the card saving you space on your Treo.

The program is very intuitive, easy to use, easy to set up and easy to keep your phone's space free. Give it a try and if you like it, purchase this little program.

Here is the link: http://software.treonauts.com/product.asp?id=449

alife