Weight Watchers has flexed its legal muscle and killed WWCalc for the Palm. I can honestly say that if it weren't for this software, I may not have stuck to the program. What a shame... and SHAME ON WEIGHT WATCHERS for taking such harsh action on a developer that provided a great tool to their membership. Bob Withers has invested a great deal of time and effort without ever profiting for himself, and provided this tool for free to WW members.

The least that Weight Watchers could do is to purchase the rights to this software from Mr. Withers, and distribute it to its members.

Trying out the YACCS commenting thingy - click on the comment link below.

I know its the middle of January, but thoughts have turned to Baseball. I pulled out some paperwork from my last years fantasy baseball league, and sifted through the rosters, reports, draft day work sheets, etc. Then on the drive home, I turned on WFAN, and it was NY Mets day. I heard them interview Johnny BeGood Franco, Manager Bobby V and Al Lieter. They were all excited about all the great player acquisitions during the off season, and what it means for the teams chances. Tonite, I went to the library and borrowed For the Love of the Game with Kevin Costner. Great Baseball movie... Well, its nearly the last week in January, and spring training camps open in Fla. in February, so its not all that far away. Meanwhile, I can look at these pics, and dream away. Whoopie!

Evening Post- Huskie hoops, ladies beat Notre Dame 80-53. Great seats, right at ground level behind basket, next to pep band. Fun. Thanks Diana!

WW-Lost another 3, 25+ lbs. total, 7 to go.

Took today off work for a long weekend. Been real full of myself with my diet and excersize. Can't help it. I feel physically great... light on my feet, active and and upbeat.

Seen lots of movies. Gosford Park ... a bore. The Gift... a great suspensful flick. What Woman Want... some good yucks, but schlocky ending. Read my entire reviews of these films here.

This afternoon goin to Ladies Huskies Basketball at the Hartford CC, then another Weight Watchers weigh-in, so I'm going to excersize and shower now, then basically starve myself today.

Hey, its snowing like crazy again.

Nothin like a good weigh-in at WW to lift your spirits. Lost another 4 lbs this week. A total of 23 lbs., made 10 percent goal. Need to drop another 10 to get to the BMI. Cool.

New iMac...Sweet!

Feel like crap. Damn cold and sorethroat have plagued me all week. Agravated, grumpy, sick....grrrrrr!

Mac Stuff
Macworld Expo SF - Lots of exciting anticipation surrounding this one. Flat panel iMacs, iWalk, Gigahertz and much much more. I'll try to get to Apple Store in W. Hartford to see the keynote on the big screen. At very least, will try to watch it on the web.

Vacation
Booked flights for spring vacation with sis Barb in Fla. Thanks Barb... it's 3 months away, but I am really looking forward to it! I need a vacation.

Weight Watchers
Still obsessed with diet. I've done much research on the web at several diet and weight watchers sites (official and unofficial). I've tried to reverse engineer the points calculator to better understand the WW system. I ended up at the US Patent office web site and found Patent number 6,040,531. If you dig through the text and image pages you will find the formula:
p = (c/50) + (f/12) - (r/5)
p=points, c=calories, f=fat grams, r=fiber grams (cap the fiber at no more than 4 grams)

There it is. WW has asked several sites to remove on and offline calculators from various web sites, but with the above information (in the public record) and any simple spread sheet, you can easily make a Points Calculator.

Basically the system is based on points of low values which makes it easy to calculate and track. Simply divide the number of calories by 50, add 1/2 point for 6 fat grams and deduct .5 point for 3 fiber grams. The result is the number of points (round to the next number if .5 or greater). Keep within a range of points per day (22- 27 for me at 180 lbs), and you have the program.

What I have found from all this research, is that any diet is simply a function of calories in vrs. calories out. WW points is just another way of controlling calorie intake. The other half of the equation is to increase your activity level to burn more calories. So, I have been pretty good about "kickin' it up a notch" with excersizing on the bike, long walks on the trail, and just trying not to spend too much time sittin on my ass in front of the TV.

Well, its New Years. Partied last night at our house, went to dinner, then back to the house. Good friends, good food, good champaign. Chilled today, worked on the web site, lounged around the house, took a power walk in the woods, listened to tunes, cut a Kieth Jarret CD, read some book, generally just relaxed. Tomorrow... back to work.

Just a great day away from work yesterday. Spent the entire day with Claire. Caught the early matinee of A Beatiful Mind... This was one great movie. A real surprise. GO OUT AND SEE THIS FLICK. Hit the mall to exchange a gift, ate a big Sushi dinner, saw RHS Basketball beat a tough Glastonbury team with an exciting finish.

Ahhhh.... and the weekend has just begun!

WW update. -2.4 this week; -16 overall.

Looking forward to taking the day off tomorrow. Another long weekend. Check out Marty at the RHS BBall game tonite, spend day with sweety pie tomorrow, probably catch a movie matinee and go out to eat. Back to work Monday, party again New Years Eve, another day off Tuesday... I can get used to this kinda life!

Long time... no post (again). Nice long Xmass holiday weekend. Started with C's birthday. She got lotsa presents, went to UCONN ladies BBall game with Amy, then sushi and good company with A & G at night. Xmass was nice too. Kids enjoyed opening presents, went to Mom & Dad's for lunch. Also saw Lord of the Rings this weekend. Great epic flick. See review on my Movie Review page.

Had a couple of real bad weight watcher days... but also started an excersize routine. Weigh-in tomorrow... gulp!

LasterNet.com gets hacked! Someone hacked my Web Hosting Service and deleted all index.html files. So if you have not been able to get into LasterNet... now you know why. Damn Hackers!!!

Week 4. Lost 3.4 lbs., 11.4 lbs total. Yipee!

Marc asked me to put up Rainbow On My Wall, that he read on Laura's 50th Birthday, on the Web... which I did (linked to the Memorial page). Check it out. Its quite nice. Marc... dude Ya gotta get on the net with email? It would be so much easier to communicate.

Whoa, its been over a week since the last entry. Whats goin down the brain drain? Keepin up with WW. After 2 weeks dropped 8 lbs. Week #3 weigh-in tomorrow.

Work? Realized, if you want to improve a situation, you need to be proactive. Thats what I did. Long story...short? Proposed a major realignment to my job responsibilities. Result, new job, new title.... Chief Technology Officer and MIS director. Pretty excited about it... if I can pull it off the way I want.

Alright, so I'm a little obscessed with the WW thing. Spend way too much time calculating points, recording them in the journal program on my Palm Pilot... but after the first week, its working. Shed 5.8 lbs this week, and I think I'll drop a few more by next weigh-in Monday. Saved up 2 points so I could have a drink with my sweetie tonite... see what I mean?

BTW, tryin' to make it a better situation at work for myself. Think I made some progress.

Thanksgiving 2001. A quiet and somber gathering at our house. Along with the Diana's family, Mom and Dad, I also invited Laura's family. Was a little apprehensive about how that would work out. In the end, I was very glad that I had done it. I want very much to keep connected to Laura's family. Especially the kids, which are our living link to Laura. There was a moment or two of sadness, but mostly, we all enjoyed being together, light conversation, good eats. We avoided any heavy conversation of Laura's passing, but looked at some old pictures and reminisced some. A mellow but nice Thanksgiving day. Given the times, I know there are thousands of households that have experienced the loss of loved ones this thanksgiving. My heart goes out to all of them.

Dan, if you read this, I really appreciate the invite. Mark and Alex, I respect your decision too. Its a nice tribute. I downloaded some Dylan yesterday, and I'll enjoy it with you tonite and think of you and Laura while listening to it.

Did it. Joined Weight Watchers. Put down my $100 bucks, got weighed, even went to the meeting. Can't believe how much I weigh. 197 lbs. Ouch, no wonder I feel like shit. I am committed ($$) to doing this for at least 10 weeks. I think it will work... keeping a journal, figuring points, getting weighed weekly. Its just what I need. Not sure about those meetings, though. Thanks Barb!

I get into work Tuesday morning, do some routine maintenance on our Internet gateway, and BAM, the damn thing gets hosed. Email - down, FTP - down, Internet surfing - works, but flakey. In addition, I can't get to any of the Administration screens that I would normally use to diagnose and fix such problems.

I call the dreaded tech support. On hold for 1/2 hour, only to find that we don't have a service contract. They transfer me to sales, where I take care of that, and I am told I need to call service back to get back in the queue. grrrrrr!

Call service back and wait on hold for 1 hour and 55 minutes! I kid you not. I finally get some dope who won't try to fix my problem, but just wants to send me a whole new box. That means we will be down for 1 1/2 days.

Next morning box comes in, busy configuring it, somethin' stinks like hell. Of all things, in the middle of this crisis our god-damn toilet is overflowing. Turns out the sump pump that pumps sewage for about three buildings in this hell hole busted, and shit water is spewing out all over our production floor. Its stinks like shit throughout the building, and I am trying to get our Internet up and running so our company can function.

I'm not done yet. I finally configure this Internet gateway, my LAN and WAN connections look fine, diagnostics pass the test, so I try to restore from a backup to save re-entering all the user settings and special services (yeah! I acutally back the thing up every week). Only, the restore does not work. I try it three times to no avail. Finally, I hack into the backup file, and find its all screwed up. Guess things have been screwed up for a while, cause I have to go back to a backup of 3 weeks ago in order to find a good one. Still, that is alot better than having no backup at all.

What a lousy couple of days I've had... and I am in a depressed mood to begin with.

I feel like the events of last week (Laura's death and her funeral) are beginning to pass, and my life can start getting back to normal. Though a dark cloud of sadness still surrounds me, I now feel it slowly lifting, and see that I can move on and get back to work, and the daily routines of life.

I have good memories of my sister, I am glad that I was able to say my goodbyes to her, kiss her and hold her in those final days. She no longer suffers, and rests in a peaceful place. For that I can take comfort.

One thing that has changed is my appreciation of family and freinds. In the past, I had little tolerance for people, and perhaps felt that relationships were more of a risk than a benefit. This is common feeling with a lot of people who are immersed in computers, as I am. Seeing the support and love that surrounded Laura through her freinds and family, and how that sustained her for the last 3-4 years was truly an amazing gift. I can now see the importance of nurturing freindships and a caring family. Laura taught me this in her final days... thanks sister.

I hope the posts that will follow in the next few days, weeks and months will reflect more mundane day to day concerns. Politics, work, the weather, kids, etc.