Old Friends, again!

Got in touch with another old friend from BYU. I love reconnecting with people, seeing how they are and what they're doing in their lives. Apparently they're all married with multiple kids. While that is absolutely wonderful I don't really have much in common with people in that situation anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love finding people who I have lost contact with, I love hearing about their lives and their kids, kids are great, even other people's kids are cool occasionally. It's just strange to have had my life go such a different direction than theirs. Not a bad thing, just strange.

You know you don't want to do your homework when....

.... you reorganize not only your bathroom but go through all makeup and face products and throw stuff away, splitting things into not only 'home' and 'travel' but by color scheme also....

Google's Street View

I can't embed the picture without giving away the address, but if you know the address from where I grew up go to Google Maps and type it in. Then click the 'Street View' link. That is a better picture of my father's house than I currently have. I'm not sure if that is a 'good for Google' thing or a 'shame on me for not having good pics of my dad's house' thing.

I'm now looking up all of my friends and realitives, this will keep me busy for hours.

Weight Loss -- and my Weight Watchers commercial

This is something I never had to deal with the first time around in college, weight loss.

Up until 2000 I had never been more than 123 lbs, and that was high for me. I had been as low as 103, and while I looked awesome it just wasn't healthy. My 'average' was about 110 or so, and while I wasn't model looking it worked for me.

As a note, I'm 5'2" so 103 isn't obnoxious.

So a combination of a new medication, new job, new lifestyle and who knows what else, suddenly I was 163. This was nuts, I had no idea how to even begin to deal with it. I hated myself in the mirror, it wasn't me, I didn't recognize myself. Nothing fit, I was a size 12! I had never been over a 7 in my life, and suddenly nothing fit. I went from a 7 to a 12, nothing inbetween, seemingly overnight.

At first work was so busy I really didn't care. I was still the center of attention of the males whose attention I wanted and there was just too much going on to really pay attention. I had stopped gaining weight so I just carried on.

So after a picture of me holding one of my twins where it looked like *I* was the one that had the kid, and my 12's were getting tight, I decided to fix this.

First off I have never in my life had to diet, nothing had ever worked when I had tried. I had previously done six months at the gym with a trainer 3 times a week and I had lost a pound. My body just doesn't like to change it's weight. So I did Atkins with a friend. I felt like shit but damn it it worked. I went down, over the next year, to about 135 or so. I stopped there, a lose size 10, to make sure I wasn't going to yo-yo. Having extra weight is less unhealthy than going up and down and that scared me.

So comes Christmas 2006 and I got a stomach flu. In the process of the week of sheer misery I went down to about 131 or so. I felt good! By the summer I had put a little of it back on, which is normal when weight is lost due to illness but I liked the idea of finally getting rid of the last of it. I was speaking to a friend and he told me how he and his wife had dropped a ton of weight doing Weight Watchers.

Now I'm not going to go to a meeting. I had tried NutriSystems and the food sucked (I hear they've redone a lot of it since but it's too expensive anyway). Weight Watchers had an online program, where you eat what you want and enter it into their system and they keep track. You can enter recipes or just the 'fat, calories and fiber' amounts and again, they figure things out. They assign points with a system taking those three into account and depending on your age, weight and a few other things they allow you X points a day, with a bunch 'extra' for the week.

This worked. Who knew? I could even 'cheat' occasionally and stay within my point limits, though I wouldn't lose a lot of weight that week. It was slow, but slow is important to keep it off for good. I took Thanksgiving to Christmas off cuz that just wasn't going to work for me.

Well I just canceled my subscription, I'm a size 6, and they're a touch big on me, and I'm down to 123. It's not my ideal, I'd like to be 110 again but my body proportions have changed so that most likely isn't going to happen. Anything left isn't weight as much as it is tone and muscle, so the scale isn't a great measurement anymore.

Ok I think I have the chart uploaded:

Equal Rights take a step closer to reality tonight

At 5:01pm Pacific time California becomes the second state in the Union to allow same sex marriages. I have great hopes for this as Mass hasn't exploded in the fiery wrath of a vengeful god nor have opposite sex couples in Mass have had their marriages cheapened or invalidated because others can get married. I'm proud of Mass for doing this first and I think it's about time CA follows.

Many cities are keeping their offices open late tonight to issue licenses, there will be a lot of June weddings this year. Apparently even if the proposed amendment against this is put on the ballot this fall, and IF it gets passed, the marriages performed between now and then are still valid as it's sanctioned by the state this time instead of a city.

My greatest hope is that, in time, rational people will see that this not only doesn't cause any harm but doesn't 'diminish' their own marriages (an argument that makes no sense to me at all). If we can show those who have sense that this isn't the horror that the fanatics have painted it to be I think acceptance and eventually true equality actually has a chance.

It is disappointing, as someone on tv just pointed out, that Obama isn't for gay marriage. To be brutally honest any politician that was couldn't get elected President so it's something I'm willing to forgive, at least for now. When both parties' candidates say the same thing it becomes a moot point at this point in an election.

Hopefully, maybe even by the time Obama runs for reelection, it won't be the sure loss that it is now.

One of the 'talking heads' on tv today said something else that really hit home to me today, about Roe v Wade and McCain's desire to get it overturned and that effect on women's votes. She said that since Wade was passed in 73 most people who are of child bearing age never experienced a world where abortion was illegal. We can't comprehend that being a reality so it's not a huge deal for us, as a whole.

I think that is absolutely correct, I can't comprehend a world where women are forced to go to butchers to get the abortions they're going to get, and where doctors are made criminals for helping desperate women. A world where the woman has all of the responsibility of an unintended pregnancy, basically making women second class citizens again. Would this mean Plan B would be illegal? What about endotopic pregnancies? There is a proposal in Denver to declare that life begins at conception, and those balls of cells have the same rights as any other person. Now that is an extreme by far but it's frightening that I might not be able to take a 'morning after pill' if I feel it's needed, no matter what the situation.

I hope the fact that McCain wants to nominate Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe and the cases that have been decided since is brought to the forefront in this race. I want those who were entranced with the Maverik McCain in 2000 (and I was one of them) to see that this man, McCain in 2008, as the man he's become. He is courting the bat shit insane side of the Republican Party and has changed to a man who would ban the right for a woman to make a decision about her body and declare that someone else can dictate what is right and wrong when it comes to my morality.

I pray the excitement about Obama translates into votes, which it doesn't always do, and the apathy of the far right over McCain, for he does piss them off by being rational about climate change and immigration, leads them to stay home and it's a huge wave across the country.

It's going to take a lot to overturn the abuses of the past administration, and it's going to take people who won't just take advantage of those abuses and entrench them even further. McCain declared that giving human beings habeas corpus was the wrong decision. Couple this with his desire to overturn Roe, thinks that some people should be able to get married and others shouldn't, and I see no other choice. Even if I wasn't completely charmed by Obama I would never vote for someone who is against basic human rights.

A Journalism Giant leaves us....

I spend my days with MSNBC on in the background. I enjoy their reporting and get a kick out of their sense of humor and their political perspectives. I spent the day doing other things but I just, a little while ago, turned on the TV and that headline greets me.

NBC’s Tim Russert dead at 58




He collapsed while doing voice overs for this week's Meet the Press, they rushed him to the hospital and couldn't revive him. They don't know yet what happened, his wife and son are in Italy, where he just returned from, and are on their way home. Watching the shock and grief on the face of all of these people is very moving.

Here is the announcement

Happy Birthday Grandma!

I didn't forget!!

Grades

Got a C in the main class and a B+ in the lab. Not awesome but I"m find with it.

This month I"m doing assembly. This is why I dropped out of BYU's CS program, I'm really really really not a fan. We don't have compilers so I have no idea if I"m even close to doing this correctly. Kind of not caring so much anymore.

Need to write another paper, since I got full credit on the last one I"m not stressed about it but I want to get it done early. We don't have class tomorrow to give us extra time on the paper so once I get my homework done that is my next priority.

After this class I get a whole week off, hoping to go up to Sedona btw (hi grandma!) and just read and chill and hopefully play with twins. July is ethics so while I see a lot of writing I don't see a lot of killing myself hating life programming without compilers, should be good.

Still don't know what I'm going to do about my second elective. Now that I'm no longer with Sun I really don't have much desire to take Advanced Java. I"m going to file that under 'we'll see' for now and try to learn everything I need to from this current class.

Oh Dear God I'm Old...

When talking about Obama's nomination someone said 'it's been 24 years since Ferraro was on the ticket'

kill me now

Obama's Nomination

No matter what your politics last night was a huge night for all Americans when Obama became the 'Presumptive' Democratic Nominee for President. He talks about it on MSNBC's First Read

Talking to reporters before getting in his motorcade to leave Capitol Hill, Obama reflected on what it means to be the first African-American nominee of a major political party. "It's an enormous honor... It's very humbling," he told reporters amassed between his Secret Service detail.

"When you think about all the people who had knocked down barriers for me to walk through this one; and the challenges they went through were so much more difficult, so much more severe; and the risk they took were so much greater."

And then, the candidate touted as a great orator, seemed almost at a loss to express his feelings. "Last night standing in the auditorium," Obama said slowly searching for just the right words, "it struck me that it was a testimony to them."

"I've heard from a number of people already, both black and white, that their kids -- 7, 8, 9 years old -- take for granted now that of course a black can run for president. Of course a woman can run for president. There's a matter of factness to it that I think bodes well for the future."

I love that the twins will grow up in a world where they wouldn't think twice about the race or gender of the person running for President, that they won't understand what the big deal was.

I almost feel bad for McCain, like I did for Hilliary Clinton. Both of them are qualified and I think wouldn't do an awful job, though I'd pick Clinton over McCain. But the timing just sucked for them because I think Obama is leading a movement that isn't going to be stopped. He has people excited about politics that have never even cared before. Hilliary brought in the upper middle aged women who fought for equal rights, the even older women who desperately want to see a woman President in their lifetimes. While I respect the hell out of (most) of those people they were going to vote anyway, one way or another. Obama is bringing in people who under normal circumstances wouldn't vote.

I'm very excited about the elections this fall and the potential turn out. Getting the younger generation excited and if we can get them to actually vote amazing things could happen. Too many people don't vote and because of that aren't represented in our government, showing them that they really can make a difference, and that is a wonderful thing.

No More Internship

Well I just heard from Sun that National got dropped from their Campus Ambassador program so I don't have an internship for this fall. I'm fine with that, I'm not sure I actually accomplished what they wanted me to, but the extra money was very nice.

However as time goes by school is going to be more and more difficult maybe having one less bit of pressure is a good thing, but like I said, money is good.

That and apparently I don't get the 'please love us' hand out from the government this year as my 'earned income' wasn't high enough, even though I had enough taxable income. This means that for 08 I need to make at least 3k in earned income (which I'm pretty sure I've done, I'll check my pay slip) so I can get the money next year. No new monitor =(

I guess I'll look around for internships or something. This last one kind of fell into my lap, which was nice. If nothing else I'll just get programming books and learn as much as I can.

Oh got a C in my logic class, and since I'm not going to be a hardware person I'm ok with that. Kills my GPA a bit but we'll see how I do in June.

And..... we're done

Paper in, it's not great but it's in and that is really all that matters anymore.

So happy, nothing to do until 5:30pm on Tuesday. Of course all those things I should be doing most likely aren't going to happen, but it's nice to not have stress.

I'm going to go uninstall all that crap now and archive my assignments. Not unhappy to see this stuff go.