Who Said the Confederacy Was Dead?

Not these folks! Damn!!

Weight Loss Progress Report

Well, I've been somewhat PO'd lately that I haven't been able to affect my continued weight loss any better than I have been. I seem to hit plateaus, or should I say negative plateaus, and not matter what I do or eat it seems to have little or no impact. Last weekend I cheated with carrot cake( a piece a day for 4 days) and my weight didn't move on the scale. This week I'm a bit nervous because I'm on vacation for a week and there are so many tasty things available outside of work. Yum! No, I won't go off the deep end, I'm keeping my cheat day for when I take my wife to Universal Studios for her birthday and maybe someplace nice to eat afterwards. In so far as my weight goals I'm going to take this free time and do a physical fitness jump start towards the next lower plateau. I figure that I can use some type of free weights to get the blood moving with the resistance aspects of the weights and maybe I'll pick up some Dumbbells or Kettlebells or something, even wrist and ankle weights then go for some productive walks, nothing too bad, maybe 3 or 4 miles or so depending on how I feel. I have to do something to trim down that middle age belly further. I've been taking some digital pics of my progress for inspiration and it actually works, I can see a marked difference in my body profile. I'm still overweight but it is decreasing and that's my motivation to continue, like I did when I quit smoking. My doctor still doesn't believe that it's been over 2 years without a cigarette. I thought he was supposed to preach to me about it! What a tool he is, I've already picked out a new doctor because I've lost confidence in this guy to provide me with adequate and proper medical care. This M.D. likes to order expensive tests for illnesses I could never ever get because I have good insurance. My new doc is a woman because I can talk more openly with a woman than a man about personal health issues. Call me weird but at least I'm seeing a doctor and not avoiding it. Till next time my friends, take care.
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What's Happening with National Health in the U.S.?

It seems like the push for national health in this country is hitting a brick wall and I don't know if it's deliberate or not. The plan and beginning execution seemed to be going in the right direction, even though nay sayers keep condemning it. I think with the insurance companies behind the plan it will work better than expected. Why should the insurance companies get behind something that may eventually put them out of business? They should and it wont. Aligning with the government to nationalize the health care system will relieve the insurance carriers of high risk customers and bring lower risk customers to them that wish to have health care outside the box. You can get regular health insurance in Britain if you like, your not limited to the government program. Everybody pays for the system and when you get private insurance you pay some more for coverage that you may never use to its fullest, saving the insurance carriers like Prudential, Blue Cross, Blue Advantage in N.C., Harvard Vanguard in Mass., Kaiser Permanente, and many more companies allowing them to operate in the black and very streamlined in their operations. We need to see the disadvantages of other programs in places like Great Britain, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand and work through them so as to not repeat past mistakes. Good Health!

New Treatment for Cellulite?

I always thought that if you kept your mouth shut and didn't eat that teensy weensy hunk of cake you wouldn't need to worry about cellulite. Okay, I was wrong, what do I know about cottage cheese butts. Nothing, until I read an article on MSN that explained it. I never knew that cellulite was a by product of some cords in the muscles that attach to the skin area and when excess fatty tissue gets between them they become, that's right, cellulite. Guys get cellulite too but what do we care what our butts look like to another guy. I think that gets women even more upset because we don't care if we have it but care a lot if they do. What's that? Did I hear someone say double standard? Yes, and unfortunately it's very true and it probably will continue to be that way. The laws of nature make the woman attractive to the males for the best breeding. I'm sorry, but it is true when you get right down to it. We never really got elevated above our primitive ways when it comes to attracting for procreation. Women go shopping for the longest eyelid products, the best wrinkle cream, wet looking red lipsticks to go on full lips(someone say collagen implants?), ways to prop up their breasts and round their butts (back to cellulite again) for starters! Guys, we just get up, shower, comb, shave, dress and go! There are many women who enjoy this routine and there are many that would like to scream over it. I don't blame the screamers, I'd hate to be on that schedule.

It's Amazing What People Do When They Steal

A friend of mine is a loss prevention agent for a major retailer in the U.S., I'll not say which one and it's not Big Blue or Bulls Eye. You know who they are. Back to my story. He was telling me about an investigation into a high end merchandise scheme where the thieves would put bar codes they printed onto merchandise and buy it, remove the bar code and return the items with a store receipt for the real price and get paid for returning the items to the store. Pretty slick they thought, until they forgot to remove a bar code sticker on a TV. The scale of this was so huge that the FBI and Treasury Dept were brought in because of the credit cards, dollar amounts, and interstate dealings within the scheme. To make a long story shorter their house was raided by the above agencies as well as local police and store security management. They found several personal computers, receipt printer, specialty paper and sticker stock, specialty printer ribbons(multi-color) and thousands of dollars worth of merchandise in several full rooms in the house. The printers even had freshly printed multi-color receipts still on the printer and stacked up, others were attached to boxes waiting to be returned for cash or credit card credits. How were the stores going to catch on to the fake receipts when they give them right back after making a return note on the original. Returns procedures made a big change after this came out but the smart mousetrap always seems to morph the smarter mouse and on and on. In the end it was pure greed that always makes the difference. They never would have been caught without it.

My Car Insurance is Increasing Faster than My Income.

Recently my auto insurance carrier who I shall not mention (Nationwide) removed all their auto insurance customers to another company but retained the ownership of the policies. This is what started my days of confusion. I called my agent to see what happened and she told me that the company that now handles my policy IS Nationwide but is called something else and I didn't need to get a new insurance quote, nothing would be changing - yet. My premiums are something else as well. Let me clarify one thing up front before you get the wrong idea. I'm not a bad, or even a not so good, driver. In fact I'm the original owner of my 1997 car and I have over 174k on it, all mine. I have full coverage on this, and my wifes, car for which I'll never see most of the premium money ever again, even if the car got stolen or totaled. Why you ask? Simple, I own a home and if something strange or bizarre ever happened I have the extra coverage to hopefully save the roof over our heads. Umbrella coverage is a good option you say? Ever get a quote on Umbrella coverage? It's pretty hefty. I live in a No Fault state and even dropping the additional coverage won't amount to a hill of beans on the rates. Maybe I can get a new discount somehow. I'll have to look into that and maybe add some new safety item to the cars.

Having a Bit of a Hard SATA Time.

For the past week I've been having some really weird things happen to my PC. All of a sudden one of my 1 Terrabyte Seagate HDD's started doing a Houdini on me. I'd be downloading something to it and all of a sudden the download would stop and the system would come to a muddy downshift of speed. Not good. I can defrag the drive, I can search and open files within it and even move files around within the drive itself. What I can't do is move anything into it because it 'runs away'. I thought that it could possibly be my computer memory because I kept getting a memory error message whenever I'd close Windows Explorer but that all checked out fine. I tried disconnecting different drives, including that one, in case it was a power consumption issue but that was good too. I finally got fed up and rebooted and restored to the last known good configuration and it came right up again. I figure that I must have disturbed the registry somewhere and altered a RAID control command or something, even though I don't use a RAID setup. I just use the two 1 Ter HDD's for storage only. We'll see what we shall see.

Restroom Peeves at Work.

I think I've about had it when it comes to dirty people that wear nice suits. I know, what sense does that make. Well, it makes a lot of sense where bathroom habits are concerned. No, I'm not going to get into what the really nasty 'suits' have done that make the rest of us stare in wonderment. That's another post on one of my other blogs, not for this venue. I'm referring to the ones that feel they're so clean that they don't need to wash their hands after using the facilities. You know the ones I mean and so don't you ladies as well. There's always a few in every establishment. We tried many things to encourage them to wash aside from stationing a sink security guard, that would be too freaky. We have always had the paper towels that are folded and the ones that come out the bottom from a roll and we even put in these cool hand dryers, well actually they're pretty warm but comfortable and even put in nice smelling hand soap too. The dryers we use are on the link I've supplied. What did the suits do? They acted like the mopes they will always be and walked right by them. I think what I'm going to do on my last day at this company will be to go shake hands and pull away in front of people and say "never mind, you never wash your hands after using the toilet". You think that'll shake em up a bit? Naaaaa!

Some Questions Answered as Best I Can.

High Blood Pressure
I have no idea why anyone would even think of asking me about high blood pressure or Hypertension. I'm not a physician or anything resembling a medicine man (no pun intended). I'm just someone amongst MANY who are Hypertensive. I was lucky, so to speak, because I was diagnosed when I was young and I was put on a Beta Blocker which controls my blood pressure, and has controlled it for over 30 years (same meds). Sometimes the doc will put me on my Tenormin with a diuretic (Tenoretic) to help alleviate any excess fluid and that's fine. There are many types of blood pressure meds besides beta blockers. There are ACE Inhibitors, Calcium Channel Blockers, the list goes on. What matters most is what's causing the pressure to be up and what damage , if any, has already occurred. Your doctor will be able to discern that for you, not me. Note to middle aged men: It's okay to see the doctor and sooner is always better than later, later is better than never.

Weight Loss
I've been writing about this topic for a while and I've mentioned some good web sites that I've come accross and I'm happy to share them with you. I wrote an article a long time ago on Olestra and it's benefits in fat reduction. I also wrote about the negative effects that were later revealed when people thought that if you ate a little you'd shed a little and if you ate a lot .... Yeah, they shed a lot in the form of uncontrolled diarreha. People were wolfing down potato chips cooked in this 'stuff' thinking it was great. Wrong! There are a number of herbal supplements I've written about but if your taking a prescription medication PLEASE check with your doctor AND pharmacist about possible interactions it may have with your meds. I strongly encourage you to ask both about them but especially the pharmacist, that's their stock and trade to know about these things. The Internet is a great resource for researching too. I'm currently doing a flax seed review and a liporexall review to see how these products are working out, I'll have a link for you if you want to see for yourself about the liporexall, it's still kind of new to me right now but I've heard it has some promise. Flax seed has been around for a long time and take care with this one as it can cause internal irritability in some people.

Smoking
This is a tough one for me right now because the one product I hold in high regard has come under fire recently. Chantix, made by Phizer, is a smoking cessation drug that is taken for three months(I did it in 2) and it eliminates the desire for smoking, eliminates the cravings associated with cessation, and eliminates the NEED to smoke. It blocks the nicotine receptors in the brain until your 'weaned off' the nicotine dependancy. The other medicine is Zyban, which is an anti-depressant and something I have never heard worked for smoking that well anyhow. The FDA has recently issued strong warnings on these two drugs due to side effects some people have encountered. (On a side note Tylenol has gotten FDA warnings recently too where it may be controlled tighter due to dosage abuse on the packages, but that's another article.) I mentioned above that I only did the 2 months and never took the third months supply because I felt I didn't need it. That was May of 2007 and I haven't wanted or had a cigarette since. I can stand in the middle of a group of smokers and not want to light up. I love it. I was able to quit smoking in my fifties, to date I've lost over 25 lbs of mostly belly fat which is a killer for us guys at that age and I'm feeling good, blood pressure is decent and cholesterol is very good.
Back to Chantix in the news. For some people it isn't a miracle smoking cure. Some people have described having suicidal thoughts and insomnia and that's a problem. I heard about possible side effects like that when I went on the meds but continuing to smoke would kill me eventually, I chose to live. I believe the secret to Chantix being successful is the strong desire to actually quit smoking and not just go through the motions to shut up the doctor or wife, etc. I'm a walking, non-wheasing, testament to the benefits of Chantix and I still recommend it because no other med will do what this does for smoking cessation, not even the mad Russian hypnotist everyone seems to know that will make you stop for a week or two.

I'm getting weary and I'll have to continue my question topics on another article. Keep them coming in and Ill get to them ASAP. Thanks!

Time to Chart the Weight Loss

I recently hit a new low - the good kind though! I hit the 256 pound mark and it felt like it wouldn't happen for a long while. I felt like I hit a plateau going downwards and I was beginning to get a bit frustrated. You know the type of frustration I mean? It's when you feel that you've done everything you can and your no further ahead than you were doing nothing, so maybe doing nothing is better. I fought off this type of thinking because when I was stuck in the 270's and couldn't break through to the 260's I considered looking into what the best diet pills were and maybe if I did this or that but I was doing enough right now. I cut out soda, desserts, all forms of candy, starches like breakfast bars and loaf bread. I even asked my wife when she was making my lunches to just give me the meat and no bread and I'd eat it with my sugar free drink. I was getting mad too. I'd weigh in at 260 and then do some yard work in the Florida sun, sweat like hell, jump in the pool for a bit and weigh in again - 262. What the? How could I have actually put 2 pounds on? I felt like I had sweat out 5 pounds of fluid. Evidently I didn't. That night I had a piece of cake my wife made because I figured what's it going to matter. The next day I weighed in after work and I was now at 258. I give up, I'm just going to go with the flow on this one.

The way I figure it, I hit a point and my body retools to that new base weight ( I never went above 262 again) before it went further down. I know fat cells have a memory, oh yes they do. If you lose a lot of weight quickly your body will want to return to it's last known base weight or Body Mass Index. If you allow it to learn another, lower, BMI you can slip a bit but you shouldn't fall a lot.

The moral of the story is take your time because if it's worth it the time you take is an investment. Who cares about looking good in a Speedo, they don't hold your goodies properly anyways.

Too Many Cancers, Too Few Cures!

Life can wield strange twists of fate, manifest-destiny if you like, that we simply take for granted. How a person can be in a war, or two, and go through combat then come home untouched by blade or bullet only to be taken out by a disease. Talk about a really sick joke by Mother Nature. In many cases we, as a planetary whole, are to blame for many(most) of our ills. We were given innoculation's as children only to find out that since we really didn't have that particular ailment as a child we have a higher risk as an adult to get a worse form of it, such as Chicken Pox when it becomes a very painful Shingles because it laid dormant on the nerves and woke up when you got older. Measles made a comeback as well because many thought it was a done deal buit the third world wanted to share with us, how nice. My father-in-law was a combat veteran in Korea in the 101st Airborne Div and came home in one piece. He drove a semi but wanted more for his family so he got on the fire department in the town where they lived. He went into too many structure fires before the ventilators were available and brought home a prize for his work, Mesothelioma. Asbestos was very prevalent in buildings in years gone by in insulation, paneling, ceiling tiles and even furnace wrappings(we had one on our furnace when I was a kid). The asbestos gets into the lungs and irritates the lining of the lungs and causes white cells to react to destroy the invading threat. Guess what? Asbestos is a mineral and a simple white cell can't touch it so what does your body do? It sends even more white cells till it becomes a terminal illness, unless you can get some new lungs I guess. There has been litigation going on for years, many years, and the companies that were responsible for it's use in manufacturing are for the most part long out of business.
If you become affected by any of these or similar incidents the best thing to do is your homework and become well informed before making potentially life altering decisions.

My Wife's Birthday Coming Up!?

It's that time of year again and time to start thinking about what to get my wife for her birthday. She's been hinting at going to Universal Studios to go on the Simpson's Ride and the Mummy Ride(I like that one too). I know it's what she wants because tickets aren't cheap anymore and they always want you to buy more than you'll ever need for passes. I probably won't be back that way till next year so why do I need multi-day, multi-park passes? I don't even like water parks so there goes the need for Islands of Adventure. Just give me a one day pass for two - that's all. I'm throwing in an extra surprise for her because I know she likes to horseback ride and a new stable opened about 20 mins from us that she doesn't know about yet. I figured that I'd buy her a new set of breeches and leave them out for when we got back from the park for her to say "What are these for?". I'll leave her card on them because she probably figured I'd forgotten to buy one with those under it. I think she'll get a real kick out of the whole day. We shall see!

The Golden Era is Closing Slowly

I used to think that only old actors/actresses passed away and young ones lived forever. What kid's never thought of that? It was normal to believe in immortality. With some of the recent celebrity passings it's a whole new ball-game. We all thought Farrah would beat her cancer because she was all into her treatments and wouldn't take no for an answer, nature thought otherwise. Michael Jackson was only 50. There was a time where 50 was considered advanced age, now your just getting started on the second half of life. Karl Malden, who passed today was 97(good for him) and led a good normal life. Hollywood is changing as well. The days of starlets with diamond tiaras, pearl jewelry, and heirloom rings and necklaces has ended. Today we have body tattoos and piercings on the newest of Hollywood's junior elite. The days of class and protocol are gone and the era of CGI is here for a while. Talk about using a stunt double, this is a stunt electronic double. I guess it's a way of controlling expenses and eliminating on set injuries. I do have to say one thing about this crop of new actors, they don't seem to shy away from doing their own stunts, when CGI can't do it for them that is. Goodbye to the last acting generation and hello to the new, please don't make garbage movies that go straight to video!

First of the Month!

White Rabbit! The Brits will know what I mean. :)