It’s midnight on Tuesday night. What better time to post my Work-From-Home-Friday video, right?

In my opinion, this is not my best work. There’s a lot of footage from last Friday on the proverbial cutting room floor. But there was just too much. I talked at length about nutrition, serving sizes and weight watcher points, but I just couldn’t make the pieces fit together. I’m going to save the nutritional stuff for a later episode.

Still, this should be worth a chuckle or two.

Why is it so hard to stay awake after lunch on Monday?

I’ve been riding my bike to work now, on and off, for five years. More off than on, to be honest. But the more I ride, the faster I tend to ride. I don’t know if it’s leg strength, increased respiration, or just an ever increasing tolerance for adrenaline.

According to my uber-nifty bike computer, this morning I set a new record average speed: 14.3 mph (averaged over 8.53 miles). So, you math geeks out there have probably already figured it took me a shade under 36 minutes. Except you’re wrong.

See, my uber-nifty bike computer, much like the game clock at a soccer game, doesn’t consider stoppage time. If I’m at 0 mph, the clock stops. So the 15 minutes that my bike was disassembled on the side of the road was not part of my computer’s calculation.

I’ve had oodles of flat tires while riding off road. It’s just part of mountain biking. If you’re riding a bike any significant distance, you’d better have the tools and knowledge to fix a flat… or a busted chain… or a stretched brake cable… or… well, you get the idea.

There’s one simple step in the process of fixing a flat that, if skipped, can cause you a lot of irritation. After you’ve got the tube out and patched, don’t forget to run your hand around the inside of the tire. The nasty, pointy thingy that caused your flat may still be stuck in the tire and if you put your patched tube back in there, you’ll make it just far enough to be really mad at yourself when you get another flat. (Can you tell I’m speaking from experience here?)

I almost forgot that step this morning. I was really puzzled by the fact that I had not one, but three leaks in my tube. Three! I found a nasty thorn. (Say it with me: “Nasty nasty thorn!”) But that wouldn’t explain the weird double-hole in the tube: two holes opposite each other. So, I kept going around the tire. Sure enough, I found yet another, nastier, pointier thingy: A big ol’ nail.

I probably ran over the nail, and then as I rode on the slowly flattening tire, the thorn, which had probably been in my tire for months, finally got it’s chance to do some damage too.

So what lessons have we learned today? First, cell phone cameras are the best thing since sliced bread. Second (and more importantly), if Trint has anything notable happen during his morning commute, he’ll type out a long boring post and waste at as much of your time as he can.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!

Yes, I know. You didn’t get your Work-From-Home-Friday vlog fix. I’m so sorry. Waah waah. Cry me a river.

Well, to be honest, only my dad said anything about it. Nobody else seems to care. I thought… I thought more people would notice.  *sniff* I guess you guys just don’t care. *sniff sniff* But I’ll be ok. Don’t worry about me.

To be completely honest, last week at work I was hit with major feature creep. I have to create a whole new system just to support the project I was already working on. But Friday was extremely productive and I think I’ll have the project wrapped up in under two weeks. And that’s more exciting than some silly ol’ video. Right?

Well, maybe not. As a consolation, I’m linking to a song written and performed by my good friend and occational inspiration, Randy Pants. Happy Remote Day.

I had great success with Weight Watchers last winter. I lost 30 pounds in a few months. But I last Spring I quit counting my points thinking I could just live off what I learned and eat better. It didn’t work very well. After hitting 225, I plateaued and have slowly gained back about five pounds.

Now, I have renewed interest in counting my points. I was trying to remember how many points I was allowed. I finally found a formula. Yeah, I know. Weight Watchers formulas are patented and I’m probably going to jail for life for publishing it. Then again, I like to live dangerously.

The food-point-value formula is widely available on the ‘net along with oodles of sites that offer pages and pages of food value tables. I’ve only found one site with the point allowance formula. So, I’m linking to that page and republishing it here to help folks like me have more success when they google it.

Based on a series of questions, you add up points to get your daily allowed point total. And don’t forget, no matter what your daily allowance is, everyone is allowed 35 “flex” points per week. You could look at this as an extra 5 points per day, but it’s better to take this weekly so you can have lighter days and heavier days throughout the week.

1. Gender: Female (2) (Add 10 points if you’re nursing), Male (8)
2. Age: 17-26 (4), 27-37 (3), 38-47 (2), 48-58 (1), over 58 (0)
3. Weight: Add the first two digits of your weight in pounds (ex. 199 lbs. = 19 points)
4. Height: Under 5’1″ (0), 5’1″-5’10” (1), Over 5’10” (2)
5. Activity Level: How do you spend your day? Mostly Sitting (0), Occasionally Sitting (2), Mostly Walking/Standing (4), Physical Labor (6)

For me, it looks like this:

So now I can start counting again and we’ll see if I can get down to 200 by Thanksgiving. That gives me three months to drop about 30 pounds. I think I can I think I can I think I can…

The Middle School Mission Tour 2008 video is finally uploaded. Sorry it took so long.

Let’s start off with this week’s white board quip.

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.
– Steven Wright

That means that, once again, I have two WBQotW posts back-to-back. Which means that I have, once again, gotten lazy about blogging. Yes, I know. I said that I’d be busy and that posts would get scarce, but it’s not just the blog that has fallen behind.

So, I’m back to that point in the cycle of my life where I’m irritated at myself. Call it procrastination. Call it sloth. Call it plain old lazy. Whatever it is, it’s crept back into my life. Time for a change.

Change. There’s been a lot of talk about “Change” in the last year thanks to one particularly shallow and insipid presidential campaign. Change is a dangerous word if left to itself. Change what? Why? How? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then change can ruin.

In my personal case, the “what” is my attitude toward tasks and goals, my level of self discipline, my work ethic. These things need to change. The “why” is pretty basic. I have a lot of things to do that aren’t getting done. This reflects poorly on me both personally and professionally. The “how” is more complex (as it always should be). I need to get back to making lists and accomplishing those lists. I need to more closely manage my time. I need to get back into an attitude-building routine.

But what if you seek change without answering the qualifying questions? “We need change.” Ok. From now on, your salary will be paid not in US dollars, but in monopoly money. That’s change. Or, from now on, police officers will be allowed to shoot you if they think you’re ugly. That’s change. Or, from now on, you’re only allowed to eat lawn trimmings and dog turds. That’s change. What if change means destroying the economy with huge tax increases, taking away basic freedoms, protecting trees and bugs while declaring human life expendable, and making the pursuit of happiness impossible?

I hope you see where I’m going with this. Sometimes change is needed, but only when you can answer the what, why and how. If you want change just for the sake of change, you’d better not be ugly and you better have the stomach for some mulch and dog turd stew.

I’m back from the San Antonio mission trip. I’m pretty tired and have tons of stuff to do. I need to compile hundreds of pictures and a couple hours of video into two slide shows (one for Mexico, one for San Antonio). I’m about half way through a blog page on the Mexico trip and haven’t started one yet for S.A. I’ve got stuff piled up at work and a have a private client waiting for me to design his web site. That and I’ve started another book that I’d like to have finished before… oh, you know… 2009. In the mean time…

I’m writing an unauthorized autobiography.
– Steven Wright

P.S. Happy birthday, Dad!!

I got back from Mexico last Saturday. I had enough time to get caught up at work and I’m leaving for San Antonio tomorrow.

Tammy took me to see Dark Knight last night and we watched Night at the Museum on DVD today. Both great. I hope write reviews sometime in August. See you then!

I’m back from Mexico and busy as ever. I hope to find the time to compile a short video from the trip and write a long post about my experience. But for now, I’ll have to settle for a white board quip.

There are many kinds of tired. There’s the “I shouldn’t have stayed up that late just to see the end of a crappy movie” tired. Theres the “I spent my weekend stacking 750 bales of hay” tired. And then there’s “mission trip” tired, where you’re spiritually, emotionally, and physically drained to the point where your brain just isn’t able to cope with daily life.

Case in point, from my dear Miss Katie:

Dang! I got conversation all over my pants.