South Beach Diet: Day 35

05.01.2006

I made a mistake on my diet. No, no, not the usual "I ate a cake last night" type of mistake. This one isn't as obvious. I switched scales.

2 years ago I bought a scale from Bed, Bath, Bath, & Beyond that was rated to weigh up to 400 lbs. I've been using that ever since, mostly to be shocked by how much I weighed. I knew it wasn't the best scale in the world, since my weight could vary by up to 5 lbs depending on which foot I placed on the scale first. That lead me to eBay and a super cool digital scale, also rated to weigh up to 400 lbs. Last week, said scale arrived on my stoop, and I expectantly hooked up batteries and weighted myself.

And promptly found I weight 8 lbs more on this scale.

After some investigation with some hand weights and weighing myself on both scales, I eventually convinced myself that the old BB&B scales were indeed weighing things lighter. My 20 lb hand weight checked in at 19.8 lbs on the digital scale, 18 on the old scale. So while my amount of weight lost has probably been about the same, I was weighing 378 instead of 370. It sucks mentally when you reach a little goal (in my case, 375) and it's suddenly taken away from you.

So, with my new scales as my guidepost, I've adjusted my old weight measurements by adding an extra 8 lbs. So instead of starting my diet at 396, I was at 404. Instead of 370 after 4 weeks, I was at 378. I had still lost 26 lbs, I was just a little further from my slightly unrealistic end goal of 238 than I thought I was.

It was with a little trepidation that I stood on the scales this morning. Would the new scales once again bite me in the ass? As luck would have it, they didn't. The little digital display that I could see down past my protruding gut read 371. So, I had lost 7 lbs in the past week. That almost took care of the 8 lbs the scale put on! Just to be paranoid, I stood on the old scales and they measured 363 - at least things were being consistent. So now after 5 weeks I've lost (allegedly) 33 lbs.

Man, I want a brownie. Not gonna have one. At least not yet.

Permalink diet

Javascript Help Only Has 1

04.27.2006

I spent hours looking for something I thought would be relatively simple. I programmed a popup window so that a user can fill out some tangential information, and when they were finished I needed to redirect to the parent window so that it would display the needed, updated tangential information while closing the popup window. My problem was that I didn't know how to target the parent window so that it would dispaly the new information.

I decided to search the Google. It usually has all the answers to my programming woes. I searched javascript target parent window, and I managed over 1.3 million results. Unfortunately, most of them had tips on tweaking Dreamweaver, or how to target frames, or even worse, something totally unrelated and useless.

After a couple of hours, I managed to narrow my search by taking out the words that were most annoying, and I ended up searching for target "parent window" -refresh +javascript -frames -frame -reload -flash -dreamweaver -close -java. The 7th link turned out to be my magic solution.

And now, partially for archive purposes so I can find it again, and for your pleasure in case you ever need to redirect to a popup windows parent, is the magic phrase:

 

window.opener.location.href = new_url;

So simple that it's no wonder I had a hard time tracking it down. Makes me feel a little stupid. All I had to do was add that line of code to a buttons OnClick event and everything is right as rain.

Permalink programming/interweb

South Beach Diet: Day 29/ Weekend Fun

04.25.2006

On the diet front, I managed to lose another 4 lbs this past week, thus messing up the really cool weight loss formula I had derived last week. I would be disappointed, but I managed to lose a pound more than the formula warranted, so screw the formula! As far as body measurements, except for my waist shrinking about a ½ an inch everything else has stayed the same. I think I'm getting ready to hit a little plateau.

After working well for a month, the refrigerator took a turn for the worse beginning on Friday. After getting the compressor replaced I was paranoid enough to get a thermometer to stick in the fridge so I could see at a glance how cold it was. The fridge had been staying right around 40° for most of the month, but Friday it began creeping up. No matter how cold I tried setting the thermostat, the fridge would keep getting warmer. By Monday morning it had reached a balmy 69°. Luckily I still had the emergency little refrigerator in the garage, so I had started transferring my perishables Saturday.

Monday I called good old Bob Wallace Appliance and told them what was going on. This morning trusty Josh the Refrigerator Repair Dude showed up at 8:30. Turns out it was a faulty valve/gasket combo that was either letting the coolant leak out or was unable to maintain the pressure needed for the compressor to work. Either way he fixed it within an hour of showing up, and now I have a refrigerator on the way to cooling and once again storing my perishables.

Saturday was another landmark occasion for me, but in a silly way. After nigh on a year of putting it off, followed by 6 weeks of trying to get it finished, my spare bedroom/computer room has finally been painted! Thanks to Gina priming the walls, Elaine painting the walls, and my patching and sanding the walls (not neccessarily in that order) the room is now ready for the next step: Pergo! Now I just have to make some phone calls.

Permalink diet random

PayPal Coupon?

04.23.2006

I saw this listed on an auction for a PC monitor earlier:

eBay.com has $20 off a single $100+ item when you pay with their payment system PayPal. Use coupon code C-APR2006TECH [Exp 4/30] to participate.

I haven't tried the coupon code, but if you're making a $100+ single item purchase through PayPal you may want to give it a try.

Permalink

Change

04.21.2006

The other day I decided it was time to cash in on the change that I take out of my pockets at the end of the day. At some point in the past I read a little article about doing that and how you inadvertently save enough money for it to be at least a little substantial. At the end of the day 50¢ doesn't seem like much, well, if you're older than 3, but if you save up 50¢ each day for a year you end up with almost $200. For the last couple of years I've been throwing my change in old Steak-Out cups or little boxes. At times I've had to raid said containers for parking meter money or the occasional Coke machine run.

But the pennies always grow.

It's the pennies I was ready to get rid of. For those not aware, Coinstar sets up coin-counting kiosks to count your change, then print a voucher which you cash in (usually at the supermarket the kiosk is in). For this they deduct 8.9%, but that's the cost of convenience for not having to roll however much change you're cashing in. I had b een putting off taking my pennies to one of these kiosks because I really thought 8.9% was a little steep.

Before long I came across the Coinstar partnership with Amazon. If, instead of cashing in your change you instead opt for an Amazon gift certificate/credit, the 8.9% processing fee is waived. Hey, this means it's pretty much free! And I always want stuff from Amazon. Suddenly my change that has been laying around for years can turn into cold, hard internet merchandise. I'm all over this!

I load up a shoebox with (mostly) pennies and make my way to the Coinstar kiosk in Athens. I fill that sucker up and let it count my fortune. The geek in me liked the running display of what all I had put in. My 32oz cup and random little boxes of change yielded the following:

Pennies	3448
Nickels	19
Dimes	76
Quarters	19
Dollars	1
Grand Total	$48.78

I wasn't sure where all those nickels came from, much less a dollar, but now I had $48 Amazon credit, and 3500 fewer coins to keep track of. I then went home, entered the appropriate code in my Amazon account, and then had my promised gift certificate/credit. I think my credit stayed there almost 3 days before I used it.

Coin counting technology and the interweb. Gotta love that marriage!

Permalink Amazon random