I did it, I actually traveled and managed to be vigilant enough to lose weight instead of gaining it. Yea for me!
As a matter of fact, today I weighed in at 194.4 lbs. I had to estimate yesterdays weight in order to produce my week 4 results. It was probably around 194.8. I couldn’t weight myself because I was too busy spending all my time at airports in a 35 hour attempt to get from LA to Bowling Green. To top it off, I had almost no exercise this week. Imagine what I could have done if had been able to do my standard regiment. At 194.4, that also puts me at a major milestone on my way to my desired weight of 180 lbs – I JUST PAST THE HALF WAY MARK! I AM 51% TO MY GOAL as I write this.
End Weight: 194.8
Previous Weight: 196.2
Loss: 1.6 lbs
Net Loss: 14.6 lbs
BMI: 24.96
My BMI is starting to get into a decent range as well. A BMI of 25 or over is considered overweight. My BMI moved below 25 for the first time in years yesterday. I’d like to see it around 23 or so but we’ll see how it goes.
I’ve been doing Genealogical research for the a while now and one of the best resources I have found are rare out of print books that have been digitized by books.google.com. Project Gutenberg and archive.org. And even with those resources, you may not be able to find a digital copy. Suppose you want a real hard back copy? Many of these books are extremely hard to find and are only available in reference sections of a few libraries. In some instances you might get lucky and find them at rare book stores or used book aggregation sites, like abebooks.com, alibris.com, biblio.com or bookfinder.com. But in these cases they will likely cost hundreds of dollars. And in many circumstances, you are simply out of luck.
Enter Kirtas.com and their start-up division www.kirtasbooks.com. They have combined specialized book scanning equipment that they sell with partnerships with some of the biggest libraries in the country, like the New York Public Library and University of Pennsylvania Library to offer nearly 1,000,000 titles. Check out the video below explaining what they do.
I ordered 4 books from them recently and I am simply astounded at the quality of the product I received for the money. Two of the books I ordered they already had digitized, the other to were digitized for me. Somebody at the New York library pulled the books, scanned them and then sent them to Kirtasbooks.com. They, in turn, had them printed and hard bound for my order. 3 Weeks later I had my own beautify hard bound copies of books I could have affordability owned no other way. I had to pinch myself to make sure it was real. The books cost me $20 each when I ordered them. They have since raised the price to $28 each.
- Historical collections relating to the Potts family in Great Britain and America by Thomas Maxwell Potts
- Purchase at Kirtasbooks.com – Hardback $28
- The British invasion from the north. The campaigns of Generals Carlton and Burgoyne by William Digby
- Purchase at Kirtasbooks.com - Hardback $28
- History of Lafayette County, Mo., by Missouri Historical Company, St. Louis
- Purchase at Kirtasbooks.com – Hard Cover $28
- Genealogy of the Culbertson and Culberson families by Dr. Lewis R. Culbertson
- Purchase at Kirtasbooks.com – Hard Cover $28
As many of you know, I have spent a good portion of my spare time over the last 6 months doing research on Caroline’s and my family history. I’ve enjoyed this so much and discovered many interesting things that would have otherwise remained unknown to me. This project has been exciting because it involves many things I love, like my family, research, travel, software, visualizations, story telling, graphic design and layout, and more. I’ve used www.blurb.com for 4 years now to produce annual family albums as a print on demand service and am looking forward to using it to produce an extensive book on our families history.
I’ve also discovered an amazing new service called www.kirtasbooks.com. They have access to around 1,000,000 out of print copyright free publications that they can print on demand. I’ve been able to find and have printed books from the 1800′s that would have cost $100 to $400 for original copies but instead only cost $20 each. Wow! Gutenberg would have been blow away. I ordered 4 books from them at Christmas and I am amazed by the quality of their product that I received. They actually had somebody pull the book from the shelf at the New York Library, scan the entire book (on one of the proprietary machines they sell) and then print, bind (hardback no less) and ship it to me in less than 3 weeks. I’ll post some pics of the end result of their work later.
Below are a couple of the more interesting visualizations I have produced thus far.
This one is from myCanvas.com and is linked directly from Ancestry.com. Over all, the entire process was extremely easy and straight froward.
The next visualization uses a couple additional pieces of software that also integrate with www.ancestry.com. You’ll need to buy Family Tree Maker 2010 and Charting Companion for Family Tree Maker in order to pull this one off. I had to bring my fan and Caroline’s Fan chart both into Photoshop and combine them there in order to get this chart to look the way it does. This should obviously be an option in the software.
I highly recommend camping at Standing Stone State Park. I went with “The Cousins” and Anna and Sarah two summers ago. This park was amazing and it was very close to Burgess Falls and you could easily take a day trip there as well. Since this trip, I have foolishly sold my Lexus, purchased a truck and pop-up so we can camp more frequently.
Well, as it turns out, weight loss (like presidenting) is hard. I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t lose more this week, but I know I did really well. I wanted to be around 195 but at least I didn’t go up. If I can just lose 2 lbs. a week, I’ll hit my goal by the end March easily. Next week will be tough since I’ll be traveling and we all know traveling and weight loss don’t mix.
End Weight: 196.2
Previous Weight: 198.8
Loss: 2.6 lbs
Net Loss: 13.2 lbs
End Weight: 198.8
Previous Weight: 203.4
Loss: 4.6 lbs
Net Loss: 10.6 lbs
(Nutrition facts for one pre packed cup: 60 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g sugar, 13 g carbohydrates, 1 g protein)
This is a 60 calorie package of caramely pudding goodness makes you fell like you are cheating on your diet when you are not. Highly recommended.
End Weight: 203.4
Previous Weight: 209.4
Loss: 6 lbs
Net Loss: 6 lbs
Not bad at all, if I do say so myself. I lost a good deal of weight this week on the new diet and exercise plan. I was actually down more but regressed last night by breaking down and going to my favorite Mexican restaurant. I think it tasted better than anything I have ever consumed in my entire life.
I’ve also learned a lot about what to eat that is low calorie that tastes good. I’m thinking of posting information about low cal meals just for fun and so I don’t forget them later.
- Progresso Light Santa Fe Style Chicken
- Amy’s Quarter Pound Veggie Burger
- w/ sauteed onions, peppers and garlic
- Arnolds Select Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins
Mr. Smog, a Bearded Dragon may become our newest pet if I don’t manage to get him back to Plum Tree Montessori soon. Caroline is totally obsessed with him and getting awfully attached to him. He is kind of neat.
It’s the first real potential for snowfall this winter and I am looking forward to it. The sooner the better I say. I want to go have some fun with the family in the snow.
Rumor is that Apple will be releasing the iTablet perhaps in March – announcement should be in late January and that they will start around $1000 price point according to Techcrunch. I can hardly wait to see it. Below is a video that shows one of the things Apple could do with such a device besides making the Kindle and Nook look like a pager by comparison. Given Apple’s roots in education and their recent foray with higher ed. podcasts, I’d say textbooks on the iTablet will be a VERY real possibility.
The Known Universe is from the American Museum of Natural History and shows a view of the universe, starting from the Himalayas and quickly moving out to the edge where all is black and scary – this was made possible by the records in the Digital Universe Atlas.
Well, sadly I have to report that my attempt to hit 210 pounds by the end of 2009 failed. In order to make amends for this shortfall I have decided to set a different goal and pursue a more liberal weight loss program for the the new year. My buddy Chad said I should post weekly with my progress as a way to hold myself accountable. Given that it worked for him, I thought I would give it a shot. My goal is to reduce my weight to 185 pounds or about 25 pounds – daily calorie intake of around 1800.
