Patrick Says

So, I was reading an article over at Weblog Tools Collection about comments and the arguments for and against closing them. And it makes the very good point that closing comments isn’t really necessary. Akismet does a great job at filtering the spammers right into their proper place and cutting off your comments can result in real people not being able to interact on an older post.

And like jobs in healthcare, that is something I don’t want. (Validate me!)

Sometimes, it really sucks to have a workplace where a lot of meetings take place. For these meetings, we frequently buy sandwiches and chips and fruit trays and cheese trays from Sam’s Club. And when the meetings are done, these leftover food items become free game for anyone who’s hungry.

Which is cool if you forget lunch.
But terrible if you’re counting calories.

I literally blew past my calorie goal by 896 calories. All the top weight loss products in the world cannot help you lose weight if you don’t keep that calorie intake in control. So I’ll try again tomorrow. You fall off the horse, you get back on.

You may also notice that I’m putting this renewed weight loss effort under the category ‘Forty By Forty‘. Yes, I know that didn’t work last year, but 2009 was pretty darn awful all-around. Maybe it’s 41 by 41? We’ll see…

With The Wife’s severe health problems and recent (and current) hospitalization, it has occurred to me lately that I need to be healthier than I am currently. The boys need security. And while nothing in this world is that secure, I need to do my best to be healthy.

Also, during said hospital stay, a couple things have become painfully relevant. Clearly, Jen is the better parent. She’s great with the kids, keeps a cool head, does crafts, makes great meals. I, however, scream and yell a lot. I make processed foods and horrible diet choices for meals. So, maybe I can at least be the parent they can count for attendance. I could at least have that going for me as a consolation prize.

There’s a lot of debate about diets that work and diets that don’t work. But I’ve always believed that it’s all about lifestyle choices. Eat less calories than you consume and you will lose weight. (Don’t even get me started on gastric bypass and the ridiculous fad it has become.) So, I’m watching what I eat to see if I can get in better shape. I found a cool site and they even provide a widget for my sidebar to show you all how I’m doing.

So, keep an eye on that.

A friend on Facebook was lamenting the loss of a lot of family photos when something went wrong on her computer. And she had no backups. People, I don’t know how many times you need to hear it, but you NEED to have backups of your files. Not everything. Just the irreplaceable data. If you running right now without backups, stop reading this post and go buy an external drive. It’s not like natural hair loss treatment, which I suppose can be hard to find. Everybody sells external drives and the prices have plummeted.

There is NO reason not to be backing up your stuff.
It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s essential.

If you need help, ask in the comments. But get a backup.

Not The Wife.

I don’t like to use my personal laptop for work-related projects. But the reason probably isn’t what you think.

So, before these work events, I prepare the PowerPoint presentation. It’s ready-to-go like a diet supplement. Usually, these presentations are pretty graphic-intensive and run really slow on the crappy work computer. So I use my speedy laptop. But not without some serious apprehension.

See, in my demented mind, somehow, I’ll press the wrong key during the presentation and a picture of The Wife birthing our second child will pop up on the screen to a room of 300 people. Now bear in mind, there is no way this can happen. There’s no magic set of keystrokes that will insert an image into a PowerPoint randomly from some directory.

But in my crazy head, I’ll find that magic sequence.