This morning had a serious "huh?" moment. Yesterday was a mixed bag, with a high weigh-in (199.8), a morning at the gym, "real" food at lunch instead of some little diet meal (often I'll eat a Healthy Choice meal of some kind, but this was actually homecooked: a chicken breast covered in cream o'shroom soup and a baked potato), no gym in the afternoon, and a sandwich and mashed potatoes for dinner. So I sort of figured this morning would be all about the Meh. Instead, My weigh-in: 198.2.

What the hell? Not that I mind, of course; any day I can randomly produce a 1 1/2 lb weight loss is great, but...how the hell did that happen?

Perhaps it was my body's reaction to The Biggest Loser last night, guiltily dumping fat. Maybe someone slipped me some ALLI (hope not; it's a good 100 feet to the nearest bathroom).

Anyway, this HAS to be some kind of freaky anomaly. I can't figure out what I could have done to drop that much weight in one day. My life isn't like The Biggest Loser; the kinds of losses they experience weekly on the show (10 lbs, 20 lbs, even 30 lbs) simply don't happy to normal people. This may be the biggest one-day drop that I've ever had, as far as I know.

Wish I could figure out what exactly I did, so I can do it again tomorrow. If I could lose that much each day...in just under a month and a half I could be done. *sigh* Pipe dreams, I know.

OK, this was too hilarious not to post. In my ever expanding quest to keep myself from expanding, I search high and low for ideas, recipes, and "quick loss" plans. One thing I've seen in the stores all over is this product called ALLI. It touts itself as the only FDA-approved OTC weight loss medication/plan. I haven't tried it, and I hadn't read up on it at all. So I finally decided to look it up and see about it for myself.

Their website looked good, but as I read over the information time and time again I noted that the way ALLI works is to prevent the absorption of up to 25% of the fat you take in daily. The premise is, if you don't absorb fat, your body will use the stuff you've already got. Seems simple enough, but for some reason this seemed to remind me of something. I thought about it for awhile, and then I remembered: a few years back, someone finally chemically created a fake fat. "Olean" or "Olestra", I can't remember off the top of my head which was which. But anyway, it sounded great: a fat that your body couldn't absorb. What a wonderful idea! But then the side effects became known.

Basically, anything your body can't absorb, it eliminates via waste. Essentially, everything you poop out is stuff that didn't get absorbed for one reason or another. Well, if this stuff couldn't be absorbed, it got pooped out. And of course, like all fats and oils, it was GREASY. So you had a lot of people experiencing some very bad potty emergencies when the greasy, oily poop decided it had to come out NOW. I think the term I heard at one point was "anal leakage". I don't care who you are; that's BAD.

So, I suspected ALLI might be the same kind of problem. I looked up "ALLI side effects" on Google and got this wonderfully funny post on a website called The West Virginia Surf Report.

Alli Side Effects In Layman's Terms
by Jeff Kay

Alli is a new over-the-counter weight-loss pill which, predictably enough, has proven to be a massive best-seller from the moment it became available. The drug, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, reportedly works by blocking the absorption of excess fats by the body. And folks are waddling, not walking, to their local drug stores for a chance to start on the Alli "program."

As is the case with most drugs, Alli comes with a risk of certain side effects. Or, as they're known on the company website, treatment effects.

A person is reportedly limited to 15 grams of fat per meal, and if they go over (or even if they don't), there's a significant chance they'll find themselves out behind a shopping center somewhere, crying and clutching a wad of horrifyingly soiled undergarments, searching for a place to ditch it.

As best as I can tell, anyway...

Since a lot of this stuff is couched in language that is technically truthful, but very carefully worded, I've taken it upon myself to go through the list of side (treatment) effects and warnings, and translate it all into layman's terms.

I'm no scientist or doctor, and don't pretend to have any special knowledge. I'm just a person who's fairly good with words and reading between the lines... The highlighted phrases below are direct quotes from the Alli website, with my translations in between.

Undigested fat cannot be absorbed and passes through the body naturally. The excess fat is not harmful. In fact, you may recognize it in the toilet as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza.

Here the drug makers are trying to soothe the nerves of the skeptical fatty, by speaking their language. Pizza is something fatties understand, and a big part of the reason they’re interested in Alli to begin with. Pizza is good, pizza is reassuring… even when it’s flowing from your ass like molten lava.

The website mentions seeing the undigested fat in a toilet, but that’s clearly a best case scenario. You might also see it on the tops of your shoes, across the hood of a car, or way up the shower curtain, near the loops.

The fat passes out of your body, so you may have bowel changes, known as treatment effects.

Bowel changes. Notice how they phrase that? It means stuff will be happening the likes of which you could never have imagined. It’ll be like a daily Dean Koontz novel inside your underwear.

You may get:

gas with oily spotting

You’ll be farting Wesson oil straight through your Dockers…

loose stools

and having violent chipped beef explosions...

more frequent stools that may be hard to control

all the time, with a sphincter that can no longer be counted as a friend.

Eating a low-fat diet lowers the chance of these bowel changes. Limit fat intake in your meals to an average of 15 grams.

The McDonald’s Big Mac has 34 grams of fat, and the Burger King Whopper has 40. Eat either of these while taking Alli, and you’ll very likely be transformed into a diarrhea cannon.

Learning how to manage treatment effects is an important part of being successful with alli. Here's how to take control:

Start trimming fat from your diet now, even before you begin taking alli. Then pick a day to begin taking alli, such as a weekend day so you can stay close to home if you experience a treatment effect. Make the timing work for you. If you're getting ready to travel or attend a social event, hold off on starting with alli until the event is over.

Blowing liquid feces down a row of bridesmaids, for instance, could be viewed negatively in certain circles. Further, an unexpected bout of the power-squirts while riding “The Bullet” at the county fair might not ingratiate you with your friends. Or anyone on the fairway. Or the folks in the parking lot walking to their cars.

While no one likes experiencing treatment effects, they might help you think twice about eating questionable fat content. If you think of it like that, alli can act like a security guard for your late-night cravings.

You see, when you think about it, shitting yourself is actually a positive.

You can't "save fat grams" from lunch and "spend them" at dinner. Spread your daily fat gram allowance of 15 grams on average per meal over the whole day.

Cheating can lead to embarrassment, tears, and the introduction of a frantically constructed toilet paper crack-wedge in the bathroom of an Applebee's. It’s simply not worth it.

You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.

Until you get the hang of it, you should probably take along a rolling suitcase full of brown clothes everywhere you go, while taking Alli. Luckily, however, turd-colored clothing is in this season; turd is the new vomit.

If co-workers ask about it, there is no shame in telling the truth. You might be surprised how understanding folks can be if you simply say, “I dress like this to conceal the poop that's constantly soaking through the seat of my pants.”

You may not usually get gassy, but it's a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens.

Showboating is not recommended.

You can use a food journal to recognize what foods can lead to treatment effects. For example, writing down what you eat may help you learn that marinara sauce is a better option than Alfredo sauce.

In addition to a handcart full of extra pants designed to camouflage your anal leakage, it might also be a good idea to carry a schematic and information wheel, so you don't repeat past mistakes and have a treatment effect halfway up your back.

I hope this information has proven to be valuable.

Hmmph. I should have expected this morning's weigh-in, with yesterday's epic fail of exercise and food (no gym, Outback Steakhouse for dinner). And yet, if I had expected anything, I should have thought it would have been sooooo much worse.

I weighed in at 199.8. Yes, it was a 1/2 lb increase from yesterday, but after no workout at all on Monday AND a 9 oz sirloin with garlic mashed potatoes, a salad with ranch dressing, and Outback's totally awesome brown bread, it SHOULD have been more like 200.8. So I am actually pretty surprised. But I really do need to be better, both about the eating and the working out.

I can't figure out how people have families and still find time to get to the gym. I look at my own day, and I'm impressed that I make it to the gym when I do. For example, my schedule today:

4:00 a.m. out of bed, get dressed, walk dog, get everything together for the day
4:35 a.m. leave to go to gym
5:00 a.m. workout
6:00 a.m. shower, get dressed
6:30 a.m. drive to work
7:05 a.m. arrive at work (school doesn't start until 8:00, but I get everything ready for the day)
8:00 a.m. school begins
3:15 p.m. school ends
3:20 p.m. study hall (I proctor this three days a week, for two weeks on and then two weeks off)
5:00 p.m. leave school to drive to gym
5:45 p.m. workout
6:30 p.m. drive home
7:00 p.m. dinner, quality time with the hubby, computer, and TV
9:00 p.m. go to bed, get up in seven hours and do it all over again.

Well, "they" say you aren't supposed to eat within three hours of bedtime. So, when in the heck would I eat dinner? I'd have to eat on the go between work and the gym in the evening, which would probably be fast food or something similarly "not a balanced meal". And what if I actually had kids? When would I spend time with them?

I just get frustrated because I don't see how someone can do EVERYTHING that it is recommended one do to stay healthy. How can you eat all the servings you are supposed to eat, without eating 5,000 calories? How do you fit in the number and length of workouts you need to lose weight, when you also have to work and interact with people? I'm beginning to think the only people who can realistically achieve all these things are people who have tons of money, no job, and just work out all day long, and have their meals professionally prepared for them, and ship their kids off with a nanny so they don't have to be bothered with them.

it seems like accomplishing all this is unrealistic. So how do I set realistic goals that will still make me happy?

Hmm. Today's weigh-in was 199.4. That's up .2 from my nice happy low of yesterday. Bummer, but since we got Domino's oven-baked sandwiches, cheesy bread, and chicken kickers, I guess I should be happy it wasn't more of a gain.

I didn't respond well to the beginning of my week. Instead of hitting the gym this morning, I hit the snooze button (so to speak; I don't really use the snooze. I have an alarm with two settings, so I just set the second alarm). Then, we went out to eat for dinner. I'm sure tomorrow's weigh-in will be less than stellar. Oh well. Guess I have my work cut out for me the rest of this week.

Well, I actually made a full week! I've worked out every day for seven days, at least once per day. AND I weighed in this morning at 199.2, which is the lowest weight I've had since, well, since I started weighing myself again last weekend. Yay me! Of course, I have a day full of football and food I still have to get through.

Also, I'm a grandma! Well, not exactly. A friend of ours, a kid we had coached back when we were all quite a bit younger, just had a baby on Wednesday. We kind of looked out for her when she was still in high school, and she has always jokingly (semi) referred to us as her parents. So now that she's a mommy, that makes me a grandma! At age 34. Without ever having had kids. What a weird world.

Weigh-in: 199.6

Not my low of a few days ago, but not the 200 of even yesterday. Very interesting. Of course, weekends are when I find it hardest to behave, food-wise, because I'm home all day with exposure to snacks AND we tend to do silly things like eat out or order pizza on weekends. So, I guess we'll see tomorrow's weigh-in. Cross your fingers...

Stupid $%&#^&* SciFi channel keeps canceling my shows. Just watched the final episode of Stargate:Atlantis. Not incredibly impressed. Best moment by far was the revelation that the newest member of the Daedalus class ship will be named "the General Hammond" after the late Don S. Davis' recurring character. Got a little choked up at that one. But otherwise the episode was full of "eh" moments. For a final episode it was simply...unremarkable. Apparently they are creating a third piece to the "Stargate" phenomenon, called Stargate: Universe. Perhaps instead of creating new shows that relate to the Stargate story out of pieces that try to be fresh and new but very obviously are patterned on previous characters and situations, and they could just go back to what worked: Jack, Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c. Please?

This week just isn't going according to the original plan. I was supposed to be working out, eating better, and losing weight. Instead, I seem to be stuck in the same place that I've been for at least a year now. It's like being in an episode of Star Trek or something.

Yesterday I had that weird double weigh-in with two different weights two hours apart, and I spent the rest of the day wondering which one was the REAL weigh-in. Well, apparently the first one was closer to the "truth", because I weighed in this morning at 200.0 AGAIN (see several previous posts this week). WTF?

Actually, I shouldn't be asking WTF because I know for the most part what happened. As I explained yesterday I didn't work out yesterday morning because I was so tired. So that certainly threw my metabolism for the day back to its slow pace. Although I did manage to hit the gym yesterday afternoon to swim, that wasn't enough to do anything other than perhaps maintain whatever my morning weight had been. But then we decided to go out to dinner last night, where I had a cup of certainly high-calorie soup (overloaded potato--all that starch! and fat! and carbs!), a big breaded chicken sandwich with ranch dressing poured over it, AND a side of smashed potatoes (more starch! and fat! and carbs!).

So I guess the fact that I'm still sitting at $#%&^@* 200 lbs should be considered a blessing. It could have been worse.

Well, there are ups and downs in this little endeavor, of course. Both, this morning. I woke up at 4, as I have done each day this week, to walk the dog, get my stuff together, and get to the gym by 5. To my dismay, I found two things: 1) I was REALLY tired and 2) my weigh-in was 200.2, up .2 lbs from yesterday. I surmised that the +.2 was probably the result of some Mexican food overindulgence last night, and that the tiredness was a direct result of staying up to watch several episodes of Ghosthunters. While the +.2 SHOULD HAVE motivated me to go hit the gym extra hard, instead I succumbed to the tiredness and went back to bed.

But here's the funny part: when I got up the second time, at 6, I weighed myself again. This time, I weighed in at 199.4. Somehow, in my sleep, in two hours, I managed to lose almost a pound! Man, if this were a perfect world I could SLEEP off my weight! Just imagine! Sleep for 12 hours, lose almost 5 lbs! I'd be going to bed as soon as I got home!

Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not making it to the gym this morning, but I'm hoping to at least make it this afternoon and both trips tomorrow. Maybe I really will manage to lose actual weight this week. And get some sleep, while I'm at it.

Today's weigh-in: 200.0

Well, I'm back where I started on Sunday. I guess that's good; technically it's almost a 1/2 lb weight-loss this week. Of course, when the week started with a 1/2 lb GAIN, that isn't so great, but I do still have three more days to go. It's possible, if I can stay on track, I might end up with a whole pound! Yay!

I did better about working out yesterday. The same routine in the morning, and then in the afternoon I hit the pool. It wasn't pretty. I'm really glad now that I didn't participate in the "old timers" swim meet my in-laws tried to get me into over Christmas. Not only had I not been in a pool since the summer, but it would have been at altitude too. Yikes. As it was, I barely survived the first 100 yards yesterday without stopping and panting. I only did 1200 yards, but it's a start.

I almost caved in this morning when the alarm went off. 4 a.m. really is way too early. But I know from sad experience that, as hard as it is to get out of bed in the morning, it's still easier than making myself go by the gym after work, when I'm tired and all I really want to do is go home and spend time with my husband and my dog. So I dragged my sorry self out from under the warm covers into the chilly house and set off on my morning. Meh. At least I did it. My goal is to actually make it to the gym all five mornings this week. Only two more to go!

Weigh-in: 200.2

That's an improvement over yesterday, at least, but I'm still not at my Sunday morning weight of 200, and I've gotta work extra hard to get below 200 by Sunday. Of course, it would help if I would A) stick to my exercise plan and B) eat right.

I didn't hit the gym yesterday afternoon, despite my original plan. I did my all-too-frequent Monday afternoon driveby, where I look at the parking lot, grump about how many people work out on Mondays, and say to myself, "Well, I'll just go home and do sit-ups and push-ups and take the dog for a long walk." When I get home there's always something to distract me from the sit-ups and the push-ups and the long walks. And even worse, I drag my husband with me--instead of going to the gym, when he hears that I'm just going home, he just comes home too.

It used to be that we talked each other INTO working out. One would be sitting around and the other would say, "Hey, let's go play racquetball" or "Let's go skate" or "Let's go ride bikes." When we were both being good about working out we'd prop each other up and encourage each other. We'd make sure we both made it to the gym. But now we're in the habit of talking each other OUT of workouts. One will call the other and say, "Are you going to the gym?" and the other will say, "Well, I was going to, but I really don't WANT to" and the first will say, "Fine by me; I'll meet you at (fill in the name of the restaurant)." Even if we plan to work out at home, it just ends up not happening.

I feel extra-bad about it, because I'm the one who is at least getting the morning workout. My husband doesn't usually make it to the gym in the mornings, and when I cop out on an afternoon workout like I did yesterday, I deprive him of the opportunity to exercise. I've got to start sucking it up and doing the afternoons, because if I don't, I'm afraid he won't get the chance to either.

I also need to make better food choices, especially when we go out to eat. That should be the time to get a SALAD (unless it's something extra-special, like Texas de Brazil). I did slightly better than usual last night, when we ate at Taco Bell, because I opted for items from the "fresco" menu, which basically seems to be a substitution of chopped onions, tomatoes, and cilantro for the shredded cheese that usually accompanies a Taco Bell product. However, I should have just gotten ONE item, not two. I got a burrito and a taco. I need to learn to cut the portions back!

*sigh* I hope tomorrow's weigh-in is better. I did hit the gym this morning, and I WILL go to the gym this afternoon.

Well, I at least kinda started out on the right foot this morning. I did make it to the gym, which is a good thing. I did my standard (or at least what WAS my standard) morning workout: 50 crunches on the crunch machine (I really should do these on an exercise ball instead, I guess), 30 back/sides on the back/side stand (don't really know how to explain it--it stands at an angle with a brace for your feet and a pad for your hip area, and you lean over it and rise back up), reps on some of the leg machines (what I call the "gynecology" machines that do your abductor/adductor muscles of your hips and thighs, the calf press, and the quad and hamstring machines), and then 30 minutes on the elliptical machine. Since my morning workout is pretty much all machine-oriented, I should do non-machine stuff in the afternoons, such as swimming, running, biking on a real bike, etc. It all depends on what is available when I get to the gym, and how crowded it is.

The reason I said I "kinda" started out right was because my weigh-in was WRONG. I managed to gain almost half a pound between yesterday's weigh-in and today's. Probably had something to do with the pizza, beer, breaded fish fillets and tater tots I consumed over the weekend. I needed to get it out of the way, since it was my last weekend of freedom, so to speak. But it does hit on the temptations that I have to deal with. For example, we got a bunch of candy in our stockings at Christmas and brought it home with us. What do we do with it? We bought our favorite beer while we were on vacation and brought it home with us because they don't sell it in the South. What do we do with it? My sister-in-law sent pieces of her husband's birthday cake home with us because we missed his party. What do we do with it? We have all kinds of probably unhealthy food in the fridge and cupboard (Hamburger Helper, Hot Pockets, tater tots, etc). What do we do with it? This is where the self-control and portion-control issues kick in for me. It's one thing for some people to have candy around the house; they can resist the urge to scarf it all, and consume it a piece or two daily. Not me. M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses disappear by the handful when I'm around. One piece of pizza turns into four. I really need to be vigilant.

At school it won't be quite so hard. I can only eat what's available, since I really can't run out and pick anything up in the middle of the day. If I can limit what I eat to what's healthy, and also limit the amount stashed in my desk (even good things can be bad if you eat too much of them), and chew gum or suck a mint when I need something in my mouth, I might be able to restrain myself.

It was interesting to see the New Year's resolution crew at the gym this morning. Not quite as many as there have been in years past. I figured it would be packed, but there really weren't significantly more people there than there had been the last time I'd hit the gym before work (beginning of December). Maybe I'll see them this afternoon...

Well, after my weigh-in this morning, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is, I managed to not gain any weight on our Christmas vacation. The bad news is, I didn't lose any weight either. I weighed in this morning at 200.0 lbs, technically a .2 lbs loss from my weigh-in on Dec. 19 before we left, but that could just be water weight so it really doesn't count.

I would love to lose 2 lbs each week, but I know from past experience that a 2 lb drop is not likely. I would just like to have a loss each week. I need to get back to my two-a-day workouts, and I need to get back to weighing in every morning and recording the data in a spreadsheet.

So, now that I have a starting place, I can get started for real. I hope....

Whew. Well, it's January 3, and we're finally back home (as it were). We left on December 19, so it's been a long and enjoyable holiday, and I can't say that I'm really for it to be over. Everything returns to normal with work and such on Monday, so the rest of today and tomorrow will be dedicated to decompressing, regrouping, and preparing for the work week. Meh.

Haven't weighed myself yet to see what the ultimate damage is from the Christmas food season, but it's sure to be ugly. I'll wait until tomorrow morning, when hopefully food and such is out of my system, to get my starting weight for the New Year. I'm sure it's gonna be a bad one...

Happy New Year! As usual, I am considering the same resolutions as I have for the past few years. I guess I'm not very creative (or very well-motivated).

My main concern is, as it has been every year, weight loss. I weighed myself before we left for our Christmas vacation, and I was sitting at about 200 lbs (25 lbs heavier than my last successful run at weight loss, three years ago). The scale at my in-laws' has had me at about 195, but I don't know how that compares to my scale at home, so I'll have to wait (weight?) a few more days until we return to know whether the holiday has been particularly damaging. I've tried to be good.

Anyway, as I am well out of the weight ranges for my kayaks, and we have an annual paddling trip coming up in the middle of March that will require me to spend quite a bit of time in my boat and a lot of winter paddling gear for multiple days in a row, I'll need to lose as much weight as possible and get in much better shape so I can survive the trip. That trip will be March 12-15, which is pretty much exactly 10 weeks from today. I'd love to get 20 lbs off by then. It will mean being pretty dedicated to the two-a-day workouts that I was so good at several years ago. It will also mean being much more careful with what and how much I eat, something I've NEVER been very good at.

I'm also motivated to lose the weight so I can get off the blood pressure and heartburn medications I've been taking for several years now. My blood pressure is a bit high, not horrible but certainly not great since I'm only 34. And the heartburn thing is a pain in the butt--I take Prilosec OTC daily and it does a pretty good job, but it would be so much nicer if I didn't have to deal with it at all. If I can shed some weight, I should be able to do away with the daily meds. That would be nice.

The rest of my resolutions are as they always are: get more organized, keep my house cleaner, do a better job at keeping up with my school stuff...pretty typical, all of it.

So anyway, Happy New Year to one and all. I hope everyone has a safe, prosperous, joy-filled 2009. And...we're off!

Awww, it's time for the babies to go. The puppies are eight weeks old now, and the first two have gone to their new homes (as of this morning). Another one is due to leave this afternoon, and the other two who will be leaving will go later this week. The owners have decided to keep Ayumi, the littlest and wildest of the puppies (girl, yellow collar).

Good luck to the babies. I hope their owners are prepared for how wonderful (and bratty) these puppies really are.

After watching the SEC championship game last night, and watching the team that had been undefeated through the regular season lose their first game and their shot at the national championship, I am fully convinced of one thing:

I HATE THE BCS.

I refuse to accept that there can be teams with undefeated records out there that will be denied the opportunity to compete for the national championship because they come from the wrong conferences.

The BCS does not identify the best teams in the country. Instead, it favors teams from certain conferences over others, convinces coaches to lead their schedules, and encourages teams to be unsportsmanlike and run up the score. The BCS conferences become convinced that their shit somehow smells better than everyone else's.

Look how many blow-outs there were this season. This isn't necessarily because some teams were "that much" better than others. It's because the BCS considers those stats in their computer analysis.

Look how many upsets there were this season. That indicates that the ratings of the AP, coaches, and BCS don't mean shit.

A perfect example of the disparity in college football is the game I attended: the University of Tennessee's homecoming game versus the University of Wyoming. Tennessee, an SEC team that has perennially been in the hunt for BCS rankings and has played for the national championship, scheduled their homecoming with non-BCS conference (Mountain West) Wyoming because they figured it would be a soft game that they could win in the midst of a difficult schedule against teams that are "better". Instead, Wyoming came in to the Vols home field and handed UT another loss. After the game, ousted head coach Phil Fulmer (who lost his job because his team could not perform to the SEC standards this year) said, "In this day and age in college football, anybody can beat you" (Knoxville News, 11/9/08).

This is pretty true, as demonstrated by the number of upsets during the course of the season. The NFL mentality of "any given Sunday" (meaning that on any given game day any team in the NFL has a reasonable chance of defeating any other team) has changed the face of college football. There are plenty of "Cinderella" teams in Division 1-A that have won the Big Game. The fact that priority is still given to some conferences over others is unfair and violates the spirit of competition in college sports.

The BCS causes a self-perpetuating cycle. By giving preference to teams in some divisions and not others, those teams get national exposure, which brings with it money from the BCS games and TV contracts. Skilled high school players opt to attend the BCS schools because it brings them more opportunities to play in big games and enhance their chances of getting scouted by the pros. Because the BCS schools can attract better players, they are more successful, which validates the BCS and starts the whole process over again.

No school from a non-BCS conference can truly get a fair shot at a national championship while the BCS exists. The only fair way to run college football is to create a playoff system to give all teams the same opportunity.

Here's my suggestion:

1) Teams need to adjust their scheduling during the regular season. There are eleven Division 1-A conferences (twelve if you include the "independent" schools). These conferences should do their schedules in a similar manner to the NFL. Each season the NFL divisions schedule three kinds of games: divisional games, conference games, and inter-conference games. Each division plays games against another division in the opposing conference. The MLB does something similar. The college teams should do something like that. Each Division 1-A team should play three kinds of games--games again conference rivals, games against other BCS conference teams, and games against non-BCS conference teams. The regular college season would probably have to be expanded to fit in the necessary games.

2) There should be a playoff between the winner of each conference. The team with the best record from each conference will have an automatic place. Now, many people will argue with this and say that a system like this will exclude some good teams. And they'll cite the game between Florida and Alabama as an example. Alabama was the number one team, and they would have been the winners of the SEC if it weren't for the SEC championship game. It's very true, that sometimes the best team isn't always the team with the best record. But to me, if you are the best team, you will end up with the best record. The way teams schedule their games now, they don't necessarily end up with a schedule that reflects their true worth. An expanded schedule may help establish the best teams a little better. This way there will be a more accurate representation, because teams will have played a wider variety of games. Also, much like the professional sports leagues, college football could also include "wild card" teams. Perhaps they can be decided in the same manner as pro sports: the team with the best records after the conference winners could get wild card births, or perhaps those who feel we should keep the rankings might suggest that the highest ranked teams outside the conference winners should get the births. I would feel better about using the records, since the expanded schedule should have better established the strongest teams.

3) The playoff will establish which teams should be playing for the national championship. This is truly the only fair way to determine these teams. The teams that make it to the first round of the playoffs will earn money, much like the bowl teams do. Then for each successive round the teams make it to, they'll continue to earn more money. The team that wins the championship will earn the most. But there should also be TV contracts with all the conferences, and each team in the conference should earn an equal share.

A playoff system will give teams from every conference an equal opportunity. The national champion could come from any conference. Every school will have the chance to recruit quality players, because they might get to play for the championship and they'll get TV exposure, just like every other team. This will make it more likely that all the teams really will end up pretty equal, and then the best team really will win the national championship.

I know this is just a pipe dream. No one involved in a BCS conference or in the BCS committees will ever agree to parity in college football. The Big 12 and the SEC will continue to think that they are all that and a bag of chips, and they will continue to get the bulk of the money, the bulk of the bowl games, and the bulk of the best players. And every season there may or may not be a "Cinderella" team that might really be better than the BCS "best".

I hate the BCS.

Well, I started out well.

I managed to hit the gym both Monday and Tuesday mornings, and also Tuesday afternoon. I was feeling pretty proud of myself (and pretty sore).

Then Wednesday morning came. When the alarm went off, I did a quick status check of all systems, and realized I was stuffy, my throat hurt, and my stomach didn't feel very good. I opted out of the morning workout, figuring I'd hit the gym on my way home from work that afternoon. However, I did not count on getting sick once I got to school that morning. After a couple trips to the bathroom before school, it became apparent that I wasn't going to make it. I ended up taking my first sick day in 6 1/2 years. Needless to say, I didn't make it to the gym. Thursday morning I also opted out, not in any hurry to reignite the illness (still stuffy and sore-throated, but not barfing). Thursday afternoon I couldn't work out because of a swim meet. That left this morning. Still snuffly, I decided against the morning workout (much to the dog's dismay). That leaves this afternoon. I do need to make the effort to get there.

The good news is that, despite the gap in the middle of the week, I've managed to lose 1 1/2 pounds between Monday and today. Of course, all the yakking I did on Wednesday probably facilitated some of that...

From Cracked.com:

The 5 Least Surprising Toy Recalls of All Time
By Danny Gallagher


As children prepare to gather around the Christmas tree to open gift-wrapped toys, lets take a moment to remember some of the toy recalls that companies, parents and even children probably should have seen coming a mile away. Because after all, children shouldn't be the only ones who can't sleep the night before Christmas.

#5. The Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids Doll

It's not entirely surprising that a Cabbage Patch Kids doll ended up trying to eat children. They've always had lifeless shark's eyes that look ready to roll over white and enter attack mode. Sure, it's outstretched arms look innocently huggable to a child, just like the moist mouth of a Venus fly trap looks like a perfectly good place to land in the final moments of a fly's life.
The doll was unleashed on the masses in the fall of 1996 and more than 500,000 were recalled less than a year later by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. It was supposed to eat little plastic snack foods through a motorized mouth. Lord knows how the kids got the plastic foods out of them once they were done eating them, but in many unfortunate cases, the doll instead developed a taste for bloody scalps.

Parents reported their children's hair, fingers and skin getting caught in the doll's gullet, which turned out to be so powerful, it could even rip hair clean out of its roots. There were also more difficult to confirm reports of the doll's eyes suddenly turning a bright red and the room temperature dropping 15 degrees Celsius every time you turned it on.

The CPSC ordered a recall and Mattel offered a $40 refund. They did not offer the copy of the Necronomicon that would give parents the power to send the doll back to the bowels of hell from whence it came.

Why they should have known:
Any parent with low-lying, unprotected wall sockets or sleepy pets will tell you that children love to put their fingers into anything and everything their tiny, chubby arms can reach. It's their nature. Because they can't talk and don't have the motor skills or experience to understand pain, the best way they can learn about this weird world they've just entered is to either stick it in their mouths or shove their arms halfway down it. The Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Doll was much too big for children to swallow, and it had a motherfucking motorized mouth, so you do the math.

#4. Kinder Chocolate Eggs

Food and toys have a strong relationship. Everybody remembers the sheer joy and excitement of finding the toy surprise in their morning bowl of Lucky Charms. Kids rarely choked on those toys because the boxes had huge flashy advertisements all over them and the toy was usually the first thing they looked for when they tore open the box with their teeth and hands like a lion pouncing on a weak, marshmallow-filled antelope.

Leave it to the Germans to turn childhood joy into unrelenting horror.

Kreiner Imports of Chicago sold the Kinder Egg to stores in the South and Midwest from March to August 1997, just in time for another Christ-based holiday that finds children eating candy-filled chocolate eggs with as much thought and chewing as Pac-Man in attack mode. Unfortunately, Kreiner's chocolate eggs were actually tiny plastic toys with a delicious chocolate shell wrapped around them.

Like a Trojan horse for the Heimlich maneuver, approximately 5,000 death eggs were recalled. The toy manufacturer, the Ferrero Group, blamed the import company for the snafu, claiming that they didn't market their toys in the United States or to children ages 3 and under. These were apparently the toy-filled candy eggs for the discerning adult.

Why they should have known:
It's an edible treat wrapped around an inedible mound of plastic with even tinier bits of choke-tastic plastic encased inside. The edible treat is chocolate, the closest thing children have to heroin. The toy might have been safer on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but America's childhood obesity and early on-set diabetes rates should have been a huge red flag to the import company that Americans kids probably wouldn't even take the time to unwrap the thing before shoveling it into their mouths.

And, if there were any warnings about the surprise toy inside, not only would our children's low literacy rates prevent them from reading, but even the parents wouldn't know about it. The label encasing the egg was still written in German when it landed in America, so the product would have been about as safe if the packaging had been in English and read, "Warning: There are no small parts for your children to choke on in here. Viable substitute for baby food."

#3. Sky Dancers

Nothing can be more magical and whimsical to the eyes of the child than a toy that possesses the magic of flight. It's why kids have been making paper airplanes for years. Of course, flying toys lose a little magic when they like to leap up and knock your eye out of its socket.

Galoob unleashed Sky Dancers in November 1994. It was an unholy alliance between the pretty girlishness of a Barbie doll and the magic of a whirly bird. Children would put the helicopter toy on a mechanical base, pull the cord and watch its foam propeller pull it high into the sky. The company went on to re-release the toy several times as flying dolphins, flowers and ponies--all with different, presumably increasingly gay, names.

Six years later, Hasbro scooped up Galoob and found itself ordering a massive recall when it was learned the magic fairies would randomly fly in any direction at a high rate of speed and bitch slap children and even their parents like a white trash Tinkerbell after a bottle of lukewarm Jack Daniels.

Why they should have known:
To the untrained, uninjured eye, this toy might not seem so harmless on the surface. It's got foam propellers that look about as huggable as a propeller can look and it's too big for a toddler to stuff halfway down their esophagus. However, when activated by a pull cord, it becomes a hyper-kinetic missile searching for the vulnerable parts of anyone within a 3-foot radius. And, since it requires the kid who pulls the chord to stand within a foot of it, there's always a good chance it will be the kid bending his face directly in its whirring propellers of death who will feel the brunt of its fury.

The CSPC received over 150 reports of injuries caused by the toy, including scratched corneas, temporary blindness, broken teeth, face lacerations, a broken rib and even a mild concussion. The toy was pulled off the market before it had a chance to reenact the propeller scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

#2. The Easy Bake Oven

Like the Slinky, Uncle Milty's Ant Farm and Ohio Art's Etch-a-Sketch, the Easy Bake Oven has become a classic toy in the halls of childhood nostalgia. Every little girl or confused young boy had one growing up, or at least the ones who had parents who actually loved them. They could do just about anything a grown up oven could such as bake cakes and cookies, make fudge and brownies and prepare women for a lifetime of soul-crushing indentured servitude to a man who only cares if his meals and his women are as hot and quiet as possible.

But 44 years after Kenner toys created the Easy Bake Oven, it went from a cute childhood plaything that taught children how to give every kid on the block diabetes, to a menacing finger scorching monster.

The CSPC announced a recall in February 2007 after 29 reports of burned fingers surfaced and again this past summer when the latest incantation of the toy created by Hasbro baked up 77 incidents of burned fingers, 15 of which went as high as second- and third-degree burns. A 5-year-old girl even had to have part of her finger amputated. Just like a big girl!

Why they should have known:
Forget the fact that the Easy Bake Oven has always been dangerous because it lets children eat icing by the bag. It also lets children stick their fingers in an oven.

Hasbro proudly rolled out their new and improved version of the classic children's toy in 2006 claiming they replaced the light bulb with its own central heating system, according to Hasbro's official Easy Bake Oven timeline.

But ... doesn't it still let children stick their fingers in a fucking oven?

#1. Lawn Darts or Jarts

Lawn darts were introduced in the '60s, a more innocent time when the world did not yet realize that children could be harmed by something as innocuous as a flying metal spike.

The CSPC finally caught on in 1988, when the toys actually killed three children. They issued a recall alert that, not only called for a ban, but also ordered any remaining darts be destroyed on sight like they were bloodthirsty zombies roaming the streets in search of kids to puncture.

Then CSPC Chairwoman Ann Brown reissued the recall alert in May 1997 when one hit a 7-year-old Indiana boy in the head so hard, it pierced his skull. The fan site, Lawn-Jarts.com questions the recall and asks what the big fuss was all about. Cracked.com may not be Consumer Reports, but we have a feeling it has something to do with the dead kids.

Why they should have known:
This toy went with the strategy of taking darts, a game clearly unsafe for children, and deciding it would be safer if it were 10 times larger, and if the rules were changed so that the target was basically your entire lawn. We're assuming that exploding tip lawn darts were also considered at some point.

It's true that, as lawn dart proponents remind us, the game is perfectly safe if played according to the rules. Of course, the reality is that it takes about three minutes for kids to grow bored with the actual game and for someone to dare someone else to stand over the target and try to catch the dart in his teeth.

Let's face it, if children could be trusted to perfectly obey safety warnings, they could be trusted with flamethrowers, too. Hell, if they could read and obey safety warnings, they'd run the world because half the adults can't even do that.

I'm off to a good start. I hit the gym at 5:00 a.m. I worked on core strength for about 10-15 minutes and then did cardio for 45 minutes. If I can manage it, I'm going to try to get back there this afternoon. Monday afternoons are always crowded at the gym if you get there after most people's work hours (which I'll have to do this week since I've got to proctor study hall after school), and it'll be even worse today because everyone will feel guilty about how much they ate over the weekend. I'm sure it'll be hell, but I really need to do it. I may not be able to get on a cardio machine, but hopefully I can find some weight machines open, or I might have to swim some laps instead. Cross your fingers...

Find more videos like this on KayakMind


Just wanted to post this for the heck of it...this was several months ago, at the Tellico River. This is Baby Falls, about a 12-ft waterfall.

I can't imagine there is anything more tiresome than someone who is all talk and no action. Which means I'm pretty tired of myself. Over and over again I've tried to rededicate myself to the weight loss. Again and again I've tried to refocus my efforts. Time and time again I've tried to rekindle my motivation. And each time I've failed.

Now I'm trying again. Is there anything to suggest that I'm going to succeed? Not really. I think today's Cathy really captures the essence.



In the comic strip, Cathy's mom is the one who sells her on the idea that she can eat the pie. While I've had plenty of people encouraging me to eat this past weekend, I myself am the one to blame for my sub-prime eating problem. And there is no bailout coming for me. I'm the only one who can get myself out of this mess.

Here's what I'm trying for the month of December.

1) I will work out at the gym at least five times each week until I leave for my Christmas vacation.
2) I will go to the gym at least three mornings each work week until my vacation.
3) I will try to cut back on what I eat.

That's it; no weight loss goals, no other requirements. Really what I need to do is get in better shape. On our vacation we expect to spend two days in a row skiing. If I can't get in better shape, I won't be able to make two whole days (not to mention being able to fit into my ski clothes).

Tomorrow is Day One...

Happy Veteran's Day! God bless America and our troops!

A fond farewell to another of my favorite comic strips. Opus was just the most recent face of Bloom County, one of my very favorite comics. Bloom County said "Happy Trails" (the last book) in the late '80s. It came back as Sunday-only Outland, with new characters who were gradually replaced by the old ones. It ended in the mid-'90s. Then in 2003 it showed up again as Opus, with many of the same characters. And now it's gone again, and creator Berkley Breathed claims it's for good this time, as he turns his attention to children's literature. A noble effort, to be true, but I will miss Opus, Bill the Cat, Steve Dallas, Binkley, Portnoy, HodgePodge, Cutter John, Rosebud, and all the other characters. I will put my Bloom County books on the shelf with Garfield, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes, and pray that Bill Amend continues drawing FoxTrot on Sundays for just a little bit longer.

My brother forwarded this e-mail to me. I don't know where it came from, but I sure hope it's true. If it isn't, it should be.

I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight.'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,' I thought..
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation. 'Where are you headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me. 'Chicago - to Great Lakes Base - We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Iraq '.
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached Chicago, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time. As I reached for my wallet, I overheard soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch - Probably wouldn't be worth five bucks - I'll wait till we get to Chicago.' .. His friend agreed.. I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.'.. She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. 'My son was a soldier in Iraq ; it's almost like you are doing it for him.'
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?'.. 'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked.. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class.. 'This is your thanks.'
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. A man stopped me.. "I saw what you did. I want to be part of it - Here, take this.".. He handed me twenty-five dollars.. Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane.. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand, an said, "I want to shake your hand.".. Quickly unfastening my seatbelt I stood and took the Captain's hand. With a booming voice he said, "I was a soldier and I was a military pilot - Once, someone bought me a lunch - It was an act of kindness I never forgot.". I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.. When we landed in Chicago I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. "It will take you some time to reach the base - It will be about time for a sandwich - God Bless You."
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers. As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of meals.. It seemed so little...

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'

This is the greatest webcam EVER.



These are Shiba Inu puppies. Not sure how old, but probably only 3 weeks or so. Momma comes in and out, to snooze with them and feed them. Otherwise, the puppies just roll around, sleep, twitch, and pile on each other. How great is the Internet? THIS great.

I don't know what has put me in a melancholy mood. Could be the season: days getting short, weather turning chilly, some rain this week, the leaves falling. Could be my birthday this past week. I've reached that stage of life where birthdays now indicate growing older rather than becoming an adult. Could also be my mom's birthday, which was also this past week. I miss her terribly still, and the closeness of our birthdays, which was always something special we shared, was a reminder of her absence. Heck, could even be PMS.

Anyway, I've been in sort of a gloomy mood lately. Not depressed exactly, but just less than energetic and more likely to expect the bad rather than the good. Certainly nothing bad HAS happened; I've just been more of a grump recently than normal.

So, I got to thinking, as I scanned through the radio stations looking for music, about sad songs. There are plenty of them out there. I'm sure lots of them are country songs. I'm sure there are thousands of really sad songs that I've never heard. But I started thinking about the saddest songs I HAD heard, and what made them sad.

Some songs are sad purely because they deal with a sad topic. Death rarely makes for a happy time; the same goes for lost love. Some are sad because they are tragic: a bad decision, something that could and should have been prevented. Some are sad because of the back story; the song might sound a little sad just upon listening, but once you know the behind-the-scenes information they become positively heartbreaking. And of course, some songs are sad because of specific associations the listener has with them, memories connected to the music.

Once I got on the topic of sad songs, I made a list of the saddest songs I could recall listening to, and what made them sad.

Since the best part of being in a dark mood is spreading the wealth, I figured I'd list my top ten here, along with my reasoning for them. Feel free to comment and add your own contributions. I'm sure there are plenty I overlooked as I drove to work this morning.

10. Candle in the Wind '97 (Elton John)

What it's about: Elton John and his writing partner, Bernie Taupin, rewrote their original lyrics (about Marilyn Monroe) to memorialize Princess Diana after her death in a Paris car accident.

Why it's sad: Already a sad song about a life cut short, it takes a very personal look at the too-short life and tragic death of a very kind and genuinely good person (Elton John was close friends with the royal family). I remember as a little girl the mystique of Princess Di. Knowing that there were real princesses in the world was a very big deal for little girls in the '80s, and such a terrible death rocked anyone who ever believed in fairy tales.

9. The Show Must Go On (Queen)

What it's about: A performer must act a part that he certainly does not feel inside. However, he continues the role for the benefit of others.

Why it's sad: This was one of the final songs Freddie Mercury recorded with Queen. He was dying of AIDS at the time (Brian May, Queen's guitarist, wrote the song for Freddie). It is incredible to me that Mercury could have put so much power in the vocals of this song, as gravely ill as he was. I remember seeing the video for the very first time only a few days before Mercury revealed he had AIDS, and only a few days later he was gone. Again a reminder of a life cut short.

8. One Tin Soldier (Coven)

What it's about: Two groups of people, one from the valley and one from the hill, fight over a supposed treasure on the land belonging to the hill people. When the battle is over and many have died, the treasure is revealed to be the message "Peace on Earth".

Why it's sad: Irony, people, irony. The assumption that treasure must be monetary in value and that it's worth killing for is really terrible. War is supposed to suck, but there's supposed to be a better reason.

7. The Cat's in the Cradle (Harry Chapin but I like the Ugly Kid Joe version better)

What it's about: A father who is perpetually too busy to spend time with his son finds the tables turned when his son grows up and no longer has time for him or for his own family.

Why it's sad: It's real life. People constantly spend more time on material goods and their jobs than they do with their own families. The horrible realization at the end of the song by the narrator that not only has his son abandoned familial ties because he's too busy but that the narrator TAUGHT the son to be that way is crushing.

6. Concrete Angel (Martina McBride)

What it's about: A little girl is abused by family members and ends up dying because of it.

Why it's sad: First of all, just singing about a little abused girl is terribly depressing. The little girl in the song toughs it out and doesn't let outsiders know that she's been beaten--she's a "concrete angel". But the twist comes when the song describes the angel headstone resting over her grave in the cemetery, because she's died from the abuse. So now the song sings about the concrete angel forever watching over the other angel. *sniff*

5. Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)

What it's about: The singer is asking a loved one who has obviously passed on if they will recognize each other and get to be together in heaven someday. It also seems that the singer must visit heaven in his dreams but knows he cannot stay because he doesn't belong there yet. There may also be some question or concern on the part of the singer as to whether he himself deserves to even GO to heaven someday.

Why it's sad: The worry about finding loved ones in the afterlife probably concerns a lot of people. But the song is especially poignant because Clapton wrote it on the death of his four-year-old son, who fell from a window 53 stories above the ground. How Clapton can even bring himself to sing the song in concert with such personal grief is incredibly brave.

4. The War was in Color (Carbon Leaf)

What it's about: The song is an apparent conversation between a grandfather, who fought in WWII, and his grandson, who stumbled across a box of his grandfather's memorabilia. The grandson wants to know if the war was like all the old war movies he's seen on TV. The grandfather says no, the war was in color. He then very graphically describes how terrible war really is.

Why it's sad: This song has one of the cruelest plot twists ever. Near the end of the song it is revealed that this is an imaginary conversation, because the grandfather died during the war and didn't get to experience the birth of his son, the grandson's own father. So why did the grandfather fight in the war and make such a sacrifice? He says it's to give his grandson "a world without war, a life full of color". The agony here is that WWII was not the "war to end all wars", because we still have the damned things. It could be that his grandson will someday go to war as well. So his sacrifice was all for naught.

3. If You're Reading This (Tim McGraw)

What it's about: The song is a letter from a soldier being read by his family after his death in war. He wrote the letter in the event he died while overseas. He apologizes to his wife, hopes his parents are proud of him, wishes he could be there for the birth of his impending daughter, and asks that his family remember not just him but his comrades.

Why it's sad: Are you kidding? Even a very anti-war protester should be able to understand and sympathize with the final requests of a dying person. This soldier is not being selfish but instead is trying his best to help his family cope with an incredibly difficult situation. God bless our troops.

2. Kilkelly, Ireland (Peter Jones)

What it's about: Real letters kept by a family and found by a man in his attic were used to write this song. The letters are written by a father in Ireland to his son John, who came to the US during one of the many famines in Ireland. The letters keep John appraised of the struggles of his family still in Ireland. Each letter ends with a wish that John, who sounds from the gist of the letters to be far more successful in making a livelihood than his family across the sea, would come home to visit.

Why it's sad: John never went home. The final letter comes from one of John's brothers, and relates to him the death of their father. The father continually asked about John as his health grew poorer, and he called out to John as he lay dying. How dreadful. The brother's letter also ends with the same request, "Why don't you think about coming to visit? We'd all love to see you again." We never do know if John ever went back to Ireland. Agonizingly sad.

1. The Christmas Shoes (Donna VanLiere)

What it's about: The narrator is standing in line to buy last minute Christmas gifts with a large group of other flustered and short-tempered shoppers. A small boy ahead of the narrator attempts to purchase a pair of women's shoes but does not have enough money. When he is told he cannot buy the shoes he explains why he wants them: his mother is dying of an undisclosed illness. He wants the shoes to make her happy and to make her look pretty in case she goes to see Jesus. The narrator and others in line help the child buy the shoes and go home, appreciating everything and everyone they have in their lives a little more.

Why it's sad: This should not be a freakin' Christmas song. The death of a parent is awful, especially for small children who don't fully understand what is going on. Obviously, this song is very personal to me, but I had trouble listening to it even before my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Since she died, it's a definite no-no for me.

Any others I've missed? Any happy songs to get me out of my funk?

Tomorrow would have been my mom's 65th birthday. Saw this video on cuteoverload.com. I wish I would dream more often of my mom; I've only had one or two that I've remembered since she passed away.

Twilight

Not much progress on the weight issue (I was 196 today, down from about 199, but my weight fluctuates so much day to day that it's hard to count that as a for-sure drop). But there's other news...

I won my first golf game ever yesterday!

Not to say this is announcing my entrance into the LPGA tour or anything--I will not be taking Annika's place particularly soon. But this was big for me; the score was probably at least a 20 stroke improvement over my personal best. I've always used double-par as my personal par, since I've only been doing this since the end of June. That means I'm usually looking at a score in the 140's. And most of the time my 9-hole score is in the upper 50's-mid 60's. My front nine was 51; my back nine was 58 (sort of fell apart there at the end). So this 109 was totally awesome for me. The fact that I got a lower score than my husband (who usually completely destroys me when we golf) and my brother-in-law (who was on his high school golf team) was just icing on the cake.

Will I ever beat them again? Unlikely. I suspect the planets aligned or something for me to play as well as I did.

I guess I need a new personal par. It will probably depend on the course I'm playing (the one yesterday was pretty short, which is good for me because I can't drive very far). Maybe 18 under double par?

So.

It's been a while since I posted anything particularly meaningful. Basically because nothing really has happened. Have I moved to a new and interesting location? No. Have I hit any new rivers lately? Nope. Did I accomplish any of my goals for the summer? Not really. Have I lost any weight in the past two years? NO.

I don't understand what happened. Almost three years ago, in November 2005, my husband and I decided to work out and lose weight. We ate a bit better, worked out a lot, and we each lost about 40 pounds in about six months. Of course, the more weight we lost, the harder it got to lose more. Our bodies adjusted to the work outs and the diet, so we had to step it up in order to keep losing.

But instead of stepping it up, we went the other way. We started going out to eat more. We started going back for seconds (and thirds) at mealtimes. We got bored with going to the gym all the time. We cut back on the work outs and the intensity, and some weeks we didn't go to the gym at all.

And the weight came back. Thankfully, not all of it; I'm not sure what my husband gained back, but I'm back up about 25 pounds from the lightest I had gotten on this plan (still down almost 20, hallelujah). With the weight came all the crappy stuff that I wanted to get rid of. I'm tired all the time. My back hurts. My plantar fasciitis, which had gotten a lot better, got worse again. I'm cranky all the time. I don't feel well. My clothes don't fit.

And it's that much harder to get started again. The gym is still uninteresting. I haven't found a suitable replacement--I can't make myself run (tried that this summer, failed), I don't force myself to swim hard enough for it to benefit me, I'm afraid to ride my bike anywhere because I don't want to get run over...I've got an excuse for everything.

Plus, with work and swimming (yes, it's that time of year again) and some of the other commitments I have, there is so little time for me to spend with my husband that it is a shame to spend it sweating away at the gym when we could be out somewhere enjoying each other's company.

So I'm trying to reach deep inside me somewhere and find the strength, willpower, and motivation I need to get my ass off the couch every day and lose this weight. If I can't do it now, I may never get it off.

Stay tuned...

Still fuming about the end to the Chargers/Broncos game last night. Yes, I know, mistakes happen, and yes, I know, calls get blown all the time. But when not one but TWO calls go horribly awry in the same game, against the same team, you start to feel as though the refs have a personal vendetta against your team. I remember back to my college days. The refs in the old Western Athletic Conference were notoriously TERRIBLE. We had regular chants for such occasions, such as "THE REF BEATS HIS WIFE! THE REF BEATS HIS WIFE!" and "WHEN I GET OLD AND CANNOT SEE, I WANT TO BE A REFEREE!" and of course the classic "ZEBRA ZEBRA, SHORT AND STOUT, FIND YOUR HEAD AND PULL IT OUT!" which I still employ at hockey games. Heck, I even remember one game where the calls were so bad the refs had to be rescued by football players from a barrage of snowballs coming from the stands. We had deadly aim back then. What I wouldn't have given for a long-distance snowball last night to peg Ed Hochuli in the back of the head for blowing his damn whistle early.

I drove past a fire station today. Spread out on the grass in front of the building were three hundred and forty-three American flags. Big letters amidst the flags read FDNY.

Tears flowed as I drove on. It's been seven years, and as a country we are still frightened, heartsick, and angry. And so very, very proud. Most of us do not know the names of the firemen, the police officers, the first responders who lost their lives at Ground Zero. We have not memorized the names of the dead at the World Trade Center or Pentagon. We can't recite the names of the heroes who fought and died on United Airlines Flight 93.

And yet their names are written forever in our hearts.

God bless America, land that I love.

Amen.

Here I am. One full week left of my summer, and practically nothing to show for it. At the beginning of May I was rededicating myself to my weight loss attempt, figuring a full fifteen weeks before school started up for the fall would give me ample time to lose 15, 20, maybe 30 or more pounds! What a great idea!

And then the wheels fell off. I did not get myself to the gym as I should have. I did not get up and go jogging as I should have. I did not go rollerblading as I should have. I did not go biking as I should have. I did not take the dog to the park as I should have. I did not eat appropriately as I should have. I did not clean my house as I should have. I did not overhaul my lesson plans for the school year as I should have.

As a matter of fact, as I pointed out last time, the only thing I DID accomplish was to pick up a new sport (golf).

Pretty feeble. I did manage to make some money with my workout schedule, but there's no reason to spend it, because I haven't lost any weight so I don't need to buy new clothes.

So, here I am. I have one week left of summer. I need to do some work around the house, cleaning things up. I need to weed items out of my closet that don't fit (but hopefully will at some point before Christmas). I need to go over my school stuff to see what needs to be changed. I'm going out of town for a long weekend (early anniversary celebration), and then it's back to the grind. Hopefully I can make a start on the weight loss again. I'd hate to be stuck like this forever. I'm running out of rededications.

While I am not surprised by how most of my summer has transpired (like, the fact that I haven't gotten ANYTHING on my to-do list done, and I only have two weeks left), I am absolutely shocked by one occurrence, something I could never in my entire life have predicted:

I've taken up golf.

My entire adult life, I have subscribed to the opinion of the late George Carlin:

"Did you ever watch golf on TV? It's like watching flies fuck. I get more excited picking out socks. Think of the brains that it takes to play golf: hitting a ball with a crooked stick, and then...walking after it. And then, hitting it again! I say, 'Pick it up, asshole, you're lucky you found it. Put it in your pocket and go the fuck home, will ya?'"

I've had little contact with golf of the non-miniature variety during my life. My dad played occasionally when I was a kid. He owned his own clubs, but it wasn't a particularly frequent pasttime; I really can't remember any specific golf outings of his, or what caliber player he was. In fact, my only specific memory was when I was about seven or eight and my father decided to teach my brother and me to play.

Now, I suspect the plan was really to teach my brother the finer points of the game, as he is 3 1/2 years older than I am, but I tended to tag along when my brother wanted to do things, so I was probably included more to prevent hurt feelings and temper tantrums than for my edification.

Anyway, Dad was teaching us how to swing the clubs. The next event is shouded in mystery, and the truth may never be fully clear, but ultimately the result was my solid thwacking of my brother's head with an iron. Many questions have been asked about the intent of said thwacking: was my brother a victim of an accidental backswing or follow-through, or were there darker forces at work? I don't take well to criticism, so it's possible that assistance or critiques being offered were not taken in a positive light by me. In any case, my illustrious golfing career was over. The clubs were taken away, and suggestions were made that perhaps golf was not in my future.

And golf never entered my mind again, at least not for about 20 years. Meanwhile, my dad continued to play occasionally (probably not more than once or twice per year), and somewhere along the line my brother picked up enough of the game to get his own set of clubs and hit the driving range at lunchtimes or the links on a Saturday with some of his buddies. As for me, I did not play, I did not consider playing, and except for the sports highlights on the nightly news I did not see golf at all.

Then, in 2005, my brother-in-law graduated from high school. A member of his high school's golf team, he expressed an interest in hitting the local golf course with his siblings as a graduation gift. My husband agreed, having golfed a few times growing up and having enjoyed it, and so my husband, his brother, their sister, and her husband set off for the course. I tagged along out of curiosity, having never watched anyone actually play the sport live. The first few holes I enjoyed watching everyone else (my brother-in-law of course is quite good; everyone else had a few good shots but more unpredictable than not), but then once we were out of sight of the clubhouse, my sister-in-law offered me the use of her clubs and let me play along on a few holes. I thought perhaps this might be the moment where I discovered my true talent, my natural ability. I've never felt naturally gifted at anything, really, so I thought maybe I was a hidden gem, a Tigress just waiting to be discovered.

Alas, I really wasn't. I doubt that I hit the ball more than once correctly. My skills were more suited to the putt-putt courses than the full-sized game. Oh well. When we made the turn back towards the clubhouse, I relinquished the clubs to my sister-in-law and returned to my position as spectator. I had fun, but felt no real draw to the sport. I had tried it, I had failed, and I was moving on.

However, golf did not go away. My husband expressed several times how much fun he had playing with his little brother. The opportunity presented itself a few more times here and there, and he enjoyed himself. Several of his friends in town play golf, some pretty good actually, and he thought that it might be fun to learn to play so he could golf with them. And he suggested I might learn to play too--neither of us would be likely to take it seriously, but it would be something to do together, and a form of exercise that might be more interesting than cruising on an elliptical machine at the gym. His grandfather gave him an old set of clubs he had used when he retired (old enough that, as my husband laughs, "The woods are really wood"). The clubs sat in our house, unused, but occasionally the topic would be brought up again.

Nothing actually happened until June of this year. My husband's cousin was getting married at a golf resort, and the guests were offered the opportunity to play a round the day of the wedding. My brother-in-law of course expressed an interest, as did my sister-in-law and her husband, and my mother-in-law. My husband decided he would play too, and looked expectantly at me. What the heck, I thought, it would just be family, no one played regularly, my brother-in-law would surely smoke us all and we'd have a good time doing it.

But I had a problem: no clubs. My husband had his aged set, some family members had their own they would bring and others had sets they could borrow. I had neither my own clubs nor any friends who golf. I was uncomfortable asking my husband to borrow clubs from any of his coworkers' or friends' wives (and to be truthful it seems few of the women golfed--I don't know if we'd have found a set in time).

So a discussion with my husband ensued. Was it possible we might be interested in taking up the sport, not seriously of course, but as a fun option on weekends when rivers weren't running? Would we play enough to make a purchase of clubs worthwhile? Would this be a sport we might actually do more than once or twice a summer?

We answered "Yes", and purchased a set of woman's clubs (driver, two woods, two hybrids, four irons, two wedges, putter, bag, head covers) on sale at Sports Authority for $150. I was appalled at this outlay of money for a sport that I really, honestly, had not shown any promise at (I'm not even a par golfer on the putt-putt course), but after looking at the prices of the mid-range and upper quality clubs, I was pretty sure we'd just gotten the deal of a lifetime.

After only enough time to hit the driving range once and play a short nine holes on our little municipal course, we drove to the wedding. The morning of the wedding we showed up at the pro shop at a little after 7 a.m. It hadn't really occured to me that only four people could play golf at a time, so we were separated from my brother- and mother-in-law. Our foursome consisted of me, my husband, my sister-in-law and her husband. This suited us pretty well; while we would have liked to have the whole family together, who really wants to get shown up by a 21-year-old kid? I was fine with the group, since no one had significantly more experience than I did, in the grand scheme of things.

Two things became apparent on the first hole: 1) we were reasonably well matched as a foursome, skill-wise, and 2) this was not going to be a quick game before lunch. We were informed by a course ranger that a maximum score of 10 strokes was all that was permitted for each hole (what this meant was if you hit the ball ten times and still weren't in the hole, move on; what we interpreted this as was we might hit the ball thirteen times but we're only going to write down 10 on the scorecard). After being driven off the course after the first hole by a thunderstorm (generally holding a metal stick in a field when there's lightning is not on the recommended list of healthy activities) we resumed play. While I did not possess the golfing experience that my family members did, none of us possessed any consistency: one hole might find us on the green in two, only to six-putt; the next hole might require four tee-shots before we got one that was remotely playable; and a third hole might result in five lost balls before we ever got to the green. And yet, every few holes, each of us would hit a real golf shot, one that went where it was supposed to go. Those shots spurred us on (despite course rangers harassing us for being so slow), and we finished the eighteen holes (in 5 1/2 hours, a full hour beyond the course's maximum pace).

When the scores were totalled, I was shocked, stunned, and rather absurdly pleased with myself to find that I did not come in last in our foursome. My husband was equally pleased to learn that he had the best score of the four of us. This success, we decided, and the fun we had doing it, was just what we needed to verify that our decision had been correct. The Rubicon had been crossed, so to speak; we were taking up golfing.

However, we both agreed that our hack-and-slice approach probably wouldn't make us happy for long, so we decided to seek professional help. We arranged a lesson with a local golf pro, who took us one evening to the back end of the driving range at our municipal course. We were both disappointed to learn that we would be starting off with the short irons (part of the glee in golf, especially for my husband, is unleashing a wicked drive off the tee), basically because they are the easiest to control. The pro had us each hit a few balls while he evaluated our swings.

Then he started giving advice. He helped with the grip, the positioning of the shoulders and feet, where to put the head, and a number of other tips. Then he told me to swing again. Suddenly, it was like everything clicked into place, as my husband put it. Pow! I hit the ball with my pitching wedge, and it traveled easily just as far as the farthest I had ever managed to hit it with my driver (yes, sadly, that was only about 50-75 yards). I swung it again. Pow! And again. Pow! This was fantastic!

[On a side note, I actually hit the ball better than my husband did that day. His swing difficulties, however, were largely attributable to the fact that his clubs were old, battered, and far too short for his 6'4" frame. A new set of clubs, specially lengthened, have solved many of his problems. But I enjoyed the superiority while it lasted.]

Wanting to show off our new abilities, we scheduled a golf round with a kayaking friend of ours. He claimed to be a poor golfer (which he may be, but he still beat us). We had a great time, but there were still many inconsistencies in our game. My biggest problem seemed to be my longer clubs--our coach had taught us to swing the short irons, and I couldn't seem to translate that great-feeling swing to my driver or woods. Also, my putting, once the strongest (ha ha) part of my game (all that mini-golf), seemed to fall apart. We needed another lesson.

Our second lesson came, and despite our pro's plan to work on lower numbered irons (or, in my case, my hybrids), we asked him if he would teach us to hit the drivers. He acquiesced, and we started hitting. Again, with just a few tips here and there, my swing was back. Pow! Pow! Pow! (I've decided that the best course of action may be for me to record his advice and play it in headphones while I play the course.)

We played another round of golf with our friend this past weekend, and he was dismayed to see our improvement (I actually parred two holes, and my husband was only four strokes behind our friend at the end of 18). We're still wildly inconsistent, but so are the other people we've played with. Our friend has been playing since he was a kid; we've been playing for a month.

We have another lesson on Wednesday. I think we're going to ask if we can work on chipping and putting, as those have been weak spots for both of us.

So far I have resisted the urge to start replacing all my clubs with fancier ones (although I must admit, I have replaced the putter that came with my set with a novelty putter in the shape of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, and yes, I know that makes me a complete geek), but I'm sure the time will come. Already the shiny, high tech sticks are singing a siren call every time I enter a sporting goods store. I will only resist for so long. Perhaps instead of new clubs, we need a new house, with more storage space for all the expensive gear we seem to accumulate through our many hobbies (kayaking, skiing, hockey, mountain biking, Magic: the Gathering, reading, four video game consoles, five computers, and now golf). Anyone know a realtor? We can take them golfing and discuss our options...

Strange things happen at a school during the summer months. Teachers get hired and fired, or decide to retire, or move away. Floors get waxed, walls and handrails get painted, items get repaired or mysteriously broken. Whole classrooms full of furniture wander away and turn up in unlikely places. Bookshelves get rearranged. Supplies get ordered, delivered, and distributed, often to the wrong places. Students and teachers who cannot stay away roam the halls. New students are enrolled. Technology is upgraded. Major decisions are made.

In the midst of all this, I have to teach summer school to about twenty incoming freshmen. This is an English class designed to give a boost to students who didn't perform as well as our admissions office would have liked on the entrance exam. We spend most of our time on grammar, with a little discussion of reading techniques and study tips. It isn't anything drastic--just making the poor kids show up for fifteen hours in the middle of July is drastic enough.

But the chaos that surrounds such a simple class is remarkable. The students show up late and unprepared, and don't know where to go or what to do. Since there is little communication between groups of administrators, teachers, and support staff during the school year, let alone summer, no one knows anything about the class, not even me. I didn't get a roster. I showed up (early, thank goodness), to find that the classroom I've taught in for six years was utterly devoid of furniture. Partway through my copying of handouts for the students, someone (maintenance) came along and unplugged the copy machine, dragging it out of the faculty workroom and into the hallway. The second day of the class, today, I came in to find that someone (IT) had come in and taken the LCD projector I had been using off the rolling cart and mounted it to the ceiling. Great, except I can't find a remote for it so I have to stand on the furniture today to turn it off and on. Goodness knows if I will come in to find the furniture in this room gone as well.

Anyway, summer school is an adventure, and the only thing one can hope for, student or teacher, is survival. Four days left...

Went and saw Disney's WALL-E last night. I wanted to see it because I'm a huge Disney fan, and I love all the Disney/Pixar collaborations. But I was also curious because I had read about some controversy surrounding the movie.

What I had read on CNN.com were some comments by parents saying that their children were frightened and upset by some of the images in WALL-E, specifically images of the Earth that WALL-E lives on and of the people on the cruise-spaceship that left Earth over 700 years earlier.

This is an Earth of the future, and we haven't done very well, apparently. The opening shots of the movie pan mountains of garbage, taller than skyscrapers. Poking out of some of the garbage heaps are windmills, almost as if Pixar is mocking our 21st century attempts at cleaning and greening our planet. Right? Anyway, WALL-E is the last lonely garbage-crushing robot left on the planet, rolling around in the dust with just a little cockroach as a buddy, watching a videotape of Hello Dolly and wistfully wishing he could hold hands with someone (forget about the scores of other now-defunct WALL-E robots all over the place that he probably could have fixed since he had scavenged so many spare parts to keep his own bod running). The horror that these parents on this CNN blog claim their children feel comes from the destroyed Earth. Hmm.

The next images that are apparently stressful for kids are those of the humans on the giant space cruiser Axiom. The Axiom was built for a five-year cruise of the galaxy while the little WALL-Es cleaned up the Earth enough to make it hospitable again. Essentially a cruise ship similar to what you would find in the fleets of Norwegian or Carnival cruise lines, the Axiom made everything available to people--shopping, activities, TV and Internet, etc.--and went it one better: no one had to walk anywhere if they didn't want to, because specially designed lounge chairs could cart them anywhere on the ship they wanted to go. As the years passed on the ship, people chose to be less and less active, using the lounge chairs more and more, and gradually became self-absorbed, morbidly obese, stubby legged slugs floating around the ship not taking in the scenery because they were too plugged-in to their video screens. While these body changes are attributed to the "affects of microgravity" in the movie, it's pretty obvious that these people need to get off their fat butts and get some exercise, much like many of the people in the US today (myself included). I don't know why this would be upsetting to little kids, especially since many of them were probably sitting in the movie theatre eating out of their huge tub o'popcorn and sucking down a monster soda after sitting inside and playing video games all day.

Anyway, some people are bothered by the images, and feel that Disney/Pixar have taken the opportunity to get PREACHY about social issues, and they are bothered by this frightening depiction of the future Earth. "Let a kids' movie be a kids' movie, full of bright colors and harmless images," these parents say. "Let's not heap despair and social anxieties on them at this young age. It's too frightening."

Who ARE these people? And why are they complaining about these images, which seem pretty tame compared to some of the things kids' movies have dished out over the years. Anyone else upset by the nasty car accident that happened to The King in Cars? That was pretty realistic. And the villainous Syndrome getting sucked into a jet engine in The Incredibles? Pretty gruesome. Any little kids frightened by the great white shark in Finding Nemo when he snapped and tried to eat Dory and Marlin? Heck, I was a little disturbed. What about A Bug's Life when the grasshoppers show up to claim the ants' hard-earned food (with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss whispering "they come, they eat, they leave...they come, they eat, they leave..." over and over)? Eek. Heck, go back to the first Disney/Pixar film, Toy Story, and watch the scene where the toys scare Sid into treating his toys with more respect (come on: Woody's head turning a full 360 in a Linda Blaire-esque moment?). Terrifying. And those are just recent movies; look at the old Disney flicks--Bambi's mom being shot, Maleficent's transformation into the dragon in Sleeping Beauty, the wicked witch plunging over the cliff at the end of Snow White. After some of those, a brown, dusty Earth doesn't seem so bad. And some pudgy people? Gimme a break.

I think these PARENTS are more disturbed by the images in WALL-E because they hit a little too close to home. Yes, maybe Disney is trying to make a point or two about cleaning up the environment and reversing America's trend towards obesity. Does this mean Disney and Pixar are being PREACHY? So, what if they are? Is it a bad thing? Are these messages any different than a mother's basic two instructions to her children: 1) Clean up that mess you made; and 2) It's a nice day outside, why don't you go out and play instead of sitting in front of the TV?

I see nothing wrong with these messages. If WALL-E convinces a little kid that he or she needs to help encourage the family to recycle, good. If a little kid is so distressed by the images of fat people on lounge chairs that it makes him or her go outside and run around, hooray! All kids' movies have messages--be kind to others, be true to yourself, someday your prince will come--and I see nothing negative about these.

If your child is old enough and smart enough to pick up on Disney's "hidden agenda", good for you and them. If not, your kid will just be wowed by the robots and the cute story. Big deal.

Now, if your kid picks up on the more subtle messages (the huge "Buy N Large" corporation that apparently runs the Earth--can you say Walmart? The smarmy Buy N Large CEO who sends a message to the Axiom that they can never return to Earth and should "Stay the course"--picking on the Bush administration, are we?), we'll talk. Otherwise, clean up after yourselves, and go outside and play, because it's a beautiful day out there.

I thought it was a darn cute movie.