January's been a busy month, and it's just about over! There's always a lot of cleaning up and catching up to do after the holidays, of course, and work tends to be busy this time of year as well. Laura and I saw my parents last weekend for my mom's birthday, and finally caught up with Laura's mom this past Friday night, too. There are still some Christmas gift exchanges to be made, though...
Why, yes, I have been losing weight; thanks for noticing. Laura and I have both shed some pounds since starting on the South Beach diet at the beginning of the year, and I'm now at 141.6 lbs. as of this morning, which frankly seems to be on the low end of where I should be as a 5'9" 41-year old male. While I'm glad to be able to fit into an old pair of jeans again (woo-hoo!), my goal was never to drop ten or twenty pounds, but to eat and feel healthier. Now that I'm doing that, and planning on mostly sticking to phase three of the diet, I've decided that I want my weight to hover around 145.
Of course, the fact that my beloved Up by Jawbone band finally died on me has put a minor cramp in my style. It was nice to be able to easily monitor how much sleep I was getting (and how deep a sleep it was), how much walking I did, and what I was eating and how it made me feel every day. I'm not alone in having problems with my Up, but I believe in the product enough to have opted for a replacement rather than a credit or refund. Hopefully, Jawbone will get the kinks worked out soon, because I still feel the band has great potential.
In other technology news, I finally got around to upgrading my beast of a MacBook Pro, Athena, to OS X 10.7.2 (Lion) today. I'm also going to start utilizing the Time Capsule I got from Microwize Technology at Christmas to run automated backups wirelessly. I've been better with backups lately than I used to be, but it's nice to have a solution that doesn't require me to plug in an external hard drive before it'll run. I took the opportunity to jailbreak my iPhone 4S as well. Maybe I'm not quite on the bleeding edge of technology these days, but the cutting edge is still shiny.
My andersensilva.com and joyinthenew.com Web sites both got 'blacked out' for the anti-SOPA/PIPA protests on January 18th, and while I'm sure that had much less impact than Wikipedia's and Google's and Reddit's (and others') blackouts, I still felt the need to do it. Both bills have been temporarily thwarted, but neither is dead yet, and ACTA is at least as scary as SOPA and PIPA, and international to boot. People need to be aware and pay attention to more important things than the Kardashians and "Jersey Shore."
Speaking of Web sites... I'm maintaining a new one! Starting this Thursday, Laura and I are publishing our original Web comic, Slime, at slimethecomic.com. There's nothing really going on at the site just yet; I'm waiting for Thursday to put everything up, and then a new strip will be published every Thursday. We've been having a lot of fun putting it together (Laura does the art, we come up with story ideas together which I write, and I'll keep the Web site chugging along) and we hope you'll have just as much fun reading about our friends in the Field! I even put together a short theme song for Slime. I will be promoting the frak out of the Web comic. Just wait and see...
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
One Week Down...
Well, after one week on the South Beach diet (phase one), I've lost 4.8 pounds. My aim isn't really to lose weight, or not any significant weight anyway, but it still feels good to know that my metabolism hasn't slowed down too much. The diet itself hasn't been bad at all, and I'm not craving sugar or bread or chocolate at all. No, really.
The Up band has been very cool (thanks again, honey!), and the only hiccup I've seen with it so far was more than likely caused by me. I've been using it to keep track of my meals and how I feel after them, as well as my sleep and my walking, and I think it's all tying in nicely with the diet and my aim to improve my health and fitness this year. Laura and I intend to start playing tennis in the spring, which will be great for the both of us.
I believe I've finally resolved the ChinCam (http://www.andersensilva.com/chincamp.php) issues, by setting up my old iPhone 3G S as the webcam and by dumping Stickam in favor of USTREAM. Though Meguilla the chinchilla is not going to be active 24/7, the stream will be up more often than it's down. Maybe Meggy would be more interested in entertaining you if there were raisins involved...! Chinny playtime, a nightly occurrence in the Silva/Liston household, will not be televised, for the most part, because it involves Meggy running all over the dining room floor, and often over us as well, and there's just no easy way to keep a cam trained on her. There is also now a YouTube channel for the grumpchilla's finer moments, though! Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/meggychincam
I've started reading one of my Christmas gifts, "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid," by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and while it's not light reading at all, it's quite an intriguing book, and it had the unexpected side effect of prompting me to purchase and start listening to some Bach. I've always been a Mozart fan, but I've now discovered that I really enjoy Bach, too. Nothing wrong with switching the KMFDM and Metallica and Regina Spektor and Beatles with some Bach once in a while, eh?
I finally spent some more time with the guitar yesterday afternoon and started coming up with music to a new song, "So Much Happy." I still need to record "Burning in the Sun" and "Let Me," both of which were written last year, and there are older songs which stil haven't been recorded, either, but it feels good to want to write music again.
SOPA sucks. Google, Twitter, Facebook, and other Web giants have purportedly considered a one-day blackout in protest, and to demonstrate against the bill, though this is far from confirmed. I hope they do it. Too few Americans are paying attention to what gets done in their names these days, and suddenly not having access to those sites would certainly make them take notice.
One week down, fifty-one to go... How's the New Year treating you?
The Up band has been very cool (thanks again, honey!), and the only hiccup I've seen with it so far was more than likely caused by me. I've been using it to keep track of my meals and how I feel after them, as well as my sleep and my walking, and I think it's all tying in nicely with the diet and my aim to improve my health and fitness this year. Laura and I intend to start playing tennis in the spring, which will be great for the both of us.
I believe I've finally resolved the ChinCam (http://www.andersensilva.com/chincamp.php) issues, by setting up my old iPhone 3G S as the webcam and by dumping Stickam in favor of USTREAM. Though Meguilla the chinchilla is not going to be active 24/7, the stream will be up more often than it's down. Maybe Meggy would be more interested in entertaining you if there were raisins involved...! Chinny playtime, a nightly occurrence in the Silva/Liston household, will not be televised, for the most part, because it involves Meggy running all over the dining room floor, and often over us as well, and there's just no easy way to keep a cam trained on her. There is also now a YouTube channel for the grumpchilla's finer moments, though! Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/meggychincam
I've started reading one of my Christmas gifts, "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid," by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and while it's not light reading at all, it's quite an intriguing book, and it had the unexpected side effect of prompting me to purchase and start listening to some Bach. I've always been a Mozart fan, but I've now discovered that I really enjoy Bach, too. Nothing wrong with switching the KMFDM and Metallica and Regina Spektor and Beatles with some Bach once in a while, eh?
I finally spent some more time with the guitar yesterday afternoon and started coming up with music to a new song, "So Much Happy." I still need to record "Burning in the Sun" and "Let Me," both of which were written last year, and there are older songs which stil haven't been recorded, either, but it feels good to want to write music again.
SOPA sucks. Google, Twitter, Facebook, and other Web giants have purportedly considered a one-day blackout in protest, and to demonstrate against the bill, though this is far from confirmed. I hope they do it. Too few Americans are paying attention to what gets done in their names these days, and suddenly not having access to those sites would certainly make them take notice.
One week down, fifty-one to go... How's the New Year treating you?
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Happy New Year, and Hello, 2012!
I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's Eve! Laura and I had a fun time at a small get-together at Jon and Karin's last night, and finally got to meet baby Lydia.
December started with a stinging hurt: less than a week after bringing the chinchillas to Lyndhurst, we woke one Saturday morning to find Prissy had passed away. She'd seemed seriously ill earlier in the week, but had apparently rebounded the following morning, and then slowly declined again. Laura and I were both incredibly saddened by the loss, and buried Priscilla in one of the town's parks. Fortunately, Meguilla is doing fine, and we've been showering our chinchild with love.
I got to take Laura out for Sunday brunch in New York, and we saw some of the Christmasy sights before taking in Cyndi Lauper's Home for the Holidays concert, which was a real blast. We picked out a real Christmas tree, over five feet tall, perfect for the apartment; not only did we use some of her decorations and some of mine (and I got some mistletoe, one of my best purchases of the year), we made one of our own! Using Sculpey polymer clay, we each fashioned a little penguin, then put them together on a base of 'snow' and attached a loop for hanging. We had a lot of fun making the ornament and plan to create a new one every year. :-)
Laura accompanied me to Microwize's holiday party and Christmas dinner at my parents', too, where she met most of my colleagues and the rest of my New Jersey-based relatives, respectively. We still need to figure out when we're seeing her mom again, but it should be soon.
Resolutions? Well, I was resolutely planning not to have any this year... But I do intend to be healthier this year, which includes going for a physical, something I haven't done since... well, the Bush administration. No, not Dubya, his dad. I'm also going to do something perhaps even more shocking; today I started the South Beach diet with Laura. I don't know that I'll stick with it long-term, or that I need to, but I 'd like to at least get through phase one with her, and hopefully spend some time on phase two as well. No, I'm not particularly overweight (151.4 lbs. as per this morning's weigh-in), but I'm also not as fit as I could be. Helping with that goal is the Up by Jawbone that Laura got me for Christmas; it's equal parts health-conscious and geeky, an electronic wristband that monitors my sleep and my walking and other things and makes it a little easier to get a better picture of how active I am, how certain foods affect me, etc.
Other than that, I plan on getting more serious about my music. I'd really like to get my second album completed this year, and I can do it if I put the time into it. There are songs I need to write and ideas I need to explore. 2012 will be the year that happens.
I hope this year will be one of joy and peace and prosperity for everyone. Joy in the New Year!
December started with a stinging hurt: less than a week after bringing the chinchillas to Lyndhurst, we woke one Saturday morning to find Prissy had passed away. She'd seemed seriously ill earlier in the week, but had apparently rebounded the following morning, and then slowly declined again. Laura and I were both incredibly saddened by the loss, and buried Priscilla in one of the town's parks. Fortunately, Meguilla is doing fine, and we've been showering our chinchild with love.
I got to take Laura out for Sunday brunch in New York, and we saw some of the Christmasy sights before taking in Cyndi Lauper's Home for the Holidays concert, which was a real blast. We picked out a real Christmas tree, over five feet tall, perfect for the apartment; not only did we use some of her decorations and some of mine (and I got some mistletoe, one of my best purchases of the year), we made one of our own! Using Sculpey polymer clay, we each fashioned a little penguin, then put them together on a base of 'snow' and attached a loop for hanging. We had a lot of fun making the ornament and plan to create a new one every year. :-)
Laura accompanied me to Microwize's holiday party and Christmas dinner at my parents', too, where she met most of my colleagues and the rest of my New Jersey-based relatives, respectively. We still need to figure out when we're seeing her mom again, but it should be soon.
Resolutions? Well, I was resolutely planning not to have any this year... But I do intend to be healthier this year, which includes going for a physical, something I haven't done since... well, the Bush administration. No, not Dubya, his dad. I'm also going to do something perhaps even more shocking; today I started the South Beach diet with Laura. I don't know that I'll stick with it long-term, or that I need to, but I 'd like to at least get through phase one with her, and hopefully spend some time on phase two as well. No, I'm not particularly overweight (151.4 lbs. as per this morning's weigh-in), but I'm also not as fit as I could be. Helping with that goal is the Up by Jawbone that Laura got me for Christmas; it's equal parts health-conscious and geeky, an electronic wristband that monitors my sleep and my walking and other things and makes it a little easier to get a better picture of how active I am, how certain foods affect me, etc.
Other than that, I plan on getting more serious about my music. I'd really like to get my second album completed this year, and I can do it if I put the time into it. There are songs I need to write and ideas I need to explore. 2012 will be the year that happens.
I hope this year will be one of joy and peace and prosperity for everyone. Joy in the New Year!