Jack's Diary

Number-crunching is fun - I do it feverishly every election, and I like double-checking the things reported in news, seeing if they've started their graphs at zero, for example (this is a vanishingly rare event.) But I've never managed to see calorie-counting in the same light - interesting take on it, to recast it as that.
I still don't want to get into it, because I like being able to say, as I did the other day, "I can eat as many cherry tomatoes as I like". I limit butter and oil intake, and am moderate around oily nuts, but I want my eating to be an easy-going healthy pleasure, not a fidgetty minute-by-minute scrutinising.
 
Hi Rob, Liza, Petal - happy new year!

Great comments on calorie counting. I need to make that a priority.

Liza, that GM play was fun at first then it harder and harder. I stopped at the 12-1500 level.

Petal, 170 is a bit high for my taste. I had gotten down to 166.5 yesterday but was back up to 169 this morning after the New Year's Eve festivities. At least there are no more holidays coming up - I have a tough time turning down the snacks and drinks.
 
Hi Ami,

I missed your comments earlier. That's exactly why I've never counted calories before. I'm at least going to try to increase my awareness. For example, the expense latte I got at Dunkin this morning was 260 calories. I really have to try to limit that. But, mmm, so good :)
 
Seems your weight fluctuates a bit Jack day by day . Our ancestors never had to worry about starbucks or dunkin doughnuts or the likes did they . Must have been so easy to keep weight off . And they ate like kings at holidays but all homemade cakes and pies .
 
Hi, Jack. My weight fluctuates a lot too. Increasing your awareness of the calories you consume is a good thing. Counting calories I find tough. I'm going to do it for January though. We always consume more than we think we do. I hope you have a wonderful 2020 xo Cate.
 
I guess I'm mildly calorie-aware, if not actually counting. I know, for example, that there's 115 calories in the little packet of crackers I favour, and only 25 in the seaweed snacks I recently discovered, but I don't know, and don't want to know, how many calories there are in an apple or carrot, because I want to feel free to just catch one up and crunch it, without having to note it down.
 
aiminglow said:
only 25 in the seaweed snacks
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Yes, I learned about them from Jack, now I have a supply of 30 calorie packs. They can quell hunger pangs pretty effectively. My dogs like them a lot too, so I usually only end up with 20 or 25 of the 30 calories.
 
Yes for calorie counting I'm hoping it will be for me just a short-term sort of thing (maybe 6 months to a year) where i get used to understanding amounts i should be eating to lose and later maintain the weight. It's all new for me as I used to be the "eat-however-much-i want-and-never-gain-weight" type, So now that I've moved out of that category I need to learn about amounts and then the added benefit of understanding what nutrients are where. Anyways fun for me but i can understand how it wouldn't be everyone's idea of fun for sure!
 
Liza - you're right. That's kind of the same track I'm on, although I've been out of the eat-all-you-want category for a good long time.

I'm back at 170 today after another few parties - Pats game, neighbor's get-together and a family thing because my daughter has been visiting.

Hopefully, at last I'll be able to get to and stay at 165. It's been a frustrating few months as far as that goes.

The Pats lost so I buried my sorrows in a kanji-study orgy, covering over 600 of them this morning. It's getting easy so I like to do it. But I really have to focus more on actual Japanese, especially listening and spoken.

I've been watching Spartacus, which is a kick-ass Netflix (originally starz) series about gladiators. Kind of along the line of Game of Thrones, in the sense that there's good acting, good plot, lots of violence and sex. I'm actually not much of a fan of all the blood and gore, which is very glamorized. But those slave girls - yum.

But I've also been watching the second season of a show called "Carole and Tuesday", a Japanese anime about a couple of girls who are trying to make big in the music business, on Mars. The Mars part is a bit of throw-in, I didn't even realize it was supposed to be on Mars until the second season. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention.

The good thing about it is I have a netflix plug-in which can show the sub-titles in Japanese. But if I really read them, it's slow going. But it's a good way to build up my vocabulary.

Well, this ongoing problem that plagued me the whole time during the holidays was finally resolved last week. I took a couple of cracks at it and made some progress, but it really didn't get fixed until they got a guy on it who actually knew what he was doing. At least I learned something, so there's that.

Well, today I still have to get some exercise in...I think it's cold out. Streaming youtube Japanese videos has maxed out my data plan, so I have to copy some mp3s to my phone. That will be painful, but I've done it before. For some reason, Apple switched from iTunes to an app call "Music", which is vague - it's virtually impossible to google how to do stuff on it.

I think the last time I did it, I might have just copied the mp3 to the physical path and synced. Couldn't figure out how to do it through the "Music" interface. I'll try to write it down this time.
 
jackbenimble said:
Spartacus
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I liked it too, and I generally don't like shows with that much violence, but as you say they seemed to actually tell a story without relying on the violence and sex alone to carry the show. The unfortunatete loss of Andy Whitfield, the original Spartacus, was a blow the show never really recovered from. Have to agree on the slave girls!

I watched the end of the Patriots game, a tough and surprise loss, too bad they are better than that.
 
A pet peeve of mine for the longest time - and still is - the willingness of the Hollywood movie machine to propagate and glamorize violence on a massive scale while avoiding nudity or sex as if it was a horrible thing - when actually the reverse is true (generally speaking). Thank god for the advent of cable, which finally allowed shows like GoT and Spartacus to entertain us as if we weren't all 8-year olds.

On the Patriots, I wasn't shocked by the loss at all. They've been wrong all year, from injuries to lack of depth to Brady's elbow to receivers being unable to gain separation, and their inability to hang onto the ball when they do. The loss of Gronk was pretty devastating in retrospect.

Belichick is a great coach but a middling personnel guy. His recent drafts have been mediocre to just bad, and it's partially a case of it finally catching up to him. He's also actively trying to push Brady out the door, so we'll see how that drama unfolds.
 
Some good things, some not so great things happened this week. I'll stick with the good.
1 - It my first full week of "part-time". Not so part-time though, as I think I'm probably over 30 hours. That's good and bad. The good is more money. The bad is this could quickly become an issue. I've already mentioned this to my boss a couple of times. I'll bill this weekend.

2 - I got paid for my last invoice - quick turnaround.

3 - I got a certificate and a bonus. My boss gave it to me. The certificate was essentially for doing what I was supposed to do, and the bonus came with it. Both were entirely unexpected and very much appreciated.

4 - The finally figured out the problem at the install. It was a question of using one ethernet port instead of the other from the controller. Both could ping, but one did actual data, the other didn't - very strange.

5 - P will be back Monday - just in time to help handle a tricky install in Europe, where the customer is demanding to have mySql installed separately. The poor tech knows nothing about our product. He called me yesterday and I sent him a link with some training materials. We'll see how it goes.
 
I'm kind of mad at myself for not realizing I should've opened a personal IRA before the end of the year, thus missing out on a massive pre-tax deduction - probably up to 40k. It would have been better last year than this, because my income is going to be significantly lower. If you figure 30% taxes that's like 12k. Actually, it's probably just a tax bracket thing. Say the rate goes down to 20% so it's the difference between 12k and 8k so 4k. Blahh.

I had talked to my Vangaurd guy about it early December, but he didn't say watch out for the deadlines. Why I'm I paying him if he can't remember about that? It's my fault, not his, though. I'm the one who dropped the ball. I could've just called anyone at Vanguard, which I did this week, and they told me about it. Why did I think I could only talk to him? Because I can't do financial transactions without going through him.

Can't cry over spilt milk. But I am thinking the guy isn't worth it if all he does is keep me in a super-conservative 50% bonds / 50% equity funds split. I do like having a "financial guy" though.
 
Anyway, it's the weekend. My "do the most important thing first" has thus far been a flop. I did watch a video last night the emphasized the importance of delaying gratification, and that caused me to not take my sleeping pill, which I had done for 3 nights in a row. I don't see it really working though.

One thing I did do was package up my Bose earbuds for return. Not only does the left bud not work now, but as of yesterday the rubber nub allowing you to switch the power on and off came off.

The other thing is the serial number you have to give them when you call. It's absolutely unreadable. You can't even see where it is with the naked eye, at least I can't. The only way I spotted it was by using the super-duper-powered magnifying-glass on my iPhone.
 
I've been pushing into the Japanese recently. I've kinda / sorta finished the kanji review, will it goes pretty quickly every day. But I've started a 6k vocabulary deck, and am 10% into so far. so that would be 600 words. I love doing this because at this point, lack of vocabulary is really a huge weakness for me in Japanese. In French, it wasn't such an issue because a lot of the words are similar to English - that's where the body of the vocabulary comes from, it's pretty easy to figure out the connections. there is no such thing on Japanese.

Sadly, I haven't been playing guitar for like a week. I am definitely going to pick it up today and do two things:
1) Practice can't find my way home
2) Jam to Pandora.
 
jackbenimble said:
I'm kind of mad at myself for not realizing I should've opened a personal IRA before the end of the year, thus missing out on a massive pre-tax deduction - probably up to 40k. It would have been better last year than this, because my income is going to be significantly lower.
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I am no tax expert, but I thought you had until April 15 to do it. You might want to check with your tax person.

I admire you for studying Japanese, has to be tough. I regret not having much of a second language, other than a little survival Spanish I have none. Why are you studying Japanese, do you plan to go back, or just for your own education?
 
alligatorob said:
I am no tax expert, but I thought you had until April 15 to do it. You might want to check with your tax person.
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Unfortunately, not this year. I think he (the Vanguard tax guy) said they changed it to 4/15 as of next year, but this, I'm out. I also googled that. But it's worth triple-checking, just in case. But I did google it last year and made an appt. to talk to my guy just before the end of the year. Unfortunately, I screwed it up and it was for Jan, not Dec.

alligatorob said:
I admire you for studying Japanese, has to be tough. I regret not having much of a second language, other than a little survival Spanish I have none. Why are you studying Japanese, do you plan to go back, or just for your own education?
Click to expand...

I've actually gotten to the point where I'm enjoying it. My wife is Japanese, so it's always kind of floating around. As far as not having much of a second language, I'm not really sure it's worth it. I lived in France way back in the eighties for a couple of years and got pretty good at French, but I never use it now. You kind of need a reason for it, I think.
 
Hi Jack
You are busy . Watch the part time hours as that can escalate.i missed out on claiming medical bills from my insurer as they changed the rules and I was not aware . I did complain but I’m up against a big company .

I think it’s great you are learning lots , Japanese and guitar . Good use of your time .

Sounds like you have a jam packed life right now . Keep it up
 
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