The wife and I are trying a new diet… well, really it’s an old diet for us since we used this method prior to our wedding in 2000.

The Carb Addict’s Diet

So far, over the last 12 days, I have lost 12.5 pounds. The process is pretty easy but can get a little tiring. You basically have an hour of day where you are able to eat the carbs you want. You need to eat healthy – even during that hour. So no bag o’ Dorito’s, just because you’re in the hour.

Overall, this diet works pretty well and works on the fact that limiting your carbs keeps your bodies production of insulin in check. This also helps in removing the cravings for the carbs.

[[Update - Day 30]]

Ok… one thing to note with this diet is the ups and downs of weight. Based on food intake, the weight can jump kind of… weird. One day down 5, the next day up 4, then down 7. Nonetheless, 30 days into this and I have been at a solid 17 pounds of weight loss.

As far as the food intake, one issue is sodium. Too much and the weight jumps up. Not enough water and the weight jumps up. So – note to self:

• Watch the (_damn_) sodium
• Drink plenty of water

My work is extremely worried about data security, specifically loss of data. So much in fact that today, I found a wonderful issue revolving around printing to file formats and then being able to open the file which was just printed.

The specific example:

My work provides the Microsoft XPS print driver with the office installation. This is available through the print options as an available destination. I use this quite a bit if I want to store a copy of a receipt or web page but don’t want to make a hard copy.

As part of my 3 year anniversay with the company, I am eligible to receive some corporate schwag through a specific URL. I go to the URL, select my “corporate sunshine” and then move along through the shipping and redemption process as normal. When prompted to “Print a receipt”, I decide, “Hey, that may not be a bad idea.”

I go through the process of opening the “printer friendly” version and proceed down the path of selecting the appropriate device and destination for the document. I land on the XPS print driver, select my file name, and print the digital artifact with dutiful, internal praise. (“Way to go for not killing more trees than necessary!”)

Before I close the receipt window, I want to make sure that I can actually read the printed copy. I open Windows Explorer, browse to the appropriate folder, “Right-click->Open With-> XPS Viewer”. Doh!

Security Alert!

Downloaded?

It’s on my bloody hard drive! I try multiple other ways to open the file. None of them work.

When I have the XPS document folder location in “Thumbnail” view, I can see the content within Windows Explorer. But if I attempt to open the XPS document, I am not allowed.

I found a couple of other XPS documents on my drive and none of them will open either.

So the moral – a tool can be used to help save on paper, etc. You just can’t actually use it. So you print it out and the content/data is now in the (somewhat) public domain. crap….

One key area that is needed for camping is the ability to tie different knots. Whether those knots are for rain flys, tarps, or securing gear on top of the vehicle: using the correct knot at the right time is essential.

The Art of Manliness blog takes you through 7 basic knots with videos to boot!

Original post here: LINK

Why does there have to be a park, a path, or a constructed destination for American’s to just go outside. There are so many places and things to just see… just go.

But for the love, the government believes that bike paths and walking areas have to be clean for American’s to get healthy. Because, of course, a dirty sidewalk is why people don’t go out there and DO SOMETHING!

Link

I was running fine, happy, content with RC1. Until, for no apparent reason, I ended up with a new BSOD: bad pool header

I let the physical image dump take place and then started the reboot process. But alas, I was presented with some pretty interesting error messages.

First things first: the BSOD. Here’s the google search: LINK

Not the end of the world… but the crap storm after the reboot was… um… interesting. I was not able to WRITE to any partitions or drives on my computer. This includes USB external and being able to burn a CD/DVD. Yeah – when I tried to access the CD/DVD to burn an ISO image, I was informed, via dialog box, that I would need to contact the “system administrator” as this functionality is not available.

My dilemma was getting my saved files to a USB drive in order to wipe the laptop drive… if I had to go that far. See, I formatted two partitions on the laptop drive as exFAT… which meant that my dumb butt made 1/2 a 160 GB drive unavailable to other OSes. Bummer. Prior to remembering the exFAT piece, I went after some Ubuntu bits…

After installing Ubuntu 9.1 Alpha 2 64b on the laptop and then remembering the exFAT issue, I am back to W7RC1.

I’m glad I didn’t put anything down on the W7 upgrade early edition….

Does this theme suck for my blog?

I’m not sure of the direction to go… many nice, clean themes. Not sure if this DARK is what I want