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So far, so good!  I'm down 24.6 pounds in 5 weeks.  Jill's doing well, too. Here's what 25 pounds looks like...

So, what's it like to misplace 25 pounds?  Well, my doctor cut my blood pressure medicine in half after week 3, and in half again after week 4.  He also cut my diabetes medicine by a third after week three.  My dress pants won't stay up unless I cinch my belt to the last hole.  And, I'm down a size in my Levi's.  Plus, my shirts are fitting better - in fact, many of them are just plain billowy on me now.  In other words, I can't wait to misplace another 25 pounds!

There was a little girl, 
Who had a little curl, 
Right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good,
She was very, very good.
And, she was never, never, never, ever horrid.

And, her big brother was pretty sweet, too. 

More new pictures here. (All the pictures in that gallery were taken with my iPhone 3G and processed with Instagram, my new favorite iPhone photo editor and sharing service.)

I now have most of my 20/20 appointments scheduled, starting with a counselor session tomorrow morning before work.  Here’s the skinny:

• Counselor starts 10/28 at 7:50am.  Will schedule remaining appointments directly.
• Initial fitness assessment on 11/1 at 7:30am.  Next assessment sometime in March.
• Initial physician meeting on 11/4 at 8:30am.  Next appointment sometime in December.
• Dietician on Mondays at 5:30pm, starting 11/8.
• Training on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, starting 11/9.  Weekdays at 6:00am.  Saturdays TBD.
• Group counseling TBD.

I managed to get the same counselor and trainer I had last time.  I’m excited about that.  I liked both of them.  And, I’m looking forward to meeting my new dietician.  (They promoted my last dietician to the director of the program, so she doesn’t see patients anymore.  Bummer.)

Jill has her times, too.  She starts the same week I do.  Wish us luck!!!

My wife an I are busy people.  I work all day.  She chases twins all day.  On occasion, we find it useful to know where the other person is, or what our plans are for next Tuesday.  So, we’d like the ability to see each other’s calendars.  It’d also be nice to be able to exchange appointments from time to time.

FAIL #1:  Unfortunately, the iPhone mail app cannot open .ICS calendar files.  So, if I send Jill a copy of an early morning meeting request (so she knows to kick me out of bed), she has to wait until she can open the email on her Mac before she can add the appointment to her calendar.  Seems to me like this is a fairly standard requirement for email/calendaring systems.  I wonder why Apple left it out. 

FAIL #2:  Also rather unfortunately, Apple’s MobileMe product has a rather gaping hole in it between two related features, called sync and publish.  Sync is the feature that allows a MobileMe user to access all their calendar, contacts, bookmarks and more across all their OS X and iOS devices.  Publish is the feature that allows a MobileMe user to share their calendar (or contacts) with anyone on the web.  You can read more about these features here.

iCal supports both of these features.  But, the iPhone only supports sync.  Therein lies the hole.  Here’s how an event travels from my iPhone to hers:

1. I create a new event on my iPhone.
2. The MobileMe client on my phone syncs the event to the cloud.
3. The MobileMe client on my computer syncs the event to my computer.
4. iCal on my computer then publishes the event to my shared calendar.  (I’m not sure whether this happens automatically with “auto-publish” turned on, or whether I still have to manually refresh.)
5. The event now is visible to Jill’s iPhone – if she’s chosen to subscribe to my shared calendar directly from her phone.  But, if she subscribed to my calendar via iCal and she’s using MobileMe sync to get that calendar onto her phone, then the entire process above has to happen in reverse, including a manual refresh that forces iCal to go download my shared calendar again.

The practical result of this missing use case is that Jill and I cannot see appointments that we add on our iPhones until both of us have had a chance to refresh in iCal – which can take days.  (Did I mention that Jill chases twins all day?)

Granted, Jill and I are still using our ancient iPhone 3G phones.  (We’re holding out for Verizon.)  So, perhaps the new iPhone and the new MobileMe calendar (which is only compatible with iOS 4) solve the problem.  If you can confirm (or deny) this, let me know.  In the meantime, I’m going to try syncing our calendars via Google, rather than MobileMe.

We had quite a busy summer, though you wouldn't know it from our picture gallery. That is, you wouldn't know it until now. I just posted four new albums to the gallery. And, there's much more to come - as soon as I get the time. (I stayed up past 2:00 AM to get these images uploaded.)

In case you don't have time to view all of the images now, here are a few samples:

We learned how to peel oranges…

We threw rocks at Alki Beach…

We checked out the tide pools at Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach…

And, we spent the day with Thomas the Tank Engine…

And, there’s lots more to come!

In January, 2006, I weighed 293 pounds. I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type II Diabetes and severe obstructive sleep apnea. Six months later, I weighed 218 pounds, I was off all my medications, and I was sleeping fine without CPAP. How did I do this? 20/20 Lifestyles.

This morning, I weighed 294 pounds. I'm back on CPAP and all the medications. In fact, I'm now taking even more medicines and my metabolic numbers are worse than four years ago. How did I do this? In a word, stress. Over the last three years, my mother passed away from liver disease at 62, my wife gave birth to twins, I left Microsoft under duress, and I spent six+ months unemployed. Any one of those events could have tripped me up. The combination was overwhelming. I reverted back to my previous sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet.

Now that life has settled down again, and now that I've been re-diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, I've decided to take another run at 20/20. Jill and I are both going to repeat the full program. We'll likely start around the beginning of November. This time, my focus will be on identifying ways to manage stress through sustaining an active lifestyle. Sure, I'll be following the 20/20 diet and exercise plans. And, the weight will come off. But, the most important thing I need to learn is how to be active every day.

I'll be posting progress updates as we go. Stay tuned.

According to Time magazine:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul said Monday that Washington lawmakers are showing no consideration for future generations with deficit spending that is passing an "enormous burden of debt" on to America's children and grandchildren.

The article continues:

"I acknowledge that the system is broken, and if we just keep borrowing, we could destroy the entire system," Paul said. "Then, there would be no Social Security, no Medicare and no government because we will be drowning in the sea of debt or destroy the currency in the process."

Politicians have long been invoking a tremendous concern for future generations while railing against deficit spending.  But, the phrase “drowning in the sea” got me thinking: 

I wonder if Dr. Paul’s concern for future generations extends to topics like climate change.  Does he realize, for example, that if the polar ice caps continue to melt at their current pace, future generations of American coastal and lowland residents – from New York, Washington D.C., Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego – will literally be “drowning in the sea?”

So, I went to www.RandPaul2010.com to see what his position is on the topic.  Neither I, nor Google could find any references to climate change or global warming.

The closest I could get was Dr. Paul’s discussion of clean, cheap energy under the heading Energy Innovation.  As it turns out, the reason we don’t have clean, cheap energy is that the government has been subsidizing wind and solar energy.  Apparently, the federal subsidies for wind and solar are preventing the free market from finding and surfacing cleaner, less expensive forms of energy than oil and coal. 

Who knew?

Setting aside for a moment the notion that any new energy source can compete with the infrastructure and economies of scale present in our current fossil-fuel based economy, let’s take the doctor at his word.

If we assume that solar and wind are too cheap because the government is artificially suppressing their prices, then perhaps we should also consider that coal and oil are too cheap because much of their true cost is externalized by the free market.  For example:

• How much more expensive would coal and oil be if we forced companies like Massey Energy and British Petroleum to mine their products safely, and clean up after themselves?
• And, how much more expensive would carbon based fuels be if we could put a fair price on the costs associated with mitigating the environmental impacts of burning these products and include it at the pump?

I am all for creative solutions to finding cleaner, less expensive energy.  And, maybe the market can find an answer without subsidies.  (Bullshit!)  But, frankly, given his concern about the financial well being of future generations of Americans, I’m a bit confused by Dr. Paul’s apparent lack of concern for their health and well being.  The man is a doctor, isn’t he?

Oh, but, he is running in Kentucky, a once mountainous state.  Perhaps he doesn’t see the connection between how mountain top mining and rising sea levels might affect his state.  Or, maybe he thinks he’s got a better chance of making a long lasting impact if all those cities I mentioned end up under water.  They're mostly blue already, you know.

UPDATE:  Oh, and it wouldn't hurt Dr. Paul to start talking about doing away with the federal subsidies for dirty energy.

Dad & Lynn gave the kids a fantastic DVD for their birthday.  It’s video of marine life doing what marine life does to the music of Brent Holmes.  The music is so catchy that it’s got Jill and I singing right along.  And, now, I can’t get one of the songs out of my head.  But, I only know some of the lyrics, so it’s rather annoying.  In an attempt to get the lyrics out of my head, or to at least teach me the rest of the song, here are the lyrics:

When You Find a Manatee in Your Bathtub
by Brent Holmes

When you find a manatee in your bathtub, playing with your toys,
making lots of noise and causing trouble;

And, he’s washing his big flippers; and using all your soap;
and filling up your tub with giant bubbles;

Say, please, Mr. Manatee, don’t tickle me, ‘cause I’m as ticklish as a kid can be. 
I won’t tickle you, if you don’t tickle.  And, we can play together.

Please, Mr. Manatee, while you're in my tub, we should sing a song that goes rub-a-dub-dub.  Rub-a-dub-dub, a manatee is in my tub.  And, life couldn’t be much better.

When you find a sea lion in your bathtub, playing with your toys,
making lots of noise and causing trouble;

And, he’s washing his big flippers; and using all your soap;
and filling up your tub with giant bubbles;

Say, please, Mr. Sea Lion, don’t tickle me, ‘cause I’m as ticklish as a kid can be. 
I won’t tickle you, if you don’t tickle.  And, we can play together.

Please, Mr. Sea Lion, while you're in my tub, we should sing a song that goes rub-a-dub-dub.  Rub-a-dub-dub, a sea lion is in my tub.  And, life couldn’t be much better.

When you find a walrus in your bathtub, playing with your toys,
making lots of noise and causing trouble;

And, he’s washing his big flippers; and using all your soap;
and filling up your tub with giant bubbles;

Say, please, Mr. Walrus, don’t tickle me, ‘cause I’m as ticklish as a kid can be. 
I won’t tickle you, if you don’t tickle.  And, we can play together.

Please, Mr. Walrus, while you're in my tub, we should sing a song that goes rub-a-dub-dub.  Rub-a-dub-dub, a walrus is in my tub.  And, life couldn’t be much better.

There, now.  I feel so much better. 

If you’re interested, the album is called “Sea Tunes for Kids.” You can find both the DVD and the CD at Amazon.com.  I’ve also seen the CD at iTunes.

EDIT:  Fixed a couple of references to manatees that I missed when I copied and pasted the lyrics for the second and third verses.  Thank goodness I subscribe to my own feed!

It's my job to put the kids down at night.  Generally, I sit in the big, cozy rocking chair with Grace on my left leg and Hunter on my right.  I read a few books, then I turn out the light and sing songs.

Unfortunately, my repertoire is rather thin:

• Twinkle, Twinkle
• A, B, C (same tune as Twinkle, Twinkle)
• Bah, Bah, Black Sheep (same tune as Twinkle, Twinkle)
• Rock-a-bye, Baby
• Hush, Little Baby
• Hey, Diddle Diddle
• Are You Sleeping (modified for night time)

And, sometimes I'll sing these songs:

• The Itsy Bitsy Spider
• There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly
• Row, Row, Row Your Boat (including alligators!)

Rather than learning new tunes, Jill and I have both made up some new songs based on tunes we already know, especially the eternally flexible Twinkle, Twinkle.  Here's one Jill wrote:

Little Babies, Go To Sleep
Sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle

Little babies, go to sleep.
Close your eyes and slumber deep.
In the morning, you will wake;
Then fond memories we will make.
Little babies, go to sleep.
Close your eyes and slumber deep.

And, here's one I made up:

I Love You
Sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle

Hunter O'Neil, I love you.
Sarah Gracie, I love you, too.
Mommy loves you, yes she does.
Daddy loves you, just as much.
Hunter O'Neil, I love you.
Sarah Grace, I love you, too.

That one is probably my favorite song to sing the kids. I usually sing it last, really softly, just before putting the kids in their cribs. The kids seem to like it, too. They both know the song, and often sing it with me. Grace even made up her own version, it goes like this:

I Love You
Sung to the beat of Gracie's own drum

Haha, I laa loo.
Mama, I laa loo.
Dada, I laa loo.
Mama, Dada, Haha, Gigi, I laa loo.

But, that's apparently not the only thing the song has taught the kids.  Tonight, when I asked each of them to tell me their name, they both gave me versions of their full names:  Hunter said, "Haha O'Neil;" and Gracie said, "Sarah Gracie."

I'm so proud!

 You should really read this article about a single letter sent to the President and his reply.  It's that good.