What the devil?

I had an idea for a new blog post, and I was going to quote a couple things from a blog called Creating Passionate Users (CPU) to give me some background info on want I was going to write. What I found was unexpected and shocking. CPU is a collaborative blog, but the main writer is Kathy Sierra. I just read the blog, I don't know Kathy or read the comments much. I don't know any of the back story or anything. Unfortunately, Kathy has received death threats and been the target of several disturbing blog posts. This just doesn't seem to me to be what blogs and the internet was meant for.

Sorry to be such a downer, the current post at CPU just threw me for a loop.

Well, even if you do know Jack

One of our local radio stations was using the Jack format (We play what we want). It was a ratings failure, so they recently restarted with an Oldies format. This was the format they had before Jack, more or less, but that's really not important to the story. (That line is cribbed from the Weird Al Show from CBS)

SO what's that got to do with anything? Well, it's time for a format change here at Nuggie Land. I've poked around with the template, and I expect that I'm not done. I'll add some new content.

My own worst enemy

I woke up this morning in a tizzy because I had forgotten to do some database scripts last night that were supposed to happen at 8:00. This was about 5:45, so I was way late. I hurried and got my laptop up and humming and I was almost into the system when I realized, today is Friday, not Saturday. Luckily I hadn't started making the database changes.

Now I get to work and mostly the day has gone well except for one difficult project. I've gotten through the project before (I'm reinstalling a dev system) so I know I'll get through it. That is, if I don't delete my directory structure in the directory again. D'oh! To reinstall, I have to delete it and start over, so that's no big deal, except when you are in your home directory and not the software directory. Again, luckily, there's not much in the home directory, so I'm ok.

Motivation

Yeah, yeah, New Years, over weight, blah blah. Whatever. So what am I gonna actually do about it.

Well, first things first, we bought ourselves a tread mill for Christmas. The make nice clothes racks, from what I see. How do I go about actually using it? Or, more accurately, why should I? I am now going to let you in on three little secrets on how I'm going to stay motivated.

1. Big Loser Contest My wife and I have entered into a Big Loser (named after the TV show) contest with her sister and brother in law. Team winners get a dinner, individual gets cash.
2. Walking the Mansfield 250 My friend Ethel lives in Illinois and dates a guy in Georgia. She tracks her exercise bike miles and calls in Biking to Atlanta. I'm planning on going to the Mansfield 250 Craftsman Truck Race later this year. I'm doing a similar thing with my walking on the treadmill. Here's my progress so far:

3. Spark People My wife turned me onto this web site. I use it to track calories, exercise, and other activities. I've only used it about a week, but so far it's helped.

Between the 3 motivators, I should be in decent shape in no time.