Rusty's Ramblings

[Rusty Edge]

Progress, not perfection...
Sounds great...

You always have a nice way of getting to the crux of the matter. Yes, it does feel great.

[E_T]

You might want to try a few sit-up's now, just to help tighten up that belly some...  Go easy at first, but see if you can do a few every few days...

[Rusty Edge]

Sunday weigh-in 235.2, which brings my BMI down to 32 ! I may have to track down some old driver's licenses to figure out how far I've turned back the clock on my weight. I feel like a different person, but I haven't decided if I'm a "new me" or an "old me". I've started stretching before my daily walk, and I've raised it to 1.75 miles. I tried sit ups a couple of times, but got very light headed. While it interferes with the exercising, it's not all bad. It reminds me that most of my life I had some low blood pressure issues, common to my mother's side of the family. I haven't had that problem for many years, so it makes me suspect that my veins and arteries are returning to "normal" ( at least for me ), too. The belly is still pretty big. It was the first to fatten up, and will probably be the last to lose completely, the way things are going. I think I'm even starting to lose chest fat.

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As for my dad, the brain surgeon says that he's healing nicely, and see him again in 6 months. The plastic surgeon appointment is coming up, so if all is well the helmet should follow that visit. He reached another determination/classification in physical therapy, now that he has been concentrating on the walker and the cane only. That means that the sessions are fewer now but he trains pretty hard on his own. We're thinking return home at the end of the month.


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I'd like to put a word in for my cousin. He had a great idea. You know how sometimes when there's an illness friends or family offer to help, but nobody knows exactly how they can? Some people live too far away, some people have no free time, etc. Usually the immediate family  says "Thanks, I really appreciate the offer, but I don't know what you can do." Well, my cousin who is some kind of a HVAC project manager offered his sky miles and Hilton points. When he's not working, he'd rather be home relaxing anyway. This has made it possible for my Mom to afford being close to my Dad, and one of my sisters, who is more flexible on time to fly in from Florida to support my Mom. My sister had eye surgery complications, so she can't drive. This generosity has made more people able to contribute, and makes everybody feel better. It's a great idea.


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I got the car out of the garage this morning to make room for the boat. Loading this year should be a breeze, as I have all of the boxes numbered, inventoried, spread-sheeted, and sealed in clear plastic trash bags to keep out dust and insects. It should be a simple matter of opening he bag, pulling the box off of the shelf, and placing them in the boat. Then adding the fishing gear. Well, we'd have to get two suitcases from my mother-in law, too, but then it would be ready to tarp.


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Well, I 've goat a beef roast to get started. That's all for now.

[Rusty Edge]

Got some driver's licenses.


As recently as 2003, I was still in the mid 170s.

2006 was "200"

2007 was "210"


2014 was 255lbs. I know that was realistic. Well, even conservative by a pound and a fraction. But I also know that I was being fanciful on the previous two licenses, wishing and hoping that I could reverse the trend and back into those weights at the time. By how much, I don't recall.


Just got the fishing license today, so I got to enter an accurate weight on that. Yay! Life's little victories.

[Rusty Edge]

I just re-read this thread.

1) I really miss Valka on this board.

2) I said that this should be a lucky year for me, because I started it with a bad case of flu/dry heaves/diahrrea so it could only get better. Well, it certainly hasn't been easy, but I do feel lucky based on eventual outcomes.

3) Early on I was lamenting my challenges in organizing the clutter in my basement. I wished I was younger or multiple people. It occurs to me that my diet is making me "younger" so that I can accomplish more. I will have to resume the battle of the basement when I return from fishing.


4) As for exercise, I've been walking a mile and 3/4ths every day so far this week and all of last. I stretch before I put on my shoes. I think I'm ready for more, but my dog is not, unless it gets cooler. Maybe I can carry some extra weight on my walk instead. I'm doing neck stretching exercises while she "checks her messages," to overcome the stiffness that comes from computers and other e-devices.  My back and knee joints feel much better. My wife credits my weight loss, I credit the COSTCO Triple Action Joint Health, but it could just as easily be the diet, which is high in anti-inflamatory Omega-3s. As for strength, I've started curling and pressing using a boat anchor in each hand.  I think push-ups and situps are going to wait, but I can try some trunk twisters.

[Rusty Edge]

Home safely after the annual fishing trip.  It was unusual. Some of the best and worst weather, some of the best and worst fishing ( I caught the most fish I ever have in one session, 8, and my niece caught a 17" bass, the largest fish I've heard of in the extended family since I started going on the trip in 2003. ) and I got the outboard motor running the best it ever has since I've been operating it... until the water pump failed.

As for my favorite part - I saw a few Sand hill Cranes, a beaver, a muskrat, some loons, black squirrels, woodpeckers , orioles, several herons, but only one eagle that I know of. Yeah, there were mallards and Canada geese and deer, too, but I don't think of them as remarkable.


I experimented with some new fish cleaning and filleting techniques. I unloaded the two cars, but the boat remains. More later.

[Rusty Edge]

Got the boat unloaded and the stuff stored. All I need to do is take the boat and motor to my brother-in-law for modifications, repairs, and storage. I spread it out over the course of the day, but between that and searching for the new kitten a few times, it taxed my balance. I hit my head on a doorway once, and my shin on a coffee table corner.

[Rusty Edge]

I had trouble with the page locking last night. Anyway...

Went to Illinois and brought Winchester II home. I'll try to get some pictures this week. He's a little nervous around the dog (who wants to be friends ), and doesn't back down from the big kitties ( who hiss and glare at him ).  We put a collar on him, trimmed his nails, no problem.


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Diet wise, I've moved beyond the 45lbs. lost mark. That's not bad to continue with my pound per week goal while on vacation, and making exceptions to my regimen almost daily. fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffc   <= pusskeyfooting brought to you by Chester.

[E_T]

hehe, one of the things that one my Ex's cats used to do all of the time was to lounge around on the Computer Keyboard (it was His Most Immense Tunage, Tiberius, Lord of the Lard - a very Big Maine Coon).  The keyboard was also walked across when going from point A to B (window near computer desk that was a favorite hang out spot for all of the cats- we had three at one point)

One time, we had come home from somewhere and had found that the cat had somehow hit the right keys and he had opened up a few IE browser windows and even had gotten to a few sites...  Needless to say, we had to put in a screensaver password with the screen saver set to come on fairly quickly after being idle for short time periods (say we get up to go to other room and cat follows and crosses keyboard, saver has to kick in fairly quickly...).

We always joked that Tiberius was on the web, looking for "kitty porn"...

[Spacy]

Glad the fishing trip went well!

[Rusty Edge]

Glad the fishing trip went well!

Thanks! Since the outboard was working so well this year, I mounted my electric trolling motor on my sister-in-law's boat, because the relative with whom they normally fish isn't there. When the water pump failed, I switched to oars. It was educational. That elliptical motion of rowing is akin to twirling spaghetti on a fork. I figured this out when I rowed through a patch of loose weed floating on the surface. I had to remove them from the locks and hold them more vertical to shake off the the wads of weed every so often. That stuff was heavy.


Today I got the Sky Bell working on my wife's phone, too. Now she can answer the door. I need to get new hearing aids, the tech is better, my hearing is worse, and volume adjustments aren't solving the problem for more than a week to 10 days at best. I think I'm going out to do some yard work. Well, plant care rather than lawn care ( which is provided ).

[Spacy]

Ya, I had to go to the doc earlier as I was loosing some hearing.  Doc blamed it on me going shooting, but I haven't been to the range in over a year, and when I was I always used hearing protection.  When I tossed that back in his face, he got all huffy and virtually kicked me out of his office.  On the way out, I saw his incoming mail and right on top was a pamphlet asking for money (I guess) from "The Coalition of Stopping Guns" or something like that.  Time to find a new doc that will actually look at getting me help for my hearing instead of preaching at me. 

[Rusty Edge]

Ya, I had to go to the doc earlier as I was loosing some hearing.  Doc blamed it on me going shooting, but I haven't been to the range in over a year, and when I was I always used hearing protection.  When I tossed that back in his face, he got all huffy and virtually kicked me out of his office.  On the way out, I saw his incoming mail and right on top was a pamphlet asking for money (I guess) from "The Coalition of Stopping Guns" or something like that.  Time to find a new doc that will actually look at getting me help for my hearing instead of preaching at me.

True. I didn't know how much hearing I'd lost to noise damage in the left ear until I got a disease in my right one. If you know you're losing it, you need to see an Ear Nose Throat specialist to figure out what's happening to your hearing and what can be done about it. That might require a referral from a doc. 

[E_T]

Yeah, if anything, they should get a baseline for where your hearing is now, so that if it gets worse, they can compare to that baseline...

Nice thing about some of the newer Hearing Aids is that they can tailor the sensitivity for what your needing to have increased.  That and I love the Bluetooth connection that I get for my phone (total hands free as well as outside noise cancelling).  I can also play music with through the Bluetooth...  I love them...

[Rusty Edge]

The SkyBell is pretty awesome...when it's working. I am always amazed at how great our flowers look at night in color 1080HD.
The speaker in the doorbell is kind of marginal on volume for a hearing impaired guy like me. Fortunately our street is usually quiet. The motion sensor is hit or miss. Sometimes it notices the guy delivering the package and notifies us in timely fashion, sometimes it doesn't. So, it seems to me that it would be no better if we had somebody removing packages. The green glow is pretty cool looking at night.


It has sold me on the concept of a smart doorbell, and probably a smart home. If I went that route I'm leaning towards Nest. I like the idea of combination smoke/CO2 detectors that aren't fooled by steam, can be silenced by phone, and can integrate with each other as well as the heating and cooling system.