Ramblings of the Insane
Where does the time go? I get three days off every week and it goes by so quickly.
Sunday afternoon/evening we went in search of swimsuits and dress suits. DJ needed another swimsuit as she had only one and I need to have a tuxedo, dinner jacket, or dark dress suit for formal nights on the cruise. Summer is over and swimsuits are hard to come by around here during the fall and winter. DJ managed to find a swimsuit at Dillard's on the clearance rack. Men's suits were on sale as well but even a cheap suit at Dillard's is more than I'm willing to spend on occasional wear. JC Penny had a possible option, a tuxedo for a reasonable price. OK, so I go on a cruise with a cheap tux. How's that different from a rental? The rental would still cost slightly less than buying though. Another reason to wait is weight.
I'm back on the weight loss plan, again. I can't seem to get and stay motivated. I tried the non-food reward of buying a song from iTunes as a reward, then I ran out of songs I wanted. I've since found a few more and have used them. What a need is to hear new music. The radio stations I listen to all play the same stuff, over, and over, and over. Many people listen to different music at work, but it's often too different for my tastes. The last couple of inspirations came from my sister since she started her livejournal blog.
Psychology plays a big part. I find waiting for the reward sometimes doesn't work. Sometimes I need to owe something in order to have the motivation to push myself over the hump. Last night was an example. I had 5 points left at the end of yesterday. So, I grabbed a package of crackers and the peanut butter. The next thing I knew, the crackers were gone. This morning I was up 1.5 on the scale. From past experience, I'm pretty sure that 1.5 will come off quickly if I stick to the plan. Today, I bought my reward song earlier, in hopes that the fact that I still haven't paid for the song will keep me honest through the night.
I've filled my 1GB iPod Shuffle, time to start deleting. I started by deleting any duplicates.
Anyway, to stay on track throughout the whole weight loss period, I'm giving myself something I really want to shoot for, an iPhone. I can't cheat on this though and get it ahead of time. Gotta wait for the big pay off.
Monday we went for an aspen viewing drive in the mountains. Too late. People from areas that have a fall often wonder why we treasure the changing of the aspen here in CO. They're the only real color we get in the mountains in fall and they're mostly one color. The season is short, so we really appreciate what we get. On Monday we went over Guanella Pass, over Kenosha Pass, then over Boreas Pass. Kenosha Pass was a major bust, almost all the trees were stripped already. Guanella Pass had a few areas with some color, but not much. Boreas Pass was a lot like Kenosha.
Tuesday morning we met my dad for breakfast at the Denny's in Aurora. We both did really well diet wise. We researched their menu the night before and pretty much had our choices in mind before we arrived and stuck to them. That's what makes last night's cracker incident so hard, I was doing so well yesterday.
On the way home on E470, we were passed by 2 state troopers going very fast in the left lane. When we got to I-25 we found out why, North bound traffic was stopped. I saw the log jam while I still had an option and we headed south on I-25 to 136th Ave. We stopped at the Lowe's to look at lights and door bells then took Washington North to go to Home Depot then Costco. Traffic was still not moving well on I-25. From the hovering news choppers, we knew we were close to the scene of the accident. Getting home was tough because by the time we left Costco, most of the traffic on I-25 was being diverted onto Washington and Huron. When we went over I-25 on CO7, we could see the scene and traffic was stopped both directions on I-25. What a mess!
When we got home we turned on the news and found out a woman had hit a CDOT truck that was preparing to mow along the interstate. A witness said that she was swerving before she struck the CDOT. The woman was killed.
One of my pet peeves is distracted driving. I'd bet the woman who was killed was distracted by something. At 75MPH, there isn't much time to be distracted before something bad happens. It seems that I-25 is getting closed more frequently by accidents. The Colorado State Patrol is working on trying to improve things through stepped up enforcement but there just aren't enough law enforcement to prevent accidents.
Other peeves are slow vehicles that bottle up traffic, especially trucks that try to pass other trucks on uphill grades. CO has some sections of I-25 marked where trucks are required to stay in the right lane. Do they do it? No! I-70 through the mountains is even worse. Adding lanes to an interstate takes a lot of time and money. Adding lanes to I-70 is a monumental task. An intriguing possibility was in today's paper.
http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/BIZ/710030379
A self-driving vehicle. But take it a few steps farther, a network of self driving vehicles. Imagine every vehicle on I-25 connected via a network. They could share info about upcoming slowdowns, obstacles, etc. Negotiate lane changes instead of the driver in the lane next to you speeding up to cut you off when you're trying to make your exit. Enforced lane restrictions for large, slow vehicles. Traffic volume can increase because the interval between cars and be safely reduced. No more distracted drivers causing interstate closing accidents.
Maybe someday. Until then we're stuck with rude drivers and distracted idiots causing needless interstate closing accidents.
Enough rambling for one week.
Sunday afternoon/evening we went in search of swimsuits and dress suits. DJ needed another swimsuit as she had only one and I need to have a tuxedo, dinner jacket, or dark dress suit for formal nights on the cruise. Summer is over and swimsuits are hard to come by around here during the fall and winter. DJ managed to find a swimsuit at Dillard's on the clearance rack. Men's suits were on sale as well but even a cheap suit at Dillard's is more than I'm willing to spend on occasional wear. JC Penny had a possible option, a tuxedo for a reasonable price. OK, so I go on a cruise with a cheap tux. How's that different from a rental? The rental would still cost slightly less than buying though. Another reason to wait is weight.
I'm back on the weight loss plan, again. I can't seem to get and stay motivated. I tried the non-food reward of buying a song from iTunes as a reward, then I ran out of songs I wanted. I've since found a few more and have used them. What a need is to hear new music. The radio stations I listen to all play the same stuff, over, and over, and over. Many people listen to different music at work, but it's often too different for my tastes. The last couple of inspirations came from my sister since she started her livejournal blog.
Psychology plays a big part. I find waiting for the reward sometimes doesn't work. Sometimes I need to owe something in order to have the motivation to push myself over the hump. Last night was an example. I had 5 points left at the end of yesterday. So, I grabbed a package of crackers and the peanut butter. The next thing I knew, the crackers were gone. This morning I was up 1.5 on the scale. From past experience, I'm pretty sure that 1.5 will come off quickly if I stick to the plan. Today, I bought my reward song earlier, in hopes that the fact that I still haven't paid for the song will keep me honest through the night.
I've filled my 1GB iPod Shuffle, time to start deleting. I started by deleting any duplicates.
Anyway, to stay on track throughout the whole weight loss period, I'm giving myself something I really want to shoot for, an iPhone. I can't cheat on this though and get it ahead of time. Gotta wait for the big pay off.
Monday we went for an aspen viewing drive in the mountains. Too late. People from areas that have a fall often wonder why we treasure the changing of the aspen here in CO. They're the only real color we get in the mountains in fall and they're mostly one color. The season is short, so we really appreciate what we get. On Monday we went over Guanella Pass, over Kenosha Pass, then over Boreas Pass. Kenosha Pass was a major bust, almost all the trees were stripped already. Guanella Pass had a few areas with some color, but not much. Boreas Pass was a lot like Kenosha.
Tuesday morning we met my dad for breakfast at the Denny's in Aurora. We both did really well diet wise. We researched their menu the night before and pretty much had our choices in mind before we arrived and stuck to them. That's what makes last night's cracker incident so hard, I was doing so well yesterday.
On the way home on E470, we were passed by 2 state troopers going very fast in the left lane. When we got to I-25 we found out why, North bound traffic was stopped. I saw the log jam while I still had an option and we headed south on I-25 to 136th Ave. We stopped at the Lowe's to look at lights and door bells then took Washington North to go to Home Depot then Costco. Traffic was still not moving well on I-25. From the hovering news choppers, we knew we were close to the scene of the accident. Getting home was tough because by the time we left Costco, most of the traffic on I-25 was being diverted onto Washington and Huron. When we went over I-25 on CO7, we could see the scene and traffic was stopped both directions on I-25. What a mess!
When we got home we turned on the news and found out a woman had hit a CDOT truck that was preparing to mow along the interstate. A witness said that she was swerving before she struck the CDOT. The woman was killed.
One of my pet peeves is distracted driving. I'd bet the woman who was killed was distracted by something. At 75MPH, there isn't much time to be distracted before something bad happens. It seems that I-25 is getting closed more frequently by accidents. The Colorado State Patrol is working on trying to improve things through stepped up enforcement but there just aren't enough law enforcement to prevent accidents.
Other peeves are slow vehicles that bottle up traffic, especially trucks that try to pass other trucks on uphill grades. CO has some sections of I-25 marked where trucks are required to stay in the right lane. Do they do it? No! I-70 through the mountains is even worse. Adding lanes to an interstate takes a lot of time and money. Adding lanes to I-70 is a monumental task. An intriguing possibility was in today's paper.
http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/BIZ/710030379
A self-driving vehicle. But take it a few steps farther, a network of self driving vehicles. Imagine every vehicle on I-25 connected via a network. They could share info about upcoming slowdowns, obstacles, etc. Negotiate lane changes instead of the driver in the lane next to you speeding up to cut you off when you're trying to make your exit. Enforced lane restrictions for large, slow vehicles. Traffic volume can increase because the interval between cars and be safely reduced. No more distracted drivers causing interstate closing accidents.
Maybe someday. Until then we're stuck with rude drivers and distracted idiots causing needless interstate closing accidents.
Enough rambling for one week.