April 2007: Ben and a blooming redbud tree at Cave HillITEM!
Louisville’s redbud trees finally bloomed yesterday (seemingly all at once), with their nice dark purple leaves which turn lighter purple, then dark red, and then green. Love those redbud trees, which are one of a variety purple-blooming trees we have here in Louisville. Spring has come a few weeks late this year; I just knew it would when we got a foot of snow in early March. That’s the most snow I’ve seen here since moving back in 1999.
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Overheard today during a drive-thru exchange: Taco Bell is dumping root beer and replacing it with Diet Mountain Dew. Hooray! My weekly Taco Bell experience will be that much (artificially) sweeter. I used to not be such a fan of the Bell, my standard complaint being that all their food tastes like the paper in which it’s wrapped. However, upon aging, I now like the bland taste of their food, which of course bares little resemblance to real Mexican cuisine, the best of which I enjoyed in Texas.
One time in the early 1990s, at an Indianapolis location where you watched the workers prepare your food, I observed in fascination as a manager took tap water and poured it into the vat of cheese sauce to make it less thick. Appetizing! Oh, also in Indy during the 1990’s -- anybody remember T.B.’s brief phase of changing their sour cream and cheese to low-fat versions? At one point, it was all low-fat, and at another point it was an option. That didn’t last long… As I am now on a serious diet, I kind of wish the Bell had more nutritious options.
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One time in the early 1990s, at an Indianapolis location where you watched the workers prepare your food, I observed in fascination as a manager took tap water and poured it into the vat of cheese sauce to make it less thick. Appetizing! Oh, also in Indy during the 1990’s -- anybody remember T.B.’s brief phase of changing their sour cream and cheese to low-fat versions? At one point, it was all low-fat, and at another point it was an option. That didn’t last long… As I am now on a serious diet, I kind of wish the Bell had more nutritious options.
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Okay, so I let slip about my diet. It began on April 1 (no foolin’), it’s basically a low carb one and, for the first time in years, I have actually stuck to this diet for over a week now. I’ve lost a few pounds already and can feel the difference. It had to happen, because I had just about reached the maximum weight this poor old body could support. I want to feel good, want to be around for several more years for Ben’s sake, and… maybe even attend my class reunion this summer. Don’t know yet; we’ll see.
My most successful dieting experience took place 19 years ago, when I was part of a weight loss contest at Burnham Hospital back in Champaign. I was so embarrassed at how large I was that, upon signing up for the contest and joining a team, I starved myself and lost 10 pounds a week before the contest officially began! But then I continued over the next six weeks to lose an additional 20 pounds the correct way. There are no shortcuts -- we all know it’s a matter of eating less, eating the right foods, and exercising. That last bit I’m having trouble with this time around due to lack of free time, but I’m thinking about walking to and from work once in a while, and going on walks during lunch instead of running errands. Either activity will be a big help; fast walking is just about the only form of exercise I like, though in theory I would still enjoy swimming if I ever had the chance.
Well now that I’ve gone public, I have to stick with it, right? Shoot, I would settle for ending up back at the weight I was before starting the 1989 contest… which our team won, by the way. But it is going to take a lot more work and take a lot more time this time.
My most successful dieting experience took place 19 years ago, when I was part of a weight loss contest at Burnham Hospital back in Champaign. I was so embarrassed at how large I was that, upon signing up for the contest and joining a team, I starved myself and lost 10 pounds a week before the contest officially began! But then I continued over the next six weeks to lose an additional 20 pounds the correct way. There are no shortcuts -- we all know it’s a matter of eating less, eating the right foods, and exercising. That last bit I’m having trouble with this time around due to lack of free time, but I’m thinking about walking to and from work once in a while, and going on walks during lunch instead of running errands. Either activity will be a big help; fast walking is just about the only form of exercise I like, though in theory I would still enjoy swimming if I ever had the chance.
Well now that I’ve gone public, I have to stick with it, right? Shoot, I would settle for ending up back at the weight I was before starting the 1989 contest… which our team won, by the way. But it is going to take a lot more work and take a lot more time this time.
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Wow, Amazon.com just gave me a $50 credit because I bought an HD-DVD player from them last summer, and in the intervening time, HD-DVD lost the high-def format war against Blu-Ray. We could go on for hours discussing this topic, but anyway, I had already made peace with my choosing the “wrong” format by the fact that I basically had already made my money back by selling off most of the 10 free HD-DVD discs I got with that player. So now I still have that HD-DVD player that upscales normal DVDs to make them seem higher def, the two discs I kept (Notting Hill and A Room With a View), and a $50 credit…life is good.
[Among the superficial reasons I chose HD-DVD over Sony’s Blu-Ray format: I liked the name HD-DVD better than Blu-Ray, I liked their logo better than Blu-Ray’s logo, and I liked the discs’ dark red cases better than Blu-Ray’s medium-blue cases. Oh, and I don’t really like Sony very much.]
[Among the superficial reasons I chose HD-DVD over Sony’s Blu-Ray format: I liked the name HD-DVD better than Blu-Ray, I liked their logo better than Blu-Ray’s logo, and I liked the discs’ dark red cases better than Blu-Ray’s medium-blue cases. Oh, and I don’t really like Sony very much.]
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Sometimes it’s hard to believe Ben just turned four. All parents consider their children intelligent, but… The child talks on and on in complete sentences, rarely mispronouncing any word (thus, already more qualified than others to be President, right?), and often sprinkling in a few new ones that take me by surprise. Such as yesterday, when he casually used the word “fortunately” in a correct way. I just had to stop him and say, “Ben, did you just say ‘fortunately’?” He replied, “What? Well, that’s what people say!”
I thought of that this morning when, on the radio, I heard somebody use the word “augers”. That’s not one you hear every day. It may be used about as often as “garner” (unless you are Wilfred Pennington writing a headline about a winning float). Anyway, it took me a few seconds to remember that “augers” basically means “bodes”.
Next time I’m in doubt, maybe I should ask Ben!
I thought of that this morning when, on the radio, I heard somebody use the word “augers”. That’s not one you hear every day. It may be used about as often as “garner” (unless you are Wilfred Pennington writing a headline about a winning float). Anyway, it took me a few seconds to remember that “augers” basically means “bodes”.
Next time I’m in doubt, maybe I should ask Ben!
2 comments:
ITEM misc. comments:
Ideally, the only only other fast food I'd regularly consume is from Subway. Having kids, though, it's hard to avoid the big burger places for something fast and cheap. Plus, Ben likes to play at McDonald's cool playland and I like to let him mingle there with kids his age, esp. as he doesn't really have any friends in our neighborhood. (His mom and dad have that problem too).
Regarding Ben's specialness (remember, he is my only offspring, after all)... Ben is the only other person I have ever met besides myself who hums along to incidental music heard on TV. I'm not talking about theme songs, I'm talking about music queues heard during scene transitions, or heard in the background and barely noticed. We have this is common, and it is so cool. Now, we need to do something to harness this unusual musical affection...
I'm tempted to edit out the comments about dieting, as that only lasted three weeks, and I am now even bigger than I was in April. Yet I'm still going to the class reunion in two weeks! If Sam makes fun of my paunch again, I'll punch him...
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