Off the Schneid

Virginia trip

2010-02-01T22:09:00.002-06:00

Last week, I attended a training class on QSM’s SLIM tool in McLean, Virginia. The tool suite is awesome, but this post is about something far more important…beer! Ok, it’s more of a stream of consciousness dump of my entire trip. But it’s mostly about beer. I was on the prowl for Weyerbacher Double Simcoe and Troegs Nugget Nectar.

I watched the new Star Trek movie on iTunes on the flight. Awesome movie! Upon landing, I immediately went to Brickskeller in Washington DC. They have the world’s largest beer selection, about 800 bottles but only 12 taps. It was a bit of a hole in the wall, but I like this sort of aged, disheveled appearance in a bar. I had a Brooklyn Blast Imperial IPA, Victory Old Horizontal Barleywine vintage 2003, and a buffalo burger. All were good. After dinner, I became hopelessly lost on my way to the hotel in McLean. It took me over an hour to make a 30 minute drive. Bring a GPS if you go to DC or Virginia.

On Wednesday night, I had dinner with my Uncle Terry and Aunt Carolyn. We had dinner at Artie’s in Fairfax. I had filet and crab cakes…mmmmmm. Everything was yummy, especially the crab cakes. I enjoyed visiting with my aunt and uncle, who I only get to see about once a year. We went to Total Wine together and I was pretty impressed with the beer selection and prices. I bought a sixer of Troegs Nugget Nectar.

I made a total of 5 stops at liquor stores. I was at Total Beverage 3 times and Norm’s Beer and Wine in Tysons Corner twice. Norm’s had big bottles of Weyerbacher Double Simcoe. These are unfiltered and even better than the regular ones. I think I bought about 6 bombers of Nugget Nectar, 6 fifths of Double Simcoe, a sixer of each, and a few assorted Terrapin. I was able to get 6 big bottles in my luggage and I shipped the rest home by FedEx.

On Thursday night, I had dinner at Dogfish Head Alehouse in Falls Church. I sat at the bar and ate crab soup and jambalaya – both were great. I had a taste of Worldwide Stout (18% alcohol) and a 75 Minute IPA. I’d never heard of that, so I asked the bartender…she said that they pour half a glass of 60 Minute IPA and half a glass of 90 Minute IPA. It was really good.

Class was done by 11:30 on Friday. I stopped at FedEx to ship the boxes, then headed to the airport. My American flight was leaving around 3:00. Unfortunately, we boarded the plane, entered the runway, and returned to the terminal twice. I was moved to a United flight and arrived in Chicago around 8:00 sans luggage. So instead of getting back to my house around 5:30, I arrived around 9:00. My suitcase (beer intact) was delivered to my house at 2:30 AM on Sunday.

- schneid

Lego Bionicles are being discontinued

2009-12-11T22:23:00.002-06:00

My son Ben is sad that Bionicles are being discontinued. Please visit his petition http://savebionicle.blogspot.com and leave a comment on one of his posts to show your support. If you really like spam, you could go to http://petitionspot.com but we don't recommend it.

- schneid

Lucky To Be Alive

2009-09-11T23:06:00.005-05:00

We were hit by a drunk driver on September 5. Only Suzette and I were in the car and we are both fine, just some minor cuts and bruises. We are very lucky. The red car is my car, the blue car was the other driver. We are thankful that the kids weren't in the car and lucky to be alive.

- schneid

Our new dog Capri

2009-06-01T23:01:00.006-05:00

We finally got a dog! We picked up Capri on Memorial Day. She is a 10-month old purebred tri-color collie. She is small for a collie, about 40 lbs right now and won't get much bigger. She is very sweet and is adjusting to her new life as are we! Ben and Anna really like her as you can see from the photos.

- schneid

Don't buy Dark Lord on eBay

2009-04-08T23:41:00.001-05:00

If you desperately need to get your hands on some Dark Lord, skip the details and go to the bottom of this post.

Dark Lord Day, the day each year when Three Floyds Brewery releases their beloved Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout, is almost here. April 25 promises to be a fun day at the brewery. In addition to Three Floyds and guest brewery beer, music, food, and camaraderie among beer geeks, there will be beer as far as the eye can see. Hundreds of people in attendance bring their favorite rare beers to share with everyone. The picnic tables are literally covered with beer bottles.

In the past, each person in line could buy 6 bottles of Dark Lord. At $15 per 22-oz bottle, we're not talking about Miller Lite, but it's a reasonable price for such a great beer. Every year, they produce more beer. Last year, unfortunately, many hundreds of people didn't get any Dark Lord after waiting 5 hours in line. One reason is because many people only buy the beer to sell it on eBay. So Three Floyds came up with a new system.

This year, just to have the opportunity to buy Dark Lord, you had to purchase a Golden Ticket. One person can purchase two tickets, with a maximum of four tickets per household. Each ticket costs $10. All you get for the ticket is the right to purchase your allotment of Dark Lord (ok, you also get a cup of Dark Lord on tap and to me, that's worth $10 right there). Proceeds of the Golden Ticket sales are going to charity, which is pretty cool. We don't yet know how many bottles you can purchase per ticket, but it is probably about 3-6. The tickets went on sale in the wee hours of the morning on March 17. I decided to check before I went to work, and it's a good thing I did...I purchased my tickets then, and by the time I arrived at work, they were sold out.

This is a great improvement because now you won't stand in line for hours and NOT get your Dark Lord. Unfortunately, it's not stopping the eBayers because now people are scalping the Golden Tickets! I think it's unfortunate because there is no reason to pay $100+ for a Golden Ticket or upwards of $300 (in the past) for a bottle of Dark Lord. Since the production of Dark Lord has increased, the bottles have only been going for $50-60 on eBay. But there's an even better way to get Dark Lord if you can't go to Dark Lord Day.

Go to ratebeer.com or beeradvocate.com and trade for it. Simple. If you want to drink Dark Lord, you can find someone who will trade. The trade market will be flooded with it soon. Beer trading is good for your beer karma. eBay is bad for your beer karma.

- schneid

P.S. Suggestion to 3F for next year: print the Golden Tickets with each person's name and last 4 digits of their credit card. You must either show a photo ID or the credit card with those numbers. If I want to give the tickets to my friend, then I'll have to give him my credit card too.

Dine with Top Chef Dale Levitski at Relax Lounge

2009-03-12T23:01:00.004-05:00

For Suzette’s birthday, I wanted to do something fun. We are huge fans of the TV show Top Chef on Bravo, and we’ve been dying to have a meal prepared by one of the chefs. After some extensive research (i.e., Google), I learned that Stephanie Izard (Season 4 winner) and Dale Levitski (Season 3 runner-up) hadn’t opened their new Chicago restaurants yet. Stephanie’s new restaurant is called The Drunken Goat and will open in Fall 2009. Dale’s restaurant, Town and Country, should open in 2009.

With a little more digging, I found out that Dale Levitski is cooking at Relax Lounge on Thursday nights – they call it Dine with Dale. It's a three-course dinner for $30 per person. I was surprised that I could get a reservation on short notice, but it’s not well-known yet. So we made plans to go into Chicago on a Thursday night (March 12, 2009), which for us is unheard of.

Relax Lounge is a long, narrow space. Foremost it is a bar, with bar food and not much dinner seating – there are about 12 tables. They have a tiny kitchen which turns every Thursday into a Top Chef challenge for Dale.

We sat at the bar and ordered some interesting drinks – mine was a Calientini made with Absolut Pear, St. Germaine, jalapeno, and cucumber; Suzette had an Eau de Veev made with Veev (acai vodka), Domaine de Canton (ginger liqueur), pear, and grapefruit. I know they sound strange, but they were really delicious. They were savory and not sweet, with the alcohol in perfect balance with the flavors.

We were soon moved to our table where we finished our drinks. We thought we might feel a bit out of place in a bar for hip, young people. After looking around, we could see the other dinner patrons were almost all over 30 and probably Top Chef fans as well.

The first course was a salad with smoked salmon, avocado puree, bacon, corn salsa, and a matzo cracker balanced on its side. The salmon was delicious and avocado was smooth and silky. You could taste each individual component and they were all really fresh.

We each ordered a glass of the recommended wines: a Hess Chardonnay and a Santa Julia Malbec. The Malbec was very fruit forward and easy to drink, and matched the entrée really well. The Chardonnay was better with the food than without, but I wasn’t crazy about it.

The entrée was Chicken Marengo, crawfish, tomato, and olives with a chicken breast atop a potato. I love comfort food and this was it! The Malbec was a perfect match for this dish.

Dessert was a brownie sundae. When I read the menu, I thought dessert wasn’t as exciting as some of the previous weeks’ desserts, such as cardamom brulee, lingon berries, and lemon crepe. All doubt was erased when our dessert arrived. The brownie had huge chocolate chunks, the whipped cream was so light, and the chocolate sauce was delicious. It was chocolate heaven!

Around 8:30, people started trickling in for the second seating. By 9:00, it was just slightly crowded. During the evening, we had a few glimpses of Dale working near the kitchen. After everyone received their dessert, Dale came out and chatted with some of the guests, but didn’t make it past the third table. He needed to prepare for the next seating. Fortunately, they were very accommodating and we were able to sneak into the back to compliment the chef and have our picture taken.

The pace of the entire meal was unhurried. At the end, I was surprised that two hours had elapsed. Two hours for a three course dinner may sound like a slow pace, but it didn’t seem like that at all.

The food was fantastic, service was great, and we really enjoyed the entire experience. Get a reservation and give it a try! If you are a foodie, you won’t regret having a meal prepared by a Top Chef!

Here are some links to good interviews with Dale Levitski:
Interview: Dale Levitski, "Top Chef" Finalist
Dishing With Dale
Life after 'Top Chef': Where's Dale?
Chicagoist Re-Grills: Top Chef Finalist Dale Levitski

- schneid

Ponzi Schemes

2009-01-29T09:43:00.001-06:00

It's amazing how Ponzi schemes can happen right under your nose. Then things get bad and everyone tries to get their money out. But they can't because there isn't enough money! This is happening to everyone you know. It's called banks. If everyone tries to get their money out, the bank goes out of business. Sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me.

- schneid

It's Tuesday...It Must Be a Blizzard

2009-01-12T11:23:00.005-06:00

I'm getting tired of these Tuesday snowstorms. On the first day of my new volleyball league, December 9, it snowed during the afternoon and rush hour. It took me about 30 minutes to drive 2 miles on my way there. The next week, it snowed so badly on December 16 that we decided to cancel. On December 23, we were planning on going to my mom's house for dinner - but we couldn't due to another snowstorm. We didn't play volleyball again until Tuesday, January 6 - guess what - more snow that day.

Now we have a game tomorrow January 13 and they are predicting a blizzard starting today. However, we might not make it to work due to the weather, but it should be cleaned up by game time.

- schneid

Keep Governors Out of Jail

2008-12-09T12:56:00.000-06:00

In the wake of the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, now is the time to start an aggressive program to keep our governors out of prison. We must reach out to this at-risk group, help them stay out of jail, and show them how to become productive members of society. The following graph shows that governors are now incarcerated at a higher rate than whites and hispanics.

Convicted US governors from the past 30 years:

Governor	State	Term	Notes
John Rowland	Connecticut	1995-2004	resigned in 2004, convicted and sent to prison
Don Siegelman	Alabama	1999-2003	convicted in 2006 on corruption charges and sent to prison
George Ryan	Illinois	1999-2003	convicted in 2006 on corruption charges and sent to prison
Bob Taft	Ohio	1999-2007	convicted of misdemeanors for failing to report gifts, remained in office
Fife Symington	Arizona	1991-1997	convicted in 1997 and forced to resign, conviction was eventually overturned
Jim Tucker	Arkansas	1992-1996	convicted in 1996 and forced to resign, received probation and house detention due to poor health
Guy Hunt	Alabama	1987-1993	convicted in 1992, sentenced to parole, later granted a pardon by the parole board based on innocence
Edwin Edwards	Louisiana	1972–1980, 1984–1988, and 1992–1996	convicted in 1998 and sent to prison
Marvin Mandel	Maryland	1969-1979	convicted in 1977, sent to prison, conviction was overturned in 1987
Rod Blagojevich	Illinois	2002-present	arrested on December 9, 2008

Please help keep our governors out of prison!

- schneid

Fitness notes 12/5

2008-12-05T15:04:00.003-06:00

I worked out 2-3 times the week before Thanksgiving, swam and went on a hike during the week of Thanksgiving, and worked out twice this week. This week really should've been 3-4 times, but it's a start. I'm going to start playing volleyball with my friend Tim next week. It has been, oh, almost 7 years since I've played regularly in an indoor volleyball league. It should be fun and I'm looking forward to it.

And if it ever warms up to 50 (it's like 12 degrees today), I'd like to start running with the other Tim again.

- schneid

summer blend gas

2008-12-04T22:40:00.001-06:00

I love that term - "summer blend gas". Whenever I think about it, I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from Seinfeld. Jerry is buying a car from David Puddy, and says "That undercoating, that’s just a rip-off, isn’t it?", and Puddy says "Oh, we don't even know what that is."

The plunging oil prices made me think of that. Watch out, by the way. We're not even close to the bottom of this recession. Unemployment, housing, stock market, and everything else are still on their way down. Why? There's no reason for them to go up. There are a lot more people that are going to default on their mortgages and lose their jobs. You can't improve the economy if people aren't working, regardless of what Wall Street or Washington would have you believe.

- schneid

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-30T21:24:00.001-06:00

I really need to catch up on the last 6 months, but maybe I should start with the most recent events since those are fresh in my mind.

Due to the bad economy, we decided to drive to North Carolina for Thanksgiving this year instead of flying. This was the first time we drove there with the kids. We gave Anna an early Christmas present, a Nintendo DS and some games.

The kids occupied themselves with their games, books, and DVDs. We spent some time sitting in the back with Anna and keeping her busy. The first day was an easy one, a 5 hour drive to Bloomington, Indiana to visit Kevin, Amy, Carter, and Archie. We hadn't seen them (I think) since our 20 year reunion in August 2006.

We arrived around 2:00 and stayed until after dinner. Ben and Carter were excited to see each other, almost as excited as Sweetness the attention-starved (or so he would have you believe) beagle was to see us. The kids (that sometimes includes Kevin) ran around and had fun while the adults (that sometimes includes Kevin) caught up. We had fun playing Wii Rock Band and hanging out. We had a great time - thanks Kevin and Amy!

We spent the night at a hotel in preparation for our 6:15 wakeup - because I didn't want to hit the mountains in the dark that night. We did wake up on time but didn't leave quickly due to a leisurely breakfast. It had been beautiful and sunny the previous day. This day it was dark and rainy.

We drove on some winding roads back to the freeway. It seems like Bloomington is up on a hill. This was the start of hilly driving which continued for the next 7 hours until we past Asheville, North Carolina. We did get some daylight in the mountains. And mostly is was drizzling, so the drive wasn't too bad. We arrived in Clemmons around 7:30 PM.

The kids were excited to see Nana and Zadie (and Tigger and Eeyore, their cats), and vice-versa except for the cats. After a day or two, an adult would be able to rub the cats into a purr-induced coma so that the kids could pet them. The cats referred to Anna (or at least we imagined they did) as the "Pink Thing". They would take off whenever the kids were moving.

We went to Sci Works in Winston-Salem with Zadie on Tuesday. It's a nice science museum for kids and we enjoyed it. On Wednesday, we went swimming at the YMCA with Nana. Debi and David arrived with Genevieve that day. On Thursday, we visited a couple of Zadie's homes for sale and had a big Thanksgiving dinner at home. Of course, that was not much different from every other night that we had a big dinner, except that Nana did all the work on Thursday. We ate and drank too much the entire week. On Friday, we went hiking at Pilot Mountain. It was a nice sunny day and maybe 50 degrees up there. In fact, it was sunny and warm the entire week. Near the end of the hike there was a lot of grumbling, but we had fun and needed the exercise.

Nana and Zadie were gracious hosts as always - it's not easy to have a houseful of people for a week. Nana's brother also came on Wednesday and left on Friday, so they had 8 guests! I think everyone had a great time. It was fun to add Genevieve to the mix. The kids liked having another kid around and Anna really liked doing things with her.

Now that we were leaving on Saturday, of course the clouds and rain came back, although it only rained for about 3 hours on the drive home. We left before noon and drove straight back home. We spent about 12 hours driving and 2.5 hours on stops. Anna fell asleep around 8:30, but Ben was so excited to go home that he didn't fall asleep until about 9:30. We took turns driving and it went fine until we hit the wall around 9:30. The next hour or two were excruciating until the caffeine set in. The last 4 hours were tough. We were really sick of being in the car and ready to get home. We arrived around 1:30 AM. We were all happy to be back in our own beds!

Airfare was about $425 each, plus we needed to rent a car, so it would've cost a minimum of $1900. With the price of gas as low as 1.54 (in Indiana) and an average of about 1.79, we only spent about $150 on gas. We spent one night at a hotel and had some meals. The whole trip cost less than $400. Good deal. I did have one splurge - I bought a Garmin Nuvi 650 GPS before the trip. It worked very well and I left my stack of maps at home.

- schneid

again

2008-11-20T15:06:00.002-06:00

Another day, another workout. On Wednesday, I attended a yoga class at work. I am very sore from the Tuesday fitness class, so that was perfect. The stretching felt great. Then I had a big salad for lunch.

- schneid

another workout

2008-11-18T15:30:00.003-06:00

I worked out again today. Woohoo, two days in a row, it's a new record. I didn't work up a sweat yesterday so I decided to try the fitness class today. I have never attended a fitness class. It was not fun. I had 12 lb weights in my hands for almost 45 minutes. My stomach muscles were cramping from all the abdominal work. I know I sound like a wimp but it's pretty tough when you're this out of shape.

Thank god it was taco salad day in the cafeteria. It was almost worth it. Fortunately they have yoga tomorrow. I'll go to class and just lay on the floor.

Can't wait to try it again next week! Buy some Advil stock.

- schneid

I worked out

2008-11-17T13:53:00.003-06:00

Yes, believe it or not, I worked out. I've been slacking off badly. I worked out hard a couple months ago and ended up with back spasms. That wasn't fun. I'm feeling better now, including my ankle, so I'm going to get back in the groove. Hopefully I can hit the gym at least 3 times this week, especially since next week is Thanksgiving. I also ate a salad for lunch. Pathetic, I know. But it's a start.

- schneid

Swoopo - wish I'd thought of THAT!

2008-09-18T13:14:00.003-05:00

These is this ridiculous new auction site called swoopo. The company itself is auctioning all the items. In some auctions, the bid increments are 1 or 15 cents. And the winner of the auction generally gets a TV or laptop or whatever at a good price.

Here's the catch...it costs $1 to place a bid! Suppose they auction off a TV worth $1500. Let's suppose that 100 people bid about 50 times each for this TV. So the TV sells for $750. Someone gets a $1500 TV for $750 (plus their $50 in bids). 99 people are out $50 each. And swoopo makes...drum roll please...$5000!!! (OK, they had to pay $1200 for the TV which they sold for $750, so they made $5000-1200+750 = $4550 profit.)

They also have automatic bidding so sometime near the end of an auction, automatic bids come fast and furious. And every time someone bids, it adds time to the clock!

Sometime they even auction off CASH. That doesn't seem legal. It's basically gambling. The whole thing seems borderline illegal and unethical. They are making money like crazy. Wish I'd thought of it!

- schneid

Creating tabs in SharePoint using Javascript and CSS

2008-08-28T15:24:00.016-05:00

I couldn’t find an example of this, but I was determined to make it work. Here is the result.

I wanted a set of tabs where clicking on a tab would change the category but stay on the same page. Also, I must be able to pass in that category through the URL.

For example, I might have a web page http://...describe.aspx. I want to display information from several SharePoint lists. However, if I use the
URL http://...describe.aspx?animal=cat, then I only want the information about cats, and if I use http://...describe.aspx?animal=dog, then I only want the information about dogs.

Data views in SharePoint Designer will be used to display the desired information, using the animal variable. The method for that is not described here.

So I need to somehow read the variable from the URL using JavaScript. Then I need to highlight the tab corresponding to the variable. I found the code for that here: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-11883.html

It doesn’t look that great in the screenshots, but when you put the code into a SharePoint web part, it looks better. Here is the code:


<style type="text/css">



span.class1

{

float: left;

padding: 4px 0px;

font-size: 1em;

font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;

border-right: 1px solid rgb(123,166,225);

}



.class1 A:link

{

background-color: #ffffff;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavunselected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}

.class1 A:visited 

{

background-color: #ffffff;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavunselected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}

.class1 A:hover

{

text-decoration: none;

background-color: #FCE293;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/PortalTabSelected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}

.class1 A:active

{

background-color: #ffffff;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavunselected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}









</style>



 

<script type="text/JavaScript">



// set the color of the chosen tab

// the tab is chosen by appending ?page=cat to the URL



function change(page)

{

document.getElementById(page).style.backgroundColor = "#7BA6E1";

document.getElementById(page).style.backgroundImage="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavselected.gif)";

document.getElementById(page).style.backgroundRepeat= "repeat-x";

document.getElementById(page).style.fontWeight= "bold";



}



// runs a function at page load time



function addLoadEvent(func) {



  var oldonload = window.onload;

  if (typeof window.onload != 'function') {

    window.onload = func;

  } else {

    window.onload = function() {

      if (oldonload) {

        oldonload();

      }

      func();

    }

  }

}



// run this function at page load time



addLoadEvent(function $_GET(key_str) {

if(window.location.search) {

var query = window.location.search.substr(1);

var pairs = query.split(/&|;/);

for(var i = 0; i < pairs.length; i++) {

var pair = pairs[i].split("=");

if(unescape(pair[0]) == key_str)

return unescape(pair[1]);

}

}

change(pair[1]);

}

);



</script>



<span class=class1>

<a href="default.aspx?page=cat" id=cat>cat</a>

</span>



<span class=class1>

<a href="default.aspx?page=dog" id=dog>dog</a>

</span>



<span class=class1>

<a href="default.aspx?page=horse" id=horse>horse</a>

</span>

- schneid

The Salesman at Home

2008-08-06T23:02:00.000-05:00

I was wondering what life might be like for the salesman at home.

Customer (Billy): cries and screams incoherently.

Salesman (Dad): "OK, I understand. I'm sure we can do that, let me talk to Engineering. No problem."

Later:

Dad: "The customer would like the system to produce chocolate milk. When can we have that implemented?"

Engineering (Mom): "I'm pretty sure that's impossible".

Dad: "3 months then?"

Mom (exasperated): FINE.

Dad: "Also, a stretch goal would be a baby brother, can you squeeze that in? It's a nice to have, but would really help our customer relationship. The customer really wants that."

Mom: "I think we need more time to consider the implications of that. And we're going to need input from sales. It's going to take 9 months, at least."

Dad: "Can't you work harder and move some things around? We really need this or we might lose the customer. And we need it in 3 months."

Mom (giving up): "Sure."

- schneid

Anticipating the Great Taste of the Midwest 2008

2008-07-17T23:49:00.001-05:00

I love beer festivals. Granted, I haven't been to many, but when it's love, you just KNOW it, you know? The Great Taste is a terrific beer festival for so many reasons. It's really well-organized and reasonably priced at $35. They only sell 5000 tickets, so it's not overcrowded. It's held at a nice park on the lake in Madison. The people are friendly and the food is good. Best of all, every good brewery in the Midwest is serving beer. You can sample some rare beers that are almost impossible to get, such as barrel aged Dark Lord and barrel aged Darkness.

I can't wait for August 9!

- schneid

Why did the caribou cross the road?

2008-07-16T22:50:00.000-05:00

...because their habitat was destroyed by profit-mongering US oil companies! Gosh, that's not very funny.

Yes, the price of gas is very high right now. That sucks. Most everyone would agree with that. But will drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Reserve solve that problem? No.

Here's the premise: we need to drill for oil in Alaska to lower gas prices!

And here are the reasons that will not work:

It will take years to get any oil from ANWR, so why would that help oil prices now?
The total oil coming from ANWR will be about 1% of the world oil supply. Why should we think that will affect oil prices by more than 1%?
OPEC controls the world's oil prices, so if we actually manage to produce more oil, they will just produce less, keeping the prices the same.
Even if somehow we could put a dent in the oil supply, why would Big Oil give us a break on the price??? They could do that RIGHT NOW! But do they? NO! They continue to make record profits while we all suffer the consequences.

Congress could force oil companies to charge less money for gas. But they won't do it, because they get big campaign contributions from Big Oil!

Big Oil could charge less for gas, and maybe just for one quarter they could have just average billion dollar profits, rather than record multi-billion dollar profits. But they won't do it, because then where would the CEos get all the 100 dollar bills to light their cigars?

Good potential solutions may be:

alternative energy sources
drive less
more fuel efficient cars
take public transportation
4 day work week

Unfortunately, those things won't happen soon enough, because Americans like to drive their gas guzzlers. And this problem hurts the lower class the most. After all, $400 per month for gas hurts a lot more if your gross income is $2000 per month than if it is $6000 per month. So politicians don't give a crap because they all make tons of money. The US auto industry is reacting too slowly and they will soon be gone because of it.

Didn't we encounter the very same problem in the 1970s? Everyone was going crazy about solar power and other alternative energy sources. Then we were all fat and happy in the 80s and 90s and forgot all about it. Maybe if we spent billions of dollars on research instead of war, we would already have an answer.

Maybe McCain will follow Bush's lead and send everyone an extra tax refund - an economic incentive. Unfortunately, that's just giving you back your own money.

- schneid

Poker tourney cash

2008-07-13T23:50:00.004-05:00

I finally managed to win a little money in a poker tournament.

I was disappointed with my results at Friday's tournament with our weekly group. I would be remiss to not mention my first bustout (it was a rebuy tourney) to Marc with my KK vs his 99 where, of course, he rivered a 9. Anyway, I finished 7th out of 10.

On Saturday night, I found some cool tournaments on PokerStars. There are $12 sit-n-gos for 180 players. The only ones that ever fill are turbos, which I'm not crazy about. It's amazing how fast these go - 2/3 of the players are eliminated in under an hour. It pays 18 places, but you don't get much unless you are top 5. I won a 9 player $16 sit-n-go for $67.50 but didn't cash in the 180-player.

On Sunday night, I played in 6 simultaneous 180-player sit-n-gos. They fill up every 10 minutes or so. I at least doubled my stack in four of them. And finally, in one of them, I made it to the final 3. The overwhelming chip leader surprisingly offered to make a deal. He suggested a very good deal and we agreed. I was third in chips with about 26,000, and the other players had about 54,000 and 190,000. My cut was $350, which was almost second place money.

It was nice to get a decent cash and I'm going to start playing these regularly. The level of the players is awful. When it gets down to about 30 players, the skill level is pretty good. But there isn't much room to maneuver because the antes kick in and the stacks aren't very big, so you pretty much need to push all-in or fold. And then you need to get lucky.

I also played in an insane 0.50/$1 cash game on Saturday night. A guy kept making and calling raises with crap and making huge hands. Here's the first hand he showed down, and lost:

UTG limps, UTG+1 raises to $16 all-in (huge overbet), Maniac calls on BB, UTG calls all-in.

UTG: JJ
UTG+1: AQo
Maniac: 8d3s ???

The board came 6s As 6c 8h 2s and AQo wins with two pair. But the Maniac called a huge $14 to win a $18.50 pot with 83 offsuit! Shortly after, the Maniac triples up.

UTG limps for $1, UTG+2 limps, SB raises to $6, BB (Maniac) raises to $22 all-in, UTG folds, UTG+2 calls all-in, SB calls all-in. The hands?

UTG+2: AcAs
SB: QdQc
Maniac: 43cc

Flop: 3h 2c Tc
Turn: 9c !
River: 2s

And Maniac triples up with his flush. The following hand occurred immediately after that one:

HJ-1 limps, HJ raises to $4, SB (Maniac) calls, BB calls, HJ-1 calls.

Flop: 6c 2d 2h

HJ bets $10, Maniac calls, everyone else folds.

Turn: 9c

HJ bets $21, Maniac raises to $49 all-in, HJ calls.

River: Qc

The HJ had TT. Maniac flopped a boat with 6h2s!

In two hands, the Maniac now has 6x his starting stack.

Now everyone is gunning for the Maniac, calling raises with very little, and hoping to double up. I finally get a decent hand and get into a pot with him.

me: AKo
Maniac: ?

Maniac raises to $5 UTG, CO calls, I call on SB. I wanted to reraise, but I didn't want the CO to think I was trying to isolate the maniac and reraise me.

Flop: 8d Qd Ac

I check to give the Maniac some rope, Maniac bets $10, CO goes all-in for $13, I raise to $25, Maniac calls.

Turn: 9d

I hate that card. I check, Maniac bets $20, I call.

River: 6c

I check, Maniac bets $25, I call.

Maniac shows down 5d3d for a flush! I lost $70 in that pot. I started playing badly, calling raises with bad hands to try to snap off the maniac, but it never happened. Fortunately, I managed to get all-in with someone else with QQ vs TT on a 922 flop to recover my loss and actually finish the table with a slight gain. The Maniac started with $39 and worked it up over $200.

-schneid

Blog Slacker

2008-06-23T01:51:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I've been slacking badly on my blog. I need to catch up on Dark Lord Day (April), our Disney trip (April/May), geocaching (June?), my sprained ankle, cub scout stuff including family camp (June), my upcoming trip to my childhood summer camp, Camp Edwards, etc. Now that I'm off World of Warcrack, I might be able to get those blogged.

- schneid

World of Warcrack

2008-06-23T01:35:00.000-05:00

In college, I spent a lot of time playing MUDs - Multi-user dimensions, which were a precursor to the massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) of today, like World of Warcraft. I eventually became a programmer for some of those MUDs, including the famous HERO MUD. After college, I stopped playing.

Shortly after Ben was born, I borrowed Might and Magic 5 or 6 from a friend. That game is a single player game and isn't even very good, and I played it in all my spare time for a month. I believe Suzette's exact words were "It's us or the game". I gave it back and made my friend promise not to let me borrow it.

A week ago, Suzette gave me a subscription to World of Warcraft for Father's Day.

I am proud to say without any uncertainty and beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I must stop playing this game right now. It's so thoroughly addicting and the hugest time suck. While playing, you check the time and think 30 minutes have gone by, and it's been 3 hours. And I'm not even playing with a group of people, just soloing.

There's a reason they refer to it as World of Warcrack. It's highly addictive. Just like giving samples to kiddies, they give a 10-day free trial, knowing you will get hooked. And I am.

Fortunately, I used the 10-day free trial instead of the subscription, knowing what might happen. I'm going to Target to trade it in for something less addictive like heroin. :) There's a reason that we have never owned an Xbox or other gaming system. Hmm, I wonder if they have those at Target?

- schneid

This was supposed to be the Summer of George!

2008-06-02T23:39:00.001-05:00

I haven't blogged in awhile because there's nothing to blog. I sprained my ankle badly on May 9. Plyaing basketball, I made a good cut (unusual for me), got the pass, went up for the shot...and came down hard on someone's foot. I saw the doctor, spent a week on crutches, then hobbled around for a week, but the pain was so bad, I went to see a specialist. He gave me an aircast (the boot) and told me to wear it for 2-3 weeks.

It's a bummer because I was getting back into the groove of running regularly and had lost a few pounds before the injury. I had our bicycles tuned up and was planning on riding to work. We live near the Prairie Path and I can safely ride to work, and it's about 7 miles which is a great short ride. And the summer volleyball season is starting.

This was supposed to be the Summer of George! Do you remember that Seinfeld episode? George discovers that he has a 3 month severance package from the Yankees. He decides to take the summer off, and declares it the "Summer of George". But he gets injured, and the doctor says "Mr. Costanza, your legs have sustained extensive trauma. Apparently your body was in a state of advanced atrophy, due to a period of extreme inactivity. But with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, I think there's a good chance you may, one day, walk again." Unmoved by the news, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer go out for coffee and leave him. He shouts at them as they walk away, "This was supposed to be the Summer of George!"

I plan to wear the boot for a few more days, then start rehabilitating my ankle. I hope to ride my bike pretty soon and play volleyball by the end of June. I had planned to seriously get into shape this summer and drop a lot of weight. Unfortunately, the injury has interfered with the Summer of George but I'll have almost two months left when I'm ready to go.

- schneid

Here comes Dark Lord Day!

2008-04-24T23:24:00.001-05:00

I'm psyched for Dark Lord Day. And also Disney World. :) Suzette took her last quiz a week early, so she is done with her class and earned an A. Friday night, Bob is in town with his family and we are all meeting at Tim's house. Saturday is Dark Lord Day. Last year was the first time I attended Dark Lord Day, and it was awesome. I'm bringing some cool beer to share and trade, and I'll get my ration of Dark Lord. Then on Sunday, we're going to Disney World for a week.

I love vacation!

- schneid

Russian Imperial Stout

2008-04-16T23:35:00.004-05:00

This is my favorite beer style and I'm assembling a lineup of the best RIS for a tasting with friends. I plan to have about 8 people at the tasting and will have about 12 beers. That might not sound like much, but a Russian Imperial Stout has double to triple the alcohol of your typical beer. We will be sharing 22 oz bombers of each, or two 12 ouncers in some cases.

I've been making beer trades to get the rare ones. For example, a RIS called Sexual Chocolate has only been bottled once, and there were only 500 bottles. Dark Lord may be rare, but they made 5000+ bottles last year. Surly Darkness has only been bottled once and there were only 480 bottles.

Here's the complete lineup. Some of these are not Russian Imperial Stouts, but they are all thick, black, and yummy.

Three Floyds Dark Lord
Portsmouth Brewing Kate the Great
Foothills Brewing Sexual Chocolate
Deschutes The Abyss
Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout
Alesmith Speedway Stout
Stone Imperial Russian Stout
Smuttynose Imperial Stout
Bell's Expedition Stout
Great Lakes Blackout Stout
America's Brewing Company Bourbon Barrel Signature Imperial Stout

Don't have yet:

Peche Mortel
Surly Darkness
Lost Abbey Older Viscosity
Ten Fidy

The Ten Fidy is easy to get, just not around here. The Peche Mortel is harder to get, but not impossible. The Older Viscosity will be hard and the Darkness almost impossible.

Here are some that are easy to get, but might not make the cut:

Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti
Southern Tier Choklat
various Rogue stouts
North Coast Old Rasputin
Bear Republic Big Bear Black Stout
Victory Storm King Stout

- schneid

Fitness status 4/16

2008-04-16T22:32:00.000-05:00

I played basketball on Monday. I hadn't been out in a couple of weeks and I played pretty well. I also played on Wednesday. It was really windy outside so shooting was horrible. I jammed my pinky and ring finger and played through it. It's sprained pretty good and swelled up today. Looks like I won't be playing for a few days. Tim and I are scheduled to run on Friday if it doesn't rain.

- schneid

Fitness update 4/11

2008-04-11T19:28:00.001-05:00

Here's a little fitness update - maybe it will be easier if I do it weekly rather than daily.

I strained a ligament in my back on March 31, then over the weekend I actually threw a vertebra out of whack. The chiropractor really helped my ligament last week, and on Monday he fixed the vertebra in about 5 seconds. My back feels a lot better.

I lifted weights hard on Monday and Wednesday. I ran with Tim at lunchtime today. So, not a bad week. It felt good to get out there.

I plan to go back to my regular routine of basketball 1-2x per week, running 1-2x per week, and weights 1-2x per week. I hadn't been exercising nearly enough in February and March. I also wasn't lifting weights at all. I think that is critical so that I can keep everything in good enough condition to handle all this exercise.

I've been eating better than usual, having a salad for lunch a couple times this week and some reasonable dinners, and avoiding (somewhat) sweets.

I'll play basketball next week and see how it feels.

- schneid

Fitness status

2008-04-02T23:39:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, I decided to start working out vigorously. I was over my cold and ready to get some exercise. On Monday, I played basketball at lunch and actually played decently. Then I made a sudden move and wrenched my back. Great, my plan for getting back into shape lasted 24 hours. On Wednesday, I saw a chiropractor. Fortunately, it's just a strained ligament and it feels better already, so I should be back in action in a couple of days. It's really frustrating because we had great weather for running this week. Maybe next week...

It's tough getting old!

- schneid

Poker Stars and Full Tilt

2008-04-02T23:25:00.001-05:00

Last week, I started playing at Poker Stars and Full Tilt. I bought a prepaid Visa card and was able to get money into the accounts with it. I had been playing on UltimateBet ever since PartyPoker disallowed US players. The problem with UltimateBet is that there just aren't that many players, and not enough selection in tournaments and cash games.

I have learned one thing. The cash players on Poker Stars and Full Tilt are better. At the same levels (.25/.50 and .50/1 no-limit), the players are much more aggressive. There is rarely an unraised pot preflop. On Ultimatebet, I could limp in with small pairs and suited connectors all the time. That just doesn't happen on Stars. If you limp on Stars, I guarantee someone will raise and shut out the limpers.

As for the tournaments I've played, the skill level is about the same. My goal is to win satellites to play in the big Sunday tournaments. Stars has double shootout satellites for $11? with a good structure. I played in a shootout with about 60 players tonight. I made it to heads up at the first table and we played a long time. In fact, we were the last table out of 10 to finish. It was a close match and I had a good read on my opponent; unfortunately, I jammed A3 at the wrong time, when he had AK.

I can definitely win the first table in a shootout. There are usually 2-3 players who bust out pretty quickly, which is silly because the structure is so good. There is plenty of time and no need to be overly aggressive. Winning the final table is another matter. That will be tough and require a lot of luck too. I think I'm playing decently and learning from my mistakes. Hopefully I'll have some results to show for it soon.

- schneid

The downfall of grammar

2008-03-18T08:13:00.000-05:00

Since more communication is in written form now, you might think that grammar and spelling would improve. I think it's worse. The proliferation of text messaging is partly to blame, since it is dependent on using shortened (incorrectly spelled) words. People don't put any thought into their written words. My biggest pet peeves include "would of," as in "I would of been there" (I would've been there) and using apostrophes for plurals, as in "I have 3 dog's." It's (or its) an endless list but I'll quit there (or their or they're). (I have to admit that I normally violate the "punctuation within quotations rule," and would usually place the comma outside of the quotes in this sentence.)

Email should be a clear form of communication. You have the opportunity to put together some coherent thoughts in your own time. The recipient can then answer at his convenience, also putting time into his responses. This is much better than a phone call, where the caller might blather on endlessly before actually stating the question. Unfortunately, email has degraded into a "type how I speak" form in which the sender simply types exactly the words they would say on the phone. Any semblance of decorum is lost.

Of course, the level of formality depends on the relationship of the two parties. If you are chatting with your buddy, go crazy. If it's a work email or you are trying to prove a logical point, poor grammar really blows your cover.

My son is learning grammar in second grade. I don't recall learning that until junior high school. I am amazed that he can correct a poorly formed sentence. Hopefully, the net generation (whoops, I meant to type "next" but that seems appropriate) will do better.

- schneid

Bear Stearns and the Economy

2008-03-17T19:15:00.002-05:00

Wow, that's some amazing news. Bear Stearns was trading for $87 on February 27. One year ago, their stock was as high as $167 per share. Today, JP Morgan Chase bought them out for about $2 per share, a total of about $236 million.

Let's see how much money CEO Alan Schwartz earned last year. $35.7, well, let's just call it an even $36 million dollars. And for what? Losing 98.8% of his company's value in only 1 year! Congratulations! But it's not his fault, you say? If the CEO isn't responsible for the fate of his company, then the CEO shouldn't get paid a lot of money. I believe the CEO is responsible and still shouldn't get paid a lot of money. Give them $1 million and give them a big bonus based on the company's performance. Of course, then they would just cook the books so they could be billionaires instead of millionaires.

I think the economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Oil prices are at a record high, the US dollar is at a record low, banks are collapsing, inflation is rising, unemployment is rising, the market id down, the housing market has slumped for two years, and the fed continues to lower interest rates.

But don't worry, you'll be getting your economic stimulus check soon! That will fix everything! :)

And what will we do with that money? Buy more cheap stuff from China! And the more junk we buy from China, the faster we'll lose our jobs.

Let's just cut out the middle man. Instead of sending refunds to taxpayers, why doesn't the government send 1/2 the money to US corporations and 1/2 the money to the Chinese?

- schneid

This reminds me of a quote from Good Will Hunting.

Will: Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had a no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

Glory Builders

2008-03-16T22:20:00.003-05:00

If you are interested in building a new home near Clemmons, Lewisville, Advance, or Winston-Salem in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, look no further than Glory Builders! Harvey Schneider builds quality homes at reasonable prices.

Developments include Barrington Oaks, Bermuda Run West, Riverway on the Yadkin, and Taylors Run. Visit the Glory Builders web site and see for yourself.

- schneid

Getting back in the swing

2008-03-14T08:26:00.002-05:00

Poker sucked last night. There were 9 players and I was only 1 hour late but was the 9th, which meant that I had to squeeze between two guys at the octagon table. I couldn't catch decent cards to save my life, and folded the winner on the river at least 4 times. 9 players is ridiculous if we're not playing flop games.

I've slacked pretty badly at exercising and thus blogging. I've managed to exercise twice a week, but haven't been running since mid-January. I could play basketball indoors but it's 54 degrees today so I'm planning a run. I'm hoping to run a lot more often as the weather warms up.

Weight: 193. I'm up 9 from my best, but still down 7 from where I started. It's hard to exercise enough during the winter but that's no excuse.

Food:

2 granola bars, coffee with Equal and skim milk
big salad for lunch, diet Pepsi, small piece of cake, banana
dinner - taco salad

Exercise:

lifted weights, then ran and walked about 2 miles.

- schneid

dinner at Charlie Trotter's

2008-03-09T21:43:00.008-05:00

On March 8, we went to Charlie Trotter's in Chicago to celebrate two 40th birthdays. Suzette will be 40 in a few days, and my running partner Tim actually turned 40 that day. I can honestly say that our dinner at Charlie Trotter's was the best meal I've ever had.

For a lot more photos, please visit my Flickr page.

We checked into the Radisson Hotel and Suites Chicago around 4:15. The hotel is under renovation, which is a pain. You actually have to go outside to walk from the lobby to the elevators or the pub. Fortunately, the rooms we reserved were not available and we were upgraded to a junior suite.

we walked around Michigan Avenue...

We met up with Tim and Thea around 7:15 and walked over to the Elephant and Castle pub. We had a light snack and some good beer - the Fuller's ESB was great but the Fuller's London Porter wasn't as good as usual.

We left around 8:30 and grabbed a cab to Charlie Trotter's. We arrived early and only waited a few minutes for our table. We could have had dinner at 6:00, but we wanted to eat at the kitchen table which was only available at 9:00 that night.

More details to come. It took over 3 hours to finish dinner!

- schneid

Bad web design

2008-02-25T22:21:00.003-06:00

I am so tired of bad web design. My biggest pet peeve is when a web site has a workflow diagram with a little word under each picture describing the item – but you can’t click on the picture, only on the word!
It’s even worse when the word is small. A similar problem is when you are supposed to click on some teeny tiny icon to open a link. You can barely get your cursor on that icon. Here is a table of information and you click on an item to get more information. But instead of having a link from the description, you must click on the small number!
Another common web design problem is the difficulty of finding relevant information. Most visitors to certain types of web sites are often in search of 2-3 pieces of information. For example, most visitors to a school web site are probably looking for the school calendar (or lunch calendar), the attendance line (to call when your child is sick) or office phone number, or school closings. All this information should appear on the school’s main web page and you should be able to see it without scrolling. There shouldn’t just be a link to that stuff, the information should appear on that page.

Sometimes web sites have icons instead of words for common links. I think icons are ok when you use the web site a lot, like your blog. A little pencil icon means edit. OK, I get it. But if someone only visits a web site occasionally, what does a little book icon mean? Address book? Read a book? Who knows. Web sites with infrequent visitors should abandon icons or at least combine them with text.

Even worse are bad fonts. I’ve seen some pretty unreadable fonts. Here’s an example:

If you like the look of a fancy font, then use it for your header. But a paragraph needs to have a readable font. You also shouldn't assume that every browser supports the fonts that you have. At least take it into consideration when you use a fancy font.

I've seen pages that have no headers or categories - the links are embedded into paragraphs. This style was abandoned about 15 years ago for good reason. It's cute when it's your personal web site but not when it's an information web site. I don't have time to read a paragraph, just list out the relevant links!

Better searches! This is a category in itself, and really applies to big corporate sites as opposed to mom and pop web sites, since they presumably don't have the programming capability to do it right. It's unbelievable that I can go to a hotel web site, type in Madison, and what comes up is a list of damn near every Madison in the US...except Wisconsin...because that is on the SECOND page of results! Come on! Or when there is only one result to your search - but instead of displaying the information, the web site displays a link! Now you must click again to get the information. Argh!

Here's one of my favorites. I'm trying to book a flight. I enter Chicago and Albany. And here's what I get:

This site may be using a soundex search, in case people type a word the way it sounds and misspell it. But that's idiotic when they have spelled the word correctly and there is only one exact match.

Try to display the information in the same page whenever possible. I've been thinking about this lately, and I'm sure that other people have too. I'm tired of opening page after page of subcategories to get information when the site has very little information in the first place.

If you have a personal site, or your site isn’t informational, do whatever you like. But if you have an informational web site, please don’t do these:

Bad fonts
Hard to find important information
Can't click on images or links are not obvious
Non-descriptive categories
Bad searches
Too many clicks to get to relevant information
No headers, categories, or list of links

My wife is getting tired of hearing me say "This is the WORST web site EVER!"

- schneid

Stimulate the economy?

2008-02-01T08:31:00.000-06:00

Let's just send money to everyone to stimulate the economy. I'm sure that will work!

If they send everyone money, one thing that will be stimulated is home mortgage refinancing. I was just looking into this myself. I could probably break even within a year, but definitely within two years. Then I would save 43,000 in interest over the life of my loan. Even more if mortgage rates drop below 5.5%. Unless I desperately needed the money for something else, which I don't, this would be the best financial decision for me. This is probably true for almost everyone.

- schneid

New paintings

2008-01-10T21:58:00.000-06:00

We bought some paintings from an Israeli door-to-door salesman. I bet you've never heard that sentence before.

Suzette called me at work and said that a man was selling very nice original oil paintings. They were pretty expensive, at least to us, since most of our artwork has been purchased for $50 or less, but we considered buying one of the small ones. She said the paintings were very good. She asked him to return when I came home from work.

He showed us about 20 original oil paintings on rolled-up canvases. He had an accent so we asked where he was from - an Israeli accent is very hard to place. He was very intent on pleasing us, and showed off the paintings and made suggestions for which would match our decor. We ended up buying two - a small one and a big one. They are almost identical - Paris street scenes with the Eiffel Tower. One now resides over the fireplace in our family room and the big one is in the living room. The salesman was actually the artist that painted our paintings.

There were some other paintings that we really liked of Mediterranean scenes and typical French or Italian hill towns, but those were all tall rather than wide, and we don't have a good spot for them.

The story is that a group of art students are opening a gallery in New York. They sold paintings in the Batavia area last year, and decided to come back again this year. The paintings are all original oils by these students.

My neighbor is convinced that this is a scam. I ask him, "What's the scam? I have two beautiful original oil paintings that I love at a fair price." Sure, it's sounds funny that paintings are being sold door-to-door, but unless they're stolen, I can't imagine what the scam is.

The artist suggested a local friend who does framing. We checked at Michael's and JoAnn's, and framing is outrageously expensive. $1000 for two paintings - with a coupon you can get it for $500. We invited the local framer to come over. He was also Israeli, and really wanted to please us. He showed us all the frames with our paintings and made suggestions. Framing a canvas oil painting involves more than just sticking it in a frame. You must stretch the canvas over a homemade frame and staple it. We picked some frames, and he would frame the paintings and return them in a week. Now that's the part that might sound like a scam - you just bought some paintings from one guy, and now another guy is going to take those paintings and frame them. Hmm, would they ever return? But they let you choose any painting as collateral - so you pick another painting that you really like and keep it until they return your framed paintings.

Of course, the framed paintings were returned in a week and we really like them. The photo is the big one. No, it's not crooked, I just can't shoot straight.

- Mike

Let's tax the rich

2008-01-09T23:17:00.000-06:00

I have an idea...let's raise taxes on the 10% most wealthy people in the US. I would bet that, say, 90% of US citizens would agree with that. That should work! Let's use the money to help the lower and middle class. Perhaps we can have school lunches or send the kids to college. But wait...the congressmen who could pass that law are in that 10% most wealthy. I guess it won't happen. We could convince them to do it - we're their constituents, after all. We voted for them. Oh, but then some rich people would give them large donations and subtlely suggest that they don't pass the law. And the corporations at which those rich people are CEOs would also donate money. And the Republicans would somehow convince the lower class that this "Robin Hood" law of robbing the rich and giving to the poor isn't fair, put some completely unrelated religious issue on the ballot, and get another Republican voted into the White House!

Sorry, went off on a tangent there.

What's so funny? Our forefathers started this country to get away from religious persecution and taxation without representation. They wanted a government that was elected by the people, for the people. Our government is elected by the people* but I don't think it's for the people. And the government wants to impose its religious agenda on everyone through the laws and the Supreme Court. Unless I'm really wrong about Americans, in which case maybe I'm living in the wrong country.

- schneid

* Exception: 2000 US presidential election when the president was elected by the Supreme Court.

Outrageous cost of college tuition

2007-12-11T08:32:00.000-06:00

I just figured out that I need to save $1000 per month for the next 16 years to send my kids to college. Tuition has been rising at an 8.4% rate for the last 10 years, 8.2% for the last 20 years (reference: College Illinois). This means that if current annual tuition is $15,000 (e.g., at the University of Illinois), then in 11 years when Ben starts college, annual tuition will be $36,426. Four years of college tuition for Ben will cost $165,000. For Anna, the first year is $46,398 and all four years will cost $210,000.

These numbers are so outrageous, it might seem like they are made up. I assure you the calculations are correct. And that doesn't even include the cost of books, room, and board (currently another $10,000 per year). That adds on another 2/3 of the cost. So the cost of sending my kids to college could be $625,000. And that's if they graduate in four years or don't go to graduate school. The average student is taking more than 6 years to graduate from college, according to the article College Tuition Keeps Rising from US News.

Why is the cost of tuition rising? University officials said one reason they were raising sticker prices was to counterbalance reductions in the subsidies governments (in other words, taxpayers) provide for higher education. The Pennsylvania State University's main campus, for example, received the same state grant this year that it received five years ago, said spokesperson Bill Mahon. So the school raised tuition 5.6 percent this year to cover increased salaries, benefits, energy, and other operating costs, he said. according to the US News article.

And there's more. Finally, many colleges say they are raising tuition to generate more money to hand back to students as financial aid, in part to make up for the federal government's reductions in programs like the Pell grant. But the College Board said that even after subtracting financial aid, the net cost of college has risen at least 2 percentage points faster than inflation over the past decade.

Thank you, state and local governments. It's a pretty simple formula. Politicians make the decisions. They are (almost all) rich. They can afford college tuition regardless, and will probably send their kids to private schools. And they decide how much money will go to education. I can hear the thought process now. "Hmmm, we can give the rich a tax break, or we can give more money to the colleges. I vote for the tax break." The result? Fewer middle and lower class people will get a college education. And that's just what the rich elite want. If you're scared and uneducated, you'll just keep falling for their same old tricks.

The sad part is that we continue to vote for these politicians. They are supposed to represent us, but really they just represent themselves. They make every election about one or two issues. Ignore the man behind the curtain.

Personally, I think education benefits everyone, not just the person receiving the education. We would be a better country if people were more educated. I don't know the root of the problems in this country, but it wouldn't surprise me if poor education was one of them.

- schneid

Cheap stuff equals lost jobs

2007-12-04T08:37:00.000-06:00

I've been ranting and raving about this for years. One of the biggest problems with our country is everyone's desperate need to buy everything as cheaply as possible.

My inkjet printer broke recently. It originally cost $100 about 5 years ago. My choices were: buy a new printer for $75, or buy a new printhead for $50. This is a very typical scenario these days. In fact, maybe it's not, when I think of my car stereo. When that broke, it would cost $100 to buy a new one, and more than $100 to get it repaired. So I bought a new one. But when the printer broke, I bought the new printhead instead. The printer was still perfectly good, it just needed a new printhead. Why send the printer to a landfill? Maybe I'm just a more responsible citizen now. I hate to see all the stuff people put by the curb to send to the landfill.

Suppose you could pay $200 for a DVD player guaranteed to work for 4 years. Or you could pay $100 for a DVD player that would last 2 years. What would you do? Most people would pay $100, with the justification that "Hey, I can get another brand new one in 2 years!" But there is a hidden cost, in the landfills, god knows what's leaking out of the electronics in the landfills into our environment, and the lost jobs.

I think that manufacturing quality parts and opening automobile repair centers that are reasonably priced could save the American auto industry. Instead of making cars as cheaply as possible, they could make them as reliable as possible, then make money when you buy parts to repair them. It's only a matter of time before the American auto manufacturers are sold off to the Japanese, Germans, or who knows. I think the unions are partially to blame because they insist on a certain wage, and when they get it (or near it), thousands of people get laid off. The unions are squeezing their own people out of jobs. Then who profits? The people who run the unions.

Sure, many people want to buy a new car every few years, or they want to buy more expensive cars. But these aren't the people who can save the American auto industry. I'm talking about the lower and middle classes. They are the ones who want to buy American cars. They are the people who will spend $500 to repair their car every year, rather than get fed up and buy a new one. They don't have a choice. But they aren't stupid, and they're probably buying a lot more cheap foreign cars these days.

I just ran across the article Wal-Mart You Don't Know today and I feel vindicated. It says that not only does Wal-Mart want to sell the cheapest stuff, but they want to buy the products for less money every year, squeezing their suppliers for profits. This is causing the suppliers to outsource the labor, and is taking away American jobs.

This paragraph sums it up best:
It's Wal-Mart in the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand. And the Milwaukee employees of Master Lock who shopped at Wal-Mart to save money helped that hand shove their own jobs right to Nogales. Not consciously, not directly, but inevitably. "Do we as consumers appreciate what we're doing?" Larrimore asks. "I don't think so. But even if we do, I think we say, Here's a Master Lock for $9, here's another lock for $6--let the other guy pay $9."

If we keep outsourcing our jobs, who will have any money to buy all this stuff? The problem is that everyone only looks out for themselves, and few look at the big picture.

Here are some reactions to the article:

Liberals: goddamn greedy corporate bastards
Rich suburbanites: Wow, $2.97 for a gallon of pickles? I'm driving my Hummer to the nearest Wal-mart right now!
Republicans: Awesome, every time they sell some pickles, my Wal-Mart stock goes up .00000001 cents
Young people: OMG, NBD WCA ZZZZZ
Libertarians: It's a free country
George Bush: Terrorists hate our cheap pickles.
Democrats: goddamn George Bush
Everyone else: And this has what to do with me?

- schneid

Dec 3 update

2007-12-03T08:24:00.000-06:00

187. Don't know how that happened, haven't exercised a lot due to work and been eating badly. I'm probably dehydrated. Forgot my gym stuff today so I can't work out, but someone scheduled a meeting right up until 12:00 anyway that is sure to run long, so I probably wouldn't have time.

I installed some cabinets (salvaged from a neighbor's remodeling job) in my laundry room with the help of Greg T this weekend. OK, mostly Greg did the work and I watched. It's awesome to have a friend that knows how to do all this stuff. Our laundry room is 30x7 so we really needed some cabinets to get it organized. Plus those cabinets were taking up space in the garage where I wanted to park my car.

I hate winter! I have lived in Illinois every day of my life except for vacations. I grew up here, went to college here, still live here. And I hate the weather. On Friday, it snowed, then it rained for 5 or more hours, and everything was covered with ice. Walking from your car to your front door was a dangerous experience. Then, strangely, by morning everything had melted. I really want to move somewhere warmer, but we're committed to staying here near our relatives until the kids go to college...so guess I'll be moving to Florida in 2021. Only 14 years to go! Hooray!

Illinois is going to the Rose Bowl? That's surprising. It's great, but I guess the Rose Bowl doesn't mean as much as it used to.

- schneid

November 30 update

2007-11-30T15:20:00.000-06:00

188. I gained about 3 lbs over Thanksgiving. We went to North Carolina to visit Dad and Kay. Debi and David came in from Boston too. We had a good time and had a lot of great food and wine. I did go running one time...

Once again, I'm sorry for lack of updates. November was a really tough month. Ever had a bad day? Well, I had a bad month. Just one thing after another. And when I'm stressed, there are two things I want to do: 1. nothing, like sit around and watch movies, and 2. eat eat EAT! I had to work late from home last night, so to ease the pain, I ate a pizza (yes, a whole one) for dinner plus almost an entire huge Hershey bar for dessert, and I watched Minority Report while I worked. I worked until about 2:30 AM. When I'm up late working on metrics, it reminds me of a quote from Friends. Chandler says "Alright kids, I gotta get to work. If I don’t input those numbers...doesn’t make much of a difference." I also had a huge cheeseburger and fries for lunch. And Starbucks for breakfast. Funny, it didn't help.

I've had very little time to do anything enjoyable, and I have to manage my stress very carefully, which is why I avoid stress. So when don't have time to exercise or have fun, it's twice as bad.

I ran about 3 miles with Tim on Monday. I'm so disgusted with myself. Tim has lost 30 lbs so far (gained a few back over Thanksgiving). My best is down 16 lbs, and now I'm only down 12. I had to work through lunch yesterday and today so no exercise. Things will get back to "normal" next week, but December is always hard since there's so much to do for the holidays. If it wasn't for Tim, I'd probably have gained 12 lbs by now instead of losing it. It's good to have a running partner.

Poker-wise, I'm going to start playing on Full Tilt and maybe Poker Stars because Ultimatebet is a drag. We'll see. I may need to build my bankroll before moving. People are winning a ton of money in the big Sunday and other tournaments, and I'd like to try to get a cut.

- schneid

Lazy Blogger

2007-11-19T08:20:00.000-06:00

Sorry I've been so lazy blogging lately.

I have been maintaining my weight pretty well (185) but haven't lost any more weight in the last few weeks. I've been consistently running 1-2 times per week and playing basketball 1-2 times per week. And I've been eating healthily about 2/3 of the time.

This past Saturday was a total wash. I attended the Illinois game with Justin and Steve, and it was a total blast. We had a great time and the Illini crushed Northwestern 44-21. We went to a great tailgate party that had an awesome barbecue spread, and later went to Murphy's and Brother's (formerly Mabel's). I had about 8 pints of beer, 3-4 servings of barbecue, a bratwurst, and a mega cheeseburger with cheddar, everything, and extra pickles, and fresh cut fries. Whew.

And now it's Thanksgiving. I'm going to enjoy myself but try not to overindulge too much. I might even get in a run or two. We'll see.

- schneid

Oct 29 update

2007-10-29T08:44:00.000-05:00

186. I ate a huge dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill on Saturday and didn't eat very well the rest of the weekend either. I played basketball on Friday.

Exercise:

ran 4.75 miles today with Tim R (ran 3.75, walked 1)

Food:

2 granola bars and coffee
lentil soup
20 oz diet Pepsi
dinner will be taco salad - I'm going to have spicy fish in my salad instead of ground beef.

- schneid

Swimming kids

2007-10-28T23:11:00.000-05:00

Ben and Anna have been taking swimming lessons for a few years now. They are doing really well. Ben can swim freestyle the width of the pool. Anna can swim with some floaties or other aid. Both of the kids are moving up to the next level, but the best part is that they will have class at exactly the same time. For at least two months, our lives will be a little easier. And it's the same day as Suzette's class, so she can take them to swimming, I can pick them up, and she can drive directly from there to school. Two of our difficult weekday evenings will be combined into one.

- schneid

New computer!

2007-10-25T23:06:00.000-05:00

I finally bought a new computer. The old one is 7 years old with a 600 MHz Pentium 3 processor. I was due! I just found a great deal on an HP Pavilion Media Center with Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q6600 2.4GHz. Ohhhhh yeahhh. I found a deal for $400 off. It has 1 GB of RAM because I can buy RAM really cheap for it. I bought 2 GB extra from Crucial for only $60. I'll probably use some Christmas money to buy an additional monitor to have a dual monitor setup. And I'll need a decent video card and an external hard drive. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

I need to buy a print server so that I can print from our laptop. But most of them sound pretty unreliable or expensive. If anyone has experience with a print server, I'd like to hear about it.

- schneid

Oct 25 update

2007-10-25T20:38:00.000-05:00

185 today.

Exercise:

Ran 4 miles with Tim

Food:

2 granola bars
16 oz coffee w/ equal and h/h
vegetarian lentil soup
20 oz diet Pepsi
1 slice supreme deep dish pizza

It was 52 degrees at run time. I wore shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt, which was a little warm when we were in the sun, but fine. It was a great day for a run. I didn't feel like it at all but once we got going we were fine.

- schneid

Oct 24 update

2007-10-24T08:55:00.000-05:00

185.

Sorry, I've been slacking badly on updates.

Tim went out of town from Fri-Mon and couldn't run Thursday either. I lifted weights on Wed, played basketball Thurs, lifted weights on Friday, and carried Ben 3/4 of a mile for what turned out to be a very scary Haunted Hike on Saturday.

On Sunday, Mom and John came over for John's birthday. I've been dying to cook some good food for awhile, and here's what I made.

Sunday's Provencal menu

spinach quiche
goat cheese toasts, aoili toasts
mesclun salad with mustard vinaigrette
baguettes with aoili or herbed butter (fresh rosemary, fresh basil, fresh parsley, fresh garlic, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, mmmmmmm!)
potatoes au gratin
ratatouille (minus the eggplant)
Provencal chicken
pork loin stuffed and crusted with cherries and bread crumbs, cooked in rose wine with anise seeds
chocolate cake - well, Anna and Mommy made that!
French rose and red wine, Cotes du Luberon, Cotes du Rhone, and one Moulin a Vent.

Yum! Everything was great.

I really didn't feel like running on Monday, and fortunately they needed another guy to play basketball at the last minute. I had an awesome game, hitting a ton of shots, which is rare. I played bball again on Tuesday, not as well.

So, as far as food...I ate way too much of Sunday night's yummy dinner. Then a little too much of the leftovers on Monday. Today is my birthday and I treated myself to a sausage-egg-cheese biscuit for breakfast, but didn't eat lunch. Tonight we are going to Gino's East for stuffed pizza and Oberweis for ice cream sundaes (I love turtle sundaes).

So I missed my birthday goal by 5 lbs. I'll set a new goal of losing 8 lbs by Thanksgiving - that's 2 lbs per week. So I'm shooting for 177 by November 22. I've been keeping up with the exercise but not eating as well, so post-birthday, I'm going to watch what I eat more carefully.

- schneid

How to report a problem

2007-10-24T08:13:00.000-05:00

In general, people are really bad at including a useful description when reporting a problem. People in technical fields should be good at this, especially people who are involved in software or product development, since bug tracking is a critical part of development.

I'm responsible for supporting some tools. It's amazing how often someone will report a problem, but not give any useful information. And they do it by phone! I hate receiving phone calls. I mean, sometimes it's appropriate, but I like email because it forces the person to write down a coherent thought. When they call you, they can just blather on endlessly without getting to the point.

A recent example was a phone message like this (almost verbatim): "Someone was having a problem accessing XYZ in the web pages." There is almost no useful information in there. Who is the someone? What web pages? What's the URL? I actually knew what the problem was immediately (that person didn't have permission), but couldn't actually solve the problem since I didn't know the URL and who it was. So I had to call back and get the correct information to fix the problem.

I love when someone includes all the relevant information. It does happen occasionally.

- schneid

Oct 18 update

2007-10-18T08:29:00.001-05:00

185.

Food:

16 oz coffee w/ equal and h/h
2 granola bars
veggie stir fry with teriyaki sauce
2 granola bars
chorizo chili
30 potato chips
1 Three Floyds Gumballhead beer

Exercise:

3 on 3 basketball for 45 minutes

I grabbed whatever veggies were in the fridge to make some stew with chorizo, but there were only onions, mushrooms, red bell pepper (not much), and cilantro. So I threw those in with chorizo, kidney beans, and a can of diced tomatoes, and it ended up being chili. I added a lot of cumin, chili powder, and a little chipotle powder, and man it was good!

As for the chips, I worked at home from 8:00-11:30 PM, and I just had to have a yummy snack at midnight.

- schneid

Volleyball with Tim at GLC

2007-10-18T08:29:00.000-05:00

Last night, I subbed for Tim Y at Great Lakes Center. It was awesome! Everyone played well, passing was great, hitting was great, serving was great, and I set decently. That was the most fun I've had playing volleyball in years. I didn't run out of gas and was reasonably quick. Being 15 lbs lighter helps a lot. One of the players on our team, Igor, was unbelievable. He's a much higher level than this league. He could hammer the heck out of the ball from anywhere on the court, was incredibly fast, and had a huge vertical. We connected on a lot of quick attacks and he just crushed them. Every time he hit, the opponents just looked at each other like "How the heck are we supposed to defend that?"

- schneid

Oct 17 update

2007-10-17T08:10:00.000-05:00

186. I can probably drop 3 lbs by my birthday (1 week), although we're having my mom and John over for dinner on Sunday and I'm cooking a big Provencal dinner. If I can hit 183 by the 24th, I'll only be 3 lbs off that goal. Then I'd like to drop 2 more per week until Thanksgiving, which would put me at 175. Not bad.

Tim R has lost 21 lbs in 1 month! He runs at least a little bit almost every day, and I think that makes a difference. I just can't run the day after basketball because my knees are too sore. So I'm tempted to play less basketball and run more, but basketball is a lot more fun.

Food:

2 granola bars, 12 oz coffee with h/h and equal
corn green chili bisque for lunch
4! granola bars for a snack
a Founders Breakfast Stout and a bag of microwave popcorn for dinner! Yeah! I didn't get home from volleyball until 8:15 and I wasn't really hungry. :

Exercise:

volleyball I have occasionally subbed for Tim Y over the past couple of years, but I haven't been totally comfortable with it because I don't play much volleyball any more, and I've been totally out of shape. Now that I'm in better shape, I can't wait.

- schneid

Oct 16 update

2007-10-16T08:07:00.000-05:00

186.

Sorry, it's getting hard to keep up with the blog!

Food:

3 granola bars, 20 oz coffee, 12 oz diet Pepsi, corn and green chili bisque for lunch, went to Bennigan's for dinner: 1 pint Guinness (ahhhhhh), sirloin steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, about 10 French fries. 3 Dove bites for dessert.

Exercise:

basketball

- schneid

Oct 15 update

2007-10-15T08:07:00.000-05:00

186 today. Surprising since I ate a lot this weekend, but last night's run (walk) may have helped, and I'm probably dehydrated too. Just glad I didn't gain this weekend. I wish I could run every day, but with basketball it's too hard on the knees.

Food:

1 granola bar, 20 oz coffee w/ equal and creamer
taco salad from home
taco salad for dinner...I like taco salad...

Exercise:

ran 3 miles

- Tim and I ran 3 miles straight today. It may have been more since it took 40 minutes. We had been slacking off a bit and walking too much, so today was a great run. Tim has already lost more weight than me in less time!

- schneid

Impossible to get tech support

2007-10-14T22:14:00.000-05:00

Finding technical help on the internet is getting more and more frustrating. The companies that own the web sites are smart to create FAQs, support forums, and have lots of answers available. But ultimately you should be able to contact a person or send a problem report. And it shouldn't be so hard to find out how to do that. If you look at Google, you really have to jump through hoops to finally find a support email address just to report a bug. Same for contacting Amazon technical support.

I just found a bug in a software tool that I use at work. I have a license for this tool, but my company has no maintenance agreement. When I go to the tool's web site, the only choices for getting technical support are for customers with maintenance agreements. Don't they want me to report a bug?! I don't want any follow up, I just want them to know about it. OK, I want them to care, but if they don't, that's not my problem. It's their product.

Even if you report a bug, don't expect for it to be fixed. I reported a bug on dictionary.com many months ago, but they haven't fixed it. Their American Heritage dictionary pronunciation key has a bug, and in fact it's in the very first entry - it shows the symbol for long a (remember, long vowels say their name), but then the example word is pat. It would take them 2 seconds to fix that, if they cared. Obviously they don't.

- schneid

Oct 14 update

2007-10-14T21:02:00.000-05:00

187.

Food:

coffee, taco with ground beef, taco with chicken and peppers, pico de gallo, refried beans, guacamole, corn and black bean salsa, tortilla chips, chocolate cake.

I made all of that food from scratch, except Anna made the cake with Mommy's help. We had Bill, Carol, Caleb, Carlee, and Christi over for lunch and had a nice time. We decided to do something different and had Mexican food. Everything turned out great.

I skipped dinner and played online poker instead, which turned out pretty well and I increased my bankroll by almost 50%.

Exercise:

ran (but mostly walked) 2.5 miles after the kids went to bed. My knees were still sore from basketball on Friday. So I mostly walked. I felt like I ate too much today, but at least most of it was healthy.

- schneid

Oct 13 update

2007-10-13T08:59:00.000-05:00

187.

Food:

1 donut, 3 cups coffee, 2 slices leftover sausage pizza

Ah, the breakfast of champions! I finally let myself have a donut. We love to go out for donuts on Saturday morning. I limited myself to one. Then I didn't have lunch, and we had leftovers for dinner. So not the healthiest, but at least I didn't eat too much.

Exercise:

edged and trimmed every edge in our yard, including the sidewalks, driveway, and curbs, then swept everything. That was surprisingly hard work.

Got some great cheap workout clothes at Kohl's. They had some sleeveless running shirts and sleeveless White Sox shirts for 3.88 each. I bought 4. Probably should've bought more. I'm not a White Sox fan. Don't tell anyone.

- schneid

Oct 12 update

2007-10-12T08:56:00.000-05:00

187.

Food:

2 granola bars
coffee
orange
small salad w/ bleu cheese dressing
12 oz steak, veggies, 10 oz red wine

Exercise:

basketball

- schneid

Oct 11 update

2007-10-11T08:35:00.000-05:00

188. I'm hoping to drop 1-2 lbs between today's run and basketball tomorrow. It's 54 degrees today, great for a run.

Food:

2 granola bars
1.5 cups coffee, with non-dairy creamer and Equal
wrap club sandwich (included bacon and cheese)
two slices sausage pizza

Exercise:

ran at 2 miles, walked 1 mile - didn't sweat a drop

- schneid

Oct 10 update

2007-10-10T08:04:00.000-05:00

187 today. Hooray, I finally broke the 188 barrier. 180 by my birthday doesn't seem likely now, that's 14 days to lose 7 lbs. I am exhausted today. Basketball is tiring but also hard on my knees and achilles.

Ah, autumn. Well, it appears to have lasted exactly one day. It was 88 degrees on Sunday, really nice and around 75 yesterday, and today it's 52. Brrr. They say we only have two seasons here in Chicago, winter and construction.

Exercise:

none - I was up until 1:00 preparing for cub scouts, and had to run cub scout errands at lunch time, I'm tired and sore, yadayadayada. Lame excuses, I know.

Food:

coffee (x3) with equal and milk
1 granola bar
6" tuna sub at Subway, no cheese
12 oz ribeye steak, onions, zucchini, and red bell peppers

- schneid

Oct 9 update

2007-10-09T08:11:00.000-05:00

188 this morning. That's 4 lbs less than yesterday, so I guess alcohol + salt = water retention. Tim and I had a good run yesterday despite the heat (the day after they stopped the Chicago Marathon), and I drank lots of water in the afternoon. Fortunately, it's much cooler today and will continue to be more seasonal. I can't wait to run when it's 60 degrees.

Food:

1/2 apple, 1 granola bar, 24 oz coffee w/milk and 2 equals
taco salad - grilled chicken, lettuce, black beans, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, salsa fresca, giardiniera, and 1 tbsp sour cream.
taco salad - yes - I had the same thing for lunch too. Ground beef, and pretty much the same as earlier, except non-fat sour cream and no beans.
small handful of soy nuts

Exercise:

basketball at lunchtime - it really felt great today. I can play without running out of gas. I haven't been able to do that in about 6 years. And I played decently and hit a few shots.

- schneid

Oct 8 update

2007-10-08T08:10:00.000-05:00

192 this morning. That means I gained 4 lbs this weekend. I'm totally embarrassed to admit it, but that's how this blog works. We were out of town and I cheated. I didn't think it was that much but I guess it was. Weekends have been killers for me so I'm redoubling my effort this week. I'm going for a run today and hopefully by the end of the week, I can be back where I should be.

Food:

2 granola bars, 1 orange, handful of sunflower seeds
3/4 pork chop, 1/2 cup brown rice, butternut squash with butter and brown sugar

Exercise:

ran 2.5 miles and walked 1 mile

- schneid

Hanging out with Tim M

2007-10-07T22:20:00.000-05:00

Tim M just became a Green Beret! He passed the Selection last year, and just finished the Special Forces Qualification Course which is almost a year of training. Not only did he complete it, he did a fantastic job. And it's not easy for an old man like Tim. Bahaha! Congratulations Tim!

Tim was in town for the weekend to see his parents, so I drove up to Woodstock to partake in some beverages and lively conversation. We went to some dive bar in Woodstock, and I didn't know the Bears game was on...but believe me, when I walked into the bar, I knew it. The place was jammed with rowdy young people wearing Bears jerseys and face paint. They didn't look old enough to be in a bar. Guess I'm getting old. We were able to find a quiet spot to talk. I always enjoy our social and political discussions. Tim will move back to Chicago in January. He's in the National Guard, so despite being a Green Beret, his military commitment is still only a few weeks a year unless he gets called to active duty.

- schneid

Oct 6 update

2007-10-06T10:01:00.000-05:00

Don't know my weight today.

Food:

2 cups coffee with sugar and milk
2 little cinnamon breakfast thingies, about the equivalent of 1 nutrigrain bar

Exercise:

we'll see

- schneid

Oct 5 update

2007-10-05T08:34:00.000-05:00

188 today. Probably no updates this weekend, we're going to Michigan.

Food:

1 cup coffee with h/h and 2 equals. Forgot to eat breakfast.
ahi tuna sandwich
dinner at Ruby Tuesday - salad bar, 7 oz sirloin, baked potato with some sour cream. The salad bar there was great.
pint of Sierra Nevada pale ale - I forgot how much I like this beer.

Exercise:

none today. I'll try to do a run on Saturday.

Have a good weekend!

- schneid

Oct 4 update

2007-10-04T08:07:00.000-05:00

188. I was really sore this morning from basketball and didn't feel like running today, but once I got some coffee in me, I'm ready to go!

Exercise:

4.5 miles - guess I wasn't ready to go because we walked more than 1/2 of this. My legs were dead from 2 consecutive days of basketball, and Tim ran last night.

Food:

1 yogurt, 20 oz coffee, mongolian stir fry with szechuan sauce, 2 granola bars, 3 slices frozen pizza, 1 tbsp peanut butter

The kids had pizza because Suzette had to leave for class at 5:30 and I just didn't feel like making anything for me.

- schneid

Oct 3 update

2007-10-03T08:06:00.000-05:00

188 this morning, although I'm reluctant to record it since I feel dehydrated. But I always weigh myself at the same time, in the morning, when I'm feeling lightest.

Exercise:

played basketball 3 on 3 today

Food:

1 lowfat yogurt
2 granola bars
12 oz black coffee
1/4 lb cheeseburger, no bun, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mustard
1 orange
seared ahi tuna with zucchini and onions YUM! and some corn with butter.

Yes, I ate a cheeseburger. But I thought that was reasonable since there was no bun, no fries, and no mayo.

- schneid

Oct 2 update

2007-10-02T08:21:00.000-05:00

189 this morning - ran 5 miles yesterday and didn't eat much. 9 lbs left to go in 22 days to get to 180.

Exercise:

basketball 45 minutes

Food:

bowl of granola cereal
20 oz coffee with h/h and 2 equals (I may have overroasted the Zimbabwe coffee)
taco salad: iceberg lettuce, grilled chicken, lots of salsa fresca, about 1/4 cup refried beans, a tablespoon of sour cream, and giardiniera
24 oz diet coke
1 pork chop
1/2 acorn squash with 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 pat butter
1 cup sauteed mushrooms and onions

I felt great at basketball today, didn't get winded. That was nice for a change. And I actually made a few shots. I haven't played in about 6 months. I plan to play twice a week.

- schneid

Oct 1 update

2007-10-01T08:12:00.000-05:00

I just ran 5 miles!!!

Yes, I walked a little of it. I ran 0.6 miles to McDowell (that always makes me think of McDowell's restaurant in the movie Coming to America), then ran 0.5 miles and walked 0.3 miles because I was early. Tim and I did 3 loops (3 miles) today. Then I ran back 0.6 miles.

I've only run 5 miles one other time in my life, with Gary 10 years ago. If you had told me just 1 month ago that I could do that in less than 3 weeks, I would never have believed it.

190 today. Yes, that's the first time I gained weight. It was a fun wedding weekend in Bloomington, so I've got my work cut out for me now, especially to drop 10 lbs by October 24.

Food:

2 granola bars
20 oz black coffee
1 orange
1 lowfat yogurt
1 slice Domino's veggie pizza
salad: lettuce, spinach, carrots, homemade curry dressing, added balsamic vinegar because it did NOT taste good. Didn't help much. I missed the onions, green peppers, and zucchini REAL bad but we didn't have any.
5 cheeseits
1 lowcal fudge ice cream bar, 50 calories

Exercise:

mostly ran 5 miles

I'm determined to drop 10 lbs in the next 24 days, so keep checking on my progress.

- schneid

Good session 9-tabling

2007-09-30T23:56:00.000-05:00

I just finished a session playing 9 tables on Ultimatebet. The first hour went very poorly while I had a bad run of cards, which is hard to believe when you are playing 9 tables! Then I finally had some decent cards and most of my all-ins were good. I finished up 2 buyins.

I got pushed off one hand when I had AK, the flop was K high with no straights or flushes, I bet the pot, and one guy raised huge. I decided he had to have two pair or a set, I folded, and he showed AK. I suppose that was probably my best case scenario, aside from a bluff or a K with worse kicker. But I didn't know the player.

I only had one bad beat. I had aces, there was a standard raise and about 4 players called...I wanted to be heads-up, and thought someone might be crazy enough to call, so I made a huge overbet reraise that would cover anyone (like 7 times the pot), and one guy called! I was thrilled! The board came all rags and I went all-in which was about 1/2 the pot. He called with a pair of deuces and there wasn't one on the board! Unfortunately, the river was a deuce. That cost me 1 buyin right there. I was pissed, but honestly I was thrilled that I trapped him. I just got unlucky.

And I didn't put a bad beat on anyone. Good karma.

- schneid

Jason and Erin's wedding

2007-09-30T23:27:00.000-05:00

We went to Bloomington, IL for my cousin Jason's wedding this weekend. It was a mini-reunion of sorts for the Japanese side of my family, since my Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Terry, Uncle Denny, cousins Mika and Kenneth, and my sister Debi and her boyfriend David came from out of town, as well as Jason's sisters Dana and Kristen and their mom, Aunt Jill. It was certainly the first time that all of those people had been together since the last reunion in 2004.

We stayed at The Chateau which is a nice hotel. It's related to the Jumer's in Urbana where we had our rehearsal dinner in 1993. It was a really nice place with a French theme and decor.

The immediate family was at the rehearsal dinner, so I planned a dinner on Friday night for the rest of our family. Unfortunately, it was just a little too early for Debi and David due to their arrival time. The remaining 9 of us had dinner at Orient Gourmet Japanese and Chinese restaurant. It was a very small place but they were able to reserve a table of 9 for us. We ate great sushi and good Chinese food and had a great time.

Afterwards, we stopped by Terry and Carolyn's room so that Uncle Terry and I could trade some beer. He brought a six-pack of Dominion Oak Barrel Stout, and I brought a mixed six to trade. We tried the Stout and also a Dominion Octoberfest. I liked the stout, which good flavor but a lighter body for this type of beer. The Octoberfest was nice and malty.

Aunt Carolyn and Mika were entertaining Anna and she was roaring with laughter and this pillow-person that Aunt Carolyn made. I can remember how much I looked forward to seeing Aunt Carolyn when I was a little kid.

On Saturday morning, we swam at the hotel with the kids. They had a great time, but the pool was freezing! Then we made the mistake of going in the hot tub, which felt great, but then the pool was like ice. The kids jumped back in and I finally relented and let them push me in. Ben and Anna are really becoming excellent swimmers. Anna has a swim vest and really gets around. Ben doesn't need any aid and can swim the width of the pool. He is really improving his freestyle. The kids take swim lessons every week.

We had lunch, then headed to the wedding which was at 2:00. It was at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Bloomington. The church was amazing, designed in art-deco style with a soaring cathedral and beautiful stained glass. The ceremony was really nice and Jason and Erin looked very happy. Ben and Anna took turns leaning into the aisle to take photos. Anna was just running out of gas when the ceremony ended. Fortunately, Aunt Carolyn, as she always does (and always did when I was a kid too), brought some little notebooks and notepads for the kids, and that helped keep them busy.

We went back to the hotel briefly after the ceremony and had a drink at the bar with our family, then headed back to the reception - about 2 hours early - so that the kids could take a nap in the car.

Debi came up with the idea of a money tree for a wedding gift, so we did that together. Since the tree would fit better in the van, we took it with us. But I had to lean it over 45 degrees, and the decorative rocks in it were sliding out. Every time I stopped, started, or turned a corner, you could hear the rocks pouring out of the pot, and the kids cracked up every time. There were about 4 inches of rocks in the top of the pot and they had all fallen out by the time we arrived.

Ben and Anna were wiped out from staying up so late on Friday. They fell asleep pretty quickly and we ran some errands and drove around Bloomington. It reminded us a lot of Champaign-Urbana.

The reception was at a cool place called Central Station Cafe in downtown Bloomington. We sat with Debi, David, and Uncle Denny. Anna decided she was going to sit with Mika and her family. Mika and Kenneth really kept an eye on her and made sure she had dinner. Ben did a lot of reading to keep occupied.

Later, when the dancing commenced, Ben and Anna were a riot. Ben was dancing like a maniac - I don't know where he learned those moves, which you might call a fusion of disco/swing/karate. Anna enjoys dancing with other people, and she especially liked dancing with the bride, who she thought looked like a princess. Ben doesn't really need other people, just some music with a good beat...and some space...watch out for those spinning kicks! They also played with some other kids and kept busy, and our relatives were helping keep an eye on them, so we really enjoyed the reception.

I (re)met the woman who had been the flower girl at Aunt Jill's wedding where I was the ring bearer (31 years ago). I said I was sorry that I never called. :)

On Sunday morning, Aunt Jill had a brunch and we spent more time with family and had a nice breakfast.

I really enjoyed the time we spent with my aunt, uncles, and cousins over the weekend. We don't get to see the out-of-towners very often, and they are some of the genuinely nicest people I've ever met. We also have a lot of similar views of life. I wish that we could see them more often.

We packed up and headed back around 12:30. It's a pretty easy ride from Bloomington. We enjoyed the rest of our day and have some great memories. And we're looking forward to doing it again at Dana's wedding in May!

- schneid

Sept 29 and 30 update

2007-09-29T23:15:00.000-05:00

There is no...Sept 29 and 30 update. Sorry, see this post to see what we were doing this weekend.

I did get some exercise while swimming with the kids at the pool, not to mention carrying a heavy tree up a flight of stairs. I managed to not overindulge in food too much.

- schneid

Sept 28 update

2007-09-28T07:59:00.000-05:00

189 today. Yesterday's run did the trick. Tim and I are planning to run twice a week. It would be nice if we could run together 3 times, but that will be very difficult to schedule...plus I really want to start playing basketball at lunch too. Tim only lives about 30 minutes from me, so if we really wanted to, we could meet half way and run on the weekend. Half way would be downtown Aurora, and we could run along the Fox River Trail. That would be a nice run.

I'm setting a goal of 180 lbs by my birthday, which is October 24. I need to lose 1 lb every 3 days, which is achievable if I keep eating well, running and playing basketball, and I probably need to do some exercise on the weekends too.

Food:

16 oz black coffee
bowl of granola cereal
bowl of green chili corn chowder
lots of sushi
1 piece shrimp tempura
bowl of miso soup
a little szechuan chicken
1 glass of white wine
a few snacks in the car, like a few potato chips and cheese-its
1 diet Pepsi

Exercise:

none today. Went out of town.

I worked a 1/2 day and we went to Bloomington, IL for my cousin Jason's wedding.

Dinner was awesome. We had reservations at a place called Orient Gourmet in Bloomington, IL. They had Japanese and Chinese food. I ate way too much sushi, which I hadn't had in quite awhile, including spider roll (deep fried soft shell crab), spicy tuna roll, spicy crunchy salmon roll, unagi (barbecued eel), and some tuna and yellowtail pieces. Mmmmm mmmmm! I also tried my aunt's shrimp tempura which was served in a huge portion and was great. It was probably the best tempura I've ever had. There was a lot of panko in the batter and it was so light but really crunchy.

- schneid

Sept 27 update

2007-09-27T08:25:00.000-05:00

190 today. Well, a hair under 190, but let's just leave it at that. I'm going to run today so that should help.

Food:

2 granola bars
16 oz Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee, fresh-roasted and fresh-brewed!
big salad with grilled chicken breast and balsamic dressing
plain iced tea with lemon herb tea
szechuan chicken - a chicken breast and a few onions and mushrooms with yummy sauce
10 potato chips and 20 fritos (this was a slip up, the kids left their uneaten bags on the table and I had a craving)
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 beer (Three Floyds Gumballhead and man was it good)

Exercise:

run 3.2 miles

Awesome run today again with Tim R. I ran 1/2 mile to the Forest Preserve, but Tim gave me a ride back. We did an extra 1/2 mile there, so I just didn't have the legs to run back. Soon!

- schneid

PS: Keep commenting and inquiring about my progress! Thanks!

More 8-tabling on Ultimatebet

2007-09-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

I was 8-tabling on Ultimatebet on Tuesday night and plan to do more on Thursday. I was pretty disappointed on Tuesday. I played for about 2 hours, and lost 1 buyin (of 8 total) over that time. I ran really bad for those 2 hours...tons of bad hands and getting all-in with KK vs. AA twice in the space of 5 minutes. I managed to slowplay trip Qs and have my opponent river a J to give him Js full of Qs. I feel like I'm playing pretty well and mixing up my game, so I expect to do better in the long run.

- schneid

Sept 26 update

2007-09-26T08:54:00.000-05:00

190.

Food:

1 granola bar
2 cups coffee - black!
salad with giardiniera
small bag pretzels (160 calories)
handful sunflower seeds
20 oz diet Pepsi
1 pork chop, 1 small sweet potato with butter and brown sugar, peas
10 peanuts
large decaf coffee with cocoa, skim milk, and 2 equals - I really had a craving for chocolate, looked at the unsweetened cocoa container, and it's not bad for you

Exercise:

volleyball

My green coffee beans arrived in the mail yesterday. The air popcorn popper that I won on eBay had already arrived. So, I roasted some coffee last night and drank some fresh coffee this morning. It was gooooood. The coffee is so good and not bitter that I can drink it black. This was an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe which my friends think is the best in the world.

It didn't seem like a good day food-wise. Fortunately, I didn't have much time for dinner or I probably would've eaten more. I felt like I had too many snacks.

- schneid

Sept 25 update

2007-09-25T13:01:00.000-05:00

190 today! Woohoo! I didn't eat much yesterday and ran almost 3 miles to drop that pound. I feel pretty good today after that run, just a little soreness in my legs.

Next major goal: 180 lbs

Tim R and I are now talking about running twice a week if we can find time.

Food:

1 cup coffee with h/h and 1 Equal
small turkey and swiss sandich on a whole wheat roll
small bag of pretzels
20 oz diet Pepsi
chicken cacciatore with a little spaghetti
1 cup decaf coffee

Exercise:

ran after work for 25 minutes.

There was a lunch meeting today, so I'm going to try to work out later in the afternoon.

- schneid

Multi-tabling on Ultimatebet

2007-09-24T23:24:00.000-05:00

When I play poker online, I play 4-6 tables at a time. You can play very tight and wait for good hands to come. I would like to play more tables, but even 4 tables overlap on my monitor. Ultimatebet has a miniview that displays the table in a much smaller space, maybe about 2" high x 6" long on a 1280x1024 screen. One problem is that my monitor can't do 1600x1200; the other problem is that in the miniview, my desktop doesn't have enough horsepower to do the graphics. If I open up a few tables in miniview, the cards start to disappear. And it's awfully hard to play poker if you can't see the cards.

Last night, for the first time, I hooked up my laptop to the monitor. I used the miniview and 8-tabled for awhile. I would've done 9 but I ran out of money to spread around. It was tough keeping track of so many tables, but this forces you to fold any marginal hand. You just don't have time to fool around with mediocre cards.

It took some time to get used to where the data is displayed. I misread my cards a couple of times, and didn't bet when I should've because I was hurried. But I started to settle into it and was reasonably comfortable after an hour. I also lost my stack with KK vs AA on one table. But in one hour, starting with 8 buyins (one per table), I managed to win 2 buyins. I certainly don't expect to always win at that rate, but I made some mistakes due to the new look and feel, and I was getting terrible cards. I mean really. I was dealt about 500 hands in that hour and had about 15 pocket pairs...the expectation is 29 pocket pairs. I'm going to keep doing this and as I win more money, keep working my way up the limits and see what happens. I've been treading water for awhile at .10/.25 and .25/.50 no-limit, so we'll see what this can do for my bankroll.

- schneid

Why I love the internet

2007-09-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

I wear extra-wide shoes. Basketball shoes are narrow, probably because men that play basketball are tall and thin and have narrow feet. I, on the other hand, have short (size 10) wide feet. I bought some new shoes about 6 months ago, played basketball twice, and my feet hurt so bad I could barely walk for a week, and felt like I had bruises on the balls of my feet for a month. Needless to say, I stopped playing basketball then.

You can't get wide-width basketball shoes at the store. You have to order them. I went to Sports Authority to try on shoes, and figure out what my proper size would be by trying on New Balance running shoes. Sports Authority has those in wide widths, and you can order wide-width basketball shoes from New Balance. So I determined that I needed a 10 4E New Balance shoe. Then I went online to find some and they retail for about $80.

Then Google found an ad in craiglist. In New Hampshire, no less. A guy was selling two pairs of exactly the shoes I wanted in exactly my size - 10 4E. One pair was worn once, and cost $25. The other pair was brand new for $30. I called the guy, paid by PayPal, and he shipped them within 4 hours...these shoes were on my feet in 4 days. I bought the cheaper pair and they fit great, so now I'm buying the other pair.

And that's why I love the internet!

- schneid

Sept 24 update

2007-09-24T08:27:00.000-05:00

191 today.

Food:

1 large orange
8 oz coffee with h/h and 1 Equal
1 orange
2 granola bars
szechuan steak stir fry - steak, onions, green pepper, zucchini, mushrooms, garlic, ginger, yum!

Exercise:

Ran 2.8 miles and walked .5 miles at lunch with newly inspired friend Tim R (Tim's not new, he's old. His inspiration is new.)

Tim and I at McDowell Forest Preserve, and I decided to also run there and back. It's about a 1/2 mile. At McDowell, we ran and walked a 1 mile loop twice. I think we ran and walked about 1/2 and 1/2, maybe even ran more than that. (But by distance that would be about 3/4 distance ran and 1/4 distance walked). So let's stretch a bit and say that we can 1.5 miles and walked .5 miles. Plus I ran another 1.3 miles there and back. So I ran about 2.8 miles and walked .5 miles today

I have to admit that when I stepped outside, it was hot and I thought, I should drive over there. But I had just told Westy that I was going to run over, so didn't want to cop out. And running back to work afterwards was tough but I ran all the way.

It was awesome running with Tim. He also needs to get into shape and lose weight, and he's actually in worse shape than I am right now. But he's done this before and within a week or two we'll be the same. I haven't seen Tim that much lately so it was great to get together and hang out. We've been friends since fourth grade. Instead of going out for lunch, we will try to run once a week!

Szechuan sauce

1/2 tbsp sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons minced peeled ginger
1/2 cup canned low sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons sherry
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon red chili paste
1/2 teaspoon dry crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon sugar (to taste)
2 teaspoons cornstarch

- schneid

Sept 23 update

2007-09-23T21:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry, pretty busy. 191 today.

Food: multi-grain oatmeal with 1 tbsp brown sugar (didn't help nearly enough, was like eating a the box that the oatmeal came in), coffee with milk and 1 equal, 6" Subway turkey and ham sandwich (lots of veggies, no mayo), sugar-free lemonade and ice tea, a couple chips. I made our entire dinner on the grill: 10 oz rib eye steak, 1/2 zucchini, about 10 french fries (grilled), 2 corn on the cob, and 10 oz red wine. I definitely felt like I pigged out. I really didn't need that much steak, fries, or corn. I'm going running tomorrow to make up for it and hope to lose about 3-4 lbs this week.

Exercise: Walked around downtown Aurora after church.

- schneid

Sept 22 update

2007-09-22T23:42:00.000-05:00

191 this morning. I can't wait to get under 190. I haven't been there in about 3 years.

Food:

1 granola bar
1 large McDonald's hazelnut iced coffee with 1 cream and 2 Equals...hopefully they don't put a bunch of sugar in there
1 can diet Pepsi
iceberg lettuce with taco meat (hamburger), black bean and corn salsa, green peppers, nonfat sour cream, and just a tiny bit of shredded cheddar.
1 tortilla chip (yes, 1)

Exercise:

none, really...walked with the kids for a round of mini-golf and at the park.

I made some black bean and corn salsa tonight. Mmmmmmmm it was good. Here's the recipe:

Black bean and corn salsa

1 15oz can black beans
1 1/2 cups cooked corn (cold)
1 cup prepared salsa
juice from 1 lime
2 tbsp onions, chopped
1 tbsp green onions, chopped
2 tbsp green peppers, chopped
1 tbsp roast red peppers, chopped (optional)
1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
1 tsp cumin (to taste)
1/4 tsp ground chipotle peppers (to taste)
Mix it all up!

This turned out really good. We couldn't stop eating it. All the amounts are to taste. You might want to add some chopped jalapeno, I didn't have one. The chipotle gives it a nice smoked flavor. And you should add enough cumin to taste it. Some roasted chili peppers would probably help too.

- schneid

Sept 21 update

2007-09-21T08:05:00.000-05:00

192 this morning (3 days in a row). Still, all told it's 8 lbs in 9 days. I'm exhausted from working out and I wrenched my back a couple days ago, so I might not work out today. Instead, maybe I'll take a walk tonight while my kids ride their bikes.

I did get a workout last night when some neighbors threw out their old cabinets. Today is North Aurora cleanup day, so you can put any junk by the curb. They remodeled their kitchen and threw out the old cabinets. So at 12:30 last night after poker, I used our little red wagon to drag the cabinets down the street and put them in our garage. Our laundry room (which is 30' x 7') needs some cabinets and they will be perfect.

Sorry for updating this late. I worked until 1:15, so couldn't work out at lunch time...plus I was pretty sore and tired. I did get a long walk in with my kids in the evening. Maybe 1 mile.

Food:

2 granola bars
1 cup coffee with h/h and 1 equal
stir fry with chicken and lots of veggies, one scoop of szechuan sauce, plus some of my homemade curry dressing.
green tea
1 granola bar
1 20 oz diet Pepsi...was dragging again
1/2 Panera Asiago roast beef sandwich, bowl of chicken noodle soup, and a bite of a chocolate chip cookie

Exercise:

1 long walk

- schneid

Sept 20 update

2007-09-20T07:44:00.000-05:00

192 this morning.

Food:

yogurt (no granola today, I think I ate too much yesterday)
1 cup coffee with half and half and 1 Equal
lunch was chicken stir fry with broccoli, green peppers, onions, chinese cabbage, mushrooms, and carrots. 1 scoop of szechuan sauce, and I added my homemade fat-free curry salad dressing. It was gooooood.
green tea
1 20 oz diet Pepsi - needed a boost again
grilled chicken salad with homemade ranch dressing
20 oz beer
1/2 cup nuts (pepitas, sunflower seeds, almonds, dried cherries, raisins

Exercise:

volleyball at lunchtime

Tonight is poker night. I'm going to limit myself to 12-16 oz of beer and a handful of snacky stuff (probably this mixture of pepitas, sunflower seeds, almond, and soy beans that I just bought).

I tried about 4 different beers on Thursday night but shared them and only had about 1/4 glass of each. Also had the nuts as a snack.

I stopped at Trader Joe's the other night. Someone mentioned that they have a great frozen fish selection, and they really do. Ahi tuna was 4.79/lb. They have a lot of great products, including a wide selection of cheeses, which I'm not really eating right now. Lots of fun gourmet stuff. I was surprised that the prices are pretty good. I've only stopped in there a couple times before.

Homemade ranch dressing recipe

1/2 cup nonfat mayo
1/2 cup nonfat sour cream
2 tsp minced green onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp minced onions
1 tbsp minced red bell pepper
1/2 tsp parsley
enough water to make it dressing consistency

It's pretty good. And it's about 9 calories per tbsp. Hidden Valley Ranch is 71 calories per tbsp. I might try some buttermilk next time to see if I can get it to be closer to store-bought.

- schneid

Coffee

2007-09-19T22:53:00.000-05:00

I am definitely going to spoil myself with some good coffee. I just won a West Bend Poppery II hot air popcorn popper on EBay, which I'm going to use to roast green coffee beans. This is a highly recommended brand of popcorn popper for this purpose and they are no longer manufactured. I also ordered some green coffee beans from Sweet Maria's. They have a sampler pack of 8 coffees from 4 continents. I requested decaf for half of them, so Suzette can enjoy them too. I can't wait to roast my own coffee!

The main purposes for roasting your own coffee beans are:

You can buy exactly the coffee beans that you want. Different beans have really different flavors. Most people don't know that because most coffee is overroasted and they all taste the same.
You can roast exactly the amount that you like. You might like a lighter or a darker roast.
It is fresher. As soon as the coffee is roasted or ground, it loses freshness. You should use roasted coffee beans within 1 week. So this is almost the only way to get really fresh coffee. Green coffee beans are fresh for up to a year.
It doesn't need anything added. You can drink it black.
It's reasonably priced. The coffee is $5-6 per pound online. Even considering shipping costs, this coffee is cheaper than the Papanicholas coffee that I like (5.99 per 12 oz on sale).

Thanks (or blame) to Rob W. and Russ M. from work for putting me onto really good coffee!

- schneid

Sept 19 update

2007-09-19T07:58:00.000-05:00

192 this morning. I didn't have much time for lunch or dinner yesterday, so ate a little less than usual. Plus I jogged yesterday. And my shins feel terrific today - no trouble from the run.

Food:

granola and yogurt
16 oz coffee with 1 half and half and 2 Equals
small grilled chicken breast with sport peppers and onions
bowl of corn green chili bisque
handful of mixed soy, pepitas, almonds, sunflower seeds
2 slices frozen pizza
3/4 package microwave popcorn
1 BEER!

Exercise:

volleyball at lunchtime

I took the afternoon off to prepare for our first den meeting and I was busy up until it started. I didn't have time to make anything healthy for dinner so had some of the kids' frozen pizza. Had some popcorn as a snack later. I really need to just take a portion and put it in my own bowl, rather than eating out of the big bowl. Before I knew it, I had almost finished the bag. I did finally splurge and have a beer...mmmm, it was a Surly Furious and it was good. I hadn't had a beer in 9 days, so I was due. I'll try to only have 1 tomorrow at poker night; I planned to have 2. I don't feel like this was a very successful day food-wise, so I plan to have two salads tomorrow. I just marinated some chicken with lemon, basil, olive oil, onions, garlic, and a few other things, and we'll have a grilled chicken salad for dinner. Yum!

- schneid

How I'm losing weight

2007-09-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

In case anyone doesn't have time to read 10 different posts, here's how I'm trying to eat healthier and get into shape:

exercise every day
eat in moderation
eat a lot more vegetables (lunch and dinner are mostly vegetables)
eat less fat
eat fewer carbs
eat big salads for lunch
eat yogurt
eat healthy oils
avoid unnecessary calories (e.g., make my own salad dressing, put 2% milk in coffee instead of half and half)
drink more water
drink less diet soda
drink green tea and black tea
drink less alcohol, just a few drinks per week
don't go out to eat
NO fast food, no potato chips, no french fries, no greasy food, very very limited sweets (I have eaten 1 small chocolate chip cookie and 5 chocolate chips in 1 week)

Exercising at lunchtime every day has another benefit - I can't go out to eat.

Once my weight is down where I want it (170) or if I feel great and I'm exercising enough and my weight is pretty good (180), I will start adding things that I want (i.e., beer, french fries) back into my diet in moderation.

In the past week, I have not eaten cheese, fried foods, junk food, desserts, or pasta. If you look at the bullets at the top, you might think, "How can you eat less carbs and less fat unless you are on a high protein diet?" It's because I'm eating way less overall.

In case anyone has any concerns, I'm getting some bloodwork done soon because I changed cholesterol medication. And I'm scheduled for a physical in November.

- schneid

Sept 18 update

2007-09-18T08:30:00.000-05:00

194 this morning. Same as yesterday, so I think I was dehydrated then and also I ate a little more for dinner last night than usual (a steak, mmmmm). I'm wondering if I should jog a little in the morning, to get my metabolism revved up for the day...I could jog for 10 minutes and sprint a block or two. Wonder if that will work?

I remembered to bring my salad dressing to work today! Here's the recipe. It's good on salad and for dipping (meats and veggies).

Curry salad dressing

1 cup nonfat mayo
1 tbsp ginger (crushed through garlic press)
1 clove garlic (crushed through garlic press)
1 tbsp fresh cilantro
1 tbsp chopped green onions
juice from 1 lime
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper
water

Mix all ingredients except water. Then add water and mix until it's the consistency of salad dressing. Amounts are all to taste, so you will need to adjust, to get the flavors that you prefer. I'm going to try making a homemade ranch similar to this. It's about 20 calories per tbsp and almost no fat. This recipe should make about 2 cups of dressing.

Food:

yogurt and granola bar
salad with my homemade dressing, yum
banana
granola bar
2 cups coffee, one black, one with 1 Equal and a little milk
1 20 oz diet Pepsi - I really needed a boost this afternoon
steak stir fry - Suzette used last night's leftover steak, plus sesame oil, ginger, garlic, red chili paste, soy sauce, onions, green peppers, and some other stuff that I can't remember and it was fantastic. Really awesome flavor.

Exercise:

ran and walked for 32 minutes outside today. I was sick of working out so I hit a few weight machines and then went for a jog. I walked and jogged the first half, then jogged all the way back. It was nice to get some fresh air and it felt pretty good (ok, it sucked, but afterwards I felt pretty good). My shins seemed to hold up pretty well.

I stepped on the scale at 10:00 PM and was 194...that looks pretty good. Must've been the run today. I'm trying to drink a lot of water tonight so that I'll feel confident in the scale if it says 193 tomorrow.

- schneid

Sept 17 update

2007-09-17T08:48:00.000-05:00

I was at 194 this morning, which was a little surprising because I exercised less and ate more this weekend. I feel a little dehydrated, though, so maybe some is water loss.

Food:

yogurt with granola
coffee with half and half, 1 equal
big salad for lunch with ranch dressing, watered down
1 black tea, 1 green tea
ribeye steak
3/4 cup cooked corn
mushrooms and onions
3 tater tots
5 chocolate chips
and a partridge in a pear tree....

Exercise:

25 minutes on the bike
17 minutes weight lifting

I downloaded the first episode of the show Weeds, which I've never seen, and watch on my video iPod while cycling (stationary bike). That helped me stretch it out to 25 minutes.

I made homemade curry salad dressing this morning with ginger, green onions, garlic, curry, masala, nonfat mayonnaise, and water. And then I left it on the counter.

2 tbsp of Ranch dressing is 143 calories and 15.5 grams of fat. 2 tbsp of nonfat mayonnaise is 27 calories and less than 1 gram of fat. I'll save a lot of calories.

I haven't had a beer in a week. I think I will treat myself to 1 or 2 on Thursday night at poker if I can lay off the snacks. Nothing gets stored as fat faster than beer. It's hard to not drink it when I have about 30 different varieties at home. But once I get my weight down, I'll add it back in moderation.

- schneid

Cermak Fresh Market

2007-09-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

There is a new grocery store in Aurora called Cermak Fresh Market. It's on Route 31 a couple miles south of I-88 and a couple miles north of downtown. It is fantastic! It's typical of this type of market in that the meat and produce are abundant and cheap, but brand name stuff like cereal and soda is expensive. They have a great selection of ethnic specialty items too. There were many Mexican and Asian products. I went on Saturday to only buy produce, meat, and some Asian condiments. By the way, Vietnamese red chili sauce is way hotter than the chili sauce I had at a Thai restaurant this weekend!

There were some sales, and we bought local Gala apples, huge Spanish onions, pears, and limes for 10 cents each. The prices of the meat were great. A package of assorted pork chops was .79 per pound. Rib eye steak was $4 per pound! I didn't need any meat, but I might start shopping weekly to get fresh produce and meat. Meat is one of the few things that I really crave that fits into a healthy diet.

- schneid

Sept 16 update

2007-09-16T11:27:00.000-05:00

I weighed 196 this morning.

We had a great time with Kim and Dennis last night. We had Thai food and watched a play at a small theater in downtown Aurora called the Riverfront Theater. It seats about 100 people. We saw "The Night of the Living Dead - The Musical". It was really funny and I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the small theater. Everyone in the audience and the cast seemed to know each other.

Food:

no breakfast, granola and yogurt, and coffee for lunch
12 oz. fruit smoothie (strawberries, raspberries, and ice, maybe sugar)
a few bites of ice cream
crusted tilapia on curried vegetables with homemade fresh salsa, and peas
about 30 almonds

Exercise:

chasing Ben while he learned to ride his bike. He's finally got it! He was able to ride almost the length of the block a few times.

We went to Oberweis to celebrate Ben's accomplishment. The kids had these huge waffles cones that were dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. I had a fruit smoothie, which may have had some sugar. I only ate 3/4 of it and had a few bites of everyone's ice cream. Their chocolate peanut butter ice cream is awesome.

The tilapia wasn't as crunchy as I would've liked. But the combination of the tilapia, curried vegetables (more of a thick sauce), and salsa was great. Yum!

- schneid

Sept 15 update

2007-09-15T11:33:00.001-05:00

Hooray, it's Saturday. I weighed 197 today. I've done a good job for about 3.5 days.

Food:

granola bar crushed into yogurt
coffee with 2% milk and 1 Equal
1 can tuna, 2 tbsp mayo, celery, onions, green pepper, green onions, pickles, cilantro. I don't have fat free mayo yet, so that was a little excessive (90 calories per tbsp), but I've only had about 600 calories so far today.
2 diet Pepsi
3 cups jasmine tea
1 helping cashew chicken
2 satay chicken
tiny bit of yellow curry
1/2 cup rice
some cucumbers and other veggies
3 tbsp chili sauce
1/2 bowl of popcorn

Exercise:

shot baskets with our neighbor Matt for a little while. I'll try to do more later.

We had Thai for dinner with Kim and Dennis at Thai Spice in Aurora. I love yellow curry but it has a lot of coconut milk, so I just had a tiny bit. The chili sauce was really good and I had a lot, so hopefully there's nothing bad in it. I ate about 2 or 3 cashews in the cashew chicken. This was about 1/3 or 1/4 of what I would usually eat at a Thai restaurant.

Suzette and I split a bag of microwave popcorn. It has surprisingly few calories for the amount that you can eat and it's filling.

- schneid

Dinner with Charon and Ryan

2007-09-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I had dinner with two friends from high school who I hadn't seen in 21 years. I don't have time to post now, but I wanted to create this entry so I don't forget. I'll try to do it this week.

Also, here's a link to Charon's photos from the 20-year reunion of the Woodstock High School Class of 1987. I can only recognize a few people. Charon, I hope you don't mind.

- schneid

Sept 14 update

2007-09-14T07:47:00.000-05:00

I was a hair under 198 this morning...we'll just call it 198. My shins are really sore from the exercise, but the rest of me is just regular muscle soreness and my joints feel good.

Food:

light yogurt with a granola bar crushed in it
12 oz coffee with 1 tsp (15 cals) of hazelnut powdered creamer - no sweetener
3 oz Ethiopian coffee, black
huge salad for lunch, spinach, romaine, carrots, green peppers, peas, onions, kidney beans, vinegar and oil.
black tea
granola bar
went out to dinner: 1 glass red wine, 1 scallop, 1 date wrapped with bacon (bad I know), 2 lamb chops (small rack of lamb size), 1 slice bread and olive oil, about 1/2 a potato, and assorted greens and mushrooms from the appetizers.

My friend Rob W. at work generously shared a taste of his homebrew coffee. He buys green Ethiopian coffee beans and roasts them. I was surprised at how good it was. It was the best coffee that I've ever had without cream and sugar. I can drink black coffee - I never thought I would say that - if it's this good. So I'm going to buy some and start roasting myself (roasting the beans, that is, I'm not climbing into the oven). Rob has pointed out a couple of good sites for ordering coffee beans: Sweet Maria's and Fresh Coffee Beans Company.

And no diet soda today yet. It hasn't been that hard to cut out, although I need the caffeine. I've been drinking green tea and black tea instead.

Exercise:

20 minutes on the bike
20 minutes lifting weights

- schneid

Sept 13 Update

2007-09-13T08:26:00.000-05:00

I have lost 2 lbs so far! Down to 198.

I don't think it's water weight since I drank about 2 gallons yesterday. Anyway, we'll know within a week that it's real weight if the number keeps going down. I'm writing my weight in a column of numbers on the bathroom mirror at Greg's suggestion. I need that immediate feedback. I'll live if I don't lose weight over a couple of days; I realize that I'm putting on some muscle too.

I'm also going to set a reward for getting my weight below 170. Of course, if it's an expensive one, I'll have to get spousal approval. But honey, I'm going to save $720 a year in health insurance costs! It's been 10 years since I've been under 170.

I feel great physically and emotionally. In fact, this is physically the best I've ever felt after jumping back into serious exercise. Usually, the first time I return to lifting weights, I overdo it and I'm in serious pain for days. I'm sore now, but it's a good sore. I think all the veggies, antioxidants, and water yesterday helped, and I'm sure the Advil didn't hurt.

I've found a cool web site called MyPyramid Tracker. You can enter everything you eat and it does a complete nutritional analysis. I've used this in the past because I thought I was deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. Even with the current healthy diet, I'm not getting enough B vitamins, due to barely eating any grains yesterday. I'll have to work on that.

The funny thing about yesterday is that most of my calories were from fat. I basically only ate vegetables...there was oil in the stir fry and oil in the ranch dressing. I'm going to cut down on the oil we use to cook and use nonfat mayonnaise to make homemade dressing.

I skipped the diet soda and had some green tea instead. I have some friends at work who are coffee snobs (they roast their own beans) and they are educating me about the joys of really good coffee.

Food:

1 granola bar
coffee + half and half + Equal
green tea, orange herb tea
mongolian stir fry - lots of veggies, only a little rice, with szechuan sauce
handful of sunflower seeds
Rosh Hashanah dinner: 1 matzoh ball soup, 1 gefilte fish, 1 kishke, 2 small meatballs, 2 small slices of brisket, and a 1/2 glass of red wine. (If you want to know what any of that stuff is, feel free to ask.) For dessert, one small chocolate chip cookie, decaf coffee with artificial sweetener and skim milk, and a few pieces of fruit salad.
lots of water

Exercise:

2.5 minutes on the elliptical machine (man that's hard)
12 minutes on the bike
15 minutes lifting weights
25 minute walk around Tellabs. We have really nice walking paths. I had no idea it took so long. I couldn't work out any more so I thought I would take a cooldown walk (wasn't all that cool) and decided to walk the whole path.

And remember, if you see me putting unhealthy food in my mouth, knock it out of my hand or tackle me!

- schneid

Sept 12 Update

2007-09-12T21:29:00.000-05:00

Man, I was sore when I woke up today. In particular, my ankles were really sore from the run, and my entire legs were too.

Exercise for today:

I rode the stationary bike for 20 minutes. My legs wanted to quit after about 5 but fortunately the World Series of Poker was on TV and that kept me going. I should put some episodes onto my video iPod.
I hit the weights hard and did 1 set on each of about 6 machines. I checked the time and only 10 minutes had gone by (sheesh). So I did 10 more minutes on mostly the same machines. My legs were shot so I did all upper body.
I also took the damn stairs this morning.

Here's what I ate today:

granola bar (90 calories) for breakfast
16 oz coffee with 1 cream and Equal
big salad for lunch with lots of spinach, green peppers, celery, onions, and no cheese or bacon. I did have 2 tbsp of Ranch dressing which I watered down. I need to make some homemade lo-cal dressing.
1 cup green tea
handful of sunflower seeds
1 diet Pepsi
stir fry for dinner, no rice
lots of water

And that's all I ate today. Under 900 calories according to http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov. And not bad. The stir fry was awesome. Suzette made it with fresh ginger, garlic, cilantro, sesame oil, green peppers, zucchini, onions, and chicken. I didn't feel deprived. I enjoy eating vegetables, it's just that my brain thinks that I want cheeseburgers.

I don't know what to do about the cream in my coffee, but it's only about 50 calories. Maybe I'll bring some milk into work or get some low-cal powder creamer.

I am sore and tired, but it's a good sore, mostly muscle aches and not too much joint pain. I might have been in better shape than I thought.

Thanks so much for everyone's support! Day 1 has been a success!

- schneid

It's time to lose weight

2007-09-11T22:52:00.000-05:00

I'm making a serious commitment to losing weight. The impetus is a conversation that I had with Paul at our pack meeting tonight. While talking about the chocolate caramel corn that the Cub Scouts sell, he mentioned that he had lost 70 lbs about 18 months ago. I was shocked, because Paul is in good shape. He changed his diet, changed his work schedule, and worked out twice a day - he lost 70 lbs in 3 months. I don't expect to lose so much weight so fast, but I need to start doing something about it.

I recently found a health assessment from 1996. According to it, I weighed 167 and had a body fat percentage of 20%. I was running with Marty and Gary and I got into decent shape, running 4 miles three times a week. That lasted about a year.

A lot of time has passed and I am now 200 lbs and who knows what % body fat. Frankly, I will be very happy to lose any weight. I haven't been 190 in a few years, and I certainly haven't seen 180 in about 7 years. 165-170 would be a good range to shoot for. I'm only 5'7", so in theory I could get down to 150. I haven't seen 150 since college (about 17 years ago). I really enjoy playing volleyball and basketball and I'd obviously play much better (ok, my friends might say I would still suck) if I lost a bunch of weight.

I even have financial incentive. I pay $90 per month for life insurance because I'm so overweight that I'm in the same category as a smoker. It would only cost $30 per month if I lost 30 lbs. I could save $720 per year and buy my kids 3 more minutes at college.

Here's where you can help: Please read this blog and post comments. Trash talk, encouraging words, harassment, support, ridicule, advice, anything is fair game. I will post all my exercise and every single thing that I eat.

I have slightly improved over the last 6 months. I eat a huge salad for lunch a couple of days a week and I rarely eat breakfast from McDonald's. That might not sound like much of an achievement, but I was eating crap for breakfast a couple of times a week and crap for lunch every day. I've been playing volleyball once a week. I've gotten into the gym sporadically. We have a fitness center at work so there is no excuse. The guys also play basketball at lunch time several days a week, and I've felt like I needed to get into better shape to play, but no more excuses.

Here's the plan:

Exercise at least 5 days a week.
Use the stairs at work (I'm on the fourth floor).
No fast food.
Limited sweets.
No junk food.
Cut down on snacks on poker night.
Eat yogurt, fruit, or granola bars for breakfast.
Actually eat breakfast.
Eat salads for lunch as much as possible.
Eat more of the healthy stuff at dinner and less fattening food.
Drink lots of water. I'm always dehydrated.
Drink green tea.
Cut back on beer.

That last one is going to hurt. I've found a lot of good beer lately, and I've been drinking about 7 per week. That's not too much, but I'll cut back and slowly add it back to see what the effect is. There's a reason they call it a beer gut.

This list is pretty funny. I'm on the 4th floor at work and in the first year, used the stairs once. I'm totally out of breath when I get to the 4th.

Before writing this post, after my conversation with Paul, I came home and jogged for 20 minutes. It was a nice cool night, about 58 degrees. It felt great (and awful). Then I drove my car to check the distance, and it was only 1.6 miles, so I tried to jog more, but I'd already drunk about a gallon of water, and only did 2 more minutes and .2 more miles. But that's farther than I've run in about 10 years, so it's a start. The total was 1.8 miles in 22 minutes.

I'll post my progress daily (except maybe on weekends) - if I don't, bug me!

- schneid

Summer Volleyball Second Place

2007-09-10T21:21:00.000-05:00

Here's our summer volleyball team, To Kill a Blocking Nerd. From L-R, Jim, Westy, Mike, and Schneid.

Well, we took second place again in summer volleyball at Tellabs. We played decently overall. We've never taken a game against the team that beat us in three matches this summer, and probably a couple matches in 2006. We'll get to play them again in the fall league once or twice. They're good sports and we really enjoy playing them, it would just be nice to win. They're very consistent and don't make a lot of mistakes, but if we played our best, we could win.

- schneid

Cub Scouts Starts

2007-09-06T23:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, the insanity begins...Ben started selling popcorn for Cub Scouts yesterday. He is a Wolf Scout this year and I'm the den leader. Fortunately, I have some parents who will be co-leading the den, since we are combining with another den. That will help a lot, in addition to the experience from last year.

- schneid