grand plans

This next year holds a lot – wedding planning, shipping a major product, house hunting, and now a major personal goal has been tacked on top of it all. I’m really starting to question my sanity, or maybe that’s just the hunger talking. Today I embarked on adventure in improving myself: I’ve started a diet – but not just any diet, this is an all-inclusive, personalized, lifestyle modification plan.

If you’re employed by the big M, then you’ve likely heard of Lifestyles 20/20. It’s essentially a chichi froufrou soup-to-nuts (as in crazy) approach to losing pounds, ridding diabetes, increasing lifespan, dropping cholesterol, and general cure-all for what ails yah. The crazy part is more centered around how successful it appears – if you believe their numbers, they’re the rock stars of the permanent weight loss world. 

That’s why I’m all in – I love the approach of medically supervised care, including a doctor, dietitian,  counseling, and personal training. I also love that they approach the nutrition angle similar to an elimination/paleo diet, but with a personalized touch. I probably can’t say much about the specifics (I’m pretty sure I signed an NDA that says I can’t talk about specifics…). I’m really looking forward to finding out why I eat the way I do… in particular, why I never quite drop weight no mater how active I get.

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Today was the beginning of the first phase – the one in where I’m going to be grumpy until my body figures out it’s not actually hungry on fewer calories. Hopefully that comes soon, because what I’m really looking forward to is my next meal… tonight’s dinner was sparse, but tasty. And right now, I’m just hungry.

you may have some problems with your eyesight

LG

I just got a new TV (after going without one for 2 years) and decided to go whole-hog and go for the 3D.

The TV is pretty awesome, but the manual is pretty entertaining in it’s own right… particularly the part where they blame you and your eyesight if it doesn’t work.

 LG4

Or that you shouldn’t use wear your 3D glasses near the kitchen counter (but since they don’t mention the bathroom, I assume that’s okay).

LG2

I really don’t know why pregnant women or people with other disabilities cannot use their 3D glasses.

LG8 

Be careful, because our 3D is so awesome you may flail about in pure excitement and hurt yourself and others.

level set

It turns out I’m hard to please… at least at work. I’ve realized that over the course of the last year I’ve gotten in the habit of responding to most proposals with the phrase “I don’t hate it”. That’s about the most praise I can muster for most ideas – not because they’re bad ideas, but because they’re incredibly hard problems with no bright, shiny solutions. And only bright, shiny solutions truly deserve more praise than that.

 IMAG0271

That led to a conversation with Matt today about how to level set those statements against other less common phrases that I also use:

  • “love”
  • “like”
  • “not bad”
  • “I’d buy that”
  • “I don’t hate it”
  • “I don’t love it”
  • “are you sure?”
  • “hate”
  • “loath”

This was all brought on by an idea to which I responded “not bad”… I think it surprised him that I didn’t hate it. :)