20 by 40
That’s my story, and eventhough it’s going to be hard as hell for me to accomplish, I am sticking to it. Being the nerd that I am, or at least claim to be, I need a scale to track my progress. Apparently the scale I thought I owned has gone elsewhere, so I was forced to buy a new one. As I often do I went to Amazon.com and happened to find a scale which has received nothing but praise from my fellow Amazon customers. As a bonus this scale not only will tell me my weight, it will also calculate my body fat — although I am not sure I really want to know that number right now. Here’s the kicker… When I opened the Amazon box yesterday I read this wonderful tidbit on the side of the scale’s packaging
*Before You Buy:
This model is intended for Children (7-17) with inactive to moderately active lifestyles, and Adults with inactive or moderately active lifestyles. It is not intended for use by athletes or extremely fit people. Tanita defines “athlete” as a person involved in intense physical activity of approximately 10 hours per week and who has a resting heart rate of approximately 60 beats per minute or less. In addition, people who are involved in a “Lifetime of Fitness” and who are very fit, but are currently active 10 hours per are considered “athletes.”
Basically I think that I have bought a scale for lazy people. It’s a good thing that I am not one of those freaks who practices a “Lifetime of Fitness.”
Easy For You To Type
You don’t know how bad a typist I am. I took typing class in school — to meet girls. I became a computer programmer — obviously not to meet girls, but rather to make money. I should be a decent typist, but sadly I am not. I am thankful that we have electronic methods for making typing corrections, otherwise I would have spent a considerable portion of my salary on Wite Out Correction Fluid (shout out to Brookhaven Instruments Corporation, who have a link to Bic on their website — nice netiquette).
In my time I have worn out my fair share of Backspace keys making corrections. What made me think of this was the number of times I had to retype “athlete” above. More often than not it came out “atlhete” which of course is very different. I’ll blame the number of times I have typed “Atlanta” for this problem.
Another common typing error of mine is the combination of the words “in” and “the.” Over a decade of being a C programmer has forever ruined my ability to type the sequence “in the” correctly. If you know C you know that a common data type is “int”, hence I always wind up knocking out “int he” before backspacing to change it to “in the.”
Maybe I spend the day typing the phrase “I am an athlete living in the town of Atlanta” until I get these bad habits corrected…
And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – upbeat
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing Oasis
Current Read – the owner’s manual to my digital camera
Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]
Just wanted to let you know not to feel too bad about your typing skills. I took typing in school as well, not to meet girls obviously, but to actually learn to type. A novel concept, I know – I know. Though I type very well, and fast, I also have issues with “in the”, but I also tend to type Atlanta as “Altanta”. Didn’t want you thinking you were alone.
As I said in my comment, you have inspired me not only to clean my closet (I refuse to touch my sock drawer – I have eccentric taste in socks and they are one of my vices), but to begin my own “20 by 40”. Since I don’t want to wait until I turn 40, my goal is 20 by April 1. Be proud of me I have already lost 6 (yes, I am blantantly fishing for a compliment)!
Seems we both “lost” our scales, though I’m sure mine was a gift to the local sanitation department, and have had to purchase new ones. However, you are a brave soul and I bow down. Never do I want to know my body fat. It is one of those things in life I can go without knowing and never miss it. It was disconcerting enough to step on a scale that blared my weight in neon red thank you very much. Yet, quite encouraging to see a week later that the number was receding, hopefully along with my waistline.
Keep upbeat Paulie! You never know who you may be inspiring.
I’m not upset with my lack of typing skills, it really just means that it takes me longer to finish typing something.
Six pounds already? Kick ass! Good for you and keep it up.
Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]