THE PEOPLE MUST HAVE THEIR DAN MILLER

So those that know me may know of my revolutionary weight-loss program. Because I care about you, my faithful blog reader, I will give away to you (at no charge!!!) this guaranteed formula.

“Eat less; exercise more”

Yes, if you follow this simple rule, you are guaranteed to lose weight.

I followed it pretty good earlier in the year, and ended up losing somewhere around 25-30 lbs. Then, after the great poison ivy debacle of 2007, I kind of fell off the wagon. It really was impossible to exercise with crucial parts of my body red and itchy. But even after the poison ivy cleared up, I still continued not exercising. Which of course just underscores the importance of good habits. Once you stop doing something, it becomes harder to start back up, and likewise, once you are IN a habit, it is easier to maintain, be it a good or bad habit.

So I gravitated to a new program:

“Eat more; exercise less”

As you can probably imagine, this program isn’t quite as successful at weight-loss! I have been meaning to get back to exercising, but, as I just mentioned, once you get out of the habit, it’s hard to get back into the swing of things. I finally solved my problem by telling Carolyn last night that I was going to the Y in the morning. That way, even though come Monday morning I didn’t WANT to go, she made me .

As I have mentioned earlier (over 2 years ago actually), it’s hard for me to exercise just for exercise’s sake. I need a goal. In June, I set a goal of exercising 1000 miles this year. At that point, I was at 299.2 miles and therefore needed to do 28.17 miles per week to hit that. As of yesterday, I am at 436.8 miles. With 9 weeks left in the year, that thar be 62.6 miles per week.

Clearly, the time for running and swimming has past. Which is just as well, since my other goal that I set back in June (a sub-20 minute 5K) is clearly not happening (I’ll re-evaluate in 2008). So this morning I went for 30 minutes on an upright exercise bike, and knocked out 9.39 miles (18.78 mph). Tragically, that’s not good enough. With 55 non-Sunday days left in 2007, I need to average 10.43 miles a day. So that means maybe longer daily sessions, combined with maybe some longer rides on Saturdays, and I’m not ruling out a late (cold!) Tour de Madeira 2007.

A very aggressive goal to be sure. But that’s the way I like them. Besides, what do you do when the chips are down and everyone’s telling you that it’s impossible?

YOU MAN UP NANCY!!!!

So, hypothetically speaking, let’s say a grown adult and a 5 (and a half!) year old boy got into a water fight. Each are armed with a similar water pistol. This treatise will attempt to outline the various advantages the adult would have in such a fight.

• Physical
• Faster acceleration and top speed. This helps both in pursuit as well as retreat
• Quicker reaction times
• One negative would be that the adult’s larger body size could be a hindrance for hiding / ambushes as well as presenting a larger surface area for opposing water shots
• A surer aim
• Mentally
• A stronger grasp on when to refuel. You definitely don’t want to be shooting blanks when a raging opponent is bearing down on you firing hot lead err water err cold err more room temperature I guess.
• Socially
• Whereas a 5 year old will get soundly rebuked for shooting a water pistol inside, a grown adult can more easily get away with it (while still getting yelled at, of course)
• Tactically
• The typical 5 year old does not have a solid grasp on certain key military tactics, such as:
• The art of ambush
• The importance of maintaining and securing the high ground (like say, a raised front porch)
• The art of taking cover behind various poles and objects (though he might hypothetically try to take cover behind his sister, as if that might stop me any hypothetical adult

All in all, I think that with said advantages, an adult would be able to escape a water fight with a 5 year old almost completely dry, while such a 5 year old would be soaking wet from head to toe.

Did I miss any advantages?

So the other day, some friends of ours introduced us to a game called Ticket to Ride. I knew that I would enjoy it as it combines strategy games (which I like) with maps (which I also like).

I didn’t do so well at my initial game last night, but spent some time reading up on various strategies today, and tried my hand at an online game this evening.

I won. Hee. As you can see from my successful tickets I went with a west coast approach, then followed the northern route up to New York, before spurring down to Atlanta to complete my final ticket ( which I drew late in the game).

So my oldest son brought home a “My kindergarten friends” book detailing the kids in his class. While going through it with him, I was very surprised by the number of large families in the class.

• 3 families with 3 members
• 8 families with 4
• 2 families with 5
• 4 families with 6 (including ours)
• 1 family with 7
• And 2 with 8!

Now obviously this wasn’t a “scientific” study, and who knows who all was considered “in my family” but still, I was surprised to have 7 families (out of 20, 35%) of 6 or more!

I’m used to the “Miller family freakshow”! I’ve made mention before that when we go out in public, we typically get one of 3 reactions:

• From young couples or older folks it’s “Awww how cute”
• Young families with kids it’s “How do you manage 4 kids?!?”
• No-kid havers it’s “Look at that freakshow!”

You’re looking at my first rebate check. This is one of the “Easy Rebates” that I filled out online the same day I purchased all the stuff (8/29). So we’re looking at about a month for the check to get here, so that’s not bad.

The other 8 or 9 easy rebates should be coming soon, and within another month or so the other ones should start arriving. It will be like Christmas every day at mail checking time!!!

I’m down to 3 rebates still marked as invalid and another 2 that have not been received yet