Outsourcing My Body–Week 8

Well, It has been eight weeks since I outsourced my body.  On to this week’s summary…

Diet

I got back on the horse this week, well after Sunday night that is.  My mother and grandmother were in town last weekend (if you remember I partially blamed my mother for my 1/2 lb. gain last week).  They had the kids on Sunday afternoon and night.  This allowed the wife and I to enjoy another night out.

We ended up at Macaroni Grill (notice the crayons in the top left of the picture) and I ordered the above wonderful ravioli dish and a nice glass of wine.  I also ate a little bread dipped in olive oil.  I sampled a little of the wife’s dish and a little of her salad.  Since that night though I have been on the straight and narrow (that is until last night when I had a slice of Costco pizza for dinner).

Exercise

My right knee continues to be sore so I did not exercise with the videos this week.  Last Saturday’s attempt at level 2 of Jillian was the last time I tried anything strenuous.  This week consisted solely of walking Nina (our Doberman) between 1 and 2 miles and a few bike rides.  I am not sure if much will change this week.  The wife is convinced I am simply doing an exercise or two incorrectly.  Perhaps.

Other

I need a hair cut.  The sides are getting a little flippy and hair gel only partially masks this.  I put it before the wife to decide and so far the flips continue.

Weight

Due to the eating out on Sunday, last week’s less than stellar weight report and last night’s pizza, I was once again concerned as I stepped onto the scales this morning.  My fears subsided when I saw that I had lost 1 5/6 lbs. and am now down a total of 20 1/3 lbs.  I have often thought that diet moreso than exercise helped in the weight loss area anyway and this week can be used as exhibit A.

I have only 5 weeks to go and the wife has not brought up the subject of extending this project in a few weeks.  My mother bought me a big bag of M&M’s.  It remains unopened despite the kids asking me daily when I am going to open it (and I guess share).  I think I will need to set a weight goal and allow myself some M&M’s when I reach it.  Since I have about 18 lbs. to go on my personal weigh goal, maybe 8 more lbs. is a good place for that.  This way the kids will root me on (at least for 8 more lbs.).

Jon

The Listening Project–Week 30

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I made good progress and got through 40 CDs.  This is not too bad seeing as how I had Monday off of work.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
718	Harry Connick Jr	25	2/18/2012	No
719	Neil Diamond	Beautiful Noise	2/18/2012	Yes
720	Michael Kamen	Don Juan DeMarco Soundtrack	2/19/2012	Yes
721	Neil Diamond	Hot August Night - Disc 2	2/19/2012	Yes
722	Bruce Hornsby	Hot House	2/19/2012	Yes
723	Leann Rimes	I Need You	2/20/2012	Yes
724	Leann Rimes	Leann Rimes	2/20/2012	Yes
725	Soul Asylum	Let Your Dim Light Shine	2/20/2012	Yes
726	Michael W. Smith	Live The Life	2/21/2012	Yes
727	Caedmon's Call	Long Line Of Leavers	2/21/2012	Yes
728	Los Lonely Boys	Los Lonely Boys	2/21/2012	Yes
729	Marc Anthony	Marc Anthony	2/21/2012	Yes
730	Hall & Oates	Marigold Sky	2/21/2012	Yes
731	Bruce Hornsby & The Range	A Night On The Town	2/22/2012	Yes
732	Sam Phillips	Omnipop (It's Only A Flesh Wound Lambchop)	2/22/2012	Yes
733	AC/DC	The Razor's Edge	2/22/2012	Yes
734	By The Tree	Root	2/22/2012	Yes
735	route 43	route 43	2/22/2012	Yes
736	Reba McEntire	Rumor Has It	2/22/2012	Yes
737	Chris Rice	Run The Earth, Watch The Sky	2/22/2012	Yes
738	Jackson Browne	Running on Empty	2/22/2012	Yes
739	Weird Al Yankovic	Running With Scissors	2/22/2012	Yes
740	Rush Of Fools	Rush Of Fools	2/22/2012	Yes
741	Richard Marx	Rush Street	2/23/2012	Yes
742	Megadeth	Rust in Peace	2/23/2012	Yes
743	Various Artists	Sabrina The Teenage Witch	2/23/2012	Yes
744	The Killers	Sam's Town	2/23/2012	Yes
745	Sarah Masen	Sarah Masen	2/23/2012	Yes
746	P.O.D	Satellite	2/23/2012	Yes
747	Satellite Soul	Satellite Soul	2/23/2012	Yes
748	Various Artists	Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack	2/23/2012	Yes
749	Savage Garden	Savage Garden	2/24/2012	Yes
750	John Cougar Mellencamp	Scarecrow	2/24/2012	Yes
751	Bruce Hornsby & The Range	Scenes From The Southside	2/24/2012	Yes
752	EMF	Schubert Dip	2/24/2012	Yes
753	Enigma	The Screen Behind The Mirror	2/24/2012	Yes
754	Kutless	Sea Of Faces	2/24/2012	Yes
755	Philadelphia	Search And Destroy	2/24/2012	Yes
756	Mad At The World	Seasons of Love	2/24/2012	Yes
757	Michael W. Smith	The Second Decade (1993-2003)	2/25/2012	Yes

Here are my thoughts on a few of these CDs that I have listened to over the past week…

• Harry Connick Jr “25”: Not a good way to start the week.  The first 16 CDs on this week’s list are a carry over from my purchase from the previous week.  In general I really like Harry’s stuff.  This CD is mostly him and his piano.  Several are instrumentals.  As my kids have been taught to say when eating a food they do not like, “It’s not my favorite.”
• Neil Diamond “Beautiful Noise” & “Hot August Night - Disc 2”: I will admit to being ignorant of most of Neil’s career save for his hits in the mid 80’s when I was a teenager.  These are both from the 70’s and I think I could be becoming a Diamond fan.  I was disappointed when I realized that the Hot August Night CD that I picked up was only disc 2 of a 2 CD set.
• Michael Kamen “Don Juan DeMarco Soundtrack”: We have this movie and this CD (save for the Bryan Adams “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman”) is all instrumental, Spanish guitar laden music.  Very relaxing though I will admit buying it mainly for the Bryan Adams song.
• Bruce Hornsby “Hot House” & “Scenes From The Southside”: I really am becoming a Hornsby fan.  I picked up 2 CDs by him and his band last week in my 23 CD haul.  This brings my total to 4 CDs by him.
• Leann Rimes “I Need You” & “Leann Rimes”: I bought these on a whim since the daughter has Leann’s first CD and she likes it.  Leann does have an awesome voice so these are pleasant to listen to from time to time.
• Michael W. Smith “Live The Life” & “The Second Decade (1993-2003)”: Live the Life has a great song called “Missing Person”.  This is also on his 2nd best of CD, The Second Decade. So, in short, I got to hear that song twice this week.
• AC/DC “The Razor's Edge”: I do not think I ever gave this band a fair shake.  This is my only CD from them and I think I like it.
• Megadeth “Rust in Peace”: I think I became a Megadeth fan AFTER this CD.  This one though is before they changed their sound to be more commercial (the CDs that I like).  Still a good listen when you want to hear someone sing who is obviously angry about something.
• route 43 “route 43”: When we moved to Texas the first time we set out to find a church down here.  The first church we visited happen to have this trio in concert on Sunday morning.  The were very good and I picked up their EP.  Try as I might, I cannot find these guys anywhere using google.  You will just have to trust me when I say I am not making them up.
• Various Artists “Sabrina The Teenage Witch”: This came in the eBay auction I won a while back.  I had not listened to it until this week.  It has some good tunes on it including a remake of “Abracadabra” and “I Know What Boys Like”.
• P.O.D. “Satellite”: Payable on Death at the top of their game.  These guys are still around but their genre has come and gone.
• Various Artists “Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack”: Did you know that the Bee Gees did not even start on the music for this movie until all the dance scenes were already filmed?  The 10 minute version of “Disco Inferno” is a nice touch at the end of the CD as well.
• Philadelphia “Search And Destroy”: This 80’s Christian metal band I remember from my teen years.  I never had any of their albums but I found this one on the bargain rack and snagged it up.  Pretty good given they probably had zero budget for production.

I am 74.1% done now.  Somebody asked me last week what I would do when I am done with this project.  I froze.  I have no idea what I will do when I get to pick what CD to listen to whenever I want.  This project has relieved me of any decisions of that type.  I am still thinking about the answer to that question.  Currently I have 265 CDs to go.  At 40 / week that is only 7 more weeks until I have to come up with an answer.

Jon

Interpreting A Sign

I think I have mentioned in my Outsourcing My Body blog entries that I am drinking about a gallon of water per day.  While this has some good, healthy side effects it also causes me to visit the men’s room at work more frequently than in the past.  These visits are becoming habitual and I have developed several techniques to get in and out as quick as possible.  For example, there are 2 towel dispensers that are activated by waving your hand in front of them.  These hands free devices go well with the time saving, hands free / self flushing urinals.  Anyway, I wave my hands in front of both towel dispensers before I begin washing my hands so that the towels are already there for me when I need them.  This saves all of 2 seconds I am sure.  But my bathroom time saving techniques are not why I am writing this blog.

As I entered the men’s room one of my many, many trips there today, there was a guy I know stepping away from the urinals just as I was entering.  He was walking toward the sink area and then gave me a double thumbs up sign.  I nodded at him and then made my way toward the area he just left.

I had some free time for the next few moments and my mind began to ponder what just happened.  What could this person (who was actually my manager for a short period of time a few years back) have meant with the thumbs up sign?  Was that some sort of rating for what had occurred just before I entered the room?  Perhaps he was having difficulties in this area of his bodily health and he felt the need to tell me that everything was working fine.  Maybe he had heard a rumor that I was having difficulty in this are of my life and he was offering some pre-encouragement to urge me on as I stepped up to the area that he just vacated.  Or, maybe he assumed I saw which urinal he just vacated (there are 3) and he was giving that urinal a thumbs up rating for whatever criteria should be used in measuring such things.  The fourth and most likely scenario is that he was just giving me a greeting and waving seemed out of place (as if thumbs up is any less awkward).  No matter the reason, it struck me as quite odd.  I might need to switch the bathroom that I visit to avoid future signs.

Jon

Tengo Dos Avisos

I do not like being told I am doing something wrong.  I do not like being told that I am breaking a rule (or a law).  I really do not like being told this if I do not know the rule that I am breaking.  This is why I was upset when the wife and I discovered a large orange sign pounded in our front yard…

I guess you can tell we are having a good laugh about this now but not so when we first saw the sign.  We are in violation of two rules according to the orange sign.  We are watering our lawn on a day other than our trash pick up day and the watering is causing a run off onto the street.  This is the first I have heard of these rules.

I know that we (or is it still they) here in Texas are in somewhat of a drought.  I know that in a drought there are restrictions.  However, according to the sign, there is some sort of rule that prohibits watering on any day other than your trash pick up day.  Since the bill for water usage and trash / recycle bin pick up is one and the same I suppose that this makes sense but for the life of me I am not sure how I am supposed to know this.  I guess you are supposed to wait until you get the city’s equivalent of The Scarlet Letter pounded into your front yard for all to see.

According to the sign, this rule has been in place since November 1, 2011.  The warning was signed and dated at 2:10 AM.  This means that someone has the unfortunate job of driving up and down residential streets in the wee hours of the morning to catch evil violators like us in the act.  I can tell you that I have not touched the sprinkler system control that is in the garage since we moved in last September so that means that we were just lucky to have gotten by so long without getting caught.  I do not even have a manual for it so I guess I will have to just figure it out myself.  I can tell you that we had the ONLY sign and there were many other folks within eyesight that had wet driveways (suggesting that they, too, had their sprinklers set on a non trash pick up day).

Anyway, the wife and I stewed about it a bit and then calmed down and started laughing at it.  That is until we got our second warning of the day in (of all places) our mailbox.

My mother and grandmother are here for a short visit.  My grandmother is 85 and this is probably her last big trip anywhere.  They divided their time here between us and my cousin (who has the slight advantage of having a new [newer] baby).  Since my grandmother has a little trouble walking around (and since our van was hogging the space in our driveway) my mother parked right in front of our driveway so my grandma did not have to walk as far.  Unfortunately parking there is in violation of some sort of US Postal Service rule of parking too close to our mailbox.  This warning did not call as much attention to us as the other warning sign but since nerves were a little high in the “warning sign” department we still got a little riled up about it.  Unlike the water sign, this carried no monetary penalty (we could not tell if the water sign was a warning or a penalty, I guess time will tell).

Anyway, I will tackle the sprinkler system today and be mindful of the mailbox when folks come to my house and park.  Hopefully we can get through the day today without any more warnings.

Jon Dieterman

Outsourcing My Body–Week 7

Well, It has been seven weeks since I outsourced my body.  On to this week’s summary…

Diet

This was not a good week for the diet portion of this project.  Compared to 8 weeks ago it was a good week but compared to the last 7 weeks it was not.  On Tuesday I went out to lunch with co-workers who were in town for testing.  I went to Chick-Fil-A but I only had a wrap and went without the dressing part.  I think this was OK and not too far off from a normal lunch.  That night though the wife decided we were having pizza.  Fast forward to Friday night.  My mom and grandma were in town and the kids stayed with them at their hotel leaving the wife and I with no kids on a Friday night.  We went to Pei Wei and split an appetizer and also split a single plate.  I was still quite full when we left.  Last night (Saturday) my mom and grandma were at our house around dinnertime so we ordered pizza.  I do not want to spoil the WEIGHT portion of this blog but I do want to point out part of the genius of this project.  Not only are the decisions for my body outsourced to the wife but also the guilt.  For when I do not follow the diet or exercise, it is with her permission.  So, when you get to the weight portion, I would like to say that I totally blame her.  She let me down this week.  Of course, she could have told me NOT to eat pizza last night but that would have made her look bad in front of my mother.  Mother-in-law / Daughter-in-law relationships being what they are, I suppose she had no choice but to allow me to eat pizza.  From my point of view this just allows me also to blame my mother.  This did not stop me from feeling a little guilty when weighing in this morning but it has soothed my conscious since that time.

Exercise

I have been doing so well on level 1 of the workout video that I feared level 2 was coming.  The wife did announce earlier in the week that we were going to try level 2 on Saturday.  For the past 6 weeks whenever I would pat myself on the back with my progress in conquering level 1, she was there to warn me about the coming migration to level 2.  She had showed me a few of the moves that level 2 had coming and explained various pains that she had from doing the level 2 workout.  This left a little fear and doubt in my mind.  I began to obsess about the coming of this level to my daily routine.  After my first attempt at level 2 was behind me on Saturday morning I can say that it was much easier than it was made out to be.  Perhaps this is part of the genius of my wife in that she overstated its difficulty so that I would feel better after having done it.  Who knows.  I have today off (my normal Sunday thing) so I will hit level 2 again tomorrow.

Other

I still feel a bit guilty for the weight portion but all in all it was still a good week.  Perhaps I have some water weight from the sodium in the pizza from last night (I hope) and next week will get my momentum back.  This is one of the downfalls of only weighing in once a week.  Three years ago when I lost all this weight (that I am re-losing now) I weighed in daily.  I had my bad weeks but there were good days in those bad weeks.  Of course bad days had a negative effect on my attitude during that day so my plan on weighing once a week has worked well so far as I have carried the good news of Sunday’s weigh in with me during the week.  Now that I have a bad report, the week ahead will have to sort itself out I guess.

Weight

Let’s get right to it since I have harped on and on about this weeks lack of progress.  This morning I was up 1/2 lb.  That is not too bad I guess but very bad compared to the rate I was going in this project.  This still puts me down 18 1/2 lbs. for 7 weeks.  Not too shabby.

The kids are staying at the hotel with my mother again tonight and the wife and I will probably go out again tonight.  I have trouble enjoying food during this project though.  I am not sure if I can maintain this life style going forward in my life.  My mother told me that she is not so impressed with my loss thus far but suggested that she would only be impressed if I kept it off 18 months from now.  So, unless I change my life style I will not be able to meet her challenge.  18 months from now is August of 2013.  So basically I have a new challenge on the table.  Stay fit until I turn 44.  I am up to the challenge I think.

Jon

The Listening Project–Week 29

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I made good progress and got through 37 CDs.  This is a little less than the last few weeks but I only worked a half day on Friday.  However, I did visit a clearance rack and walked away with 23 more CDs last night.  This makes my progress for the week only a net of 14.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
680	The Call	Reconciled	2/11/2012	Yes
681	Foreigner	Records	2/11/2012	Yes
682	The Call	Red Moon	2/11/2012	Yes
683	White Heart	Redemption	2/12/2012	Yes
684	Natalie Grant	Relentless	2/12/2012	Yes
685	Relient K	Relient K	2/13/2012	Yes
686	Joan Osborne	Relish	2/12/2012	Yes
687	Plankeye	Relocation	2/13/2012	Yes
688	David Crowder Band	Remedy	2/13/2012	Yes
689	Out Of The Grey	Remember This- The Out Of The Grey Collection	2/13/2012	Yes
690	TobyMac	Renovating--Diverse City	2/13/2012	Yes
691	Richard Marx	Repeat Offender	2/13/2012	Yes
692	SONICFLOOd	Resonate	2/13/2012	Yes
693	Jeremy Camp	Restored	2/14/2012	Yes
694	David Mullen	Revival	2/14/2012	Yes
695	Various Artists	Revival Generation	2/14/2012	Yes
696	Inhabited	The Revolution	2/14/2012	Yes
697	Janet Jackson	Rhythm Nation 1814	2/14/2012	Yes
698	Ricky Martin	Ricky Martin	2/15/2012	Yes
699	4 Him	The Ride	2/15/2012	No
700	Robert Palmer	Ridin' High	2/15/2012	Yes
701	Russ Taff	Right Here, Right Now	2/15/2012	Yes
702	Duran Duran	Rio	2/15/2012	Yes
703	Building 429	Rise	2/15/2012	Yes
704	Allies	The River	2/16/2012	No
705	Greg X. Volz	The River Is Rising	2/16/2012	Yes
706	Billy Joel	River of Dreams	2/16/2012	Yes
707	Little Big Town	The Road To Here	2/16/2012	Yes
708	Various Artists	Roaring Lambs	2/16/2012	Yes
709	Wes King	The Robe	2/16/2012	Yes
710	Joy Electric	Robot Rock	2/16/2012	Yes
711	Petra	Rock Block	2/16/2012	Yes
712	Various Artists	Rocketown- Exodus	2/16/2012	Yes
713	Steve Winwood	Roll With It	2/16/2012	Yes
714	Tonio K	Romeo Unchained	2/17/2012	Yes
715	Various Artists	Room at the Top	2/17/2012	Yes
716	John Mayer	Room For Squares	2/17/2012	Yes
717	ZOEgirl	Room To Breathe	2/17/2012	Yes

Here are my thoughts on a few of these CDs that I have listened to over the past week…

• The Call “Reconciled”: My first CD by this awesome band.  Not a bad song on the disc.
• The Call “Red Moon”: Sad that the lead singer of this band has passed away and no more music will be coming from them.
• Relient K “Relient K”: I much like their newer stuff.  This (their first CD) is a little rough and punky for my taste.  I hesitated to buy their earlier stuff when I first heard their 4th or 5th CD but I found them in my price range on eBay and took a chance.
• Inhabited “The Revolution”; This female fronted, hard rock band has their moments.  I only bought this as I heard one of their songs on the Guitar Praise game we had (and I found it on the 90% off rack at Mardel’s).
• Janet Jackson “Rhythm Nation 1814”: Don’t judge me, it was only  $1.
• Ricky Martin “Ricky Martin”: See above note for Janet Jackson.
• 4 Him “The Ride”: And 4 Him adds another NO to their growing collection.
• Robert Palmer “Ridin' High”: I was ready for an “Addicted To Love” type CD but this is big band music.  Good, but not what I was in the mood for (or expecting).
• Allies “The River”: These guys should have stopped after 3 CDs.  Unfortunately they released 5.
• Greg X. Volz: “The River Is Rising”: Former Petra front man’s first solo release.  I found this one on clearance a long time ago and was shocked that it was autographed.
• Billy Joel “River of Dreams”: I have a few cassettes by this artist but this is my only CD.  The wife and daughter love the title track.
• Various Artists “Roaring Lambs”: I bought this originally as it had a new song by Steve Taylor on it.  It also has singles that cannot be found elsewhere by Sixpence None The Richer, Burlap To Cashmere and Michael Tait (DC Talk).
• Wes King “The Robe”: I would have never thought I would like anything by Wes King but this is a good CD.
• Joy Electric “Robot Rock”: The wife thinks all of Joy Electric’s stuff sounds like a bad Nintendo game’s background music.  They came to Kokomo once and I saw them in concert.
• Petra “Rock Block”: This is my 3rd best of release by Petra.  Every time they changed labels another best of release seemed to appear.  This has some different songs than their other best of releases.
• Various Artists “Rocketown- Exodus”: This contains the last song released by DC Talk before they broke up.  it also has a Sixpence None The Richer single found no where else.
• Tonio K “Romeo Unchained”: “I saw Shakespeare and Cheetah, Crying in their margaritas” is one of the coolest lines ever (from the song “Romeo Loves Jane” on this CD).
• Various Artists “Room at the Top”: This one only has 1, 50+ minutes song on it.  Interesting but not something I would listen to a lot.

Before I made my purchase yesterday, I was 71.8% of the way done with this project.  Now however I am at 70.2%.  I have 305 more CDs to go assuming that I do not buy any more CDs.

Jon

Outsourcing My Body–Week 6

Well, It has been six weeks since I outsourced my body.  On to this week’s summary…

Diet

We went to a Superbowl party last Sunday night and I did pretty well in not overdoing it.  I had more to eat than I would have had I not been to the party but stayed away from the deserts save for the fruit salad that we brought and some raspberries that had a cream cheese based filling.  I drank only water and mostly watched the game and watched other people eat (and then complain about their overeating).  This week was very busy at work as I played catch up from the previous week.  There were days I simply forgot to eat lunch.  My appetite is strange lately as even yesterday I only had some peanuts and applesauce for lunch and declined to eat dinner with the family as we were at the food mart inside Ikea (though I did eat a little of the wife’s salad and did snag one meatball).  The wife wants me to be careful as undereating can mess with your metabolism.  I might point out that the wife has allowed me to have a sweet here and there but I have refused the offer.  I do not wish to make her out to be a tyrant here.

Exercise

I was not feeling well Thursday night / Friday morning.  It was just a stomach issue so I begged off working out Friday morning though I did walk Nina for just over a mile (jogging part of the way).  Other than that I followed the same workout video as in past weeks.  I am modifying one exercise a bit as my right knee is still slightly sore.  I can do all the pushups now and have to pause the video less and less for a quick 10 second water break.  I fear that level 2 of this video is in my immediate future.

Other

I was talking to my boss the other day.  He had stopped by my cubicle and we were just chatting.  I mentioned that I was down 16+ lbs. and he said something about not being able to tell.  Since the wife mostly mentions my progress in this area after (or during) a hug, I suggested to my boss that he should hug me more.  A slight awkward silence passed and then I explained why I said what I said.  I also dug into my closet and found three pairs of jeans that have not been worn in quite some time.  I tried them all on and I was at least able to get them on and all the buttons and zippers fastened.  They were still a little tight but wearable.  I wore one pair to a few places this weekend (including the aforementioned Ikea).

Weight

Since I am making such great progress I hesitate to weigh in on Sundays for fear of little (or no) progress for the week.  This week (as with every week thus far) found my fears unfounded.  This week I lost 2 5/6 lbs. (my best week since week 1).  This brings my total loss up to an even 19 lbs. in six short weeks.

If you had told me six weeks ago that I would be down 19 lbs. (which is half of my goal) then I think I would not have believed you.  I still have seven weeks left in my outsourcing contract with my wife and for the first time since this experiment we did not discuss lengthening the duration of the contract.  She has mentioned from time to time that I should be motivated enough to continue on my own when March ends but if that was the case then I would have not put all the weight back on from 3 summers ago when I lost it all.  We will have to wait and see.

Jon

A Double Insult

The wife and I were lying in bed this morning and talking.  I think we were drinking coffee actually.  Sometimes when we get to bed late on a Friday, we (and by we I mean me) will make coffee and bring it back to the bedroom and watch a comedy while enjoying it.

Friday night the daughter had a jam session.  She has weekly voice lessons and the business where the voice lessons are at was hosting a jam session.  Basically every student worked separately on a song and then they all come together to jam and work on the song.  There were so many students that showed up that they created 4 different bands and took turns on the stage.  Each band had 2 vocalists, 2 keyboardist, a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarists and a drummer.  There were actually so many drummers that each band had 2 but only one played at a time.  Other than having to sit through “Let It Be” approximately 20 times (each band did it 4 times before leaving the stage and then each band got one more turn later) a good time was had by all.  We did not get home until after 10:30 and did not get into bed until 11:00 or so.

So anyway, we are sitting in bed and talking.  For some reason we were talking about life insurance and more specifically how much I had.  Early in our marriage we had term life insurance (and we actually are still paying on that monthly) however I have been purchasing more life insurance through my work.

Here is how it works, each October we have to enroll for insurance (medical, dental, disability, eye, life, etc).  With each year you can bump up your life insurance amount.  The amount it tied to your annual salary and basically you can go up one multiplier each year.  I began several years ago and I am currently at 4 times my annual salary.  Add that to my term insurance and you have an amount that I certainly would be comfortable with but the wife is not (hence our discussing this over coffee).

The discussion continued for a bit and I then mentioned that in 6 years she would have a nice amount of money should I meet an untimely demise.  I threw out a number and she immediately suggested that I was incorrect in my calculation.  Since my degree is in mathematics…well “them’s fightin’ words”.

I am not going to divulge my salary here but let’s say for instance that I made $35k per year.  My current life insurance would be 4 times that (let’s forget the term insurance for a moment).  That would put my death worth $140k.  In 6 years I would be up to 10 times my annual salary (10 is the maximum multiplier).  The wife did the math in her head and came up with $350k however I had thrown out a number more like $500k.  What the wife failed to calculate was that I planned on making $50k per year in 6 year’s time.  If you assume that, them my math is correct.

I quickly explained why I was right and explained that she was basically insulting me on two levels.  On the one hand, she questioned my ability to do math and assumed that her math was right.  Secondly, she assumed that in 6 year’s time I would have made no progress in my career.  That is a double insult.

She was quick to apologize (aptly twice).

Jon

The Listening Project–Week 28

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  This week was back to normal at work and I was able to get through 46 more CDs.  My 20 per week goal is almost laughable now with the recent progress I have made (I am 119 CDs ahead of schedule).  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
634	Jewel	Pieces of You	2/4/2012	Yes
635	The Normals	A Place Where You Belong	2/4/2012	Yes
636	Zilch	Platinum	2/4/2012	Yes
637	Moby	Play	2/4/2012	Yes
638	DeGarmo & Key	The Pledge	2/4/2012	Yes
639	Plumb	Plumb	2/4/2012	Yes
640	Spin Doctors	Pocket Full Of Kryptonite	2/5/2012	Yes
641	Natasha Bedingfield	Pocketful Of Sunshine	2/5/2012	Yes
642	Chevelle	Point #1	2/5/2012	Yes
643	U2	Pop	2/5/2012	Yes
644	Jonezetta	Popularity	2/6/2012	Yes
645	TobyMac	Portable Sounds	2/6/2012	Yes
646	Enigma	A Posteriori	2/6/2012	Yes
647	12 Stones	Potter's Field	2/6/2012	Yes
648	Rebecca St. James	Pray	2/6/2012	Yes
649	PFR	Pray For Rain	2/6/2012	No
650	Precious Death	Precious Death	2/7/2012	Yes
651	Andrew Lloyd Webber	The Premiere Collection	2/6/2012	Yes
652	Imperials	Priority	2/7/2012	Yes
653	Jon And Vangelis	Private Collection	2/7/2012	Yes
654	David Huff	Proclaim	2/7/2012	Yes
655	Michael W. Smith	Project	2/7/2012	Yes
656	Holy Soldier	Promise Man	2/7/2012	Yes
657	Number One Gun	Promises For The Imperfect	2/7/2012	Yes
658	Various Artists	Pure Dance 1998	2/7/2012	Yes
659	Stone Temple Pilots	Purple	2/7/2012	Yes
660	Prince & The Revolution	Purple Rain	2/8/2012	Yes
661	VeggieTales	A Queen, A King, and A Very Blue Berry	2/8/2012	Yes
662	Emery	Question	2/8/2012	Yes
663	Bryan Duncan	Quiet Prayers (My Utmost For His Highest)	2/8/2012	Yes
664	White Heart	Quiet Storms- The Ballads	2/8/2012	Yes
665	Various Artists	R.E.X. Sampler 3	2/9/2012	Yes
666	The Alarm	Raw	2/9/2012	Yes
667	TobyMac	Re: Mix Momentum	2/9/2012	Yes
668	Reba McEntire	Read My Mind	2/9/2012	Yes
669	Michael Sweet	Real	2/10/2012	Yes
670	Cindy Morgan	Real Life	2/9/2012	Yes
671	Steven Curtis Chapman	Real Life Conversations	2/10/2012	No
672	Trisha Yearwood	Real Live Woman	2/10/2012	Yes
673	Bo Bice	The Real Thing	2/10/2012	Yes
674	Reba McEntire	Reba	2/10/2012	Yes
675	Rebecca St. James	Rebecca St. James	2/10/2012	Yes
676	The Wallflowers	Rebel, Sweetheart	2/10/2012	Yes
677	Stryper	Reborn	2/11/2012	Yes
678	Dave Matthews Band	Recently	2/11/2012	Yes
679	Margaret Becker	The Reckoning	2/11/2012	Yes

Here are my thoughts on a few of these CDs that I have listened to over the past week…

• Zilch “Platinum”: This is (was) the back up band for DC Talk. Not a great CD but good enough to garner a YES.
• Moby “Play”: I need more Moby CDs.  I only have this one and a CD maxi single that I picked up somewhere along the way.
• Plumb “Plumb”: Strangely for this CD Plumb was a band.  Recently Plumb is the stage name for the lead singer who is now a solo act.  Either way, good stuff.
• Spin Doctors “Pocket Full Of Kryptonite”: Hey if you are going to go after Lois Lane then the title of this CD makes perfect sense.
• Chevelle “Point #1”: I have seen this CD (their first and before they hit it big) so many places for $1 that it is not funny.  If you like Chevelle then it is worth the $1.  I think I mentioned before they they started on Steve Taylor’s Squint label (like Sixpence None The Richer).
• Jonezetta “Popularity”: Awesome CD by a band I discovered only after they had broken up.  Too bad as Get Ready (Hot Machete) is a great song.
• TobyMac “Portable Sounds”: This CD is technically called “(Portable Sounds)” so it should have made it on to the week 1 list of this project I suppose.  For whatever reason it was listed without the parentheses and I get to it this week.  The operatic version of title track (the last minute of the song) is too funny.
• Precious Death “Precious Death”: This CD is a good reason for this project.  I liked their first 2 CDs (Southpaw and If You Must) but I remember being disappointed with this one the few times I listened to it.  At this listen I appreciated it more.
• Imperials “Priority”: The epic release featuring Russ Taff on lead on several of the songs.  I cannot believe someone gave this to a thrift store.  Their loss is my gain.
• Jon And Vangelis “Private Collection”: Only 6 songs here but when the last track is 22 minutes I guess you can get away with this.  The Jon here is Jon Anderson (of Yes fame).
• David Huff “Proclaim”: David (of David and the Giants fame) is still around I guess.  He covers a David and the Giants era song on this recent release.
• Stone Temple Pilots “Purple”: What an awesome CD.
• Prince & The Revolution “Purple Rain”: I used to have the 45 of When Doves Cry and played it to death.  I would not say I am a huge Prince fan but this one I like.
• Veggie Tales “A Queen, A King, and A Very Blue Berry”: Sometimes during this project I have to laugh at myself and my wide array of CDs that I own.  The fact that I went from Stone Temple Pilots to Prince to this CD of songs from the kid’s show “Veggie Tales” is a perfect example.  We pop this CD in on long trips and we all sing along (loudly).
• Various Artists “R.E.X. Sampler 3”: This CD contains the only song I own by Jerusalem.  Also it has a song but a group called Villanelle that later turned into Smalltown Poets.
• TobyMac “Re: Mix Momentum”: This one somehow dropped the colon and fell out of order in my list but I caught it in time (phew).
• Bo Bice “The Real Thing”: I thought he should have won the year he was on American Idol.
• The Wallflowers “Rebel, Sweetheart”: Somehow this only sold about 100,000 copies (compared to their multiplatinum CD Bringing Down the Horse.  Still good stuff though.
• Margaret Becker “The Reckoning”: Listening to this one right now as I type of this blog.

I am 67.7% through my list now.  If I keep up the 40 per week pace then I could be done by the end of April (Week 36).

Jon

Outsourcing My Body–Week 5

Well, It has been five weeks since I outsourced my body.  This week was a little tough due to my work schedule.  On to this week’s summary…

Diet

I had a workshop this week at work.  Basically I am involved in a year long project at work and about 25 people involved with this project all converged in Plano this week.  There were only a handful of us that live here so everyone else was from elsewhere (US, UK, Australia, Mexico, etc).  Since the company paid for the travel and hotel expenses and since we only had a week, long hours were the norm.  I typically did not have time to get breakfast at home before heading in to the office and lunch was only during the allotted break times.  I managed to keep to my diet despite there being a cart of goodies outside the room and despite those project members from other countries bringing delicacies from their native land for us to try.  I stayed strong and politely passed on everything.  The most trying time was during the team dinner on Wednesday.  We went to Maggiano’s and there was food a plenty.  I passed on the bread and deep fried calamari appetizers but did try a stuffed mushroom and a fried zucchini.  I passed on the fettuccini, ravioli, and lasagna and had the salmon instead.  I did try a few beef medallions and a small amount of mashed potatoes.  I also passed on all deserts (cheesecake, chocolate cake, ice cream and tiramisu).  I sipped my white wine and enjoyed the conversation back and forth between a fellow Texan, an Englishman and an Aussie.  If you have ever been to this restaurant you know there are tons of leftovers.  Since most at the dinner were staying in hotels, those of us from around here got the booty.  I brought home triple the food that I ate and my wife and kids had a great lunch the next day.  Through it all, the entire week, I managed to stay true to what the wife would have me eat (though she had no trouble eating the tiramisu I brought home).

Exercise

My right knee has been giving me a little trouble.  There is only a little swelling but the exercise video really hammers the legs and consequently the knees.  I pushed through the week but begged off yesterday and today for it to heal.  I am able to get through the sections with more ease with each new day.

Other

I got to explain this whole project a lot this week at work.  Some would ask why I was declining some sweet or why I was not pigging out at our team dinner so I had an opportunity to talk about it.  In general the men thought I was crazy and the women all thought it was a wonderful idea (no doubt this will become pillow talk and their husbands will curse me and this whole idea).

Weight

I was dreading weighing in this morning since my diet was slightly off this week.  I ate the soups at work this week and they were high in sodium I think and despite trying very hard at Maggiano’s I could have easily overdone it.  But, just like the last few weeks, I lost about 2 lbs.  Doing the math, I was down 1 5/6 lbs. bringing the overall total to 16 1/6 lbs.  The wife was both happy and jealous at the same time.

I still have 8 weeks left in this project and have even more motivation to keep going.  This all might change when the wife moves me to level 2 in the exercise video of course.

Jon

The Listening Project–Week 27

Well another week has passed by and I was able to get through a few more CDs in my listening project.  I was in a workshop most of the week so from Monday noon to Friday at 10 AM my pace greatly slowed   I was still able to plow through 32 more and stay well ahead of my 20 per week goal.  You can reference this blog entry for details about this project.  Here are the CDs I knocked off of my list this week.

#	Artist	Album	Date	Again?
602	Harry Connick Jr	Oh, My Nola	1/28/2012	Yes
603	Various Artists	Oldies But Goodies	1/28/2012	Yes
604	Bryan Adams	On a Day Like Today	1/28/2012	Yes
605	Petra	On FIRE!	1/28/2012	Yes
606	Michael Been	On the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough	1/28/2012	Yes
607	Scott Blackwell	Once Upon A Time	1/28/2012	Yes
608	Bee Gees	One	1/28/2012	Yes
609	Various Artists	One A.D	1/29/2012	Yes
610	Alter Bridge	One Day Remains	1/29/2012	Yes
611	Jonathan Pierce	One Love	1/29/2012	No
612	Various Artists	One Point Oh	1/29/2012	Yes
613	Various Artists	One Way- The Songs of Larry Norman	1/30/2012	Yes
614	Big Tent Revival	Open All Nite	1/30/2012	Yes
615	Poison	Open Up And Say... Ahh!	1/30/2012	Yes
616	Van Halen	OU812	1/30/2012	Yes
617	Randy Stonehill	Our ReCollections	1/30/2012	Yes
618	10,000 Maniacs	Our Time In Eden	1/30/2012	Yes
619	Out Of The Grey	Out of The Grey	1/30/2012	Yes
620	R.E.M	Out Of Time	1/30/2012	Yes
621	Tree 63	Overflow	1/31/2012	Yes
622	Ozzy Osbourne	Ozzmosis	1/31/2012	Yes
623	Richard Marx	Paid Vacation	2/1/2012	Yes
624	Paige	Paige	2/2/2012	Yes
625	Tru-Serva	Paperboy	2/3/2012	Yes
626	Coldplay	Parachutes	2/2/2012	Yes
627	Passafist	Passafist	2/2/2012	No
628	P.O.D	Payable On Death	2/3/2012	Yes
629	D-Boy	Peace to the Poet	2/3/2012	Yes
630	Pete Stewart	Pete Stewart	2/3/2012	Yes
631	Petra	Petra Means Rock	2/3/2012	Yes
632	Petra	Petraphonics	2/3/2012	Yes
633	Thousand Foot Krutch	Phenomenon	2/4/2012	Yes

Here are my thoughts on a few of these CDs that I have listened to over the past week…

• Various Artists “Oldies But Goodies”: A great $1 find of 60’s (and for some reason a few 70’s) songs.  Having “Rockin’ Robin” and “The Hustle” on the same CD seems wrong to me.
• Michael Been “On the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough”: I might have paid full price for this one (as I have done for many of The Call’s CDs).  I love Michael’s song writing, voice and bass playing.
• Various Artists “One A.D”: A collection of trance music.  I also have the next in the series (“Two A.D.”) but it will come much later in the project.  Nice to listen to as background music but not something to sing along with (if that were even possible).
• Alter Bridge “One Day Remains”: Basically Creed with a different lead singer.  I remember hearing this a while back and not being impresses but at 2nd or 3rd listen this seems to be an OK disc.  I credit this project for making me give this one a 2nd chance.
• Various Artists “One Point Oh”: About 7% of my CD collection is by “Various Artists” and this week has a few of course.  This is a sampler CD when Charlie Peacock was starting up his own label (Re:Think Records).  This CD has a few misses but did introduce me to Sarah Mason.  The drummer for The 77’s had a spoken word single here as well (the only spoken word track in my 1,000 CD collection I think).  Re:Think was where Switchfoot got its start (though not on this CD).
• Various Artists “One Way- The Songs of Larry Norman”: I wish I knew more of these songs as originals first but I only have a few releases by Larry Norman so most of these songs are new to me.  DC Talk’s cover of “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” is certainly the highlight of the disk.
• Tree 63 “Overflow”: This is the first CD by Tree (or Tree 63).  Long story short they were known as Tree until the released their first CD in the US (their 3rd overall) and had to change their name as there was already a band with the name “Tree”.  Their 2nd CD was called simply “63” (from Psalm 63) so they just added 63 to their name and the rest is history.  I could not find this release stateside so I got it from a bookstore in the UK (from the UK eBay site) as a double re-release bundled with the aforementioned “63” release (which was in the list for Week 1 of this project).
• Passafist “Passafist”: I am giving this a NO but an E for Effort.  This is a mid 90’s attempt to sound like NiN or Ministry but on a Christian label.  Maybe the world was not ready for that mix just yet.
• Pete Stewart “Pete Stewart”: Pete is the former lead singer of Grammatrain and this solo release has a cover of a Larry Norman song that did not make it onto the tribute CD mentioned above.  There are tons of Christian artists that cover Larry’s songs but this one is really good (“Little Country Church”).  I like Pete’s voice and this does not sound like Grammatrain at all.
• Petra “Petra Means Rock & Petraphonics”: Back to back best of Petra CDs.  The first focused on the heavier songs and the latter on the slower songs.  I bought them since I did not have some of their early releases on CD.
• Thousand Foot Krutch “Phenomenon”: An awesome, breakthrough release by this band.  I have most of their stuff (with the exception of their live releases).  I listened to this as I penned this blog entry.

I am now at 63.1% complete with the project and am pushing being almost 100 CDs ahead of my pace.  Even if I only get through 20 per week I am still going to finish at 45 weeks.

Jon