Starvation

Dieting is not complicated: eat less calories than you can burn in a day and then repeat daily. Counting calories, though not very hard with all the prepackaged/properly labeled foods available, always seemed to me too much of a hassle to contemplate. I am now, however, counting calories with the best of them and loving every minute of it. It's the logical [aka nerdly] part of my brain that loves keeping track of numbers, and when I serindipitously stumbled upon "The Hacker's Diet" online book I was hooked. Here's the premise: eat less calories than you can burn in a day and then repeat daily . . . and keep track of it all . . . "Programmer, hack thyself."

Some people will not like this diet: there's no tricks or taboo foods or 8 step process. If you're the type of person who loves keeping track of things [as in experiment data], this diet will motivate you to keep going . . . because you're keeping track of yourself.

Side note: the salad pictured is what I had for lunch today - I was pretty proud of it because of the great food to calorie ratio and general enjoyment I had in eating it - here's how I made it:

• create tortilla bowl in microwave [two minutes or so]


• add lettuce


• sauerkraut, 4 Tbls


• a little salsa


• homus


• and top with yogurt

Yummy. And only 246 calories! [that's a pretty low calorie count]

Molly and Blue - playing

Creativity Week Deconstructed

Recap:

• started out unmotivated


• continued unmotivated


• water in gasline, had to excavate new gasline [$]


• have hot water again


• creativity week ended

As you can see, Creativity Week was mostly a dud for me. Now, I could blame life, or the gorgeous weather or DiGiorno pizza. But truth is, we are all to blame [that's right, I'm spreading the blame around].

Listen. Let us not bicker about who did what to whom; the point is, there are no winners or losers when it comes to Creativity Week: there are only winners. Here is the important point: Creativity Week is not dead, it lives within each of us. We have only to call upon Creativity Week and it will be there, hat in hand, apologetic and triumphant.

Anyway, it is now the week after Creativity Week, and I'm preparing for Spring for Art [this Saturday, March 11th]. I have been busy, as evident by the photo to the right. I should have over 24 paintings to adorn the walls of Coffee Rani in Covington [I hope to sell them all, but I'd settle for a couple]. More later.

well after the storm

It's February, six months after Hurricane Katrina came through, devastating the gulf coast and overwhelming the levees of New Orleans. My wife and I were among the lucky ones; our house and pets were unharmed, and life has returned to normal. But storms leave scars and Bogalusa is no exception. We still have two large oak trees down in our yard and the vacant lot next to our house [pictured below] is a maze of fallen, tangled trees.

Around Bogalusa: fallen trees and automobile-sized rootballs can still be seen along the roadsides; traffic is held up occassionally by tree removal workers; Bellsouth vans are still actively fixing phone lines around town. Some folk are still waiting for insurance checks and many have still not recovered emotionally.

Mostly, life goes on. [I have internet again, as of last month, so I'm happy]

Banana Spiders

Banana spiders have appeared in droves. They have spun their webs [their decietful lies] prolifically and in the general vicinity of our front porch. We host these colorful visitors yearly, sure, but this is ridiculous: they have come on like gangbusters.

The wife and I have been discussing the fate of these eight-leggers, as I like to call them. She thinks we need to take action, and I have taken the high road: "Nah," I say, "let's not disturb them -- banana spiders are people too." [I may have overstated things]

For now the spiders remain untouched, un-swept-away- with-a-broom. They are friendly enough, afterall. [I may give them all names.]

Finally, rain

Thro' several miles of buffeting wind,
on recent trip to the Norther'lands*,
The sky fell out, a gusher true,
that turned the parchment streets to flowing
Rivers -- washed the dust from 'neath the carraige
and managed to slow our passing through.

*north Louisiana

Hummingbirds

Some birds fascinate me -- woodpecker, wren, wood thrush, and mockingbird -- but none so much as the hummingbird, especially when I delve into the amazing trivia behind these little guys [the only bird that can fly backwards, for instance].

I set up my digital camera on a tripod, aimed at the hummingbird feeder, to take a photo once a minute for an hour and a half, resulting in about five good shots of the hummingbirds as they fed. Two of these I combined in Photoshop to create what you see above.