Well, not getting any lighter I should say. Not at all. Still hovering around 205. I’ve been working out religiously, but my diet is butt-trifling (or, atrocious as most would say.) And I don’t really care. I feel healthy. My size 36 pants are fitting looser. And I’m smoke free for over a month now. I know I’m healthier than I was 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months ago. Actually, this is the best shape I’ve been in for years. So I’m just going to be happy with it for now. Without making changes to my diet, I’m not going to start to weigh less. I had lofty goals of losing 30 pounds in about 5 months, and here half way through it I’ve lost about 10 pounds, but I’ve hit a plateau. My outlook now is- so what? That will probably change eventually, and I’ll move on to the next mental state that presents itself to me.

No, not a defensive back, the database. Moved my wp database to my new server. Stuff seems to be working, thumbs up.

We signed a “decorator’s agreement” for our house, and this weekend we were allowed to start working on things we wanted to change. Number one on the to-do list was to build a fence, so we can let our dogs out. That is 99% done (still need to install the lock, but I didn’t have my drill bits with me, they’re in storage.) The fence looks fine, matches everyone else’s, and will serve it’s purpose. It’s a 6′ privacy fence (peek-a-boo or board on board style.) Nothing fancy, and fortunately it only required me digging two holes. It did make a bit of a muddy mess though. Hopefully it’ll rain soon and wash that away.
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One day when I grow up, I’m going to have this totally awesome blog that dominates web culture. Make that blogs. About web design, user interface, losing weight, being the world’s greatest dad, and other really terrific stuff. But until then, I’ll keep plugging along, trying to make worthwhile entries as often as I can stand to write them.

So today, I did some maintenance on my Bloglines page. If the blogger hadn’t posted within the past month, they got deleted. I can’t have my page cluttered with whatever random author’s ramblings I found amusing one StumbleUpon or another. And that’s my new rule- if I notice a blog doesn’t have any posts for a month, I’m unsubscribing. Why is Firefox giving the red underline to “unsubscribing”? That’s totally the correct spelling.

Anyway, how long do you wait in between posts before you decide to unsubscribe?

So I am going through my first change of web hosting providers. I was very unimpressed with my previous provider, who shall remain nameless unless you ask me personally, so I needed a new one. I was surprised at how few resources there are for wading through the endless supply of providers. I ended up going with HostMonster. Maybe because it’s almost Halloween and the “monster” part was cool. OK, not at all, that just came to me. I liked their responsiveness to my questions, the 24/7 online chat support, PHP5 and RoR capabilities, unlimited subdomains, and great price ($5.95/month for 24 months.) I have used other hosting services for my freelance work, and they have sucked equally as bad as the company I found for my personal site, so I hope “the monster” is much better, and the bar is not set very high.

Yes, changing providers is a pain in the ass. I’m not totally through the process yet, but I’m well under way and hopefully everything should be where it belongs within a week. Truthfully, I don’t understand it all, or even very much of it really, but I followed the directions carefully. Honestly, HostMonster was very clear about what I needed to do to move my stuff over, and I thought the process was as smooth as can be expected on their end. We’ll see how the rest goes.

So why did I have to change providers? I want to play with some of the PHP development frameworks available (Cake and the like), and my old company wouldn’t tell me when they were going to have PHP5 installed. Since most of these frameworks depend on PHP5, it was ridiculous for me to stay with some one that wasn’t helping me out.

As we’ve established, I am doing 1 hour of cardio exercise at the gym 3-4 times per week. I got a new (well, used, but new to me) iPod Nano to make the workouts more tolerable. This week I worked out Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. And it feels awesome. I changed up the routine a little bit, I am running on the treadmill first, then comes the elliptical machine, then the bike. My legs are actually sore, so I know I’m working hard. My quads and calves are tender, and I’m happy about that.
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No, not my blog site, my personal site. That’s right, hot off the press, Gabe-Harris.com is redesigned and relaunched. I’m happy with it. I chopped out a lot of crap, added a contact page (novel idea, right?), removed the “intro” page, and cleaned everything up a bit. I got rid of Scriptaculous and used jQuery. There are more php include files, and my CSS file is more logically organized. And just for fun I threw in a “style switcher”, because different people like different things. I’m sure it’ll get adjusted here and there over the next few days and weeks, but in general I think it’s looking good. I really like the blue/green combination, and I dig the big giant font size. The feel is playful, crisp, and refreshing.

Leave me a comment (or use the newfangled contact page) and let me know what you think!