Weighty Matters

Since late last summer I've been trying to reverse more than a few years of bodily neglect. This has involved working with a personal trainer on a once-per-week basis, cycling, running, walking and to some extent watching my diet.
As part of this I've tracked my weight on a nearly daily basis, weighing myself in the morning before eating breakfast. I've then been entering the info into a spreadsheet and generating pretty graphs. You can take the engineer out of engineering, but you can't take the engineering out of the engineer. Or something like that.Graph shows weekly average weight plotted for each of the last 64 weeks. Average weight for week 1 was 187.2 lbs. and for week 64 (just completed) is 169.1 lbs., for a loss of 18.1 lbs. Also threw a trendline on the data which indicates I'm losing about 0.25 lbs. per week. Max to min loss over the 64 weeks is a higher than the average, working out to 24.5 lbs.

- Brian

A Bit About Dad

Before my Dad dedicated himself to model railroading and being a land baron, he was Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan School of Music. I found this page today that I thought was pretty cool and gives some insight into what GBW is all about: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/livingmusic/browse_interviews&mode=single&recordID=749321&nextMode=list

-Brian

Catching Up

It seems I have some catching up to do. I went and started this blog back in November and haven't posted anything since. And so, some of things that have happened in the meantime in roughly chronological order:

- Traveled to China on business for 10 days in December. Spent most the the time in and around Chongqing visiting suppliers, but also traveled to Wenzhou, Ruxian and Shanghai. Very interesting and exciting.
- My Dad developed prostate cancer and broke the news to us on Super Bowl Sunday back in January. He has since completed a course of radiation treatment, which appears to have been successful based on recent test results.
- Continued working out on pretty much weekly basis with Amy at Coach Me Fit.
- My father-in-law passed away in late February
- Ran in my first road race since 1981. The Shamrocks & Shenanigans 5K in March . Did a 27:12.
- Spent a week in Boston with the kids. Walked the Freedom Trail, climbed to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument, and visited Harvard Yard.
- Applied for fall admission to grad school at the University of Michigan.

Of course there's been all the usual day-to-day stuff like work, getting kids back and forth to school/soccer/cello/etc, taking out the trash, shoveling snow, and mowing the lawn.

That's all for now.

Brian