Milestone day

Today has become a bit of a milestone day for me, unintentionally. A year ago I weighed in on the Wii Fit and peaked at my highest weight -- 209. I shrugged it off from post-holiday, and a large meal, expecting it to vanish pretty quickly. Unfortunately, it did not. Today, a year later, I weighed in at 188. I have been consistently around 186, which is about right for me (even though the BMI says I should be in the 170s -- seriously?). I am happy to be in the 180s, although I would like to be closer to 185 than 190. We just finished working on John & Jen at Workshop Theatre, and every time I work on a show it takes a toll on me.

Jeni has also been doing amazingly well. She is down close to 50 pounds and still going. I can't express how proud of her I am. She really hit it hard this August and hasn't let up at all. She's now biking, doing yoga, and taking a few other classes. She really is a machine.

We found a good facility near our house and that has made all the difference. I know this never would have happened if I depended on getting on my treadmill at home. I'm not posting this looking for praise or acknowledgement. This is really for me to mark my progress. I'm not rushing the time away, but I'm excited to see what the next year of healthy living brings.

Striking against SOPA

I know there's a way to black out the blog and redirect to the Anti-SOPA and Anti-PIPA sites out there, but I'm guilty of not taking the time to do it. But I am writing this in protest of SOPA and PIPA. These bills that are coming in front of the legislators in Washington are just a bad idea. The vaguely written language of these bills opens the door to a host of problems. It is an example of good intent poorly executed. And there's no room for that in legislation. There are some great resources out there that have much better insight into the potentially harmful impact that SOPA and PIPA will have on the internet and the exchange of information online, including this piece from Google, the Blackout page on Wikipedia, and this piece by Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing.

I get such a chuckle thinking about the reaction of narcissistic teens who are going to Wikipedia today and finding out that their online shortcut to research is not available today. Hopefully this will give them some insight into the bigness of the issue, and help them to understand that this affects them and that they can take action too.

In the absence of a blackout on this blog, I offer you instead a black cat...

Please keep speech on the internet free and open. Do it for the cats...


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Links to look at later

Sometimes you just find links to pages that you want to spend more time on...

http://danmeth.com/post/15296838533/xmascards
http://danmeth.com/tagged/popculturalcharts
http://www.geekosystem.com/category/theres-a-map-for-that/

Disposable Memory Project

I was reading an article on NPR about the Disposable Memory Project, where someone left disposable cameras out for people to take, use, and pass along, with the intent of them being mailed back to him and to see what was captured. Out of the 400 cameras left around, 30 have returned. I'll be spending a few minutes at lunch checking out what photos were taken.