For the last 7 or 8 years, I’ve been on a half-hearted weight loss programme.
My nominal target is 70kg, which is the weight I was when I got married, but since 2002 (when I started keeping track) it has dithered around the 80kg mark. For my height, a healthy range is 63.4kg – 78.9kg, so I’ve been technically overweight.
Anyway in the last few months it’s suddenly taken hold, and I seem to be shedding pounds.
This morning’s score was 76kg, which is the lowest it’s been since I started records (the highest being 82.5, not far off January’s 81). The previous low was 77, back in May 2005 – interestingly at the same time of year.
I think starting climbing again regularly has been the spur. I’m aware of how much extra weight I’m having to haul around, compared with when I was climbing regularly 16 years ago. Of course, climbing itself is not an insigificant expenditure of energy, and once a week is probably enough to have an impact. Finally, I’ve stopped having milk in coffee (initially for Lent, but now I’m just in the habit) – which doesn’t feel like it should make a difference, but maybe does?
To be honest I’m not really trying. I’m generally avoiding snacks, trying to control portion size, and having puddings infrequently – but more as a general approach to healthy eating, rather than dieting particularly. I also don’t really have a target at which point I’m going to change my eating habits.. although I suppose I may relax the rules a little?
Incidentally my records are rubbish. I have data on average once every 6 weeks, but frequently with gaps of a year or more. 🙂
I haven’t really got anything to say, but it’s something like 6 weeks since I last posted anything up, which feels like a bit of a poor show.
I guess the exciting topic around at the moment is British politics. Extraordinary (and very encouraging IMO) developments in the political world. I have to say I was disheartended by the Tory majority. I am a significant distance away from Conservative policies, and I thought another Tory government would be disasterous for the country as a whole.
At present, I’m eating my words. I’m stunned that David Cameron has so effectively and decisively formed a collalition government. I’m surprised at the compromises he has made to form it, and his willingness to enter a new era of politics. Any any leader who can stand in front of the press and say:
And if it means swallowing some humble pie, and if it means eating some of your words, I cannot think of a more excellent diet.
makes me sit up and take notice.
On the subject of food, the proof of the pudding is in the eating – but I’m genuinely optimistic that politics is changing (for the better), and that in Cameron and Clegg we may have a safe pair of hands…
With the announcement that Ordnance Survey have released OS Open Data (basically, most of their map data for free (as in speech and beer), I decided to see if I could supercharge my Magellan Explorist 210 with street level mapping.
Turns out to be non-trivial, especially on 64 bit Windows 7!
That said, I have managed it, and what I had to do was as follows:
Obtain MobileMapper Office. You can download v3.40 from ftp.promagellangps.com, or version 2.70 if you search the net hard enough. The chief difference is apparently that 3.40 requires the GPS device to be plugged in.
Install it, then tweak MMOffice.ini to add the line
Byte_Order=1 in the [DEVICE_DEFAULTS] if you have an explorist.(refer to msh tools for more info).
Pop across to OS Open Data, and download Meridian 2 in ShapeFile format.
While you’re waiting for the e-mail from the OS, download and install FW Tools – you’ll need it for a data transform later.
That’s the easy bit. You now have all the data and software required. The next bit is to transform the data to WGS84, import into MMO, export as a detailed map, convert to Explorist, and chuck onto the device.
I decided I wanted the entire set of roads in my GPS – you may decide otherwise.
Extract the Meridian 2, and take a copy of
a_road_polyline
b_road_polyline
minor_rd_polyline
motorway_polyline
In each case, you need all 5 files with the same base name.
Fire up an FWTools command window, and run the following command for each of the 4 files you just copied:
ogr2ogr -t_srs WGS84 wgs84 a_road_polyline.shp
This says transform the source file (a_road_polyline) into WGS84, and save the new file into a folder call wgs84.
This step is required because MMO doesn’t seem to handle British National Grid properly – I was getting errors of around 50 to 100m in my street locations when I did a straight import from the OS supply.
Fire up MMO.
Tools / Background maps
Vector Maps
Map Editor
Layer / Add
Choose one of the 4 road files.
Double click on new layer to bring up the properties, and change the Display Attribute to be ROAD_NAME
Fiddle with the scale if you want. I found that for minor roads an appropriate setting was 1:25k. On my device the colour, width, etc, don’t seem to make any difference, but it’s nice to do for display in MMO.
OK
Repeat from step (iv) for the other 3 files
Save if you want to
Operations / Create Map (and go and make a cuppa)
Close the Map Editor window.
Highlight the new map, and Attach Map
OK
You should now be able to see the full street set (you may have to zoom a long way in if you set a large scale).
The whole road network is too large for my GPS, so I had select a region to export.
Tools / Create Region
Draw the rectangle of the subset of roads you wish to upload.
Right click to make it stick
File / Upload to GPS / Background Map
Store on Hard Drive
Finish (and make a cuppa)
Now fire up MMOconverter.exe
Input/output file on my machine is C:\Program Files (x86)\MobileMapper Office\Export\Images\NewMap.imi
Plug in your Explorist, select USB transfer, and copy the file NewMap.imi into the “Detailed Maps” folder.
Unplug the Explorist, go to Menu / Active Map / Detail Maps / Select Map and choose “NewMap”
Enjoy!
All due credit to the OS for giving away their data, and also to msh-tools, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to even get started.
Ash Wednesday rolls around once more. I’m sure it’s quicker each year!
Each Lent I try and be a bit creative about giving something up. Without intending to be pompous, I think that self-denial is an important discipline, and Lent gives us a little opportunity each year to practise. I generally fail miserably in my Lenten disciplines, but usually because I forget I’m not meant to be eating chocolate (or whatever), rather than lack of willpower per se.
This year my wife challenged me to give up “escapism”. Interesting idea, but for me not really specific enough. What would this include, or not include? I suppose an ideal Lent would be giving up something that had a specific intention behind it – so I eat chocolate to make me feel good when I’m down, so I’m giving up that “crutch”. On that grounds it fits, but too hard to work out in practice, I feel.
So instead I’ve decided to give up Science Fiction! I’m a bit of a sci-fi nut, and am always glued to Dr Who etc. It puts Avatar out of the frame, for example (really should have seen it by now anyway).
The other point of giving something up is Bigger Picture stuff. If you deny yourself something you quite like, not only does it strengthen your resolve, but it also reminds you of why you’re doing it every time you don’t have it. So on a less esoteric note, I’m also going to give up milk in tea and coffee. I really like milky coffee, so each time I have a bitter black one, it will remind me that it’s Lent, and all that Jesus gave up when he was around.
The other movement I think is fab is taking something up for Lent. Like smiling to 3 people a day, or talking to a neighbour once a week, or picking up litter everytime you see it. This is a far more positive approach, and in one sense you are giving up some habit or pattern you’d got into.
Every New Year I try and do a little blog post about the year that’s past, and sometimes look forward to the one to come.
This year has been interesting precisely because it has been almost entirely boring!
No (family) births, deaths, or marriages (although Penguin’s wedding almost counts). No job or career changes. No moving (or plans to move). In fact, no major projects at all.
It has been a challenging year from a work perspective – what with the credit crunch, and A.’s work relocating to a new building. But in terms of Big Life picture nothing really happened.
I guess lots of little things happened. We had a lovely summer holiday in Northumberland, and No. 1 son has more or less learnt to swim and ride a bike this year. I’ve stepped back from the youth group, but started leading worship again.
To be honest, 2010 looks like more of the same.
If it was the rest of my life, I’d get a little bored – but for a year or two it’s very nice not to have any major changes!
I am firm believer in God (obviously!). I am also a firm believer that He is interventional, and takes a daily and individual interest in us (supremely shown through Jesus of course).
On the back of those beliefs, I further believe that God moves in ‘waves’. Almost like 90% of the time we just have to get on with life and the Great Commission, but every now and then He steps in to shake things up a bit, and give us a boost. No, not even that. It’s more like surfing. Every now and then a big or special wave comes along, which is an invitation to paddle out and start surfing. Each wave is different, but it’s always thrilling and exciting, and gets things moving.
To maintain the surfing analogy, I think there are 4 (or 5) types of people. The first are those who either don’t spot the wave, or choose not to surf on it. The second are those who spot it coming, and are very quick to paddle out to catch it. The third are those who see it and join in after it is well formed as a wave, and ride it out. Finally, there are those who ride it all the way onto the beach, and refuse to acknowledge the wave is over. Obviously there are also people on the beach variously longing to join in, mocking the surfers, or ignoring it altogether.
Each wave is different, and we are probably all in different groups for different waves. I think it’s very rare (perhaps once a generation) to get a monster wave. I might put the Welsh Revival, and possibly the “Toronto Blessing” (which I think is part of a bigger movement that would encompass Pensacola and possibly Fresh Fires) in those categories.
However, I think that there are mini-waves fairly frequently, where God releases a fresh excitement for prayer, or worship, or healing, or evangelism.
I haven’t got a theological argument for this, or any bible passages to back it up. It has just been my experience that God seems to say the same thing to several people independently, which often swells into something for an entire group of people (whether house group, church, town, region, nation, or whatever). And like popcorn popping, it’s heralded by little outbursts or pops here and there.
The reason I write all of this is because a friend of mine has recently had a very similar experience to me, which he writes about here. Basically he has felt prompted to start praying in tongues, after years of not doing so. I felt a very similar prompting a few weeks ago, and I wonder if, after all the excitement of Toronto, praying/speaking/singing in tongues has become a “forgotten” gift?
It certainly used to be a staple part of our worship ‘diet’ at church, but I honestly can’t remember the last time it happened.
I know what Derren Brown would say about psychological triggers and co-incidence. That’s fine, and up to him. While any individual experience in my life can easily be explained away, I reached the point many years ago where Occam’s razor points, for me, to the existence of God rather than a rather shaky concoction of repeated co-incidences, happen-stances, and luck.
Well, I’ve taken the plunge and added the facility to comment on this ‘ere blog.
To be honest I’m not sure how robust it is. Although I have written a “mathma” that asks you to solve simple arithmetic to prove that you’re not a robot, which was fun.
I don’t yet have a nice webby way of removing or editing comments (I have to delve straight into the database), but I can switch them off if spammers come to visit. There’s e-mail notification (to me) of new posts, and in the future I will probably add e-mail updates to posters as comments are added to existing comments.
Comments are also not mirrored or backed-up just yet (another day’s project), so if the webserver dies, the comments will vanish. I will add this in to my daily database backup script in due course, and I might even do automatic mirroring every time a comment is left. We’ll see.
There’s a part of me that wishes I was a teenager now, in the age of Facebook. And there’s a part of me that’s glad I’m not.
When I was a young lad, I used to fall in love at the drop of a hat, and be utterly and totally besotted with various young ladies (usually more than one at once). There was one particular girl who I was obsessed with for about 5 years (but never actually had the courage to do anything about, beyond name a MUD character after her). I met her at a New Year’s Eve party at about 15, and the first time I saw her I was smitten. I still would maintain that she is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. Probably now one of the most beautiful ladies, but I haven’t actually seen her for about 15 years now!
I digress.
Anyway – luckily (for me) at said party, I had my handy camera with me, so I discretely (or so I thought) snapped some shots of her, so I wouldn’t have to survive without being able to gaze upon her image adoringly.
When the pictures came back – every single one of them was her, and she was slap bang right in the middle of the frame. I must have taken about 3 rolls, of her, with no possible doubt at all. Of course, I then had to show said photos to friends.. “Um, this is Heather*. So is this. Ah – this is back of Heather’s head. This is her face again. Here she is in profile. Oo – that might be Jonny just in the back of that shot, behind Heather. This is me and Heather.”
Absolutely mortifying, as then the whole world knew the extent of the crush I had on her.
Fast forward 15 years, and here’s Facebook. I do a bit of youth work, so I’m friends with various teenagers on said social networking site – and it would have been a dream. I could have gazed adoringly at photos of my beloved until the cows came home. Here’s some examples:
Young lady – 272 photos
Another young lady – 180 photos
young lady – 336 photos
our ex-babysitter – 592 photos (!)
Girls don’t miss out either, although I’ve no evidence that they are as sad as boys in that regard:
Young man – 206 photos
Young man – 256 photos
Young man – 257 photos
These haven’t been specially chosen either – just random clicks on the list of 16-19 year old guys and girls from the youth group list.
So why am I glad I’m not a teenager now. Well, actually because of the number of photos!! Already unhealthy obsessions would have turned terminal: Cyberstalkers-r-us. You can have too much of a good thing, especially when it wasn’t that good to start with.
From the other end, the pressure of knowing every time you went to a party (or even just to school), your every move, bad hair/skin day, or wardrobe misfunction would soon be posted for the world to see.
My current crush isn’t on Facebook, and I don’t have very many pictures of her either. On the other hand, I’ve been married to her for the last ten years, and see her pretty much every day, so I don’t mind so much. 🙂
*Those who already know this will know her real name. Those who don’t don’t need to. 🙂
Had out first visit of the Tooth Fairy on Monday night. The boy’s first tooth came out, and that most magical of creatures visited and placed a coin under his pillow while he slept.
It got me thinking about pocket money. I remember one talk I heard by John Wimber when he was talking about pocket money – and he said that he always gave his children pocket money in small denominations. So (to translate to Stirling), if they were getting 1 pound of pocket money, it would arrive as ten 10p’s.
The reason for this is so the kids could easily give away some, save some, and have the rest to spend. I don’t think he enforced this, but he encouraged them to give away 10%, save 10%, and have the remaining 80% to spend straight away. I guess if there was a particular thing to save for, more would go in the pot…
I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand it smacks to me a little of indoctrination. On the other hand, I firmly believe that both charity and saving for the future are very important. Both these things are key antidotes to the credit culture, and who else will help the boy learn about money management?
Incidentally, the tooth fairy delivered a single coin, so I guess she doesn’t share this view!!
