One Year Anniversary: Exercise

April 2nd will be my one year anniversary on exercising. No failed attempt to start. No starting and stopping. For one year I have regularly exercised and tried to eat in a healthier manner. The first two months saw me pull off twenty pounds, blood workup improve, and blood pressure go down. Then I cruised for about five months at the same weight and without a stop in exercise. Then the real tests came along.... illness, winter, holidays, etc. Yep I put on about 5-8 pounds. But I did not stop exercising.

What kind you ask? Jogging (3-5km once it took), riding a stationary bike, jumping rope, walking, and roller blading (though this has not kept up well). The jogging has been steady and my main vice for exercise. I do not try to run fast or far. Sometimes I do iterative training with faster bursts for one minute and walking for two minutes...either jogging or riding the bike. They are harder on me and my body. I tend to injury easier doing this so I have to warm up better and stretch better when doing this.

But tomorrow morning I will get up and take a jog where it all started...here in Angelo on spring break. Last year after a large meal I woke up with a sick stomach and could not sleep. So I made a pact with myself at 4am and did a jog for about one mile...walking and running and have been at it for a YEAR! I cannot remember doing this for this long at anytime since I left high school which was twenty-six years ago. This next year I want to go down about twenty more pounds and hope that I will stabilize in at about 200lbs even if I rebound a bit. I will of course have to count intake for once since the doctor said I got the first twenty for free so to speak. :)
Hopefully the whole family can attempt to make the next year an exercise year. ;)

My goal was to get healthier which I did. Not necessarily lose weight or follow a strict diet. Just start exercising and eating a bit better. Like cutting out sweets and fats where I could. Since I snack a lot then snack better....low fat and low sugar. Diet drinks, ice tea no sugar, water, puddings & yogurts with no added sugars, low fat cheeses, pickles, and veggies and so on. So the next step is do
even better this next year.

We will see. Thank you Jesus!

River Run III

With the wading behind us we traveled just down the road about half a mile to the Cedar Hill cemetery where several generations of Adamses are buried. Elizabeth enjoyed visiting this older cemetery. From there I let Elizabeth drive for a little bit. Of course she sat on my lap and only steered but she really enjoyed it. Grandma would have been scared a bit since Elizabeth was sight-seer driving and hoped the car would stay on the road by itself. Of course I had my hands on the wheel the whole time.

Then Emily wanted to give the driving another shoot and I let her drive a good bit until we got to Roosevelt. Along the way she saw some wild turkeys running in the pasture and nearly drove over this turtle which was crossing the road at a low water crossing. She was so intent on figuring out what the thing was that she almost drove too close to it. I was having a hard time getting her to turn a bit to miss it. Luckily he lived to cross the road another day. I moved him off to the river out in the pasture.

Along the way I found this goat shed which does not look like it gets much use anymore. There is nothing in the picture to give you the impression of its size but it would hit me about mid-stomach. They were used for sheared Angora goats which were very susceptible to rain after being sheared. Now days I think they leave a small ridge of mohair along their spine to protect from from the elements.

Once we got to Roosevelt we headed to Junction for some Cooper's BBQ which we reviewed over on the bubbaqlog. Then we headed back to Angelo by way of Menard and Eden. All along the way into Texas I noticed that though every town, no matter how small, seemed to have a DQ that it now seems they also have a Sonic. We stopped at the Eden DQ and loaded up on ice-cream. Eden too had a Sonic around the corner.

Across the street from the DQ was a convenient store with an unusual sign above it. Something you do not see often outside of Texas.




In the end the girls seemed to really enjoy themselves contrary to their initial believes about the trip. Elizabeth who got to chew her first bubble gum in Lubbock wanted to chew gum the whole trip and found it to be a real treat.

River Run II

After driving slowly through the Camp Allison area and pointing out TX Grandma family we headed down toward Otto's crossing and the next one for wading. Since the last time we were here Otto's crossing was a bit slick for wading I headed for the next one which stops short of the Cedar Hill cemetry.

Here is a link to the last trip to Cedar Hill



It took some sweet-talking ALB to calm her fears of the running water and snakes and whatever else she could makeup to head on down the river with Emily and me. Once we got her down there then the screaming sorta slowed to every five minutes. The river at this point is pretty much solid flat rock and we could have driven the whole distance. It is a very nice place to wade and get to see the river from a different perspective.






We moved a pretty good ways up the river.








Of course Elizabeth like resting in the shade and drying off a bit.

River Run

Some of this is over at M.E.'s Blog but that has limited access.

Today we decided to go wading down on the head of the Llano River at Cedar Hill between Sonora and Junction. We headed down to Sonora at about 9am this morning and along the way I pointed out various landmarks which for once the kids actually paid attention. Between Eldorado and Sonora I pointed out these small concrete markers (picture to the left) along the fences of the highway. They are markers for the highway right of way or mile markers. The reason I pointed them out is that their grandfather mentioned once to me that he help put these out along the highway between Sonora and Eldorado. So I stopped and we walked over and took a picture of one.


On the way back to the car, Elizabeth says, "Dad, what is that?" I looked around and thought she was talking about a beer can. I mention it is a beer can and she says, "No, that?" I look down where she is pointing and it is a very small and alone Blue Bonnet flower! We had been telling her about them while driving down from Lubbock. She was excited to see it (picture of it on the left.) It was not much and we did not find many more until we got to Sonora.

We drove on into Sonora and visit the Court House to see of Joyce (a cousin) was working. Turns out she retired January 1st and was in Ennis helping with a new grand baby for her daughter Becca. So we explored the upstairs courtroom which they had redone. It was very nice. Not like it used to be when I was a kid playing around the courthouse.

Elizabeth wanted to visit Aunt Essie so we headed over to the cemetery for a quick visit then we were off to the river.

We drove down I-10 East and jumped off on the old highway (3130 now), that parallels the interstate, where I pulled over and let Emily take over for her first drive. She basically drove down the same road I did for my Granddad. She had fun but was worried the whole time. When Emily first got into the car then Elizabeth lost it. She started saying loudly that we could not do this and that Emily did not have a driver's license and continued to repeat this and was very distressed. She told us we could not do this to her. :) Finally she calmed down and enjoyed the ride. Along the way some deer ran across the road a good ways ahead of us and Emily slowed down then stopped. When I looked out into the pasture there was a huge set of antlers sitting on a normal size buck. Upon a closer look it was an Axis deer and when I started to get out to take a picture it took off. I took over driving and drove up on down to Baker Road then on through to Cedar Hill and the river.

We stopped at the Cedar Hill School and showed Elizabeth where her great grandparents went to school in a one room school house. We have been here before about three years ago but Elizabeth does not remember it. I told Elizabeth how Grandma Bessie and Aunt Essie played an undefeated girls basketball team that practiced and played in the dirt pasture behind the school. :) It was a six-man team where two players played defense, two played center and two played offense. The court was split into three regions and allowed only two players in each region.

We drove on down to Camp Allison which is sorta a park where folks can have picnics, BBQs, and dancing. But when I got there I was in for a bit of a surprise. They had closed it off because of public health concerns. Too bad.






More in the next blog about our wading trip and more.

Ranch House Restaurant

The Ranch House (1520 Buddy Holly Avenue) has been a favorite of Gwen and mine in Lubbock. It is more a cafe than a restaurant. Probably the best breakfast in town and the lunches are pretty good too. A reasonably priced place to eat. While in graduate school the breakfasts seemed like a steal but now they are closer to $5 a plate which seems less of a deal.

The girls really enjoyed the breakfast we had there. They had the usual eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and toast. I had the RH's SOS with two fired eggs. I was very happy when I left. Unfortunately they do not take checks or credit cards so I had to drive over to one of the banks off of Main street to find an ATM machine.

I picked up a menu and noticed they still serve the Po'Boy Plate which is a bowl of beans with onions, pickles, and corn bread for only $2.25. I can see nothing on the menu over $5.50 and
the on the breakfast side the only thing higher is pork chops and eggs at $7. They are open M-F 6am to 4pm and Saturday 6am-2pm.


Also Gwen would be glad to know that J&J's BBQ is still open and serves 11am until they run out of food. J&J's was a small mom and pops place that served BBQ. Gwen really enjoyed it and they served a hot link she really likes. The food for me is ok but the people were really nice.

SDWest Is A Memory. No really, it is done.

Today on Herb Sutter's blog he breaks the news that SDWest is no more. We attended the last SD conference a few weeks ago. Oh well. We were not planning on attending the next one anyway. Sad news.

Disney 09: Pictures 1

Under one of the Rs in California Adventure which is next to Disneyland.











Girls on ride at It's A Small World. First night we were there.








New Zealand exhibit at It's A Small World









Our first Pluto visit.







More pictures to come as we have time to post them.

Disney: Cool Artwork

The first night at Disney we found this collage picture. Each shot will get closer on one of Mickey's eyes. Pretty cool!

Derlicious !

As is Steve and my tradition of hitting a Der at least once on travel (actually it probably Steve's tradition no matter when) then we got Joann to join us on our expedition. Turns out she had not ever had a chili-cheese dog before..and she liked it! Thanks to Joann for the picture on her phone.

Der Wienerschnitzel

They had to drop the Der and my guess is the reason is the fact Der is grammatically incorrect in German. But somehow they have placed Der on a small logo and tagged it on much of their product anyway. In high school we called them WeenyWorld.

NOTE: The Back Forty BBQ review is posted over at BubbaQlog as promised.

SDWest Day 5: Winding Down with Food

Well the last day is always the hardest and poorest choices. Sitting here in the last session time hoping for a useful talk on Managing Software Debt. We will see.

We ate at the Mall's foodcourt. Lots of Asian food to choose from along with Mexican. We went to find Joann some cold remedies which we found at a Walgreens finally. Seems she now has David's cold. No telling if Steve and I will get it too now. Oh well. All part of the business trip I guess.

I took a forty minute walk at lunch and saw lots of mallards and cranes. Nice walking paths here in Santa Clara/San Jose.

We will drive up to San Ramon (~27 miles) to try a Texas BBQ place called The Back Forty. The original place is up the road another 10 miles so we will stop short at a newer one. It is basically up the road toward the Livermore route. A review will be forthcoming over on the Bubbaqlog hopefully tomorrow or the next day.

I love my girls this much!!!!!!!!!!

SDWest Day 4: Down The Stretch

We have noticed that the last days of SDWest always seem to have less big name speakers and fewer titles of interest. But that is good in away since it helps us narrow down what we want to go see. Finding one speaker every one hour and one-half is good enough.

Nothing notable to report. Lunch was at an In-N-Out burger. The menu has four food items... hamburger, cheeseburger, double-meat & double cheese burger, and fries. And drinks are a minimum too. When we arrived they were on number 54 and we were 72. It took us less than five minutes to get our food. Luckily we found a table big enough for all three of us...luck? Well Joann jump on it when it opened about the time we got our food. When we left they had already went around the number counter past 99 and were back on 50-something. The place was packed and busy. They crank out the food. It is pretty good too. Except for a special sauce a lot like the Special Sauce on a BigMac. Turns out K.T. and Jon Dahl really like this burger joint.

The cardinal picture was just to add some color to this post. I found it online and it was free.

Well time to start another day. I miss and love my girls. See you in one more sleep...God willing and the creek don't rise. :) This Much!!!!!!!!!!!!

SDWest Day 3: Fun Day

Well Day Three was a bit slower. Only hit two presentations out of four but went for a couple of walks and got to visit with Steve and Joann a good bit. One talk was on how folks have succeeded with Agile. It was ok but nothing new to report. The other was a good talk by Dewhurst on C++ idioms.

I worked on making examples of how we use the boost library to design our software. Sorta how we design things.

We decided to eat at Olive Garden and had soup and salad. Yummmy.

I picked up a book yesterday hear at the conference called "Presentationyen." It is very interesting and exciting to think about doing better presentation which at the lab we really need.

No new picture today.

SDWest Day 2: A Better Day

The 2nd Day of SDWest was a bit better than the first. My hip is better but only because I did not run on it in the morning. The two tutorials I went to were actually pretty good. Reminders of good ways to write software in any language. Also one polished up a topic on Agile planning that I have been at a loss on....User Stories. Now just how to apply them is the question.

For lunch Steve and I did our usual tradition, on travel, of eating at a Wienerschnitzel (The Der). Joann excitedly came along with us since she claims to have never had a chili-dog before. Only a hotdog with catsup is all. It was Derlicious. She may be hooked. :)

We found (thank you Mr. GPS) a small street in downtown Sunnyvale that had a ton of cafes and restaurants. It seemed like a popular spot in the middle of nowhere. We ate at an Indian place (Tumeric) and the food was good. We tried one of those blossom ball things (a samosa) that is is posted here. It was good but did not have much punch. Then after dinner we found a new/used bookstore next door to browse.

SDWest Day 1: So it begins

Well the first day was at SDWest was interesting. Went to a morning tutorial on Building Your Coaching Skills then a lunchtime talk by Uncle Bob Martin about Clean Code. Both were good. Bob is a very entertaining speaker. He should follow Agile advice and get a domain expert on his team to help him with his "fun" Physics part of his talk though.

This afternoon I had a hip that was bugging me so I hung out in the room resting it.

There is a lot of Agile Development talks along with some good C++ seminars. Always interesting. It seems there is fewer people here this year. Perhaps the poor economy. SDWest itself does not have break snacks like last time nor the cap and t-shirt like last year. Seems a bit slow here.

Our swanky Hotel is pretty much only swanky in the lobby. It is the conference hotel but does not have much in the room. No free breakfasts or no free WiFi. I am using the SDWest network over at the conference. Oh well. That is how it goes.

Tomorrow is another day with different talks and tutorials. :) I have Emily's laptop almost purring with C++ and unit-testing. Thanks ME for the loan. It makes for a better conference. Just can't wait to use it in a tutorial.

I love and miss everybody. ME I hope your ankle gets better soon.
Love Dad

Santa Ana Zoo: Margay

Today it was raining and cool. Since it is a holiday then Gwen had not planned on us going to Disneyland due to the crowds plus the rain and winds made it not so inviting.

So we drove over to the nearby Santa Ana Zoo. It is a very small zoo but very nice. With weather they let us in free and the animals were all inside with warm heaters.

But one of the more interesting varmints we saw was the Margay cat. It looked like an exotic house cat and its ankles turn 180 degrees. Way cool. I wonder if they can go up and down trees forward and backwards.

If It Is Such A Small World Then...

Why is it the longest dang ride at Disneyland? Think about it.

We had the chance to ride It's A Small World twice last night. It is amazing all the different things there are to look at on the ride. Not to mention the never getting the song our of your head afterwards. The only redeeming thing about the length of the ride is the fact it was warm and no wind. :)

Bob and Gale said they rode this ride back in 1964 during the World's Fair in NY.

It is an incredible ride with some cool stuff to see. Elizabeth and Emily loved it.

Speaking of cool stuff...the Disney fireworks at the Sleeping Beauty Castle is awesome. I have never seen such cool fireworks before.

Highlights of Chistmas

I do not have enough energy to post about everything, but here are some things off the top of my head that stood out to me ......


Season 2&3 of The Gilmore Girl's
Hunger Hippos
Rudy's Card
Aunt TK' Photo Calendar

Well those were mostly for me. :) LOL. It is all about me I guess.

Went to Don and Terri Bednar's for lunch and went sledding too. On the way home passed a car in the road by the Valle Grande sitting on its side.

Thanks to everyone who sent gifts to the girls and us. Merry Christmas and have Happy New Year.

New Zealand: Cadbury's Kitchen Quick Weigh

A useful keepsake from our time in New Zealand. Interesting design. Found this link that says it is from the 1950's.





















Hmmm, One Gill is a "Quarter-Pint." Talk about a quarter short of being a "Half-Pint." I wonder if Peter knows about this!? :)

Memories: Boot Horns

Ricardo Boot Horns like these have been around our family for a long time. The one on the left belonged to our great uncle, Uncle Terry. I guess I inherited it when he passed on in the mid 1980's. The one of the right I have had for almost as long as I can remember. I am sure I got it from a relative or something but it has been hanging around my room for a long long time....maybe since I was little.




I do not see these very often anymore and thought they were interesting memories. Uncle Terry was a rancher and it just seemed natural that he would have a boot horn. They both work great as door stops too. :)

Memories and Pictures

This is one of my favorite pictures of Emily and me taken six or seven years ago. We tried to reproduce it today when Emily decided to hug me on the small couch. I do not look so happy but it is just the fact I was waiting to smile and look up on que but Gwen got the picture off a tad sooner than I anticipated. Oh well we may try again. It seems just like yesterday we took the older picture.


Elizabeth wanted her picture taken in the same way. Pretty cool.