The feeling of accomplishment :)

Today, I am basking in the feeling of having accomplished a major goal. And, while I am very physically sore because of it, it’s still an awesome feeling!

From May, 2003 to September, 2006, I lost 110 pounds. I hit a plateau at 75 pounds, and as a last resort to break through that plateau, I started running.  I had never been into sports and rarely exercised before I started my weight loss journey, so running was a big step for me.  I used the Couch to 5K program to learn how to run.  Then, when I finished that, I decided I needed to challenge myself further, so I signed up to run the IU Mini Marathon in September, 2006.

I met my weight goal just before I ran it.  I then signed up to run the Hoosiers Outrun Cancer 5k in October, 2006.  After that, I continued to run to maintain my weight loss, but didn’t enter any other races.

Then, in September, 2007, I enrolled in grad school.  I continued to work full time while attending graduate classes full time. As a result, I had no time to workout regularly, and my eating habits became horrid. Over the 2 years that I was in grad school, I gained all the weight I had lost back.

I promised myself that when I graduated in May, 2009, I would re-focus on my health.  And, I kept that promise.  I started weight training with a friend 3 times a week, and I decided to re-learn how to run.  I knew I needed a goal in order to stay motivated, so I signed up to run the Jill Behrman 5k.

I broke out the Couch To 5K training program again, and over the summer I ran 2 – 3 times a week. And, today, I met the goal I set for myself back in May:  I ran a 5k!!

So, here is my race reflection:

I did not feel prepared for it.  Due to sickness and a crazy-busy social schedule over the last month, I missed several planned training runs.  I was barely able to make it 3 miles on a flat surface, yet I was planning to run 3.1 on a VERY hilly course.  So, I was nervous.  I was tempted – briefly – to not do it because I didn’t feel prepared.

When I started to have that temptation, you know what I did? I signed up to run the Indianapolis 500 Mini Marathon next May! After, I did that, my attitude about the Jill Behrman 5k changed.  Instead being the final goal, it now became the first step in reaching the larger goal of the Indy 500 Mini.

I told myself that I would use it just for training and to set a basline for a 5k pace that I can work to improve upon before May. So, I showed up this morning, even though the thought of running up those hills scared the bejeezus out of me! Especially the hill on Law Lane!

It was 42 degrees and very windy when I arrived at the stadium–not very comfortable.  But shortly after I arrived, they did a group warm up, and after I got my blood flowing, I was able to take off my jacket.

The last time I ran a 5k in 2006, I started up near the start line, which was a big mistake because that’s where the faster runners start.  I ended up starting off at a pace that was too fast for me and losing steam early. Plus, it’s pretty demotivating to have people continuously pass you for the first mile.  So, I decided to start at the end of the pack, with the walkers.  (Really, my ‘run’ is more of a slow jog/fast walk, anyway.)

The gun blew and we all took off.  I began jogging and worked my way over to the side because I knew I would be passed by the faster runners for a while.  Near the end of mile 1, we turned onto Law Lane. And, there was the hill I had been dreading.  At that moment, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” came on my iTunes, and I took a deep breath, checked my form, and went for it.

I made it up about halfway, then realized that if I didn’t stop and walk, I wouldn’t be able to run much more of the race, and we were only in mile 1.  So, I walked to the top, then started running down it.  I walked through the water stop at mile 1.5, and then started jogging again.  We then turned left onto Lingelbach and I found myself facing another hill.  This one wasn’t as steep as the one on Law Lane, but it was longer. Again, I ran up about half of it, then I walked the rest.  When I got to the top, I started jogging again.

At this point, I was hurting. I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to be able to run much more.  I could feel my pace slowing.  We then turned on Jordan, where all the sorority and fraternity houses are.  And, there I saw a couple of girls doing the walk of shame.  This really amused me because they were walking in the midst of all these runners and seemed very oblivious, especially the girl who had her dress on backwards LOL

I then realized that for the entire race, I had focused on how I was feeling and if I was going to make it. One of the things I love about running around the IU campus is how beautiful it is.  Especially now, with all the fall colors at peak. And, I had been paying no attention to any  of that.  So, I had a mental shift and quit focusing on how poorly I thought I was doing and began to notice all the beautiful trees and houses.

At mile 2, they told me I was at about 28 minutes.  Well, no wonder I was so tired! The most I had ever run in my training was 30 minutes and that was on flat surfaces! And, I still had another mile to go.  Hearing that time somehow gave me the push I needed. I could feel my pace increasing and I actually began to pass some people.

I gave it everything I had that last mile. When I turned into the stadium’s parking lot and saw the finish line, I got goose bumps. It became real to me that I was accomplishing a goal.

When I crossed the finish line, the time on the clock was 41:13.  However, I did not cross the start line right at 00:00, since I was at the back of the pack.  So, I’m guessing my actual time is closer to 40 minutes, which would be a pace of 13 minutes per mile. And, that is better than I expected.  I was figuring a 45 minute finish time. They’ll post the official times online sometime in the next few days and I’ll get the official pace that I will now be working to improve.

When I ran the 5k in October of 2006, I was in the best shape of my life, and I finished it in 29:50.  Considering that I weigh 70 pounds more now than I did then, and I’ve only been training for 5 months this time when last time I had trained for over a year, I am very pleased with the results.

Oh, and, losing 30 pounds in the process of training over the past 5 months is a nice bonus!

Now, I’m going to rest this weekend (or try to anyway…going to a show tonight so I know I’ll want to dance LOL), and my next scheduled running day, Tuesday, will be the continuation of my training for the half marathon next May.

UPDATE:  My official time was 40:32.9, pace of 13:03.  I finished 582 out of 765 overall and 17 out of 28 in my age group (36 – 39).

I’m glad President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize (with a surprise ending)

So, the news broke early this morning that President Barrack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

And, you know what? I elated about it!  I really don’t have time today to respond to all the posts and tweets and blogs from people asking why, so I’m going to quickly dump my thoughts here in one place.

The big question is: Does he deserve it?

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel specified that the prize be given “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.” The prize is awarded on a very specific to the timeline.  The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize is for work done during the year of 2009 only.

People say that because we have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, he doesn’t deserve it.  However, his administration is not the one that sent those troops there, that started these unnecessary wars. Yes, if the wars are unnecessary, then he should pull the troops out, and he hasn’t done so.  And, I wish he would.  But, the prize isn’t awarded on things people haven’t done…it’s based on what they HAVE done.

Yes, during the past 9 months, there hasn’t been much done regarding “abolotion or reduction of standing armies”, but President Obama has been extremely active in fostering “fraternity between nations” and the “promotion of peace congresses”.  He has met with many world leaders who are considered U.S. enemies…something many previous presidents have not done. He has made real advances in US-Russian relations, for example.

(Side track rant:  I love the arguments I’ve seen recently that his being so open to improving foreign relations makes him a “beta male” or “exposes the US’s belly to the enemy”.  Seriously?  The man is trying to negotiate peace and that makes him weak?  I just don’t get that line of thinking.  Was Ghandi weak? Is the Dalai Lama weak? The whole “strength = being powerful, closed off and secretive” standpoint got us nowhere during the Bush administration, and I’m very thankful the current administration isn’t following suit.)

Anyway, in the literal sense, based on the criteria in Nobel’s will, he does deserve it, especially in today’s climate.  Take this quote this Newsday article:

“You have to remember that the world has been in a pretty dangerous phase,” Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. “And anybody who can contribute to getting the world out of this situation deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.”

Next question: Does he deserve it more than anyone else?  Honestly, I do not know, and my inclination is to say no, he probably doesn’t.  I don’t know who was in the running against him.  And, like many critics, I do think that he really hasn’t been in office long enough to see the results of his work yet.  I think he’s on the right track and in 4 years (hopefully  8!) there will be absolutely NO question that he deserves it.  But, perhaps giving him this award is a little premature.

But, despite that, I am still glad that he won.  The fact that this was awarded to a U.S. President is huge!  He’s only the third sitting president to get it. And, it’s awarded by an international committee.  IMO, U.S. Citizens have been so focused on the internal health care debates that they have not been paying attention to President Obama’s international efforts (except for pundits who claim talking to enemies make us weak).  For the past 8 years, the international opinion of the U.S. has not been good.  But, with the election of Obama, that has changed.  According to the same Newsday article:

Obama’s election and foreign policy moves caused a dramatic improvement in the image of the U.S. around the world. A 25-nation poll of 27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in countries around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President George W. Bush.

Even before he was ever elected president, he made it clearly known that improving foreign relations was a high priority.  Here’s proof, in the form of an essay he wrote in 2007: Renewing America’s Leadership. Heck, International Relations was his major in college, and I think his focus on the topic is one of the things that got him elected.  Americans are tired of being hated by the rest of the world.

Now, I will not deny the fact that there is definitely political motivation in the decision to give him this prize, though I very much wish that were not true. I hate politics.  Really.  I especially hate them outside of the normal political arena, like in the workplace or in cases like this.  But, politics in these situations are as certain as death and taxes in my opinion.

So, yes, I do believe that the committee was also thumbing their noses at the Bush Administration with this award by giving it to President Obama.  They were quite critical of the military attacks Bush perpetrated after 9/11, and Obama has shown he is not doing things the way Bush did. This their way of saying “I fart in your general direction” to Bush.  And, I find that childish and unbecoming.

Now, here is the surprise ending to this post:  Because of the politics involved in the picking of Obama for this award, and because of the mostly negative reaction of the U.S. Citizens I’ve seen to the news, and because of the question of whether he really deserved the award, I think that President Obama should NOT accept it. He should ask that someone more deserving receive it.  Perhaps such humility will help deplete the new fuel for the “I Hate Obama” fire. It certainly could only continue to improve the international opinion of the U.S.

Addendum:  This article pretty much sums up my thoughts: Obama’s Nobel and America’s Popularity

A Follow-up

In March, I wrote a post about a friend who was struggling with professional identity theft, which occurred because idjits on the ‘net couldn’t take the time to verify information they received in an email and just blindly forwarded it on.

Five months later, he’s still fighting it.  But, it looks like he’s winning.  He’s taken many steps to combat this identity theft, and being the consummate professor, he turned it into a teaching moment.  Check out his article in INSIDE HIGHER ED:

The Accidental Celebrity

Way to go, Tim!!

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again:  Before you post anything on a website or forward an email, please, please, please take a few seconds to reflect on whether or not the information you are about to post or forward is true and verifiable. Going to Snopes or doing a Google search to verify the content only takes a few minutes. If you cannot verify the information, then do not post or forward it!!

The Double Standard of Breasts

Yes, the pun in the post title was intended

Last week, via Twitter, I watched a breastfeeding controversy unfold.  My colleague, Amy, wrote a great blog post about it, so I’ll just direct you to her site for the background info on that.  As you can see from my comment there, I wholeheartedly agree with her sentiments.

When women go prancing around showing huge amounts of cleavage at the beach or in the bars, the DJ, and the many other misogynists that think the way he does, do not complain.  But, when they use the breast for what they were actually made for, (and when doing so, actually shows less skin than the bikini-or-club-going-clad women do) he gets offended.

So, basically, as long as the women are using their assets for purposes in which the man is going to benefit, it’s okay.  But, if anyone else gets any benefit out of it, it’s offensive!  That is such a double standard.

Today, I read about another breastfeeding controversy that reinforces this double standard in a blog that was posted on our local newspaper.  Here is that post: TMI for little girls?

I am floored that someone would actually comment that breastfeeding is “too sexual”.  I completely disagree. It has nothing to do with sex in any way! It has everything to do with providing nourishment for your child.  You might as well say that cooking is sexual, or grocery shopping is sexual, or working so you have money to put food on the table is sexual…but I digress.

The reason that the person didn’t like the breastfeeding babies was that it reminded them of sex, so that must mean that sex is bad.

It reminds me of a funny quote by Butch Hancock:

Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.

But, if sex is bad and seeing boobs makes you think of sex, then why do we see boobs everywhere, all the time in the U.S.? Watch almost any movie, play almost any video game, peruse the ‘net and look at the ads (and I’m not even talking about legitimate porn), and you’re bound to see some serious cleavage if not all out boobage. Not as many people get up in arms when Brittany Spears is shown on the cover of a magazine wearing a very revealing top.  Yet, a women feeds her child and she’s ostracized.

I did a little perusing on the web before writing this post.  I found several stories about this breast feeding doll and read the comments.  The comments on the blog that I linked above are mostly pro. But, that is to be expected because I live in a pretty liberal, natural-childbirth-loving community.  I found many other stories in which the majority of the comments were against this doll.  The majority of them posted things like “It’s inappropriate” because the girls are too young to know about it.

Excuse me? There are dolls include plastic bottles, which the little girls use to feed the doll with.  Why is it inappropriate to feed a doll one way, the way that Nature or God intended, but not the other way?  Why is it appropriate to take children to the zoo and ooh and aaah over the little baby panda cub suckling its mother but it’s not appropriate for humans to do the same?

The answer to both of those questions is the double standard of breasts, which is a direct result of misogyny.

Time-sucks

No, that’s not “Time sucks”. Time is a pretty cool, if complex, concept. I’ve got no problem with time itself. I’m talking about things that that suck my time, keep me from being productive or doing other things that I want to do.

I’ve slowly come to the realization that I’ve given in to some time-sucks, and I really need to back off of them. My personal time-sucks are Facebook, Twitter, and the local newspaper’s comment section.

The other night, I was sitting in my living room, and I wistfully looked at the Neil Gaiman book and an unfinished knitting project that were sitting on my coffee table and thought, “I wish I had time to finish those!” Then, I realized, I was sitting there with my Tweetdeck, Facebook, and the online newspaper open on my laptop browser.

I then proceeded to have the following conversation with myself (and yes, I do talk to myself ):

“What do you mean you wish you had time? You just finished going to grad school full time while working full time. You should have all the time in the world now.”

“I know but…”

“You no longer have to conduct research or write papers or work on your thesis or have group meetings or read boring, dry scholarly articles. What are you doing with all the time that you used to use to do those things?”

“ummmmm, Facebook, Twitter, and the online newspaper, I guess.”

“You guess?!?”

“Ok, I know. That’s what I’m doing with all my free time.”

“Oh, it’s more than your ‘free time’. You have Tweetdeck open the entire 8 hours you’re at work, and you check FB at least every hour. You also spend way too much time reading and commenting on the community boards at the online newspaper. Do you really need to know what other people in your town think about the news? Isn’t just know what’s going on in your town enough?”

“Well…..ummmm….”

“Well, nothing. You would have time to finish that dishcloth and that book if you shut that damn laptop.”

“But, I love Twitter and Facebook. The newspaper’s comments are more like watching a trainwreck, though, I just can’t look away sometimes.”

“Don’t you love reading and knitting, too? Oh, and what about watching TV? How many Dollhouse episodes do you still have on DVR to watch?”

“4″

[rolls eyes]

“You’re right. I need to start limiting the time I spend on those things.”

“Of course I’m right. I’m you!”

So, I am going to enforce some limits on myself. Twitter is going to be hard because I do have a legitimate work reason to have it open during the day. But, in addition to that reason, I also use Twitter as kind of an RSS feed. It gives me the newest lolcats and fmls as soon as they’re published. And, I can limit the time I spend on those things.

Below is my plan to decrease these time-sucks:

1. Facebook shall be checked once in the morning, once at lunch time, and once in the evening. During this time, no more than 30 minutes shall be spent on Facebook. In order to ensure that time limit, an online ‘egg timer’ shall be used.

2. Personal use of Twitter will occur on the same frequency as above.

3. The comments section of the online newspaper are off-limits. They’re mostly morons posting anyway, and none of them really care about what you have to say. The important stuff is in the actual story, and it doesn’t take you very long to read them.

That’s the plan. It will be initiated as soon as I get home tonight. Here’s hoping I have the strength to see it through…I’ve been addicted to social networking since 1997 when I got my first computer, before the term “social networking” was ever coined!

Goodbye, Weight Watchers

I attended my first Weight Watchers meeting in 1995.  I lost about 20 pounds, then quit (and gained it back).  I joined again around 2000, and lost the 20 pounds again, then quit (and gained it back.)  I joined again in 2003, and over the next 3 years I lost 107 pounds and became a Lifetime member.  I maintained for a year, then quit following and gained some (not all) back.  Over the past two years, I’ve maintained an account at their website and have attended meetings irregularly.  I started going back to weekly meetings 4 weeks ago.

And, I’ve decided it just doesn’t do it for me anymore.  It’s changed.  They’re constantly tweeking the program, so that when I think I finally understand how it works, something new is added or changed.  But, what’s really been bothering me is the focus on what I call “corporate”.  When I got serious in 2003, I loved going to meetings.  It felt like a group of friends who got together to bitch about how hard it is to lose weight and to give advice.  My favorite part of every meeting was the first few minutes when people would bring in their “food finds”–things they found at the grocery or at restaurants or recipes that were low-point, filling, and good.  Since these were all local folks, it was pertinent because I knew I’d be able to find what they were talking about at the Kroger or Marsh down the street.

The local Weight Watchers used to be a franchise, part of Weight Watcher Indianapolis.  But, around the time that I quit going to meetings in 2007, they were taken over by “Corporate”, Weight Watchers, Inc. The inside of the center was remodeled so that the room no longer felt like a meeting room but more like a store.  Corporate came out with all sorts of new products, and the focus of the meetings changed from being supportive (in my humble opinion) to hawking their own products. You now have to walk past rows and rows of products full of empty calories and trans fats just to weigh in.

The meeting leaders were told they had to follow a specific format for the meetings, so the informal feel and the impromptu sharing ceased to exist.  And, the thing that bothered me the most was people were no longer allowed to talk about their food finds or share recipes unless they were specifically Weight Watcher brand items.

I was pretty active with the Weight Watcher online message boards throughout that time, and they changed as well.  They imposed rules like you couldn’t post links to any external pages.  And, you were not allowed to give out the amount of points an item (even if it is your own recipe) was because it was copyright infringement or something.  I also saw lots of folks complaining that they were told they had to remove some things from their personal websites. Whenever I had a problem or question and tried emailing them, I always received a generic response with a copy & paste text that in no way answered my question.  So, the informal feel and the impromptu sharing was nixed there as well.  Weight Watchers Corporate started to feel more like Big Brother. Oh, and their server was absolutely horrible.  I frequently had to reload a page 3 times or more just to get it to load…from several different computers and browsers and operating systems.

I wanted to give it another chance, since I had been so successful on it.  So, I’ve gone to 3 meetings in the past month.  And, I have been severely unimpressed.  It still comes off as a marketing ploy rather than a group of people who really care about you and your health.

Now, I know that they are a business and we live in a capitalistic society and every business has a right to make money.  But, I prefer to patronize business that cares about more than the bottom line, and I just haven’t seen anything from Weight Watchers recently that shows me they are like that.

So, I am not going to any more meetings.  And, I cancelled my subscription to their online website tools today.  It was a little hard to do.  For 6 years, I’ve identified myself as a Weight Watcher.  But, I’m just not feeling it anymore.  It’s time for me to move on and find something else.

Goodbye, Weight Watchers.  I hope we can still be friends.

I have time to blog again!

I am a graduate! As of May 29, 2009, I officially hold a Masters of Science in Human Computer Interaction from the School of Informatics at Indiana University Bloomington! Woot! (Thanks to Kshitiz for this pic:)

So, what have I been up to, now that I have a life again?

I’ve taken on more responsibility at work. The lead consultant in the lab has been on vacation for the past 2 weeks, and this week he’s at a conference.  So, I’ve been getting to know more about the work we do as well as running the lab and our current projects.

I’ve also recommitted to my health. See my Weight Loss Journey Pages for more details. For exercise, I have begun meeting a friend at the gym before work 3 days a week, and we strength train together. She gets routines from her personal trainer and then shows them to me, and we do them for 2 weeks before switching to a new routine.  We’ve been meeting regularly for 3 weeks now.  I am also learning to run again.  Three times a week, I follow the Couch to 5k program. I’m also trying to walk a 4-mile fitness trail with a couple of friends once a weekend.  To get back to eating more healthfully, I have started to attend weekly Weight Watcher meetings again.

I’ve been cooking a lot, lately too.  Partly for the weight loss efforts, partly to maintain a budget, but mostly because I love to cook and didn’t do much while I was in school.  It’s been great re-discovering recipes that my husband and I love. I’ve also got tons of leftovers to use for my lunches at work.

I’ve also started knitting again.  I learned to knit in 2005 and did some basic projects, but I stopped doing that when I started school.  Since I wasn’t very far along when I stopped, I’ve pretty much had to relearn it all over again. I’m going to the yarn store today after work to get the materials to begin my first project, an IU dishcloth. I’m hoping to become involved in a local knitter’s group that meets for martinis on Thursday evenings (which is nice since it’s right after my Weight Watcher meetings so I can imbibe w/out worrying about weighing in for a week LOL).

I’ve started having a social life again…I’ve gone out to lunch with friends, to the bars, and to some shows. And, I’ve got lots of things planned for the future…This Friday hubby and I are going to a minor league baseball game and Saturday we’re going to take a metal sculpture class.  Next weekend is a Phish show, a day at the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival, and a day out on my Dad’s boat for Father’s Day…plus plenty of other shows/events planned for this summer.

I’m attacking the projects on my to-do list that have been pushed aside for 2 years.  Someday I’ll have my home office organized and my yard landscaped and my house spotless and my professional portfolio updated

And, of course, I’ve started blogging again, as is evident with this post.  Since I’ve been in charge of the lab at work, I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to blog, but I’m slowly getting there. I’ve reorganized my Weight Loss Journey Pages; I’ve started my Gratitude Journal again; and, in addition to this post, I’ve publised a post on my professional blog, HCI Reflections.

I love not being stressed and having free time again!!

Don’t believe everything you read on the ‘net!!

Yeah, I know that sounds like an obvious statement and most intelligent people are going to take things they read on the ‘net and in email with a grain of salt.

But, that’s just not the case. People blindly forward emails without even doing a simple Google search or stopping by Snopes to verify whether or not the information is true. While you may not think that a simple act of forwarding an email without checking it out may be harmless, I have an example that proves otherwise.

My friend Tim Wood is a professor at a university in Missouri. In December, he began to get emails from random people praising him for a political essay he wrote. But, the problem is my friend didn’t write a political essay. After a little research, he discovered a conspiracy theorist’s essay that was attributed to “Tim Wood” that in essence compared President Barrack Obama to Hitler.

My friend Tim, however, saw nothing other than the name that connected him specifically to this essay, and figured it was no big deal. He knows there are several Tim Woods out there. But, recently, he was made aware of the fact that an email version of this essay is now being forwarded around the web, and this email now contains a specific reference to my friend, as it lists his university’s address, email, and telephone number!

He contacted me for help, and I did some digging, and I believe I found the source of how this thing got attributed to him specifically. There’s a website for something called the “American Independent Party”. Someone there re-posted the original essay, and I guess he/she decided to pretend to be an investigative journalist and tried to figure out who the Tim Wood that wrote the article was. I’m guessing the person Googled his name, and found my friend. Since the essay mentions that the writer is a professor of history and my friend is a professor of history and poli sci, the person at the AIP website made the rash assumption that my friend was the essay writer.

She/He never bothered to call my friend to verify this. No, he/she just re-posted the article and then at the bottom wrote “I wonder if this is the Tim Wood who wrote this” and listed my friend’s full contact information. That’s when my friend started to get the emails.

After a month or so, people started copying this essay from the AIP website and pasting in emails, which began to be forwarded around the web. Somewhere along the way, the line “I wonder if this is…” was lost and everyone began to take at face value that the contact information listed with the essay was fact.

So, now my friend has spent a lot of his time and energy fighting something that in no way did he bring on himself. This is the kind of thing that could ruin a professor’s career! Reputation is something that is invaluable for those in academia, and all those people who forwarded the email or reposted the essay on other websites with the contact information, and especially the idiot at the AIP site that posted my friend’s contact information, could have ruined an innocent man’s livelihood!

Luckily, this thing hasn’t gone viral yet, and the original article that was attributed to my friend has been removed. But, the email forwards are still happening.

This kind of blind faith in content found on the ‘net is downright dangerous. As the old adage says, “a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has gets its boots on.”

So, I am appealing to anyone and everyone that might happen upon this blog post. Please, please, please take a few seconds to reflect on whether or not the information you are about to post or forward is true and verifiable. Going to Snopes or doing a Google search to verify the content only takes a few minutes. If you cannot verify the information, then do not post or forward it.

Edgar Bronfman is a pompous A$$

About 3 weeks ago, I blogged about Warner Music Group (WMG) making people take down personal YouTube videos that contained songs performed by WMG artists.

This morning, while working out at the gym, I was reading one of my favorite magazines, Wired. I came across this essay: Why the Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero. Now, go read that and tell me if the WMG CEO Edgar Bronfman doesn’t come off as a pompous ass.

Basically, now that he sees the success that Guitar Hero and Rock Band is having, Bronfman is whining like a little kid. When the game makers first approached WMG about using it’s artists’ music, WMG should have made them pay more then, instead of letting them sign low-cost synchronization licenses. WMG didn’t have the foresight to predict that these games would be big money makers and now they’re acting like little babies because they didn’t ask for a bigger cut.

But, that’s pretty much what they’ve been doing since the advent of digital music. They weren’t smart enough to see the potential of digital media, so instead of being proactive and figuring out how to make money with the new media, they were reactive and went after P2Ps and college students. Bronfman even admitted that they made a mistake with that tactic, as can be seen in this quote. Though, he also seems to be declaring “war” on consumers, and I really fail to see the business value in that move. (Oh, and, I’m sorry, Mr. Bronfman, but war is never inadvertent! It is one of the most intentional acts humans do. You chose to start this war. And, now you are crying about it because things aren’t going your way.)

So, what are the consequences of Mr. Pompous Ass’s latest actions? MTV, the makers of Guitar Hero, one of the most popular and prolific games right now, are going to boycott any WMG artists. And, who does that ultimately hurt? The artists! Because of Bronfman’s greed, many artists are going to be facing a tougher time than they should be in this recession.

And, WMG doesn’t seem to be faring any better. WMG Stock hit an all time low on Tuesday of $1.58 and closed at $1.85 on Wednesday. This means the stock price is equal to what it costs to buy a single. “Not an album, a SINGLE. A 45.”

Bronfman and his ilk claim that they’re trying to fight “piracy” so they can protect their artist’s creative content. Bullshit. They are trying to improve their profits. Plain and simple.

Writer Ken Fisher said it best in January in his article, Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn’t about Piracy:

DRM’s sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights and selling them back to you…There is simply no evidence whatsoever that DRM slows piracy. In fact, all of the evidence suggests the opposite, and arguments that DRM “keeps honest people honest” are frankly insulting. If they’re already honest, they don’t need DRM…It’s not piracy that’s the concern, it’s their ability to control how you use the content you purchase.

This is going to be a very interesting issue to watch, especially now, as the Pirate Bay trial is in session. I predict that the music industry, especially Mr. Bronfman and WMG, is in for a very bumpy ride because of their stubbornness.

The digital age is redefining and reinventing all sorts of information, including music. And, if the music industry wants to survive, it MUST change it’s business model. It needs to take a cue from Hollywood, who, when threatened by the advent of VCRs, got creative and figured out how to make money with it, rather than complaining that the new technology didn’t support their current operating practices.

NSVs

When I was losing weight a few years ago, I was very active on the Weight Watchers message boards, through which I learned about a great motivational tool. Most people track the progress of their weight loss efforts by their bathroom scale–whether or not the number on that scale goes up or down. But, that’s not a good way of tracking progress at all. In fact, if that is the only gauge of your success, you’re probably going to eventually undermine your efforts.

Losing a lot of weight in a healthy way takes a long time. It sucks, as we would all love to get the excess weight off yesterday, but that’s the reality. And, you can spend weeks, even months, doing everything right–exercising, journaling your food intake, eating healthy foods, but when you get on the scale, the number has not moved. Or, maybe it even moved in the wrong direction. I speak from experience here. Lots of experience here.

When that happens, if you have no other way to track your progress, you’re most likely going to get frustrated and lose your motivation because you’re going to believe that your efforts weren’t working. I can’t tell you how many times I walked into a Weight Watcher meeting feeling awesome, knowing that I had a great week, but when I got on the scale and wasn’t happy with the number it showed me, that awesome feeling was completely replaced by frustration. I let that number on the scale rule me and my emotions.

Through the Weight Watcher message boards, I became aware of the fact that the scale lies. Seriously.

Not all positive body changes are visible on the scale, especially not changes in muscle density. The exercise that you’ll do in any comprehensive weight loss program will help you build muscle and gain a firmer, stronger overall physique. However, because muscle is heavy and dense, you might not see a drop on the scale when you gain muscle. You might even see the scale numbers rise as you get healthier and stronger! Having more muscle and less fat is a huge part of what will make you look skinny, but your scale could never show you how much muscle you’ve built. (From The Scale Skinny Better Ways To Measure Weight)

So, you need to find other ways to measure your progress. You can take your measurements, or you can go by the way your clothes fit.

My favorite way of doing this is by tracking NSVs. Basically, whenever you do something positive, or whenever something positive happens, that is a result of your lifestyle change (notice I didn’t say dieting) it’s called a “Non-Scale Victory” or NSV. Examples could be going up 3 flights of stairs without getting winded, being able to fit in an airplane seat without a seatbelt extender, being able to cross your legs, choosing the grilled chicken over the fried, fitting into a smaller size….I’m sure you get the picture.

The reason I’m writing this post is I need to remind myself of all this. Last week I got on the scale and it showed a gain. I was pretty mad about it and for about a day and a half I took that anger out on food–I ate anything and everything that I could. But, I know I can’t continue doing that if I’m going to be successful in this weight loss journey. So, I’m back to noting my NSVs. I’m probably not going to blog about each and every one, tho. When you start paying attention, you see quite a lot of them!

But, I had one last night that I’m especially proud of. One of my biggest weaknesses is eating out. I know what I should order when I eat out. But, I usually cave and end up ordering things covered in cheese, or deep fried, or otherwise swimming in calories. Whenever I am successful at being “good” at a restaurant, I’ve usually had to work at it. I’ll look the menu up online beforehand, see what my options are, then decide before we go what I’m ordering. Then, on the way there, I visualize myself ordering and eating the “good” food. It really takes a lot of work! But, if I end up eating out on the fly, I almost always just order whatever looks yummy to me.

Last night, my husband and I were running errands after work and it got to be pretty late, and we were hungry and didn’t want to wait to get home and cook to eat. So, we decided to eat out. My husband was craving a burger, so we went to Texas Roadhouse. I have to admit that I really love their burgers, too. And, the yeast rolls with cinnamon butter. And the fried onion blossoms. When we were heading there, I was already planning on having all of that.

But, when the waiter took our orders, I actually asked for grilled shrimp, steamed veggies, and a plain baked sweet potato. And, I ate only half of it! I did allow myself one roll and some of the fried onion blossom, but nowhere near the amount I used to eat. I walked out of there feeling satisfied, but not stuffed, like usual. And, I had a yummy lunch for today!

I’m very proud of myself