Losing a part of me

Category: Work

  • Day 1298

    I wrote yesterday that when I fell off the wagon on Friday, I bought enough chicken and vegetables for two days, in addition to a challah. What I forgot to mention (and this was a complete blank on my part – that’s what sleep deprivation can do) is that I also bought from the prepared food counter (never a good destination for a dieter) a container of onion rings. It was because I had forgotten about this major transgression that I had a bit of trouble accepting that my weight jumped two pounds day-over-day. Worse, I had gained 3.6 lbs. in four days. As soon as I remembered that, it all made sense.

    I weighed myself twice this morning – once before taking Princess Sophie for her walk, and once after we got home; I had made coffee, I had prepared my meal replacement shake, I had sat down at the computer, and I had even typed in the first couple of sentences of this article before the urge hit. A productive bowel movement was just what the doctor ordered. Not only do I feel better, but instead of the .2 lb. drop from my first encounter with the bathroom scale, the drop from yesterday is now 1.4 lbs.; that is a good start, but I still have 2.2 lbs. from what I weighed five days ago.

    Yesterday was the first day in a month that I did not have a single meal replacement. For breakfast, I had challah with margarine. When I was finished eating, I removed the remaining challah from the bag… and threw it in the garbage. Just having it around would be too tempting. Around 2:30 I prepared the remaining chicken and salad. After running an errand, I picked up a handful of peanuts, and four dried peaches. That was it. I am done.

    This morning is not a new Day 1. Rather, it is Day 32… knowing that I fell off for two of those days.

    In addition to being able to void my system, I can also brag this morning of a wonderful night sleep. According to my fitness watch, my sleep score of 92 is the result of 8h55m of balanced and optimal sleep stages. After the last week, as well as knowing what is ahead of me, I am relieved. It was very much needed!

    It is going to be a beautiful day today… hot and sunny, with a high of 32°. I will spend most of the day at my computer preparing for my class which starts tomorrow… or should I say because of the time zone shift… at 2:00am tonight. That means that for Day 1 (which is tonight) I need to be online at 1:00am. Yes, I have now set my alarm for 12:30am for tomorrow, and 1:00am for the rest of the week… and the next week. Oh what fun we will have! I have friends who work the night shift on a regular basis, so I have nothing to complain about. I actually enjoy it to a degree… but the transition can be less than fun.

    The course that I am teaching is a very advanced cybersecurity class, and I am really looking forward to it. This will be the first time I have taught the course, thus why I will spend the day going over the material and the labs. It will be exhilarating to be sure… but every time I teach a new course – especially one at this level – I get a bit nervous. Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance, right? That’s my plan.

    My plan for the week is to stay on my program… and to try to shift my circadian rhythm for the fortnight. In other words: When I wake up at 12:30am it will be my early morning. After getting dressed I will have my breakfast shake… let’s call that 1:15am. When my class breaks for lunch I will take Princess Sophie for her walk, and on my return I will have my midday meal replacement… we should get back from that walk at around 6:45am. Class ends at 11:00am, and I will spend the next 30 minutes reading and answering emails. I will probably need until noon to deal with everything else that is on my plate. At that point I will have meal replacement number three. I have a few things to deal with in the afternoon, but by 4:30pm I should be able to have my fourth and final meal replacement. I will take Princess Sophie out for our second walk of the day, and when we get home it will be time to go to sleep so that I can hopefully get seven good hours of it.

    That is the goal. Will I be able to stick to it? I do not know. I always underestimate the challenges posed by the transition from a diurnal to a nocturnal lifestyle. All I know is that I will do my best.

    Speaking of doing my best… it’s time to hit the books. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1286

    This morning’s weight was worse than the last couple of days, and it is infuriating… even though I know it does not really mean anything. What I might weigh at 2:30am is always going to be different from what I would weigh at 8am. I also know that it had been three days since I had any sort of bowel movement, and when I was finally able to do that later in the morning I was quite relieved… and expect that will impact my weight tomorrow morning.

    Today is my last day of teaching overnight… until Monday, when I start a two-week class doing the same thing. In short, my sleep schedule is going to be quite horked through to August 22, and there is very little I can do about it. I am not about to turn down huge amounts of work so that I can get a good night sleep. I am excited to begin that class, and once I get into a rhythm I should be able to manage the six hour offset quite well. The hardest part of it will be the following weekend, when I am meant to be back on a normal (Eastern Daylight Time) for two days and then immediately pop back to Central European Standard Time. I’ll survive!

    Since I will be doing it for two straight weeks, I am going to establish my 1:00am weight as my normal through the fortnight. At that point I will not be worried about the hour because it will be consistent. Hopefully I will still be losing weight; hopefully I will be able to follow a reasonable routine.

    I wrote the previous paragraphs earlier. It is now my lunch hour (that is, 7:15-8:15am). I just came in from walking Her Floofness, and I prepared my first meal replacement shake. I have a few more minutes to enjoy it before my lecture starts up again, so I will do that and wish you all well.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1285

    From time to time I write an entry and forget to press Publish… or rather, sometimes I press it once, but not the twice that is needed. That happened yesterday, so when I opened WordPress to write this entry I back-dated yesterday’s entry. Oops!

    When we last left our hero, he was a bit upset with the 1.6 lbs. that he had gained from the previous day, but he was aware that because he had not slept, and because he was weighing himself at a ridiculous hour owing to his overnight classes, he likely had not really gained weight, it was just the normal fluctuations throughout the course of the day. Now he will stop writing of himself in the third person.

    I once again weighed myself at a ridiculous hour this morning (3:15am), but at least I had gotten some sleep. My weight was not back to what it was on Tuesday morning, but it was down .6 lbs. from yesterday. I will accept the progress. As this morning marks the completion of four weeks since I started, I am glad that my weight is down 30.8 lbs. in that time. I have a long way to go before I am satisfied with my weight, but I can definitely be satisfied with my progress.

    After my class yesterday, I changed out of the shirt and tie into shorts and a golf shirt before I drove out to Oakville to see my son. It really has been great spending time with him this past week, and I am sorry that the enforced daily check-ins are over. I will be seeing him more often going forward. I took him for lunch, and while he ordered a pound of wings and a pretzel bread dip (which looked as wicked and tasty as it sounds) with a root beer, I ordered a plate of carrots and celery. I assure you that he enjoyed his food a lot more than I enjoyed mine.

    I came home, finished up a few emails, and then dropped off to sleep for a few hours. I likely slept four hours in the afternoon which were much needed. I woke up, took Her Floofness for her walk, and when we came home I settled onto the balcony for a cigar. We came in around 10:30, and I was able to get nearly another four hours of sleep. Yes, I got eight hours between the afternoon and the evening, but they are not connected. My sleep score was an abysmal 44, but that is irrelevant as I feel (five hours after waking up) that between the afternoon and overnight I am pretty well rested.

    I just came in from my morning walk with Her Floofness, and I am ready to lecture the rest of the class. I only have 3.5 hours left to go, and I am going to sail through it.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1283

    I did not expect to see another huge drop this morning, so imagine my surprise when the numbers on the bathroom scale were another 1.4 lbs. down from yesterday!? That puts my loss-to-date at 31.8 lbs. on Day 27 of my latest attempt. I am thrilled with that! As well, after dropping only 3.2 lbs. last week, So far this week I have dropped 5 lbs.! What I am not thrilled with is that I am still well above the terrible mark. I hate that I let myself get so out of hand this calendar year.

    Analyzing the past data, while my weight first crept above the terrible mark at the end of September, in October it was higher than that for fifteen days, and then November it was fourteen days. In December I was doing better for a while… only seven days above that terrible mark. And then there was January… where I dropped below the terrible mark only once – and not since that day have I been there.

    If all goes well then by the middle to end of August I should drop below it once more. I will breathe a sigh of relief when I do.

    As it stands, the clothes that I ordered in June are a bit loose on me. I am wearing them comfortably, but you can tell I have lost a pound or two… or rather 18.4 lbs. to be precise! I am still disgusted that I cannot even button up the biggest of my sports jackets (although I am more comfortably able to wear my suits), and have reluctantly made a decision. Each time I have lost all of the weight, I have said ‘I will never gain it back again!’ and I have given away all of my fat clothes… which is why I had to get a new sports jacket and three new shirts made for me in June. When I can finally wear my slimmer clothes again I am going to take these new shirts and jacket and put them in a garment bag marked ‘If I am ever Fat and Ashamed again.’ I will not throw them out… but I will put them away in my storage locker.

    (I should mention that while I gave away the largest of my sports jackets, I am currently wearing a shirt that I had made in 2022, when I was first losing the weight. I have several shirts that do not fit yet, but I now have several from the down swing that do. They did not fit a month ago.)

    I mentioned yesterday that I had not moved my bowels in the morning… well in the afternoon I had what was probably the best movement since I stopped eating solid foods. I would not be surprised if that was a big contributing factor to this morning’s significant weight loss. What a relief! This morning I have thus far been unsuccessful, but there is still hope for the afternoon.

    My sleep score was up to an 87! I was surprised because of a number of factors:

    1. Even though I was in bed at a reasonable hour, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep.
    2. There was an Amazon delivery driver who decided to phone me at 6:30am to let me know he was leaving a package at my door. That is really my fault for disabling Sleep Mode on my phone… but I did not think I was going to get back to sleep after that. I did (phew!)

    I cannot think of the last time I had three nights in a row with a sleep score in excess of 80… Saturday night through Tuesday morning I registered 86-84-87. Woohoo! This, in addition to the nap I took yesterday afternoon.

    Yes, I took a nap. I spent most of the day trying to record a video for the course I am writing, and there was not one minute when I was not holding back a yawn. I could not figure it out, and finally I decided to walk away from the computer. I took Her Floofness out for a walk (she did not really feel like being out, so we only walked the perimeter of the building before coming back inside). She ran to Sue’s (the neighbour) for a visit, and I sat on the balcony with a cigar and a book. I thought that just maybe a break from not only sitting at my computer but also from studying computers would be beneficial. After my cigar was done I was feeling no more awake, and gave in to the temptation. I slept for an hour.

    While the nap certainly did my body good, I was still yawning all evening. On something like take 87 I was finally able to submit my video. (There was one take, maybe twenty or so takes earlier, that was definitely good enough… only for me to realize that while the screen and the mic were working, my camera was not. ARGH!) Video work is a lot more frustrating than teaching a live class… when I stumble over my words in class I can make light of it. That would not work for a recorded class.

    I did have a handful of peanuts yesterday…and I will again today. I am, as I said a few days ago, eating them in lieu of my fourth meal replacement. Three shakes and a handful of peanuts is not a bad compromise. I also suspect (with no scientific basis for it) that the peanut oil is helping the fibre in easing that last part of the digestive process. Maybe yes, maybe no… but I had the peanuts yesterday and recorded a huge weight drop, so maybe in moderation even if it doesn’t help… it doesn’t hurt.

    I do have some more video work to do today, but I also have an exam to prepare for this afternoon. As such, my plan is:

    • Head out after publishing this journal entry to visit with my son, stopping for a handful of peanuts along the way.
    • Come home, study for my exam for a few hours.
    • Clean off my kitchen table so that it will be completely clear for my exam.
    • Set up the exam computer.
    • At 4:45 I will either drop Her Floofness at Sue’s, or if she is not home I will put her in my bedroom so that I can take my exam.
    • After the exam, I will try to record the next video in the series.
    • After the sun goes down I will sit on the balcony with a cigar… if I pass my exam it will be a celebratory cigar (yes, it is a pretty advanced certification); if I do not pass then it will be an everyday pedestrian cigar. Let’s hope!

    Okay, it’s time to get moving. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1292

    30.4. The bathroom scale this morning confirmed that it took me twenty-six days to drop 30.4 lbs., and I nearly wooted out loud. I suspect it would have scared Her Floofness so early in the morning, but I quietly smiled.

    Yesterday was the second day in a row that I moved my bowels twice. I suppose the fibre is finally doing its job! Aside from dropping another half pound, I was also happy to see my sleep score of 84 this morning. Even though I wish I could have slept another 30-60 minutes, and my fitness watch categorized it as: ‘shorter than ideal, plenty of deep.’ That means that four of the last seven nights I had a sleep score of seventy-five or better. I think it is a combination of the melatonin and going to bed a little earlier that is helping. Of course, that ends Wednesday… I am teaching another class in Europe Wednesday through Friday, which means my sleep cycle will be completely upside down again. To make things even more interesting (sic), I should be receiving confirmation today or tomorrow that I am also teaching a class in Europe the next two weeks straight. Financially that is a relief. Sleep wise? Not so much.

    The class I should be teaching the next two weeks is for a certification that I do not currently hold, so I am preparing to sit the exam Wednesday… although I will be deciding sometime today whether or not to move that up to tomorrow… or even this evening. We’ll see. It is another high-level cybersecurity exam, and while it is slightly different from the CISSP, it is not significantly different. Going through a lot of the material I realized that there is a huge overlap in material, which is why I am thinking of moving it up. Practically speaking, that also would give me more time to reschedule it for the weekend if I do happen to fail… which is unlikely, but always a possibility.

    Yesterday I drove out to see my son around 11:00am, and then after about an hour with him I drove to Hagersville for my cigars, just as I had planned. I also take the opportunity when I am out there to fill my gas tank – the difference is at least twenty cents per litre!

    I kept telling myself that I needed to stop off for milk and cheese before I went home, and then I got distracted. The next time I thought of it I had already parked the car. Rather than hop back in, I went into the house, greeted Her Floofness, and took out the garbage before I headed out. I grabbed a reusable bag and walked to the supermarket on the corner. I was surprised that even with that walk I had not hit my steps goal for the day. As low as the goal is, I figured that would have done it. Luckily, despite several earlier outings, Princess Sophie told me she wanted to go out after I came in from my evening cigar, at which point not only did she poop, but I was also able to achieve my daily steps goal. I am hoping that yesterday was Day 1 of a new steps-goal streak. I know that with my crazy work schedule it might be a bit challenging, but let’s see if I can do it.

    Okay, I have rescheduled my exam for tomorrow afternoon. Now I have a bit more prep to do before I am ready. I also have some videos to record today for a contract I have been working on. It should be a fun if harried couple of days.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1283

    After yesterday’s gain of 1.2 lbs., I was relieved to see than I dropped all of that this morning. I would have liked to drop more, but I have to be satisfied with what I have. I have to continue on this track and not veer from the path. I will continue to ingest the meal replacement shakes only, and will not reintroduce solid foods for at least a few more weeks.

    While not quite what it was yesterday, my sleep score was 85, which is definitely good… and much higher than my average. My body battery this morning was a 94 – truly amazing. If these two things are telling me anything, it is that going to bed earlier results in better sleep and better recovery. I am going to try, but that will not always work. We will see.

    I am in the middle of a contract to write and record a course. This morning I read an email from the company asking if I could record the remaining videos for the first modules. I told the woman I am speaking with that one of the reasons I have been putting it off is my self-image, but now that I am on track with my diet I told her that I would be recording them next Monday. As it happens, I am otherwise engaged most of this week… but I would also love to drop another 5 lbs. before going on camera. The fact that I am ashamed of what I looked like is only part of it… on Day 1 of my new effort, I did not have a sports jacket that fit me… and even my largest dress shirts were pretty tight. Not only do I now have the new jacket and shirts, but I also just checked, and one of my vests fits again. I expect while they would be tight, my suits will fit too. I am still a couple of inches from being able to wear my other sports jackets, but that will come in time. In the meantime, at least I can go on camera wearing a comfortably fitting shirt and jacket.

    I am heading down to St. Catharines today to see a couple of friends. I do not expect I will have too many food temptations, but to make my life easier, I will not leave home until after I have had my second meal replacement of the day, and I will be sure to have another meal replacement with me just in case I am there longer than expected.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1282

    I was not at all impressed this morning to see that my weight was up more than a pound from yesterday. I have to assume that was mostly related to the extremely salted peanuts I had eaten the previous day, but also the (unsalted) peanuts I ate yesterday. Other factors would include not moving my bowels (which I did quite successfully some time after weighing myself)… and the fact that weight loss is about the downward trend and not individual plots on a graph. Yes, I ate a handful of peanuts yesterday… a conservative estimate of my total intake yesterday would be 1050 calories which is by no measure excessive, and there was no significant sodium or carbohydrates or starch added to my usual four-per-day meal replacements. There is only one measure by which yesterday was a dietary failure, which is only the strict interpretation of the strict rules of the medically supervised program that I am on. I am not going to feel guilty about that.

    By the by… a clear indicator that my weight issues are likely related to the previous day’s salted peanuts is that my ring, of which I wrote just three days ago, is much tighter than it was. Fingers swell from water retention which is caused by sodium. I expect it to once again fit much better tomorrow or the next day than it does this morning.

    What I do feel guilty about is that I gave serious thought yesterday to switching to a partial program – two or three meal replacements plus an actual meal. I did not do anything about it, but I gave it thought. Why should I feel guilty? Maybe guilt is the wrong word, but I know it is, for the moment, a bad idea. I set out on this renewed journey only two weeks ago (today is essentially Day 16) and I have done very well so far… I have lost 22.4 lbs. so far, which is great… until we factor in that from my best weight ever (October, 2023) until my worst day ever (Day 1 of this new effort) I had regained 106 lbs., at which point we have to recognize that I have only scratched the surface of what I want to – what I need to do. I am still 83.6 lbs. heavier than I was when I was at my best, and that will not just melt away in a heartbeat. It will take much longer if I start compromising now on what is working. Yes, I see images of food and I am tempted. I should by no means give in to that temptation, and there is currently no justification for my doing so. All of the times since the beginning of the year that I have tried to start on a modified program were failures. Why? Because I negotiated with myself. ‘This works… but if I just put in some of the effort instead of all of the effort, then it should still work.’ No. I am not saying never, but for the time being I have no intention of compromising.

    My sleep score this morning was the best that it has been since January 2 of this year. I suspect that it has been over 90 only a handful of times in all of the years that my fitness watch has been tracking it. When I saw the tremendous score of 93 this morning I was relieved, knowing that a good night sleep is crucial for health in general, but it also helps weight loss in particular. My body battery was an unprecedented 97. Hoorah!

    I just did something that I should have done on Day 1. I went onto Facebook looking for the support group that I was a member of previously. In fact, I am still a member, but because I had not participated in quite some time it was not prioritized in my feed. I posted my first message there in a very long time. The group does not seem to be very active – beyond being a buy and sell group – but hopefully I will get some response, and some support.

    Today is a rainy Friday, and in a sense that is a good thing. I have been delinquent on a project that I need to work on, and I will put in a lot of work on it today. I am also going to try to get help with that other issue that I have been dealing with, which will involve a support session with Microsoft. I am not looking forward to that, but I am hoping that it can get resolved satisfactorily.

    I just got off the phone with my son the elder who is off to university next weekend. He wants to see me this weekend (which is great). He also respects the fact that I am back on my diet, and that because of that I would rather he come over for a drink than go out for a meal. I look forward to seeing him and having a nice chat.

    With that, I am going to try to get some work done. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1279

    I was going to say that I spent the morning procrastinating, but in truth I have been diligently writing emails that needed to be written. I have also (at long last) made an appointment to get my eyes checked (I suspect it has been three years since I did) so that I can then get new eyeglasses, which I suspect has been a problem for me the past year or so.

    While my bowels are again stopped up (It has now been two days since a successful movement) I am not worried because it has also been thirteen days since I last ate solid food, and …

    Okay, that was fortuitous timing. I was right in the middle of writing about it that I felt the urge, and was quite successful in the endeavour. Here’s to the fibre I have been (since Friday) religiously been remembering to add to my meal replacements in the morning!

    I have often in the past talked about how my clothes fit was a good indicator of my progress. I have a masonic ring that I purchased in the autumn which over the last couple of months has been quite tight on my ring finger. There have been days when I wore it on my pinky, and others when I did not wear it at all. These last couple of days it has fit much nicer – it is a bit tight going over the knuckles, but is comfortable to wear. I look forward to it being even a bit looser in the next few months.

    Yesterday I reported that my weight had, for the first morning weigh-in since I started on the program, was slightly up. This morning it righted itself, with a 1.6 lb. drop from yesterday (and a 1.2 lb. drop from the previous day). I was not discouraged yesterday; I know that there will be days when this happens, and I do not have to be worried or disheartened on those days. When it happens I need to remember that what tiny progress I lost on Day Q will usually more than be recovered on Day Q+1. As I have written in these pages so many times, weight loss is about the downward trend and not about individual plots on the graph.

    My sleep score last night was up from the abysmal previous night, partly owing I would think to the fact that it recorded 8.25 hours of sleep. It reported that I did not get enough REM sleep. Still and all, a sleep score of 75 is much better than yesterday’s 56. I’ll take it! How well will I sleep tonight? That depends on how prepared I feel for my exam… which is tomorrow. Right now I do not feel like I am adequately prepared. I have less than twenty-four hours to get just a little bit more prepared… if that is even possible.

    The company that offers the certification for which I am testing tomorrow is called ISC2, and I have been certified with them in other programs since December. I was made an Authorized ISC2 Instructor in April, and yesterday was my first delivery of one of their courses. The class was for the very basic entry-level certification, and is meant to be a 2-day course. The training provider scheduled it as a 1-day class, and I only saw the discrepancy over the weekend. I was worried that I would not be able to inject the class with my usual panache, and in the afternoon felt like I was rushing through material at a pace that nobody (or at least not a beginner, which is who entry level classes are for) would be able to follow. Even with cutting the lunch hour to forty-five minutes and with the rushing my lecture went over time by three minutes. With trepidation in my mind I nonetheless apologized for rushing through and asked the students to fill out their evaluations. When I read them this morning I was elated to see that yes, they all wanted to class to be longer… but gave the instructor perfect scores. That is the only metric that I am judged on, and I was quite relived to see it.

    I have to get working on my studies… there have been too many necessary distractions today and while none of them were wasting time, they were also not studying for my exam. The rest of the day will be dedicated to that. I’m not sure if I will write tomorrow’s entry before or after my exam, but one way or another I’ll see you all on the morrow.

    Have a great day.

  • Day 1278

    It was going to happen eventually, so why not this morning? I stepped onto the bathroom scale to discover that my weight was up a couple of ounces from yesterday. I am still slightly better than 20 lbs. down… but only by a very slim margin.

    I am teaching today and plan to stick to the plan. At the end of the day I will continue to study for my exam which is Wednesday. After the exam is behind me then it will be time to think about an exercise regimen. I know how important that is for not only my weight loss, but also for improving my overall mental well-being.

    I did not sleep well last night. I studied and prepared for my class until 10:15pm on the balcony, after which I decided to watch an episode of a show that I am watching to wind down. While I was in bed with the lights out by 11:30pm, I did not get comfortable until after 1:15am when I finally decided to turn the air conditioner on. That’s all well and good… until you factor in the 5:45am alarm that I had set. There is no way to call 4.5 hours of sleep ‘sufficient.’ I’ll get more rest tonight, but certainly after I sit the exam.

    By the by, I am still drinking huge amounts of water but the internal chill has not manifested. I suppose the effects of the program are slightly different each time.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1277

    It has been three months (and then some) since my fitness watch measured a sleep score of 89. Last night was bliss. I only slept 7.5 hours, but I woke up refreshed and ready to face the day.

    After ten complete days on the program, my weight has dropped slightly over twenty pounds. Yes, that is a great feat. I am still just about fifteen pounds heavier than I was the day my terrible issues started near the end of March. I will be past that in three weeks, mark my words. In fact, by Friday August 1 I would like to be there. I am hoping that it will not take as long, but within six weeks (from today) I would really like to drop below the terrible mark… and hopefully that will be the last time I ever cross that threshold in either direction.

    There are some things that are seldom discussed, and others that are just taken for granted. However, it has always been the purpose of this blog to be open with my journey. You read these past two days that Friday was a difficult day because of a blockage in my colon that affected my back as well as my bladder. All of that is behind me, but I was standing in the washroom last night peeing and thinking to myself how easy it is to take for granted the satisfaction from a strong urinary flow. I have been peeing well since the blockage cleared (as can be read in yesterday’s journal) but it has been consistent. I am trying to drink more water than I had been (which is hard because I was drinking a lot) so it is frequent, but knowing what it was like Friday to try to squeeze out a few drops… just a big relief.

    I placed an order for more meal replacements yesterday. I have enough shakes to last me until Friday midday, and I ordered two more weeks’ worth which should take me through the first week of August. If I can continue to order every two weeks then I think it will be easier to manage both from a financial and from a space standpoint – after all, the boxes are not small and do need to be stored. Two weeks at a time should be just fine.

    I will be at my desk working for most of the day today. Not only do I have to study for my exam (which is more important than anything else), and I also have to prepare for the class I am teaching tomorrow, but I also have to rebuild my demo lab environment. Owing partly to flaws in the version of Windows Server that I used, and partly to a very minor but critical error I made some weeks ago, the environment that I had built is no more… or at least, a lot of work needs to be done to restore it. That work will be done today (and in fact is already underway) so that tomorrow during class I will be able to demonstrate my concepts should I need to. In other words… it’s going to be a long day for me.

    I have been having issues with the computer keyboards that I have. I have three of them but one the keys stick (especially when it is humid, but not exclusively); one of them some of the keys do not work unless you hit them twice. The last one (the one that I had been using) seems to randomly pop open other windows as I type – as an example, if I am typing into a web browser it might randomly open a new tab. While it is possible that it happens because I am fat-fingering, I suspect that it happens far too often and far too consistently for that to be the reason. Either way, I need to be able to type quickly and reliably without needing to constantly delete fifteen consecutive characters after a key stick, or having to stop six times mid-post so that I can close out new tabs and then find the original browser tab that I had been working in. I do not consider myself extravagant with regard to keyboards – the three that I have include one that was purchased for me by my company six years ago, one that was gifted to me, and one that I needed for a second computer (on which I needed to be able to type simultaneously and without needing to un-plug and re-plug the keyboard. I did not order a cheap keyboard, but I also did not go wild. I am hoping that this Bluetooth Logitech keyboard and mouse set will last me for years to come. It will arrive tomorrow. Yay.

    I suppose, with that, I have procrastinated quite enough for the day and should be getting to work. Actually, I have been working on the servers all this time, but only on reinstalling the host operating system on the two physical servers… and copying the contents of my Storage Area Network (SAN) onto a physical disk so I can re-configure the SAN while I am at it. I will take 30 minutes to prepare my notes for tomorrow’s class, and will then spend the remainder of the day studying.

    …and I should mention that this keyboard is sticking as well. I wonder if it is the humidity? Just in case that is the case I have closed the balcony door and turned on the air conditioner. That will drastically lower the ambient humidity of the apartment!

    Have a great day folks!