February 2004 Archives

My Cousin Sarah came to PA to visit. Had not seen her or Asa, her son, in over a year. It was a good excuse to get together with the Smith Family. We gathered at Grandma's House and spent a few hours visiting. I am amused that even though we came to see Sarah, I spent only a few minutes talking to her. I wish we could have spent longer and had a quality conversation. It is a hard thing to do with 25 other people who want to get their time in.

I spent most of my time talking to my Uncle Earl. I appreciate his friendship, he reminds me of my father. Sometimes by the things he says, sometimes by an expression he makes. After talking to him for a bit I wish we could talk more. We are just both busy people.

Earl did invite Caleb to come to the farm and spend a day with him. This excited Caleb and me. It will be a fun thing for Caleb to spend a day on the farm and I look forward to seeing caleb have that experience. I feel like if my father was still alive this is something caleb would have the chance to do often. I hope he enjoys it.

Got a note today from my Grandma Smith. She wrote a very nice note encouraging me regarding my weight loss. I appreciated it very much. Anyway she wrote that she wants to buy me a new three piece suit and a sweater. I have never owned a suit before and it will have to wait until I am finished loosing weight but I look forward to going with my grandma to pick it out. I will need a few good suggestions on where to go buy a nice suit. So if you have any ideas drop me a line.

I am very grateful at her gift, just not sure when or where I am going to wear my new suit, I guess I will have to have a party.

Well today was an official blah day. Started off last night with watching the Passion a very intense emotionally draining movie. Got even more blah today with Aunt Nora's Funeral. My body & brain are weary.

The good new is Apple has incredible customer service. They sent me a new cord yesterday afternoon and I got it this morning! So I plugged my new cord in and . . . . no dice. My iPod still wouldn't connect without wiggling the cord. What a bummer. Back to Apple.

Sad to say my iPod broke, nothing major but the firewire cord that connects the iPod to the computer is cracked. Nothing I did just think the cord was faulty to begin with. But here comes the tragic part: so while transferring my 25 days worth of music & audio books, the Firewire gave out and took out my hard drive and my iPod in one fail swoop. I lost all my songs on both my iPod and My hard drive. Called Apple, I will have a new cord by Friday. It will take me that long to just to get all my info back into iTunes, if I spend the rest of my week doing that. I am going upstairs to cry into my pillow now.

My wife and I had a bit of a discussion regarding my weight loss. She is very happy for me and very supportive of my efforts. However, she showed some concern over my lack of a final goal.

I have plenty of intermediate weight loss goals, I hope to weigh 250 by the time the baby comes and I hope to be at 225 by Memorial Day(The "Beginning of Summer"). However there is no guarentee I am stopping my weight loss at that point. Why?

To be perfectly honest I do not know if I will be happy at 225. The last time I weighed 225 was when I was 14(ish), my body wasn't even finished growing. I have no recollection of what it felt like to weigh 225 or if I felt comfortable being 225. As far as I am concerned I have been overweight my whole life, I have no idea what a normal, comfortable, healthy weight for myself is.

I also do not buy that fact that since I am 5'11" I should weigh exactly 170 according to the medical weight charts. I am a 'big framed' boy. My shoulders are wide and my body is stocky. I do not believe that I will even look or feel good at the medically perfect weight of 170.

So what is my final goal? I do not know. But I hope to know when I get there. I just want to be happy, healthy and the right size for me. I will let you know when I get there. I will let everyone know when I get there.

The first time I ever tried to loose weight with any sucess was after watching an Oprah show in November of 1988. I had by luck, taped her weight loss show on VHS. I had never been so empowered by a TV show in my life, I started my first liquid diet the next day and spent the next two months loosing weight. When I graduated from High School I weighed about 270lbs. By the time I started my first diet I was weighing in at about 290. The diet helped me get down to 250 before i crashed.

The liquid diet wasn't for me and obviously it worked for Oprah but not for the long run. But what was important was that show was the first time my eyes were opened and I had seen the light of the possibility that I could loose weight too. Between Oprah celebrating her loss and another guy who also lost weight and ran his first marathon the show was about weight loss triumph!

During a segment of the show Oprah pull out a red wagon filled with 70lbs of fat in a clear garbage bag. I remember this segment pretty clearly after 15 years, it was amazing to see a huge bag of fat that Oprah had been carrying. I am sure it would be amazing to see that same bag filled with the fat i lost.

I lost my VHS copy of that show a few years ago. I wish I had it back I would like to watch it cause it was such an encouragement. It was what i needed 16 years ago to start my first diet. And there are still things that I remember seeing on that show that have had an impact on my current lifestyle change. So thanks Oprah for opening my eyes to weight loss and the joy meeting your goals could be and thanks for planting that seed of unsatisfaction with my size in me.

Aunt Nora died last night at the nursing home. She was my mother's mother's sister. My favorite memories of aunt nora was going to visit her in new oxford when I was a boy. We would pile in the car on a Saturday or Sunday Afternoon and make the hour plus trip to visit her and Uncle Bob. I remember visiting them in the apartment above their hardware store. I also remember their house down the street when they moved. Aunt Nora would always make a big feast. She was a bit loud and flamboyant but that made Aunt Nora who she was.

I remember her for her gold costume jewelry, always dressing nice, spaghetti, and the after-thanksgiving turkey pizza.

My most memorable experirence happened at the apartment Nora & Bob lived in above the Hardware Store. When I was 4. Uncle Bob was drinking a beer and thinking it was a soda, I kept trying to pick it up and drink it. After the umpteenth time that i grabbed the beer can my father finally let me take a sip. It was awful, yucky horrible disgusting stuff. I can remember the smell and taste of that beer like it happened yesterday.

The weirdest thing Aunt Nora did that makes me wonder to this day was: When I was just 10 or 11 Aunt Nora got into Tarot card reading. As an adult I do not agree with this practice and think it leads down the path of the occult. However, when I was 10 I was curious as to what she did. She used her tarot cards to try to tell people's futures. I begged her to tell mine, against my parents wishes, and when they were not there i finally nagged her to use the tarot cards to tell my future.

She flipped over a bunch of cards and told me i was gonna take a big trip soon and that something was in the future dealing with my father . . . she then shuddered looked all serious, sad & disturbed grabbed all the cards picked them up and put them away and would not tell me what she saw. I always took away from that day a sense that she foretold something awful in my future regarding my father and she wouldn't tell me.

Ten years ago my father died in a tragic accident and we lost our farm in a bad wind storm the same week. Did Aunt Nora see this? Did she see something else? I will never know. I do believe that satan and his demons use such things to take control of people and situations. And while i do not believe that my aunt was possesed with demons I do think she did play with 'fire.' Soon after that incident she removed those cards from her life and never used them again.

I am proud of my sister. She has completed her first two weeks of Atkins and has lost at least 7lbs. I think she will continue to do well. She can be very determined and persistent and I think those traits will pay off. I look forward to seeing what happens in another two weeks. To Cindy I say, keep up the good work!

I took a look at some pictures from this past year yesterday and couldn't take my eyes off of them. I can't believe what i saw. There I was just a few months ago larger than life. Really, larger than life.

Let me know what you think.

weight loss pix

Well I have given a ton of my clothing away. Why? Cause most of it falls off of me or looks like a dress. Kinda have mixed emotions about the whole thing. I spent the last 4-5 years building up my wardrobe I had dozens on pairs of shorts, t-sirts, sweatpants, etc. I have given away most all of it in a few trash bags over the last 3 months.

I have however gained a few pieces of new clothing. [Read my Big Dog vs. Nike Blog] A few new shirts and pairs of shorts that I am hoping will get me through the spring. The bittersweet part of this is I am not planning on this clothing being in my final wardrobe. I already have clothing that i have bought since my weight loss started that is already too big. I have pants that my mom gave me that I have only worn once or twice and now are too big.

So as my waist and hips shrink so does my wardrobe. The blessing of a new me comes with the curse of a limited clothing suppply. My hope for the future is that i will hit my weightl oss goal and find some money to get new clothes.

My mom showed up and took us out for chinese food yesterday. It had been my first time to go to South China in a few months. Before Atkins, our family were regulars at South China. We went a minimum of 4 times a month.

I knew what i was going to eat when i arrived. Thye have a mongolian Bar-B-Q/make your own stir-fry bar. The only thing in the place that i know what is added. So I made a nice Chicken, Broccoli, Mushroom, Garlic, Ginger, Hot Pepper, Sesame Oil Stir Fry. When I handed the cook the bowl he looked at me and said, "HOW MUCH?" I have known the cook for a few years and the only words he has ever spoke to me before were "THANK YOU" when i drop a tip in his jar. So I looked confused. So he repeated, "HOW MUCH?" and I said "what?" Then he said, "HOW MUCH POUNDS?" My wife looked at me and said, "Honey he wants to know how many pounds you have lost." The bulb finally went on my little brain. I told him I had lost 107lbs. He said, "I THOUGHT SO."

It was amusing, funny and encouraging. The little chinese cook had noticed my weight loss. I am sure when our family stopped our regular trips to the Restaurant they must had thought. That fat guy must have finally had a heart attack, we will miss his business. Wonder what they said last night after we left? (They might not have been shocked or they might have started reading my Blog due to a relative emailing them my url, cause it is a big hit in China ever since some chocolate crazed lunatic scrawled it on the Great Wall with permanent marker)

BTW, thanks for the chinese food mom. It was yummy.

Somedays the sun shines on you no matter what you do. Today is that day. When I first started Atkins I had lost a pound a day for a month or two. But after my initial honeymoon with Atkins was over I slowed down to 5, then 4 then 3 pounds a week. I am still happy losing three pounds a week. That is more than most plans can do and I believe I am loosing fat not muscle.

So today I was surprised that when i recorded my weight for the week I had lost 7lbs. This amount of weight loss hasn't happened in over two months. I am very pleased. I am sure i will lose less next week but I will take the loss today.

Which brings me to something funny. So with my most recent weight loss brings me to a total of 123 pounds lost since my heaviest weight ever. This means I have lost more weight than trish weighs (itickets trish) she might weigh 120 soaking wet wearing cement shoes.

I am curious about something. My stats page says over 100 people have read my blog this month. And in eleven different countries. So who are you people? Who is reading my blog? So if you don't mind leave me a comment or drop me an email: smittyb at mac.com . I am just curious.

I like being a youth leader. My favorite part of my 'job' is seeing kids get saved. My second favorite thing is making up stupid games and watching kids play them. Sometimes I get ideas off the internet, from a book or from a TV show, or from another youth worker. However the coolest part is to take an idea that i found and make it mine by adding a twist or a more interesting option and then watch kids play it.

By far tonight wasn't the coolest game I have ever made or the grossest, but it did make me smile a lot. I got a few pair of gigantic underwear(size 4x) and set the youth group into three teams. The object of the game was for each team to form in pairs of two. The pairs of two would each take turns climbing in the underwear, each player in a leg. Then they would race around the church and tag the next pair who would do the same thing. And so on and so on. Until everyone in the team competed. The first team done won.

It was a pretty fun game to watch. And I must say our youth group is filled with a bunch of kids who get along well and like to have fun.

About 12 years ago my father, concerned with my weight had offered me a standing deal. He offered me $10 a pound for the first ten pounds I lost, $20 a pound for the next ten, $30 a pound for the next ten and so on and so on. Today I would have set him back $5700 and counting. The funny thing is that the bribe never worked for me. I needed different motivation. However the other day when i crossed 100lbs. I thought to myself: my dad would be pleased and i would be a bit richer :).

This afternoon to my surprise I got an iPod delivered to my house. It was a personal gift from my boss, Tim. Besides wanting an iPod for the last two years I was honored by the inscription(what does it say? some day you will have to read it for yourself!). Thank you for recognizing my effort to lose weight. (it is something my father would have done if he was here) The iPod will be an encouragement for many days and months to come. I truly appreciate it.

We went shopping this weekend. Had to get meat cause we eat a bunch of it(ATKINS BABY!). The only place we like to buy meat is Costco in Lancaster. The meat comes in big packs and seems fresher and tastier that local grocery stores.

On our way I wanted to stop at the Big Dog Store just down 30. I had gotten a Big Dog GC for Christmas and wanted to see what sort of bargains they had in their clearance section. In the past month I have given away about 4 garbage bags filled with clothing. I have barely any summer clothing to speak of(more talk about my clothing woes in a later blog). So upon arriving at Big Dog I went running across the parking lot to the store. As I ran i saw that the Nike store is right under the Big Dog store.

My brain switched gears immediately. I needed to go to the Nike store. Mind you, I do not have any money budgeted for clothing currently(none). But there was something in me that drove me to the Nike store. For one, when i was in high school having and wearing nike was cool and I could barely fit into any of there clothing or sneakers cause i was to big(they barely made 2X clothing 15-20 years ago) and my feet were too wide. So today cause I feel like I might be able to fit into their clothing and I still think whatever was cool in High School is still cool I was drawn to the Nike store.

Upon arriving the first thing I noticed was mesh basketball shorts. I have one pair at home and they are getting to big. So i went over to the display only $9 a pair not bad when they cost $25-$30 at normal stores. They had one pair in the whole rack that was my size. The rest were too big all 3x and 4x. Since when did Nike cater to fat people? Obviously I have been out of the loop for awhile.

I found a few shirts on the $6 rack. I was pretty happy. Ended up blowing $40 on clothing. I then went to Big Dogs which seemed anticlimactic and bought some clothing from their clearance rack.

Well it is official this afternoon, during my ritual afternoon weighing I finally reached 275lbs. This is 100 pounds lost since beginning atkins on October 2(133 days ago). This also brings me to 116 pounds lost since my heaviest recorded weight at my doctors office(last year). I am by no means finished in this battle of my bulge. My next goal is to be under 250 by the time the baby comes. I estimate this to be the last week of March. Which gives me jut under 50 days to lose 25 more pounds.

BTW, my original goal was to be at 225 by the time the baby came. I made that goal after two weeks of Atkins when I had lost a pound a day. I revised my goal in December to be 250 as my weight loss slowed down a bit.

This is an achievable goal if I do not plateau.

My son loves TV shows, but not just any. He likes TV shows that build things or destrucs things for that matter. Some of his favorites are Monster House, MythBusters and MacGyver(fast forward over violence).

It amuses me that he is fascinated with building things. I am waiting for the day when he rigs up some Monster MacGyver House device to bring him ice cold water on demand.

Today is also my mom's Birthday. Happy Birthday MOM!

Had read something today from a friend. It was rather surprising reading. They had owned up to some sin in their life, something that I didn't know anything about and I am sure others did not either.

Amusing enough I think more of him right now than I did before I had read the note. At first glance, the sin should had made me feel less of him. But to be honest, knowing that he is standing up, facing his 'secret sins' and trying to deal with them make me respect him even more.

And reading a honest account of him owning up to his short comings was refreshing. I think so many times we spend more time trying to hide our true selves and our issues instead of exposing them for what they are. So to my friend I say well done. To everyone else I think we are left to be challenged to expose and bring into The Light whatever lurks in the shadows.

First of all, all thanks to Kurt Weaver. Kurt is brilliant and knows that there is an angle to everything and he works every angle. He is my kind of person.

So here is the deal. Concerning the Pepsi iTunes Contest....

Found out that if you slant an iTUNES pepsi bottle to the side and stare under the cap. Count 4 lines of print it is a winner every time. 3 lines=SORRY TRY AGAIN. Takes about 30 seconds of looking at bottles before you can pick a winner everytime.

So I have now tested this out on a handful of bottles and got a winner everytime.

Kurt Rules!!!

I did something tonight that I had not done for what seems like forever. (at least 10 years)

My wife in preparing for a sleep over for some girls in our youth group was looking for a song to play for them when she popped in the Ji Lim CD that I helped Ji make 14 years ago. We recorded it in ten days while my parents were in Florida on vacation. We mixed it on a digital 4 track computer that we had bought for my mac II si.

Some Misc. & random moments I remember about recording the CD and the aftermath.

1-- Crickets in my garage. When trying to record guitar solos we had the guitar amp in the garage and were recording and you could hear crickets chirping in the background. (at 5am in the morning) Glad we lived int he country and the neighbors were on vacation with my parents.

2--Phredd one of the greatest friends a person could have brought Kris Rogers and Keith Harold to my house to record vocals. Phredd and Kris did little boy blue and scatted their way into the History Books. Keith wouldn't contribute but he is still a great guy.

3--I met Bruce Williamson for the first time in my life. We would later be room mates for a time in Nashville.

4--I bought a large and expensive Hard Drive at the time. A 80MB for $1200 bucks. I bought it from Mac Mall using their 30 days money back guarantee. After recording was over and the songs were mixed I returned the drive and got my money back. So much for creative financing.

5--Craig, the album photographer would surface later in my life to take over my job at YFC when I left, rented my house from me and then become a missionary in Brazil.

6--The album got radio air play at a Christian Radio Station in Virginia Beach and Ji was invited to perform for Prom at a Christian High School. But the students were not allowed to dance. (makes me laugh just thinking about it)

7--That same radio station played In a Heartbeat a song I co-wrote with Ji and some lady related with it so well she called my house to talk to me. (weird)

8--We used to pack up everything that we needed to perform a whole concert in my Volkswagen GTI. That was an incredible site.

9--The only reason Ji and i got together was our friend Ed Weber told us we were not as talented as he was and would go nowhere without him. Ji went on to have a record deal and several top 10 songs on the radio with my management. Ed never amounted to much.

10--This album never really made money. But it was worth every penny just having the memories.

Perhaps someday I will jot down some notes about my life in Nashville and the Album that came after this one. But that is all for now.

For the record, Ji is an incredibly gifted individual with a heart after God. He is currently the pastor of a new church plant outside of Philadelphia. If I am lucky I get to see him once a year. I miss his friendship.

Just for the record, I held the pig tight and shelly trimmed it's curly loches. He is now recovering in his cage chewing on a carrot. A tough job, but someone had to do it.

I heard of a new disfunction called dyscalculia, very similar to dyslexia but it deals with scrambling up numbers and calculations instead of words.

Well I submit to you my own new found disfunction.

Dyslifia. (dis�life�ee�a)
A living disorder marked by impairment of the ability to recognize and comprehend normal life. Or the disfunction of living your life backwards or jumbled.

Bingo! I have finally found my disorder. My life has never been lived normal. And now with my fourth child on the way I feel like my disfunction has just been getting worse. Everyone needs an excuse as to why they are the way they are. So why not invent your own excuse? This one seems to fit me just right. I am considering having it trademarked.

I also am amused that Dyslifia fits with being a Christian and being called to be not of this world. I am sure many non-Christians already peg Christians with this disfunction and now thanks to me it has a name.

Let me know what you think.

Just to let everyone know, this is one of my favorite meals. So if you are having me over to your house to fix your computer this is the meal to feed me.

To be honest, growing up my mom didn't make me pork and sauerkraut but Grandma Light did. Most specifically when I had finally left home and was living in TN. I would come home a few times a year and Grandma Light would ask if we wanted to come over for supper and she would make me a meal. My Dad would convince me to ask her for Pork & Sauerkraut with Mash Potatoes and Dumplings. It was always good, but it was never my favorite meal.

I am now sure how it became one of my favorite meals, but eventually it did. A few years ago I got tired of waiting for Pork & Sauerkraut at Grandmas and I called her up to ask her how she made it taste so good. She told me to brown the pork before baking. And then fry onions in the pork drippings and add them to the Sauerkraut and slow cook them. Well I followed her directions and ever since I have been making Pork & Sauerkraut at least once a month.

Just so you know my second favorite meal of all time is Chicken Marsala that my wife makes. I could eat both of these meals any day of the week.

I am not happy tonight.