My musings about life, happiness, technology, and what ever else comes along.
After looking for quite some time for an add-on to Firefox or IE to ease blog posting, I finally found one — and I like it.
ScribeFire is an add-on for Firefox 2.0 newer. It provides a collapsed, hidden panel at the bottom of the browser. It has various options and allows you to post to more than one blog. Plus, it performs rich text editing i.e. HTML.
You can find it on https://addons.mozilla.org.
My Rating: [5 out of 5]
Well, my last post was on my birthday — November 20, 2007. I have been ill off and on since then and on a huge project at work that was taking up so much of my time.
My employer has graciously reduced my workload due to my illness.
For anyone reading, regular posts have started. I hope to log at least once every other day.
I have been so busy that my BLOG has suffered. For any one reading, I apologize.
Work has been a real big headache. More postings will follow this and hopefully more often.
What is RSS Signature
That’s a great question. Sig2feed’s primary goal is to provide a simple administration interface to allow the addition of a custom tagline, signature or © copyright message to the wordpress generated rss feeds. You can add any kind of message, tag, or even images — as long as it can be displayed in an RSS feed, it’s up to you. Cool huh?
I have been looking for something like this for some time. I know of no sites reposting my blog material in entirety from RSS feeds, but I do worry about it. It is MY content and I don’t want anyone using it improperly.
This plug-in adds a signature to each entry in the RSS feed. I plan on putting in a disclaimer and copyright notice. It won’t stop someone from reusing my posts but if they are scripting it, it will show up on every post.
Yeah, what happened? 
Well, I realized that logging in posts was not going to work. It would take three a day and a lot of work to look up the calories and nutritional information.
I have some amount of skill in PHP programming so I may try to make a plug-in for WordPress that will allow me to input all the needed information quickly but keep it on a separate page. Or maybe just a separate page with its own library of functions to handle its own tables. I’ll have to think about that one.
Well, it has been over a week since my last post. Part of the issue was my daughter being home and the other was just being so busy.
The weekend was humdrum. That sums it up. The wife went up to Los Angeles to the Korean festival and to visit my daughter, who has started her senior year in college. That left me at home with my son, who graduated from college a few months ago and is now looking for a job.
What did I get done you might ask? Here is a list.
Very relaxing, I can tell you. This was the first weekend in ages where I got to actually relax — no “on the run”, go-go-go, git ‘r done.
The plan is to begin posting regularly again. Hopefully nothing will come up that prevents me from doing so.
Since 1992, I have not really been healthy. On a business trip to Washington DC for my employer of now 18 years, I caught Hepatitis A eating in a seafood restaurant (we think) in Georgetown. Luckily it was the curable type but it left my liver partially unusable. The vaccine was not available then.
Now, the doctors keep telling me that this has nothing to do with my ails. But most of my health problems started right after the 45 days of disability and quarantine from the disease.
My weight skyrocketed. I’m tired all the time. My blood pressure is now way up. Harrumph.
No thyroid problems. Human growth hormone at normal levels. Blood sugar fine. Blood pressure normally very good. Cholesterol up.
I know that I can get all this under control. But it has been hard.
I weighed 327 lb. when I joined the US Navy in the late seventies. They lied and put me at 289, which for my height was the largest I could be and still be accepted. I really appreciate the company commanders from Texas that kept me very busy in boot camp and watched what I was eating. I lost all the way to 200 lb. by the end of 12 weeks+ of boot camp. Now I know losing that fast is not healthy, and I did gain back up to approximately 230 lb., but I felt a lot better.
I pretty much kept it that way until after 1992.
I am now 300 lb. and maintaining it. I do exercise but it does not seem to do anything for me. Being in my late 40s, it is now getting harder and harder to lose weight. It seems my metabolism was messed up by the disease and it really never recovered.
I plan on weight training soon. My last child in college will graduate college in the spring. Once I get my two children settled on their own, I can concentrate more on myself. I certainly don’t want to leave my wife a widow.
And for any of you who might be reading this and are health/exercise nuts, yes I was maintaining heart rate and so on. I consulted several trainers to be sure. I even bought an elliptical machine due to pain in my knees and I still use it regularly for 30-45 minutes at a time in the fat burning zone 3-4 times a week.
My diet is simple and practically meat free to keep the calories down. Lots of vegetables, grains, and a little meat. Little dairy however as I became lactose intolerant several years ago. Essentially I each ovo-lacto vegetarian for breakfast and lunch.
For example, this morning, I am eating two servings of steel-cut oatmeal with a little Splenda® for sweetness and a little soy milk, a banana, my regimen of vitamins and minerals my doctor wants me to use, and a glass of water. Lunch will be 1 cup of hominy (60 calories per 1/2 cup with 6 grams of fibre — yummy) cooked in a tad bit of butter and olive oil (less than 1/4 teaspoon total), an apple, a banana, a low fat-low sugar pudding cup, and water.
I drink a couple of cups of decaffeinated coffee and lots of water during the day and move around as much as I can.
Dinner will be what ever I have enough energy to scrounge up. Since my wife works also, we usually each something quick but healthy. Last night for me was a 4 inch piece of turkey kielbasa (~200 calories and low fat), left over short grain white rice (1 cup), and some left over fresh green beans (about 4 servings which is around 70 calories).
Why am I telling you this? Well, it feels good to write about it. And I guess it validates what I am doing to see it in writing in public, even if few if any people are reading it.
Please comment with your own short stories on your struggles. Let me tell you, it is soul cleansing.
By the way, I am on cholesterol lowering medication. Normally I won’t take statins or the other forms of medicine to lower cholesterol as there is a lot of research showing lowering cholesterol is not necessarily needed and the benefits (including those dang statistics) don’t outweigh the harm they do to your body. But since I have these other issues, it makes sense to do so to be sure it is not an issue. Once I get my blood pressure down to normal without medication and my weight is down, off the meds for cholesterol I go!
Also, I urge you not to use anything with aspartame in it. The evidence is growing that a large number of people react poorly to it. It may be perfectly safe for healthy people but for someone who is not healthy I question its use.
Aspartame links:
Well, its been a week from…somewhere. The air conditioner is finally fixed with a wireless system including a wireless thermostat. Cool.
No updates, no updates! Why? Been dab-nabbit busy and little to no access to my computer. I think its about time I get a laptop so I can update from somewhere other than my den (or at work on break).
I will be posting more soon. The following watched movies are awaiting review:
I have a few political posts on my “to do” list and I want to review a few computer items I bought.
My daughter’s D-Link® router is giving out and she absolutely has to have Internet access for school work. She is studying toy design and has LOTS of homework. Being able to get access to school through the Internet from home keeps here at home, safe and sound, when it most counts — after hours.
I decided on the Linksys® WRT54GL. It uses Linux as its operating system (OS). Being familiar with Linux and the availability of third party Linux builds for it makes getting one exciting. My router is IPCop on an old Sempron™ system I had laying around.
Purchase Linksys®-Cisco WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router (Compatible with Linux)
Donate to the IPCop project
My web hosting provider is upgrading the database used by this site. The site might be unavailable tomorrow, August 22, 2007, for short periods of time sometime during the day.
[Update 1] I saw nor had reported any issues to the web site. Good job Powweb!
The site was down for a short time this morning to update WordPress to the latest version. If you have any questions about WordPress, visit their website.
