My Friday Garage Project

BEFORE

AFTER

In 90 deg. heat padded with a little rain this was what I was able to accomplish today. Garages can be either a bane to your existence as a repository for junk you can't bear to part with or a wonder area for activities if you decide to use it for something other than parked cars. My wife was parking the van in the garage (the Mercury was past that some time ago) and now we are using for an exercise area. As you can see in the photos it was not fun and it took a lot of time because of the small stuff of which some have still to be resolved by my wife as to its fate. Any way, I'm glad that's over and now I can pick up my little girl from day care and enjoy some pool time!

The Diet Begins - Again

That skinny kid starting out above was even bigger than I was at that age. The diet starts again today. I've got to get down to fighting weight for the coming school year or it will be more physically taxing than normal. Last nights weight in was 260 lbs. At my height that overweight. My goal is to get down to 210 to 200 and according to the AMA I'm still overweight at that point.

I don't know why this is so hard but my struggle is along with most of America now it seems. So here I am trying again to do this. Think I'll go with the low carb route with lots of active exercise. Walking and swimming and a rowing machine to boot. No excuses. I've got six weeks to get a good start before school starts and now is the time. If I don't start doing something soon I'm going to start to look like Orson Wells at the end. Thank God I'm not there yet. But I want to live a long time to watch my 3 1/2 year old grow and be the person she wants to be. I think I'll put up a little tracking module in the side bar to help motivate me. Anyway, today starts...now where is that orange to start off the morning....

THE Evian Rollar Baby Ad

No commentary needed here. This is just plain uproariously funny and inspiring. My guess is they are complete CGI fabrications. If not, wow, somebody's been doing some interesting eugenics work somewhere...

Jamie's Rapture

This is absolutely my favorite image of my daughter to date. My wife took this shot this past Sunday when we decided to spend the morning at the beach. It is from our new SLR digital Canon Rebel XS with a 58mm lens. She doesn't remember the settings she used and it was almost a throw-away shot. But when I reviewed her series I was caught by the stunning beauty of not only my daughter in a througtful repose, she's 3 1/2 years old, but the detail captured with this camera. The resolution of the water droplets on her face are stunning. I will be looking to make a 5X7 framable print of this for our home.

I'm going to call it "Jamie's Rapture" simply for the fact on that morning she had a blast with an age equivlent friend and his parents and their niece. So did my wife and I...

Btw, if you click on the image you will see the actual size and get a better look at the stunning detail of her face. This camera is just awesome...

The Darling of Lawn Mowers via Consumer Reports

Well, here it is - the one and only Cub Cadet CC550SP self propelled push mower. The trouble I had getting it is a story in itself. After going through three mowers in 5 years my wife and I decided we'd had enough of the Wal-Mart cheapie Murray/Brigs & Stratton push mower at $165.00 a pop. When the last one threw a bearing after just 18 months that was the final straw.

We decided to head for the library and take a look at Consumer Reports and what they had to day. In their Nov. '07 issue they rated and had a nice review of the current riding and push mowers on the market. Thier darling of the push mowers was the Cub Cadet CC500. After reading their review and deciding the price seemed right, from $259.00 SMRP (sale price) we decided to take the plunge with its 3 yr. warranty. The problem was one could not be found in Jacksonville, FL. The closet one we could locate was in Yulee, FL nearly 30 miles away. I gave them a call and they indicated they had two at $289. I said Cub Cadets website said otherwise with a sales promotion. They agreed and said I could have it for that price. I would be by next morning.

Upon arrival they were a little taken aback when I came in. A gentleman had been in an hour before and bought both of them. They thought that was me who called. Since they were out they offered the CC550SP (self propelled) to me for $10.00 more - $20.00 off Cub Cadet's web site promotional offer. I took it. They were awesome. Since they didn't have one on site they had to get one from there other store twenty miles away. After waiting for an hour and a half they arrived with the new mower out of the box and ready to go in hand. It started to rain right then, really hard, and then it would not fit in the Mercury. So I picked it up the next day in Martha's (my wife) Ford Freestar van. I took a photo once I got it out because it looks so damn kewl, well, for a lawn mower anyway. I will give my citical reivew once I take her out for a spin and see what all the fuss was about at Consumer Reports.

New Blog Design Blues

As you can see I'm in the process of redesigning my blog. I'll tweet the world when I'm satisfied with the new look. Its really harder and more time consuming than I anticipated. I wanted the header to really reflect the dynamic and feel of the site and I'm still wrestling with it.

I've been over at BTemplates where they have hundreds of new blogger 3 column blogs and I'm still sorting out what looks best and has the right fit for the Static Existentialists needs.

I'm almost overwhelmed with the variations available and the possibilites they all offer. One can only marvel at the capabilities of human creativity and the potentials it offers for all of us. While I'm still slogging through the redesign I'll be posting on a regular basis. Btw, hat tip to KU's Medical Sciences university web site for there little under construction image which I borrowed for the post. It's funny they mispelled "Siences" in the header. Guess they need to check that.Here's to the existential lifestyle and the future ahead...

Tick, tock...

For the existentialist, the passing of time can be one of the deep anxieties of human existence. Whenever I'm in a contemplative mood reflecting on my mortality this deep anxiety can be quite troublesome. Most of the time I can look into the eyes of my beautiful little daughter of three, whose entire life is spread before her with an infinity of possibilities, and this troublesome anxiety gets put back in its box until my next reflective mood.

Recently my wife and I were able to see the last eight minutes of the final episode of our favorite HBO series about a family owned funeral home "Six Feet Under" where the young Claire strikes out for New York to make a life of her own. As the epilogue begins you see Claire (Lauren Ambrose) on a lonely stretch of desert highway somewhere in the west. Set to Sia's beautiful harmony "Breathe Life" the viewer is shown a close up of Claire as the song begins. Her image then melts into a video montage of her entire life from the show's end to her death in a span of six minutes and ends with the show's standard opening of an epitatph of a person whose funeral will be handled by the family business. The beauty is striking and emotionally cathartic for the show's followers and for me it was the most beautiful ending to a series I have ever encounted and likely will ever again. That last eight minutes so defines what a life represents you are all at once struck by how short life is and how truly fulfilling it can be for many of us. It is also a beautiful metaphor on mortality. My wife and daughter demonstrate to me on a daily basis that beauty and fulfillment though every once and awhile that old deep anxiety of how life is slipping away intrudes and gives me pause.

For the existentialist it is a burden that is a price of that fulfillment.

JPL's Kepler mission getting needed attention

Willaim Borucki, Ames Research project manager out of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was just on C-Span doing a pretty cool interview segment about the Kepler Telescope project. I hope C-Span has it up later today so I can link to it. He was discussing the mission goals and what he hopes Kepler can accomplish. This mission's main goal is to study a chosen secter of our galaxy for exoplanets in an attempt to discover if we in effect are "not alone." I am looking forward to followning this project and seeing what kind of results it produces.

Sighting the ISS from the ground

Found a nice amateur video taken from the top of a garage in the U.K. with a privately owned observatory of the ISS during three orbital passes overhead. Nicely done I might add. I'm still trying to figure out how to read NASA's web site tracking the ISS so I can get an observation date for an overhead orbital pass here at home. For some reason I think it is to close to the horizon here where there are a lot of trees with light pollution that will surely make it impossible to spot. But I'll keep trying anyway.

Space.com is a nice web site that has just about any information you want to know that has to do with space. The site also have a pretty cool calender of all launches into to orbit around the world with links to live video covering the event. There is supposed to be a launch this evening from the Air Force Base at Cape Canaveral as you can see here. It is tentatively scheduled for 8:32pm this evening. If the launch goes off and the sky is clear I should be able to get a nice view from my front yard. Discovery STS-119's night launch gave us a spectacular view here a couple of weeks ago. I should have shot some video. Next time I will.

Doing the blog thing

Ok. Now is the time for me to get my weight loss program in full swing. Tonight I'll do a start off weight in and then start tracking my weight loss activities. I really want to get slimmed down before the school year starts next year. Something tells me I'm going to need all the physical ability and stamina I can get. It is a relief I still have my job after the program of cuts taking place throughout the state of Florida regarding education. I'm not out of the woods yet though. Something tells me we will have to go through one more round of cuts before its all over. Just have to stay tuned to that one....