iChange

In February I started using Herbalife to help me become healthier and lose some weight that I have been trying to lose for some time.  Since then, I have lost 7 lbs and about 4% body fat, with a goal of being around 20% body fat when all is said and done.

As with all weight loss, you should track what you eat, calories, fat, carbs, protein, water, etc. and exercise as well.  There are a couple of ways to go about this, using pen and paper or through electronic means with a computer or smartphone.  I decided to go electronic and downloaded an app called my fitness pal.  The app was free and had many foods that you could punch in, as well as exercises, track your weight, protein and other essential things.  Only problem I had with it was that it did not add the weeks worth of nutrition values on the foods you ate correctly; it would only display the first days values for that entire week.

Now just this week, Herbalife launched their own nutrition tracking site called www.iChange.com.  This site is basically the same as my fitness pal by being free to anyone, tracking your info but with added differences, it is a social site as well.  What that means is you can comment on other people's posts and give them words of encouragement to help them along their path of being much more healthier.  Once you sign up, you are assigned a coach that will help you out along the way.  As far as the commenting on posts of others, you can also friend them much like Facebook.  One other nice little bonus, as you accomplish certain goals, you receive awards as a job well done for you efforts.

Currently there is no app for smartphones, but you can access it through the phones browser at www.iChange.com/mobile.  Just in case it doesn't automatically detect you are on a mobile device, which it did not with me or my girlfriend.

If you would like to add me as a friend, search for mindes and that will be me.

Day 4: No Phone

My Droid started messing up a couple of days ago to the point it became unusable.  The problem was that the screen would not register on the right quarter side any touches, which made typing messages or emails or Facebook posts next to impossible, especially if I wanted to use those letters.  So I checked into the insurance that I was supposed to have through Verizon and I am told that I do not have any, even though it was supposed to on there when I got the phone but no amount of arguing would fix that.  Then I remembered that when I got the phone through Wirefly, that there was some sort of insurance through them.  I looked online, found the website and sent the phone off on Monday.

Monday was my first day really without the phone.  I was still dicking around with it on Sunday trying to get it to work throughout the day, so that doesn't count.  Monday I was at work, cut off from FB, as the phone was my portal to that dirty world of attention whores but I managed to keep my mind off not having a phone.  Monday afternoon I went to the gym after work.  That is where I really noticed the lack of phone, since I use the Droid as an MP3 player at the gym.  I can listen to my music and not whatever pop crap they are playing that day.

Tuesday was went it got real.  I started to detox.  Cold sweats, sick to my stomach and the shakes were all there.  I looked like a heroin addict that hasn't had a fix in a few days, people were worried.  I left work early to sleep it off.  A barely managed to get out the door without pushing some lady down and taking her phone away from her just so I could play some Angry Birds.  It took all I had.

Wednesday, I was off work, which made the whole not having a phone much, much worse.  I could access FB at home but texting someone was still not available to me.  I check the status of my phone almost hourly for any updates but nothing new.  To ease my mind, I mow the backyard.  That takes all of thirty minutes before I am done.  It helped a little.  I take a shower then go to the gym.  Again, I have to listen to some John Mayer crap coming across the speakers instead of some AC/DC blasting in my ears.  I press on.  The rest of the day is easier.  I stopped into a gun shop looking to end it all but there is a 3 day waiting period.  I guess if I don't have my phone back by Monday, I can end it all.

Thursday, still no phone or update.  I have been sitting at the house sore.  Must've overdone it at gym or mowing on Wednesday or maybe still detoxing.  I'm going stir crazy.  Alcohol hasn't eased the pain of withdrawals.  I just stare at the bottle pushing imaginary buttons thinking I'm making phone calls or sending off texts to someone.  I think I need help.

I am hoping that the phone is unfixable and they have to send a new one.  Perhaps a Droid 2 or something of that nature.  I do hope that they don't open it up and 'find' water damage or excessive corrosion like I've read on the internet when looking at information of the insurance company.

I'm going to lie down now, maybe ease this headache I've got coming on.

Techno Date

Here I am sitting at another upscale chic bar with another date hoping that this one goes somewhere other than nowhere as all the rest have.  Unfortunately, the girl I am with is one of those obsessively materialistic persons that has the newest of the new whiz-bang cool phones that can do anything you ask it to and if it can't there is probably an app for it do so.

In a nutshell, she is sitting across from me eyes glued to that tiny screen, thumbs moving at a speed that can best described as a Jackrabbit on speed, completely ignoring me.  She is probably tweeting, texting or updating her Facebook telling the world how much of a sucky date this is.

I take a long draw off of the beer that sits before me and with a clinking, return the bottle back to the table.  I get a quick glance from her in a moment of complete stillness from those lightening thumbs for me to give her a half-cocked smile, only for her to just as quickly return back to the never ceasing thumb action.  I bet should could whip a middle schoolers ass in thumb wrestling.

"Put the phone down," I say to her with a slightly annoyed tone hoping to maybe salvage what sanity I have left from sitting here essentially by myself drinking alone.  She looks up at me again, though this time with a little less brevity than before.  An opening that I gather to use to further, perhaps even to, continue a conversation with another living, breathing, human being that isn't on the other end of some battery powered device.  "I would like to do more than sit here while you do whatever it is you are doing and perhaps get to know each other through talking."

"So talk, I'll listen." As she glances down back to the soul sucking device designed by Hell itself, gives it a quick little smile and engages the turbo thumbs once more.

"I'm not sure you are or will, you seem a bit distracted."  No reply comes from the zombie sitting across from me, just a glazed look staring down at the succubus held between her hands.  I swear I see a small trickle of drool forming at the corner of her mouth. "I hit a homeless man on my way here but I didn't want to be late, so I kept on driving.  I'll check on him on my way back home to see if he is still there or at least crawled off into the brush to die like some wounded deer after being hit by a tractor trailer loaded down with pig heads nailed to a flatbed."

"Heh."

Heh? Was that a laugh at what I just said or was it some primal guttural response to some inane thing she just read on that infernal device? I glance around the bar noticing all the other couples, talking, laughing with each other, not through some Hell Spawn but genuinely looking at each other, eye to eye, holding genuine conversations!  This is Hell or some sort of Bizarro World or the Twilight Zone.  I can hear the music now ringing in my ears.

I look back at little Dorothy of Droid, still thumping that phone with those hammers she must call thumbs.  I believe the world could come to a cataclysmic end and she would only learn about it through some update on Facebook to which her reply would be, "OMG!"

At this point I am done trying to pry little Miss Gollum's attention away from her Precious so I get up to go the restroom, say nothing to her upon leaving and receive nothing of any sort of acknowledgement that I left or a questioning of where I am going.  She is totally drawn in to the bright artificial glow of the tiny screen of doom.

Upon returning, I stop on my way back to survey the situation and see the same thing I have been seeing the entire evening.  I tell the waitress that I have to go, but my date has some friends on the way and that she offered to pay for my drinks even though I was uncomfortable with it, though she totally insisted.

Then I left to go home to have some meaningful conversation with some peeps playing Halo on the Xbox.

Thinking Space

I have a hard time coming up with ideas on the fly to fill up this space. I have ideas all the time, just seldom do those ideas and the computer or piece of paper coincide so as they can be captured. Who knows how many ideas, good or bad, I have lost that may have a good solid footing in my head, only to be lost to time or to something shiny on the ground.

Not anymore.

I have now in my possession a neat little app for my Droid called Thinking Space. What this app allows you to do is make a brain storming list on your phone that can end up looking like a flow chart. I had downloaded it a week or so ago, but only had been able to play with it just the other day. Almost immediately I started a list for writing ideas for this site, divided into two groups; 'fiction' and 'blogging'. (There may end up being more, but those two seemed the most logical at the time.)

At the moment there is two ideas for 'fiction' and three for 'blogging'. I'm not going to tell you what they are, since they may or may not end up making it to this prodigious spot. Though, I will tell you that this piece is not on the list, it actually came to fruition all on its own while I just happen to be at the computer.

Thinking Space

Droid

It was time for a new phone since it has been two years since my last and have been wanting a Droid ever since it came out. Of course I really wanted the Blackberry Storm when it came out as well, but was no where near time for upgrade at that time; which was really beneficial on my part since the Storm has been an extremely crappy product from the get go. What the Droid replaces is a Motorola W755, which is a Verizon only phone and is a truly crappy phone to boot.

Now I have only had the Droid for two days as of writing this and to say I am excited would be an understatement at this point. This phone is truly phenomenal. It has apps of a dozen varieties that you can download, some free and some pay; Google maps, which is just cool to play with; Google sky map, which is even more cooler. All of this in a neat little package.

I know the iPhone is supposed to be this great phone that does everything with a billion apps and counting, but I don't like Apple and in no way was going to get one, especially with AT&Ts craptacular service. I know what the commercials say, but my work is a true deadzone to AT&T and T-mobile, so why would I get a service that I cannot use at work?

Got the phone through Wirefly.com for a much cheaper price than through Verizon. Spent a 100 bucks for the phone, a case, car charger and screen protectors; whereas all of that would have cost around 300 bucks through Verizon, while receiving a 100 buck visa card rebate. I think I got the better deal by far on this one.

I have nothing more to say. I am lost for words.