Starting Out

I've been thinking about building websites and creating online content for quite some time.  For instance, one can see when this blog was started.  The difficulty was trying to come up with an idea of what I could do that is unique and beneficial.  However, every idea I came up with seemed to have been already thought of and done by someone else.  Then I realized that even something as complex the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently developed in the minds of two different people in the mid 1800's.  So, it would be quite conceited for me to assume that I could come up with a completely new idea that no one else had even considered.  I also recently learned that Google is delivering another means for streaming TV over the internet despite Apple, Hulu and Netflix already being in this space.  So, the world is full of ideas and there is much overlap between them.

I've been listening to NPR's Science Friday for 6 or 7 years now and one of the themes of this show is citizen science.  In addition to my bachelors and master's degree work, volunteering at the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge has included several opportunities to participate in scientific research.  This an area that many people could contribute to in a big way.  Furthermore, with the connected way in which we live today there are many projects that could only be accomplished if it had 1,000s of participants doing something on the same day.  Like the Christmas Bird Count.

There are already several sites dedicated to listed and informing the public about citizen science projects like SciStarter and Citizen Science Central, but I decided to add one more.  It'll give me the opportunity to develop my skills and a starting point from which I can learn about these projects.  More importantly, the website I'm building will hopefully give those projects another venue where they are mentioned to help improve their presence in the public domain.

Project Search Page

Started constructing the project search page.  Got it so a user could select from any of the four option menus and get a list of projects based on that query.   Won't have much time to work on it this weekend but next steps will be to implement the keyword search and allow users to combine each of these queries to get one result limited by all the options.  Hopefully its as simple as anding all the queries or perhaps I'll have to use the arrays from the query results, combine them into one array by intersecting them and then display the one list.  It was also cool that I didn't need to search for too many solutions since I could cut a paste from the other code that I had already written for the other pages.  I'll probably have to learn jQuery or something like that to implement the location based search.

One Win at a Time.

I'm working on building my first website.  Currently muddling my way through HTML, PHP and MySQL.  I knew that things would not be as blissfully simple as all those beginner tutorials and free online classes would have me believe.  However, its all good though because I love those daily wins I get when I finally get something to work.  I feel that I'm in a sort of beginner to intermediate stage where I know how to do things but its done in an inefficient and cloogy way.  But I also know that there are ways to simplify things, however, using those bits of code tricks is not straightforward.  Nonetheless, I'm getting there.  This past week was focused on figuring out how to create a form in HTML, which includes textareas, selection and option menus; then, using PHP, get that data into a MySQL database.  Today I finally got all of the elements of the form to go into my database and populate three different tables.  So, one might think that is pretty much all that has to be done.  However, I'd say this one webpage is at the halfway point because now I need make sure its defensively programmed and protect it from being used in ways I never conceived of.  I read somewhere that a good programmer still looks both ways when crossing a one way street, because there's always that one person who's going to do the unexpected.

I also need to add a proper way to input a date on my form and then learn CSS so I can make it look pretty.  Eventually, I'll also want to add Ajax and Javascript to make it more dynamic so that as one begins to add a project it will show a list of projects that seem similar to prevent any duplicates from being added.  Also I'd rather have scrollable checkboxes instead of requiring people to hold down CTRL while they click to select multiple items.  I'm sure as I do more I think of more things to do.  For now, I'll have to settle for one win at a time.

Another Fat Guy Blogging About Weight Loss Plans

Why blog about this?

Yep, this is another entry going out to the blogosphere about someone's weight problem and what they're going to do to get in shape.  There are probably 1,000s of blogs out there which are better written, more inspiring and highly informative.  So, this undertaking really isn't for everyone else, its for me. 

It's my situation that brings me here.  Being alone, I really don't have someone around to tell me to stop doing things that I shouldn't.  There's no one here to say, 'get off Facebook' or 'don't eat that' or 'let's go do something today'.  I sit here and eat and add calories to my mass instead of burning them off.  Those moments where I do go out and try to be active are getting harder and harder each time because I'm not maintaining my health in between.  Ideally, I would have a drill instructor next to me 24/7 for the next 4 weeks yelling at me until I've adopted new, permanent and good habits.

I hope that by making this public, it might make me a more responsible member of society.  Therefore, I'll feel like I owe status updates to the world showing improvement over time.

Where am I at today?

Dimensions:
I'm 39 years old, 6'0" tall and 56" around the gut at the belly button.  I weighed 337 lbs on Monday morning.  Right now, my heart is beating hard, which I believe is due to the martini I had with dinner.  This has been happening off and on for the past 2 weeks, so I'm going to have to put the alcohol away for the rest of the year.  If this doesn't do it, I'll re-attempt getting someone at the VA to follow through with scheduling a doctors appointment for me.

Exercise:
I walked a round trip of 1.5 miles out to the of the Seal Beach pier twice today and have made that my goal for every day.  Well, at least I've put it on my calendar.  The only pain I feel is my lower back and achilles.  The ankles will feel better as I stretch each time after walking and the back will improve if I actually do this each day.  I also did some crunches and push ups.  I have my Fitbit and will first seek 10,000 steps/day and then strive for 12,500 steps/day.  I'll also log my activity in Fitocracy.

Diet:
For the past several weeks I've been eating all the crap I've had in my apartment without replacing it.  I've also enjoyed a few meals at various restaurants that I like.  Only this time, each meal that I've had, I consciously enjoyed it as if it was the last time I was ever going to eat that thing.  So what's left?  I still have the stuff to make 2 or 3 more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  And the remainder of the food that I have is fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, eggs, juice and yogurt.  Drinks include some orange juice, coffee, ginger ale, Monster energy, tea, Gatorade and several bottles of liquor.  My plan is to for now on, only buy the least processed food that I can without being ridiculous about it.  Caffeine will be the last thing to go if at all.  Once I get down to just having fruits, vegetables and good source of protein, I'll begin a transition to where juicing and smoothies dominate my diet.

Got some new head phones.  The others were good and I really liked them because they were the first pair I ever had that actually stayed in my ear.  This was possible primarily because I could swap out the buds with the different sizes I need for each ear.  Unfortunately these Phillips headphones lived their entire live in my back pack and I guess after a year or so of always being in the sun, the cords started to break down and got sticky.  The sound is still good, but I don't like them sticking to everything.  I try to cut expenses by not replacing things until they are really broken and unrepairable but I just couldn't live with that cord sticking to my face.  It gets annoying after a while.

http://www.skullcandy.com/shop/titan-red-black

So I got some Skullcandy Titans and am really enjoying them. The bass is the best I've ever had on headphones including a pair of over the ear Sennheisers that I cost twice as much.  I'm aware that I've got to be careful about blasting it too much or I'll end up loosing my hearing too soon.

Now that I've got great sound coming into my head, the only thing that's missing from the club experience is being able to feel the bass on my chest, someone needs to develop a pad, which simulates that experience and I can slip into my shirt.

New Career Path

Last week I gave up on earning a Master's in Biology.  I just couldn't see a way to justify the future costs of continuing on with the program.  The data that I had gathered over the summer didn't really show anything significant and there wasn't any additional resources available to me for gathering more data.  Furthermore, all of the people I know who have recently earned their master's in biology only could get jobs where a master's degree wasn't required.  Also a master's is not required for most of the biologist jobs I have found within the federal government.

So, now I am pursuing a degree in computer science.  This fits me since I sit at the computer the majority of my day and should learn how to build the websites and software that I'd like to see.  My plan is to start with an A.A. and combine that knowledge with what I already know about biology and begin building the websites and software that are needed in the biological sciences.

This concludes my first week on my new path.  I think I have the routine down and will begin executing this plan in earnest tomorrow.

Since my most recent 2-day juice fast, I've had juice for at least one of, if not, two of my meals each day.  Today I had my regular carrot, celery & citrus drink for breakfast and then a leafy green drink for lunch.  I felt great all day, got a lot of work done and didn't even realize that I was operating on very few calories consumed.  I had a nice dinner and dessert afterward.  This experience leads me to think I could probably just keep going this way, with one or two juices as a meal replacement and then a regular meal without having to actually fast for weeks at a time.  The trick will be to not binge when I do eat, which seems likely for me since on the drive back to my apartment this evening, I considered stopping at a fast food restaurant and decided not to without having to draw upon much willpower.