Monthly Archives: June 2010

Changing Uptime to Use More Relevant Units

Just For Fun


[stephen@sargent ~]$ uptime
8:58:08 up 10 Isner-Mahuts, 06:10, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

For those of you wanting to actually make the change to uptime.c, note that, instead of


updays = uptime / 86400;
uphours = (uptime - (updays * 86400)) / 3600;
upmins = (uptime - (updays * 86400) - (uphours * 3600)) / 60;

use something like


upims = uptime / 39900;
uphours = (uptime - (upims * 39900)) / 3600;
upmins = (uptime - (upims * 39900) - (uphours * 3600)) / 60;

(Note: it’s a tennis joke. And a Unix joke. I can only imagine the size of the overlap in that Venn diagram.)

A Tribute to My Dad

Family

My brother Andrew wrote a tribute about our dad for Father’s day.

A father’s tough love is a cultural cliché – walk down the Hallmark aisle in May, and you’ll be assaulted by pink and white frilliness that proclaims a mother’s tenderness while the next month, the same aisle is festooned in blue and brown straight lines that let us know that dad, by contrast, doesn’t appreciate that nonsense. But that tough guy formulation masks some of the greatest truths about love that we learn from our fathers.

The whole thing is good, and rings true to my experiences. One of the greatest gifts I’ve been given is my parents, and to this day I’m scrambling as hard as I can to be as good a parent as they were.

My crochet habit and my Doctor Who habit collide

Making Things, Nattering About Television, Scary Kids' Toys, Science Fiction, UK

This is without a doubt my favorite thing I’ve crocheted so far. I worked on him while in the UK, so I think he is sufficiently British. Blessed even.

The cuddly Doctor is going to Alana over the Fourth of July weekend and I will be so sad to see him go. I think I’ll start another one for myself…while I’m watching Doctor Who.

Many thanks go to Nyss at Pixelated Mushroom for the lovely free pattern and lots of coaching while I was completing the coat!

Smaller Pants

Eating, In Misty's Head, Religion

I got a wake up call right after the first of the year.

I went to the doctor for a sinus infection and my blood pressure was high. So high in fact, that my nurse practitioner was afraid I would have a stroke. She ripped open a sample box of BP meds and stood and watched while I took the first one. That doctor visit was the first day of my current life.

I had been toying with giving something up for Lent. I had never done a Lenten practice before, so I decided to combine that with something my body needed very badly. I gave up dessert sugar, sugared drinks and fast food.

The first week was bad. Withdrawal craving kind of bad. Several times I would wake up and crave sugar so badly I thought I’d cave and get something. But I didn’t. I made it through that first week and moved on to the second. Each week was easier until at this point, I don’t even think about sugar much. I do have it now but it’s a once or twice a week thing, instead of everyday, twice a day.

I started exercising. Every day. Not when I wanted to or felt like it. I did it everyday.

I lost 20 pounds so quickly if felt like magic.

I bought some new clothes to take on our trip to England.

Shortly before we left on our trip, I hurt my knee. I don’t know what I did to it but it was so very painful. I took a bit of rest the few days before we left and missed my trip goal weight by 1 pound. I was a bit sad but I consoled myself with the fact that I would still be getting plenty of exercise on the trip.

My knee was the singular down note on our whole trip. I had to baby it pretty much every day and the day we were in Edinburgh I didn’t climb Holyrood to see Authur’s Seat because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to walk at all the next day.

When we got home I had my chiropractor adjust it and since then it has steadily gotten better but I haven’t been exercising everyday. After the trip, I took the whole week off from working out. I’ve slowly been adding the daily workouts back to my schedule but I’ve been really careful about it.

Yesterday I went to the store nab a pair of shorts because I gave away all the ones that were too big. I picked up a pair that were the size I bought just before our trip. They were too big. I thought maybe it was a mis-size, so I got another pair. They were too big as well. I tried on the smaller size and they fit! Sometime in the past month, even though I haven’t lost any more weight, I lost a pants size.

I am not too proud to admit that I did a little dance of glee in the dressing room while wearing smaller pants.

In a lifetime of always, ALWAYS, buying the next size up, I bought the size smaller yesterday.

I wanted to come home and start my marathon training. Seriously, it crossed my mind to take up running.

So how’s my blood pressure? It’s better. I’m still taking meds but it is lower than when I started at the first of the year. The second half is that even though I’ve massively overhauled my diet and I’ve taken up exercise, I still had to start taking cholesterol meds. I’m not sure that this is a function of my weight at this point. I think I might be fighting age and genetics. And I’m getting to the point of being ok with that.

It’s hard to be mad at taking my medicine while I’m wearing smaller pants.