back on 3-13-08 i decided it was time to start losing weight, eating healthier and all-around getting myself into better shape.

so i started with totally cutting out the 6-8 mugs of coffee i was gulping down a day - cold turkey for a week. that got me jump started.

i changed my eating habits - no fried crap, no fast food and i cut way down on processed foods.

i also combined this with the beginnings of my exercise plan, which consists of me walking 4-5 times a week for 20-40 minutes a time, plus i have been pumping some weights on the boys' exercise weight machine.

as of this morning (almost 4 months later) i am at 255.5 and i started at 281, so that's a loss of 25.5 pounds!

my last visit to my diabetes doc went very well. it was the first time he ever spoke about the possibility of getting off the meds if i keep this up.

so to all of you overweight people out there who have lost hope, you can do this without taking extra weight-loss junk or getting a personal trainer or getting your stomach stapled.

it just takes the will to start and once the results start coming in it gets easier to keep doing it.

my sister keri is also writing a story for her paper about her efforts to slim down involving a personal trainer.

btw..i only had to do cold turkey on the coffee for a week. i now have 1-2 cups a day and limit it to no more than that.

after many long months of avoiding upgrading my wordpress blog i finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade from wordpress 2.0.5 to wordpress 2.5.1

i was really worried that my site would break or that many of my plugins would not work anymore. well, guess what? i'm still here and so is my blog.

i decided to download and install the wordpress automatic upgrade plugin and see if an automated solution would work easier than me trying to update all the files manually.

wow, this plugin works great. i have a self hosted wordpress blog and the only thing that did not work correctly was the re-activation phase of the plugins. i had to go in and spend 15 minutes activating the plugins i wanted to use.

here is what they say it will actually do...

Wordpress automatic upgrade upgrades your wordpress installation by doing the following steps.

1. Backs up the files and makes available a link to download it.
2. Backs up the database and makes available a link to download it.
3. Downloads the latest files from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip and unzips it.
4. Puts the site in maintenance mode.
5. De-activates all active plugins and remembers it.
6. Upgrades wordpress files.
7. Gives you a link that will open in a new window to upgrade installation.
8. Re-activates the plugins.

It did all this with no hitches except for number 8, where i had to do my manual bit.

I'm going to use this plugin on all my wordpress blogs! thanks keithdsouza and ronalfy.

well, on june 20th, 2008 i was laid off from my e-commerce position with hitchfinder.com.

my family has been wonderful and supportive. i have not been depressed at all due to the upbeat attitude of my lovely wife.

i have no regrets. it was a very good learning experience and i took a lot of knowledge away from the job, plus a really cool 24" iMac computer and the adobe creative suite cs3!

what have i been doing since june 20th you might ask.

Click image for larger view.

well, i have finished my freelance web site gushindesigns.com and am almost finished with my new business card. i have designed and opened a brand new web site called appleproductsdepot.com, which combines web design, affilliate marketing and eBay.

there is also a second one of these eBay affiliate marketing web sites that i am currently building that is centered around old and new cameras, both film and digital. i am still into photography and i want this one to be a bit more interactive and it will probably concentrate more on vintage camera gear than newer stuff.

and i have been going to a number of meetup.com meetings on subjects like joomla (a content management system for web sites), wordpress, eBay and various internet entrepreneur groups.

i have also been more active selling products on eBay than i have in the past, with 30 current auctions running. i am trying to liquidate a comic book collection i bought many year ago for a good price and have already made my original investment back so the rest is gravy as far as the comic books go.

there are a few opportunities i am checking into for web design work full time as well, but more about those if anything happens with them.

ok, went to another meetup at another cafe brazil. guess what? no wifi again.

this time it was a wordpress meetup, so the whole meeting was crippled due to the lack of the wifi connection and the ability of people to open up their laptop, say "hey, take a look at this" and have someone help them figure a problem out.

they had no explanation, just no wifi!

so, anyone in the dallas area needing wifi connections while out and about - avoid cafe brazil in dallas like the plague.