At last I'm overweight

I had some good news today.

Now I'm officially overweight. "Why is this a cause of celebration?", I hear you ask.

The reason stems back to about September last year when Karyn bought a Wii Fit for Matt's Nintendo Wii. The Wii Fit has a Body Test mode where it weighs you as part of an overall fitness test. I was rather horrified to see that according to the BMI scale, I was in the Obese category. I consoled myself with the fact that muscle is heavier than fat and the Wii couldn't see my superb physique.

Well, 6 months later, I've now dropped into the Overweight category. All I had to do was lose 16kg.

I actually set myself a target of losing 20kg, so I've only got 4kg to go.

For those of you who are wondering how I did it, I'll tell you the secret:

EAT LESS, EXERCISE MORE

Balloon Flight

I had a wonderful day today.  Karyn bought me a balloon flight for Christmas, so it seemed a good idea to use it during the Canberra balloon festival.

The only downside was that we had to be down at the lake in front of Old Parliament House by 5:45AM.  It was still dark.   After signing the usual disclaimers that said it would be our own fault if we landed in the lake and drowned or hit powerlines and electrocuted ourselves, we helped inflate the balloon.

After laying out the balloon, two big fans were used to partially inflate the balloon while lying on its side.  They they turned on the gas burners that heated the air and caused the balloon to lift.

We had to get onboard quickly to stop it drifting away.  The ladder is for some old folks who couldn't climb in.  I had no problem. The basket held 12 people.

Surprisingly, as we lifted off and drifted West, there was no sound and no wind.  The basket didn't sway at all, so I reckon and even nervous fliers would be OK with it.  Until they had to land, of course ....

When I say no sound, I mean that there was no sound other then the occasional roar of the gas burners going off....

It gets quite hot when the flame is on,  which is why they recommended that we wear a cap to minimise the heat on our heads.  Maybe to stop your hair catching fire, I reckon.

There were panoramic views in all directions.  It was a pity that there were clouds above us - it would have been spectacular if the sun had been shining.  But then you can't been picky - last year Matt and I went to see the massed balloon launch and it was cancelled because there was no wind, and then the next day is was cancelled again because there was too much wind.

After a while we drifted out over the countryside.  It was unbelievable how dry everything was - once you moved away from the roads into the fields, all the grass disappeared until all you could see was bare dirt and dried up water holes.  I took the pictures below, they seem unreal, but that's exactly what the landscape looked like.  Lots of dead trees, a few greeen ones, and everything else a light brown clay.  It's probably been about 6 weeks since we had any substantial rain.

While our pilot kept us high in the sky, a few like to take a more risky path.  Apparently the daredevils like to try and skim over the water.  Some seem to like bouncing into other balloons.

Eventually we had to land.  The only problem were the power-lines that needed to be avoided. We landed in a paddock filled with thistles and waited until the ground crew arrived.  The pilot then  put some more head into the balloon so that the ground crew could walk us out of the thistles.

The reason for this is that we had to collapse and repack the balloon ready for tomorrow's flight and the thistles could cause problems.  We had thought that they moved us out of the thistles for the convenience of the passengers !

Unbelievable Weather

It's hard to believe that last weekend we were suffering from 40 degree temperatures. Now I'm wearing a warm tracksuit wondering why we don't have a log fire going. I think that its only about 9 degrees outside and the forecast is only for about 20 degrees tomorrow.

It's too cold to consider swimming - even though the pool is about 24 degrees, when the air temperature is too low I just don't want to contemplate a swim.

Also, as luck would have it, the spa heater is broken and the shop tells me it will have to be replaced. The cost will be around $1000, but there's no point in having a hot spa without one. Maybe we'll win the lottery this week.

Matthew cleaned his bedroom this morning. As you can see. I wonder if other 17 year olds are as bad as him at keeping their room clean.

Addendum

We counted 12 dirty coffee mugs in his room, 3 glasses, 2 water bottles, and 3 empty cans of Pepsi.

Scam Mail

I was surprised today to receive an actual piece of scam mail. Not the usual email sort that you get regularly, but an actual old-fashioned letter.


The usual wording though.

I was amazed that the scam business was so profitable that you could print customised colour letters, put them in good quality envelopes, and post them to the other side of the world.

This letter was sent all the way from Spain.

I guess that I should pass it on to the Federal Police.

A real pity. I could have done with the $4 million.

The Mystery of the Shrinking Crocs

Karyn almost ruined my Crocs the other day.

I left them strategically placed in the family room in just the right place for me to find the next time I needed them. She obviously disagreed with my positioning and put them outside.

The next day when I tried to put them on, I found that they were too tight. I reckoned that because they'd been sitting in the sun for the morning they must have shrunk. Believe me, the hot summer sun in Canberra can be pretty fierce.

I was devastated. They'd cost me around $50.

I googled "crocs" and "shrunk" and found lots of cases where people's crocs had shrunk when exposed to heat; even those just left in hot cars. There were stories about how people had contacted the manufacturer who refused to help. The common estimate was that they shrink 2 sizes. There were also a few suggestions on how to stretch them back again.

So, throwing caution to the winds, I put them in a hot clothes drier for 10 minutes and then put them on my feet which were wearing 2 pairs of socks. I walked around for a few minutes, and to my surprise they were wearable again, maybe even larger than before. It seems that heat makes them, what would be the word - "malleable"?

Hooray!


Now all I have to do is work out how to fix my Crocs thongs that have also shrunk and because the front is curled upwards, they look like they are designed for pixies to wear.

New Year motivation

I've been a bit motivated in the past few weeks to fix the steps to the spa.

The existing steps had reached the stage of actually rotting.  It all seemed to happen pretty quickly.  When I looked at them underneath I realised that there was a lot of raw timber underneath that general dirt had built up against over the years.  Being untreated pine didn't help either.

Anyway, two full days work resulted in some new steps.   It was a lot harder than I thought because the ground around the spa isn't level, so I had to make the steps correspondingly uneven so that they'd sit straight on the concrete.

The real problem was that every day was very hot, around 32 degrees C.  And every time I lifted my head this is what I saw.

At least the steps work.  Here are two votes of confidence.

New Year's Eve & New Year's Day

For NYE Karyn, her mother, and I went to the restaurant where Matthew works.

No chance of getting served by him though.   Whenever we go there he stays as far away from us as possible.  Generally he works behind the bar, making up drinks, making coffees, and organising the bills.

This year the restaurant had a 4-course dinner menu.  And of course we ate too much.  I went for a walk after the first 3 courses to get some fresh air and help the food go down.   Karyn and her mother stayed behind and made sure that the wine had no chance of evaporating.

We went home before midnight because Karyn's mother was yawning so much that she couldn't talk.  In hindsight, we should have stayed longer.

Matthew arranged to get a lift home, which was great, I thought.  Until I realised that Matthew didn't have any keys with him so I would have to stay up anyway and let him in.  I had to play Farcry for hours just to stay awake.

He finally got home at about 2:15AM.  He then decided that he was hungry and so made a meal out of the food that Karyn brought home from the restaurant because she couldn't eat it as she was too full.  It was actually her main course (course #3 of 4).  I think that he actually went to bed at around 4AM after playing some more World of Warcraft.

The next day we had a BBQ'd leg of lamb with roast vegetables.  It was a great meal, but my undoing was a bucket of pina colada mix that Karyn made that had half a bottle of white rum in it.   The mix was put into the freezer until it became slushy.  It was so easy to drink a person could lose track of how much that had actually drunk.  I think that we all had a sleep that afternoon except Matt who was doing something vital in World of Warcraft.

Here is a picture of Karyn wearing one of the silk tops that I got her in India.  It's the first time that she's worn one, so I guess she may have troubles coping with my superior sense of style and fashion.