Day 73/365

Posted by eric on

It seems like spring is here in east Texas. I saw some blooms on the golf course yesterday and decided today I would go find a nice landscape shot. This is my first time really trying to get a landscape shot and I think it turned out pretty good. This is a sign that hopefully I can get some great bluebonnet shots this year, we will see what happens. I was hoping the purple crape myrtle blooms would stick out more but you can still see them which is what I was going for. Still have a lot to learn.

 

73-365

37/365

Posted by eric on

 

37-365

Today was a nice, quiet, rainy day. It would have been a great day to just lay around the house and do nothing but read and catch up on sleep. Well I had to go to work. I was sitting in my office and decided I would try to capture the ripples from rain falling into puddles. This is my best attempt, cropped to show what I was trying to focus on. I think it turned out pretty close to what I was trying for.

Day 28/365

Posted by eric on

I don’t know why, but I really like how I can open up the 1.8 50mm lens and get it to soften the outer words while keeping the inner words sharp. It is a really cool example to me of depth of field. Anyway I think I will keep my photography posts about that picture. Im still calling this macro monday even though I should probably be calling it DOF monday. Regardless I made the time to make this post so hopefully I can continue to do so for the rest of the 365 project.

28-365

Here we go again

Posted by eric on

I think I have written more posts about how I am going to write more posts for this site then any other kind of post. Kind of sad, but it shows (and makes me realize) how scattered brain I am. Yes, this is another one of those posts, but this time I am going to try my hardest to make it true. I have alot going on this semester, I will be learning python, doing what I can to further my hobbies, and in general become the person I keep telling myself I want to be. I will try to use this blog to hold myself to that standard. So starting out I will be posting about each picture in my project 365 for 2013 starting at this date. I keep trying to figure out what I was thinking when I look back on the images and this will be my log. I also plan on posting more about the diet that helped me lose over 75 pounds in 2012 and hopefully a few more here in 2013, but of course the larger goal is to keep those lost 75 pounds gone. Posting here more will also helpfully me become a better communicator, I feel like I have a large deficiency in communication and need to work on that. So here’s to a great 2013.

Social Media

Posted by eric on

When I was young and really started trying to use social media websites, myspace was popular. Yeah that seems like ages ago, and it was in terms of what the life cycle seems to be for social media products. Now everyone is talking about facebook, but in a few years im sure it will be another product. There has also been some intersting discussions about the different “audiences” that prefer the different main platforms, facebook, twitter, and google+. Now I really have cared about my facebook account in a few years, and I still really don’t. But I am torn between twitter and google+, so I have linked my google+ to twitter in such a way that when I post to google+ it will send the first part of my post to twitter along with a link, so hopefully whatever I post out there will make it to whatever audience wanted it, I’m not sure there is one. Anyway I will do that for a while and see what kind of interaction I get. I already get more interaction on my posts from google+, not sure why. Maybe I need to actually spend some time on both services and try to cultivate friends ships like I use to have on twitter. Time will tell I guess. I am kind of hoping to be able to use this blog and google+ to grow whatever audience I am trying to get (still not sure about that one, I will just be using this blog to get my thoughts and reactions written down on a platform that I have some control over).

Diet Progress

Posted by eric on

Well I woke up this morning and weighed myself. I know everyone says one should not live and die by the scale while dieting because sometimes the damn thing will say one is heavier. Luckily today wasn’t one of those days and the doubts I had about what I ate yesterday disappeared from the back of my mind. The official reading was 252.6 but I round up and call it 253. I am really hoping that I can be down in the ~240 range when I go back to campus to start my masters degree. I started at ~305 and lost about 30 pounds doing Weight Watchers. I had no problems following the Weight Watchers diet, I just did not like how closely I had to follow everything I ate and drank. It was especially hard when I was traveling to see friends on the weekends and had a different meal schedule everyday because of school and work. When school starts back up I have already spoken to a few friends and we will be going to the gym and playing racket-ball so hopefully that will help keep me burning fat through out the next semester and I can shock my family when I am much thinner for the holidays. The usual bacon and eggs is great for breakfast but I have been searching the net for recipes of things to make for the rest of the days meals and try something new. I will post as I try things and post the recipe, source, and how I liked it.

It was a good day

Posted by eric on

A day where I go to Fry’s and come home with parts to build a new machine is always a good day. The last few weeks I have been researching parts for the build and I was stuck between the I7 3770k and the I5 3570K. The only real difference is the price and the I7 has hyper threading so it shows up to the OS as an 8 core chip. I went with the I5 figuring if I max this chip out alot I can sell it and throw the I7 into the same board. Got windows 7 installed, didn’t really want to do that but I want to play Diablo 3 tomorrow on a real graphics card so I went with windows and Ill get some virtual machines running this week. I will do a better write up of the machine later.

Diet: I have been following a ketogenic diet, with the help of the great community over at reddit r/keto. I started at 272 lbs and am down to 260 after the water loss, but I have kind of stalled the last 2 weeks. I am wondering if this is from the coke zeros and diet cokes I have been drinking so I am going to not drink any of those for a while (only drink coffee, water, tea) and weigh myself daily to see if I start losing again, we will see. I am also going to get back to being strict about my portions, I have been eating alot of cheese, ranch and other items that have some carbs, so maybe I need to get back to eating less carbs everyday.