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So I’m certainly the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life, and most likely the least fit too. It’s time to do something about it. Small steps at first (ha ha, a pun!), going to do some walks here in San Diego in the evening and maybe try to get onto some of our exercise equipment at home (though the 110F temps make that difficult), get some weight off and get into better shape.

Tonight was Walk 1, and you can see the details at this handy map from MapMyWalk.com, great site for mapping out hikes and bike rides. I’m not quite sure how to use it properly yet but I got it close.

There is an iPhone app to go with it that will record everything for me, so I will use that next time.

Just under 2 miles, I’ll grow that to longer and longer as the time goes by. Or give up and embrace my fat self!

Ok people here we go again – time to break out the green beer (well, Budweiser), colour your rivers green and wear green to work. Oh, look how Irish I am. Hey, here’s a picture of my ancestor Obama McShamus on our potato farm and one day I will return to the home land and claim my birthright (yeah, and Ahnold is going to save California from the crapper). Ooh, a little politics this year!

So enough with the fake accent, the phony family tree and the beer bragging (though I do envy anyone who can swallow Guinness, let alone do it twice). How about this year you spin your globe and celebrate somewhere different instead. I did, and I’m proud to say today is St. Mugabe day – who knew my first cousin’s pig’s great grandfather’s cat was once petted by the man himself! Hey Robbert, save me a farm!

Don’t make me have to come with this crap again next year!

Back in January I got a call from BMW Financial to verify an attempted charge to my MINI Visa card for Adipose RX. They said that they had denied the charge but wanted to check the card was in my possession. It was so they immediately canceled the card and issued a new one. I checked my Pay Pal Mastercard and found a charge for Adipose RX for $35. I called and filed a fraud complaint.

Thought nothing more about it but at the weekend I got a bottle of diet pills from Adipose and so looked at my credit cards again. What the heck, from my PayPal online transaction log:

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Rather than call PayPal again (they have a terribly long menu system) I called the number on the statement and explained to the rep that they had charged two of my cards a total of three times without my permission and I’d like them to stop. Without skipping a beat or asking me any questions at all he said he’d cancel my account and refund my credit card for the two charges. Within a couple of minutes I received an email confirming my cancellation – how the heck did they get that, too!

If you Google Adipose RX you’ll find a ton of reports of people being signed up for shipments without their knowledge, no idea how they get hold of the financial information but clearly there is a serious fraud going on here. Anyway, I’m hoping the refund will show up soon and in the meantime I am watching my online statements closely.

Update: My credit card has been refunded the two fraudulent amounts

As you all know I’m into most of the social networking sites, you can find me at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn on a regular basis. And it’s been great “reconnecting” with past colleagues.

But when I look at my list of contacts, I get a large amount of career envy. Just some of the titles my ex-peers hold:

• Director of IT
• CIO
• Vice President of IT
• Financial Controller
• CTO
• Owner of their own consulting business

And here am I, peasant worker bee for a big conglomerate. I know some people will say ‘but you moved across an ocean etc’ and that might be true, and might even be a ‘big deal’ but ultimately I’m about to turn 43 and I am just another programmer on the treadmill. How come all these guys did so much better than me?

I’d never heard of O.J. Simpson before the murders but I gather he was some major celebrity in the sports world until then. Obviously you have to be more than a little crazy to butcher your family, but what the hell is going on with this new book and TV interview that is coming up? Fox has aired some pretty awful material but this has to be just the worst thing ever and of course it will be popular because people can’t not watch such a thing. Ugh, the whole thing is totally beyond me.

A lot of big things happening this weekend, many of them without me (can’t be in three places at once):

• The launch of the PS3 in Japan
• The AOPA Expo 2006 in Palm Springs, seems like I miss it every year it in CA
• The Brawley Cattle Call Rodeo. The event has already started but this weekend sees the highlight with the parade Saturday morning, and the various rodeos throughout the weekend. Yee-hah! And all that.

Regardless of whether online gambling should be legal or not, I really don’t understand how outlawing it improves Port Security or makes America safer from terrorists? There’s a lot of crazy crap done in the name of safety but this one is way out there.

I suppose that if CostCo has Christmas decorations for sale in September, I should not be surprised that the local stores have switched to “winter fashion” and its now impossible to buy a short-sleeved shirt anywhere. Only long sleeve lumberjack shirts and nice wool-knit sweaters for sale now. Don’t worry that the temps are still in the high 90s and, lets face it, aren’t going much below 90 even in the “winter”. This is Southern California and, dammit, we’ll wear scarves and down jackets even if its still 75F out, even if we do look stupid.

Last night was the start of the third season of Dancing With the Stars. Despite some problems with the show, I was a big fan of the previous two seasons but last night’s show was just so boring. I think perhaps it just went on too long, or maybe the stars just weren’t very interesting or recognisable. The football star was better than last year’s but didn’t deserve any standing ovations; its only one show and already everyone is showing the same old biases. The judges are already bickering and, like with American Idol, it isn’t entertaining any more. There were some highlights: I loved the foxtrot by Vivica A. Fox and the ex-Miss USA contestant. Jerry Springer was fun to watch, and any time Karina Smirnoff is on screen is a good time by anyone’s standards.

This past weekend I flew Teri to Camarillo for a surprise trip to Santa Rosa Island. The island lies 40 miles off the coast of Ventura and I had signed us up for a tour with Channel Islands Aviation who would fly us there, and arrange for a guide.

The self-flying was fun, including a return trip with only one working brake, and you can read about it on my flying blog if you wish.

I can heartily recommend the tour. The island feels quite isolated and is beautiful with untouched beaches and rolling hills, just beware the high winds and the hunters (though hopefully they will be gone in 2011). We had a great guide, Inge, a volunteer with the National Park service who had a great passion and knowledge for the island. The trip across the sea to the island was also fun, our pilot Curtis skilfully brought the plane down on the dirt strip in very high winds and thanks to several people not showing up he was able to join us for the tour.

To the pictures I took, click on the photo above or go to this link to my flickr photoset.