One of the most frequent comments/questions I hear when people see that I’ve lost a lot of weight is along the lines of “You must feel so much better” or “don’t you feel so much better”. Typically, I respond with a mildly enthusiastic “hell, yeah” with just a hint of “duh”. I usually don’t think too much about it later, but today one lady said this comment to me in a tone that just totally rubbed me the wrong way, almost like I unwittingly validated her personal deep-seeded disgust of overweight people, almost like I gave her future ammunition to say “I told you so” to somebody. Ugh…kinda made me want to her the evil eye or something….

Anyway, work is getting crazy, but in a good way. I’m working on a sports related site that has a lot going on in the next several weeks. The parallel that I would draw here is if I was working for NBC and it was a month before the Olympics and I was one of the web developers for the Olympics website. It’s kinda like that, it’s a high profile website, with a very wide reach and the entire team is working hard to get everything ready for our biggest time of the season. Good stuff. We had a meeting today with about 10 people from different departments and we were all trying to problem solve a few issues and it was just so awesome to be in that kind of environment with a lot of smart, capable, normal people brainstorming trying to come up with a good plan of action. I totally dug it. I really missed that kind of thing working at my company. Just another confirmation that I did the right thing in leaving. This week is going to be busy though as I have several streaming video projects that I have to knock out in the next 6 days. It’s also such a confidence booster that I am entrusted to come up with a viable solution and get it implemented. I don’t want to let the team down and want to come up with an innovative solution so this will definitely be consuming a lot of my intellectual energy. I love it.

Last week I sent off for a few brochures for Executive Certificate programs at MIT, Emory, Harvard, Notre Dame and Cornell. I’m thinking about pursuing one maybe next fall. With the extra money I am making now, I should be able to have saved enough money to pay for a good chunk of the cost for one of these programs. For the longest time I swore off more school, but I don’t want to be a developer forever, I do like getting my hands dirty, but I like to think of myself as more of a creative/idea type of person so I’d like to try to find a program so that eventually I can either join a company or start my own where I can find a role that suits all my strengths. I’m just looking for now, but I need to start thinking longer term.

Have y’all been watching the Olympics? Good grief, I love this stuff and it’s not that I am just rooting for the Americans, there are so many compelling stories all the way around. Like the South Korean swimmer who redeemed himself after he got disqualified as a 14 year old four years ago. Or the Chinese male gymnast who spoke so passionately about bearing the burden of an entire country on his shoulders after the men’s team stumbled at the last Olympics. Or the three American women who swept all three medals in fencing. Or Dara Torres who is one of the fastest swimmers at the age of 41 – she is kicking butt, by the way. Or Michael Phelps who’s trying for 8 gold medals – did you see the 4 x 100 medley race from earlier today? There are so many folks to cheer for from all over, it’s so exciting!

For some strange reason I weighed in at 249.2 lbs this morning. Actually, I do know why, the big C (been pooping all day though...TMI, yes, I know). Sigh. Enough already! I went back over my last labs more thoroughly today and I think I will keep my protein in the 120-150g range during the week and maybe let it creep up over the weekend, this should take some of the pressure off my kidneys, but prevent the edema that I’m prone to. I’d rather retain the water now than have to have a freakin’ kidney transplant 30 years from now. Hells no! I don’t want any kidney damage. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Anyway, food was good, water was good, fixin’ to hop on my stationary bike while I watch some Olympics coverage. I swear, it’s like crack…