A picture for Jen

I realise this is not exactly showing you the results of my hard work in the gym, but I'd need really long arms to take a full length picture of myself with a camera phone.

However, you do get a sneak preview of the haircut I received this very lunchtime. My own wife hasn't even seen it yet.

You also get a nice shot of the beautiful day the world is taunting me with as I'm stuck in my office.That's the very posh St. Regis hotel across the road and downtown Houston in the distance. The sky is clear, the temperature is about 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celcius). In fact, I'm going home.

New FTSO Low

221.6! That was my low for the week, measured this morning. If past form holds then I'll probably hang around there for a couple of weeks but I'm pretty chuffed.

I can thank a quiet weekend, which probably undid any damage caused in Tulsa, although I didn't go too crazy there either and even managed a run on the hotel's treadmill.

The really good news came during Monday's run, which was at a higher level of intensity than usual. My heart rate monitor didn't get out of the 160's, so hopefully that little old muscle is getting stronger too. I usually mix in some sprints on Thursday's which makes the monitor go nuts, but the recovery time is quick, which is what I'm looking for, so we'll see what happens this week.

FTSO Update

This is the perfect time to put a FTSO update over here as there is no update. I was exactly 224 this morning, which is pretty much where I've been all week, barring a slight dip to 223.6 and a slightly larger beer and cheesecake bump on Saturday. So, I'm claiming it as my new starting weight and aiming for 210.

Concern has been expressed by both my wife and my mother that I'll be too scrawny at 15 stone, so I may eventually settle for something a bit higher but that's the goal for now.

It's going to be hard to budge off 224 as I worked pretty hard last week and didn't achieve it and I'm off to Tulsa tomorrow where I don't think I'll get much exercise in, but I know I'll eat heavy and probably have a couple of beers.

My first blog

I quite like that I can add to this blog too, although I'm never going to have anything as witty and funny as Ian to say. But it might be useful for posting entries from the far flung places that I travel too, including pictures of me dressed in hard hat and coveralls.

I'm Not Convinced

I'm quite impressed so far, but I'm not ready to switch just yet. I don't want to test drive any more sites until I've decided that this one is not for me and there are a couple of things that bother me:

• Nikki misses the ability to create lists of what books we're reading, although I think I can do that with a bit of HTML since I can edit the template code directly. That's a cool feature that allows me to do anything I have the skills to code, or nick from someone else who has done all the hard work for me.
• I switched AdSense on when I was playing around and now I can't figure out how to switch it off. I suppose it's better than the huge ad on the MSN page, plus, in theory I get paid for everyone who clicks on it, but I'd still rather be rid of it. I'm supposed to be able to move it to the sidebar, but I can't see the code in my HTML.
• I have noticed that the page doesn't refresh very well. I have to hit F5 every time I make a change before I can see it, but maybe that's just me.

I'm still undecided, so I've added a poll to the sidebar, and you can help me out with my decision.

A Nice Picture

I can see why you'd think this was a random picture to be posting now. I can't say I blame you. After all, it was taken more than 2 years ago, but this is a test drive remember. This may or may not be the blog I choose to continue with, if I do, I'm keen to try out the integration with Picasa of course, but until then, I need a picture for my profile and this seems like the easiest way to do it.

I'm quite impressed with the way that you can position pictures in posts and have the text to the right like this, or I could have it the left or even underneath with the picture in the center. I really didn't like the MSN thing where you had to stick the picture on at the bottom and the order was seemingly random so this is a nice feature. I have to say I like Blogger a lot so far.

Test Drive

I was already frustrated with the limitations of MSN Spaces before they changed everything to Live(TM). Since that has slowed everything to a halt and they show no sign of sending someone down to the engine room to shovel in more coal any time soon I'm trying out new places. I may linger once I get the hang of this place, or it may not do anything for me and I'll be gone before you get a chance to get used to me.