The concept of losing weight is pretty simple. Burn more calories than you put in. The problem with the simplicity of this, is that most people really don’t know exactly how much their taking in…so, we guess. “Sandwich; that doesn’t seem so bad, I’m going to say 250 calories.”

Caloriecount.about.com has become my new site of choice for weight loss. You think you have an idea of how many calories you eat in a day, but until you really log everything you eat, you have no clue! This site is incredible. The database of food in amazing. Here’s how it works:

1. Your initial profile questions asks you how tall you are, what you weigh, what kind of lifestyle you have (as far as exercise and movement),  and what goals you have.
2. The site will calculate how long it will take you to reach your goal, as well as tell you the amount of calories a person with your same stats should be eating in order to lose weight in a healthy manner.
3. It figures in your lifestyle into your “outgoing” calories. If you do any other exercise during a particular day, you enter it in your log.
4. Every day, you enter what you eat and it will log your calories in vs. your calories out. Your goal is to stay at the amount of calories recommended in order to meet your weight loss goal.

Again, the concept of keeping track of what goes in seems easy. And with this site, it really is. You HAVE to be dedicated in entering your food though and you have to get servings correct. These are crucial for accurate numbers.

Along with tracking your calories, there are forums and a buddy system so you can have some online motivation and use the site with friends and family.  Try it for just one week, it will change your eating habits and you’ll be glad when it does.

No, this isn’t a review of African American children. What would I review of them as opposed to kids of other races?

Black Kids is a band from Florida that, like similar Pop-Indie bands, came to their rise of fame via the Internet. Personally, I saw them perform on David Letterman last week. Only 2 of the 5 members are actually black, and had you heard them without seeing a photo of the band, you probably wouldn’t believe any of them were because none of them sound anything other than 80’s style dance grooves. Seriously, if you like The Cure, you’ll love this band. The lead singer sounds identical to Robert Smith. If you played a song by Black Kids after a song by The Cure, you might think it was the same band.

The 2 girls in the band are his back up singers, but it’s not like a melodic, very soothing backup. It’s more like friends in a living room yelling together to some song they loved since they were children, but it works. I’m not sure there is a gray area with bands like these. You either love them or hate them. I love this one!

My car is not equipped with an in-dash GPS. I did, however, receive one for Christmas ‘07. It’s worked out splendidly for road trips or even drives around town to unfamiliar places. Duh…it’s a GPS.

The model I got was the Garmin StreetPilot c340. I counted on the thing being easy to use, having updated maps, etc. What I did not count on was the excellent warranty and customer service that Garmin offers. Right now the c340 is relatively cheap (around $150). Around Christmas last year…not so cheap. Here’s the slight problem with this particular model. The power cable does not plug into the device itself. It plugs into the suction cup, which holds the device to the windshield or another smooth surface (not the dashboard though). On very hot or very cold days, the suction cup loses suction and the device falls from the windshield, crashing into the center console and usually onto the floorboard. It’s not a particularly far fall, but if it happens while you’re driving, it can scare the crap out of you. If it’s a really hot day, like it was this past weekend (around 107 degrees outside) as the hot device falls, the heated and now fragile elements inside break and cause the touchscreen to break.

But, have no fear. Garmin has a 1-year manufactures warranty, which, apparently since this was a known issue, covers the faulty suction cup. Furthermore, my GPS was purchased refurbished from an authorized dealer off amazon.com, which is also covered by the warranty. To put one more cherry on top, Garmin also offered me a new dash mount for the StreetPilot at no extra charge because of the known temperature issue with the suction cup. So, to sum up, my StreetPilot c340 was purchased at a better price off amazon.com. It broke, due to no fault of my own and Garmin is replacing it free of charge and giving me a new mount. Oh, and because I asked, they are also expediting my replacement so I don’t have to go too long without a GPS. Nice.

Being that I’m in the business of web development and web applications, I’m pretty much game for anything online that will make life a little easier as well as make someone some money. I’d like to think of myself as fairly open-minded too. While I’d never put my name on it, the other day I thought, “I bet a ‘netflix’ for porn would make a lot of money.” Not surprisingly, with a bit of research, I found that a couple of other people thought that very same thing long before I did and had already manifested it into a monopoly of discrete, unlimited, porn rental that made its way into the homes of millions without so much as even having to step foot into a velvet curtained, corner room of a tiny, run down building with some sort of neon light in the window. I digress.

But an advertised site in New York City which matches married people up with other willing, married people to cheat on their spouses is where I draw the line. Call me a hypocrite for being open to the idea of selling online, visuals of other naked people, but if it jolts folks into doing the deed with their spouse, I would actually call myself a sort of therapist.

This is just the bad work of bad people in the world and a huge reason that, I think, we’ve all become just a little numb to the idea of adultery. This delusion of “we only live once” has snaked it’s way into our brains far enough to make people in their late 20’s and early 30’s afraid to marry because this is now the last and only person I’ll be with for the rest of my life and gives cheaters a screwed up, justification for the act of infidelity.


It might just be me, but this Q and A seems like it could be an example sentence in the dictionary for the definition of contradiction.

Does Ashley Madison encourage infidelity?
No, Ashley Madison does not encourage anyone to stray. In fact, if you are having difficulty with your relationship, you should seek counseling. However, if you still feel that you will seek a person other than your partner to fill your unmet needs, then we truly believe that our service is the best place to start. At Ashley Madison, you can communicate with other like-minded adults who may be more sympathetic to your circumstances.

Could you imagine getting online in the morning, having your cup of coffee and checking your profile like you check Facebook or MySpace to see a message you got overnight from some guy’s wife, from some kid’s mom, another person’s supposed soul mate? As helpful as the web is and as tech-savvy as we are all becoming, I think this is one instance in our quickly becoming automated lives, that I would prefer to keep inconvenient and relatively difficult. It’s a crazy thought that these people are coming up with a convenient way to end the sanctity of marriage. Wonder what a site for keeping marriages alive and happy would look like? Oh, wait…I know…Keep it spicy, America

Uh oh! Arkansas’ long-time Golden Boy was popped with something white. Read the rest of the story.

My take: it’s a shame what too much money will do. That’s why I’m happy to be broke

I joined a gym 2 weeks ago. I got in the poor habit of going home after work, making dinner and settling in for the next 6 hours to either (1) watch t.v. (2) read books and/or magazines or (3) eat some more. I was riding my bike a lot, but since it had gotten so hot, I wasn’t enjoying it. I brought the bike in to ride on the trainer again, but riding stationary and alone can be fun for only so long.

I looked around for about 2 weeks before I finally picked a gym. I was looking for:

1. Somewhere cheap. We all know my issues with money.
2. No time commitment.
3. Little to no joining fee.
4. Classes, i.e. kickboxing, weights, step, pilates, etc.
5. A gym with a locker room and showers.
6. Monthly membership fees that didn’t draft from my account.

I considered Ten Fitness, which is a no contract, 24-hour gym for $10/month. Sounds like a great deal, huh? It is! At least, I think for guys it is. There are no classes, no showers, and a $40 joining fee. Plus, the closest to me would have been on Cantrell Rd. For those interested, there is also one on JFK Blvd.

I decided to look closer to my house. In Bryant there is Premier Fitness. No joining fee, but there was a 3 month contract. They offered classes, but at a price of $49.99/month. No locker room and fees were drafted each month. I tried 2 of their classes before I finally decided they wouldn’t be worth the 50 bones.


Finally, I found the Jim Dailey fitness and aquatic center. It’s on Markham right across from War Memorial Stadium and about 5 minutes from my work. This place is great for me. $37.50/month. No joining fees, no contracts. Locker rooms with showers. AND classes every single day!! Additionally, there is a pool (indoor and outdoor) and flat panel tv’s around that you can plug your earphones into and change which tv you watch while on any cardio machine.

I have a class I can go to every day except Friday and Sunday. Ranging from body conditioning to Hip Hop. I love it! If there is anyone out there that says they hate going to the gym, they obviously haven’t done any sort of group exercising. It makes the time fly by and it’s fun. My workouts have yet to be less than 2 hours long. Plus, if I wanted to go in before work, they open at 5:30 a.m. They don’t close till 9:00 p.m. on weekdays.

RJ always tells me if I want a good workout I should have a partner. After taking these classes I can see the draw.

I like to do online tutorials. Sometimes I like how they turn out. As I create them, I’ll post them here.


This is one I did tonight. It reminds me of a soap opera for some reason.


Tutorials, though sometimes pointless, are a great way to learn little tricks and shortcuts. Even if you’ve used a piece of software for years, there’s always more to learn.

I got a wild hair in me recently and decided I needed to refinish my outdoor furniture. Like a dunce, I got half-way into it before I thought about making this a blog entry.

My furniture is 3-years-old. It has remained outside, uncovered for 2.5 years. This image shows some of the damage to the original finish. The table had the most damage (basically covered in peeling lacquer as shown below) but I didn’t get a picture of it.

The first step is cleaning up the furniture and sanding down to the original wood. This means you have to sand all the original stain off. This is a huge pain in the butt. Without an electric palm sander, I would not even attempt this. Luckily, I decided to do this on one of the hottest weekends of the summer thus far. I did the sanding in my garage because I needed the shade, but beware: everything in there will be covered in saw dust. My sander even had a little bag to catch some of the dust, but it doesn’t, by ANY means, catch it all. I wore a face mask. I’d also recommend protective eye-wear.

This is the table half done. You can see some of the damage on the lower half. To get the original stain off, I used a 60-grit paper. For fine sanding I first used 120, then went back over with a 220.

This is a fully sanded chair. I think this took me 4 hours to completely sand. It sucked. One down, 3 to go! More sanding and finally it was time to stain.

I literally took my camera into Lowe’s, showed him this picture and asked him to help me find a stain that matched. I bought some tack cloths to get as much of the dust off that I could and started staining.

All I had to do to stain is get an old t-shirt, dip it in the stain and rub the stain into the wood. It is pretty easy. I could have done more than 1 coat, but I was so exhausted, I didn’t bother.

Next, I had to put a sealant on all the pieces. This is to protect them from UV, water and other dirt. This was applied with a paint brush and pretty liberally. It goes on yellow, but dries clear.

The whole process took me 3 days and about $60 for materials. Thanks to Wes for the palm sander. If you are going to attempt this, make sure you have a lot of energy and at least a couple days. It’s not easy work.

Table after.

Bench after.

   Saw it.

   Loved it.

   Will admit it made me cry more than 1 time!

A fun toy for you…


http://www.zefrank.com/byokal/kal2.html