But that isn’t the case with everyone. Some people thrive on competition, being told that they can’t do it, being challenged by their peers. Some don’t. Personally, I thrive on the energy created around a competition. The desire to win isn’t what motivates me, its the desire to participate in a competition with others. Again, this probably isn’t the case with everyone.

This week Pat Dryburgh, the guy I’m in direct competition with on this round of The Diet, posted that he gained one pound. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal to me and I’d just keep moving forward with my diet, try to give Pat some tips via IM or something, and see how he progresses next week. But it was the language that Pat used in his weigh-in that really struck me and has made me think that we need to make a change in how we’re approaching The Diet this time.

“I don’t have to tell you that this is disappointing. I really thought I had been doing well. I know I shouldn’t be giving up, but it this has been a long, hard struggle over the last year, and I really just want it to be over with. I’m tired of it all.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt this way. And, since I do a relatively good job of keeping tabs on everyone else that has done The Diet over the years, almost everyone experiences these feelings at one time or another.

If Pat wanted to give up because of a one pound weight gain, normally I’d just give him a punch on the shoulder, telling him that his expectations are set far too high and that sometimes your body simply doesn’t react as well as you’d like it to. But this isn’t about one pound for Pat. This is about the entire process. About finishing what he started. About winning the battle, not with me but, with his weight.

Then he said this.

“So, not only have I gained a pound, but Colin has now lost 4 pounds. I feel more discouraged than ever. He has 16 pounds to go, and I now have 21.”

“I feel more discouraged than ever.” This is the direct opposite effect that The Diet has set out to create. If he had said “Now I’m more motivated than ever to get to the gym, do some running, and stay strict on my diet.” that’d have made me smile. But discouragement is not what anyone on the diet, including me, wants to see anyone go through.

So as of today the challenge between Pat and I is off. I forfeit. I will gladly find something under 20 dollars and send it to you Pat. Your encouragement, motivation, and health are worth far more to me and to you than 20 dollars.

So what is the new challenge? Of course we’re all still going to do The Diet in hopes of losing as much weight as we all set out to lose from the beginning. I think the new goal should now be to help motivate those who need it the most. If you are on The Diet your goals should be to help find more people to join us, to motivate those who have bad weeks, and to use the group as your primary means to stay motivated to accomplish your goals. The Diet is no longer a weight loss competition, it is a challenge to all that are on it to get healthy and help as many people as you can along the way.

How to turn weight gain into weight loss

I’m not a trainer, dietitian, or any other type of health expert so I can only go on my own experiences over the years with losing weight and trying to stay motivated. In week two of the first round of The Diet I gained 3 pounds.

I said “This week, I’m unhappy to report that I gained three pounds. I am now back up to 221.8lbs. However, this makes me more determined to stay on my diet, and get more exercise to make up for the set back.”

The weight gain motivated me to hop right back on and try to lose weight the next week. Why? Why did I get motivated and Pat got discouraged? It is all about identifying what went wrong the week before and not blaming yourself.

I have never gone to the gym with Pat so I have no idea about the intensity or process of Pat’s workout but to me going to the gym 4 times in a week is a great, great accomplishment. So what did Pat do wrong this week? Pat mentioned that he went over his calories by 1,000 calories on one of the days. He also weighed in while he was at the gym in the evening while his initial weigh in was earlier in the day. I believe these are factors in Pat’s weight gain this week and not Pat himself.

Our weight fluctuates during the day. A lot. If I weigh in when I wake up at 7:00am I will be at least 3-5lbs. lighter than when I went to sleep. If Pat weighs 5 pounds more at night than he does in the morning, he would have weighed in with a 4 pound weight loss instead of a 1 pound weight gain! It is that simple.

Eating properly should be the number one goal when someone is trying to lose the last few pounds (or even 20 or 30) on a diet. I believe the saying goes; abs aren’t made in the gym, abs are made in the kitchen. Something like that. Chris Fehnel and Mike Stickel do a workout called P90X. It is a rigorous daily workout that lasts a little over an hour a day for 90 days. That is a lot more than I work out. Still, they’d both agree that they key to making P90X work is to stay on the diet plan that they give you. A certain number of proteins, carbs, etc. are scheduled out per day. If you don’t follow the diet plan you will, no doubt, lose weight. But you will not see the results you would have otherwise.

Pat, you need to get your eating in check. Eat more often and hit your daily allotted calories before 7pm at night. Turn your body into a calorie burning machine by feeding it regularly. Weigh yourself at the exact same time of day each week, instead of at different times. If you are going to go over your calories for the day try to work in a short run to keep your body burning fat. Do not give up. Ever. This battle is far to worth the win to give up because of one pound. Especially when there are clear reasons why you weighed in one pound heavier. We’re all with you and we’re all here to help. I bet you will lose weight this week.

I hope everyone on The Diet stays motivated, keeps tabs on the others that are dieting and motivates them when they need it, and even tells new people that could really use the encouragement to get on The Diet and get healthy. We’re in this together and we’re all going to accomplish our goals if we help each other.

This script, by Martin Bergek, seems to be the simplest way I’ve found to install Git from source on the Macintosh.

Source: Install git on Mac OS X 10.5.
Via: Mike Stickel on Ma.gnolia.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had hundreds of ideas for how I’d write my one year weigh in. And I think the most important thing for me to do is to say thank you to all of those who’ve helped me over the course of the last year to be as successful as I have been.

Thank you Eliza for being my original inspiration for starting the diet. You’ve helped me on numerous occasions over the last year to stick to my goals. You’ve been amazingly supportive!

Thanks to Chris for pushing me during our workouts. I can always count on you to be my exercise partner which has definitely had an impact on me. Many people are not as privileged as I am to have someone to work out with consistently.

Thanks to James for showing me that this diet isn’t just about losing weight or that it isn’t a temporary action but this is a life-change and one that will last forever. You truly are an inspiration to many. (see James’ latest photo showing off his success on his diet, awesome!)

Thanks to Mike for being supportive as a friend and fellow dieter. Your unceasing schedule of getting to the gym every single morning has been inspiring. Hope you find a place in California to settle into and get that schedule back on track!

Thanks to Scott who has shown me that sometimes we need to do whatever it takes to stay on the diet even if it means doing things that we don’t like (like running or going to the gym).

Thanks to Larry who has, via our conversations, really given me great tips and inspiration for setting goals and sticking to them. I know Larry will be making his personal goals and I know how hard he is trying to do so – which inspires me to try as hard as he does.

And thanks to everyone else on the diet, those that read my weigh in entries, and those that congratulate me on my successes and pick me up when I “fail”, all of you have been a part of this last year and I can’t thank you enough for that.

Oh, I almost forgot – I weighed in at 185 again this morning which is no change from last week. For those that are unaware, I am not longer trying to lose weight but I’m trying very hard to maintain my current weight, gain muscle, and lose fat.

Thursday, March 8th

12:33pm – In preparation of the trip from the northeast, to south by southwest (fittingly) – I picked up some shorts and got my hair did (photo). I managed to get these two tasks done fairly quickly and get back to my office for a few “last minute” things that I need to get done before we set sail.

Right now I’m waiting on the WineLibrary TV crew to get their latest episode completed. I’m helping them integrate their show with Viddler‘s system so that they get the most benefit out of it. Yesterday’s show was a huge success and today we’re hoping to add even a little more value for the Vayniacs.

People are really coming around with how Viddler works in situations like this. I think WineLibrary TV’s episodes are the perfect candidate for Viddler’s technology. Check out this comment.

“Man, after being a naysayer yesterday, I have to say that these new tags are awesome, and I’m now a total convert!” — Kent I

As this service matures, I think many people will start to enjoy interacting with their video in this manner. Stay tuned – because today’s episode should have a few new features that I think their audience is going to love.

2:35pm – I think it is amazing how many people are going to this thing. I’ve gotten more instant messages and emails today than I have in a very long time, and most of it is about trying to get together in Austin. In one hand; exciting. In the other; overwhelming.

I’m still going over our itinerary with a fine toothed comb. I have a lot of friends that are speaking on panels, and it’d be really nice to see all of them on stage, but I doubt I’ll get to see anyone since they are mostly there for “Web dev stuff” and my primary focus will be on Internet video while I am there. Well, back to the calendar.

4:20pm – I had the privilege of helping to prepare WineLibrary TV Episode #196 using some new Viddler features. Things went really smoothly and so far it seems that their audience really enjoys it.

Now I’m packing my suitcase, going to see if I can get a small nap in this afternoon before I pack up all of my “technology stuff”. I have to leave at 4:00am..

10:51pm – Just packing up my “tech stuff”. Heading to New Jersey in 5 hours or so to catch a jet plane to Austin, TX. My next update will probably be from an airport or something.

Friday, March 9th

11:02am – On Continental Airlines Flight 350 at 34,000 feet: Our ride this morning was, well, interesting. I was supposed to be the navigator for Mike and I to get to Viddler HQ, pick up Rob, and head to Newark, NJ to catch our flight.

Mike and I got to talking and I managed to allow us to pass a few exits, a few times, so we did a lot of U-turning. Then, after we finally met up with Rob – we were on our way to Newark International Airport and Rob forgot his wallet. Another U-turn.

Morgan Spurlock and I
Newark, New Jersey

We finally made it to the airport, all of us having to pee like crazy, and managed to get on Mike’s flight (we were on standby for this flight). Mike is about five rows behind me right now, looking at some girl in a rather inappropriate way probably, and Rob is next to me (photo). Next to Rob is a nice guy named Jeremy who is also heading to South by Southwest with Morgan Spurlock (of SuperSize Me fame), who I had a chance to meet and have a short chat with. (I will upload a photo once I dump my cameras contents).

James Bond: Casino Royale is currently playing on the screen as I am listening to Dan Benjamin interview Cindy Li on the latest Hivelogic Radio. I’m going to finish listening to Hivelogic Radio before I move onto watching the latest episode of Heroes that I downloaded before I left.

4:38pm – @ SXSW – 2nd floor: – Just got registered. Going to see if we can fit in a panel here at the convention center. The first panel we wanted to see is at a different place.

6:14pm – From the back of Austin Cab 451: – Rob and I are in Best Buy parking lot, in the back of a cab. We just bought some things we needed for the HD camera (since we now have a press pass), and we want to be able to tape some of the panels we’re attending.

I was twittering with Chris Messina and I saw him and Tara sitting at a table. If it wasn’t for them I would have never figured out that there was “big bags” to get full of cool trinkets. Most of them are purely marketing material, but that’s cool. There was piles of papers that people threw out of the bags onto the tables.

I just met up with David Seah just before leaving the convention center. I did an interview with him while he was trying to put together some legos. Video coming soon.

9:21pm – At the Double Tree Room 609: – Just got back to the hotel after eating at The Boiling Pot on 6th. Very cool place, nice and spicey. Alex, Rob, and I ate crawfish, potatoes, corn, and other stuff that was spilled out all over the table. Sound familiar Eliza?

Now we’re trying to get our Internet connections working. Here are some photos that I took today.

Rob and I in Taxi

Rob and I in Line

David Seah

The Capital Building

Wanna ride?

Our food

Poor guy

Friday, March 9th Gallery

I have some more photos, but I’m only going to do a few a day until I can get home and have the time to go through them all.

Saturday, March 10th

8:43am – At the Double Tree Room 609: – Woke up fairly refreshed this morning. Definitely need some breakfast and a coffee before heading to SXSW. Anyone having breakfast anywhere?

10:15am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – Room 12AB: – In the Video is worth more than 1,000 words panel. Going over some of the trends, some of the history, and some of the future of social video.

11:13am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – on the floor: – Panel is over. Met Chris from Adobe. Still can just barely get the internet. Port 80 sucks.

11:56am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – Room 19AB with Jeremy Keith and Andy Budd: – Just published my interview with David Seah on the Viddler blog.

7:10pm – @ Logan’s on the Sixth: – Ate some dinner, talked to my brother-in-law on video chat for the first time. Having a Logan’s Lemonade, very good. More video on Viddler coming soon! Stayed tuned.

8:05pm – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Dumping photos, video to our hard drives. Checking a few things, getting a shower, short nap – then off to see the Ze Frank + BuzzFeed party, then to the Virb party till 4am supposedly? Should be fun, we’ll shoot video.

9:15pm – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Just posted our Saturday lunch update, and our Saturday night update to our Viddler blog. Here are some photos from today.

Alex

Chris and Rob

Shawn Grimes

Jonathan Snook

Matt Mullenweg

Greg Storey, Paul Nixon

Anton Peck

Lunch update

Nathan Smith

Erik Sagen

Tag, You’re It

Overlooking Austin

Mike Stickel

“Niero” Gonzalez

Free beer w/ Zach

MeToday

Saturday, March 10th, Gallery

4:14am – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609, after the Ze Frank party: – Ze Frank, BuzzFeed and another company threw a party at the Molotov Lounge. It was pretty good, Ze did a funny bit on airplane safety (which will be on Viddler later). Then there was free drinks for a few hours. Thanks to all the sponsors, it was a cool place to hang for a bit.

Here are some photos of the people I met at Ze’s little bash.

Bill Streeter

John Gruber

Irina Slutsky

Ze Frank

Jeremy Keith

Mike Stickel

Shaun Inman

Adam Michela

Peter Flaschner

Garret Murray

Ze’s Party Gallery

It was really great to finally meet everyone. It kinda makes me wish we all could do this every month if for no other reason than to bounce ideas off one another and chat about the stuff we love. The world is such a small place, thanks to the Internet, yet it remains so large that I feel as if I am going to lose “contact” with everyone the moment I leave South by Southwest. We’ll see…. I guess I can still Twitter spam for Adam.

Sunday, March 11th

10:58am – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Stayed up until 7am playing around with something “special”. Alex and I will put some polish on it today/tonight and release it. It is the culmination of the brain power of myself, Rob Sandie, Adam Michela, Peter Flaschner, and several other contributors. Should be fun.

Now I have to get over to the conference center so that I can show up fashionably late to the second panel of the day after finding some coffee and a muffin or something.

1:14pm – @ PF Chang’s for lunch: – Spent most of the morning getting things prepared for the rest of the day. Had a great discussion with Molly about some of the stuff she’s able to accomplish with Microsoft, I definitely wish her all the best with everything professional and otherwise.

Now we’re eating and planning the rest of our day.

4:50pm – @ SXSW Ballroom F: – Waiting for the next panel to start, so I might as well fill you in. (I won’t have time for many links or photos so I will update this from the hotel later). I finally was able to meet up with Irina Slutsky to do The Vloggies Show (which is a new show she is doing so be sure to stay tuned as it will air this week). Spoke to a guy from Microsoft about Expression Web… he said there was a lot of things going on in the pipe and that the initial release is only the beginning. Being an ex-Frontpage 98 user, I hope they are able to build something that is relatively solid for their audience.

Allen Stern of CenterNetworks.com asked what the little black guy was in the big bag you get here at South by Southwest. I figured it out. If you go to the exhibit hall, find Vital Stream’s booth, you can throw it at a dart-like board and win a shirt. I got a bulls-eye on the first try and won a shirt.

We only were able to attend one or two panels so far today, and hopefully tonight we’ll be able to see Morgan Spurlocks doc “What would Jesus Buy”.

11:28pm – @ Hilton Lobby: – Just had a nice conversation with Irina and two guys that did not give me their cards because they had run out of them (if you are reading this, email me your contact information). Talking about ad networks and how to display ads based on content within a video on Viddler rather than just the content on the page. Pretty cool stuff.

We’re sending all of our HD video that we’ve captured to a professional video editor, so I am excited to get all of that back and have it up on the Viddler blog soon enough. If anyone would like to do an interview, or has not signed my shirt, please grab me. I’m hoping to have content being published regularly over the next few weeks.

Monday, March 12th

3:00am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – After hanging in the Hilton’s lobby for a few hours I heard through Twitter that the 9rules crew was hanging out in the bar. I ran over, had a drink with Molly (thanks for the shot Molly), Paul Scrivens, Mike Rundle, and Mike’s fiancé Eleni.

Back to work though as we headed for our hotel and I featured a video that was taken during one of the panels here. Rob and I managed to record many of the panels we went to, and we’re hoping to get that video up slowly over the next few days. We have someone helping us with that too, which is great – because Rob and I are stretched pretty thin.

Even though I am starving, I am going to head to bed and see if I can’t get up on time tomorrow.

10:22am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – Awake. Slept in a little, somehow our wake-up call never happened. Today will be another busy day. I didn’t have the chance, nor the energy, to go through all of my photos from yesterday and get them posted, but I will try to do that if there is any downtime during the day.

Remember, if I “know” you, but I have not met you yet, please make it a point to run over to me. I’d like to meet everyone at this opportunity. I’ll be the blonde guy in the Viddler tshirt.

2:46pm – @ SXSW Room 12AB: – Just ate lunch at the Spaghetti Warehouse for a discussion about OpenID. Very interesting stuff and I am definitely going to recommend that Viddler make it part of their development roadmap. For anyone that has not looked into OpenID be sure to do so, especially if you’d like to be prepared for the future of online, cross service, authentication.

On my way back from the lunch, I saw Paul Nixon running and we both said I should have been running with him. Damn him and his Nike+ package and the motivation to run while in the Texas heat.

Right now I’m in an interesting panel about whether or not User Generated video is considered film or not. Sounds really niche, and it definitely is, but it is also incredibly interesting as a discussion topic – and I never ever thought it would be.

Tuesday, March 13th

Robert Scoble

10:33am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – Good morning! Sorry that I haven’t updated since early afternoon yesterday but things went a little hectic there. After watching Luke W‘s panel on the various interface libraries (which was absolutely packed and should have been much longer), I needed to be outside in front of the convention center to go to The Salt Lick, which is a BBQ pit about 45 minutes outside of Austin, with Robert Scoble, Chris Aarons, Sarah Beck, and Patrick Nichols of AMD, an extremely nice gentlemen from AT&T’s Web department, and Jim Posner from IBM who was in Apocolpse Now (more on all of this later).

After that I headed to the Great British Booze up, which was just about ending at the time. I hooked up with the entire Forty Media crew (there is a lot of them), and went to the next party where I ended up spending most of my time talking to Larry Halff about all things Ma.gnolia and Ruby on Rails. It was a great discussion and having never used Ma.gnolia – I can say that it seems like a service I should have been using for years. I’m going to give it a try the moment I can find some free time with wifi (aka: when I get home).

So now I gotta hop in the shower because Rob and I are going to do a Lunch Meet.

2:03pm – @ In the Hilton Ballroom, 6th Floor, for Will Wright’s keynote: – Our lunch meet got postponed by a few hours. Hard to get everyone in one place at the same time. So Rob and I are recording the Will Wright keynote. I am definitely looking forward to seeing a demo of Spore.

Tuesday, March 14th

10:44am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – The demo of SPORE was really awesome. Will Wright’s keynote alone was very good, but the demo just tops it off that Will actually does what he feels.

I have a ton to more write about. I’ve kept this “live blog” as up-to-date as I could considering the circumstances with time, internet connectivity, etc. So instead of writing a huge wrap up to what is already one of my longest posts ever, I will be writing single entries that highlight very specific panels, discussions, lunches, and parties after I get back home to Pennsylvania.

As a short overview of what happened since yesterday’s keynote – We recorded one or two more panels, went to Logan’s again for dinner, then hit up the VIP at the Media Temple party.

After that it was a bunch of sad goodbyes, as most of us know that we’ll only be in contact virtually for awhile… but overall the experience was good.

Thanks to all that kept up with me over the conference. Those that came over to say hi, those that signed my shirt, those whom I met for the very first time, and those that I will be friends with for a long time to come.

Sorry to any of you that were looking for me, or didn’t have a chance to talk to me for whatever reason… send me an email and maybe we’ll get together sometime.

Stay subscribed, a ton of stuff to come.

[tags]sxsw, austin, texas, pennsylvania, new jersey, travel, conference, festival, live, winelibrary tv, viddler, photos, video, robert sandie, alex hillman, rob sandie, john gruber, shaun inman, ze frank, adam michela, mike stickel, ma.gnolia, larry halff, openid, the salt lick, bbq, robert scoble, amd, chris aarons, Bill Steeter, Irina Slutsky, Jeremy Keith, Peter Flaschner, Garrett Murray[/tags]
[slug]live-sxsw07[/slug]

Fast forward to the weekend and we went to the Philly meetups and ate and drank foods and drinks that would not be considered diet foods by any stretch of the imagination.

Last week I weighted in at 199.0 and this week I’m 198.0. My goal is two pounds per week and so losing one pound is “ok” considering the week I had. Though tonight will be my return to the gym schedule that I once held along with a new cardio program that I’m starting.

My new goal weight is 180 pounds. The last time I achieved 185 I was not working out at the gym – I was merely doing cardio (in the form of endless amounts of basketball). This time however I’m hoping to build some muscle which should help to bring down the fat percentage a bit. So that is my goal – a wiry, stronger, and healthy 180. Then I will want to attempt to stay there from one Tuesday to the next forever.

At 2 pounds per week that means my goal is to hit 180 by the weigh in on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007. I look forward to trying to beat that goal.

Why not set a goal for yourself, like Daniel Nicolas has, since he has registered for the Carlsbad 5000 and has 5.5 weeks to prepare for it. I find it ironic that the most recent post on his “food blog” is a recipe for Homemade French Fries! I’d love to see or hear more about everyone’s goals. I know Mike is currently at the gym and has been almost every morning since he switched to the Body for Life program, the same one James is using, and it seems to be working for both of them. Mike’s day 30-update showed real signs of progress and I look forward to seeing what his next 30-day update shows.

There is definitely activity. Definite progress being made. Not only am I hoping that over the next few months I’m able to contribute to this again – but I hope that others find the time to do so too.

Side note update: I accidentally sent trackbacks to the above links with the wrong URI, so if you could edit those trackbacks to reflect /diet/ instead of /notes/ that’d be killer.

[tags]weigh-in, diet, the-diet, mike stickel, james mathias, daniel nicolas, carlsbad 5000, goals, gym, cardio, workout, snow, weather, body for life[/tags]

When we first arrived Jen Simmons, Owen Winkler, and Kel (Joseph Kelter) were already there talking about various topics dealing with WordPress.

At this point I kind of flew off the handle at my disgust in the current WordPress world and with Habari (which I didn’t know Owen was one of the developers). However, after Owen literally gave me his laptop, in cool tablet form, to use Habari – and I can definitely say that the project is showing signs of potential. With Owen at the helm, I think the project definitely has a chance. Perhaps someday I will write up my thoughts on both of these topics.

Rob Sandie and Tom Kim

At this point people started to trickle in until the entire room was filled with people, conversations, and card games. I ended up mingling with Josh, Mike, and Jason for the majority of the time (which wasn’t long enough) and didn’t get to speak with many people that I really wanted to be able to.

Next month I’m going to try to get back down to the meetup (though I think I’m going to Philly at least two other times during the month of March so I have to check on a few things), and hopefully I’ll be able to speak to those I missed this time (Tom and Tony I’m looking at you two).

To any of you that attended that I did not get to meet or talk to – please make it a point to say hi to me next month.

[tags]weblogger, meetup, philadelphia, pennsylvania, ten stone, mike stickel, matt regula, jason santa maria, joshua lane, jen simmons, owen winkler, chris fehnel, eliza devroe, wordpress, habari, tony g, tom kim[/tags]
[slug]meetup0207-recap[/slug]

Chris at Ten Stone Bar – April 15, 2006

So far Eliza, Mike, and Chris are coming with me. It looks like Rob, Tom, and Marisa are definitely going. Andrea and Jason might be going. And sadly Tony G. can’t make it. Update: Happily Tony G. is able to make it!

And, it appears we’re going to have a fairly full house.

If you are in the Philadelphia area (heck I’m 2 1/2 hours away and I’m still going) and you’d like to meetup with some great people to discuss WordPress, blogging, Viddler, or just sit back and enjoy a beer – sign up to the meetup and we’ll see you there.

Note: You can add this event to your calendar program of choice since this post is marked up using hCalendar. Enjoy.

Note addendum: It appears that the above link won’t work for Outlook users? Not sure why – probably because Outlook sucks?

[tags]philadelphia, meetup, webloggers, blogging, wordpress, event, pennsylvania, viddler, rob sandie, chris fehnel, mike stickel, colin devroe, eliza devroe, tom kim, marisa mcclellan, andrea, jason santa maria, tony green, microformats, hcalendar[/tags]
[slug]meetup-021706[/slug]

First, I grabbed a modified version of Cutline and made my own little tweaks (which I’m not quite finished with yet). Obviously I changed the way the headers work and brought back my featured headings in order to highlight certain posts randomly. I’ll be adding many more banners over time, since there are ton of posts that should be highlighted. I’ll be doing a little more of this by creating a “random note” area in my right-most sidebar soon.

I also edited the way that the sidebars work. I wanted a 3-column layout to allow me to pull in my flickr photos, some posts from Viddler, ChanceCube, and The uber geeks, as well as a place that I will soon be putting various other collections. However, I wanted to have only 2-columns on my single entry pages because I like having the width for things like photos. Also, some of the pages (like the new diet page), have 3-columns, while some only have 2-columns.

On the frontpage you will notice the latest posts from the other sites that I write on (mentioned above). This section is powered by BDP RSS Aggregator. Obviously I could have built this type of functionality myself but after seeing how well thought out this WordPress plugin was – it made the decision to use it very easy. BDP RSS Aggregator does far more than what I am using it for, and if you are looking to syndicate some feeds on your WordPress powered site, I highly recommend you looking into it.

My most recent Flickr photos, on the frontpage, is powered by FlickrRSS. Since BDP RSS Aggregator has so many options, I could have technically used it and ended up with the same result, but I chose to use something that was specifically built for grabbing my photos from Flickr. Obviously Flickr’s API could have been used for such a task, but all I really wanted was a cached list of my 4 most-recent photos, and using the API would seem like a little overkill. FlickrRSS does an excellent job, is easy to configure, and has just the right number of options. Another plugin that I highly recommend.

For my recent comments I’m using a highly modified version of the recent comments plugin. I’ve added support for Gravatars and a few other options that it didn’t have out of the box. Once I clean up the code I hacked to get it done I may submit the changes, but since it is reliant on someone using the Gravatar WordPress Plugin (site currently under repair as of today) too, I may not. If you want this, just give me a shout.

For my archives I’m using Justin Blanton’s Smart Archives plugin. I like my archives simple, and this plugin allows me to have just that. I see now that its been updated recently, so I may have to get me a fresh copy.

For my keyword tagging I can’t do without the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin – which in my mind is the best keyword tagging plugin for WordPress. It allows me to use MarsEdit to write my posts and put my keywords inline – which has increased the accuracy and ease of searching quite a bit too. There are many benefits to using this plugin.

I’m using Shaun Inman’s Widon’t plugin to help clean up the straggling words on my post titles. This layout doesn’t succumb to these problems as much as the last one did, but this plugin is handy nonetheless. Plugins that work completely behind the scenes and yet make such big differences in your site should really be applauded.

My feed is being delivered through Feedburner via the Feedburner WordPress plugin by my friend Steve Smith. It is all transparent to you on your end, but to me it adds a nice little layer that allows me to pull some nice stats on how many people and who are subscribed to my site’s feed. If you are using Feedburner and WordPress, this plugin is a must have.

Obviously I’m using ChanceCube‘s Slugger plugin to help me never to see WordPress’ administrative area as well as HappyPals to take advantage of my XFN relationships in my links. I also have Mike Stickel‘s Simple Countdown plugin installed and activated, but you’ll have to wait till the weekend to see why. These three plugins have become indispensable for me in how I publish, Slugger the greatest of these. I could never stand using WordPress’ admin (or any administrative area that I’ve seen) to write my blog posts. I’m happy I don’t have to anymore.

I think I covered pretty much everything. Poke around, if you see anything outta whack just let me know. Other slight tweaks will have to wait till the weekend as I have a fairly busy week this week.

Oh! For those of you on the diet that have recently been contacted by me (which most of you have, and if you have not then it probably means you’ve been fairly active in the dieting area over the last few months) – I’ll be updating everyone today or tomorrow but suffice to say that Tuesday begins another 20-week (minimum) run of updates. More soon.

[tags]cdevroe.com, redesign, shaun inman, wordpress, plugins, chancecube, mike stickel, slugger, happypals, simple countdown, ultimate tag warrior, justin blanton, smart archives, flickrrss, gravatar, recent comments, bdp rss aggregator, viddler, theubergeeks, cutline, theme, steve smith, feedburner, flickr, api[/tags]
[slug]cdevroe-v0207[/slug]

My other issue is of where some of my posts belong. As most of you know I write for TUG.n and have since starting it with Chris “back in the day”. I love writing geeky stuff but as I start to get better at writing ( I am improving a little, aren’t I ), I find myself wanting to post much more thought-out posts rather than the normal quickly written posts you’ve seen on TUG.n over the last several years.

That being said, who has the time? Though I think there is a balance, and blogging should not be turned into a form of journalism where every single detail is gone over with a fine-tooth comb (at least not for me personally), I am finding it difficult to strike a balance that I am happy with. So, the TUG.n airwaves go silent.

Perhaps this same issue plagues Mike, and Josue too. Not only are we finding it hard to produce good content on a regular basis (that we’re happy with), but I think we’re also trying to find out where each post belongs. Personal blog, TUG.n, company blog, etc.

It is something that will probably continue to challenge me for quite sometime and I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to fully solve the issue. But I have some ideas up my sleeve that will hopefully be able to pull some of this stuff together and that will help that decision become less important (in theory).

Whoever said blogging was easy never really blogged much or only has one blog.

[tags]blogs, itunes, theubergeeks, madeincr, josue salazar, mike stickel, screenflicker, chris fehnel, writing, personal[/tags]
[slug]itunes-belonging[/slug]

Mike thinks I smell, so he is over there.

Atmosphere definitely lends itself to attitude – so if you find yourself slugging behind a little – get out of the office. Or come on down to Panera and say “Hi” to Mike and I. I’d recommend asking your boss first though. That is why I asked Eliza. Now, to get a little somethin’ done.

[tags]panera bread, dickson city, pennsylvania, mike stickel, photos, chancecube[/tags]
[slug]oof-panera[/slug]

We have a few Wendy’s “near” us. One is in Dickson City (about 10-15 minutes away) and one in Clarks Summit (about 20-25 minutes away)*. Both of which have drive-thrus, both serve up the Frosty.

After some Japanese last night we got some Frostys at the Clarks Summit Wendy’s, and I have to say, they were not very good. They melted quickly, the chocolate was not chocolate enough, and they just weren’t quite right.

I am not sure how Wendy’s makes the Frosty but I assume that there is some sort of mix or common recipe between any Wendy’s location that would be the same. So why aren’t all Frostys created equal? Perhaps if you are an employee of Wendy’s, you can fill me in on this.

* Actually, there is another one in Dickson City inside of the Viewmont Mall but since it would be pretty annoying to go inside of the mall instead of through the drive-thru, I am not counting this one.

[tags]wendy’s, frosty, dessert, eliza devroe, mike stickel, chris fehnel, andrew nelson, dickson city, pennslvania, clarks summit, food[/tags]
[slug]wendys-frosty[/slug]

[tags]josue salazar, colin devroe, chris fehnel, mike stickel, tug, theubergeeks, interview[/tags]
[slug]tug-interview[/slug]

I begged and pleaded that Simple Countdown would be able to do simple, easy, in-post countdowns and boy did Mike deliver. Check this out.

I will turn 27 on September 30th, 2007 which is in . How cool is that?

Go grab a copy, and let Mike know what you think.

Last week I weighed in at 190.2 pounds, and that was right after going to Olive Garden when Mike showed up. Since then we’ve eaten out a few times, gotten take out, and did some drinking.

We did however maintain some sort of exercise by playing frisbee, arm wrestling, and of course ample amounts of basketball.

After all was said and done I lost 1.8 pounds, putting me at 188.4 pounds. That is a total loss of 37.2 pounds! Perhaps next week I’ll hit the big four-oh.

I’m anxious to see how everyone else did on their diets.

[tags]diet, the diet, weigh in, frisbee, basketball, arm wrestling, olive garden, mike stickel[/tags]

Mike and I have been chatting online since he started leaving comments on The uber geeks back in the summer of 2005. Since then we’ve chatted and eventually worked on a few projects together.

A photo of us taking a photo of us

On Monday Mike arrived in his Honda Accord, after driving almost 4 straight days, from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. So he’s now officially a friend, coworker, and neighbor. Welcome Mike.

[tags]mike stickel, theubergeeks, screenflicker, honda, mike rundle, chris fehnel, photos[/tags]

Mike, Chris, and I

This will be a quick weigh in, being that Mike is in town. Last week I was 192.2 pounds, while this week I’m down 2 pounds at 190.2 pounds. These last pounds seem to be more difficult – so I’m going to put in a slightly more concerted effort over the next three weeks to get to my goal.

Hope everyone had a great week.

[tags]diet, the-diet, weigh in, mike stickel, chris fehnel, photos[/tags]

Since it is very hard to compete for pounds, or percentage of body fat, etc – we’ve decided that we’re just going to try to help each other lose weight until we reach our goal weight.

Tomorrow marks day one of this venture, and I will be releasing what my current weight and goal weight are. So stay tuned to our three sites for updates.

If you’d like to join us, send me an email or comment, and we’ll add you to the list. I setup a quick page to keep track of all those that are going to join us. Tell your friends and family members, and join in.

Update – I created a page to keep track of dieters.

Also, remember that tomorrow is weigh in time so post on your respective sites your current weight and your goal weight (if you have a real goal set in mind yet). Photos are welcome (I will be doing one whether you wanna see my naked self or not), but are definitely optional.

Another update – As expected, we’re not alone and people are coming from all over to join up. We really appreciate the help. Even if you don’t join the effort for yourself, join it for us. We need all the support we can get.

If you have a blog, use it to tell your audience to join in before tomorrow. Tell your best friend to do it with you, your sibling, or your parents. For this type of thing to really work, we need to try to let others know that we’re trying – so that they can help out.

Update (wow) – Wow. This type of response is overwhelming. And I wanted to make a few things clear to those that emailed me, etc. You can sign up at any point you don’t need to start today. Also, the word “diet” doesn’t stand for weight-loss. If you need to put on a few pounds, or just generally eat healthier, this effort is for you too. I know a lot of people struggle with being too skinny, or their overall perception of themselves, and you need to know that you are not alone in that. So join up, we’re all here for you.

Oh, and about transplanting my fat to a skinny person? You’d have to pay me for this fat. I’ve worked long and hard for it. Day one weigh in people! Make sure you subscribe to every site on the list of dieters so you can track everyone’s progress, and be motivated to continue.

– If you are going to do photos with your weigh-ins, you may now post them to our very own group on Flickr.

[tags]diet, dieting, mike stickel, chris fehnel[/tags]