Health

Earlier this year I came to the realization that I needed to make a change, my weight and health were progressively getting worse. I have fought with my weight and health for most of my life. In January my weight had hit another high I was approaching a very dangerous level, exercise alone was not enough. I have been hesitant to make dietary changes not wanting to miss the good foods, what I didn’t realize was
those foods were not good after all but very bad in the quantity I was eating them at.

Our society has an issue, our processed foods. It may make it cheaper and earlier to feed people, but the quantity that we eat those foods in is what is causing obesity in our day and age. Our processed food are so high in calories but contain very little in nutrition, I very rarely eat those processed foods anymore looking more at more organic foods. What I am speaking of is meets, vegies fruit and the most important of all drinking enough water. I realized over the last 8 months that I has mistaken the signs from my body most of my life as hunger but thirst.

During that time as a developer liking to analyze things that I needed tools that would help track different aspects of my life. I created two health tools. There are many tools out on the internet but most didn’t work or give me the information I wanted. The first tool I created helped me make calculate how many calories I burned for my activity level. This BMR calculator has helped me greatly allowing me to know how many calories I burn from all that I do.  This was the first time I worked with Silverlight, this was a good experience for me. I created another tool that helps me calculate in detail how many calories I burn
for my individual activities. The Activity Calorie calculator allows the user to select an activity and intensity level of the previously selected activity.

I know I still have more weight to get off, and other topics to talk about. My goal is to take what I have learned over the last nine months help people become healthier. You will see more posts in the near future stay tuned.

Major Accomplishment

As of today April 1, 2010 I have been a software developer for over ten years. This is a very proud day for me. At the same time this is my tenth year anniversary at a company called Healthwise. I started at Healthwise as a programmer Analyst 1 April 1, 2000. I have come a long way in the last ten years. I have grown as a man, and as an individual. 

Its interesting to see where I started, and where I am now. A really good friend of mine Travis Dugan invited me to a users group at the time. It was a VB users group the other people in the group where professional developers with experience, and degrees. I just had an interest in programming, and wanted to explore what it was like to write software. At the time I started the group I was a software tester at a company call Design Concepts International. That was where I met Travis and developed the friend ship that we have to this day. With that friend ship and encouragement from him I started to develop my skills at writing applications. I still remember when I would call him with a question he would tell me to look it up, because of his persistence of me learning how to look things up on my own that has turned me into the developer I am today. I developed skills to write test applications for the company I was working for at the time. Things changed at the company I was working for our parent company itron decided to close our offices in Boise. I was encouraged by Travis and other friends to apply for an entry level developer’s job.

The job in question was a posting I saw on the Healthwise website. The job posting was for a manufacturing programmer Analyst 1. I figured what would it hurt if I didn’t get the job I would have at least tried. In February of that year I received a phone call from a Bob Long, and Brian Howard. Bob at the time was VP of technology at Healthwise and Brian was the manager of what would be the manufacturing team. The phone interview went really well to the point of being invited for an in person interview. At the interview I was introduced to people I developed good relationships with over the long years. The room was filled with five people, David Starr, Viki Smith, Brian Howard these are the people I remember the most from the interview. I even remember the question that David asked me. What did I want to be in five years? I told him I wanted to be a seasoned software developer. Well that was ten years ago and I am what I told David I wanted to be. I have been for a while working my way up from that Programmer Analyst 1 all the way up to a Software engineer 3. The progression has been fun I can’t wait to see what happens over the next ten years.

Random Thought

Found an interesting quote yesterday, while reinforcing my Object Oriented Programming concepts.

• The goal is not to bend developers to the will of some specific patterns, but to get them to think about their work and what they are doing.  

Very cool update:

With the extra time I have now I started working on my book again. My goal is to have chapter one finished before our local writers group meeting and have it proof read. Um not sure I am going to make that deadline. Of course I have been procrastinating but that is normal. I just came onto the realization that I need a name. The name I need will play a big role in one of my characters path through the story. The problem is. How do you pick a good name? The bad part is I know where I want to go, and what I want to tell for the rest of chapter one but this simple name has me blocked. I am in the process of name storming but it is going slow… Dang it I wanted to present this to our meeting the 19^th since I won’t be in town next month when the group meets.

My goals after finishing chapter one is to use December to work on my synopsis. This will allow me to better plan out the rest of my book and what I want to accomplish in each chapter. We will see with all the distractions we have in our world today it is hard to just sit in front of the pc and just type.

Late fall 2009 update

I had a tough choice to make this fall. I ended up having to drop from class for the semester. It looks as of now I have to drop till at least next fall. I don’t have in my bank nor will I have $1200 for next semester’s tuition.

For now I need to concentrate on me. Last fall I put on a LOT of weight. I am just now getting back to a regular schedule for my working out. It is so easy to stop but so hard to start. It is the same with losing weight it is easy to put it on but so hard to take it off.

I can gladly say as of this week the book I started back in high school is making good progress. My goal is to have chapter 1 finished and reviewed and edited for the writers group meeting in November.

Mid Summer 09 update

The last time I posted on my block was April 11, 2009.

Since that time I have finished my English 101 class with an A. This makes me so happy last time I took this class I got a D. This A has really helped me with my confidence. With all the encouragement from my instructor and my writing friend I have become a better writer. I know I have more work in need to do with my writing but that will just take time and practice. I have enjoyed my summer time off it has been nice. I start back to school the week of the 18^th of August. I will be taking English 102 with an excellent teacher from the last year. I will also be taking University 106 this semester for a total of four credits for the semester.

I have officially walked away from my world of warcraft game. I just don’t get why people have to cause so much drama. I can now take the focus that I was putting on it and use that energy on other things.

I am currently working on a plan for my fall semester. Along with taking English 102 and University 106 I plan on using the Aleks website to work on my math skills. I hope to be able to use this fall and spring to improve my math skills. I was told when I went back to work on my CS degree that I would qualify for the higher level classes. This was with the stipulation of my math scores where high enough. Of course my math scores were not high enough. If I can test out of Math 15, Math 25 and Math 108 that would make me very happy. We will just have to see.

I still need to decide what English I want to take in the spring. It is too bad that I can’t take another class with this same teacher I have really enjoyed the way this teacher engages her class. We will just have to see. I see my future is bright just going to struggle through it. 

Well now that I have more free time I can work on my original plan. As of a month ago I am now up to four book idea’s that I want to work on.

Long overdue update

The last time I posted on my blog was December 11, 2008. It is now April 9, 2009. My intention was to post at least once a month on my blog. You know how intentions go. To recap I finished English 90 with an A in the class. It is too bad that the class was a no credit class. Oh well I am so glad I took the class, it has helped me take my writing confidence to a new level.

During my first semester back to school I relied heavily on my editor writing friend Stefanie. Once I would finish writing a paper I would send it over to her for review. Every paper last semester was reviewed I even got her expert help on the final drafts. I was so happy to see I got out of a total of 100 point 95 points. To get an A in a college class has helped my writing confidence level.

As of today I will be turning in my final new work for my English class. I was lucky to get the same great teacher this semester (Melissa Keith). She has helped me so much with her always positive attitude. She suggests to us to find topics that interest us, because if a topic is not interesting to write about it won’t be interesting to read about. This semester I did something different were before I would use my friend to review my papers. This time I did not seek her advice on the papers. I know that the first draft of the 2 papers I have turned in and the paper I will turn in this afternoon are my own blood sweat and tears. I truly thank my friend for helping me become a better writer. She is not off the hook yet. As I work on the final works for the portfolio I will be working with her on it.

I am really happy with the progress I have made over the last year and a half. I have come a long way but this was not a one man band. If it was not yet again for the support and encouragement from all the people around me I would not be back in school at 33 years old. I am ready for a break this summer but will be back with Melissa this fall for English 102. I also hope to take some time and work on improving my math skills. I do need to take a couple of months off to just chill this working full time and taking a class takes a lot of energy.

Until next time.