Bring it back?

Recently I had to do an update to my www.scratchpadgames.net site to stop them charging me 10euros a month to continue to support what they call an outdated PHP version.

So I did as requested, logged on to the providers site, selected update and it was done.. no more 10euros a month charges... but also, no more forums..which seemed to need that outdated PHP. which is a bit of a pain as the forums are how my book readers contact me with any issues they have. I can probably update the forums from the site content on the old PC.. but its not my main skill. I may have to junk it all and start again.

Now granted its been a while since anyone has had an issue, the book is a bit out of date now, so only a few die hards or people who left it on the shelf a couple of years, have tried to do anything with it. Also as I am working on an updated 2nd edition, the site itself is in dire need of an update.

But... the site was designed and maintained on my old warhorse PC which now lives a quiet sedentry life upstairs, seldom if ever being used.

But now I need it, and of course it really is old, and refuses to do some of its basics, like start... it does get there in about 30 mins, but its very slow..theres clearly some online update happening which upstairs has almost no internet speed.

So it needs to be refurbished while still somehow maintaining most of its software..

Though honestly since its not been actively used for 3 or 4 years, whatever software is on there is not needed or used any more on that system,  but there's some source code  and pics and so on I want to transfer

So I've bought a new GTX710 graphcis card, not exactly cutting edge, but more than it has currently and I have an unused 512GB ssd, to get windows 10 onto.. so once I rescue the website.. I will transplant some new life into the old girl and get her working again. The current drives can be used as long as it boots from teh SSD now.

If nothing else I'd like to use it for making videos and writing content... since there's room up there to keep reference books and I can go back to using my big, but, normal ratio screen that will make videos more useful. My Samsung widescreen is useless for making videos on as they stretch too much on YouTube.(Its great for coding though)

On the subject of YouTube, I've had an ok from our Creative media dept to help me make some nicely edited and shot videos to support the new book, and set up a moderatly technical teaching channel I want to continue with even when the book is been and gone. I can cover some of the topics, that students seem to find very hard in a bit more detail on a video, than I can in a class where they are falling asleep or busy watching music videso...yes Joeren, I'm talking about you...
I've made a few simple test videos myself, but meh, Im shit at this kind of content, so I'm going to get some of tomorow's pros, to help me. 

So this weekend, 1st weekend of the Xmas holidays I am working bloody hard to get upstairs into some level of organisation and ressurect an almost dead PC... wish me luck.

Ahthankyew

Feeling my age

61 on Tuesday, and no matter how many people tell me I don't look it, I feel it, I mean I really feel it. Things hurt, getting out of a chair too fast carries a risk, sitting down in a chair carries a risk...running to catch a train....no, just wait for the next one. Trips longer than an hour need to have toilet routes planned. I alternate between narcolepsy and insomnia. Its pretty horrible..

But Im still fairly sharp and bright, though I do worry a bit about forgetting things and names, I can no longer remember all my students names, which was always somehting of a party trick for me. 

I am stuck with this 16yo brain in a 61 year old body, and it sucks... 

And its fucking cold........I really want to be somewhere warm... soon... soon..

Ahthankyew

Heavy shit man

Well I hope its shit... cos that I can get rid off... back up to 98kg....damn

nope nope nope nope nope.... starve yourself Brian you fat fucker.. thats insane..

So, no booze, no lunch and a tiny evening meal. 

There's no way in hell Im creeping back over 100kg.. no chance.

Ahthankyew

Yo Yo Yo Yo

Can't quite get myself back in the fasting mindset again, so the weight is going up and down even though I am most certainly keeping way below the reccomended 2000-2600 calories a day, I find my weight isn't getting below 95ish...its bouncing between 95 and 97... yes still a lot less than earlier this year but the goal isn't reached.

grr.. I need to develop more resolve.. its upsetting that after losing 15kg I gain back 2 then 3 then 4 kg.. I really want to get down below 80 for all sorts of good reasons, mainly my health.

The reduction in weight, or more likely the reduction in food to process has a really good impact on my diverticulosis, and the issues it creates.. less food means less unexpected and unwanted emergency dashes to the loo. And a lot less painful discomfort. also... dude I'm, 61 next month, I need to shed a lot of this chubby good looking fat for my heart..

but.. hunger and rum... hard to overcome.. 

Ahthankyew

Back on Track..ish

So a few days back home, trying to get into the routine, not helped by Jirawan bringing some wonderful food home for me to eat..I've lapsed a few times. Its been a month of being careful but not being on the wagon and the weight creeps up.

But I'm back on the 1 meal, low cal, nothing after 8pm diet... and I will avoid booze and snacks....as best I can. I will however try to up my protein intake a bit more, to allow for my very light excercise to be effective and not lose muscle (hahahah as if ) mass.

Not quite sure what this start weight is, I didn't check this morning, but its around 95kg now... I'll take a clear reading tomorrow morning and see if we can get down below 70kg before the spring break.

The target is 70kg.... it will be achieved... even if I have to cut off a leg.

Ahthankyew

but I didn't eat that much? Did I?

Enough to bump myself back to 97kg

Wow, it doesn't take much. I've not exactly been gorging myself, on the small portions most Thai meals provide, but clearly getting 2 or 3 meals a day is not allowed.

But I did expect a blip on the break a kilo or 2 was expected not 4 or 5.... Normal starvation will now continue, try get get below 90 by the end of the month, and get as low as possible before Christmas...

New year we will take stock.

Ahthankyew

Home, but cold

We're home, bit of a nightmare trip, not so much the travel as the really annoying admin issues.. We had our passports and residency cards triple/quadrouple checked at departure, not sure why. And the flight was a long 12 hours where I barely dozed off... but getting back to Schipol was where it all really went wrong

Tired and cranky, the passport system is fucking broken here, it looked like 2 or 3 777's arrived from various places at the same time, so 1200-1500 people, not all dutch nationals.. descended on Passport control, who simply can't cope. Took us well over 1hr to filter down weaving queues and holds and stops and go that way, no, that way... to the 2.... repeat 2.... customs agents processing the non EU passports but in the EU (residents) line of 500+ people.. 

Shocking, just shocking... this is something they need to fix. Schipol is one of the busiest airports in the world, but they can't handle a decent sized plane landing from outside Europe.

And.... after finally getting through, they didn't post our luggage on the baggage list, the only Bangkok flight was on belt 15 but didn't match our flight number, and when I finally got through another queue at the service desk. was told it was at belt 20... which had no details of which flight it was... nice. Thankfully the luggage was there though so at least we didn't lose anything.

Took us nearly 2 hours in total to get out of the airport and on a train, which thankfully was easier going, though Jirawan was a bit annoyed with me for not switching seats at Rotterdam,  it turned out she wanted to face the direction of travel... and I didn't click she was annoyed at facing back....she's still a bit ticked off with me but she's as cranky today as I was yesterday, we just need to rest and recover.

But we got home, had some food and fluids and went to bed.

We got up early and its bloody cold here innit.

I LOVED my time in Chiang Mai, it wasn't a typical tourist trip, we spent most of our time at home, doing a bit of work, going about daily business, eating at a few outdoor places and 1 family meal with Jirawans son and gf, but it was so nice just to live a normal  Thai life for 3 weeks.

Hua hin didn't grab us, but we will probably escape there from time to time, maybe somewhere else we'll see...

Retirement there will be so nice, a few more trips to settle things and we will make that jump.. Can't wait.

Ahthankyew

Good for a visit, but.

I can't put my finger on it exactly, but Hua Hin didn't grab us.. Its nice, there's some very nice houses there and it most certainy is less busy than Chiang Mai but...it also seemed a little old and tired... Also something about the general age of the large ex pat community there didn't quite resonate with us... even though I freely admit that we're also in that age group. I saw way way too many very old men, 60,70 maybe even 80's with very young Thai partners.. I know thats not that unusual here, and we even see it here in Chiang Mai, but ...it was a lot.. and hmmm.

The Bars are insanely loud and the atmoshere wasn't as Thai as it is here..(I know I am not making sense here).

Its quite a small town too, no where near the size of Chiang mai and no where near the variety and scope of things to do, places to shop.

We didn't hate it.... and we'll certainly consider visiting again maybe even spending a few months there during the norths smokey season but... not sure .....might need a few more visits.

Ahthankyew

Yeahhhh good choice

I really am loving Thailand, the lovely weather, despite the occasional heavy rain, and the overall ease of getting things to eat and drink its so nice... easy going. I can totally understand why its a hippy paradise.

On a practical note, we went to visit a large  Makro superstore yesterday, just to look around and it has everything and anything you might want, though like the Dutch Makro stores, I am not so sure its a cheap place to go. But for everyday things, some foods, and some specialist foods.. its a once a month place, just like Makro NL.

Other shopping malls and supermarkets are equally impressive, and quite reasonable, though highly variable on price. Live sensibly here and your Bhat goes a long way, live like a crazy farang, and you will go broke pretty quick. Its easy to think, its just 100 bhat, but it adds up.. breakfast today of a nice ham omellete extra toast and a coke 0 was 129bhat, less than 3 euros.. half what you'd pay in NL, maybe even less.. But every day it adds up.

The small markets and street and just off street food vendors and produce sellers are amazing though, there's no need to stock up on things just step onto the street and you can buy breakfast, or fresh meat and veg for tonights meal, for very little money. Its quite extrodinary just how much retail enterprise there is here, 

Tomorow we have a weekend in Hua Hin to investigate it as a possible retirement place, but it will be hard to beat Chiang mai, even just in the old town this place has everything, step out a bit into the many different sub-city centres and you find even more to keep you in the 21st centry shoppers paradise.

We are looking at different areas here, and there are so many options, when we do jump, our plan is to rent for a year until we find the dream place to buy, I am wondering if we'll need that long :D some wonderful houses here at and below our expected budget.

I'll report on Hua Hin soon..But probably won't take laptop with me, which btw is being a bit temperamental, seems the cmos battery has died so it refuses to boot without following a hard reset process... but hard to do on the move so we'll leave it  here as we go into tourist mode for the weekend.

Ahthankyew

Sampling life in Thailand

We're not here for a holiday, that's next week.. I'm using this development time from work they give me to work on my.errmmm development. Which in this case means working on editing my book, which needs a bit more editing than I thought, I missed a whole chapter and its a biggie, that needs a major rework. I also have to put down the basics of the new code that is needed for this edition. I have sketeched out some code but it needs a big update. I don't plan to finish anything yet, just get the frameworks in place, and stored away to work on over the weekends I return. This book needs quite a lot if not all of its code content sent on-line in an effort to shed a few pages and hopefully pounds/euros on the price. I've never been  happy with the price it was sold at, so stripping back a few bits to put on line will hopefully have an impact.

But of couerse, we're in Thailand, Chiang Mai city to be exact. This trip I rented us a whole house to use as we like.. And that means, doing normal every day things Thai people do.. Going to the market, registering cars (Jirawan bought a car...an old one but very tidy), purchasing supplies, like a cheap monitor cos there was no TV in the bedroom as I had hoped. Also visiting friends and going for lunch, and doing a spot of house viewings to see what exactly 8 million bhat can buy you..We've not done that yet but we're going to as soon as I stop screaming when I drive the car in traffic... the traffic here is....there's only one word..insane.

And I am honestly very happy with the mundane things in life, its just simple to go to the market, go for a meal, go shopping for pretty much anything you can buy in Europe...well maybe a few differences, Pringles are waaaay smaller.

Expats on line often make the valid point that the cost of living is very low, if you live like a Thai, eat Thai food and do the mundane things Thai's do, oh and keep off the booze... But you will want to eat and drink western sometimes and it'll bankrupt you the say.

Well its not entierly true, from what I can see, there's a lot of western food and booze on offer at the right places, yes its pricey by thai standards, but about the same price if not a bit cheaper as it is in NL.  As someone who loves Jirawans cooking, even when its a bit off the wall for me, I don't think I have a problem eating Thai food all the time, and limiting myself to a few less well known brands of.....Whiskeee  and Ruhm  ... but whatever..
I'm really enjoying the mundane nature of Thai life, I can't wait to get a lot more of it.

Ahthankyew

Definitely plateaued

plateaued....
Cool word eh?

yeah not dropping down any more, bouncing a kilo or so around 94.. dipping and rising.  I need to try harder.. Still cycling to work despite the cooling weather though so might be getting a bit fitter if not lighter.

I really did want to get below 90 before we head to Thailand for a break, but can't see it, maybe when I get there i'll get some Thai tummy issues that will drop a few kilos... though, I'd rather not :D. I had it last time and we were driving around a lot of places, which made for a few interesting and desperate service station stops... not all of which were as modern and clean as I'd have liked.

I've also got a flair up of my diverticulitis which isn't nice, though no sign of any infections, (temp will spike and I need to report to hossie) so just discomfort and bloating, despite not a lot of food,which is probably why nothing has popped this time (look it up...) So it should calm down in a few days.

oh well, there's not a lot more to report, just working hard, and getting my project pushed along, I've pretty much finished the reworking of the new edition of the book, apart from the code which does need a total refactor. But part of the trip will be spent in peace and quiet to edit it and do some of the coding needed to go on line. I do still have quite a bit of on-line content and how-to content to write, as I was asked to take it out of the main book. So I'll crack on with that.. Delivery is in January so its all pacing out quite well.

Ahthankyew

damn this is hard..

Still not dropping below 93 yet, keep bouncing back to 94 and occasionally 95... I can't seem to lose any more... sigh...Clearly I need to do more excersise and push a bit harder, the diet itself just isn't dropping any more weight... time to feel the burn...groan...

Ahthankyew

tip that balance

Stepping on the scales this morning, I very very briefly saw a 92 flash on the LCD display as the scales settled... on 93.0 but its still only Friday, weekend starts tomorrow... doesn't it? It will be nice to step down another digit towards the 80's.

Our trip to Thailand this year is in 4 weeks time, so I'm fairly confident I'll be below the 90's by then. Which for very practical reasons, not just fuel economy of the overloaded aircraft, will make life there a bit easier. 

It's a wee bit warm there... and fat old sweaty pale scottish people, can get a bit tired moving around too much in that heat, we want to have a good mooch around the place this time.

Mostly though I'll be sat on my touche, doing final edits on my book, especially when Jirawan is off with her son to go visit family. I will go on a few trips with her,  of course, but I'm determined this trip, not to spend it in the back of a car driving around! So we've rented a house for 3 weeks to let us settle in one place and explore, to get a taste for living in Chiang Mai. We'll also squeeze in a few days in Hua Hin to get a feel for that place too, which should help us decide where to target our retirement plans. Both have pros and cons but we need to experience them.

When not editing, I might even try and catch up on my now sadly neglected Language lessons... I found memorising some of the words and phrases just a bit too hard and started to fall away from the pace of 1 lesson a day. I still have all the lessons though so I can pick them up at my own pace.

Ahthankyew

No harm done..

Yeah I did pig out a bit on Saturday and yeah it did dump on a few grams back above 94, but... a very hungry and busy, Monday and we're down to 93.3kg, not sure I could tolorate an even hungrier Tuesday but, I'll do my best and see what happens tomorrow as long as I can squeeze in a bike ride and a bit of light excerise every day I should see 92 by.....

Curry night was a spectacular success though, had a great night.

Also the models are selling online really well, the retirement fund is getting some nice boosts there.

The big sell off gathers pace. Ideally we want to clear out all the stuff we can't take to Thailand with us and make something on it, so yea thats guitars, music gear, models, even the SBC's and old computer gear, I no longer need... time to clear them out, a tenner each for the old SBC's will generate a fair amount.. Pity I can't really use ebay.co.uk anymore, Brexit now adds too many costs to smaller items, but we'll see if ebay.nl produces some interest...fucking brexit, the dumbest thing ever... 

Ahthankyew

Goodbye 94 but see you tomorrow

And the wall got smashed, mainly while being a little too often in the loo.. but thats what happens.. Finally got down to 93.7. There's no way in hell that will stick as I have a curry buffet happening tonight, and even if I  can resist the tempting things I  am cooking, I still have to taste and graze while I cook.

So see you again tomorrow 94... but I know you can be beatern... watch out

Ahthankyew

another wall?

Despite keeping up with the low calories and now including much more cycling, I can't seem to break 94Kg, popping back over 95kg from time to time.... I wish the weight loss was a lot more consistant.. But its clearly levelling out now and I have to work a lot harder to get down below the 94 and keep heading to that 1st target of 80kg (after that I'll see if 75kg is viable)

But, all I can do is keep at it, my determination is strong, my will power is....well not quite as strong, but I am only cheating some nights with protein rather than calories.. 

Got a curry night with friends coming on Saturday, so expect to be a bloated whale again on Sunday... and then we start again..

Ahthankyew

Good gig but bad guitar

We kicked off our post vacation gigs with a really nice gig at the Molen in  Bavel, playing in the shadow of the big windmill. There was a nice appreciative crowd and Karlien sang really well on a lot of new songs and did a wonderful version of Rollercoaster after we agreed I can't do it justice. But Karlien and Ed sang very well, so did I which was surprising. But I fluffed a lot of my guitar stuff, I was very annoyed with myself... Its not that I hadn't been practicing, but I just fluffed so many songs, wrong chords and terrible solo's.. It was as if I was drunk... but sadly no..

Overall we got through it ok, but I need to make sure that I'm never that bad again... I think part of it was having my nails a bit too long, so I was missing strings on some picking, and catching them with some flatpicking, not great... but it was a cascade thing. Once the 1st couple of fluffs happened it got worse... almost every song had a mistake from me, oh well...

We sang very well and people didn't notice it as much as I did... hope we get an invite next year.

It was also nice to have some of our regular followers comment on how much weight I've lost, so that was nice and a good motivator.. The weight loss is certainly slowing down, but I keep at it, and resist the cheats. Starting to lift some light weights as well, to begin the toning process before I start to increase the protein intake a bit.. Hopefully we'll break 90 in Sept, and would be great to be below 85 before our October break.

Ahthankyew

There it is..

94.7 :D finally hitting proper 94....feels good..  Things are slowing down a lot of course, but its no longer a straight 200-300g a day it does depend a lot on how many cheats I have and also honestly...how often I go to the loo. Constipation is sadly a side effect of this type of diet, so there are sometimes a few days of accumulation if you get my meaning..so after a few days... of ahem.. nothing.. I can expect to lose a few kilo's again soon :D

(notice, its spelled lose... I am getting so sick of reading loose on-line, do people not know how to spell....which is saying something coming from a dyslexic old windbag)

Back to work this week, its been pretty straightforward we had most of our prep work done before we broke up so just finalising and checking has been simple.. We now wait to get the details on our new students, who start in Sept, and then we can kick off. As usual, I'll be doing a beginners class each week, which will hopefully catch a few of the students who squeezed through the intake but don't really have the skills. Happens every year sadly, for various reasons, but its a pain to have these lost students falling behind from day one... so the extra class sometimes helps a few of them get a lift up. or just as good for them, to realise they are in the wrong course.

And now of course at the end of this first block I get to go off for a few weeks to Thailand, taking advantage of our Autumn holiday and my sustainable hours to do the edits for the 2nd edition of the book.

Which is progressing nicely, as far as the text is concerned, but need to make more progress on the code examples which are going to be quite different.  I get to combine, work and lovely holiday/research in just a few months... perfect.

Ahthankyew

Strange but true

Very odd, but still not hitting 94 yet, keep wobbling around 95-96, no real cheating, though it does seem every small piece of chocolate or scoop of icecream puts on 1kg ....

Back to work now, so a bit more mobile using the bicycle to get to and from work, and those lovely (groan) stairs every day... just have to stick with it and get even more serious about not having anything more than my 1 low cal meal a day..  Not sure I can cut that down any more, just try to delay eating it till as late as possible.

Sold the 1st of my prized guitars last week, and already having major sellers remorse as I look at the space in the guitar unit where Ruby, my prized Les Paul stood... but.. I can also look at the savings account and take a bit of comfort that the savings have gone up.. Hoping to sell the Traps Drums this week to old bandmate Kees who tried them out last week and noted a small fault which I quickly fixed when he left. The drums are not going to be a huge income, but the space saving in the studio will be nice.

I need to also start advertising the other instruments/equipment and putting some ads out there....its painful but its the only way, the sooner the money is in the bank earning a bit of interest, the better.  It will do more good in my account than it will in the studio not being played.  Brexit has buggered up using Ebay though, its near impossible to ship anything of value to or from the UK, so I will have to list some things on local sites and try ebay.nl which isn't very popular,..But I'll try ebay and see how it goes.

I still have not finished my totalling up of the shed model treasure trove, but will try to do that in the next few days.

My Thai lessons are really falling behind, I can't keep up and thats a bit demotivating. It takes me 2 or 3 days for the content to sink  in, but with a new lesson every day, I find myself getting falling behind.. But no matter, its online so I can do it at my pace, I just wanted to have a firmer grasp of things before our trip in October.

Ahthankyew

now stay under

Back to 95.5, lets see if I can avoid any cheats and get below 94 by the weekend.

Last week of the holidays, and yup, very few of my chores got done, which is bad, but... I did fill the time with other things and have enjoyed the rest.

Most amazing was discovering I have a bit of a treasure trove in the shed... all those models I had planned to build when I retire turn out to be worth a pretty penny.. Since we now plan to retire to Thailand, its not going to be practical to ship boxes and boxes of models over. So I casually enquired online what they were worth.......wow. Anything from 4-6K, Thats amazing... I won't get that of course, since people will only want to cherry pick the good kits, (one is worth over 300euros????) but I've had a couple of resellers interested in buying all for a few grand... that will probably be the best option. Since I really need to clear them out, and can't wait years to sell off the last Airfix Gnat kit or whatever the lowest value one is... So I'll take a hit to get rid of them all, and clear out the shed so its more usable for some DIY or proper storage.

I have to finish listing all the models, their curent low and best prices, and setting a reasonable 2nd hand offer price...its taken days but its been interesting and fun research... I've got a few part built/started kits I will keep and try to finish, but not sure my 20yo paints will be quite up to it :D

Ahthankyew

damn... 1 cheat..

I cheated once.. just once,, had an extra burger and a bar of chocolate and back over 96.. grrr, there's just no cheating allowed is there.

Ok so bike ride and no eating, which will be hard as Im batch cooking a load of chicken samosa's today... maybe I'll just have one of those for dinner...

damn...

Ahthankyew

Breaking another wall and spoiled surprise.

After hitting 95.9 I assumed I'd keep dropping but clearly it was just a wobble, 96.x kept coming back despite maintainig the diet... frustrating for almost a week, but eventually and after one minor lapse, the 95.9 is back again, hopefully not to bounce again.. Going to get a bit more bicyling in today to try to keep the enegy levels up and burn the cals.

The Diet is however still going well.. no eating after 8 and trying to keep to 1 low call meal a day around 6 or 7... there's no doubt my calorie intake is low.. If I was a bit more active it would drop a bit quicker, but I sense I'd be a lot hungrier too, which I might not be able to resist....we'll see... an occasional cheat is normal...but lets keep it to once a fortnight, not every other day.

Got hit with a delayed medical bill yesterday too, Jirawan had a butt load of tests on her skin condition in Feb, but they didn't charge us, until yesterday..ouch...250euros In NL the first 375 of your medical bills you have to cover youself, after that in a given year, its all covered by the insurance.. So that will be the last big bill of  her tab till Jan. They've put her on some very strong (and expensive) biological drugs that seem to be helping her psoriasis, though she hates to do the pen injections.  So we'll probably have to lump out a chunk of change in Jan if she's still on them, as seems likely.

Also despite wanting to keep it a surprise, Jirawan discovered my workbook, for learning Thai, and now she's testing me on my numbers and pronounciation, which is actually frustrating as I'm very early in the process and still having issues with remembering core vocab and tones... I can't serve two teachers lol.. but she's pleased that Im trying... Now that she knows, I can do my class every day not just the days shes at work but Im locking myself in the room when I do it.

Ahthankyew

when was it?

I had a look back in this blog history just now to try to locate the last time I was on a mega diet.... and there's been a few of them... But one that stood out was 2012 when I was......89kg..  wow, so I've been over 90kg more or less since then.. I hovered around that weight for a while before giving in and growing to the ballon I was/am/tryingnottobe.

Todays amazing 95.9  has me continuing a rapid drop, caused by extreme fasting... of only 1 low cal meal per day... which will see me heading back to that sub 80 level again in a month or so...

12 years though... eek and I considered that heavy at the time... 

this pic was 11 years ago so you can see where I was..

Well I got the bicyle tyers pumped up and ready and am going to cycle a bit today and get back into doing that to get around short distances... a mild bit of excercise but exercise none the less.

Ahthankyew

keep going keep going

Dieting is hard, I should effing know.... but I'm motivated and determined and staying, largly off the booze... so my will power is keeping on top of the hunger pangs. It vanishes after the 2nd rum/tequila

96.5kg today, continuing my 100-400g a day loss. I have had a bit of museli this afternoon, to help prevent the previously mentioned bunged up effects, but generally I'm finding my evening wraps to be all I need to eat. The longer I can leave it before my cut off point of 8pm the less hungry I am at bed time when the will power is potentially low.

So 2 weeks from now I should start seeing 80's and then I start excercising... why not now? Well.. I am genuinly very fat and very overweight for a slim cute chap like me, ...who's laughing at the back??? And I need to drop quite a bit before I can start putting my heart and my creaky knees to a severe test... oh also I'm almost 61... so while I see the need and benefit of excercise, it does nothing to reduce my distate for it or the risk of doing too much too soon..so I'll start in earnest when I get down to the 80's. Some nice walks and moving around as much as possible are fine for now, I'll also get the bicycle tyres pumped up and have a little zip around town on that....maybe to the kebab....nope... no no no...

its going well.......

Ahthankyew

ohhh chillies

Jirawan brought home some large green chilli peppers from the Turkish shop yesterday and cooked them off as I was making my evening meal, a small sausage wrap, two tiny chipolata's, some lettuce, 4 cherry tomatoes, 1 gherkin chopped, half red onion sliced, in a whole grain tortilla wrap....yup, thats it, thats my one meal.

I added a chopped chilli to my wrap and discovered while eating, it was... ,hotter than a burning pizza oven in hell....

wowser.. normally the big green chillies are just mild and sweet, not these badboys... but I hadn't had chillies for a while so the burn was fun..... until 6am when the burn decided to eat through  most of my lower intestines and seek an outlet.... which it did for about 2 hours.

96.9kg this morning.... no no Im not going to be eating those chillies again even though thats the best diet pill I've ever had.

Ahthankyew

Constipation has a reward....kinda

Diets do have drawbacks, I havn't been to the loo for a few days, and of course that bungs you up, even if you don't eat much. I try to eat fibre in the form of cabbage,lettuce, musli in small amounts,  as well as fresh fruit and veg.. but... ,yeah it can be a few days...and not always..ahem pleasent...

But the good thing is when you do go.... you go... and todays morning weigh-in produced 97.5kg so the drop continues...

Im going to start with the excercise when I hit 90.. nothing dramatic, I hate jogging, but a few weight routines and more regular quick walks to push  things along...

I'm actually starting to enjoy this process, the hunger is controllable as long as I don't drink, and indeed not drinking also drops the weight.

Really not sure if I'll ht 70 before we go on Holiday in October, 10kg a month is pushing it a bit, bbut should get to 80kg so I won't be quite soo chubby and puffing in the Thai heat when we get there.

Ahthankyew

missing money, lost and found

Today was a good day... I managed to locate a long lost but still growing pension pot, I started over 20 years ago and only paid into it for a few years before the financial shit, hit the bankruptcy fan...

But that pension pot was forgotton and left to die lonely. Until I accidently discovered an old letter about a year ago, that showed there was indeed a pension, and who administered it. Barclays... 

But after a bit of chasing, it turned out Barclays, had sold their pension business on to L&G who in turn sold the old pensions on to Re-assure... A long chain of emails ended up in a dead end when I didn't have the specific policy details and got no reply to emails.. so I gave up, and left it....lying there somewhere...

After mentioning this online to old collegues, it was suggested to get an advisor to hunt for it.. and as luck would have it, the sister of an old collegue is an advisor, agreed to check for me... and she found it... it was with Re-Assure, she confirmed they had it, and it was just a case of making direct contact with an 0800 number, but I can't use them here in NL, so after a bit of hunting around... 2 dead phone numbers later, and 30 mins on hold..

I got hold of the lovely Shannon, who indeed confirmed they had a pension, and... it was worth, a pretty penny... (not retire now on this pretty, but it adds a fair chunk to the pot).
So thank you so much to Sadef Latif, and her brother Amir, for helping me to locate the pension.


After updating Re-assure with my details, and confirming my ID, I can now make use of that pot at any time, either by transferring to a pension or cashing it in... Cashing it in has a tax hit though. It will be best if I leave it for a couple more years till we're ready to jump and get a bit more of that high interest savings action on it.

I won't say exactly how much it is, but it will help fund some of our plans to retire early which is a massive boost..

Yup, today was a good day.

Ahthankyew

back on track

Only mid way through the weekend fast, and sadly not able to fully embrace it, since Jirawan sneekily brought home 2 fried fish to eat on her way home from work, seeing how much I enjoyed the fish in London.. sweet, but..missing the point... But I've restricted myself to only half a piece of fish a day and some carbs.. 

98.2 this morning... so back on track..London didn't break me. Actually Im starting to see the results visually in my face at least; Im less puffy, though could be the haircut I got in London.

Picking up my programming and Thai lessons as well so keeping myself distracted from food and focused on things...might see 97.x tomorrow....

Ahthankyew

ok not a total disaster

Back from London, and its amazing how easy it is to put the weight back on, though I did my very best not to gorge on my usual Greggs, Fish and ch ..oh wait.there were a few....some, well a couple of slips...in my defence I didn't eat too much, but I sure ate the wrong things.

I didn't keep up my strict sub 1000kcal diet, while there, but we did so much walking I was hoping that it might have had a balancing effect and I'd still be in the mid 98's 

But no, 99.1kg on my return... not bad I suppose still under 100... but now we're back I need to get back to my sub 1000kcal and get back to 1kg a week.

Keep on keeping on losing the pounds.

Ahthankyew

London....well thats going to screw up my diet

I mean its not Edinbirgh, where I can get proper fish and chips and battered black pudding, but it is London, where I can get Nando's, proper curries and a reasonable facsimile of fish and chips (quite a few do haddock)... 

I did succumb tonight to a nice curry, but it was my end of weekend fast, though probably too big a portion, if I promise to be good tomorrow, I might be able to  walk it off.

Jirawan joins me tomorrow evening so I might take a walk to Denmark street and see how much some of my guitars are worth now... no buying though promise

Jirawan is visiting some family here so I will tag along and politely decline some of the wonderful thai food on ....fuck no I won't...but I will try to walk it off.

Ahthankyew

Holidays?

Its Monday, and I got to sleep-in for the 1st time in months. I now have 5 weeks of lovely summer holidays... well lovely when it stops raining.(looks outside,, hmm its trying to be sunny..maybe)

That means I have a lot of jobs to do that have been put off at least a year

A chance to sort out my studio, the big sell off needs to get started, by first making sure the studio is clean and set up. My old PC is up there and not doing much, so will get it prepped and maybe upgraded a little to use it as a back up machine., though I also have my brothers old Dell I3 Laptop which I upgraded a bit, and its now a fine little emergency machine.

If I get time the walls that were put up 14 years ago to block off the studio are still bare chipboard... might be time to put a bit of woodchip and paint on there. Will review when the studio is cleared out a bit.
Set up sales videos for all my extra sound and music gear, put ads on marktplats (Dutch local sales)

Clean up my little office, even though I have the studio, I like to code in my little office, but its damn untidy, there's a health hazard notice on the door... need to get at it, and also retire some of the older books on my big bookshelf so I can add some new ones..

Give the Bathroom a damn good clean, get the limecale off the shower and clean up a bit of black mold caused by the lack of working extracter and that old shower leak from a few years ago... I've now put a small extractor in there and its doing a fine job, so a bit of bleaching to tidy it up it will stay nice an bright.

That extractor issue does need to be fixed though, we had an electrician come a few years ago to resolve our fuses constantly blowing and he hardwired the extractor which seemed to be the cause , but I unplugged it not considering the impact on the bathroom.. I have it on now always, but I should get the place rewired.. The shorting was probably due to that shower leak now fixed and dried up... so a rewire will be a good plan... but pricey.

Clear the shed, and set up a list of sales for the hundreds of now quite old model kits in there that I had planned to build when I retire, but not an option now, so sell, probably quite valuable, we'll see, might pay for the rewire.

Clear out all my old SBC's. I got dozens of old OpenGLES2.0 based units, they're pretty pointless now for my coding purposes,  but people might want to pay 5 euros for them to drive an old project. I'm only doing OpenGLES.3.1 ane above now... so will keep the 5 or so units that can do that amd a rasp 3 for nostalgia. That won't provide much more than a nice meal for Jirawan and a salad for me.

Take a load of stuff to the local waste disposal, old beds, chairs and soooo many big boxes from appliances bought years ago... stuffed in shed (just in case) Also arrange for pick up for the bigger items..

Clean up the bike and take her out for a few runs, poor thing has been a bit neglected this summer, what with being in the UK for a month, and the actual weather not being up to snuff.. I am sadly going to say goodbye to her in the Autumn, vintage bikes are cool and it was great to finally own a Shadow, but I'll get a smaller more servicable bike to get around or just put the funds into the pension pot. Someone else can get some joy out of owning a vintage shadow.

Re-install the SolarPanels on the roof, not that there's been a lot of sun, but lets sort it, they blew off the roof a couple of years ago in a big storm, and have been stored in  the studio since, so going to rebuild the frame and put a few paving stones up on the roof to cement the frame to and keep it locked no matter how strong the wind is.

In the Garden our old Decking has decayed to an unsafe level, so going to lift that all up and either lay down grass or paving. Jirawan seems to have burned out her gardening hobby, so probably paving. That's quite a big job and I need a skip to take the crap away. (might kill a few birds with one stone there.

Theres a couple of bigger expensive jobs too, that really need a tradesman, we do want to redo the kitchen, it won't get done this year though as its going to cost too much and we're saving like crazy, but I'll cost out a few things and see if there's a way to get it done cheap.

Phew... holidays will be so relaxing, ......but at least I'll be thinner at the end of it :D

99.1kg today... getting quite used to being hungry but not eating, and 200-300g a day drop on the weekends with 50-100g on weekdays will soon see me looking like the Adonis I am under the flabby bits.

Ahthankyew

Busting through

99.8kg what a great feeling, I finally bust through the 100kg barrier.. might have a sausage to celebrate :D

Its the weekend though so, under 500kcal at weekend, ideally no food at all till late on Sunday.. but I'll do my best.

I'll need to scroll back quite a while to find when I was last under 100kg, but its been a while. EDIT July 2020.... 4 years over 100kg, My heart will be pretty pleased.

20kg to  go, maybe 30 we'll have to see.

update, sunday.. after a not fully empty Saturday... 99.6  :D

Ahthankyew

Well there's some kind of wall

Still cant get below 100kg, despite fasts and careful eating, though I have had 2 notable slips when I made dinner for friends and succumbed to some late night crispy pork from Jirawan(it was good)

But even so, the 1000 cal or less a day diet is being maintained and the fat is hanging in there between 100.3 and 101.2 .... grrr

Gotta move about a but more I suppose

Ahthankyew

New Challenge

Right, something new to push myself, I've failed miserably at learning Dutch over 16 years, though I can understand some, I fail to speak or write it.. I could get better but long term there's no real advantage. A few years from now I'll be in Thailand... So..

Going to learn an even harder langage than Dutch :D

Thai... I plan to sign up to a course that is apparently very good, and yes it costs but that will just drive me on.. I am going to keep it secret from Jirwan (she never reads these posts) but if I manage it, when we get to Thailand for our October break, I hope to be able to speak to her family and friends in at least some Basic Thai which will be a nice suprise for her.

This one will be hard  :D lets see if I am still capable of learning anything

Ahthankyew

100.7 :) push push

Fast days still producing results, that and a long walk last night, finally broke past 101... Sunday is also a fast day but I treat myself tonight to a steak wrap, but we will certainly break the 100 in the next day or 2.

On the flip side I've got a terrible rash from something, really driving me crazy, arms and legs including my butt are itchy and spotty and no idea why. Antihistimenes take the edge off it but not for long.. Totally horribe.

Not heard of any restrictive diets causing allergic reactions, but something has decided it hates my body and my body's taken offence... grrr.

Ahthankyew

My own fat is nourishing me,

As I kinda expected, my rapid weightloss stablised and now the loss is much slower,  from 600-700g a day its now more like 50g a day. But its still dropping, I can't quite get below the 101kg yet andI really hoped to get there this weekend, but no matter. The weekend is the main fast peoriod, so on Monday we might or might not see a decline.

Just got to avoid boozing, cos that reduces my resolve to not eat... But booze is easy to avoid... :D

What is apparent, even now is the reduction in the beer belly, and less flab around my face.. small visible changes are good to see.

Just gotta keep going, make mum happy.

Ahthankyew

Keep it going.

Midway through a 2nd weekend of near starvation fasting, but gotta say it's working well. This morning I was 101.8kg .. I can see me breaking 100 by the end of the week as long as I stay away from booze, and delicious tasty Thai pork dishes that keep getting wafted under my nose at 11pm.

Only succumbed once and starved myself the next day...Yes I know starving is a bit extreme, but honestly its all relative, I'm cutting myself back to ~1000 Kcal a day and ~500 at weekends, which is more than enough to live on, just my body is upset at the lack of 3000Kcal with occasional booze that its been storing away for years in fat. Essentially 2 small meals on weekdays, 1 small meal at weekend.. no snacks, no food after 8pm. I won't fade away. My body will stop complaining in a week or 2.

Realistically if I want to hit a target of <80kg in under a year, this is how to do it, the current fast drop will level out as my body gets used to the reduction in calories so I can see me losing 10kg pretty quick, but that extra 10kg will need a bit more effort.... time to get the bicycle out again..

Ahthankyew

Taking a moment or 2

So yesterday, was mums cremation.. Colin and I agreed it wasn't really needed for me to go there for what was a very simple understated and brief event, so I stayed in NL and went to work as normal, but I took a few moments at work to sit in the sun and remember some times from childhood and adulthood with mum. there were a lot of times where she made me laugh, cry, feel shame, pride and comfort in her advice as well as the odd points of conflict and annoyance. Mum's do that... they get to bring you down and they get to raise you up.. how you go through life then is up to you.

One of my friends at work saw me and took this pic... he made a bit of a joke about it when he sent it, but even so...I thought it hit a nail on the head. Being alone for a little while with my thoughts as mums last journey was taking place allowed a bit of closure... only a bit, it will take a long long time to come to terms with not being able to call on her no nonsense advice and sometimes absurd complaints on the irritations of life. :D

Time to sort out the bad shit in life and focus on the good.. 

Ahthankyew

A good start

After a 1st weekend of restrictive fasting and a few more days of low cal, I'm down to 102.6.

I suspect the 108 was more due to being a bit bloated from travel and the effect of pork pies, etc... but its encouraging all the same to see the numbers drop.. Hoping to see under 100 in a week or 2. That will be a big incentive.

Ahthankyew

Lets try this again...

One thing my mum did talk about at length when she was pretty lucid, was the size of my belly.... gotta be honest I didn't like it, that wasn't the last conversation I wanted to have with her, and it wasn't, but it stuck in my head.

Sadly I can't disgree with her, there's no doubt my many attempts at diets have failed miserably. And when I finally got home, I checked, 108kg.....wtf 

Thats just silly... so... ok, once again I will make an attempt to get the weight off,  if for no other reason to wipe that comment from mum from my brain.

The sad death of Dr Micheal Mosley in Greece also made me remember the intermittent fasting regime he championed, so ..thats the way I will work. Low carb, low cals, more excercise and very restricted calories at the weekend (except when cooking dinner for guests)

Lets see if mums on my shoulder commenting on my belly as I go through this.

Ahthankyew

Sheila Guild 21.5.41 - 9.6.24

Mum put up quite a fight, I'm sure I saw her fade out and then force herself back more than a few times, Death asked for a kiss and she said bugger off..

But in the end it was a battle she was never going to win and despite my Brother and I sitting vigil for over a month, she decided to go while I popped out of the room for 2 mins to get a coffee... I am sure she did that to just be contrary.

She had a long life, it wasn't always good, lots of strife and no small amount of abuse and betrayal from the men in her life but in her old age she grew into the paramount grumpy old woman, taking no shit from anyone...even if it wasn't always needed to put up a fight.

She was always there for me, always willing to give her honest and often critical opinion on things I had trouble coping with. I didn't always listen, but her advice was always there as was her love.

I am going to miss her so much.

Ahthankyew

When is the right time to go?

Still with mum, she's so strong, but every day is a rollercoaster with massive dips and small climbs.. Mum hangs on, seemingly only to complain about the quality of Coronation St and Emmerdale, story lines.

She has moments of lucidity but not much ability to communicate, but she'll find something to be grumpy about and bump the adrenalin up a bit to keep going.

Bad humour aside, she's slipping away a little more each day and as I sit here beside her I see some astonishing reality of life more clearly than ever before... it ends. Yeah it's obvious when you see it isn't it? But only now at 60 and in the close proximity of mums end does it become painfully and blindingly clear.

Mum was nearly 23 when she had me, so if go, or decline at the same rate as her, which is what genetics tells us might happen, I may have 16ish good years of retirement to look forward to if I wait till I'm 67.  Its easy to say I'm fitter, stronger, healthier etc...but that's just wishful thinking... I'm 60... its downhill from here,  I already am collecting a nice portfolio of known conditions to scare insurance companies away. 

No, as I watch her battle for every breath with an inevitable outcome, I realise all I am doing is battling every month for another pay cheque.... its not worth it..  No more battles, no more arguments over salary, from this point on, its time to make preparations for retirement, clear the decks, make arrangements and go.. I'll still write games, that's my hobby, but the sooner 9-5 ends the sooner I can work when I want, not when I have to.

Not sure exactly when, the longer I stay in NL the better the retirement, but I also think that there's a cut off point where the extra time here isn't worth losing the time I can share with Jirawan in Thailand... 

For now though, I'm sitting with mum, filled with memories, triggered in part by going through rucksacks of old photos in her flat,  and sad to see this great lady near her end.  I'll cry buckets shortly... then we face the future. it needs to be a future filled the joy, or whats the point?

Ahthankyew

With mum

Currently in the UK for the last week or so to spend time with my mum, who is in Hospice care.

The next few days will be hard, but I am pleased to be here and hope we can do something to keep her spirits up......yeah no, mum's going to go down grumpy and angry and quite right too. She earned her grump stripes and she has every right to be mad as hell.

Ahthankyew

New book is a go...

I say new, but really its a 2nd edition updated... but even so its a nice thing, a chance to fix some of the errors of the 1st, and make it a slightly broader appeal for new coders.

I'm quite excited about this.. I will try to not spend too much time on it though since I only need to revise content, not write new content, I still want my Empirs project to get finished this year.

I'll hopefully manage to get the main content done quite quickly but updating the code for Raspberry and PC builds will be the main time killer. If I can nail the core Empires content by Summer as I hope, I will be able to then focus on doing some nice simple Pi4 versions of the Pi3 content I did before.

Fun..

Ahthankyew

t'is the season to be ill

arrhhh

Another monumental cold...and its wonderfull accompanying cough

I really need to get out of this cold wet climate... as I get older I get more and more caught into this cycle of colds and flus, with only brief summers of release.. I am tired of it.. I really want to make that move to Thailand, but can't live for 7 years on savings/house residuals....have to wait.

2530somthing days to retirement..........unless someone wants to donate 100K into my pension pot?

Ahthankyew

It came back, then went away then switched ears

yeah its a bit of a nasty one this, it came back, the earache, though not as bad, but enough to pop a paracetamol before bed.

Then of couse as I was about to make a call to the docs, it went away, then came back in the other ear... just before easter.. so no point in making a call..

now its gone.

so....... what... do I call the doc, or wait till it hurts again.

Getting old sucks

Ahthankyew

Swallowing again and good news.

I've had a horrible ear/throat infection for the last week/10 days, its been nasty, tied in with a horror of a cold that depleted my entire stock of lemsips. I still have the cough and a bit wheezy.

But the worst part was the ear/throat thing, making swallowing painful and chewing a bit of a challenge...This morning though I woke up able to swallow pain free.. so no need to dose myself with any more paracetamol...my liver will be thankful.

Its still a bit tender when I chew, so its not totally gone but it seems that I had some kind of inner ear infection thats now run its course... Just as I was about to call the doc and get checked out.

If it comes back I will call though, I just know that I had to wait that week or so, since doctors here wont' prescribe AB's unless you are really near deaths door or have given the infection time to run its course.

kinda a dumb rule I feel but thats just how it is here.

In other news, my book, which I had basically forgotton about, has been trending a bit after it was offered on a discount charity website HumbleBundle.com   Kinda a surprise, since the thing is vastly overpriced at the moment and can't be selling well, but you can pick it up for 1euro if you are so inclined in a PDF.

I think this is what also prompted my publisher to get hold of me via Linkedin, to ask if I'd be interested in an update.. They'd tried to contact me before but it seems they had a very old defunct email address for me. Even though I am sure I updated everyone when that address died.

The good news is... they have some royalties waiting for me... not enough to retire on, or go fulltime authoring of geeky text books, but a nice little holiday spending pot for later in the year.

I'll send in the forms to see if they agree to an update and maybe we'll see a 2nd Edition doing a bit better so that I can indeed retire and do autheoring of geeky text books... (I won't hold my breath though)

Ahthankyew

Ferrys are cool

We took another trip to the UK, but this time we tried the Ferry... and it was lovely.. yes a bit slow but so much less stresss and no standing in queues for hours to take your handbag and a biscuit on board.  Also the lack of  car hire, makes it about the same price generally as travelling up to Schipol, flight, car hire.

We did notice that some of the cost of the goods on the ferry caused us to spend a bit more than we want, but overall we enjoyed the experience and will do that again, certainly when going to London, but also the drive to Cheshire to see mum was not horrible, though we did stay overnight in Ipswich when we arrived.

Mum was very happy to see us, as well as getting a surprise visit from her 2 Scottish granddaughters.. It was good to see her happy.

There will be a few more trips booked in advance to save costs, Ferry is the way.. Plane only for urgency.

Ahthankyew

quick visit to hell, I mean uk

Popped over for the weekend to go check in on mum.. Super grumpy, but with good reason, so it was nice to see her.

The UK though....jeeze its getting worse, dirty broken and very congested roads, empty shops in high streeets, and a horribe sense of doom.

During a meal with Jirawan at a Manchester  Nando's I even had a bunch of 12-14yo's theatening me, when one of them backed into me as I went for a drink refill, and on telling him to "calm down son" as I put my hand out to stop him bumping me, his response of "fuck off" and going into threat mode with his mates was very unpleasent..  absolutely insane to have children feeling its ok to behave like that..

I honestly don't like going back to the UK, though a few more trips to see mum are on the cards. We'll give Manchester a miss. Warrington seemed a much nicer place... but still.. compared to NL.. there's really no comparision.

Ahthankyew

Back to work

sigh....

I have had a lovely break, lots of lazy days and lots of coding. One or 2 of the huge list of houshold tasks done (I put lights...2, in the cooker hood).. But today its over back to work

On the good side we got our 2 year visa to let us visit the UK, which we'll be doing a little more often as mum's health isn't great. And our saving plan, tough though it is, is starting to show some benefits.. Pension is up, mortgage is down (20c a month woowww) and bank saving are increasing.. Our goal is to be well prepared for retirement.. in 7 years,.

7 years.... still a long time, its not of course but I wish it was this year. I find myself less and less willing to keep going here.. my own health isn't great, though self inflicted, food and booze and winter is starting to grip, making me feel less intereested.

But these long holidays always have me thinking ahead for the  new home in Thailand we are hoping for... But while the pension isn't there yet... in about 2 years we could jump, live off savings for 5 years and then get a smaller pension. But... we need to push for as long as we can, every year is a boost to the pension....gotta get to the end.

7 years... maybe 5 if we make some serious dosh, but still...back to work, no more dreaming..

sigh

Ahthankyew