Working Out

August 27 - When was the last time you worked out?

2014 - Just finished an hour of freest 15 minutes ago (entered on 8/28)

2015 - It's been awhile. Not counting freest. (entered 8/30)

2016 - Every day my commute gives me a workout. I've also started doing Wii Fit again.

2017 - I went jogging last night. (entered Sept. 17)

2018 - I did freestep yesterday. Nothing yet today. (entered Feb. 15, 2020)

Want to track small aspects of your own life over the next five years? Get this book: Q&A A Day: 5 Year Journal

My poor, neglected blog

For not having a commute anymore, life seems to have picked up in terms of crazy busy and I'm not even exactly sure how or why.

I've been at the new job for nearly a month now and it's just flown by.  Even today I thought it was Wednesday and it turned out to be Friday.  Is work supposed to be this fun?

It's been incredibly hot these past few days.  Miserably warm at night to the point where it's been difficult sleeping.  Or difficult just laying there wishing I were sleeping.

We got an XBox this week.  I haven't had a chance to play with it that much, but I figured working for a video game company, I surely out to own something newer than the dusty Wii.  

I feel like I've been barely keeping track of everything and I think it's the lack of sleep.  It's been making me not that interested in doing very much.  Even this will probably be short.  I'm writing as I exercise, but my brain doesn't want to go the trouble be creative, insomuch as random thoughts from my head could be considered creative.

I'm back on my diet and tracking my calories (again) after too long a gap.  Still have 8 pounds to go.  It's taking forever because I haven't been taking it seriously.

I think I'm going to stop here. The act of trying to form coherent sentences is making me sleepy. Maybe that's what I'll do if I can't sleep tonight - come on here and write some more.

Nintendont (A Work-Related Post)

The Nintendo Wii was a groundbreaking device when it was released. In some ways, it probably still is. For years, we used it every day for Wii Fii. Now, we mostly use it for Netflix and occasionally YouTube. I use the balance board downstairs for freestep 60-90 minutes a day and if life ever gets less crazy I'll get back to doing some yoga regularly.

While it's commonplace on systems today, it was an early pioneer in online connectivity - you could email between Wiis, it could get system updates online, you could even download games and apps. And when it needed to tell you something, this really cool blue flashy thing would happen with the case around where the optical disc went.

But then the iPhone came out. And Nintendo seemed to completely ignore it. The game had changed. The iPhone (probably unfairly getting more credit here than it deserves) showed mainstream users some pretty cool new tricks:

• Regularly delivered updates
• Lots of apps due to making it easy to create apps and giving them a marketplace to sell them inexpensively (or give them away)
• Quick, casual games
• Limited multitasking
• Better and better graphics
• Eventually an ecosystem of related devices (iPod, iPad, etc.)

But the Wii sat there firmly resistant to the change happening around it. Sony and Microsoft continued to innovate and Nintendo said "Nope, we're not playing that game." and the Wii sat there, looking less and less innovative.

Fine, we thought, maybe the Wii's replacement would address all of those concerns. Maybe there was just enough drawbacks to the Wii (like limited graphics processing) to make continuing to enhance the platform difficult, unpleasant, unenjoyable, whatever. Eventually the blue flashy coolness came to mean bad news or annoyance, used to try to promote new products or tell us about features they were cutting:

Eventually it's reasonable to stop supporting old platforms, whether that's Minitel in France (1978-2012 - still had 10 million customers in 2009) or Windows XP from Microsoft (2001-2013, still the 2nd. most used Windows operating system).

And frankly, I'm not sure there's anything I'll miss.

But it's a reminder:

Plan your support and maintenance. You're not just having a child, you're raising that child - there are ongoing costs.

Plan your exit strategy. My Ford Sync tells me I get three years of free service, then they might charge me. I'm hoping they won't, but they could. And if I'm paying for it, there's probably a better chance it will be around longer. (Minitel would have been gone a lot sooner if it were free. Granted, also something better - the web - came along.)

Learn from the ever-changing world. The Wii U could have been a backwards-compatible upgrade (Wii 2 or Wii 2013) with better graphics and sound that still played all the existing games. But more importantly, the Wii ecosystem could have been opened up to the marketplace allowing for the easy creation of games and apps with Nintendo taking a cut of every sale.

Don't be stubborn (or appear stubborn). The Wii had a proprietary optical disc drive, sort of. I think some hackers proved years ago that you could get a Wii to play CDs, but Nintendo wasn't having any of that, in part because they didn't want all the extra wear and tear on the drives of people using it to play movies. Microsoft's original XBox used a competitor to Blu-ray that turned out to be unpopular in the marketplace, future XBoxes switched the the more popular standard. Apple created stores to help it address customer problems with broken devices.

I have fond memories of my NES and N64 and of the early days of my Wii. I want to cheer Nintendo on. But I can't. Sometimes an underdog proves it doesn't belong in the race because it is so clearly in the wrong weight class.

And I don't think it had to be that way.

See also:
How App Stores Changed How We Buy Software for Better or For Worse (Lifehacker)

check your six

I kept forgetting to weigh-in. Or I'd have a off-day the day before I was planning to weigh-in. I wanted to weigh-in on the Wii for consistency, but between forgetting and the off-days, it just wasn't getting done.

So after a long delay, I decided to just weigh-in on the old scale in our bathroom. I am down six pounds from my last weigh-in.  It measures in half-pound increments and I weighed-in at 151. My previous low (using the Wii) was 150.8.  That means I'm just about as low as I've been since probably sometime in college.

If the pattern holds true, though, I'll lose three more pounds and then give up.

Time to break the pattern.

Cutting the Cord, three weeks in

Canceled DirecTV yesterday. When Lori called to cancel, they asked why.  She said we were trying to save money and they offered to continue the subscription, but for $30 less per month.  So if you have DirecTV, definitely call and try to cancel.

Last week DirecTV's DVR didn't record Survivor for some reason. We plugged in the laptop and went to CBS.com and watched it.  This week it recorded fine.  We're watching tonight.  It'll be interesting to see tomorrow if it will let us watch recorded stuff off the DVR or not.  We made a list of everything that was on it.  When we turn it on this morning, it just says that nothing's authorized, so we can't get to recordings on the DVR or any channels, not that this was a surprise. The iPhone app registers an "unknown error" - guess they never bothered to write error handling for lapsed accounts. The DirecTV2PC app on our laptop also loads up, shows the shows and then responds with a generic "An error has occurred." alert if you try to play anything. Not surprised, but thought it was worth a shot.

Thanks to the way CenturyLink and DirecTV do their billing, we haven't purchased our Roku yet. We had to pay for this month and then wait to figure out who's going to send us a refund.  When I had been researching the Roku, I started getting ads from Amazon advertising it for $10 less than it was listed on their site.  But when I'd click through the ad, it would show the full price and not the advertised price. An email this morning from DirecTV confirms end of service, but it's all about additional ways they might bill you for more stuff.

Hulu Plus charges sales tax. Whatever. Still, a little bit of a surprise.

Our daughter's had frustration with the Wii remote going to sleep while she's watching Netflix.  She's not remembering to wake it up and getting deeply frustrated when her little brother interrupts her and she wants to pause it or rewind a little bit.  Often the Wii will need to be restarted or the Airport Express will need to be restarted before it will play well without stuttering or the app crashing.  May have to move the router and printer over and wire in the Wii directly or try to encourage more devices to plug in downstairs.  Or buy another Airport Express, but that's a last resort.  (We have to keep unplugging the router and plugging it back in before we print, so maybe it's just a problem with the refurbished router.)

Our big TV was someone's cast-off about 8 or 9 years ago and they had lost the remote. Thanks to Sony and Samsung's website, it was super easy to set up the Blu-Ray and VHS remotes to control the TV.

Cutting the Cord, 2 weeks in

Ok, so we're firmly committed to cutting the cord. Ironic since there is no cord because it's satellite that we're doing away with, but so perhaps we're dissing the dish.

Netflix - We signed up for the Netflix free trial and we've been loving it. Watching TV on my iPad has totally changed my habits, though not always for the best. I watch TV while doing a lot of my chores now, but sometimes I don't move as quickly because I've been watching the screen. I discovered and watched all of The IT Crowd and have started watching Battlestar Galactica and Archer. The profiles are pretty neat.  Netflix on our Blu-Ray player doesn't work because it doesn't support the resoluton of our TV.  Thanks for that Samsung.  Netflix on the Wii works well, but earlier today there were too many devices connected to the Airport Express and it couldn't connect to Netflix. Had to put some stuff in Airport Mode before it would connect. Will have to keep an eye on that see if we need to move the Airport Express and hardwire it.  We've also encountered the issue where Rachel watching something in the living room and Lori watching something in the kitchen and I couldn't watch something on the iPad because you can only do two streams at once.

Hulu Plus - I haven't really used it, but Lori has. She complains that there's still a lot of commercials in The Voice.  They give you an entire week of free trial.  How magnanimous of them.  Apparently all children's shows are commercial free, that's cool. So the trial's already over so we got our first charge for that.

Amazon Prime - haven't used it much even though we've had it for over a year now.  We just save money on the free shipping and discounts on recurring shipments.  It's difficult to find things and it's a mix of free and paid and even if it's free to stream, it shows purchase options so you have that "wait... am I about to buy something" panic that comes with having one-click purchasing turned on.

DirecTV - we're deleting stuff we know we won't get to before we cancel. And that is becoming a bit of a challenge in and of itself. The contract ends 10/23 but the next bundle payment to CenturyLink is 10/20.  So we have to pay for another month of DirecTV and then call and cancel and wait to get a refund.  So might need to wait on the Roku box so as not to destroy the budget.

What we haven't done yet is sat downstairs together to watch stuff in a non-DirecTV way except for the few random things via the laptop, usually when the DirecTV DVR fails to record or corrupts the recording. It'll be interesting when we do make the switch-over.  Bought an extra power cord for Lori's laptop so we can more easily move it.

After that, then we'll take a hard look at cheaper cell phone options. And then the security system nd local phone line - you're next.

Cutting the Cord, Day 1

At our last house, I literally cut the cord. The cable TV to the house was strung from a high pole near the back of our house into a tree, and then at an angle down to the corner of the house. It was unsightly. The power line was also unsightly, but it was more to the side over the garage so it was less obvious. I cut the cord at the house, wound it back to the property line, cut it again and threw it in the trash. We'd never have cable. Satellite TV was good enough for us. When we moved here, we assumed being on the north face of a hill covered with trees that satellite coverage was impossible, not to mention the frequent overcast skies, so we went with cable. Later a salesman convinced us that satellite TV was in fact possible.  So I've had cable or satellite for the past 21 years. I shudder to think how much money that's cost.

We are going to attempt to "cut the cord" and give up cable/satellite. We've had enough of the high prices and paying for stuff we don't want. Did you know, whether you watch it or not, over $5 of your bill each month goes to ESPN?

We've inadvertently been preparing ourselves for this for some time now - a few summers ago when nothing was on, our friends loaned us DVDs of Vampire Diaries and Bones. We binged on those and then Firefly and really enjoyed the ability to watch a single show night after night - it was continuity in our crazy lives. And then when the new season started, we ended up doing that with most shows - letting a lot of episodes build up before we'd watch that show. It also made the experience even easier - instead of remembering the storylines and plot points of a lot of shows at once and having to wait a week to see stuff progress.

Week 26 (Final)

Sunday afternoon - I stayed home with the children this morning instead of going to church (details below). Ended up getting quite a bit done.  Completed everything except for 20 items. Some of them can't be done until tonight and some just keep getting pushed from week-to-week so I need to make an effort to get to them this week because I'm tired of carrying them.

This week:

• Schedule: A quiet week at home and at work, as far as my calendar is concerned. Illness has forced us to cancel weekend plans.
• Family: Spent Thursday evening with Rachel decorating and wrapping Lori's gifts. Now I have to wait until her birthday for her to open them. I guess I like wrapping stuff last-minute better.
• Reading: Fast Company Oct. 2013, Putting Jesus in His Place, Aliens in the Gift Shop, The Final Summit, Reader's Digest Sept. 2013, Days of Blood and Starlight
• Simplification: Cleaned up my inbox? Not that it's staying clean. Recycled some stuff at work. 
• Diet & Exercise: One day staying under my calories. Will be over on Monday and Tuesday.  Still just over 10 pounds above my goal. I've been here before. I've been much closer before.  I was noticing this morning at my weigh-in that I've had Wii Fit for over 1,600 days. I'm lighter, but then I don't use that consistently, I ought to be a lot lighter at this stage.

Tasks This Week:

• Sunday: 10 completed, postponed 5 (11 planned)
• Monday: 36 completed, 7 postponed (31 34 planned)
• Tuesday: 21 completed, 18 postponed (34 35 39 planned)
• Wednesday: 29 completed, ? postponed (33 35 50 planned)
• Thursday: 26 completed,  27 postponed (29 30 33 55 planned)
• Friday: 21 completed, 32 postponed (23 28 52 planned)
• Saturday: 45 completed, 35 postponed (26 29 30 35 62 planned)
• Sunday: 46 completed, 20 postponed (23 25 26 29 55 planned)
• Total: 233 completed (210 208 181 160 139 113 55 20 not done)
• Once and Done: 84 92 79 73 63 54 47 33 16 tasks not done
• May Repeat (only counted once): 12 13 12 11 1 task not done
• Daily: 15 16 17 16
• Can Be Done Early (might still repeat): 55 61 54 51 47 44 42 25 15 tasks not done
• Nice to Have: 141 148 141 139 138 136 135 tasks on the list

Week 18 (Final)

Sunday evening wrap-up: Completed quite a few this week. The weekend was clear, which is unusual. There's a few things that I got checked off that I only partially completed, so I need to put them into next week to get them done.

Progress:

• Completed this week: 314
• Sunday: 19 items completed
• Monday: 40 items completed
• Tuesday: 33 items completed
• Wednesday: 35 items completed
• Thursday: 26 items completed
• Friday: 35 items completed
• Saturday: 67 items completed
• Sunday: 59 items completed

Week 16 (Final)

Sunday, 5:30 pm (Final) - gonna close it out. That will allow me to start planning next week. So, I wasn't ruthless enough this week. Need to do repeating tasks less often and do even fewer non-repeating tasks. Also, a number of tasks got added this week that weren't originally on the plan. That's to be expected, that's life, right? Anything else completed tonight will count towards next week.

So in the end, 203 items completed.

Monday: 45
Tuesday: 46
Wednesday: 21
Thursday: 19
Friday: 29
Saturday: zero (some checked off on Sunday)
Sunday: 43

June Plug

I'm relieved that this month is over. It's been a busy month. Of course, in this case, it's nothing but an arbitrary demarcation because I don't see things slowing down. As always, I'm trying to adjust to rate-limit the chaos, but it's been hard this weekend and into the next two weeks. We're in a bit of a heat spell here. Other places have it hotter, but we don't live in those places and those places are overall better equipped to handle it - they have air conditioning. I am really grateful to have a car with really good air conditioning for the first time in years, but the house is probably best described as miserable. Normally, I'd be able to escape to the office, but next week there's 2 days of holiday and then I have a week of vacation after that. Oh, well, can't be helped. Somewhere in there I'll have to acclimate because otherwise I will do that thing where you die from lack of sleep.

But, still, yeah, it feels like a little bit of a relief to be past June. As soon as I admit that, I come back to the thoughts of the first paragraph but if I allow myself to entertain them, we could be here for a long time.

So...

The Big Elements

Deleting the Cat

So ATAD (A Thing a Day) is all about removing clutter from one's life in the pursuit of simplification, right? One of today's things was removing Carol the cat from the Wii Fit Plus screen. It would remind me every so often that it has been a long time since she had done a weigh-in (to which I'd respond "that's because she's dead" to Lori's chagrin) and the Wii would also remind me on her birthday making me sad.

May Done

It's hard to believe it's been another month. I'm tired, so very tired. Today, but in general as well.

It's late, so I'm going to make this quick.

The Big Elements

Simplify - I fell off the wagon a little bit, but I think I'm back on. Little nibbles are the way to go, keep tossing stuff, keep cleaning. A little at a time. Didn't have a summit with the family, but getting better with the calendar.

Diet/Exercise - not much this week, but overall, 39.05 miles completed this month. Got a nice email from RunKeeper noting that. Also been doing some Wii Fit each day. Still haven't reached my goal.

Work - It's been a good month. Holy cow crazy busy. But good. Not much to say.

Week 5 (Final)

Sunday

Weight (Wednesday): 154.3 (9.3 to go)
Lose-It: 1,662 calories available; N/A consumed; N/A earned exercise; N/A remaining for the day.
Exercise (week): Jumping Jacks: 300 // Situps: 130 // Pushups: 130 // Walk: 4 (11.2 miles)

Remember the Milk: Today: 0/84; Week: 0/442
Email: 49 (13+36) // Feedly: 151 // TED Talks: 13

Reading: Fast Company May 2013 (100 of 121); Fast Cpmpany Dec. 2012/Jan. 2013 (completed); Inc. May 13 (57 of 114); Inc. Dec. 2012/Jan. 2013 (99 of 112); I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 (113 of 390)

10:12 pm - Good week.  So... what I learned:
(1) I need to look at the calendar before planning what I want to try to get done in a day.  If I won't be home in the evening, thinking I can get anything done is silly.
(2) I'm not allowing for fun - playing games with Rachel or just spending time laying on the floor while Ben jumps on me.
(3) Letting the daily recurring items prevent me from getting to the non-daily items (therefore not making any headway).
(4) Items that aren't specific enough - need to make them more specific.
(5) I am overpromising and underdelivering.  I'm the customer, so all I'm doing is disappointing myself.
(6) I can't sleep in.  I need the time in the morning to get some stuff done.  Otherwise, some things I just need to kick off the list if I don't do them before work.
(7) I need to consult with Lori about my plans.  If they don't match hers, it's a recipe for frustration for one or both of us. I gave her a list of the big items I've been postponing and she noted all the ones she wants to see done in May (and by the same token all the stuff

This was my third day of not tracking my calories.  That was stupid.  I feel like Friday-Sunday of next week will also be a problem.  I guess I need to work to come in under my calories by quite a bit Monday-Thursday and do my next weigh-in on Friday morning.

So I've consulted the calendar and I know what's coming up this week.  I haven't fully aligned my plans to the week yet, but I'm at least aware.  I'll adjust further as the week progresses.  I have a plan for the week and for the month.  It's not perfect, but this week was quite helpful.

Week 3 (Final)

Sunday

9:11 pm - So it was more difficult to do these updates this week, but I've definitely internalized keeping mail and Feedly up-to-date and relying on Remember the Milk to make sure stuff gets done.  My observation this week, however, is that now I need to plan more at the start of the week to make sure I've chosen the right things to get done that week because I will always have more on my To Do list than I have time to do.

In the end, I came in under my caloric budget, but I was over by quite a bit one day for Date Night.  I got a lot of reading done but I couldn't get to bed as early as I wanted to.

So I finished the week with 140 situps and pushusp and 500 jumping jacks and completed 386 tasks.

The start for next week is 224 but I will remove some or postpone out and also some will get added as the week goes along, but I won't get into that until next week, unfortunately.  Today just didn't go as I thought it might, but that's my own fault.

The good news is that I feel more in control.

Week 2 (Final)

Sunday

7:28 am - I know it's not the standard around here to put Sunday at the end of the week, but it's nice to be able to end the week with two days off from work in a row.  Especially if a lot of what I'm tracking is stuff I can't really tackle until the weekend.   I overslept again.  Ben was up in the middle of the night so I relocated to the family room to sleep on the couch and the alarm I've been using on my sleep timing app is too rhythmic when it's too low, it ends up helping me sleep longer instead of waking me up.  I guess I need to go back to the basic alarm.  Oh well.  Rachel's on track and Ben will be up soon so we're close to back on track.  Lori's singing in both services so we have to drive separately and she has to be there earlier so I have to get the little ones up and ready.  And I have to stop and get gas on the way to church.  Argh.

1:40 pm - It's turned into a quiet and nice day.  It looks very pleasant outside, but it's a bit cold.  After first service, Ben and Rachel and I went to the store to buy a few things.  We were in no hurry, so we meandered and had a nice time.  Then we came home and they snacked.  Then Lori came home and made lunch and she and I had a nice lunch.  Rachel didn't come out of her room to join us and Ben was taking a rest in his crib.  I will probably spend a little time outside today at least putting dandelions, but I've got more than enough to do inside.   Just read a great thing in Decisive that's really easy to put into practice.  Not our nature, but really makes a lot of sense: "Assume Positive Intent" - if something doesn't make sense (especially at work), assume the person has a positive reason for doing it - try to figure that out and you'll learn more about them (and possibly your own relationship with them).  One of the examples was a person who wrote really short emails - maybe they were trying to be efficient with their time and respect your time.  (And maybe sending them long, flowing emails might actually feel disrespectful or inconsiderate.)  It was about breaking out of a bias.  Another example was if a person thought their spouse was selfish, it was easier to spot selfish behavior in the future and easier to overlook or discount generous actions.  In this case, they recommended a relationship diary where you were only allowed to write positive things.  Suddenly they realized their spouse wasn't selfish and actually did quite a bit.  (Same "conversely" fits there - not in the book, but might make the spouse realize that they could be doing more themselves.)  So, yeah, Assume Positive Intent.  API.

9:33 pm - I found myself speaking harshly more than I'd like today, especially at Ben.  He got into a lot today and repeatedly did things he wasn't suppose to.  Harsh words don't affect him anymore, so I need to stop using them.  I was also at odds a lot with Rachel today.  It's a bit of a struggle.  Despite that, I'm happy with the week.  I got some work done in the yard today.  The work week went well, much better than I expected.  I guess I can take API to heart.  I did not get as much cleaned in the room as I wanted to, but I don't think I made anything messier.  Small steps to simplify things where I can in a busy, busy life.   I'm carrying forward a lot of To Do list items, but in the next few days I'll move some of them out of next week because I might as well admit I won't do them next week either.  Permanently moved the Wii Fit upstairs.  Will probably get more use.  Wish we'd bought two.

Weight (Saturday): 158.3 (13.3 to go)
Exercise (this week): Six walks (two were for meetings) - 12.46 miles total (no weekend walks)
Calories Today - Allowed (1,688) minus consumed (1,222) plus Exercise (415) = Under by 881 (under 3,325 for the week)
Jumping Jacks (cumulative): 100 150 (need to do more of these next week)
Sit-ups (cumulative): 20
Pushups (cumulative): 20

Chores To Do: zero (93 moved to next week)
Chores Done This Week: 268
Email: 53 40 38
Feedly: 12 zero
Reading: Inc. Magazine, March 2013 (page 22)
Reading: Decisive (87 115 of 292)
TED Talks to watch: 42 35

14. Food #JanBlogaDay

I'll take the doughnut pizza.
(You can keep your PBR, you silly, dirty hipsters.)

Ah, food.  My mortal enemy.  Can't live without it, can't live with myself after when I enjoy it.  I have an interesting dieting plan.  I will pick a goal, I will work until I've come within 3 pounds of the goal, and then I will abandon the goal and gain lots of weight.  Not sure why.  I'm like the snail in the well - climb up three inches each day, slip back two each night.  I'm making progress, but it's incredibly slow.

We've assembled into a team for the quarter and one of the big topics at our kick-off meeting was about what caused someone to have to bring doughnuts - what kind of rule violation.  I begged that they keep that to a minimum and they tossed something back at me about a fruit of the spirit being "self-control" and I threw something back about not being wired that way and how they shouldn't lead me into temptation.  I'm not sure it worked and I just became the cranky guy who doesn't like doughnuts.  Only, anyone who really knows me knows that's really, really, really not the case.

satisfied

Yeah, every post now comes with the "It's been too long since I posted." note.  Bah.

I'm on vacation, sort of.  I took the week off from work while Lori and Rachel are at VBS because last year Ben did not do well in the nursery for three hours while I was at VBS in a role that didn't have much to do except during the opening and closing. (Attempts to find or make work didn't really amount to much.)

So this year, I decided I would take the time off, spend it with Ben and do therapy-type stuff.  I always say I wish I had more time to do that, so this was the perfect opportunity to do it.

And what a great day it was.  

simplicity

Onward, the series continues.

My last entry bugged me for awhile but I had trouble figuring out why. Finally, I realized that it was because it was more of a list (and probably incomplete) than any sort of examination. Oh well. Perhaps it was one that's harder for me to pin down.

Anyhow... Today's is a good one, though one I won't spend a lot of time on because it's a variant on this Year's motto of "simplify" -- simplicity.

To me, simplicity is the opposite of mentally taxing. That's something that just works, that's the absence of stress, it's a calmness of being exactly what's needed and nothing more. It's not dumbed down, but it's also not veiled, hinted or obtuse. I realize that to get there is actually more work, but it's a place I want to be.

Day 46: 155.9

Overall, it is definitely harder to get Free Step in on weekends.  I brought the Wii upstairs and had a chance to get more exercising in.  Did some other exercises as well.  Hopefully we'll get off this plateau soon.  So instead of just entering in the oatmeal as usual, I scanned recently and discovered that it was coming up 20 calories less than I had been entering.  Sure enough, at some point they'd changed it and there it was pure as day right there on the box 160 instead of 180.  Go figured.