Today marks 365 consecutive days of walking. My inspiration is Frank Fleming @NjTank99 who is currently at 545 days today. I enjoy seeing his daily video’s showing he’s walking every day in every form of weather. I can commiserate with Franks’ feelings about the long winter. Us walkers that are outside everyday experience all of the weather here in New Jersey. I think that consistent walking and achieving a full year without any missed days is a worthy goal. Try it. It’s a great challenge.
Below are monthly Fitbit exercise reports showing back in March of 2024 where I stopped missing exercise days.
My weight has changed from 263.9 lbs. average to 225.6 lbs. average.
I averaged 6.95 miles per day last year for a total of 2,534,74 miles.
This year I’m averaging 7.83 miles per day for a total of 649.9 miles.
I averaged 13,061 steps per day last year for a total of 4,780,480 steps
This year I’m averaging 14,758 steps per day for a total of 1,224,878 steps
For diet I’ve gone to primarily a dinner of salad with chicken as the protein. The salad has a light dressing some carrots, nuts, cheese, raisins, dried cranberry’s. Water for drink. A cup of coffee in the morning. Water all day. A single slice of whole grain buttered toast with some cheese for lunch after my morning walk. I should be looking at dropping the slice of toast also. I may have a handful of organic trail mix in the afternoon before dinner. Weekend is often similar. Anytime I’ve ordered burgers I always skip the bread. No pasta. I WILL have beers Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I’m sure that’s the primary reason I see a slight weight gain over the weekend and I’m ok with that.
Below is some data on what I’m doing exercise/weight wise.
September 8, 2021 – Exercise Update
I’m currently using three different walking routes. The one hour 30 minute walk is typically on Saturday and Sunday and the only walk of the day. I mix the 30 minute and 1 hour walks for two walks a day. I’m likely to start doing two one hour walks day. Any problems with recovery and I’ll drop back down to a combination of a one hour and a 30 minute per day.
1 hour and 30 minute walk1 hour walk30 minute walk
September 5, 2021 – Weight Update
Monthly weight update. Coming along nicely. Still to much weight to be noticed much but I’m hopeful it will show more soon.
August 6, 2021 – Walking Update
Took me a little longer using a shorter stride and slower pace to keep my calf from hurting. Worked pretty well.
August 5, 2021 – Monthly Weight Report
Happy to have lost a total of 25lbs in two months
July 20, 2021 – Resistance Bands
I’m using 30 minute YouTube video for exercise. https://youtu.be/L08vWPkMftQ Every element is done with no resistance band attachment needed. I’ve had to scale back my walking to once a day at the lower mileage as I’m dealing with some sort of hamstring upper calf strain. The bands were inexpensive and seem a better choice then some sort of combination dumbbells. The routines are challenging and I’m still working to try to get thru the whole 30 minute routine at the lowest band level.
July 14, 2021 – New Shoes
Both shoes were Sketchers. The ones on the left weren’t likely meant for daily walks but the were slip-ons and a size larger than my last shoes and I never had any issues as with previous shoes with the heal cup wearing out early. The once one the right were highly rated for walking.
July 11, 2021 – Wrist Weights Added
I had researched Amazon for something to add to my walks as I really need to work on my upper body beyond just walking
July 7, 2021 – Monthly Weight Report
June 15, 2021 – Combined Additional Distance and Multiple Walks Per Day
I’m pleased with the first monthly loss report of a total of 16.2 lbs. I know that it will likely be getter harder to lose that much weight each month. It’s apparent that looking at the graph that weekends are where I see a 3lb weight gain. I’m ok with that as I’m using the week to kill that gain and drive the weight down further.
June 6, 2021 – Doctors Visit
metformin is prescribed. Type 2 diabetes is possible. This was an eye opener. I’m hopeful with my upcoming visit in September with a new set of blood tests that my significant changes in weight, eating habits, and exercise will get me off this asap.
June 5, 2021 – New Bluetooth Scale
I’m using the KoreHealth KoreScale which I purchased from Amazon for $99. With an app running on my phone I weigh myself every morning and quickly see a tracking graph showing my progress.
So I’m a big fan of Q-Games the developers of the PixelJunk Monsters game. I’ve played the various versions over the last 10 years. I decided to purchase some 3D printed miniatures from their store https://shop.q-games.com/ . I chose the Chibi and the Tikiman to try to learn how to paint. Below are a few lessons learned as I explored the process of miniatures painting.
The miniatures arrive from Japan with a nice thank you note and a card detailing the suggested colors for painting.
I noted at the bottom of the card that Citadel Colors were used. My first challenge was buying the paints. I found through my research that Citadel sometimes changes the paint color names. Here is a chart I used to convert some of the colors. https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart
Here are the PixelJunk Monsters suggested colors I needed to change:
It’s a great addition for the close up detail of miniature painting.
Before I started painting I went back to the Q-Games store and printed out these full page color samples:
The larger print-outs were helpful when understanding the mix of colors on the miniatures. One image I wished I had was the back of each miniature. Especially with Tikiman deciding hair color and shield color.
A couple of items that I found useful. A jar with water with a straw for dispensing. A bottle cap to use for mixing and watering down the paint. Additional straws to draw paint out of containers and drop into the bottle cap for mixing. I didn’t want to dip my paint brush back into the paint and mix other colors in by mistake. Use a paper towel to always ‘unload’ your brush so it has less paint before you touch the miniature. I’ve found that starting with the larger areas of color first and then progressing to the smaller areas later is working best for me. I do have to go back to the larger areas and re-paint where my brush with another color overran.
Current progress:
I’ll likely buy more PixelJunk miniatures now that I think I have the hang of painting. I have my eye on the 3 piece classic tower set for $100. When I first saw the prices I was a little surprised at the cost. But then I took a look as some of the WarHammer miniatures where you have sheets of pieces that you have to assemble and I now understand the pricing as being fair for the quality and detail that PixelJunk is delivering.
I need to buy more brushes as I think different size brushes which are recommended may enable me to do a better job with some of the detail work.
I’ve helped out a neighbor who has a LG stove. The oven knobs are notorious for wearing out and breaking the poorly engineered plastic that surrounds a D post. Unfortunately LG and others want to charge anywhere from $35 to $40 per knob to replace the defective knob with another that will fail in a similar fashion.
There is a gentleman on the internet (http://lgknob.com/) who has manufactured a very fine metal replacement but it also expensive.
Below are a series of photos demonstrating how to resolve the problem with a $6.50 oven knob kit.
From Home Depot purchase a $6.50 knob replacement kit. It includes a number of various sized D post inserts. Select the size that will fit your LG oven knob D post
Close up of the LG knob and its broken post
LG knob with top and metal insert removed
The work to be done is to trim the hard plastic D insert to fit into the LG knob plastic and metal pieces
Using a utility knife, carefully trim one end to fit the LG pieces. Trim it so it is angled so that the leading edge will fit thru the holes and remain snug after fitting
Test fit a number of times until the insert is thru the hole and remains snug
Now that the D insert is fitted, we need to trim down the old plastic post that failed
Here you can see how the new D post sits and how much we need to trim the old post so the metal insert meets the top of the knob
I’m using a oscillating tool to cut thru the plastic post
Progress on timing the post
Checking the fit. Trim many times and keep checking fit
Having trimmed down the post the metal insert now meets the top of the know and can be screwed back together
Bottom of the knob with the screws back in place and the new harder plastic insert ready to be installed onto the stove.
My take? I’ve been interested in craft beer for about 5 years now. I love the differing taste of the variety of craft beer. I’ll never be mistaken for a ‘hipster’. I found the commercial disturbing on a number of levels. The ad tried to set up an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ via both drinkers versus sippers and product taste. I’m not sure if anyone will be swayed by that commercial. I know I won’t be changing my selections.
On July 3rd, according to the online NJ courts public access the judge passed sentence on the defendant. The jury that I was on, out of the 8 counts, convicted the defendant of 2 counts. One count of 2nd degree aggravated assault and one count of 2nd degree eluding. Very difficult to read the online system but it looks like the defendant had 216 jail days as a result of not making bail and was sentenced to 5 years by the judge. Don’t see anything about the jail time going towards time served or parole or probation…
I believe for what we learned that the defendant appeared to have done, I’m satisfied that justice was served. I feel bad for the two women that didn’t want to convict the defendant of anything as I’m sure if they learn of the sentence they are going to be devastated.
I’ll probably check the records in another month to see if there are any updates.
Tim Hitchings 