Road Apples, #154

See Ya October!  I am damn glad October is over with.  Among other things...

• It's just generally a crappy month for me (see last post)
• I was  responsible for a major company learning event, which went well (thanks mainly to a wonderful group of folks), but which stressed the heck out of me
• I finished my first graduate course
• I started my second graduate course
• I had to facilitate a session with my larger team on our employee opinion survey results; that in and of itself would be pretty stressful, but two days before I was scheduled to be "on", events dictated that my plan would have to be mostly re-done

I could go on, but again, I'm just glad it's over with.  On the good news front, I lost about 11 pounds.  More on that in a moment.

Elections, #1...Speaking of things that I hope end soon, we have the general election on Tuesday.  I was in Hartford for a few days this past week, and it became infinitely clear that the governor's race there is far tighter than it is here.  Based on the advertisements I saw on television, the challenger for the governor's office, a Mr Foley, is either a genius with all the answers of the very incarnation of Satan himself.

Elections, #2...Speaking of character definition via the media, I've gotten a ton of advertisements for the two candidates running to be my state representative, namely Ms Cipriani (Democrat) and Mr Kaufer (Republican).  Here's the odd thing:  on the biggest issue I see in the race, namely local property taxes, both candidates have the same basic platform.  Now I'll note that I'm going to vote for Ms Cipriani, and here's why...

• She seems to have some governmental experience; I'm not sure of Mr Kaufer.  Now I don't necessarily think that this is a requirement, but at a local level I do think it helps.
• The GOP has been in control of the state legislature and the governor's office for a while now, and property taxes have actually gone up.  What makes me think that if Mr Kaufer is elected that will change?
• Mr Kauffer is touting the drug testing of welfare recipients as a campaign issue.  Here's my thought on that topic: show me the cost/benefit analysis of how such a program will work and make sense.  Also, if a welfare  recipient is taking drugs and as a result loses benefits, what happens to their their children?  This is one of those "appeal to the emotions of angry white people" platform planks that I find disturbing.

Weighty Matter...As noted above, so far since about the beginning or October I've lost about 11 pounds.  Why?  Well, I can list about a dozen reasons, including the fact that my weight has ballooned over the past 6-8 months.  If I keep going, this will be my 3rd major weight loss since I was 40.  All told, I've lost in the neighborhood of 120 pounds over the years, only to see it put back on.  I know, it's not healthy.  Like sleep, I have bad relationship with eating.  I know how to eat well, and when I focus I actually do make good choices.  The problem though is that it takes so much focus that it's almost overwhelming.  I need to find a better balance, and my tactic this time around is to do just that:  focus on the positive aspects of keeping my weight at a reasonable level, not focus on deprivation, and try to better understand how I am feeling when I am tempted to make bad eating choices.  I'm also using some technology this time around, namely an iOS app called "Tap and Track".  You can read about it HERE, and I highly recommend it.

Time Change...We "fell back" on Saturday night.  For the life of me I don't understand why we do this in the first place.  We're just shuffling the clock a bit.