Useless Conversation

[Salamok]

Not to be a dick, but the reason that diet and exercise don't work for many people is because those people don't stay with the plan.

Glad you said it. I was thinking the same thing.

Seconded, I'd also like to add that many times the plan people start out with is flawed as well.  When did a 20-30 minute walk cross over from being normal daily activity to an "exercise routine".  Sure I can understand that if you recently came out of a coma or are carrying around an extra 200 lbs it can be a critical part of your physical therapy, but if you are over 40 and trying to lose 20-40 lbs it probably isn't going to be near enough.

[ghost]

I tell people to a) eat complex carbs instead of simple carbs, b) eat more veggies, c) never drink their fruits/veggies, d) never eat a portion of anything larger than their fist, and e) drink adequate water.  Avoiding condiments also helps.  

For the record: I lift weights 5 days a week, run 6 days a week, and have a host of other activities (bike, golf, basketball, hike, etc).  Most people are aghast at how little I eat, yet I'm usually near 2500 Cal and often higher on active days. 

People have no concept of a proper portion nor do they eat enough fresh fruits/veggies. 

That's good advice.

What isn't good advice is the health gurus telling people they need to exercise for 30 minutes to an hour per day.  Who has time for that shit?  Single persons and unmarried folks with no kids.  Poor families with either a single parent or both parents working 40 plus hours per week don't have time to exercise and cook and spend time with their kids and get the proper amount of sleep and then exercise for an hour a day.  If there's going to be weight loss in this country it's going to have to be diet based and the first step on that track is to get rid of the subsidies for corn and other shit foods and put it into things that are actually healthy.  The second thing the government should do is to investigate some of these food companies the way they investigated the tobacco companies.  They've manipulated their shit food to make it addictive.  It's reprehensible.  

[Minvaren]

If you want to compromise, use AutoIt to grab the data from the excel sheet, manipulate it, then create a new workbook with the results.

Autoit means he'll have to learn the COM stuff behind Excel, which isn't exactly VBA, but I think is what he was trying to avoid.

...which confuses me, as the original request (selectively copy rows from tab to tab based on certain cell contents) would have been maybe 20 lines of VBA code, 2/3rds of it being setup and sanity checks.

On the recurring diet/exercise topic, I joke that the reason Atkins is so effective is that most people eat a boatload of carbs then go plop in a chair for several hours.   

[Sky]

a nice thing to do is keep a big bag of almonds or pecans around and when you feel hungry have a handful of them.

Oh gods no. While a handful of almonds a day is awesome, those things are extremely dense in calories. Making a habit of snacking on them adds up very quickly. I had to remove my bag of almonds from my desk at work because it was too easy to casually take in 400 calories of almonds. But do try the ones coated in cocoa powder...awesome.

[Lantyssa]

As a snack, the cocoa-coated almonds are awesome.  Pour out a small number in a bowl though, because it's entirely possible to eat the whole container.

I need salt on nuts, but I can mainline salt without moving my blood pressure.

[Nebu]

I take a handful of almonds and mix them with dried cranberries.  Yum!

Peanuts in the shell also make a great snack.  The shells slow you down. 

[RhyssaFireheart]

I take a handful of almonds and mix them with dried cranberries.  Yum!

Peanuts in the shell also make a great snack.  The shells slow you down. 

Not if you eat the shell.  Yes, I've done that, but not recently. 

I like the idea of adding almonds or pecans to the snack list, but good gods are they expensive now.  I tell the husband we're just going to have to buckle down and get some and then use sparingly.

Tonight the farmer's market starts up for the summer in one of the towns I drive through on my commute and it's an evening one (3-7pm) which makes it easy to go to.  I'm planning to stop tonight to see what they have since I kept missing it last summer.  I want fresh veggies, maybe we'll have homemade pizza for dinner - whole wheat crust, sauce, veggies.. yum.

[WayAbvPar]

Trader Joe's has a whole wall of trail mixes and nuts- you can find damned near any combo. My fav is almonds and cashews mixed with dried pineapple, cranberries, and cherries.

[Salamok]

I take a handful of almonds and mix them with dried cranberries.  

On the topic of dried fruit when did it become necessary to go to some hippy specialty store to find dried fruit w/o sugar added?

edit - to clarify "hippy specialty store" means any place that isn't costco.

[Merusk]

a nice thing to do is keep a big bag of almonds or pecans around and when you feel hungry have a handful of them.  Have you ever tried to eat a ton of almonds or pecans?  It's impossible.  They're too filling.  But they have to be raw, unsalted nuts.

I've tried this.. they're not filling enough for the expense & calories for me.   A $7 1/2 pound raw almonds was gone in 3 days.  Plus they weren't totally filling so I ate a ton each time.   I've moved on to fruits instead.

Same problem with trail mix.. zomg the calories in trail mix is ridiculous.

[Hammond]

One of the best ways to lose weight is to do two things:  1)  stop feeding your body so many sugar carbs, i.e. HFCS, cane sugar (this means your beloved Dr. Pepper), and 2) feed your body something that will make it feel full when you are hungry-  a nice thing to do is keep a big bag of almonds or pecans around and when you feel hungry have a handful of them.  Have you ever tried to eat a ton of almonds or pecans?  It's impossible.  They're too filling.  But they have to be raw, unsalted nuts.  The salt will drive you nuts if you get the salted ones.  The other nice thing about nuts is that they are reasonably high in fiber which means your body isn't going to get to all the calories in them.

Another nice food to eat is beans.  They are extremely high in fiber and should probably be eaten with every meal.  

Pecans are my downfall.  I buy them raw, unsalted and I can eat pounds of them.  Now almonds on the other hand a handful is enough for me.

[Nebu]

I like the idea of adding almonds or pecans to the snack list, but good gods are they expensive now. 

They're cheap compared to a triple bypass!   

[Soln]

Today, I am in a multi hour org post mortem.  "What went right, what can we do better?"  Pray for me.

[Rasix]

Last inspection on new house hit a semi-major problem.  FFS.     Good chance this scuttles the whole deal.  It being caught is good, but, man.. it's always something fucking this process up.

[Mazakiel]

One of the best ways to lose weight is to do two things:  1)  stop feeding your body so many sugar carbs, i.e. HFCS, cane sugar (this means your beloved Dr. Pepper), and 2) feed your body something that will make it feel full when you are hungry-  a nice thing to do is keep a big bag of almonds or pecans around and when you feel hungry have a handful of them.  Have you ever tried to eat a ton of almonds or pecans?  It's impossible.  They're too filling.  But they have to be raw, unsalted nuts.  The salt will drive you nuts if you get the salted ones.  The other nice thing about nuts is that they are reasonably high in fiber which means your body isn't going to get to all the calories in them.

Another nice food to eat is beans.  They are extremely high in fiber and should probably be eaten with every meal.  

Pecans are my downfall.  I buy them raw, unsalted and I can eat pounds of them.  Now almonds on the other hand a handful is enough for me.

I've done a lifestyle change to lose weight, and almonds/nuts don't seem to fill me up too well.  I end up either still hungry, or having eaten way more than I should have.  Apples have become one of my main snacks between meals. 

[Merusk]

Last inspection on new house hit a semi-major problem.  FFS.     Good chance this scuttles the whole deal.  It being caught is good, but, man.. it's always something fucking this process up.

Well you can't say that and then not drop what the problem is.

[Ironwood]

Seven Dead Hookers under the Patio.

[Chimpy]

Seven Dead Hookers under the Patio.

Infested with scorpions!

[Draegan]

I take a handful of almonds and mix them with dried cranberries.  Yum!

Peanuts in the shell also make a great snack.  The shells slow you down. 

I constantly have pecans and dried cranberries.  Fucking deeelicious.

[Lantyssa]

Well that's easy... make sure to feed them regularly and give them bug repellant.

[Sky]

I hate chipmunks so much. I wish the fox family was a bit faster, they've done a number on the rabbits and squirrels but the chirpy little assholes are still chirping. Also,

Well you can't say that and then not drop what the problem is.

[Rasix]

Last inspection on new house hit a semi-major problem.  FFS.    Good chance this scuttles the whole deal.  It being caught is good, but, man.. it's always something fucking this process up.

Well you can't say that and then not drop what the problem is.

They finished the roof during the monsoon season and did insufficient checks for moisture before sealing.  May need an entirely redone roof.  I'm imagining that isn't cheap, but these people had to know it'd come up.

[Hammond]

Last inspection on new house hit a semi-major problem.  FFS.    Good chance this scuttles the whole deal.  It being caught is good, but, man.. it's always something fucking this process up.

Well you can't say that and then not drop what the problem is.

They finished the roof during the monsoon season and did insufficient checks for moisture before sealing.  May need an entirely redone roof.  I'm imagining that isn't cheap, but these people had to know it'd come up.

eww so they find some black mold then?

[Selby]

Apples have become one of my main snacks between meals. 

Apples and oranges are something I eat every day.  Very filling.

[Ingmar]

Just don't compare them.

[Rasix]

Last inspection on new house hit a semi-major problem.  FFS.    Good chance this scuttles the whole deal.  It being caught is good, but, man.. it's always something fucking this process up.

Well you can't say that and then not drop what the problem is.

They finished the roof during the monsoon season and did insufficient checks for moisture before sealing.  May need an entirely redone roof.  I'm imagining that isn't cheap, but these people had to know it'd come up.

eww so they find some black mold then?

Nope, super scorpions.

[Samwise]

Last inspection on new house hit a semi-major problem.  FFS.    Good chance this scuttles the whole deal.  It being caught is good, but, man.. it's always something fucking this process up.

Well you can't say that and then not drop what the problem is.

They finished the roof during the monsoon season and did insufficient checks for moisture before sealing.  May need an entirely redone roof.  I'm imagining that isn't cheap, but these people had to know it'd come up.

eww so they find some black mold then?

Nope, super scorpions.

Never mind that trivial shit.  How's the lawn looking?

[Yegolev]

I don't know Ruby, but I do have Cygwin installed.  If it becomes important, I will just export to CSV and write something in bash or perl to sort it out, then import into Something.  In reality what I am doing is just occasionally filtering the main sheet and copying the pertinent data into the manager sheets.

You're really better off converting it to text and using something else sensible to process it.

If you want to compromise, use AutoIt to grab the data from the excel sheet, manipulate it, then create a new workbook with the results.

CSV is text...  My "something sensible" would probably be awk, in which case I would use space-delimited text, but the delimiter is hardly important.  Meanwhile, I have decided to ignore the issue.

I have not even taken the time to look into things which might work on (against?) Excel to do interesting things, but I will investigate AutoIt.  I am probably going to be taking on the role of performance tuning from a very old team member, in which case I'll be doing even more Excel things.

Today I attended a presentation by Nigel Griffiths on Advanced System Optimizer.  It's a neat tool in a version of AIX that we don't use right now. 

[ghost]

a nice thing to do is keep a big bag of almonds or pecans around and when you feel hungry have a handful of them.  Have you ever tried to eat a ton of almonds or pecans?  It's impossible.  They're too filling.  But they have to be raw, unsalted nuts.

I've tried this.. they're not filling enough for the expense & calories for me.   A $7 1/2 pound raw almonds was gone in 3 days.  Plus they weren't totally filling so I ate a ton each time.   I've moved on to fruits instead.

Same problem with trail mix.. zomg the calories in trail mix is ridiculous.

Try mixing your fruit with a handful of almonds.  Maybe that will do the trick.

[lamaros]

I never been anything other than slimish, I'm around 5'11 and most I've ever weighed is around 165. At the moment I'd guess I'm around 155-165.

I grew up with a macrobiotic diet (which was probably not entirely the best thing for me) and as a result I find that most stuff that is not especially great for me normally tastes like crap. If you don't have much processed sugar for most of your life then it isn't that exciting when you do have it. Even after 10-15 years of eating much more 'normally' I find rich and heavily processed foods unappetising. When I do binge on stuff, like a packet of corn or potato chips, I often feel sick and desire vegetables as a response.

I also have a somewhat obsessive personality, and will often forget to eat meals when I'm in the middle of doing things. I'm also not especially good at breakfasts.

I'd say that the latter probably contributes more to my current weight than the former... Not eating much seems pretty universal as a way of losing weight.

[Rasix]

Never mind that trivial shit.  How's the lawn looking?

Dug out and filled with chlorinated water.

Not going to happen though, sadly.  Apparently, the seller let their agent know that they will not be doing any repairs and want an answer by noon tomorrow.  Whole thing just went from "yay, new house in the neighborhood we wanted" to "well, fuck" in less than half a day.  With what we're paying, intransigence isn't a stance that's going to work, especially on big ticket items.

At times like this, I wish I drank. First world problems.

[Bunk]

Don't sweat it man, dealing with housing issues sucks and can be a major stress factor. It should be considering the money involved.

First time I tried buying a home, I had to back out when I realized it was going to need a new roof within the year and the owners wouldn't budge on price. six years later and I still daydream about the place, because it was f'n perfect otherwise.

[Sky]

So, new decking and shingles or were the trusses/structure damaged? For the right house (if you can swing it), it might be worth getting into anyway. They're legally bound (in NY anyway) to disclose the roof issue now, which might buy you enough time to have a couple roofers bid the project. My general contractor is a roof guy, so I tend to be a bit more easy-going about roof issues because I can get them fixed competently and relatively cheap, though.

[Salamok]

Don't sweat it man, dealing with housing issues sucks and can be a major stress factor. It should be considering the money involved.

First time I tried buying a home, I had to back out when I realized it was going to need a new roof within the year and the owners wouldn't budge on price. six years later and I still daydream about the place, because it was f'n perfect otherwise.

See if you were in Austin you would just buy that shit and wait for the next hail storm, anyone who has a roof older that 10 years here has probably just figured out a way to pocket the insurance money.

[Rasix]

So, new decking and shingles or were the trusses/structure damaged? For the right house (if you can swing it), it might be worth getting into anyway. They're legally bound (in NY anyway) to disclose the roof issue now, which might buy you enough time to have a couple roofers bid the project. My general contractor is a roof guy, so I tend to be a bit more easy-going about roof issues because I can get them fixed competently and relatively cheap, though.

It's a flat roof, so none of that comes into play I think.  The issue as I understand it is that the plywood was wet when it was sealed.  This is causing seams in the roof that will split/crack.  It currently has cracks that need to be repaired.  Due to this moisture being present this process will keep repeating itself as the seams appear and then eventually crack.  One solution was presented where they could do a partial re-do of the roof that would be a 4 year warranty and cost a few thousand.  The other option is a new roof.  The seller was opposed to even doing the most basic repairs on the current damage.  We would at least need the partial re-do because we can't be paying $500 every time the roof cracks and have to deal with whatever damage the leaking causes.

There were prior leaks and they did not disclose it.  I don't understand how they could think this wouldn't be an issue.

I mean, hell, this is front and center before other minor issues we had.  It's not like this house is in bad shape, but there's a few things here and there that they've neglected and would need to address.   Other things were not deal breakers.  They could say they don't want to repair a broken lock, sticking door, or even minor cracks in the adobe fence/wall, but this..

Anyhow, moving on.  It's just sad.  This is a neighborhood we really like (close to son's school, closer to work for me, less snakes/scorps, more central) and the house had a great floor plan and a pool.  It was pricey, but not out of our range completely and they weren't being dicks on the price.