Doh, read the instructions, dummy....

I realized when I got home and more closely examined the Blogger dashboard that posts sent from mobile are set to ''draft'' by default. So, my first attempt 'failed' because it (blogger) worked as designed. Doh!

So, expect a couple of belated, ''after the fact'', but contextually accurate blog posts before I finish this weekend.

''Fifty by Fifty'' - my weight loss / health goal

I know I owe everyone an update on our trip to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama, but I had to share some news.

As some of you know, I've set a goal to lose 50 pounds by age 50 - hence ''50x50'' or ''Fifty by Fifty'' I think 'publishing' your aims and goals in some way helps to keep you (or at least me) on track. To that end, I'm very pleased and proud to report that I'm down to 246.8 pounds as of today!

My starting weight was 261.5 pounds as measured by last visit to doctor. My blood pressure was borderline hypertensive and my cholesterol levels remained higher than desired. Something 'just clicked' and I've been 'on it' since early December. I'm keeping it simple and simply ''Being more active and eating less fat'' I've adopted a quasi-vegetarian diet and I'm currently up every morning between 5 am and 6 am working through a cross-training routine on elipitical machine, strectching and soon, free weight exercises with dumb bells.

As the old Nike campaign slogan suggested, 'Just Do It'

Is trying something for the first time.

In a word....WOW!

Wow, wow, wow! It's not even 8 am on Monday and I am just blown away by the festivities and feeling here in DC.

Saturday morning we woke up and meandered next door to the adjacent mall in Pentagon City and picked up some souvenirs of our visit for friends and family. Then, using our favorite and preferred mode of transportation for the weekend, the Washington Metro, we headed into the city.

I insisted that we pick up our commemorative SmartTrip cards right away and not miss out out on having and using while we were here. I'm glad we did because we heard they were 'sold out' online.

We then headed toward the capitol building and had a chance to get into the Library of Congress (at Cameron's request) just before it closed. You can only take picutues in selected areas, but trust me when I say, it was awesome. We saw the Gutenberg bible, looked over into the 'reading room' and spent time examining various maps of the world including the 1507 Waldseemuller

My dear friend Ava then picked us up and we toured the city including driving the parade route, passing by the new Native American Museum and scooting by the site of the actual inauguration. This is as close as we'll get to the podium, but, man, what a shot.

Sunday, we woke up and got a workout in at the hotel fitness center (I love my in-home Precor EFX, but I know which one I want to get next) and then headed off to church. We attended St. Augustine's Catholic church - the same church we attended when we lived in DC and the church where Coretha and I were married 20+ years ago! We then took the metro down to the ''We Are One'' concert that kicked off the weekend's events. When you see the scenes on TV and you see the Washington Monument off in the distance, imagine standing directly in front of the monument overlooking the scene and this is what you'd see


I'll try to be more timely with 'today's' post, and I'll upload all the pictures I'm taking - the good ones anyway - and include a link to them so you can see them, but again...wow!

A trip to history - we're in Washington, D.C. for inaugural events

Well I promised a few of you that I would blog about our trip so here goes...

Cameron, Coretha and I arrived safely sans my bag (which I checked at the last moment - it was good move as it wouldn't have fit in overhead on smaller plane, but it was a pain to have to wait for it to be delivered to hotel). It's all good now - bag as well as box we shipped arrived safely.

We're plotting our weekend now. I love D.C. from the time I lived nearby in Fairfax. So, I'm looking forward to 'just being here.' for a while.

I know we will attend the Jack and Jill of America, SE Region "Pink, White and Blue Inaugural Ball" on Monday, join our friends for parade inaugural viewing at Southern Company office and, we just found out, we'll be going to the Africa Group (Coca Cola?) 'Party on the Potomac. We need to verify date/location of that last one so stay tuned

Regardless of your preferred candidate in the past election, you have to appreciate the significance of this weekend's festivities and the historic events of Tuesday. I will treasure this forever.

It just works ... i hope? Pogoplug !

Based on this interview, this is on my Amazon Wish List as a 'must have'in 2009. It solves precisely the problem I've been looking to solve.

Happy New Year! A bit of fun to start the year...

I'm excited about a new year, a new job (still with IBM; hey, I'm ''lifer'' ... get over it (smile) and new places planned to visit this year (more on that later).

For now, please enjoy this bit of 'satire' summarizing the year that was 2008. There are no 'magic negro' bits in it, but I'm anxious to hear reactions from the few who watch / follow my sporadic blog posts. In my view, ''this is appropriate satire.''