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There’s been a linkstorm on Twitter, and by linkstorm, I mean a metric ton of really good links to excellent material that I’d like to share in either a roundup post of some sort, or expand upon myself. Problem is, nothinglike Evernote that’s accessible where I can file them away for later reading or reference. Typing URLs into Drafts on one of the iThings just isn’t cutting it. I might have to start using WordPress for this purpose. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to execute that yet, and it’s not like I need another project, but this one could turn out to be helpful to other people so I might give it a go. Results/progress will happen over at here.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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Last week was absolutely amazing. I got in three workouts instead of the five I wanted, but despite that, I had a 2.8 pound loss on the scale, took a total of 41,333 steps with an average of 5,905 per day, walked a total distance of 17.46 miles, burned a total of TOTAL CALS BURNED
14,155 calories with total calories in versus out being -7217, and managed to have an average fall-asleep time of seven minutes. Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you for playing, Lupus.

This week is lighter on the workout front so far. I didn’t get one in yesterday, and will not be getting one today because I’m in the middle of the Tishah B’Av fast, but there’s still tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. And I will get a workout in on at least Thursday. If I lose a pound this week, I will be at the 25-pound loss mark, which will get me a new lucky charm to add to the collection. As members of Weight Watchers, we get little charms and keychains when we reach certain milestones along the journey. They aren’t the be-all/end-all for me, but they’re kind of cool.

No NBBA World Series for me this year, which kind of makes me sad, because the amount of steps and activity would have been totally awesome. But I’m gearing up for next year, because I’m sure everyone’s having lots of fun and I love being a part of that.

I am going to love looking back on this post in a year and seeing how far I’ve come. I’ll have reached goal by then. And by this time next year, I plan to not be living in Augusta. It’s been real, and it’s been fun, but the public transportation sucks for a town that is the second largest metropolis in Georgia, (hell, let’s face it, it sucks even by small-town standards), and I think it’s about time to go.

I’m planning to get a haircut this week, because I seriously need one and it’s time to take some new pictures. If there’s enough after the snip, I’ll be donating it to Locks of Love, which is an amazing organization that helps create wigs for people suffering from hair loss because of cancer. I haven’t had a haircut in years, so I’m pretty sure there will be plenty.

I’ll end here for now, but I’ll be back next week with more personal awesomeness. Until next time.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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Apparently this weeks extra workouts have paid off. My Fitbit now says that my average is 4000 steps per day instead of 2000 steps per day. This is a good thing. The scale also says I have lost 0.8 pounds, and since it’s showing a loss, I will give it the benefit of the doubt for the time being and assume it’s not lying like it usually does.

I managed three workouts instead of my planned five. On Thursday I was extremely tired after the Charlotte trip, and on Friday we skipped our usual visit to the gym because Denise and Barbara spent the day doing hard labor at Barbara’s new house. The brought Wil along for the ride as well, and if the tales are to be believed, he was actually useful. I haven’t seen Barbara’s new digs yet. One of these days I will make it over there.

I have a short appointment tomorrow but am hoping to start the week with a workout and continue with the additional four so I can get all five in and have a more significant loss when we have our weekly date with the scale, enemy of mankind that it is. I will also spend some time with the Seven ap this week, because I need to spend some time strengthening my core among other muscle groups.

One of the reasons I’m ramping up the workout schedule is because I want to reach my goal weight somewhat quicker. I’ve been doing well over the last two years, but I would love it if I could give myself the end-of-the-secular-year present of being at my goal weight. This will require being very good in the food department, and so I will also begin tracking what I consume more diligently this week. It’s not like I have an excuse to not track, because the Fitbit app makes it so easy to do.

I’ll end this post with a bit of humor from yesterday’s Weightwatchers meeting. One of the questions that was discussed was whether or not food distracts us when we’re in social situations from the company of the friends around us. I had to smile and say no to this. Hunger distracts me, but food has never distracted me from having a good time, and, let’s face it, food, drink, and good times always go good together.

Until Next week.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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A new week has begun. The recharge was wonderful. I read a bit, played some games, caught up on the weekly Torah portion along with the portion from the Prophets (haftarah), and generally had a restful day. I hope your day was everything you hoped it would be. And I would like to take the time to wish everyone a good and full week, with plenty of prosperity, goodness and sweetness, however you define those things. I mention goodness and sweetness because what is good for us isn’t always sweet, (see: Getting a shot, having a good advisor or mentor take steps to help keep the ego in check), while what is sweet isn’t always good (see: chocolate, eating a fabulous meal that contains a ton of calories). So I hope everyone gets enough sweetness to make things enjoyable, while at the same time getting enough goodness to balance things out. For me, it’s time to start on some work.

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Another week has finally ended. Work is done. It’s time for twenty-five hours of recharge, spiritual and otherwise. I hope everyone in the U.S. Has had a fun and meaningful July 4th and that your weekend is restful and enjoyable. May there be plenty of things for your grills to cook, even if you use gas instead of the proper charcoal.

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As a rule, I can’t complain. My ears work fine, and I haven’t had any problems since 2005. That streak is apparently over. I woke up Friday morning with muffled hearing on the left side, and pain. Out of the blue, because everything was working fine on Thursday, but whatever. So I called the doctor, went in in, learned that I had an ear infection, and afterwords went and got anti-biotic eardrops and anti-biotic pills. Things stayed the same for the weekend, but that sort of thing takes time, so I figured no big deal. Until yesterday morning. Now both ears are hosed. I can’t hear out of either of them, so I’m having to do everything using a braille display because no sound, or very little, and it’s gotten worse. I could still hear sort of yesterday, but it was hard. But by yesterday afternoon, absolutely nothing, and both ears are swollen and there’s lots of pain shooting through my head. Admittedly, I freaked out a little, because I depend on my hearing, a lot. So it’s really hard to deal with complete silence and ringing when you’re not used to it, and I’ve been bumping into a lot of shit because it’s hard to navigate. I know my deaf and hard-of-hearing friends deal with this all the time, but when you’re not used to it some new challenges are presented and I ask my deaf and hard-of-hearing friends to be patient with me until this is fixed, which will hopefully be tomorrow, because if the doctor doesn’t have any openings, then it’s Urgent Care World time, and I don’t care how long I have to wait. I’m pretty particular about keeping my ears cleaned out, which is probably why this hasn’t happened in such a long time. So I suppose I should be thankful for that at least. I wonder if they’ll use the hook this time. Last time, that’s what it took to fix it, along with enough anti-biotics to kill several science experiments. Someone needs to hurry up and invent that easy button, so when shit like this happens I can just press it and everything’s back to normal. I briefly thought about sending Denise an email to ask if I could borrow her Dison so I could put it up to my ears and turn it on so hopefully it would just suck everything out. But she probably wouldn’t let me do it because it would be dangerous, and I’m exhausted because I haven’t been able to sleep very well, and these are the sort of nonsensical things that pop into my head when I’m sleep-deprived. Of course first and second Seder didn’t happen. And 9AM can’t get here fast enough. And I feel like I’d like to launch a drone strike against my ears because they’re not being good citizens and making things difficult. But hopefully this will be fixed soon and I can get back to my normal life.

 

Until next time.

 

Evans, Georgia, United States
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I did not make it to the gym today. Still dealing with the crud. Cough, hack, cough, hack. Our bad weather isn’t supposed to get here until after 11 tomorrow morning, so I may get in there tomorrow, but I’ll definitely be coasting. I skipped breakfast, ate some lunch, and had a little dinner. I wasn’t very hungry today. Oh well, here’s to a better tomorrow.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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As I mentioned previously in my last Badd Weight Watcher post, I was hoping to lose one pound, which would have ensured that I arrived at my current goal of a ten percent weight loss. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t lose that one pound. I was up 0.8 pounds when I went to last Saturday’s Weight Watchers meeting. But there was an intangible victory to go with it. I have a pair of jeans which, (when I first got them), didn’t fit. Then, as I progressed, they fit, but were tighter than I would have liked. Now, they are still a little tight, but not a problem to wear all day. I didn’t go yesterday because I’ve managed to come down with the crud in the form of a cold, complete with a cough. I’m feeling a little better today, but everything still tastes weird and breathing is difficult. I slept a good chunk of yesterday away, and got up later than I usually do this morning as well. I’m hoping I feel a little better so I can make my workout tomorrow afternoon, because I didn’t get any workout time in last week. The plan for this week is to of course eat reasonably well, and workout Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Since I missed working out last week, I’m not going to try to go whole hog and work out five days this week, and I will probably coast at least tomorrow. But that will depend on how I’m feeling when I get on the machine. If I get on the machine and start going and am feeling like the Zone is a good place to be, then it’s on and no coasting. But I won’t know that until tomorrow. And of course, barring the crud, I’ll be at next week’s Weight Watchers meeting and will hopefully have lost what I need to in order to reach my ten percent goal. Denise will be back, and she’ll have the new puppy with her, and knowing her will probably have lost a ton, which will make me slightly jealous.

Basis released some new sleep metrics this week. Now, not only can we track how much sleep we got, we can also look at how much REM, deep and light sleep we got in a night along with how many tosses and turns there were. I looked at this for the first time yesterday, and was surprised as how bad my sleep Friday night actually looked. Twenty-eight tosses and turns, sixteen percent REM (which is apparently OK), and the rest light sleep. That would probably explain why I slept so much yesterday. I think four hours or so of sleep were recorded for Friday night, then I got up for a while and then went back to sleep. I haven’t looked at today’s data, but I seem to have slept better last night and, although still tired today, I’m feeling more rested. I suppose I’ll see once I run the numbers. I went to bed late last night, so tonight I’ll probably go to bed earlier and try to get myself back to my normal waking time of around 6 in the morning by the end of this week.

I’ll end here for now, and hope that next week’s report will show better results all around. Until next time.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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I did my usual thing yesterday and went to Weight Watchers. It was incredibly crowded so I didn’t get to weigh in before the meeting. Denise and I stepped out while everyone else was doing a written exercise about planning times for meals to go weigh in, and I was down two pounds. I only have one more pound to lose in order to make my ten percent weight loss mark. This, I think, is pretty damn awesome. I’ve been keeping on track with things so far this week, (which started Saturday according to the app), so I’m hoping to lose at least that one pound. But I’m also looking out for those intangible victories I spoke about earlier. I think it’s important to keep in mind that even if there’s not a tangible result you can look at, (a number on a scale, for example), you can still win. For me, this has been a very slow process given my health issues. So for a lot of the time I’ve been keeping track of this thing, the intangible victories are what I’ve had to sustain myself, or at least my self-esteem, which is something I’ve also had to watch, especially when depression sets in. But of course, I always shoot for the tangible victories because I like those for the proof I can show to myself that I’m still on track and doing what’s best for me.

 

As I mentioned above, it was quite crowded yesterday. The crowd was made up, I’m assuming, of those I’m calling the Resolutionaries. Resolutionaries are people who set New Year’s resolutions for themselves, usually involving weight loss and getting fit, and then crowd your local gym or Weight Watchers store in order to carry those out. Most of them usually disappear after about three months at which point everything returns to normal. This group of people presents me with two conflicting emotions. On one hand, I’m glad to see others trying to succeed, and I wish them success. It’s always a good thing to try to improve oneself. But on the other hand, they make my life a little hectic and inconvenient. And when I’m having a less-charitable moment, it’s this, (and the fact that most of them will be gone in three months or less), that takes center stage. I know that this is selfish on my part. After all, there was a time in my life that I was a Resolutionary too, and I was just as bad, if not worse, at keeping up with the goals I set for myself. But now that I’m sort of on the other side, I’m wondering if other regulars at those gyms and stores I mentioned feel the same way I do about the beginning of the year and everything that comes with it. So I’m trying to keep all this in mind when I encounter this group of people, and when I do encounter them, I say a simple prayer that they will have the resolve necessary to achieve their goals, and thereby be successful. I think this attitude is something all of us regulars can benefit from. If you’re not the praying kind, take a moment to think at least one good thought about these people. And while neither the prayers nor the good thoughts in themselves will grant these people success, it will at least put you in a better mood and you can go about the rest of your day not stewing over the Resolutionaries.

 

Evans, Georgia, United States
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I’m sitting at the computer working, and I have the TV on Discovery II in the background. They’ve been running these shows all morning about super humans, people who can do all this amazing stuff that normal people can’t do. And sure enough, we’ve come to an episode with a superblink, one of these blind people who are just so damn amazing. This guy’s apparently superhuman because he uses sonar and makes clicky noises with his tongue in order to determine what’s around him.

I really, really hate this sort of thing. Maybe “normal” people find this amazing, but I, and most of the other blind people I know, find people who do things like make random noises for whatever reason, (specifically, going around clicking with their tongues), to be incredibly annoying.

Why is it annoying, you ask? Because it’s the exact opposite of something I posted on Facebook the other day that discussed the irrational fear by others that blind people have to deal with and combat on a pretty frequent basis. But where this article portrayed the feared blind bogyman as being extra stupid or extra poor or extra afflicted, this show flips the coin and puts blind people on an unnaturally high pedestal. But either way, we’re dealing with objectification of the blind, which is bad, and, whether good or bad, it’s something that’s dealt with by blind people all the time. We’re either incredibly stupid or so awesome that it defies explanation, which spirals into “you’re just so inspiring, I don’t know how you do it, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God,” porn for the light slaves.

This might be cool if we could use it to our advantage, like maybe convincing sighted people that we’re all gods in disguise and therefore we need all sorts of offerings or whatever, and those offerings had to consist of lots of money and tech and big houses and such. But since that’s not the case, I figure we should just keep it at normal for all of our sakes.

As blind people, a lot of us complain when others treat us differently from “normal” people. And in a lot of cases, those complaints are justified. But we’re not doing ourselves any favors by contributing to that mistreatment. There’s a Hebrew phrase that seems apt here, Kol eravim zeh l’zeh, which basically means “we’re all responsible for each other.” It means that what one of us does has an effect on everyone else in the community, whether good or bad. In these cases, where the blind community meets the press, it isn’t the good we do for each other that gets the influence, it’s the bad. And that means every time someone puts themselves out there to be revered by sighted people, the rest of us are expected to either do that, or we’re assumed to have special powers, (which we don’t), or it goes the opposite way and it has adverse effects on our daily interactions, our travel, our business dealings, and anything else it can possibly touch. So I’m asking my fellow blinks to please keep that in mind if you’re ever tempted to put yourself out there for sighted awe, because the benefits just aren’t worth it.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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a picture of me sitting on my favorite workout machine getting ready to start my workout

We’ve started a new year, and two new months, (January on the Gregorian calendar and Shevat on the Hebrew calendar), and one of the things I gave a lot of thought to during the end of last year was getting back on track. I’ve been working out pretty regularly, but I know that I want to add more of this to my schedule. Also, I’ve been a slacker when it comes to tracking my food. For a while, the Weight Watchers app was pretty much inaccessible, so tracking food became a task that got done in the Livestrong app, workouts were (and are) being timed and logged with RunKeeper, and I’m using my Basis band to track the number of steps I’ve taken, number of calories I’ve burned, and my sleep habbits, among other things. So for me, that one app change kind of screwed the whole thing up. But starting last week, I started tracking my food in Weight Watchers again, since they’ve made a lot of changes to the app and it’s now pretty much accessible.

As far as the Basis is concerned, I love it, but am still disappointed that there’s not a full API (Application Programming Interface for the ess technically-minded), that we can use to manipulate and analyze our own data. There is a JSON feed, from which we can sort of pull data though, and I plan to write a widget that will let me display how many steps I’ve taken and how many calories I’ve burned on my sidebar. It’s just going to take some time because I’m working on other work-related stuff, and so that becomes not a top priority.

One of the things I have on my getting-on-track list is to pay attention to my spiritual life. I’ve slacked on this too, and would like to get that back together, especially prayer. I’m OK with the one-off mitzvot, and those that are sort of one-off, (candle lighting, for instance, happens once a week), but daily prayers have always given me some trouble. I still haven’t figured out how to keep myself from letting that one go yet. But I plan to try to be more regular with that this year.

Now to the writing goal. I’ve started writing on a regular basis, and this year I want to start posting more of that long-form writing. My original goal was two hundred and fifty words per day, and I’ve managed to meet that one regularly, so I’ve upped the goal to five hundred words per day. I’ve started using the wordPress new Quick Draft feature to write down ideas and save them as draft posts, which will make posting on a regular basis a little easier since I’ll already have partially-formed ideas ready. I’ve also pued together some sources with writing prompts for when I get stuck.

I also want to start preparing to give more speeches for Toast Masters. I gave one speech already, and want to start doing more towards the various qualifications. Good thing I can pretty much speak on anything I want. I may also post some of those in modified form as posts, if they’re appropriate to this space.

Finally, I plan to play Beep Baseball again this year, and we’re working on getting our local team, (the Augusta Hammers), off the ground. I had a lot of fun doing that last year, it served as an extra work-out source, and I got to travel, which I love. I want to get a guide dog this year as well, and would hopefuly like to do that in June or so.

given all this, I ought to have a busy year. And it’ll be interesting to look back at this a year from now and see how much of this I’ve accomplished. I may post more on what I’m doing in order to reach my goals at a later point.

Now it’s your turn. What kind of goals do you have for this year? Go ahead and share them in the comments.

Until next time.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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Here in Augusta, it’s somewhere around 15 degrees F. We’re not used to temperatures like this. all the schools are on a two-hour delay for today and tomorrow. From what I hear on the news they’re calling this a polar vortex, which pretty much sounds like mother nature’s pissed and taking it out on all of us. I’m humbly asking all my friends and relatives up north to take this shit back. There’s a reason I don’t live up there. Seriously though, everyone stay safe and warm.

Evans, Georgia, United States
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It isn’t the food, (well, OK the food’s pretty great), and it isn’t the gifts. It’s eggnog. I don’t consider eggnog food. It’s in a category all by itself. I think it’s probably what the angels and the righteous drink in the World to Come, and if I have my way it’ll be served at the Messianic feast, along with lots of other goodies.

Anyway, Trep has posted his recipe again this year, and since I’ve got a mixer now, I might actually make it. So without further adeu, here’s the recipe with instruction, and some well-chosen comments.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 2 cups whipping cream
  • 2 cups milk
  • 3/4 cup brandy, rum or bourbon (optional but highly recommended)

PREPARATION:

  1. All liquids should be very cold. Refrigerate in advance.
  2. Beat the eggs for 2 or 3 minutes with an electric mixer at medium speed until very frothy.
  3. Gradually beat in the sugar, vanilla and nutmeg.
  4. Turn the mixer off and stir in the cold booze, whipping cream and milk.
  5. Chill some more before serving (if you can wait… I never can).
  6. Sprinkle individual servings with more nutmeg.

Makes a little over 2 quarts (after taking several ‘samples’ for quality control purposes)

What are you still doing here looking at the screen?! The kitchen is that way!

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I’ve decided to get started on my new year’s resolutions early. This is because I would really not like to be in the position of coming up with something at the last minute, not paying attention to what I’m resolving to do, and thus failing at it because I give it less attention than it deserves. I’ve also decided that one of the things I’m resolving to do is to write something every day. I’ve been doing this, but I haven’t posted most of it. So I’m adding a little something to that: Not only do I want to write something every day, but I want to write something that I can post to either of my sites. This is because, like anyone else, I’d love to increase my traffic, and I also think it is a great way to track my growth as a person in several areas of my life.

So where does “Doing More with Less” come into this? More is of course the writing itself. Less is the fact that I’m either using a text editor to write things first, adding all the HTML markup there and then posting it to the sites using WordPress’s “add new post function”, or using my iPad or iPhone to write stuff down as it occurs to me as well as posting from somewhere other than the computer.

I’m of course still focusing on my health, and part of the writing task I’ve set for myself is to write more frequent progress reports of that venture. I want to do this because being able to go back and look at past thoughts and progress will allow me to see how I’ve grown and what I need to improve on in this area. But they’re also fun to write. So more of those during the coming month and year.

So here’s to accomplishing goals, and working towards the ones that will take more work to accomplish. Before I end, I’d like to know, (if you’re willing to share), what goals you’ve set for yourself, and what you plan to do to accomplish them.

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I actually did a lot of work today. I fixed my ultrabook, which took a drive repair and a system restore back to a previous date. I cobbled together a WordPress plugin to allow me to exclude the date from posts on a case-by-case basis, and then I had a meeting for a web design project that’s in its final stages. Now, it’s time for fun, something I don’t think you can ever have too much of.

Most of the time, my fun usually involved Denise and Wil, who I’m trying to get writing more on his site so I have stuff to link to when I mention him in my posts. 😛 And on a lot of occasions, there’s beer and food involved. We celebrate everybody’s birthdays together, and the holidays, and we always manage to turn even ordinary days, and sometimes our problems, into something to laugh about.

I also like to play games, go places, and of course read and write code, which can be fun in its own right. But more importantly, I try my best to make every situation fun. Of course, there are limits, but I find that having fun is my best coping mechanism. If like didn’t have a hint of fun in as many spots as possible, I’d go crazy. And that would definitely be the opposite of fun, because I’d have to be committed.

I believe that life is too short not to enjoy it. This doesn’t mean I take the haedonistic approach. I don’t leave for pleasure for its own sake. But I think it can only be good to try to wrest as much joy as you can out of life, because you only have one, and if you spend all your time sad, it can only do you harm, and I’m not in to that. Somedays, this is hard. It’s not always easy to have fun or find joy. But I think if I try my best to do so, then along with being productive and loving and a kind person, the day isn’t wasted. And there’s nothing I hate more than wasted days.

Until next time.

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Today has been full of unexpected tasks, namely the complete reconfiguration of my user account on my ultrabook. This all started when I attempted to update my username and password in my anti-virus suite, and it went downhill from there. There were several crashes, and when the computer finally restarted normally, all my settings and software were disappeared. Given the problems the thing is exhibiting, I’m beginning to wonder if the SSD drive in it is failing. As if I need something else to replace.

While I worked, I started listening to the next book in the Prey series by John Sandford, Eyes of Prey. I haven’t gotten that far in to it but so far, I think this one might be the best one so far. It’s incredibly creepy. I plan to post a review when it’s done.

I’ve taken on the task of writing every day, and so far this week I’ve managed to write at least something each day, although most of it has not and will not be posted. But this is the only writing I’ve been able to get done today. It helps that I can walk away from the computers and sit outside and write. It’s a lot less stressful out here.

Tomorrow while i’m disconnected I plan to catch up on this week’s Torah portion. It’s the one with the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. I read the corresponding part in Legends of the Jews, which is a compilation of all the legendary material from the Midrash on the biblical characters, and in that material she gets a name (Zuleika) and there’s a ton more drama. If you’re interested you can find the collection online by doing a Google search for Legends of the Jews.

It’s past crunchtime so I’ll end for now. Until next time. Shabbat shalom, and everybody else have a great weekend.

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This month, we’re meeting two weeks in a row due to the Thanksgiving holiday coming up in the US next week, which coopts our normal meeting date. We started off the meeting with a review of the individual roles: Timer, speech evaluators, ah counter, (the person who looks out for crutch and filler words used by the other Toastmasters), and the grammarian, me. I get to look out for misuses of the english language. I admit that this can be one of my favorite tasks, especially when it comes to Denise, because I love to pick on her for her southernisms. But I promise, I’ll try not to exhibit any triumphalism in doing it. Triumphalism is our word of the day today, and I got to pick it. I need to get some sort of dictionary app for my iPad though, so I can look up words on the go, like when situations like this come up.

Once the meeting got started, we heard a rousing speech from our division governor, who spoke about the goals she has for our clubs, and how she would love for us all to be excited about what we do for Toastmasters. Next, we heard from one of our toastmasters who has an incredible talent for telling the best stories. He shared a Puerto Rican folktale with us, and he also shared truffles, which means he automatically gets my vote for best speech, because there was good food involved, and I love food. 😛 After this, we heard a speech on the procedures we follow each meeting. This was in response to an educational talk our division governor gave us last week at the end of that meeting. Since this speech was no longer story time, I think it faced a bit of a disadvantage. But that’s just my humble opinion.

After the speeches we voted, and then went on to table topics, which are a set of speeches designed to flex our impromptu skills. Since today was hat day for our club, the first prompt had to do with why people chose the hats they did. I wore my normal head covering. Next e voted on the table topic speeches. Then we got the timer’s report from Denise, during which we took the opportunity to pick on our division governor. Our group tends to be pretty laid-back, so we manage to get in all the stuff we need to for the meeting while still having fun. Next we heard the speech evaluations, which are always a great time to receive feedback when you’re speaking. I didn’t realize how important these were until I gave my first speech last week, and the feedback I received during my evaluation was extremely valuable and I’m looking for ward to speaking again becasue of it.

I think our meeting went exceptionally well tonight. Things seemed to flow natually and everybody was on their game. I’m looking forward to future meetings going this well. I probably won’t liveblog each meeting, but there were a few people on Twitter who expressed some interest in Toastmasters, and I thought that an example of how a meeting can run would be a nice sneak-peak in to what Toastmasters is, and that hopefully some of those who expressed interest will consider joining with some aid from this account.

Until next time.

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I’ve finally taken the time to get the WordPress app configured on my iPad Mini. i have it configured on the iPhone, but without a bluetooth keyboard to use in tandom with the phone, posting here can get tedious. So now that I have the iPad configued, I can do things like write from Wil and Denise’s couch, laid back on the pillow with my feet up. Now if I could just figure out how to capitalize on this…

Until next time.