Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
scott Today my Jawbone UP told me I had walked 3 million steps since I got my first UP. So first thanks UP for pointing that out, and second way to go me!
I do need to not there was a 10 month break on accruing steps when my first up broke and Jawbone recalled the first gen to when I got the new 2nd gen one so here is to hoping the next 3 million is achieved much sooner.
Now that Amelia is two months old we are past the discussing important things like what to name her, will she be healthy, & how do we configure her room. We have moved onto less important topics such as what nickname will we use for her.
With Teagan we didn’t have many options. Our nieces Ailene and Alexis both came up with Teagie. It was nice to see that a 4 year old and a 24 year old came up with the same name to use. Of course the 24 year old is a teacher and said that Teagie is ligusisticly easy to say so that explains why the 4 year old came up with it. I am personally a fan of Teag’s but at present am the only one using that. There is also some use of T, but generally Teagan is a tough name to come up with a nickname.
For Amelia we have much more options to choose from. Since the time we started thinking about the name Amelia I knew if we picked that name I would use the nickname Ame (pronounced Amy). Others have liked and suggested Mia. A few other people offered up Milly however to their credit they didn’t like that option any more than we did. I heard a little girl on the playground call her sister Amia. MC suggested Mimi as another contender. MC says she thinks whatever Teagan decides to call Amelia is what nickname we will use so we are all on the same page with a name. My take is call me crazy but I am not leaving that decision up to an 18 month old.
I will stick with Ame, however I am happy for others to use different names as long as its not Milly or anything my brother in law Michael comes up with. OK, lets expand that to anyone in Michaels family. We love them and all but they have a bad track record with names and nicknames.
Today marks 3 Months after I hit my weight loss target. So far I not only kept the weight off I am slightly down from my target.
I am watching what I eat but generally I am not hungry and when I splurge bad I bounce back rather quickly so I am very pleased. I have 9 months to beat the odds since apparently 80% of people who lose weight gain it back within a year.
Today I got a new Nexus 5. I had been pondering getting another Android phone for a while. Probably ever since i sold my old Nexus last year. I love my iPhone but I always hold out hope that I will like Android more. Every year or so I give Android another try. I am not jaded about the cycle. I end up just taking the money I earned selling the last phone and throw in a bit more and buy a new one. The Nexus ones make that easier since they are much cheaper than typical unlocked phones.
So far I have been pleased but less than a day is not a good amount of time to get a feel for it. The large screen is a nice change of pace from my iPhone.
Today I reached my weight loss target. When I started in May I didn’t even have this target in mind. I was thinking I wanted to lose 10-15lbs. When I was well on my way to that target I adjusted it and was targeting 20-25lbs. That quickly turned into a target that when complete would be 33.7lbs loss. I have a few other posts that outline what I did and how i achieved this goal. What is funny is after I got started I wasn’t afraid of the process of losing the weight. I am concerned I will gain it back eventually.
I just unlocked the 250 mile achievement since starting to use it in early September. For that amount of time I dont know if that is good or bad but it makes me feel good that i walked 250 miles regardless.
Yesterday MC’S friend called asking if we wanted tickets to a free fundraising dinner since her husband had extra tickets. We hadn’t had a night out in a while and our babysitter was able to stay late so we said yes. it was cool to dress up and goto a $500 a plate fund raiser. Added bonus it was for an cause that if i had money to give I would donate to.
MC and I also got a chance to hang out with two of her friends who we hadn’t seen since our wedding.
I keep waffling on what fitness device I am using. After lots of replacement units of the Jawbone UP I got a Fitbit Flex in September. I used both devices for most of October to see how they compared. Then I dropped the UP in favor of the Flex. Part of the reason I did that was that the UP was too big on my wrist after my weight loss in recent months. The Flex didn’t have the inactivity monitor that I liked with the UP. it also seems to record about 2,000 more steps a day for me than the up does.
Just as I was getting used to using the Flex Jawbone comes out with the UP24. It offered me the bluetooth sync that the Flex has and all the features that the original UP had. I took the risk and ordered one in Medium hoping it fits and i can go back to using the UP. I will write more once I get it and see how it works.
I have been a user of a Drobo for several years now. It meet my storage needs even if it wasn’t anywhere near as fast as i wanted it to be. I used my desktop computer as a server and had at one point two Drobo’s attached to it. This year my old one started acting up so I am down to one Drobo. I had been slowly upgrading the storage on it but it has become apparent that I needed an upgrade. Jayson suggested Synology since he loved his Synology NAS. I had read good things about them in the past but I wasn’t really sure I wanted a NAS. I ended up buying a much cheaper Transporter in an attempt to solve only one of the storage issues I had. I wanted a private cloud solution. That was a mistake. The Transporter was nice but I had issues with the software. It didn’t do exactly what i was looking for. It was close but just not enough. At that point I started to research all the things i could do with a Synology and I got very interested. It does what i want with private cloud storage as well as tons more features. I was sold and made the investment in one.
Today I received my Synology DS412+.NAS along with 2 4TB drives. I will upgrade to a 3rd drive after i get the system setup. 4TB of usable space wont be enough once I get started. I have already started copying my files onto the new NAS. I also got Plex configured but need to wait till I get my media moved over. That means it will be a few days as the transfer takes a long time.
Once I get all my data on the Synology I need to setup backups of the data back to my old Drobo so I have an extra copy. Once that is done I also have plans to try a cloud backup service. Backing up to one hard drive a year and putting it in offsite storage at my dad’s is not going to work anymore with this much data to backup.
In some ways it is hard to believe I have been at Thomson Reuters for 5 years. So much has changed in my life in five years and so much seems not to have changed at all. I love that I still get excited for things I am working for and changes in my group keep things new and interesting. I have been in the same position for a year and a half but after 11 months the responsibilities changed enough that it is half like a new position again. Working with great people on interesting technology helps also! Here is to another 5 years if the future is as interesting as the last five!
As always when I mention work I would like to note that anything written on this blog are my own opinions and thoughts and are not those of Thomson Reuters.