We have been talking about re-doing the upstairs floor in our house for a while now, and a few weeks ago we finally decided to go ahead and do it. We picked out our new hardwood floor, ordered the materials, and yesterday they arrived at the store. So this morning I took a van and picked up 29 boxes of wood planks, plus underlayment and trim pieces, and brought them home. First I had to unload them into our garage, which wasn't bad - only a few steps from the van to the ground. Later in the day I had to carry each 52.6 lb box from the garage, up the stairs, and then into one of our bedrooms so that the wood can acclimate properly for a few days. Twenty nine trips, hauling that weight up the steps and then carefully stacking the boxes. As I was doing it, though, it occurred to me: as exhausting as it was, and as heavy as those boxes seemed, the weight of me plus the box going up the stairs was actually less than my total body weight only nine months ago. I used to haul that weight up the stairs, and everywhere else, all day every day. No wonder I was exhausted all the time. Honestly, I don't think that nine months ago I could have moved 1,500+ lbs of wood planking upstairs by myself, I would have had to pay someone to do it. Today I certainly broke a sweat doing it, but it got done and in a fairly short amount of time. Yay!

On top of that, I spent an hour on the treadmill today watching Tom Baker dress up like a cactus. So let's talk about that.

Good news! I survived my debilitating illness. Ok, honestly, I had a head cold for about a day and a half, no big deal. But I'm sure I almost died! I was feeling mostly better yesterday, but didn't want to risk pushing myself too quickly and getting sick again. Today I was up and at 'em, and hit the treadmill for the second half of The Leisure Hive (finally!).

So let's talk about that.

Well here we are, the era of Doctor Who that I grew up with. Today's viewing began Tom Baker's final season as the Doctor, and ushered in a completely new era to the show. New opening credits, new logo, a new arrangement of the theme music, completely different incidental music, a new costume for the Doctor all in burgundy (including the iconic scarf), and the first appearance of the question marks on the collar. There hasn't big this big a change in the look and feel of the program since almost exactly ten years earlier when the dawn of the 70's ushered in the Jon Pertwee era in color. 

So how is it? Well, let's talk about that.

As the Thanksgiving holiday weekend wraps up, I have just completed three performances in the last two days of the show I am in. Fortunately we have three nights off now, because I am tuckered out. Tomorrow morning I am back to work at my day job, and I have a few days of normalcy. I am falling asleep in my chair as I type this, so let's get this thing done.

The first two episodes of Doctor Who to air in the 80's - let's talk about them.

You want to know how awesome my wife is? Today, while I was doing two performances of the show I am in, she went to a local convention and got Pearl Mackie's autograph on my motivation poster. Check it out:

Today has been kind of a big day for me. Right off the bat I weighed in at 249.3 lbs, dropping below 250 for the very first time. I am astonished, because I gotta tell ya I did not hold back yesterday on enjoying Thanksgiving. All I can figure is that my body looked at that huge one-day spike in food consumption and just didn't know how to handle it. Or something. We'll see if it holds up tomorrow. Anyway, after that I went to a local convention and met both Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper from Torchwood) and Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto from Torchwood), and got both of their autographs on my Time Treadmill inspiration poster. I was supposed to also meet Pearl Mackie (Bill Potts), but she missed the first day of the conference. Fortunately I have a very awesome wife who is going to go see her tomorrow and get the autograph. Why not me? Because tomorrow is opening day for my first professional musical theatre production, and I have two shows at 2pm and 8pm that will consume my entire day. Tonight we had our first live audience as a preview, but tomorrow both shows are pretty much sold out. 

So yeah, today was a pretty big day. I also watched some Doctor Who, of course, so let's talk about that.

About a month ago I set myself a goal of weighing in at under 250 lbs before Christmas. Here it is, Thanksgiving, and this morning I weighed in at a new record low of 250.1 lbs. Yay! Of course, what with the holiday today I fully expect to bounce back up a bit tomorrow. Totally worth it, my wife is an amazing cook. If I can't fully enjoy a holiday meal with all the trimmings, then none of this has been worth anything. Today also happens to be the 54th anniversary of the first Doctor Who broadcast ever, how cool is that?

Even though it is a holiday, I didn't take the day off from the treadmill. This morning I watched the first half of a new story, so let's talk about that.

I set a new record low weight today. Yay! Also today: my wife spent all day prepping and cooking for tomorrow's big meal. I have a sneaking suspicion that my weight will be going up on Friday...

I also finished the my current Doctor Who story, but don't have much to say about it.

I have had a long and mortifying day, so I am going to keep this one brief. One positive thing to note: this morning I was back withing two tenths of a pound of my record low, and less than two pounds away from hitting my goal of weighing in below 250 at least once before Christmas. So that's pretty dang cool. As for the mortifying part, I won't dwell on it. It's not a life-or-death thing, and I am probably embarrassed out of proportion to what anyone else thought, but I definitely had a difficult rehearsal tonight for mys how. That's ok, fix it and move on, right?

So moving on, I watched the first half of a new story today. Let's talk about that.

Today marks the nine month anniversary of the day I started this ridiculous project. In that time I have walked 896.88 miles on the treadmill while taking 1,778,382, watching 512 episodes and 104 stories of Doctor Who, and losing 53.42 pounds in weight. That's another 4.14 pounds since last month. There was actually a point about two weeks ago where I hit a new all-time low at 55.6 pounds lost, but that was the very bottom of an insane stretch where I lost eight pounds in under two weeks, which was clearly unsustainable. The fact that I bounced back up from that was inevitable, but the long-term trend is still awesome. I still have a stretch goal to weigh in under 250 pounds at least once before Christmas, and I think that is totally achievable.

So yeah, very happy with how things are going. Also very happy to have spent another hour today with the second half of my second-favorite Fourth Doctor story. Let's talk about that.