I have a whole bunch of things I need to post about, but not enough time in which to do it, so I'll throw a few of them out here and hopefully find some time in the next couple of days to write about some of the others.
Wow, it was more than 10 years ago now when our musician at Faith UCC asked me to do "Gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar as a solo for Maundy Thursday. Since I am not now (nor have I ever been, well maybe I was briefly, anyway...) a tenor (are there any parts in the entire show other than Caiaphas for basses?), we took it down a little bit and changed the arrangement slightly (and I took a few parts down an octave), but I really like that song. The whole story of Gethsemane has always been one of my favorites because it shows Jesus as struggling with doing God's will, just like the rest of us. I was reminded of this when John Shuck posted a link to this youtube video (it actually starts at 1:44).
The other thing I wanted to mention today has to do with my weight. I am just shy of 6' 2" tall and when I graduated from high school I weighed 147 lbs, yup not a lot of body fat there. Apparently, that is at the bottom end of "healthy weight" for my height. I remained there until about my junior year of college. I was still about 160 when I graduated from college. By the time I returned to grad school for the second time I was in the 190s. I topped out at 242 in 1999 (after my back surgery). Yup, at that point I was 95 lbs heavier than when I graduated from high school. In 2000, I talked to my doctor and devised a plan to take off some of that weight. I ended up losing 44.5 lbs in 7 or 8 months. I eventually got down to 197.5, but I didn't stay there long. I was in the low 200s for a while, but over the next year or so, I gradually crept back up to the point that I was pretty consistently 227± 2 for about 3 years until last July. When I got home from SANSFIRE in July, I weighed 232 again. At that point, I decided enough was enough. I've changed the way I eat (limiting calories by watching portion sizes, increasing fiber, drinking lots of water -- about 140oz/day) and I exercise regularly again (something I haven't really done in a very long time). This morning, I weighed myself at 197.0 lbs which is the lightest I've been in at least 15 years (I was about 208 when we got married if I remember correctly). I'd still like to take a little more off, but I'm very happy with this. More later.
Oh, and may the Fourth be with you (yeah, lousy pun I've seen numerous places today).
