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For Christmas I received several books that had been on my wish list.  One was The Art Of Non Conformity by Chris Guillebeau.  The other is Amazing Things Will Happen by C.C. Chapman.  C.C. is a friend from the early days of Podcasting (back when there were only 300 podcasts) and so I wanted to pick up his book to support him.  Chris’ book is a book I stumbled across when I saw mention of his SECOND book The $100 Startup.

Both books deal with creating and living the life you want to live, outside of what others THINK you should be doing.  You’d think both would sell very well this time of year, what with it being the first of the year, but I had them on my wish list for awhile and received them both at Christmas.

They are pretty perfect for this time of year though because both suggest a similar exercises for this time of year.  In CC’s book it’s the 3 Words Exercise.  In Chris’ book it’s doing an Annual Review.  I love both ideas and so I’m going to give them a shot, albeit a week late.  This year I have grown increasingly tired of how the entertainment industry works.  Frustrated, both of the above books were a much needed kick in the pants to try and redefine what I’m doing, what I’m trying to accomplish and what I’d like my perfect life to be.

I promise to share both my review and goals for 2013 here with you.  I won’t be sharing absolutely EVERYTHING as I believe some stuff should be personal, but I will share a lot of stuff.  Stuff I hope you will be my personal cheerleaders for as I try to accomplish them.  Plus, I just think you all will look amazingly attractive wearing the short skirts and holding pom poms.

Do you know the secret? – UPDATED 01/01/2013

Wow!  Good for you snoop!  You found my blog and as a reward, here’s the secret….

I’m trying something new with the Advent Calendar this year.  If you’ve watched Day #001 for 2012, you may have noticed a single frame of video in the credits with a picture of my face and the words ‘Do you know the secret?’.

Well, the secret is that I’m not happy with where I am weight wise.  I know I’m not super heavy, but I’m above my ‘goal’ weight which is about 150.  I sort of ‘lost my way’ when it comes to eating right and I wanted to force myself back into the patten of doing so.

So starting today, December 1, I’m going on a strict diet, tracking my food, and ramping up the exercise.  Each day of the Advent Calendar, I will take a single still frame of my face.  My goal is to be down several pounds by the time the Advent Calendar is over, and then, after December 25, I can make a short video of the still frames of my face to see if there’s any visible difference in weight loss in my face.

I’m just trying to find a way to hold myself accountable for getting to where I want to be.  I don’t think I’ll be back to 150 by December 25th, that’s a little drastic.  But I hope to make progress.

I’d love for you to support me in my goal.  You can do that by going to the Advent Calendar Facebook Page at:

http://www.facebook.com/grantsadvent

And simply post ‘I Know The Secret’ on the wall.  It’ll show me you’ve found this page, and I’ll know I have your support!  It’ll also encourage others to find out the secret, so don’t give it away! 🙂

Thanks, as always.  Happy Holidays!

[UPDATED]

Well that was a failure.  I actually wound up GAINING weight because I couldn’t help myself around all the big holiday meals.

Ugh.

I’m at the highest I’ve been since I lost 80lbs a few years ago.

Part of the problem, I believe, the whole thing being a secret!  The idea was get supporters to to cheer me on as I strive for a goal.  But doing the stupid ‘Do You Know The Secret?’ thing it was a secret only two folks found out about.  It also built up expectations in the minds of the people who watched the Advent Calendar that there’s be some sort of BIG secret reveal at the end of this all and the ‘secret’ was just me trying to get fit.

Just a big fail on all accounts.

So…like you do at the first of the year, you refocus and that’s what I’ve done.  Starting…yesterday (Dec 31) I’ve begun really focusing in on what I eat.

At my very lowest weight I was like 148/146.  This was far too low.  My goal, I’m stating it publicly is now 152.  I have about 20 pounds to lose.  I’m not putting an end date on when I’d like to achieve it but my weight loss goal is 2 lbs per week.

Another goal is to post here on this blog more frequently, so I shall keep you updated.

Here we go!

#NoLongerASecret

Another Joel Hodgson Interview

Came across another interview with Joel that has some great quotes. Joel Interview

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How not to do customer service…in my book.

If you’ve read other postings in this, rarely updated, blog you know that certain things about customer service rub me the wrong way.  My Open Letter To AT&T, for example.  Well, I got a new one.

For years I was a longtime user of Quicken on the mac.  I had well over 7 years of finances tracked there.  Long story shot, Apple updates their system software and Intuit decides it’s no longer going to support mac.  So if I want to upgrade to the new system software, I need to find a quicken alternative.  After looking around I choose iBank by IGG software.  It’s certainly not as simple as the Quicken I was used to but it worked and they have an iPhone app which is a plus.

So for over a year I’ve been using iBank.  The other day, I encountered a problem where data downloaded from my back, which in the past had imported fine, was crashing iBank.  No matter what I did, the data never imported and the app just crashed.  So I did all the usual things you do: Make sure I had the latest version, browse the IGG Support site for similar issues, look through their knowledge base.  Nothing really seemed to point to my problem so I go to their email support page.

I filled out the questionnaire they give you.  I described the problem I was having and at their request, included the crash log and the console reports from the crash.  I send off my email and then wait.  Two days later I received the following email from them…

Hello,

Thank you for contacting IGG Technical Support.  I am sorry to hear you are experiencing issues with iBank.  Can you answer a few questions for me?

– Have you restarted your Mac recently
– Has iBank always behaved this way for you?
– Have you recently transferred data into iBank from another financial application?
– Has there been any changes on your Mac recently?  Any Upgrades?
– Where are you saving your main iBank Document (data) file?
– How many different accounts, categories and transactions do you have? (estimate is fine)
– What happens if you select your accounts individually and then go to Account> Download Transactions for Selected Account?
– Have you read the iBank 4 Manual? http://www.iggsoft.com/manuals/iBank_4_Manual.pdf
– Have you watched the iBank Tutorial videos? http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/tutorials.php
– Have you tried contacting our Live Chat Support team?   Live Chat support is available from 9:00-5:00 EST Monday-Friday.  To start a Live Chat session go to the following page on our website and click on the green “Live Chat is ON” button below number 3: http://www.iggsoftware.com/support.php 
Best regards,
John

John Sawyer
Technical Support Specialist
IGG Software, Inc.
www.iggsoftware.com

First of all, that’s not a few questions.  Secondly, it’s the most ridiculous list of questions I can imagine.  A few of these, I understand, but Have You Read The Manual?  Have you watched the tutorials?  I looked in both, there’s no chapter or video called “Crashing while importing Bank Transactions”
And then the most telling question on that list…Have you tried contacting Live Support?  In other words, don’t email us, contact live support.  My question to IGG Software, why have an email us link if you don’t want to be bothered answering questions via email?
I will say this, when I saw I had a reply email from IGG I was excited because I figured I would be able to continue with balancing my finances.  To open the email and be hit with this…wall…of questions was beyond frustrating and made me want to scrap iBank all together.
I see now Quicken has been updated to work on the current Mac system software.  Maybe it’s time to return.
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