I’ve reached that point in my life that all fathers dread — teaching your child to drive.  I’m pretty convinced that the bulk of parental grey hair is because of this time of life.  Don’t get me wrong — she’s doing great as a driver but that doesn’t mean it’s easy on me.

One of the things I recall about my experience learning to drive is a comment my father made over and over.  He’d always tell other folks to watch out on the sidewalks as I was coming by, implying that I was going to run them over.  On the sidewalk.  Cute.

I think I’ve been extremely patient with my daughter during this time of angst and I think she’s doing okay learning to drive.  It’s scary though, especially for someone not particularly fond of sitting in the passenger seat, regardless of who’s driving.   I’m not sure why I don’t like being a passenger; it’s probably a control thing with me.  I like to be in control of the situation and sitting in the passenger seat means that I’m not.

One of the things that I emphasize to my daughter is that she should be humble about the entire driving experience.  The effect of 3500 pounds of vehicle slamming into a 120 pound body is devastating.  She got a small taste of that possibility when two deer jumped out in front of us as she was driving.  Fortunately she hit the brakes, but a van nearly hit us from behind.  A copper pipe from a rack on top of the van slid forward and bounced against one of the windows of the car, but we thought that he actually hit the back bumper.  Fortunately, no harm was done, but it was effective in making the point about the seriousness of driving.  Maybe that experience will help her become a better driver.  Maybe all kids need an experience like that.  A brush with death or injury.  But just a brush; no death or injury actually required. 

I’ve taken a bit if a hiatus from writing in my blog for the last couple of years, but I’m getting re-energized to pick it up again.  I think my motivation was from skimming through SILENT BOB SPEAKS: THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF KEVIN SMITH, thinking “wow, if he can write a few paragraphs about his life now and then, perhaps I can do the same”.  Of course, I’m no Kevin Smith — no indie films to my credit — but maybe I can lay out some jams on my life like Kevin did with his.  A little self-indulgent, perhaps, but maybe fun as well.

Over the last several months, I’ve acquired a new body.  I spend the last 7 or so months slimming down to a weight that I can’t recall being at, so it must have been a long time ago.  At this writing, I’m at 178 lbs., which is 50 fewer pounds than I was carrying at the beginning of 2007.  I joined a program called 20/20 Lifestyles through my health club (the ProClub in Bellevue, WA), which teaches nutrition and exercise.  So I exercise 5 days a week and write down everything that I eat along with the calorie count.  On the plus side, I’ve achieved a measure of control over my weight that I never had.  On the down side, I don’t eat or drink things that I used to enjoy (like buffalo wings and beer).  Oh, I still drink, but only one a day if I drink at all.  It’s part of the regime.  I’ve relaxed a bit with the rigor of not eating sweets, but I’m only doing the lo-cal ones.  Every once in a while I’d like to eat a bag of M&Ms, but I know full well that’s not in the cards. 

It’s been a big adjustment.  I had a great deal of frustration during the program as I tried to figure out how to balance the calories I was given throughout the day.  I suspect that this is one of the biggest challenges that others have with 20/20.  With a claimed 50% of folks keeping the weight off for three years, I can imagine that the unsuccessful ones never really develop an eating discipline that helps them apportion what they consume throughout the day.  Either that or they really just like M&Ms more.

It’s odd to imagine any frustration around clothing, but I had a great deal of it.  I lost my weight pretty steadily, but I wore baggy clothes for quite a while.  I bought some clothes about halfway through the program, but didn’t want to buy a lot because I had more to lose.  I had a closet full of khakis and the like that I wore during that mid point and thought that would be as small as I would get, but I ended up dropping down another full size afterwards.  I still haven’t really bought too much because I want to see that I can maintain this weight before doing much investing in a new wardrobe.

Apparently I look quite different than I did 50 pounds ago as well.  I don’t really see it, but I suppose it’s true. The downside of people telling me I look different is that I haven’t heard anyone say that I’m better looking.  It reminds me of an event I participated in when I worked for IBM years ago.  In New York, at the @Cafe, the new chief of the Internet Division, Irving Wladawsky-Berger (pictured), was being celebrated in a coming out party.  At this party, he told everyone that his assistant Allison had gotten him on the cover of Wired Magazine as the “Smartest Man in IBM”. He said that we was pleased with this, but a little disappointed in his assistant, as he had really hoped to be the “sexiest man in IBM”. I can relate.