My 50lb Weight Loss – Before and After Pictures

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Michel McDonald

So yesterday was what I consider to be a milestone. I weighed in at 212.6lbs which brings my weight loss total down to 50.4lbs lost since January 5th 2013. So yeah, I feel like bragging lol.

Last night we went to a local event where a woman named Erin Davies is driving cross-country to show her documentary called FagBug and talk about her experiences with vandalism and homophobia and to raise awareness on the subject with her car called the “fagbug.” When I heard she was coming, I knew I had to go because I wanted to see the car and have my picture taken with it. And since it would be the first picture of me with 50lbs weight loss, I thought it would work as a great sort of after picture, even though I’m not finished with my journey.

Anyway, so let me give you a rundown of the images you see above. Top left was from Christmas 2004. I am actually not positive what my weight was back then, but I’m pretty sure it was 230 give or take.

The second picture on the top is a picture that was taken at Hearst Castle in Colorado in 2005. It is also the picture that I used as my author picture since it was the best picture I have ever taken. I hate taking my picture as a fat guy, but love pictures when I’m skinny so perhaps I will be taking a lot more photos when I am finally down in weight.

The bottom left picture was taken last year in May at a PFLAG meeting with Robin Tyler. I had no idea until after the picture was taken that my stomach was actually that big. I was beyond mortified, but kept it because I didn’t want to delete the only picture of me with Robin Tyler. I mean, she’s Robin Tyler!

The bottom right picture is my before picture. That is the one I took at the IHOP that we went to on New Years Day just before I made the decision to go on this weight loss journey.

Finally, the picture on the right is how I look today. You can certainly see the difference in my neck and my face. You probably can’t tell with the black shirt, but believe me, it’s thinner than all those before pictures. My stomach (waist) was 50” and now it is down to 43”. So yeah, it’s thinner. Also my thighs are really skinny now too. I didn’t think to measure my thighs at the beginning or every week because the Noom app didn’t ask me to, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have still kept a record. It doesn’t matter because they are thinner now. Oh and thank you photographer (my partner) for taking the picture with me talking instead of smiling lol. That was sarcasm of course.

My total weight loss since January 5th is 50.4lbs. My goal is to lose 63lbs, so I only have 12.6lbs to go. Although, once I meet my goal I will adjust the Noom app so that I will go down to 170 because 63lbs was just a small goal to get me started, my true goal is much higher than a measly 63lbs. I was afraid that if I set too high of a goal, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I think that I have proven to myself that not only can I meet this goal, but I can keep going until all the fat is gone.

Look out world, here I come! My next picture will be when I have lost 63lbs when I weigh 200lbs or less (if it’s like 199.8 or something). See you then…

My Cloudy Lava Lamp (FIXED)

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Michel McDonald

I am a happy camper today. I was at my wit’s end with this lava lamp because when I cleaned it, it didn’t work again. It just sat there with the blob of wax sitting at the bottom and never doing anything. This morning I just started adding more and more straw fulls of salt water and boy has it come back from the dead fast. I mean, it’s night and day.

I posted this about my cloudy lava lamp and talked near the end about how done with it I was and that I was going to just get a new one, but I take it back now lol. You can see pictures of my experience with the epsom salt. It was a total nightmare!

So this is how I fixed my yellow cloudy lava lamp. I dumped the water out, rinsed it out in the sink, added distilled water, then a drop of Avon body wash, made a mixture of 1TBSP of salt with a small glass of distilled water and stirred it. I used a straw to add the salt water to the lava lamp, but I had to add a lot of straws full. I think just keep adding it until you see it doing something. Obviously if the lava is just sitting at the bottom it needs more salt water. If it starts to kick up but doesn’t break away too easy, add more salt water.

YAY! I finally got my lava lamp back to working! My partner suggested to throw it in the trash and he’d buy me another one, but I don’t want another one, I want this one! He bought it for me for Christmas 2011. I also don’t like the idea of adding one more thing to the already overflowing land fills. I know everything in it can be recycled, but I still wanted to try to get it working again. I’m glad I succeeded!

Cloudy Lava Lamp (Updated)

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Michel McDonald

I have enjoyed my lava lamp since I got it for Christmas last year. It is my very first lava lamp and I sit at my desk chair sometimes staring at it for literally 10-20 minutes. It is that interesting to me. What is even more interesting, or probably more disturbing, is the fact that the water used to be crystal clear, and now it’s yellow. I don’t know why it has turned yellow, but apparently it’s a common problem with lava lamps.

Here is my lava lamp in December 2011 when I first got it, and here it is now in January 2013 a year later.

What a huge difference. I wonder what would cause the water to turn yellow like that? I never thought anything of it until I was browsing through the pictures in the My Pictures folder on my computer and came across it. I then suddenly remembered how clear it used to be. Naturally I went to Google to research it to see if anyone else has had this issue and to see if there was anything to do about it. I did find several websites that mentioned it and even a solution.

Update: I deleted everything I had typed out before and retyped it. I took out those links and here is why. I followed their instructions which seemed legit to me because more than one website mentioned the same exact thing, but all it did was mess up my lamp. Here is what it looked like after I tried their fix.

I was devastated when this happened to my lava lamp. The instructions were to let it cool so the wax was solid and open the top of the lava lamp and dump the water out into the sink. Then put new water from the tap in and swish it around to get all the grease off the walls of the lamp which meant doing that a couple of times. Then they said to fill it up with tap water and add a couple drops of dish liquid and add a mixture of epsom salt and water with a straw. Those white flakes in the image to the left is the result of the epsom salt.

I let the lamp cool down and dumped the water out and added new water and more soap, but not the epsom salt and turned it on and there was still epsom salt in the wax at the bottom, so it took several times of rinsing it out to get it back to this…

I was thrilled beyond belief when the lava lamp was back to normal and the lava was rising. But then it stopped rising and went back down and never went back up again. What did I do wrong? Like an idiot I mixed a tiny amount of epsom salt with a lot of water and added an inch full from a straw and I got that image from above again. UGH!

That blew my mind that such a tiny amount of epsom salt would do the same thing as a bunch of epsom salt in a smaller amount of water. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I rinsed it out again and didn’t add ANY salt at all and the lava wouldn’t go up again. I searched for more instructions because I really want this working again. I found one guy who made a video and said don’t use too much soap because it will ruin your lava lamp. He also said to use 1 tablespoon of regular table salt and use the straw to add it, which I did and it still won’t rise.

I’m not sure if every time I had to rinse it out and added more soap if the soap ruined the wax or what, but it’s not rising anymore at all. I rinsed it out again and didn’t add anything and it is just not working. I think I screwed it up beyond repair.

Of course I have questions, like did I use the wrong dish liquid? It’s Palmolive anti-bacterial, maybe it didn’t have enough of the right ingredient. Maybe I used the wrong epsom salt. The epsom salt I have is generic and it’s hard as a rock. I assume it’s because the ziplock bag it is in wasn’t manufactured properly because the zips don’t line up right so air gets in, maybe that’s why it’s hard, maybe moisture got in. Perhaps if I bought a brand name epsom salt then it might work, but what if I bought some and tried it and it still messed it up? What if, what if, what if…

Another update: It works! Here is a brand new post with a video.

How to make money with your cell phone – 7 apps

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Michel McDonald

I have been getting paid to blog for many years using various IZEA websites, such as PayPerPost, SocialSpark and Sponsored Tweets, which by the way is the only reason I was able to buy myself a brand new Android phone for Christmas.

Since I have a new HTC ONE V from Virgin Mobile coming, I figured I would see if I could use that to my advantage to make more money. The blogging for money is fine, but it has taken a few months worth of blogging and tweeting just to make $80 to buy my new Android phone. It’s good pay, but it doesn’t come by very easily.

Naturally the first thing I did was go to Google and typed “Make money with android phone” and I found a bunch of things. IZEA used to have a cell phone app called WeRewards which rewarded you every time you checked in at a store like Target, Walmart, Subway etc. as long as you took a picture of yourself, your receipt, the product and/or the store sign while in the store or in the parking lot. They closed that down so there is one less thing to talk about, but they did replace it with Staree.

Ok so here are the things I have found.

1. iPinion and iPinion+

iPinion is the most sophisticated survey app ever built for smart phones. It has exciting survey questions including several image interaction types. Users can take surveys on the go and earn rewards. iPinion is non-intrusive, fun to participate and professional.

They have 2 apps and they each got good ratings and reviews, but iPinion+ doesn’t have as many as the other.

2. IconZoomer

Become Trendspotter at Iconzoomer and receive cash for your photos.

Shoot it – Send it – Earn it

Each week you’ll receive assignments of basic topics such as: “Show us what you are eating for dinner?” or “Show the shoes are you wearing today?”

Pretty straight forward. They ask you to take a picture, you do and you get paid for it. That seems pretty good and the ratings and reviews are very good.

3. CheckPoints

Scan barcodes for products like Coca-Cola, Dreyer’s and more in any store for instant rewards! As seen in the Washington Post, NY Times, USA Today and CNN, CheckPoints is the “App That Pays You Back” with free rewards, no matter where you are!

You are going to the store anyway, why not open this app while you are there and scanning barcodes for rewards? It seems really easy. This app got a lot of good ratings and reviews.

4. ShopKick

This holiday shopping season, join the more than 4 million shopkick users who get rewarded for the shopping they already do. It’s like a rewards program—only better. You get rewarded just for walking into stores like Target, Macy’s, Best Buy, Old Navy, American Eagle and Crate & Barrel. Get even more kicks when you scan items and make purchases. Forget sales and coupons. You can find great discounts and deals in the app. It’s a magical experience, and it’s free.

This is very similar to CheckPoints in the sense that you get rewarded for scanning barcodes, but you also get rewarded merely for walking into a store without doing anything. So you could basically just go to the mall and walk around with this app loaded and go into the stores that they have listed in the app and start window shopping and scanning barcodes. They got some good ratings and some reviews.

5. Cash King

**** We have the highest payout per app install for our users! We beat all of the competitors apps!!****

It’s simple to earn money from Cash King. Download free apps, complete surveys and watch videos to receive instant cash from your mobile phone. You can receive the money you earned via PayPal or an Amazon Gift Card. In exchange for your time we give you money. It’s that simple! Sign up today and start earning money from your mobile phone. Earn Cash and become the King!

This one has some good and bad reviews. The top review that I read is saying it’s legit, they got paid, but others are saying it’s hard for them to make any money. I would say go ahead and install this one for S&G’s and do the surveys and watch the videos. If you get paid then great, if you don’t make a lot then at least you gave it a shot eh?

6. Viggle

Viggle. Check into your favorite shows and get rewarded. Viggle makes TV better.

Watch TV. Get Rewards. Check into your favorite TV shows with Viggle and you’ll get real rewards from brands like Best Buy, Burger King, Fandango, Old Navy and more.

Viggle can automatically identify the show you’re watching. You get Viggle points for every show you watch which you can redeem for real rewards or convert into charitable donations.

Some people are saying bad things about this, like the app doesn’t recognize the show they are watching so they have to type it in manually, and others are saying it doesn’t give you money, you get coupons. I would say to check it out and if you only get $5 gift cards for Amazon, then at least you are getting something. I mean who cares if you are getting coupons, it’s the same as cash when you go to use it and you end up saving money on things you already want to buy. Also, if you feel generous you could give the money to charity.

7. Staree

Use the Staree app to upload photos and videos to your Staree.com profile.

To request a Staree account, please visit our website at http://www.staree.com!

I am loyal to IZEA so I am only adding this because they are an awesome company that always pays you. They are 100% legit. I have signed up for Staree and have uploaded a couple of photos, but I don’t know how it really works yet. But it’s still worth giving a shot. I really wish they would bring WeReward back though.

So these are all of the apps that I plan on installing when I get my new HTC One V from Virgin Mobile. If you know of any more or better apps for making money please let me know in the comments and I will add them. These were just all I could find from doing my own research, but I am sure there are better apps out there.

Thank you to IZEA for allowing me to blog for products and websites and paying me for it. Now I will hopefully be able to make more money from my phone so that I can afford the monthly fee and/or to buy some accessories for it lol.

A New Phone for (a belated) Christmas

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Michel McDonald

VirginUpdatedLogo300x300 thumb A New Phone for (a belated) Christmas

I wrote about how I wanted to buy myself a new cell phone from Virgin Mobile for Christmas, but I can’t seem to settle on which phone I want and I keep changing the phone in that post. I said I am not getting it for games, but here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter if I play games on it or not, if it can’t play games well, then what hope do I have for it running apps? So I want a phone that is capable of running apps as well as well as it runs games because I don’t want to be in an app and suddenly the phone freezes up.

The phone I wanted in the beginning was on sale for $49, but after seeing a video review on YouTube for it, I decided that it wasn’t what I wanted. They always say you get what you pay for, and for $50 you are probably getting a piece of crap. The phone is normally $100, but still, if they show a game freezing in the review then that’s enough for me to say no.

I have been watching other reviews for other phones and even though they are good phones, none of them compare to the quality you get with the most expensive Android phone that they have.

The HTC EVO V 4G is on sale for $189 and takes 3D pictures and video, which is nice and all, but where else am I going to see those besides the phone? I can’t print the 3D images and I can’t watch the videos on my 2D TV, so what’s the point? Plus it only takes 5MP pictures. The most expensive one takes 8MP pictures and it doesn’t have 3D. So I would say screw the 3D, I don’t need it.

The HTC One V and the Samsung Galaxy Reverb are both good phones, the HTC One V is on sale for $100 and the Samsung Galaxy Reverb is on sale for $150, but again, not as good as the most expensive one which I now see is no longer as cheap as it was yesterday. It is the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G. I can’t afford that for a phone. So my 2 choices are now down to the HTC One V and the Samsung Galaxy Reverb.

I still can’t afford anything until next month. I have already set aside $40 and I will have more than $100 coming to me next month for blogging and tweeting which is at least 6 months worth, so it’s not a lot lol. Whatever amount I have will determine which phone I get. I want the HTC One V because it seems like a much better phone, even though it’s cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Reverb. Of course, neither of them are as good as the Galaxy S II, but if that is all I can afford, then that’s all I can afford. I will probably most likely have to pay separately for the plan after I buy the phone, so whatever it is I can add $35 to the price.

The toughest part is that by the time I have the money for the phone, they won’t be on sale anymore so I will end up paying more for the phone. I’ll probably end up checking Amazon and VirginMobileUSA.com every day to see if they have a sale and which one is worth getting. Who knows, maybe by the time I have the money saved up, they might have new phones that are better than the 2 I’m torn between.

I don’t really need a new cell phone because I hardly ever use the one I have, so this isn’t a necessity, but I would like to have a new one because I feel like I’m stuck in the dark ages with the one I have, even though I’ve only had it for a year and a half lol. It’s like having a black and white TV when everyone else has color, or having a Nintendo 64 when everyone else has PlayStation. This is starting to sound like an Alanis Morissette song. It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife lol.

My phone never has a good signal, so whenever I call anyone with it, I feel like I’m going to get cut off so that’s why I don’t like to use it. I know it’s not the phones fault, but how do I know it’s not? It’s a Samsung T401G from Net10. I have had trouble downloading games for it because of the bad signal. I have to wait until we go to a doctor’s appointment or to the mall to get a good enough signal just to download games, and forget about checking email because every time I try to do that, Gmail has to send me a new code which comes in a text so I have to leave the browser and read the text and try to remember the code so I can enter it when I go back to the browser. It’s just a horrible phone lol. I want a new phone because I feel if I had a better phone I might use it more. I may not call people, but I will use the apps.

Another reason I want a smart phone is so that I can use Twitter and Facebook when we’re not home and I can’t get to a computer or I don’t want to be rude enough to take out my Chromebook. It will be so much easier to pull my phone out and do a quick Facebook update or tweet and then put it back in my pocket. It will also be so much easier and faster to tweet pictures that I have taken with my phone instead of having to upload pics to Picasa to edit before uploading to Facebook and Twitter. It will take so many long steps out of the equation. Also I can read email and respond right away, not that I get a lot of emails anymore since Facebook and Twitter came out, but still.

I will have to wait and see what happens in January before I can make a firm decision on whether I will get a new phone and which one it will be. I hope it’s a good one and is 100 times better than the one I have.

Avon Sugar Cookie Dough

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Michel McDonald

My cousin Tabitha Vavrick sells AVON on the internet and in September I bought these Halloween cookie cutters. They were very inexpensive and I love cookies, so I bought them. I posted on Facebook that I was going to make them with Sweet N Low instead of sugar because of my blood sugar issue, but people warned me against it and told me to use Splenda instead, but I can’t use Splenda because it gives me the worst stomach cramps. They told me to use Stevia and that it turns out gives me something I won’t discuss here since we are talking about food lol.

I decided that I would just go ahead and use sugar despite my problem with being a diabetic, but those same people warned me against using the recipe that came with the cookie cutters. I don’t know why I let people talk me into alternative things. They told me to find the Paula Deen sugar cookie recipe, which I did and I made and the cookies were awful. I mixed all of the ingredients right and they just didn’t taste very good.

That was a month ago and a few days ago I wanted to try it again, but this time using the recipe that came with the cookie cutters. I did it, and it was wonderful. I don’t mean to give any secrets away by posting this recipe card, but they sell other cookie cutters that don’t even come with a recipe (their 3D Christmas Tree cookie cutters) so I figured that if someone bought that, they would want a good recipe, and this one is the best.

I have had sugar cookies my entire life and they don’t taste like this recipe, probably because the recipe that the professionals use has sugar on top of the cookies and these don’t. That makes the cookies sweeter, these don’t need that extra sweetness because they are awesome on their own.

You could decorate them if you wanted to, but that would just add more sugar to it and I’ve tried coloring cookies before, it’s not good lol. The cookies taste awesome alone without any extra sugar on top.

If you wanted to buy some of these or other cookie cutters, buy them from my cousin Tabitha Vavrick. They have some great prices on a lot of their products.

I can’t wait for December so I can make the 3D Christmas Tree Cookies with this recipe.

Christmas Yarn That I Can’t Use

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Michel McDonald

Christmas Ombre Yarn 1024x683 Christmas Yarn That I Cant Use

I was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome a few years ago after crocheting for 20 years. I didn’t crochet every day, but the last few years that I was able to crochet, let’s just say I crocheted a lot and it ruined my hands. Although I cannot say if that is what ruined my hands, but when I crochet, I get numbness in both hands and my right hand gets pinching in the palm.

I haven’t crocheted for several years because when I was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, I decided I would stop crocheting to give my hands time to rest and heal so that some day I might be able to crochet again. That some day has come and I still can’t crochet.

Last week I gave away all of my yarn to someone who needs it more than I do. I decided that I didn’t want to part with everything, so I kept the Christmas Ombre yarn which is a color that has not been made in at least 12 years that I know of, but I’m sure it hasn’t been made in more than 12 or 15 years. I have held onto this yarn because I have wanted to make a Christmas blanket and had hoped that I could, but I just don’t see that happening.

Last night I decided that I was going to make one granny square. I crocheted the chain, then did a slip stitch and began making a cluster and both of my hands went numb right away and I started to feel the pinching in my right palm. I thought, screw that, I’m going to make this square if it’s the last thing I do, but I couldn’t do it. I did make 3 rounds, but had to undo the whole thing because I decided against clusters, I wanted to make the clusters 3 double crochet stitches instead, but I couldn’t do it because of my hands. It is sitting on my desk with the 8 chain round and 3 chain and 2 double crochets to make the first cluster, that’s it.

Why does it have to be this way? I have been good, I haven’t been a bad person, why can’t I make a simple granny square? Is it too much to ask? I just want to make a simple blanket, why can’t I do it? I feel like my skill has been amputated and that I am useless, not that I was very useful before, but I’m even less useful now.

Here I can sit typing out a post that is at count 411 words, but I can’t crochet one simple square. It isn’t fair! Why is it that my carpal tunnel syndrome doesn’t apply to typing? Not that I want that to be taken away from me too, but why is it I can do one thing with my hands, but not the other? I don’t get it.

Ok, whatever, I am going to make this blanket. I can suffer the pain enough to do one simple square every day until I have all of the squares that are needed to make a blanket. Every time I complete a square, I can sew it to the one I did the day before, this way there won’t just be a ton of squares with no purpose. I think I can certainly accomplish that… right?

So this is my new project, wish me luck! I’m gonna need it lol.

Xanapus` Lair

Diary of a Gay Nerd

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