I haven’t yet posted on our new sedate 4 door family sedan. With the eminent arrival of one Audrey Katana, it became evident that we needed a bigger vehicle to cart around 2 small children and all their gear. I admit I have a hang up about driving a mini-van. I’m just not ready for it. Given that we’ll have all sorts of trips we’ll need to take, I really wanted a car that was going to be fun to drive. Enter our new car, the shy and retiring Charger R/T. Or “Cool Car”, as Zoë has named it.

There were two things that sold me on this car, the vroom factor and the spacious trunk. The trunk is massive, easily big enough to fit all the support gear that goes along with multiple kids. What I wasn’t counting on with this car was the plush factor. Big, comfortable (heated) leather seats. Dual AC for passenger and driver. Bluetooth connectivity for the phone, Siris satellite radio and a connector in the glove box to put an iPod. For me, its is the most comfortable car I have ever driven.

Now where things really get fun is under the hood. It has a ridiculously large 5.7 liter Hemi engine that has a nice throaty growl and really gives it a lot of get up and go. It is very much a muscle car in the classic sense.

Now for the epiphany part:

While driving down the freeway, I saw a corvette whipping in and out of traffic, doing its best to live up to the sport car aspect of its design. As I looked over, I realized what it was I like so much about muscle cars. Sports cars typically rely on things like aerodynamics and light weight to go fast. A muscle car just says “screw drag, I’m going fast” and does it. There’s a certain hulking menace inherit in a muscle car that really appeals to me.

While hopped up street racers and sports cars say “hey, look at me, I’m going fast!”.  The muscle car doesn’t care what anyone else thinks, it’s got a job to do.

Vroom vroom.

I know Zoë usually stays on her site, but I just had to post this. Last night Z was “reading” out loud and making quite a ruckus. I looked over to see what it was she was reading to discover she had pulled all of the Akira collections off the shelf and was sitting on the couch looking through them.

Not that there is anything wrong with Akira, its just something children shouldn’t be reading…

No, its not the prequel to the awesome “movie about gladiators”*, but an actual number in pounds. Today I finally hit my target weight of 200. For the uninitiated, in late October I went to see the Dr because my sinus headaches were getting worse. He diagnosed me with borderline high blood pressure and gave me the option of trying to lower my weight and get more exercise instead of prescribing me hard core blood pressure medication. I went home that day and Maryanne and I decided that we would start eating better. At that point I was around 250lbs.

Today, about 6.5 months later, I’m at 200.

It was a pretty simple shift. I immediately cut out all sugary foods and soda. I probably drank a soda a day. Stopping had a dramatic effect. For the first 2 weeks after stopping, I was losing around 1 lb a day. 250 to 235 was really quick. The rest took a bit more work. I was talking with someone at the beginning of all this and he said something along the lines of “I’d like to lose weight, but I just don’t have time to work out”. I tried to explain that I wasn’t doing anything significantly different with my exercising, that it was purely based on cutting out sugar and eating about half the amount of food I was used to. He didn’t listen, so as an experiment in nutrition I decided to see how far I could go without adding a new exercise routine.

50lbs in 6.5 months. That’s how far.

Honestly, it really wasn’t that difficult. I accepted that for a while I would feel hungry all the time as my body adapted to the new calorie intake. I resigned myself to snacking on goldfish crackers and trail mix (the kind without M&Ms). The hardest part was not having a Slurpee. Cola Slurpees are probably my favorite treat. I had a small one today in celebration. It took a while for the sugar buzz to wear down.

That’s another bonus of cutting out sugar. Now a small amount really packs a punch!

Everyone has been so supportive of my effort. Maryanne has been a tremendous help, figuring out interesting things to have for dinner that were also healthy. People at work constantly commenting on how much weight I have lost. I had one co-worker say, “I’m really proud of you. You made a decision and stuck with it. That sort of thing doesn’t go unnoticed”.

If there’s one downside, it’s that the buttons on my jeans (that I bought when I had already lost about 30 lbs) no longer help to hold up my pants. If it weren’t for my belt I’d be running around pantless like some Spartan.

*yes, I know 300 wasn’t about gladiators, it was a reference to the scene in Airplane.

As I was going along cleaning surface rust and covering the newly cleaned areas with rustoleum, I realized that I had gone from a mostly yellow car to a patch work “just crossed the border” look.

I want to get all the interior and engine work done before putting on a good paint job, but I decided a cheap Earl Scheib special would work in the interim. Plus, now I get to learn how to wet sand!

Introducing Parker’s “under construction” paint:

You’ll notice that Zoë has already staked her claim. She even has a “cool” wave that puts Marlon Brando to shame.

This previous weekend, I replaced the old tail lights with arrays of LEDs. The first benefit of this is that the tail lights are now about 500% brighter. The flashy (pun kinda intended) side of this upgrade is that now when I signal, the lights flash sequentially.

It was a pretty straight forward swap. While I was doing it, I took the opportunity to replace the lenses and bezels. Now they are all clean and shiny! The only semi difficult part was putting in the new turn signal switch. I had to crawl up underneath the dash, figure out which wire went where and find a place to ground the new switch to. Good times!