South Dakota - Day 1

A few pics from the first full day in South Dakota:

At the SPAM museum:

Mitchell Corn Palace:

Crazy Horse Monument (incredible story!):

Mount Rushmore:

Bison up really close in Custer State Park:

Some of the "Begging Burros":

My Health Journey - Introduction

I'm restarting this blog to track my health improvements over the next few months.

A Bit of Background

I haven't been the healthiest of people, my peak health was probably in my mid-twenties, working out at Hart House, University of Toronto, running the occasional 5K race, once a year doing the 24-hour Run for the ROM fundraiser (approx. 5-6 times running 5K over a 24 hour period).

Prior to getting engaged in 1987 (28 years old), I took a solo trip to Greece for 6 weeks (my friend bailed on me at the last moment so I went alone).  I did a lot of walking on the trip and was pretty fit.

I love my wife Laurel and three boys!  But for some reason, I wasn't taking as good care of myself.  With each baby, I had "sympathetic weight gain" with Laurel.  She took it off, I didn't.  My sedentary job didn't help but mostly it was laziness and enjoying junk food!

In the 90's (I was mid-thirties), it started to fall apart:

• High blood pressure -> meds
• Thyroid over-active -> kill it off with radiation and take supplements for life
• Cholesterol is high -> meds
• 2003 - Blood sugar (A1C) too high -> Type 2 Diabetes - meds and diet
• 2009 - A1C climbing -> insulin
• Cholesterol climbing -> more meds (which I believe worsened the insulin)
• A1C still too high -> more insulin

At my peak, I was 221 lbs (5'11"), BMI (Body Mass Index) just in the "Obese" range.

Something had to change!

In Hawaii, look at that belly!

Thar she blows!

Next:  Phase 1 - Weight Loss

Heading to Haiti!

I will be leaving Thursday May 13th for a fact-finding trip to Port au Prince, Haiti, returning the following Monday.

Our Ontario churches of the United Brethren Church in Canada, along with our US counterparts have raised considerable funds for rebuilding in Haiti.

I will be joined by our Haiti Team Leader Joan Sider, Haiti Team member Jeff Gordon, United Brethren US Global Ministries Team Leader Jeff Bleijerveld and CH Global representative Ed Sider.

Some pictures:

Citie Soleil Church damaged:


Jeff Bleijerveld and our Haitian Leader Pastor Oliam Richard:












People gathered for a Sunday Service (our Delmas 33 church is not yet finished):

Back from Honduras

Laurel tells me that I may have left an impression that we stayed at the beautiful Pico Bonito lodge! We just had lunch there. We were staying at a much more modest hotel in downtown La Ceiba.

I haven't had much time to add stuff here, I've been focusing on the conference (see www.ubcentral.org ) and our work in Haiti (which will need to be drastically refocused).

Honduras

We attended the last day of the Honduras conference this afternoon after a late but very good meal of fish. They really put on a show, the Bethel Collegio Instituto (United Brethren highschool) had about half their marching band. They have a reputation throughout Honduras and Central America for being very good and they did not disappoint.

There was also a children's presentation with 1-2 children dressed in the traditional garb of each country represented at the UB General Conference. They also sang a verse of each national anthem. There were 2 cute young girls in jeans and cowboy boots for the US. Canada had a little Mountie and two First Nations!

I'll try to attach a few pictures tomorrow.

Greetings from Honduras!

I arrived yesterday in Honduras for our United Brethren world-wide conference (held every 4 years, this is the first time outside of USA). We arrived in San Pedro Sula and took a 3 hour bus ride to Le Ceiba on the coast.

We had a great breakfast at the Pico Bonito Lodge, in the protected eco area south of La Ceiba. many trails, animals, etc. Unfortunately, we've had continuous rain! There is flooding on some of the roads.

To check out the lodge: www,picobonito.conm

Fancying up newdundee.com

I spend some time yesterday re-vamping newdundee.com, adding a nice drop-down menu. I also added a site map for those with older browsers. I will be approaching locals businesses to make sure they are aware of the website, and will then post it in the Post Office bulletin board.

Initial Post - the rebirth of newdundee.com

Yesterday I put up the re-vamped version of www.newdundee.com - have a look. I plan to jazz up the menus using some jquery code I found.

It's taken me several days to freshen up my 1999's web skills, learning XHTML, css and a bit of javascript, it's been a fun few days while I'm at home recovering from my recent gall bladder surgery.