Lunch of the Day (w/pic)

That's right ... today, my lunch consisted of exactly one small bag of pretzels and a diet cola. Not exactly what I would call a healthy menu, but the pretzels are low in fat and only about 160 calories. Anyway, tonight, I'm planning to eat out at a Piccadilly Cafeteria, and I intend to get a small chopped steak, plus two vegetables. That might make up for lunch.

Lunch of the Day (w/pic)

My lunch consisted of a Wendy's quarter-pound, double-stack cheeseburger and a side salad, with ranch dressing. I didn't eat the top part of the bun; that's why it has been removed. The diet that I'm (more or less) following only called for one piece of bread. Actually, I'm not supposed to eat any white bread, but, today, I made an exception. Also, I didn't use the entire contents of the salad dressing pouch. Yay, me!

The restaurant had run out of plastic forks, so I had to eat the salad with only a spoon! Using it to hold the cheeseburger down, I cut it into bite-sized pieces and ate them ... with the spoon.

Lunch of the Day (w/pic)

This is what I had for lunch: a grilled chicken California Cobb salad, from McDonald's. Since I couldn't make a photograph, I snagged this picture from the Internet.

Dinner of the Day (w/pic)

My bad! I went out of town, today, and took my camera, so that I could make a photograph of my "lunch of the day." The only problem was that I forgot to take the camera's memory card, so ... no "lunch of the day" photograph, today. Bah! Anyway, here is my "dinner of the day" photograph.

The entree was white-meat chicken, sauteed in garlic, onions, and soy sauce. The vegetables were strips of red bell pepper and fresh, steamed broccoli. The small bowl contains a serving of Perfection Salad, which is gelatin, chopped cabbage, celery, and pimento.

Just for the record, I had a grilled chicken California Cobb salad, at McDonald's Restaurant.

"Taco" salad (w/pic)

Today's lunch was a Taco Supreme salad from Wendy's Restaurant. Basically, it is a green salad, with chili on top. Also, you get chips, salsa, and sour cream. 

Reinstalling Windows

Last night, I decided to reinstall the operating system on my home computer. I use Windows XP Home Edition. So, at 6:41 pm, I shut off the computer, unhooked all of the cables, and opened the case. Then, I unplugged the data and power cables to the second hard drive, closed the case, reconnected all of the cables to the computer, inserted Darik's Boot and Nuke v.1.0.1 disk, and rebooted the computer.

I started DBAN in interactive mode, selected the "quick erase" method, turned off verification, and, at 6:47 pm, began wiping the C:\ drive. At 7:00 pm, wiping was forty-one percent complete. Sixteen minutes and eight seconds into the wipe, it was fifty percent complete. The wipe was complete at 7:24 pm.

Then, I removed the DBAN disk, labeled it, and powered off the computer. I rebooted the computer, inserted the Windows XP Home Edition operating system CD, and chose the regular, instead of the "fast," format option.

At 8:05 pm, formatting of the partition was complete. At 8:10 pm, the installation program reported thirty-nine minutes to completion. Fourteen minutes later, at 8:24 pm, the installation was complete.

At 8:28 pm, I removed the operating system installation CD and inserted the XP SP2 CD. AT 8:44 pm, Windows XP SP2 finished installing, and I restarted the computer. At 8:48 pm, I began installing Norton SystemWorks 2005 Premier. I chose the custom install to install all components. At 8:53 pm, I restarted the computer and removed the SystemWorks CD.

At 8:58 pm, I checked and discovered that the system drive had been designated E:\, because I forgot to unplug the CF card reader (which had become drive C:\)! I decided to reinstall the operating system, so that the system drive would be designated C:\. I unplugged the CF card reader.

At 9:00 pm, I inserted an Acronis Drive Cleanser CD and restarted the computer. I selected the fast wipe, and the program estimated twenty-three minutes remaining. The wipe completed at 9:29 pm, and I began installing the operating system. This time, I chose the quick formatting option.

The installation of the operating system was complete at 9:55 pm, and I started installation of the Windows Backup application. At 9:57 pm, I shut down the computer in order to reconnect the second hard drive.

At 10:04 pm, after reconnecting the second hard drive, I powered the computer back up and changed the CD-RW drive to drive letter E:\ and the second hard drive to drive letter D:\. The system had designated the system drive as C:\, just as I wanted. The reason that I wanted the system drive to appear as the C:\ drive, was because the Alohabob PC Backup program that I have assumes that the system drive is the C:\ drive. If the system drive is not the C:\ drive, then the backups will not be done properly.

Installation of the XP SP2 began at 10:09 pm and completed at 10:24 pm, after which I began installation of Norton SystemWorks with the default settings. At 10:38 pm, I started installation of Norton Personal Firewall 2005, and, at 10:46 pm, I began installation of BellSouth FastAccess Extreme ADSL service.

At 10:56 pm, I started downloading and installing eighteen Windows updates and ten Semantec updates. After rebooting the computer, I downloaded and installed four more Symantec updates.

At 11:27 pm, I began a full system scan with Norton AntiVirus and went to bed. This morning, I checked to see if any virus had been found. It had not. 292,045 files were scanned in fifty-two minutes and fifty-two seconds.

Roses (w/pic)

Rose bush in the yard of someone (I don't know who) in the neighborhood. I parked on the curb, stayed in the driver's seat, and took the picture. I plan to go back, in a day or two, and take a closeup of some of the blooms, assuming, of course, that they are still pretty. 

Couscous (w/pic)

Lunch today was Lemon Couscous Chicken (with freshly steamed broccoli flowerets), cucumber slices, and slices of fresh tomato, with water to drink. After the meal, I had a cup of Postum® with vanilla caramel Coffee-mate® coffee creamer.

Lunch with bulgar (w/pic)

This is the homemade version of Mediterranean Chicken Salad, prepared by Mom. It was delicious! The recipe came from The South Beach Diet book, by Dr. Arthur Agatston. The salad contained bulgar, which is cracked wheat. Preparation of bulgar is easy: pour boiling water over, let set thirty to forty minutes, pour excess water off. That's it! To drink, I had a cup of Postum®, which is a coffee-like drink made with finely ground wheat and boiling water. By itself, however, I find Postum® to be bitter, so, for flavor, I added some vanilla caramel Coffee-mate® creamer. 

Lunch at work (w/pic)

Today, I ate my lunch, which consisted of two approximately one-inch-square pieces of reduced fat cheddar cheese, in the conference room at the company where I work.