This entry is sponsored by My Airfare Secrets. Read it before you buy your next ticket and save money.

There are a couple of trips looming in my future, 2 business and 1 personal, and I’m always looking for better and easier ways to book the best flight. Farecast represents an interesting option in this never ending battle between airline variable pricing and timing. They answer the question “When is the right time to book my air travel?” Check out a screenshot of a search on flights from San Francisco to New York in the screen shot below:



The service takes advantage of the airline’s “best fair” guarantee such that you can purchase your tickets whenever you’d like, pay Farecast $10, then they’ll watch for better prices. If that happens before your flight, the airline will match the discount refunding you money. It’s pretty simple and straightforward. Thus far, Farecast claims to have saved travelers an average of $35 per ticket, seems like it could be a good deal.

Don’t buy your ticket until you read My Airfare Secrets, it could save you cash.

The thing I like best about this is one simple feature, put your search parameters in and save them. The results are then presented in an RSS feed to your reader of choice on a daily basis (the snapshot above is from my RSS feed this morning.) This business model and approach looks like a winner, at least until the airlines get wise and change their “best fair” policies to prevent this sort of reverse arbitrage in the system.

Have you ever wanted to see your face (or someone else’s) on currency? Well, here’s your chance. Too bad there’s not a $1,000,000 bill, then you could say “hey, you look like a million bucks!” Visit this fun distraction and prank generator.

This entry is sponsored by Recipe Builder, a great tool for meal planning.

One of the most popular entries I’ve written this year was on the “secret” to weight loss back at the end of March. The synopsis: the secret is diet and exercise. Given that there was interest in that content, I thought I’d provide an update on progress and talk a little bit about the challenges I’ve faced along the way – this is what is working for me, your mileage may vary.

Rather than delve into my approach in detail again, you can revisit that content if you’d like. Today I passed the 30lb (13.6kg) mark for reduced mass from January 2, 2007, or nearly 14% of my total mass. It’s taken longer than I thought it would to reach this milestone and that’s what I wanted to share in this entry.

April was something of a “lost month” on the weight loss front, it was a continual battle of losing and gaining the same couple of pounds over and over again. Psychologically, it was torture because instead of the pattern that had become normal, 2 steps forward 1 step back, a new pattern had developed of 1.1 steps forward and 1 step back. Since I was keeping a log of food and exercise, I was able to revisit those inputs and outputs to troubleshoot the problem – this was a classic plateau situation.

The core of the matter was that my overall mass had changed enough in a few months that my base level kcal (scientific calorie) burn declined enough to require a change in mix of the diet and exercise routine. The net of this is, my activity level had to increase by about 15% per day while maintaining the dietary standards to break the plateau and move back into the two steps forward, one step back pattern observed earlier in the process.

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If I hadn’t kept the exercise and food log, I would have had a harder time diagnosing the problem (if I could have diagnosed it at all.) And I’m now anticipating that during the last 20 lb (9 kg) of this journey that the plateau situation will reappear at some point. What is unclear to me is if the same sort of action will break the cycle or if this was a one time sort of answer. The thing that is crystal clear to me is that in our society it is very difficult to maintain dietary rigor, particularly when one’s life requires social engagement over meals taken outside the home. It’s certainly possible, but it’s very challenging.

Finally, a word about the psychological aspect of this project, I’m personally finding it hard to assimilate that 30 lb is gone, but “I’m still fat.” No one else is saying that to me (in fact, it’s quite the opposite, people have been very supportive) but I do say it to myself and that’s the wrong message. It’s a process and a journey and the way I’ve attempted to reprogram the message is “It’s taken 20 years to put this weight on, how lucky are you that it’s only going to take a few months of concentrated effort to take it off?” If you’re trying to lose weight with substantially higher numbers than mine, I wish you well. Until doing this myself, I had no idea what the psychological aspect of doing this sort of thing was like.

If you know a friend or loved one who’s trying to get fit, one of the nicest things you could do for them is to tell them they look great and that you’re proud of them for the progress they’ve made. Make it sincere and heartfelt or don’t say it, but those comments can help on the mental front of this battle…Perhaps I’ll write another entry on this before reaching steady state, we’ll see.

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This is origami from MIT, which of course means it’s Bad Ass Origami. Check the link to see a collection of entries into the Fourth Annual Origami competition at MIT. Pretty impressive stuff, hard to believe it’s paper.

If you travel often, you’ve probably decided to pack lightly and carry on your baggage. Why? Because when forced to check bags, you may have imagined that the baggage claim was something of a gamble. Well, as you can see from the image above, someone else has conjured that image as well and used it for an advertising campaign! When I saw this picture everytime I’ve waited for my luggage to come out of the chute flashed before my eyes.

Fortunately, travelers seem to win a bit more frequently at baggage claim, except for SFO where the loss rate seems to be elevated relative to other airports in the world.