In the spirit of the seemingly random string of numbers I posted yesterday, here's another list of supposedly random items:

• 3/4s of a full roasted duck
  
• One pint of Marble Slab ice cream (coffee flavor with mixins of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and Skor)
• A 14" meat pizza
• Several brownies
• An entire roasted chicken
  
• One puffed wheat square
• A McDonalds Double Quarter Pounder, 10 McNuggets, and a large fries
  
• One Wendy's Baconator
• A piece of Marble Slab ice cream cake
• Half of another 14" meat pizza
• Tim Horton's Sausage Egg breakfast sandwich
• A Grilled Shrimp Eggs benedict
• Two Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwiches + a large fries
• Another pint of Marble Slab ice cream (same as before, but this time with Butterfinger mixed in as well)

While this list *does* describe a sure road to a heart attack, it actually represents *some* of the food I ate in the three days between 7 PM on Valentine's Day and the night of Feb 17th.

I think we can all hail this as a spectacular achievement in raw gluttony than anything else!!  I know I amazed myself with this!

Now I'll solve the mystery of the random numbers, and you'll see how this relates:

• 20.2 - my current body fat percentage
• 42.25 - my current chest measurement in inches
• 45.75 - my current shoulder measurement in inches
• 14 - my current arm measurement in inches
• 190.4 - my current weight in pounds
• 22.5 - my current thigh measurement in inches
• 14.5 - my current calf measurement in inches
• 39.5 - my current *WAIST* measurement in inches (before anyone debates this, take a measuring tape around the largest part of your stomach, *not* where you cinch up your pants below that gut)

All of these measurements were as of this Monday morning.  Neither of these lists really sound like the rampaging success story my "In 6 months, everything changes" post was leading to, was it? 

In normal posts of this nature, you get a lot of hand-wringing, possibly some tears and most importantly, a laundry list of excuses.  This post is not one of those!  You know what, everybody fails.  However, not everybody posts about it publically.  Has Steven Rockarts posted about his repeated forced trips back to rehab?  Has Donald posted about his struggles with "Hello World"?  NADA.  I am okay with failing, and I'm okay with telling you all about it, mostly because it is from this failure I intend to have success.

When someone has a spectacular success, you can't *avoid* hearing about it. But when someone doesn't knock off a goal as they intended you're not likely to even hear them talk about the original goal itself - it's quietly swept under the rug as if it never happened.  Luckily most people know I am anything *but* quiet. 

Yes, I was accountable to the people who read this blog when I made my initial proclamation and I didn't make it.  But I'm not going to pretend I never made that commitment.  I wrote this post to be a marker for myself and all of you: I am going to rededicate myself to this goal until I actually get back into shape.  Unlike the last time I did this, I am *also* pledging that every Sunday from now until such time as I am around 12% body fat, I will be posting the same measurements on this blog.  Sure, there are those who will complain as they did with D'Arcy when he posted about his training goals. Unlike Mr. Lussier, however, I don't have the disadvantage of people reading this blog for technical content!  HA!

I've talked about this industry being in several crisises before, most notably the tail end of my presentation at DevTeach 2007 (and we'll be discussing this a little more in a little while).  But one crisis I didn't mention is the *health* crisis.  Yes, not every developer is remarkably out of shape, but many are, weaned as they are on diets of pizza and unlimited pop beverages.  Well, someone needs to be a better example and I am going to get back in shape because I want our *industry* to get into shape.   Yeah, sure, I'll be happier with 6 pack abs but I'll be really happy when our industry can also focus on looking better and feeling better as well as coding better.

I've failed tons of times.  However, I've also succeeded a bunch of times, and most often after picking myself up off the ground.  We need more stories about people who tried, failed, tried again, perservered and succeeded beyond measure.   

Mark my words when I say this is going to be one of those stories.  I promise you that.

"Like I said last week, this is just the beginning.  After all, if you want to change the world, first you have to able to change yourself.  

And who doesn't want to change the world?"