You should try BA Mason shoes
http://www.bamason.com/home.jsp?

We get the catalog at home and all the men in my family wear their work boots. They say they feel “broken in” already and guys at my dads work actually orders boots through him because they like them so much. The company also has special guarantees about the quality and replace worn out shoes sometimes.

Also, the snow blower is used a lot less (in most places) than the lawn mower. Maybe you should offer to pay for gas for half the summer for the neighbor? Or offer to pay for end-of-season maintenance, or something to address the imbalance.

Re: renting homes. Aside from the work involved, keep in mind that one meth lab on your property will eliminate your entire net worth.

Re: rolling over 104 K: If you are unemployed for a long time, make it a Roth. Then it will build without you having to pay taxes on what it makes over time.

Re: obesity. I am sick of judgmental people who can see the symptom of overweight without seeing what lies under it. The usual excuse for the hatred is that somehow, somewhere, the overweight person is “costing me money” on health care.

Well, I have news for you. You speeders are costing me money when you cause crashes. You mountain climbers and hikers are costing me money when you get in trouble and someone poor schmuck has to risk his/her life to go out and rescue you. You hang gliders are costing me money when you crash and have to go to the hospital. You bicyclists are costing me money when you get hit by a car. ALL OF THOSE ACTIVITIES ARE TOTALLY VOLUNTARY!!!! Eating, on the other hand, is NOT.

Grow up, judgmental so-and-sos. When you have taken the log out of your own eye, then go after the speck in others’ eyes!

I teach at the college level, and IMHO your best option is Microsoft OneNote. With it you can print PDF’s into the program, annotate to your heart’s content, tag, take lecture notes, including audio, and search your notes. It will keep everything in one place.

Even if your PDF’s are scanned as images, OneNote can OCR them and search the text in the image. You can do all kinds of thing with this program, which I think is the greatest, best kept secret out there for academic use.

Students can get Office 2007 Home and Student, which includes OneNote for $60 with a valid .edu email.

Also check out BlueBeam Revu and PDF annotator, both of which have nice features for little dough.

Having said that, being fat is also the RESULT of many other diseases and conditions. It’s also the RESULT of many medications prescribed. It’s also the RESULT of not being able to exercise because you have no energy, can’t catch your breath, or don’t have the strength to stand due to a medical condition or the treatment for such a condition.

The point is to treat fat people with the same kindness and courtesy you treat any other stranger.

Alternately – the best way to get egg on your face is to critisize a fat person’s dining in a restaurant!

Making obesity a disability would require businesses to make things all kinds of products and services – including public buildings and offices – accessible to people with that disability.

This is simply a ludicrous option in my view for one simple reason: obesity is 98-99% CURABLE (not to mention preventable). Besides, are we really as a society willing to hand out government disability checks along with handicapped parking tags to over half of all Americans simply because they are obese???

Plus, where do you draw the line? Does every chair and toilet and doorway need to be enlarged and every elevator converted to industrial grade so the man who weighs over 700 pounds (he exists and lives in Harlem, bed ridden) can ride?

Since I am only 5 feet tall, in order to keep my beefy size 8, I can consume no more than 1200 calories a day and I must exercise for 30 minutes to an hour every single day. Many people would consider this extreme. I have friends and acquaintances who can eat whatever they want, whenever they want to, and do not require the same level of exercise to maintain a healthy weight. The point is, that we are all different. What works for one, may be ineffective, or more difficult for someone else. The same goes for our finances.

Just like “calories in = calories spent”, we all know that the formula for staying healthy financially requires spending less than we earn, but all of us come at it from a different place. A young adult, living alone, trying to get rid of credit card debt while paying rent in New York City, has a whole different set of challenges than a middle aged couple who has two kids in college, takes care of an elderly parent, and does not have a decent public transportation system. Knowing what to do, and being able to do it successfully are very different things. The purpose of connecting through this blog, is for support, so we can face our respective challenges and hopefully, succeed. We need to remember that things are not always as they appear on the surface, and we all carry our own unique set of issues.

How do you know they’re not already trying? What do you think will be accomplished by telling someone who is trying hard to eat right and exercise and has lost 20 pounds but still has 50 to go, that they obviously have no control over their eating and need to get their fat ass to the gym? I doubt you would be so cruel to someone who is struggling (but trying) to get his or her finances in order.

Having been sick enough to lose weight in this manner, I will tell you that the excess weight I had ahead of time probably saved my life. The ability to starve oneself is an illness, either physical, mental or emotional.

That people see something instructive in photos of concentration camp victims and survivors that they contribute to weight-loss conversations is nothing new. It is sad and disingenuous. Truthfully, if someone were to eat as if they were in a concentration camp, having any other options, it would have far worse health effects than some extra pounds. If you were faced with a co-worker, friend or relative eating in this manner, you would be forced to either rush right out and purchased groceries for them or get them psychiatric help.

Obesity is increasing for many reasons, some of which is related to changes in our food supply, some of which is related to increases in illnesses that once would likely have been untreated, and some, certainly because of increasing emotional and psychological problems. And yes, for many people, eating less and exercising more is the answer. But not for all.

I find it interesting that this subject has brought up so much ire. In the current era, we are likely to see government taking over our healthcare system and doling out our money for all kinds of illness, and rationing care. Let me ask you, do you wish to see your government, or any other group deciding which care should be allowed you and which should not?

I will tell you that as an overweight person, I often check out other people’s grocery carts. I am amazed at the amount of junk food in healthy-looking skinny people’s carts. But then, I have several friends who are adversely affected by extremely high metabolism or the inability to process food. They eat enormous quantities of high calorie food striving to get to a so-called “normal” weight. Eating is an obsession with them because they have this struggle. One friend looks like she is a concentration camp survivor, but the fact is she eats loads of high calorie foods. She would be the first one to die in a concentration camp because she has not one spare ounce on her emaciated frame. I have to believe that if there are these people, who where they to increase their activity levels or drop their caloric intake would likely die, then there are those likely in equal amounts who will have a very difficult time losing weight on anything but a concentration camp diet.

By the way, my “concentration camp diet” as I called it was limited to the ingestion of about 200 calories a day, simply because I was too ill to eat. I suppose many people would suggest that since that worked, that I should willingly continue to live on 200 calories per day.

I can think up any number of Twilight Zone worthy episodes about this matter.

Why am I fat? Lots of reasons, many of which I’ll admit are personal choice. I love the taste of chocolate and seem to crave and enjoy the feeling of being full more than most people. Food has always been my security blanket when the world is not particularly kind. I was picked last and ridiculed during sports as a child, so I never learned to enjoy exercise. Nowadays I’m nervous about even going for a walk in public because I’ve been called names by passersby before. Unhealthy food is definitely cheaper and more appealing than lean meats, fruits and vegetables.

My bipolar disorder is bad enough that I can no longer work, and I have always coped with it by emotional eating. When I feel down, I gorge on sweets. When I get manic, I bring myself down with starches and salt. I developed these habits before I knew what was wrong with me, and it is very difficult to reshape them, especially when I continue to suffer from mood swings. I take lots of medication and try to use tips I’ve learned in counseling, but sometimes the depths of despair or heights of grandiosity and denial make it impossible to employ dietary discipline.

If anyone cares to cast any more stones, please take a look at your own messed up lives. Fat people are keenly aware that most people judge us and our lifestyles could kill us. The only thing simple about the obesity problem is the minds of those who think it can be solved with a little tough love or unsolicited advice.

Oh, and if I need a second seat on an airplane, maybe it’s because all the seats are too small to be comfortable for anyone. Does anyone begrudge tall people a little leg room?

Based on the research literature, “sometimes” and “in many cases” should switch from the clause they’re in to the other. Ergo, being fat is in many cases voluntary, but sometimes it is not.

While obesity is multi-causal to be sure, *in many cases* the causes reduce to personal lifestyle choices (e.g., lack of physical activity, sedentary behaviors, poor eating habits). *Sometimes* obesity is due to uncontrollable factors. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

From an evidence-based perspective, there was nothing egregious about Lindsay’s comment. Was it too universal in scope? Yes. Was it egregious? No.

Grammar whiners–please get over it. The reason for good grammar is so that people understand what you’re saying, which is especially important in writing where you can’t adjust what you’re saying based on how you see your audience responding. It sounds like you know what he’s saying. And now you know it’s proper grammar in some parts of the country. Please just consider yourself a little more cosmopolitan now.