Quick Update / October Wrap-up

If you’re following the widget, you know I’ve had some compliance issues lately. I got up to just under 420, and right now am holding still at 414.2, which is a few pounds up from the beginning of October. No excuses, I just had some stressful things happening last month, and I reacted poorly. Right now I think I can still make the goal of breaking below 400 before New Year’s, but I am going to have to hit it hard to do so.

Trying To Link Your Google Analytics Account to Adwords and Failing?

Recently I set up a Google Analytics account to learn more about the traffic to my blog and the other pages on www.verlin.com (or, more accurately, the lack of traffic). I noticed that it was possible to link your Adwords account with your Analytics account, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how. Eventually, I figured out that while I was using the new version of Google Analytics, the link to integrate with AdWords expected the old version. So I simply clicked the “Make Old Version Default” link in Analytics, then went back to AdWords and followed the integration link again. Ta-da! I was presented with the wizard interface that let me link the two Google products. Once the link was complete, I switched back to the new interface and made it the default again. Hopefully, Google will correct this oversight before they completely retire the old version.

September Weight-Loss Wrap-Up

Yesterday was October 1st, and I weighed in at 412.6 pounds, down 8 pounds since the beginning of September. My weight loss has clearly slowed down, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m entering a plateau, if I’m having compliance problems, if I need to adjust my calories, or if it’s some combination of these factors and/or others. I’m approaching the 400-pound mark, and hope to get there well. before I turn 36 in December. The next few weeks have some big changes in store, so my stress levels are going to be up, and I need to avoid emotional eating if I am going to continue my success. I need to blog more, because writing these quick hit pieces helps to keep me motivated, even if it’s just a short note on a milestone weigh-in or a rant on something that happened.

At any rate, moving forward, if a little slower than last month. I will get these pounds off, and then never see them again.

Move VMware ESXi / vSphere Hypervisor VMs without changing MAC address

I spent last night at my company’s colocation facility replacing our main production server. I was using VMware Converter 5 to copy virtual machines from the old ESXi 3.5 server to the new box running 4.1, but ran into a problem when I copied my Vyatta firewalls and fired them up. Vyatta stores your NIC’s MAC address in its config files, and ESXi assigns machines migrated with VMware Converter a new MAC. When you boot the cloned machine, you’re screwed, because the interface that all your lovingly crafted firewall rules are assigned to doesn’t exist. I attempted to manually set the MAC, but ESXi makes it impossible to use a MAC that was previously set automatically. I also tried editing the .VMX file, but that didn’t work either.

I was resigned to manually editing the Vyatta config, when I decided to try one last thing. I uploaded a FreeNAS iso to my new box, built a VM with a 4GB boot disk, and a data drive large enough to hold my Vyatta VMs. I powered the FreeNAS VM up, shared the data drive via NFS, and mounted it as a datastore on the old box. I used the Datastore browser to copy the VMs on the NFS, then mounted the same NFS from the new box, and copied the VMs onto my new machine. I browsed the new machine’s datastore, right clicked on the .VMX files, chose “Add to Inventory”, and the VMs appeared in my menu. Then I powered up the VMs, ESXi asked me if I had moved or copied them. I clicked “I moved it”, and lo and behold, the firewalls came up cleanly, without new MAC addresses being assigned to the NICs.

As the cherry on top of the Big Win Sundae, the copy was much much faster than using the Converter. If you have the space when you are migrating, definitely consider using this strategy. It will save you time and headaches!

Tried to install Windows 8 and ran into:”we were unable to run bootsect”?

If you’re finally getting around to installing the Windows 8 Developer Preview that came out this week and your regular desktop runs a 32-bit version of Windows, you may have gotten this cryptic error message when you used the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to make a bootable USB version of the nearly five gigabyte 64-bit installer with developer tools ISO:

Status: Files copied successfully. However, we were unable to run bootsect to make the USB device bootable. If you need assistance with bootsect, please click the "Online Help" link above for more information.

If you click the link, you will be taken to a useless general help page for Microsoft’s online store. At this point, you may feel like screaming, but if you’re reading this post, then you’re actually only about 5 minutes from having a bootable USB drive. The solution is after the jump! Read more…

Nothing new here, just bored

Completely random posting because it’s cold, rainy, and all-around icky here. Doing well with my eating goals, but my motivation is flagging as the weather gets colder. Guess it’s the hibernation instincts kicking in. Going to psyche myself up and get past this, and get on with the business of making myself thinner.

60 Pounds Down!

Already? Assisted by a touch of a stomach bug, I woke up this morning and weighed in at 410.6 pounds. That’s a smidge over 60 pounds from my starting weight. I know I dropped these five pounds way too fast, and I’ll probably put some of it back on in the short term. Still, the long-term trend is undeniable, and I feel like I am well on my way to a longer, healthier life. I still have well over 200 pounds to lose, and it is going to be a long haul, but it is going to happen. Watch this space!

55 Pounds Down!

Another milestone post. Stepped on the scale this morning and saw 416.2, which means I’m 55 pounds down since I started tracking my eating in May. More or less, I’m losing 10 pounds per month, which means I’m still nearly two years from my ultimate weight loss goal. I know that slow and steady wins the race, and I’m happy to be able to continue reporting continual progress. As long as I am paying attention, I don’t think I can fail.

August’s End And Into September

Just a quick hit to post my August summary. 8/1 I was 432.0 pounds, today (9/1) I am 420.6 pounds, totaling 11.4 pounds lost for the month. Actually, I’ve been lower this month, getting just below 418 pounds but I gave back a few pounds to end the month. Still, I met my ten pound monthly goal, and I’ve moved down a pants size. Very excited, and motivated to keep going. Also very busy, hence the lack of updates around here. I’ll try to remedy that soon.

50 Pounds Down!

If you’ve been watching my Hacker’s Diet badge, you know I dipped below 420 this week, meaning I’m now officially at the 50 pound weight loss mark. Very hard to believe that I’ve lost 10% of my body weight and I am still well over 400 pounds, but I am making progress, and I am psyched about it. The next few weeks are going to be insane, but I hope to keep the momentum up and get below 400 pounds before the end of the year. The trend is my friend, and as long as it keeps trending downward, things are looking good!