Retirement From Seaplane Advocacy

Knowing when to walk away, is wisdom. Being able to, is courage. Walking away with your head held high, is dignity. ~ Unknown

The time has come to call it quits and to pull the plug on a volunteer activity which has occupied the better part of five years in my life. By golly, it wasn’t an easy decision and I didn’t know how to do it. But, it finally clicked, the chips fell and an executive decision was made. Enough is enough, time is money and the basic need to retain a minimum amount of dignity and self respect has won. Its true, everyone around you can think you’re a clown, look down on you or laugh, but none of those people matters one bit in the grand scheme. All you have to do is look in the mirror and ask yourself: “Have I done everything in my power to help my fellow seaplane pilots?” My answer was: “Yes!”. The next question you need to ask is: “Is there anything else I owe these people?” My answer was: “No!” From there on out, the rest is the equivalent of finishing an accounting ledger. Black & White stuff. For those who think that volunteering leads to job opportunities or anything, please think again. You might be fooling yourself.

Non Revenue vs. Revenue Activity

Ask any forum and discussion board administrator as to their daily workload in running their website(s). I recently evaluated my “schedule” as a unemployed job seeker who happens to run 3 discussion boards and found that I am generally accessible to my ~ 700 members at least 12, often 16-20 hours per day. I love my members! This means that I often spend time dealing with other peoples problems from 7AM to 8PM, most of the time long beyond that, with being on the machine working on something up until 10PM. Besides a cellphone number that is shared with (only) supporting members of my site, it is absolutely normal to feel like being “ON CALL” 24/7. Recently I watched a 1 and 1/2 hour movie on my work laptop (online) and during the time of the movie, no less than 12 emails hailed into my inbox.  Upon count for several days, I determined that I received an average of 190 emails per  day on 13 email accounts. In addition I manage 3 Facebook Pages, 3 Twitter Pages, 3 Forums, 1 Personal website, monitor and read (selectively) 26 discussion boards, 5 media outlets constantly, with probably 10 more on occasional basis. Imagine this: I do not have a backlog! At any given time in space, there is not a single person out there who tries to get to me and doesn’t get a response. If that isn’t customer service, I don’t know what is. What does it pay, you ask?

$3.28 Per Day!

(This money goes to the forums, not my personal funds, mind you!)

Email Bankruptcy

I am hereby declaring Email Bankruptcy. From this point forward I will not respond to any email or message that does not meet the following criteria:

Personal & Professional Development:

• Friends & Family
• Job Offer Related

Websites & Forums

• Registration (Verifications) Related
• Founding Member Related
• Supporting Member Related
• Sponsorship & Advertising Related.

In other words, I am strategically reducing any and all non revenue activity from my life. If its not contributing to the bottom line, it isn’t there. Yes, you just read this right, I am done and finished working like a clown, jumping up and dropping anything I do just to help people who see no value in anything I do and subsequently refuse to push the donate button on my forums to donate a lousy $25.00 per year. The buck has to stop and it stops now and here, literally.

Blame the sequester if you want, but cuts have to be made and this whole show needs to be brought back to what it really is: A UNPAID HOBBY. Sounds arrogant and harsh? Sorry. The truth hurts a little before it can set you free. If you think I am an asshole, read this and tell me why I should work for free. If you don’t get the point, I am not sure what else we could possibly talk about.

How Its Done

The next step was/is to cancel all my local seaplane association memberships and newsletter subscriptions. Things have slowed down considerably since and there is more fat to be trimmed. I still have tons of email alerts about news items and things I used to post about to go through and eliminate. The goal: 5-10 emails per day, with a maximum of 1 hour per day dedicated to answering them. If the topics I am obligated to answer fail to fit into the one hour per day, additional emails go blank and will be deleted. The clock and count starts over, every day. In other words, if I didn’t get back to you on the day you wrote me, chances of a reply are limited to me feeling like I’ve got nothing else to do and that I should be responding to emails, instead.

This Gun Is For Hire & Looking For Work!

Yours Truly;

Jason Baker

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Mr. Smokey – Another Tribute

Hopes & Realities

When you have known an animal from 1999 to 2012 you grow accustomed to its presence. 1999 marked the first year I spent in the United States, living with my Aunt and Uncle. They had taken me in on a ~10 months visiting trip, which would allow me to start and finish my American pilots certificate. Much of the exciting time was spent in a wonderful house, which (due to my relatives very busy lifestyle) I had mostly to myself. I loved Irving’s Hot Dogs (at the time, for a German boy this constituted a full meal and if not, several of them would) and between flight lessons at the Bangor International Airport, it was either Dysarts Truck Stop, or incredibly greasy chicken from the Fairmont Market store in Bangor, right down the road from Bangor Savings Bank at the Airport.

My aunt (in one of her tricky, highly energetic ways) had somehow managed to teach me how to use a washing machine, an incredibly complex piece of monstrous machinery which converts funny looking clothes into wearable fabric. I obtained my type certification on the monster machine and comfortingly was able to step into the sunlight without supervision.

With us, at the time, lived two Maine Coon cats, named Smokey and Squeaky. Both known for their talkative nature we would spend many hours together, me in the tastefully arranged kitchen, pretending to be studying; and them rolling around on my books. Both incredibly well-mannered, these cats were fluffy, cuddly, nice and playful companions on any day. Their presence made my days lighter, reduced homesickness and gave me a welcome distraction when I thought I could study no more. Life was good! I had “Vicky” (1984 Ford Crown Victoria LTD) to scoot around in, at what I seem to remember to be the cheapest fuel prices in the world. Vicky loved her lube, in fact she loved it so much that I had a standard supply of no less than 16 quarts of oil with me, on any given trip. Vicky wasn’t fast or particularly sexy, just your off the rack, bubbly V8 with a nutty sound and rust holes the size of Russia! The interior was red, and smelly enough to scare every oh – so – willing – young – lady right back into her knickers, in fact I don’t think any living self-respecting female ever traveled in Vicky with me.

Oh… I am rambling again… just tell me… but when you do, try to understand that this was an AWESOME time in my life. Not a worry on the horizon, flying every day, in an environment I loved, nature, water, nice people, supporting relatives, friends, yeah, even my first American girlfriend. The country of unlimited opportunity had grabbed me and it had sucked me in. Smokey and Squeaky are elementary parts of this time by the law of primacy. They were first to greet me when I came home, and they must have wondered why I was so sad when the time to leave back to Germany came around.

During the following years I inquired on both of them, when talking on the phone with my aunt and uncle. Little did I know that both of them (in fact all four of them) would play an elementary part of my life when I returned to the United States for good, in 2004. My newly wed wife and I moved into the apartment I sit in today, writing this article for you. Constant parts of our life were, you guessed right… Smokey & Squeaky! With the hardest feelings I left this area by the end of 2004 to relocate and follow my wifes career choice, to southern Maine, for a time that would resemble the equivalent of a roller coaster ride and more uncertainty than I have ever experienced in my whole life before. During the time here in 2004, Smokey and Squeaky had literally occupied our little apartment, much like they did again in 2010, when I arrived back here, without a wife, out of money and ready to give up on my American dream.

A little over two years have passed since I moved back to the Bangor area, again, taken in by people who genuinely supported me, motivated me to go to College, and provided warmth, guidance and a feeling of safety to me, when I could not trust my own shadow. My dreams for a flying career shattered into nothing but dust and tears, two wasted years volunteering for the Seaplane Pilots Association in desperate hope to convert my skills and abilities into an aviation related opportunity… jobs ranging from LLBean conveyor belt specialist to, VIP Auto store assistant manager, grease monkey, general manager of a flight school, sales consultant for Jaguars and Landrovers, yes, I was even an Aircraft Acquisition Specialist for Cessna 400 series twins for a while doing international business… funny but true… nothing lead me to where I wanted to be. When I came here, all I wanted was to be a full-time flight instructor. Period. That’s all. The one thing I never became while here, was: you guessed right again… a full-time flight instructor. Don’t you think for one second that I have given up! Nope! Instead, I founded my pride, the www.seaplaneforum.com, became a Phi Theta Kappa student at my college, learned how to do websites and discovered my passion for Psychology, Counseling and Creative Marketing. I have become calmer, more mature, refined my writing… all good things – besides developing high blood pressure and getting fatter.

Whats important about all this is the fact that along for the ride wasn’t only relatives and my incredible parents and many friends. Along for the ride were (and often as the source of relaxation and laughter) Smokey and Squeaky. Do you know how it feels when you can’t trust your own shadow, but you can count on the unconditional love and attention from your pet? Do you know how two animals can make life so much less miserable, because they are so terribly ignorant to our human issues, and how they always take you at face value? They never cheat on you, set conditions for their love and affection and they are almost never too busy to “talk” with you.

We lost Smokey because he had gotten really sick and struggled with all kinds of little ailments. Even though he was alert, he wasn’t enjoying good health and struggled hard at times. Hopes flew high for the longest time, but often I wondered if he would be allowed to go in peace, or if his life would end not so suddenly, possibly during my time away from home. On the very day I traveled south to close one of the largest chapters in my life forever (picking up my remaining belongings from my ex wives house) Smokey’s curtain fell – one last time.

Contrary to Oliver’s sudden passing, this time I had the opportunity to feed him his favorite treat and literally kiss him goodbye, knowing that I would not see him again. And I knew why. What an utterly stunning experience on an psycho-emotional level, to lose a long-lasting partner and friend. An animal that had become and remained a daily part of my life for such a long time, gone.

I miss him a lot, still somehow waiting for him to come around the corner at feeding time. His brother Squeaky is (as expected) coping quite well, which is probably the reason why I am coping so well. Its down to the two of us, for now. Squeaky is to old to start dating again, and me probably to odd to find a woman willing to commit to me, be honest with me and most of all, grow with me. The next major change is already in the works. This time I am only half as afraid as I was before – for I feel as if I have been successfully through hell and back during the last 8 years of my life.  This next step won’t kill me either.

Smokes…you’ve been gone since Tuesday 2/21/2012. If you’re reading this – know that you were a hammer cat and that I am proud of having had you by my side for this long. Rest in peace and say hi to all those souls we have lost before you. All the ones who mattered loved their animals, so you should be in good company!

New Promo Video – Seaplaneforum.com

Another attempt with Microsoft’s Movie Maker… Enjoy!

Animals Airplanes/ People – In that Order?

During the interview for a recently published article about me in the student newspaper of my college, I was asked for my interests. I had to think for a while, because there are not many things I am truly interested in. What are three things that interest me and in what order? Hmmm…

The first spot went to Animals – and here is an example why: Animals are PURE.

The second spot went to Airplanes and here’s an example why: Airplanes are HONEST.

The last spot went to People. Only people who like animals and airplanes, though… their spot is really limited to just a few. Reason: Some People are GOOD.

They have the ability to capture and catch their impressions of Animals and Airplanes into pictures allowing both of these silent players to speak a language we can understand – allowing us to be motivated by the good things in life.  People who like animals make sense to me. So do people who can see beauty in a parked machine that has no life in it, except when piloted.

Solitude vs. Loneliness & Mating

A comparison of deliberate solitude with loneliness and how it all affects ones ability to mate:

Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think or rest without being disturbed. It may be desired for the sake of privacy. A distinction can be made between physical and mental seclusion. People seek physical seclusion to remove distractions and make it easier to concentrate, reflect, study or meditate. However, this is not necessarily an end in and of itself. Once a certain capacity to resist distractions is achieved, people become less sensitive to distractions and more capable of maintaining mindfulness and staying inwardly absorbed and concentrated. Such people, unless on a mission of helping others, don’t seek any interaction with the external physical world. Their mindfulness is their world. A clear distinction must be made between solitude and loneliness.

Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and involuntary solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships. However, it is a subjective experience. Loneliness has also been described as social pain – a psychological mechanism meant to alert an individual of isolation and motivate her/him to seek social connections. People can experience loneliness for many reasons and many life events are associated with it, like the lack of friendship relations during childhood and adolescence, or the physical absence of meaningful people around a person are a few causes for loneliness. At the same time, loneliness may be a symptom of another social or psychological problem, such as chronic depression. [Sources: Wikipedia Solitude/Loneliness]

When comparing both with each other, we find and inverse relationship between the need for both, in order to remain stable in our fast lived world. We need and despise both feelings at the same time, for example when caught in a bad relationship or failing marriage – and despise it when we find ourselves unable to build new relationships after the experience of rejection and failure. I have come to appreciate a high level of solitude when it comes to doing what I do for a living, which at the current time is being a student and website administrator. A minimum of distractions allows me to take care of things quickly and efficiently. This solitude also allows me to study and focus, write and think.

The more time we have to spend with ourselves, the better we supposedly get to know our-self and what we are capable of. Those of you who fly understand that this “first solo flight” is such an incredible cornerstone in building a solid foundation for future pilots. Being able to handle it all alone is ultimate proof of mastery and absolutely necessary for proper development. Those of you who do not fly, it’s the equivalent of realizing that we do not need others to remain functional in our everyday live. We may be able to run our household on our own, capable of taking care of things without help. Hidden within both experiences is profound emotional and mental peace. Once we figure out that we can do it on our own, we relax – things get a lot easier. Solitude can be a good way to get over heartbreaking events, find a way to move on, to set a new direction and a fresh course. In solitude, I have personally denied, realized, analyzed and finally accepted my own mistakes, vouched to myself to not make them again and pushed the RESET button.

When the need for voluntary or involuntary solitude is satisfied, we start to look around ourselves and sometimes come to realize that we have, in fact become lonesome. Do you ever feel like a floating leaf , lacking direction? Do you ever wonder where you’re headed? Have you ever immersed yourself  in work, school and appearances so deeply that you feel like a stranger when re-entering any sort of social life? Do you find it harder to understand the youngsters lingo, their incredible obsession with social media outlets, such as facebook which attempt to patch up the fact that the world has become very egocentric and narcissistic? People broadcast every little detail of their love life, professional life and freely share opinion, when so many times it would be wiser to rearrange the letters of the word LISTEN into SILENT and to practice both more frequently.

I do not believe humans were made to be this way. We are bound to have social relations, but who can really have ongoing and meaningful relationships with 1527 friends? How many of those friends are true friends, how many don’t even know who you are, how many would not really recognize you or talk to you if they ran into you on the street tomorrow? How many have added you to their friends list just to have more friends on the page, trying desperately to portray how popular they are and what an important personality they are, in our crazy world?  How many are nosy while remaining silent towards you? If you write them, how many will write back? If you wrapped your car around a tree and died tomorrow, would anyone notice your absence?

I do however believe that humans need friendships and a partner over the long run in order to succeed in the jungle of ups and downs, called life. We need the friendships to bounce ideas off of others, find recognition, get critiqued, have meaningful arguments or drink ourselves comatose with. We need a significant person in our life to be our partner, someone to dream with, someone who tells us that we are important to them, someone who holds our hand when things get rough. Someone who bothers to read our mind when nobody else cares for anything we have to say or feel. Allowing such a person in our life is difficult – because they receive a key to something very close to us: Our EMOTIONS!

Even though Swans are no longer scientifically classified as “mate for life” animals, I nevertheless believe they set out with the intention of sticking to each other. Even though divorce is common, especially after nesting failure, I still believe that the bond is ultimate and intentionally clean. Unfortunately I find, that dating & mating in the Swan world seems to be a hell of a lot easier than it is in Homo sapiens world. If I was a Swan, all I’d have to do was swim up to my princess and try to get close. If I lost feathers, or the bleeding just won’t stop, I will have a general idea of her willingness to get to know me better. I may return for one more try, but the idea is not to lose too many feathers in trying to convince someone of my willingness/ openness towards her.

Especially now, after a long period of being single and removed from the human mating game, I find it incredibly hard to reach out to potentially interesting women. What’s the right way of doing this? I understand, it’s the United States of America! A woman never makes the first step, that’s against our fake rules of combat. But, the better ones seem shy and unapproachable. One never knows if she will smile and melt or faint in shock and terror. Certainly, signs of affection have not been and are not frequently returned. Then again, when in fact the woman makes the first step, supposedly seeking to live, laugh and love – how does one know how many males she needs to collect in order to find all of those things? “You’ll know when you find the right one” doesn’t cut it as an answer, people! One is not always and obviously desperately “seeking” and mating requires two!

Then there are commitment issues with social butterflies which almost never land, ex husbands and boyfriends, rumor mills and sometimes even children, which miraculously always have to be their first priority in life. As if they were on “broken record steroids”, the first thing to come out of a single mom’s mouth is the immediate positioning of their new prospective mate at the bottom of the totem pole by stating: ” My children will always be first!”  DOH! Did I ask you to sell them on EBAY and run off to Cuba with me? Is it some sort of protection mechanism that kicks in, to differentiate the schmucks and one night stands from someone real? Do I get extra kisses if I don’t instantly run away? Meeh! I’ll pass – thank you! Then, there are those who have been seriously abused, taken for a ride, emotionally distressed and terrorized beyond reasonable hope for repair.

Given, my next mate cannot be found in a bar, be a drunk or druggy and she needs to be old enough to have developed a fully functioning frontal cortex. She needs to be affectionate, compassionate, passionate and honest. She can certainly be shy and nervous, as long as an opinion can be extracted from her, somehow. If “I don’t know” or “Whatever!” are part of her daily vocabulary, I’ll probably pass again. She needs to be willing to take a risk in that she needs to melt into a natural human being around me, so that I don’t feel as if I am talking to a robot or have to behave like one when I am around her. Most importantly, she cannot be, or constantly strive to be PERFECT. MCRS = Militant Christianity & Religion Syndrome is perceived as a unwelcome mental disease in my world – Pass. Some humor (preferably black humor that may strike others as “weird” at times) would be swell! She needs to have a goal in life that goes beyond the usual “just get through in one piece” attitude and she certainly needs to be steady enough to handle herself.

If this all sounds terribly old school or not like what you would read on facebook, then I have shared what I feel about feeling lonesome with the wrong person and that’s quite alright, too. Put it under “Veterans Day Entertainment” and move along. If you’ve bothered to read this far, then I assume to have reached someone of sufficient emotional character to actually push the reply button and leave me a note, even anonymously. Put “do not publish” in your comment and it won’t appear. I don’t go to bars, don’t do drugs, don’t have a drinking problem, am not emotionally weak, do not physically or emotionally abuse or trick women. Heck, I even have teeth! And no, I won’t sign up for E-Harmony or Match, as I would likely fail the intake test on account of being to sarcastic. Besides, it strikes me as utterly wrong to search for my Princess between 1’s and 0’s anyways…

Captain Oliver – 2 Years & Counting

Time and time again have I learned that time does not always heal wounds, things don’t always get better and that some things cannot be replaced. Oliver, still missed a full two years and one day after he left for greener mousing grounds (and turned this little guys life upside down), is still a paradox to me. So many times of realizing that I fell in love with an animal that wasn’t bound to live forever, so many times of realizing that today, tomorrow or next year would be just as bad a time for him to leave. So many times, sitting in silence, wondering how he might have felt seeing what he would have seen shortly after he passed on, how everything just flew apart as if hit with a few pounds of dynamite.

He isn’t really gone, because each and every day I think about him, miss him and cherish the time I got to spend with this little cuddle monster. His meow is still in my ears, just as it was before, when I still had my daily dose of feeling loved. He is just no longer physically present, causing little reasons to smile, laugh, bark at him or even be annoyed.

Physically, his grave is not 100 feet away from where I sit. I get to walk by it, every day, being reminded of digging into the cold earth, on this rainy September Sunday 2 years ago. I remember the two toys and his brush which were sent along for his journey, any my heart aches to know if he ever gets to play these days, and who might make the time to brush him and make him feel loved.

Fundamentally, I believe he went to a better place, a place free of judgment and prejudice just like children believe in Santa Claus. Children believe in that character until they are taught not to believe in him anymore, when logic and reason set in and force perceptions and opinions to change. Deep down, I’d love to believe in Santa, even though reality is cold and sobering. Deep down I am glad that nobody ever managed to teach me that there is no special place we get to see when we pass away. I certainly wish him that he went to some place that allows him to enjoy warmth, nature and love, and I certainly hope that he can see me, down (or over) here, in the trenches.

You can laugh about my sentiments, or cry with me, but let me assure you that not many things are able to take my energy and power from me, as being reminded how odd it felt to bury this little character. Having to say goodbye, knowing that I wouldn’t see him again anytime soon was incredibly hard for me. All what’s left are memories thoughts and pictures. My unused pilot logbook still has a few of his whisker hairs he had lost over the years taped to the last page and I still smile when I think about him. I cannot truly talk about this cat unless I write what I think protected by the anonymity of my laptop. This way people cannot see how a grown guy with gray hair could feel about the loss of a little red haired cat, who just left, on that fucking sour Sunday, September the 27th. of 2009.

May he have found peace and calm and may he continue to watch over his chosen human, whom has (I swear!) tried every day, since he’s been gone, to be or become a little more of the person he thought I am…

Upset Recovery – For Humans

What in the world is this kid rambling about now?

In my usual manner of comparing life to flying and positive control of aircraft, I’d like to take you on a little journey into the world of health concerns and how we deal with them. Compared to life, dealing with upsets in airplanes and things that get out of balance which require us to retake control is relatively easy. In many situations, a look on the instrument panel will verify suspicions, clarify our current state within the medium air and let us make some choices, which may ultimately help to regain positive control of our airframe. It may be a rapidly decaying airspeed, a change in heading, altitude or an engine that just doesn’t want to put out 100%. I’d say that in 85% of such upsets we regain control by careful evaluation, making a decision after weighing the potential outcomes and by preparing ourselves as much as possible for the impending consequences. In 22 years of flying I have become habituated to the standard recipe of “letting go/ relaxing the grip/ feeling the airplane and to regain control by soft and coordinated inputs”. Static and dynamic stability have a lot to do with things, so our ability to let go might be affected by what kind of plane we fly…

To explain the graphic above and how it can be applied to our body, one would look at the ball to the left, which has a tendency to return to it’s starting point upon having a force applied to it. The middle ball behaves neutrally, will translate the applied force as it is, change position and come to a rest. The ball to the right, finally, will behave very different when being forced from it’s position in that it will continue whichever movement it started on its own account. Unless the ball to the right is stopped (by force) and returned to it’s original spot (which will require expense of energy) it will keep moving. The very same thing can happen in our bodies, when we develop issues. Some problems flare up, but try to balance themselves, some set points just move and all stays OK, and some things spiral out of control, while requiring a lot of work to get things back to normal. We can let go of ball # 1 and it will get back to normal. We can let go of ball #2 and it will just stop, giving us a chance to repair the damage. If we let go of ball #3 it’s gone.

For a while, we can ignore things that get out of balance in our body. Our weight increases, due to all the junk food, sugar and bad choices. Our stress levels increase due to temporary changes in our lives, the smoking, for some the drinking. Our cardiovascular health may suffer from smoking, clogging up important arteries, reducing the flow of oxygen and straining our lungs. But we can deal, right? We notice but do not change anything dramatically just because we’re out of breath earlier. We note, but do not really worry about the wheezing sounds when we climb stairs and we don’t fret just because our stamina has decreased. Its part of our current life, right? Well, yeah – I know… some would worry – but most people like me, will not. The fact that I didn’t, caused some things to spin out of control. While I truly enjoy spins and recovery from them in airplanes, I had to realize that my weight & blood pressure have spun out of control. That sucks!

Hypertensive Emergencies

A hypertensive emergency exists when blood pressure reaches levels that are damaging organs. Hypertensive emergencies generally occur at blood pressure levels exceeding 180 systolic OR 120 diastolic, but can occur at even lower levels in patients whose blood pressure had not been previously high.

I’ve had mildly elevated blood pressure for years, always within the limits of what the FAA Medical Branch in Oklahoma City still considers manageable. A recent doctor visit revealed severe hypertension, partly caused by a infection & fever, but probably more caused by being overweight, out of exercise and smoking. Hence, I was put on blood pressure medication and prescribed a radical change in habits. In the last year alone, I have gained more than 22 pounds, mostly because of lack of exercise and cheap food choices made by this college student. Lots of sodium, pasta, quick dinners and things that keep the wallet happy, when eating in. Pigging out with way to large portions, when eating out!

Step by Step

How to we recover from a spin? Retard Power. Neutral Ailerons. Full Opposite Rudder. Forward Elevator. Recover from the dive without exceeding Vne.  That’s simple enough… a caveman could do it with proper goal setting.

Here are my goals and I will try to provide updates, for those who wish to follow the journey and maybe share their own struggles:

Weightloss Goal: 40-45 Pounds

Smoking: STOP

Exercise: 25 Minutes/ Day – Increasing to 60 Minutes/ Day by the end of week 6.

Blood pressure under control ASAP.

Starting point: Weight 222.4 – End point: Weight : 182.4 / 177.4

Expect weekly reports!