Oops I ate too much

This is a weight chart showing my daily weigh in since the beginning of 2018. I've marked the weight I recorded this morning 79.5 kg.

Oops I ate too much

I’ve been relatively well behaved this week in terms of my food consumption but the end of the week saw me blow out a lot.

This is a weight chart showing my daily weigh in since the beginning of 2018. I've marked the weight I recorded this morning 79.5 kg.

It started on Friday when I chose the staff special chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy for $10.50. That evening I went a little further and enjoyed a crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts and Spam dish with fennel salad.

This is a photograph of the staff special chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy.

This is a photograph of a plate of crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts with Spam and a limey fennel salad 💚

On Saturday morning I weighed in at 78.5 kg/173 pounds and enjoyed a Coon cheese® omelet with sesame and poppy seeds. The real weekend splurging started at lunch when I bought a plate of roast pork, applesauce, potato bake and roast vegetables from Fancy Fillings at Westfield Belconnen. I asked for a small plate. A big plate must be huge.

This is a photograph of Saturday lunch. Small pork and vegetables plate from Fancy Fillings at Westfield Belconnen..

Saturday dinner was huge with a 300 gram/10.6 once piece of scotch fillet steak plus cheesy horseradish cream roasted vegetables. Not to mention the bags of almonds and cashews I ate in the afternoon.

This is a photograph of rare scotch fillet steak served with cheesy creamy horseradish roasted vegetables.

When I weighed myself this morning (Sunday, 11 February 2018) I was 79.5 kilograms/175.3 pounds. An ordinary bloke would look at that and think he should refocus and be more careful with what I ate today. Not me though, I had a special date to keep.

Dobinsons has recently opened at Westfield Belconnen and I’ve been enjoying a coffee every Saturday and Sunday. Today I was due to claim my free coffee and cake 😃💚👍😋🍰 Of course what cake would I choose but a vanilla slice.

This is a photograph of the coffee I bought on Saturday with my Dobinsons coffee card showing the next coffee would be free and I'd also get a piece of cake.

This is a photograph of a cup of coffee and a vanilla slice from Dobinsons Westfield Belconnen.

What else has been happening?

I’ve been missing podcasting. I have been planning a regular weekly show which will be called the Yummy Lummy Cooking for one Podcast. I’ve been prevaricating though, I’ve been busy and the planning has been placed on the back burner. The feeling to do something hasn’t gone away though and I thought I needed something short sharp and random. Hence, the Random Yummy.

I’ve recorded two episodes and dropped them Friday and Saturday night. The first was on cooking Balsamic Brussels sprouts and the second was on cooking a cheese omelet with seeds. These shows will drop randomly and you can listen to them in your favourite podcatcher. Just search for Yummy Lummy and hopefully you’ll find them. If you like them, please subscribe.

MEATER® review

Last night I released a review on my MEATER® meat thermometer. I really like using it. It’s so easy, the iOS app works well, and so far, the meat has been perfect. I’m cooking a lump of lamb with it tonight.

What I’ve eaten this week

Monday

Lunch

Leftover chicken thigh and a recipe

This is a photograph of Monday lunch. Leftover chicken thigh seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder. I’m reading a recipe.

Dinner

Baked salmon and fennel salad

Tuesday

Lunch

Leftover salmon

Dinner

Pork chop and stir-fried kale slaw

Wednesday

Lunch

Leftover chicken thigh and reading about date formats

Wednesday lunch. Leftover chicken thigh while reading about formatting dates. I prefer YYYYMMDD.

Dinner

Bacon and cheese wrapped chicken maryland with fennel salad

Thursday

Lunch

Leftover chicken thigh and dreaming of Spam

This is a photograph of Thursday lunch. Leftover chicken thigh with sugar-free creaming soda, while reading my Hawaiian Spam cookbook.

Dinner

Chicken maryland and more fennel salad

Friday

Lunch

Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy

This is a photograph of the staff special chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy.

Dinner

Crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts with Spam and fennel salad

This is a photograph of a plate of crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts with Spam and a limey fennel salad 💚

Saturday

Breakfast

Coon cheese® omelet with sesame and poppy seeds

Lunch

Roast pork with apple sauce, potato bake and roast vegetables

This is a photograph of Saturday lunch. Small pork and vegetables plate from Fancy Fillings at Westfield Belconnen..

Dinner

Rare scotch fillet steak with cheesy creamy horseradish roasted vegetables

This is a photograph of rare scotch fillet steak served with cheesy creamy horseradish roasted vegetables.

Sunday

Morning tea

Coffee and vanilla slice from Dobinsons at Westfield Belconnen

This is a photograph of a cup of coffee and a vanilla slice from Dobinsons Westfield Belconnen.

Final words

So, I ate too much this weekend. It’s not the end of the world and my goals are still clear. I’m still headed in the right direction.

I hope you have a good week.

The WordPress white screen of death

The usual dialogue box when entering the WordPress dashboard Gary Lum

My first experience

Are you a WordPress.org user? Have you experienced the WordPress white screen of death yet? Apparently, it’s something that many WordPress.org users experience at least once. Fortunately, it’s not as frequent as Microsoft Windows’ blue screen of death used to be. Do you remember the blue screen of death? Do you remember the depressing feeling in the pit of your belly? That’s how I felt when I saw the blank white screen.

The WordPress white screen of death Gary Lum
The WordPress white screen of death

Until Wednesday (2017-04-05) I had never seen nor heard of the WordPress white screen of death. I’ve been blogging since 2010 and moved to a self-hosted site with WordPress.org a few years ago. How did I not know about this? I guess I’ve been really fortunate.

What is the WordPress white screen of death?

More often than not, the first experience is when you are trying to access your dashboard. All you see is a white blank screen. The URL bar has the correct address (domain.com/wp-admin) but all you see is white when what you should see is either a dialogue box asking for your username and password or your dashboard itself.

The usual dialogue box when entering the WordPress dashboard Gary Lum
The usual dialogue box when entering the WordPress dashboard

For some people, it also happens when they try to view their site. At first, I thought it was just my dashboard because I could view my homepage and I could view blog posts. But then I thought, I wonder if those pages are just in my cache. So I cleared my cache and yep, there it was, the WordPress white screen of death.

What to do?

I frantically scrambled. I was in Google faster than I eat a bowl of laksa. I tried “WordPress dashboard blank”. That took me to a variety of sites which explained the problem and how to fix it.

What’s the problem?

The most common problem is a problematic plugin and then a problematic theme. By problematic I mean a conflict or a corruption.

I had not installed any new plugins or themes and so the thought of going through the fifty or so plugins I’ve accumulated filled me with despair.

Then I remembered that I had set through Jetpack and the WordPress.com reader to auto-update some plugins. M guess was the most recent plugin was the culprit.

But how do I figure out which plugin if I can’t get to my WordPress dashboard?

The answer according to all the sites I read was to use an ftp utility app and get into the file system. That sounded easy enough, and it was. If you don’t have an ftp app, you can find plenty of free ones. Once you’ve opened your app it’s a matter of entering your site name, your username and password. This is the host server information, not your WordPress.org username and password.

How to fix?

I found the plugins folder and renamed it to plugins.old This disables all the plugins.

I tested the site and I could access my dashboard. Hurray! I opened the plugins.old folder and clicked on the “modified date” tab to see which was the last plugin modified. It turned out to be a plugin that links Adobe Lightroom with WordPress. I deactivated that plugin and then renamed plugins.old to plugins and sure enough, everything worked again.

I then deleted the trouble making plugin which I had not used for a while anyway.

Lesson identified and learnt

So I learnt about the WordPress white screen of death. I learnt about using file transfer protocol (ftp) to access my site easily and make changes.

This experience has also taught me to review my plugins and deactivate and delete those I do not need. It also taught me a pitfall of selecting automatic update of plugins. While it is less convenient, manually updating plugins may cause less angst in the long run.

Do you like social media?

Please feel free to follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

I’ll probably follow back.