Today is day one of the first trade show I’m attending as an employee of this company. The AHR Expo is an international show featuring HVAC/R (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refridgeration) equipment and is sponsored by ASHRAE and AHRI, two industry organizations. The company I work for tries to attend every year and exhibits our equipment, commercial and industrial heating products. This year, the show is in Chicago, but it changes annually; last year it was in Vegas, next year it is in Dallas. We also hold an event for our representatives while we’re here, usually on the first night of the show.

So, that’s where I’ll be for most of the day today, tomorrow and part of Wednesday, and I’ll be on Twitter with live show coverage. (No wonder I don’t like using social media at home anymore…) I’ve actually been here since Saturday and I got Steve to join me, so we spent some time walking around the city when we weren’t with my co-workers. He leaves tomorrow and I leave on Wednesday, weather pending, and I think I’m taking Thursday and Friday off so I have a nice 10 day break from work.

Anyway, I should probably start getting ready…

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens. All opinions are 100% mine.

Have you heard about what is going on with Walgreens and Express Scripts? As of January 1st, 2012, Walgreens pharmacies nationwide and Duane Reade pharmacies in the New York City area are no longer apart of Express Scripts’ pharmacy provider network. This change is due to unresolved contract negotiations between the two companies and will cause unnecessary inconvenience to countless Walgreens pharmacy customers. Individuals who are covered by Express Scripts plans might now be forced to change pharmacies in order to take advantage of in-network pharmacy benefits – and they still might not see significant savings. 

Only patients with certain prescription insurance plans managed by Express Scripts are impacted. If you are a Walgreens pharmacy customer, talk with your local Walgreens pharmacist to find out how you might be affected. You can also look at the back of your prescription insurance card – if it has Express Scripts’ name there, you might be affected.

Say you developed a relationship with your Walgreens pharmacist, who knows you by name and is familiar with your distinct needs after years of filling your prescriptions. Maybe you work full time, like I do, and can appreciate the extended hours and drive-up service offered at Walgreens. If you just don’t want to be bothered transferring to a different pharmacy, what can you do? Walgreens understands the trouble that this might cause its customers and is offering a solution to help ease the burden. 

Membership in the Prescription Savings Club at Walgreens is being offered at a special discounted price for the month of January. Sign up now for only $10/year for families (including your spouse, dependents 22 years old or younger and pets) and $5 for individuals. Membership in this program entitles you to discount prices on prescriptions, savings on over 8,000 brand-name and generic medications, discounts on flu shots, bonuses for purchasing Walgreens brand products, and more. 

Follow Walgreens on Twitter and like Walgreens on Facebook for more information and offers from Walgreens. 

I hate making New Years resolutions. I really do because half of the time they are bullshit, but I do them anyway – just like everyone else. This year, I’m planning on losing those pounds I gained last year, 10-20 lbs or so to be exact. Weight loss – such a cliché “resolution”, right? And probably the oldest, most used one there is, but I’m going for it and I have my reasons. One reason is I’m tired of (correction: fucking sick of) the doctor yelling at me every time I go to see her, but it’s not about her at the end of the day. There was a point in time where I was 230 lbs and managed to get down to 150 lbs – 80 lbs lost in a 2 year time period or so. I felt good at that weight and, while I don’t feel morbidly obese anymore like those people you see on television that weigh 900 lbs, I’d like to tone up and drop some pounds again.

I signed up for WebMD food and fitness tracking last March and, regrettably, didn’t keep up with it at all. Two weeks ago, I started using it again and managed to log a solid week of food and fitness tracking. I was quickly reminded why I probably stopped using it in the first place: everything I ate, I had to manually log because I couldn’t find it in the food database. It was getting to be a pain in the ass to have to copy the nutrition information off of every single label and enter it on the computer. If I was going to continue on this “weight loss journey” (a lot of people call it that, right? *rolls eyes* haha…), I needed something that was going to make food and fitness logging easy.

At the beginning of the week, I signed up for MyFitnessPal, and so far it is a good tool. Great database of food with a search function and history, so I don’t have to manually enter everything for every single meal, and there’s also a recipe calculator that I’ve used a few times. I debate the accuracy of some of the counts, such as the sodium, which can be attributed to user submitted content; a lot of entries in the database are from other users, so human error can happen when logging the information.

So I’ll keep posting every so often with updates on how I am doing. Hopefully I’ll continue to have good news to share, lol.