Illegal Eating

Recently, a smoking ban was passed where I live which bans people from smoking in public places. The idea behind this is that smoking is clearly bad for you and anyone who is smoking around someone else is forcing that person to share in their bad habit whether they want to or not. I can totally understand the need for this and as a nonsmoker I applaud society for making this a reality.

So if you ask most nonsmokers why they don't smoke, I'd be willing to bet a lot of them will tell you all about the unhealthy risks involved, not the least of which is lung cancer. They might tell you that it just seems silly to partake in that particular "pleasure" because the risks and illnesses are so well documented. The ironic thing is that that same person might take you out to eat at McDonald's later that day.

The effects of eating nothing but junk food and trans fat and processed foods is just as documented and just as deadly. More so, if you consider that heart disease is above lung cancer, I believe, on the list of top causes of death in America.

Now it's clearly easy for me to stand on my soapbox right now because I'm all about health and nutrition these days as my regular readers know, but I won't claim to be a perfect eater by any stretch of the imagination. I know that there are others who could look at my diet and still find all sorts of problems.

My point is, that most people don't look down upon eating junk like they do smoking and I'm not sure why. Sure we all know that it isn't good for you, but whereas most people look with horror at someone who smokes around a baby, hardly any of us think anything about a parent feeding french fries to a toddler. (My kids have had fries plenty of times, but I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't change that)

I'm guessing a junk food eating ban isn't going to be on the public docket anytime soon, but I have to wonder when the perception of healthy versus unhealthy eating is going to change? Will it be ever? Or is it just to hard sometimes to differentiate good food from bad food? Everyone knows that the only safe cigarette is no cigarette but I think nutrition is not quite so obvious for most people. I have already read one book recently that has told me that despite all my diet changes, I'm still not doing the right things for my body.

So anyway, just say no the next time the fast food dealer in your area tries to get you hooked..

New Link

Check out the link on the right side of my page to my other blog if you are interested. That is the space that I use to practice fiction writing. Let me know if you like any of the stories because they are mostly just practice for me unless people tell me that they would like for me to expand on one of them.

Thanks for your input.

Shane

Ice Ice Baby

So we went ice skating yesterday as I alluded to earlier. It ended up being a lot easier than I thought it would be. I didn't fall any and neither did Crystal although neither of us would consider ourselves an expert at this point. We had fun but I think the kids got the worst of the thrills and spills.

One kid was gliding along beside me and the next thing I knew he must have found a phone booth to change in because he was in full superman flight, albeit on the ice. All I can figure is that the cape must have gotten caught in his skates...

The one thing that neither Crystal or I could figure out how to do was to stop properly. Running into the wall pretty much became the choice method as "plowing over people" just seemed a little rude, and I'm personally not all that fond of the superman method.

When we got back to the church I had a bit of breakdown. I have been exceedingly good at watching what I eat for the better part of the last month but they had free pizza and I caved. It had been a long time for me and I didn't hold back much. I'm feeling a little bad about that but I guess one day won't hurt me too much. I just have to be good today as free pizza is again on the horizon for lunch. I'm really hoping for a good body fat test on February 11th to make up for the bad one in January so I want to be extra good.

At least I burned a few calories on the ice. Hopefully we'll be able to take Kylie the next time we go. It would be hard to get her to try it I think but she'd have fun.

Lack Of X

This is a tough weekend for me. Due to our decision to get rid of cable, I'm forced to miss all but 3 hours of the winter X games that are going on this weekend. My only solace is that I will get to see a lot of the snowboarding coverage during those three hours.

This will be the first year since the original winter X that I didn't watch almost every minute of the coverage. I can't complain though, because our decisions to be tougher with our budget have paid some good dividends. God has really blessed us lately, both with a little extra money here and there, to a nice tax return when we were very worried about having to pay this year. Also with the lack of big problems that typically drain our account or add to our credit card woes.

At this point I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as correcting some of the financial mistakes we have made in the past. I've definitely learned some lessons that I won't forget in the last few years.

Now all I have to do is not forget to set the VCR to tape the 3 hours of coverage tomorrow that will be on regular tv. I will be ice skating with my wife and the children's department from church tomorrow, so I can feel a funny blog post coming on.

Extra Cash

I'm sure like most of you, I'm always looking for ways to make extra money. One bad idea after another, constantly bombards my head. Unfortunately most of them aren't worth a hoot. I would love to own my own business but most things I can think of are either too hard or not lucrative enough. For instance, a Painting Business would be easy to set up but the work would be really hard. Writing a book could be lucrative, but would take tons of work and luck to ever make happen. Maybe someday I'll figure it out, but for now I'll just keep trying new ideas.

Smart Browsing

At this point you do just about anything on the web that you want to if you know where to look for the right things. I don't have cable anymore but I can legally watch about any tv show that I want now thanks to bit torrent. Have you ever downloaded printable greeting cards before? I did for my wife for her birthday once. Online banking anything you want seems to be available if you know where to look and have the inclination to do it. So look around and see what you can find.

Differences

I'm a Christian but I was raised protestant. There are so many things about other religions, even different versions of Christianity that I don't know. For instance, I know very little about the Catholic way of doing things. What are rosaries even for? At one point I was at a wedding at a Catholic church and many of the rituals seemed very foreign to me. It's just so interesting to me that we could serve the same God in such completely different ways.

Long Day

I had another Jury trial to go to today. As I said before it was pretty boring. The newness of it has definitely worn off. By the end of the day I almost felt like I needed an Energy Supplement. I can't imagine being the bailiff or court reporter and having to sit through trials like that all the time. I'd be bored out of my mind. At least I get to look forward to a normal day of work tomorrow and good long run day as my half marathon training continues.

The Jar

So we've been talking a lot about business card printing lately. I often wonder how many of those cards people could save in a year by just not putting them into every, prize drawing jar they run across. Do you think people really win cool prizes doing that on a regular basis? I guess in a way it's still good advertising, but who knows. As I said I don't need them yet. Maybe at some point I will have that type of job, who knows.

Here's Looking At You Kid

My wife decided the other day that she was going to experiment with some new kinds of makeup. She had me help her pick out all these cool new kinds. It was kind of fun as I have no idea what makeup is for what or even how they all go together. Thankfully I don't have to worry about it, all I had to do was help her pick out some cool new colors. Fortunately we have a big bathroom mirror for her to experiment with but if you aren't so lucky, check out this site for some really cool Makeup Mirrors.

Custom Cards

I found another cool site for business cards. This one also has the option for you to order get well cards, greeting cards and holiday cards. It's a one stop shop it would seem. So if you have a great idea for a sweet business card or if you just want to order a few custom post cards to lay around the foyer, check out 123 Print. Wish you were here!

Label Me Returned

Have you ever gotten those return address labels in the mail that have your return address on them? I love those things, they make life so much easier when mailing bills. I hate it when they run out, and sometimes they're pretty cool looking and sometimes not. I got some really cool ones one time that had golfers on them. Check out the link above if you want to take the guesswork out of it and get exactly what you want.

Card Me

I have never in my life ever needed to have a business card. So far my jobs have thankfully kept me away from the front lines as far as dealing with customers is concerned. However, if I ever need to get professional business cards, I found a cool place. They have some really cool designs that would look way cooler than the basic ones I'm used to. Check it out. I especially like the one with the soccer ball but I can't see that ever being a real need of mine as I don't see my pro soccer career taking off anytime soon.

Cables

So I finally was able to buy my new ipod. My wife let me borrow ahead a little and get it. It connects to the computer via a USB cable but the actual data is still transfered via mini jack. To me that seems like a really weird kind of cable. I can't figure how it would work.

Speaking of cables, I found this really cool site that let's you order about any kind of cable you might ever need, even HDMI cable. They even offer free shipping for orders over $50. Seems like a good deal to me.

Civic Duty

Unfortunately when I say "civic duty" I'm not talking about a funny story involving poop and a Honda. No, this is a far cry from that.

I'm on call for jury duty for my county for the next two months. So far I've been on one trial and will probably end up being on several before all is said and done. It was really interesting the first time, but I'm already feeling that wear off. I can't see how it will be anything but boring from here on out.

First of all I'm a pretty anxious person and being trapped in a jury box that I can in no way escape from should I want to is a definite trigger. I spent several minutes doing some deep breathing in the first trial. It's not a claustrophobia thing, more a lack of control thing. I don't like being in situations where I don't have control over want I want to do. It makes me nervous.
Hospitals also have this affect on me, I have no idea why.

The only nice thing is the $20 I get for showing up for a selection every time. I've had my eye on the new ipod shuffle for a while now so it's looking like I might be able to get one.

Beyond that there is the fun of meeting new people. Some of the other people in my jury pool are pretty cool. This one guy that sat beside me in the last trial was hilarious. First of all he couldn't hear a thing I said unless I practically shouted in his ear, but beyond that, I don't think he suffered from my same nervousness as he slept through most of the morning testimony. I saw concerned faces all over the courtroom staring at us in the jury. I wondered if someone behind me was getting sick or something and in my process of looking around I see him beside me out cold. I elbowed him and woke him up, but I still can't believe that they didn't kick him out of the jury. I can only imagine that the guy on trial probably wouldn't have been to pleased about it.

Anyway, it's an interesting experience but one I will be happy to dispense with. Once was cool and interesting but I can't see it staying that way.

Way Better...

In a previous post, I said that college football needed a playoff and I presented a plan, so here is how I think things would have gone under my system after seeing all these teams in their respective bowl games.

Playoff Seeding
1 Ohio State 12-0
2 Boise State 12-0
3 Florida 12-1
4 Louisville 11-1
5 USC 10-2
6 Notre Dame 10-2
7 Oklahoma 11-2
8 Wake Forest 11-2

Notre Dame and Boise State would earn the wild cards that I discussed in my previous post, based on record and strength of schedule. The other teams are the 6 major conference champions.

I based the above seeds on how the teams finished the regular season. Overall record carried the most weight followed by strength of schedule as the tie breaker. I know Boise State isn't the second best team, but that isn't the point. They earned that spot by going undefeated.

So here is what the first round would look like:

Round 1
1 Ohio State 12-0
8 Wake Forest 11-2
You have to figure OSU could handle Wake, despite their lackluster showing against a faster Florida. This is no Florida.

4 Louisville 11-1
5 USC 10-2
Do we even need to discuss this one? USC big.

3 Florida 12-1
6 Notre Dame 10-2
Notre Dame has shown itself to be a paper tiger and Florida has shown itself to be no joke. Florida big.

2 Boise State 12-0
7 Oklahoma 11-2
No need to discuss this game as it actually happened. Boise in a thriller.

So now lets take a look at what the second round would look like. No reseeding here, just a straight up bracket.

Round 2
1 Ohio State 13-0
5 USC 11-2
Clearly USC handled a team in Michigan that gave OSU a tough game. I hate to say it, but after that OSU performance, I have to take USC here, probably in a rout.

3 Florida 13-1
2 Boise State 13-0
Cinderella hits midnight, not enough tricks in the bag to give Florida much of a game.

So here is what my championship game would have looked like, and I have to say that this is probably the game that everyone wanted to see after all the BCS games were done.

Championship
5 USC 12-2
3 Florida 14-1
Florida's speed versus USC's. Both defenses were brutal against similar opponents. Florida was the more consistent team throughout the year though, so I have to give them the nod.

So we end up with the same champion but that wasn't really the point. Ohio State would have been exposed earlier and Boise State would have had the chance to move on and make a Cinderella type run. Plus I think the Championship game would have been much more exciting.

Even as a buckeye fan I would prefer this system. Championships should be decided on the field and this system would provide a lot more excitement and interest than what we currently have. Plus it's about as fair as any system could be as far as I'm concerned.

Pre Buyers' Syndrome

Have you ever walked through a store with nothing but lint in your pockets and stared at all the cool things you couldn't afford that you would just love to have? More than likely, had you been asked to, you could have made an extensive list of all the things you would have bought for various prices had you any money at all. It's this sort of thinking that bums out the "budgeted" among us.

Now give that same person (you or me) a gift card for a finite amount at that same store and witness the transformation. Suddenly nothing seems worthy of your limited but totally free (to you) funds. You can walk through the store five times and not find one thing that is worthy of your precious gift card.

This has been happening to me since Christmas. At one point my wife asked me if a gift card to Sears would be a good gift for some of her relatives to get me and I quickly told her that it would and that I could find tons of stuff at Sears that I wanted that would make having a gift card there very valuable to me.

So here we are on Jan 11, and have I spent my Sears money? Of course not. All of a sudden, I can't seem to find a single tool or gadget that seems to be a "good use" or "wise investment" of the money I was given.

Here are my two theories.

Either I have become so cautious with my spending money these days that I can't pull the trigger on something that I think is just "kinda cool".

Or

I'm too afraid that as soon as I buy something that I'm going to immediately think of something that I should have used it for that I want more.

So what am I to do? My first thought was to find someone who needs a gift card and trade them straight up for cash so that I can stare at every store on earth and worry instead of being limited to just one. Failing that, I will probably either buy something "kinda cool" and immediately regret it or hold onto the cards so long that I won't be able to read where they were from anymore, in the hopes of being struck at some future utopian point in time with the perfect idea.

So anyway, I guess I won't ask for gift cards next year. I loved the gift, but I have no idea how to use it.

No Refunds?

We've been having a friendly argument lately with a friend of ours that believes in the Christian principle of "once saved, always saved". We are all Christians but we disagree on this point.

Here is the first verse we found that seems to disagree with it:

Hebrews 10:26-27 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
26 For if we deliberately sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.

Our Friends response to this was that Jesus himself never said salvation could be lost so this verse couldn't be talking about loss of salvation or the Bible would be contradicting itself.

So I focused my efforts on what Jesus had to say on the subject and found this:

"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ( Matthew 6:14-15)

This verse shows that refusing to forgive the sins of your brothers will cause your sins to not be forgiven and this offense could occur after one is saved. If your sins aren't forgiven, then how do you get into Heaven? Their argument that Christ's death on the cross covers all sins past and future once you accept him doesn't seem to hold up here. Jesus is saying that those sins are not forgiven, so how are they still covered by grace?

If this type of sin could cause you to lose your salvation then why couldn't others?

If your response to that is that the lack of forgiveness is just a cause for less blessing in heaven and not a loss of salvation then I think that that would contradict this verse (spoken by Jesus)

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,
Mark 9:46-48

This verse shows that sin sends people to hell, and he doesn't say "only the sin of the unsaved", so I must assume he means everyone, since only what Jesus literally says is admissible based on the first comment from our friends.

Our friends also disagree with that saying that the second verse is taken out of context and that Jesus was in fact talking about the unsaved. In all fairness I can't see that as I reread the passage. It seems to me that I took the literal meaning of the verse for use in my arguments.

I guess I just don't understand and in the interest of our friendship we agreed to disagree, but in conclusion I will just say this. If God gave us the free will to choose him, why then would he not also allow us to change our mind and return to sin? Is free will only free as long as we haven't already chosen to believe?

Crud......

Well that sure wasn't what I was expecting. I guess Florida has our number this year. First a 30 point pounding that they laid on the basketball team and now this. Clearly the better team won last night. We didn't even belong on the same field with them. I do think that had we played the week after the Michigan game that OSU would have been more competitive, but it just makes you wonder if they were really as good as we all thought this year. I feel bad especially for Troy Smith who ended his career with his worst game. He is still the best quarterback OSU has ever had but he looked very lost and confused last night and Florida's speed was just too much for him. You have to think the NFL scouts noticed that too, and that his draft position probably took a nose dive off of El Capitan. Absolutely nothing went right for us last night. Other than the opening kick off we did nothing that could be remotely construed as good. It was a beat-down of epic proportions and one that I never saw coming. In my mind this was the best Buckeye team to ever take the field with a leader in Troy Smith that was unflappable. So now what will the history books say? That the team was a great winner in a very sub par league that when placed against a real heavyweight, showed it's true colors? Probably, but regardless of that, they still had a great season, and hopefully we can just remember the win over Michigan and sort of blot out anything that happened after that.

At least golf season started this past week. I think I've had enough football after this and the Brown's latest losing season.

Game Time !

O-H !!!!!

Fitness Goals 2007

I'm going to put down some actual goals to shoot for this year and see how many I can accomplish. As I said in an earlier post, I need to have things to work towards from now on instead of just working out to work out. That can get boring, and after more than a year of steady exercise, I need more motivation.

Goal number 1: Run the Music City Half Marathon in under 2 hours

I actually just started my running program today. I've done a lot of running in the past so I expect to be able to handle it.

Goal number 2: Body fat in single digits

A carry-over from last year, but one I still intend to complete. The running I'm doing definitely won't hurt.

Goal number 3: Run a 5k under 19:55

Once I get back in running shape I want to do some 5k's. I've been saying I was going to do this for a while, so if I'm going to get in running shape I might as well do this too. I'm hoping that 3 miles will feel like a stroll in the park after the 13.1 that I have to run in April. Of course running them at 6 flat will be a lot different.

Goal number 4: 10 reps of 150 pounds on bench and squat

Obviously I will hit this harder after my running is done but I will continue to do some lifting on the cross training days that are built into my half marathon training schedule.


That's probably enough for one year. It's a lot to shoot for but I don't want my goals to be too easy or too hard. All are within my reach so hopefully at this time next year I can blog about how happy I am to have accomplished them.