The Top 10 Worst Things About Being Santa

10. The heating bill

Whoever picked the north pole instead of Barbados needs to be slapped.

9. Discrimination Laws

When you only hire elves, the equal opportunity folks start to get pretty testy.

8. The "Physique"

Can we get some wider chimney's folks?!?! And you wonder why I don't come to your house.

7. Big Dogs

By default, anyone that owns a pit bull has been "bad" this year...

6. The Diet

How many times have you drank 50 gallons of milk and 2 tons of cookies in one night in between rides on a super sonic roller coaster of a sleigh? Chunks, need I say more?

5. Lawsuits

It just doesn't pay to be an old weirdo who visits children's houses in the middle of the night these days.

4. The off season

What do you do on your 364 day weekends?

3. The Pay

Ever hear any songs about Santa's salary, or stock options? Me neither...

2. Guns

The suit's Kevlar for a reason baby.

And the number 1 worst thing about being Santa is...

1. The Location

Any chance you guys deliver? Never mind....

Grey Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like rain here on Christmas day. That really stinks as I'm always looking for a big snow storm on Christmas Eve to complete the wonder and symmetry of Christmas. However I don't intend to let the unseasonal temperatures get me down. Here are a list of fun things you can do on a Grey Christmas morning.

Rainball fights - always a favorite of the kids. Throwing them accurately takes a little practice though

Build a Rainman - especially if you are bad at math.

Try to catch a Rainflake on your tongue - Ahh the taste of industrial air pollution just brings back memories...

Go RainBoarding or skiing - for whatever reason this sport is unpopular, so you should have the slopes to yourself

Eat a RainCone - Some Scrooge's out there will try to tell you it's just kool-aid but don't believe them

Make RainAngels in the back yard - I'd probably wear an old coat though...

Anyway, those are just a few ideas to keep your Christmas Day exciting, in case it rains where you are.

Merry Christmas!

Fitness Update

Things haven't been all that good lately. At one point I was starting to feel very over trained and worn down, and honestly, now that I think about it, that was probably the root of all my recent problems. I took a week off of lifting to try to recover and at the same time was doing a lot of reading, trying to figure out the best plan. I got sick and stayed that way for a while, through last week in fact. My body has just been really down. On top of that, all the reading I did confused me far more than it helped. So at this point I've only been in the gym a handful of times this month and with Christmas break next week, I don't see that changing until after the new year.

It isn't all bad news though. I have been really good calorie-wise this week and I'm going to refocus myself as soon as I can get back in the gym. Things have been tough but like anything else, there are going to be tough times and easy times. I'm not going to let a few weeks of downturn morph into an excuse to quit.

I also have a new goal. Some friends of ours at church really want to run the Music City Half-Marathon in Nashville in April. I plan to train and run it also. Just having a goal has refocused me mentally. Alwyn Cosgrove preaches this on his blog and I agree. Train for athletic goals and the physique will follow. Just training for the mirror is hard mentally. It's like waiting for water to boil. It just never seems to happen until you ignore it. I'm going to make an effort to give myself athletic goals from now on and continue to work out and hopefully that will help my motivation down the road.

I'm a little bummed because I have lost a little muscle mass from not being in the gym and being sick but I'm not going to let it get me down. I have had a really good year fitness wise. I stuck with my work outs all year, even after spurts where time off and circumstances could have tempted me to quit. If you know me, then you know that I'm taking this seriously to have stuck with it this long.

Here's to another great fitness year, and hopefully even better progress!

Boom......

How many times have you heard someone say that the universe was started by the Big Bang? I hear it all the time these days in news articles and other sources. Before I get started, I'm not saying that the Big Bang couldn't have happened, I'm just curious as to why most people think of it as the beginning.

It's like asking someone where their camp fire came from and them telling you that it "came from a match of course". The obvious follow up question then is "Where did you get the match?". For some reason we don't apply that same logic to the Big Bang. If you haven't noticed, "nothing" can't explode, so there had to be something to start all that exploding business.

I have heard some theories from those who realize that matches don't make themselves and they range from the universe being cyclical and exploding and retracting and exploding again over and over(infinite loops still have to start somewhere), to massive amounts of energy existing that exploded with such force that the energy was transformed into particles (where did the energy come from?).

Nobody can seem to grasp the fact that none of this is possible without some sort of beginning. At some point, "nothing" had to become "something". End of story. Without that, nothing that exists could exist.

and I only know one person who has that kind of power...

Silent But Deadly to Planes

I read a news story today about a plane that was forced to land because several passengers reported catching a strong smell of sulfur in the cabin. Upon further investigation, they found that a woman had passed gas, and lit a match to try and cover the smell.

First of all, I wish that this had been a guy, because for the rest of his life he could have bragged about his ability to bring down planes with the power of his backside. To guys, this would have been a funny story, and a badge of honor for all time. This woman, I'm sure will be very embarrassed and looking for the first boat to Siberia and a name change form.

I mean, my imaginary guy could have forever referred to his rear as his "anti-aircraft cannon". I'm sure the women reading this blog are already rolling their eyes, but for some reason this stuff never stops being funny for guys. It's as if it's built in somehow.

My biggest fear is what effect this might have on airport screening. I'm just imagining some adaptation of the "breathalizer", if you get my drift.

At least no one was hurt, and maybe this will help to improve airport food over time.

Jaco Van Zyl is The Man!

They say that Q school is the toughest test of nerves in sports. I'm sure that there are plenty of other things that rank up there but for golf fans, this is it.

The ultimate disappointment is to miss a put on the last hole and miss your card. I really feel bad for those guys. On the other side of the coin is Jaco Van Zyl. This guy started the 6th and final day 8 strokes back of the top 30 and a PGA Tour Card.

He closed like a champ and shot a 64 to get his card on the number at -8. I'm impressed. To come through like that on the toughest day in golf is just amazing. I can't even get the ball off the tee when I have shot at shooting under 45 for nine holes.

Clearly I'm going to be a fan of this guy and keeping an eye on his progress in the upcoming season. I really hope he plays well and makes a name for himself and completes the dream because as hard as it was to come back and make the cut to get on the tour, it's even harder to stay there.

Good luck JVZ, win one for the hackers.

College Football Playoffs

It's a dream. At least for now. It would be amazing to have a college football playoff to look forward to instead of just a bunch of BCS controversy. A lot of people worry that a playoff would lessen the importance of the regular season which is unmatched in intensity by any other sport.

I think I have the solution. My plan would not only bring a playoff to college football but would actually INCREASE the regular season intensity.

The playoff would consist of 8 teams. I think 4 is too few and 16 is too many.

Here is the key. The 6 current BCS conferences would each get one automatic bid to the playoffs for its winner. Everyone else in those conferences has no shot. If you don't win your conference, you have no business playing for a national title. End of story. Obviously, conferences that do not currently have a conference title game would be pressed to have one, so that the conference champion could be decided on the field. Regardless of that, only the winner of the conference, however it is decided, would move on. That alone would renew rivalries and make every conference game even more important than it is now.

The remaining two spots would be reserved for the two teams with the best records from smaller conferences or independents. Voting would have no effect. If there were three independent or small conference teams with the same record, then the two with the highest strength of schedule would get the spots. This will encourage teams to play tougher games throughout the year, thus making college football even more watchable. Plus, teams like Boise St this year would get in because they went undefeated. They don't have to care about useless voters giving them attention, they just have to focus on winning.

I think that my plan would not only mantain the college fooball regular season intensity as it is now, but it would be incredibly fair as to how you get in. Win your conference and your in. Win more games and play a tougher schedule than other teams if you aren't in a major conference, and you are in.

Who wouldn't want to watch that?

Anybody Out There

I'm really curious at this point who is reading this blog, so if you don't mind, please leave a comment below, even if this is your first and only visit.

I have that map on the right side that tells me where all my hits are coming from and at this point I have hits from a lot of different countries so I'm just curious.

Passwords

I hate passwords, but I understand the necessity for them. The really annoying part is the fact that some websites I use have different rules for how your user name or password has to be formulated. If you are like me you have accounts at hundreds of sites across the internet so how can you keep track of it all?

I try to use the same user name and password as often as possible. I know "they" tell you not to do that, but to me it's safer than keeping a list of user names and passwords somewhere that could be discovered by someone else.

The problem is that if I come to a site that that user name and password doesn't work, I'm toast. There is no hope of me remembering which variation of things that I had to use to jump through that web site's particular hoops. My only recourse is to follow the dreaded "Forgot your user name or password" link, which is sometimes easy and sometimes not.

Normally at this point of the blog I would suggest a witty and slightly humorous new method of identifying people that would make things simpler, but I've got nothing. It's just one of those annoying side effects that comes along with technological progress. Yes, I can do almost anything from my computer, but sometimes it's simpler to just drive to the bank.

That's Great

We went to a party for my nephew and his wife this past weekend and for the first time I realized something kind of funny.

I knew that by marrying my wife that I had instantly become an Uncle, but I realized that now that Daniel and Liz have a boy, that at 29 , I am already a Great Uncle.

I feel partly honored and partly old to have achieved this status already. If all goes well I could potentially achieve a Great Great Great Uncle title at some point. How often does that happen?

Well that gives me something to laugh about as I get ready to turn 30 next summer. If you need me I'll be at the drug store picking up a new cane and some denture cream.

The Show of the Century

Yikes it's been almost a month since I last posted. Sorry about that. I've got to get better at keeping this updated.

Apparently the show on TV last night at around 5:30 was great. Probably epic. It was so profoundly interesting that I'm sure that it has changed the world. What was it? I have no idea, I wasn't paying attention, but Kylie was.

She was so enthralled and entranced by said show, that she decided that going to the bathroom and missing a few seconds of this monumental TV event was not worth the risk. So she peed herself in the chair and continued to watch.

Kylie will turn 3 in a couple of weeks and is fully potty trained so I can't imagine what must have been going through her head, although she has obviously inherited her Dad's trademark laziness. (Before you ask, I have never peed myself for TV as far as I can remember. Although with my DVR gone, I guess you never know...)

Her plan did backfire however due to the cleanup time and the 3 minute "timeout", so I guess she didn't fully weigh the risks, but that will come with time. It just cracks me up how things that we never even think of can be perfectly acceptable options for a 2 year old...

Tall Frozen Grass

Believe it or not, I had to mow the other night. We are trying to sell our house and the grass was just a little too tall and shabby looking to be left the way it was over the winter in case it doesn't snow much and we have people looking at our house.

You've heard of the wind chill factor? Well I would like to introduce you to the mower chill factor. It was about 40 degrees and I felt fine with just a fleece on outside before I got on the mower, however, once on and mowing, it felt every bit of 12.

In no time, I was running inside for the triple-thick toboggan, jacket and gloves. Yes you heard that right, I was mowing in at toboggan and gloves. At that point I was doing fine, but by the end of my 90 minute mowing adventure I was freezing again.

It doesn't help that I no longer have my famous tolerance for cold. Probably due to my lost weight. I shiver like a girl scout in haunted house now whenever it gets cold.

At least I now know that I'm officially done mowing for the year. I also know that I'm going to have to dress a lot more warmly when I go snowboarding this winter. Muscles look a lot better but that fat sure kept me warm.

Fitness Update

Things have changed a bit since my last update. I have officially started my bulking cycle so I'm hoping to start packing on the muscle. The workouts are very hard, but I suppose that that is the point.

I've stopped going to my interval training class after talking to a friend who endorsed working each muscle group in the gym twice a week. So it's 5 days of lifting every week. I'm starting week three and I'm already up to about 184 pounds (from 180), and since my body fat is down (see below) I have to assume that I'm building the muscle that I intended to. I took a picture of myself at the beginning of this cycle and I will take one at the end. If the difference is significant, I will consider posting them.

Current body fat

Body Fat 10/23	13.850%
Chest	12
Sub	14
Tri	8

The other thing that I'm doing is eating 6 meals a day. I'm trying to focus on eating 300 - 600 calorie meals at spaced intervals throughout the day to keep my metabolism up, as well as focusing on eating foods high in protein. I hope to get some protein shakes to supplement that as soon as possible.

I've come a long way since this time last year, and I still have a way to go, but I am definetly happy with the results up to this point.

Reading List

As you can see I have added a bit of info to the right column. You can now see what books I am currently reading courtesy of Bibliofile. It will automatically update as I finish a book and start a new one. Feel free to leave me a message if you are reading what I'm reading or have an opinion about the book.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I have been very busy.

Hard Core

"Core" is the big buzzword these days in the gym. If you are doing any kind of excercise at all right now you have probably had someone tell you about a great excercise for your core, or had someone tell you how doing an excercise a certain way will be great for your core.

But what I haven't heard is one single person saying...

"Hey check out the core on that chick/dude"

or

"Excuse me but I was just admiring your core from across the room..."

or

"She/He has a nice personality, but man what a great core"

I guess the ever core-conscious among us are just wasting our time. Maybe from now on I'll just start doing ab and lower back excercises instead, since I hate to be trend follower anyway....

Beam Me Up Scotty

If you regularly read Scott Adam's blog as I do, you will know that he harbors, a generally funny desire to rile up his readers so that they will post funny comments that give him more fodder. He also tends to loosely hide his opinion that anyone that is religious is an idiot. I don't really take that personally, but at the same his points can sometimes be a little silly.

Take his post over the weekend for instance. He asks the question:

If a man goes into the woods and pokes a bear with a stick, and the bear kills the man, whose fault is it?

Clearly the man, for not understanding the nature of the bear (Scott's point and I agree)

Next he suggests this:

Now substitute an irrational human being for the bear. The guy with the stick knows he’s dealing with an irrational and potentially violent person, and he pokes him with the stick anyway. Just like the bear, the irrational guy kills the guy who poked him.

Clearly things have changed. Surely the guy that does the poking is stupid to provoke this person, but the irrational man is still responsible for his actions as a self aware human being and thus he is at fault for the killing in my opinion. (again I think I am agreeing with Scott in this case)

Now Scott tries to hook us by asking this:

Okay, now suppose that the irrational guy is a specific kind of irrational guy – a literal believer in his faith. This is not an insult to the religious because even the Pope endorses the view that faith does not spring from rational thought. And let’s say this particular faith says that if ye poketh me with a sharpeth object, woe unto you, for I shall killeth!

I believe that Scott thinks that the situation has now changed in his loosely veiled attempt to take a jab at George W. Bush. Personally, I don't think that the situation has changed at all. The killer is no more justified by his religion to break the law than the irrational guy in step two. The provoker is just as stupid, but in the end, poking someone with a stick and murder are two very different crimes, and in no way could the cause justify the effect regardless of the killer's beliefs. This person would still be tried and convicted, regardless of their religion.

I'm not exactly sure why Scott is trying to lead us down this path, but it seems that to me that he was trying to trap a religious person into feeling like they had to be ok with murder because of the religious man's rights to his beliefs. We all have the right to believe what we want, but no one has the right to kill someone just for being annoying.

The other possibility is that he was simply saying that America is stupid for provoking the middle east and sticking are noses where they don't belong. I don't totally agree with our presence in Iraq, but at the same time, hind sight is 20/20 and at the time it seemed like we needed to be there, so I won't fault the administration for taking action, although I don't agree with how they did it.

Agree, disagree? What do you think?

UPDATE

Kevin a fellow Dilbert blog reader, suggested this:

"Obviously it's the stick's fault. It shouldn't have allowed itself to be picked up, much less sharpened."

Let's See How Wrong I Can Be.....

It's that time again. Here are my NFL picks for this season. We can look back and make fun of these later....

AFC Division Winners
Miami
Cincinnati
Indianapolis
San Diego

AFC Wildcards
Pittsburgh
Denver

AFC Super Bowl Team
Indianapolis

NFC Division Winners
NY Giants
Chicago
Tampa Bay
Seattle

NFC Wildcards
Dallas
Carolina

NFC Super Bowl Team
Seattle

Super Bowl Winner
Seattle

Tough Questions

I've been doing the tuesday trivia offered on the Ken Jennings blog (of Jeopardy fame) for the last few weeks now and it is really hard. No "googling" is allowed in coming up with your answers, only stuff you just know. Most people I know consider me to be pretty good at trivia so I thought it would be fun. Now with that being said.... So far in 3 weeks I have gotten a total of 1 question right out of 21.

Here was this week's quiz and my answers, I have since "googled" the questions to determine if I got any right, and only my answer to question one is correct, bringing my grand total of correct responses up to two. Although I am still not sure about question six, as I can't find the correct answer. If anyone knows please clue me in.

THIS WEEK'S QUIZ

1. What classic American toy was originally invented as a wallpaper cleaner?

Play Doh

I actually heard about this somewhere so it wasn't a guess, but I don't remember where

2. What's the more common name of Leontopodium alpinum, subject of the last song Oscar Hammerstein II ever wrote?

The Lion King

The "Leon" part of the first word had me thinking about Lions, and I'm assuming that this is the Hammerstein of "Rogers and Hammerstein" so I was thinking that maybe the Lion King was based on something he wrote?

3. Whose official title, until he lost power in 1979, proclaimed him "Conqueror of the British Empire?

Mao Tse Tung

The only world leader I could think of that lived around that time that I figured would be arrogant enough to have that title. Although I couldn't think how China ever conquered the British Empire or any of their colonies but it was the best guess I had. Turns out that Tung died in '76

4. What novel was adapted into successful silent movies called "On the Barricade" and "The Bishop's Candlesticks"?

War and Peace

The only old novel I could think of, so a bad guess

5. What ballroom dance is named for the vaudeville actor who originated it at the New York Theater in 1914?

The Tango

A complete guess and way off at that. I had no idea

6. Inside what world landmark can you see a plaque bearing the equation "y = -127.7 ft x cosh(x/127.7 ft) + 757.7 ft"?

The Statue of Liberty

Still not sure if this one is wrong. The question says "World" landmark but the equation has "ft" or "feet" in it which is strictly an American form of measurement, so I knew that it had to be American or American made. This was my best guess after considering the Washington Monument

7. What unusual distinction is shared by these famous folks? Lucille Ball, Joseph G. Cannon, Mia Farrow, KD Lang, John Lennon, Eddie Mathews, and Marilyn Monroe.

They were all born on Feb. 29^th (leap year)

Another complete guess, but wrong. I still have no idea what the answer is but I know my guess was incorrect. Wikipedia has given me no insights into what these people might have in common.

Fitness Update

This month's body fat test still had me about 15.4%, so I'm hoping to do better next month. I'm told it's pretty common to not change much over the course of a month but I'm hoping to drop some as it's more motivation for me to keep going.

I found something interesting. Below is the first lifting day that I did way back on January 16th of this year and where I am now on the same excercises. I removed the ones that I'm no longer doing, but the progression is interesting.

Monday, January 16, 2006

3 sets of each:
Seated Cable Rows 55
Bench 85
Dumbbell Shoulder Press 12
Barbell Curls 40
Lying Dumbbell Press 25
Seated Calf Raises 105


Currently

Sets of increasing weight, and lowering reps
Cable Rows 125, 135
Bench 100, 110, 120
DB Shoulder Press 20, 25
Barbell Curls 60, 65
Lying Dumbbell Press 35, 40
Calf Raises 115, 125, 135


I really feel like I'm at a plateau. My body fat is staying the same, and I don't seem to be gaining any muscle weight from the lifting I'm doing (although I am getting stronger). I'm trying very hard to stick to my 2500 calories a day to the point of tracking it on a spreadsheet again so that should help. I just think I will be excited to get to the next 8 week training cycle so that I can build some muscle bulk. Currently I am in a strength building phase and the plan is to do the bulking phase next. I just know that I am the type of person to get discouraged easily so I need to do the best I can to head that off.

It does help to think about how far I've come which was the reason for the info above. Based on my calculations (I didn't have it tested), I was about 25% body fat when I first started the calorie counting and I weighed in at 203. I'm 180.5 give or take these days at 15.4%. So it did take me 10 months to drop 10%, and the last bit is always the hardest. It will be cool this time next year to look at my numbers and compare them again.

I'll have a Double

X Games 2006

For anyone who watches X games, this was a pretty amazing moment. The first ever single backflip was done in competition only 4 years ago. I'm usually only a winter X watcher but I'm glad I picked this year to tune into the summer edition. Pastrana went on to get 3 total gold medals in this year's games. It was quite a show.

HABEN!!!!

My good friend Dave and his wife Eva paid us a visit yesterday. I don't get to see them all that often anymore as they live in Vienna, Austria. So it was nice to have them over for the evening to hang out as they are spending the summer over here visiting family and such.

They have a son that is only a month younger than Kylie so it worked out really well for them to get to play together. The only setback was that at (nearly) 3, neither of them is quite yet perfect when it comes to communication, and when you throw in the fact that Samuel is bilingual and speaks German as often as English, it made for some interesting moments.

Kylie was very confused at times and would ask why Samuel had said (X) where (X) was the closest sounding English word she knew to whatever he had said in German. He would yell "HABEN" when he wanted to have a toy from Kylie, but she made up for that by bossing him around as she is known to do.

We all had a good time and the kids seemed to as well. Next time we'll have to drop by their house. You know, when we're in the neighborhood.

Does Why Matter?

It's hot. Really really hot, and it's been this way for a while now. I'm not just talking about the last few weeks, but weather has been getting steadily more severe more often every year.

Most people spend their time arguing about whether the cause is global warming or if it's just a normal climatic upturn. My contention is that it doesn't really matter which one it is. It's going to get worse and we as a race need to be prepared to survive whatever the climax is going to be.

Obviously we have to hope that it is global warming because if it is, then there is an active role we can take in slowing it down and possibly reversing the effects. If it is just a normal upturn then we are strapped into a roller coaster and have to just endure the ride.

I'm not a meteorologist but I can't think of any "upturns" this drastic that have ever been mentioned in history. The top five hotest years since records have been kept have all been in the last 10. Throw in the massive ice storms, blizzards, and hurricanes that have been happening with regularity and I think we have a lot to worry about.

I just wonder if we will someday be telling our grandchildren how we lived through the "great storms" of the early 21st century or talking about how their used to be over 6 billion people living on earth.

I feel like this blog entry is turning into a pie in the sky alarmist piece but you have to wonder where all this harsh weather is headed. Will it just correct itself slowly, (or quickly, see "The Day After Tomorrow"), or at all?

I can only imagine that we may see a day coming when a cool summer day is in the low 100's and a category 3 hurricane is considered light precipitation. It may not get that bad, we may have seen the worst already for all I know, but you have to wonder what could happen if it gets worse. If the actions of the Katrina survivors are any indication, we could be back in the dark ages in no time if things got bad enough.

So what do you think? Will it get worse?

Fitness Update

For the last two months or so, I have been going hardcore. We have new trainers here at work, and with all due respect to our former trainer, they are awesome. They changed our old Boot Camp class to one called HEAT, which basically feels like an hour of preseason sports drills. It's both strength building and aerobic at once. It is a killer workout, plus the abs excercises we do are so hard that I can rarely finish them. I have already noticed a difference with this class over the old one.

Along with that I also asked one of them to update my lifting plan based on my goals. She has me doing an 8 week cutting followed by 8 week bulking plan. I have been working hard with that and trying to lift and or go to class 4 days a week. I have already moved up in a lot of the lifting categories, and I'm back to tracking my body fat % regularly. As of last month I was at 15.2% which was almost a 1% drop from the previous month (the new trainers do the test differently than the last one so that is why the numbers may seem odd to regular readers. I figure if it's consistantly done the same way and is going down then I will be happy with that). I'm sticking to 2500 calories a day based on some advice I got from a nutrionist, because at 2000 I risked burning up the muscle I was building along with the fat. It will take longer this way to get under 10% but it will be better in the long run.

Now if I can just be patient.....

Ankle Bites

In the past 6 weeks I have managed to roll both my ankles badly enough to not be able to run on them and although they happened in very different situations, there were some eery similiarities.

The first was during a soccer match in the middle of june. I went up for a header and came down and rolled my right ankle pretty badly. I have hurt this ankle a few times before so I chalked it up to it being weak and giving way too easily because of that.

Last night I was upstairs in the teen area playing games with the kids and goofing around. We were playing volleyball with one of those huge rubbery balls they sell at walmart that are about the size of a beach ball. I was trying to think of new and inventively goofy ways to hit the ball back to make the game more interesting. I had kicked it, punched it, bounced it off of the halogen lights, etc. Well that last one wasn't on purpose....

So then I decided to head one back. I'm sure you can see where this is going. First of all I owe little Samuel an apology because I stole a ball that was intended for him. One of the girls threw one over for him to hit and in the instant that the ball was in the air I must have decided that the ball was too high for him or something because I picked that instant to go for my header. I jumped from behind him and hit a nice header over the net and then in an effort to land without hitting Samuel, I rolled my left ankle. It made some nasty popping sounds and is still pretty sore today but it didn't swell and doesn't really hurt to walk on so I think it isn't too bad.

I guess I got what I deserved for stealing a ball from a 4 year old. It just stinks because last week I finally got to start going back to my class from the last ankle injury and now I'm out again. I can still lift, which I will do, it's just a bit frustrating. Hopefully this time it will be fine in a week or so.

Oh well.....

Everyone knows.....

We had an open house on saturday and of course no one showed up. Apparently everyone in the world knew that open houses were only supposed to be on Sunday's except us. We had this conversation about 5 times over the last week...

Us: "Yeah we're having an open house on saturday.."
Everyone else in the world: "Hmm really a saturday open house?"
Us: "Why, is that bad?"
Everyone else in the world: "Well typically saturdays don't work for open houses"
Us: "Why is that?"
Everyone else in the world: "I don't know, that's just the way everyone does it"

It really amazes me sometimes how so many people can know something that I've never heard of, and most of them have no idea why they believe it. For instance, my wife's aunt once told us that she was worried that our oldest daugter was "liver grown". She was very serious about this and very worried about it. I asked her what that was, and she had absolutely no idea other than the fact that it was really bad. Apparently this is something that was spawned years ago that has been passed down as truth through the generations and no one knows were it comes from. All they know is that if a baby's hand can't reach it's foot behind it's back then they must be "liver grown", and that's really bad. Of course I spoiled all the fun of worrying by asking questions like...

"What does that mean?"
"How do you know that this is a real medical condition?"
"What doctor told you about this?"

My final conclusion was at some point in the past someone was running out of things to worry about and therefore invented this horrible condition in order to fill that void in their life. The amazing part is that several generations after whoever it was still believe it to this day.

Just for the record, although I tease my aunt about this, I love her dearly and she is all you could ask for in an aunt-in-law, this one incident is just a great example of how things get decided, and "everyone knows" scenarios get started without anyone knowing why. I figure the first open house was on a sunday because the people were just busy on saturday and so now they all HAVE to be on sundays, just because.

Oh well, you really do learn something new everyday...

So close, yet nowhere near

Last night was a bit depressing. We went to the pool and took the girls swimming for the first time this year. Kylie was still pretty tentative but Kerrigan took right to it like she'd been doing it for ages. Our girls continue to be different in every way.

I've been feeling pretty good about the progress I've been making with my fitness training and the results are definetly there. I obviously lost a lot of weight, and now with the lifting I'm doing I can start to see the muscle definition coming in. The "mirror test" tells me that I'm definetly making progress, and I have started getting excited about when I might be able to say that I look the way I want to.

Last night, reality hit me over the head. We were playing in the pool and this male lifeguard walks by. This dude was probably 17, if that and just totally ripped. Not huge but very defined and not an ounce of fat on him. Suddenly I felt like I might as well be 400 pounds and eating donuts for every meal for all the good I've done compared to this guy. It was pretty depressing.

I realize that had I done this workout and stuff when I was his age it probably would have taken me about a month to look like that, but the fact that I'm probably close to twice his age means that I have to work a lot harder to get there. I was really kicking myself that I didn't take some "before" pictures last fall because I know I have come a LONG way from where I started, and it would have been encouraging to actually see the progress that has been made.

I know I need to just keep at it. I'm on the right track and it might take a while but I'm going to get there. It's just hard to not be frustrated sometimes.

Viente Nueve

My spanish is a little rusty but I'm pretty sure that the title of this entry says "29". This week I had my last birthday that starts with "twenty". Unless of course I live to be 20,000, but I'd say the odds are against that.

Being older doesn't really bother me all that much, since I'm in better shape now than I have been since high school, but I guess it just makes me take things more seriously. I really just want to be the best Christian, Dad and husband that I can. I hope as I get older that I getter better at all of these.

I guess I had better take the time this year to really enjoy being the last possible age that someone can remotely be misconstrued as a "youth". 29 is really quite an adult age but, technically I'm still in the "twenty-something" age group which lops me in with college sophmores and people who can't wait to turn twenty five so their car insurance will go down. I have nothing in common with those people, but thanks to society, I'm still a "twenty something" for 360 or so more days.

I'm curious how I'm going to handle next year. I doubt it will bother me much to be honest. Hopefully I will continue with my fitness training between now and then and can just stare in the mirror and laugh at 30 like a small dog trying to bite my ankle. If nothing else my wife will get a good laugh at the scene I just described...

My Weekend Rocked

We are trying to sell our house. In fact, we are meeting with a realtor tonight to discuss getting it on the market. Since my wife has accepted a job at our church, it just makes sense to move closer to town.

So in order to help out the look of the front of our house, we decided to buy enough gravel to retop it. Turns out that we needed 20 tons of gravel to put a two inch coat down. I was hoping that the driver would be able to drive forward as he dumped it so that it wouldn't be quite so much work to spread it but apparenly he misunderstood me because he just dumped two gigantic piles right in front of my garage door.

So I spent about 5 hours on saturday and 3 hours on sunday with my wife's help shoveling gravel into a wheelbarrow and spreading it. Needless to say my back is pretty sore. I decided not to work out today since I figure I did about a week's worth over the weekend.

There is still a pretty noticeable hump in front of my garage door but I smoothed it out as best I could. Hopefully no one will notice because I have no interest in putting any more effort into than I already have.

Hopefully our house will sell quickly because I'm nervous about not being able to get it sold. You never know how that stuff is going to work out.

Sorry and Update

Again sorry I have been so absent of late. Things at work have been totally crazy.

In recent weeks I've done some pretty cool things. I went to an NHRA event with my brother in law and it was amazing. If you haven't been, it should be on your list of things to do once, even if you aren't much of a car person. Totally cool.

Fitness-wise things are getting back to normal. I've managed to get my diet back under control and I'm going to a new class now at work. We have new trainers so our old "Boot Camp" class has been replaced with "H.E.A.T." which stands for "High Energy Athletic Training". So far I really like it. It reminds me a lot of the stuff I used to do in preseason sports in high school and the old stuff was getting to be kinda routine so I'm happy to have things changed up a bit. The new trainer also works our abs a lot harder than the old one did, which is where I need a lot of work anyway.

I've started lifting again after a 2 month layoff. Life just got in the way. I'm working with the new trainer to formulate a more specific lifting plan to get me where I want to go. Hopefully it will work out. I did some super sets today just to try something new and I can't hardly move my arms. I'm going on vacation in about 6 weeks so I want to be in the best possible shape I can be by then.

That's about it for the update.

Wow this is great...

Great video

Just press play when you get there.

So Sorry

I haven't given up on blogging, but work has been crazy. I hope to have a new one up this week.

Self Defense is Magic

Cool trick

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Work has been crazy.

Check out the link above to read one of the cooler stories that I've heard in a while.

What I'm wondering is if this is just a trick he has known for a while or if he was wearing trick pants. Of course I'm not really sure that I want to know if David Copperfield owns trick pants or not. I'll ask Claudia Schiffer the next time I run into her....

Of course I have to wonder if he did enough in this situation. Couldn't he have done the trick where the two assistants hand their money to the robbers and then it ends up in their shoes? That would have saved them a lot of headaches. Or he could have made some crazy hand motion and turned the guns into pidgeons.

In any case it's a great story unless David Blaine sues him for trying to do "Street Magic" without his consent.

Bugged By Allergies

I went to an allergist yesterday in hopes of finding the cause of my seasonal sinus infections. I get them twice a year usually and this year it was particularly bad. If there is anything I can do to prevent them, I'll give it a shot.

Grandpa Jim, I know you read this, and I think I found a long lost relative of ours. This doctor, Doctor Coleman, looked as much like a Burgel as anyone I've ever come across before. If he's not distantly related somehow, I'd be shocked.

Anyway, he proceeds to do the normal allergy test which consists of putting drops of different types of things on my back and then pricking the skin under each one to see what I react to.

So he starts to explain the results to me. It seems that I'm allergic to mostly things that occur around seasonal changes. Grass, fescue, ragweed, hickory trees, dust, and cockroaches.

Cockroaches?

Nevermind the nasty realization that I had "essence of cockroach" on my back, but it just seems like a really weird thing to be allergic to. Why would they even test for that? He tells me that it is actually pretty common.

Well I guess that does it for my hickory smoked cockroach recipe at the family picnics. I doubt it will be missed much though. I never could get the seasonings right.

Booey

Booey was my best friend for many years. In fact he is still very near and dear to my heart, we just don't talk as often as we used to. I've run into him occasionally over the years, but it just hasn't been the same since I was young.

Booey is my stuffed rabbit from when I was a kid. He is a "blue bunny" which became "Boo Bunny" and then ultimately just "Booey". Why am I bringing this up? Because despite everything, I have managed with the help of my parents to hang on to Booey all these years and now my duaughter has him.

For me, being a very sentimental person anyway, it's just priceless to see my daughter carrying him around and hugging him at night etc. I've even managed somehow to convey to her that his name is Booey, and that is what she has always called him.

This started pretty recently. I've had him in the house for a while but she only just started taking an interest. I sent my mom some pictures of her holding him and she said that she almost cried at the memories that it brought back.

Isn't it silly the things that can mean a lot to us? It's just a stuffed rabbit, but he was a great friend and comfort to me, and for some reason it just makes me feel good to see him being a great friend to my daughter.

I'm not sure he has what it takes to survive through another childhood. He had many surgeries when I was a kid to reattach ears and legs and close up some holes, but maybe she will be gentler than I was. Regardless, I just think it's so cool to see something that was so important to me as a kid, be important to her.

Bobby Jones is the Man

Check out this article written by Ray Ramano. If you don't know anything about golf, hopefully this will help you to understand the feeling people like me get at this time of year. It's Master's Week!!!

Everybody loves ... trying to break 100

By Ray Romano
Golf Digest

I still remember the phone call.

I was in my dressing room on the "Everybody Loves Raymond" stage when my assistant called to say CBS President Leslie Moonves was on the line. We were in our fourth season and had started to do pretty well in the ratings, but not great. I wasn't about to rule out that this was the "cancellation call," that I was now officially out of the business and had to give back all the money. Hesitantly, I answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Ray, Les Moonves. How are you?"

I wanted to say, "Cut the lame small talk; just stick the knife in me and be done with it." Instead I went with, "Fine." Then I laughed lamely, coughed and said, "Excuse me."

There was a short, awkward silence, and then, "So, you wanna come play Augusta?"

Again, silence.

Did I hear right? Did he say, "play Augusta"? I think he did, and if he did, then holy crap, that's the exact opposite of canceling the show and taking back all my money.

As suave as I could, I said, "Augusta? Yeah, why not?" while trying hard not to let him hear the Tom Cruise jump I was doing on my couch. I couldn't believe it. Not only would I get to see the Masters in person, I'd be playing Augusta National with some CBS bigwigs the day after.

The first thing I had to do was explain to my wife, who knows nothing about sports, that I really needed to leave her and our four kids for three days so I could watch and then play golf. Somehow I needed to explain the enormity of this invitation. Terms like "Mecca" and "Holy Land" have little effect on someone who cares nothing about golf. I had to put this in terms she could relate to.

"Honey, it's like you got an invitation to the land where they make Gucci …"

Almost. She almost understood.

"… and Bon Jovi lived there."

Boom! Now she got it. There's no way I wasn't going.

We arrived on Friday of the 2000 Masters and hopped in a CBS golf cart for a ride to the clubhouse. That's when I used my cell phone for one of those "Guess where I am?" calls to my buddy Claude in New York. Suddenly, Les Moonves panicked. "Put that phone away, Ray. They're not allowed here. Holy s---, we'll lose the account."

I apologized, put it away and thought, Man, this is cool. I'm at the only golf course in the world that can make the most powerful man in show business panic. I couldn't wait to call Claude and tell him.

On Sunday, Moonves, me and a couple of other execs watched the final round from the press stands on Amen Corner. We had a great view of the approach shots at 11, the entire par-3 12th and the tee shot for the par-5 13th. We watched about the last 10 groups come through, and then walked to the 18th to see Vijay win. Absolutely thrilling.

That night I slept like a fat kid on Christmas Eve. I looked at the clock every 10 minutes, just willing the morning to arrive. Somehow I got two or three hours sleep, and Monday we drove to the no-nonsense security checkpoint at the entrance to Magnolia Lane, where everyone had to show his official invitation from the club. They even demanded a picture ID. For a minute, I got a little scared. This was Augusta. They have their own rules. What if they run my name through their computer, find out I owe late fees at Blockbuster and ban me? Before I could really panic, they waved us through.

That day I made a promise to myself that with respect to the tradition and history of the ground we were on, I always would play by the rules. That meant no mulligans, no gimmes, no "I'll just drop it here." I really wanted to see what I could shoot on the same course that Vijay, Tiger and the boys had faced on Sunday -- same tees, same hole locations. My handicap then had fluctuated between 14 and 17, and I set a goal for myself: I wanted to break 100 from the tips.

That first year I shot 106, but it wasn't without some memorable moments. I finished with a par on 18, and even better was parring the 13th, the same hole Ernie Els would make an 8 on in 2002. You hear that, Claude? On one of the most famous holes in golf I beat Ernie Els by three shots. Of course, I don't think he ever six-putted No. 14. That's right, six-putted.

But here's the beauty of playing Augusta: Even after six-putting, the smile never left my face. It never does when I'm there. That's the magic of the place. You get swept up in the beauty, the history and the colors. When I saw the course in person for the first time, the green of the fairways blew me away. It's like green in High Def.

Last year, I returned for what I'm afraid might be my last round at Augusta. It was two months after we'd filmed the last episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond." I had to be realistic. This was a great perk of having a CBS show, but it wouldn't last forever. And if this was my last time, I was determined to come away with a score in double digits.

In my foursome are two agents and one of Moonves' writer friends. All three are single-digit handicappers, but for some reason they don't want to play the back tees. I explain that I have a 16-handicap, but I still want to play the tournament tees. It's tradition.

They tell me it's fine if I wanna play the tips, but they're gonna play up front.

Oh boy. Now I have a dilemma.

It was 7,290 yards from the tips then, and 6,365 from the fronts. If I break 100 from the front tees, it won't mean the same. On the other hand, if I play the backs it might get weird when I dub one 50 yards and don't even reach them.

"C'mon, guys," I say. "If you get to take batting practice at Yankee Stadium, are you gonna take it from second base?"

No response. I got a little desperate.

"Bon Jovi would play the tips."

They played the fronts; I played the backs.

Standing on that first tee, I tell myself that all I need to do to reach my goal of breaking 100 is to shoot 27 over par or better. I remind myself to have fun and not think about score. Then I remind myself that breaking 100 would make it fun, so I'll probably be thinking about my score.

With that, I pull my opening tee shot way left over the trees, into the ninth fairway.

Calm down, stupid.

My next shot sails majestically over the trees and back into the first fairway, leaving me 60 yards from the hole.

Not bad.

My third stops one foot from the hole.

Calm down, stupid.

I make the putt, and I'm even par at Augusta after one hole. You hear that, Claude? If this was the Masters, I'd be on the leader board!

After a bogey and a double bring me back to reality, I stand on the 205-yard fourth trying to decide between a 4- and a 5-iron. It's downhill, so I hit the 5-iron. As it sails right for the pin I worry out loud:

"Is it enough? Is it enough?"

If it was enough, why I am holding a sand wedge?

I try to blast out of the bunker, and the ball goes nowhere. Double bogey. It doesn't seem right to curse at Augusta, but I do.

On the 455-yard fifth I hit driver, 5-iron to pin-high on the left. I need a flop shot over the bunker to get it close.

I flop it into the bunker.

Another curse, a small whimper and a guttural half-yell.

I blast out to six feet. This would be a moral victory to come away with a bogey.

I sink it. I'm back.

On the 180-yard sixth, I hit a good tee shot just on the fringe but follow it with a terrible chip. Why? Because I'm a stupid man with body odor.

I tell the agents I'll miss them as I hike 80 yards back to my tee on the 410-yard seventh. In the history of the Masters, I'd learn later, no pro had ever scored higher than 8 on this hole. Time to make history.

Ten.… I got a 10.

Why? Because I'm a hack and my face is ugly.

Even with that disaster, I refuse to give up. I'm actually driving the ball great, which gives me hope. The surprising thing about Augusta is how wide open it plays. It always looked narrow on TV, but in reality it's not. Even so, I finish the front nine with a bogey on 8 and a triple on 9. When I look at the damage, it says 53. That's 17 over par.

I need a hug.

Am I giving up? No. I need to shoot 10 over on the back to break 100. Stranger things have happened. On the 495-yard 10th I hit driver, hybrid 5-iron to 15 feet and make the two-putt par. I don't think you heard me: I'm not giving up!

After a bogey at 11 to start Amen Corner, I'm on the famous 12th. The history, the tradition, the shank into the pond.

Double bogey. I then bogey 13 and 14 and realize that with all the trouble I had on the front nine, I can still shoot 98 if I bogey out.

I nail a drive on the par-5 15th that leaves me 240 yards to the green. I want to go for it, but I have to clear that damn pond. Yesterday Chris DiMarco laid up from 218 yards. Ray Romano is going for it from 240.

I grab my 3-wood. I take a deep breath. And … I reconsider.

Lay up, I tell myself. Just leave a 40- or 50-yard pitch for your third.

I switch to a 7-iron, and just as I'm about to address the ball I look at my caddie. "I've gotta go for it," I tell him. "I've got a chance to get on the 15th in two." Who knows, maybe a little Gene Sarazen magic.

He hands me the 3-wood and spits a little chewing tobacco on the grass. It's a dramatic touch that pumps me up. I take a breath and then drill the 3-wood right on the button. It's headed for the hole.

"You got it!" says my caddie.

"Go! Go!" I yell.

I get a rush of adrenaline as we watch it sail toward the hole. These are the coolest moments in golf. You can't change what's going to happen. You did what you could, now it's up to the golf gods. You can only watch and hope it goes your way.

Green or water?

Green or water?

Water.

I curse my luck, my game and my dog as I walk up and take a drop 40 yards from the hole. Then, somehow I pitch to four feet and have a putt to save par. I stand over the putt, and to quote my son Joe, from when he was 3 years old: "I scared."

I make it. I make the putt, my third par of the day. I'm 22 over with three to play. If I bogey out I shoot 97. I can do this.

On to the 16th, the famous par 3 that Tiger made even more famous with his chip-in the day before. I hit a 6-iron behind the bunker on the left. And, once again, my flop shot fails me and lands in the bunker.

Why, why, why?

I'm thinking about score again. "I'll blast out and one-putt for bogey."

I blast out to 15 feet. But wait a minute. This is that green where magic happens, and sure enough the ball rolls back to three feet. I get a little giddy.

A simple three-footer.

Right here I learned there's nothing worse than a lip-out on a three-footer. UNLESS YOU LIP OUT THE TWO-FOOTER COMING BACK. Triple-bogey 6.

I want to rip my ear off.

Now I need bogey-bogey for 99. I start talking to myself.

"C'mon, it's your last time here. Just keep it together. You need a haircut."

On 17, I make a clutch five-footer for bogey. I start talking again.

"Way to go, Ray. Just relax and swing easy. You're not gay just 'cause you got a manicure."

I step up to 18, and as much as I try to relax, I'm a little nervous. Somehow, I manage a good drive that just catches the right rough. I've only got 165 yards. Uphill. I stand over the ball with a 6-iron and talk:

"Just get it airborne."

What I should have said was, "Don't top it. Don't hit the worst shot of the day and advance it only 40 yards."

Now I need to regroup. I need to knock it on and two-putt. Another deep breath and I hit a pitching wedge that looks good but drifts right. Will it get over the bunker and onto the green?

No, it won't. It's in the bunker.

One last chance for 99: Get up and down.

I blast out, and the ball lands a foot from the hole. For one moment I have a glimmer of hope, and then it's crushed as the ball continues rolling, 20 feet down the hill.

For the first time I let the thought register that I'm not going to break 100, and I'm OK with it. I got to play Augusta again, and as the kids say, "It's all good." Of course, in the back of my head I'm thinking, Maybe I can make a miraculous chip for 99.

Nah.

Chip to six feet. Miss the putt. Triple-bogey 7. Final score: 101.

We all gather for a group picture, and after one final look down the 18th fairway we walk off, and I realize that when I talk to my kids, and eventually my grandkids, about playing the greatest course in the world, score won't matter. What will matter is when they hear the excitement and thrill in my voice as I describe what it was like.

I told Claude I shot 94.

Fitness Update

I haven't done one of these for a while, mostly because I seem to have a continuous cold that will not go away no matter what I do (isn't exercise supposed to make you MORE healthy?), and because I haven't been watching what I eat as closely as I need to be.

Suprisingly I still weigh around 182. I've been as low as 176 and as high as 186.5 since my last update. I've tried hard to stick to my Monday lift, Wednesday class, Friday lift plan, but with these constant colds, I haven't had too many full weeks.

I keep hoping that the weather is the main culprit and that once it warms up I will start feeling better for good. As it is I've probably equaled my body weight in snot production over the last two and a half months. Not that you probably wanted to know that...

Now that I've had a bit of a hiatus from my healthier eating, I'm starting to get the desire built back up again to be strict. That and the fact that summer is just around the corner and there is still not an ab in sight. The lifting is going good. I have moved up in weight on almost every excercise so hopefully that will pay some dividends.

Scam Sensor

A lady called our house the other night, and for some reason I didn't immediately hang up on her like I do most of the calls I get like this. She had an offer for us to come out and take a tour of this resort about an hour from our house. In exchange we get the chance to pick a key that could win us the choice between a Chevy Blazer, PT Cruiser, or $15,000. The really interesting thing was that just for showing up, we are guaranteed 2 of the 5 following prizes.

$10 gift certificate to Red Lobster

4.0 Megapixel Digital camera

27" flat screen TV

A 3 day, 2 night vacation

$500 cash

For those that know me well, you probably wonder why I ever stayed on the phone. The reason is that my scam sensor never went off. I figure that my scam sensor is one of the more accurate and sensitive ones out there so if it didn't sense anything, I didn't have to worry.

I'm not holding out much hope for the grand prize but the free gifts sound cool. I doubt anyone ever actually gets the TV or the $500 but if I'm wrong, that could be really good. I guess I figure that they aren't trying to scam me, and that taking a shot isn't going to cost me much. Just about 3 hours of my time (Drive + tour).

My guess is that we will get the $10 gift certificate and a vacation at their resort. I imagine that that is what 90% or more of the people get. That would make the most sense. I guess the only reason I'm doing it is that they have to actually give the good prizes away at some point to stay legit, and the people seemed like they were genuine about actual people winning the grand prize from time to time. Plus the people from the actual resort called me, not some prize broker middle man. (which I verified by calling them back)

The more I write about this, the more I can't believe that my scam sensor didn't go off. Is my sensor wearing out or failing me, or is this a really good thing? I guess I'll find out thursday, and if nothing else, it will be a night out for the wife and I, and a cheaper bill the next time we go to Red Lobster. Low expectations are a good thing, that way I won't be dissapointed with what I expect, and be all the more happy if I'm wrong.

The Best Thing Since The Remote

For a few days this week, I actually had to watch tv the old fashioned way. Sans DVR. It was a terrible experience that I hope never to have to go through again.

At this point, I'm convinced that the DVR is the greatest TV invention since the remote. It truly is one of those things that once you have used one, you can never go back. The ability to have all the shows that I care about automatically taped without my interaction and then being able to watch them at my leisure along with the ability to pause a show I'm watching in order to get the clothes out of the drier or talk one of the kids back into their bed is priceless.

I found myself hurrying to get the kids to bed before the 8 o'clock shows started and missing important parts of my shows due to the inability to pause them to deal with other things. It was terrible.

I feel bad for those of you who may still be stuck in the TV dark ages, but soon, like others before you, you will get the newest requirement to life. First their was running water, then electricity, then the phone, and now DVR.

Join us, and be amazed...you will never go back.

78 - 44

No it's not the latest basketball score, it's the temperature change from monday to tuesday, and the reason that I have become a walking snot factory again.

I really hate spring for this reason. When it's warm, it only stays that way long enough to make you sick, or it rains the whole time. I've never understood why anyone would like spring at all. I guess if you lived somewhere where the changes aren't so drastic it might be nice, but around here, I'll skip directly to summer please.

It amazes me that since I started watching what I eat and excercising more, I have been sick more often than any other time in my life. Clearly that seems wrong to me, but I can't seem to make any sense of it. Of course, after the way I ate this past weekend, I should be feeling better any minute now....... :)

Raising Them Right

At the time that I write this I'm sitting at home watching the three stooges with my two daughters. Someday, their husbands will thank me.

My next plans are to be sure that the love football, play golf, and snowboard like they're going to the X Games. I don't worry too much about turning them into tomboys either because my wife will see that that doesn't happen. It's the perfect balance. In short, I'm doomed.

It scares me to death to even think about them being teenagers and dating, and the way we're raising them, they're going to be highly recruited. Especially if they get their looks from their mom. I'm still deciding between sitting in a creaky rocking chair on the porch holding a shotgun or just cleaning one at the appropriate times. Not the rocking chair, the gun. I guess that would be scary in it's own way, but it isn't what I had in mind.

I'm sure it will all be ok, but I can't help worrying a little. My plan for the time being is to not think about it. If you are raising boys out there, be sure they know how to do a little cleaning and learn how to listen. Hey, I'm doing my part, so you keep up your end of the deal!

Verizon = annoying

I really don't like dealing with Verizon because they continually mess things up, but this week I had no choice. Crystal needed a new phone badly because hers had been lost and we had been told that we were eligible to get the discount on new phones on Feb 28, so this past friday, I decided to call and verify that that was the case:

I called to verify the 2/28 date, and was told that it wasn't 2/28, it was april 3rd. She tells me that on june 3rd of 2004 we switched the primary line from my phone to Crystal's and started a new agreement. I told her that that was not my fault and that the line was switched without my consent and that I was assured at the time that it would not affect our two year agreement date. She tells me that that wasn't the case, and that according to her records, my phone had been the primary line for a year and that we just switched it that month. I then tell her that my phone was never the primary line and that this was Crystal's account and that I just had a phone added to it so there is no way that that is possible, but of course their records say otherwise so there is no room for any other interpretation.

So I tell her that everytime I call or talk to anyone they tell me something different and act like they have no idea what the previous person was talking about and I'm sick of dealing with all this misinformation, and that I want to talk to a supervisor. She assures me that the supervisor will give me the same answer but I insist. So she is gone for a while and comes back and tells me that the supervisor is willing to make an exception and that we can have the new every two but Crystal will have to call in and give her consent, and that we will have to order the phones over the phone and have them mailed to us, since the stores can't make exceptions.

So I ask her why I should believe that the next time I call in that they are going to have any idea what we just talked about since no one ever seems to remember any conversations I've had with them, and she gives me her name, and id and her supervisors name and id. I ask her if the comments from our conversations about the line switching are there and she says that there are some about the discount but nothing that says that our two year agreement date shouldn't change (which they assured me at the time that there would be, of course).

So monday, I decided to go to the store and check out the phones so that I would know what to order and on a whim I asked the lady if their records still showed us as eligible for the discount. (they were the ones that originally told me 2/28). She says yes, which just proves that their systems make no sense.

To make a long story short we were able to get phones last night, but not without one last hiccup. The store was out of the phones we wanted so we had to drive a few miles to another store to get the job done. I really truly wish that there was some way that we could have another cell phone carrier but since everyone we know has Verizon, we can't pass up the mobile to mobile discount.

I'm just waiting to see what they mess up next.

A Little Chlorine Goes A Long Way

I just got an email from an actual person by the name of "Jeanne Poole". Now I don't know this lady, but it would seem to me that she has every right to be annoyed. Why in the world would you do that to your child? On the other hand, she should be very thankful that her parents weren't fond of the name "Cess".

I can't help but wonder if she has siblings named "Whirl", "Kitty", and "8Ball". It seems to me that parents would have more sense than this, but my wife is a Kindergarten teacher so I know better. She has had many strange names and heard even stranger stories from other teachers. Those of us who have names that rhymed with anything at all, are at least sensitive to the importance of naming.

As it is, I would like once again to thank my parents for not naming me "Ham".

Go Norway!

Have you ever found yourself rooting harder against americans than you have at this Olympics with Bode Miller and Shani Davis? Personnally I have rooted hard against both for all the selfish and just plain stupid things that they have done and said. American or not, I just don't take well to jerks.

I have been pleased to see Bode Miller totally flame out in every event he has entered. I just don't want people who don't care and don't take their sport seriously to prosper. In my opinion, it would have sent a bad message had he done well, and even if that wasn't the case, I just can't root for a jerk.

Shani Davis has just been selfish, but I still find myself rooting against him. In a way I can understand his motives, but you can't leave your team hanging like that. If he was in such bad shape that skating an extra race would have worn him down for his own event 3 days later then he didn't train hard enough. He also acted totally unappreciative of the gold he recieved in the 1000m. There are people who have done everything that it takes that will never have that chance, and he acted like it didn't matter to him at all. I'll be rooting hard for Hedrick in the 1500m. At least in that event there is another American to pull for.

I know that sports aren't the end of the world, but I just think that people can have a little bit of humility and respect for their sport and their fellow competitors.

Ebay Crazy

My wife and I have discovered lately how fun it can be to scour our house for things that we can sell on ebay. I have been a member forever but never really dabbled in selling before now. As it turns out, it's a lot of fun.

If nothing else, it will give us an excuse to go to garage sales and look through clearance racks, as the only way to make any real money on ebay is to sell things that you didn't have to pay hardly anything for.

I think Crystal has really taken to it at this point, whereas I, feel like I'm still "thinking" about some sort of plan to hit it big, instead of just focusing on the everyday stuff that we can throw out there to get us started. I guess it's good to think both ways, but in any case it's a lot of fun. The only annoying part of it that I can see at this point will be the constant trips to the post office and having to try and keep track of multiple auctions at once, but I'm sure it's not really as hard as it sounds.

Take a look at the auctions that we have so far if you want, and feel free to bid high. :)

Fun With Email

I just got this email at work:

Hi Everyone,

Come meet some of the Openly Staff members of our division and have some cake at 4:00 pm in the cafeteria.

Hope to see you there.

So if you are "openly" staff, does that mean that you don't hide the fact that you are employed here when you are in public? So if I "come out of the closet" and admit that I work here, will they throw me a party?

I know our society is big now on celebrating diversity and all but this seems a little over the top. Next we're going to have parties for people who admit to stealing company supplies, and hand out pink pieces of paper as party favors.

Well it just goes to show that you just never know. Oh and if you care what that email really meant, leave a comment and I'll explain it. It isn't really that funny so I didn't bother putting it down in the blog.

"Fitness" Update

I don't have much to report, other than I am still at around 180 pounds, but I have been fighting colds and such for the past several weeks so I haven't been able to work out much, and my eating hasn't been all that great. I've basically eaten like crud every weekend and several evenings, and the fact that that hasn't affected my weight at all is only making it worse. I really need to get a handle on it, or I'm going to wake up one day and be right back where I started from.

I know this is a normal thing to go through, but it's a lot harder to regulate your eating when you don't really have a goal.

Hopefully I can get over being sick soon and get back to working out. When I'm regularly in the gym, it is easier to eat right, because I feel like I'm working toward something.

Until next time...

Me Fart Smeller

So apparently, certain chemicals in natural foods such as tomatoes, have smells that smell "good" to us indicating that our bodies are naturally attracted to foods that will be healthy to eat.

Smelly Tomatoes

So naturally I, in my ever mature and notable desire to solve problems for the common good of mankind, wondered if this could also somehow explain why people generally don't mind the smell of their own farts...

Does this mean that there is some health benefit to rebreathing your own noxious fumes, or simply that it truly is unhealthy for everyone else in the elevator? Or is it simply a built in biological appreciation of a "job well done" by our digestive systems. Or maybe it's just God's way of keeping a good joke going. How are we supposed to laugh at everyone else when they are coughing and wheezing and trying to get below the cloud, if we are busy doing the same thing?

Hopefully someday we will have all the real problems solved so we can spend a little more time figuring stuff like this out.

Time To Get Board

Yes finally tonight I get to go snowboarding for the first time this winter. I can't wait. I have been looking forward to this for a long time. It is only Mad River Mountain, but I'll take that over nothing.

I'm trying to decide if I should mess with my stance at all. One of the things I want to do is learn to ride "switch", or with my weaker foot forward, which would require my foot positions to be a bit different on the board. I don't think that it would be a big deal for me to learn because I don't really have a heavily dominant side. I chose to ride "goofy" or right foot forward, but I could have just as easily chosen to do it the other way.

I'm also hoping for some better feel on my board this year thanks to all my weight loss. I was right at the edge of the weight limit for my board before, but now I'm well under it, which should help a lot with feel and control.

If your name is Crystal, stop reading now...... :)

I'm also hoping to learn how to land properly. I've never been able to do any jumps before because I could never stick the landings and I'm hoping to practice a few small jumps and start to learn how to land properly.

So anyway, say Hi if you see a tall guy on a Burton Canyon 162 out there tonight.

Professional Pacifist?

I got to work today and found a suprise in my pocket. I still had one of Kylie's nuks (pacifier) that I taken away from her earlier this morning.

Now today hasn't been "one of those days" at all, but there have been times when curling up under your desk with a nuk sounds like about the best course of action. I guess there are advantages to being 2, because you can do things like that without being dragged off by the guys in the little white coats to the fun house.

Taking naps, having other people dress and feed you, and being able to just "go" whenever you want, without even having to stop what you are doing all seem like pretty good perks when you really think about it.

Of course if you were to tell that to all the chinese people that are packed so tightly onto commuter trains that they have to wear adult diapers in order to go home for the holidays, I'm sure that they might have a different take on it.

There are disadvantages to being 2 also. Having no money, being forced to go wherever your parents go without any say in it, being to short to reach anything, and not being allowed to watch most of the tv channels come to mind.

I guess the hard part is focusing on what is good about the age that you are right now, and ignoring the rest of it. I guess at my age the good parts are being able to have two little kids that constantly remind me how great God is, and how wonderful it is to have the chance to introduce them to him.

Top 10

Reasons Why Parents Are Dumb

10. Give us a break we haven't slept in 3 years...

9. We've spent so much time trying to understand gibberish, that we can no longer speak proper english

8. They don't have a world news segment on sesame street

7. The only creative thinking we do is coming up with new lines for "The Wheels on the Bus"

6. The last book we read was third grade level

5. The disney channel might as well be the only one that our tv gets

4. "Time out" is the only time that our head stops spinning

3. Kids' bedtime 8:30, our bedtime 10:30, 2:30, 4:30, oh I give up!!

2. No need to talk, no one listens to us anyway

and the number 1 reason parents are dumb....

1. We think our spouses names are "your mom" or "your dad"

Evo-dilution

If evolution really is the answer to everything according to science, then why do people go out of their way to stop it?

Any time a non-native plant or animal is introduced to a system, and starts running rampant, reproducing like crazy and pushing out all the other species, scientists go into a frenzy trying to erradicate the animal or introduce natural enemies in order to even things out. If that's what it takes to keep the planet from being overrun by one type of animal, then how did things ever just "work out" on their own? Should the scientists instead be saying things like; "it's normal, let's see how evolution fixes things", and "no need to worry, evolution will balance things out in the end".

You could argue that plants and animals have the capability to get a lot farther from home now than they used to in much less time, but once again, if evolution was truly the answer to everything, then I have to belive that it would eventually work out for the best and a balance would be achieved.

Scientists don't, however, which begs the question. What do you really believe? If these systems are so delicate that they can't solve their own problems, then how are there still so many diverse species around the globe?

The only thing I can think of is that "someone" must have planned it that way.

Love It or Great at It

Almost everyone I know can be filed in one of three categories. They either love their job, are great at their job, or both. I don't feel like I fit into any of these and it frustrates me.

I like my job, but I definetly don't love it. It isn't my "passion" as you hear so many people say. I'm also not great at it. I'm decent enough. I get my work done and I do the best I can, but I'm not one of those people that has "it", whatever it is.

I would just really like to be able to come home from work for the day and be able to honestly say either that I loved the work I did that day, or that I was one of the best at what I did that day. Preferrably both.

My wife for instance, is a teacher. She really loves her job, and she is great at it. Most of the incoming parents request her to be their kid's teacher and her principle has definetly shown that he believes her to be one of the best teachers he has. I really want that for myself, and I know that not everyone can have it, but I have been thinking about it a lot lately.

I am "good" at a lot of different things, but I am not great at any one thing. I really feel that if I was just a little better at one thing that I did, that I could turn that into something, but so far I have been just "good" at everything I've tried.

I keep feeling like sometime soon I'm going to discover that one thing that I'm great at, but I have been feeling like that for a long time. I'm sure a lot of people feel like this, but few of the people around me do which of course just makes me think about it more.

I might be a Jack of all trades, but I'm sure feeling like a joker.

Bumvertising

A friend yesterday was talking about a funny story he had heard about a company that advertises on bums. According to them, it's a mutually beneficial operation. Money in exchange for advertising. Check it out for yourself at www.bumvertising.com

I'm wondering if, as a bum, this wouldn't mess with your credibility just a little bit. Holding a sign that says, "Will work for food, brought to you by Nike", just doesn't seem all that believable, and too many of us have heard the legends of the bums who are bringing in six figures just from handouts, so they are already fighting a negative image.

I would think that this would work better in reverse. Companies that wanted to push some sort of smear campaign could pay bums to hold up signs that say, "I lost my house because of Penzoil Oil Filters, can you please help me." That way, you are still indirectly getting more business without adversely affecting the bum's and at the same time hosing your competition.

Of course, I can't really see this as an upstanding thing to do no matter which way you go, but that doesn't prevent me from poking fun at the idea.

Hiring Tactics

So if you were a business owner, and you really wanted to be sure that you hired people that had luck on their side. How could you garauntee that they had the nack of ending up on the right side of things? Clearly you could get a stack of resumes full of people who were qualified and knew how to do the job well, but how do you sort out the truly lucky ones from the unlucky ones?

Simple: Throw away all but 5 of the resumes you recieve without even looking at them. Anyone lucky enough to survive that kind of process is definetly your kind of guy.

If you would like my financial advice, please send me $100 and I will tell you how to make all the money you need. (which basically consists of getting people to send you $100 by offering financial advice on your blog)

Goose Cannon

Normally when you walk in to the parking lot at work, you don't expect to see someone carrying a shotgun around. According the email I got this week, it could happen however.

Apparently, because of all the ponds we have on campus here, they are required by law to "harass" the canadien geese that routinely hang out, so that they won't nest here. That harassment consists of firing blank rounds from a shotgun to scare them off.

I think that the company is missing a great opportunity here for a stress relief program. We could rotate the goose duty among the employees, and give everyone a chance to fire off some harmless rounds at geese. What better way to burn off a little stress?

Of course, there are the obvious dangers that someone might abuse the opportunity to have a shotgun in their hands at work. Obviously no one wants that, but in a perfect world, firing off some blanks at a bunch of geese sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Jurassic Ice

No it isn't a retirement home for bad rappers, but it is a funny thought. Gold plated dentures and wheel chairs with spinner rims immediately come to mind.

Actually, it's a discovery made by some researchers in the last few days. They drilled down into the arctic in order to get this really old sample of ice that they hope will unlock some info concerning the global climate from way back in the day.

I love science, but I can't help hoping sometimes that something horrible will go wrong with one of these experiments, just for the sheer comedic value. Like finding that the ice had a high urine content and then analyzing it only to discover that some guy peed over the rail of a cruise ship onto an iceberg that would in some way show that the ultra smart scientists actually were going nuts over 3 month old ice and didn't know it. Something about smart people being horribly wrong just makes me feel better sometimes.

It doesn't happen often, but it makes little people like me a wee bit happier. Sorry I just had to get the word "wee" into this somehow.

Back in the Swing

No excercise for me this week, since I seem to have blown out my lower back. As best as I can figure, it was caused by a combination of the lifting I did last week and practicing my golf swing. Am I really old enough to be having these kinds of things happen to me?

I weighed in at 181 sunday morning, so I'm going to try and be strict with my diet again for a week or two so that I can try to get my body fat under 8%. That will be hard with no excercise at all this week.

On a Roll

Why in the world do dogs think that the best thing in the world that they could possibly do with their time is to find the deadest, nastiest thing in your yard and roll in it?

Despite the fact that my dog hates getting a bath, and knows it's coming as soon as she finds something to roll in, she doesn't hesitate for a second.

It doesn't help that we have a big yard that is right next to a woods. She is provided with a miriad of wonderful dead options. It's like a la carte for dogs.

I can just see a dog dressed up like a waiter standing next to a velvet rope in front of the woods with a sign over his head that reads "All You Can Roll $7.95".

At least my dog is white, and can't hide the big nasty stains. I feel really bad for people with black dogs because they don't see it coming. Their dogs have already been in the house and all over the furniture before they discover it.

And as far as the bath goes. I've had to devise a strategy to get the least soaked I can. I say it that way because there is no way whatsoever to come out completely dry. My plan basically consists of drying her until she gets out of my grip and then using the towel as a shield. The bathroom takes a beating, but better it than me.

Oh well, I suppose it could be worse. The cat drives my wife nuts by dropping mice and snakes at our back door all the time. I'm not afraid of either so I don't really care but it bugs the crud out of her.

Fitness Update

As promised on monday, I was able to get my body fat tested today. I had the head trainer do it this time, and will only have her do it from now on so as not to introduce any kind of inconsistancy to the measurements.

She said that I'm at 11.8% which is a little higher than I had been told before. I still really want to be under 8% and I asked her about that. She said that for the goals that I have that I will need to get it down under 8% but that I shouldn't let it fall below 6%.

If you don't know, they measure this in an interesting way. They take 3 measurements with a small set of callipers of different parts of your body. They're different for men and women. In my case, she measured my chest stomach and thigh.

Here is what I measured:

Chest: 7 mm
Stomach: 22 mm
Thigh: 10 mm

Then she takes that score (39) and looks it up on a chart based on my age. Clearly I still have a lot of work to do around the middle, and looking at me would seem to confirm this. That seems to be the only real "soft" spot that I still have left.

At this point, I feel like I need to eat a lot more protein, because I want to make sure that my body is getting enough fuel to build more muscle with. I'm not exactly sure what the best plan is, so maybe that should be the next thing I research.

Until next week....

Lifting

Here it is, laugh away (I told you that this would be a funny blog). I couldn't get my body fat measured because the trainer wasn't there. I'll try again on wednesday.

3 sets of each:
Seated Cable Rows 55
Bench 85 (no that's not a misprint, I really stink at bench)
Dumbbell Shoulder Press 12
Hack Squats 45
Barbell Curls 40
Lying Dumbbell Press 25
Seated Calf Raises 105
Rope Crunches 60

Diet Update

We didn't really have a weigh in yesterday as we were out of town, but I have weighed myself enough lately to have a good enough idea of where I'm at. I usually weigh about 181-182 in the mornings, and 184.5 at night. This has been pretty consistent now for a week or two, and more or less wraps up the weight loss portion of my goals.

For about two weeks now, I have been trying to maintain my weight based on my calorie calculations from the beginning. I have figured that at 2500 a day, I should stay at about 180 or so without gaining or losing. So far it has proven to be true, but my main problem is that I tend to round out my calories by eating junk food, which isn't going to do me any good.

Today, I will try to have my fat percentage measured again, and once I do that I will post it. I learned from the head trainer that the trainer that measured me has a reputation for doing it wrong, so my 10% may not have been accurate. We'll see.

Today I intend to begin the second part of my goals. Weight lifting. I found a workout plan that seems to fit my goals and the time that I have available. It can be found here. Go to the bottom of the page to see the actual plan.

Obviously the body fat percentage will become more important, because as I build muscle, my weight will go back up, so the scales won't really give me an accurate reading on where I'm at anymore. What I'm hoping to do is to lift on Monday's and Friday's and continue going to my calisthenics class on Wednesdays. I don't want to totally ignore cardio in my training.

After I lift, I'll post what I did and how much, that way most of my friends can make fun of me. Hopefully I will be able to look back and laugh too once I get to where I want to be.

The Long Stretch

I don't know about where you work, but here, we are entering a very long stretch with no holidays. After New Year's day, we don't get another one until Memorial day in May. It's a long hard stretch of 5 day weeks and predominantly bad weather.

It's hard to say exactly why there aren't more holidays during this period of time. Sure, there are bank holidays, and those of you who work for banks are probably wondering what I meant by "5 day week". The only thing I can figure is that the weather has always been too nasty for anyone to do anything historically significant during this period of time. Especially in the US. They didn't even write the Declaration of Independence until it warmed up a bit. No one wants to work when it's that cold and rainy, especially in the days before heat pumps.

Based on that data, and the fact that we get a day just for workers in the fall, I think we should all get "The Weather Stinks and I'm Cold" day, sometime around the beginning of March. That would definetly help to break things up a bit and give us something to look forward to.

Also, I think that people that live in Florida and Southern California should be forced to work 16 hours that day, just to give the rest of us a one up on them for at least one day a year. I suppose I should work on a petition to get this set up, but at this time of year, who wants to get started on a project like that?

Lord of the Bees

I read yesterday about how scientists had struck a major blow to one of the main arguments of creationists/Intelligent Design proponents. Apparently, many of them(us) argued (stupidly, I might add) that science couldn't even explain how bees fly, so why should we be expected to believe that science can explain the origins of life?

Of course, some scientists took the time to study some bees and figured it out. (Duh) So now they are saying (stupidly) that creationists can't hold that against them anymore and that we have to accept that science can explain the world around us.

Am I the only one in the WORLD, who realizes that science and religion are not oil and water? That science can in fact do a great job of helping us to unravel the mysteries of God's design? Sure, so science can explain how bees fly. Does that rule out that someone (God) thought it up first? I think not.

I feel like Christians and scientists have been yelling at each other for so long that we have stopped listening to anything that the other side is saying. Science is a very powerful tool and when used properly can help us to understand our world better. I still believe that the whole thing was God's idea, and I don't think that those two things are mutually exclusive.

They are all just pieces of the bigger puzzle, and we all need to spend a little more time looking at the picture on the lid of the box.

Stamps

Last night we took Kylie to gymnastics for her second lesson. She enjoyed the first lesson but was a little scared here and there about what they asked her to do.

Last night she was really excited about going, but didn't really want to follow the instructions as much as she just wanted to run around and play. The only way we could keep her on track was to keep reminding her that if she paid attention and did what she was asked then she was going to get her hands stamped at the end.

It just made me think. How often do we have to be reminded about the "stamps" that God has offered us. I seem to forget so easily and get wrapped up in what I want to do, or stuck worrying about things that don't matter.

I think that for me, that that is why it is so important to spend time with God every day, and to try to be in constant communication with him, because, otherwise, we'll "fall off the balance beam" because we're busy looking at the rest of the gym.

Shooooort week

Why is it that weeks where you don't work on monday always seem longer than just a normal 5 day week? It doesn't really make any sense, but every time I always feel like friday takes longer to get here when I don't have to work on monday.

The only thing that I can figure is that we somehow fool our brains into thinking that the the week is almost over from the get-go, which makes us think that we are a day or so ahead of the real calendar. Whatever the reason, it's quite annoying.

If only there were a way to put this power to good use, like say, on weekends. Weekends are always short, so if I start looking forward to mondays, then saturday and sunday will last longer?

I'm starting to confuse myself so I guess I'll stop now. I promise that once Kerrigan starts sleeping through the night I will start making sense again. Of course, that seems like a looong way off right now.

"Frosted" Flakes

I recently saw a news report that stated that some research institution somewhere had "discovered" that there may be some advantages to drinking a beer early in the morning. Personally I have to wonder at the wisdom of this type of reporting. Sure, most people will find it funny and forget about it 10 seconds later, but what about the people that don't?

I'm sure that there is some Joe-schmo out there in his stained wife-beater t-shirt who just got the greatest news of his life. Normally he didn't start drinking until lunch but now, he'll be more than toasted by 11am.

Sometimes all people need is an excuse to rationalize anything. As long as someone out there says it's good, then they don't care. The fictional committee of "they" is a great example of this. How many times have you heard someone tell you that "they" say that this or that is really good for you, and then you press them as to who "they" really are, and they have no idea.

I just think it's funny that if "the great and all knowing committee of They", as I like to call them, gives you the go ahead, then you can go right ahead and chuck your own common sense out the door and do whatever you want.

Of course in this day and age, it's very hard to separate truth from fiction anyway, which makes it very hard to ever know if anything you hear or read is actually true. I'm getting the point where I just assume that what I hear or read is likely, but not necessarily set in stone. I mean, at one point, everyone on earth would have called you an idiot if you told them that the Earth was round.

Well it's like "they" say, you can't pick'em all