grrouchie thoughts with Gordon Ramsay

Just some thoughts that have been running through my mind lately.

As I sit on my porch at 11:30 pm with a beer in hand, dog on lap and a light breeze keeping it cool I look around and realize that by moving from the east coast to the west coast I basically traded flying bugs for crawling bugs.

I steal this particular thought from Linda Lou quite a lot and never realized just how true it really is.  My favorite beer is my 3rd.

Coach has his Would You running series of blog posts and I'm thinking about stealing the format (like I kinda sorta am today) and make this into a running series of sporadic thoughts titled (and pretty much stole the title too unless I can come up with something better or you all suggest something better) Deep Thoughts by grrouchie.

Netflix now has two seasons of original programming out and I have watched exactly one episode.  I watched the first episode of House of Cards and actually really enjoyed it but I haven't bothered to go back to it yet.  Arrested Development season 4 is also now on Netflix and I loved that show and need to watch this Netflix only season 4 (hopefully I'll actually do it).  When I'm not with my new family I just don't ever find myself watching TV.  I either need to start making time or start making them watch things that I want to watch!

I know that currently Lucki Duck and Rob are both in town visiting.

My Disney vacation is fast approaching. I will leave on the 12th of June and return on the 16th (probably late).  The 16th is Fathers Day and the 17th is the day that we are taking my Fiance's dad out for dinner, her Mom wants everyone to go to Maggiano's.  This is, of course, where we will be having our Wedding Reception and it's a good excuse to get them out there to taste part of the delicious food that they will be partaking in during our little festivity.  Later in that week we will be doing something for my old man as well.

I'm used to having just a small family and not really partaking a whole lot into holidays and the like.  Now I've got two families and it's going to be an adjustment period for me to get used to doing things for both sides of the family.  It keeps me a lot more busy than I'm used to but overall I like it a lot more than I thought I ever would.

Speaking of Fathers day - as we were watching some random TV on Hulu+ the other night the kid (I'm sitting in between them) turned to his mother and they had a conversation very similar to this:

Kid: "Mom, I know you aren't married yet but can we pretend serge is my dad"
Mom: "You can call him that if you want to, why do you ask?"
Kid: "Well, fathers day is soon and I wanted to give him a present and he has to be my dad to get a present."
Mom: "Of course you can get him a present for fathers day if that's what you want."
Me - *heart melts*

I'm currently more loved than I ever thought possible.

Skyrim is being released as the Legendary Edition which is what games normally do and call a Game of the Year Edition  where it's put out, again, but with all of it's downloadable content.  I had previously bought the game when it first game out and then later upgraded to the Collectors Edition when I found it clearance'd out on Amazon or Best Buy or some where.  I also picked up a copy of the Hard Cover Strategy guide because it was so big and bulky and awesome.  Now with the Legendary Edition comes the Legendary Edition Strategy Guide (Hard Cover) which is really tweaking my nipples and SCREAMING out to me to buy buy buy.  I'm fairly certain that I can hold out on the game (I don't own any of the DLC) until I find it on sale for somewhere around $20 but I'm going to have to pick up the guide for fear that it's going to sell out and go up in price.  I've got issues, but I'm ok with that.

Speaking of my issues.  Through Amazon I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition of Season 3 of The Walking Dead and now I see that Target has a Steelbook for season 3 which I'm probably going to have to double dip and pick up.  I might have to sell my soul to get both of them but I own the Collectors Editions of both Season 1 and 2 so how could I reasonably pass up Season 3's Collectors Edition?  And I also happen to be a big dork when it comes to Steelbook cases.  It appears as though I'm going to have to arrange to get out and play some poker with Rob and Lucki Duck so that they can donate to the cause and I can feel better about it all (If only Cokeboy were in town) :) (I keed I keed).

A Work Related Bitch

So tonight after the store closes I get a phone call from the Manager on Duty telling me that she has been too busy to walk the floor and see what needs to be done so it's up to me and the other 2 closing Department Managers to make sure the store is Grand Opening Ready for the morning shift.

Mind you, I get this call at 8:15 and we are scheduled to leave at 8:30.
I walk the floor looking for employees and come up very short handed.

I looked for any glaring issues that needed to be taken care of while making sure that the very few employees that we had were doing what they should be.

15 minutes later as we are walking out the door the manager tells me that if there are any complaints about the close she is going to blame it on us Department Managers because she called us and told us to take care of it.

I told her it looked good for the 15 minutes we were given and the 6 employees we had at the time.

Yet another reason to hate retail.

Stupid Car

Sometimes life is going to well and it just has to bitch-slap you back to reality.

This is what happened to me recently when my car decided to develop some problems.
I guess the problems have been developing for a while but nothing that was noticeable to me until it was too late.

I'm not a car guy so I won't begin to go into what was wrong with it, but it all came out to the tune of about $2200 after repairs and rental car.

And to leave on something positive - a pic I took of the new Deadpool comic.
By far my favorite character and will end up with him or his logo tatted on me at some point (Though the lady is not into this idea).
By far the best Marvel NOW title out right now (my opinion obviously).

Until this year I never would have caught the Spiderman reference in this picture - but it sure does make me giggle (Deadpool does that to me often).

Invitations Are Not Like Candy

Weddings are an anomaly it seems.  Everyone appears to want to attend them.
I'm convinced it's just for the free booze and food that is provided by either the poor saps who are entering into this unholy matrimony or their unsuspecting families that actually believe the bride and groom have 250 friends and/or family that they love enough to invite to such an occasion.  The reality is that nobody loves that many people from their family and nobody really cares about that many friends either.
Weddings are a social occasion, a really expensive social occasion, that ends up being way bigger than they should because people just don't have the inherent ability to say "NO."


NO.  The buck stops here.  Not with my wedding.
My wedding is going to be a small occasion and we are maxing out at 40 people (plus a few of their kids).
As time goes on we keep thinking of other people that we maybe should be inviting, at least that was until I started doing some number crunching.

Yes.  I started out struggling to come up with even 10 names of people whom I really wanted to have attend my (ruptured) nuptials.  But over time I have remembered a few more people that I truly believe I cannot live without them attending.  Then I have added some people to the list that I thought would be good if they could attend.  We both did, the list grew.  We keep remembering people.
Lightning warned me that this was one of the trickiest processes of the entire wedding planning.  Bastard was right.

But, back to the numbers.  I'm a cruncher.  I like to budget and then do the budget 5 more times from scratch to make sure I'm coming up with the same numbers, the right numbers.
As our invitation list grew the dollar figure got bigger.  Once I ran the numbers a few times and saw what we would be spending we decided to have a heart to heart and make some budget cuts.
This includes people, some tough cuts and some not so tough cuts.

I'm not hungry but I want a piece of cheesecake.

We originally told ourselves that we wanted 40 people at most at the wedding/reception.
We are currently at 20 for the ceremony and 40 for the reception.
We've made the list a few times and it's now separated into tiers.
People we can live with and those we'd like but aren't worth the money.

OK. I admit that last line was a bit harsh.  I truly believe that all of my friends are worth the money - but more so if someone else is paying :)

I once had an uncle who invited people (including family members) to his daughters wedding with the caveat that the reception cost $xx.xx per person and if you intended on attending you needed to RSVP and include that money with your RSVP.
I'm pretty cheap but even I believe that that's pretty fucked up.
I dunno, maybe that practice is more common than I think but to this day it was the ONLY wedding I was ever "invited" to with such a stipulation.

So, back to my original thought process.
Invitations are not like candy.  Not everyone can get one - it's an annoying fact.
However - to rectify this situation I am currently planning on creating fake wedding invitations for those who I am thinking of but can't actually afford to invite to the wedding.
This way they will know that they were in my thoughts but weren't worth the money to actually invite (so to speak).

Call me MAYbe

Ok, so the other night I was browsing the blogs I'm subscribed to and came across Mysti's blog Unwritten.
She is running a contest of some sort where everyone who enters has to write a short story (very short, under 1000 words) that all start with the same line.

Normally I wouldn't bother to write up a submission because even though I love to write I just don't feel that I'm actually that good at it.  However this night was different because.... well... well because it was going on 1 am and I was bloody tired and the "better judgement" sensors in my brain had already been shut off for the day.  So, I typed something up then went back and made a few minor edits and sent it off for submission.

I didn't actually submit this hoping to win anything and, in fact, after reading through the rules for submitting I never even paid attention to what could be won or how things were even voted upon.  I submitted this because I like to write and I wanted to write and deep down I just kind of hoped someone would enjoy it.

So - I'll just provide a link to my (now printed) submission for anyone who wants to go read my very short story.

Mental Blocks

Also, dig my sexay pic at the end!

Boo Yah

Capital Grille Las Vegas

Have a buddy who is thinking about having his wedding reception dinner at Capital Grille.
Do any of my readers have experience eating here as he is asking me to gather some information for him and let him know if I think it will be worth it or not (he lives out of town).

So - Anybody?

Thanks in advance

Computer issues

The last couple of days I have been unable to get my computer to even turn on.  It had been giving me a few minor issues but nothing major until it decided to puke and perform a memory dump.
After that it started having issues booting up but usually fixable with a start-up repair.
The other day that failed and I've been doing what I can to try and recover my system to no avail. Looks like my last option is going to be a full wipe and reinstall to see if that makes her able to keep on chugging for another year or so as replacing a computer is very low on my list of things to do currently. 

Also, typing blogs on my phone is not very ideal as well.  Times like this I wish I had the bigger Kindle Fire to make it a little easier, whatever. 

Everything other than that is going well. Looking at possibly putting the deposits down on our two venues today to make sure everything will be set for the same day.
Also, it appears as we choose a bad date with April 18th (sorry cokeboy) because it turns out that next year the 18th is Good Friday.
So we are either going to do the week before or after.
Time will tell.

The List Gets Smaller

First - I appear to have lost a follower as I'm now down to 47.
I guess I've had too much of a positive attitude lately and haven't been grrouchie enough.  Heh!

Anyways - what I came to talk about.
Day two of looking around started out with us having pretty much narrowed down our choices to one of two places.  It was going to depend on pricing for the 2nd place and at that we would still have the actual wedding at the 1st place and then just take a jaunt over to place 2 for the reception.

After visiting place number two and looking at the pricing we decided that we definitely want to do the reception there as long as we can afford it.

Then we headed up to another place just for the fun of it even though based on what we saw online we had mentally checked it off our list.

Until we saw it, up close and in person.  This place was gorgeous just driving in and before we left we both pretty much mentally decided that this is where the wedding would take place.  They gave 3 options of where you could do your wedding and all with beautiful views.  They also gave options for a reception but that part was underwhelming and I don't think either of us bothered to consider it.

The wedding will take place at Lakeside Weddings And the reception will be at Maggiano's Little Italy in the Fashion Show Mall.

We've pretty much decided April 18th as the date.

Now it's a matter of figuring out the financial aspect of it and putting the money down on the reservations.

Honeymoon is still up in the air at this point but I guess we couldn't work everything out in one day!

The number of people for the wedding is also smaller than the number of people for the reception so we are going to have to put some time and effort into those as well.

On My Mind

I'm sitting here waiting for my opponent to arrive for my Strat-O-Matic Football game.
My team, the Las Vegas Scumdogs, are currently sitting at 6-6 and desperate for a win to stay in playoff contention.  I beat this opponent once already and a win here would put us at the same record with me owning the tie-breaker.
However, I would still need some help to make the playoffs and do not control my own destiny.
This is the same situation I was in last year and the year before.  My team is close to being a playoff team but lacking some crucial elements.

Offensively I'm good.  I've got Tom Brady leading the way with C.J. Splitter and Antonio Brown also out there.  I've got Jacob Tamme and Pettigrew (DET TE) to give me depth there.  My offensive line is kind of weak and my defense lacks any type of pass rush to help out and that's where the biggest problem comes in.
Oh well, I guess that is what the draft is fore.

(I stopped writing because the game started, but since he had to run to pick up his wife real quick I thought I'd just let y'all know that his 1st play I picked the ball off and my 1st play Brady threw a Touchdown - Lets hope the rest of the game goes as well).

Today I'm trying a new "dish" that tastes like it's going to become part of my regular rotation.
I need more protein and veggies in my diet so I decided that Chicken, mixed veggies and black beans is something that I'm going to eat more of.  Cook it all up and top with some hot sauce and good to go.
No dressing or anything else to weigh the calories down, but damned tasty and quick and easy to make - plus it should pack up real nice to take to work for lunches.

Recently I had TBC comment on a Facebook photo or status update - he at first kept it on topic but then quickly turned it around and asked me to bring my laptop to Jean to see if I could get him hooked up with Ultimate Poker (which I find out is the Station Casino's online card room).
A few days later he tweets something about UP and asking what my username is there and how I connect to the internet.
I tell him that I am not interested in playing online poker and he tells me "So What if you are or are not interested in online poker, what is your connection thru"
When I responded that I go through a wireless router he didn't bother to continue the conversation.

Today I found I still had about $75 on Black Chip Poker so instead of just pissing it away on poker I decided to piss it away on a Sports Bet Instead.
I put it all down for the Penguins to win their current series.  Once they win I'll roll it over to their next series.
So, if they happen to take the whole thing this year then I'll be a few online dollars richer.  If not, well I forgot I had the money anyways.

Generic

We went to the church today only to find out that we'll have to come back another day.

Looks like that day is probably going to be Saturday.

We'll have to pick out the preacher-man that we want to use and then have our little discussion with him.  More on that as it develops (I felt like a newscaster just then).

We also went to visit one of the places on our list of possible reception areas.  With the list we made I have a feeling it will really be down to 2 choices.  The place we saw today and a place we'll be seeing on Wednesday.  

Wednesday will have, by far, the better food but I'm not sure if the price will be competitive enough for it to be a viable option (I'm lord cheap-ass after all).

The place we looked at today had a lot of positives going for it including the final price-tag to go along with it.

However, until we have explored all of our options and discussed everything fully, one never knows.

Other than that I hit the gym again today and my new intent is going to be to hit 5 miles every time I go for the rest of the month.

I felt good after today's session and my plan is to go again tomorrow before noon.

After dinner the boy's put a puzzle together and posed for several pictures.  I thought that was quite cute so I'll be getting them a few more easy, kid friendly super hero puzzles in the near future.

I'll also be introducing them to the concept of gluing the finished thing to a piece of cardboard so that they can put it on the wall as if it were a picture or a trophy.

Good Night Vegas!

Tough Decisions

I've got a big week ahead of me and luckily I'm on vacation for the whole thing.

Tomorrow we head to the church to talk to the priest/preacher/reverend/cultist/whatever about the possibility of doing the wedding in the church.
She's Catholic and i'm Reasonable and in the Catholic Church that shit don't mix.

There are a couple of different ways that this could play out and I'm all for the easiest of them all.
1 - They could tell us that they will only perform the ceremony if we are both Catholic and she agree's to do a non-catholic wedding.
2 - They could tell us that they will only perform the ceremony if we are both Catholic and it would be quick and painless for me to convert just for this occasion.
3 - They could tell us that they will agree to perform the ceremony as long as I agree to a few of their "rules" and life goes on without any hitches.

I'm all for option #3.
I guess I'll know more after tomorrow.


I've got some tough decisions ahead of me.  Lightning made a good comment on my post about the Invitation  List and it being a difficult thing to actually make.
Truth of the matter is I thought it was going to be bloody simple and it's anything but.
My list of people has fluctuated greatly, changing every day.  New people added and deleted almost every time I think about it.  I'd have put money on this being one of the easier things to do and I'd be broke because I was wrong (I'd still be broke though because weddings are F'n expensive).
The good news is that we've got time to figure out the who's and how-many's.  Our first priority is to figure out there where and when.
Once we figure out the church situation everything will clear up a little bit and we can move on to step number two.

The other tough decision is who should be my best man?
There are two guys whom I've been friends with for a long time who I could not live without and yet I have to flip a coin and decide which of these two gets an elevated status in my own wedding.
It's truly a strange decision to have to make and I'm 100% conflicted and don't think that I'll actually be able to make a choice anytime in the near future.

Oh well - it's bed time.
Old man is tired.

May Exercise

I created and updated a "Page" for my May Exercise Goals (MEG for short).

As you recall from this post I wanted to get in at least 10 trips to the gym and go 60 miles on the elliptical.
I also wanted to get down to 230 pounds.

Sure I took off 1/3rd of the month already - but there is still time and I've still got determination.
So, with that in mind I went to the gym with a goal of doing 4 miles and going for about 40 minutes.

I ended up hitting Mile #4 at 33:55 and then used another 6 minutes for cool down.
From there I went to Walmart and bought a gallon sized container of water to take to work which I will attempt to drink every day that I work.

5/11/13

It's a long hard road to 60 miles for the fat man!

My Road to 200

Other than my buddy's wedding in January I now have more personal reasons to actually re-focus my energy on weight loss and drop some pounds.
200 also seems like a pretty reasonable goal for me to make.  If, when I get there, I still feel that I could comfortably drop some more then so be it - but for right now the sole focus is going to be on 200 and getting there.

With this in mind I took to Facebook and said I was searching for a pro-Bono Pseudo Personal Trainer to help me lose the last 35 pounds to get there (since I have been stuck at the same weight for 2 months) and I had some good advice and conversations based on it.
One friend called me a pussy.
One friend told me to eat more moon-pies
One friend told me that she should love me even if I don't lose the weight but that I should come to Jean and try to sign him up for UP with my laptop since his wasn't working.

Weird.

I know I need to make changes. I've made so many getting to this point so now I've got to continue with some more to get where I ultimately want to be.
Diet and exercise, diet and exercise.
Eat healthier.
I cut out a lot of the bad but some of it still lurks.  I've also got fat person mentality when it comes to eating and I like to eat a lot.  Training myself to eat even less is going to take some time.

So, my snacks are being cut back again.  Cut WAY Back.
The thing I have been holding out on for so long is also going to happen, needs to happen.
I'm cutting back on my Diet Dew intake (I WILL NOT END IT, I will cut back).

My morning routine consists of me waking up and grabbing a dew.
Today that routine was a banana and a bottle of water instead.
In 10 minutes I hit the gym with another bottle or two of water.

For phase 1 my goal is going to be no Dew before noon.
If I die, know that I loved most of you, despised a few of you and wanted to sex all of you.

This was the only pic I could find with 200 or bust on it - it will have to do

The Guest List

On Facebook I pondered whether or not Gamestop has a Gift Registry and a lot of my friends seem to think that this would be a bloody good idea.
Others suggested Target or Toys R Us or even Amazon, which are all Viable options for more than just Video Games but my comment was meant as sarcasm as the last thing I really want to get is more video games to take on my Honeymoon!
However, I'll definitely talk to my local Comic Shop about a gift registry because I'll need some reading material while the wife sleeps!

Now, to the guest list.
The guest list is a pretty weird part of the whole wedding planning.
The guest list essentially boils down to "Which of my friends do I really like and which can I do without?"
Once you pick the size of your party you have to sort through your mental list of friends and relatives and figure out who is in and who is out.
Then sometimes you get to complicated scenarios.
For us it involves family.
We have to invite her immediate family obviously.  This includes her sister.
However, also on our list of people who should be coming are two people who have both been in a relationship with her and both moved on to marry their next lady and start popping out kids.
I thought we should invite more and have a table for "People who have been in your sister" but it appears as though this is not actually a good idea.  My Bad.

Turns out that there are a good deal more than just 6 people that I'm willing to invite and at this point in our list making we have decided that 50 people is the max we want to have.  We have thus far come up with a list of 40 people and have ten open spots for assorted relatives of hers.

We also made a list of venue's to check out for the reception.
One friend posted on my Facebook "You my friend appear to be in the honeymoon phase of engagement. Wait till you have to start making wedding plans and life will blow again."
I'm proud to say that this woman will be marrying one of my best friends.

I've had three friends that have lasted over the years - two are married and one will be come January.  All three better be at my wedding or there will be a hell to pay.

The Real Ring

Today we had planned on running around town checking out store after store until we (er...she) found the perfect ring.  Yesterday she did some "pre" footwork for a bit so that she could figure out which stores to ignore.

Today we hit up a random store because of discounts but there was nothing there.  Then we headed down to store #2 (which really was store #1 since we just happened to go to the first with very low expectations anyways).
On the way there I was lollygagging a bit and was told "Hurry up, my ring is waiting for me."
Sometimes words speak true.

We entered the store and were greeted.  We brought out a printout of what she was looking at online and the guy went to his computer and brought up pictures.
He asked a few questions to make sure he knew what exactly she was looking at and then handed her a ring. She tried it on and it looked nice.

He then brought out a second and said "this wasn't on your list but it's pretty similar to one that is" and the moment it hit her finger I knew it was the one.
Her face lit up like she just received the greatest gift in the world combined with the best news.  She radiated when she put it on.
He brought out a 3rd ring and she tried it on, looked at it for a few seconds and decided that ring #2 was the one.
I asked her if she wanted to keep looking, we had all day.
She shook her head and said "No, this is perfect" with a smile that lit up my world.

I didn't even bother asking what the price was, I just told the guy that she thinks it's perfect so it's hers.

From start to finish today was perfect, and perfect days do not come around often enough.
I'm so in love with this woman and I'm happy that in somewhere near a year we will be husband and wife.
Now we just have to figure out all the details for the wedding/reception/honeymoon - I'm pretty certain this is not going to be no small task and there is more to it than is close to crossing my mind currently.

Side View but does not capture the radiance of the ring and the diamonds.

Top View too far away to show the real beauty of the diamond.

 I'm sure there will be more to come in the future.
I plan on detailing the whole ordeal here including my silly ideas :)

Prenup

We've got the proposal accepted and the Invitations are all decided on - so now is a good time to broach the subject of a prenup right?

I mean - I've got some stuff that I could not stand to lose when this whole bloody thing falls apart violently in 3-5 years.

My Blue Ray collection.
My Video Game collection.
My blow up sheep.
I mean - I've got to protect my investments right?

So, here is a little humor into the situation that I've dug up online (duh).

Wedding Invitations

So, now that step one is out of the way it's time for me to start thinking about some of the other stuff that goes into the whole wedding preparation part.

I know I need to come up with a guest list before I can legitimately worry about invitation but I am leaning towards this one currently.

I'm really hoping my Fiance likes it as well :)

She Said Yes

How Could any woman turn down a rock like that?

Three Days

Three days away from an important anniversary in my life.

I don't really know what I came to talk about but what is on my mind is this.
The lady and I had some plans for tomorrow which I discussed here which completely got overlooked because I followed that up with another post quickly afterwards.

 As of right now those plans have been cancelled.
Here is how this pans out.

Today at school is what they call...well... I can't remember what they call it.  However, back in PA we called it May Day.  It was a day where you did some fun stuff and got to forget (a bit) about school and all that crap.  Well, about 2 weeks ago the child decided to lie in school and got himself essentially detention during this fun activity time.  Today was the day and when he went to school he decided to apologize to the teacher hoping that she would just accept it and let him participate.
She accepted the apology but told him that he still had to serve his punishment.
He then proceeded to throw a bit of a fit and got himself in trouble for not listening.

This information was communicated to the dead beat dad who proceeded to inform him that because he got in trouble he would not be taking the kid to see Iron Man 3 this weekend like they planned.
The kid then called him a bastard and hung up on him.
I really want to give the kid a High Five, but that would be sending the wrong signal.

Anyways - the mother then has to call the dead beat back to find out what happened, he explains it and she tells the kid to apologize.  He gets on the phone with the kid and tells him that he doesn't want to talk to him right now and ends the conversation.

Later in the evening she sends the dead beat a text asking if he was still picking up his kid and he responds "not after what he called me."
So, his response to his child acting up and doing something wrong is just to not talk to him, NOT pick him up and spend time with him like he planned and just ignore the kid.
Wow - way to be a f'n parent.

All of this has been eating at me the whole evening and is probably why I am currently unable to sleep even though I have to "wake up" in 3 hours to get ready to go to work.

So, no Iron Man and no Sushi tomorrow - however it looks as though come Monday we'll be taking in an early showing of Iron Man while the kid is at school and before we have to go to work (since we both close that evening).

In other news, I've had a new part-timer hired for my plumbing department.
There is NO development on replacing either of my two previous part-timers in electrical.  I'm thinking maybe 2014 will be a better year there.
Plumbing, however, is shaping up to be a really good department.  The two newest employees are both damned good and have good motivation and drive.
If the new guy who should be coming on in a week or two fits the same mold I'm going to be well staffed and maintained until they start picking me dry again.

Canada Dry

My pistol is loaded
I shot Betty Crocker
Deliver Colonel Sanders down to
Davy Jones Locker!

Hogging All The Vagina

You see, what had happened was as follows.

As a brother, as a friend, you gotta realize that you cannot have all of the vagina.  This is an unwritten bro code passed down from generation to generation.  I should not have to tell a nigga this.  It should be understood.  MuFukka, when I was just knee high to a grasshopper but with a dick the size of a full grown white man (this be about 10-12 years old) my pappy sat me down and said "Son, I need to have an important conversation with you."

"Yeah pops, what is it," I said listening intently knowing that if I didn't he'd beat my ass with his half empty bottle of Old English 800 Malt Liquor that he picked up from the corner store just 30 minutes ago.

"Son, as you are getting older and becoming a man you have to learn a few valuable lessons in life.  None more important than what I'm about to tell you.  If you do not heed my warning then you will end up shanked and with only a few moments to reflect upon the mistakes which you have made."

"No worries pappa, I always listen to what you have to tell me and I always follow your advice because you are old and wise and you tell me so.  So, what is this sage advice you have for me?" (I was an exceptionally smart fucker at this age and able to form sentences that most nigga's 3 times my age still cannot.

"Son, this won't make sense to you right now but one day you will understand.  Do Not Hog All The Vagina"

Shit, I tell you my pops gave great advice.  He learned me good that day and I ain't never lost that memory. I believed that er'yone got the same advice from their pops's, well except for the bastards because they ain't never known their daddy's but I'd thunk that their momma's would have told them to not hog all the vagina's. I mean, what bitch wouldn't look out for her kids that way.

So you see, I ain't to blame here in this situation because I was just following man law, bro code.  I was just being a real nigga and keeping it real.

That Mu'fuka was hogging all the vagina.

I asked politely for him to stop hogging all the vagina and he ignored me and kept plugging away.

I demanded a switch but got ignored.

I even slapped him on the shoulder and said "Tag mu'fuka, my turn" and he keep ignorin' me.

So, I stabbed his ass, kicked him out of the bed and got my share of the vagina.

Bitch be trippin' though and she called the 911's saying shit was going down.  I had to slap her around a little bit to get her to stop being such an uppity trick and let me finish.

I ain't dun nuttin' wrong, he shouldn't have been hogging all the vagina.

No caption necessary

I ain't been around lately

Updates have not been coming fast and furious from camp grrouch lately, but that is because I haven't really been spending much time at home lately.

It also does not help that my wireless connection on this laptop is spotty at best some days and down right sucks others.  The last two days I have not been able to connect at all.

In fact, tonight, when I got home I had to reboot my modem, router, computer, router, router and finally I got this connection which hasn't really been the greatest.

I've got some serious lag going on - but whatever.  I guess this is what they refer to as #FirstWorldProblems!

Work, strangely, has been giving out Over-Time this week like crazy.  They had an insane amount of extra hours to give out and people have been taking advantage of it.

Of course I did not find out about it until half way through my week when I already had a day off.  I have an extra couple of hours banked and have the option of going into work tomorrow to work a shift of pure OT if I want.

That is where the dilemma comes in.  

I want the money but I really don't know if I want to deal with work or not.

First big issue is that it's a freight day and I don't feel like spending most of my morning throwing freight.  I can't go in any later than 8 am (if I decide that I want to work a full shift) because my love works until 3pm.  Working till 5 places me at her house after the kid has already gone to and come home from tutoring and into prime homework time.

Then a bit later in the evening we will be going to First Friday, or as I like to call it Funnel Cake Day!

I also plan on having an adult beverage or three, leaning towards the over side of the latter.

Saturday is also going to be a good day as we both open and our kid is going to be getting picked up by his old man.  The evening is pretty full as we will be heading to church to meet n greet a cousin (some relative, I'm using cousin as a generic because I can't remember) who just popped out a child.  I'm informed that I'll be the first guy she's ever been with who has met family outside of her parents/siblings which is pretty cool.

After the baby kissing and pretending I understand Spanish we will be heading out to watch Iron Man 3 and then a nice Sushi dinner.

I'm really looking forward to the evening as we very rarely have an entire evening to ourselves because the kid is always around and we both generally work late Saturday's when the opportunity would actually be available.

After finishing Insomnia on the last day of April (technically 1st of May because it took me till Midnight:17 to burn through the last 80 pages) I'm going to be doing much lighter reading this month.

I've downloaded 4 e-books by Stephen King.  2 of them with his son, Joe Hill, and one with another author whom I'm not going to look up at this moment.  The other is a little essay he did on GUNS which I found to be interesting reading.

I'm also going to be getting back into older Comic Books but I don't plan on doing it with the same furor that I did earlier in the year.  I want to diversify a bit between Books, Comics, TV Shows and the Gym.

Life is about variety right?  Someone supposedly wise once told me that.

I've got a bunch of random ideas that I want to take advantage of and share, but I'm unsure as to how I want the finish product to look.  So, hopefully in the near future I'll have some time to sit down and hammer some of them out for everyone's viewing pleasure.

Well, off to bed.

If I don't fall asleep soon then my decision of whether or not to work will be made for me by my lack of energy or ability to awake in the morning.

I probably won't be around much this weekend but come Monday/Tuesday I'll have something interesting to share.

Mark the calender as it will be a 1st.

May Goals

April was a weird month, I feel like I didn't really do anything at all during the entire month.
I stopped reading the "backlog" of comics that I was hammering away at for the first 3 months of the year and instead I've been slowly trudging through Insomnia (and you've all read this like 5 times already so I'll shut up about it starting now).
The only thing new was that I started going to the gym but I know I need to go more often.
Baby steps, much like with the rest of my self improvements, Baby Steps.

May just feels like it's going to be a big month for me.  I've got some plans and hopefully a big announcement coming within the next few weeks.


So - Lets set some goals for myself for the month of May.
Ending Weight Goal 230  (Starting Weight - ????)

Trips to the gym - 10 Minimum (2 weeks of 3 and 2 weeks of 2).
Miles Logged on the Elliptical - 60 Minimum (this will force me to get some extra gym trips in).
TV Seasons Watched - 1 (Pick from Dexter Season 4, Game of Thrones Season 2, Prison Break Season 2).

Books Finished - 1 (Started and finished within the month)
Comics read - 100 (going to be tough with adding a book to the mix)

Poker Sessions - 4 (Minimum)

Insomnia

I've been reading this book over the course of the month and really enjoying it.

However I don't appear to have the ability to put in a long reading session as this book has literally taken the whole month to read.

I'm two thirds of the way through it right now and I really want to finish it before the month ends so that I can start a new one and go back to reading comic books again (well, old comic books that is as I've been keeping up with the stuff on my pull list pretty easily).

I haven't even bothered to follow since the playoffs but I saw this on Google+ and decided that I know enough Lakers Fans that I had to share.

Now, it's 1 am and I should be sleeping so I'm going to go read until I pass out.

That Escalated Quickly

This is a true story.


So my buddy puts his car up for sale on craigslist and gets a text reply today.
The following is all paraphrased.

Stranger: Hey man, sorry this is so late but is your car still available.
Buddy: Yeah
Stranger: My car broke down and is now costing me a lot of money, I need a car that works. I'm an honest 26 year old and no one is willing to help me.
Stranger: I don't have any money at the moment but I'm willing to trade you my phone, the Xperia XL, AT&T, valued at $650 plus some cash.
Stranger: I can make cash payments a little at a time over the next couple months.
Buddy: Sorry but I can't, I'm selling the car because I have bills I have to pay.
Stranger: Why doesn't anyone want to help me out. I'm going to kill myself


I suggested all of the following.

Pics or it didn't happen
Ask the guy to face time it
Wait a week and then text him asking if he was still looking for a car. If he responds guilt trip him. "I thought you were going to kill yourself, pussy."
my buddy added.
"What, are you a little bitch? Why didn't you go through with it?"

I'm considering putting an ad on Craigslist selling a cheap car but willing to barter. Need an AT&T Phone....

Getting into the rhythm

This evening, after work, on my drive home I told myself that I was going to walk through my doors and get changed for the gym.
I actually accomplished this.

Hit up the gym and while I did not log the hour that I would have liked I still managed to go 35 minutes.
After being at work all day I was just too tired and didn't have the motivation to push through for a full hour but I wanted to make sure that I went for a minimum of 30 minutes and 3 miles.
These are going to be my absolute minimums from now on.  I'm hoping to up that to 4 miles by the middle of next month.

There are a few days left in the month but I'm already looking ahead.
Now that I've spent the month trying to get into the gym habit I'm going to set myself some goals for May as far as exercise is concerned.

I will continue to post my post workout pictures as proof of whether or not I'm actually achieving what I want to or not and let the domino's fall where they may.

Next Month - Yeah, that's the ticket

There really hasn't been much going on this month for the grrouch!
I've taken the month off of my comic book obsession and instead have been reading through Stephen Kings's Insomnia during my reading hours instead.  It's amazing how much longer it takes to read a book than to go through a comic book.
I'm a bit over half way through and I'd like to finish it this month so that means I need to actually start reading more than 20-30 minutes at a time.  Whatever #1stWorldProblems.

Yesterday the NFL Draft started and of course I had to work through it.  I'll be working during today's portion as well and while we're at it the whole bloody weekend tool... So this means I'll play catch up on Sunday and read about how they think the Steelers had just an average draft and blah blah blah.
Evidently the Vikings really pulled out a good one or something.

Everything that is truly exciting for me starts happening next month so in the next few weeks I should have some good news to report.

I've had some fun struggles back and forth with the Mortgage company and the Insurance company the past month.  All is resolved but it was still fun as ever.

First I get a letter stating that my insurance was being cancelled.
I call to find out what the problem is and they tell me that because I don't live in my house they are cancelling the insurance.
I get that sorted out.
However, not before they send a letter to my Mortgage company stating that the insurance was cancelled.

Next I get a letter from Mortgage company telling me that I don't have any insurance. I make some calls and once again it gets sorted out.

Or so I thought.  Yesterday I get a letter from the Insurance company telling me no payment has been made and I need to cough up multiple hundreds of dollars within 2 weeks or my insurance is cancelled.
So, today I call them and then call the Mortgage company and ask why they haven't bothered to send the payment and they say it's because they received the cancellation notice - but no one bothered to send the "oh we screwed up, Insurance is still on" notice.
So, a payment is being overnight-ed (and I'm told that means it will get there Tuesday and today is Friday... uh...) and all will be resolved.

So, next week I'll be able to make a few phone calls to find out that everything is now right with the world and there are no worries.  The sun is shining and the birds are chirping and there is a drunk pissing on the wall of a 7-11 somewhere.

Time flies like the wind
but Fruit Flies like bananas.

I had a dream that I was at work naked (I don't remember having naked dreams as a child) and I was helping customers while holding a shirt over my tally-whacker instead of just putting it on and covering it up.
Some big black lady wanted to walk past me in the aisle to get to some product but the aisle was pretty narrow and she might have to turn sideways (I told you she was BIG) and might end up brushing up against me trying to get to her destination.
Randomly at the end of it I discovered that I was wearing underwear and then all my clothes started appearing out of no where and next thing I know I woke up because my phone was ringing.
It was the love of my life and I'll forgive her for disturbing my sleep!

Also - on Facebook a new page called Lowe's Meme's has popped up.
This is the most accurate picture I probably have ever seen in my life.  Enjoy.

One hour in under a month

Yes, having already lost a small child has made a huge difference in my stamina at the gym.
I didn't start going to the gym this year (even though it was a new years revolution) until this month - April Fools day to be exact - but I've never felt better while at the gym than I do now.
My pace is much faster than it's ever been and I'm able to go longer than I would have previously.
Pretty exciting stuff for a fat guy.

Today I decided that I was going to shoot for an hour even if I had to keep a slower pace than I have been doing lately.
Good news is that I hit the hour.
Better news is that I kept up a pace over 6 mph for at least the first 45 minutes.
Those last 15 minutes were up and down as I was getting tired.
The last 5 minutes were all at about 4.2-4.5 MPH.

The only negative about the photo below is that for whatever reason the computer didn't accept my answer when I put in my weight at the beginning.
Somewhere around the half way mark I noticed it wasn't tracking my calories so I had to re-enter my weight for it to begin.  So, lets just assume somewhere around 600 calories burned.

Red Rock Casino done me wrong

I'm going to try to post whenever I play until I'm playing regularly again.
Regularly is going to be difficult though as my "free" money will be decreasing in the near future.
More on that in 3-4 weeks though.

But now, Red Rock Casino.

I don't know if I just hate myself or what but I decided to head over to Red Rock casino the day after my brutal beatings at Hooters.
However, this time I went prepared and ate beforehand so that I didn't have to suffer a food bad beat and pray that the Red Rock TP was as soft as the MGM TP.

Of course, Red Rock being a locals casino I didn't expect a boat load of action and huge pots everywhere, but the games are generally good every time I go there and it also helps that my biggest win at live poker also came from this room.

Upon sitting I noticed that my table had two readers.  One reading on his iPad and the other reading a paperback.  There was an old man (or 6) and a couple people nearing my age with one younger.

My first seat saw me be card dead and as such I decided to move closer to the dealer when a seat opened up - this ended up being the 9 seat.

About 30 minutes into moving into the 9 seat my luck changed slightly.

I look down and see some Aces in my hand (and by some I mean more than one but less than 3) and decide this would be a good time to make a raise (Actually my 2nd in a row as I just picked a bad spot the previous hand with 35off and found out a guy really loved his hand on a KKx flop).
So, i get a limper and pop it to $12 which nets me two callers.

Flop comes out Jxx with no flush or straight draw currently.  I bet $30 and the guy to my left decides to just throw all his chips into the middle (about $60-70 more to call).
The other person in the hand decides to bow out respectably.

I call without thinking and show my aces and my opponent is about to show his hand when he realizes what my hand is and figures out that he is behind and then decides that showing isn't something he wants to do.
That all changed when the turn was another Jack and he promptly showed his AceJack off leaving me drawing to One Out.

That one out did not hit.

The rest of the night I was card dead with my best two hands being AKo and 66.
Needless to say I still hate poker but will keep playing until I have to give my house away to cover a wreck-less debt.

An evening at Hooters

So last night I headed out for an evening of poker and while it ended up being enjoyable, ugh.

I'm not 100% sure what made me end up at Hooters though it was probably a bunch of factors all rolled into one.  I know TBC had been playing there recently so it increased my likely-hood of running into him and knowing how one nit at the table plays.  I've also never even set foot in the Hooters Casino so I figure'd that it would be a good time to check that off my list and I hear they run an Aces Cracked promo until 7 pm so that means the game would be tight and predictable which should help lower variance.
However, I'm beginning to assume my middle name is Variance because I either experience a lot of it or I'm just really shitty at this game.

I get there and a table is just starting up, 4 handed with a guy away from the table.  Within 30-40 minutes the table is full and all is good.  By all is good I mean the cards suck, horrible.

While playing 4 and 5 handed I had a great run of cards, getting big pairs and hitting big hands on flops and turns and increasing my stack a little at  a time.  However all of this took a turn for the worse when I decided that I should arrive at the Coolering portion of my evening.

I look down and see the strongest hand in poker, Seven Duce of Clubs (I have a history with this hand oddly enough) and decide to make a raise to $12 and get 2 callers.
Flop comes out all Clubs and I make a Continuation bet of $27 and get one caller.  Turn does not pair the board nor does it add a 4th club and I just feel this guy has the Ace of clubs and is trying to spike it.
I bet the rest of his stack which he instantly calls.
I flip up the bad news not realizing that I was the one receiving the bad news as he turns over the Ace of clubs and then exposes his Queen of clubs netting him the large pot because I guess the Ace out ranks my 7. Whatever.

Add some more to my stack and a short while later I look down and see Queens for the 3rd time this evening.  There are a couple of limpers and I pop it to $16 and get 2 callers.
Flop comes out Ace Queen Jack and it's not pretty but what can you do.  I bet $35 and get two callers.
Turn comes out a blank and I push getting just one caller.
I flip up the bad news not realizing..... you know the routine.
He had AA for a bigger set only calling pre-flop hoping he could lose and collect the $100 for getting Aces Cracked.

Ok - So Flush over Flush and Set over set while I was the aggressor both times.... Lets throw another one out there.

I've got 8T and make a raise to $12 with 3 callers.  Flop comes out 7TJ with two hearts.  i bet out $27 and get two callers.  Turn is another T.  Now I've got a gutshot and trips and while someone could have a straight I kind of like my hand.  I bet enough to put the short guy in and another guy makes a raise for the rest of his chips which I call (stacks aren't important because this is pretty much a TBC Summary).
3 way all in and I am not feeling very confident.
I turn up my cards.  Next guy show 9J for top pair gutshot.
next guy shows Q9 for open ended.
No flush draws.
River is of course the 8 giving Q9 the nuts and I watch my chips ship again.

Flush over flush, set over set, straight over straight....
Fuck Hooters Casino
Seriously.

After that I went over to MGM to play with Rob a bit and enjoyed the session even though it was mostly dull.  I did end up getting aces and had a guy double me up on a Ten high board because, as he said, "when I have a pocket pair it's just really hard for me to put someone else on Aces."
His pocket pair was 99.
Oh well, thanks for playing.

I also later won a pot with 42 of diamonds when i turned 2 pair.

I might end up back at Hooters today if they have a full table going just to play nit poker.

One more thing about Hooters.
The restaurant has this deal going for 3 chicken taco's for 3 dollars.
3 Spicy chicken tacos for 3 dollars. (later I found out you could get shrimp if you wanted).
Sounds like a good deal and I watched someone else eat them and they looked good.
I ordered some.
First issue is that by the time I got them they were fucking cold - ugh.
They needed Ranch dressing to make them taste better.
They, later, at MGM violently left my system.
Good thing MGM has such soft toilet paper to ease that experience for me.

A pact with the gym

There is this supposedly great program out there called Gympact that allows you to set up a punishment for missing trips to the gym, monetary punishments.
I have a friend who has used it and likes it and thought i'd give it a try.

The way the program works is you tell it how many days you are going to workout during the week (can change every week) and how much money you are willing to risk per workout if you don't live up to your end of the bargain.
Minimum of 3 workouts and $5 per workout.  You have to "check in" at the gym (a verified gym only) when you start your workout and check out when you leave and must stay there for at least 30 minutes.

Today I "checked in" when I arrived at the gym and when I went to check out almost 50 minutes later the app said that I failed because I left the gym too soon.  So somewhere between check in and check out the app lost it's WiFi or GPS signal to prove that I was there and decided that I left before I finished 30 minutes.

I'll probably give this another couple of tries for the rest of the week and see if I can figure out where I went wrong or if the app maybe just sucks on my phone or at my gym, then after 3-5 more try's I'll determine if I'm going to use the app or not.
The payouts (per week I think) are very minimal, estimated at maybe 40 cents per workout (while losing $5 or more per workout missed can add up quickly) so it's not really about making money but just trying to find that extra little incentive to get my fat ass to the gym on the days when I'm lacking the motivation.
Is $5 enough to make me get a workout in?  Who knows, we'll see.


Last July I posted some pics of myself when I was around 270.
Today I decided to take those same pics again (well, not all of them) and see if I could actually notice any results based on this one particular outfit.

April 2013

July 2012

April 2013

July 2012

The photo's were taken at two different locations and different distances from the mirror so we're not talking ideal conditions here but whatever.
I would have expected for the difference to be more dramatic dropping from 270 to 235 which is why I had set my weight goal to be 220.  However, after looking at these pics and seeing where I'm at I realize that I still have a good way to go still and think 200 is much more reasonable.

Today at the gym I warmed up on the treadmill for 10 minutes or so, then when an elliptical opened up I jumped on that and set my time for 30 minutes.
I was going to just do an easy 30 minutes and not push myself too hard but once I started I noticed that I was keeping a pretty good pace.  After a couple of minutes I decided to see how quickly I could do the first mile and pushed myself to hit it in nearly 8 minutes.
From there I slowed down for a mile and reached mile #2 at about the 18 minute mark.  Mile 3 fell at 27:30 give or take and I finished my workout by hitting Mile #4 at 36 minutes exactly.

Movie Talk - Snow White and The Amazing Spiderman

Tonight I watched Snow White and the Huntsman with my lady and I must say that overall I liked it.
Even though Kristen Stewart cannot act to save the baby Jose the movie was still pretty enjoyable.  What really pulled me in was the imagery and landscapes.  Of course, having Thor there to kick some ass also helps to make pretty much any movie better.

About 20 minutes into the movie the child asks "Why do they call her snow white?" and I responded "It's because she did too much cocaine when she was younger."

Unfortunately this Troll did not kill off the Twilight Saga (can't) Act(ress)

Last night we sat down together and watched The Amazing Spiderman which I liked better the second time but I found myself being a bigger nerd while watching it.  Since I have developed my comic book obsession (which I've managed to barely read any at all this month as a breather) I find myself looking at these super hero movies with a different eye than I have before.
For instance I have read many adventures of The Lizard and know his origins and as such I noticed a HUGE contrast to The Lizard in the movie.
In the movie Dr Connors keeps giving himself injections and facilitating the transformation into The Lizard while in the comic books Dr Connors only made that mistake once (at least up through the 1st few years of Spiderman's existence) and the other times he transformed were because of weird freak accidents while trying to do good and help out others.

Also, The Lizard was originally in Florida and Spidey had to travel to see if he was real and then to defeat him - this is NOT the case in the movie.
I preferred the Death of Uncle Ben of the 1st Sam Rami Spiderman to the version in The Amazing Spiderman because the Rami version held more true to the comic books.  I also prefer Mary Jane but mostly because I want to do dirty things to Mrs Dunst.  I'm also curious to see if they kill off Gwen before they finish off the set of movies they are currently making.
The Amazing Spiderman took the comic book approach of having him develop his webs instead of it being something he is just naturally capable of (true to the comic book) but it veered off way out of character for Peter Parker with the high school scenes where he taunted and humiliated Flash during the basketball scene and then again when he jacked him up against the locker after Uncle Ben died.  Peter Parker always wanted to be able to teach flash a lesson but knew that it was the wrong thing to do and that he could not use his powers in such a way.


In other Movie News:
My Steelbook of The Hobbit from the UK arrived the other day.  I still need to see if I can cheaply track down the Steelbook version that has Gollum on the cover as that one looks amazing but I think was a Germany only release.
I also made a trek to Target and picked up a copy of Django Unchained in Steelbook form to add to my collection.

Movies I'm going to be making her watch in the (hopefully) near future:
The Princess Bride
The (original) Evil Dead
The Bourne (all 4 movies)
The Hobbit

The Boston Bombers

So I spent the day with my love and ended it watching The Amazing Spiderman.
Since the first time I watched the movie I have started reading through the comic books from the beginning and am now recognizing things I never would have before.

So, my whole goal was to get home so that I could write a post detailing things that I have discovered because of the comics and maybe bitch a bit about some of the differences between the comics and the movie(s).

However, upon getting onto my computer I have a friend who was doing play by play on the Manhunt for the Boston Bombers.  it's now over an hour later - I have Fox News (it's online and the quickest one I found with streaming video/audio to listen to in the background) going so I can hear all of the updates.

One of the two guys has been killed (shot several times in the head) and the other guy is currently thought to be inside a 20 block area with police closing in.

While not quite the O.J. "Chase" which was on TV and during Prime Time, I just can't bring myself to shut the computer and get some sleep and just catch up on all of it in the morning.

However, I would like to say that with all of our modern technology helping to track down and capture these two (well one, but two shortly) I'm happy to be living in the where and when that I am.
Less than one week later these guys are getting their just desserts (though they deserve worse I would say) and will both be dead and rotting eternally (if you believe that kind of thing) shortly.


So, in the near future (tomorrow, I'm going to have a lot of free time tomorrow) I want to write about Spiderman Movies/Comics/Games and Gympact.

Killing my Calves

Yesterday before everything got going I decided to continue to hold myself into this gym thing.
It's only getting to the gym that takes motivation.  Once I'm there I'm usually golden and actually actively think of things to keep pushing myself in one way or another.

I like to break down my exercises so that I'm not focusing on "Oh gee I want to go 40 minutes today.... I've only done two.... where is there a hot butt to focus on...."
Instead I just focus on getting to a small milestone be that a certain amount of minutes or calories burned or distance traveled, whatever.  It helps me stay focused and when I get to the end of my workout if I'm still feeling really good then I focus on just going a bit more..  "Ok, I did my 30 minutes but I'm only 30 calories away from xxx, I'll just keep going till I hit that" type of stuff.

So yesterday when I got myself to the gym I knew my goal was going to be 4 miles as I did over 3 the last time.  I'm lighter than ever and I'm feeling good and I like the fact that I can actually get in this kind of time and distance so quickly.  I guess losing weight does have a benefit or two.
So, I set my distance goal at 4 miles (normally I set time goals but I like these machines giving me distance goals instead) and started off.

Another nice thing about being lighter is that my breathing is better and I'm able to go at a better pace than previously. I've been easily keeping myself above 5 mph and not struggling so after about 5-7 minutes I decided to try to pick the pace up a little bit.  I saw that I could come close to getting the first mile done in about 10 minutes so I started pushing myself a bit.
It was about 10 minutes and 30 seconds or so and I was happy with that.  And after a small swig of water I decided to just keep pushing myself at over 6mph for another song or two and next thing you know I'm approaching mile #2 while still maintaining.
Mile two happened around the 19 minute mark and that was quite elating.  So I kept at it.
Mile 3 dropped at the 29 minute mark meaning I was at least keeping to a 6mph pace for this long and I wanted to just finish off my goal doing the same.
The last mile ended around 38:08 knocking off almost a minute for the last mile.  Stoked.
I've never done a mile in under 10 before and today I managed to average under 10 minutes for 4 miles.

My calves are killing me today - well not killing but I notice the tightness.  I'm hoping to stretch and loosen them up a good deal so that I can go back tomorrow morning and do it again.  My goal is to be able to get to the point where I can do an hour every other day and at least 6 miles.
Yesterday I proved that I'm probably not too far off from being able to reach that.  Tomorrow I'll shoot for 5 miles and see how I feel.

I posted this on Facebook yesterday and one of my friends responded with
"So you're telling me you waited 45 minutes for that person to get off the treadmill just so you could take a picture of the screen?"

Weight Loss - Motivational Writings

So this month has been a little bit of a step backwards for me but I expected that it had to come sometime.
I've put back on a few of the pounds that I lost and have been eating a bit more unhealthy than previous.
While the eating thing will take care of itself (I just need to get the snack craze out of my system) I decided that I really need to start putting in the effort to hit the gym like I told myself that I would.

I went once to begin this month and then some things interfered with my desire to keep going.  Those things are now in the past.  So, I need some motivation.
The only place I'm going to find motivation is from within and the one way I know of that I can motivate myself to do something is by talking about it more.

So, you guys are going to be reading a bit more about my flabby ass heading to the gym and getting passed my chips kick and back onto my health kick.

Today while driving home I talked myself into changing and heading to the gym before going to bed.  Earlier this month I did 2 miles or so and told myself that next time I was hitting 3 miles.
Today I lived up to that end of the bargain.

When choosing which "workout" I wanted I set my desired distance instead of desired time like I have before.  I figure that I'll focus more on hitting distance marks and less on how long it takes me to do it.  So, I set it for 3 and then pushed myself to 3.5 during the "cool down" phase. My goal is to get to 5 miles and to do it in under an hour consistently.

I'm noticing that even though I haven't worked out in quite a while my ability has increased a ton just because of the weight I have already taken off.
A couple of years ago if I were to try to get into the gym routine I'd have to do a couple sessions at 15 minutes and slowly increase my way to 30 minutes and beyond whereas now I have no issue going for 30-40 minutes without having used a machine in months.
My breathing is also better during it, all huge positives and I'm quite proud of the little I've accomplished so far and looking forward to improving even more.

I have the next 7 days off work and I want to get some good quality time on the elliptical.
Tomorrow my plan is to wake up early and do an easy 30 minutes in the morning (Don't want to push myself every single day) and then wash up and head to my Doctors Appointment.
After the Doc I'll be heading to a wrestling convention that's in town for a little while.  They'll be putting on a show at 6 pm ending with a battle royal and I'm considering ponying up the couple of bucks to go to it and taking the kid along with me because I'm pretty sure he'll enjoy the shit out of it.

The Convention lasts through Weds and I'll probably attend every day so I have to force myself to get some gym time in either before or after (before would probably be the easiest).

My goal is 4-5 trips to the gym during my 7 days off.  I've got the time and I need to make the motivation.
I want to be back down to 233 by the end of this month and I know that I can do it.

I figure with healthy eating and regular exercise I should be able to lose 5 pounds per month.  This is slightly off the pace of where I had set my (probably) unrealistic goal of being by the time my buddy rolls into town for his wedding but I can live with that.  The goal is to get healthy and nothing more.

So, This is what I want to see happen (all end of month weights).
April - 233
May - 228
June - 223
July  - 218
August - 213
September - 208
October - 203
November - 198
December - 193
January - 188

My Original goal was 180 by the end of January and the Wedding.
I'll be perfectly happy with anything between 180 - 200 as my permanent weight figuring that for the last 10-15 years (maybe more) I've weight between 260 - 300 give or take (mostly hovering around 280)

Later Gators

Bastard Husband: A Love Story

If you are following me and are not already following Linda Lou (who?) then you are doing it wrong.
Linda is an amazing woman living in Vegas (in sin?) who sometimes performs Stand Up and the local joints and dives, works a real job, travles more than anyone I have ever known in my life and also writes books.

Her First book is Bastard Husband: A Love Story and it's the type of book that makes you want to get married just to get divorced.  Develop a talent and use it to the best of your abilities so that you too can tell your story and be as cool as Linda.

In all seriousness - The Kindle version of the book is FREE this weekend. 4/13 - 4/14.
Free, did you hear that folks.

FREE

So, click the word free - Head on over to Amazon.com and Pick this bad boy up.

You are doing yourself a disservice if you don't.

Even if you don't have a kindle - Go Grab it for FREE now because you can read it on your computer or tablet or smart phone with the kindle app.  Even those crappy iThings have the kindle app.  You can probably even put the app on the Barnes and Noble Nook imitation POS.

GET THIS BOOK NOW.

Jesus will love you for it.

Thanks.

A Conversation that Never Happened

boss: "So I hear you want to be promoted?"
grrouch: "yeah, I'd like to get back into management"
boss: "willing to transfer stores?"
grrouch: "Yep, not an issue.  I like driving."
boss: "willing to work for a manager who won't help you advance your career?"
grrouch: "umm...."
boss: "willing to have good employees but watch them leave for other departments every month?"
grrouch: "huh?"
boss: "willing to never get a chance to actually manage your departments let alone see one of them?"
grrouch: "wha...."
boss: "thinking about sodomizing you as well once in a while.  How do you feel about that?"
grrouch: "..."
boss: "we'll also add a lot to your workload and have you do things that are beyond your pay grade.  Cool?"
grrouch: "...."


This is the conversation that I wish I had before being promoted last year.  I might have thought a little harder  about whether or not I wanted to set myself up for this kind of failure.

I'm down to 2 full time employees in Electrical.
In a work week, at the bare minimum you have 14 shifts (with just an opener and a closer).  Every person works 5 shifts per week.  Two people means I have 10 shifts worth of workers to cover 14 shifts and still somehow manage to get all the work done and make the department look good and keep up with sales.
The department is double digit comping currently and completely understaffed.... I wonder what we could do if we actually had employees.

In plumbing I just lost my full time CSA - the guy I was supposed to be training to be my replacement.
He is getting replaced by a part timer guy (sometime - in the hopefully near future).
Full time = 40 hours per week.  Part time = 10-30 depending, on average probably 20.
So, I'm getting half an employee to make up for the guy I was supposed to rely heavily on...
I'm also (soon I hear) losing my part time guy as well (to another department).....
I had 2-3 weeks with really good coverage and it's now right back to never actually working with my own employees and being coverage 90% of the time when I'm there.

Work is frustrating.
Beer makes everything better.