Under the weather

My daughter had fever most of the weekend and we kept her out of school on Monday. Now I'm on the edge of getting something. The symptoms are: cold nose, runny nose, scratchy throat, tired eyes, wanting to EAT EVERYTHING! After making it down to 201 on Saturday after a great workout I've BALLOONED up to 205 and have been there for 2 days. I just need to stay off the scales for a few days. Being tired and run down doesn't make me feel inclined to work out much either.

Work out complaint: I just wish all of the out of shape, overweight, under muscled, health nut wannabes would quit going to the gym effected 2/1/2007. I get to the gym early to get a treadmill and after 20 minutes people are waiting on a treadmill. I get there at 8:30pm and all the treadmills are still taken.

A friend just called while I am online with my new DSL asking me to go and play racquetball. I've upgraded!

Salt Overdose

I am one of the many people who automatically reach for the salt before tasting my food so rarely do I think something is too salty. A few weeks ago I did oversalt my french fries at Scotty P's, but managed for finish the basket. Last night I went to the Mavericks NBA game with a friend. At half time I knew I had saved enough points/calories for either a nachos or some popcorn. I chose the popcorn thinking I could get it without a drink and save $5. I made my way towards our seats in the 2nd to last row at the top(not bad seats for $9 by the way). I started to eat my popcorn and immediately I knew they were a tad bit salty. Of course I didn't finish the popcorn, oh yes I did. By the time I had gotten down to the bottom of the bucket I knew I should have stopped about 1/2 way. My lips felt like they had doubled in size and boy the $5 for the souvenir soda would have been a steal at this moment. It took my lips about 2 hours to recover. I'm sure the rest of my body is still suffering from effects of having more than 10 times the daily recommended serving of sodium.

At the gym yesterday I achieved another personal record on the treadmill: 70 minutes, 718 calories and 5.25 miles. I'm also weighing in about 202 with the scales reading 201 immediately after my extreme workout. 200, 200, 200! Actually I should be shooting for 199!

Hit and Run

Ordered a pizza for the family tonight. Something we rarely do because about the only time we get pizza is on Sundays after church at a great buffet place called The Zone. Tonight we ordered Dominos and had a coupon for a medium pizza with cinnastyx for under $10. As I stood there watching the pizza crew I couldn't help but think of my pizza delivery days in the late 80's at a popular chain in St. Louis called Cecil Whitakers. Back then I delivered pizza for a little over a year before I helped open a new store. While delivering a pizza for this new place I ended up on the doorsteps of the finance manager at the Jeep dealer where I had previously worked part-time. Within a month I was selling Jeeps.

True pizza story: Hit and Run

I worked an early Saturday shift and got off work about 5pm. As I sat there relaxing sorting out my days rake and drinking a cold beverage the place got busy. I was asked to run one order so I did. The address was #13 Planet which was in the middle of a trailer park. It was just past dark and I walked the pizza up and knocked on the door. A man answered saying he didn't order a pizza and that he just got home so I retraced my steps back into my 87 Mustang. As I doubled back to get to the main street I saw a dark figure with a ski mask on come running towards my car. I stepped on the gas and ended up hitting the guy with my front driver fender. I stopped and looked up into my rearview mirror to see this person rolling around in the road. I TOOK OFF!

Once back at the pizza place I told the manager and a few guys on duty what happened and they laughed. They thought I was kidding until another driver said he saw a few police cars and an ambulance up at the trailer park.

The guy was arrested for breaking and entering a few trailers and even a few cars. He had actually called from a house he broke into and pranked a call basically to jump and rob me. I never had to testify nor was I questioned by police. I did talk to the State Patrol by phone one time.

TRUE STORY!

600-5.0-70

New personal records at the gym tonight. All I did tonight was hit the treadmill. I burned 600 calories, walked/jogged 5 miles, 70 minutes non-stop. This came on a morning that for some reason my weight was 2 pounds higher than the previous day AND on the way to the gym tonight my wife and I decided to go eat Chinese food for dinner. I had missed yesterday's workout because we went to get a rug so I did not want to miss 2 days in a row, especially with a slight gain and having eaten Chinese food a gym visit was a must.

I suspect my 3-4 large diet Pepsis at the bar where we watched part of the Colts/Patriots game didn't help.

I did stretch well tonight along with spending a little time in the sauna and hot tub. Should make for a good night's sleep.

Now if I could just find my Check Card.

IPODS, Internet Providers, WIFI

1st Topic-IPODS

I sold $60 worth in Starbucks giftcards and along with my Target giftcards I have $150 to spend on something like an IPOD. The wife says the $74 1GB shuffle would be fine. The 2GB is about $150 and the 4GB almost $200 so I have researched the 30GB video 5th generation IPOD and I have found it listed for $219 online.

First question: Do I really need the 30GB if I've never had an MP3 player before?

2nd question: Would Target match an online price since I've got $90 in giftcards?

2nd Topic-Internet Service

We've had Netzero internet service for 5 years, but it is dial up and very slow. For the most part it has served it's purpose. Thursday night my wife started uploading pictures from a memory card to an internet site and it took from Thursday at 9pm until Saturday morning at 4am to fully unload the card. That is ridiculous. I'm spoiled with fast service LAN line at school.
If I do get an IPOD I'll want faster service to download songs for sure.

Question: What does DSL or Cable internet cost these days?

Last Topic-WIFI

IF I don't get a faster internet provider how do I go about rigging my computer up with a card that is compatible with WIFI? I'd like to be able to take my laptop to Panera and possibly download songs, relax and surf the net, or do some school work on the weekend away from school and home.

Question: Where do I get help and how much is this gonna cost me?

Free Day

School and Church was cancelled Wednesday and the following is what I did and didn't do on my unplanned day off.

Top 5 Things I DID Do
5. I wrote thank you notes to the kids for gifts received.
4. Stayed in bed close to 9AM.
3. Put away Christmas items....4 trips to the attic.
2. Had lunch with some friends: the 1st place was closed, had Mexican.
1. Went to gym and did the 55min bicycling class....my bohiny is sore.

5 Things I DIDN'T Do
5. Mow-too icy and the grass is dead.
4. Go to a STAFF meeting.
3. Stay home with treaturous weather.
2. Golf-although I have golfed before in freezing brain one trip during Christmas break in St. Louis.
1. Spend a night away from family: busy month with basketball.

Flirting....at a Walmart?

My family went out Monday, a scheduled day off, to do a little bit of shopping. The initial drive to Target was a little icy as we saw a few cars spun out facing the wrong way. HELLO TEXAS, that's ice! After leaving Target the roads looked a lot better so we ventured on to Walmart to pick up just a few diet friendly items that Target didn't have. Since it would be a quick jog in my family stayed in the car and I went in. When I came out I noticed a woman trying to load a piece of furniture into her small SUV. She had the box 1/2 in the back and the other 1/2 in the tipped over cart. My car was parked 2 spots away and as I put my bag in my car I asked if she would like some help. She pleaded, "Please." It was a little awkward getting the box in, especially since her tipping the cart sideways attempt was unsuccessful. We successfully placed the box in and I climbed into my car.

When I sat in the driver's seat my wife asked something along the lines of, "Are you meeting her for dinner later?" I guess she was insinuating that maybe I was flirting. A few other times during the day she joked about it. Okay the lady was attractive, but I offered to help before I was able to rate her an 8 or a 9. So if it was a lady in her 60's or someone who was overweight would I have gotten the jabs?

I just played it out and made a few comments about possibly meeting my new girlfriend when I left the house later for a short trip.

Nasty Outside

It rained a little overnight, but cleared up enough to let the kids play on the concrete during recess thus avoiding the dreaded INDOOR RECESS! As forecasted it started to drizzle and rain a little as I walked out the door at work. As I got home it steadily increased in amount. Within 1 hour I can already feel that the temperature has dropped about 10 degrees. Like Forrest Gump said, "It was raining sideways............."

We are not sure what we will get, but it will be wet. It might ice, sleet, just rain, snow or all combined. We are off Monday so we will not at all be in jeopardy of having to use our one bad weather day.

Good weekend to stay inside, watch football and play cards. That is exactly what Saturday holds for me!

Busy Month

January will be a busy month for me as I announce basketball every Tuesday and Friday night until the 1st week of February when girls softball starts up. That said it makes it tough to try to plan to do something with the guys because I'd be asking my wife to be alone with the kids 3 nights of a week, 2 is plenty, 1 enough. This Saturday I think I am going to get a sitter in the AM because we are going to help our new church set up the new place they are moving into. Tonight we helped move stuff from the temporary building to the new site. We are pretty excited.

Saturday afternoon I am trying to throw together a card game that will coincide with the NFL playoffs. This would make the 3rd year in a row that we did something like this. Our first ever meeting BillyV ran a stop sign and got pulled over. Lucky for us it wasn't 1988 or we might have been hauled in right on the spot. The Holy Spirit intervened and somehow BillyV was let go with just a warning. That would have been an expensive card night.

Add to this I am going to try and coach or lead about 20 people on a diet program at my work. Tomorrow is our first meeting. It is time for me to step up and get to my next goal.

Church Update

Sunday we decided to visit the church where we worshipped on Christmas Eve. We arrived about 10 minutes early to check in the kids and hopefully meet up with a friend from school. When we finally got to take our son to his class we arrived to find that there were no teachers to be found. A person who appeared to be the assigned director for the day was scrambling to find teachers for many of the classes. After about 10 minutes of waiting the ONE teacher showed up. Fortunately our son let us leave without a big stink. We then proceeded LATE to try and find which class my friend might be in. At this time most classes were full and we awkwardly peeked into a few classes. We decided to go to the Worship service instead.

I sat during the music time and was still anxious from what had happened. I felt a little bit of trauma on our first real visit to this church.

The time on the gentleman's watch in front of us read 10am and the pastor was just about to give his message when I asked my wife if she would be interested in leaving and going to the 10:30am worship service of a new church that we visited just before Christmas. She liked the idea and we headed out.

The lady who checked us in interrogated us in a friendly way wanting to know if everything was alright. I kind of explained how the situation left me slightly anxious and that we were going to try another church. I appreciated her interest, but the damage has already been done.

We did visit Stepping Stones church and was greeted immediately by the preacher who remembered us from our earlier visit. We found out that they will be meeting in a different location next week and are really excited about being a part of a growing church. We will go Wednesday night and help them move some of their things from a temporary location to the permanent location......The Pickle Barn. They've bought about 5 acres and a reception hall from the Dill family......no kidding.

Finally Home

Made it to the Texas state line about 7pm tonight. Had lunch with BillyV and left the Nixa area just before 2pm. My kids were troopers and didn't get out of their car seats the whole trip...about 6 hours all told.

Already doing laundry and really looking forward to getting back on track dietwise. I'm sure I crept up a little bit while on the trip. I've got almost 7 weeks before my birthday so if I can drop about 10+ I'll make my goal of getting below 200.

Few days to rest and business as usual. Probably will lay around with a newspaper and watch football on Saturday. I'll let the wife get her fill of the kids.

On the Road Again

Stayed at my dad's last night which is a rarity because there isn't much to do at his place and he is a heavy smoker. I am thankful that he quit drinking because it is so much more pleasant visiting now. I woke up this morning about 4 am to the smell of "fresh" cigarette smoke. I just wish he could give up the cigarettes as easy as he did the alcohol.

We left his place just after noon and he treated us to Pizza Hut buffet in small town Missouri. He left a $4 tip on a $16 bill. Pretty generous! After a 3 hour drive we arrived in BillyVtown Missouri. BillyV got home from his job around 7pm and we went out and enjoyed some Backyard burgers. I recommend this place.

This is the last leg of the trip and probably for me the most rewarding. I've got less than 24 hours to catch up on a special friendship. I'll have to let BillyV know that God spoke to me about BillyV moving back to Texas to start a new church. If anyone else out there is being spoken to about BillyV moving back to Texas please let me know!

See you in Texas late Friday night!

Winding Down

All packed to start the Exodus to Texas. Will make 2 stops, one at my dad's and one at my best long time friends BillyV just outside of Springfield MO. Our ETA to Texas will be about 9pm Friday night just in time to rest for the weekend before heading back to work.

The trip was all that I thought it would be outside the fact that we had to pony up for an airline ticket since my wife's planned ride decided to take 2 days to travel back which would have left her in jeopardy of getting back late the night before going back to school.

I ate plenty of comfort foods and really look forward to getting back on plan and losing weight and working out.

See you in Texas!

Back to Work

For most people today is a day of labor. If you were fortunate you were off for the whole week last week. Some people just got off Christmas and New Years. I feel for you.

Lucky me I still have another 6 days before I have to report back to work. 18 days is a lot of time and I'm still here in STL visiting and taking care of business. Actually today I am trying to keep my 2 "cabin fever" kids busy.

That said, don't feel sorry for teachers. We get off all major holidays. We have weekends off. We get a week break at Thanksgiving and at least 2 weeks at Christmas followed by a Spring Break. Then 2 full months during the summer time. Where else could you get this much time off and still have a full time job? It is true that I'll probably never make 6 figures or live in the richest part of town, but the teaching set up allows for quality family time.

The pay really isn't that bad. The toughest part is probably all the rules, regulations, guidelines and unrealistic expectations. Teachers are expected to get ALL kids to pass no matter the backgrounds and demographics. Obviously there are different talent levels and abilitiy levels.

On a positive note, if you work for a fast food place in St. Louis you just got a raise because minimum wage went from $5.15 an hour to $6.50.

I just wanted to say have fun at work this week.

@#*$ Jack@SS

I really get into the whole wide world of sports, especially the Americanized games of football and baseball and I often find myself listening to sports talk radio. In the Dallas area I choose to listen to ESPN 103.3 FM radio and the alternative is a program called The Ticket. I remember many years ago rebuking my brother in Christ BillyV for listening to The Ticket because I found it very vulgar and offensive. Last night while traveling back home just before midnight I was in my truck with my wife and daughter while listening to Fox Sports radio in St. Louis to catch up on the last day of the NFL and it's happenings. Within a span of 10 minutes I heard the following phrases:

"......you have to cover your ASS."
".....they probably didn't give a damn at this point....."
".....he was such a jack ass......."

Will they really lose listeners if they said "cover you behind...", "...give a darn....." or "....jerk..."?

Also while inexplicably listening to The Ticket one day before the break the guys were talking about Rachel Ray when one of them actually said something along the lines of "I would really like to get my hands on her little titties...." I switched it before that conversation ended. Obviously not catering to the female demographics. The sad thing is I know many Christians or personal brothers in Christ who listen to this station as their main entertainment while riding around in their cars, sometimes with their kids in tow.

Oh how we grieve the Spirit within us.