Getting back in..

Well, I am going to get back into running once my gout clears up. This Saturday is a 6 mile run with the little rock running group. I have been feeling that I need to do something.

I have a date with my wife tonight, I can't wait. The kids are going over to a friends house. Other than that, not much else going on. Trying to get back into things, but with the holidays just not wanting to be here today.

Till next time.

Work

Well, I knew the day was going to come but I have lost my external access at my work. I am now fully behind the firewall at work. To tell you I am surprised that I can even get to this site. Don't get me wrong, I was not going to bad sites and I get my work done, I have been used to having network freedom since I have had a professional career.

I am getting bored already and I have only been without it for a few days. If I did not have my iphone I don't know what I would do. At least with that I can listen to my music.

As for the weekend, it was pretty good. A good weekend all in all. My wife started itching all over on Saturday, not sure what that was from. Only thing we can think of is something in some chemicals that we were using to clean the house.

We will be traveling back to Monroe for the holiday. Looking forward to it, both of my kids enjoy visiting their grandparents

Back home

Well, I am back home from a long and windy weekend. It was a pretty good weekend. The family and I went back to Monroe for the weekend. We started the weekend off at a WM football game. I think it was Mason first WM game where he actually watched it. Some pics are below from the game.

Other than that, not much happened. The wife and I had a date night and we went and saw 2012. It was a decent movie, I don't think Tiffany liked it that much. Megan watched Lion King for the first time on the way back home in the car. She did not like it when Mufasa died, I had to fast forward it.

I am happy to be back home. Getting back into the groove of things. Had a lot of work to do today. There were a lot of tickets to pick up. I am ready for 5 o'clock to get here so I can go home. I have the Allstate adjuster coming tomorrow to look at the roof. Hopefully we can get it squared away and start getting someone here to get my roof replaced.

Goings on

Not much going on in my world. I had to hop up on my roof to throw down a tarp because of some damage on my roof. It is taking the Allstate adjuster a week and a half to come out and look at my roof. I have 2 quotes for a new roof and all I want to do is get it fixed so I can stop worrying about it.

Looks like we will be going back to Monroe for the weekend. Kind of looking forward to it. It has been about 2 months since we have been back home.

I need to get back out and start my running back up but with the time change and it getting darker outside, I just have not been wanting to.

Not updating

Sorry I have not been writing much, my work has been pretty hectic lately. Well, we had Halloween this past weekend and it was pretty hectic. Friday was pretty normal, not much happened. Saturday turned out to be a nice day outside. The weather has finally turned nicer and rain is out of the foreseeable forecast.

My wife's friend and husband came over with their kid and Tiffany made chili. We ate Frito pie and the kids went trick-or-treating. It took one time for my youngest to figure out what trick-or-treating was all about. After the first time, we had to stop him from going to houses that did not have their lights on.

The kids went down pretty good that night, but come Sunday night Mason did not want to go to sleep. We think it was a combination of the candy that he had earlier in the day, eating a big supper and the time change. Can't think of anything else that it could have been.

Here are some pics from this past Halloween.

Weekend Work

Well, I will be going in this weekend to work some. I have to replace a PERC raid card in our exchange server. Getting slow speeds during backups. My weekend will start on Monday apparently.

My friend Jeromie will be visiting us on Monday, and will be staying till Wednesday. Looking forward to that. Other than that not much else going on. Megan has a soccer game tonight, so I will try and get some more pictures from the game up for everyone to see.

What a weekend

It has been hectic the past few days. After my wife got home from her surgery everything seemed to be going ok, by my standards, not hers. I have been helping out around the house getting the laundry done, dishes all the while I have been letting her rest and get well. I moved our recliner down stairs for her to sleep in so she can sit up right.

The kids went to my in-laws this past weekend and I don't think they were prepared for Mason. He is a handful and my mother-in-law just got off from getting her tonsils out. From my understanding he was up most the weekend and they did not get much sleep due to that.

I had some work that I had to do Sunday morning, that went very wrong. my work was suppose to start at 10:30 pm Saturday evening and end 2-3 in the morning on Sunday and I was suppose to be able to do the work from home. Well, I started my work but in the middle of it my remote connection stopped working and I had to go in to work. Well, when I got to work I was unable to get the keyboard and mouse to work in front of the server.

I finally got it working, but in the meantime we had another server in the room where I was at have 3 hard drives fail. I ended up getting home about 11am the next day and even then I was not able to get any sleep because i had to go pick up my kids from my in-laws in Monticello. I dozed off a few times coming and going, I am just glad that I got back with my kids in one piece.

Well, my wife and her family were not very happy because I had to work when I was suppose to take care of my wife with no kids. I was running on little sleep and was up for 48 hours. Well guess what I have been taking care of my wife. I picked up around the house, and have been doing anything she ask. I have been thinking of her before me.

Today is her birthday. I brought her lunch today, gave her a birthday card and chocolates and when she get better, I have another gift to give her but she or her family is not happy with me. Why? apparently I am not doing enough and I worked this past weekend too much.

She reads this blog, or at least I think she does, so the last thing that I want to say is that I love her very much and that I want to wish her a happy birthday even though she is in a grumpy mood. Tonight I will cook dinner and bake her a cake, or whatever she wants.

Lazy

Well, I have been lazy. Since the weather has changed, I have not been getting out and exercising and jogging. I know that need to do it, but just have not been doing it. I have been so busy with life that I have not had time to do any working out.

Tiffany goes under the knife tomorrow. I will be going with her and will be taking Mason with me until it is time for me to take him to day school. Megan will be going with a neighbor and they will be taking her to school since their daughter goes to school right by Megan. My mother-in-law will be taking the kids for the weekend. If she were not taking them, I think Tiffany would cancel the surgery. I have to work this weekend, so I will be up most of the night on Saturday so it is really good that the kids are going to Monroe this weekend.

This will be the first time that Mason will be gone also. Should be interesting. Pray for Cindy ;-)

This week has been pretty busy so I have been pretty tired lately. Tonight I will be getting some sleep. I have been playing with my camera, so expect some more pictures soon. I want to learn how to take good pictures that I will be proud to put up on the wall.

What a weekend. Well, my daughter had her birthday party this weekend and boy was it tiring. It slap wore me and my wife out. We had it at a local bowling alley and the amount of kids that we had to maintain to bowl was outrageous. We got though it fine and everyone seemed to have lots of fun.

Both my parents and my wife parents came up for the party They seemed to have really enjoyed themselves. Megan got a lot of presents and will be busy for a few weeks because of it. Right now we have to get her room clean because they are all strewn across the floor.

Yesterday we went to a local pumpkin patch. The kids had tons of fun Below are a few pictures from our outing. In one picture Megan rode in a John Deer train pulled by a tractor. She had lots of fun. We ended up riding a tractor and picking out a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch.





Here are some pics from when we took our daughter to a local Mexican restaurant for her birthday dinner. She did not like the hat.

Birthday Day !!

Well, today is my daughters birthday. She will be turning 5 today so everything is a big deal. This morning, she told me that she wanted to have donuts for the class so of course I was almost late for school because we had to stop for donuts. ;-)

I decided to stay with her for Chapel, she has been wanting me to be with her for it. For her birthday, they sing for you while you stand up front. It was pretty cute. She had the biggest smile I think I have ever seen, it was great. Today is her day, she is turning 5.

Here are a few pics that I snapped on my phone.



She was the line leader today.



My son goes to the doctor today to get an electrocardiogram (ECG, EKG) done. During his last visit earlier this week, he had a pretty fast heart rate, so we are getting a EKG done. I have no worries that everything will be fine.

I took my lunch break and went to Home Depot to get some stuff to help manage the rats nest that is my computer cables. I decided to use velcro ties for the cables, so I can easily get them off and move them around. Since I have a metal desk, I have to be picky as to what I do with my power strips, so I got adhesive Velcro strips that I will attach to the bottom of the power strip and attach it to the back of my desk. I have hope.

Doctor Visit

The kids went to the doctor for a checkup and to get a few shots, here is a pic of them at the doctors office.

Computer issues

What a weekend. It went by pretty good. It rained most of the weekend but all in all it was not bad. My wife came home on Saturday and the kids and I were happy to see here. It was no that hard without here, I know she would beg to deffer, but it was not that hard. A lot has changed since my children were younger when it was harder, but now not that bad.

My computer died yesterday, so I had to ends up getting new parts to fix it. More than likely I will have to reload Windows to get it back and working so I will take this opportunity to load Windows 7 and see how it runs. I have not run it yet so it is pretty new to me.

I will be upgrading to a quad core processor because my old cpu/motherboard/ram is so old I can not get a replacement cheaply. I find it funny that the older hardware is more expensive than the new stuff.

I start a new boot camp today, hopefully anyway. Since it has been raining, I don't know if we are going to have it or not, but I will go and see. I am really going to hit hard this go around. Eating better will be my main goal, I will try and eat 4-5 small meals a day.

All is good

Well, last night was an adventure. After working I picked up the kids and went home to play some. We decided to go eat some chicken and play in an indoor play area. Well they both ate pretty good, but I spilt my coke in the play area so I had to clean that up. Well, Megan wanted a shake for the road, so we got that and got in the truck and while on the way home, I spilt some of her shake when she was handing it back to me.

Well, I got that all cleaned up when I got home and got the kids to sleep and all was good. Work today was so-so, busy at first then it slowed down. I am currently trying to figure out what I will be doing after work.

I will be happy that tomorrow my wife will be back, not because I need her help with the kids, thats the easy part, it is because I miss her. My wife's birthday is coming up and I am going to surprise her, she reads this blog, so I won't say much.

My kids

Well, not a lot has been going on. My wife left this morning and my workout has ended till Monday. I would go jogging but I have kids that I have to look after. I am thinking about taking them to Chick-fila for supper tonight, i can get something good and they can eat and then go play in the play room. Its a win-win.

My friend Jeromie called me today and told me about a video card that he bought from Best buy. He got it for a pretty good price and I told him that I would be interested if he could get another one. If he gets one, then next month I will upgrade my PC, it is long over due. I am looking at the new AMD X4s since I don't do a lot of heavy gaming.

Zzzzz

Man was it a busy day yesterday. I had a pretty long workout yesterday. Did a 2.5 mile jog along with a cardio circuit which included push-ups, dips, leg squats and squat jumps. Megan had her soccer practice and then my wife went off to her woman's meeting.

Got some good sleep last night and woke up to a very groggy daughter. She stayed up waiting for my wife to come home so she could read her books to her. Megan was not very awake this morning and she was dragging. She will be going to bed early tonight ;-)

My wife leaves for Illinois tomorrow morning so the kids will be mine for a few days. I have an array of activities to give them to keep them busy. In other words, I have no idea what I am going to do, but I will survive.

To anyone that is family that reads this blog, Megan will have her birthday party on October the 10th. She will be turning 5 and we will be having it a a local bowling alley. Should be a pretty fun time.

My last workout will be today. I am debating on weather or not to start up again next week. To tell you the truth I would not mind finding a gym. Not really an exersice gym, but more of a boxing/taekwondo gym. I also want to start up my P90X dvd, might try that tonight.

Till next time.

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Today is a busy day. Work has been steady but busy, I progressed a few more steps in deploying Windows Deployment Service (WDS), but currently working to get the proper permissions for Active Directory (AD) working.

My workout last night was pretty good, today is a busy day. My wife has a woman's meeting at 6:30, Megan has soccer practice at 6:00 and I have my workout at 6. So I will go to my workout, my wife will take Megan to practice and then I will get my daughter so my wife can go to her meeting. Like I said, busy.

Supper will be a quick sandwich, chicken nuggets or fish sticks. I know what you are saying, man what a healthy meal, but that is the life of a busy family. Better than fast food in my opinion.

Not much else going on. Wife will be leaving Thursday morning, so I have to prepare for that along with going on call tomorrow. This week will be really busy so if I don't post much you know the reason.

Till next time.

Weekend work

Its been a few days since my last post but I will try and keep it pretty simple. My wife got a call over the weekend about her cousin dieing in an auto accident. She was pretty close to him and I have been on the phone and scouring the internet for the best air fair deals. I found a pretty good deal with American Airlines bereavement fare. She is flying out Thursday morning and will be back on Saturday evening. I will have to take Megan to here soccer game on Friday, wish me luck.

Not much happened over the weekend, typical weekend. It has been really nice the last few days so I got out and mowed the yard. It was nice, I can kind of get a way with my music and just mow the yard.

I will be grilling out tonight, I can see myself outside most of the evening because of the weather. I go on call Wed so it should be fun having the kids and with Tiffany gone for the funeral. I will manage though.

Last week of workouts, a new class starts next week. I have been debating on skipping the workouts and just getting a gym membership. They have a 10 fitness here, where it is $10 a month with no contract, might look into that.

Time to go home, have a good one.

What a day

Well, today pretty much sucked and to top it off I still feel like crap. I took my truck into the shop to be worked on, looks like a bad starter and got a call about 30 min later telling me that they could not get the part till tomorrow. So now i have to wait for a ride to come get me and take me to my truck to take it back tomorrow.

At work, I forgot to do something on a Decom and got yelled at over IM by a co-worker and to top it off I did not get some work done because of the IBM blade does not support server 2008. It gets me how you can have hardware that does not support Microsoft.

Enough of my rant, time to go home.

Windows Deployment service

One thing that I have been working on at work, kind of a pet project, is setting up Windows Deployment service. I am a Sr MS Support Administrator and my group has been tasked to move a number of servers to a new data center and after doing some studying for my MCITP-EA I thought that setting this service would greatly benefit us.

The basic jist of Windows Deployment Service (WDS) is that it uses DHCP to PXE boot a bare metal server so you can build the Windows OS quickly and efficiently. You can even create an unattended file so you don't even have to interact with the build.

Here are some links, that I have found during my research:

Here, Here, and Here.

These are just a few sites that found to help me out.

Monday Blues

Well, back at work on Monday and man I don't want to be here. I hope lunch will give me the pick me up that I need. I have not worked out all week due to rain, but hope to get out this week and start back up. The weather forecast for the week has a chance of rain all week, with the most being tomorrow so hopefully there will be the boot camp this week.

Megan went back to West Monroe for the weekend with my wife's parents. She said that she had a good time, all I know is that it was quiet around the house without her. We got the house cleaned up while she was gone, and maybe we can keep it clean for more than a few days. Now she is back and ready to get back to school.

I need to rent some scaffolding to paint our living room, Home Depot has it to rent for the week for $55, so going to check around this week at other places. Any suggestions? We have 17 foot ceilings so getting up to the top to paint is kind of hard without something to help out.

Well, not much going on around here, will keep you posted, just keep checking back.

Later

Rain rain, go away

Well, it has been raining here for the past few days and it seems that it will continue to rain for the next day or so and because of the rain I have not had boot camp. I talked to the instructor yesterday and he said that we will make it up over the weekend and during the week off between classes.

Other than the rain, not much going on here. I got out and rode my bike with my kids and wife yesterday. It was sprinkling so it was pretty cool but I still got winded. Pulling 2 kids in a bike trailer kind of gets your heart pumping.

Mason is getting better. The drainage in the ear was not there this morning so I nope all will be better for the weekend. Megan is the usual Megan, she would not go to sleep last night. You know it seems that she always has aches and pains at bed time, I don't understand that. Might have to get a new bed for her ;-)

Well, off to lunch, have a good one.

Inner tubes and Ear tubes

Well, my youngest had ear tubes put in this morning and the doctor said everything was perfect. It all went well, and only took about 10 minutes. Mason woke up pretty groggy but once he got up and lucid, he was back to his self. I hope that these tubes help him eat some more and begin to talk a little more also.

My first day back at boot camp this week involved a lot of cardio. It was pretty tiring but I got though it. I weighed myself this morning and it seems I have lost a few more pounds over last week. I am firmly in the 230s now and now in new territory with my weight. The last time I was this far down in my weight, I was in college.

I did have a weird issue with my right knee the other day, not sure what happened but when I go back to the doctor I will get them to check it out. I was walking up the stairs taking Mason to his room and it just went out. When I put pressure on it, it just would not hold up. It was the strangest thing. During my workouts all is fine and all other times everything is fine. It is something that the doctor can help me out with when I make an appointment I guess. I am really curious as to what my cholesterol and blood pressure is now that I have been actively working out 4-5 days a week.

If there is anyone out there that has a pull up bar or know of where I can get one pretty cheep let me know. I want to start working hard on my upper body. I feel that my lower body is on the right track, so I want to start hitting my upper body and start pushing out pull-ups. I found this one at Amazon.com but I am cheap.

Here are some pics from when Mason woke up at the hospital.

Saturday

Well, it was a pretty good Saturday given that we had pretty crappy weather. I started the morning with a workout with my group. It was pretty brutal. From now on I will be looking forward to the longer jog to start the workout because that means that it won't be as bad of exercises. To put it in perspective, we only did a 1 mile jog to start instead of the usual 2 because of the threat of rain, and because of this the group workout was pretty hard. All hour and half of it.

Went to a birthday party today for 3 year old twins, it was pretty good. Hot dogs on the grill and hanging out with some friends. After that I don't know what hit me, but I was drained and pretty much fell asleep.

My daughter had her first soccer game last night. Below are a few pics from it that me and my wife took. She got better and better as the night went on. The way that her age soccer works, is it is 3v3 with 6 kids on a team. Well, 2 did not show up and one was not too happy so for most of the night it was only 3 kids on her team that played. Because of this Megan played the whole hour. By the end of the night, she was about to pass out, but she had loads of fun and can't wait till next week.

Next week is gandparents day at her school so her Nana is coming up for that and to see her play soccer. Well, here are some pics that I promised from before.













Well, so far I have not lost much more weight. I am trying to get more into the 230s but not having much luck. I have been hovering 240 for a few weeks now. Hopefully this week I will bust though the 230s. I have not seen that number in years, and with a goal of 225 I know I can do it.

Slacker

Well, Friday is finally here and I am wiped out. I would have not thought that i would be, but I am. I did not go workout yesterday because I was worn out. I think that I have not been eating enough because I have not had any energy and have been having headaches. I went to sleep pretty early and feel pretty good today.

So tomorrow I will be working out and looking forward to it.

Have a good one.

What a weekend

Well, I am back at work and all I can say is what a weekend. If you did not know, I went back to Monroe/West Monroe to be with family for the holiday. It was pretty good and very busy. You know I had every intention of running over the weekend but guess what, that did not happen. I have a few pics that you can see at the bottom from when we visited my mother.

Well, I started back exercising yesterday and it really hurt. I ate some stir-fry for lunch but I would have thought it would have gotten though me before working out at 6, but I just felt like crap. I know one thing that I did have was a sinus headache and that was not fun. A lot of people there did not have their nutrition logs and now for here on, if you don't have your logs you will be singled out and you will do more workouts. Needless to say, I will have mine today.

Here is an email that I got today, I know it has been floating around for awhile, but it is the first time that I have heard of it.

SEC Football

Planning for the fall football season in the South is radically different than up North. For those who are planning a football trip South, here are some helpful hints.

Women's Accessories:
NORTH: Chap Stick in back pocket and a $20 bill in the front pocket.
SOUTH: Louis Vuitton duffel with two lipsticks, waterprooof mascara, and a fifth of bourbon. Money not necessary - that's what dates are for.

Stadium Size:
NORTH: College football stadiums hold 20,000 people.
SOUTH: High school football stadiums hold 20,000 people.

Fathers:
NORTH: Expect their daughters to understand Sylvia Plath.
SOUTH: Expect their daughters to understand pass interference.

Campus Decor:
NORTH: Statues of founding fathers.
SOUTH: Statues of Heisman trophy winners.

Homecoming Queen:
NORTH: Also a physics major.
SOUTH: Also Miss America .

Heroes:
NORTH: Rudy Giuliani.
SOUTH: Herschel Walker & Peyton Manning.

Getting Tickets:
NORTH: 5 days before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus.
SOUTH: 5 months before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus, make a large financial contribution, and put name on a waiting list for tickets.

Friday Classes After a Thursday Night Game:
NORTH: Students and teachers not sure they're going to the game, because they have20classes on Friday.
SOUTH: Teachers cancel Friday classes because they don't want to see the few hung over students that might actually make it to class.

Parking:
NORTH: An hour before game time, the University opens the campus for game parking.
SOUTH: RVs sporting their school flags begin arriving on Wednesday for the weekend festivities. The really faithful arrive on Tuesday.

Game Day:
NORTH: A few students party in the dorm and watch ESPN on TV.
SOUTH: Every student wakes up, has a beer for breakfast, and rushes over to where ESPN is broadcasting "Game Day Live" to get on camera and wave to the idiots up north who wonder why "Game Day Live" is never broadcast from their campus.

Tailgating:
NORTH: Raw meat on a grill, beer with lime in it, listening to local radio station with truck tailgate down.
SOUTH: 30-foot custom pig-shaped smoker fires up at dawn. Cooking accompanied by live performance from the Dave Matthews Band, who come over during breaks and ask for a hit off bottle of bourbon.

Getting to the Stadium:
NORTH: You ask "Where's the stadium?" When you find it, you walk right in.
SOUTH: When you're near it, you'll hear it. On game day it is the state's third largest city.

Concessions:
NORTH: Drinks served in a paper cup, filled to the top with soda.
SOUTH: Drinks served in a plastic cup, with the home team's mascot on it, filled less than half way with soda, to ensure enough room fo r bourbon.

When National Anthem is Played:
NORTH: Stands are less than half full, and less than half of them stand up.
SOUTH: 100,000 fans, all standing, sing along in perfect four-part harmony.

The Smell in the Air After the First Score:
NORTH: Nothing changes.
SOUTH: Fireworks, with a touch of bourbon.

Commentary (Male):
NORTH: "Nice play."
SOUTH: "Dammit, you slow sumbitch - tackle him and break his legs."

Commentary (Female):
NORTH: "My, this certainly is a violent sport."
SOUTH: "Dammit, you slow sumbitch - tackle him and break his legs."

Announcers:
NORTH: Neutral and paid.
SOUTH: Announcer harmonizes with the crowd in the fight song, with a tear in his eye because he is so proud of his team.

After the Game:
NORTH: The stadium is empty way before the game ends.
SOUTH: Another rack of ribs goes on the smoker, while somebody goes to the nearest package store for more bourbon, and planning begins for next week's game.

Well, here are the pics that I promised earlier, enjoy.



and

Feeling better

Well, I got up and got the kids to school and went and ate donuts with Megan and Mason. They both enjoyed it very much. Mason ate pretty good considering what he usually eats. I did not eat that well, but that is ok, I can splurge one day a week I think.

Did some reading this morning and found a blog post about taking the Marine Corps Fitness Test, and I think I will add that to my goal. The Marine Corps Fitness tests consists of three exercises: pull-ups, crunches, and a 3.0 mile run. The events are “designed to test the strength and stamina of the upper body, midsection, and lower body, as well as the efficiency of the cardiovascular system.

Pull-ups

Find yourself a pull-up bar. If you don’t have one, just go to a park and use the monkey bars. They’re perfect for pull-ups. I also highly recommend investing in the Iron Gym Pull-Up Bar. It’s one of the best and most useful things I ever bought. And you’ll be able to use it at home once the fitness test is done to keep improving your strength.

To begin the test, grab the bar, both palms facing either forward or towards you. I would do it palms facing towards you. It’s easier that way.

The correct starting position begins with your arms fully extended beneath the bar and your feet off the ground.

One rep consists of raising the body with the arms until the chin is above the bar and then lowering your body until your arms are fully extended. The object of this test is to measure your performance from a dead hang position. Thus, whipping, leg kicking, or leg kipping are not allowed and pull-ups using these assistance methods do not count.

You don’t have a time limit to perform your pull-ups, but as soon as you let go, the test is over.

Abdominal Crunches

The ab crunch test has a two minute limit. Perform as many crunches as you can in two minutes.

Cross your arms across your chest or rib cage with no gap existing between the arms and chest/rib cage. Both arms must remain in constant contact with the chest/rib cage throughout the exercise. A single repetition consists of raising your upper body from the starting position until both forearms or elbows simultaneously touch the thighs, and then returning to the starting position with the shoulder blades touching the ground.

Your butt must remain in constant contact with the ground.

You can have a buddy hold your legs or feet, at or below the knees. If you don’t have a buddy, place your feet under a couch or some other sturdy object.

3.0 Mile Run

Mark out a 3 mile course. One way of doing this is to reset your car’s trip odometer and drive a flat course in your neighborhood to mark out the 3 miles. Another idea is to go to a high school or college track. It’s flat, clear of any obstacles, and it’s measured out for you. Four times around the track is one mile. So for three miles, you’ll have to run around it twelve times.

Time yourself with a stopwatch to see how fast you can run 3.o miles. Run as fast as you can.

Minimum Fitness Requirements

The Department of the Navy has established minimum fitness requirements for all Marines depending on their age to ensure that they’re ready for combat. Most of us probably won’t see action in Afghanistan, but if you can meet the fitness requirements for these tests, you’ll know that you have the physical condition to take on most of life’s challenges. The minimum requirements below would give a soldier enough points to meet a class three standard.

Age	Pull-Ups	Crunches	3-Mile Run
17-26	3	50	28:00
27-39	3	45	29:00
40-45	3	45	30:00
>46+	3	40	33:00

After you establish your base, start working on improving through regular exercise. Take the test again in a month to see how much you’ve improved. Try making it a goal to score a perfect 300 on the test.

I got this information from artofmanliness.com. I will see how it works out, will keep you updated. I will be going for the minimum requirements. Got to have a goal, right?

Tonights the night...

to sleep. I am tired, really tired. Today for my workout, we did a lot of cardio. It started with a mile jog, then a set of drills that included may suicides and ended up with revers crunches. After all that I had to walk a quarter mile home. I am looking forward to the weekend, and since I will be out of town you might not see many updates.

Till we see each other again..

My son

Well, another day, another dollar. I had an appointment this morning to take my son to the doctor to get a consult about getting ear tubes. I found out today that his ears are so blocked that he is probably only hearing everything at about half as loud as normal. We now have an appointment for next week to get some ear tubes put in.

One more thing that I realized is that I suck at filling out forms. I am glad that I did not turn in the paperwork before my wife corrected my work. It is sad I know but I now know that filling out forms is not my forte.

On to my workout..

Well, I was not able to workout yesterday because I gave blood for the American Red Cross. So yesterday was core day and I missed it. There is some part of me that is a little happy that I missed it but mostly I was a little upset. I am not sure what I will be doing today but since I was off yesterday, I am sure today will suck pretty badly :-)

My eating is still pretty crappy, today a bagel with cream cheese and for lunch a chicken sandwich. I was going to go home for lunch but was unable to because of a conference call at 12. Tonight I hope that I can eat something that will be a little better, but you never know. I am thinking about cooking some fish, very good for you (if you don't fry it)

Soccer day

Well, my daughter had her first soccer practice yesterday and I think she really enjoyed it. I was amazed at how much she ran and never slowed down. I think that she will really enjoy it. Below is a pic that I snapped.



It has been a pretty eventful day here at work. For the past month or so they have been prepping an area for a new 2250KW generator install and they finally started installing it today. Below are some pics that I took of the generator and what it looks like if anyone is interested.





I am pretty sore from working out yesterday. We ended up doing a lot of lunges and right now I am begining to get pretty sore. I need to work it out some. Today we will be working on core and I am ready for it. I have been feeling pretty good at the end of the working so I am thinking that today will push me pretty good as I know my core is not that good.

Feeling good

So far so good, I have been getting into the workouts at the park, so yesterdays workout was pretty good. I felt really good after it, not very exausted. My eating has been getting better, I have been trying to eat more whole grains with fruits and veggies. I take a multi-vitamin in the morning before work and it really seems to help me get the day started.

Today it is my daughters first day of soccer class, she is looking forward to it. I will take some pictures and put it up later today/tomorrow.

It was funny yesterday, she ended up working out with me at the park. We ran a circut where at first we did push ups, then we ran to some cones and did 25 jumping jacks. After that we ran around a small field and up a large hill and did 50 arm raises while in a squat position. We then ran down the hill across the street and did suicides and finishing up with 25 leg raised crunches. We did this 3 times and Megan did it once. When we got home, she was pretty tired. She ate and then went right to bed.

Today I had special K for breakfast and will go home and eat some fruit with a low fat high protein lunch which will consist of a turkey rollup. I might end up jogging during lunch since I won't be able to make the workout tonight due to Megans soccer.

Till next time

News to me

Well, today was a busy day. I got up and went and worked out this morning for an hour and a half. I started the workout with a 2.5 mile jog and then ended with a hours worth of drills. Needless to say I was feeling pretty tired after that. I am deciding on whether or not to go work out tomorrow morning. It will all depend on Tiffany and if she will be going to her Mary Kay meeting on Monday night.

I talked to my sister who was in the Air force and is now finishing up her masters and teaches a fitness class for Extreme Body Shaping. She apparently has been getting a chuckle out of my blog and the way that I eat, so I will be "trying" to change the way that I eat and not count calories but instead lower my complex carbs and increase my protein. I am going to try and eat more fruits and veggies and try and stay away from white bread. I am also going to try and eat more fiber and whole wheat products.

Only time will tell. Any suggestions?

Ouch

Well, a good workout yesterday. Lots of squats and leg lifts. Worked my lower body pretty good and now today I am sore. I am going to go workout an extra day on Saturday because I was unable to workout on Tuesday and I hear that it is pretty brutal on Saturdays.

My eating yesterday was not terrible but could have been better.

Breakfast:

1. BK Crossant 340
2. Small Hash Brown 230

Lunch:

1. Turkey Sandwitch 260
2. chips 140
3. Pudding Cup 102

Snack:

1. Banana 110
2. Med Diet Cherry Limeade 15

Dinner:

1. Steak Fajita 228

Total: 1213 calories

I think I did pretty good, only ate one fajita. I was pretty hungry after getting home from work, but did not want to eat before my workout because it did not go well the day before when I did that, so I just ate one fajita to get something in my stomach, with the intention of eating more after my workout. When I got home I was not hungry and was just ready to take a shower and rest.

This morning I did pretty good, had special K with half a banana and a hard boiled egg. I have yet to have a coke and I am feeling it, I might just go upstairs and get me a diet coke.

Core workout

Well had a pretty good workout yesterday. We worked our core for an hour, it was brutal. It is not just the workout but you have to jog about a mile before the workout starts to get your heart rate up. That just kills me sometimes.

One thing that I need to try is not to eat right before my workout. It was tough working out after eating delicious turkey tacos that Tiffany made for dinner.

Well, another week almost gone and another Saturday run about to be here. This Saturday we will be meeting at 6 am at Pinnacle Mountain State Park at the Visitor's Center. The scheduled distances are: 1 mi (half marathon build up), 4 mi (marathon build up), 6 mi, and 8 mi. Don't forget your bug spray AND your water and/or sports drink.

Well, today I need to jog a mile and a half. Not sure if am going to stick with my schedule but instead do the boot camp. I think that I will do better at the boot camp.

Since I did not wake up in time this morning, I was unable to get a proper breakfast. I ended up running out the door with 20 min to get the kids to school, and in traffic, it takes about 30. Because of this, I did not get the breakfast that I wanted to eat which was special K with bananas and one packet of Splenda. Instead I had to settle on Burger King croissant meal. I will be headed home for lunch, and I might just walk/jog my distance at lunch.

Since I blog every day, I think I am going to blog what I eat to get a sense of my food intake. If anyone has any calorie counting web sites that they recommend, please let me know.

Bah

I got out and jogged yesterday but was unable to workout with the group. I was watching the kids last night while Tiffany when out with some women from our church. I got 1.5 miles in, this is the distance for training. To tell you the truth, I might start slacking off of the marathon training runs but instead just workout 4 days of the week at the park with the fitness group. I find myself very very tired if I do both in one day.

To give you an update on the compression shorts that I purchased last week, I love them. They really help out with my runs. I don't get any more chafing and they really feel good. Here is my run from yesterday, link.

I did not do well today eating wise. My daughter wanted to go to eat donuts this morning, so I obliged and we ate donuts. I had a ham and cheese croissant with a donut, it was good but not good for me.

New workout

I am trying something new. I started up a bootcamp at a park close to me. It is lead by a former Marine and it is an hour a day, 4-6 days a week. I am going to try and go 4 days a week. Juggling that with Tiffany s schedule and the kids schedule will be a task, but I will work it out.

I also jogged 2ish miles yesterday just like me training schedule posted and it was rough doing that and 1 hour of workout. Here is the link for yesterdays run. The break in the run is when I stopped to talk to the workout instructor about the class.

What a weekend

Wow, what a weekend. This past weekend was really busy. One thing that I did not do was get out and run. I just had a hard time getting up in the morning and run. I did mow the yard, but waking up at 5:30 to go run at 6, just did not happen. Well today I have 2 miles to get done, easy enough.

I started using my phone to tether an internet connection while at work, and might I add, it works quite well and is pretty quick. I was able to stream Hulu and youtube just fine.

This is going to be a good week, I just know it.

Finally Friday

Well, I ran my 2 miles yesterday and I can honestly say that it felt great. Here is the link for my runkeeper log. I decided to run a different route, and I liked the change. I also upped my pace to under a 15 min mile ;-).

Here are a few pics that I took of my kids.



The first one is my kids going for a ride, but they got pulled over by the po-po (Police), I think they were speeding.



Here is another of my daughter going to school today. Today is picture day so my wife wanted me to take a picture of her before school. She had her clothes for today laying out all week just waiting for pictures.

New running shorts

Well, I have been doing some research on some new running shorts and I think I am going to try some compression shorts under my normal shorts. From what I read they seem to work well with chafing when being a bigger guy, I have been getting lately since I have been running.

I am thinking about getting "Under Armor Heat Gear Compression Shorts" Hopefully I can find a pair at a decent pair for a good price. I will let you know how they turn out.

This Saturdays run

I forgot to post (like anyone follows this blog) this Saturday we will be meeting at 6 am at the old Harvest Foods parking lot in the Riverdale Shopping Center on Cantrell Road in Little Rock. The scheduled distances are: marathon build up - 3 miles; folks who are doing maintenance distances - 4 miles, 6 miles, and 8 miles.

If you need directions, just let me know and I will let you know.

Good day off

Well, yesterday was my day off from jogging and I quite enjoyed it. I spent the time with the family inside and outside of the house. I will be jogging this evening, I will be doing my usual 2.3ish miles at the lake. I have been following the 3/2 breathing while jogging, and I really feel that I can go further without walking now. I am not going to push myself and I will stick with my current podrunner intervals course though.

I want to mention that if there is anyone wanting to know more about training for the LR marathon or just wanting to get out and jog/run, you can go to http://www.littlerockmarathon.com/ and click on training on the right side and sign up for the emails. In the emails it tells you where they meet to run every Saturday morning. If you have never jogging before, don't feel intimidated also. You have to start somewhere and they know that, they are very supportive.

What I am going to do this year is train for the full marathon but run just the half. I have never run anything before, and want to really get out there and run the half marathon. I think it is a good start. I have run 1 or 2 5ks, but nothing over that, time to get to work ;-)

Getting easier

Well, I got out and jogged and walked yesterday, my usual 2.3 miles. It seems to be getting better and better, not feeling as winded after it. One thing that I changed up was my breathing. I changed it to the 3/2 method, 3 steps in and 2 steps out and I can really see a difference. My stats are below:

Duration: 0:38:19 minutes
Distance: 2.31 miles
Avg Pace: 16:35 per mile
Avg Speed: 3.62 mph

Not to bad if I don't say myself

Well, if anyone is wanting to know, here is my runkeeper run, it is public, http://bit.ly/cHD5S. You can follow me on twitter also.

My Run

Well, I got out and jogged yesterday, but did not run my usual 2 miles. Here are my stats:

Duration: 0:28:38
Distance: 1.66 miles
Avg Pace: 17:13 per mile
Avg Speed: 3.49 mph

It was a good jog, I am not going by speed but instead distance, so the easier it gets for the further I go, I am happy. I had to stop early because it started to rain and my kids and wife were at the playground waiting for me to finish.

I will get out today, after work, and jog/walk again. I am on the second week of pod intervals to help me get distance I will follow the podcast for my short runs, and on Saturday, if I ever get up, I will just do my log runs, 3+ miles without doing pod intervals.

Party Time

Over the weekend, my daughter went to a birthday party. The party was for a 5 year old boy who is apparently into monster trucks. At the party they had a few large trucks in the parking lot, so here is a pictures of my son at the drivers wheel of a jacked up jeep.

Well, I will be getting out and jogging today if it kills me. I brought my lunch today because of us budgeting and because I believe that me eating out during lunch is my main cause of my weight. If I can cut my lunches out to a turkey sandwich and a small bag of chips for lunch, I can loose weight.

I will be starting week 2 of the couch to 5k podcast. So far I really like it, i have been jogging/walking 2.5 miles pretty easily and when I get done, I usually feel pretty good. Again if anyone is intrestered in the podcast, here it is.

Weekend

Well, it was a pretty normal weekend, did not do any running, was up late last night with my son and me and the wife argued some because we both have different views on how we should put him back to sleep. That's another story altogether. My kids were dedicated on my church tonight, it was nice but they messed up on the slide show when they called our name and only had my oldest daughters name.

I need to get back on track on Monday with my running, I think last week with the softball game, it really threw me off and really made me sore for most of the week. I did not feel like jogging or doing anything for that matter, I was exhausted.

Have a good run..

Bad week

Well, I had a bad week in working out. I think the 2 softball games that I did on Monday really wore me out this week. I did not get out to run on since Tuesday but I will see about tonight and tomorrow morning. Below is this weeks meet with the LR running group.

This Saturday we will be meeting at the River Market in downtown Little Rock at 6 am. The scheduled distances are: 3 miles (marathon build up), 4 miles, 6 miles, and 8 miles. Directions: We meet at the corner of the River Market where Boulevard Bread is located - the corner of President Clinton BLVD and Commerce.

I did get out and mow the back yard yesterday, so I did get out some oversize.

Wed Run

Well, I ran my lap around the lakes and runkeeper messed up. After getting back to the computer it said that I ran 22 miles :-) I wish. I did move on to week to of the pod runners interval couch to 5k pod cast. I noticed that the jogging part was a little faster and a little longer. I am glad that I got the run out of the way, and now I can enjoy the rest of my day working and with my family.

I found these 7 tips on completerunning.com about breathing while running:

1. Try slowing down before attempting to change your breathing.
2. Focus on longer, deeper breaths.
3. Breath more from your diaphragm (belly) than your chest (chest breathing is more shallow).
4. Focus on exhaling more fully. This will remove more CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) and allow for deeper inhalations of O2 (Oxygen).
5. Allow air to enter through both the nose and mouth. This will allow for maximum O2 intake.
6. Aim to take three footsteps for every inhale, and two footsteps for every exhale (3:2 ratio). A good descriptions of this can be found on Military.com:

Many experts will say that to fully oxygenate the muscles and clear the body of carbon dioxide you should breathe a 3:2 inhale-to-exhale ratio; full inhales and full exhales. This means you INHALE on the LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT foot strikes and EXHALE fully on the RIGHT, LEFT foot strikes. This pattern is not that hard to turn into a habit, but it may require you to slow your pace down for a few runs to master the technique. You will notice a lower heart rate as you are able to get more oxygen in and more importantly push all the carbon dioxide out of your body. You may notice that you naturally drop to a 2:1 ratio when you are really pushing it to the finish. That is OK. But realize it is difficult to maintain a pace that requires you to breathe at a 2:1 ratio.

7. One last thing – try not to over-think your breathing! It’s best to try to slow down, relax, and let yourself fall into your body’s natural rhythm.

Yesterdays run

Well I was unable to run last night, my wife was not feeling good and it rained. I am trying to motivate myself to go during lunch, as of this post I will go home, change, jog my route, eat real quick and then go back to work. I have never done this before so it will be a learning experience. If it works, maybe it will motivate me to go during my lunch break at my daughters school track down the road.

I will let you know in a few hours ;-)

A Long Day

Well, this day is over and I am about to fall asleep. Work was busy and when I got home I cooked dinner and then went to play 2 back to back softball games. Luckily it was my last game of the season. I did not get a chance to run today but I think playing 2 softball games qualifies enough exercise.

Well, I am going to begin budgeting, not that we absolutely need it but I want to really start saving and get those things that I really want. My wife wants to get a new washer and drying and I want to be able to get it for her, but I can't because I know that we can't afford it. I need new components for my computer but again, I know that right now money is tight and we really can't afford it. One day though I will get it !!

I have been taking a multivitamin in the mornings, and I believe that it has been giving me that little extra kick, because today I came home and ate lunch and after wards, instead of just sitting and watching TV, I vacuumed the floor, picked up toys and moved the patio table back to its position on the deck.

What do you think, the multivitamins giving me that kick?

The wife and I are going to start planing out our meals, so if there is anyone out there that has some suggestions on planing a weeks meal please let me know. In the meantime, I will do some research and find out what I can do to plan out a weeks worth of meals ahead of time. It will be a challenge.

Deck

Well, as promised, here is the deck, before, during and after.





I have to do some touch up work and some of the stain was no even on some of the boards, but all in all, pretty good job if I don't say so myself. The sad thing is that I ran out of stain, so there are areas that need to be restained or stained and I have to go buy another gallon to do it. I will prob only use a tenth of it.

I used Cabot simi-solid deck stain with tile red color, and everything I read it should last me for 2-4 years.

What you think?

A long day

Well, This day is about over, it is 1am and I am about done with my work. It all started today with me jogging my usual lap around the lake (stats are below) and then got hot and messy from there.

Me and the wife finally got around to finishing up our deck. I have been working to get the old stain removed, cleaned and re-stained for about 3 months now. It took 6 hours to stain the railing and about 1 hour for me to finish up the floor of the deck. All in all I think it looks good, but I will have to get one more gallon to do my touch up because we used up the 2 gallons that we got.

btw, it was 95 degrees today ;-)

My daughter came home today. I am glad that she is home, I missed her. Me and the wife have been keeping the house pretty clean since she was gone, now we have to let my daughter know that the house needs to stay clean and that she will have to pick up after herself. She is about to turn 5 in October, is that asking too much?

I will get some pics of the deck up over the next few days. I will have a before and after.

2.34 miles
16.16 pace
3.69 Avg speed
363 Calories burned

I will be resting tomorrow.

A good day

Well it was a pretty good day yesterday. I got home and let my wife take a nap because she was up late with our son. I decided to take him for a stroll around the neighborhood and he decided to fall into a mud puddle against my advice (my son is 15 months old if you did not know). Well, to put it plainly he was not happy. I finally got home and got him cleaned up and my wife had a nice nap.

I ended up going jogging to the pod runner podcast and man did it make a difference in my distance. The interval training that it told me to do helped me go much further without getting as winded and I felt like I had a mush better workout. My stats were:

2.28 miles
16.09 pace
3.72 avg Speed
345 Calories burned

I got home dripping with sweat, but feeling great. It has been awhile since I have felt that good. I am looking forward to really hitting that 225 pound mark. It is only 17 pounds away and now I know that I can get to it. I have been trying to get down to 225 for years and years, and now I feel like I can do it.

New found love

Well, I guess I have been out of the loop for awhile. I have just found a bunch of podcast specifically for running and working out. It is setup so that you run to the beat of the music. I think I am in love ;-). I have been looking for something like this for awhile. The neat thing is that it is a podcast, so every week or so a new one comes out so all you do is hook your ipod up to iTunes it automatically transfers it to it.

I am getting energized about getting in shape and loosing weight. I went home for lunch today and had a ham and cheese sandwich and a fruit cup. I am thinking about running at my daughters gym at her school. I get free membership since she goes to preschool there. A lot of these music tracks are 30-45 min long, all I have to do is grab a quick lunch after jogging or just bring something and eat it at my desk, hmm.

Well, my daughter comes back from her vacation with Nanna and Pawpaw this weekend. I am happy to have here back despite what I say sometimes. I do miss her, and I hope she had a good time. I am sure some pictures were taken, so if I get any I will upload them for all to see.

Sorry

Sorry for no post yesterday, but I have been pretty busy. I went on call yesterday and also went to a Vmware vSphere 4.0 launch party. The presentation was pretty good, we run Vmware here where I work, and I really need to learn more about it.

Regarding my running, I have been staying on track, and I weighed myself last night and I am down 5 pounds from last week. I was surprised, it is really getting me motivated to get out more. My run today will be 2-3 miles. I am going to try and push it.

I found a new training program that I am going to try out, Podrunner. It is a podcast for running. It is basically the couch to 5k program put to music. Your pace is the music beats and it tells you when to jog and when to run. I am going to try it out today and see how it goes. They have one for 5k, 8k and 10k. The 5k program is a 10 week program.

This Saturday I will be meeting at 6 am @ the start of the NLR River Trail
(across from Alltel Arena, by the I-30 boat launch & the NLR Rowing Club
Boathouse). Since this is my long day, I will be going 4 miles. I don't expect to jog the whole thing, but I will be having fun doing it ;-)

Unbelievable

Well, like I said before this is a new week and a new me. Yesterday after getting home the first thing I did was get my running shoes and changed into my running gear. After a short talk to my wife, I went to the park where it was Hot, Hot Hot !! Man I did not realize how hot it really was, I think it was around 95 degrees.

I used RunKeeper to keep track of my pace and time and for my run yesterday I ran a total of 1.70 miles with an avg. pace of 15:17. I know what some of you are saying, 15:17 is not running that is walking. Well to me it is jogging and it felt like it. I maintained about a 4mph rate till a little past the 1 mile mark. It is a start.

So today I went home for lunch and ate with my wife. I also got some chicken ready for tonight's dinner. If anyone is wondering what I am having tonight it is called, Unbelievable Chicken . It looked good and I like to grill so, I setup the marinade while I was at home and now the chicken is sitting nicly in my refrigerator. I will try and post the recipe if I cook so you can get an idea of what I eat.

My Delimma

It is a new week and a new me. I have to get out and jog this week. I am in a contest at my job to loose weight, the winning team gets $5000 and I am dead last in my team. I believe that our team is in 24th place. I can't even get motivated by cash to loose weight and eat right.

I found out today while eating that a group next to me is bringing their lunches and eating in the break room. I am going to try this for a week to see how it goes. in addition to saving money by not eating out, maybe I will break my cycle of eating out during lunch and eat in and loose some weight.

What really scares me is this fact that I found out, One in five kids and two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. I have 2 kids right now and I have a 50/50 chance that one of them will be overweight or obese. I can't see my kids like that and I won't. Is it enough motivation for me to loose my weight? I don't know.

I can read and read and read till my eyes bleed, and I know what I need to do but I am just lacking motivation to do it. I think it is enough time for me to say that I am going to try and just do it. So when i get home, I am going to change and go jogging and not even think about it. If I start thinking about it., I will have a harder time getting going.

WDS

Well, now the weekend is over and I can get back to work. This week, I will be trying to setup a Windows Deployment service, so I can easily upgrade and install windows servers. Just to recap, I am a Windows Administrator for a Telecommunications company in Little Rock, AR.

Since we have not setup WDS before, it has to be done in a sandbox. WDS needs 3 things before you can install it.

DNS
Active Directory
DHCP

Being in a sandbox, is makes it hard because it is hard to get files to the server.
A good install guide to install WDS in windows 2008 is here.

Blah

A pretty busy day today. My son decided to wake up all though the night last night so my wife was up all night with him. So this morning I let her sleep in while I took care of my son. Hopefully tonight he won't do the same.

I did not get out and run this weekend, I have been pretty lazy. When did I get lazy in my life? Not sure but it does suck. I kept talking myself into not going. This is one of the things that I do best ;-). I has been raining all day today, but finally the rain stopped so at least I got outside and got a 30 min walk with my wife.

Have a good one..

Park Workout

I found this link to a 20-Minute Fitness Workout at the park. I thought about it and this would be great for me and my wife when we go to the park with our kids. I will give you a quick overview of the workout, but please hit the link to get full instructions and pictures.

1. Warm-up - I know that this should not be said, but you would be surprised how many people don't warm up or don't stretch before they workout. It will make a difference.

2. Playground Push Ups - These are just simple push-ups on an incline. To make them easier don't push your feet out as far.

3. Monkey Bar Pull Ups - These pull ups are not as hard as they sound. Your feet will be on the ground and you will be leaning back at an angle pulling yourself up.

4. Park Bench Dips - Got to get the tris. This is a simple exercise where you use the park bench just like at the gym bench to do dips.

5. Park Bench Step Ups - Just as it says, this is step ups on the park bench. I know that some park benches are high, and the higher it is the harder it is, so look around for any step ups, whether it is on another park bench or steps up to the slide. (remember to switch feet also)

6. Slide Lunges - This is stationary lunges with your foot up on the end of the slide. Follow the link for a better explanation and photos.

7. V-Sit Ab Toner - This one is a little harder to explain also, but you sit on the end of a bench with your hands right behind you and you draw your legs in and out.

8. Hanging Ab Toner - This is the last exercise. You hang from the high monkey bars and bring your knees up as high as you can and then back down.

After the last exercise, you do all of the exercises again. The site tells you to do it each one for 30-60 seconds, but starting off I would do 15-20 then move to another exercise.

I know if you are like my wife, you are thinking why would I go out in public and workout when I could do it at the gym. The answer is simple, it is an easy way to get outside with your kids and let them have fun while you get fit. I know that this says that it is a moms workout, but don't be intimidated by that, working out is working out whether your are mom, dad, or anywhere in between.

Enjoy the workout :-)

Today is the day

One of the things that I do when I get to work in the morning, is to browse all of my sites to catch up on everything that is happening today. This might be news, blogs, or just something to start the day off right. Below are a few sites that I visit in the mornings to get my day off right.

Gizmodo
Lifehacker
Engadget
Cnn.com
TVsquad
Slashdot
WOW.com
and lately Google Blogger Buzz

It is now Friday, and I am trying to determine what I want to do this weekend. Since my daughter is not with us for a week, I am not sure what to do. I will try and run today when I get home, and a running group meets tomorrow at 6am that I am going to try and attend.

Here is part of the email that contains meeting information for the run in the morning:

This Saturday we will be meeting at the Arts Center at MacArthur Park at 6am. The scheduled distances are: 4 miles, 6 miles, and 8 miles. (We will be celebrating a couple of birthdays - rumor has it there WILL be cake!)

Directions: From I-630, take the Main Street exit and head north (toward the river). Turn right on 10th Street (heading east). 10th Street will end at the Arkansas Art Center - we meet in the big parking lot on Commerce.

Big Dam Bridge Little Rock

2009 06 28_0689_edited-1, originally uploaded by opiespank.

Here is a picture that took for a contest at my job. I thought I did a pretty good job, but I did not win. I am still learning my camera and I have had it for a few years now. It is a Olympus E-500.

This picture was taken around 9:00pm at night this past May. I used auto ISO settings, with about 3sec shutter speed. I used a tripod, and of course no flash. I could have not taken this picture without a tripod.

What do you think?

A new day..

Well, I told you that you would be seeing changes, and here they are. I don't know if this will be the final look, but I like the layout pretty good. It is simple, just like me. Now on to my life ...

Well, I had to say goodbye to my daughter for 10 days and 9 nights yesterday. She is headed to Charlotte, NC with my in-laws to visit my brother-in-law. This will be the first time that I will be without my "Peanut" for that long. I don't know how to react, I don't think that it has sunk in yet.

I have started running slowly, only ran once this week. It has been raining a lot lately so have not been motivated to get out and run. If there are any runners out there, I have been using a few programs to help me out with my runs.

One is Runkeeper for my iPhone. It uses the gps to track my location, mileage, rate, etc. I like it a lot and if I get up to running more I will get the full version for only 9.99. Once you complete your run, you can go to there web site and view stats for different runs, it keeps it all.

The other program I use is really just a web site, Runstoppable. I use this site to map out my run so when I run I know about how long it will be. You can map out different runs ahead of time. It uses Google maps api so it is very easy to use. Check it out.

For anyone actually following my blog, I hope that you will enjoy my updates. I am also on twitter @opiespank

Starting over...

Well, it is a new day and now I am starting over. Hopefully you will see some changes in the future. I have to get a new pic setup for the home page so expect that to change. Also I am no longer playing WoW so don't expect any Warcraft talk.

This blog will just be a day to day dealing with what i am going thought. I prefer this over facebook, but if anyone is interested I have a facebook setup also.

Expect more to come..