Post

I haven't posted for a while, but I suppose I haven't had a lot on my mind, or something.  Yet, there is a lot going on.  My wife is 9 months pregnant, my job is always an adventure, my hair is really long, my kids are awesome.  This evening I was reading books with them for just a few minutes, and it occurred to me that they will not want to sit on my lap and have me read to them for very long, so I better enjoy it.  Though selfishly, I hate reading long and boring books to them, preferring the easy books.  My weight this evening was 187.4.  That is pretty good.  I have been experimenting with dark chocolate and stevia to make carb free candy.  So far, so bad.  Stevia isn't quite as strong as the HMFB guys seemed to indicate.  I am up to a full teaspoon of stevia and I still haven't had the chocolate taste very sweet.  I am going to try it with some powdered milk.  That will add some carbs, but it will still be low carb and perhaps even edible.  Since the recipes I found online are so vague, if I do find something that is reasonable, I am going to post it in my blog and maybe my blog will get a hit from someone other than my beautiful, awesome, pregnant wife.  I am planning on getting up in the morning and lifting weights...I hope that happens. 

My project

I am finally caught up to the present day with my HMFB podcast so I was looking around, briefly, for a new podcast and I was unable, in three or four minutes, to find anything interesting.  I figured I have a health podcast, a sports podcast and a trivia podcast.  I thought I should listen to a financial type podcast and I could not find anything that was interesting.  As I may have mentioned, I didn't spend a lot of time looking, but I have advice for anyone who is interested, including me, in making a podcast that might be interesting to others.
1.  No podcast should ever go over 15 minutes.  As I have said before (and I can credit Glenn Beck for this line of thinking) if a movie director can't tell his story in less than two hours, the director isn't powerful enough.  If you can't cut out the fluff, your podcast needs help.  Case in point, HMFB is constantly catching us up on their lives, their feelings, their most recent meals, their religious views, their toothpaste brand, the sharpness of their razors and their political views.  Nobody cares.  I repeat, nobody cares.  Give us our weekly dose of health info and get out.
2.  Be educational while providing your opinion, or at least being funny.  I like when the HMFB folks take a pertinent article and share their opinions and make comments on the subject.  The education piece adds value, and that makes the podcast interesting. 
I guess that is all I've got.  Two little things that could improve HMFB.  I have often thought that it would be fun to make a podcast.  I don't know what the subject would be, or how I could even fill 15 minutes in one podcast.  It just seems fun.   So, my project is to find a podcast that is brief, educational and interesting.  I am going to try to use podcasts to become knowledgeable and more educated.  I will report back.

It's bedtime

Quick post tonight because I haven't written in so long.  I did not get up and exercise, I shot my carb diet to heck over the last 2 days, I made my wife laugh when I mentioned that my dad punched me in the face while I was in the womb while giving my mom the Heimlich maneuver, Erica looked so cute today for church, Michael is such a good little boy, I have an amazing mother and an amazing wife.  You don't get to choose your mom and I couldn't have been sent to a better mom (in spite of her own crazy mom...) and I did choose my wife.  And really, that is sort of a crap shoot.  You can fall in love with anyone if you spend enough time and money on them and they are super hot.   The one I fell in love with also turned out to be one awesome, awesome, awesome woman that is perfect for me.  I am glad she has bad eyesight and convinced herself I was worth marrying.  It is sad that men and women fall in love and get married and over time things evolve for the worse.  For me, as Timbuk 3 once crooned, things are only getting better.

I don't care what the date says.

I wonder if we will one day know why we react/behave in certain ways?  I have some nasty behaviors that I would like to change.  For example, our neighbors family member was allowing their dog to do his business on the grass around the walks. I had seen this before and had been irritated by it.  I opened the door and in a very snooty way, asked him to take the dog around the house and not have it pee where my kids play.  His response was humble and polite when he said, "I'm sorry."  I then told him it was fine and I walked in the house.  He seemed genuinely sorry and I would bet he had not thought about it.  It would have been better to go out and very politely request that he take the dog around the house without that irritated tone.  I could then explain that the kids run around there, that I like dogs and even introduce myself and treat him like Jesus would.  Example 2: When I play sports (basketball, frisbee, soccer, etc.) I act like a wiener.  I don't really talk to anyone unless I am mouthing off.  My interactions are brief and cold.  I don't encourage others or thank those who are encouraging.  Ultimately(ha), I don't act like much of a teammate.  I want my children to be like Dave when it comes to sports and not like me...which means that I need to improve things now because their little brains are growing and they observe everything.  I am going to make a goal.  At my Frisbee game next week, I am going to act like Dave, or in other words, be vocal, encourage, learn everybody's name and otherwise fix how I have been acting now since high school.  I am even going to do the gay cheers. (Whether or not I happily participate doesn't mean they aren't gay because they are.)  The other one will have to wait for an opportunity, but hopefully writing about it will help me to do better.  As Michael Stemkowski said, "What ever gave us the crazy idea that to make someone do better first we have to make them feel worse?  People do better when they feel better." 

HMFB

During the holiday season I was weighing in at about 205 pounds. During the month of December, Scott blew out his knee playing basketball. My weight got me to thinking that my knees are probably designed to hold up a man that weighs between 175 and 185 pounds. It seems obvious that if a knee is designed to hold up to a certain amount of weight, any additional weight probably means that your chances of injury go up. Because I do a lot of driving, I decided to find a pod-cast that spoke to health and fitness, hoping I would get inspired. I ended up choosing Healthy Mind, Fit Body, for no particular reason. It started off slow and became more and more interesting with regards to carbs(sugar), fat and weight. I slowly started making some changes. I didn't go on a diet in the common sense of the word, I just changed my diet. As of this morning, after breakfast I weighed 186 pounds. Tonight before bed I weigh 188. I think I want to be 183 in the morning and 185 at night. I am almost there. Kevin and Wes always say that our weight is 80% what we eat and 20% exercise and fitness. I have a frisbee game tomorrow that should allow for running and raising of my heart rate. Goal: Get up at 6:30 Thursday and Friday and to work out with some weights, push-ups, and stretching Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

OBL

September 11, 2001 will always be a day where you remember where you were. I woke up really late for work. I was going to work at 4:00 am at the time with Troy. Because I didn't wake up until 6:00, I decided to call in sick. I let Daniel know I wouldn't be coming in and he was fine with it, then asked if I had heard that a plane had crashed into a building in NYC. I then went into Scott's room and started watching footage of what was going on that morning. Within just a few minutes of me turning on the TV, the second plane flew into the other tower. What a weird day that turned out to be. Scott and I (I seem to have not had any classes that day) watched footage of the attack for 8 or 10 straight hours. I saw the second plane hit and both buildings fall on live television. We learned over the next few days and weeks that close to 3000 people died as a result of that attack and it was eventually credited to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group al-queda. Last night our military killed OBL in his compound in some large city of Pakistan...uh, sorry about that Afghanistan. Today's news has irritated me. I don't know what it was like to lose a loved one that day, but I feel sorry for those who have not been able to experience closure up until now. Or the huge crowds that gathered at ground zero or chanted "USA" at some baseball game. I feel like they are saying that OBL and his band of robbers have maintained some level of control over us for the last 10 years. What a bunch of crap. I think the ultimate slap in the face to them would to be that despite their deplorable actions, we are stronger and have moved on and improved our lives and the lives of those around us. That no matter what they have done or will do, we will continue to love our freedom and our nation, our military and our families and their pathetic efforts to scare us, or exercise control over us will not last because we are children of God and citizens of the United States of America. I am thrilled we got him. I am thrilled that we didn't quit. And I don't think I will bother remembering where I was when OBL was killed. I think we beat OBL on September 12th, and every day we've lived our lives well since.

Pet food

My mom told Sarah something that she used to do for us. All kids love froot loops, and we were no exception. Froot loops are more expensive and my parents, wanting to give us some, used to buy a bag of malt-o-meal froot loops (or marshmallow mateys) and a bag of malt-o-meal cheerios and mix them together in a big storage bucket and that was our cold cereal. When Sarah reminded me of that I thought about something my mother-in-law taught us to do. When she buys pet food, she buys the higher quality stuff as well as some cheap stuff and mixes them together. Like my mom, this gives the pet some of what they really need, while controlling the higher cost of the good stuff. On a totally unrelated note, my pet Michael learned about the restoration today in church. When we got home Sarah told him to take off his church clothes to keep them nice and clean. He then said, "Oh, so Jesus won't take the church away again?" Sarah asked him what he meant: "You know, Jesus took the church away and then brought it back." I am happy that he is learning and retaining. Now I just need to wean him off of froot loops.