Saturdays TV viewing, sorry honey

It's been a lazy day today. Which I guess tends to be a typical Saturday for us. We've basically been sitting around watching TV all day, getting caught up on the DVR. We record a lot of shows so we're always running behind on stuff. Cheri records a bunch of stuff as well but she usually watches most of those while I'm at work. I don't have a problem missing all of the reality TV that she watches. She can watch all the housewives, singing, dancing, little people and crime shows all she wants, but I'll pass. Sorry honey.

We've been saving up all our episodes of the Tonight Show because we usually watch those and @Midnight when we run out of stuff to watch. I've been catching up on the @Midnight episodes at my moms because she hasn't been home while I'm waiting for the kids to get off the bus so in the past week and a half, I've worked it down from 20+ episodes down to 7.

          

I watched Z Nation while Cheri was making lunch since she doesn't care about that show. Then we watched Satisfaction which pretty much ran us out of all of our shows. I figured I could get caught up on some sports that I had recorded.

I usually record all of the Chicago White Sox, Indianapolis Colts and any Michigan Wolverine games and by any I mean all sports. If I record it and don't watch it live, I check the score and delete the games if they lose. Why would I want to watch my team lose? The only games I do anything I can to watch live are Michigan football and men's basketball games.

First, I deleted the Michigan hockey game, I only watch those when there is hardly anything in the DVR and it was still over 50% full. Then I watched the Michigan women's basketball game against UCLA. They lost the game but I rarely get to watch them because they rarely broadcast them, at least around here so I watched it anyways. I have a little connection with the team as I took my daughter up there for a basketball camp last season and she got to meet most of the girls. We also drove up there about this time last year because I had off of work and watched a game live. After the women's game, I watched the men's basketball game against Northern Kentucky from earlier in the week. Sorry honey.

By the time that game was over I figured I'd cut my wife a little slack and we watched a few episodes of the Tonight Show. We never used to watch these talk shows (other than Cheri who watches Ellen) but we love Jimmy Fallon so we've watched it ever since he took it over. We watched 3 episodes and then it was just after 6 and I knew the Michigan men's game was on so I checked to see if it was recording and it wasn't, apparently it wasn't on TV but I could stream it, which means I had to watch it live. Sorry honey.

I loaded it up on the WatchESPN app and streamed it to the TV through my Chromecast and watched them take on Youngstown State. They've looked great the last few games but we'll see how well they do when we get into the Big Ten schedule next week and the opponents get a lot tougher.

After that game was over, we went back to watching Fallon again and got another 3 episodes in before Cheri decided she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. So here I sit, watching more basketball. I've got a couple of Bulls games on the DVR as well so I'm watching them take on the Philadelphia 76'ers from last week. On the plus side, former Wolverine point guard Nik Stauskas is on Philadelphia so I get to check up on him too.

There's been a lot of basketball today, not that I'm complaining. Cheri probably is though. Maybe tomorrow we'll finish off the last 3 Fallon's and the 7 episodes of @Midnight before I go to Netflix, I'm trying to rewatch all the episodes of the X-Files before the new ones come on in January and I'm only midway through the 2nd season. Then again, I do still have 2 more Bulls games to watch, plus the Colts are on tomorrow. Sorry honey.

Star Wars thoughts

No, I haven't seen it yet, it's not that type of post.

I am of course, super pumped for the new Star Wars movie, even though I probably won't go see it for a few weeks. Because as excited as I am to see it, I still hate people more. I will not go sit in a crowded theater and watch it, I'll wait a few weeks until all the hype is over, then go see it.

I loved the original trilogy but wasn't a fan of the prequels. I know that's not a new concept but the reason I like the first 3 but not the 2nd 3 is a different reason then most. I got into the characters from the original trilogy and I think that's why I couldn't really get into the prequels. They weren't the characters that I grew up with, at least for the most part.

Before you start going, ahh, you're full of crap. It's the same for Star Trek. I loved the original cast of Star Trek, I love the original series and the movies, that is, up until the Generations movie because that was the last of the original cast. I like the movies after that, just not like I loved the others. I never really got into all the other Star Trek TV series either, Enterprise, Deep Space 9, even the beloved the Next Generation. They're OK, I don't hate them, but I don't love them either.

When they brought back the Star Trek movies a few years back, I loved them. Why? Because they were the same characters. Yes, they had different actors and they were more or less, prequels as well, but it was the same characters. Kirk, Spock and Bones were back, and it was awesome. I've loved that they brought back my love for Star Trek because other than watching reruns or Netflix (I rewatched the Original Series awhile back) that was all they were, reruns. Now there are new stories with the characters I love.

Back to Star Wars, I'm looking forward to the new Star Wars because a lot of the same characters are going to be in it. I realize that they aren't the whole story but they will be there and maybe I will like the future Star Wars movies because of this one where they are kind of, handing off the torch, so to speak. So, like I said, I'm excited about the new Star Wars movies, not like a lot of people are, but excited none-the less. I'm just hoping it doesn't disappoint with bad story lines for the original characters.

My daughter is going to see it tonight, she asked if I was jealous. I said hell no. I am jealous that she is seeing it, but no movie is worth dealing with that many people. Even the new Star Wars.

All the posters above (except for the last one) were taken from one of my new blogs Movie Posters. I only post posters of movies I have seen which is why the last one is not on it, yet. I have it saved for when I do see it so I can post it. I copied a bunch over from my tumblr account so I posted 50 a day for 3 days but from now on, it will probably only be a week, if even that so feel free to join along.

Weekly round-up

On Monday this week, the realtor let us into the house just so we could measure windows and stuff like that. We took the kids with us so they could check it out, they've only been by it, never in it. I think they are both pretty excited about it, probably get more excited after we paint since my son's room is a lime green and my daughter's room has a fish mural on her wall. They were running around the rooms excited, none of us really wanted to leave. It sucks that the house is sitting there empty and we can't move in until we close.

On Tuesday, we met with an insurance agent because we have to have home owners insurance in place before we close. We went ahead and met with him to get quotes on car insurance as well to see if it was worth it to switch those over since you get a discount for having multiple policy's. He told us about this little blue thingy they hook up to your car and it monitors stuff like how fast you're going, how close you're following other cars, and you're mileage. If you don't break any of the "rules" then you get a 10% discount on your policy.

• Speed - as long as you don't go over 80 mph, you're good. So as long as I don't travel, I'm good, because I tend to set my cruise over 80 mph. I'll be good around town though.
• Driving to close - It apparently monitors your speed decrease or in other words, if you have to slam on your brakes. I don't really agree with this one, just because I slam on the brakes doesn't mean I was following too closely. What if something runs out in front of my car or someone pulls out in front of me, how are those my fault?
• Mileage - I believe he said as long as I don't break 12,000 miles a year, which would be a piece of cake since I only use it to work and back for the most part. I bet I average less than 15 miles a day and my car generally sits all weekend because if we do go somewhere, we take Cheri's.

I'm not real impressed with them at the moment considering it's now Sunday and I'm still waiting on the quote for the cars. Tuesday will be a week. I'm not sure if it will be cheaper anyways since we are currently with Geico but we'll see.

On Thursday, we went up to the hospital to visit a family member, hung out with them for about an hour then headed home. Cheri annoyed me on the way home, I was driving on a back road but we were coming up to an intersection with a main road so the lane broke into 4 lanes and there was a bunch of people sitting at the light. Cheri glances up from playing games on her phone to see all the brake lights and freaked out like I wasn't going to stop at all. She screeched my name and grabbed the handle on the door. I told her she either needs to keep her head down or up, no raising it up and freaking out over nothing. No side-seat driving.

On Saturday, we cleaned out the kids room and packed what we could. We ended up with 8 kitchen bags of trash and 5 bags for Goodwill and a box of books for the library. It sounds like their rooms were filthy but they keep them clean for the most part. A lot more clean than I ever did as a kid, you could never see my floor. This was all stuff in the closets and clothes they didn't wear anymore. I loaded up the car with the stuff for Goodwill and dropped my son off at his friends house for the evening and went to the local Goodwill drop off. While I was unloading the stuff I noticed my back tire was low so I headed over to the Martin's gas station because they had free air. Nope, not anymore, now they want $.75 for freaking air, there ain't no way I'm paying that so I went over to my moms and used my stepdad's air compressor, afterwards I decided to Google and see if anybody had free air anymore and the only place listed was Casey's Food Mart, which of course, was right across the street from Martin's where I was. Guess I should have Googled earlier.

It's usually a tradition that the grandparents take the grandkids to cut down their Christmas Tree but they had to cancel because of the aforementioned family member in the hospital so she's been helping out a bunch with that side of the family. So today, my brother and I decided we would surprise her and we took all the kids out, picked out a tree, cut it down and delivered it to her house. My stepdad was there so we set it up in the stand and he trimmed up the bottom so all she has to do is decorate it. Which she is going to do sometime this week and have the grandkids over to help.

That's a fairly busy week for us, most of the time we don't do much. I just want this month to fly by so we can get into our house. It's currently 63 degrees here (average this time of the year is mid 30's and snow) so I'm expecting by the time we can actually move, it will be below zero because that's how my luck is.

Home, Kids and Work - aka: Life

As of right now, we are waiting to hear from the bank on the exact day of our closing. He was estimating the 30th a couple of weeks ago and I know that all we were waiting on was for the appraisal on the house to come back to make sure we weren't overpaying otherwise they wouldn't have given us the loan. We heard back from the realtor and they received the appraisal on Thursday so I would assume the bank got it as well. So like I said, we are waiting on the bank.

The realtor is supposed to take us into the house tomorrow evening so we can measure windows and get a better feel for the place. That will hopefully help us how to set up the living room. Not that it really matters, we can always figure that out when we move.

We've been trying to figure out the layout of some of the rooms. Cheri has most of it figured out but we're not sure how we are going to do the living room. I made the comment tonight that we won't know how to do it until we figure out where the outlets are so we can put our recliners next to those. Have to be able to plug in the laptops and phones while we're watching TV. There is also a smaller living room in the basement that we planned on hooking up a TV with a couch and recliner down there. We'll hook up the game systems down there as well so when the kids have friends over, they'll have a place to hang. Just one problem, we need to get a TV to go down there. We could probably use the TV out of our bedroom but it's an old one and it'll be a pain to hook up these modern game systems to that old ass TV. Needless to say, we'll probably be shopping for a TV when we get our tax check in the new year.

I'm hoping once we move I will be able to pick up walking again since I won't have to wait until the kids get off the bus at my moms. I can go straight home and go for a walk before they even get home. Not to mention we will be living in a neighborhood so I can walk without traffic as well. I also know how

The kids on again, off again relationship with their mother is off at the moment. They didn't want to go over for their last weekend because they can't stand the JackAss. You would think when your kids hatred for your husband out weights their love for their mother, that the mother would do something about it. The Ex got upset when the kids said they weren't coming over anymore and told them not to bother coming over for Thanksgiving and they haven't talked since. I'm not sure how long it will last, especially with Christmas coming but I know Samantha is actually ticked off at her mom at how she handled the whole situation so we'll see.

Not looking forward to tomorrow at work. We are switching over to a new computer system because we were bought out earlier in the year. Our system was newer then our purchaser and instead of them upgrading, it was cheaper to downgrade us. It'll probably be a mess all week.

Early resolution talk

Way back in 2013, I posted my one goal (resolution), I still haven't completed it. It was to own a home. It's not because of lack of trying though. We've been trying since then. In a little over a month it will be 3 years of trying.

We started off just trying to raise our credit scores. Mine was trashed before and then on top of that, my divorce trashed it more because the Ex doesn't pay anything off so I had to pay off everything that was hers but had my name on it as well. Cheri just didn't have a score because she had filed for bankruptcy when she got divorced. She was divorced sooner than I was but the bankruptcy was one of those that you pay off in payments so she didn't get credit for it until it was payed off. The problem was, when she moved up here to be with me, her Ex stopped paying his half and we had to pay it off as well. Basically, the exes screwed us, royally.

At the beginning of this year, we were finally approved to buy a house. The problem now, was finding one that we wanted. We have specific things we want in a home because we have no intention of ever moving again. We are 42 years old and we plan on dying here.

Our needs

• Decent sized kitchen with lots of counter space. Cheri spends quite a bit of time in the kitchen between suppers and occasionally baking. Our apartment has no counter space so she wanted counter space.
• 3 Bedrooms, 2 baths. We still have 2 kids at home plus a room for us so 3 bedrooms. 2 baths because we don't want to share a bathroom with the kids. In our apartment, everyone but myself shares a shower and that gets hard on occasion. If we had to settle for 1 bathroom we could have but we really wanted 2.
• A ranch style home. Between Cheri's back and MS, stairs are getting harder and harder for her to do so we wanted a ranch just so there were no stairs. Plus I'm fat and old so there's that.
• It had to be in a certain school district. We didn't want to change the kids schools, they both love where they are and we do as well.

That's it, which to us wasn't a lot. Out of those 4 things, the hardest one to fill was the last one. The school district we wanted to live in just isn't very big and when houses go up for sale, they go quick. It's the best school in that county by far. After spending a few months searching and not coming up with 1 house that fit that criteria, we started to look at having a modular built. We found land that we wanted, it was good location in the district, it was cheaper than most of the land so we checked into that.

The first thing we found out was our credit scores need to be even higher for a construction loan. So we starting working on getting our scores up again. This took a few months, again. When we were finally approved to build, the lot we wanted sold the week before. Any other land in the district we were willing to live, was double the price so now the home we had picked out to build wasn't fitting into the budget because the land was costing more.

Cheri still looked online every so often for homes to buy and she finally ran across one that we thought might fit our needs. She walked through it with my mom while I was at work and fell in love. I went through it the next day and approved (not that I would have said no) and we started on the paperwork to put in an offer.

That was about a month ago. Today, we are slowly packing up so we will be ready to move when we sign at our closing at the end of the year.

So we will start 2016 in our new home. 3 years later, we will fulfill the only resolution we've had for the last few years.

We are beyond excited.

Day 5

I took yesterday off as Sunday is the Lord's day. Not really the reason but it sounds better than the actual reason of I didn't want to shower twice. I desperately needed to shave (it's been 2 weeks), I shave with an electric and that's it so I can't come home from a walk and be all sweaty and then shave, so I decided I'd take the day off, shave then shower and relax. I told you the first excuse sounded better.

I had planned on weighing myself at work since we don't have a scale at home. It's a industrial scale so who knows how accurate it is but I guess as long as I use only that, it will show any loss. I wasn't really expecting to lose anything already, but I wanted to get a weekly record of it and Monday seemed as good as a day as any. Maybe tomorrow.

I did walk today though, I wasn't sure I was going to as they were calling for late afternoon showers, plus I had to leave work, pick up Cheri and then head over to our contractors for a meeting. When we were done there we had to grab the kids at my moms and then head home so I figured after all that, I wouldn't be in the mood, but I more or less forced myself to go. I didn't want to have 2 days off in a row.

I just did my minimum, it was hot and a little later than I normally go plus once I got going, my shins started to hurt again. I had shin splints when I was younger when I played basketball on asphalt so I wonder if that's not rearing it's ugly head.

My goal as I'm walking is to keep at least a 3 mi/hr pace so I was conscience of slowing down and I tried not to. Even as I was getting towards the end and my shins were really hurting I kept up my pace. You can see up above that I averaged 3.1 mi/hr but since I was actually leary of slowing down, apparently I sped up.

Apparently at one point I got up to 5 mi/hr. According to the app, it was around the 20 minute mark when I did which would actually be after the half way point. So kudos to me, maybe that's the real reason my shins hurt.

Not as hot as it's been but I'm sure the heat index or realfeel was hotter because it was pretty muggy and as you can tell, pretty sunny. Although as I type this, it's pouring rain now so I guess it's a good thing I went when I did.

Don't worry, I kept my music in line as well.

Between You and Me (DC Talk)

Shut Up And Dance (Walk the Moon)

No One Like You (Scorpions)

the Stroke (Billy Squier)

Knock Three Times (Tony Orlando & Dawn)

Get Stoned (Hinder)

Stolen Dance (Milky Chance)

Mighty Wings (Cheap Trick)

Here Without You (3 Doors Down)

I love that song, it was great to walk to as well. The beat went right with my strides.

Days walked - 5
Currently miles walked - 12.8 miles
Minutes walked - 3 hrs, 56 minutes

Day 4

I'm posting before noon, who else is shocked? That's right, I actually went for a walk before 10am. I get up at 5:15 am during the week for work so I usually sleep until around 9 or 10 on the weekends. Except for this morning apparently. I woke up around 7 and couldn't get back to sleep so I layed there for an hour before getting up. Trevor had a friend stay the night and his mom was coming by around 8:30 so I got up, checked to make sure they were up and grabbed a banana while I waited. They showed up and left a little before 9 so as soon as they left (and my phone got done updating) I headed out. The plan was to go the usual route (2 miles) but that can always vary depending on my mood.

Well, it varied.

That's right, 3.59 miles. I was feeling pretty good when I headed out. My shins felt stiff if that makes sense but it wasn't painful so I kept going and to be honest, I didn't really feel really sore and probably could have kept going but I figured I shouldn't push it. If you actually follow the map, I stretched it over to the main roads on both sides of the neighborhood.

I upped a couple of my trophy's with my longest walk, time and distance. I'm guessing the fact that I went earlier in the day and not after being on my feet for over 8 hours had a lot to do with that. This also helped.

Another advantage for going in the morning, it was much cooler. The forecast was for 90 degrees later today so it was definitely a good idea to go this morning. That might have attributed to the longer walk as well. I haven't figured out how to carry water with me while I walk so at this moment, I don't take any. I don't want to carry it in my hands and haven't figured out how to strap it to myself. I suppose I could probably shop for something, I would assume they have something that I could strap around myself.

I may do this everyday as well, as most of you know, I love to listen to lots of different types of music, so I'll throw out the songs that I listened to. Why not? I listen to my Anything & Everything playlist which the title says it all. Here's what I listened to this morning.

Something From Nothing (Foo Fighters)

50 Ways to Say Goodbye (Train)

That Don't Impress Me Much (Shania Twain)

No Boundaries (Adam Lambert)

Rollin' (Limp Bizkit)

Headlights (Eminem, Nate Ruess)

Paranoid (Megadeth)

Jump (For My Love) (the Pointer Sisters)

Longer (Dan Fogelberg)

Don't (Ed Sheeran)

Come With Me Now (Kongos)

Beaches of Cheyenne (Garth Brooks)

Should've Said No (Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers)

Love Don't Cost A Thing (Jennifer Lopez)

Music For The People (Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch)

Tequila Sunrise (Eagles)

Score from Halloween (TV/Movie Themes)

No Way We Are Not Ashamed (Carman)

More Sold Out (Whiteheart)

Why Do Fools Fall in Love (Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers)

Watch Over You (Alter Bridge)

City Lights (Tim McGraw)

Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen)

I think it was funny the last song was Fat Bottomed Girls since I'm trying to get my fat ass smaller.

Days walked - 4
Currently miles walked - 10.83 miles
Minutes walked - 3 hrs, 21 minutes

I don't have to much going on today, I plan on teaching my daughter how to play poker and maybe a couple of other card games. I'll ask my son if he wants to play but knowing him, he won't want to leave his Xbox.

Day 3

Apparently this blog has now become a blog about my exercise, or more specifically, walking. I guess that's just the natural progression of the blog. It has been a little of everything in the few years I've had it. Blogging, Book reviews, movie reviews, a journal, you get the idea.

Now that school has started, it will be detrimental for myself to just get off my lazy ass and go. I planned on going after work. Come home, switch my work boots to shoes and then head out. Now that the kids are back in school, I get off work, go over to my moms where I sit on my ass for an hour while I'm waiting for them to get off the bus, then go home. It's harder to get motivated after sitting on my ass.

I went for my second walk this week. I set my goal for a mile and a half after the 3 mile hike earlier in the week kicked my ass. I figured I'd better start smaller and work my way up. I went pretty much the same route as I did earlier in the week but I cut some of it down. I walked my planned route and it actually ended up a little more than the mile and a half that I expected. Let's check it out.

As you can see, I went 2 miles on the nose so I will probably stick to that route for awhile and build up some endurance. It would probably help if I actually walked every day to build that. I headed out the same route for the most part, when I left my apartment though, I walked across the parking lot and walked around the outside of the complex until I got to the entrance and then went across to the neighborhood. I went down, did the 2 loops then came back. When I got back I came in the entrance and hung a right and walked along the outside of the complex again until I got back to my apartment. Like I said, it ended up being 2 miles on the nose so I'll keep that route for awhile.

My speed was down a little which surprised me, I figured a shorter route I would average faster but I guess not. I still did it in 36 minutes which I suppose is alright. It's been about my average lately.

I took this picture on my route so I could see the temperature at the time of my walk, I forgot to do that on the last post but I now see that it actually has the temperature on the map above. I could have used a headband, I had to keep wiping the sweat off my forehead. I plan on walking the next 2 days, we'll see how that goes.

Days walked - 3
Currently miles walked - 7.24 miles
Minutes walked - 2 hrs, 12 minutes

3 miles, barely

If you read my last post, a couple of weeks ago, it said that I was going to try and walk more often. Well, this post is to tell you I went walking again, yeah, first time since then. So much for that. I did go for a 2nd time though, so let's celebrate that.

As my last post said, I was going to go through the neighborhoods across the street so I headed out after a few stretches on the stairs. I actually set a goal this time so I set out trying to accomplish something. I got going and was feeling pretty good, like I was thinking about a slow jog good. That didn't last to long, but I set a decent pace and pushed on. I kind of looped back and forth through the neighborhood and by the time I was heading back up the street that goes into the apartments, I was hurting. I pulled out my phone to see if I was close to my goal and I still had a little less than half a mile to reach it. Damn it! My feet were hurting and my legs were tired but I really wanted to reach that goal. So I did a lap around the apartments and I was still a tad short so I did half of another. I barely made it up the stairs when I got home but I did it, I reached 3 miles!

You see I ended up at 3.17 miles and I did it under an hour. I don't know if that's good or not, but it sounds good to me.

Let's take a look at my route.

I went from my apartment (the flag) and went straight out the entrance and across the street. I took that road all the way to the dead end and followed it to the right and around. Then I stayed on that road all the way to the last road and looped it around which is the 1 mile mark. On that long stretch, I walked by a house where there were 2 huge German Shepherds laying in the front yard and the home owner (I assume) was up on the roof hanging shutters. As I walked by I saw out of the corner of my eye one of the dogs get up and head my way. I didn't think anything of it, I just assumed it would stop at the road and I was on the other side of it. Next thing I know, I feel a nose up my ass, it startled me, not because it was a dog but just because I really wasn't expecting it. I reached around and gave him a quick pet before he trotted back to his yard.

The dark blue is my 1-2 miles track. You can see where I hit the 2 mile mark, Why they can't have another color for the 3rd mile is beyond me. After I looped around after the 2nd mile marker is where I pulled out my phone, hoping I already hit it but I hadn't. I decided to just go back to the apartment anyways. You see in the 2nd picture on the way back where it looked like I was going to go down that road but turned around? I actually was walking that way waiting for traffic to clear so I could cross. I was afraid if I stopped, I may not get it going again. I got into the apartment complex and stayed towards the outside, hoping when I got to my apartment, I'd be done, but I wasn't. I still had .21 miles left at the apartment so I continued on but I moved to the inside of the parking lot once I hit the entrance. You can see I hit the 3 mile just after the entrance, I checked it not long afterwards and you can see when I cut back towards the apartment. At the very end, I cut through apartments just to get back and it was all I could do to make it up the stairs to the apartment. I was wore out.

The first time I walked, I didn't really feel all that horrible when I finished, granted it was over a mile shorter, but this time I was really feeling it. As I type this, 5 hours later, I don't feel too bad. I think I was on the verge of a blister on the ball of my foot when I got home but that is feeling better as well. That might be more my footwear. I wear my sneakers anytime I leave the house, except for work. I've had them for a few years now, I just replace the cushion and arch support occasionally, which I believe is what I need to do.

This app keeps awards, to bad it's not money, I might walk more. Let's see what I achieved on my 2nd walk.I earned 5 but these 3 are the only ones I'm counting. The other 2 was most Calories, which duh, I walked further and one for reaching my goal. Longest distance I already discussed as well as the longest duration so we'll get to the fastest speed. My fastest speed was 4.8 mph which is actually an improvement on my last walk which was only 4.2 mph. If you go back to the top screenshot, you'll see my average pace was 3.0 mph, last time it was 3.2 mph but I'm telling you, I was dragging ass the last stretch so it probably really slowed that one down.

Maybe next time, hopefully there will be another, I'll set my goal at 2.5 miles and work my way up to 3 miles.

I exercised, really, I did

I woke up this morning and my eyes were still tired so I laid in bed for an hour with them shut and just contemplated life. I decided that I need to get my fat ass out and do something instead of sitting all weekend in my recliner. So I got up, popped my contacts in and went for a walk. No special route, just went next door and went around the outside of the parking lot at Walmart. I set my Samsung health tracker thingy on my phone to monitor myself.

One of the reasons I wanted to walk is because I joined a softball team again, although with all the rain, we've had 4 now (I think) get cancelled and I missed 2 because I was out of town on July 4th weekend. The 2 games I did play, I pulled up lame in both of them with my hamstring hurting. I finished both games but it hurt. The last one I really hurt it and I had trouble pitching the last inning. So as you can see, I definitely needed to get into shape. My last game is on Thursday and then that Saturday we have a single elimination tournament, so I could end up playing multiple games. It might be to little, to late, for me to start now but it's not like I can't use the exercise.

There's my map, the flag is  actually my apartment. It only lists 2 laps but I did 3 so I'm not sure if it didn't count one or one is just on top of the other. So I don't know how accurate this is. I plan on going out after work tomorrow and if I do, I think I'm going to go through the neighborhood across the street and I'll be able to tell how accurate it is, at least with my route.

I took these with snapchat because I knew they had these filters. It was a balmy 76 degrees out and sunny and it said my pace was 3.4 mph. Now to look at my final stats.

Technically, I didn't set up a target distance and I got all those trophies because it was the first time I had used the app, so don't think I'm that special. It says I went 2.07 miles in 38 minutes and my pace was 2.3/mph. Doesn't seem that impressive to me so I'm really hoping for some reason it didn't count a lap. That app also has a step counter and it says I only went a little over 4000 steps so I'm thinking it sucks at keeping track. I would think I would have gone more steps than that.

Now let's see if I can actually keep it up.

Weight and hate

So, we were on our way to the grocery store this morning to pick up some groceries. We were talking about how we were both gaining weight. I made the comment how I could feel my gut bounce when we hit bumps in the car. The problem with me losing weight is that I'm lazy. I don't want to change the way I eat, I like what I eat. So my other option is to do something exercise wise. Problem is, as I said, I'm lazy. Anyways,

We get to the store, and start shopping. After the first aisle, you go by the deli/cafe. So I grab a medium box of Hoosier Fries (potato wedges) like I usually do. I usually eat a box of them while I shop. Then we get to the cookie aisle, and I grab a box of Chewy Chips-Ahoy. Like I usually do. As we are exiting the cookie aisle, I see the strawberry wafer cookies and grab a package. I really like them and rarely get them. Further down, I'm grabbing some stuff for my breakfasts at work. I also grab a box of Zinger's for work. As I do, I think to myself, no wonder I'm so fat.

Like I said, I need to do something to work it off. At least start walking or something. It can't be all the crap I eat. Anything but that.

We went to my daughter's choir concert last night. It wasn't bad, the first couple of songs with the younger kids was a little iffy but it got a lot better. The high school kids at the end were pretty good, at least from what I could hear. We sat in the back, because my mom is having knee problems and this way she didn't have to walk any further than she needed to. That was a mistake, through the whole program, 2 idiot teenagers behind us were talking at a normal voice. Constantly, like they were the only ones in the room. On top of that, there was an aisle right behind us and somebody was letting their kid throw a paper airplane up and down it and chase it back and forth. Over by the door, 2 adults stood and talked through most of it and don't even get me started on the door opening and slamming though out the whole performance. My stepfather and Cheri were both at the end of their rope, I kept waiting for one of them to go off on somebody. Cheri was so agitated that it took an hour after the performance before she finally was able to get irritation level down.

I was absolutely disgusted by my fellow community.

Mother's Day

In case you hadn't heard, it's Mother's Day. I've posted about my mother on Mother's Days in the past but that was in 2011 when this blog just started.

We are still doing the same tradition (shocker) of going over to my brothers house and grilling steaks for the mothers and burgers, brats and dogs for the rest of us. I've actually been a little closer to my mom the last year or so because my kids get off the bus at her house so when I get off at work, I just go over there and hang out with her (when she's home) until both kids get home. So we've talked a lot more than in the past, plus I get to complain about work with her because I work where she retired from so she knows who I'm talking about. She's been actively involved with our trying to purchase a home as well as always helping out when we need it. Whether that be keeping the kids so we can go to appointments or even buying my daughter a new bat for softball. So things haven't changed, nor do I expect them to when it comes to my relationship with my mother. I love her and she loves me, that's all anyone can ask for. It's all anyone should need is to know that at least one person will always love them.

My mom, myself and my grandmother.

The 2nd mother in my life would be my wife. She may not get to "mother" her kids much anymore since they are grown and have their own lives but she is a great mother to my 2. She treats them as her own and does anything for them. She has gone above and beyond being just a "step" mother, she is the one raising them and is always there for them. She may have not of birthed them, but she's more of a mother than anyone else.

So to both of the Mother's in my life, happy Mother's Day. You are both loved and appreciated more and more everyday.

A spring Saturday

We started off this morning by heading out to the ballpark to watch Samantha play her 2nd game this season. She's their starting 3rd basemen and lead-off hitter this year. Earlier in the week, she went 2-3 with 2 walks in a 10-6 loss so we were hoping for their first win this weekend. Although, we didn't really expect it because the team we were playing has spanked us for years and that was obvious when they came out with 13 runs in the first inning. After that, they tacked on another 10 runs in the next 3 innings even though they sent their girls up to the plate to practice bunting and some of them even worked on hitting from the other side of the plate. We were completely shut out until the bottom of the 4th when we finally got a run in. Samantha was 1-2 with a hit by pitch. She got popped right in the center of her back in the first inning, she took it well. She didn't even cry although she said she was close to it. So now we're 0-2 on the year, which isn't to hot but it is nice to watch her playing ball again.

After the game, we went home for a quick lunch before heading out to see the new Avengers movie. It was pretty awesome but I think my favorite is still the last Captain America movie. These comic book movies have become our family tradition with me and the kids. We've been going to them all together. We always ask their grandfather to go with us because he likes the comic book movies as well. This time my mom went as well.

After that, I had them drop us off at Walmart so we could pick up some Mother's Day items. We were grabbing some cards and were planning on picking up a gift for Cheri but she was to hard headed to give us any ideas. Anyways, I went to look for some cards and this is what I see.

That was all the Mother's day cards that they had, those 2 little sections and on top of that, right out in the aisle instead of in the card aisles so not only are you fighting all those people to look, your also fighting the people trying to get down the aisle. Why was this section (Mother's Day cards) out in the aisle on the day before Mother's Day?

Because the Father's Day cards section was emptied so they could get filled. They couldn't wait a day or 2 until Mother's Day was over, they had to start the day before. Freaking idiots.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and we will be doing our annual tradition of going to my brother's house for a cookout. All the Mothers are getting steaks while the rest of use are eating brats and burgers. My brother does the grilling while the rest of the kids bring or cook other items. I will be providing Cheri's usual contribution to parties of the Cowboy beans. Basically baked beans with sausage and bacon and then flavored. It's Cheri's recipe and while she normally makes them, being as it's her day, I will be making them, with her supervision of course.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe Mother's day tomorrow.

Rules for Apartment Living

Since people are generally rude and disrespectful now a days, I thought I would post this list of rules for apartment living that I've learned from personal experience.

1. Music - Everybody loves to jam to their tunes, especially on a nice, summer day when you put the windows down and have housework to do. When you have a house, you can do that, because you're not sharing walls with other people. When you're in an apartment, the people on the other sides of your walls, may not want to hear your music, or in our case, feel the bass while we are sitting and enjoying our time home. This rule actually goes in a lot of public places. Don't play music on your phone while in a public place, that's why headphones were invented, so you don't have to disturb the people around you.
2. Parking (A) - There are lines in the parking lot for a reason, use them. Your neighbors have the same limited space that you do, so don't take up 2 spots just because you can't park or because you think your car is better than anyone elses. (B) - Handicap spots are for handicapped people. Just because it's in front of your apartment doesn't mean that it's reserved for you. (C) - Don't take spots that aren't spots. We had someone who thought it was ok to park in front of the mailboxes, even though there were all kinds of spots around.
3. Trash - Take your trash out before it starts to stink. When you share walls with people, you share vents with people. Just because your nose doesn't work, doesn't mean everybody else's does. It's also very white trash (no pun intended) to stack your garbage outside your front door instead of walking it to the dumpster.
4. Smoking Pot - This goes a long with #3. If you want to spoke pot, more power to you, but you better realize that everybody living around you can smell it as well. Pot does not smell good.
5. Kids - Teach your kids that the parking lot is like a road, you look both ways, you ride your bikes on the side and just pay attention. I almost hit 4 or 5 kids a year from them running out between cars and not paying any attention. Even 2 year olds with no parents around anywhere.
6. Dogs - If you want to own a dog, you must realize that you have to clean up after it. The other people around you shouldn't have to watch out for your dogs crap laying all over. If you can't take this responsibility on, then wait until you get a house before you get a dog.

To sum all of this up, it comes down to a couple of words. Respect those around you. You have to realize that, yes, even though this is your home, it is also other people's home and you need to respect them if you want to also be respected.

My Saturday in A2

Yesterday, we (my mom, brother, nephew and I) got together at 7am and headed out to start our day. The plan was to hit some Taco Bell for breakfast before we got on the toll road but for some reason, it wasn't open. So we went high class with some Arby's breakfast instead. Certainly not as good as Taco Bell, but you do what you have to do. After that, we hit the road for our 2 1/2 hour drive to Ann Arbor.

We made good time, as we usually do, with not a whole lot of traffic since we left so early. Once we got there, we pulled around the back of the stadium to find the handicap parking (my mom has a bum leg). Once we get out of the van, we grabbed an attendant and asked where Schembechler Hall was. Apparently, it was quite a ways away and my mom wasn't going to be able to walk it. The attendant was cool and told us to go ahead and drive over (he gave directions) and he would save us a spot at the stadium.

We drove down to the hall and got in line to go through. For those that don't know, Schembechler hall has a kind of museum to Michigan football in it. None of us had ever been and I had read that it was going to be open so we made it part of our day. It was pretty cool, especially seeing all the nostalgic stuff from way back when. There were all kinds of old tickets and programs, along with older jerseys and stuff like that. I was really hoping to see the championship trophies but they weren't there, I'm not sure where they keep those. I took a few photos.

Legends jerseys - #21 Desmond Howard, #87 Ron Kramer, #47 Bennie Oosterbaan, #48 Gerald Ford, #98 Tom Harmon and #11 Francis, Albert and Alvin Wistert.

Desmond Howard's Heisman Trophy and Anthony Carter's MVP Trophy.

A football for every game played. Each ball has the teams logos and the score of every game played in Michigan football history.

After going through Schembechler Hall, we headed back to the stadium.  We got there with a little more than an hour before the actual game. Most of the people there were sitting on the west side of the stadium in the sun, we came out on the east side and there were a lot less people so we went down a bit and took some seats in the shade. I think we ended up in the 39th row on the 40 yard line, pretty good seats. It was very chilly out, just above freezing.

Hour before the game from our seats.

We waited it out for about half an hour and then we were in the sun. It made a difference, although not a whole lot since it was so windy. Before the game started, they were showing pictures on the scoreboard of people who hashtagged #GoBlue on Instagram and Twitter so I posted a picture to my Instagram and 3 of my Twitter accounts to see if I could get it posted up there. It worked, my picture made the board. I'm not much of a selfie person, but I took one anyways.

My selfie made it on the Big House board.

The game wasn't too bad, about what I expected. Very little offense, great defense. After the game when we went to leave, we realized our mistake. You always learn from your first trip (this was our first Spring Game). By parking in the handicap area on the backside of the stadium, it took forever to get out. For one, we needed to get to the other side of the stadium (which is where we normally park for games) and that took 45 minutes. Once we got there and we thought it would be smooth sailing, we figured out why it wasn't. When you go to games, they shut down the north side of traffic on the road that leads to the Interstate so all 5 lanes flow south and it clears out the stadium quickly. Apparently they don't do that for this game. That could be because last years Spring game had a total attendance of 15,000. Well, I guess they didn't think that since it was Jim Harbaugh's first year and the fact that it was an actual game and not a practice, they weren't expecting the 60,000+ people that showed up.

Another tradition of going to Ann Arbor is hitting Joe's Crab Shack because we don't have one near us. We figured, 3:00 in the afternoon, should be in and out. Wrong. It was packed, we had to wait 25 minutes to get a seat and then because it was so busy, everything was slow getting to the table. Food was great, as always and we weren't in a hurry so it was no big deal, just surprising.

With all the delays, I had to push back the time I was picking up the kids from theEx since I wasn't getting into town until the time we were meeting and I have to drive so far to get them again. I got home, went inside to pee and grab my music phone and headed back out to go grab the kids. I finally made it home to my recliner just before 9. It made for a long day but it was enjoyable. It's always good times when my mom, brother and I get together.

Randomness

I've been MIA for a long time now, I haven't really done a whole lot worth talking about but I'm going to try to do some regular updates every so often. Try being the key word there.

Not much going on this Good Friday. The kids went to theEx's last night. I told her she could have them today and tomorrow but they come back tomorrow evening so I can have them for Easter. Then they start spring break next week as well. I don't think I've mentioned that she moved again, she now lives an hour and a half away so I have a 45 minute drive, one way, to meet her on her weekends now. They moved (supposedly) closer to his family and further from hers, which is I'm sure what the JackAss wanted. I imagine, the weekends she takes the kids will get less and less as we go on.

Back to today though. Not a whole lot planned, we need to get some shopping done but Cheri is napping right now because she hasn't been able to sleep worth a crap in awhile. She'll sleep a couple of hours, wake up for awhile, sleep for a couple more. Even the sleep she gets is restless so I don't know if you can count it so sometimes, she has to take a good nap in the afternoons which is what she's doing now. Which gives me time to catch up on some of my recorded sports. Watching the White Sox game from yesterday right now and plan on watching some (depends on how long she sleeps) Bulls games afterwards.

I've been working where I'm at now for over 6 months so the job is going fine. I don't mind the job so I don't hate what I do, I just hate that I have to work, like millions of other people. I would prefer to be rich and lazy instead of broke and lazy.

I have been reading still and have finished some books, I just don't ever take the time to post a review, which is pathetic on my part because it's not like I write out huge reviews. One of these days, I may even update my books page on this blog, maybe.

I haven't only slacked on this blog throughout the last few months, I've let most of my tumblr's go as well so don't be too offended. I have, however, been working on my baseball card blogs. My Sports Obsession has been pretty steady, a few posts a week. My Sports Obsession-Index is a little more sporadic because I've been posting on the next 2 more often. My Personal Collections, where I post pictures of all my cards, tagged with which collection it belongs 2. The goal is to eventually have all my cards posted, I'm still going through My Sports Obsession blog and adding what I've already added there before I can even start posting the newer cards. Last but not least, My Baseball Card Obsession, which is really my newest obsession. Right now, I'm doing the same thing as My PC Collections blog where I'm going through My Sports Obsession and copying stuff over here. The only difference is, on this blog, I'm posting any single card I can find. The majority of the blog right now is cards from My Sports Obsession, but it also has cards from other people's blogs. So eventually, when I get caught up, It'll be a database of a crap load of cards. You can search by player, team, or even the set of the card. When I collected back in the day, I wanted every card that I didn't have, this blog is my way of collecting that way without having to physically purchase every card. You can see why it's my latest obsession.

The usual.

Psst. Over here.

I know you’re not used to seeing anything here. As a matter of fact, my last post was almost a February month ago (25 days). I’ve had stuff to say, but to be honest, I just generally don’t feel like taking the time to say it. The main reason behind this post was because I hit my 4 year anniversary for this blog earlier in the week so I felt obligated to post something. I guess I’ll just update you on what all is going on.

I have the kids this weekend. There were some issues with the JackAss and the way he treats my kids so I took away the every weekend to the state mandatory every other weekend. The kids don’t like seeing their mother less but they say they understand because they can’t stand the JackAss. On top of that, theEx hasn’t worked much since she quit her factory job and has gotten behind on support. In January, she went to the court to get her support lowered but all that did was bring the fact that she was behind to the court’s attention and they scheduled a court date to find out why she is behind. Worse than that, she didn’t show up for court, called and said she couldn’t make it because of the weather. The judge didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t there and charged her with contempt of court and she now has a warrant for her arrest. I haven’t told her, I figure she’ll figure it out when she gets pulled over for something. I did tell her sister, I figured if she wants to tell her, she would. I don’t know if she has or not.

As much as the kids enjoy going to their moms every weekend, I’m pretty sure they’ve enjoyed being home every other as well. Samantha tends to spend the weekends with her friends, she doesn’t get to do that much during the week because of school and her mom lives to far away to do it when she’s over there so she’s been taking advantage of being home.

Trevor is taking advantage of having no sister home by inviting his friends over. They pretty much sit in his room playing Xbox all night long but that’s what boys do. I’m just glad they’ve been hanging out with friends.

I went and watched my niece (technically ex-niece) play basketball. I do love to support the kids in their sports. The bad part is it makes me mad that Samantha quit during tryouts for her school team. I really like watching her play softball, but I was a basketball player and I would have loved to watch her play. I do need to remember to sign her up for softball. I have her set up to go to a softball camp at her school so I’m hoping she’ll get noticed by some of the coaches since she got screwed out of the traveling team. She was just as good as the other girls during tryouts and didn’t make the team. I had other parents tell me that she should have been on it. Hopefully she’ll get a good coach on her team this year.

If you remember, almost a year ago I left my job of 14 years because I hated the swing shift hours they switched to. I got a job where my brother works before getting laid off 5 months later and now work where I do. My brother just informed me last week that his job is switching to the same swing shift hours that I worked at my first job listed. So at this point, I’m glad they laid me off. At my current job, I put in a bid for a different job in a different plant and am waiting to see if I got it. I’m going against 3 other candidates, one of those would be my group leader. While she has way more experience, she has a pretty crappy attitude and she’s been in trouble at work for it so I’m really hoping that counts against her.

Cheri is starting to get going on her annual MS Walk. She always does a bunch of stuff trying to raise money for when we walk. While she gets lots of support from the family as far as them coming out and walking for us, them walking doesn’t help raise money. We’ve asked, but not really pushed that those coming out to raise a little bit of money to turn in. So this year, Cheri is a little bummed and really debating on walking at all. She gets tired of going through all the efforts of raising money and being the only one that does so we’ll see how that turns out.

That’s about all that’s going on over here. We’re trying to stay warm like a lot of the country. I’m going to work every day while the kids get days off all over the place, pansies. Listening to music and reading books. Watching a lot of TV and a lot of sports. The usual.