Sunday Catch-up

I'm still working out. I wasn't as great this past week but I did alright.

Monday (Labor Day) - Road the bike for 15.04 miles

Tuesday - Walked 3.05 miles

Wednesday - Walked 1.55 miles

Thursday - Day off, rain

Friday - Walked 1.54 miles

Saturday - Day off, show day.

Sunday - Biked for 15.07 miles

So not too shabby. I should have walked on Thursday. It rained really hard but it was finished by the time I left work. I was afraid I'd end up on the other side of the lake when it started again and I would have been screwed. Hind Sight says I probably would have been ok.

I unlocked this earlier in the week from the Star Wars Conqueror's Challenge.

Other than that, those have been quiet. Now that I'm doing the biking on the Route 66 one, the Star Wars one has slowed down.

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I started a new blog for myself. I titled it Mental Health. It's a private blog so there won't be an address or anything but it's a place to put my private thoughts about my Mental Health. I've struggled with a few things recently so it's a place for me to unload my feelings.

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Not looking forward to work tomorrow. My partner in crime there has left. She did a lot for me, work and personally. She took a lot of stuff off my plate which allowed me to get a lot of stuff done that I didn't have time for and we made a great team and I'm going to miss that. She was also very good for my head because she was very good at getting me out of bad moods which work tends to put me in. I'd like to think that we were both good for each other in that aspect. So tomorrow starts work life without Lex and I am not looking forward to it.

Throwing out Ideas

I'm trying to come up with some weekly blog ideas. I'm hoping if I can do some of those, maybe it will kick off the blogging juices. I've been kicking around a couple ideas. I like two of them, I'm not sure about the third.

The first one is just a journal kind of post, I'll go through the week on what I did each day. I typed out this week and it's a big post. I'm sure once work fires back up it won't be nearly as wordy.

The second is a rundown of where I've eaten out for the week. I've actually been tracking how good the food and service has been for a couple of weeks so this will go along with those stats, only I'll go into more detail. Kind of yelp reviews of my visits. I mainly started tracking how good or bad these places were because it seemed like for a stretch, there was way more bad than good. So I just wanted to see if that was true or not.

The last one, the one I'm not sure about, was about the music I listened to for the week. I typed out a couple of days and while I think it's interesting, I don't feel like anybody else will. On the other hand, I generally post what I want, I'm not about the likes or whatever. To me, anything I put on the internet is something I want to be on there, something I can look back on when it pops up annually. So I might do that one as well.

I said before that maybe I would do some book reviews when I finish one, that's good for 20 posts or so a year. We'll see what happens. As I said before, once I go back to work, it may all go by the wayside. I should go back and look how many posts I do in January compared to any other month.

I'm back, maybe

Wow! I haven't posted since April. Yet on my sports blog I've posted over 300 times this year. 266 on my random music blog as well but those are pretty quick posts, I don't say much, just post album art, youtube video and lyrics. Says a lot where my priorities are these days. It helps I actually have some followers over at my sports blog as well. Motivates you to do better. Music blog, not so much but I post those for myself.

It's getting towards the end of the year so of course, I have the mindset that I'm going to post here more often. So I'll have a few posts then probably disappear again. At least some things never change, or will it, stay tuned and find out next year, on RTFARG.

I still keep stats every day so maybe I'll get a post or two up after New Years with last years stats. I'm trying to think of some regular posts I can do. About the only thing I can think of at this point is book reviews when I finish one (I only read about 20 books a year anymore) and a post a week running down where I've eaten and if it was any good. The only reason I'm even entertaining that idea is because I started tracking visits to restaurants and if they screwed up at all. I started doing that just to see how often fast food screwed up, to be honest.

I could do a music post weekly, I do still listen to a ton of music. I mean, I could do a TV posts, even movies but I don't watch a ton of those anymore either but I don't feel I have a ton to say about either. Or I could just do 1 post a week about all my stats for the week. I don't know, I'm just throwing stuff out there to see what sticks.

In reality, I'm coming up on the end of the 2nd of 3 weeks off which means I have more time to devote time to this blog. Which is also probably why I tend to say that I'm going to start up again at this time every year. Once work gets fired up again, that usually puts a stop to it.

I don't really have much to say about anything because I'm pretty laid back and just don't care about a whole lot. Do I have opinions? Sure. Do I care about yours? Sure. Am I looking to get into arguments with random strangers? Nope. I don't care about your opinion that much. I don't talk much about work because I don't want to get fired over something I say. Not that I really bitch about work but they can misconstrue something so I don't even go down that road. I already cover sports on my sports blog, see, I just don't have nothing exciting to post about. If it makes you all feel better, I don't post much on my social media accounts either so I can't even pull stuff from there.

Basically, I don't have much of a life to speak of. I could complain a lot about small stuff but nobody wants to hear that all the time and I'm not the type to air my dirty laundry to the internet. I did use to throw stuff up here about my ex and her loser husband but he passed away and now that my kids are older, I never see her. For the record, she rarely sees the kids either so that hasn't changed.

If it was my wife's blog, she'd just post about the dogs all the time so at least you're not getting stuck with that.

I guess I'm done rambling on for now, we'll see where this goes.

We'll see how long this time

Wow! It's been 224 days since I posted last here. I have more going on in my life than I did back then but it still isn't a whole lot. I do actually leave the house more often on the weekends because my cousin moved back up here from North Carolina. We're both into sports cards so we hook up and do related things that I won't get into now because I'm going to try to post more about that when it happens.

Kind of looks like me, if he was fatter.

As far as going on's, the majority of my life is still work, which I won't (can't) post about here. It's going ok, I like what I do and there are days where I feel important in the cog of the machine but there are a lot of things that piss me off as well. My company is a pretty big company and they watch social media, which is why I don't post about work. I'm not really one to bitch about work to the masses anyways. I rarely bitch about work to my wife because I have a 45 minute drive home and I relax and let it all go in that time so by the time I get home, I don't want to talk about it and I've forgotten the majority of it.

Back in our younger days.

My wife and I are still going strong after over a decade (doesn't feel like it's been that long). We have our issues like any married couple does but again, nothing that I would want to post on social media. We both still love each other and enjoy our life together so you can't really get better than that.

Not a good likeness, but it's clipart.

My 19 year old has now moved out and on her own. She's like any typical 19 year old who complains about life but doesn't do any of the steps that she needs to do to improve it. We give her all the tips to help her, she listens intently but never does them. Like I said, typical 19 year old.

My 17 year old is doing great in school. Taking Engineering classes at the career center so we're hoping that's a field that he continues on in college. At this point, we're hoping he just doesn't decide to make the decision to not go to college. He's too smart to waste the opportunity but we know how teenagers make decisions. He's been working for the same fast food place now since he was 16 and he likes it there. He has been promoted to an assistant manager which he enjoys as well.

My other love is music. I love listening to music and do it all the time. You know I'm a stats guy so I can even tell you that I listen to around 1,000 songs a week. Sometimes under a bit, sometimes over. (I'm listening to music now.) So I'm going to try to post something tomorrow, probably music related.

I know I've said it a hundred times, but I'm going to try to be better here. I post almost daily on My Sports Obsession and Random Music so I don't know why I can't do the same thing here. Hopefully, starting tomorrow.

Here's to a new run of posts!

YouTube TV

Wow! It's been over a month since I posted. I started doing a personal (instead of public) journal which has taken away from here but I do type on that daily. I like that I can say whatever I want without having to worry about repercussions. I don't like to talk about work here for a couple of reasons. Because this is public, I don't want to speak bad about work, even if it's about the people I work with, in case my employer does run across it. Not that I would have that much to complain about but you never know. I also don't want a fellow employee run across something that I said about them. I don't ever use names but if it's about them, I'm sure they'd figure it out so I don't say anything. It's kind of the same thing with home. So I always have to be concerned about who sees what so I don't post much. Like I said, it's been nice not having to worry about that.

About a month ago, we finally dropped our cable. TV, not internet. I still have internet through Comcast/Xfinity because they are the best there is, at least around here. We looked at dropping our internet and just using hot spots on our phones for internet at home. Verizon has an unlimited data plan but if you read the small print, it slows down after 15 gb and we use almost that now without using it at home. Like I said though, we dropped the cable TV portion and are using YouTube TV. It saves us about $65/month which in the long run, is quite a bit. We've been using for a month now and are completely happy. There are a few channels that we don't have now but not enough to even be a negative and they seem to be adding channels as they can. The added all the Turner Network (TBS, TNT, ect.) just after we signed up. We can't seem to get the app to work on our Roku that's part of our TV. So we stream it through our phones through the Chromecast to our TV. We had to upgrade our Chromecast because we still had the 1st generation but other than that, it's been fine.

The positives about YouTube TV.

1. You can have up to 5 accounts. Each account is separate so all 5 accounts can record their own shows. Cheri records her shows and I record mine and our shows since we only watch them when I'm home.
2. Unlimited DVR cloud storage for each account.
3. Live TV on over 60 channels. All my local channels are included as well as a whole slew of sports channels. Most of the channels we watched are here as well, like I said above, only a few we watched aren't.
4. The most positive for me is the live sports. That's the whole reason we hadn't cut the cord until now. I can still watch my Michigan games as well as the White Sox. I'm also looking forward to watching the NCAA tourney on my phone at work since they play games all day long in the early rounds.

The negatives about YouTube TV.

1. It records everything. You can't tell it to just record new episodes but it does show new episodes in a different location than the reruns so it's not a very big negative in my book.
2. It doesn't have all the channels we watch but again, not a huge negative because it has most of what we watched. It might be a bigger negative to other people because it depends on what channels you tend to watch.
3. You can't record 1 episode of something. An example is I want to record a regular Big Ten Network show that is doing an episode on the Michigan head coach, but it sets it to record every episode. After that episode airs, I will take it off of recording.

You can take what you will out of the above but those were the positives and negatives that we have noticed.

Starting my weekend

You know if I posted that first thing in the morning that I wanted the day over with. Not to much happened today. I think I got my project finished. I may think of a few things to add but I've got the majority of them finished.

My boss bought breakfast at the local diner. I personally, don't think the food there is all that great but it's a free meal. I'm not turning that down. Maybe next time I'll try something not egg related because I think that tends to be my issue. I think it's more, all you can taste is the egg and not the other stuff mixed in.

That's the 3rd meal that's been bought for me this week. I appreciate the generosity but I feel bad that I can't afford to buy for everyone and pay it back. I mean, I could, but that takes away a bill that was going to get paid this week. It's not exactly cheap to buy that many meals.

One thing I do like about working Satuday's, other than the paycheck, is the lack of traffic on the roads. It makes for a pleasant drive.

Haven't done much since. I've been online, I got completely caught up on my Day in the Life of journal so now I can just do one day at a time. If you don't remember what that is, it's where I'm creating my own kind of timehop for all my accounts on one page. I wanted to get that done so I can work on some of my card blogs tomorrow.

We were going to meet our oldest daughter tomorrow so she could get Milo back but Cheri ended up meeting her boyfriend half way today while I was at work so now I get to hang out and do nothing tomrrow and that's right up my alley.

New Year, New Post

Another new year has come and once again, I'm promising to post more. Not that that has worked the last few years, but there you go. You got 2 posts today so that's a good start, right?

2017 had some ups and downs. I had the thought to go to Facebook and go through the last year to post the ups and downs but to be honest, I don't put my stuff out there, which tends to be the problem with me posting on here. So I guess I'll try to figure it out by memory but I'm old so it isn't all going to be there either.

• My ex finally got arrested for something so she's been drug to court for her lack of child support. That was early last year and I still haven't seen hardly anything. The court hasn't done a damn thing for me and I'm the custodial parent. More proof that Father's have no rights when it comes to their children.
• We found out our youngest daughter has been self harming herself and may have some psychological issues. She is currently going to therapy but a psychiatrist takes a few months to get into because they're just isn't very many of them.
• Our youngest daughter is also 15 now which means she has been learning to drive and has her permit. Although with all the snow lately, she hasn't been able to get out to much but she won't turn 16 until July so she'll have plenty of time to catch up in the spring.
• I started a new job in September which has been going very well. Technically, it's a new position as it's the same company but at a different plant. It's the highest paid job I've ever had (which isn't saying much) and hopefully sometime this month, I should have my own lab.
• Our oldest daughter graduated from college and is now living in Indianapolis. She's still looking for a job in her field but is carving a nice life for herself down there.
• Our oldest son and his girlfriend have moved into their own place. She has 2 children so it's the closest we are to having grandchildren at this point. My wife communicates with them all the time.
• Our youngest son signed up for a academic team, we haven't seen yet what will become of it but I'm excited for him. He's only 13 and it would be great for him.
• I had to have my gall bladder removed in October after a painful trip to the emergency room. My first surgery since getting my knee scoped way back in high school.
• Cheri hasn't had a great year as far as her MS goes. She's had a few flair ups which has caused some numbing sensations and more pain.
• We just celebrated our 2nd year in our new home and are still in love with it. Love being out of the apartment. Love having a garage and we love our neighborhood.

As you can see, there's been some ups and downs. While it may seem like the downs are more significant, I think all in all, we're doing well. We're happy and that's all we can ask for.

What's to come

I know I haven't been around, stuff has happened, I just haven't blogged about it. Nothing serious or anything, just things I would have blogged about.

At this time of the year, I tend to start thinking, what other stats can I keep track of next year? If you followed me for over a year, then you know at the first of the year, I post a stats post on the things I've done this year. I haven't really thought of anything to add yet so we'll see.

I also think, should I start other blogs? If so, what would they consist of? Like I don't have enough of them to do now. I don't know why I do but I usually start a couple a year, some of them I keep up, some of them I delete after a few months or so. As of now, the only blog I'm thinking about adding is maybe a duplicate of one I already run, only on Tumblr. Again, we'll see.

I've also been thinking about making more of a commitment to this blog. Even if it's just a what I did today kind of posts. For one, they would go right along with another project that I started earlier this month. Do you know what Timehop is? It's basically that, only I've added all my stuff to it and put it on a spreadsheet.

Here's todays for example.

What you can't see is I also have a column for who I was with, where I was and city and state. I think eventually, I'll try to add photos and such with it. Even the ones back in the 80's were marked with the date. So as you see, even if I just post what I did that day, it'll go right along with that. 

I have a few more days before January 1st to figure it out so we'll see what I stick with and what I don't.

State of the Blog

I know, I've gone missing again. I'm still doing the walking thing as far as keeping track of my steps. I haven't, however, been very good at going out walking after work. I've been doing just enough to get my 8,000 during the week. I've been working a little more which was partly the cause but truth be told, if I had the motivation, I could have gone for at least a lap in the neighborhood most days.

I want to post here more often but to be honest, I don't have much to talk about. My life is pretty boring. For the most part, I work and sit around and home, that sums up the majority of my days. I don't like to talk about work here because I've seen to many people get fired for posting on social media about work. If I was completely anonymous, I would take the chance but I'm not. I don't even post on my personal Facebook about work even though it's set at Friends Only. I'm not one to talk a lot about work anyways. I generally forget about work when I'm not there. I come home, talk about it for a few minutes with my wife and then I'm done. I don't know why people carry that baggage home with them every night.

At home, I sit around and watch TV and play around on my laptop. I'm usually working on my baseball card blogs as I'm trying to log in every card I own, along with photos and descriptions so needless to say, that takes a long time. I've been working at that for over a year now. Most days I just log in what I got that day and then my weekends I tend to go nuts and spend hours working on them. This weekend I didn't as I drove up to Ann Arbor (2 1/2 hours, one way) for the Michigan spring game so that took up my whole Saturday. Sunday was Easter and I spent most of the day at my moms so I haven't done much of anything this past weekend.

I used to do a lot of posts about music but I have a whole blog for my music now. I also used to post about theEx and the JackAss (click the labels on the right side) and for the most part, I don't deal with them much. The kids are older now and have their own cell phones so she usually contacts them and asks if they can come over. She hasn't paid support in 3 years so I make her pick them up and drop them off here so I don't have to deal with waiting on her at a meeting place anymore. My daughter just says what she wants to her so I don't have to stand up for the kids when they are over there anymore. So that topic has also fallen by the wayside. I still read but it's down to less than a book a week because of my job change (I only read on breaks at work) so technically, I could still blog about that but it still wouldn't be often.

   

Last night, I read where a blogging friend of mine found some writing prompts to try to get herself writing some more. I've done the A to Z Challenge for a couple of years but I just don't like being told I have to post 6 days a week. The 2013 one I had the kids write down a word and wrote about it, 2014 I did my music tracks but again, I have a whole blog for my music now.

So I googled blog writing prompts and started taking a few off of a couple of lists and was making a list of my own but then I came across a list with over 600 prompts on it. I said, screw my list and just bookmarked that page. Now my goal will be to just random that page, and write about what comes up. I won't be posting daily by any means but I will post more often. I would like to do a couple a week, at minimum.

Plus, with blogging every few days, I can update the walking stats on the bottom of those posts so there's that as well.

So that's a state of the blog kind of post to let you all know what's going on here. Let's see how well I keep to it, that will be the real challenge.

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.

New Years–2014 Review, part 2

Check out my last post if you haven’t already to see the first part of my 2014 review. Todays part is all be about my blogs and my social media/internet habits.

The other stat I kept last year, and continued this year was how many words written on this blog, let’s take a look as compared to previous years.

As you can see to the left, I posted 35 less posts this year. I was probably on pace to get 200 or so again but the last 3 months only had 3 posts each. I just haven’t been in the blogging mood. The only reason I got as many posts as I did was because for a couple of months, I was blogging a journal entry every day.  I did reach 300,000 words on my 594th post in August of this year and up until this post, I’m showing 634 posts with a total of 321,709 words. I’m not really sure what will become of this blog since I rarely use it anymore. I would like to use it more but I just don’t really have much to say. I seem to be using my tumblr blogs more often, because I don’t really have to say anything. I just repost or post pictures that I enjoy.

We’ll start off with my blogger blogs. Yes, I have more than 1.

• 137 posts in 2014
• 8 additional followers in 2014
• 46655 pageviews in 2014

This blog is sports card related. Mainly baseball cards (yes, I collect them).

• 1192 posts in 2014
• 0 additional followers in 2014
• 2957 pageviews in 2014

This is essentially an index of all sports related pictures that I’ve posted to all of My Sports Obsession related blogs and sports related Pinterest boards. I haven’t advertised yet until I get caught up with all my previous posts so that’s why the stats aren’t really anything.

• 164 posts in 2014
• 5 additional followers in 2014
• 28709 pageviews in 2014

I’m hoping I don’t need to explain this blog, since you’re on it now.

• 26 posts in 2014
• 693 pageviews in 2014

This isn’t actually my blog, but I guest post on it. I post anytime I get any University of Michigan related sports cards. I don’t keep track of followers since it isn’t my blog and the stats I have above are related to my posts only.

My next set of blogs are all tumblr blogs. I’m more seen on these because I can queue them up on the weekends to run all week. Plus I don’t have to type anything out, just post or repost pictures.

• 345 posts in 2014
• 1 additional follower in 2014
• 4 likes or reblogs in 2014

I post a lot of different stuff but it’s mainly TV and movie posts. I also post my Last Song of the Day on most days there as well.

• 436 posts in 2014
• 40 additional followers in 2014
• 1133 likes or reblogs in 2014

On this blog, I post, obviously, cats. Every 5th post is a picture of my kitty. Lots of funny cat gifs.

• 589 posts in 2014
• 30 additional followers in 2014
• 91 likes or reblogs in 2014

On this blog, it’s sports, all the time. Lots of White Sox and Colts but also a lot of other stuff. Including vintage sports photographs. NBA, NFL, NCAA and MLB.

• 518 posts in 2014
• 58 additional followers in 2014
• 292 likes or reblogs in 2014

This blog is all Michigan Wolverines. A lot of sports but non-sports also, anything related to the University of Michigan.

Now on to my Twitter stats, and again, yes, I have more than 1. Twitter is annoying in the fact that I have to have a different email address for each account. Unlike blogger and tumblr, where you can just log on once and click which blog you want.

• 4835 new followers in 2014
• 587 tweets in 2014
• 131 retweets or favorites in 2014

This is my main and personal account. I tweet out links to my blog posts from this blog and my A Day in the Life of a Nobody blog as well as personal tweets. My Instagram usually posts here as well.

• 4441 new followers in 2014
• 626 tweets in 2014
• 212 retweets or favorites in 2014

The only thing that gets tweeted out here are blog posts from the Cats Are Cuter blog up above and once in awhile, I’ll retweet Instagram pics of my kitty.

• 4320 new followers in 2014
• 959 tweets in 2014
• 117 retweets or favorites in 2014

This blog goes along with the 2 My Sports Obsession blogs listed above as well as I tweet out any sports related tweets that I may have, such as games I’m watching and such.

• 4199 new followers in 2014
• 426 tweets in 2014
• 60 retweets or favorites in 2014

This blog goes along with the Michigan related blogs above. I also tweet out personal stuff that’s related to the school such as when I’m watching their sports or any other related tweets I may have.

Since we’re already on social media, we’ll continue with that.

• 2603 things pinned (17 different boards).
• 56 status’ posted in 2014
• 88 other things posted in 2014
• 50 personal photos posted in 2014

These stats are from my personal facebook page. As you can see I don’t really post a whole lot compared to a lot of other people.

• 50 posts to Instagram

• AOL – 2422 read emails
• Gmail – 5187 read emails
• GMX – 660 read emails
• Hotmail – 1370 read emails
• Yahoo – 3259 read emails

Yes, I have 5 email accounts. That’s because of stupid Twitter who you have to have a different email address for each account. The Gmail is the one I use for personal stuff which is why it has more and the yahoo one is the one I use to sign up on websites and newsletters and such.

I guess I should have put this on part 1 since it isn’t really internet related. Oh well.

• 610 incoming minutes used
• 766 outgoing minutes used

I have no idea how those are so high because I rarely talk on the phone. I round up so if it was a 10 second phone call, it gets counted as a minute so that’s part of the reason.

• 2903 texts that were alerts of some kind.
• 11992 incoming and outgoing texts that were to people I know personally.

I get alerts from my bank, the local sherriff’s department and Google calendar alerts. As well as some others but those are the only ones I can think of at the moment.

The majority of the personal texts are to Cheri, my mom, my brother and Samantha.

 

So there you go, those are my stats for 2014. Why were you a slacker and not keep stats?

The year in review

I’ve seen a couple of these posts going out and I thought I would try my hand at one.  A year in review for myself.  I’m going through my Facebook and my blog and see what was going on, month to month.

If I recall correctly, we were buried in snow most of the month. We were still enduring the worst winter we’ve had in awhile.  Piles and piles of snow all season long along with much colder than normal temperatures and I mean freezing temperatures. Multiple days below 0° kind of freezing.

Both kids were awarded honor roll this month, between the 2 of them, they had all A’s and 1 B.  Boy have things changed.  While Trevor still keeps straight A’s, since Samantha started Junior High, her grades have slipped and has even lost her phone for having a failing grade at times.

Went to a Notre Dame hockey game with my stepfather, had a good time, it was a really nice arena. They were playing Lake Superior State but that didn’t stop me from wearing my Michigan Wolverines hat and sweatshirt.

My wonderful wife created our new T-shirts for our annual Walk MS walk.

I had 25 blog posts in Jaunary, only 5 weren’t reviews of some kind. 2 bitching about theEx, 1 plugging my social media accounts, 1 about our kitty and 1 teasing my daughter about taking her to the daddy/daughter dance.

Had my first daddy/daughter dance. I had a great time watching Samantha be so happy with her friends. I even danced all the slow songs, and 1 upbeat one, although I’m not sure you would call that dancing. I look like an idiot all dressed up.

Samantha’s first basketball season is underway. I loved watching her play, too bad she quit this year, she says she’ll play next year but we’ll see.

We switched to AT&T from Verizon in order to save $100 a month on our bill. I knew the service wasn’t as good but with the money we could save, we thought it was worth it.

One of my favorite pictures of Samantha and I.

17 blog posts in February but only 3 were non reviews.  I didn’t realize exactly how many reviews I did on my blog at the time.  Out of the 3 non reviews posts, 2 were random posts and 1 about the daddy/daughter dance.

The only thing worth mentioning that took place in March was I left a job that I had for over 14 1/2 years. While I still liked what I did at that job, I absolutely hated the hours that they changed to a couple of years before. I’d work 12 hour days but that wasn’t the had part, between the getting off at 7 pm on the days I worked and the schedule is what did it. This was my schedule for 2 weeks, then it would repeat. Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday.  It sounds great having all that time off, but working every other weekend sucked almost as bad as getting off work at night instead of midafternoon.

I started my new job this month as well. A job I thought I would probably have until I retire.

I had 11 posts in March on this blog and only 4 were actual posts. One about quitting the job and one about Jelly Beans (exciting stuff) and 2 in preparation for the A to Z Challenge.

I saw Captain America: the Winter Soldier in the theaters. The first time of 3 in the theaters, I rented it once also, I really liked it.

I did the A to Z Challenge in April for the 2nd year in a row. This year I went through my playlist “Anything & Everything” on Spotify. I had fun doing it but it took a lot more time than I thought it would. It was probably the only month I had interaction with my followers, I don’t get to many comments, which is a given considering I don’t post much.

I had 27 posts in April but most of those were A to Z related.

One of my favorite all time shows came back for a short season, Jack Baur was a badass on 24.

Other than the usual holiday traditions for Mother’s Day and Memorial Day, nothing too exciting.

I had 12 posts in May, most of those were journal entries, which I abandoned on doing them after about a week.

Both kids ended the year with straight A’s again. Samantha had perfect attendance while Trevor only had 1 missed day.

I’ve been golfing a lot more so I got an early Christmas gift from my mom.

The new job allows me to do this since I now get off work at 2 in the afternoon.

I only had 1 post in June and it was a randomness to catch up on what I’ve been doing. Which wasn’t much.

I started my new (private) blog “My Life”, I started at 5/22/08. I believe now I’m up to April of 2011 so I still have a ways to go. I’ve been slowly getting there. Maybe by this time next year, I’ll be at our current date.

My cousin (whom I grew up with) came up from North Carolina on July 4th. I don’t get to hang with him very often so it’s always an event when the 4 of us cousins can get together.

Not a lot happened in July, Trevor had his scout camp and Samantha volunteered to help so they went every day for one of the weeks.

34 posts in July because I was still doing the journal entries. Which means I know what I did every day of that month and still have little to say about July.

Samantha did her walk through and the kids started school in August. Samantha’s first year as a Junior Higher. Trevor has one more year of Intermediate school before he advances.

Took the kids to the Hall of Heroes comic book museum towards the end of the month. I had a blast seeing all the old toys as well as one of the actual shields used in the first Captain America but autographed by the cast of the 2nd Captain America movie. Not to mention the bat suit that Adam West wore during his time as Batman.

Trevor had his birthday party at the (not really local) laser tag place. He had a blast as did all the other kids. It’s always nice when I can do these kinds of things for them. Of course, it’s usually because my mom helps out with the cost.

We switched back over to Verizon this month. They finally lowered their plans and since we still had our Verizon phones from before, we didn’t have to buy any new ones. Although I did anyways because I like having the latest technology.

34 posts in August, but like last month, that’s because I was still doing the journal entries.

They opened the Taco Bell next door. If you know me, then you know that’s a big event in my life.

I got laid off of my job, which I had left my other job for. Wasn’t too happy about that after leaving a job I had for over 14 years.

Had to start taking Samantha to their high school football games so she could hang with her friends (and boyfriend) on Friday nights. She’s starting to get a social life which means I have to do more driving her around.

Took Samantha to her first Michigan game at the Big House. It was a great day just hanging out with her and I think she had a great time. It would have been better had Michigan actually played instead of laying down dead, but other than that, it was a good time.

12 posts in September. I stopped with the daily journal entries and went to a weekly, eventually those will stop to.

I started a new job. I’m working where my mom did before she retired. It’s been OK, the job isn’t bad and I’m more relaxed than I was at the previous one, everything was so uptight there. This job is a lot more laid back.

Samantha’s first Choir concert. These have been awesome, not really, but it’s an obligation and Samantha seems to enjoy it.

Cheri and I celebrated our 4th anniversary.

My mom signed up Samantha for the Michigan’s women’s basketball camp and it was towards the end of the month so I drove her up there for a few hours to work with the ladies. It was a good time and my first time in the Crisler Arena.

Only 3 posts in October.

Not too much happened this month. Thanksgiving was good since a couple of uncles came into town who I never see. One lives in Texas, the other in California. I saw them a few times since they were both here for around a week.

3 posts in November, 2 of those being journal entries.

Samantha spent the first couple of weeks grounded from her phone due to her grade in Math class. I don’t think she even cared. She is so my daughter and my mom loves it.

My mom, Samantha and I all went up to Ann Arbor to watch our first women’s basketball game. It was a great time.

Only 3 posts in December (including this one). I haven’t been a very good blogger the last couple of months.