Best of 2012

I decided I would throw out a little “Best of 2012” post.  I think I will pick my top 5 favorite posts and have a top 5 by page views but I will have to alter that list because my most viewed post isn’t technically mine.  I copied it over from FuriousFanBoys site back before I had no followers so I didn’t think much of it.  I gave them credit for it so don’t think I played it off as mine, but it’s got girl pictures of hot aliens and they get Googled image searched all the time, so I’ll leave that one out.  As well as my 4th highest for the same reason, I didn’t write it.

My Top 5 by page views

5.  Does a Superhero Have BO? (8/4/12)– Rolling in at #5 is a post about my lack of body odor.  I’m glad it’s lack of instead of too much.  I wrote this post trying to figure out what my superpower is.  I think I found it, but I don’t think it’s going to help me save anyone or anything.

4.  Chase Fridge (10/1/12) -  This post is how my mom got a 2nd fridge at her house that we use for drinks.  Doesn’t sound very exciting, but trust me, it involves a felony.

3.  WTF Did They Just Say? (5/24/12) – I had planned on making these a regular thing on this blog but it hasn’t worked out as well as I thought it would.  But apparently this one went well.  This is kind of a special edition because it’s all about showing how idiotic my Ex wife’s husband is.  Go check it out and you’ll see how he earned his nickname on this blog – the JackAss.

2.  My Kind of Humor (7/22/12) – It doesn’t say much for my writing ability that my top 2 posts have very little words in it.  This post only has 163 words because it’s mainly humorous pictures, hence the title.  It probably has more hits because of Google Image searches.

1.  Not Another Chick-Fil-A Post (8/5/12)– This is funny that this is #1 because it has 77 words typed on it.  It’s a video of the local newscast that did a story on the whole Chick-Fil-A fiasco and they interviewed what they thought was a gay couple, but in actuality, they interviewed my daughter’s boyfriend and another friend.

My Personal Top 5

5.  GREAT Grandparents (4/9/12) – Half this post was about our Easter day but I end up talking about my grandparents.  About how much I love them and just how awesome they are.

4.  Genetic Disaster (3/3/12) – This was a rundown of my wife’s medical issues.  Genetic Disaster is the nickname her daughter branded her with.

3.  People NEED to Change (4/23/12) – It’s either about me being antisocial or it’s about people being dicks.  Or both.  You decide.

2.  Letter to Myself (7/19/12) – Now that I had a 17 year old in the house and I see the stupid stuff she does, I decided to write a letter to my 17 year old self.  It also makes me realize that I did a lot of the same stupid stuff.

1.  The Year My Life Changed Forever (7/15/12) – This was actually a repost from My Sports Obsession.  It was the one that got this blog going again.  I try to figure out if the death of my father was the reason I started collecting which would be why it was posted on my sports blog.

 

Now that I’ve done this post, I realized I haven’t posted anything I deem worthy since July.  What a depressing best of.

It’s true, I’m a Trekkie

I’ve been on a big Star Trek kick as of late.  The SyFy channel has been playing them all week but out of order, not sure why.  I recorded them and for the most part have watched them in order.  I recorded the first one (The Motion Picture, 1979) and the fourth one (The Voyage Home, 1986) last weekend, not realizing they were going to do a marathon the next weekend.  But I watched those 2 during this past week, and then sat down and watched a bunch on Christmas Eve (The Wrath of Khan (1982), The Search For Spock (1984), The Final Frontier (1989), The Undiscovered Country (1991) and Generations (1994).  I’m currently watching First Contact (1996) and still have Insurrection (1998) on the DVR.  I’m going to have to find Nemesis (2002) somewhere else apparently.

I wasn’t sure when they released the new Star Trek (2009) on how well I liked the idea they were re-releasing it.  But after seeing it, I was impressed.  I liked it.  And now they are getting ready to release the 2nd of the new series, Into the Darkness (2013) and I’m pumped.  I may even take my cheap ass to the theaters to see it.  I know most of you knew I was into Star Wars, but I’m really a Trekkie before that.  The problem I had before, was I never got into all the subseries on TV.  I loved the original Star Trek from the late 1960’s and 1970’s.  I’ve even contemplated going back on Netflix and watching all of them.  My wife will love that.  For those that don’t know, the last few movies involve the cast & crew of the TV series The Next Generation.  I never hated the other TV series, but I never got into them.  Now that I’m watching the movies over again, I may have to go back and watch whatever series are on Netflix.  I’ve ignored the itch for far too long, thanks to the SyFy channel, my love for Star Trek is back, I should have known to ignore it, after all, resistance is futile.

Christmas Randomness

Tomorrow’s Christmas (maybe today depending how long it takes me to post this, I keep getting sidetracked, stupid facebook.).  Plans are, get up and have our family Christmas with the kids, then head on over to my mom’s for lunch.  It used to be the whole family, but it seems one part of the family doesn’t want to hang with us anymore.  They keep bowing out of the holiday get togethers because they want to celebrate with just their family.  I understand the thinking, but wonder if they realize how it makes everyone else feel considering the holiday family get togethers have been going on as long as I can remember.  What makes it worse is when they post a status like this.

Now, she’s referring to her family in North Carolina but I just wanted to post a reply “funny, because you have family here that you apparently don’t want to be with.”  Like I said above, I understand the thinking.  But Christmas morning is all about your (household) family.  Then lunch time is supposed to be all about the rest of your family.  Plus you have all of Christmas Eve with your immediate family.  Why they can’t take a few hours at lunch to hang out with the rest of the family is beyond me.  But whatever, I don’t want to hang out with your Notre Dame loviing asses anyways.  Besides, it just means he has to wait to get his $20 for making the 2nd round of the playoffs in fantasy football.

We saw this at the Hallmark store last week.  For those that are new around here, Samantha would be my daughter’s name, and Christopher would be a friend of ours, kids name.  So I showed the picture to Sam and asked her if there was something I need to know.  She didn’t find that amusing, especially since I teased her for 2 days.  What’s a dad for?

You see this lovely thing, it’s a Christmas Countdown Clock.  It’s pretty cool and the kids have enjoyed it this year.  Of course, I have to keep breaking up arguments between them.  “But dad, it says there’s 5 days left, it’s counting down to Christmas Eve”  “No, it’s not.  It’s counting down to midnight on Christmas eve, which is technically when Christmas day starts.”  “But it says 5 days and today’s the 19th, that’s 6 days till Christmas.”  “Do you not see the numbers after the 5 days, those would be hours, minutes and seconds.  Add all those up and it equal’s another day”.  The argument got old, apparently they couldn’t quite get it.

But you know what’s best about this particular countdown clock?  Cheri won it free.  She signed up when she was in the Hallmark store a few weeks ago and they called her and said she won it.  She thought she had won a countdown to Christmas ornament.  So imagine her surprise when she shows up and they hand her a pretty big box and she opens it up to that.  She googled and it runs $150.  She says that the most expensive item she has ever won.

The only negative I have with it is the snow has glitter on it.  Stupid glitter.  If I want glitter on myself, I’ll go to the strip club.

Looks like we are going to have our White Christmas after all, it snowed a few days ago and some of the snow is still left.  But it’s not on the roads which is the best kind of snow.  In case I don’t get around to getting on tomorrow, everyone have a Merry Christmas.  Have a safe and happy holiday.  Enjoy your family and friends.  I don’t have a Track of the Day for you but I’ll leave you with my favorite Christmas album.

Weekly Catch-Up

She’s 17 and not a very safe driver.  As are most teenagers.  But she made if safely even with her mother and grandmother worrying about her.  Last I heard, she’s coming back the day after Christmas so they’ll have to worry another day.

I got tagged at Walmart, so embarrassing.  We pretty much were done with Christmas shopping last Wednesday but I did pick up one small item for Samantha’s stocking tonight so technically we weren’t done.

I stayed up really late and missed work the next day because I partied like the world was ending.  Not really.

Apparently they had a carry in at work on Friday.  But nobody told me so I didn’t bring anything in or donate money for $5.  I went to break at noon and everyone was in there pigging out.  Since our work didn’t provide us with one, the employees took it upon themselves to have their own.  Or at least almost all the employees.  I love being invisible at work, I knew I was to management, I didn’t realize I was to everyone.

There were 22 Tweets from the last one on last week’s Weekly Catch-Up but they are all being posted elsewhere on this page.  Some in the Facebook section, some in the Instagram section and a bunch in the Tumblr section.  But here’s the one that wasn’t used anywhere else this week, and it’s from today

How could you not tweet that, Colts baby!

The only picture I took this week, the caption – Screw them and them not inviting me. I'm stealing a cupcake.  I went back on my next break and there were a couple of these left and nobody was around so I ate one.

The evolution of phones from 3 major brands.

A cross between Star Wars and James Bond with Han Solo.

I loved the X-files.  It was the first good Sci-Fi show since Star Trek.  I watched them all from the beginning.

The Return of the Jedi poster.  I want to say this looks familiar from back when it was in the theaters.

Finished this yesterday, I enjoyed it.  I usually do when they have a religious tone to them.  This is more of a supernatural sci-fi kind of book but it spoke of religion a little bit.  It has to do with a special team of the Knights of Templar and battling a Necromancer who uses demons and such to try to get ahold of the spear that stabbed Jesus on the cross.

I just started this today so not much to say yet.

To see what I’m doing, go check out the first part of this post, 

I got down to the final 15 songs this morning, let’s see how they playlist finished out.

• 15.  Barracuda (Heart)
• 14.  With You (Linkin Park)
• 13.  Another Sad Love Song (Toni Braxton)
• 12.  Angel (Aerosmith)
• 11.  Lucky (Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat)
• 10.  Best of You (Foo Fighters)
• 9.  I Will Be Here For You (Michael W. Smith)
• 8.  Footloose (Kenny Loggins)
• 7.  Tennessee (Arrested Development)
• 6.  Day Tripper (Beatles)
• 5.  Wonderful (Everclear)
• 4.  Glitter in the Air (P!nk)
• 3. You’re the Inspiration (Chicago)
• 2.  No Diggity (Blackstreet & Dr. Dre)
• 1.  Just The Two of Us (Will Smith)

So out of all the music on my playlists (946 tracks) the last 2 songs are my 2 least used genres, rap and hip hop or whatever they call it now.  I’m now listening to my All Items 2 (where I transferred what I already listened to on All Items) but I’m starting at the top, and making my way down.  Since they got moved in order that they were played on random, they are all mixed up to begin with.  So I’ll go through the whole playlist before starting again on random and doing what I did here.

         

Taken, the Amityville Horror, Seeking a Friend for the end of the World

         

the Truth About Cats & Dogs, the Incredible Hulk, Keeping the Faith

Randomness

My day started in a hurry this morning.  My alarm went off in it’s usual fashion.  It starts off vibrating and the song (Star Wars theme) starts quietly and gradually gets louder.  I got up and shut it off just as it was starting to get loud.  That’s about when I usually wake up, Cheri wakes up as soon as the vibrating starts.  It’s got to suck being such a light sleeper, I must say.  Anyways, when I shut the alarm off, I noticed it said 6:25.  Now I used to get up at 6:25 before it got cold.  Now I need the extra ten minutes to get the car defrosted.  But I couldn’t figure out why it went off at 6:25 instead of 6:15.  I have my phone (alarm) plugged in across the room because if it’s next to the bed, I will gradually learn how to shut if off before I even awake so I have to make myself get out of bed to shut it off.  So I know I didn’t snooze it, plus, like I said, Cheri is a light sleeper and she would have remembered me getting up.  So I checked my alarms to see if I clicked on the wrong one or something.  As you can see from the screen cap on the left, none of my alarms are even set for 6:25.  You can also see pretty much my whole schedule.  The 6:15 alarms are for when I’m going to work and the 7:00 alarms are my off days and I take the kids to school.  You see where 2 are labeled Week 1 and 2 care labeled week 2.  Every Sunday night, I switch between the weeks.

I guess I shouldn’t complain, it could have been worse had it been so late that I couldn’t get to work in time.  I did make it in plenty of time, you can see the time at the top right. I took the screen cap in the parking lot at work. I sit in my car until the clock in my car reads 7:00, then by the time I walk in and get clocked in, it’s still usually 6:56. The difference between my phone and the time clock is 4 minutes and my car is 4 minutes faster. That’s great in the morning, but when I get off work and by the time I get to the car, it reads over 10 minutes after.  Luckily, the car wasn’t frosted over so I didn’t have to scrape my windows this morning.  Just a few minutes to get the oil flowing and off I went.  My car heats up quicker when it’s moving anyways.

But after all that talking above, I still have no idea why it went off at 6:25.  I must have needed the extra 10 minutes of sleep.

The kids went back to their mom’s on Friday after school.  I’m not sure if it’s what happened a week ago or what, but I miss them more than usual.  Now that I think about it, I’m glad they were home last weekend, otherwise this might have hit a lot sooner and harder.  It would have sucked if I had to send them to their mom’s right after the tragedy in Connecticut.  I guess it’s more of a control thing since when they are here, they tend to hide in their bedrooms most of the time.  At least here, I know exactly where they are.  For the most part, they are safe with her.  But I know she leaves them home alone at times and let’s Samantha ride in the front seat so I’m not completely comfortable with them being there.  But the percentage is low that something will happen and I can’t do a damn thing about it anyways.  They will be back Christmas Eve and be with me on Christmas day but I did give her permission to take the kids to the JackAss’s family in the evening.  It’s a 2 hour drive so she’s picking them up at 3:30 and then she’ll keep them through Friday and I’ll have them for the weekend and probably most of the following week.  I’m already looking forward for them to come home on Monday night.

I’ve been going to town on my Spotify tournament.  I’ve been listening to a bunch of tracks.  Of course, it has nothing to do with a tournament, but rather just making sure I get to hear each of the songs on my playlists.  But it has kind of become a tournament in my head.  I’m going to write down the last 10 songs and see which one gets played last, kind of a winner.  I know, it sounds stupid, but when I was growing up, I used to put stuff in brackets and just roll dice to see who wins each bracket and see who the winner is.  Usually in March or April, not sure why.  Ok, I know why, but do you?  I’ve only got 16 tracks left to play.  I suppose I could just use the 16 and do a countdown.  The question is, do I do a whole post with it, or just add it to tomorrow’s weekly catch-up post, if I get around to doing one.  Not that any of you care, but I do and it’s my blog so bite me.  I do periodically tweet what I’m listening to or when I add songs to my other playlist at my other Twitter account – @DailyJLaws13 in case you want to follow along.  Don’t worry, I don’t post 80 songs a day, just every so often if a song tickles my fancy.  It’s usually tweeted with a link so you can listen as well.

I don’t know how much I’ll be around with the holidays coming up at the beginning of the week but I’ll try to get out a post on Monday, if for anything, just to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  I don’t want to promise anything because sometimes I just do this when I know I should blog.

Time for Lipo

I came to a realization today.  I’m fat.  I know what your thinking,

• Duh!
• Do you not have mirrors?
• Have you seen yourself eat?
• Have you not noticed you block the sun?
• Or noticed it’s been years since you’ve seen your penis?

Ok, maybe not all those.  But seriously, I’ve seen the signs the last few weeks but have tried to blame it on other things.  Like my clothes shrinking, my new clothes they were just making them smaller than they use to and 12 hours at work is getting to me.  But today, at work, I was walking by our industrial sized scale and I figured it could handle my weight, so I went ahead and climbed aboard.  My first reaction – HOLY F***ING SH*T.  Now before I show you the number that came up, remember that I had my work uniform on (that’s at least 4 pounds), plus it has a patch with my name on it (another pound), steel toed boots (10 pounds), I haven’t shaved in a few days (at least 3 pounds), I hadn’t taken my daily constitutional yet (could be 5 pounds on a good day), I had my cellphone on me (10 pounds at least).  Ok, I lied,  My first cellphone might have been 10 pounds but my latest one is probably only 1 pound.

     

Before I show you the number that came up, let me give you some background.  I’m 6’3” and have been since early high school.  I was around 150 lbs when I graduated a little over 20 years ago.  I stayed active playing basketball in the winter and softball for multiple teams during the summer.  I’m guessing about 7 or 8 years ago, I was around 175 lbs.  But I tore my rotator cuff playing softball stretching out behind me to make a catch over my head.  After I caught it the momentum took my arm back behind me.  I didn’t realize I tore anything until the next morning when I couldn’t pull my pants up.  But, being the idiot I am, I completed the season and hurt it more.  What it came down to is I had to take the next summer off as well because it still hadn’t healed.  When I wasn’t playing sports, I gradually started gaining more weight.  I ended up retiring from sports because by the time my shoulder had healed, I was fat and out of shape.  My knees and ankles couldn’t hack carrying my fat ass at a run.  Of course, I told myself it was because I was out of shape and not the additional weight.  Don’t get me wrong, I knew I was overweight but being as I worked most every day and I walk all day long at work, I didn’t really consider myself majorly out of shape.  Well, I got up to about 250 lbs and stayed for awhile.  Probably even a few years.  But lately I’ve noticed more weight gain.  Like I mentioned above, my work uniform was getting tighter, we bought some 2X shirts and had to return them for 3X and more difficulty bending down to tie my shoes to name a few.  If I had to guess, it’s the 12 hour days that I’m working that has done it.  Well, not really the days I worked but the days I’m off.  I had very few days off so I was constantly on my feet where as now, I spend a lot of my days off sitting on the couch, doing nothing.  I have 3 days off one week, and 4 the next so a lot more down time.  Because of the 12 hours, that first day off I’m usually just exhausted.  But I have no excuse for the other days.  I’ve just gotten really lazy.  So I need to do something about it.  And about this.

Sorry about the zoom in and you can see how nasty the scale is but now you know why I said the cuss words above.  That is the most I’ve ever weighed.  Now granted, some of what I said above is true, I do have on my steel toed boots but still, that’s just ridiculous.  So I’ve decided I need to do something about it.  I’m going to try to come up with 10 things that I need to do to get healthier.

1. I’m going to start doing Wii fit again on my off days.  I’m too exhausted on work days and I don’t get home until after 7 as it is.
2. I’m going to start doing 100 sit ups and 100 push ups everyday.  Even work days
3. I’m going to try to do some crunches on a work out ball, that will go right after my gut.  I probably won’t be able to do many but hopefully at least some.
4. No more Taco Bell.  I love Taco Bell and this will be the hardest.
5. The apartments here have a work out room so I’m going to try to get over there periodically if for anything, ride the bike or something productive.
6. I’m also going to lift weights, bench press, ect. and bulk up my upper body strength.  I have never had any upper body strength.  All my muscle was in my legs.
7. I’m going to cut back on the snacks before bed.  I do tend to get chips or cookies before bed and munch, sometimes until the bag is gone.
8. I’m no longer going to drink sweet tea.  That’s about all I drink at home.  I drink a lot, usually about a 32 oz. glass a day or so but it has enough sugar that I’m sure it’s not helping.
9. I’m going to drink more water.  On my days off, I tend to sit all day and never drink anything.  I don’t know if this will necessarily help me with weight loss but it will be a healthier alternative.
10. I’m going to start riding my bike, winter, spring summer and fall.  At least 100 miles a week.

Yeah!  I got 10, too bad I’m only going to actually do the odd numbered ones.  I have no intentions of doing the even numbered ones.  But I got 10.  I know, I’m cheating already.  I would save this for a New Year’s Resolution but I don’t really do those since I never follow through on them anyways.  And to be honest, the deck is stacked against me with this goal as well, because I am fat, and lazy.

I’d promise you a weekly post to let you know how I’m doing, I could even call it Fat Ass Fridays but I probably won’t keep that up either so I’m not going to promise you anything.  I’m hoping that since I put this up here, maybe some of you all will keep me accountable.  I do know if I start doing this, it won’t be until Monday because I’m working all weekend.

Our Christmas Tree

A couple of weeks ago, Cheri put up the Christmas tree.  She tends to pick the days I’m at work to do all the work around the house so I can’t help.  Personally, I think she’s just selfish, but if it makes her happy to do all the work, who am I to stop her.  She went ahead and put up the lights and her ornaments and then left my ornaments for my 2 to put up. 

I took a photo of one ornament from when I was a kid and then next thing you know, I was snapping pictures of ornaments and it kind of gave a little insight into my life.  I get ornaments every year, my mom always buys all the kids and grandkids ornaments and it’s usually based on something your interested in or something that happened that year.

The ornament to the right is ceramic.  My brother and I painted these with our grandmother as kids.  I vaguely remember actually painting them but I do remember having a bunch of these on the tree when we were growing up.  I’m guessing throughout the years they were misplaced or broken because this seems to be the only one left.

I waited until the kids had finished decorating the tree before I started to take pictures, mainly because I didn’t think about it until after the kids had started putting them up.  Plus this way, you get to actually see the tree up close.  I know, exciting stuff here.  They are in sequence of the order that I took them.

I used to really love watching basketball.  Although I was a Michael Jordan fan, I respected the other players of NBA history.  Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were both still playing.  I was never a huge Magic Johnson fan but I did like Larry Bird.  It’s probably the slow, white guy thing that made me like him.

  

If you know me, you know I’m going to have some Michigan ornaments.  I actually have a few more but I took pictures of these as they are a couple of my favorites.

  

I took a picture of a couple of the kids ornaments as well.  A train for Trevor, he’s still into trains although now that I think about it, he hasn’t broke out his track in awhile so maybe he isn’t.  But that doesn’t matter for ornaments.  Samantha’s ornament is a guitar (which she keeps asking for) with Hannah Montana on it.  She still like Hannah Montana but is more into Miley Cyrus now.  Yes, she knows they are the same person.

Any good Indianapolis Colts fan is going to have Colts candy canes, come on, that should have been a given.  Don’t ask me what that Mrs. Clause ornament is, must be Cheri’s.

Awww, our first Christmas ornament.  Yes, we’ve only been married a couple of years, try to keep up.

This one isn’t mine, but I thought it was cute.  A baby’s first Christmas ornament from 1993 which would make that cute baby Christopher.  Who is now 19 and living in Virginia.

We have a few of these on the tree as well.  Our niece made them for us last year and we put them on the tree.  They are cards but they are homemade and we really loved them when she gave them to us.

This one obviously isn’t mine as well but I couldn’t not take one of this, it’s almost as old as we are.

Which scares you more?  Another Colts ornament, or the Dale Earnhardt jr ornament?  Yeah, I went through a NASCAR phase.  It didn’t last real long, a couple of season at the most.  I debate every year whether to hang them up, but I always do because it’s sort of my heritage.  I was raised big on traditions.

Mom got this one for me when I graduated.  Way back in 1991.

This ornament says “First Born – Mom’s favorite”.  The joke is, that I’m not the favorite.  That’s one of my nicknames, the 2nd favorite son.  Tony got everything when he was a kid, nice clothes, nice shoes, blah blah blah.  All that is true, but what I’m not supposed to tell you is, I never wanted anything.  It used to annoy my mom because she could never buy me nice things because I didn’t really want anything nice.  I was content in my sweat pants and t-shirts.

You can barely see it, it’s the brown ornament in the middle.  It’s a golf bag, I love to golf.  However, it does not like my wallet.  I used to go quite often but now I just can’t afford to go.  I’ve gone once in the last couple of years.

These are just a few of the ornaments that I still have.  I wasn’t as organized as Cheri is.  When the tree comes down, she will take each of her ornaments off the tree and put them each back in their individual boxes.  Yes, you read that right.  She has a couple of totes of boxed up ornaments.  While it sucks for space, her ornaments are in much better shape than mine.

Plus, I lost some of mine in the divorce.  Put it this way, I moved out in about an hour, and that was walking it all down to my new apartment.  I just wanted out, I didn’t take much.  I never thought about Christmas stuff so when Christmas rolled around and I asked for my ornaments, I got what I got.  Sort of like the baby pictures I had to beg to get. 

But anyways, we got the tree up and it’s beautiful.  Cheri would like to get a little bit of a smaller one, but hopefully by next year we will be in a house and it won’t matter.  We will hopefully have a lot more room.  Plus I’m not sure that she realizes how many ornaments she has, they may not all fit on a smaller tree.  Seriously, 2 totes full, all boxed.

Just don’t ask for any tools, they are in the closet on the left.