Another Notch

While my weight might not be dropping too fast, I was really encouraged tonight when, even after a good sized pasta dinner, I put on my belt and got back into the notch I was at before the honeymoon.  I weighed about 10 lbs less when we left for Antigua, but I can tell my body is getting back to that point now even if it's not showing on the scale.  Considering I went home and ate a medium Primo's pizza all by myself on Monday after writing my last post, and the fact that I have Como's pizza in my near future, I am highly doubtful that I'll drop any weight by the time I weigh in on Monday.  Just trying to keep myself positive here, and this notch will give me something positive to hold on to.

Speaking of Monday, LM and I tried out our new massage table that night as well.  I've been thinking about getting one for a while now, and I think getting massages in Antigua really helped sell LM on the idea.  Now I just need to make sure I get her to let me rub her down at least once a week.  :-)

Looking forward to a couple days off after tonight.

401

So for some reason, the fact that last week's post was my 400th published post here completely didn't register with me while I wrote the post.  I probably wouldn't have changed anything I wrote about if I had remembered, but I probably would have used a different title, which means I wouldn't have found that perfect picture for the way I was feeling at the time.  All in all it worked out fine, and now I can get on with post 401.

HAVE

Until I realized this was  post 401, I was going to use some form of my workout/weight loss status as the title.  As it is now, the 401 title led me to the above photo, which I think is as perfect as the last picture.  My weight loss/workout program is going well.  I haven't missed a day at the gym since my last post (14/15 days now) and I weighed in at an even 258 lbs this morning.  I'm down just over 4 lbs in 15 days, which is a good drop for me and a couple lbs ahead of my pace weight.  Again, I want to stay out well ahead of my pace weight because I tend to plateau for a week or more at a time at certain weights.  This 2lb cushion is nice, but we want more, we want more....

YOU

I'm also contributing this extra loss to the fact that my weight training wasn't as hard as it normally is Thursday-Sunday.  With the British Open being played over the weekend, and the time difference meaning the players I wanted to watch were playing at my normal gym times on those days, I spent a lot more time on the treadmill than normal, and less time lifting.  I had one hard training day in those four, but I don't think it made up for the other three days.  Hopefully I am wrong and I am just burning fat more efficiently now so this weight loss continues, but we are only 15 days into our challenge...so it's way too early to tell.

SEEN

The biggest part of all this for me is going to be my diet over the next 350 days.  My diet isn't great by any stretch of the imagination.  I love foods that are bad for you in more ways than one, and sugar-filled drinks.  But, even with my love for bad foods, my daily diet isn't too bad, even when you consider my cheat meals I figure in every now and then.  And again, it's way too early to gauge how that will work for me.  I plan to tweak my diet and cut the cheat meals as time goes on, but not completely out.  I don't have the constitution to do that right now.  If I try to go cold turkey, I will fall off the wagon and take a long time to get back on.  Hey, it took me a long time and a lot of work to get this fat....it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of time to get back into good shape.

MY

Speaking of cheat meals....I found a place near the house that has what look to be pretty awesome stuffed burgers.  I was hooked when I saw a picture of one online last week, but have yet to try it.  It did, however, influence my dinner choice on Friday night.  LM and I did a double date night with SO and Shy that night, starting off with dinner at Champ's.  It had been a while since I had been to Champ's, and even longer since I have eaten there, and they had a new menu.  On this menu....a stuffed burger.  Bacon, cheese, and onion all inside the patty.  Yum.  Much better than the time I tried to make these on my own a few years back.  I don't think it's all that hard to do when you have the right ingredients, but when you are frantically searching for something to put inside a burger, as you are making the patty....you aren't prepared enough.

BASE

After Champ's we walked over to the movie theater and watch The Conjuring.  Not sure what the name of the movie has to do with the movie itself, because what I saw was pretty much the opposite of conjuring....but I guess calling it The Exorcist or anything like that would have been a bad move anyway.  The movie was ok, which is saying a lot considering I usually think all scary movies are just dumb, and it made the ladies jump and/or lose their breath more than a few times.

BALL?

In other news for the week, LM got a BRAND NEW BIKE.  That topic, along with troubles with my own bike (The X) were supposed to be in a post a couple days ago, but I never got the chance to put pen to paper until today.  Hopefully sometime soon we'll get the chance to combine the bikes and stuffed burgers into a post about a cheat meal that I have to peddle my ass off to go eat.  As a matter of fact, it will have to be soon if I have any hopes of hitting my weight loss goal by next summer.  Cheat meals will be few and far between in a couple months, and winter weather will get in the way of biking anywhere around that time.

A Whole Bunch of Nothing

Either my blogging rust is showing, or this site just sucks now.  Actually, I am thinking it's a little bit of both....but there are some serious flaws with this site when the body of drafted posts just disappear.  

 So here I am, trying to complete one post out of three in a span of 11 days. The pace isn't all that brisk, but I was really pleased with the previous two I had tried to put up since the 4th. Alas, all I have now for the 4th of July post where I talked about the BBQ with my family and friends as well as the wedding, is a picture of the faded chalk flag the girls drew in the driveway. I love the picture, and wish I would have taken one before it rained on the chalk, but there was a lot more in that post I wanted to put out there. The main subjects of yesterday's post are a lot easier to remember, since it was only about 24 hours ago and I was just talking about things that happened on Saturday. The post covered coming into work early for training, lunch at Bucharest with my beautiful wife in my free time between training and the start of my shift, Scherzer not becoming the first MLB pitcher in history to go into the All-Star break 14-0, Lincecum getting a no hitter, finishing the first season of Breaking Bad, and verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. It's not often I really like my own posts, but that one I did....and now it's reduced to the above list of events. Seeing as there is no use in crying over spilled milk, unless you are doing so to get someone else to clean it up for you, I am moving on to my next post....and carefully making sure I don't have this one disappear. So, sometime before the wedding, LM and I decided that we would challenge ourselves to continue working out when we returned from the honeymoon. The last trip we took alone was to Vegas last year where we got engaged and we worked out a lot before the trip, but fell off the wagon afterward. To avoid that, we challenged ourselves to get in 300 workout days in the 365 following the honeymoon. Although, that had to be pushed back a little because of the injury LM sustained at the end of her bachelorette party and we are just starting week two of our challenge today. We are now on day 8, and I have gone 7/8 while LM has gone 8/8. Had it not been for the aforementioned training on Saturday, I would also be at 8/8. While it wasn't a workout day for me, it also wasn't a rest day considering how very long my day was. Eating well goes hand in hand with the workout program, but is always tougher for me to do. Last week I did pretty well for most of the week, but really went overboard on Thursday which kept me from losing much weight at all. Last Monday I had a starting weight of 262.4 lbs. This morning, I weighed in at 261.2. To reach my goal weight of 202 lbs by the end of this challenge, I need to lose 60 lbs. If I can keep this pace up, I will more than reach my goal in a year. The problem is, I can't count on a slow and steady pace. I have a history of getting stuck for a while at certain weights, 260 lbs being one of them, and need to have big loss weeks here and there to make up for the plateaus that I will undoubtedly encounter. All in all, week one went pretty well. I just need to keep my nose to the grindstone, and my hands off the crappy food I tend to crave. EDIT: Looking at this completed post, I see the formatting doesn't work correctly now either. My apologies for this long ass, single paragraph.

The 4th....

Bleh

Such is my day.  Plenty of things to talk about, read about, watch videos about....but I want nothing of that.  I have an urge to do absolutely nothing until the Redskins game comes on....and then I just want to sit there and watch it.  I'm super hungry, but don't want to eat.  I am pretty thirsty, but don't want anything to do with that bottle of cold, refreshing water right in front of me....and I don't want to get anything else.  Hell, I have brownies within arms reach, and haven't had a single one yet today....and I effing LOVE brownies.

Just kinda feels like I wasted another day....and I'm getting to the age where that actually matters to me now.

End of Days

We are now 30 days from what some claim to be the end of the world, based on the Mayan calendar ending on December 21st, 2012.  I'm not even going to get into what I personally think about this prophecy or those who want to spread this as gospel....because I'm sure my thoughts aren't anything new to anyone who doesn't blindly believe things like this, and have been voiced by many, many people who are much more capable of putting these thoughts eloquently.  Instead, when I realized we were a month from December 21st, my thoughts swung to what I would do with my last 30 days on Earth if I knew for sure they were upon me.

Now I've never liked the term "Bucket List", kinda cringe when I hear it really, but I have had a list of things I want to do/see before I die for much longer than I can remember this term being around.  It all started some years back, in the bedroom of my childhood home....and pretty much on a whim.  I was somewhere in my teens, but I can't remember the exact age.  Truth be told, I was probably in some state of temporary depression due to a personal relationship not going the way I wanted, and contemplating what may lie ahead for me in life.  You know, normal teenage crap you think is all important and exclusive to just you when it's happening.

Anyway, I remember grabbing a piece of paper....a notebook actually, because most of my teenage creativity was poured into random notebooks, and jotting down the title of "Things I Want to Do Before I Die".  While most of the things I thought were of uber importance to me at that time in my life are actually pretty laughable now, and most have been forgotten, this one actually stuck with me for years, and to this day actually....hence this blog post.

For several years I had this list packed away somewhere safe and added to it whenever something popped into my head, and I was fortunate enough to cross a few things off that list too from time to time.  It was one thing I was sure I would always keep close to me....especially considering that I truly didn't believe I was going to live past the age of 30 for most of my life before I actually turned 30.  Even though this notebook, which had a lot of other random thoughts and quotes in it, meant a lot to me, it somehow got separated from me while living in my second house....something I'm still unhappy I let happen, even though I have no idea when or how it actually happened.

Anyway, I can remember the very first thing I wrote on that list, and that is still number one to me since I haven't done it yet, and that was to see the pyramids in Egypt.  So if I knew that I only had 30 days left to live, I would definitely find a way to get myself, LM, and the kids to the pyramids and finally see them in person.  While that may not be the very first thing I would do in my last 30 days, just because of the logistics of it all, it's the very first thing on my list, and would definitely get done at some point.

Hopefully I'll be able to get 30 things up here in the next 30 days, probably not in 30 different posts though considering my past record for things like this and my super low post count for the year.  But considering this is something that is going to affect my life in one way or another in the future, I'm sure it'll be on my mind enough to get me to post at least the most important ones.

Grainy

Trudging off to work on Wednesday nights is never fun, but when I'm packing up the beginnings of a migraine to come along with me....it's downright terrible.  Just about everything I do at work can make a normal headache turn into a migraine, much less an already bad headache.  Just the setting alone can give me a headache, throw on top of it the terrible hours, the quick change in the weather, and a problem getting restful sleep....ugh.

That all being said, I am really looking forward to the couple days I get off after all this.  I need to suck it up and power through this night.  Something else I really need to do....stop writing this blog.  The computer screen is making all this head pain a hell of a lot worse.

It's Hard to Rely on My Good Intentions....

It's been nearly two weeks since my last post, but my intentions were to post on many of the days since then. For at least the first five days of November I had something to say, and was hoping to get some of those thoughts up here....but completely failed to.

My biggest hurdle of late is finding a time that is appropriate to pull up blogger and start typing away. I don't know that I ever think it's the proper place or time to just start plugging away at a new post. There's always something else to do, or someone to talk to that I don't want to neglect just to get a post up. In the past I've tried making a note on my phone, or on a scrap piece of paper, and coming back to that later. Unfortunately not all of what I am thinking is going to make it onto that note, and I might as well just make a full post if it is, and when I come back to it I hardly ever remember exactly what I was going to say.

So now with the intent and desire to post definitely present, I'm sure posts will make it up here more often than they have in the last couple years....I just need to figure out when and where is a good time to write. I used to force myself to write every single day, whether I posted it or not, for 5-30 minutes. A lot of writers I knew used this to jumpstart their days or to keep their creative minds sharp, and I tried it our myself, with various degrees of success. Some posts I loved came our of these forced sessions, while a lot of the rest were just discarded. Maybe I can figure out a day and time each week I can do this again. Starting off at once per week will be a lot easier with my schedule than trying to do it every day.

No matter what, I believe this does show a little promise for things to come with my mostly stagnate blog.

Noviembre

Three calendar months without a post....and I could really care less about that. I remember the days when I couldn't go three days without posting and not feeling bad about it. Truth be told, the only reason I am here right now is that I noticed I had a link to this blog on my Facebook page and clicked on it to see how long it had been. I found it ironic that the most recent post was about starting up the Pic-A-Day thing again when I was just thinking about what I would be using as the subject of today's pic.

I've stuck with the picture thing since that last post, but not on a strict daily basis. Skipped a few days here or there without thinking about it at first, then I just got a little tired of trying too hard to find something of interest every single day and got a little lax with it....which completely defeats the point since I wanted to use it to help chronicle my day to day life without having to come here and type it all out. Having that in mind, I had just reaffirmed my commitment to taking pics on a daily basis when I stumbled on the link for this blog.

There was a time once that I loved writing posts for this blog, but things changed.  To be honest, it still seems like a chore that I don't want to get back into the habit of doing again on a regular basis.  On the other hand, I'm also curious about whether or not I could get back into the swing of it again if I just plodded through a few weeks of posting every single day, even if it's just a few sentences or even just a quick quote.  I don't post on Facebook anywhere near every day, and I have that at my fingertips 24/7....so who knows what will come of something like that, but as of today I am 1 for 1 in November and hope that I can find it in me to get something up here every day this month, or at least very close to it.

If I can, I'll be able to see if this blog is something I want to do on a regular basis again, from time to time, or never again.  If it's the latter, I may just have to put it in moth balls and close up shop for good.

In With the Old

With football season just around the corner, I've had a few things on my mind concerning my Fantasy Football League. First and foremost is finding a new website to host our league. The site we used last year gave us a free year to try out it's new design and what not, but it still wasn't anything special. On top of that, they have increased the cost per league this year, and I just can't see making my guys toss in an extra few bucks to use the crappy site.

So to keep everyone in the league up to date on league issues without using crap.com, I decided to make a Facebook page for our league. After five minutes of trying different names (because FB makes you use a REAL name) I get into the security stuff and fill it out. Last step....you need to give them a cell number to activate the page. Sigh. There is something severely wrong when I could get a fake ID with less effort than it takes to sign up for a second FB page. I gave up on the second page when LM suggested I just start a FB group for the league, and then did that.

Now, while checking everything on FB I looked at my photo albums and opened up one with pics of my motorcycles in it. When I went back to the albums, I noticed an old album titled Pic-a-Day. A few times over the years, either here or on FB....or even Myspace, I've tried the picture-every-day thing with mixed results and have decided that I'd like to try it again. Thinking I will start with August 1st, but may even start today if I can get a picture of something remotely interesting.

This will be primarily on Facebook, since it's so easy to just post a picture from my phone right after taking it, but I am sure I'll get a couple I feel like sharing here every so often. Kinda wish I would have thought about this before the weekend. I'm sure I could have come up with a few pics during the pub crawl Friday night/Saturday morning.

The Heat is (Back) On

Slowly but surely the temp is steadily climbing back up around here. When I checked the 10 day forecast before riding into work today, I saw that 98 degrees is predicted for Tuesday. It was only supposed to hit 89 today, but ran up to 94....right around the time I was driving around in a truck with little/no AC depending on how fast you drive.

Although it was ony about 87 when I left the house today, it was still pretty hot on the highway....even though my riding jacket is mesh. Stopping at a couple stoplights on the way was pretty terrible too. The one thing about my bike I don't like is that the cooling fan (for the engine, not the rider) blows the hot air away from front to back....meaning that my legs absorb most of the engine heat when stopped on a hot day. Guess that's one of the reasons I love to find riding routes where stopping is at a bare minimum. But, kinda like pizza, a "bad" ride is better than no ride at all, even if it is just a hot freeway ride to work.

With the Tigers hosting a game tomorrow night and the complete hell that is our parking situation on Mondays when there is a home game, I plan to ride tomorrow as well....as long as the weather plays along and there isn't any significant rain in the forecast. With that in mind, it's time to check the weather report again and see if I'm at risk for a wet ride home tonight. Owning a motorcycle in Michigan can be a real pain in the ass with the way the forecasts change. When I jumped in the shower before work, the forecast called for spotty showers up until the hour or so before I usually leave work. Now, it seems like the opposite. If we do get any rain it'll probably be right before and/or as I am riding home. Remind me again why I think rain gear is too expensive to be a priority yet.

Too Many Mondays

Unlike most people, Monday isn't the first day of my work week. When people are moving slow on Saturday and recovering from the night before on their first day off, I put my nose to the grindstone to start off my week. While Monday is smack dab in the middle of my week, with my shift jumping schedule, it's also my busiest. Not only is it my busiest work day, it's often the day of the week that gets me thinking the most.

Partly because it's the start of the work week for most people, Monday has become very symbolic in today's society. For a while now, Mondays have been getting an increasingly bad name. It's been a while since I have seen Office Space, but I can still hear that "case of the Mondays" quote like I just watched the movie. Even when I started my week on a Monday, I wasn't someone who ever got a case of the Mondays. I enjoyed my job, and even though I didn't like the fact that I HAD to show up on Monday to start the week, it wasn't all that bad.

Lately, it's taken its toll on me.

While I may not suffer from the Mondays myself, I understand it. As a matter of fact, Monday seems to have hit me pretty hard while writing this post....and I have no idea where I wanted to take it now.

I'm pretty sure I was headed in the direction of Monday being a clean slate day, and a chance to start something new every seven days or some blabbery BS like that.

Or you can always just hate it and do what you have to to get through it.

Same Old Situation

Not much going on the last week or so, mostly just dealing with work and getting ready for our new summer schedule with the kids doing their summer programs. Tomorrow will be the first full day of it, and juggling their stuff and our stuff together officially begins.

When I actually do post here, I am hesitant to post stuff about weight loss and/or working out anymore. For years it has been the same old thing, talk a lot about it and how this time it's going to work, get to the gym for a while, cut back a little on calories, show a little improvement, then fall off the wagon. This year has been no different. I started off the year pretty well, dropping more than 20 lbs in the first three months, even though I didn't start seriously working out until February. Since then I have gained back a little more than ten of those lbs with my sporadic gym visits and bad eating habits. Tomorrow I again begin my quest for healthy weight loss.

I doubt I will post much about my progress or lack thereof here, unless I hit a milestone weight. If something weird or worth talking about happens at the gym, I'll undoubtedly mention it here, but I don't want to really put out here what I am doing weight/health wise right now.

Other than the same old same old, LM and I did get to go out to Como's the Friday before last to meet up with some friends we hadn't seen in a while. As usual, the pizza was great and I ate too much of it, and the time spent there with our friends was fantastic. Not many people were in town since this was the Friday before the 4th of July, but the small group that went out had a blast and this gives us a reason to have another Friday night out in the near future so the rest of the crew can make it out....and I have an excuse to have more Como's pizza.

There was a lot of talk about our upcoming wedding, and more than just a little bit of talk about the rings. This is the first time most of the people out with us had seen LM's engagement ring, and there was a lot more talk about ring possibilities for me than I had expected. Throw in a little Vegas talk, and the time flew by.

All but one of our group took off somewhere around 10:30 or 11, so the three of us headed down Woodward a bit to try out a new place. We decided to try out John D Bistro, which is where Club Bart used to be. I had never been to Club Bart, so it was all new to me anyway, but it was a nice place. Not very busy for a Friday night in Ferndale, but like I said before it was right before the 4th, and the music a little too loud for the crowd size, but I did enjoy the music and watching the DJ bounce around at certain times.

Since we all just ate, no food was ordered but we did all get a drink. Our friend got a glass of wine, I got the Sidecar which was made very well, and I can't remember the name of the drink LM got (and I don't see it on their website either) but it was even better than mine. All in all, I dug the place and will make sure to head over there again when we are hanging out in Ferndale.

Time to get back to the same old situation now, but will hopefully be back soon with something else to ramble on about.

Living Things

Yesterday, Linkin Park released their latest album. Not only did I buy it, but I got it for $4.99 on Amazon. Expecting to pay more than twice that, I was supremely happy with the price. After giving the album my first listen, and now working on the second, I'm even happier with the price and would have been more than fine paying more.

Now with bands like Linkin Park, I don't ever buy a new album expecting to hear the same type of music that was on the last one. While their music has it's own definite sound, they change a lot from album to album and, unlike some bands that will remain unnamed for now, it's for the best. It seems that they grow as artists with every new release.

This album somewhat marks a return to their older sound, but still keeps pieces of the newer LP in tact. While it surely won't be confused with A Thousand Suns, there are things in there that reflect that album.

I'm no critic, just a huge fan of music, so I won't get too in depth and break down this entire album like a LOT of people have just been waiting to do. Instead, I am going to sit back and enjoy listening to Living Things once again.

Midnight Music 6-27-12

I used to do all types of Morning Music posts, but with certain lifestyle changes of late I won't have much morning music in my life for a while. Instead, I get the chance to usher in a new every now and again while listening to my iPod. Therefore, we'll check out what I am listening to at midnight.

1. Love Remains the Same- Gavin Rossdale

A thousand times I’ve seen you standing
Gravity like a lunar landing
Make me want to run till I find you
I shut the world away from here
Drift to you, you’re all I hear
Everything we know fades to black

2. Survivalism- Nine Inch Nails

All bruised and broken, bleeding
She asked to take my hand
I turned, just keep on walking
But you'd do the same thing in the circumstance
I'm sure you'll understand

3. Fall to Pieces- Velvet Revolver

I keep a journal of memories
I'm feeling lonely, I can't breathe
I fall to pieces, I'm falling
Fell to pieces and I'm still falling

4. Devil on My Shoulder- Billy Talent

Follow the rainbow, my lucky omen
There ain't no pot of gold, just copper tokens
I found the key to life, the lock was broken
All my accomplishments, are best left unspoken

5. Blow Up the Outside World- Soundgarden

Nothing seems to kill me, no matter how hard I try
Nothing is close in my eyes
Nothing can beat me down for your pain or delight, no.
Nothing seems to break me, no matter how far I fall
Nothing can break me at all
Not one for giving up though not invincible, I know

6. Bad Day- Daniel Powter

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces everytime
And I don't need no carryin' on

Baby You're a Firework

At this very moment, hundreds of thousands of people are crawling all over the city, jockeying for positions for tonight's fireworks display. I on the other hand, cannot wait to get out of here for the night, and that will actually be pretty soon.

As a kid, I never really got into fireworks all that much. The flashes and the booms and bangs didn't have much to do with it, I wasn't scared of fireworks at all other than the year that I was witness to a horrible accident, but it just wasn't something that we, in our house, really had any interest in. I like burning and blowing things up as much as the next guy, but this is an area where nurture took over for nature. Mind you I'm not getting down on anyone for liking them, far from it, but just like certain types of movies or other activities, they will be much better enjoyed without me there.

I've taken in the fireworks here in the past, and had a great time hanging out with my friends, but the fireworks themselves added nothing to the equation for me, aside from the fact that they were the impetus for us to gather on a warm summer night and just hang out together. Oddly enough that was ten years, and a complete life (and a half) ago for me.

Maybe someday on this blog I'll get into what was going on at that time in my life, and how it shaped everything around me and led me to where I am today, but that's not what I am here to write about today.

The Elephant in the Room

So I guess I should bring up the fact that I haven't been writing here much this year, and nothing at all for more than 5 months. Certain things I've gone over before, including access issues and lack of blogging interest really paved the way for that. I have missed the fact that I could just write whatever I want here, whenever I want....but I obviously haven't missed it enough to make it a priority.

Over the last year and a half or so I have tried multiple times to write a post when I didn't have access to the blog, then post it later. My success with this was spotty at best. A lot of times I gave up on the post before I was finished with it, but mostly I'd finish the post and not find a way to post it in a frame of time I deemed proper, and it just lingered in the ether, never finding a permanent home.

As it stands at this very moment, I am happy to have more liberal access to my blog and all that that allows me. Considering I can be somewhat bipolar when it comes to blogging in this digital age of social postmodernism, that could mean anything in terms of my posting frequency from here on out....or even in making up terms like digital social postmodernism. Go ahead, google it. Zero results until now.

Well with all that out, time to return to watching the Tigers in Texas and reading about the WSOP 50k event.

Farewell for now.

I Call Him....Number 2

The next thing I am looking forward to with this Vegas trip in April is LM showing ME something about the town that I am new to. In this case, The Deuce. I have seen these buses dozens of times, but have never been on one. With just her and I, it will be a little more economical to take the bus to and from places on The Strip instead of popping for a cab for every ride, everywhere like when I am with a group of people.

I was happy to hear that these buses run 24/7, because I know that one night out there LM and I will both hit a wall with fatigue and lack of sleep, and it'll be nice to have a ride back to the hotel instead of wandering back all that way on foot. The one thing we will have to keep in mind is which side of The Strip we are on as we are approaching that fatigue wall. Having to cross the street to get to a stop and then having to cross after getting off the bus may be just as long of a walk as it is back to the hotel, negating any benefit of the bus.

Whether we are riding the bus for need or for novelty, though, I'm sure it'll be quite an experience as I try and get LM to laugh out loud at some of the observations I make about our fellow passengers. I foresee a lot of video footage being recorded on this trip. :-)

84 Reasons I Miss Vegas, Redux

Last Tuesday, LM and I booked our first trip to Vegas in early April. This will be my 14th time to Vegas, or somewheres around there anyway, and her second, but our first time together. Now, a little over 5 years ago I was in a similar position as I am right now in terms of number of days before Vegas. Then I had 84 days, now I have about a week longer.

The reason that the 84 day thing is significant is that, in my pre-Vegas excitement, I decided to list 84 things about Vegas I was missing. One for each day between the first post and setting foot back in Vegas. I think I made it to number 9 before abandoning the idea. This time, I'm going to attempt to make it a weekly thing instead of daily, and broaden the scope from things I miss about Vegas to things I am looking forward to on this trip. I'm also going to be more flexible about the posts, because with rigid rules it's easy to just stop after you miss one or two. This time, not holding myself to anything strict, I will be more likely to carry on with it between now and our trip.

So to start this one off, here are the 9 things I used the last time. I won't expand on these, since there are explanations with the old posts, but I may refer to some of these and how they will affect this trip.

1. Cafe Gelato inside Bellagio
2. Sports books
3. Free drinks &
4. The waitresses who bring them to you
5. 25 cent video blackjack at
6. O'Shea's
7. Crazy cab rides
8. Where you are allowed to take your drink with you
9. Yearlong dry air = no sinus problems

I do have to mention that #1 on this list is ALWAYS number one on my list of things to do in Vegas. Every trip I have taken to Vegas since my second one when I found Cafe Gelato, I have gone there immediately after checking into my hotel. This will not be the case on this trip though. I usually take morning flights to Vegas to maximize my time there, but this time we'll be landing at night, after the cafe is closed. Big changes, but I am happy with both. At first we wanted early flights, but found out how much more expensive they were to book. So instead of maximizing our time there with an early flight, we decided to take a cheaper night flight....one day earlier. This will give us about 12 more hours in Vegas, and saved us a few hundred dollars. We are actually landing 2 hours later than originally planned, because I waited a day too long to book the trip, but that will actually make it easier to get everything together before we take off.

I'm also fine with breaking the tradition of hitting Cafe Gelato immediately upon my arrival, because this is a very different kind of trip for me. Going with LM, and only LM, will make this different and a little more special because I usually went to Vegas in a group of three or more. This one will be just for us, and we can do whatever we want, when we want without worrying about anyone else. That alone will be nice.

So on to the new list. First and foremost will be flying into Vegas. This will be the first time my plane approaches Vegas at night since my first trip in 1997 and the first time LM will see the lights of the city as she lands. Like I said earlier, I prefer morning flights so I can maximize my trip time, but anyone who flies into Vegas absolutely HAS to do it once when the lights of the city are shining. It's a completely different experience.

Looking Back....Looking Ahead

As the clock counts down toward 2012, it's really difficult to not think back on 2011 and the things that have happened in that 12 month span. This blog is usually a great guide to recap my year, but this has been a light year to say the least. One of my least posted years, and not much at all for the second half of the year with only 7 posts (including this one) after April ended.

I completely missed posting in November, which is unheard of for me considering my birthday is in that month. I'm only posting in December because I have time to do this now, and didn't put it off until tomorrow. Looking at the number of posts and where they were distributed begs a few questions about my posting. Primarily, is there something wrong or a reason I haven't posted much the last 8 months. The answers are no....but yes at the same time.

No there isn't anything wrong with me or what is going on in my life at this time. I am very happy where I am, and couldn't ask for more than I have right now. My life is better in many ways than I ever could have expected. That being said, I do have reasons for not posting pretty much everything I do or think here. First and foremost, I know I still have some people checking this blog that I'd rather not. I made the decision long ago to keep a public blog and never turn it private, and I've been on this blog for too damn long to change it and start over somewhere else. So I keep this one as my primary blog, and it will stay that way until I completely abandon it. Therefore, I have to pick and choose what I want to share with everyone, including those I don't want to share anything with anymore. If anything gets questioned in my head now, I usually won't put it up here.

Another reason I don't have as much to share anymore is lack of opportunity. I don't have as much time to waste by putting a blog post up. I have fewer chances to blog, and can't take away from the time I have for other things....so it doesn't get done.

Add to those the fact that I don't listen to music much anymore. Music has always been a huge part of my life, but as of late I don't listen to songs all that much. When I do, I usually don't have a way to record the names and artists of the songs so I can post a list of ten songs later. I made an attempt at this a couple months ago, but the post never made it up.

I could always lay out a plan for 2012 and say that I am going to blog more....but really, why bother? I always intend to blog more, but for one reason or another it just doesn't happen. So what do I expect for 2012 in terms of this blog? In a word, nothing. I won't place any expectations here at all and just be happy to read whatever I really feel like posting through the year when December 31st rolls around next year.

Don't Waste Your Time....

....or time will waste you.

These lyrics popped into my head after I read a quote on Twitter attributed to Steve Jobs.
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

Simple and profound, very much like the man who has shaped technology more in the last 30 years or so than anyone else. The world lost a great mind and, by all accounts, a better person today with the passing of Steve Jobs.

I've tried my best to live life the way I've wanted to, although that has lead to plenty of conflict over the years, even within myself. I'll continue to do so to the best of my ability, taking hold of life and shaping it the way I want....but right now I have an essay I have to grab hold of and reshape. And it seems that Mr. Jobs has put his mark on my iPod one last time with this quote helping me choose my first song to write to.

One Year

One year.

Twelve months.

Fifty two weeks.

Three hundred and sixty five days.

No matter how you look at it, my heart still aches missing my best friend. Would it be too much for me to hope that a place such as Rainbow Bridge really does exist?