P.O.D. Jan 3 - Kathy on Facebook?

Yes, this is Kathy.  Yes, that is Facebook.  Yes, that is HER Facebook account.  We had an issue awhile back when I told her I really wished she was on Facebook so I could publicly declare my undying affection for her like all the other spouses do, hopefully making everyone jealous.  She resisted for a very very long time, but finally decided I was being too much of a pain in the butt to make holding out worthwhile.  So she created an account.  In the year plus that followed, I think she might have checked it exactly...twice.  But hey, at least she had an account, right?  I've tried to convince her that if she kept up with her account, she wouldn't have to wade through the 90% of people in mine she didn't know, so checking facebook (which she still does all the time, just...not hers) would be so much quicker.

Anyway, I still don't think she is going to ever regularly use her own account, but I had to get a shot of her actually using it, since this picture opportunity may quite possibly never present itself again.

Hi dear!!! :)

Picture of the Day - Jan 2nd, 2012

Today is Kathy's last day home of about a two week vacation.  She is a master cook, and can take the most random ingredients and make some truly amazing dishes.  My experiments, while sometimes pretty decent, usually consist of throwing everything in a pot or baking dish and calling it _____ casserole.  Hardly creative at all, but usually edible.

Anyway, here are today's mystery ingredients:  Dijon mustard, a can of cranberry sauce, a tube of crescent rolls, and a pack of Little Smokies.  I can't wait to see how this turns out.....

Picture a Day - Jan 1, 2011, The Dog Park

I'm going to see if I can't post a picture a day every day this year, just for fun.  Yes, I hear you laughing..."no way will he post to his blog every single day for the entire year!  BWWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!"  But yes, i am going to at least give it a shot.  I may have to double up on some missed days sometimes, but I'm still going to try.  So prepare to see SOMETHING in my life, every day, that I thought made a pretty cool picture and hopefully story behind it.  Here goes day 1....

This is Becca running with our dog Bella to her right, and chasing Burke, who belongs to my friend Erika.  Burke and Bella have been playing at dog parks pretty much ever since we've each had them, about a year now.  We try to get them to run off some energy when either dog is driving its respective owner crazy, and today was one of those days.  Sunny day, but a little breezy and chilly.  Always a good time, though.

This is My Rifle, This is My Gun......

Is there anything you ever think to yourself sometimes that would be pretty cool to do, but not sure how you'd make it happen?  Well, I had one of those days today.

Going to a shooting range is generally not something that a man card-less guy could get away with, but that's exactly what I did today.  I saw some Facebook posts a few weeks ago between a couple of my friends at Alpha discussing shooting, and I mentioned to one of them that it would be cool to do, but I have no experience doing it.  If I ever went with anyone, they'd have to start our session with "see that hole at the end of that cylinder?  well, don't point it at anything or anyone that you wouldn't want to change the life of forever".  (I seem to recall "the talk" my parents gave me started the same way, but I digress).

I've never been to a range before, but my friend John frequents the one in Longmont about once a week.  I had to sign a waiver to use the range that said I was never diagnosed as mentally unstable, I've never been convicted of a felony (convicted?  never convicted), and that I wasn't illegally using drugs.  I guess I answered correctly, because they let me in, or they just knew John well enough to know that if I even looked at someone the wrong way with a weapon in my hand, he could disarm me and make my life pretty miserable before I was able to say "just kidding!". 

While filling out the waiver, I heard John talking to someone behind the counter about some of the merchandise they had for sale.  It was either that or he was speaking Chinese, because I understood exactly 0% of what they had said.  This was my first sign that I had a long way to go before I could even dream about saying I knew anything about guns.  The second sign came when the guy asked if I owned any guns, and I rolled up my sleeves and flexed and said "only two". 

When we were all signed in, we went to a small prep room to put on those cool glasses and hearing protection (I see why those are required now), then made our way to one of the lanes.  John actually competes in shooting events and is exceptionally knowledgeable about guns, and he was a great instructor.  He brought a .22 pistol, a 9mm pistol, and I believe an AR-15 rifle.  I asked him at least a dozen times what each gun was just so I could brag about shooting them later, and I'm pretty sure I'm still not correct on what they were.  Anyway, he showed me which way to point them, how to load them, how to shoot them.  Interestingly enough, people who visit shooting ranges aren't amused when you aim a gun down the range and start shouting "PEW PEW PEW!!!!"  Lesson learned I guess.

I generally hit the targets and even got in the vicinity of where I was aiming most of the time.  That rifle intimidated me, though.  I kept thinking back to videos I had seen of people shooting a rifle and the recoil slamming it back into their face or knocking them on the ground.  And since everyone there remained upright the entire time, I thought it would be best for me to remain that way as well.  And I did.  After one shot and seeing just how much kick each weapon had, I could relax a little more and just revel in the manliness of propelling metal projectiles into deserving sheets of paper.  It was cool.

Here is a pic of the carnage I wrought on my unsuspecting victim:

Those three shots grouped right in the center that I circled are where John showed me how it was done.  To my credit, I did at least hit the target with all but one shot (and that one shot I was aiming at the guy who would  have been standing over the target's left shoulder, so I guess that counts).  This target was 25 yards away, so if you ever feel like starting something with me, you better be at least 25.1 yards away or you'll have a 16 out of 17 chance of being my next victim.


So John, thanks for taking the time to educate me a little about one of your passions.  You really were a great instructor, and hopefully we'll have the chance to go to the range again sometime.   If I had a man card, it would have had a couple of transactions made on it today.

I'll Be Back.....

After a nagging chest cold for most of November and some of October, during which the extent of my workouts were lifting bottles of Advil and cough syrup, and also during which any semblance of endurance I had completely left the building, I have finally gotten back into workout mode.

Now, it is no secret that my man card has been nonexistent for quite some time now.  However, one part of it that has always been alive and well is that I am a complete wuss when I'm sick.  This cold I had was just annoying, but made it difficult to breathe completely, so instead of fighting through it, I decided to wait it out.  And wait.  And wait.  Annnnnnnd......back to square one.  I had a TKD belt test at the tail end of my bout with near death, and during it I had to spar for maybe 15 minutes off and on.  At the end, I could barely stand (no joke)...I was indeed completely back to where I started.  It is good to have a fire lit under you sometimes, and this was my fire.

So what's the plan?  I'm trying to run 2-3 days a week.  Since it is winter, and I'm a cold wuss, I'll have to do some of that on a treadmill.  I'm learning to accept that, and the TV down there helps, although there is only so much of "The View" and hearing Whoopi Goldberg talk about shaved pudendas that I can handle (true story).  I'm also cycling through various workouts from P90X, Insanity, and Infinite Intensity for added cardio and plyo training.  Finally, I'm doing some strength training a couple of times a week.  So far, this has been working well, and I'm still motivated every day to workout (which has been an issue for me in the past at times). 

Recently, an elementary school friend turned me on to a "burpee challenge", where you do one burpee the first day, two the second, three the third, and so on up to 100 on day 100.  Just so happened that I had done 100 burpees earlier that day, just to see if I could, so I figured I'd try to start at 100 and work up to 200.  Currently I'm at 107.  Yeah, the next 93 days looks a little daunting to me too.

So it is time again to put up or shut up, so that's what I intend to do.  Many of my kickboxing students have been so inspiring with their motivation and the effort they're putting in every class.  Those students are inspiring each other, and they also inspire me.  Let's do this......

(Awesome x-ray photo courtesy of Bobbie Turner Photography)

A Good Week

Today my wife took the day off of work, to go along with my day off work, and we spent the day together.  After dropping off the kids, we went out for a beautiful 5 mile hike, then came back to town and had a great lunch at Protos here in Longmont, then we came home and crashed in bed until it was time to get the kids from their respective after school events or from awesome and understanding friends.  This was the first hike we've done alone together in years...I don't even remember the last time it was just the two of us.

Last Friday, we got a sitter and the two of us went out for an amazing dinner at Martini's Bistro, then we spent the rest of the evening at our traditional favorite pinball dive in Lyons playing the Adams Family pinball machine.  This was the first date night we've had in many months (again, I can't remember the last time).

This is how it should be.  I think sometimes I do a poor job of letting my family know just how much of a priority they are in my life.  They are a huge priority, but lately I've gotten sidetracked and complacent.  Sometimes I just need a good kick in the ass to help me remember that I need to demonstrate and acknowledge that priority to them and not just keep it to myself inside my own head.  This week has been a good start.

Going Home

 I just returned from a long weekend trip back to the midwest. The main purpose of the trip was to meet my brother in law in Green Bay and watch the Packers beat the everliving pis...err, I mean play, the Broncos. It has become a tradition with he and I that every four years, when the Packers and Broncos play, one of us will travel to see the other one and we go watch the game. This year, it was in Green Bay, so he got a couple of tickets, and I flew out to watch the game. Usually, the Broncos lose (and this year was the epitome of ugly loss), but my BIL is an awesome dude and we always have a great time hanging together and watching our teams beat on each other. This year was no exception.  I could write a book about everything going through my head regarding this trip, but I'll try to keep to 5 minutes or less.

While planning for my trip to the game, it occurred to me that I was going to be fairly close to my home town of Morris Illinois. My family lived in Morris from my kindergarten through 7th grade, and I don't think I've been back there since I swung through in college. I wasn't sure what I would do, but just to explore my old stomping ground sounded like a blast.

I had a friend in elementary school named Jessica (she has since moved to one of the Chicago suburbs). The town was only 8900 people back then, so most everyone knew everyone else, and we certainly knew each other and had many common friends, but I don't think we ever really hung out together or anything like that. I've gotten reacquainted with her on Facebook over the past year, though, and I always thought we'd get along really well if we ever met again face to face. Turns out she was available for breakfast, and she ended up being my chauffeur for the day. I wasn't sure if she would be as excited as I was to see where we grew up, but she at least indulged me as we drove around and remembered the old sites and looked at the newer ones.  After the grand tour of Morris, we went back to an Irish pub that she and her husband own and had a couple of drinks with her husband and some of her friends.  It can be really awkward to spend a lot of time with someone who you don't know all that well, but this was far from that, and we had a great time remembering people and talking about old times and new life happenings.   Thanks Jess!

Another acquaintance from elementary school is Jeff. Jeff used to play little league baseball with me and was a very good athlete. Again, I don't think we ever hung out much outside of school either, but I've gotten to know him on Facebook as well over the past year. Jeff has one of the most sarcastic but great senses of humor of any of my friends, and it was a lot of fun getting to talk to him in person and meet his kids and wife (who just happens to be the daughter of one of my most remembered elementary school teachers). Jeff has been involved in Morris politics for awhile and seemed to know just about everyone in town. As we walked up and down Main street, he would shake hands with someone and say hi, then tell Jess and me who it was, and very often we knew the person or the family. It amazed me how many people from back then were still around. Anyway, Jeff was an invaluable tour guide and knew about pretty much everything that had happened in Morris since I'd left. He has an awesome family, and I'm thankful I could get caught up with him.

It just so happened that Corn Festival was going on this weekend. Corn Fest is a long weekend (maybe even almost a full week now) with all kinds of games and activities and tours and tractors and parades and petting zoos and carnivals and fireworks. It was probably the biggest thing in Morris when I was a kid and I had always wanted to go to it again. By completely random dumb luck, I learned that it was going on this weekend, so it worked out great to get to actually hang around downtown Morris while everything was abuzz and see so many people that I hadn't thought about in about 30 years. I'd love to take my family to it some year and introduce them to some of my old childhood buddies.

The things that stuck out in my mind were that I remembered lots of places in Morris, but I never knew until this weekend how they all connected with each other. The town isn't that big, and most of these places were connected to each other and not miles apart like I remembered them as a child. I saw my old house. The current residents (I don't know them) have done a lot of work on landscaping, and the yard and house look amazing. As a kid, we had the best sledding hill in the neighborhood. After living in Colorado, this "hill" looked barely long enough to do anything with, but I remember back in the day, all the neighbor kids would come by and we'd spend hours seeing how far we could go (far enough took us into the street...that's when you knew you were hardcore). My pediatrician's name was Dr. Cumba. He still had the same office I remember (although it very well could be his grandson running the practice now).

My old house:

The high school was there. I never attended it, but I remember fondly the football games and "the woods" behind the visitors bench. Since my mom reads this blog, I think I will just leave those memories tucked away in my own head for now. ;) The middle school I went to was still there. Sadly, my elementary school was demolished and replaced with another city building. The ball fields where I played little league were still there. It really was an amazing experience to see all this stuff again, and I really do hope to bring my family there some day to actually get to see it themselves.

A couple of funny things I saw there included an out of order bait vending machine:

And this sign...fortunately I did not need my colon painted this day:

While in the area, I spent the night with my friends Mike and Laura.  I know them from a fitness website I used to be very active on called Clutch Fitness.  They are definitely one of the nicest couples I know, and I was lucky enough to get to meet their 3 month old son Mason.  Seeing them in 3 month mommy and daddy mode was very fun to watch.  Mason was hungry often, slept sometimes well, sometimes not so much, and was always very smiley if you made faces ar smiled at him.  Mike and Laura had their routine down of who took care of Mason while the other got a break.  They are going to continue to be great parents and are well on there way to raising a great, smiley kid.

The football game itself was painful to watch.  Lambeau Field has a mystique and history to it that make it a very cool place to visit, and I can definitely appreciate that.  Just once, I'd love for my team to actually compete with them there.  The Broncos got beat so badly, though, that most of the Packer fans were very nice to me in an "I'm sorry your team sucks so bad" kind of way.  But spending the time with my brother in law and his friend Steve was still a lot of fun.

I spent a lot of my time this weekend with people that I hardly knew face to face, but I loved every minute of the time I got to spend with them.  I've really gotten the itch to go visit other friends all over the country, but that will probably have to wait for awhile.  In the meantime, I am planning to make some phone calls and at least get caught up through a conversation than through Facebook statuses.  To Jeff, Jess, Mike, Laura, Jamie and Steve...thanks for a great weekend, and I hope to see you all again soon.