*So glad the weather turned nicer. Not because I enjoy it, but because I'm sick and tired of everyone talking about how awful it was. Please note that a lot of these people are the same ones who love the fact that Oregon is so "green," completely ignoring the fact that it wouldn't be green without all that rain they despise. That's not to say that I am immune to the charm's of an Oregon summer. I looked so good outside, I tried to go for a 4 mile run on my lunch break. To make a weather analogy, I felt like 75 and sunny, but in actuality I was about 45 with a steady rain and winds gusting up to 40 mph. It was that bad. I'll blame part of it on my new allergy problem. I was OK with getting older, until I got allergies for the first time in my life this year. Screw this weakening immune system or whatever is going on.
*Took Jonah to the zoo on Sunday. The threat of rain, plus the 9:30 am time made it feel like we were on our own private tour of the zoo. Just an awesome experience, because a lot of the animals were more active than they are later in the day. The dinosaur exhibit was awesome. I thought it might be a little scary for Jonah, but he handled it pretty well. Handled it better than the bird of prey show. I thought he'd love seeing these big birds fly around, but I was unaware that these birds fly lower than Maverick in Top Gun. These birds were literally no more than six inches off the ground as they flew from perch to perch. We were sitting close to one of the perches, and Jonah got almost nose to nose with a giant turkey vulture as it swooped within probably a foot of his face. That was enough for him. We had a bit of an issue with birds of any size for a few days after that, but he seems to be doing better now.
*Despite my ongoing battle with DirecTv to get HD local channels in the Eugene area, I buckled and forked over another $99 (plus $5 a month) to get another box for our bedroom. The deciding factor? The World Cup. These games are on too early on weekends to get out of bed and drag myself to the couch to watch. To offset the cost of the box, I sold my Xbox 360. As Rachel said, I "finally decided to grow up?" It wasn't so much that, it's just that I really never had time to play anymore. Most of video game time is now taken up playing Wii tennis with Jonah, or watching him try to mimic the yoga poses on Wii Fit, which is hilarious. He's got the warrior pose down pretty good, but my favorite one to see him do is the cobra. His cobra looks more like a posturing elephant seal, but he gets an A for effort.
*I'm still not used to conference calls in our board room where the people at the Portland Office sound like God because the audio sounds like it's THX Dolby 5.0. Extremely creepy when one lady found a joke funnier than everyone else and laughed like a deranged super-villan. I felt like I needed to immediately run to church and take a shower in holy water. That's the appropriate response when you hear the Devil's laugh, right?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Day the Transformers Died
Every one of us grew up vowing to be "cooler" than our parents. We were going to let our kids do things we weren't allowed to do, stay up late on special occasions, and basically be more of a friend than a parent. It's crap. You have to be a parent....otherwise, by the time your kid hits high school, you're hosting a party for 14 year olds that involve beer bongs and flip-cup.
Take Jonah for instance. One day he was adamant about watching Jurassic Park. I was worried it would be too scary for him, but to my surprise, he loved it. Laughed every time a dinosaur ate a guy. I didn't think much of it because hey, he's two. Plus, he's not going to run into any dinosaurs anytime soon, so there wasn't much fear of him translating Jurassic Park to real life. I applied this same theory with Transformers. I figured there weren't any giant talking robots around, so what's the harm? Well, he started shooting fake Transformers all over our house. Every appliance was a Transformer that needed to be "launched up." We had outlawed the words "kill" and "shoot," but launching was acceptable, so long as he didn't launch people. To his credit, Jonah was pretty good about abiding by these rules. Again, a little concerning, but I felt we were communicating effectively with him and everything was good.
There were other warning signs too. Jonah refused to go on a walk in the forest because "there were ghosts in there." I realized later that he got this idea when we watched Robin Hood: Prince of Theives.
Then we let him watch Adventures in Babysitting.
A movie that everyone of my generation grew up on. We all remember the opening credits, the little girl's obsession with Thor, and the crazy adventure they go on. What we didn't remember is the gang fight on the El Train, which involves some choice language and a knife. So while I cringed when the now infamous line was uttered during the movie, I didn't expect what happened a few days later. While Jonah and Rachel were at the toy store, Jonah grabbed a knife-like toy, turned, pointed it at Rachel and yelled "Don't f--- with the babysitter!"
Jonah is now not allowed to watch anything over PG, and we have to use extreme caution with anything not animated. Even The Sandlot has a curse word or two. Jonah will have lots of friends in his life, but he's only going to have two parents. From now on, I'm going to try harder to be one.
-------------------------------------------
Weight Loss Journal Day ????
I really should've written down the day I started this thing. I could probably start back at one (If you started singing Brian McKnight in your head when you read that, give yourself a point) due to my lack of effort on this front.
Weight Per Wii: 243.5 (- 5.5 lbs)
When I started this thing, I set an unofficial weight loss goal of 5 lbs a month. I think I'm about two months in, and losing roughly 3 lbs/month. Not bad for basically abstaining from exercise for a month. I did try to eat more salads and we kind of got off of our habit of eating ice cream every night, so that might have contributed.
The Good: After the 5k on Saturday, I got out there and ran a few miles again yesterday.
The Bad: Those two miles felt like 10. It felt like I was running on a sandy beach.
The Ugly: I thought about doing some pushups this morning, but I swear to you that my arms literally hurt just thinking about it.
Take Jonah for instance. One day he was adamant about watching Jurassic Park. I was worried it would be too scary for him, but to my surprise, he loved it. Laughed every time a dinosaur ate a guy. I didn't think much of it because hey, he's two. Plus, he's not going to run into any dinosaurs anytime soon, so there wasn't much fear of him translating Jurassic Park to real life. I applied this same theory with Transformers. I figured there weren't any giant talking robots around, so what's the harm? Well, he started shooting fake Transformers all over our house. Every appliance was a Transformer that needed to be "launched up." We had outlawed the words "kill" and "shoot," but launching was acceptable, so long as he didn't launch people. To his credit, Jonah was pretty good about abiding by these rules. Again, a little concerning, but I felt we were communicating effectively with him and everything was good.
There were other warning signs too. Jonah refused to go on a walk in the forest because "there were ghosts in there." I realized later that he got this idea when we watched Robin Hood: Prince of Theives.
Then we let him watch Adventures in Babysitting.
A movie that everyone of my generation grew up on. We all remember the opening credits, the little girl's obsession with Thor, and the crazy adventure they go on. What we didn't remember is the gang fight on the El Train, which involves some choice language and a knife. So while I cringed when the now infamous line was uttered during the movie, I didn't expect what happened a few days later. While Jonah and Rachel were at the toy store, Jonah grabbed a knife-like toy, turned, pointed it at Rachel and yelled "Don't f--- with the babysitter!"
Jonah is now not allowed to watch anything over PG, and we have to use extreme caution with anything not animated. Even The Sandlot has a curse word or two. Jonah will have lots of friends in his life, but he's only going to have two parents. From now on, I'm going to try harder to be one.
-------------------------------------------
Weight Loss Journal Day ????
I really should've written down the day I started this thing. I could probably start back at one (If you started singing Brian McKnight in your head when you read that, give yourself a point) due to my lack of effort on this front.
Weight Per Wii: 243.5 (- 5.5 lbs)
When I started this thing, I set an unofficial weight loss goal of 5 lbs a month. I think I'm about two months in, and losing roughly 3 lbs/month. Not bad for basically abstaining from exercise for a month. I did try to eat more salads and we kind of got off of our habit of eating ice cream every night, so that might have contributed.
The Good: After the 5k on Saturday, I got out there and ran a few miles again yesterday.
The Bad: Those two miles felt like 10. It felt like I was running on a sandy beach.
The Ugly: I thought about doing some pushups this morning, but I swear to you that my arms literally hurt just thinking about it.
Monday, June 7, 2010
So glad summer stopped by for two days.
I tried as much as I could to not blame the rain for my lack of exercise, but it's come down to either I blame the rain or I blame my own lack of motivation, so rain it is. It's been quite entertaining to read various status updates and twitter postings regarding the rain we've had lately. My favorite was someone commenting that they had seen Steve Carrell in a large wooden boat go by their house. (If you haven't seen Evan Almighty, that joke probably wasn't funny.)
Saturday was one of the most perfect days the man upstairs ever cooked up. Mid seventies, light breeze and no clouds. A perfect day for a 5k race! The Lebanon Strawberry Festival happens every first weekend in June, and Rachel has always wanted to go (show of support for the town she's been employed in for the past 7 years and all that). Circumstances have always been that we have been unable to go, but this year there were no conflicts, so I was signed up for a 5k with no real warning. Of course, the idea was that I should've been running all along and a 5k should be no big deal. To be honest, it wasn't that tough, kind of fun to run through town with both sides of the street filled with people cheering. Granted, they are there to see the parade and eat the "world's largest strawberry shortcake" presented by Mega Foods, but it's nice none the less. I wasn't surprised to hear how many people shouted hi to Rachel as we ran, but I was surprised to hear exclaimations of "It's Jonah!" as Rachel pushed him along in the jogger. I've lived in the mid-Willamette Valley for roughly 7 times longer than Jonah's been alive, and he is more well known than I am. A group of his daycare mates had some prime real estate curbside for the parade. I just checked my time for the race and we came in at a decent 33:08 (200th place!), or roughly 10 minute miles....the same pace I ran Hood to Coast in last summer. Probably could've cut a minute or two off the time, but we slowed down dramatically when Jonah wanted to run the last half mile or so, much to the delight of the ever-growing crowd. Jonah was very proud of the "finisher" ribbon he received, and kept urging us to "run more" after we crossed the finish line. Next year he might be ready for the full mile fun run.
Saturday also featured a return trip to Best Buy to figure out why our "all in one" Kodak printer was more of an "only one," as in "only one ink cartridge works, and it's not the black." When we bought our computer a few years back, we had a spectacularly awful encounter with "Firedog," the tech support group of Circuit City, so I was pretty leery about my first go-round with the "Geek Squad." My fears were temporarily realized when the guy couldn't navigate the menu on the printer read out. He couldn't figure out why the touch screen wasn't scrolling. I had to gently remind him that this particular brand of printer did not have a touch screen and he would have to use the well labeled "down arrow." After that things went rather well, as they allowed us to take home a brand new printer despite not having a receipt. I was worried they were going to charge us a bunch of money to tinker with the thing before telling us it was defective and then make us pay the difference between the current price of the printer and what we bought it for (about an $80 difference, thanks to sales and rebates).
And what beautiful day would be complete without yardwork? My yardwork time has doubled in the past few weeks, and not because I'm putting more effort into my own yard. I'm now mowing my neighbors yard, after she saw us working in our yard one day and asked if we'd be willing to help her out. She's a little older and I'm pretty sure doesn't even own a mower, so I had no problem agreeing to do this, particularly because it might make it easier to sell our house if the neighbor's yard doesn't look like there might be a velociraptor hiding in the front yard. It was a little awkward when I went to mow it the first time and she came out and asked who I was. "I'm, the guy who you asked to mow your lawn 4 days ago," was what I was thinking, but "I'm your neighbor and I figured I'd mow your lawn since I was mowing mine" was what came out. Of course her grass is incredibly overgrown. To my lawnmower, mowing her yard has the same effect that smoking a pack of cigarettes has on the human body....it makes it stink and takes years off its life. If I stay on top of it now, hopefully that problem will be rectified. However, the side of her yard is lined by these giant rose bushes that are impossible to avoid while mowing, even if I employ the self-propulsion/walk alongside the mower while guiding it with one hand" technique.
I will resume the weight loss journal tomorrow, as I intend to run on my lunch break. Weather permitting of course.
Saturday was one of the most perfect days the man upstairs ever cooked up. Mid seventies, light breeze and no clouds. A perfect day for a 5k race! The Lebanon Strawberry Festival happens every first weekend in June, and Rachel has always wanted to go (show of support for the town she's been employed in for the past 7 years and all that). Circumstances have always been that we have been unable to go, but this year there were no conflicts, so I was signed up for a 5k with no real warning. Of course, the idea was that I should've been running all along and a 5k should be no big deal. To be honest, it wasn't that tough, kind of fun to run through town with both sides of the street filled with people cheering. Granted, they are there to see the parade and eat the "world's largest strawberry shortcake" presented by Mega Foods, but it's nice none the less. I wasn't surprised to hear how many people shouted hi to Rachel as we ran, but I was surprised to hear exclaimations of "It's Jonah!" as Rachel pushed him along in the jogger. I've lived in the mid-Willamette Valley for roughly 7 times longer than Jonah's been alive, and he is more well known than I am. A group of his daycare mates had some prime real estate curbside for the parade. I just checked my time for the race and we came in at a decent 33:08 (200th place!), or roughly 10 minute miles....the same pace I ran Hood to Coast in last summer. Probably could've cut a minute or two off the time, but we slowed down dramatically when Jonah wanted to run the last half mile or so, much to the delight of the ever-growing crowd. Jonah was very proud of the "finisher" ribbon he received, and kept urging us to "run more" after we crossed the finish line. Next year he might be ready for the full mile fun run.
Saturday also featured a return trip to Best Buy to figure out why our "all in one" Kodak printer was more of an "only one," as in "only one ink cartridge works, and it's not the black." When we bought our computer a few years back, we had a spectacularly awful encounter with "Firedog," the tech support group of Circuit City, so I was pretty leery about my first go-round with the "Geek Squad." My fears were temporarily realized when the guy couldn't navigate the menu on the printer read out. He couldn't figure out why the touch screen wasn't scrolling. I had to gently remind him that this particular brand of printer did not have a touch screen and he would have to use the well labeled "down arrow." After that things went rather well, as they allowed us to take home a brand new printer despite not having a receipt. I was worried they were going to charge us a bunch of money to tinker with the thing before telling us it was defective and then make us pay the difference between the current price of the printer and what we bought it for (about an $80 difference, thanks to sales and rebates).
And what beautiful day would be complete without yardwork? My yardwork time has doubled in the past few weeks, and not because I'm putting more effort into my own yard. I'm now mowing my neighbors yard, after she saw us working in our yard one day and asked if we'd be willing to help her out. She's a little older and I'm pretty sure doesn't even own a mower, so I had no problem agreeing to do this, particularly because it might make it easier to sell our house if the neighbor's yard doesn't look like there might be a velociraptor hiding in the front yard. It was a little awkward when I went to mow it the first time and she came out and asked who I was. "I'm, the guy who you asked to mow your lawn 4 days ago," was what I was thinking, but "I'm your neighbor and I figured I'd mow your lawn since I was mowing mine" was what came out. Of course her grass is incredibly overgrown. To my lawnmower, mowing her yard has the same effect that smoking a pack of cigarettes has on the human body....it makes it stink and takes years off its life. If I stay on top of it now, hopefully that problem will be rectified. However, the side of her yard is lined by these giant rose bushes that are impossible to avoid while mowing, even if I employ the self-propulsion/walk alongside the mower while guiding it with one hand" technique.
I will resume the weight loss journal tomorrow, as I intend to run on my lunch break. Weather permitting of course.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)