These are the other 3 guys that were in my foursome.
It was a good game of golf. The Sasquatch is the right tool to use. Best game I ever played of golf.

Naples continued

It's about 85 degrees here. So far the trip has been enjoyable. Really good food, great scenery and the amenities are first class. These pics were taking with my camera phone. I will update with high quality shots when I return. Tomorrow its golf day.

Naples - More to follow

Thanksgiving Day

2 waffles with syrup
hot apple cider

The whole cornicopia for lunch

Stuffing and sweet potato casserole for diner

3 pieces of French toast, 2 cups of coffee
Lunch Portion: Fajitas, chips, cheese dip, salsa
Large box of Junior Mints.
No diner
Gallon of Water

Exercise:
50 crunches
20 knee push-ups

Add 2 homemade doughnuts and a cup of coffee to Monday. I knew I forgot something.

Tuesday -
1 egg with shredded cheese
Ham sandwich, Dorritos, Sweet T
6 slices of PJ Works and a Sprite
2 scoop World Class Chocolate Sundae with whip cream and sprinkles
1 gallon of H20.

Monday

It's a lot more water than I thought.
I'm on track with the gallon per day, but it's an all day commitment, not to mention the nightly interruptions. I havn't felt any results yet, but I think I will if I stick to it. I have no doubt that it's a good thing to do.

It's time to add another objective to this project. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I do know that having my brother's support will be good. For now we are just tracking intake, and occasionally comment about outgo, but we are trying to come up with a plan of some kind.

Breakfast - nothing
Lunch - all you can eat, which is a lot at Leonards (2 helpings of bbq, 4 chicken wings, spoon of slaw, taste of brisket, sweet tea, 1 hush puppy, large peach cobbler, probably some other stuff I can't recall)
Snack - 2 Chocolate covered Cherries
Diner - Loaded potato soup, 2 corn bread muffins, sweet T
Dessert - TBD

oh yeah, a gallon of water.

This blows!

BP - 148/93
C - significantly over 200
Resting HR - Mid 90s
Energy - zapped
At risk level for a variety of trouble - high
BS - surprisingly normal
UC - getting worse

This is the goal:



You saw it right.... 5# bags. 16 of them.

Part of my plan is to drink 365 gallons of water in a year.
After some research, I found out thats about how much goes into a big hot tub.
I hope my plumbing holds up to the increase.

Chop House

Great food, great atmosphere, pricey but good value.
Must trys: Prime Rib, White Chocolate Creme brulet.

Classic Intro

The video to the right brings back some good memories of childhood.

TRANCE - Store N Forward

I was driving back from Jonesboro yesterday listening to The System on XM.
The beat was better than usual. These 2 german guys have a 2 hour show called Store N Forward. The tunes were perfect for driving. I listened to it all the way home. They have a cool feature where they tell you how to speak certain phrases in German, which is something different while the trance music is rolling in the background.

You can stream their music here:
http://store-n-forward.com/frameset

The built in player on their site is also sweet.

Goat Xing

Took this one while coming home from the in-laws. It's on their road out in Barton, MS. It's hard to tell they're goats from the picture but they were grazzing to the left when I came by then darted across on my way back. I thought it was strange to see a pack of goats in the terrain I cover in a normal week.

In obnoxious news: I'm going back to Bill Heard Chevrolet tonight to "finalize" my deal. I've had the truck for months, put 10,000 miles on it, and they still can't get it straight. The only good news at all is that everytime they rework the paperwork, the payments come down. I paid a reasonable down payment back in late June, and havn't made a payment since, mostly because I have not seen a payment book from the bank they are using. Today they passed me upstream to a more experienced financial guy. From the phone call I had with him, I would compare it to moving from an amebae to a protozoa's waste. It should be an interesting in-person visit.

Yard Sale

Highlights:

6 yr old sold out of country time lemonaid. No doubt a future sales/marketing genius.

Sold Aiwa surround sound speakers for $10. The lady was having trouble picking them up because she tried to grab them all at once, so I went over to help her telling her that I would get the bottom half if she got the top ones. She made some comment that made it sound like it was important to pick them all up at once, so I did. 2 seconds later they all hit the concrete hard enough that the front grill parts broke off. Nobody said anything and I loaded them up in her car. She already paid.

We sold a kids all in one minature pool/pingpong/air hockey table that was missing most of the pieces. $7 sticker price. Some Latinos wanted to bargain so I told them we would take $5. I overhear the 10 year old in the background... "Dad, we only paid $4 for that at the yard sale we bought it from" I didn't know this of course, but, Thanks.

A lady that comes to every yard sale anyone every has shows up and picks up and evaluates every item we have. Finally she finds something that shows 50 cents. She starts bargaining for 25cents and comments that she doesn't want to spend that much money today. PLEASE!!!! we should be charging you rent for taking up space at this point, you've been here for an hour, beat it.

Finally, I'm reminded of a classic yard sale tale. 5 years ago, the wife and mother in law leave me unattended to man the sale, so they can go buy more stuff at another sale, which will eventually end up in another one of our future sales. It's late in the day and I'm looking at all this crap that I will have to haul off somewhere after this is over and I decide it's time for a "fire sale". They have about 50 pairs of old shoes lined up like it's Payless or something, and the traffic is thick with mostly women, which I think would appreciate a deal. I announce in a megaphone volulme, "Everything must go!, buy any item, pick out one pair of shoes for FREE!"

Business was booming, it was unreal. I highly recommend it. The family gets back and my mom in law says "oh my Harley boots sold!, that's great!, did you have to come off the $50 I had on them" Now, first, I don't know why she would have bought them in the first place, and second, who puts a $50 pair of shoes in a yard sale. Yeah, it was bad for a couple of days, but always provides me with a good laugh looking back on it, as a matter of fact I'm going to say LOL.

With and without flash - no fish

Stonebridge Golf Tournament

Approaching the green and near the sand traps late in the afternoon. When we got to the carts, vendors had supplied a total of 3 sleeves of balls. (9) total, which is exactly how many balls I lost over the course of the day in the trees, water, and ones I just couldn't find. Still my best round so far, practicing does help, and the weather conditions play a major role in determining how much BC powder I need afterward. This time, 2 paks.

WWE

With the backup during security check-in, you would have thought (3)6 Mofia was in town and they were doing cavity searches for weapons. The gallery was actually much more tame than I had anticipated. The intros are obviously where all the excitement is and they proved to be worth the price of admission. The Fedex Forum sold us seats that were actually closed for the WWE event because we probably would have caught on fire had we sat there. Event staff moved us and about 50 others to our final destination which were not great seats but we did get a good view of the entrances. The prices for our tickets were "reasonable" and they had a good deal on an event shirt specifically for the night. 20 bucks so we got one. 2 hot dogs and a no graphics souvenir cup still costs $20 at FedEx forum.

New video to the right. After an intro like this, the match itself is pretty boring.

Labor Day - Full Grill

Turning in the spoodle

A spoodle is the name they give to the spoon/laddle that you dip the sauce out of and apply it to the crust.

Its done! Several 100 deliveries, several 1000 miles, and several bills paid off.

We have ordered some of the tools Dave Ramsey has online, including budgeting software and a kid's program.

Financial Peace University is next on the list at church starting in a couple of weeks.

Several upcoming events that kick off being free at nights and weekends now:

Delta Fair - Argicenter
WWE - FedEx Forum
Golf Tournament - Stonebridge (hopefully 2 trips to drive range beforehand)
Mid South Air Show - Blue Angels Millington

I'm looking forward to posting some captured moments from each.

Several Storms

And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Mark 4: 39 (NIV)

This familiar story has new meaning to me. It's more personal. God has allowed several storms to come upon me at one time in order to get my attention and focus on Him. He allowed the heat to get turned up pretty high on one issue. With obedience and faith, and His timing, it was as if He spoke to my storms in a firm voice and said "Okay, that's enough, PEACE, be still"

There is no other feeling like when God calms your storm when it has been crashing down on you, and you know it is Him taking care of you.

At the shop

This looked a lot better when I was taking a picture of it. It kind of looks likes a plate of garbage on screen.

Things I've learned in 2 weeks (66 hours)

1) Dustinator - a flour like corn meal substance used to spread the dough out and gets all over everything in the shop

2) Don't judge a tip by the curb appeal of the destination

3) If you get a bad pizza, you can probably narrow it down to one issue - temperature

4) The city has many more subdivisions than I thought it did

5) It takes the same amount of time to cook anything we offer:
pizza, breadsticks, desert pizza, chicken strips, hot wings, cheesesticks

6) Truck drivers at the terminal are consistently the best tippers.

Sufficient for the day...

Stress list:
Job #1
House
Neighborhood
Recent Health Issue


Peace list:
Faith
Family
Friends
Job #2


"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." NKJV

I find that the same scripture speaks to me differently and different times. Today it brings peace, focus, and some new found humor.

NTO complete....

New Team-member Orientation complete, uniform acquired. It's a Christian Dior compared to the scrubs at my last part-time food oriented job.

Should be plenty of material to post after a couple of weeks of driving.

"Old School"

Easter Weekend

P.E.

Although sreaming technology doesn't do it justice, this is awesome for 2 reasons:

A. God created all of this
B. This is one of the best trailers I've ever seen

So far, the series is equally is good, although I fear politics is on the horizon for this weeks episode.

Press at CA

This is 1 of 2 presses used to print the paper in Memphis. The business here is Trump size.

Pool table

Garage sale
$4.00
balls are mini versions of the real ones

Downtown Memphis

The Redbirds had a fan appreciation day. There was free food and atmosphere for the season. We also hit the rooftop of the Peabody.

BLACKJACK

This morning I woke up like a kid on Christmas morning, ran to the tree (actually the door), and found a small package addressed to me just outside the back door.

The Blackjack Smart Phone. This thing is the coolest gadget I've seen so far. It will be convenient for work, and play. I won't bore you with the tech specs here, but I'm seriously thinking I may not need my laptop any more.

I went to several Cingular stores to get some needed accessories, and ended up at the Wolfchase mall Cingular kiosk. I'm sure teenager that normally runs this kiosk is dedicated to their job but after 15 minutes of the abandoned mini store not turning up any sign of life, I left and found a real store. Luckily I was able to use my new toy to capture the shot above for my amusement and now yours. This is the new security at the mall.

Office

This is the view just outside our office. It's a better view than my previous place. Today I sneezed for the first time in about 5 months. This is most likely due to the dogwood trees shown in the picture.

Me and my brother ate lunch at ABC today. It was good and different than the usual joints. We will return for more. There's nothing like fresh baked goods. Later I'm off to the Y to work out. Maybe if I do 30 minutes on the treadmill instead of 25, I can burn off one bite of the cookie I ate. It was worth it.

FINEPIX S3100 is Back!

First, let me be clear that I don't like cats that much, however they do make good photography subjects and "Ki-Ki" is the first thing I saw after the following took place. (click the cat pix for larger view of detail)

I've been a little bummed ever since my camera stopped working. I'm not very technical, but when I'm faced with having to replace a $300 investment after only 2 years of use, it's amazing how creative I can get. Before I get too excited about my skills, I do recognize that had it come down to me taking the thing apart with a screwdriver, it would be an R&D exercise to see how digital cameras are made, rather than a solution that would fix anything. Surprisingly, I was able to get it working just one step short of that. One of the battery contacts had broken off, so I engineered a paper clip modification that works great.

We went to the kids workshop at Lowes this morning. Today's project was a tic-tac-toe game. It has a sliding drawer that holds the pieces. It's always fun for the kids to build stuff. Turns out the 6 yr old is great with the hammer. Maybe she can fix my next technical mishap.

One 2 many

In the business world:
"many people don't know what they want, because.. they don't know what is available" z.z.
"that's all I have to say about that" f.g.

Muppy

This is Muppy. So far.. so good. He is a lot friendlier than his predecessor. He likes to curl up and lay down in your lap. He's about 1/10th the size of Penny and much faster. Yesterday I barely cracked the door and he shot out like a bullet and flew down the street in a blur. He doesn't like the backyard much, which means we might be able to enjoy sitting on the back patio this summer without the stench of steaming dog crap. Having a lush landscape is on my to do list this summer.

Cake & Party

We ended up using pipe cleaners instead of licorice because it wouldn't hold. It turned out okay and it tasted good. It's harder to decorate a cake than I remembered. I picked up some tips from dad for the next round.

The party was a lot of fun and reminded me of some parties I had. When you get (5) 10 yr olds under the same roof you hear some interesting things. The highlight was when they all were introduced as wrestlers with the belt and their favorite WWE guys' intro music blasting. Lasertron was also a big hit.

The hole in the backyard is still there.
There is a new member to the family. Not sure yet if it is short term or permanent. Pictures next time.

Sportsman of the Year

I was going thru some old files and found this shot. It's rare. We were at a friend of the familys pond. Most events that involve me and fish, also involve a 75 gallon aquarium. It's not a "fish tank". It's an aquarium and it will soon be converted to a salt water paradise that spongebob himself would be proud to call home. More on that later.

Update on last weekend - 1 of 2 complete. The event wasn't pretty, emotionally I mean, but we no longer had a choice. At some point we will have another go at man's best friend, but for now, we are down to 5 + fish.

It's more difficult to find a bag of dirt than you would think. I've been to Lowes, The City Co-op, and a recommended construction company. They have referred me to a 4th place, but I'm not in the mood any more. At least not this week.