The diet

I started P90X about 2 weeks ago and so far I love it! I have missed the last 2 days and have felt like something is missing. I love the program, it involves working out every day using muscle confusion to build the whole body. I am currently the strongest I have ever been!

Yesterday Mary and I had our engagement pics taken. I can't wait to see them, they are going to be awesome! After, we stopped at Elidios for some pizza. I knew I really shouldn't, especially since I haven't been working out like I should. Well, I did. I got on the scale this morning to see the damage. 190! no no no....that's not right. Moved the scale around...190 again. "There is no way," I said. Picked up the scale and moved it around. Tried again...190. Well holy heck I'm 190!

I started at a huge 225! The day I started post. I have a picture just have to wait for Mary to get the few pics of her in the wedding dress off the camera.

5 more pounds and I'll hit my goal! I have a month and a half to get there! Tomorrow starts the bachelor party...so who knows what I'll weigh when we get back. :)

Helped Jason with his dry wall.

Dry walling the bonus room.

Started phase 2 of the tattoo

The cardinal has been started! pics and more to come.

Happy Earth Day....Earth!

Celebrate Earth Day! Check out HGTV's Change the World page for Earth Day info. While your there check out that awesome Earth Day logo! :)

HGTV Change the World

Crazy Events, with calming Shower

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29!

Had a great birthday this year! Sleep in a little and got up and headed out to get me a Roskstar (my favorite energy drink). Once I got home I decide to spend a little time in the sun and wash my car. I discovered I was out of my car wash soap so I head back out to get some. While at Wal-mart I asked if they had any 9mm ammo?...nope, any .40?....nope, any .22...nope, any .223?...yup 20$ for 20...I'll pass. So I got back home and wash my car nice and good inside and out.

After that I did an hour and a half of yoga followed by some relaxing on the couch waiting for Mary to get home for work. I wait to take a shower and hopped on the scale........194....! Oh man! Since starting the diet I have lost 30 pounds! And what better day for it to happen then my b-day?!

After Mary got home we watched some TV and relaxed. Michael showed up and we got ready and headed to Calhouns to meet the family. Bill was there when we got there and the place was crowded! We were 45 minutes early so we could get our names on the list. There were also some UT football players there waiting for a table too, they decided to leave after finding out the wait was 30 minutes. While standing there I heard one say, "Man that's my favorite car, I want one bad!" I turned away expecting to see a top of line Merc but it was an old Impala SS. I laughed in my head thinking, man, if you play your cards right you could buy one of those in every color and have any amount of custom work done to it that your little heart desired.

After talking to Bill for a while we headed in to the bar. I got a nice big light beer to last me the night (which it did). Michael and I did a shot of bacardi 151 to celebrate!

We got a table and everyone started showing up. Mom came in but dad didn't, strange. Parking was really bad there though, so I didn't think much of it. Well...I turn around to see Dad walking in, followed by Grandmom and Aunt Beth, my jaw hit the floor. I was shocked to see them! They flew in this morning and surprised us! Mary didn't know they were coming either! They really came for the shower but it was awesome they got tot surprise me on my B-Day!

I got hooked up with gifts! Pics soon.

After some catching up, gifts and cake we headed to the old city. Mary, Michael, James, Canada, Sean and I all went. We didn't stay long, just had a shot and a beer and left.

All-in-all is was a great time! Loved seeing everyone and can't wait to do it again next year! Only lame thing: Phillies and Flyers both lost!

Titans 2009 schedule and Comcast SUCKS!

We are playing 4 primetime games including: Monday night vs. The Texans and the Christmas day game against the Chargers at home!

1 Thu, Sept. 10 at Pittsburgh Steelers NBC 8:30 p.m.
2 Sun, Sept. 20 vs. Houston Texans CBS 1 p.m.
3 Sun, Sept. 27 at New York Jets CBS 4:15 p.m.
4 Sun, Oct. 4 at Jacksonville Jaguars CBS 1 p.m.
5 Sun, Oct. 11 vs. Indianapolis Colts NBC 8:20 p.m.
6 Sun, Oct. 18 at New England Patriots CBS 4:15 p.m.
7 Bye
8 Sun, Nov. 1 vs. Jacksonville Jaguars CBS 4:05 p.m.
9 Sun, Nov. 8 at San Francisco 49ers CBS 4:15 p.m.
10 Sun, Nov. 15 vs. Buffalo Bills CBS 1 p.m.
11 Mon, Nov. 23 at Houston Texans ESPN 8:30 p.m.
12 Sun, Nov. 29 vs. Arizona Cardinals FOX 1 p.m.
13 Sun, Dec. 6 at Indianapolis Colts CBS 1 p.m.
14 Sun, Dec. 13 vs. St. Louis Rams FOX 1 p.m.
15 Sun, Dec. 20 vs. Miami Dolphins CBS 1 p.m.
16 Fri, Dec. 25 vs. San Diego Chargers NFLN 7:30 p.m.
17 Sun, Jan. 3 at Seattle Seahawks CBS 4:15 p.m.

Pretty tough schedule if I must say. Those first 6 games will be fun! Opening against the Champs which should of been us and we'll let them know that! The Jets shouldn't be a big problem with a new QB. Jags, Colts and Texans always put up a good fight and the Pats....well they are the Pats.

One thing that I'm pretty pissed about is that good ol Comcast is dropping NFL Network May 1st and the xmas day game is only on NFL Net. This is VERY disappointing. I never had a problem with comcast until now. Check out this interesting fact, "Comcast does not put the channels it owns or has ownership interest in (Golf Channel, Versus and MLB Network) on a sports tier. Comcast offers those channels on broadly distributed levels of service where fans do not have to pay extra." How lame is that?! There is a possibility of comcast reaching an agreement with NFL Net by the end of April but I'm not holding my breath. So we may be going to Dish before Christmas this year!

Come on Comcast, I know it's really hard to not be greedy, but do it for the fans! We want our NFL Network!

My new setup at work

Just grabbed a mac monitor from one of the offices that wasn't being
used. That office will become mine here soon!

UPDATE! 04.14.09
Got to work plugged everything in and my keyboard and touch pad on the laptop wasn't working. I tired everything, even took it apart.


















Nothing doing. Still busted.

Easter 2009

Had a great Easter this year. Mary and I went to my parents church with the family nice and early. After we went home and Mary made some cupcakes while I worked out. We headed to the folks house for lunch with everyone. Mom made us all little easter goody bags! too!

After hanging out there for a while we heading home to let the dogs out. Then we were off to Mary's parents for dinner. We had a nice little time. Mary's dad was in town and we had a good family chat after dinner. While Mary, Joey, James, Jim and I sat and chatting Michael ran to Byrd's house and picked up my new-to-me .22 rifle I bought from Byrds dad.

All and all it was a good Easter!

Started painting the house.

Got coke for the wedding

Mary got a sweet deal on coke at work. 75 12 packs plus 55 free 20oz.
bottles. 900 cokes!!! Hahahahaha

Found shoes for the wedding!!

Keith and I went shoe shopping yesterday after exchanging my work bench at Lowe's. It had a slight bend in the center column which held both drawers in place. The right side drawer keep falling out and finally broke. Lowe's exchanged it, no receipt or card it was purchased on with no questions asked. The lady that helped me was actually the sister of a really good friend I had in high school, Will Evans. Molly, his sister, was all grow'd up. Took us a while to recognize each other too.

Well after we headed to the Kohl's out in Farragut. Keith drove and as we passed a little park we noticed several cops an ambulance, and a fire tire. Everyone seemed relaxed like nothing bad was going on.

We found shoes we both liked, tried them on, like them, paid and left. Right when we walked out we noticed a louder than normal helicopter sound. Once we spotted it through the trees it looked as if it was over by the park where we saw all the emergency crews. It was just hovering there. As we drove back we could see it seemed to be hovering around the wooded area looking for something. As we got closer traffic got worse. It was in fact hovering over the woods back and forth. Even flew over us a few times. It was close enough to see the people in it, coulda waved if they were looking.

We never found out anything about it. I'm guessing it was some sort of training exercise. Should was a strange place for it if it was.

Ohwell, I got shoes for the wedding!!

Tux Fitting

Last night all the guys, dad and I went to get fitted. Everything went great. They will be able to accommodate us and I got my rental for free. Mary is not to happy that we can't buy the tux due to them being discontinued and so popular they can't spare any. They actually had the pants and jacket in my size to try on!

After we all went to Parkside Tavern for dinner. We had a great time hanging out and catching up.

I miss hanging out with those guys.

Working on wedding stuff

I had a few things to work on for the wedding, like the invites and website, so Mary joined me.
Few other family members decided to join us. :)

Ashley and Tim are moving!

...To the exact opposite of where they currently are! They are moving from Boston, MA to Thomasville, GA. It's about 30 minutes north of Tallahassee, FL. Tim got a position in the Presbyterian church there. I'm very happy for the both of them and they seem to be happy and excited about it. The church wanted him there around June 22 and Ashley isn't finished with her job until June 12. That's insane, but I can understand, Tim is great at what he does and they are awesome folks! But a 20+ hour drive plus packing and finding somewhere to live in 10 days?! They haven't decided exactly how its going to work out completely yet but some other great news is they know for sure they can attend the wedding! I'm so glad to know they will be there!

Passports!

We got our passports finally! Bahamas here we come!

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Had an interesting experience due to a seemingly meaningless post (post has been removed) that I will dive into deeper after some time passes.

Visited Paul and Carolyn last night

Mary and I took girl dog up to meet Paul, Carolyn and Rio last night. Well they actually agree to take her for a few days and see how her and Rio got along. Last time while there she showed how attached to Mary she is. She was always trying to get into her lap. She settled down a bit later in the night and she was very good while we were eating dinner. Carolyn was nice enough to cook dinner for us and made it something on the healthy side since I'm back on a stricter diet (weighed right at 200.0 before going over to their house!). Rio and her didn't hate each other, in fact they seemed to not even care one another was there. Girl dog eventually warmed up to Carolyn and sat with her on the couch. Paul and Carolyn both were holding her later in the night right before we left and she seemed right at home. Hopefully she does good and they decided to keep her!

I took my Glock over to show Paul (I had no idea in was SO into guns until recently...well until I got into them :) ). He really liked it and laughed at the 33 round clip, like most do. Well he showed me his collect. He keeps 2 Smith & Wessons in the night stands (1 is Carolyn's). After showing those he took me down to see what he had in the safe! WOW!...what a collection! He showed me a few handguns first, then....he pulled out the M1 carbine! Beautiful gun!
The standard US military fireman used during World War II and the Korean War. This one was an original US military issued M1 used in one or the another or both wars (can't remember what he told me). Still had the original sling with 2 mag pouch on the stock. It was in GREAT condition, the wood looked brand new. Then he shocks me, "Come on let's go shoot it!" I was very surprised, as we walk he tells me its his favorite gun and shoots it all the time. To me it looked like a safe baby. We walk out onto the porch, he drops it to his hip and fires away...5 rounds straight into the wood right there from the porch. Then he handed it to me. I shot it several times using the sites and a few times from the hip. It was a great experience! I couldn't help but think what that gun had seen and where it had been.

After shooting the M1 he showed me the rest of the collection which included: several beautiful Colt and Smith & Wesson revolvers, a $2700 Benelli shotgun, several other rifles, the Dirty Harry .44 Magnum and even a little revolver that was stamped with the year 1887 on the barrel that my grandmother gave him.

Well we had a great night with them and are hoping and praying that girl dog works out for them. Now Mary will want to go visit all the time and Pual and I can shoot!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT SARAH!!! :)

Mary broke her iPhone...

...but I fixed it! :) She dropped it right on the top corner button. It jammed it up in the case. I figured I could take the back off and fix it. Well, after the long process of getting the thing apart I came to the conclusion it was toast. The button had jammed into the case and was stuck/broken. I then remembered we still had my original one, the one that got sunk in the tub! I went though the long process again of removing the back and transferred it to the new one. It took forever to get the thing back together, but I got it and it works great.

Food Allergies?!?!

Last night, in an attempt to eat healthy, I started up the grill and tossed a small piece of salmon on it. Started up the green beans on the oven as well. Well the grill needs some work (already?!). The gas nozzle holes split and its forcing all the gas to exit at the point of entry, which is in the back. All 4 are doing this, so there is a huge flame at the back of the grill on each rail. Well the salmon was taken forever to cook and I kept sliding it to the back getting as close to flames as I could. Well the green beans finished and I started dipping into those while waiting on the salmon. I'm guessing I left them on the oven to long. They had a very strange texture, like rubber. They were hard to eat. Finally I just took the salmon of the grill and sat down it eat.

Little side note: Last time I made salmon, I used seasoning that I had used before no problem, and it killed my heart burn/acid reflux. Like so bad I thought I was going to be sick, I had to pace in the condo to make it feel just a little better. I also experienced this horribleness after eating O'Charleys salmon. I had also eaten it many times before with no problems.

Well, needless to say, last night I skipped the seasoning.

So I got my plates, my glass of water and sat down in the floor at the coffee table to enjoy and watch the second half of the US world cup qualifier, in Nashville I may add. (They won 3-0 on a hat trick from Jozy Altidore, whom is only 19!) I couldn't make it through all the green beans and I eat about 3/4s of the salmon. As I was seating in the floor enjoying the game for some reason I strated running my tongue across the inside of my upper lip. I felt to little bumps. I thought, "What the...?" I kept feeling it and they kept getting bigger. By the time I realized what was going on I could feel my throat getting a little tighter. I drink a whole glass of water then went in the bathroom to look at my lip. Whoa! I looked like someone punched me in the face, my upper lip was all puffy and swollen. Ok, this is a little scary. I called Mary to ask her pharmacist what I should do. The throat tighting was starting to worry me, "Should I call my parents to take me to the ER, what about Jason? He is close." Mary's pharmacist told me to take 2 benadryls, drink water and don't go to sleep. As I sat back down the heart burn/acid reflux started to hit me. "Are you kidding me?" It was the horrible, have to pace to be comfortable kind. Well, while dealing with that at least my throat never got any worse and my lip quit swelling. Once the heart burn stopped my thorat was back to normal. My lip started to get better but wasn't back to normal until this morning.
Besides how the salmon was prepared (don't see how it could be so different from the last few I have bought from Krogers). The only think I can possibly think of is either the last time the grill was used something somehow transfered to the salmon (James cooked on it last time we were out of town and used a seasoning I have never used or tried before) or my body has decided to bail on the whole eating salmon idea.

Welp, I'm pretty sure that the salmon chapter in my life is now closed! It will be a long long time before I eat it again. The thought of going through that just sends chills, I'll pass.