Happy Birthday Asher!

It was 7 years ago today that my son Asher was born. It is hard to believe he is 7 years old already. His main interests these days are spy stuff, pirates, music, and martial arts. He has been taking tai kwan do lessons for a couple of years now. I don't remember what color belt he is but if you ask him he will tell you. I know for one of the belts he had to break a board like Danielson. I think he is going to be a tall kid.

Certainly when he was born I didn't envision living over a thousand miles away from him and only seeing him 2 months of the year. I have learned from life that you have to roll with the punches. Sometimes you get the crap kicked out of you in life and you just have to keep getting up even though sometimes you just don't want to anymore. But persistence has a way of leading to a better paved road. A road with less potholes, a smoother road, a road with a beautiful view. That is where persistence has lead me. It has led me to a better life, with a wonderful wife, a beautiful daughter and a great little son. I am pleased with my life and feel blessed. Other than dissatisfaction with my current career path I have no complaints. It seems at times like I have been through hell and back but I have few regrets. I don't think you can live a happy life if you hold on to regrets.

I remember looking Asher in the face when he was very young and crying, because I knew the marriage was not going to work out, and I didn't know what would become of us all. Well while not an ideal situation we have tried to make it all work out for everyone the best we could. Asher is doing well, he seem to be doing well in school and seems to be cared for and loved and that is a relief to me. Happy Birthday Asher. He is coming for his summer visit this Friday. I will take a picture then and post it with this blog. Take care

End of week 3

Well we have arrived at the end of the third week. The progress is coming along smoothly so far. I have entered into the 250's. I weighed in this morning at
259.2 lbs. So this week I lost 3.4 lbs for a total of 17.4 lbs in the last 3 weeks.



Not to bad. I am hitting my every week goal of loosing 3 lbs a week. I stepped up my workouts this week. I walked/ran about 6 miles or so this week. I also did some swimming. I am most likely going to have to increase my swimming and cut back on my running. There is a reason elephants are not long distance runners/walkers. They got to much weight to carry around.



You dont see many fat New Yorkers running in the Boston Marathon. I have a history of plantar fascitis and any time I run or walk to much I start to feel pain in my feet. I kind of took it easy but they are still bothering me a little. So it was a good week.

Ayden actualy slept for 8 straight hours last night. It was the first time she has ever done that. We are hoping it was not an anomaly. Check out the photo album we got some pictures of her smiling, she is 7 weeks old today. My son Asher comes to visit this Friday for the month of July. I am excited to see him. He did good in the first grade and was recognized at the end of the school year for doing well in reading and math so I was pretty pleased with that. He continues to be very interested in martial arts and pirate stuff and spy stuff. We are going to do a lot of swimming and playing during the month of July. Anyway, I told Tina I have been having bloggers block. I think I have a few anecdotes to pass on a little later this week. Oh and Anj, the reflux stuff Ayden is taking I believe is called Axid. It seems to be helping quite a bit. Take care.

Stuff

I am starting to feel the pressure of having a Pulitzer prize blog. I am starting to feel the pressure to produce on a regular basis the kind of cutting edge, news breaking, hypothetical thoughts and anecdotes that have gotten me where I am in life. I will continue my best, "fans", to provide you with entertainment in every blog.

I have contemplated lately about working a little blue. The problem is I don't know who all reads this blog. Some of my family and friends may not like blue work. I have considered putting a warning message at the beginning of the blog so those opposed to bathroom stories and the like can look away so to speak. You all let me know what you would like by leaving comments on this post. I have some stories that would singe your nose hairs and reverberate your vocal cords with laughter.

A few thoughts....

Robert Hanssen, ever heard of him. Ever seen the movie "Breach"? Pretty good/interesting movie. Based on a true story of what is considered to be the greatest spy against the United States in history. He was a double agent for the Russians for many years and the results and damage he has caused the United States is still not completely known. After reading a little bit about him, his biggest concern was being caught by a double agent for the United States. In other words some agent employed by the KGB but secretly worked for the United States. He used dead-drops to supply the information, never really coming into contact or revealing his identity to the Russians. It is a good watch, slow, but interesting and true.

Continuing on the movie theme is the movie "Big Fish". I know, it is kind of weird isn't it? But at the same time there is something kind of cool about it. We have all known people who told tall tales. Who when you said you mounted Everest would tell you that they did it barefoot in a wheelchair. The person I grew up with like this was Jeff Ramey. If you listened to that guy he would tell you he could have created the world in 4 days and then he water skied the last 3. I consulted my brother about his tales because he was Travis's age. These are a few of the tales he used to tell us. Jeff Ramey's family seemed to have some money, they had a nice boat and were avid water skiers. He said they were rich due to his cousin's finding a gold nugget in a beach ball. Ummmm, possible, highly unlikely. He also told a story about being at a Ranger game in the broadcast booth when suddenly a fall ball broke the glass in the broadcast booth. Amid the may lay and the undoubted sharded glass he was able to catch and secure the baseball. Yeah, probably not. Back to "Big Fish". The movie was kind of cool the way the stories helped this man deal with his life. It was like he had wild fantasy's but instead of just dreaming about them he would tell them as true stories to others. I don't know for sure if he really believed them or not.

Ayden is doing well. We recently got some Reflux medicine for her and it seems to be helping. If you look at the photo album there are some new pictures of her. Sorry they are all in the same swing and in the same seat, but when she starts doing something new we will have different pictures.

I wanted to poll my audience. Would you rather go through life getting by financially, never having an abundance but just enough to pay the bills, or would you rather live in relative hardship for 3 years but after those 3 years never worry about finances again? What do you guys thinks. Leave your comments. Take care.

End of week 2.

Well I have arrived at the end of week 2.



The week went just fine from a diet standpoint. I dont really have any struggles with food. For me it is really a mindset. Once I establish a mindset everything else is pretty easy. Sure I get tempted at times but not very often. I have a certain grouping of foods I eat every day that I really enjoy. Stuff like pickles, tomatos, celery, carrots, egg salad sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, salad, soup, green beans, brocolli, baked lays, bite size 3 muskateers (these are a necessity) and little 1/2 cup size chocolate ice creams and popcorn. I eat these types of things every day.



My weight this morning was 262.6 lb's. So I lost 2.8 lb's this week, overall I am down exactly 14 lbs's in 2 weeks. Not to bad, I cant really complain about that progress. I was able to work out once this week. I ran for about 2 minutes at a very fast pace, but then my heart almost blew up so I stopped and got on the elliptical for 10 minutes. Well then I was watching the calories burned in that 10 minutes and I said "this sucks, I am hardly burning anything off", so I got back on the treadmill determined to run for 5 straight minutes at as fast a pace as I could. I made it the 5 minutes with a 2 minutes cool down, so all in all I worked out about 19 minutes or so. You know I used to run the 400 meter in about 58 seconds or so, which is quick but not trackster quick. Now it takes me like 170 seconds. I am slow. Anyway the diet is coming along well. I am going to hit my goal it is just a matter of time. Thanks for all you comments and support. Peace out.

Thoughts over John

Tell me, am I the only one in the world to notice the curious configuration of public restrooms. Specifically the toilets. Often as I am sitting on the porcelain I feel the toilet give way a little bit. I am speaking about the toilets that are bolted to the wall and don’t actually contact the ground. Then at other times I feel the toilet actually rise up a little bit. It is a weird phenomenon. Here is my theory. On the other side of the wall, in the ladies restroom, there is a toilet that is actually attached/bolted to the very one I am sitting on. So when I am sitting on one all is good and level. But then some gal in the ladies restroom comes and sits on the toilet and I get that sea-saw sensation. I got to believe that when a girl is sitting on the toilet in the ladies room and I sit on the adjacent toilet in the men’s room she suddenly flies up in the air because my weight sends her flying thru the air, when she eventually lands she is probably using the toilet at a 45 degree angle because of course I weigh more than she does. Then when I get of the toilet first, it sends her sprawling toward the floor like a person would when a fat guy suddenly jumps of the sea-saw, sending the little person plummeting toward earth at 2000 feet per second. Just an interesting observation.

After 1 week

Well I am one week into this thing now. It was a good week. No problems staying within my daily portions for the day and week. When I started one week ago I weighed 276.6 lb's. When I weighed in this morning I weighed in at 265.4 lb's so if you do the math I lost 11.2 lb's this week.


I am sure most of it was water weight. I would expect the loose around 7 lbs this coming week and then for the weekly number to be around 3 lb's a week. I didnt get to exercise at all this week. I was hoping to exercise at least an hour a day, but with the baby and all we havent really been able to do anything lately.


Anyway enjoy the pictures. I am sure you will not be able to tell a difference in the look of my gut till I reach about 240 lb's. Take care, I will update the progress again next monday.

Hugh??

The title of this blog sums up my thoughts of the Pirates 3 movie. You know I consider myself relatively intelligent. I consider my wife intelligent. We are both closer to genuises than inbred hillbillies. But I gotta tell you. I was lost throughout this entire movie. Jack Sparrow is seeing himself, some black girl who I thought was some kind of fighting ship in human form turns out to be just a very large black chick. Davie Jones's job is to do something. Jack Sparrow wants the job I think to live forever. What?!!?? Anyway, it didnt fit. It never seemed to gel together. The girl seems to like Jack, then she seems to like the Lord of the Rings guy. The Lord of the Rings guy is making side deals with the Armada guy, then he isnt, then the girl is, then Jack is, Barbosa is taking the ship, they are gathering the pirates elders together..... What??!!?? The movie blew. Spiderman 3 blew and this blew. So far the two big summer flicks have blew. Hopefully my boy Harry Potter can pull this thing out this summer. Pictures of my slightly less fat body and how the week went diet wise to come tonight. Peace out.

Hot Date!

Well tonight I have a hot date. I asked Tina out and luckily she agreed to go out with me this evening. We are planning on going to see Pirates 3. I have heard some mixed reviews about it. I will be giving my review of it in a few days from now. I hope it is better than Spiderman 3 was. That was most disappointing. If you saw the trailer for the movie it was much better than the actual movie so dont be fooled. I just dont know how many bad guys can appear in one movie. It was just not good. Sure it had its entertaining parts but overall it was average at best.

Ayden is doing very well. She is in the 50-60%ile for weight, head size etc.. She is sleeping for about 5 hours a stretch at night which we think is pretty good by comparison to how she was doing. She is a joy in our lives for sure and we are very happy to have her.

Anyway I am excited about my date tonight. It is nice to get some alone time together and it is really nice to have a lot of family around to help babysit when we want to go out. Man I had a lot of things I was going to write about but I have writers block at the moment, so I will have to get that stuff in at a later post.

The Plan

The goal is simple. My plan is to loose 91 lb's in 7 months. Bringing my overall weight to 185 lb's. That is a little over 3 lb's a week, 13 lb's a month for 7 months. Doable? I think so. The longest I have been able to diet in the past is a month and a half. So I am going to have to go considerably longer to accomplish this goal. Truth is though, for me to stay at this weight and stay in shape this type of eating will have to continue for the rest of my life.