End of week 12

Well I have finally completed the elusive 3 month mark. It should be no surprise to those of you who knew I was going backpacking in the mountains of Wyoming that I lost a few pounds. In the 3 days we spent in the mountains I walked an estimated 20 miles. For me that is a lot, especially uphill, in rocky terrain and at 10,000 feet of elevation compared to my normal 700 feet. I did pretty well all things considered. The first day I was fine. The second day I was walking all over the several different lakes without a backpack and for some reason thought I was going to die. I simply had no energy. Then the hike out was not to bad. I caught 8 fish. The fishing wasn't bad, they were just smaller then we would have preferred. But it was real nice to get back up in the mountains. It was a beautiful place and the weather was great, except for our first night up there, where I was told the temperature got down to 20 degrees. I had left my socks outside the tent that evening and in the morning the socks were able to stand up by themselves. I was sleeping in my sister Emma's sleeping bag, so it wasn't big enough for me so the first night was kind of cold. Other than that we saw some deer, but no bears or elk or moose. It was a fun trip but very tiring. It is good to be back home with the wife and kiddo. So I lost 5.4 lb's this past week bringing my 12 week total to 37.4 lb's lost. I am pleased with the results and progress at this point. It is nice to have the clothes fitting better these days. Well school starts today and I am off to buy my books. I will get pictures of me up today and hopefully some of Ayden and the mountains. It just depends on how quick I can get Travis to send me the pictures he took. Take care.

End of week 11

Well to much partying for me this week. I gained 1.8 lb's this week. So i have lost exactly 32 lb's through 11 weeks. As I was mentioning to someone the other day, this way of eating is a lifetime effort for me. It is not something I am doing for a temporary period of time until I loose the weight I am trying to loose. I realize this is a life long pursuit and that it has to be for me. I weigh 244.6 lb's. I played some basketball the other day with some of my brothers, I suck. I am currently burnt, lacerated on my arm (my arm looks like I had a fight with X-Men's Wolverine), lacerated on my leg, cut on my thumb, a jammed thumb and muscle soreness everywhere. I am getting old and it really sucks.

I am going on my fishing trip with my dad and travis this coming weekend. It is going to be a ton of walking for me and hopefully in the process I will loose some good weight. I am looking forward to getting to the mountains.

Ayden is doing wonderfully. She is such a joy to me, she can always make me smile when she smiles or stares at me which she often does. Even though life can be frustrating to me at times and difficult when I am at home with Tina and Ayden everything is good. I suspect that when i weigh in next monday I will be about 4 lb's lighter than I was today. Probably closer to 240. We will see. Take care.

End of week 10

Well I have completed week 10 now. I weighed in this morning at 242.8 lb's. So I lost 3.8 lb's this past week and a total of 33.8 lbs in 10 weeks. I am pleased with my progress and know that it is only a matter of time before I loose all the weight I set out to loose. My eating patterns are set and habit now, they are not going to change. I am up against a deadline at work so I cant type much right now. But everything is good. I will write more next week when stuff at work slows down. And there will be more pictures up next week.

I heard my sister Sarah was in the Hospital. Sarah when you read this blog I hope you are doing better. Take care

End of week 9

Well another week has come and gone. My pursuit of looking like a Greek God is still ongoing. I have some work to do but I am making progress. I believe I came into this week weighing 247.7 lb's. When I weighed in this morning I weighed in at 246.6 lb's. So a weight loss of 1.1 lb's. Which is below the weekly goal but is progress. I think that amount of weight loss dawns in comparison to how many inches I am loosing of my waist. My suit pants this week have never been looser. I have gone from using the very last belt loop on my belt to now using the 4th from the last. So I know I have lost considerable inches. I am feeling good having lost a total of exactly 30 lb's in 9 weeks.

We had a great visit with Asher over the 5 weeks he was here. He is a sweet boy with a kind heart. I so much want him to be a good person and make good decisions in his life.

We got the pleasure of blessing Ayden in church yesterday. It was a special day, the family that was able to come was there. We wish everyone could have made it but certainly the distance is rather prohibitive for many of you. But it was a special day. She looked so beautiful in her little dress. There will pictures up tonight of her in that dress in the photo album. She really has been a blessing in our lives. She has the cutest little smile which just melts my heart and cheers me up when I am down.

I really struggle in this world. It seems the world revolves around business and I could not be a worse fit for business and corporations. Let me list the top 10 reasons why I can never succeed in business.

1)I don't like other people telling me what to do if I deem them to be unqualified to do so.
2)I hate the policies companies use that don't make sense from any standpoint.
3)Instead of paying people what they are worth they pay them as little as they can get away with.
4)They are close minded. They have no desire to listen to what their employees have to say.
5)They don't like to be questioned or second guessed.
6)They do not hold themselves accountable for their own stupid decisions.
7)Managers fire their employees to protect their own jobs, even if those employees are capable.
8)Companies promote butt kissers who are incompetent.
9)They fire good workers who perhaps struggle on some projects instead of moving them to a place where they can excel again. (My company fired 5 people today. All working on a huge project. They were good at their jobs which is why they were put on the project in the first place. They will loose all of their stock options they have been sitting on for years. They had been putting in 12 hour days and this is what they have to show for it.)
10)It is all about the bottom line and the stock price. Little else matters. Don't ever buy that they care about you or your family. The minute you couldn't produce you would be out the door regardless of circumstance or reason.
11)I wont treat anyone different than I treat anyone else. In other words the COO I treat the same as my friends. The President of the company gets the same treatment from me. I am not going to throw him a party, email him when he is sick or kiss his behind, unless I would do that to everyone else. They are no more important to me than anyone else. They will get no more respect from me than does anyone else. Respect and Trust have to be earned from me. They don't get it based on title or status.


Those are just a few of my thoughts. I will never advance in business. As you can imagine my views in business are not appreciated. Anyway I hope you are all doing well. I struggle everyday with my career. I truly dislike what I do professionally, but am very blessed to have a wonderful family outside of my career.

End of week 8

It has been a solid 2 months for me diet wise. I weighed in at 247.7 lb's this morning so this past week I lost 1.8 lb's. Below my weekly goal but still not to bad. So in two months of healthy eating and occasional exercise I lost 29.2 lb's. I cant ever really see myself going back to eating the way I used to eat. When you do something multiple times a day for 2 months it kind of forms a habit.

I mentioned in a comment that I would blog on my degree plans. I am going to study Criminology. My plan is to complete this PhD degree and then ultimately be a professor in college. This is as close to a dream job from me as I can attain, since it doesn't look like a Major League Baseball career is going to work out for me. I have always had great interest in this field. It is really one of the very few subjects I have great interest in. The degree will most likely take around 4 years. I will be diminishing my work schedule a bit while I do this program and we will get by as best we can over the next 4 years.

We have had a good time with Asher visiting us. He really is a well behaved little guy. I fear at times I am to hard on him. I think I am hard on him because I want him to be a good person and since I have some experience with what he possibly could be if he takes after his mother I am doing everything I can think of to prevent certain characteristics.

Ayden is a delight. She is just such a beautiful little girl who loves to smile. Tina thinks she laughed for the first time the other day, but to me it sounded to me more like a cough laugh. She is 3 months old today.

Tina and Asher and I went fishing at a private pond this past weekend. I wanted to take them to a place where I was fairly certain we would all catch some fish. Well that didn't work out. Asher and Tina got several bites but never got one in the boat. I was able to get and keep one on the hook but it was embarrassing how small it was. It was probably about a 4 ounce fish. We also went to a little animal museum this past weekend. We got to see alot of snakes and some spiders. Asher seemed to enjoy it.

I will finish Harry Potter today, I stayed up till 2:30am trying to get as close to finished as I could. I will try to get the pictures up this evening. After watching Karate Kid 2 last night Asher is excited to see one, so I have to try and find that. For those of you who dint know Asher does Tai Kwon Do. I need a vacation.

End of week 7

It was a pretty tiring week. I am not sure why. My weight loss continues. This blog has been the best thing to happen to my health so far. It provides a way for some accountability of my health. I weighed in this morning at 249.2 lb's. That equals a 5.2 lb weight loss this past week. So after 7 complete weeks of eating healthy and occasionally working out I have lost 27.4 lb's. Not to bad. I am still on my goal of loosing 3 lb's a week. So needless to say I was pleased. I am accustomed to eating to way I eat now. It doesn't seem like a diet anymore. It is just how I eat.

In other news Tina and I went on another date this past weekend. This time we went and saw "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry". It was pretty good, probably not quite as good as I hoped it would be but we liked it. Sure you have to endure many, many, innuendo's and a lot of straight forward raunchiness but Sandler generally has a way to end with a positive message in his movies. I love Kevin James. For a while I think I was trying to be him. I am big like him, I love to eat. He worked for IPS on his show "The King of Queens", I worked for UPS. He was a sports fan and I am a sports fan. He had a hot wife and I have a hot wife. His wife in real life is of Asian decent mine is of German decent. You see the similarities are scary.... Anyway if you can handle Sandler's humor you will probably like this movie. Meanwhile I purchased the new Harry Potter book and have been trying to read it as quickly as I can. I am not disclosing any information on the book as of yet. I will give a full book report on it in a couple of weeks.



Ayden and Asher are doing well. Asher made a friend at church that is coming over to play today. I am glad he is going to have a friend to play with. Ayden is doing good as always. We loaded about 20 pictures yesterday up on the photo album. We have some of her in baby sunglasses, they are pretty cool. We took Ayden swimming the other day, but we couldn't find a hat for her head, so I told Tina to just gob sunblock on her head. She did that and all was well. Except now we are having trouble getting the sunblock of her head. We have tried wiping it of, we have tried giving her a bath with soap and it still doesn't come of. She looks like the baby of that boy "Powder" from the movie. I am going to be going fishing in Wyoming about a month from now. I am so looking forward to that. I have very much missed the mountains and good fishing. Tina and I have spent hours fishing at various lakes in Texas only to catch nothing. I am excited to actually catch fish.

Thanks for taking the poll. It looks like most of you see in some type of teaching capacity either as a high school teacher and a coach or as a professor. That is cool because I am going to do just that. I am not going to coach, at least not for pay. I am sure at some point I will coach little league but I am not going to coach for a living. I am going to teach but not in high school. I have been accepted into a PhD program that starts in about 3 weeks. I am excited about it, it is one of the few subjects I have ever had interest in. All other majors or subjects I have pursued in the past have been monetary based. This is not monetary based. Sure I hope to make a good living at some point, but I have legitimate interest in the field. Peace out. Sorry I didn't get the pictures up last week. I will get some out there tonight of me. You should start to see a difference in me now.

End of week 6

Well today marks the longest I have ever been able to stay on an organized diet ever. I am still having no trouble. I am kind of getting used to the foods I eat. My weight this morning was 254.4 lb's. Which equates to a weight loss of 2.2 lb's this past week. Not to bad, a little below the average weekly goal I am shooting for but not bad. That brings my overall weight loss to 22.2 lb's so far in 6 weeks. Which is still an average of 3.7 lb's a week, so in total I am hitting my weekly goal. I got to do a little exercise but not to much. I am hoping to hit the exercise trail much more this week. It is weird because yesterday morning I stepped on the scale and I weighed 251.4 lb's. So I am not sure what happened in one day. I always weigh myself on the same scale at pretty much the same time every day. I think I weighed in a little higher this morning because I ate a large dinner last night and it hasn't had sufficient time to work its way through me if you know what i mean.

We are all doing well. Asher is having a good time swimming and playing with the dog and everyone. Ayden is doing great. She is smiling often now and I think will soon be laughing as well. Tina is just doing her mom thing and doing it very well. She is a great mother and we are all lucky to have her.

In other news, Tina and I went on a date on Saturday night. I treated her to the new Harry Potter movie which was good, followed by the 2 star cuisine that is Subway. We took our Subway sandwiches and parked at a place with a great view were we could eat them. The view was a straight on view of one of the elementary schools in McKinney. It was special. The movie was good. I am pumped about the final book coming out this weekend. I already have my copy on reserve. I will be giving a full book report after I finish it which shouldn't be to long after I purchase it.

I think I am going to put another poll on this blog. I believe now I can have an actual poll though through this site. The poll is about how others see me as far as profession is concerned. I see myself in a specific way but I would like to see how others see me as it relates to occupation. You know there are some people who you look at and say, "he looks like a dentist" or "he is a typical accountant". What do you look at me and think? The poll is on the right hand side of the page. If you dont see me as any of the occupations above then feel free to do a write in vote by clicking the comments link below this posting. I am interested in seeing the results. Take care. The pictures will be coming tonight and there are some new pictures of Ayden in the photo album in baby sunglasses.