Oh so close!

I am competing in an NFL pick 'em league, all you have to do is pick the winners of each game as well as assign a point value to each pick. The stronger you feel about the game the more or less points you assign. It's late, I don't know if that makes sense...but I digress. So I was in 1st place after all of Sunday's games...by 1 point. I had Pittsburgh to win the Monday night game but only had 1 point to bet with. I added up the other players points and figured out that if everybody bet on the Steelers I'd lose, even if I bet on Pittsburgh. So at 6 PM I switched my bet to the Ravens, trying to get the upset. Once the game starts your bet is locked, so once it started I checked and I made the right play....I was the only one within reach of winning that bet on Baltimore. Everyone else had their bet on the favored Steelers.

The game was defensive and at half time Baltimore was up by 10, and things were looking good. Then in the matter of 15 seconds of the 3rd quarter Pittsburgh scored 2 touchdowns and completely took over the game. But all was not lost, the Ravens scored late in the game and sent it to OT. Then in OT they won the coin toss, everybody knows that if you win the coin toss your team wins 98.6% of the games! Well they choked, punted to the Steelers who proceeded to kick an easy field goal to win the game and steal my Pick 'Em victory. However, all was not lost since my Father in law came from 3rd place to 1st and won this weeks cashola!

Silly boy

Last night we had a kinda crazy dinner. We usually eat around 6, but we had a parent teacher conference at 6:30. As usual I didn't get dinner prepared early enough so the kids and I ate about 1/2 of dinner then went to the conference then came back to finish up. Aiden was in his high chair and clearly he was getting pretty tired, rubbing his eyes, not eating, and overall whiny. Then he started saying "I want cake and Ice cream, I want ice cream!" We tried the ever popular "you have to clean your plate, eat all of your food first"...but no luck, he wasn't eating. A few more minutes went by, and the he busts out this gem "I want to go to Chili's!" Bridget and I looked at each other and started cracking up. We told him that we were staying at home and that he had a good dinner in front of him (Chicken, Asian noodles, green beans, and milk) we'd have to save Chili's for another day. I guess I'd rather have him say Chili's than McDonalds or Red Robin.

On another note Sydney's teachers LOVE her. She is so smart and her teacher said she is going to start helping the other kids in the class! She is going to be a preschool teacher at only 4 years old. Brilliant!

Handy Tips From The Biggest Loser

The Clarance Rant....again!

On the way to pick up Sydney from school today my neighbor Clarance flagged me down. I was already on the verge of being late to pick Sydney up...and I half thought about just getting in the car and driving away. But no, I'm a nice guy. So he asked me to mow his lawn again. Today. As in right after I got home from picking up Sydney. I told him that today was no good because Bridget was working and I had nobody to watch the kids. This seemed to make him mad, his tone quickly changed. I told him that tomorrow evening I might be able to do it, I'd have to check Bridget's schedule. He didn't like that idea because he wanted to throw the grass clippings in the trash, and tomorrow (Wednesday) is trash day. So as I was leaving he said "I guess if that is as good as you can do, it will have to work." I thought the nerve of this guy, as if it was my job to mow his yard on his schedule. He now has his daughter and grandson living with him, and his grandson drives a car so I am assuming he is old enough to mow the lawn. And he has complained to me that they are living with him rent free, and don't do any chores. Well duh, make them mow the lawn! So now I am on Clarance patrol, ignoring his phone calls and not answering the door when he rings the bell 5 times....I'm sure it's not obvious at all when I tell the kids to Shhhhhhhh, but leave the TV blaring Go Diego Go!

I also swore last time that I wasn't going to mow his lawn after I had to buy a new blade for my mower after mowing his 6 foot tall weed patch. I almost asked him if his mower was running, but I didn't want to get into it with him since I had to go get Sydney. If I am 1 minute late to pick her up they are on the phone calling, last time I had messages on my cell phone and the house phone!

Me, just about to lose it!

Home

We are back from our trip, and we had a great time. The kids did really well at my parents house (imagine a 4 and 2 year old in a house filled with lots of glass antiques and a new flat screen TV precariously placed on a stand that was NOT kid friendly). Anyway, we had a lot of fun and it was a usual vacation that went by really fast.

Now it is back to the grindstone with my weight loss goal. Sadly the vacation was not good for that. While I did run 3 times, I'm not sure it was even enough to counter act the horrible eating I was doing! So I'll work hard this week and get back into a healthier lifestyle.

I feel like Jabba the Hutt today!

Running in the Great Northwest

Since we've been here on vacation I've been on 2 runs, and I hope to get 2 more in. Each time I embark I just get lost in the beautiful scenery. A part of me wishes I lived here all of the time so I could run out here every day. Think about it, the temperatures are never too hot or too cold, a little rain never hurt anybody, and the Discovery trail is AMAZING!
Here is a cool bridge that is about 4 miles from my parents house on the trail.

Check this out!

It's hard to take pictures inside of a car, at dusk, with no flash, and at a distance that won't make everything all blurry. Anyway, this isn't the best piece of photographic work...but the point comes across pretty good still. I filled the Prius up with gas for the big trip in the morning and wanted to show the MPG before I reset it. 55.2 MPG over 361 miles is what that picture says. Normally Bridget will go over 500 miles on a tank of gas...maybe 520 miles per tank she says. So the 361 on this tank wasn't a full tank but was probably close to 2/3 of a tank...again I ain't no math wiz (Bridget has already banned me from teaching the kids anything more than addition and subtraction, probably a wise choice since I got an F in 4th grade math...darn long division!).

Vacation Haiku

Off on Vacation
So much fun, we have no plans
A true week of rest

What do you think? Write your own and the best one will get a postcard from the Washington Coast!

Lance is back too!

Reports surfaced yesterday, but I refused to believe them. Then today an article in Vanity Fair magazine confirmed that Lance Armstrong is 100% sure he is coming out of retirement to race in the 2009 Tour De France, and 4 other big professional races. I am still skeptical, kind of wait and see....will believe it when I see it. He still needs a team, and another rumor was that he was going to team Astana....who was not invited to race in the 2008 Tour de France because of 2007 doping scandals. Astana really doesn't make sense to me anyway since they already have Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador two top GC contenders on the team. Adding a third would be rough because you would really be asking the team to spread itself thin to protect 3 guys.

Anyway, I hope the news is true and I hope he lands on a decent team. Salary shouldn't be a factor since he has said he will ride for free and just wants to ride to raise (more) awareness for cancer research and cancer issues.

Football time is back!

Just on the heels of my last race was the kickoff of lazy day Sundays! Yes, I'll admit it I can sit on the couch and watch 3 full football games back to back to back....nearly 12 hours of football. And I have stupid fantasy football to blame for this! On Sunday I watched the Dallas Cowboys versus the Cleveland Browns, who cares right? Well I had like 4 players on my FF teams, and I got sucked in! On the fantasy front I am in 3 leagues this year, one with some former co-workers from Rochester, another with friends and family members, and a new one which is a keeper league (meaning I get to keep 2 players each year). I did pretty well this weekend 2 out of my 3 teams won. Then to top it off on Monday night my Denver Broncos completely embarrassed the Raiders. I was debating that adjective, embarrassed, I was going to go with dismantled, outplayed, outclassed, destroyed....all of which fit so it was a tough choice!

This upcoming Sunday we are going to be visiting my parents in Port Angeles, WA. I'm not sure which games I'll be able to see, but I'll keep my fingers crossed that the Broncos will be on. And because I am such a geek I just checked the TV listings and found that they aren't on. So sad. Now I'm all depressed. Guess I'll have to go shine up my 2 championship trophies from last season, yes this brings joy back into my heart!

The Final Push

Since triathlon season is over for me, I decided I need a new goal to keep me motivated to exercise. And I find that I do better with my goals if I share them with you the reader, that way I feel accountable. So in November 2006 I started losing weight, I began that journey at an even 300 pounds. I lost weight and then I lost some more, all the way down to 206 pounds in April 2008. Over the past few months my weight has yo-yo'd in part because of the triathlon training...I find it hard to eat fewer calories to lose weight and still train hard. Now my focus can be totally on losing weight, and I want to make that final push to 200 pounds...or 100 pounds lost. I figured my birthday in November is a good goal, after all that would be the best present to myself!

How am I going to do it? Any good goal needs a plan, so here it is. Just restricting calories doesn't work for me, neither does just exercising...I need the proper combination of both. So the exercise part has been pretty constant this year, as evidenced by the exercise log at the bottom of the page. But I think I am going to mix it up a bit since I got stuck at a weight and couldn't break through that plateau. So I am going to add some weight lifting, light weights with lots of reps. This is certainly a difficult thing for me to do, I get in a weight room and become a typical muscle man and try to lift as much as possible as many times as possible. Not only do I end up hurt, but I add bulk muscle which I don't want. So I have to stay away from that as much as possible, and as demasculating as I think it feels! I am also going to keep up with the cardio, probably adding more elliptical machine to my workouts because it doesn't hurt my foot as much as running and burns a lot of calories.

As for the diet part I have been pretty successful with restricting my calories. I also have to eliminate all temptations from the house, I can be strong...but only for so long! Sadly I do best when I get into a grove, I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch and then have varied dinners. It isn't exciting, but it works for me. When I reach my goal I need to develop another plan about how to maintain that weight, although when I said earlier that my weight was yo-yoing, it was within a 10 pound range which I think is OK.

Anyway, you be reading about my hopeful successes and my progress on my goal. I have 66 days until my birthday, or about 9 weeks. I have about 23 pounds to lose to get to 200, leaving me 2.5 pounds per week which is a very doable goal provided there are no plateaus! Wish me luck, throw me some support, and keep me on task, I need YOUR help too!

Two flats and I'm done

So today was my final triathlon of the season, the Camp Yuba tri. It was an Olympic distance, 1500 yard swim, 25 mile bike, 10K run. Everything went well in preparing for this one, my foot is feeling about 85%, I slept really well in the camper the night before, I ate a good breakfast, got my transition area all set up, and I even got my wetsuit on without any issues. The race got underway and I had a great swim. I felt slow at first, but once I found some open space (on the outside again) I swam well. I kept looking up to see where I was going and I kept seeing fewer and fewer people around me. Bridget said that there were 3 people who finished well ahead of the rest, but that I was about the 10th person out of the water! I ran up to my bike, changed into my bike shoes, put on my helmet and took my bike off of the rack. I head a weird sound and took a quick look....I had a flat back tire! I don't understand how it happened, I rode my bike from the campsite to the rack earlier in the morning, and I topped the tires off with air at the campsite. So it was flat and I walked around the transition area looking for a pump. I found one, but didn't want to just take it so I waited for the owner to finish their swim. I hooked it to my tire and as I pumped the air just poured out. I had no tubes, so I asked people nearby and one guy gave me tubes and a couple of tire levers. I changed the flat tire, filled it up, and was on my way....I probably lost about 15 minutes. So I rode like a madman on the bike, I was catching people and flying by them. At about mile 18 (I don't know the exact mile because my bike computer wasn't working either) my front tire made the sound like it went flat. I pulled over and there was a puncture and it was slowly leaking through a puncture that I fixed earlier this year. I was able to ride a few more miles and then on a steep downhill the tire officially blew out. It was pretty scary, I thought I was going to crash at first because I was going very fast and when it popped the bike really began to shake and shimmy. So now on my second flat tire of the day (again no repair tools) I started walking. I was very fortunate to make it to a police officer who was hanging out watching the race. He gave me a lift back to the race HQ, he had a truck for my bike. I handed in my time chip and told the official timer that I withdrew from the race.

It really stunk. But I was safe, no crashes and no injuries. I am still pretty disappointed, but honestly 2 flats is a lot to overcome. One other thing, even if I had the proper tools with me I would have had only 1 tube for a repair...so I would have been screwed anyway. I think it will be nice to think about this disappointment all off-season, and then UNLEASH my fury at the Icebreaker Triathlon in March 09!!

Liquidation sale

Just call me Dealin' Chris! I put up 3 more things today on Craigslist and KSL.com, and bam! 2 are sold already! Bridget and I talked about selling the glider/rocker chair in Aidens room that was being used as a clothes storage station. That sold in about 2 hours, for $40 to a young couple expecting their first child (soon, by the looks of the lady). On a whim I also decided to put Bridget breast pump on just to see if it would get any action. Bridget said she was just going to throw it away because she didn't think anybody would buy a used booby pump. That one was on the net for less than 30 minutes! It sold for $95!! Not bad for something she was just going to toss! I was also leery of the pump because there were already quite a few up there already and they ranged in price form $60 to $120, so I thought the $95 was closer to middle but it might end up sitting there for a few days. Luckily it didn't and our new house fund continues to grow! One word to strangers out there as a word of caution~ you should always be very cautious about used breast pumps, diseases like Hepatitis, HIV...basically any blood borne disease...can be spread from the pump, the hoses, the bottles, etc. If we had any of these diseases obviously we wouldn't have sold the pump, but since Bridget is clean and healthy we figured it was OK. The good doctor made me put that in there before anybody ran out to look for a pump online!

So what do you have for me to sell? I am on a hot streak, I might go look for more stuff now!! Here Buddha, Buddha, Buddha!!! Just kidding!


Our beloved St. Bernard Buddha, on a hike last week. Doesn't he look so noble!

107

I joined a bowling league today through Partners in Medicine. So I'll be bowling 3 games every Wednesday morning. Today was the first games, and I think I was a little rusty. First game I had a 98, second game 135, and the wheels really fell of on the 3rd game...I was in the 80's I think. Anyway my average was 107, everybody was talking about handicaps, but I didn't really get what they were saying, something about subtracting something from 215? Anyway, I figured I would just show up and bowl! And the good news was my team were all about the same as me, so it wasn't like I was the weakest link or anything. I think we bowled against another team...but I don't know if we won or lost.

The best part is they have daycare for the kids, so I got to pawn them off for a little while. And the bowling ally was smoke free, and everybody seemed pretty nice. I think they all may be doctors, spouses of doctors, or have some other connection to the medical community. It was fun, can't wait till next week!

10,000 B.C.

Yeah so on my run today I eclipsed the 10,000 minutes exercised this year. 10,000 minutes translates to 6.94 days of straight exercise. I think that's pretty cool, but I have no idea how that compares to other people who workout?

I have my last triathlon of the year on Saturday. It is an olympic distance race in south/central Utah. The race specifics are 1500 yard swim, 25 mile bike, 10K run. I really hope to finish the season strong, but all I can do is give it my best.

Foot update. If you ever develop plantar faciitis remember these words....Strassburg Sock. It is an awesome looking contraption that has velcro straps that essentially keep your toes bent up and your arch under tension while you sleep. It is uber sexy! But it really works, my foot is drastically better than it was for the Utah half which I think is feeding this renewed optimism for this race on Saturday. I ran 5 miles today nearly pain free, it even feels better than it did after I took a month off from running earlier this summer.

Oops!

I had a whole new look to my blog....for about a day and a half. Then it crashed! That's what I get for using a free blogger template! Oops, so back to the old blog...till I get really tired of it and learn how to create my own template.