grrouchie thoughts with tight dresses

So I'm going to start out with:
I hate GameStop exclusive Collectors Editions.
It's not so much that I hate the collectors editions it's just that I hate when only GameStop gets them.  This goes back to the Original Bioshock.
Today's game in question is BEYOND: Two Souls.
Free upgrade to a Steelbook which is nice (and the only reason I would actually pre-order) but I've got to deal with GameStop shipping which is not free and is not release day guarantee like Amazon.
Will I deal with it? Yes.  Do I like it? No.
Whatever
#firstworldproblems

Oh, and I hate that I don't get to pay via Paypal.  WTF.  Get with the times.

I chose pleasure over goals the last couple of days.  I had been weighing in at 215 consistently and then blammo - today shot me up to 220.  I hadn't weighed in for the past few days and knew that there would be a gain with the way I was eating and not getting to the gym.  I'm not surprised but I know I now have to re-focus my efforts to lose what I put back on so I can get back on track.

And, much like the chick above laughing at me this virtually assures me the loss of my bet with a fellow blogger about who will weigh less when he comes into town.   Damn you tasty delicious food, Damn you.

I have been putting a lot of time into Diablo 3 lately.  I went the cheesy way to get the Hardcore achievement and for my efforts I was laughed at by unholy forces.  I was about half way through Level 29 the other day when I entered a room and pretty much died within 3 seconds.  Character dead, no do-overs.  Good Day fucker.  What I figure'd out during those 29.5 levels though is that I really enjoy the shit out of playing a Monk and will be making another, non-hardcore, to play with normally.  Also, I can't wait to get one of my "main" characters back to Act 3 because that was so much bloody fun.

I'm thinking of moving a TV and Video game system to my Fiance's house so that I can play there as well when everyone is sleeping or on mornings like today when she has to be to work at 6 and I work late.  This way I can let the kid sleep a bit longer while I get in some good quality time with my systems and then take him to school.  I can't wait till he is a few years older and we can co-op some games that are a bit more mature than Lego Indiana Jones heh!

My Start-O-Matic football season has begun and I magically started out with a Victory.  I think I can start 2-0 but I do know that my team isn't good enough over the long haul (again) which will be a recurring theme for a few years I think.

I have not played poker any time recently, but October will change that.  I've got at least two planned sessions and I hope that my hot streak continues and the Poker Gods didn't decide to murder me because I stopped playing while running so good.

Just enjoy the view above.

This photo amuses the shit out of me because of the foreground and background.  Sure, boobie squeezing and biting is amazing and all, but that's just an added bonus here.

Even if you cock your head to the right and try to look up, you do NOT get a better view.
Diablo 3 has taken up most of my "free" time lately.  I am behind on my comic book reading.  I am behind on real book reading.  I am behind on pretending I even want to do anything else.
Now, I will hit publish and fire up my 360 again.
I completely forgot to update on any of the wedding going ons, but that will just have to be another post at another time.

Fitbit Update Number 6

9/16 - 9/22
Total Steps: 112,085
 - Daily Average 16,012
 - Best Day 20,124

Total Distance - 52.00 Miles
 - Daily Average 7.43 Miles
 - Best Day - 9.14 Miles

Total Calories Burned - 24,101
 - Daily Average - 3,433
 - Best Day - 3,903

Weight change - 3.2 pounds
 - Lightest 213.9 pounds
 - Heaviest 217.7 pounds

Average Sleep 6 hours 34 minutes
I earned my 250 mile badge - since I got my fitbit I have walked over 250 miles!

As you can see I stepped up my game and this was by far my best week.
Finally had a week where I broke that 100k total steps and my average went to over 16k per day.
I think I can keep this up and am pushing hard to do it.

I set my new goals at 15k steps per day and over 7 miles per day.
I'm pushing myself to be more active at work and trying to get in extra time on the elliptical.

This week I need to push myself because I'm off Weds/Thurs and have plans to stay busy those days which means I'll have to wake up early to hit the elliptical or I'll have to do it late before I get some sleep.

Windfall

Dear grrouchie,

A recent analysis of loan file documentation revealed there was an error in the amount you were charged in connection with the use of an automated underwriting scoring service when your loan originated on April 15, 2011.  In order to correct this error we are reducing your principal balance by $1.63, the amount that was charged in error, along with interest accrued since the time of your loan closing.

Please accept our apology for this error...

Sincerely,
Mortgage Service Center

Melting

Melting melting melting
Keep that fat a melting
Melting Melting Melting
Fattyyyyyy

Also - Got to take picks of me and my boy wearing our deadpool masks for the first time.
Gotta find that costume next :)

Fitbit Update Number 5

And it's that time of the week again to see what my Pedometer said I did.
From 9/9 - 9/15

Total Steps 96,368
Daily Average 13,767
Best day 18,336

Total Distance 44.67 Miles
Daily Average 6.38 miles
Best Day 8.63 Miles

Heaviest Day 219.6
Lightest Day 215.6

Average Sleep 5 hours 53 minutes

This was a good 7 day stretch because there was only one day where I didn't hit my goal, that was Sunday.
My two days off continue to be my true motivational issues and I have to figure out how to allow myself time to still get in some sort of exercise on the days off that I fully spend with my fiance.
I'm sure that taking a day off isn't killing me so it's not that big of a deal and by this time next year when we are living together getting in some gym time during family days won't be an issue like it is now.

This week should be my best week as during the 7 day stretch I only have one day off, Friday.  My lady works early Friday which means I should be able to hit the gym in the morning and get all my goals in before she gets out of work giving me my first 7 day stretch where I hit my goals.
I'm shooting for 100k steps and 45 miles and 20 hours of Dialbo 3!!!
I'm also shooting to make sure that my heaviest days no longer break the 220 barrier and that is a huge achievement!

It's funny to think that I get slightly annoyed when I eat too much and snack too much and weigh in at 219 and am disappointed where as early last year 219 was a dream that would never happen and my heavy day took me over 300 lol.

Life is strange, thanks for taking the journey with me.

A Response to Andrea King

For anyone who decided to read between the pictures on this post, I had a comment which read as such:

Andrea King: "Hi there, just read you're getting married. I was wondering how your wife to be deals with you playing Poker and with the debt issue. I'm struggling to be happy with a Poker player myself and it's been quite a ride. Don't know if you wrote a post on that or not, so I thought of just asking. (Nice bums by the way.) I wish you all the best for your wedding."

For anyone who read it and didn't click through, Andrea has a blog she recently started detailing her trials and tribulations with living with a poker player.  So far it's been a pretty interesting read.  After going over to that page and starting to read a bit I completely understand why the question was posed to me.  So, my retort.


Dear Andrea,

Being that your last name is King I'll just assume your married to Stephen King and in that case I'd like to ask if you could manage to sneak an autograph to me.  I know Stephen is an author but I have this fantasy (that I'm just making up right now) that he secretly loves poker but loses horribly at it and one day I'll be at a table with him completely enamored by the man who wrote more books that I have read than any other author ever will and I will somehow manage to lose all of my money to him.  I'll be broke and homeless (after my wife kicks me out for losing the children's college money) but I'll have a good story to tell.

Our stories differ which is why I probably won't be reporting any useful information to you.  You see, I have a full time career in the retail business where I work and earn my living and I enjoy playing poker on the side, for fun.  Kind of like a hobby that sometimes earns me good money and sometimes costs me money.  I used to have this fantasy that I'd win a ton at poker and make it my profession but over the years I've realized that I'm not really up for that kind of life style. I like to play for fun and I want to keep it that way.

So, how does my fiance deal with me playing poker?  Well, she understands that I love the game and that I have no intentions of giving it up.  She understands that I am not going to gamble with money that I cannot afford to lose. She understands that I have money set aside specifically for poker playing and she has an idea that this is what I'm talking about when I refer to my "bankroll."  I'm well grounded and I'm not going to screw myself over to pull a buy-in out of my bank account so that I can go gamble if I don't have the money to pay my other bills.  I'm perfectly willing to go 6 months or longer without playing poker because the extra money just isn't there.  So, I guess to sum it up she deals with it by putting faith in the fact that I'm not going to make any decisions that are going to screw over our little family.  I'm hoping I'm never stupid enough to break that trust.

As for the Debt portion of your question.  Truth be told we are both entering this marriage with a little bit of debt but we both have solid plans to have it all gone by mid-year.  Well, all of the short-term debt that is.  I've got a dental bill and I've got her engagement ring that I'm paying off.  She has her car and a couple of small credit cards.  Other than that we both have long-term debt as well.  I have a mortgage on a house and she has one on a condo.  We plan on getting rid of all the short-term debt and then working off anything left over from the wedding.
My goal (and I feel safe saying our goal) is to be debt free (other than the property) before we have a child. This way she can safely take off 3 months or whatever and we won't have to worry about it.
We are already making plans to start FSA's for next years medical expenses.  I know I'm going to have another dental bill and I'm also considering LASIK for my eyes, but we will both have FSA's to pay for that stuff instead of incurring more debt.
So, how does she feel about my debt?  I don't think she honestly thinks about it.  We've both talked a little bit about our plans and how soon we expected to have everything paid off by but she has never brought forth concerns of her entering this matrimony with me having outstanding debts.

My advice to you after reading through some of what you wrote is:
RUN
Run fast and run far.  It doesn't seem like you have a lot of happiness and it's because this man of yours is a leach.  If you had to go as far as to draw up legal documents stating that he had to pay you back by a certain time then I feel as if the relationship has run its course.  You can find something better and he can find a real job with consistent positive income.  He can learn to play poker on the side for fun instead of being stuck and not being able to meet his payments.

grrouchie thoughts with yoga pants

Free time becomes less and less as the year wears on.  Between planning for the wedding and spending time with my family I don't have a whole lot left over.  I haven't played poker in probably 3 weeks or so even though I was on an enormous hot streak which was long over due and great for me mentally.  I put most of that money in the bank and left some of it in my wallet.  I spent 3/5ths of what was in my wallet.

My debt is decreasing at a rapid pace again.  I haven't talked about it much because in all honesty there just wasn't anything to harp on about.  I'm paying down my dental bill from earlier in the year.  It will be gone in October or November.  My engagement ring will be gone probably around February.  I could probably make both of them disappear if I were to spend my poker money which is something I debated during my whole trip home.

I'm not sure I want to spend the poker money though.  There are a bunch of people coming into town in the near future that I'd like to hang out with and play games with.  End of September to the end of October appears to be a very busy month full of people and events.

Speaking of Events.  We won a free 3 night 4 day stay at the Silverton because of something we entered at the Bridal Spectacular that we attended a while back.  While I'm pretty sure that "winning" isn't really the right word I'm quite happy to enjoy a little stay-cation with my fiance and child.  I've heard that the Silverton has some good pools and we plan on taking advantage of that.  With our 3 nights we also get 2 vouchers for free meals and a $100 in a casino gaming voucher.  I'll pretty much be laying claim to that as the Fiance doesn't gamble at all.  Hoping to be able to take it to the craps or black jack tables and turn it into real cash.
Also, our first night there will be kid free as her mom has volunteered to watch him that night so we can have a nice quiet night alone.

After we complete that stay-cation we then have 1 year to lay claim to another 2 night 3 day stay at the Grandview Hotel and Casino which I believe is owned by the same property group.  So, even though I'm sure this "offer" was made to most of the people who signed up I'm happy to take advantage of a few evenings pretending to be tourists.  We won't be spending money or gambling it up so it's not like we have anything to lose at all.

Saturday night after suffering through horrible asthma problems all day long I ended up with the fiance to watch the fights in peace and quiet.  The next to last fight of the evening was the best of the 4 and I'm happy with the way it all turned out. The Main Event was pretty boring and turned out about how I expected (not how I wanted).

November is a three pay month.  I know it's a bit early to look ahead to November but that extra paycheck will come in handy being so close to the holidays.

Wedding planning has been continuing nice and easy.  We have the dress picked out, we pretty much have our invitations picked out.  We picked out our accent color for things like that decoration that goes on the Tux and the flower girl's outfit.  It also appears as though we might be going from no wedding party at all to two people on each side.
We received a call the other day to book an appointment for tux fittings but told them it was way too bloody early for this type of phone call.  We were thinking more along the lines of January or February.
She also went out and found the wedding band she wanted.  I thought I found mine too until the guy told me it was ceramic.  Ceramic? When did bands start getting made out of something so fragile?
It was a very gorgeous looking band but working in retail I'd probably have the thing cracked and crumbled before a year was up.  Back to the drawing board.

I ate unhealthy the last two days and I am really paying for it this morning.  Ugh.  McDonalds and Pizza from Sam's Club.  I put back on a pound or two but those will all disappear by the end of the week.  The annoying part is I didn't get any gym time in this weekend and I really was hoping to start working towards a streak of 10 straight days over 10k steps.  Today I'll be starting day 1 again.  As long as I feel better by the end of the evening I'll be hitting up the gym after work for some quality cardio time and maybe some time on the weight machines as well.

I love my life and hope you all are doing the same for yours!

Keep on Pushing

Some days are better than others.
Trying to turn eating better into a habit was difficult.  In fact it's still difficult at times.
Trying to turn exercise into a habit is awful.  Bloody awful.

I'm not a fitness guy and I never will be.  I've been overweight most of my life and I'm cool with that.  But I'm at a point in my life where I have to strive to be better for myself and my family.  I can't just sit around and stay fat because it doesn't matter.  I've got a future wife and kid to think about and we want to have another one.  Those are the one's I'm ultimately doing this for.
I've already got genetics fighting against me as I'm "genetically predisposed to heart attacks and strokes" which was the polite way for the doctor to tell me to get off my fat ass and get healthier.

Over a year and a half later every day is still a struggle.  A struggle to find the motivation to keep exercising. A struggle to find the motivation to keep eating healthy.  A struggle to find the motivation to NOT open that bag of chips and just chow down.

I started this journey when I stepped on a scale and it read 303.
Today I woke up and hopped on the scale before taking my shower and it read 217.
This past week I threw away all of my fat pants and shorts.  All of them.  I now only own 5 pairs of shorts for work and need to buy a few pairs of paints for when the weather gets a little chilly.
Two days ago I gave a lady at work all of my fat shirts (3XL and 2XL) for her husband.  I'm down to a handful of shirts I recently bought for work and some fun T-shirts for my days off and for the gym (though, in reality they are going to be 2 sizes too big soon).
I'm slowly emptying out my closet.

I've come a long way on this journey and I've still got a ways to go.
When I have moments of doubt and weakness I try to picture what I want myself to look like on my wedding day for my wife and family.  What I want to look like when I am immortalized by camera flashes from all of my friends and family and professional photographers on this ever so important day of my life.
I envision myself on a beach in Hawaii for my honeymoon and I remind myself what I looked like a few months ago when I was half naked on a beach in California during our Disney trip.
What I looked like then and what I want to look like are two entirely different things - this drives me back to the gym.

I realize my lady loves me for who I am and if I stayed at this weight she'd be perfectly happy for me and with me.  But, in reality, I want to look better for her.  I want to feel better for her.  I want to live a long and fruitful life with her by my side.

I've gone 4 days in a row with over 10k steps (all over 12k actually).
I've gone 2 days in a row with over 15k steps (all over 16k actually).
Today I forced myself to hit the gym after coming home at 11pm just so I could make all of my daily numbers.
I want to be at or under 215 by the 21st. 212 by the 27th.  210 in early October!

I might need a vial or two of crack :)

grrouch out

Fitbit Update Number 4

For the week from 9/2/13 - 9/8/13

Total Steps: 82,963

Daily Average 11,852

Best Day 21,541

Total Distance 39.05 Miles

Daily Average 5.58 Miles

Best Day 10.27 Miles

Total Calories Burned 22,329

Daily Average 3,190

Best Day 4,085

Lightest Day 217.9

Heaviest 223

Average Sleep 6 hours 19 minutes

It's kind of Funny that I had two 20k days and yet this ended up being my worst week overall.  I was really lazy on my days off which killed my average a good deal.

However - I am close to my wanted daily average of 12,500 and I am going over 5 miles every day.

I'm going to up my goal to 6 miles and see where that takes me.

I'm not sure how many steps it would take to get there so I'll up my goal in steps to 13,500 for now.

Also, I'm inching away towards hitting 215 pounds.  It'll come, it'll come.

Weekly Fitbit Update

This has been sitting in my mailbox for a couple of days - But I'm determined to share to keep myself honest.

Total Steps 88,822
 - Daily average 12,689
 - Best day 17,042
Total distance 40.41 miles
 - Daily Average 5.77 miles
 - Best  Day 7.92 miles
Total Calories burned 23,065
Lightest day - 219 pounds
Heaviest Day - 222.4 pounds
Average Sleep 7 hours 24 minutes


The week I am currently in I have had two days over 20k steps and one day (yesterday) where I reached 10 miles.  I've really been hammering out it out when I hit the gym and I am trying desperately to get into a weight routine as well.

I had two guys I was going with from my last store but 3 guys working retail and trying to figure out when everyone is available to hit the gym at the same time is difficult.  Both of them are working out to get in better shape to join the navy and I'm just trying to lose a few pounds so I'm the odd man out when they are available.  But, I've gone with them a few times and I have the info of what routines they are working so that I can do them on my own.
I have found a routine that I'm going to try out.  It's 3 days a week with only two separate routines.
Routine A and B.
Week 1 goes ABA and week 2 goes BAB.
Yesterday I did Routine A.
Sunday late or Monday I'm going to be doing B.  I'm hoping I can go M/W/F at some point.  I like the way it starts off with light weights and then ramps up.
Day one, with the lightest weights, I was able to complete all my sets and reps.  I hope to say the same on day 10 haha!

Poker Musings

Poker.  Oh glorious poker.  You were my love and then became my addiction and now you are something that I look fondly at remembering the good old days when I did not have any restrictions other than having to be to work the next day.  It gets hard to justify going out and playing poker after work to the wife when you will be playing from 11 pm until 3 or 5 am and that you want to do this multiple nights a week.
Oh yes, responsibilities have put an end to most of that, but that is why online poker exists.

I'm trying to get back into online poker.  It will never be like the good old days of Party Poker and Poker Stars again but in terms of legality there is a shining light of Nevada finally deciding to allow the first legal online poker room into existence.

While online poker in the United States might not be the greatest it has ever been over in Canada they have it a lot easier than we do.  Sometimes I wonder what life might be like if I had decided to just hop the border and move to Canada instead of packing up my bags and heading out to Las Vegas instead.

I'd still have access to a lot of live poker. I know myself and realize that I'd make sure that I lived within driving distance to the Niagra Falls area so that I could play either on the Canadian side or the American side.  I'd also have a lot better access to good online poker games so that I could practice and grinding out money while sitting at home instead of having to rely on playing poker only occasionally when I could make it out to the casino's.

Instead of living in the land of sin I could be wearing extra layers of clothing and trying to keep warm while clicking away at my mouse, raising fools on dead bluffs and complaining about how online is rigged.  I could have developed a Canadian accent while collecting my fat rakeback bonuses from sites like Pokersites.ca and been infinitely more attractive to the opposite sex.  I could have had Pamela Anderson and Alanis Morissette come to my house and put on private shows for me with Bryan Adams but instead I'm sitting around in my underwear with a bag of cheetos and a Diet Mountain Dew contemplating whether I have the motivation to head to the nutrition store so that I can buy some Whey Protein suppliment mix so that I no longer ache like crazy for days after lifting weights to shed the excess fat that I have developed from being lazy.

But, poker (both live and online) is not the only major aspect of my life that I have noticed a huge change on. As I have gotten older I have noticed a trending change in my video gaming habits as well. I used to be able to sit down and play an old fashioned Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) for hours on end.  I was king of the Final Fantasies and the Dragon Warriors and I'd put fifty to one hundred hours into them and not bat an eye.  Now that I'm getting older I find myself gravitating more towards action games that allow me to beat them in six to twelve hours instead. It's not that my attention span has dwindled but it is that my free time has mostly disappeared.  While the job does get in the way it is more the family life that interrupts my leisure time.  Sure I can still play video games with the child but they generally are not the type of games that I would normally chose to take on. Lego Indiana Jones and Spiderman: Web of Shadows have replaced Elder Scrolls IV Skyrim and Diablo III.

If I were living in Canada and killing it at the tables I wouldn't have to work a retail job (this December is 11 years strong. Four more to go for another week of vacation) and try to plan out how and where my free time is going to be spent.  I'd just wake up and play video games until it was time to go put in a poker session.  But no, I chose to move to Las Vegas instead of Canada and instead of being a professional degenerate soaking up the cold and wearing heavy baggy coats I rarely ever wear anything heavier than a T-shirt and shorts in the Las Vegas sun.

I am engaged to the most wonderful woman in the world and we have this amazing child who has changed my life in the past year more than any other person has changed it in the previous 37 years of my existence. So, while it's fun to play the what if game I love my life and my family and am extremely happy that I have made every single choice that has led me to where I am right now.

But I totally wish that online poker were cool again, like back in the day.....

Bad Beat Jackpot

I'm kind of annoyed that with all the time I have been putting into the tables lately the BBJ hits on a day when I'm not playing and at a place that I love to play when it has a game going.
The only saving grace was that, on that particular night, there was absolutely no way that I was going to be able to play..
But still...
I could totally use that players share.
I deserve it more than the rest of those rich bastards who play for a living.
I've got a wife and child to pay for.  A wedding, reception and honeymoon that aren't getting cheaper.

Dammit, I'm beautiful and people like me.

My legs still hurt from "leg day" and today is Chest and Triceps day.
Weds I open at work and it's Freight Day.  Already told my boss I might not be able to even lift a box to stock it properly.

Waddalyfe

Note - when searching for BBJ and your safe search is off, don't throw in an extra B.

This happens to me every time :(