Holiday Spirit

So today I'm at the local grocery store to buy a six pack and the lines are longer than I'd like them to be.  I was searching for the shortest line when a couple with approximately 14 carts full of crap said that I could go ahead of them since I only had one thing.
I thanked them and walked up to my next place in line.
While waiting I heard them talking about decorating their tree and the lady was asking the guy if they should buy candy canes to add to the tree or not.  There was no real answer given, it was a short conversation.

When my turn came I bought my beer and a box of candy canes.  I turned to the couple and thanked them again for letting me go ahead and told them that I was leaving behind the paid box of candy canes for their tree.

The lady and the cashier both got a huge grin on their face and the lady thanked me and told me it was really sweet.
I thanked her one last time for the kindness and headed home.

The day before as I ended my day of work I bought each of my employees a $5 gift card and had it placed in the cash office.  I sent out an email to them and let them know that I appreciated all the help they have provided especially during the busy holiday season and let them know that they just had to get a manager to get the card out of the office for them.

$5 isn't much but it'll cover a snack and a drink.

Ho
Ho
Ho

Getting Thinner with Xbox Fitness

Today I decided to take the next step towards the new Thinner me.  Yes, Cardio and eating better has gotten me so far but today I decided to start adding some routines into my exercise lifestyle.

So, with that being said - Lets jump to the fact that I have new toys, namely the Xbox One - or the Xbone to some. It was a Xmas present. Yes, I am spoiled and yes I got it early (opening presents on Xmas is for children heh).

So I was browsing and looking to see if they have any free games for launch to entice people and the only two I discovered were Killer Instinct which is not a full version and it starts off by telling you that in order to earn achievements and rank on the leader-boards you have to purchase some version of the game.  I think it ranges from $29.99 to $14 billion dollars or so if you want to make sure that you get all of the upgrades and characters and levels as they are released.   I played one fight and decided that I still hate fighter games and deleted it.

However the other thing I found is a gem, a not advertised and well hidden gem and it's Xbox Fitness.
It works in conjunction with the Kinect and I have a feeling that it won't remain free for long (but I sure hope it does or at least has a reasonable price).  There are a lot of free exercise videos including BeachBody, P90x and Insanity.  I, however, opt for things that can be done in about 10 minutes or so because I really don't want to die in front of a TV and Video Game System.

Today I tried my first exercise which was a 10 minute Ab Workout and afterwards I was  a little short of breath and a bit tired.  I consider those both wins.

The great thing is that in conjunction with the Kinect you see yourself next to the trainer and a silhouette of yourself doing the workout. You get instant feedback telling you that you need to raise your legs more or you need to keep up with the instructor or that you're a lazy bastard who should probably just put in Call of Duty instead because this is not for you.  Every exercise gives you challenges and gives you a score and a star rating (1 through 5) so that you can push yourself harder and get better.

After one workout I am happy with it so far.  I've got about 5 months to get myself in better shape for the wedding and the Honeymoon in Hawaii and today begins my toning journey.
Today I started at 218 pounds (I've been in this range for 2 months now) and I'm down to a 38 pant size (because I put my pants under my fat instead of around my belly).  My belly is sitting around a 46 or 48 and this is the main area that I'm going to be focusing on.

I'll be 100% happy if I stay near my current weight but shrink the gut so I look better in dress shirts and eventually my Tux.

I've come a long way but there is still much left of my journey.

As for my fitbit - last week I did nearly 81,000 steps and went for over 35 miles.

and because no one comes here for the words.... Todays pics I stole from The Chive.

size 38 pant

Today I bought 2 pair of pants for work.
Size 38.
My size 40 shorts are getting to be too baggy.

That is all

Getting back on track with More Yoga Pants

(NOTE: Due to Google determining that this post violated policy because people are sexualizing yoga pants (6 years after it was posted none the less) I have deleted all of the Yoga Pants.  You can thank google for being fucking lame:)


At the beginning of November I had week with a bit over 65k steps.
Two weeks ago I went for over 80k steps.
This past week I ended up with 90,314 total steps.
I am quite happy with my progress and I'm starting to get back on track and get more active again.

I've still got a ways to go before I'll be hitting 100k weeks regularly but I know what it's going to take and I just have to push myself to get there.  The big thing is that I need to make sure that on my work days I get in my 15k steps no matter what.  This will help to make up for the days when I don't work and I know I'm going to be lazy (especially when I don't get to the gym).  So, that is the first thing.

Today I accomplished that go and did over 15k at work.  Tomorrow I hope to do the same and then I have off Weds and Thurs and I'm going to try my hardest to get motivated to get to the gym for an hour each day.

This will be hard because I do have a new Video Game System sitting at home begging me to spend precious time with it.

I finished season 5 of Dexter and will be starting Season 6 within the next few days.
I think I'm going to use Dexter as a way to stay at the gym a bit longer.  Watch a full episode as I'm at the gym which will make me go about 50 minutes and then I just have to get myself to do the last 10 minutes just to hit an hour.  I'll try this a few times and see how well it works for me.

 Now that the new generation of video game systems are here I'm going to need to go through my older games and set aside those that I'm going to actually play and those that are just going to be there to look pretty.  I'm also thinking about getting a binder for each system (older gen only) and putting the discs in the binders and getting rid of the cases so that I can free up some space.  This I haven't talked myself into but it's been something I've been thinking about.  PS1, PS2, Game Cube, xbox, Xbox 360 and PS3.  My game collection does take up a pretty good amount of space.

I'm too distracted by the pictures to continue.... I'll have to follow this up with something else in the near future.

The woes of A Pittsburgh Steelers Fan

2003 was the last time the Steelers had a losing season.  It's been a while.
Before that it was 1999.  We have been good for over a decade.  We have been consistent.  This year is very painful to watch. I'm hoping it's a one year abirition but it sure doesn't feel like it.
Last season was 8-8 and this season I suspect we'll get bout 6, maybe 7 wins but I do feel it's going to be below .500.

We do have some tools in place but without an offensive line it's getting harder and harder to win games.  Drafting two guys in the 1st two rounds last year was supposed to sure us up along with Pouncey, but injuries have decimated us once again and we are left playing people like Guy Whimper and whoever that center is that was rejected during the season and released.

Bell seems like eventually he could be good, but when you get excited about a guy carrying it 20+ times and still not reaching 100 yards - is there really anything worth getting excited about?
Jarvis Jones is going to be an impact player as soon as he figures out how to play in the NFL.  He looks like a rookie at times.  Worilds has not developed into the guy they thought he would and is only a fill in until Jones is ready to go or until we stop getting injuries (as I write this Woodley was injured again and didn't finish the game against Buffalo).

The secondary looks awful this year.  Ike Taylor appears to have lost a step and Clark/Polamalou just don't appear to have the same chemistry as before.  When you are forced to start either Allen or Gay (who we got rid of previously because he was awful) in the corner position you know there are issues.

There is no pass rush and the Defensive Line doesn't appear to know how to fill the gaps to stop the run.  Heyward is no Aaron Smith and Ziggy Hood only made a good relief guy.

We have Big Ben and a great receiving core in Brown, Sanders, Cotchery and Miller but without time to protect the QB and without a running game that actually puts fear into the defense it's hard to rely on that. This is why we are forced to settle for so many field goals when we reach the red-zone.

Oh, it's a painful year to be a Steelers fan but it could be worse.
Some teams go through this every year and not once or twice a decade.

Dirty Old Man

Today I decided to be a nice guy and offer to help out one of my associates with loading some product for these two ladies.  One of them was probably the mother and the other the daughter that I placed to be somewhere around the 18 year old range.

During our help I heard talk about her father and say that he was old at 40 and that he got offended that she thought he was forty because he really is only 38 and all I could think was "fuck, I'm the same age as this guy and I'm oggling his daughter right now."

During the load we had two heavy muscle racks to load into the back of their soccer mom van.  While we were doing this the daughter decided that it would be a great time to strap two younger children into their child seats in the back of the van.

She did this by climbing fully into the van and standing up/bending over where I got way more of a view down her shirt than I was expecting.

I'm quite sure she was doing it on purpose. I am, after-all, a pretty sexy beast.
It's the gray hairs and the bulbous nose.

This is pretty much what I was looking at minus the baseball glove and weird headset.
It wasn't until after this that I overheard the conversation about her "old" father that I pieced together that she was probably about 16 or so and really started to feel like a dirty old man.

My other customer interaction occurred the day before when I was talking with two or three other guys near the hardware desk.
The one guy was talking about how poor he was and that he was going to have to turn to stripping to make a living.  I interjected that I would make a great stripper.
He looked at me and said "I know you've been losing weight and all but I don't think you are quite stripper material yet."
I responded "So, yer saying that chicks aren't into stretch marks?"

Just as I was saying that this lady customer came walking up the aisle and as she heard what I had to say she had a huge grin on her face.  I pointed it out and said "see, even she laughs at me" and as she walked by us she made sure to say (loud enough for us to hear) "Nope, No we sure don't like stretch marks" and everyone had a big laugh at my expense.

weekly grrouchie recap

Last week I walked 65,633 steps - which is less than 10k per day which is a complete failure if you ask me.
Even if I have some small days the big days need to make up for it.
Ugh, feeling quite disappointed when I opened my email and read that stat.

I only walked 30 miles.
My heaviest was 219.4 pounds and lightest was 216.1.
I really feel like my final weight for the long run is going to fall somewhere between 210 and 220 and I'm cool with that.  I still want to get more trim for the wedding but overall I am quite happy with myself.

The good news is that as of yesterday I have officially walked 500 miles since getting my Fitbit. I do know that I've been more active (in general) because of this little trackings device and because of that I am quite happy with the purchase.
There is a new version of it that just came out and I'm trying to convince someone to buy it for an Xmas present (though really that could be a present to myself).  There are two big improvements from the Flex that I am wearing to the Force (which is the one that just came out).  First big difference is that the Force tells time, it acts as a watch.  I kinda dig that feature so that I don't have to constantly explain to people what that thing on my wrist is.
The second is that the Force counts flights of stairs traveled. That might not sound that cool but it is another metric recorded and will push me to take the stairs more often and to possibly go out of my way to take more flights of stairs for the exercise value.
Every little bit helps right?

As far as Video Games go I only played 3 hours 43 minutes worth of Diablo 3. It's not much but at least I got some time in.
What distracted me from getting more gaming in?  Well I'm glad you asked.
I've been trying to get caught up on comics and TV Shows.

As far as Comics I finished off Hunger which is set in the Marvel Ultimate universe and has turned into something else which I think is going to be universe wide.  So, I probably won't continue reading that as there is too much else that I'm getting.
Next Wednesday the last issue of Dexter is coming out so that drops another item off my monthly pick up list as well.  Then there are only one or two more issues left in Robocop to help make some more room.
All this is good and dandy because I'm sure that there are other things that will come around I'll start collecting.

As far as TV Shows go I finally finished off season 4 of Dexter.  I loved the entire season and thought it was absolutely brilliant.  It rivals season 2 for my favorite right now and even though I had the ending spoiled for me it still ripped my heart out.  WOW.
I've decided that I'm going to finish off Dexter before jumping into anything else that I want to watch like Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

I'm really getting close to pulling the trigger on GTA V at this point but just haven't done it yet.  Also the PS4 comes out next week and even though I have no games for it I've got a tinge of excitement for it.  I'm really going to have to invest in a multiport HDMI adapter and figure out some sort of shelving system to set my systems up in that doesn't look horrible nor take up a lot of space.

One last thing and that is that I really need to stop being lazy and start selling off my digital codes for comics on ebay.  While they don't fetch a whole lot they do help to compensate for the price of comics a bit.
I'm going to have to spend a day off and just go back through the last couple of months and put groups of them up for auction.  Every penny helps.

Finally, my November Fitness Goal - PLANKING.
I can hit a minute every time.  I hit 90 seconds once but it was tough.  Today I hit 80 seconds again.
In 5 days I'm supposed to start hitting 90 seconds as my daily target and then a few days after that 2 minutes.  That is where this challenge really starts to escalate and where I'm going to struggle.  However, I have to look at it as a challenge and while I might not be knocking it out of the park I'm showing improvement and forcing myself to get some exercise every single day which is really what this boils down to.


Now I'm going to go get some reading done and then get some shut-eye.

Nite-Nite

A day of rest?

This is completely weird and I'm not sure how to handle it.  This is a very rare Sunday in which I have off but the Fiance is working most of the day leaving me to do whatever it is I actually feel like doing.
I could play video games all day or I could watch football all day.  I've got decisions to make and my brain is at a loss :)

What I do know is that I have a strat game scheduled for 11 am this morning but after that is over then it's FREEDOM!
Speaking of strat - I've really been debating just quitting the league and the game.  My free time is so little right now between work and spending what free time I have with the family.  Not living with them I really hate to schedule something else in a time slot when I could be spending time with them instead.  Even if it's just 1-3 hours it really does cut into the limited time I already have with them each and every week.
So, maybe it's time for one of my hobbies to bite the dust and just be done with it?  I'll keep thinking on that and get back to myself later.

I just finished my Day 3 Morning Plank and I'm happy with where I am at thus far.  I feel I'm going to get a lot further in this challenge than I expected and that's pretty cool.  Sometimes you don't know what you can do until you push yourself to try I guess.  We will see how I feel on day 10 and 15 when the times actually start getting difficult.

Last night before passing out I caught up on Deadpool Kills Deadpool and out of the 3 little mini-series in this vein this probably was my least favorite. Everything felt too rushed and there wasn't enough action.  I really feel this is one of those instances where the scope should have been cut down or they should have drawn it out to 8 issues.  Of course there is either another mini-series coming out of it or there is a 1-shot coming in January "Night of the Living Deadpool."

Also, because my comic book shop finally got Infinity Volume 2 in I am now able to start reading that series.  Of course, I'm just going to go through and read the main one at this time and when I can find a torrent to download that has the entire collection including all off the tie-ins (like with Avengers vs X-Men) I'll go through and read the entire work of art and judge it on a whole.  But, I do love me some Thanos.

Since I'm on Comic books I realize I need to cut down on what I'm buying (not reading).  It's getting time to do some soul searching and just settle on a few titles that I want to have in my collection and the rest I can get digitally.  It is a little painful but we will see what I can come up with.
The biggest problem is that there are so many good ones out there right now and a lot of little series I like to pick up.  For Instance Infinity (even though I don't pull a single Avengers book) and Robocop and the new one from Max Brooks that is costing me way more than any other comic due to me collecting a more limited version of it (that one, however, is being fully funded by this blog so I'm hoping the funds don't run out before the issues do).

So, back on topic.  Day free, strat game at 11.
After that (depending on what the 1st set of games are) I'll probably go pick up my boy and bring him back here so he can complain that football is still on while wanting me to play video games with him and watch Ridiculousness on my tablet.  It's such a shame that these new additions to my family are not into football but I guess you take the good with the bad.

PlankVember

So as I reported last time I have decided to take on the month long challenge in November to plank every single day trying to work myself up to 5 minutes total on the 30th.

I created a page (here) to log this little exercise and keep track of it on a daily basis and I will give periodic updates letting people know how I'm feeling and if I think I'll succeed.
For the record, when I decided to do this at the end of October I thought that I'd have trouble getting to, and exceeding, one minute (which happens to be day 9) but now that I've got a couple of practice ones in and completed my first day of this challenge I'm revising my statement.

I now think that Day 18 (2.5 minutes) is where I'll experience my first fail.
I want to say 2 minutes, but I'm going to give myself the benefit and say that doing this plank exercise upwards of 3 times per day (once when I wake up, once before bed and maybe one in the middle if I have the time or desire) I'll be able to build my endurance up to at least 2 minutes over the course of the 1st two weeks.
Who knows, I could surprise myself and actually nail this whole thing.  It's all in the name of better health so I'm at least trying it.

This will hopefully be an ongoing thing where I find a new challenge or two every month and stick with them.
I'm going to want to pick two or three months to concentrate on my belly fat area as I'm going to want to look damn good when I hit the beaches of Hawaii come May!