Outside Burgers

Yesterday the wife and I moved some more stuff to our new house (Screw you, we are really taking our time at this) and some of that stuff included the table for the backyard and the grill.

Yes, I finally have a grill at my new house.
Yes, I have been living at this house for over half a year and have not grilled.
Yes, it hurts and not in a good way.

As much as I have missed grilling (and let's face it my life is a complete busy mess where I have almost no personal time) there is one person in the house who missed me grilling more than anyone else.

This morning started like most mornings but when Jacob looked outside into the backyard and saw our grill sitting there he got really excited.
"Dad, you going to make burgers today."  I told him that I was and he immediately told me he wanted me to make "outside burgers" pointing to the grill and telling me he likes them better than the burgers I make inside.

I explained to him that we had to go shopping so that we could make burgers but that we also had to clean the grill, put the table together and finish some other stuff too so that we could make the burgers.  He immediately volunteered to go to the store with me and help me clean so we could eat burgers.

At the store he wanted to carry the meat and the buns and he bossed me around as to other things that he wanted for our meal.  He loaded all the groceries onto the conveyor belt so that we could pay for everything and when we got to the car he helped load everything into the car.

We arrived home and he immediately jumped into the back so that he could help me take the groceries into the house and when he got inside he proudly exclaimed "MOM, we brought everything home so we can make burgers."

There was so much excitement.

I informed him that we still had to clean the grill and he volunteered to help with all of that as well.  So, we got the degreaser, a bucket full of hot water and some rags and went outside.

I started off by soaking the grates in the hot water with some degreaser as Jacob decided he was going to spray the grill and start wiping it down.  We noticed that it was getting hot (no shade in the backyard at this time) so I had to tell him that I needed to get a hat.

Because dad needed a hat Jacob also needed a hat and how can I turn down my helper.

He ended up wearing one of my favorite hats but he loved it.
We both wiped the grill down.  He helped me scrub the grates and then empty the water and then scrub the grates again.  As the day was progressing I asked him if he wanted something to eat because he hadn't had anything yet and all he wanted were my grilled burgers.  So, like a little trooper he kept helping out all the while working towards his end goal of eating "outside burgers."

After the grill was cleaned to a satisfactory level we went to the garage to grab the new shop-vac and he helped me put that together.  Then he helped me use it to clean out the old charcoal dust that still existed.

Once that was complete we had to clean the parts and then put the table together.  He helped every step of the way with this as well.  He refused my offers to play with his toys or to go inside and watch TV while dad put everything together.
"It's Ok dad.  I'm a helper.  I love to help everyone!"
It is so cute.

At one point after we put the shop-vac together he proclaimed "YAY DAD, We did it.  High Five!"
We high fived.

And, at one point he told me he loved me and my heart melted again.

Finally the table is cleaned and together and the wife decides to tell me that she wants me to set up the umbrella and Jacob and I did that as well.  This is when we finally gave in and started the burger journey.

I started the charcoal and Jacob sat outside at the table to watch the coal get hotter so he could (repeatedly) tell me that they were ready to go and I needed to start cooking the burgers.

Finally the burgers are done and people are getting served and Jacob takes one small bite out of his burger (before the bun and the Heinz Ketchup) and proclaims "I love it dad, this burger is Delicious."
He then proceeded to eat two whole burgers and a little bit of chips.

Our Teen even ate 1.5 burgers and declared them delicious.  My wife enjoyed one and I ate a double (with Famous Dave's Hell-Fire Pickles) and we were all reminded how much we truly love my burgers.  I mean seriously, how many 4 year old's will tell you they'd rather you cook a burger on the grill than get McDonald's (or In-N-Out)?  Heck, my teen would rather eat my burgers than a fast food burger!  That just doesn't happen on a normal basis based on what I am told.

Today was a smashing success.  I got to spend great quality time with Jacob shopping and working and we got to end it all with burgers.
He even fetched me a beer when my first one was empty AND threw the empty bottle away for me.

I truly lead a blessed life and have an amazing family.  My children mean the world to me and Jacob is the most amazing helper most of the time.  Even though he sometimes gets annoying with his want to "help" I have to keep in mind that if I don't allow him to do it now (even when he is hindering and not actually helping) then he might not keep it up and will turn into one of those teens who doesn't ever help out around the house and then i'd totally be to blame and the one person I hate placing blame on is myself (including when I do big ass run on sentences, catch myself in the middle of it and then find way to continue doing it just to make it longer).

So yeah, I had a great day.

Also, I've decided to once again get serious about my weight-loss, or at least my self control for it.  I also decided to fire up a new blog for that instead of putting it here.

I want to maintain this blog for family and fun and separate out the other stuff.  I feel like this will help keep me motivated.

So, if any of you are interested feel free to hope over to  FatManInVegas and check it out.
I'll be doing one big post per week with details about what I ate, how I did and how I'm feeling.
Also, I've been using the phrase for a while now and really wanted an excuse to register the domain.  I don't know if it will ever turn into more than just a Fat-Man blog but it gives me another excuse to write as I am starting to get back into the habit of doing that more often.

grrouch

Office Job

While it does suck to put in the extra hours and time away from the family every week it is nice to come to a comfortable job that is low stress and easy going.

This is a relaxing and rewarding job and the benefits of working at a desk most of my shift is also quite pleasant.  I have two monitors and one of my co-workers actually calls me grrouchie (I believe you all know her as the Fabulous Linda Lou).

Getting this job was something that I didn't know I needed and while on the short term it is helping me get out of debt quicker it might have opened my eyes to a potential career change if the right position opens.

The "other" job meanwhile has been nothing but stressful for the past couple of months.

Blood Pressure City!

Spam Burger Hamburger

So now that I'm attempting to dust off this blog on a more normal basis I have noticed that there are approximately 1800 spam bots constantly posting to (mostly) my older posts with their weird lingo and links to robot porn.

I guess this means it is about time for me to turn on the option that says I have to approve all comments before they post to the blog instead of just letting it happen and then coming back later to delete all the spam.

But, in the grand scheme of thing I guess I should be happy about the Spam Bots because they are driving my views up as I slowly push towards 1 million!

It's the little things in life.

I will have to take and post pictures next time but our backyard at the Big House is officially done.  It went from a big dirt box to now having pavers, grass and plants.   Next thing to do is bring the table and grill over.  I have a box of new chairs in the garage and Ideally I need to find something to cover it all up because Vegas is full of dust and dirt.

One of my least favorite things bout grilling is the fact that I have to clean the grill off every time but the table is the absolute worst part.  The amount of dust that has to get cleaned off to make the surface ready for my impeccable burgers is disgusting.  So, Table cover is my current solution.

After that it is a matter of getting the dog to stop pissing on everything new.  I put a fire pit out there and put a cover on it and I caught him pissing on the cover several times.   Now I don't even want to touch it so that I can fire up the pit and drink my beer.   Not to mention roasting marshmallows.


Speaking of Smores - one of the great things about the backyard being done is now I get to start looking for cheap camping gear for Jacob and I.

I think I want to get something soft for under the tent to make it easier for me to sleep because, lets face it, I'm getting prettier but I'm not getting younger and these bones ache enough as it is.

But, I will need a tent and some sleeping bags at the very least.  Some long pointy sticks to roast our marshmallows and hot dogs.  I'm quite excited about the possibilities.

What has you all excited lately?
Tell me some stories.

Pinched Nerve and Missing Poker

I'm pretty sure that I have a pinched nerve in my shoulder or under my shoulder blade or something.

Over the course of this year there have been many times where I'll be sitting down and in an, evidently, wrong position and my arm starts to go numb.  Only certain positions and only my right arm.

It is pretty damned annoying but I've been finding ways to work around it so that I don't get into those positions of annoyance.

I do know that the proper solution is that I need to hit a masseuse (and not in China Town) to work out the kinks of the muscle that is pressing on this particular nerve but masseuse's are expensive and I have a second job to pay down debt - not to have a hot chick rub my naked body down and make it really awkward to roll over.


The other day I was talking to a buddy about getting the urge to play poker again but knowing that it is currently not the right thing to do for me.
If someone is visiting and I know in advance I can set the money aside as play money - and in reality I would just take out of other hobby/fun budgets that I have to save it up.

However, when I play (because I suck at the game) and I lose my thoughts immediately go to what I could have used that money for instead of sitting down at a poker table and blowing through a buy-in or two.

I should probably just get good and not have that problem no?


However, this is where I am grateful to have a second job because I have four step plan.

1 - Help get out of debt faster
2 - Bankroll a second honeymoon
3 - Bankroll a poker addiction
4 - Profit?

So - who knows, maybe by the end of next year I'll be hanging out at the poker tables with Tab, John and Rob again.

Cleaning up my Email

I collect email addresses.  I have a bunch for different purposes and one of the reasons I ended up going that route is because the main ones that I use were getting too cluttered over the years with random junk, subscriptions, spam and other tomfoolery that would occur.  So, instead of cleaning up and organizing my email so that the static didn't become too much I would just create another email address for a given purpose.

For instance, I have one email address just for my Fantasy Football stuff.  I have a dedicated email address that I attached to this blog for anyone who read it and felt like responding or for advertising requests.

As you can see, I'm one of those idiots that instead of fixing something so that it can work better for me I create multiple somethings which all end up steamrolling downhill and ending up in the exact same spot to varying degrees.

So recently I have decided that I really need to clean up my email so that everything is neat and concise and I am getting all the information that I need to be getting and the clutter goes away because it serves no purpose other than to convince me to ignore my problems for another day.

Knowing that the cleanup process was not going to be quick nor easy (several of these email address have been collecting stuff since gmail was invite only) I turned to external sources for help.  After talking to friends and asking for recommendations I was pointed in the direction of a website and an app called Unroll.me.

What this site does is it takes the emails in your inbox and asks you what you would like to do with it.  You have three options to choose from: 1 - You can Unsubscribe from the email; 2 - you can keep it in your inbox; 3 - you can put it in a daily "rollup" which is just an email that gets sent showing you all the emails that are in your "rollup."

The rollup feature is pretty cool honestly.  When the emails come in they automatically get marked as read and then moved into a newly created folder creatively called Unroll.me.  From there, through the magic of the internet, voodoo happens and you get your daily email (you can change the frequency of these emails and the time of day that they come in) and if you actually want to see the information you can click on it and it will open up.  If nothing interests you from your Rollup then you just delete that one email and all is good.  It definitely helps cut the clutter in your inbox and makes everything more manageable.

At any point you can go in and manage where your emails are going, weather you want to remove something from the Rollup or from Unsubscribe and put it back in your Inbox, etc.  This has been an absolute life saver in terms of getting me on the right track towards Inbox Freedom.

My ultimate plan is to eventually weed things out myself and organize through the folder system that gmail has and tackling that goal is going to be a ton easier because of Unroll.me.

From here my main goal is I need to go through all of the folders that I have set up and delete what is no longer needed, set up new folders that make sense for me now and organizing items from my inbox to auto sort themselves so that I can look at them later if the need arises. 

Also, unsubscribing from mailing lists is sometimes the biggest pain the ass that there is.  You can go through the motions but then like 2 months later you start to get emails again because companies hate us.

I'm fairly certain this bored the hell out of all of you and if you actually read this far BRAVO.

I spent I don't know how much time typing out something stupid about a process I am going through instead of actually going through my emails and deleting and organizing.

Long Story Short: Boredom!

Day of the Typing

Today I had some housekeeping to do now that vacation was done.   I had two products that I needed to write reviews for on Amazon so I decided to get them out of the way and now they are submitted and waiting on Amazon to publish them.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened but I was contacted by some people on Twitter about reviewing some of their Nintendo Switch related products and I was more than happy to jump on free product.  This actually ended up giving me my current favorite Switch Case and you can read the review I put up on my Video Game Blog.

I left the G out on purpose.

I do not know what that Purpose is though.

And then due to social media interactions and emailing I ended up on a list of people who get the opportunity to test products from the brand ZeroLemon.

I came across them a few years back when I needed a solution to my phone battery dying too quickly and got one of their Battery Cases.  Since then I buy a new Battery Case with every phone I get.
I've also won a few things from their Book of Face page in giveaways so that makes life better as well.

So for them I got a 4 Port Desktop Charger that I was able to use and review and just waiting on Amazon to push the review through, and I'll probably do a more detailed review on one of my blogs as well at some point but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Long Story Short: I love it!


I also sat down with a journal and started scribbling out notes for something I want to record soon.  Normally I just kind of have Ideas that I want to talk about but free-stream my thoughts but on this one I really felt like I should get it out of my head and in a written form of some sort.

The weird thing is that I have spent a lot of today sitting in front of a computer and typing things up but when I want to jot down my thoughts on that one subject I actually grabbed a journal and a pen and hand wrote it out instead of typing it up on the computer which would have been so much quicker.   Whatever.

I guess I just felt like writing today.


And on top of that I still am feeling adventurous and have something I want to record in an audio only format and a video I kinda want to take with the kids if they are up for it.

I hear it is WSOP season.
I'm broke as a Joke and just reading some random tweets while waiting for my chance to start playing again!