I Finally Have It All Figured Out...

So have any of you heard of this "Southbeach Diet" thing? Apparently it's all the rage. Well the missus and I decided to give it a go, just for the fun of it (and maybe a few medical concerns, but that's none of your cotton-pickin' business, now is it?). Well it worked. We did it for 2 weeks before Thanksgiving and I lost 22lbs in that 2 week period. {Huzzah. Huzzah} I always get the genie from Aladdin singing "Hail, the conquering hero! BRRR BRR BUDDA BAH BUDDA BAH, buddabuh boppa doo" whenever I get all narcissistic like this.

Of course, I was starting from 252 lbs at 6'3", so I had plenty of room for improvement. And now I have plenty of room (wait for it) IN MY PANTS! (no, that was not an invitation. You know, if I'm not careful with these asides, this whole post could be in parentheses. Wouldn't that be funny? Writing a couple of sentences about one topic, and then spending the rest of the post commenting on those things I was writing about and the styles I was writing them in. {sigh} That'd be a hoot. Anywho.... Oh right) But we went on hiatus for the holidays and of course I gained back about 10 of those el bees, so we decided to give it another go (heh, heh, I-oh nevermind) after the new year got going.

Well, I haven't been quite as successful this time around. Maybe it's destiny for me to be this weight, but I lost those pounds I gained back during the Christmas break, and NOT ONE OUNCE MORE. I emphasize that not only to wake you with my shouting if you had started to doze off, but also cuz it sucks. Dieting is only fun when it's working. I'm so not one of those people you can tell, "give it a few weeks, you'll start to see results". Homie don't play dat. So I quit. The diet is in phases and this one is supposed to last until Sunday, but I went ahead and got some fast food last night. It was good too. What's worse is instead of the strong, supportive wife telling me,"No, we really need to stick with this. It's just a few more days." I got, "I could go for some pizza. Can we get pizza?" We got Taco Bell instead.

But at least I've started working out. I did 30 minutes on my elliptical trainer last night. And that really sucked. What I've figured out (and the title of this post, only 87 paragraphs in, way to drag it out) is that something in your life has to suck. There can't always be rainbows and sunshines and lollipops. If you don't make something suck, life will start sucking all on its own. Better you take the bull by the horns and at least get to choose the sucky parts. Now this is a risky choice, since there's always the chance that life's gonna just go right ahead and suck anyway, but I feel like the odds are greatly reduced if you're running the show.

This could be for a number of reasons. You need the bad to appreciate the good, everything must be in balance, Earl Hickey's Karma talk, whatever. But it's true. Sure some people have it better than others, and others don't necessarily see how bad some have it since others are on the other side of the fence thinking that some are just fat and happy when in fact some aren't all that happy and are wishing they had it as good as others do. And I think i need to lie down.

So what does it all mean? I'm getting back in shape! Yay me! I give it a month.

Time Flies, But Who Cares?

Hard to believe it's been 2 months since my last visit. What's less difficult to believe (for me anyway) is that there really isn't anything I need to cover to bring all my thousands of loyal imaginary readers up to date. I still have the same job that I never told you about in the first place, I still have the same house that I've never discussed, and I'm stilling going to school for a degree I have yet to elaborate on. All in all, life's life-y.

The truth is I'm having problems galore, but no one wants to discuss stuff like that on a blog, right? It's all supposed to be entertaining. Sure, you can add a little drama and intrigue, but don't be a downer. Heck, even the Nie Nie blog has to constantly make references to their hopes and prayers and how much they believe everything will work out, because if people who were suffering like they did ever put how angry and frustrated and distraught and disgusted they were with life in general nobody would ever read it. Gotta end on a high note!

That's not to say that Stephanie or anybody else suffering through tragedy is definitely feeling those feelings, but I know a majority of them are. How do I know this, you may ask? Simple, because if they didn't feel that way, then those people who have such a genuine positive outlook on life wouldn't be the rare gems that they are. I mean, if everybody who survived a crippling car crash (ah, alliteration) had a smile on their face and a song in their heart, we wouldn't be all, "Wow, you're such a strong person." We'd probably be all, "Quit that singin' crap. I'm tryin' to watch Sportscenter."

I dunno. I guess the point is that nothin' that's wrong with me isn't wrong with everybody else on some level. We all got problems. Maybe that's the antithesis of my little imaginary world in the last paragraph. That's why we aren't entertained by other people's problems. We're all trying to watch Sportscenter!

What a Great Idea! #8

Little boys like to destroy. It's in their blood, it's what they do, it's just something that parents have to come to grips with. Sure, girls do it too, but not to the extent of boys. So my Great Idea is to design something made for destruction.

The idea is this: Make a toy (a cityscape, a DVD player, a glass vase, a replica of your high school baseball trophies, etc.) but make it out of a series of interconnecting parts. Then attach those parts with some kind of high-tensile strength cabling. Then attach the cabling to a spring-loaded spool. As the little tykes go on their rampage of destruction, all you have to do is pick up the toy, reel in the pieces until they fit (with a few slight adjustments here and there to ensure proper alignment) and then release the spool, thereby releasing the tension on the line and allowing for more destruction at your convenience. With very little effort a motor could be attached to the spool to provide the ease of push-button cleaning.

Where Ya Headed?

I think just maybe I can be good at my job. It will take a lot of effort (vice the typical little or none), but if I'm willing to go the distance, I really think I can accomplish great things. I won't, because that's just not the kind of person that I am. But it's nice to know that potential is out there. It wouldn't be much fun to have nowhere left to go, no mountain to climb, etc.

I can't imagine being obscenely wealthy. Man that would be the pits. And I'm being serious here. What would I do with my time? I couldn't take a job seriously, because the second an annoying, stressful situation came up, I'd be all like, 'I don't need this crap' and just quit. And there's only so much travelling I can do. I mean, I'd do a lot, like a lot a lot, but eventually that would wear thin. And as much as I'd like to spend my time in a hammock under a tall, shady tree with a cool breeze whispering through the leaves right now, I'm sure once I actually did it for an hour or two I'd be ready for something else.

I guess it would be different if I had some sort of passion. If I had a "thing" that I was really good at. Outside of remembering phone numbers (ala Rainman, only not that well. There's always somebody better) I don't have any amazing talents to expound upon. I guess i could try wood carving, but I can just picture massive amounts of blood from a whittling accident.

It doesn't help that I was never really a goal-oriented kid. I never had one of those "I want to be a _____ when I grow up" type goal. Again, I guess I'm just not that guy. I take that back. I did want to get married, because my parents made it look so great. Also I wanted to be a parent, so I could be the one bossing people around instead of being bossed. Outside of that, I don't think I ever had any real life goals. That's kinda sad. What's the point of life if you aren't heading toward something?




Huh...from another perspective, I've got everything I've ever wanted. When I look at it that way, it's kinda cool.

Kids on the Brain

I've been thinking a lot about what kind of parent I'm going to be, so if my posts lean that direction for a while, I apologize. I think I'm going to be a mean dad. I'm already coming up with ways to torment my children's Saturdays, and the one I have isn't even one year old yet. Cleaning the bathroom, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry. Pretty much everything I had to do as a kid. Of course, I didn't have to do any of that until I was like 8 or 9, but it's good to plan ahead.

I haven't decided if I'm going to pit them against each other, or overly discipline them equally, causing them to band together in their dislike for me. I know as a kid, through no effort of my parents (that I know of) my brothers and I were at each other's throats, constantly competing and bickering. And not in the "we really love each other but we want to have fun rough-housing" sort of way, but more in the "if I only had a place to hide the body" sort of way.

I definitely don't want my kids to be my friends. I think that's the downfall of a lot of parents. A fear of disciplining because their worried it will drive their children away. While I agree that can be true (there were times when I really really really didn't like my parents) I think it's short sighted. I blame TV. Our ADD-addled brains have turned our lives into 30 minute sitcoms, and if the resolution doesn't come quick enough then it's easier not to face the problem at all.

I like to take a longer view. Sure, my kids are gong to hate me. They're going to mumble under their breath against me, go to bed and cry their eyes out, and maybe even come right out and elucidate their disdain for me. But they don't have to like me. They just have to survive intact. If they have a good head on their shoulders, if they can make it out in the real world, that would be good too. If they are some kind of superstar athlete and can fund a world wide vacation for their mom and me, I ain't gonna complain. Nobel/Pulitzer prizes here and there would be a nice bonus.

Here a Blog, There a Blog, Everywhere a Blog Blog

The title doesn't have anything to do with my post, I just had that song running in my head for no apparent reason. Kids grow up so fast, don't they? I think my biggest fear for my child, outside of physical harm, is that they will turn out to be brats. I mean, how do you keep that from happening? It's not like there are parents out there actively nurturing their children toward brattiness, but there sure are a lot of them out there.


And nobody wants to believe their child is as bad as everyone else thinks they are. To the parent, it's just a phase, or it can be explained away due to some event going on in the child's life. "Junior had to go to bed without dessert because he set his sister's hair on fire. He's really a good boy most of the time."


I can remember as a child how frequently my mother was complimented on how well behaved her 3 boys were (4 if you count my dad, and she did). I always thanked lens-crafters and poorly constructed televisions for giving these people such bad eyesight, since I was certain if they could have seen how we really acted in that restaurant they would have been sharing asides about how the standards for child services stepping in had really slipped.


But as I visit such public arenas as an adult, I notice that it's true, we were well behaved. Heck, judging by some of the tantrums I see these days, we were down right angelic. What's really scary is these are the people who actually try and bring their children out in public. How much worse are the terrors left at home?


It all culminates in a fear for my own children. Of course, there's the equally likely chance of a knee-jerk reaction from me to pounce on them for the slightest infraction, terrifying them into a state of order that only lasts until they realize just how powerless I really am.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."


Where's the balance? How is it so many others seem to have it all worked out, at least when I can see them? That's all I'm asking for. I don't care if they are holy terrors in the confines of my home. Then they're their mother's problem.

What Has It Done For Me Lately?

I used to be the quintessential pack rat. I kept everything, as I discussed once before. Some of it was in collections, some was just stuff I thought my be important later; the occasional memorabilia from a particularly poignant moment in my life. Whatever. There was a bunch of junk.

No more. I have since flushed from my person this overwhelming need to cling to things. I can without hesitation discard any and all birthday, holiday, anniversary or get well soon cards. I just don't see the point of keeping them. On the rare occasion that the sentiment expressed is from someone who has or will soon pass away, I understand holding onto a token from your relationship to refresh those formerly shared feelings. But other than that, what's the point?

If it's a family member you are still close to, you can express those feelings any time you wish. If it represents a romantic relationship that went south, why keep it around to punish yourself? I mean, unless there's some chance of winning her/him back, it's over. There's no upside to rehashing those feelings you're never going to get to share again. And if the flame can be rekindled, get out there and rekindle it! What good does it serve moping around re-reading creased and crumpled love notes when you can be spending time with the source of such emotions?

And that's just an unnecessarily long diatribe on cards. Don't get me started on the chintzy crap people fill their lives with. I'm all about having nice stuff. I get trying to make a place look nice. But why do you have boxes upon boxes of decorative materials if you already own your home and it's already decorated to the nines? No, you don't need a storage unit, you need a swift kick to the head. Okay, that's a little harsh, but come on people! You have no idea how liberating it is to slough off all the layers of superfluousness and bask in the freedom of the unencumbered.

Sure, all that "stuff" means something. Each little thing has it's own special meaning. But I don't feel like it's accumulative. If you have one stuffed animal from them, then the other 32 don't really add anything. Oh, I know, this orange teddy bear is from when you went to the state fair, and this slightly smaller orange teddy bear is from when you went to the traveling carnival that set up in the Costco parking lot.

Let's un-clutter, people. Give it a try. Ask yourself the hard question, "Will having or not having this ever impact my life again?" If the answer is no, it's time to let go.