Santa was seen that night.....

And there I sat motionless in a Santa suit, at the edge of I-4.

I have made a tradition the past couple years to try to join up with my local cacophony group for Santarchy. Last year it was illness, but this year I at least made it out of the house but never made it to the event.

Some background is in order. First, Santarchy is an event where a bunch of folks get together for the sole purpose of drinking and having fun while everyone in the group of dressed like Santa. Second, my gas tank fuel gauge is faulty.When i fill my tank, I push the reset button, then I have 300 miles to drive before I fill-up and reset the button. Now, normally, these two events would have nothing to do with each other, but last Saturday, they met head-on.

The temperature was a nice 65 degrees. Chilly enough to wear heavy Santa suit comfortably. I rushed out the door, knowing that once the Santa's got together, the group would quickly move throughout downtown Orlando. The GPS had me arriving at the Santa rendezvous two minutes early. As I passed Altamonte, I was anticipating some of the merriment which be soon become bestowed upon me.

Then it happened. My SUV sputtered. My SUV lurched. My SUV's engine went off. MY SUV was out of gas. Across 4 lanes of traffic I coasted over to the shoulder. And there I sat motionless in a Santa suit, at the edge of I-4.

I had plenty of options, but decided that a hitchhiking Santa would not be a welcome sight for inquisitive children. My roadside assistance program was slow so I decided to just call home. It was about 2 hours before Lori got to me with gas. Luckily as I sat there I had my iPhone filled with Christmas movies, so I watched Elf. Not the night I had planned, but those are normally the ones that I walk away with good stories from. There's always next year.

My domain is back

I set my domain back up last night. Luckily I make backups and it was a simple upload to get everything (almost) back up. The only thing I did not have was a new home page that is iPhone friendly. No worries, I'll get that back as soon as I find it here.
I actually wanted to set this up for a while, Brighthouse just forced my hand.

Brighthouse SUCKS!

Brighthouse SUCKS!
I guess I should check my email, every email account I have to see if my ISP is "migrating" me. Those dumb-azzes at Brighthouse did it to me again. They have done away with the cfl.rr.com homepages. Nice, that is where I had all my stuff stored. The new dis-"service" is a crappy ad-based thing that sucks. I am pissed, yet again at Brighthouse. This is just after I set up an autofeed to the old cfl.rr.com.

Geek-Creed

This is my computer.
There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My computer is my best friend.
It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life.
My computer, without me is useless.
Without my computer, I am useless.

Our hearts are heavy with sorrow for our loss

Today Lori and I laid to rest our little Franklin. It was the hardest thing we have ever had to do. We will miss him dearly. We have cried the day away and told stories of how our little guy had lived his life. He was the best dog; EVER. He was blind for the last two years and was so brave through everything. He relied on Lori and I more since his blindness, but it really didn't change him. He would get up in the morning and wonder when we were going to turn on the lights. All he wanted was to be near Lori or me and to eat. He would always be there and gave me courage as I was going through my whole cancer ordeal.

The last few weeks were very hard. He was constantly vomiting and had not eaten since Wednesday. Anything he ate came right back up. We know he was miserable. He was so weak, we would have to carry him outside to go potty, but as soon as we told him to go, he did. Last night, I took him out front, which I normally don't do, and told him to go potty when he was in the mulch. He walked back over to me and wagged his little paintbrush tail when he walked into my leg. I had to take him out into the grass, then he went right away. It was almost like he was telling me I needed to put him in the grass to go.

All day long, Lori and I exchanged stories like that. We thanked God for allowing us to enjoy him while he was here.

We love you little fella and you will always live on in our hearts!

12/5

This has been an exhausting week, I am so glad it is Friday.

Franklin has not eaten anything really since Wednesday.  He eats and drinks just enough keep him going, then he will vomit most of it up.  We have an appointment tomorrow morning at the vet.  Both Lori and I are preparing ourselves for the worse for our little trooper. :(

3 things

Just 3 things today that were noteworthy. Thing 1 is funny, so read that one first. Thing 3 can be read before Thing 2, so read them in whatever order you wish, but read on, brave soul....

A little background goes a long way, so here is part of it. I went to the dentist yesterday; there is another long story to insert here, but I'm only delivering on the 3 Things I promised, so I'll save that story for another day. As usual since Chemo, my gums are in bad shape and are receding faster than the speed of sound, actually, make it about a mach-2. The other background item is that I am a {dramatic pause here} night-time snacker. I ate a cherry popsicle (sugar-free) and not long after, I went in to brush my teeth. If you are following me here, I think my mouth is bleeding all over and I am freaking out. Ah, it was just a red popsicle he says as he looks at his red tongue. *sigh*

My Dad had surgery today as a follow up to his surgery and things went well. I spoke to him on the phone and he sounded good. Actually, for what he has been through, he sounded great. He does have to have radiation for 6 weeks, but I think he'll do fine with that. I am told that the cancer he had was unusual in that it was attacking the nerves in his face, so that is why he has to face the radiation.

Franklin is doing about the same today. Luckily he is keeping down a little more than he is vomiting. We are still very worried about him though. He is not getting better, just in a holding pattern.

We Love You Franklin!

Franklin is very sick. We are not sure how much longer he will be with us. It is so sad. Both Lori and I have been crying our eyes out thinking about the little fella dying.

Lori has been giving him an IV everyday. The big thing was he was not eating. For the first couple of days home from the vet he was eating and getting his strength back, but last night he was up vomiting all night thru this morning and he has only eaten a small piece of turkey the size of a AAA battery today. His ribs are showing and the skin is just drooping around his little face. He looks so pitiful. :( :(

We don't want him to suffer, but it is a hard choice to make. I guess we need to realize that at some point we are not keeping him alive for his happiness, but ours and it will be time to let go.

We love you Franklin!

Thanksgiving 2008 is in the books.

Lori and I went over to my sister-in-law, Bonnie's for Thanksgiving dinner. Bonnie did a great job and everything was very tasty. It was nice seeing her, Summer, Dez, Ryan and Tamsey (ok, even Dolly too). We went out shopping this morning, but the sales were not all that good and I really just went along for the trip.

Lucky for me fat pants were on sale today. I have moved into a new size of jeans. Ok, well I didn't have to move up a size today, it has probably been a while, but now it is sinking in. I really must examine my diet and start exercising.

My dad is doing much better, he will need some minor out-patient surgery next week to help with his eye, but that should be fine.

I got to visit with a good friend of mine, Todd, earlier this week. He and his family were on vacation here at Disney world and we got to catch up over a couple of beers. It was nice seeing you buddy-boy!!!

now for some bad news..... Franklin is not doing well, he was at the vet for a few days getting fluids. His kidneys are not working 100% and the little fella is not doing well. He would not eat at all at the vet and he ate ok for a few days when he got back home, but today he was vomiting again. I am afraid for my Little-Buddy. :(

Friend lost

A friend of mine, Don Garner who I met during my first day of chemo just about two years ago has passed away.

He and I both were taking the same chemo and were in the office on the same days. We both had colon cancer, he was a stage 4 and I had stage 3c. He was not doing well and was put in the hospital multiple times during the whole ordeal. His wife, Denise, and Lori became friends and they used to drop Don and me off for our chemo while they went out to breakfast. I motivated him to go to the cancer support groups, which Don said was really the only fun he had. He and Denise went to them right up until he was put on hospice care about 6 months ago.

Don and I would sit and talk for hours while we got our treatments. We usually ended up talking about food. Don was quite the cook and gave me some pointers on cooking that he had learned over the years. Don was the person I turned my funny hat tradition over to. He and I had the same sense of humor and his wife would email pictures of his him wearing his crazy hats while taking chemo.

We made a pact to go out and have a cheeseburger and a beer at Margaritaville when we both recovered. :( I'll be toasting him next time I go.......

Another Trip to Johns Hopkins- not for me though

Cancer Sucks!

Did I mention cancer sucks? My Dad has been battling skin cancer for quite some years. He had a spot behind his ear that had progressed to the point where he needed major surgery. He was hesitant to get it done, but finally decided to have it done at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore this past week.

I went up to provide my support and encouragement to him and my Mom. My sister Teri, brother-in-law Jim and my brother Chris had been accompanying him to his numerous medical appointments leading up to the surgery. Thanks to all of you! I drove up, leaving on Wednesday at 4:00 AM and after 15 hours on the road made it to the hotel which Teri had arranged. We got to visit for a short time that night and left for the hospital in the morning. Dad was so nervous he forgot his wallet and although we found out later it was not needed, Jim, Mom and I took a trip back to the hotel to get it.

He went back to the OR at 9 AM. They told us that it would be about 12 hours for the entire procedure. At 9 PM, after 12 hours of surgery, we were told it would be another 45 minutes. An hour later, the third surgeon that was working on him came out and told us Dad was stable and that the extra time was due to some problems they had due to the vein having issue passing a good blood supply to the skin graft. He said they would watch it very closely for the next 24 hours. The next day when we were visiting him, we found out that they would have to re-do the graft, so Dad had another 4 hours of surgery on Friday afternoon. Luckily, that graft was fine and he was moved out of ICU on Sunday and into a regular room.

I drove back to FL on Sunday and since I left at 3 AM was pretty tired when I got home at 5:30 PM, but I had to be back to work on Monday, so I had to be fresh.

We are still not sure what the prognosis is for what he may or may not have to do as for chemo or radiation or what, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. His recovery from this surgery is first and foremost, with the two skin-graft donor sites and a nerve donor site in both his legs, I’m sure he will be sore for a while. Hope you feel better soon Dad!

Has it been that long?

I can't believe it has been all summer since I have posted any updates....

I have been so busy and time has not allowed me to even collect my thoughts, no less jot them down on here.

news- I am going back to finish up on my degree. In '86 I graduated from DBCC with a 2 year certificate in Electronics. Even tough the certificate has served me well, I always wanted to go and take those extra gen-ed courses to get a degree. Now that I have time, I am taking College Algebra and Composition at Daytona State. I am taking the 8 week course, so the pace is mind warping (The 8 week course will allow me to finish this semester and still go hunting in Nov. :) ). The home work I have is taking up all of my free time. Thankfully, my brain is in full gear and 2 weeks in, I am doing well. I've been working on homework all day. Yes, all day..... well, back to work. I'll try to check in here from time to time.

*sigh* << relief

-the facts-

The last two weeks have been really bad on an emotional level. I am feeling pretty good now though.

Let me fill in some details. The trip I had to the ER on the Friday before Memorial Day showed a spot on my left lung. The ER doc said "they found a nodule on your left lung." My heart just about dropped out of my chest then. You see colon cancer usually metastasizes to the liver or the lungs or both. So there I am in the ER and I get this bomb dropped on me. I was freaking out. I push the ER doc for more info and he said I would need to follow up with my oncologist. Of course I was on the phone with them first thing on Tuesday morning. They sent me for another ct-scan of the chest. That was on Friday. The follow up appointment to get the results was Monday. So yeah, I was stressed to the max. Monday came and I got the report that the ct-scan showed nothing and there was no nodule. CELEBRATE!!!! WHOO WHO!! The funny thing is after all that stress, at first I felt like going out and celebrating, but after not really being able to sleep for a week, I went and took a nap. It felt good not to wake up with "OH yeah, my lung, the spot, the lung, the spot" going through my head.

-the phone game-
I called my Mom and told her what was going on during this whole mess above. As the old phone game goes; everything gets blown out of proportion with each mile of copper it traverses. With that said, I heard a lot of different versions of what had happened to me. I would ask right off the bat, "did you talk to Mom?" It was kinda funny really. NOT. I am not sure if I will tell anyone anything from now on. Not because of the worry factor, but since it does not get relayed the way intended. Then again I do have apolicy that I will not sugar coat anything and will let everybody know exactly what is going on.... I may have to re-think the timing on that one. We will see.

-back to life as we know it-
Yes, I am able to concentrate on normal life things now. Again, this experience has made me think about life and what it means to me.
I'm glad you read this. I hope you are having a great day

-what?!?!? no guestbook??-
yes, the guestbook is gone. It seems the host for it wanted money, but never sent me an email telling me they were shutting it down. I probably would have paid had I known. But shame on them for treating existing users with no respect. They were able to send me all of the old submissions, which was good. I just need to put them all back out there. Read on to see how to get your submission there

- the NEW GUESTBOOK -
I've had enough of the guestbook problems. Just send me an email with the subject guestbook sign or something to that effect and I'll add it to the page I put out there. Easy? Easy! Yes, easy, just click here and it will bring up your email program

too long before an update: painful scare

so long and no blog. what has come over me? why have i not blogged? am i too busy? do I not care? is blogging just no important to me?



i do not know the answers to those questions. the only thing i can say is that i am blogging now. -no, i don't know why i fail to capitalize now either.



news: (in no particular order)



health: i went to the er on friday night. i had bad pain in my gut on my right. they did an xray and a ct scan but could not find the source of the pain. i will follow up on tuesday with my oncoligist. yes, i am pretty worried. but whatever happens, happens. the er doc gave me some pain pills to hold me out over the long weekend. the feet are stil bad with neuoropathy, but oh well, i take the meds and usually it will allow me to make it thru the day.

annual events: I got together with my good friend chris cooper for cinco-de-mayo. aside from when i was going thru chemo, we have been getting together on 5/5 for about 20 years now. it was nice seeing chris and the twins.

events: we went to our friends deb and dave's wedding yesterday. it was nice seeing a lot of friends that we have not seen in quite a while. we had a very nice time but i had to go early because my gut was hurting.



the office project is still on-going. we are making progress, but it is slow going.



everything else is status-quo.

The Big Event

The big event for our neice Desiree was last weekend. We went over to Tampa on Thursday and Friday. The dogs misbehaved in the hotel and we got acall the first night from the hotel mgr. How embarassing. The day of the wedding they were pretty good and we did not hear anything bad abou tthem. We had planned on just leaving them in the van if the weather was ok for it, but it was too hot to leave them, so we put them in the hotel.

The wedding was great. Everything was just perfect. Congratulations Desiree and Ryan!!! Lori and I have been taking dance lessons since January so we could dance at he reception. We wanted to be a lot better than we are at dancing, but at least we knew some dances. The only thing is, they did not play any songs that we could dance the Rumba, Watlz or cha-cha. We did do some hustle and some turns, etc. but there were very few real dance songs, mostly pop and modern rock. We wanted to just get out there and dance as a surprise. My feet are still very bad and the dancing is not the best thing to do for them, but we need to get some exercise, so we make sacrifices. I need to get my pictures posted here.

One other big news item, our friends Alli and Jeff are getting married in June. Congratulations!! we are looking forward to another wedding :)

The office project is still in the works. Just when I though the house could not be more in a shambles, it gets worse. I have everything out and have pulled up the trim and carpet tacking. We are ready to paint. I am so ready to get this project done. I have been doing just alittle bit at a time and have spent all my free time working on that and have not done any blogging. Sorry, time just slips away.....

way too long

HA HA, realistic in this project is a month has gone by and I still don't have everything moved out. Am I as slow as a moles ass or what?

It has been way too log since I blogged. One whole month has gone by. A lot has happened. I am down below 200 lbs now. 196 to be exact. I can't seem to drop down below that though. That is about 10 lbs per month. Pretty good weight loss. I'm happy with it.

Lori and I have been preparing for our niece Desirée and her fiancée Ryan’s wedding. Desirée asked me to be an usher and I am quite proud to be honored in such a way. So I am glad that I have been slimming down for the wedding. I went over to order the tux over the weekend. I’ll just say we did not have all the details, but I think it will be just fine.

BIG shout out to Dez and Ryan!! HEY, that big day is approaching quickly! We are all looking forward to the wedding and then trashing your car , er, er, I mean the reception afterwards.

Both Lori and I have been so busy lately, I’ll fill in the details in a few weeks. The tip of this iceberg is completely redoing my office. As I mentioned before, I am moving everything out, painting, ripping up the carpet and putting down wood (read Pergo) floors. I am still on the moving everything out phase. UGH. What a big project! Until next time….

206

I am down to 206 now, well on my way to my goal weight.

The office project is not going as quickly as I wanted. I have about half of everything moved out. I deceided to go ahead and put wood floors down as long as everything is out. I just need to focus on getting it donw. Yesterday I mostly set up my old office desk in the family room so I can still work. Setting it all up was more work than I thought. Painting will come next week and then the flooring the week after. I hope to do it quicker, but just tring to keep it realistic at this point.

18-1, Birthday & Project Office Redux

What a SuperBowl it was!!! I was so happy that the Giants won.

The Patriots are now 18-1 , or as I heard it from a true New Yorker, they are eighteen and one Giant loss.

I got to watch the big game on my big screen, which was very nice. I had the directv guy out on Saturday and I was crawling thru the roof to help the guy out. I was nice to know that I had the energy to do that sort of stuff now.

I had a great birthday on the 4th. My good friend Chris Cooper dropped a card off for me during the day. It was a long drive for him up here, so that was super nice. Lori took me out for dinner at Don Pablos then we went to the mall and we tried out the sleepnumber beds. My sleepnumber is 50. :) I asked if they had a seperate sleepnumber chamber for Franklin (our dog). The sales guy did not think it was very funny, but Lori and I did.

The Project Office Redux has started. I have not so much started this project as made a big mess of the entire house. I want to move the wall units we have in the family room now into my office. I have two desks in my office now, so one will have to go bye-bye. I have been putting the stuff from my desk in the hall in a few big coolers I have for temporary stroage. Like I said, big mess. So I want to really get moving on this tomorrow. I need to move my rather large roll top desk to a different wall and disassemble the other desk and so on and so on, etc. etc. It is going to be a work filled weekend.

Work has been very usy this week..... UGH

A belt notch

Well, I am happy to report that I am down one belt notch. 214 is today's wieght. I don't know how many more belt notches to go, but dieting is a slow process and it does take time. I am on track to be at my goal weight by mid-March. Lori and I both are doing great and not straying from the diet at all- well maybe some un-authorized vegtable chips and salsa, but hey you still have to live a little, right? Right.

The other big news is we finaly got our Christmas present. Yes, the big screen TV. Lori has painted the living room walls and I havemounted the bracket and I am working on running all the cables. I play around a lot with the cables as I get new gear, so I have a plan now that should be good ongoing. Every, I mean every cable that is possible to be run to the back of the flat-screen is being run out to wear I have the gear set up. I mounted it on the wall adjacent to the garage, so I am just running all of the cables out there and using RF remotes or senders to control the gear. I have it all mapped out and the bundle of cables is about 2" around. I am also installing the power outlet behind the set. The look I am going for is like the Jetson's. All I want to see is the picture on the wall and the speakers. It is very radical change over what we have now, so it will take some getting used to. It is nice now to just do a project and not have to go take a nap in the middle. :) Yeah, fatigue is a thing of the past now. : -) :-)

The Diet Still Lives

It has been such a long week. I worked 11.5 hours on Firday and I was pooped out. I am getting caught up on a lot of things at work, so that is good. The toll it is taking is not good.

The diet is going very well. I was down to 217 this morning. 17 lbs down in two weeks; that is pretty good. I still feel fat though. When I get under 200, then I will feeel good I think. It won't be that long off.......

Lori is off on Monday and I am taking the day off and we are going to Universal Studios here in Orlando. We went a month or so ago with my sister-in-law, Bonnie and our Godchild, Summer. We had a great tiem and saw the Macy's (labeled) parade. It was so much fun, we had lunch at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and I had a couple of the famous margaritas and we had a nachos platter for lunch. If anybody goes to Universal, I would suggest doing that. For $15 you get a HUGE platter of nachos and drinks. That is about what one meal inside the park costs. The nachos is enough for four people easy. Since we a re dieting, on Monday, we will be bringin our own South Beach Diet boxed lunchs. Dinner is still up in the air, but I have a pizza recipe I want to crank back up here at the house.

Other than that, not too much going on. Go Packers and Chargers tomorrow!!

Time for football

Today is the big game where the Jaguars take on the previously unbeaten Patrots. Yes, I know how to spell the name of their team, but I am coining a phrase.

Not much time for me to be in here blogging, gotta go get my food supplies for the game ready. Just veggies and some of my famous baked, boneless, skinless, no fat fillet, pseudo buffalo style, chicken, not wings, but breast meat snacks. They taste great, just using chicken breast meat fillets and no fat in the sauce. I bake them as the name states and put a healthy hot sauce on for them to soak up. I have not made them in a while, but I'm sure they wioll turn out good.

GO JAGUARS!!!!

Tabascoed

I was Tabascoed. Friday's lunch was a bunless venison burger and a salad. What goes well on a bunless venison burger? Why Tabasco, of course. So I had my lunch ready and all I needed was my small bottle of Tabasco. The Tabasco in our kitchen livs in the cabinet above the stove. So I opened the cabinet above the glasstop stove and the Tabasco decided to exit the cabinet before I was ready for it. So with the glasstop stove, I had to quickly try to catch the bottle. As I swiped the thin air it occured to me the last time something like this happened, we had to replace the glasstop stove. With that in mind I just hit the bottle away from the stove. Of course the thing gained speed as it absorbed the energy from my hand.

CRASH.

The bottle exploded.

Since we have a tile floor. glass went everywhere from it's impact. One rather large piece bounced off in a rather wierd direction which was right towards my leg. I felt the blood start to flow and I thought to myself "Gee, this will make a great blog!" How sick was that? Even as I swept and mopped I thought I should have taken pictures. My lunch break was almost over and I had still not even started my lunch. :( I got to choke down all of my food quickly before jumping on a 1 PM call. The funny thing later was how much I could still smell the Tabasco in the air in the kitchen. That is some powerful stuff, I have the markings on my leg to prove it.

BTW- I know I posted a pictre of tbasco bottle before, butgive me a "break," I'm on a diet here and my food choices are limited...

This week has flown by, I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday. Work has been quite hectic and I have not had a chance toturn around when anohter issue hits me out of the blue.... Such is my job though.

On the diet front things are still going well. My weight this morning- 226 lbs. Wow, like nine pounds. I better slow it down otherwise I'll be losing at an unhealthy rate.

I got two more Christmas presents that were on backorder in the mail today. I had Lori take a picture, so I will post that tomorrow. I would do it now but I can't find my usb cable for my camera. There is a good teaser that will bringyou back. Right? Right.

I m too tierd to do any more typing tongiht, so... goodnight and have a pleasent tomorrow.

Day three of SBD; only a small grease fire

The diet continues and neither Lori or I have gone astray. :) We have both been eating exactly what we should and not going around hungry. It is really a healty diet and I feel better when on it. I am not sure why I did not stay on it last time. Oh yeah, lazy and "I loves me chicken wings and beer."

Tonight we had broiled sirloin steak. Lori likes her's well done, so I took mine out of the oven at about 4 minutes and she wanted her's left in there. "Ok, you take over from here," I said as I fixed my plate with broiled grape tomatoes- hey don't knock them, they were delish.

Anyway as I am almost ready to sit down with my plate of food, I hear "Oh, mine is on fire!" Great, I look over to the oven and there are small flames shooting up from the pan inside and when she opened the door of course there then was an abundance of O2 and those flames shot way up. So we quickly planned what to do- I was going to open the oven, grab the flaming dinner and put the whole thing in the sink where we could work on it safely. So, I opened it, the flames shot up again and I grabbed and it worked as planned. I grabbed the tongs and removed Lori's steak from the inferno- "just like I like it!" she yelled. The grease on the pan itself was burning and we first were going to just let it burn out, but the black smoke started and we thought we better put it out. Lori said "Don't put water on it," so I said "let me just try" and sprayed a light spray at the edge of the fire and it started to get bigger. Then she said "baking soda should do it" as she reached for the Arm & Hammer. To which I grabbed a different box that was already open and threw a handful on and out it went.

What fun we had. :) Actually, yes it was fun and we had a great dinner to boot. Day three of the diet is now in the books.

The Diet Starts

235 lbs. Day one of the South Beach Diet. The day started out with two spinach/pepper/onion quiches. Those babies were good and dipped in some Tabasco it made every bite (each four of them) more tasty than the last. Ok, they were only the size of half a cupcake, but they were good. Salads and no sugars will be my marching orders for the next two weeks. On the South Beach diet you have three phases;one is the first two weeks and it eliminates all complex carbs and you drop the first segment of your weight quickly; phase two is the gradual weight loss until you get to your goal weight, then it it phase three on going. If you read the book, it really makes sense just eat healthy meals and you can stray when on phase two or three, but just compensate by going back to one briefly. The last time I went on SBD I lost quickly and felt very good about the diet, er ah, lifestyle change. Dinner was good too, we had Tilapia and broccoli, we both had a cheese stick for dessert.

Both Lori and I have been good for day one and there has been no cheating. That is the way it will stay according to Tom, diet Nazi.

Chelsea called yesterday and she is doing great in Japan. She sent us two nice boxes of Japanese things over Christmas. Too bad one of the coffee cups for our neighbors Perry and Mary did not make it in one piece though. She got coined by one of the colonel's the other day and that is a big thing for an airmen. We miss you and love you Chels!!!!

Playoffs, round one

The first weekend of playoff football is a little more than half over now. My Jags came back after leading most of the game to win over the Steelers. Next stop... either Indy or NE. It was a really good game right to the end, I was sitting on the edge of my seat and chewing away at my finger nails(figurativly, not litterally). Meanwhile Chelsea was watching via the slingbox in Japan and would pause the game and went back to the Tivo menu screen sometimes, driving me crazy. If she would have seen me when she paused the TV during a critical portion, ohmyohmy. She said she thought it was pretty funny, but I did not see the humor at the time. Lori said that is something that I would do. Yes, I do see the humor in it now....

Now to see if the other Florida team in the playoffs can advance to the next round. Go Bucs! whoops did I say that? Well a man can have a second favorite team can't he? I do like to root for the football teams in Florida. Of course Miami does not have a football team, so that statement holds true. For the record, I hate the Dolphins and always have. I was really rooting for them to go winless this year. Stupid Ravens. As long as I am rabling about teams I hate.... the Colts. I was a major Colts fan when they were in Baltimore then they slinked out of town in the middle of the night and flushed thier Baltimore ties. I hated them since and will never be fond of them as long as they are owned by the Irsays.

Happy Saturday! I slept in today. Lori and I went over to Beef 'o Brady's last night for our Friday night wings and beer. I went to lunch with Tommy about 5 weeks ago there and we have been back every week since. I love their hot wings. Last night we said farewell as both Lori and I will be on the south beach diet come Monday. I'll post my starting weight and my progress through the diet.

I finally decided on a personal cell phone last week, I got the "old" Samsung Blackjack. I got a great deal on it and I just received it on Thursday, so I am still playing with the features, etc. This phone replaces my HP iPAQ 6515. It was a good phone, but the battery died on it then the backup battery died and after getting a new battery for it, it just started acting wierd and not starting up, would not recognize my SIM, etc. So I was ready for an upgrade.

GO JAGUARS!!!!

Tonight is the big wild card game for the Jaguars. They are playing in Pittsburgh, and the Jags are the favorites, so it should be a good night. Both teams are coming in healthy (aside from Wille Parker- good luck with your broken leg). Jacksonville already beat the Steelers three weeks ago.

Today's plans: The truck has spilled it's cooling fluid on the driveway, so I will need to find the leak and get that fixed before the Redskins/Seahawks game at 4. What fun, it never ends... I also want to put out some food in my new chaffing dishes I just last week as the result of a black Friday sale.

How about all the crazy weather out west? I hope everyone stays safe...

(man, I really need to jazz these blogs up- ok, tomorrow, there will be quite a controversy posted here- it will really make you think) ...stay tuned...

the hangover is gone and back to work....

Whew, I am recovering from quite a Happy New Year. Lori and I both were on the computer as usual until late on New Year's Eve, until about 11:30. I have been working on a spreadsheet for Lori to use for school. She is now working for Seminole county schools as an SLP (Speech & Language Pathologist). She has a bunch of students and four different schools she goes to, so she wanted a template to help her keep it organized. I think I made a pretty good template, all she has to do is enter the data. So we put the computers up long enough to toast the new year and then went to our neighbors, Perry and Mary. They had some friends over and we brought some shooters over and I had way too much to drink... UGH the painful headache was proof positive. Well we had a great time, thanks Perry and Mary!

It is getting cold here, so after work today Lori and I picked all of the citrus off of the orange and lemon trees tonight. I just grabbed a laundry basket and Lori grabbed a paper grocery bag and both are about full. Lori tried one of the oranges and she said she was not normally an orange lover, but she loved these. I think they taste better when you grow them yourself. We had tilapia for dinner and loaded them up with lemon, yum.... :) I guess we will be drinking orange and lemon juice for a few weeks now.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone !!!