I'm thinking Arby's

First off, I want to thank everyone that has called me, emailed me or snail mailed me a happy birthday. Odds are, if you knew it was my birthday today you probably read my blog, so THANK YOU! (and, for those of you that haven't, there is still 4 hours and 25 minutes left!)

Today's gluttony: Arby's 2 for $5 dollar Turkey subs, medium curly fries, and 2 potato cakes! Estimated calorie intake: 1916. Yummy factor: 7 out of 10. (curly fries were a bit stale)

Strangely enough, I don't think I will eat fast food tomorrow. Not because I don't want to, but because we have too much fresh food around the house that we have to eat before it goes bad. But fear not! The week of Fast Food will continue, I believe the next stop will be Taco Bell.

Last Saturday, we went to the birthday party of Lily, who turns 1 year old on June 14th. (not quite as cool as June 12th, but close!) It was a lot of fun, and it seems like Lily and Megan were already hitting it off! Maybe they will grow to be good friends in the future, being only 4 months apart. :-)



We also gave Megan a big bite of her first cupcake. Sure, it looks cute in this picture but you should have seen what happened afterwards. Let's just say... she wasn't quite ready for cupcakes.



One last picture before I sign off... I have to get out and get some running in, even if there is no way I can make my calorie output match my input today. :-)

A Year Ago

My blog has officially been around for exactly one year today. I'm not quite sure why I started my blog the day before my birthday. Maybe because it was a Saturday, and I had some spare time. I've enjoyed blogging, even if I'm not that good at it. At least there are pictures of Megan from time to time, right?

A year ago I also started down my path of healthy living. Starting with 4 mile bike rides that I could barely handle, to 30 mile bike races, to running and a 10k race. For all intents and purposes, I've lost 100 lbs in this last year. Crazy. I'm 2/3 the man I used to be. Am I a different person? Yes and no. There are still times when I "feel" like that guy I used to be. So I know he's still there, lurking.

Tomorrow I turn 30.

Last year, I might have thought that 30 was the half way point of my life. Now though, I like to think I might be able to squeeze in a few more years. I'm not doing anything big for my birthday. It's just going to be me and Megan, hanging out. It will be perfect.

I've decided for my birthday, I'm going to give myself a present. Actually, it's not for me. It's for that other guy I used to be, the one still lurking. I'm going to indulge him with a little fast food. Each day this week will be something different, something bad for me, but oh so yummy.

So bring on the Week of Fast Food!

Oh Crap

And I'm not talking about the kind Megan is making in her pants right now. I'm talking about the really bad cold Megan has developed.... More on that later.

Last day of work was fine. Awkward lunch as pretty much as I expected. I over ate, which is going to be the theme of the next week. More on that later this weekend. As I mentioned, I opted out of any kind of exit interview, so all I had to do Friday was meet with an HR person, turn in my badge, sign some paperwork and I was off. They didn't have to escort me out or anything like that, it was all fine.

After work, I had planned to go out to eat yet again with my family, only this time for my birthday celebration. I decided to pick some place no one had ever been to, and went with Joe Senser's Sports Grill & Bar. Everyone ended up liking the meal that they got, and so I think we all agreed the food was good. Now, by good - I don't mean, super high quality, but tasty given the bar atmosphere. Just one word of advice, DO NOT use the public restrooms there. They were a tad on the scary side.

For dinner, we dropped Megan off with Great Grandma Ruby! I guess they had a great time, so that was good news. The bad news is, Megan developed a very bad cold last night. She must have got it a few days ago, Andrea thinks possibly from the Children's Museum. It came on quickly, because yesterday before Grandma's I just barely noticed it, and then on the way home it was really bad. Now this morning, it sounds like the worst cold Megan has got thus far. Uuuggghhh. This sucks, because I just got over a cold!! What the hell, its June, you aren't supposed to get colds in June!!!

I suppose I should get some exercise in today while I still can, before the cold incapacitates me.

The Final Countdown

Once again, another week of no posts. At least this time I actually have some excuses. Monday night I had a conference call with our offshore teams to hand off my workload from my job. The call was from 7-8pm, which was 8am for the offshore team!

Tuesday night I got in a long 5.5 mile run, which was very nice. I'm still not sure what I am going to do with my Lifetime membership. After I change medical insurance, both Andrea and I might lose our health club discounts. That's $40 bucks a month... On the other hand, I know I'm going to want a membership again this winter, so I can't really cancel either. It's almost like once they get ya, you are locked in for good.

Wed night I was over at Steve's place, helping him stain his deck. I have never stained anything in my life, so hopefully I didn't ruin anything too badly. We didn't get everything done so I really hope it doesn't rain too soon. Tonight I got home super early because I've pretty much wrapped up everything at work. I was able to get a real quick bike ride in. Just 8 miles but I did it in under 35 minutes.

Well tomorrow is my last day at work. We are going out for my "goodbye" lunch. Pretty standard procedure, but I didn't even really want to do it. Half my group is already gone, taking vacation this week. So there won't even be that many people out for lunch which will just make it that more awkward. Oh well... I guess one of the best things I've read during this whole job changing thing was about loyalty. No matter how loyal you may be to a company - when the shit hits the fan, a company will have no loyalty to its employees and would never think twice about having to lay you off. (except for maybe the guy that actually has to tell you)

I don’t know why, but for some reason that puts it all in perspective for me. I guess the fact that I've been in a company that did massive layoffs, it has more meaning to me.

Red, White and... Dude?

As I'm getting out of the shower this morning, I noticed the colors on my arm didn't look exactly right. Sure enough, I got some sun burn yesterday! The coloring is just hilarious though, because normally my arms don't burn very easily because I have pretty dark skin which is double protected by lots of hair. But check out the awesome whiteness + red on my arm:



Just that little area around my elbow got burned. Now that I'm sitting here out of the shower, I can actually feel it - and it hurts! Must be because it is my first bike rides of the summer, because last year I don't remember ever getting any kind of burns.

Today Megan will be spending the afternoon with GG. Andrea and I are going to get some things done (grocery shopping, how exciting!) and go out for lunch. After that, this afternoon the Bieraugel grandparents will be coming to visit Megan. What can I say, Megan is a precious commodity these days. This picture is just for you Grandma B!

Biking Galore

This morning was a very fun bike ride with my brother. I did a total of 24.5 miles, my brother was with me for 15 of that. I might have pushed him a little harder then he is ready for, but isn't that what big brothers are for? He said to remember that he's a year behind me. If you ask me, if he can lose weight like I did for a year, he will be 4 years ahead of me! We got to catch up on things, which was very nice.

I think I'm just going to lay low the rest of this weekend, try and relax. Next week at work is going to be tough, saying the final goodbyes to everyone. I've decided I am going to opt out of the optional exit interview process. The reason being, there is no real good way to explain why you are leaving. If your leaving, it's obviously because there is some aspect you aren't happy with. Why point it out? Nothing is going to change.

Andrea has suggested that during my week off between jobs, we should squeeze in as much fun as we possibly can with Megan. Zoo trips, park trips, and whatever else we can think of. We might even check out this movie theater that has a special screening setup specifically for parents with babies & little children. It's a normal first run movie, but you don't need to worry about having a crying kid!

So here is one picture for today... I'm just floored at how well Megan can stand, yet she still refuses to crawl much. Oh well, I'm sure by the time she is crawling and walking we will wish she was back to her less-mobile self.

Heading into the last week

I kept wanting to post all week. Every night I'd be thinking, "I should really set aside some time to post." But I just never got around to it. It's still hard to believe that in two weeks I'm going to be 30, quit a job, and start a new one. How's that for making my 30th exciting?

I got a couple nights of exercise in this week, so that was good. I keep bouncing around the 20x weight, where 2 < x < 8. Need to stay focused for a solid 3 weeks to make another dent and hit that 199 mark! Tomorrow morning I'm going to go biking with my brother, that should be fun.

So I managed to get a week off in between jobs. The reasoning for this, is because Andrea has been called to Jury duty the week starting June 12th. I don't really know if this means she will be gone all week, part of the day, or not at atll. But it works out well that I can stay home for that week, that way we don't have to worry about a babysitter or day care.

Well, it's 12:30am and I just got done feeding Megan so I should probably head to bed. More posts coming this weekend!

Memorial Day and more pictures

All the stress over the last few weeks has got me over eating and not exercising as much as I should. I'm back up to 207 on the scale. Not too worried about it, but it's not exactly the direction I want to be going. I went for a tough run tonight, outside where it was easily 85+ degrees out. Okay, maybe it wasn't that hot, but damn did it feel hot. Was a good run though, and tomorrow I'm going for my second biking outing of the summer.

Memorial Day was lots of fun, we headed over to Chanhassen for a BBQ lunch. Our original plans called for some outdoor time, including some bean bag horse shoes. The heat changed our plans to include some nice cool indoor trivial Pursuit. In the ever popular Guys vs. Girls, the girls kicked our butts. We conceded when it was five pies to two.

The funniest part of the day however, was Megan's first real interaction with a dog: Murray. She was VERY curious about the dog, and got very excited when he would come close enough for her to touch. When he barked, she would JUMP as if scared, but with a big smile on her face. It was all very cute... check out these shots.


Introducing: Bat Dog.


Megan gets doggy kisses.


EXTREME CLOSE UP!! WOOOOHHHHHH!! (Wayne's World)


Family poses for a Memorial Day picture.

Sunday pictures

Since no one really wants to read my long droning on posts, here are some pictures for today. Nothing going on today, it's a VERY lazy Sunday. Tomorrow we head to a friends place for a Memorial day BBQ.


Megan went to her first swimming lessons on Friday!


Isn't she cute sleeping and holding on to her little ducky?


Just playing around.


Yes, we like to mess with Megan.


Megan looking at herself in the mirror.

Change is Good... right?

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a week. Truth is, it's been one hell of a week. I suppose I'll just go through the sequence of events as best as I can. Remember how I took last Friday off? Well, it wasn't for vacation. It was so I could do a phone interview at 10am, and an in-person interview at 1:30 that afternoon. Yes, I've been looking for a new job for the last 3 weeks. I guess to be honest, I haven't been looking for a new job, new jobs have been looking for me.

Monday rolls around and I finally get that call I've been waiting for: Target wants to interview me. I had been building up to the Target interview for awhile now, sort of getting my hopes up. Sure, I knew I'd have to wear a tie, but I could handle that right? I mean come on, 10% discount! Problem is, they want to interview me on Tuesday. I already took Friday off, how do I come up with an excuse for Tuesday? Well, I ended up making up some bogus family emergency story. First, and thankfully, only lie I had to make all week.

The Target interview was horrible. I have no clue why I thought I'd be able to put up with that level of corporate bullshit. I mean, to some degree EVERY job will have corporate bullshit, but from the moment I walked into Target, and as I talked to each interviewer, it just got worse and worse. From the 200 "touchy-feely" questionnaire I took, to the stupid pre-HR-approved interview questions. And for some reason, I bought a brand new $500 dollar suit just for the interview. I left the building at an all time low for the week. No way could I ever work at Target.

10 minutes into my drive home, and my cell phone rings. It's the company I interviewed with on Friday afternoon. And they want to offer me a job! Talk about messed up timing. Well, as you can probably imagine, I'm taking that job. It sounds manageable, and somewhat fun. Only time will tell?

Thursday I met with my supervisor to give her the bad news. It was tough, and in the end I don't think I handled it the way I should have. In short, I gave my supervisor an opening to try and talk me out of it. I should never have let that happen, and it was my fault for even letting that conversation take place. But in the end, it didn't matter. I stuck to my plan, and handed in my official 2 week resignation.

So once again, I venture into the unknown. Losing established routine, relationships I genuinely enjoyed, and 2 years in a company. It's kind of funny, but Wed this week was exactly my 2 year mark. I'm 90% sure I'm making the right decision. But that doesn't really make it any easier. One of my co-workers will be gone all next week getting married. When she comes back, it will be to find out I'll be gone by the end of the week. I'm really not looking forward to that.

So in the spirit of change, I've picked out a new template for my blog. Hopefully this one is a little easier to read and well... I'll probably add some more of my own personal touches once I have time.

Mentally Exhausted

This week sure was long for a 4 day week. Although I took the day off today, I was hard at work. Working on those aspects of my life that I want to improve. Needless to say, it's wearing me out mentally. Because of my inability to stop thinking/worrying/analyzing every little thing in my life, I just get worn down. A bad side effect of this is I tend to "shell-up" and shut the rest of the world out (aka, Andrea). I don't mean to do it on purpose, it's just how I deal with the stress. Well, that and exercising. :-)

I stepped on the scale today and weighed in at a whopping 202.5... To this day, I look back over the past year and have to ask myself "How did I get here?" The receptionist at work stopped me the other day and asked me about my weight loss. As I explained to her what I did to get to this point, she just kept complementing me. She actually used the words "inspired by my story". Wow... my story? Inspired? Yikes... This is supposed to be the blog of the uninspired!!

Andrea is topping off my weekend with a very nice gift - she is taking Megan down to New Ulm to visit her grandparents tomorrow night. This gives me the house all to myself so that we can have an awesome AD&D session. She is so wonderful to give me a treat like that on the weekends when I try so hard to give her some time to relax. Tonight she went out for Mom's Night out and had a few drinks, so hopefully that will help relieve some stress. I even drove her to the place so that she could enjoy herself that much more and just get a ride home.

Well that's all for tonight, I'll post more this weekend and report on AD&D session number 3!

Buffet Overload

This past weekend was way too much food, but somehow I managed to stay on track. Saturday we headed to Mystic Lake Casino to do the Buffet for Mothers day (my Mom and Grandma). I didn't really hold back on what I ate, because I'd rather just work out harder and make up for it later then deprive myself of good food. Megan got to enjoy some of the desserts from the buffet, she really liked the creme brulee thingy that my Mom gave her.





Then on Sunday, Andrea and I went to Champps for another buffet! This one wasn't quite as good as the Casino, and we ended up having to wait for a good 50 minutes, but it was okay. Champps was nice enough to make me a special order of waffle fries. They normally don't do that during buffet! I guess I'll overlook the fact that they didn't even bring the omelets we ordered.

To make up for all the food, from Friday-Sunday I got 8 miles of running in. I would have got more, but on Saturday, I just wasn't feeling up to running. Instead, I ended up at Kohl's and finally bought the new pants I so badly needed. 3 pairs of khakis and 2 pairs of jeans. Next step will be to buy some new shirts... and perhaps, even some ties?

Deep & Meaningless

Existence must be asserted in the present
if one does not want all life to be
defined as an escape towards nothingness.

- Simone De Beauvoir

Anyone who thinks they're important is
usually just a pompous moron who can't
deal with his or her own pathetic
insignificance and the fact that what
they do is meaningless and inconsequential..."

- William Thomas

A whirlwind of change is coming into my life shortly. I'm excited and happy for it, but at the same time I have to stop and ask, "Why? What's the point?" This is the day to day struggle of someone without a clearly defined sense of purpose. I'd like to think that most people struggle with it, but I honestly don't know. No one ever really talks about it.

I think about my life and how narrow in scope it really is. I'm a simple minded individual with simple goals. I have no delusions of grandeur, no sense that what I do in life needs to be big or important. I just want to be able to provide for my family, enjoy the time that I have, be healthy and have fun. Is that my purpose then?

I have to assume that the search for meaning or purpose is something that continues until the day you die. At least, that's what I've always assumed. Which is why I continue to go by the belief that there is no meaning. Somehow it's easier for me to accept that, and go from there. Because the only meaning there is in life, is the meaning I put into it.

Baby Experimentation

A lot of parents talk about how they like to "experiment" on their children. Like seeing if they remember a toy that's put out of view. Or asking them which glass has more in it, the tall skinny one or the short fat one. But here at the Anderson household, we take it one step further! Today's post is brought you by guest blogger, Andrea, as she was the one to actually take Megan to the experiment. Enjoy!

- Shawn


I got a postcard in the mail a couple months after Megan was born asking me if Megan would ever want to be in a study at the U of M. I sent it back saying in my head, "Sure why not!". And last week they called me. They basically explained it was a visual recognition experiment.

I got there much earlier then I had anticipated because I wasn't familiar with the traffic flow around the campus. I was led into the building by a high school kid that was doing his internship, he said it was his second day there. He took me into a room with a collage age student named Katie actually conducting the experiment. They made some small talk, and I was taken behind a curtain to see what Megan would be seeing after signing a release form. Basically it showed a yellow duck moving back and forth on a computer screen on a white background. And then the second one showed the same duck in the same proportions, only now it looked like it was going down a hallway. This gave visual impression that the duck was getting smaller, but it wasn't. The third one was a variation of that. Basically they were trying to test whether infants can perceive a level of 3-dimensionality from a 2-dimensial drawing.

They had Megan sit on my lap, but made me wear some glasses so that I couldn't see anything. They didn't want Megan picking up on any visual cues from me. They asked me if Megan watched much TV and I said ya...like all the time. I said she was really starting to pay attention to the screen now so we couldn't watch Sin City anymore. Then just like that, the test was over. More small talk ensued and they gave me a coupon for a free portrait sitting at JC Penney and that was it. Now I can always tell Megan she was in an experiment at the U of M!

Shawn here again... I also wanted to post a Megan tooth update. There is a crazy explosion of teeth coming in on the top. She has 4 teeth all coming in at once that we can see. Here is a close up image...

Not the Smartest

Staying up until 3am roleplaying while still very sick might not have been the brightest move. Oh well, we were having fun! Thankfully, Megan slept in really late (8am) and Andrea got up for her. Even though I feel like crap, I did get a solid 5-6 hours of sleep. It was worth it, roleplaying was a lot of fun. The session started out a tad slow as we dug into the details of camping rotations and misc stuff, but it picked up pace quickly. We moved the plot along, rescued some halflings and now are going to have to save a town with a poisoned water supply. All in a days work for a hero!

I haven't exercised since Tuesday. This is the longest stretch of time I've gone without exercising in well over 6 months. I'm pretty sure that I'll go tomorrow, my cold got a little better over the weekend. Hopefully I have this cold out of my system by the end of the week.

Speaking of colds, both Megan and Andrea caught it. Opps... Megan seems to be handling it well, sleeping okay and what not. She is sneezing a lot, and usually stuff comes flying out her nose when that happens. I did try the nose sucking thingy once, but it just seemed to piss her off more then do anything useful.

Megan has been doing a lot of this recently...



It's actually gotten to the point where I don't feel comfortable watching scary/R/movies with killing in them anymore, because she really is starting to watch intently. She usually just will watch scenes that catch her attention for 10-20 seconds and then go back to doing whatever else she was doing (usually this means playing with toys on or around her exersaucer). Time to start building up my Disney DVD collection!

Spring Cold

I wasn't feeling exactly 100% going into the run last weekend. Apparently running 6.2 miles in the rain isn't the best thing when you think you might be getting a cold. It has hit me REALLY hard this week. I got some running in on Tuesday, but I'm not going to get to the gym the rest of this week. I'm just too run down and stuffed up.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but my work recently started up an old tradition of having a social hour in the office. They bring a half keg into the lunch room and everyone has a few beers Friday afternoon at 4. They even have a giant neon sign that says "The Lounge". I haven't actually partook of the beverages yet due to various circumstances. One time I had to run after work, another time I didn't go... So I think this time, I'm going to enjoy a few beers.

Saturday night I have my second roleplaying group. It should be a lot of fun, I think the group is much more in sync with each other in terms of what they enjoy from roleplaying. It's also a little easier to be focused on roleplaying with a group of single guys without kids.

Next Goal?

As I enjoy my 2nd day of no exercise, I'm trying to think of what I want to do next with fitness. I think for now, I should just kinda go through the motions until I come up with a plan. First though, I have to get my bike into the shop for a tune up and then get out there and do some biking soon! I won't stop running entirely, but it probably won't be much more then a once a week thing for me.

I've added a new blog to my links. I only like to add links to blogs of people I know personally. I think that I'm indirectly responsible for at least 3, maybe 4 people starting blogs. :-) I forgot to add Jim's blog back when he started at the beginning of April. Jim and I roleplay together, and he has a pretty good post about our recent session on Saturday. Don't think I could add much to it. Disgruntled players? Perhaps...

Last night we had a rough night with Megan. I have no clue what brought it on, but we did end up letting her cry it out. She only cried for 20-30 minutes before she fell asleep. I think the whole day she was building up to it, because all day she only had 4 naps of barely 30 mins a piece. It wasn't the easiest thing to deal with, all I could think about was that it was taking the "easy way out". But really, maybe its what Megan needs? Am I just trying to convince myself that it's okay to let her cry? Does she need to learn to go to sleep on her own without constant parent intervention? I don't know what right answer is, and sometimes it's hard to just trust my feelings.

53:28 and something new

Before I get into the race details, I thought I'd share some more pictures and new stuff about Megan. It happened quite on accident really, I was simply changing her and she was crying/complaining for her bottle. So I grabbed it quick figuring I could distract her while I changed her, only to see this happen:



I was floored! This is actually one of my few firsts... I don't see many, being at work all day. I know Andi is going to be jealous. I had to just check to see if it wasn't just a fluke, and so later in the day... sure enough:



You will also notice Megan again practicing her Ninja skills in the above picture. She had the colors off a little bit this time, attempting to blend into the couch for maximum sneakage.

Anyway... the race. Or as I like to call it, "The shittiest day to run 6.2 miles outside, EVER." It was raining, it was cold, it more or less sucked. Oddly enough, it was still fun. The first mile was cake, I was feeling good, passing people left and right. Almost running people over at times. I was quickly caught up in the "keep up with the pack" mentality.

Mile 2, I more or less knew I was running too fast. I could feel that, although I was okay now, it wasn't going to last. At that point, I sort of had to make a decision. Slow down to a pace I could keep going with or just go all out and see what happens? I choose to just keep going at the fast pace I was.

By mile 3.. the rain & cold were starting to catch up to me. I couldn't see anything. My glasses were completely drenched and fogged up. My t-shirt felt like it weighed 5 pounds. I was slowing down big time. People were passing me all over. The whole second half of the race was a non stop pass fest, only this time I wasn't doing any passing. I tried not to let it get to me. I focused on the fact that I had just trained 8 weeks, running 80 miles in preparation for this. I was going to get my goal of under an hour no matter what.

I remember someone calling out a time of 44 minutes as I passed a mile marker. At the time, my first thought was "44 mins... 4 miles... 11 min miles, crap". I now realize, I heard that called out at mile 5 NOT, mile 4. What's funny to me, is that after having the "oh shit 11 min miles" thought, my next immediate thought was "Okay, sweet 16 mins to finish 1.2 miles. I can do that." Strange how the mind works.

The last mile was easier then the first 5. At that point, all I could think about was the finish line. I had planned to sprint part of the ending, and I felt I still had enough energy to try. As I crossed the last bridge to the finish, where I wanted to sprint, I couldn't. I had to wait... after the bridge, up one last incline, and then I sprinted. For probably 500 feet? Maybe 20-30 seconds worth. At that point I was totally spent. I grinded to a slow crawl, but still running. I crossed the finish line and was immediately stuck in a sea of people. Not the best place to be when you want nothing more then a little space. I got towards the edge of people and tried to catch my breath. I was dizzy... I had to grab a railing to catch myself. I thought about jumping the railing to get away from the crowd, but stumbled through them.

Final time: 53:28. Average pace: 8:37.

I'm happy with the results. Will I do another one? Maybe, if for no other reason to be able to actually enjoy a decent event in better weather. And before you ask me, no, I have NO plans to start training for a marathon.

3 Day Weekend

Just what the doctor ordered. Even though this entire weekend is packed with Megan, running, roleplaying and video games, it is exactly what I needed. A lot of my recent 3 day weekends have been unplanned ones. Meaning, I wake up on a Monday morning realizing I just don't feel like going to work. For some reason, those times don't FEEL like a 3 day weekend even though they are. Planning can make all the difference.

I haven't posted any pictures for awhile, so here are a few for now.


No, she did not get up her self. I propped her like that for a photo, but she stayed there for 30 seconds and I never had to catch her or anything.


Megan in her pretty Easter dress. Okay, so we don't have a lot of dresses.

The rest of the posts this weekend (if there are any) will most likely just be about me, health, and the 10k race. I'll try to really focus on what goes through my mind during the race and write about it afterwards. I read a few "runners" blogs here and there, and find thier post to be... a bit extreme. Posts where people talk about "my entire body screamed at me to stop, but I kept going". Umm... that's not exactly who I am. If my body screams at me to stop, I'm going to stop. Running for me is "fun" in that, it's exercise and it helps me reach my goals. Running is NOT something I choose to do as a form of entertainment. It's just something I have to do. Just like all the things I HAVE to do to live a healthy life style. There is no emotional attachment to running.

That's probably why I will never run a marathon. If I'm going to do something, there has to be a reason behind it. And that reason has to be more then just "because it's really hard". If I ever did run a marathon, it would be by accident. It would be simply because I was already running that much on my own. That's how the 10k came about. I was already running 4-5 miles on my own, so why not just tack on another mile and do a race. But in my head, all I see is my weekend exercise routine.

Terrible Tuesday

I should just focus on the positives this week. Not the crap at work, not the fact that I might have to do a 9pm phone conference tonight, and not the fact that it might rain for the 10k this weekend. I should focus on the fact that Megan went to sleep easy twice this week, and slept through the night both times! And not just 11pm to 5am through the night. We're talking 8pm to 6:30am through the night! I'm glad, and hope she keeps it up. We were borderline about to start the "cry it out" method, and although I was willing to do it, I don't know if deep down I agreed with the method. I've told Andrea more then once, that I believe the "cry it out" method was invented more for the parents then for the child.

This weekend, Andrea is going out of town for a UU district conference. As always, Andrea is very involved and is actually running a Workshop. (scroll down to B4, you will see her name) She leaves on Friday morning so I'll be taking the day off to stay home with Megan. (and pick up my 10k race registration early!)

I'm looking forward to the 10k this weekend, I hope it's not raining. I don't care about temperature, I can deal with cold/wind. But rain is a whole different ball of wax. For such a big milestone in my new healthy lifestyle, I'll be strangely alone for this weekend. Although I'll be starting out with my buddy, for the most part he has a much faster goal then I do. So for the majority of the race, I'll be on my own. As I cross the finish line, it will be with no fanfare. I'm not even bringing my camera, as I don't really see the point. (no where to put it, and it's too bulky to carry around). The only record of this weekends race is going to be my memory, a t-shirt, and maybe a web site that shows my time. In a lot of ways, it seems better this way. I started this health journey alone, and so it seems only appropriate I do this race alone.

8 days between posts?!?!

I had been meaning to post all week, but things have been pretty busy lately. Megan has been needing much more attention at night, I've got my training for the 10k, and we've had a burst of friend visits! It's been a pretty fun week, but hectic.

Wed night we had a friend from college over that I hadn't seen in 5+ years. She's living on the east cost in the New Jersey area. It was a very nice visit, and Megan was super well behaved. We were all just upstairs relaxing and talking and she fell asleep in my arms on the glider rocker. I was able to just slip her into bed after that, it was nice.

Saturday morning my running partner and I went down to Minnehaha Falls to run the actual 10k course. The weather was damn near perfect, and we had a GREAT run. We did the whole thing in 58 minutes, which was awesome. I've decided I want to try and finish the actual 10k in under and hour as well.

After the run, I mentioned to my friend how I had lived really close to there when I was growing up. I said we should drive by and check out my old house... So we headed out, it was only about a mile and half away. It's really weird because my perspective of that as a child was that the Falls were really far away.

As we drove by, there was a man working in the yard next door to our old house. I recognized him as my neighbor from all those years ago. His son and I were very good friends, we basically grew up together. I don't even remember when we became friends, because we just always were. When I moved away from Minneapolis, we tried to keep in touch, but eventually lost contact.

In classic Shawn weirdness style, I jumped out of the car and struck up a conversation with the guy. I remembered his name, and so it wasn't too weird. (hell, I remember there phone number for that matter. Stupid memory) We had a quick 3 minute conversation, and I asked how my old friend was doing and where he was at these days. Here is where the story takes a very strange turn.

He says, "Oh he's living in Apple Valley now." I respond, "Seriously? I live in Apple Valley too, where is he at?" "Down there off McAndrews? Right near the Zoo." Say what? I was floored... To think, that such a good friend from my past has been living a few blocks from my Mom's house, a few miles from me, all this time? I checked the phone book, sure enough there he was.

At this point, I'm giving serious consideration to giving him a call sometime soon. I dunno.... is that too weird? I need some opinions, so post me some comments.

What is Funk?

Before I begin today's post, I would like to share with everyone Megan's progress with her Ninja skills. As the following picture shows, she has just about mastered the secret art of camouflage. Can you see her sitting there on the couch, ready to pounce at you?


Once she has her Ninja mask made and some nice Ninja gloves, you will hardly ever see here at the Anderson house. And if you do see her... it will probably be the last thing you ever see!

About every 4-5 months, I get in a bad funk. What do I mean? The best web definition I could find to describe my funk is as follows:

A feeling or spell of dismally low spirits

Yes, my spirits are low. I think I shall replenish my spirits, by drinking spirits tonight! Alas, that is not the solution to my funk, merely a temporary fix. It's hard to say what triggers these periods - in the past it used to be things like... Getting down on myself for being a fat ass, or playing too many video games, or not spending time with Andrea. Often times it was also work that would bring them on.

Now most of those things have been removed from my life - I'm healthier then ever. I feel like my relationship with Andrea is at an all time high (even though we struggle with Megan sometimes). I moderate my video game time... for the most part. So why the funk? Work.

It's pretty sad really... to think that ALL these things in my life right now are going so well. And yet this one minor aspect of my life has the power to just bring it all down to where I can't even get enjoyment out of some of the things that I do. Why is that? It just seems so... stupid.

I wish I had the ability to just not care about work. To just go in, do my time, and go home. The problem is... that's not the kind of person I am. I can't do things half assed. I'm either going to do it right, or not do it at all. It all goes back to my all or nothing personality. To this day, I still can't decide if it is a strength or weakness for me.

Of course all this is just a precursor to the actual question... Am I happy? That's a pretty loaded question and one that is not easy to answer. Some people would argue that happiness is simply a choice. I tend to disagree. But if not a choice, then what is it? I'm not sure I could define that either.

Like every funk, I know this one will pass as well. The interesting thing, is that sometimes, I make my best decisions in the midst of a funk. Decisions that bring about change to my life that got me into the funk in the first place, so that it doesn't happen again.

I am Kevin Smith

Andrea found a web site today that finally proves, once and for all, I am in fact, Kevin Smith. The web site is called My Heritage. And within that site, they have a section where you can upload a picture of yourself, and they will find the celebrity you most resemble!



As you can see, the above proves that I am Kevin Smith. Well, at least 71% Kevin Smith anyway.

The Next Level

Today was a stressful day at work, and at the same time successful. Once again I was thrown into something I knew absolutely nothing about, and some how came out on top. I'd like to think these minor victories will add up to something eventually, but it's hard to say if they will. I've got to stay positive and focused on the belief that I have control over my situation at work.

I've also refocused on my eating habits. They were getting out of control for awhile there. I wasn't exactly gaining weight, but at the same time I knew I was making decisions I shouldn't have. After making some readjustments (i.e. only eating what I'm supposed to) I've dropped 4 pounds in a week in a half. Ahhh... it feels good to get back on track. A woman I worked with today jokingly said I was "getting all sexy like". That was a nice compliment!

Tonight Andrea made her famous chocolate chip cookies, with Andes mint chips. She tried something new - she replaced 1/2 cup of sugar with Splenda! They taste just as good as normal cookies. Granted, a 1/2 cup of sugar is only about 390 calories, it adds up. I love her for trying so hard, she is such a great source of support for me.

So where do I go from here? I have worries lately about what I'm going to do after the 10k. What should I do stay on track, keep on pushing myself, get to the next level? I know I want to start biking again, because I really enjoy it (vs sometimes running seems like a chore). Should I sign up for more races? Should keep focusing on weight loss or should I finally shift over to body toning and weight lifting? I'm not sure... and I'm scared I won't be able to make some of these changes on my own. Sure, I'm a smart guy and all, but when it comes to health knowledge I feel like I've still barely broken the tip of the iceberg.

Someone else I work with said he wished he could still run, that he'd like to go running with his dogs. But a bunch of sports related knee injuries make it impossible for him. My thought was, I'm just now benefiting from a life of sloth. No sports, exercise or any intense forces on my body for 25+ years. Means my knees should be good to go for at least another few years here. I sure hope!

New home

If your reading this post, you've found the new URL for my blog. I'm not quite sure why I didn't just let blogger host my stuff when I started. I guess the main reason was that I wanted easy access to everything so that I could backup my entire blog. Odds are there is a way to do that through blogger, I've just never looked. The reason for the switch is that my charter account only lets me have 20 meg, and I was at 19. So... change is good right?

The time change has had very weird effects on Megan. At first, she was staying up later. So when she normally used to goto bed at 8pm, she was up until 9 or 9:30. Then she slowly started to adjust back down to 8... Only is she adjusting too far? It's 7:30 right now and she MIGHT be down for the night. That's very odd...

Don't know what else to blog about tonight. I have things going through my head lately, but they aren't forming cohesive thoughts. I'll mention the exciting news for this summer. Looks like I'm going to Disney World!

Good Weekend

So far, this weekend has been pretty good. Friday night Andrea and I got away for a much needed date night. GG babysat Megan for a few hours, which was nice. Got Megan home shortly before 9pm (which was risky, I know) but she went down okay. Saturday I just relaxed with Megan. This shot is from her Saturday morning.



Can you believe it? She can stand up in her crib already! Hahaha okay, I'm just kidding. I propped her up for the picture. But she can stand pretty well on her own with holding on to things for short periods of time. I'm convinced she is going to be an early walker, simply because I was also. I was walking either right around 8 months or just barely after. I have a feeling Megan will be to.

Speaking of Walking, my sister-in-law, Val, is doing the Beast Cancer 3day That's 60 miles of walking in 3 days! That's gonna be tough, I don't even want to imagine the blisters. I did a few 15 mile walks for MS back in college, and those were tough. The walk is in August, so she has some time to collect donations, but if you want to donate, you can email her at yeti2927@yahoo.com

Last night was roleplaying group #2 at my house. This is my AD&D group where I'm playing a Dwarven Cleric. I like the character a lot - there was some worry about one of the players, but I think it will work itself out. He's trying to roleplay someone who is borderline sociopath / doesn't care about the consequences of his actions. Last night's session was a lot of fun - we spent the first 2 hours describing characters and character backstories. This worked it's way into how our characters met and why they are traveling together. All great things. It's amazing how much easier it is to roleplay when you come up with motivation and goals for your character.

It's supposed to be a sunny 60 degrees this afternoon - perfect running weather. Should top the weekend off perfectly.

Just some pictures

I've been meaning to post these pictures for awhile, they are so damn cute. I remember my parents doing the same thing to me (with the glasses) and taking pictures.





Just some random afternoon, messing around with Megan. Her 3rd tooth on the bottom is coming in. I don't really know if any top teeth are coming in yet, but I don't think so. She will be 6 months old this Sunday. I won't be making it to her 6 month check up, but I'm not missing much. Plus, she has to get more shots and I'd rather not be around for those.



This last picture is a sample of one of the professional pictures we recently got. They turned out okay, but we are way to cheap to get very many of them. That whole baby pictures business is damn stupid. $200 bucks for a service that probably costs $10 bucks at most? No thanks... Andrea did this mainly because she is turning 6 months and we wanted something to send out for Easter cards. We also got a few cute wallets and a very special 8x10.

Horoscopes

I'll confess - I read my horoscope. Every day. Why? I have no clue. Sometimes I think they are so very stupid, and other times I just think, hey that kinda sounds like how I'm feeling right now. Truth is, it just became something I did to start my day and mostly I just do it now out of habit. Monday, I had an interesting one:

Every time you give more than is expected of you, you bank points in some far-off cosmic vault to be redeemed when you really need or desire them. Therefore, even if your generosity seems to go unnoticed, it's not.

There have been times in my life where I firmly believed that there was no bigger reason for why things happened. Everything was random, chance. But sometimes... I just have to wonder. Especially when things just always seem to work out for me. Is it more then luck? The atheist in me scream NO, and my logic dictates that there is no cosmic vault, aka Karma. But still... I can't help but wonder. Do good things happen for a reason?

One of my goals when I started the whole running thing was to finish 3 miles in under 30 minutes. I did that tonight, with a 3 mile run in 29:45. I haven't done that since I was 19, 10 years ago. 10 YEARS. I'm as healthy now (if not healthier?) then I was a decade ago. That's a pretty damn good feeling. With the big Three-Oh looming over everything this year, I am so glad I picked now to have this major change. Perhaps the thought of turning 30 was some weird subconscious motivation. Who knows. All I know is, it's time to play some video games!

Case of the Mondays

Oddly enough, I've never used that as a blog title yet. I would never have guessed...

Where to begin? I don't even know. I guess I'll just start with a recap of the weekend and make up for the missed post yesterday. Saturday started out okay - Andrea was feeling lots better, and I was able to head out for my run at noon. It was kind of cold and windy out, but hey, at least it wasn't raining. I ran to my Mom's house which by my estimation, is somewhere around 5 miles.

After that, I just chilled out until roleplaying. Friend of mine called me and asked if he could come along, curious about what our sessions are like. My guess is he is regretting that decision now. :-) We spent a good 4 hours doing nothing but finishing up characters. I was worried that was going to happen... and then finally we actually played a little for 2 hours, and when 1:30am rolled around, and I was like "Well, this is a good stopping point." everyone looked mad at me. Well, whatever, it was really 2:30am due to day light savings time and I was tired. I had just run 5 miles that day and been up since 6am taking care of Megan.

So Sunday rolls around and things are going okay. I get a bug in me to go blow some money on new video games: Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2. Played that all sunday afternoon. When evening arrived, Megan decided to have a tough night. Now, to say that things get "tense" around the Anderson house on tough Megan nights would be an understatement. I'd like to think that learning how to cope with these nights, and Andrea and I learning how to deal with each other during these times will really help us both become stronger people... but that doesn't make the tough nights any easier. Thankfully, tonight was pretty easy.

So... work... ya. Andrea doesn't ask me about work anymore, she knows I'd prefer that. Today was probably one of the worst Mondays I've had thus far. I don't even want to get into the details. I left work in such a bad mood, I had to repeat (out loud) "It's only work, it's only work..." while trying to calm myself with deep breaths.

24 years, 8 months, 27 days, and 59 minutes till retirement. Sweet.

Sick day for Andrea

My Friday started off pretty well. I got to work early, got a lot done. And free lunch was coming! Then I got an IM (instant message) from Andrea about 8am saying she felt really bad, like she was going to throw up. I told her to call me if it gets worse, and that I'd find some way to get home. Remember that I take the bus to work every day, so getting home in the morning/early afternoon isn't exactly the easiest thing sometimes.

We headed out for our group lunch at 11am. Turns out it was at Chevy's btw. When we got there, I jokingly said "So we're all getting Margarita right?" Turns out I wasn't too far off. The dynamics of the meal after that got weird... the conversation went something like this:

Boss's boss: We're getting beer right?
Boss: If you get a beer I'll get a beer.
Me (to boss): Well if he gets a beer, and you get a beer, I'll get a beer!

Long story short, we all got beers (cept 1 person who was sick, and 1 woman who is trying to lose weight for her June wedding). Not only that, but most of the guys got "Talls" (aka 24 oz beers?). I stuck with a Light Corona, but still... Very interesting. Everyone was a bit surprised when I said this was my first time in 8 years of working that I had ever had a beer "on the job" as it where.

Okay so where was I? Oh yes - so when I got back from lunch, there was an IM waiting for me from Andrea. She had thrown up shortly after 11am, and needed me to come home. I made a few phone calls, to no avail. Turns out I would either have to take a cab home or a bus. I checked the bus schedule, and there JUST so happened to be a bus coming by that would take me home. I got outside and literally, 10 seconds later the bus I needed came by. If I had missed that one, I would have needed to take a $20+ dollar cab or wait another hour for a bus.

By the time I got home, Andrea had thrown up again. I got Megan and took care of both my princesses as best I could. I think it was some kind of 24 hour stomach flu, because we are pretty sure it wasn't any type of food issue. We will see how she is feeling today, I might have to change some of my plans. Hopefully I'll still get to go roleplaying, but if she just isn't feeling up to taking care of Megan all night then I'll just have to skip it.

At least I had a really good excuse for not posting on the final day of my Blog-O-Thon yesterday!! Happy April Fools Day everyone.

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Tonight's blog title has been brought to you by Megan. I held her over the keyboard and let her hit the keys. :-) So I need to get my eating in check again. I keep thinking that because I'm running more I need to eat more, but the truth is I'm just using that as an excuse to eat a little more then I know I should. Tomorrow we are getting a free lunch out, at some Mexican place down town. I'm going to be getting a chicken caesar salad.

Work is going okay, but still not very enjoyable. I think my boss is convinced I'm quitting next week. Even my boss's boss sent me an email about something, and at the end said "p.s. How are you holding up?" Oh well... it's finally got to the point where I obviously can't be 100% honest with management. That's how these things go.

The weather is looking to be really nice this weekend, I'm hoping for a good outdoor run. Saturday night is my role playing group, which I am really looking forward too. I just hope we actually get to play some and don't spend the whole night bull shitting around.

Always trust a dwarf

I can't decide what is more pathetic - the fact that I only have 3 actual pastimes, or the fact I had to look up how to spell "pastimes". All I could think was, "past time" but that didn't make any sense...

If I had to list my pastimes, it would look something like this, in no particular order: video games, exercising, and movies. I think I'd put roleplaying as a distant fourth past time. Okay, so maybe I have 4 pastimes. Is that a lot? Is blogging considered a pastime? Crap, maybe I have more then I thought!

Anyway, todays post is about roleplaying. The group that I originally tried to run as a Dungeon Master is starting back up again. This time, my brother has taken on the task of DM. Granted he has more free time lately, but I hope it doesn't distract from other things he should be doing...

So I made a Dwarf Cleric for our adventures. I've always loved classic fantasy dwarfs. I guess its because they are always portrayed with characteristics that I really admire. Hard working, determined, strong sense of honor and duty to friends and family. Dwarfs are known for making big personal sacrifices for the greater good of their clan (aka, a typical dwarf community). Dwarfs are also known for honesty in all things, which is a big thing I always identified with.

I suppose I consider all those traits things that I strive to do, but find that I don't always live up to. That's part of what I enjoy, but hardly ever do with roleplaying. I never get to actually to play a character personality. Instead I just end up playing as my own personality! Maybe that's why I'm a programmer and not an actor?

I am Ninja

Once again, I got too tired to post on my blog. Instead, you should spend a few minutes watching some hularious Ninja videos:

Ask a Ninja

A few samples:

Follow the advice advice of my grandmother who said: Stab first. I don't know the second part, because I stabbed her.

I've killed several people with gift cards.

Taking a day off work

It always starts out the same. I stayed up too late the night before perhaps. Maybe I just wake up with a headache. Or maybe I just don't feel like going in. Or in the case of today, my alarm was set to PM instead of AM so I woke up late. The result, I take the day off.

After that, every single time I end up going through the same series of emotions. At first, I feel good to be staying home. I usually start the morning off by checking my work email, and as always there tends to be a few things that make me go "Errr crap maybe I should have gone in today." From there, I try to let it go - maybe a few video games. Some movies, one of my favorite things to do on the days I stay home is watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. (yes, all 10+ hours of it)

From there, the my mood progressively gets worse as I continue to check email during the day. Maybe there is an issue someone needs my help with, or perhaps something from a long time ago decides to pick today to come up again. Whatever it is, it's always SOMETHING that just makes me pissed off I ended up staying home.

The final icing on the cake tends to be someone scheduling a meeting, either for the day I stayed home, or perhaps they schedule it for the next day. And why is it, my boss always ends up scheduling a meeting shortly after, to "Talk about how things are going"??? You might say, it's just coincidence. But if its coincidence, WHY DOES IT ALWAYS SEEM TO HAPPEN TO ME!?!? And further more, why does this shit happen to me right after seeing a movie (V for Vendetta) that has a main theme of "Nothing happens by coincidence?"

Who knows... these are just the crazy thoughts that go through my head on the days I decide to stay home. Sometimes I feel like it's just my stupid ass worrying self that makes my mood get worse and worse as the day goes on, but that doesn't help me shake them off.

So tomorrow, again just like after every day I end up taking off, I'll go into work super early and work late in my own little attempt to "make good" for my being lazy and not going in.

Sigh.

Well, if you've made it this far - blogger image uploads are working again so here are some good ones from the last 3 days.


GG (my newly appointed nickname for Grandma Gayle) went to Vegas!


Megan in a cute outfit to go see Grandma/pa Bieraugel.


Oh no... she has finally figured out how to pull the little toys out of her Exersaucer.

Outside run, take 2

Today was my second outdoor run attempt. Last weekend was obviously much too cold/snowy. For today's run, we went to Lake Harriet. It was pretty nice out, only cold for some parts of the run, but there were a LOT of people out. But it was my first run there, so I didn't let it get in the way of the fun.

I had planned on doing 4 miles, and of course ended up doing more. I haven't got the final numbers, but apparently we did a 10k in 59 minutes. A couple of the miles were hovering just above 9 minute pace! It felt good, and it helped that my running partner is very good at pushing himself (and thus, indirectly, me). Considering he got 2 people he knows to sign up for the 10k we are running, I'm not surprised! I'm not really sure if I was ready for another 6 mile run, but I did it anyway!

This week is going to be a slow down week I think. I'm going to take it easy on my tue/thur runs, and then this weekend I will (hopefully) get outside for my normally scheduled distance. I think my body is about ready for a break.

V for Vendetta

Finally! Andrea and I were able to get out to a movie together. The last movie we saw together was the fourth Harry Potter flick, back in November. So today, as the title suggests, we saw V for Vendetta. First, before I start off, there might be minor spoilers in today's post, so if you don't want to read about this movie, then skip this!

I really enjoyed this movie, even though at the end you are still wondering "Who the hell is this guy? Why does he have semi-super powers? What experiments were done to change him into what he is now?" Those things are overshadowed by the actual plot of the movie, that being the possible future where the government has too much power.

I guess the main reason I liked the movie is that, you really aren't sure if this "V" guy is actually a brilliant mastermind or some psychotic lunatic. In the end, you have to draw your own conclusions which normally pisses me off, but for this movie, I think it did it very well.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Super Suppers

I realized I haven't done a full report on the Super Suppers that Andrea and I did. I figured today is a good as day as any, we are about half way through the meals.

First off, as I was sort of afraid, the portion size isn't exactly as they advertise. I kinda figured it would be that way. The first meal we had was Chicken Enchiladas. The pan was supposed to have 12 servings. Well, we ate it all in two sittings, so that means we each had 3 servings per meal. On the plus side, they were very good. First meal was a success.

Our second meal was pasta shells in marinara. Again, a 12 serving dish we ate in 2 nights. Also very good, probably because there was lots of cheese. I'd assume each meal was roughly 900-1000 calories, which is a bit high. Third meal was some chicken and rice, the chicken was in some kind of honey ginger sauce. It was not so good, the rice wasn't cooked well enough and/or we didn't reheat it right. Fourth meal was beef stuffed bread. It was a bread filled with strips of beef, onions, mushrooms and cheese. I wasn't to big on this one, but I was a little sick the night we were supposed to eat it. I'd give it one more shot.

Fifth meal was fish in a flash. Now this one was VERY good and really healthy. There were 6 servings, and we ate one serving of fish each night. The key here is that we added our own food into the mix. Rice one night, potatoes another, and veggies with each meal.

The latest meal we had was some twice baked potatoes, which by themselves are okay - but they don't really make a whole meal. I'll probably eat a few more before we throw some out.

Overall, I'd say we probably won't do it again. It was a fun experiment and I'm still looking forward to a few of the meals. (Fish tacos tomorrow night!). Andrea is also finding that she is actually missing preparing dinners. And honestly, her prepared meals are healthier then these frozen ones we are eating.

Ugh

Another day without a post. I hope this month of posting doesn't fizzle out! I've been trying to keep the posts going but once again, find it hard to motivate myself to get up something interesting. Work has been consuming my thoughts as of late. I've made certain decisions regarding work, that although I don't want to get into right now, the gist is that things will be status quo for awhile. I know that somewhere along the lines while working at Micron for all those years I said the same thing, but I've got to promise myself that this time will be different!

BTW, all those recent hard nights for me and Andrea have REALLY gotten better. I honestly don't know what was going on, but lately Megan has been just a gem at night. She goes down for the night between 7 and 8, maybe 9 at the latest. She might cry just a little bit, but a quick feeding or pacifier and she is just fine. No more swing needed, she is falling asleep while we hold her and going down into the crib. So it's been a good few days recently on that front. (fingers crossed)

Off to dream land I go...

Nothing to see here

Doh! I missed another day of posting. What's funny is that I didn't even realize it. I guess it's because it was Monday, and nothing interesting happens on a Monday. Today was more or less the same, although there was one interesting development. Megan has learned how to grab the arms of her swing so she can actually stop the swing... This... is bad. Maybe it was just a fluke! No, probably not. We are witnessing the end of the swing.

But really we've been working on not using it as much lately anyway. In fact Sunday, I can't remember ever putting her in the swing. Last night, she went down at 7pm after eating without needing the swing. So maybe it won't be so bad.

So I forgot to mention what I did Sunday - watched 4 hours of Band of Brothers. Good stuff, I bought the DVD set for my brother a few christmas's back. We planned to watch it together for awhile, but just never got around to it. Decided watching it on my new TV was a good excuse to get it started! Hopefully I'll get to watch some more this weekend. Time to go, need to get some gaming in before bed.

I AM the Fish

Today is as good a day as any to post to do a fitness update. My last update was back at the beginning of Feb, so I figured it was about time. As I've mentioned, I've started my training program for the 10k I will be running next month. So far it's going good, although the recent snow storms have put a damper on my outdoor running. Hopefully that will pick up soon enough. I find I'm not sticking to the program as much as I thought I would. I'm wanting to run more, do more cardio, etc. Take today for example, I was scheduled to run 3.5 miles. I ran... 6.2 miles. I'm not really sure why, maybe just curiosity. Why does a dog lick himself? Because he can!

I guess the big news is that a few weeks ago, I actually reached my first major health goal. I am no longer in the "Obese" category of the BMI scale. I'm now only in the "Overweight" category. My goal is to be in the "Normal" category by Sept of this year. For a man of 6 feet, a weight of 184-220 is Overweight. Today I weighed in at 216. So basically I'm hoping to lose 20ish more over the next 6 months. Seems pretty obtainable to me.

It's really funny, I feel like so much about me has changed over the last year. But to the outside observers, I haven't changed much. I even asked Andrea the other day in what ways if any she thought I have changed in my day to day personality. All she could really come up with is that I've become more critical of my friends and family making unhealthy decisions. (which is true)

I guess some of the real tests are yet to come. It's easy to stay on track when you have goals. But once you reach all your goals, and you just have to maintain... maybe that will be harder.

Picture Day

I wasn't feeling 100% better yet today, so I skipped my run. Fear not, I shall get it done tomorrow. I just had stomach cramps most of the night, and I had developed a decent size headache my mid afternoon. I'm feeling okay now though, so tomorrow should be good to go.

Today was nice and relaxing, mostly filled with video games. My World of Warcraft shaman got level 60 today. Thats the 4th character I've got to level 60 in World of Warcraft. Sad isn't it? Andrea's parents came to visit around 2pm and stayed until 5. They had a nice visit, and got to see Megan during her happy time. At 6pm Andrea and I visited some friends of hers from church for dinner. Like I said, mostly relaxing day. Oh ya, here are some pictures:



Look Mom, no hands!


Grandpa and Megan enjoying some golf.


Mom and Megan fooling around.

Stomach? Are you okay?

Happy St. Patrick's day! This day is usually a day people get really drunk, especially when it lands on a Friday. I didn't have any alcohol today, so ha! Today is kinda special, my Mom and Dad were married on St. Patrick's day. At least... I'm pretty sure that's right.

To celebrate, Andrea and I went out to the... "Green" Mill for lunch. Get it? The Green... nevermind. We had a coupon for buy one get one free lunch. Not to mention last week we went out to Red Robin and Andrea got a free dinner using an Internet coupon because it was her birthday. Oh, did I mention we also got dinner a free $25 dollar gift certificate for a new restaurant, "Viva Italia"? Are you getting a picture yet? Andrea is the QUEEN of free stuff, I swear. She signed up on this Medica health web site, called eFit. Filled out some stuff, enters in data each day that says "hey I worked out today, give me eFit points" next thing you know, she gets a $10 dollar gift card to Barnes & Noble.

Where was I? Oh ya, so after lunch I chilled out and played some video games. I was starting to feel better so I decided to get a work out in around 6pm. Figured the gym would be light on people, and I just wanted to get something in for missing yesterday. Ya, well I regretted that decision right when I got home. Stomach started hurting, couldn't eat dinner. And now I'm feeling crappy again. I'm also hearing my brother, who also felt the same symptoms a few days ago, was throwing up today. Great... maybe it's going to get worse.

If I'm feeling up to it, I'm going to go for my run tomorrow. It's either gonna be great or cause me to vomit. Maybe running outside will be the best decision, that way if I do have to throw up, it will be in a big pile of snow. Won't that be colorful?

Tough Day for the Andersons

I'm sick. I hate being sick. It started as soon as I got on the bus this morning, I felt upset stomach, headache developed shortly there after. I made it through the day, because I had to. But I'll be taking a sick day tomorrow. I'm pissed that I couldn't get my run in today.

After getting home, I had to sleep some, so I started that around 6pm, only to be awakened by an extremely upset Megan. I don't know if her teeth are bothering her or if it was something else, but she was NOT happy tonight. Andrea ran a bath and she seemed to calm down a little after that. She slept from 9 to 9:30, I honestly thought she'd sleep longer. Instead she was up again at 10, and only in a slightly better mood. She's sleeping in her swing now, hopefully she will be going down for the night here shortly.

We are slightly worried what we are going to do when she out grows the swing. It's our main line of defense against crying and upset Megan. Maybe they make a 6-month model?

Serenity

For once my title isn't a movie reference. An extremely astute reader (in other words, you can read my mind) may have noticed my play on a very famous saying in last nights post. What saying you ask? The Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

As an exercise to my readers, I'll let you try to figure out what the hell I'm talking about. You might be wondering what an atheist such as myself is doing quoting sayings with such a religious undertone. I guess, to me I see a meaning in that saying beyond any religious ones.

There are of course, things in your life that you will never be able to control. Your father dying of a heart attack. Your company doing layoffs. A tornado ripping apart your house. The list goes on. The problem I think, is that people sometimes add things to the list of "beyond there control" that they shouldn't.

For a long time, I think that's exactly what I was doing. I was putting things into the category of things I cannot change. Aspects of myself, aspect of my job, aspects of my relationships. All sorts of things.

Gaining control over one of my biggest failures in life has been nothing short of empowering. Taking control of my weight and my health has shown me what one can really accomplish with serious hard work, commitment and time. Imagine the number one thing you dislike, no, HATE about your self. Now imagine that thing was erased. What would you be left with? The second worst thing you didn't like about yourself? But, if you had enough self determination to change that number one thing, what's to stop you from changing that number 2 thing? Or the number 3 thing?

So, in answer to that previous question, what happened? I guess I took a long hard look at that list of things I considered "out of my control" (or, cannot change) and am trying to decide what really belongs on that list.

Are those my feet?

Blogger image uploads are still not working for me, so I did things the old fashioned way. I wanted to show everyone Megan's current favorite thing to do:


Anytime she can, she grabs her feet now. Changing her, feeding her, anytime she is waking up from a nap in her crib. BAM, grabs the feet. It's pretty cute. She has 2 teeth now, the 2nd bottom front one started coming in a few days ago. And one last development... she seems to be getting her 2nd dimple in. Is that even possible? All her smiles so far have only had 1 dimple on her right cheek, but now she is starting to have one on her left cheek. Weird!


There is the new TV... the poor delivery guys had to go all the way around my back yard in the snow. I felt bad for making Andrea deal with all that, but there wasn't a whole heck of a lot I could do. So far, the TV is awesome. I'm contemplating taking off the front cover shield to reduce on glare and make the picture brighter. The only problem is, I have no "safe" place to store it if I did take it off. So I don't know...

Tonight I ran... hard. I started out at a 5.7 mph pace and after 12 mins upped it to 6. When I hit my 2.5 miles (scheduled mileage), I jacked it up some more. Next thing I know I'm at 7 mph pace and 3.5 miles in 35 mins. I ran out of some parts frustration and some parts anger. Frustration for situations that seem out of my control. And anger at myself for not having the strength to take control of them.

It seems like a lot of people I work with are only there because they'd rather have a job then be looking for one. Now, instead of being able to ignore that and just be "the guy doing some work", I'm in the same boat as them. On the one hand, it's somewhat of a bonding thing knowing we are all in the same situation. But at the same time, I have to ask myself: Can I goto work for the next who knows how long, knowing I'm being asked to do a job I may never be able to "succeed" at because the knowledge I need to do this job can only be found in the heads of other people? And even people that have been doing this job for 5+ years are still having to goto other people for help?

I'm so Ronery

My streak has ended! 11 straight posts, not bad. I'm not going to call this month a total failure because of one day. It's just like eating healthy. You can't give up just because one day you decide to go out to eat and have a little more than you should.

All day yesterday, I was thinking, man I gotta get a post up! And every time I just wanted to keep playing video games. The big news is that yesterday, someone bought my old TV! I had Andrea send out an email to her Mom's group and within 24 hours I had 2 interested couples stop over and look at the TV. The 2nd couple ended up buying it and took it home on Sunday.

My downstairs is so... ronery! You can guess what that means, yep I bought a new TV. It's supposed to be here tomorrow between 1-3. They are going to have to come around back which is going to be a bitch thanks to all the snow.

I thought I'd end tonights post with a cute picture of Megan. But blogger is being a bitch and won't accept my picture uploads. I'll have to post it tomorrow.

46 degrees

It's getting late but I wanted to get a post up today, per my one post a day this month. Yesterday I went to a specialty running store that was recommended to me. I picked out a new pair of running shoes and then hit up Target for some running pants. Today was my first outdoor run, and the weather was pointing to some bad rain. My buddy who I was planning on running with called me and we both agreed we should head out early to beat the rain. So at 10am we started, it was 46 degrees and sorta windy out.

I'd say it was a great first outside run. The shoes were awesome, no pinching, firm fit. I did just over 3 miles and felt like I could probably do a little more. I'm glad I stuck to my plan though, because after I got home and rested for a few hours, I realized that I was sore in a few new places that I had never felt before when running on a treadmill. Thankfully, nothing in the knees or feet areas, so I think I'll be good to go in the coming weeks.

Special Guest Blogger

I want to thank Scooter for his recent comment, and for all the emails I got about my recent post about Friendship. I'm not gonna lie, this week has been pretty tough. At work, at home, I just can't seem to get into a good "comfort" zone with things. I think what happened at work is that I more or less started a new job 2 weeks ago and I wasn't quite prepared for that. You get used to work after a year and big change all at once is tough.

Anyway, before I get ahead of myself, I'd like to introduce tonights guest poster. This is a message about friendship, however it is much more positive then my recent thoughts. I'd like to post this because I think it's worth reading, and not just for me. So without further ado, please enjoy tonights special guest blogger:

I certainly don't think your definition of what a "friend" is or was in the past is "wrong" as you said. However, I think as we grow older our relationships with everyone in our lives is going to change in different ways. Part of it is that each of us takes our own path while our friends take their own path. Many times they intersect or run parallel (which may be why we have these particular friends in the first place). But as we continue down our paths, they are bound to take different turns and for one reason or another we may find ourselves with fewer opportunities to spend the same amount of time with our friends as we may have grown accustomed to. Part of the definition of "becoming an adult" or "maturing" is that we take on more and more personal responsibilities and obligations. You have a wife, a baby and, as it seems from today's blog post, many more responsibilities at your job/career. This leaves less time, as it should, for me (for instance) or for RPGs or everything else you had time for while you were 22 and just out of college. That doesn't belittle our friendship, it is simply the way life progresses.

Regarding your current definition of a friend as "a random collection of people from your past that you see every few weeks or months for some idle chit-chat", I have to disagree. As I was trying to allude to above, I don't think the amount of time between visits is necessarily important in defining who your friends are. For me, a friendship means someone who you have a mutual and genuine concern about on a personal level (as opposed to the abstract "everyone is entitled to a good education" i.e. a good social conscience). As far as what you talk about in the times that you do get the chance to get together... I think because of all of the other stresses and pressures in our lives, we many times simply want to relax and try to feel comfortable again when we finally do have the chance to reminisce with someone from our past. But that also will depend on each particular relationship that you cultivate with each individual friend. I would be incredibly happy to discuss with you who the Vikings are going to select in the first round of the draft this year, but I would be even more satisfied to debate about why we should or should not be in Iraq or why South Dakota should or should not be allowed to pass a law banning certain abortion practices.

One thing I've become keenly aware of is that here in Minnesota especially, people tend to shy away from any controversial topic in order to appear polite even at the expense of becoming or appearing boring (which is what I am assuming you are trying to get at when you talk about idle chit chat). I think this last point is where each of us becomes responsible for working hard to maintain the friendships that we want to keep. As we grow up or develop alongside our friends, we should, if they truly are our friends and we do have an unconditional interest in them, know what it is that interests them and what is the best way to interact with them on the occasions that we are able to spend whatever time is available with them. Part of this time, each and every time, we will be learning how the other has grown, matured, changed, etc. etc. since the last time we talked. To me, it is exciting to see.

The Snowball Effect

Sorta like the butterfly effect, only better. How do a bunch of little things always have to eventually become one gigantic feeling of stress? Work really has me freaked out at the moment. Normally I would be looking forward to a Friday but instead I am dreading it. What issue will come up next that I can't handle? How many times will I have to go to other people for help and guidance?

I let the stress get to me today. I punched my cube wall in anger/frustration. Meanwhile my coworkers are telling me, "Shawn, that's not your problem. It's not your job to answer that." I'm not used to limiting myself like that. If there's a problem and someone asks me what it is, I'm going to help. I'm not very good at passing the buck, or telling someone "Sorry, that's not my job."

I need to let it all go... I need to tell myself, it's just work. But I can't, not while I'm there. Sure I can get home and forget about it for awhile, but then there it is again every day staring me in the eye. And now, looks like it's even going to be Fridays.

Hump day break

Think I'm gonna take tonight off my blog posting. Can't think of anything interesting to post, and I'm busy taking care of Megan tonight. Andrea just headed out to a 7pm meeting, so it's just me and the Meganator tonight. Lots of fun things planned for this weekend though.

Roleplaying Update

I haven't mentioned yet, but my old roleplaying group has finally started up again recently. We made GURPS characters a few weeks back. The plan was to play every 3 weeks, but now it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I'm pretty bummed out about that, for some reason I get really excited about it and then it always fizzles out. From my own attempts at starting a group to the other group I am a part of. Roleplaying every 4-5 weeks doesn't quite satisfy my gaming addictions. I NEED MY FIX MORE OFTEN THEN THAT. I even went out and bought a GURPS book just so I could have my own copy to memorize in between sessions. I hate not knowing the rules of a given gaming system, I think I'm the kind of player that GM's hate because I like to be able to quote any given rule for a situation (especially if that rule help something in my favor). Anyway, if your still reading by now, impressive. This was one of my best attempts to post about something no one understands or has a clue what I'm talking about. So now I can sneak in something totally random.

I been thinking a lot recently about friendships. I do this from time to time, I think back on the past friendships I've had and compare them to the friendships I have now. I try to define what it means to be a "Friend". What I can't seem to decide on, is if my past definition of friend was wrong or if the definition of a "Friend" changes as we get older. Are friends really just a random collection of people from your past that you see every few weeks or months for some idle chit-chat?

I guess what I miss the most, is the way that I used to be able to just sit down and talk with my "friends" about things more interesting then work, the weather, recent movies, or current events. Is it because we all become so wrapped up in our own lives that we don't have the time we used to? Or is it something even worse, do we lose the ability to talk about those things at all?

Super Suppers

I'm still trying to come up with more ideas on what to post. Nothing too exciting happening today. Last night was a bit rough, Megan had a very fussy period. It stressed out her parents, but we survived.

I think I want to give my blog a new look, but I'm not sure how. Anyone have any ideas? I'm open to suggestions... Post any ideas!

So Andrea and I are trying something new. It's called Super Suppers. Should be interesting to see how much food you really get (and how much freezer space you need!). The food looks to be healthy enough, it's just depends on the size of the portions I guess. I will report more on how they are later in the week.

I've added a new link to my blog roll. I don't add links often unless I really think they are worth checking out. This one is a new blog, but I have a feeling it has great potential. I know the poster is 100% more witty and insightful then me, so go check it out, in case you care...

Rule of 4

I got "tagged" by email today. I thought, instead of emailing back I would just post the response on my blog. Reason for this is that, I would never get blog tagged, so I figured what the hell! So here it goes:

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Software Engineer
2. Computer Operator
3. Shipping and receiving (aka, stock boy?)
4. Ummm guess I've only ever had 3 job titles in my life.

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. Fight Club
2. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
3. Star Wars (any)
4. Lord of the Rings (any)

Four places you have lived:
1. Minneapolis, MN
2. Apple Valley, MN
3. Duluth, MN
4. Boise, ID

Four TV (or cable) shows you like to watch:
1. Firefly , aka Serenity (bring it back damnit!)
2. My Name is Earl
3. X-Play
4. The Daily Show

Four places you have been on vacation: (do weekend Vacations count?)
1. Las Vegas, NV
2. Black Hills, SD
3. Daytona Beach, FL
4. Lake Tahoe, NV

Four websites I visit often:
1. blogger.com (go figure)
2. hotmail.com
3. imdb.com
4. google.com

Four of my favorite foods:
1. pizza
2. chicken fajitas
3. chicken ceasar wraps
4. cross-cut fries with seasoned sour cream!

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. watching Ultraviolet
2. at brunch with my family
3. enjoying some video games
4. the gym

Four people I am tagging that I think will respond.....

Going to skip this part, since I don't know too many bloggers that I'd tag. But if your reading this, and you want to be tagged, consider yourself tagged by me!

The Tax Man Cometh

Quick addendum to last nights post - turns out the DVD was one of those that play automatically after a little bit. Honestly, I don't own too many movies that just START from the main menu. Anyway, the humor of the situation was still not lost...

I did end up having a few drinks last night. It's kinda hard not to when you wife says she's going out to grab some Corona and instead comes home with $100 dollars in booze. Maybe her week was harder then mine! But still, even after a few drinks and a night of video games until 1am, I managed to drag myself out of bed (with Andrea's help) early enough to get in a 3.5 mile run this morning at 8am. Felt good, Andrea got a good run in, we were both glad we did it. Next week starts my actual "training" program.

The reason we had to get our exercise in so early today was that we had a 10am appt with the Tax guy! (or woman, as it turns out) After realizing we didn't have all the documents we needed for a solid itemized return, we came home and Andrea headed off for her lunch with a friend and I returned to finish up the taxes.

Now, before I share the results, you have to understand that for the last, oh I don't know, 3 maybe 4 years, I've been paying out the ass every tax season. Anywhere from $800-$1500 dollars every single year. It was getting down right stupid. Even last year, AFTER buying a house we still owed. So this year, with Megan and a FULL year of mortgage payments I figured there was just NO way we should owe.

We went into today hoping for anything positive... any tax return would have been great. Andrea said not to get our hopes up, but I figured we were due at least a grand or something. When the final numbers added up, my jaw hit the floor. 3 grand Fed and 1.5 grand State! HELL YA!!! Can you say, time to upgrade my HDTV finally!?

The Day that Wasn't

Today was one of those days you just wish never even happened. It started out with me getting up at 4:50am in order to get to work early. My morning started out okay until I was blind sided by a conference call from one of our clients with 5+ people in a meeting. I tried my best to answer their questions but still felt like I just had no clue wtf I was talking about. That culminated into an email I got at 3:30pm that might indicate a problem with something that should have been found weeks ago before it was released. Sigh... As Andrea puts it, will it matter in 5 years? No... But that doesn't make today any easier.

I should look at the positive side. At least today is Friday, I have my entire weekend to look forward too. After this long ass stressful week, all I wanted was to have a bunch of screwdrivers and play some video games. But I can't because I also want to exercise at 8am tomorrow, and that doesn't lend itself well to having drinks tonight. Oh, the hell that I put myself through.

Then just when you think your day is officially crap, I put in a movie as I sat down to blog. I looked over and the DVD remote was on the couch next to Andrea so I told her to start the movie. She refused, and instead gave the remote to Megan. 5 seconds later... the movie started. Talk about washing away the day of crap. My daughter kicks ass!!

Sure Happy It's Thursday

I ran another 5 miles in 55 minutes tonight. The gym was finally somewhat empty for a change. I'm sure the outside temperatures had something to do with it. Fine by me! More people outside, less people I have to fight for a parking spot and locker space. I'm getting some weird pains in odd locations lately. Most recent is a pain in my lower right side, almost like a pulled muscle. But I have no clue what could be pulled. Not to mention my right shoulder problem that has been going on for at least the last 3 weeks. It doesn't hurt or feel sore or anything, but when I lift my arm in JUST the right way, it hurts like HELL. I know - so just don't do that.

I realized that in order to accomplish my goal of posting every day I was going to have to start posting about the one thing I have never posted about: Work. I don't know, I guess I just have this irrational fear of getting fired because of something I posted on my blog. I'm sure we've all read about it happening. Not that anyone at work even knows I have a blog, but I digress...

Recently at work, I got what I like to call, a promotion through attrition. Someone who interviewed me, trained me in, was a mentor and also somewhat of our team lead decided to leave the company. She was going to be a stay at home Mom for her new 10 month old. (first child). I can totally understand her desire to do that, hell that's why Andrea is staying home. Unfortunately for me, they decided I should take on some of her tasks. Thankfully not the team leader tasks. (approving time reports, collecting status reports, etc.) No way did I want to do that... But even so, the other set of tasks they have me doing are stuff that a person with 6+ years of experience with this company was doing. It's not technical type tasks, but things that really required knowledge about the business. Long story short, her last day was Tuesday and I'm already stressed out on Thursday. I know I'll survive and muddle my way through things somehow, but the fear of screwing up is looming over everything I do. Needless to say, it's been hard to get up for work this week.

Day 1 of the Blog-A-Thon

Today is Andreas birthday. To celebrate we went to a new local restaurant called Copper Bleu. What's funny is how many people I knew that have already checked it out. I won't begin to attempt to review it because I can't. Why? I'm too cheap. I'm normally not a big fan of fancy restaurants. To me, no single meal is worth $70-$100 dollars. Maybe I just don't get it, or maybe I can't appreciate the finer things in life. Don't get me wrong, I know what good food tastes like. In the same way I know what good vodka tastes like. But expensive vodka gets you just as drunk as cheap vodka. Same goes for food.

Regardless, Andrea and I are pretty thrifty so even the "fancy" restaurant prices don't scare us. For 2 dinners and 2 desserts, our check was only $40 dollars. At first I was going to give the waitress a 10% tip because as I said, I'm cheap. But while checking my drivers license for my credit card she commented on how I've lost weight. That was enough to bump her up to 20% tip. Flattery will get you every where.