Hour 42

Pictures at the bottom for those in a hurry!

The answer to life, the universe, and everything! We've been home now for 42 hours, and everything seems to be going okay. We are slowing learning the pattern of change, feed, rest, change, feed, rest, repeat. Still in the process of figuring out the overnight part, right now we are leaning towards splitting the night in half where each person gets to sleep for 4 hours.

Today we had our at home care visit, where a nurse comes to the house to check on things and answer any questions we might have. It was a nice visit, and we got some useful information. Megan has very slight jaundice, when we left the hospital she was a level 8. But today, it had dropped to a level 6.1. They really don't worry about it or do any treatment unless it's level 20 or so. Her discharge weight was 8 lbs 3 oz and her weight today was 8 lbs 2 oz, so she has not lost any weight and will probably be back up to birth weight within a week. They like to see a baby return to birth weight within 2 weeks usually.

Andrea and I are doing good, we've already had our first break down! Glad to get that over and done with. On the plus side, my Mom was over at our house during the incident, and her comforting and helping with the baby was exactly what we needed. THANKS GRANDMA!

In the near future, I will probably shift my posts to more of my perspective of this whole experience. It is my blog after all. :-) But I want to share details about Andrea for all my friends and family as well. Probably the only real big development for Andrea in the last 42 hours is that her milk came in yesterday! That was a very exciting thing for us, and Andrea as well. We've actually got through a few feedings that were exclusively breast milk. Prior to that, we've been adding in formula feedings to keep Megan well fed and happy as a clam. And she is a very happy baby... so far. (fingers crossed)

I'm personally doing okay - it's been harder then I thought it would be. I think it's tougher for Dads to figure out their role in these early phases. Add to that my all or nothing personality, and it can get even worse. It's probably why so many Dads go back to work right away. That way they don't have to think about it. It's also been very hard dealing with all these new emotions. Yes, I'm a guy, but believe it or not, I'm human too. I've always been the type of person to keep my emotions in check simply because it's easier. Now they are coming on so strong and fast, it's pretty impossible to do that. Andrea is a little worried about me, and probably rightly so. I haven't really been eating right (enough) and I've dropped almost 4 lbs since Megan was born. (that's 4 pounds in 3 days) Obviously this is not very healthy and I need to get back on a regular schedule. For some reason my appetite is just not there. Or I will go to make something and lose interest in eating it by the time it's ready.

I think the key for me is slowly integrating aspects of my "pre-Daddy" life into my "post-Daddy" life until I find a healthy medium. I should take breaks to blog, play an hour of video games here and there. And I've decided that next Monday I will follow up with my Lifetime fitness plans and hit the gym starting next week.

Last but not least, I thought I would include some close-up shots of Megan so people can pick apart who she looks like. (I'm no good at that game, I think Megan looks like Megan!) I apologize for the quality, but these were taken with no flash.

The Adventure Begins

Wow. Just wow. It's going to take me a day or two to collect my thoughts into a cohesive post. For now, I will just say that these last 2 days have been simply amazing. A roller coaster of emotions, thoughts, experiences, and everything else. The important stuff: Megan is perfect (of course) and Andrea is feeling very good. I wouldn't be surprised to see her pretty close to her normal self within a week. She is already talking about going to a Mom's group tomorrow morning!

Enjoy these pictures for now, much more to come in the following days.

Name: Megan Joleen Anderson
Born: October 9th, 2005. 6:41am
Weight: 8 lbs 7 oz
Length: 21 inches

Fantasy Football, week 5

Quick update before I get into my fantasy football. Tomorrow we head back to the hospital for Inducement Part 2. One way or another, my next post will be pictures of Megan so check back for that. I wouldn't expect any new posts until at least Tuesday, probably Wed night.

On to fantasy football... half my team is out on BYES this week including BOTH my Quarterbacks. I basically had to through together some half-assed squad just to finish my roster out. I have 3 offensive players from the Rams, so lets hope they have a good day. Odds are stacked against me big time. Still, even if I don't win another game this season at least I can say I beat both my brother and sister-in-law!

Position	Player
QB	M. Hasselbeck
WR	D. Driver
WR	K. Curtis
WR	Ke. Johnson
RB	M. Faulk
RB	S. Jackson
TE	D. Graham
WR/RB	D. Foster
K	S. Graham
DEF	Carolina
D	A. Wilson
D	T. Parrish

Update: Once again, I pull a victory out of my butt. Seriously, I threw together this squad at the last minute, picked up some random free agent QB that was available, and bam - WIN number 3.

Record: 3-2

Megan Watch, 2005

Short update - Megan has not arrived yet.

Long update - I know everyone has been waiting for blog updates on the big day. I apologize to all my faithful readers checking back daily. (all 2 of you) And of course, everyone wondering why all I blogged about on Sunday was Fantasy Football! The honest answer was that I didn't have any news on Sunday to report.

We scheduled an induction for Sunday (due date +4) and ended up getting bumped to Monday. On Monday morning we headed into the hospital to get things started. As you can see, we were all smiles when we arrived!

Andrea was instantly hooked up to monitors (tight straps wrapped around her belly) in addition to an IV. From there various induction methods were used, I won't bore everyone with the details. The gist is, Andrea had some small positive reactions to the drugs, but nothing that got her labor started.

Fast forward 36 hours, still no labor. In fact, Andrea had so much of one of the drugs used to start labor (Pitocin), that they said they had to stop because her receptors were most likely saturated. The positive aspect, was that during all the induction, Andrea's health was perfect. Last week she had a slightly elevated blood pressure, but during the 40+ hours in the hospital, her blood pressure was near perfect levels the entire time. In addition, baby Megan was completely healthy. Her heart rate was solid during all the various procedures. Basically, she's happy as a clam where she is and isn't quite ready to come out!

When tonight rolled around, the options laid before us were more invasive inducement drugs (adding in yet another new drug), followed up with more Pitocin the next morning. Now, the idea of Andrea being plugged into all these machines for another 48 hours didn't sit well with either of us. The mere act of using the restroom was a chore, let alone walking around or getting out of bed. I won't even go into the blood squirting from the IV incident. And really, the main reason we even went in for an earlier induction was because of her slightly high blood pressure. But once we saw that her blood pressure was totally fine for a long period of time, it just convinced us that maybe we should go home, get some good rest and give Megan a few more days.

It's not an easy thing to not do what the doctors say. Not because they aren't accommodating, but because doctors always tell you about how they want to "Error on the side of caution." We both felt like our intuitions were telling us to just go home and get some rest. We mentioned this to our nurse, and she got the doctor for us. Dr. Miller's first words to us were, "You guys were thinking about going home? Ya, if I were you, I'd go home and get some rest." That was VERY relieving and we ended up having nice conversation with him. If there is anything I have learned about this whole process, is that there are still LOTS of things about childbirth that we don't have clear cut answers to.

Of course, we hope that sometime in the next few days nature will kick in and Andrea will go into natural labor. We will most likely schedule another inducement for later in the week. If we do end up going in for a second inducement, that will be the final show down as it were. One way or another, Megan will be joining us after that.

Now.... the drive home tonight? At 9:30pm? During quite possibly the worst rain storm since 1987? Ya... well, we made it home in one piece at least. That was quite the topping to the last 48 hours.

Fantasy Football, week 4

I finally did it, I benched Culpepper! Turns out my brother never benched him in his other league, what a liar! But honestly, I feel like his performance last week was a fluke and I don't think he will do it again. Especially at an away game vs a decent team. On the other hand, K. Collins has a home game against Dallas. Now I know Oakland is 0-3, but that's really the fault of their running game. K. Collins still has been posting decent stats even through his losses, so I feel like today is their game. They are going to be at home and they are REALLY going to feel the need to win today in order to prevent an 0-4 start.

Position	Player
QB	K. Collins
WR	D. Driver
WR	Ke. Johnson
WR	E. Kennison
RB	T. Barber
RB	S. Jackson
TE	J. Wiggins
WR/RB	D. Foster
K	S. Graham
DEF	Carolina
D	A. Wilson
D	T. Parrish

Update: I have no clue how, but I was able to beat my undefeated sister-in-law! I'm not sure how this happened, seeing as I was pretty busy over the last 48 hours. But I checked scores today and I won! Looks like pulling Culpepper was the correct thing to do, and odds are he will stay out for awhile. Problem now is that next week, both my QBs have byes. I might just say who cares and take the loss, I'm not really sure.

Record: 2-2

The Due Date

We have officially arrived at the due date... and so far nothing is happening. Tomorrow we go to see the doctor and discuss what next. I assume a little more waiting, but you never know. We heard two stories in our birth class about people who were induced the day after their due date. I'm not sure if Andrea and I are down on the insta-induce method, so we will probably take some time to discuss with the doctor our options.

It occurred to me that I haven't posted any pictures in awhile, just my rambling incoherent thoughts. So, without further ado, here are some pictures. Last week we had Megan's first birthday party. We were guessing she was -1 week old!

And here are some pictures of Andrea from today, the Due Date!

The Countdown Begins

Friday night was the ultimate last AD&D session with me as Dungeon Master. I'd like to say the final session was a culmination of all the hard work and interesting story lines I had dreamed up. Instead, it was my players arguing about whether or not they should avoid a confrontation with the "bad guy" of the whole story. They must have argued for a good hour about what direction to travel in. Oh well, I gave it my best shot. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a GM, maybe I will be a better player. Time will tell!

On Saturday I did something I haven't done in a long time. I sat around my house, played video games, and that was about it. It helped that Andrea had all these other plans like meeting up with a friend of hers for lunch and doing church things at night. I must have got a solid 12 hours of gaming in. Mainly I did it because I was resting, I had just biked 25 miles the two previous days, but I also did it in part because I know I won't have many 12 hour gaming days in the near future and it just seemed fitting to get one last one in.

Sunday I went out for a quick bike ride even though it had been raining all weekend. It stopped long enough for me to get a 10-mile ride in. Turns out my bike isn't quite designed for riding in wet conditions and I took my first spill of the season. Considering how much I have biked this summer, I figure if this my only accident I'll be happy. I just slightly scrapped my hand and bruised/scrapped my right upper leg.

Sunday afternoon we attended a "Dance for Dollars" - it was a fund raiser for the hurricane victims. It was put on by 6-year old Marselienna. I guess the whole thing was her idea and her parents just helped put it on. She came up this interpretive dance all on her own. I might be getting video of the dance later, if I do I will post it here. It's definitely something worth keeping, she did an awesome job and even found a way to include her younger sister in the act. Just precious!

I have no clue how this week is going to proceed from here so I figured I'd get a post in while I can. I'm nervous, scared, excited, and freaking out all at once. I know it's even harder on Andrea, I can hardly imagine. Somehow we will get through this week!

Fantasy Football, week 3

I didn't make any changes to my line up this week. I left Daunte in simply because I didn't like my alternative option. Turns out I made the right choice, seeing as how the Vikings crushed the Saints. Obviously everyone is still criticizing the Vikings even with a win, but that's what sports reporters are supposed to do. The problem is that one of my WR was out this week on a BYE and I didn't swap someone else in for him. So I might end up losing anyway. Okay, so I suck at this whole Fantasy Football thing. Sue me!

Position	Player
QB	D. Culpepper
WR	A. Johnson
WR	D. Driver
WR	E. Kennison
RB	T. Barber
RB	S. Jackson
TE	J. Kleinsasser
WR/RB	Ke. Johnson
K	S. Graham
DEF	Carolina
D	A. Wilson
D	D. Sharper

Update: Well somehow I pulled out a victory this week, mainly because Daunte did such a good job. But you know what? I still might pull him for this coming weekend. I'm not sure he has 2 good games in him. Anyway, it won't really matter much because next week I go up against Val, and she is friggen 3-0.

Record: 1-2

Back to the Future

I feel better! To celebrate, I of course went for a bike ride tonight. 24 miles in 1 hour 37 minutes. It felt great to get back out on the road after a week off. It's SO weird to think I haven't had more then 3 days between bike rides in almost 3 months. Wow! It was a great summer of biking and I'm looking forward to more of the same next year. Maybe a few more times out yet this year, but soon the weather will be too cold for that. Thus begins Phase 2 of my Master Weight Loss Plan.

Phase 2 consists of me staying home from work for 2 months to help take care of Megan. At the same time, I'm going to get a Lifetime membership and try to build up some good habits while I have time off work that will carry over once I go back. I will probably pay to spend some time with a personal trainer, go over my goals and come up with a good long term plan for me. If you had asked me 4 months ago if I thought I could lose 40 lbs in 4 months, I'd say you were crazy. Yet here I sit, chomping on my apple, sipping my water, 40 lbs lighter thinking - you know what? Anything is possible! It's a pretty exhilarating feeling.

It's been awhile since I could honestly say that I'm really looking forward to the future. I've always been a big advocate of living for the moment. But sometimes when you focus too much on the moment you can lose sight of the purpose, whatever that might be for you. And when I talk about looking forward to the future, I'm not talking about some specific vision. There is simply too much uncertainty. No, the future I am looking forward to is simply the unknown future. When I think about all the ways my life is changing, I can't help but smile. That's the future I'm looking forward to. Is my life perfect? Of course not. Are there aspects of my life I'd still like to work on? You bet. But that lingering feeling that anything is possible really puts a new light on things.

Usurped!

I've been informed that after Megan is born, I will be losing my Dungeon Master status. I guess it makes sense, even though I will be off work I probably won't have much time to design adventures. Honestly though, I'm not quite sure about my DMing skills anyway. I can't seem to keep the pace of the adventures going at times, my players are constantly bickering, and none of them seem to have any motivation (i.e. my previous post "Why are we doing this!!"). Last nights session was a simple dungeon crawl, the first dungeon crawl in 5 sessions of gaming. Did they have a reason to be in this particular dungeon? Yes. Did they necessarily have to explore the entire thing from start to finish? No... but damn is it annoying spending 3 hours developing a dungeon only to have your players decide they are done after exploring 40% of it. Only one of my players seemed to get that, and he also tried to convince me that it wasn't my failing as a DM that dragged down the pace of the sessions, but the players fault. I guess I agreed to some extent, there are some... Interesting personalities in the mix. Needless to say, even if we do manage to have one more session before Megan arrives, I'll probably just wrap up the few loose ends, let them finish the main "mission" they were on, and call it quits. At that point someone else in the group is going to take over as DM.

Health Setbacks:
Thursday morning I didn't feel so hot, but I didn't have a temperature and I figured, if things got worse I'd rather take Friday off as a sick day, and not Thursday. (there was no real way I could take both days off). Thursday night after I got home, I took my temp again and it was 101. I still wanted to get one last bike ride in before I felt too bad, so I met up with Steve at our prearranged location. Steve convinced me I probably shouldn't be biking with a temperature like that, and he was right. My temp stayed at 101 for 3 days accompanied with headaches and sore throat. Saturday I decided to goto the Doctor. The initial strep throat test came back negative, so I'm currently waiting for the results of the 24 hour culture. Anyway, long story short, I obviously haven't been doing any exercising lately. On the plus side, you'd be amazed at how much your body burns up when you have 101 temp for 3 days. My weight actually went down, probably due to burned up water weight. I think I am going to focus on re-hydration today and just go nuts with the water. We also ordered pizza last night, and that probably wasn't the best decision all things considered.

Fantasy Football, week 2

Coming off a huge loss last week, the lowest score in the league, I figure I got no where to go but up. Everyone says Culpepper never has 2 bad weeks in a row so I'm keeping him in. But if he posts a negative score again, I'm scrapping him for my backup, K. Collins. Only other interesting developments are the Javon Walker injury for GB. This makes my pick up of D. Driver much more valuable as he should be a go to guy for Farve. The only other change I made was picking up of D. Sharper from the Vikings. He will probably never make another INT-TD the rest of the season, but I figure he must have something to prove this year coming off his injuries. Maybe he's got a few more surprises in store.

Position	Player
QB	D. Culpepper
WR	A. Johnson
WR	D. Driver
WR	E. Kennison
RB	T. Barber
RB	S. Jackson
TE	J. Kleinsasser
WR/RB	Ke. Johnson
K	S. Graham
DEF	Carolina
D	A. Wilson
D	D. Sharper

Update: Wow, what a huge mistake to leave Culpepper in. Will I make the same mistake in Week 3? Probably. Culpepper was worth negative points again - but I've decide to stick with my Vikings. Purple Pride. If Culpepper goes down this season, I'll go down with him. What the hell right?

Yes, I lost big time in week 2. Big suprise. Week 3 I play my brother, and will probably get my ass kicked. He has Peyton Manning, I'm sure he will have a killer week. Oh well!!

Record: 0-2

We didn't do it for the money

Money, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness.

Interesting use of a (modified) movie quote, eh? I've decided it's time to switch gears on my blog for a little while instead of my usual "Shawn's Current Events" posts. I know I promised to write more about my 30 mile bike ride, but Steve wrote a really good description about it. I'd basically just duplicate his post, and I try not to steal... from my friends at least. :-)

Money. At what point in life does Money become a focus? The collection and gathering of wealth and objects. Why are those even considered worthwhile human endeavors? It seems to me that it's dictated by society, and the wealthier a society becomes the more important money becomes to that society. I think books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad are an example of just that. That we must instill in each new generation the importance of wealth and money. Yet isn't it funny how money has no inherent value?

Money motivates. It motivates CEO's to build vast empires, it motivates scientists to invent, it motivates politicians to do... whatever it is politicians do. It motivates criminals, it motivates sports stars. I try to think about how and why money motivates me. I wish it didn't, but there isn't anything that can really be done about that. Unless I decide all of a sudden I don't need money and find some way to live off the land. Maybe the Amish have it right.

Unfortunately, for most people, that isn't really an option. Money is what provides us with the basic necessities of life. Shelter, sustenance, clothing and medical care. Without money, obtaining those basic needs becomes very difficult, therefore you really only have one option in life: Make money. I like how we call it "making money" because really no one "makes" money, other then the government. The rest of us are just "trading" money. Anyway, where was I?

Who knows. I just wish that money wasn't such a factor in our lives. I wish that it didn't motivate me. I wish I had gone to college to learn, and not just "so I could get a job". I wish I could work at a video game store talking about video games all day and still provide the basic necessities of life for me and my family. I wish I wasn't a consumer. I wish I could live on a plot of land that provides all the food I'd ever need, and still have an internet connection. I'll end with another Movie quote:

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Best laid plans of mice and men

Wow, I just realized Blogger rhymes with Frogger, which is a really cool game. I used to play it as a kid. I also don't have much interesting to write tonight, can you tell?

Friday night was AD&D night with the guys. I spent a decent amount of time getting ready this week, but I still failed in a few things. I told Andi earlier in the week that it's not easy trying to provide entertainment for 4 grown men. Her response of course was a sarcastic, "Ya tell me about it!" One of the things that I failed at was helping the players connect plot pieces. In my mind, it all makes sense, because I'm the guy writing the story. But to them, they are seeing bits and pieces and sometimes, even though they have all the information, it's not readily apparent how it all fits together. I ended up having to lay it out for them because at one point they didn't understand why they were doing what they were doing. In the end, it came down to the fact that they had forgotten a few pieces of information from 2 sessions back. I think somehow in the future, I will just have to put more emphasis on important information. The second thing I need to work on is descriptions of people, places and things. It's hard to describe how someone looks when you don't at least think about it ahead of time. Otherwise, everyone becomes a faceless guy or girl with nothing interesting about them. I think the trick is to write at least one paragraph descriptions about each major NPC prior to introducing them to any sessions. Ahhh... the joys of a nerd life. The other day, someone told me the difference between a Nerd and a Geek. Apparently, a Geek is a Nerd with a social life. Does AD&D qualify?

Saturday we had our last Baby Shower - got lots of cool things, a high chair, a stair gate and a very cool crib set. Also, my sister in law showed us something she was working on, a quilt with a cute hand stitched pattern. She was working on it for a long time while living with us, and we always had to be very careful when she was in her bedroom so we didn't find out!

Sunday was my 30-mile bike tour. It wasn't a race, although we sure did finish in record time! I'll post more about that once I get some pictures from Steve, he's going to email them to me in the next few days. Until then, you can check out his blog for some pictures of our ride.

Fantasy Football, week 1

Okay, so my last post was really boring, so I decided to throw up another post to hide the fact that it was that boring. This will be a new weekly segment, everyone can share in my Fantasy Football embarrassment! Here is my line up for this week:

• QB - D. Culpepper (woohoo, go Vikes!)
  
• WR - A. Johnson
  
• WR - D. Driver
  
• WR - E. Kennison (Who's this guy?)
  
• RB - T. Barber (solid pick according to Yahoo)
  
• RB - S. Jackson
  
• TE - J. Kleinsasser (probable, DOH!)
  
• W/R - Ke. Johnson
  
• K - S. Graham
  
• DEF - Carolina
  
• D - D. McMillan
  
• D - A. Wilson
  

I think I need a back up Tight End asap, if Kleinsasser goes out quick I could be screwed. I'll update this post with my results, and each week I'll post my lineup / wins / losses!

Update: I lost big time this week, Culpepper counted as NEGATIVE 12 points due to all his turnovers and 0 touch down receptions. He hasn't had a game without a touchdown pass since 2003, so ya, I got screwed big time (as did anyone else that picked Culpepper).

Record: 0-1

Daddy Dance

I love short weeks. All of a sudden its Friday and you can hardly remember how you got there. So fast, I can't even think of anything interesting to post. I did get to see my old college roommate last night who had to leave New Orleans. I'm glad they are safe and sounds like they might be staying in MN for good depending on how things go. Very interesting to get the perspective of someone that actually had to leave.

The weather tonight is looking great for a nice bike ride, I wasn't sure about that considering how I was woken by thunder. One last bike ride before the "official" one this weekend. It's almost going to be sort of anti climatic considering I have biked just as far many times now. It was still nice having a goal, now I just have to make sure and keep it up. Hopefully there is one good month of biking left before it gets too cold. The winter months will bring a whole host of new challenges, the least of which will be my health. :-)

The countdown to Fatherhood has officially begun, and I'm getting really excited now. Just a few nights ago I did the "Daddy Dance" around my basement in excitement. I'm also really nervous about the whole birth process and what Andrea has to go through. I feel horrible sometimes when I think about how much of the burden of childbirth is placed on her shoulders. I just hope things go as best as they can and that we have as few complications as possible.

This weekend is our last baby shower, I'm honestly unsure what else we can get. We already have SOOO much baby clothes, it's crazy. We even have most of the basics covered, but I guess there is always something you forget. It will also be nice to see some of my family that I haven't seen in awhile.

I also have a big AD&D session set for tomorrow night, and we are going to start at a decent time for once. I have some cool things planned, I think everyone will have fun. I'll have to write up a larger post about it on Sunday, along with a report on the bike ride.

Renaissance Festival photos

I'll keep tonights post short so that you can just enjoy the Ren Fest pictures. It was a short, but fun Ren Fest experience this year. We got there early enough to do a little walking around. We first went into the Secret Garden, which I swear was new (but I'm probably wrong). It was a little walk in a wooded area with characters and little things to look at. We stopped and saw the jugglers and some guys in the stocks being made fun of.

After that we headed over to Bad Manor for our 7 course meal. The food was great and the entertainment was fun. Not as interactive as I had figured, but fun non-the-less. I snapped some pictures of the belly dancers. :-)

Then right before we left, I was able to catch the Jousting which is obviously one of the main highlights (and my favorite thing) each year.

As for the rest of this weekend, it was exactly as I predicted: way fun and way too fast! Our party was a nice success. It's always interesting to get all these different people together and see how they mix. :-) I'm not sure how well I did with my Fantasy Football draft, but I did get Daunte Culpepper so I'm pretty happy about that.

Roleplaying on Saturday night went pretty well, considering we started at Midnight. We went until 4am like I had also predicted, mainly focused on an important combat session. We all had a lot of learning to do with the combat system, so future combats should go quicker. It's funny that in 4 hours of gameplay, the actually in-game time moved probably 1 hour? In the 3 sessions I've done, the characters have been through 30 hours of actual in-game time. I'll have to find ways to speed that up. Everyone is having fun though, and I'm being told that my storylines are interesting. But really, we need more meat and potatoes (i.e. combat, XP & rewards) for the next few sessions. We are adding one player to round out the group to 4 players. I'm pretty sure I can handle that, but one of the players also says his girlfriend wants to join too. I'm not so sure about that - she has never played, and I was hoping to keep this group to only the hardcore players. Will have to wait and see on that one...

I also managed to see the movie, 40 Year-Old-Virgin on Sunday, the first one I've been to in a long time. There just aren't that many good ones at this part in the summer, although there are still a few I would like to see that I haven't. (Four Brothers, Transporter 2, Brothers Grimm to name a few) Maybe I'll get around to them this month.

Wind blows. Or does it suck?

My bike ride tonight was just horrible. Even as I stepped off the bus after work, I knew it would be bad. There had to easily be a 15mph wind with 20mph gusts. It made it very hard to even get any momentum going. I toughed it out, but my legs are probably more sore then most rides I've done.

This weekend is going to be crazy busy, but I'm looking forward to it. Saturday we are having a Labor Day get together, one last hurrah before the baby arrives. Then that night I'm doing my first ever Fantasy Football draft. I'm sure I will suck it up, but it should be fun. My brother has been doing it for a few years now and I just wanted to get involved. Then the plan is to play some AD&D after that and I'm sure we will go until 4am again. I still have to do some setup for that, in fact I should probably be doing that now.

Monday Andrea and I are going to the Feast of Fantasy. I've been to the Ren Fest many times over the years, but I've never done the Feast. I figured we'd do something new for a change. Someone I work with has been a part of the Ren Fest for over 10 years and she recommended the feast. Should be quite a busy but fun weekend!

One of my old college friends moved to New Orleans at the beginning of this year. He setup a blog which I've added to my link section, "To be determined..." Thankfully, he made it out of New Orleans okay and has made his way back up to Minnesota. I'm hoping to talk to him soon and find out more details on how he is doing and what his plans are. The media sure is doing a good job of painting the worst picture ever of what's going on down there.

Weight loss update

Long post tonight, this way I can get all my health craze stuff out of my system in one big ass post. If you can't tell by now, I've been working very hard at losing weight lately. I've tried not to overload my blog with weight loss/fitness type posts mainly because it's a more personal thing for me. But every once and awhile, it feels good to share.


The weight just seems to keep dropping off at a consistent rate of 10 pounds a month. At this rate, I'll be around 240 by the end of the year! That would be amazing if I'm able to reach that, but I'm prepared to see it start slowing down. Obviously the fast weight loss is motivating, but I can't let it get to my head and get discouraged once it starts to slow down. (which it will)

If I had to say what my specific goals are, it is to get in the absolute highest range of the "normal" scale on the BMI chart. That would be a 24.9 BMI, which for my height would be a weight of 189. Now, considering the fact that the one time I felt like I was the healthiest I've ever been in my entire life I was at 195, I'm seeing 189 as a damn hard goal. I started out this summer with a 40 BMI score, which is extremely obese. I'll be excited to just get into the overweight scores, which would be a weight of 227. Maybe I'll throw a party or something. "Congratulations Shawn! You're now officially just Overweight!"

But seriously, I'm still surprised at how simple weight loss really is. Breaking it down to basic math helped me a lot. More calories out then calories in equals weight loss. The other main thing was completely cutting out fast food, aside from the occasional 6 inch turkey sub from subway. (with no cheese or mayo!) I have decided Fast Food is Hell on Earth. I spent some time browsing various nutritional information for a lot of chains and was stunned at what I found. I would add up a typical fast food meal I'd eat and find it to be anywhere from 1200 to 1700+ calories. That's more calories then I'm eating in an entire day now! Just crazy...

Speaking of fast food, there is something else I've been wanting to post about. Obviously, as part of this weight loss I've completely changed my eating habits, and reading a lot of information about eating healthy. One thing a lot of these books say is that after changing your habits you "retrain" your body to crave healthy foods and that you find yourself looking for fruits and veggies when you get hungry and want a snack. I would just like to state for the record, that is complete and total bullshit. Every single lunch hour at work, I see someone with greasy pizza or tacos or a nice juicy cheeseburger with fries. And you bet your ass I want some. I bike past a long strip of fast food restaurants and the smell alone is enough to make me crave the stuff. Sometimes I wonder if the only reason I don't stop and buy some food right then and there is because I don't bring cash with me on my bike rides.

I'm 99% sure I will always crave unhealthy foods. You know why? BECAUSE THEY TASTE GOOD. And if you try to tell me otherwise, you are lying to yourself. Pizza tastes good. Sandwiches with mayo taste better, potatoes smothered in cheese and sour cream taste better. Deep fried anything... just tastes BETTER! Therein lies the power of choice. Now lets just hope I can continue with the choices I'm making for the long term.

And don't try to pull some "enjoy unhealthy foods in moderation" crap on me, because it won't work. Not for my all or nothing personality, it just doesn't fly. I don't do things in moderation and so in order to eat healthy, those are the choices I have to make. I can just hope that after making the same choices over and over enough, they will get easier and easier.

Madden's 2006

No, I'm not referring to the latest football video game. We headed up to Madden's on Friday - the trip up sucked. There was some kind of accident involving a semi truck on the north part of 94, the traffic was horrible.

What sucked even more, the accident didn't even look that bad. There were more cop cars then accident vehicles blocking most of the road. Anyway, we made it in time for dinner so I guess I shouldn't complain. Our room view was awesome once again, and the weather was perfect all weekend.

Saturday was my big bike ride, the main thing I was looking forward to for the whole weekend. It was just awesome, take a look at these pictures. The trail was so smooth and straight, the weather was perfect. I will definitely be going back to this trail in the future - maybe not this year, but at some point. I did 32 miles in 2 hours of biking!! That's raw time, the cyclometer only measures time actually spent biking. The trip probably took closer to 2 and half hours with breaks for taking pictures and the longer 5-10 minute break I took at the half way point.

The rest of Saturday was okay, a nice dinner and comedian / magician. After that was a casino theme night that was pretty generous with the payouts. I turned $5000 into $200,000 in just under 2 hours, heh. Then you could buy raffle tickets for $10,000 a piece for prizes. I didn't win anything, which was lame. Some people won multiple times, because no one setup any rules or said anything like only 1 prize per person. Oh well - not everything is perfect.

This weekend is the big Anderson Labor Day get together, so we will be busy getting ready for that. I'm going to try and find some more time to post again later this week.

I like reality. It tastes of bread.

Don't expect much in the way of interesting posts this week. Added to my already busy schedule, I went and bought Dungeon Siege 2 on Monday. Just a little time killer video game that I'll probably play obsessively three times back to back in order to unlock all the difficulty levels. Can you say 100+ hours of gaming?

This week started out great since I decided to take a vacation day Monday. That night, I did a 25 mile bike ride with Steve. The cool news is that Steve signed up for the St. Paul Bike classic, so we will being doing that together! Should be fun and more enjoyable to have someone along for the ride. My brother also started his classes yesterday, which means I will see him pretty much never. At least we get to chat online while he is in class - his school has wireless internet and he brings his lap top with him.

My bro said something to me yesterday that I thought was interesting:

"You are the most zen person I know."

I took it as a complement. He is of course referring to the fact that I hardly get angry about anything. Sure, I get pissed off when someone cuts me off in traffic, just ask Andrea. But even she has said to me before, "How come you never seem to get angry?" Honestly, I'm not sure. In some ways, I feel like anger is the most useless of human emotions. I can't think of a single time in my life where anger served a useful or productive purpose. In fact, the few things I remember doing while extremely mad, are usually things I regret. Like punching a hole in a wall, for example. (which I was able to hide from my Mom for years) I can only hope my lack of anger will help me in fatherhood when I find an Xbox game disk broken because my daughter thought it should fit into the Gamecube....

Maybe I just don't like anger, because anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering - and that is the path to the Dark Side!

Who needs soft water?

Warning:The following paragraph will make very little sense to those not familiar with AD&D and/or roleplaying.

Dungeons and Dragons went a little long this Friday night. We started around 10pm and didn't finish until 5am. The last hour however, was a long discussion about the role of the GM, the players, and overall expectations. It was a bit heated, but some really constructive ideas came from it. I'm just a newbie GM so honestly, I need more work on things like being creative with situations the players encounter and coming up with interesting story ideas where I don't have to force the players into one single path. It's an interesting challenge, something I've never really worked hard at before. Hopefully our next session won't be for a few weeks, and I can use that extra time to refine my GMing skills!

Shirt says Congrats Shawn & Andi, SO CUTE!

Saturday was our first Baby shower. It was great fun even if not a lot of people were able to attend. You know us 30 somethings, our lives are so hectic! I didn't particularly enjoy the baby food tasting contest, but damn did that give me a new respect for what I might be feeding my baby some day! After the shower I hit up a decent bike ride and then played some Magic: The Gathering with my bro that night. Scott is trying to jam as much fun stuff as he can into this last weekend before he starts classes.

Today while grocery shopping I finally broke down and bought some rock salt for our water softener. I have been so bad at keeping the water softer filled with salt. I think since we've lived here, which was exactly one year this month, I've filled the water softener 2 times? I'll have to get better with that. :-)

This coming week should go pretty fast. Monday will be a long (24 mile?) bike ride with Steve. Tuesday night, Andrea and I are going to check out the birthing centers that we have decided to have our baby at. This is a change of venue due to some circumstances that have happened recently. I think it will be a good change, as we weren't to impressed with the tour of where we had originally planned on delivering. Wed night is our birthing class on breast feeding, and then this weekend we head up to Madden's Golf Resort for our company retreat. (and hopefully my first every 30 mile bike ride!)

Week in Review

No updates this week, I've been slacking. Seems like it's been a really busy week but at the same time not busy at all. Anyway, here is a week in review. As I mentioned, Andrea came back early from her conference. She had fun as she expected she would, even though at times it "gets really intense". She made it over to the Iowa State fair, but didn't get to spend much time there. She also proceeded to teach me a song she learned called The Button Factory (seriously, click on that link and listen to it). That about sums up why I can't go to these things. I can sit around and have philosophical discussion about life, death, religion what have you. But as soon as they break out in song, I'm out.

Wednesday night Andrea and I went to birthing class again. There are 2 more classes left, both focusing on breast feeding. Those are really important to us, so we are looking forward to them. But weds class just sucked. We ditched out only after an hour into the class because after the break they were just going to do relaxation stuff and watch a video.

Andrea's parents are coming up today to spend the afternoon with her, and then we will be going out to dinner tonight. My brother and his crew informed me they want to play Dungeons & Dragons tonight after that. I swear, it's like crack. You give them a little D&D and all of a sudden they can't get enough! Too bad my brother starts college classes again next week, so I'm sure that will put an end to weekly sessions and end up more like monthly sessions if we are lucky.

Biking Update:
Monday: 5.5 mile test run of the cyclometer. Seemed to work great!
Tuesday: 24.5 mile longest ride so far. The plan was to meet up with Steve for this ride. If it went well, he was thinking of joining me for the St. Paul Bike Classic. However, he ran into bike problems just as we got started, you can read about what happened on his blog.
Thursday: 19.25 mile ride

The plan is to do another long ride this weekend, and then next weekend do my first 30 mile ride up north on the Paul Bunyan Trail!

Tech Toys

After a quick 12-mile ride this morning I took my bike in to the place I bought it for a 90 day tune up. They basically just check your breaks and all the gears and give it a little cleaning. I also bought some new pedals because I didn't like the pedals that came with the bike. I think they were called "clipless" pedals that have some kind of locking mechanism for special shoes. Because of this, I could only use one side of the pedal. The other side of the pedal had these bumps on them that made it so I couldn't use that side to pedal. I was constantly looking down and/or taking my feet of the pedals to adjust the side, etc. It finally got annoying enough that I decided to replace them with some normal pedals. However, that wasn't the coolest new thing I bought....

I finally bought a cyclometer for my bike!! It will be awesome to finally know more accurate distances, ride times, average speeds, top speeds, the works! Hopefully it helps motivate me to keep pushing myself harder as well, which is a definite bonus.

Well, Andrea just called me a few hours ago to tell me she decided to come home early, so she will be home tonight. I was going to make some fancy chicken and rice dinner, but in the end I opted for the easier route: frozen lasagna and garlic bread!

I'm attacking the Darkness!

Last night we played some Dungeons and Dragons! This is my second attempt to get a campaign started as a Dungeon Master. In my first attempt, Scott and I tried to include our wives in on the gaming fun. That experiment failed miserably so I decided to just stick to the pure gamers this time around.

Trying to explain what D&D is and why it is fun to those that don't get it, is damn near impossible. I enjoy it simply as a creative outlet. Seriously, how often during our day to day lives do we really get a chance to BE creative? I know I sure don't. I get up in the morning, go through my routine, and head to work. Once there, I go through the motions, the procedures, what have you. Sure, maybe every now and then I get to use some problem solving skills, but that's not quite the same. You remember how when you were a kid you played make believe? (If you don't, then I'm really sorry) But if you do, then you understand D&D at the most basic level. It's just a way for grown ups to play make believe. What's so wrong with that?

Biking Update: This morning the weather was perfect. The plan was set, I had mapped it out earlier this week. With high 60's weather all morning I did my first 20 mile trek! I was able to finish in 2 hours, which included a 10 minute break around the midway point to rest and refill my water. As I came up to the last hard hill, all I could think was "this is going to suck, this is going to suck, oh man this is going to suck..." Before I could stop repeating that over and over in my head, I had reached the top. Wow. I finished strong and felt great. I'm definitely going out again tomorrow morning, the weather is just to nice not to.

After my ride I talked with Andrea on the phone for a few minutes, she will be back Monday. I then headed out to see Dukes of Hazzard all by my lonesome. I came home and did clean up from last nights gaming. Mt. Dew & chips everywhere!!

Midweek update

Sorry, couldn't think of a better title... Andrea is gone this week, at a Unitarian Universalist conference in Boone, IA. Actually, it's two conferences joined into one: Opus and Concentric. I miss her, but I'm glad she is having fun. She has really enjoyed past conferences. My brother and his wife are in the process of moving out - I know they don't think it, but I am going to miss them a ton. It was a fun summer even if we didn't get to see each other a whole hell of a lot. It was nice to just have once a week where we would all sit down for dinner and chat, even if it ended in me and Scott arguing about some random topic.

So all of a sudden, I'm home alone and it's really weird. I mean, not in a bad way. I'm used to being at home alone, seeing as how Andrea has been working nights for well over the past 4 years. But it's still a little strange experiencing it again. I had flashbacks of Idaho when Andrea was still in college and I was REALLY alone. Then of course I started thinking about how I should probably enjoy this week of solitude, seeing as how I probably won't have many quiet nights alone for a LONG time soon enough. :-)

Biking update: Last night I biked 18 miles - 4 miles over to Steve's place, and then we did a 14 mile loop together. (one of the routes he does) Tonight I did 15.5 miles and it felt great! I feel more and more confident about the 30 mile bike ride coming up next month. I just hope the weather continues to cooperate this week so I can get some more biking in.

Come Friday, I'm going to try and start some Dungeons & Dragons with my brother, and some friends of his. I've invested a bunch of money on books over the last few months for some odd reason, so we will see how that goes.

Would you look at that

After getting back from my weekend trip, I headed out for a quick bike ride even though it was kind of warm today. I wanted to visit my Mom and wish her happy birthday, and also I promised I'd tell her the name Andrea and I have picked out for the baby. (no, I won't tell you) On the way home, I felt like extending my ride out a little bit and ended up doing 13.5 miles. It felt great! After arriving home, I was met with a surprise.

(Feet covered with socks just for you Mike)

Just when I thought it would start to get a little harder to keep losing weight, I end up dropping another 10 lbs. One part of me feels like, "Why the hell didn't you start sooner! Keep it up!" And another part of me is just a little worried I'm losing weight too fast, and maybe it's not good for me. I'm not sure, I figure that when you have as much to lose as I do, it's probably normal. Even though 20 lbs seems like a lot, it's really not enough for people to notice. Well, except for my Mom. (Thanks Mom!) Fortunately, people noticing has never been on my list of motivational factors.

The truth is, I'm a bit afraid to admit my true motivation. Why? I don't know really, I guess it's simply because I've always believed that if you want to be healthy, you should do it for yourself. You shouldn't try to get healthy because someone else says you should or for some special event where you want to look better, or as I mentioned above, simply so people will notice. I'm sure you can guess the source of this new motivation, my pending fatherhood.

It's really a combination of everything I guess. From my desire to teach my daughter how to be healthy by example to simply wanting to be alive long enough to experience all I can about fatherhood. Do I wish I had been able to come to the simple realization that healthy = better on my own? Sure. But I've always been the type of person that doesn't seem to find change in my life until it is forced on me by some external event/force/experience/etc. (thus my alignment with Existentialism) I suppose it would make since then, that possibly the biggest event in my life is finally the motivation I needed. For now, I just hope I can keep it up and see where it takes me. Because tonight, I decided to cheat and enjoy a little Davanni's! (wheat bread, turkey sandwich with extra lettuce!) Although one book I read said you should stop using food as a reward, maybe I can get away doing it after every 10 lbs lost. :-)

Duluth Weekend

It's been awhile since I've had time to write anything, mainly because after Tuesday my week nights were super busy. Wed night was our weekly birth class and Thursday night I had to get ready for my weekend trip, which I'm going to post about first!

It was a super weekend for a trip up to the north shore, having been invited to spend some time with old college friends at a lake cabin. The weather was perfect, the company was great, and it was awesome to reconnect with old friends. It seems hard to think it's been 7 years since I graduated college. It sure doesn't seem like that.

Friday we settled in and caught up. We ended the night with some Mario Kart for gamecube and some Mario Party. Mario Kart was basically how me and my college roommates got through college. (original SNES Mario Kart and N64 Kart) Pretty much every weekend contained some amount of Mario Kart and Alcohol. Of course, we all thought our skills improved as our blood alcohol content went up.

Saturday we headed up the north shore to Splitrock Lighthouse. It was a lot cooler (temperature) right near the lake which was nice. We did some hiking and of course, throwing rocks into Lake Superior! If you've never done it, I can't really explain the addictive quality of it, but trust me, its just fun to stand out there and throw rocks for awhile.

We headed back to unwind with a nice dinner of northern trout on the grill and some relaxing trivial pursuit. And for the record, the NCAA tournament has 65 teams (not 64) because of something that happened back in 1999 involving a new conference. So HA! I then forced my friends to watch Napoleon Dynamite since none of them had seen it. It was met with mixed reviews, but I have spread the love of Ligers, YESSSSSS!

I've limited the amount of pictures on the front page, but there are a bunch more. Click here to see the rest of the pictures from this weekend.

Shooting in AV

Just when you think you live in a safe neighborhood, you wake up the harsh realities. Less then 2 miles from my house, a spot that barely 4 hours earlier, I had biked past 3 times doing multiple loops, a convenience store clerk was found shot in the head. Will they catch whoever did this? Will they ever discover a motive? Who knows... but regardless, violence this close to home is scary. About 2 years ago, at our former apartment in Boise, Idaho, the same thing happened. I had stopped at a Taco Bell about 3 blocks from our apartment at 9:30pm to grab some food. 10:00pm that same night, a man shot and killed his girlfriend in the Taco Bell parking lot.

As Andrea was leaving for work this afternoon at 1:30pm, apparently a channel 5 news van was in our culdesac. They approached Andrea asking her questions about our neighbors, who they tracked down through a license plate or something. They said it was in relation to the shooting. This seemed very odd, especially since our neighbors moved out about 2 weeks ago, and there doesn't seem to be any connection.

It's days like today I have serious doubts about my choice to bring a child into this world. When I hear about violence at Apple Valley High School, I wonder, "What is it going to be like in 14 years when my daughter would be going there?" Is private school the only answer to providing an education in a safe environment? (and along those lines, are the wealthy the only ones that deserve to live in safe, violence free neighborhoods?) I thought that AVHS was a pretty nice, safe, school - but that was 11 years ago. What will the school be like 25 years later? Is that the same as comparing an inner city school of 1980, to how it is today in 2005?

As much as I want to shield my daughter from these harsh realities of the world, I realize it would just do more harm then good. But how do you teach your kids independence at the same time wanting to protect them from all the bad things in life? Thankfully I have time to figure that out, but it seems like a very hard thing to come to grips with.

Biking and Boozing

A coworker of mine invited me out this weekend for some biking and bar hopping with a small group. I guess it's something they used to do back in college, since biking while intoxicated is completely legal. I didn't really know where we would be biking, but he assured me it was all really nice trail areas.

I arrived at the designated starting point in St. Louis Park off Minnetonka Blvd. From there we hopped on some trails, that I have to assume were part of the Grand Rounds. At one point we were riding along (and faster then) a coal train. I think we then went past Cedar Lake and ended up at our first stop, Old Chicago. There everyone loaded up on beer and I filled up my water bottle. :-)

Back on the trails, we did another few miles and went around Lake Calhoun and ended up at Applebee's. We stopped there for dinner, a couple perfect margaritas and more beer. (water and diet Pepsi for me!) After dinner, we headed out again for another hour or so of biking and ended up back where we started.

All said, we did 19 miles, which I thought was awesome. Although there were 2 long breaks, I wasn't even tired the way I get after doing the hills around my house. It made the biking so much more fun, even though it was kind of warm out. It also confirmed my suspicions about hills sucking. I think the next step will be to give up on the south suburbs, buy a bike rack for my car, and always drive somewhere for longer bike rides on the weekends!

After doing 19 miles and still feeling pretty good, I'm convinced I can do the 30 miles for the St. Paul Bike Classic. (with another month or so practice) So I signed up!

Behind door number 2

A NEW CAR!!!

Now before you say, "OMG Shawn I can't believe you let your wife buy an AVEO, the cheapest car known to man." Let me explain something - Andrea likes small cars. Her progression of cars looks like this:

Renault Alliance -> Dodge Omni -> Geo Metro -> 2005 Aveo (with only 8400 miles on it!!).

Her new car even has a CD/MP3 player! It was a really good deal since it was slightly used at a Nissan dealer. I think they were just happy to get rid of it. The sales guy ended up telling us he made a mistake and had priced it as a 2004 used Aveo when really it was a 2005. We kinda believed him, simply because the price was much lower then standard Kelly Blue Book value. I think it will be a good little car for Andi, and it will really give us both piece of mind when she travels to Iowa in August by herself for her week long conference.

I've also posted a review of the Kung Fu Hustle DVD coming out soon. I highly recommend checking it out! (my review, and the DVD)

Bad Luck Good Luck

Tonight's post was supposed to be about my first St. Paul Saints baseball game. I was going to take pictures, post interesting commentary, etc. Instead, it gets to be about my luck, both good and bad. The plan for tonight was to have Andrea pick me up from work downtown and we would then head over to Midway Stadium for the Saints game. Pretty simple right? Well, it started out okay. Andrea picked me up, and we headed towards the ballpark.

Just last week, Andrea was complaining about the A/C in her car not working. Next time I was in her car, the A/C was working fine - okay, so maybe it was a fluke? On the way to the game, the A/C stopped working again. Hmmm.. odd. Oh well, its a nice day out, roll the windows down and go on. Waiting at a left turn light, smoke started coming out of the hood! So we quickly pull over to a side road and pop the hood. The engine was obviously overheating, the coolant boiling over (not from the radiator, but from the coolant tank). So this is where you are thinking, "Oh man, that's some bad luck."

No, this is Shawn you are talking about. My wife calls me "charmed", my family thinks I'm insanely lucky. I've always called it, "Things always seem to work out for me." So as we are standing there, looking at this overheated engine, 2 guys walk up to us:

"Hey, what's up? We just got off work at the repair shop down the street, what seems to be the problem?"

They then spent a few minutes pointing out the problem, which ended up being the cooling fan not turning on. (so either a temperature sensor or a fan motor) More importantly, they let us know about a couple car shops within a few blocks that were open until 8pm. What were the odds? Who knows, maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket tomorrow. Anyway, thanks again you 2 random car mechanics, for helping us out and reminding me that perhaps Minnesota nice still does exist.

We thought maybe we could walk the remaining 3-4 miles to the ballpark, but in the end, the Applebee's at the end of the block seemed more inviting. Andrea had already been walking all day at the Minnesota Zoo. We called Mom to pick us up, and left the car in the shop over night. Tomorrow? Car shopping for Andrea!! Mommy gets a new pair of shoes! (or a new car, as the case may be)

Most Excellent Adventure

I was looking back at my previous posts and I couldn't help but notice a pattern. I tend to post twice a week, once during the week and again on Sunday. I think the main reason is that most of the week is pretty mundane, and I have nothing really interesting to post. Seriously, who wants to read, "Today I got up, went to work, came home, exercised, watched some TV and went to bed." Oh well, too late, you just did.

Anyway, today I wanted to write about my most excellent bike ride. I've been psyching myself up for a much longer bike ride then anything I had done yet - starting with this weekend. Unfortunately, it was so hot that I was only able to get 2 small rides in on sat and sunday. Then when it rained all last night I was really bummed out. So when the weather was saying tonight was going to be high 60's with nice cloud cover and low humidity, I got really pumped up. I decide I would ride from my house to Blockbuster where my brother was working. That way, I had a destination in mind (which helps me) and I would also have an excuse to take a break midway through. I did 12.5 miles, and it felt great! Although my left leg just barely started to cramp up as I was getting back home, I really felt like I could still do another few miles. I learned a couple of really useful things on tonights ride:

• Hills suck. I think all my previous rides contained too many hills which just end up killing me and making me too tired to continue. Tonights ride was mainly east/west, and only contained a few minor hills (with one major hill at the start when I was fresh). Going north/south from my house is too hilly.
  
• Temperature/humidity levels have a huge impact on my endurance levels. Less sweat = ride longer = feel better. And everything I've read says that exercising longer is better for you then exercising harder.
  
• I can do longer bike rides over more level distances, and hills suck.
  

I'm pretty sure that over an hour period I could easily do a 15-20 mile trek over paved mostly level paths. The other reason it's cool to know I can ride farther, is that I've been thinking about maybe driving to a few other bike paths in the area, like the Gateway state trail or portions of the Grand Rounds trails that go near Lake Nokomis. Another thing I'd like to try is the Paul Bunyan trail when I goto Madden's Resort in August for our company weekend.

If that wasn't enough links for you, I'm even considering registering for the St. Paul Classic Bike Tour! Remember when I said I'm either 0% or 100%? Ya, this is me being 100%.

Texas No-Limit Hold'em

This morning I had a little chat with my scale. Normally it just kinda nods and tells me good job, keep up the good work, and we go our separate ways. But this morning, it just wouldn't shut up. It went on and on, giving me this long convoluted motivational speech. I didn't want to be rude, so I stood through the ramblings until it was finished. And just like some sucker buying from an infomercial at 2am, I bought into it's little speech. It convinced me to go biking today, on one of the hottest and humid days of the summer! So I mapped out a 6 mile loop and at 11:30am, the hottest part of the day, I headed out. It was a good ride, and I'm glad I did it. The only mistake I made was bringing gatorade instead of water - half way through it just became WAY to sugary and I couldn't drink anymore even though I was thirsty. I love this new Gmaps Pedometer that I found, my friend Steve also uses it and mentioned it on his blog as well. I just wish I had a way to check hill levels prior to a ride, because those things can kill me. I live basically on the top of a hill and any direction I go leads to massive up and downs.

Last night I ran a Texas No-Limit poker tournament at my place, nothing to big. Just a $30 dollar buy in with the top 3 going home with money. After 2 months of planning, mass emails, and date changes I was able to get 5 other guys over (for 6 total). I'd say not a bad turn out for my first hosted tournament. Maybe I can get even more next time. I think everyone had a good time, I know I did. I went out 4th, so I didn't win anything, but it was a really fun way to go out. (I had the hand until the very last card was flipped - always exciting!) I have to admit, it was damn funny watching a bunch of us 30 y/o guys getting tired and worn out by 11pm. After it was over, someone mentioned how back in the day, we would have all been pumped up after something like that and been trying to figure out what we would do with the rest of the night. :-)

One last thing, I'm not even going to bother with a full review of Alexander - Director's Cut DVD that comes out on August 2nd. Seeing DVD's before they are released is a little benefit of having a brother that works at Blockbuster. The movie is just so bad it doesn't even warrant a full review, suffice to say I would have been much happier to live my whole life without having to see Colin Farrell's nut sack.

Bloody Show

Last night started out a bit weird. As I got home from work and sat down to enjoy my latest edition of PC Gamer magazine, I found that reading was difficult. It started with little blotches around what I was reading. I could see the word I was looking at but it was getting hard to see any words around it. I chalked it up to being tired and put the magazine down and headed up stairs to enjoy a nice salmon dinner Andrea had prepared. As dinner progressed, so did my vision problem. Eventually it got so bad that I couldn't see my hand moving 6 inches out and 6 inches down in front of my face. I tried to remain calm even though I was sort of freaking out. As we headed out to child birth class it finally started to go away, but it was replaced by a massive headache. It was then that I realized, I've just experienced my first migraine! Luckily it was minor and I was able to get through the rest of the night. I could still feel a dull pain this morning when I got up, but I think for the most part the worst has passed. Now the question is, why would I get a migraine like that all of a sudden?

I know you are dying to know what I learned in child birth class this week: The Bloody show, soft bowel movements, and diarrhea. All the best parts of child birth! I just don't think Andi needs 8 weeks of constant reminders of the pain and ugly parts of childbirth. I think everyone pretty much knows that it isn't an easy process, but what good things in life are easy?

At one point we separated by sexes to do an exercise. We had to make list of "Joys" and "Concerns" about everything, from before, during and after childbirth. The first thing the guys put on the "Concerns" list was Money. Interestingly, the second thing on the "Joy" list was - Time away from work. So I asked this room of about 12 guys, how much time everyone was taking off work? The answers were, "1 week", "2 weeks", "a few weeks". When someone asked me, and I responded, 2 months, the entire room basically looked at me and said, "WHAT?", "How can you do that?", "2 months?! NO WAY!". When I mentioned FMLA, they basically looked at me like I was crazy because "that's unpaid!" It must suck not being financially responsible.

Or as my brother would say, the cheapest bastard he knows.

In other news...

Something else I wanted to share with everyone. It seems that my body is reacting to some of the changes I've been making. I've lost those initial 10 pounds you always end up losing really fast after make drastic changes to your calorie input/output.

I've actually been floating around 300 for a year or more now and this is the first time I've actually had noticeable weight loss. It's motivating to see results already. I don't have any particular weight goals in mind, but I have decided that if I can lose another 10 pounds by October, my reward will be a membership to Lifetime fitness.

I've been trying to figure out why I think I will be successful this time. The answer I've come up with is Choice. Intellectually, people are usually aware of the bad choices they make, I know I am. Yet I would continually make choices that were bad for my health. What I've come to realize is that it wasn't the individual bad choices that were guiding my actions, but the overall choice to NOT CARE about my health. I think for the first time, I've made the choice to BE healthy, and the rest of the day to day choices just sort of fall into place. I know it sounds cheesy, and a lot like a quote from the Matrix. (Choose the Red pill or the Blue pill?) But it works for me, so I guess that's all that matters.

Now I just need to figure out where all these damn ants are coming from! I know I eat at my computer a lot, but it's pretty clean right now. No food leftovers, no pop cans, etc. STUPID ANTS!

The Reunion

Well, I survived. After a nice hour and half drive down to Lafayette, we met up at Laura's parents house in New Ulm before heading down to George's Bar. Of all the things I wasn't looking forward too, awkward conversations, having to repeat my job description 20 times or getting through the evening without a stiff drink. None of them compared to what we were in store for. After arriving to George's bar, my worst nightmare was confirmed - THERE WAS NO AIR CONDITIONING! To say it was "hot" inside would be an understatement. It was dripping sweat while not even moving hot. It was completely unbearable. On the plus side, the sweltering heat made for a good excuse to leave rather quickly.

Andrea was just glad to see her old friends and she said she had fun. I told her she owed me big time for having to deal with that heat and being that uncomfortable. Only one person told me I looked like Kevin Smith, bonus! On the drive home she told me I'd never have to go to another one - I'll get to stay home with the kids. WOOHOO!!



We also saw the movie Wedding Crashers on Friday night. It was enjoyable, pretty funny. Check out my movie reviews section for a more detailed review.

Birthing 101

Andi and I started birth classes this week! 6:30 - 9:00pm every wed night for 8 weeks. That’s 20 hours of class. Why do I have this feeling we will be in class longer then the actual labor? The first session started out with way more medical information then I needed, I felt like I was in 6th grade sex ed. It was interesting to learn about the various positions the baby might be in prior to birth, but again - sometimes more information isn't really the best thing. All it does it give you more things to worry about, which Andrea has covered for both of us. (trust me)

There was one brochure for Dads that I read through. It mentioned something I thought was pretty interesting. It said how no one ever asks how the Dad is feeling. Everyone will always ask, "So how is Andrea doing?" or "How is your wife feeling?" This is probably because its more of a social norm to ask about the Mom and ignore the Dad. But it brings home for me how easy it is for Dads to not feel involved at all during the whole child birth process.. aside from... you know, the initial step.

And whoever decided that laying on some hard ass floor on a blanket during birth classes was a good idea, should be shot. Luckily, it was only the last 20 minutes, but it was still annoying as hell. By the time we got up, half my body had gone numb. Andi said it felt like we were in kindergarten nap time.

Sunscreen Song

Whenever I need a pick me up at work, I find myself turning to the Sunscreen Song. You know, that song that came into popularity on the radio around 6 years ago? Most people have heard it at least once, but what most people don't know is that the song is actually by the director responsible for the movies Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet (with DiCaprio), Baz Luhrmann. For some reason, I just really connected to the song. Maybe because it starts out with, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97" and I had just graduated class of '98. There is another line that I always come back to:

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

When I first heard this song, I was 22. I was also asking myself, usually on a daily basis, "Is this what I want to do with my life?" Sit in a cube, day in and day out? After 7 years in a cube, I still haven't found an answer to that question. What I have been able to do is convince myself it's what I have to do. It's what everyone has to do, and I'm not special. I may fantasize about quitting my job and, you know, walk the earth, meet people... get into adventures. Like Kane in Kung Fu. Obviously, this isn't realistic. I tell myself that cube life is just a means to an end. But... do the ends justify the means?

Who knows. The longer I wonder about what it is I want to do with the rest my life, the closer I actually get to... the rest of my life. I still might not have an answer when I'm 40, but I do know one thing. When I'm 40, my daughter will be 10 years old. For right now, that thought is comforting enough to ignore that I might never have an answer to what it is I want to do with my life.

Do one thing everyday that scares you!

Weekend excitement

Or lack there of. Didn't do much of anything this weekend. Scott came back home Thursday afternoon, mainly because he couldn't get any sleep in the hospital. He is doing better and is up and around okay. Andrea and I saw Fantastic Four on saturday morning. I've decided to create a seperate section for movie reviews, since I pretty much see movies every weekend, I figure I won't fill up my blog with nothing but movie reviews. So, you can see my reviews posted here!

My AC shut off again yesterday, again on the hottest day ever. By 6pm it was 75 degrees in my house. This just drives me nuts and put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I finally decided to call the electric company again, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, I'm calling because my AC is not turning on. I checked everything they had me check before, and nothing seems wrong.
Electric company: We'll, we are controlling right now.
Me: What does that mean?
Electric company: Can you hold one moment?
Me: Yah, okay.
[3 minutes later]
Electric company: Sorry about that, we are controlling right now.
Me: Okay, what exactly does that mean?
Electric company: Your AC should be going on for 15 minutes and then off for 15 minutes.
Me: Well it doesn't seem to be going on at all.
Electric company: How long has it been off?

At this point, I wanted to say, "WHO CARES HOW LONG ITS BEEN OFF, ITS TOO DAMN HOT IN MY HOUSE!!!" I also realized, that the air had probably only been off for a few hours, so I decided to answer as civil as I could.

Me: Its been off since this afternoon.
Electric company: We will be done controlling at... 10:30. No, 11pm. No wait, 10pm, sorry, getting my military time all mixed up.
Me: Okay, so it should come back on at 10pm?
Electric company: Yes, if it doesn't then we really have a problem.
Me: Okay thanks.

Sure enough, it came back on at 10pm. I realize we don't have unlimited power and all, but damn, stop controling my AC!

Tonight Andrea and I went to a birthday party for one of Andrea's old highschool friends. It's at the Biaggi's in Eden Prairie. If it wasn't ackward enough not knowing anyone, we showed up at 7pm and it started at 6pm. At least it made it easy to just order a salad, which was cool. Next weekend we are going to Andrea's 10 year high school reunion... should be interesting to say the least.

Hospital visit

My brother Scott was sick this morning, I wasn't sure with what. I had called home to talk to him about something else and his only words to me were "You have no idea how much pain I am in right now." I was a tad worried to be honest. I messaged Val to see if she knew what was up, but she didn't know much more either. Later in the day, I find out he is going to see a doctor that very afternoon. Now, to get a male Anderson into the doctor is damn near impossible. As soon as I heard Scott had made an appointment that day, I knew something worse was up.

As hard as he can...

Turns out it was something worse. Scott had appendicitis! After a few tests and a CT scan, it was confirmed. Scott had to have his appendix removed. Although it's a common procedure, it's always scary when a family member has to go under the knife. As you can see, Scott was not in a very good mood for company. He was in a lot of pain, I'm sure it was the longest day ever. Seemed like he was just looking forward to being knocked out. He was in good enough mood to do his Christopher Walken impression, because, he had a fever, and the only prescription, was more cowbell!

The speed of this whole thing was a bit crazy. His surgery was tonight right after the tests came back. The doc said it went totally fine. He is recovering and should be home by this weekend.

On a more positive note, today is the month 7 mark for me and Andrea!! She is feeling great, and we are very excited. We still haven't got very far on the name front. Our little girl likes to kick alot, but of course, never when I'm feeling for it! Andrea wanted me to take some pictures at the 7 month mark. Here is one I thought I'd share - check back for more in the coming months!


And of course I'm sure everyone is very worried about my Alienware - it's back in working order. Rob from Decision One was nice enough to come out and replace my motherboard and wala, it's working fine again. Oh ya, one last thing I wanted to share with everyone. Last week Andrea made some of the cutest cupcakes I've ever seen, and I just had to share them with everyone. Take a look!


Those are rolo's for ears, rootbeer jelly belly beans for eyes, and the cutest little marshmellow noses!

War of the... Whatever

Andi and I saw War of the Worlds on Friday, and I felt compelled to write my first movie review. I'm going to go against mainstream here. This movie sucked. And I'm not just saying this because of Tom Cruise's recent behavior proving once and for all he is in fact, a giant idiot. This movie sucked for a variety of reasons. First off, the fact that I had seen it before. It was called ID4, staring the Fresh Prince. Now granted, ID4's ending hinged on a plan to upload a computer virus to an alien technology using a modem connection from a Macintosh laptop... but that was still way better then War of the Worlds.

Secondly, there was no plot to speak of. Okay, fine, there wasn't supposed to be much plot? Then how about something other then explosions? After about the 10th exploding [insert random object here] I was really bored. Okay, we get it, you can make a movie with nothing but special effects. We already learned this lesson from Star Wars Episode 1, 2 & 3. Two hours of explosions, a good movie does not make.

Finally, there were so many scenes that just made no sense. For example, how come after the aliens use a huge EMP device to knock out all electronics in a very large radius, a car will start after replacing a "solenoid"? Why do the aliens need to catch and eat humans? Why the hell would BIRDS fly around and land on an alien space craft? I won't even get into how ineffective their "plan" was for destroying earth. I mean, seriously, if you are an advanced civilization attempting to destroy the earth, you'd think they would come up with something better then a giant laser that kills one person at a time. Maybe they should have watched ID4 for ideas on how to destroy mass amounts of humans quickly. Or they could have just checked out my favorite list for ways to destroy the Earth.

The only redeeming quality to this movie was the fact that I saw it for free using movie passes Andrea got from work.

Rating: 2 out of 10