Training Daze....

Deciding that neither of us are getting any younger, my wife and I joined a nearby (within biking distance) gym.

It's a small place, decent rates, not too crowded, open 24/7, and has a bunch of great machines/free weights. We're giving it a shot, for a month, to see how it goes and will re-up if we like it.

We also decided to see about hiring a trainer to give us a boost which, we found out, the gym also offers. Another bonus!

We go in to meet this guy and he's this short, barrel chested, gray haired guy with pretty impressive biceps, who looks kind of like Tony Curtis in his later days. Very nice guy and extremely knowledgeable. By looking at him, it's obvious he knows his way around the weight room, but I was a bit put off by his methods, at first. He was treating us like we were senior citizens, talking about looking out for straining our backs, joints, etc. The more I thought about it, though, the more I agreed. As I said, we're not young people anymore....my wife is 47 and I'm 48, so I guess it's time to start paying more attention to that sort of thing.

Anyway, we get to talking and I ask his age, assuming he's early to mid 50s, and he tells us.....


72

Let me say that again....

Seventy Two

I think I'll listen to what he has to say with more of an open mind, now.

Wish us luck.

Obligatory B-Day Post

January 5th, 1968...a red letter day in science. That's the day I came up with the Flux Capacitor!!!

O.k., not really....

In reality, it's the day I bounced into this world as a 9lb 13oz bundle of fat cheeks and huge cranium.

Between New Year's and my birthday, I always get a bit reflective on my life. The good times, the bad, regrets, future plans, short term goals, etc.

Like I said in my previous post, I've been blessed...no doubt about it.

But...

 I want to do more. I want to be more. Whether it's a new job, going back to school, or both, I'm not sure yet. I just know there's something better on the horizon and I plan on grabbing it.

It's never too late.

Maybe I can put that huge cranium of mine to work as something other than a hat rack?

We'll see.

I'll update you next year =)

Happy New Year!

A sub in one hand and money in the other spells prosperity for the New Year....so says my mother in law.

It's around 9pm, EST, on December 31st....the eve of the new year is upon us and I'm sitting back in my "man cave" while my wife and niece are out in the living room watching some chick flick. I've been taking the time to reflect on the past year as I watch the Thin Man Marathon on TCM.

All in all, we've had a pretty great year. Blessed with a new home, fantastic neighborhood, a new vehicle, friends, family, and health, there's really nothing I have to complain about.

As great as 2015 has been, I'm having even higher expectations for 2016 and am looking forward to new personal bests as well as making some changes for the better in my life. Hopefully that also means more frequent updates to this poor, neglected, blog.

We'll see how it goes.

If you're out and about, stay safe and here's to a joyous and prosperous 2016 to you all.

Happy New Year!!

Halloween-town....?

The title of this post refers to my wife's favorite Halloween themed movie....right up there with Hocus Pocus.

As for me, I'm more partial to the old Universal Monster films like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolfman, and Boris Karloff's Frankenstein.

Needless to say, we both enjoy the fun that Halloween can bring and, since this is our first year in an honest-to-gosh home and not a gated community rental, we decided to take advantage. The neighbors have told us that tons of kids prowl this small neighborhood in search of sugary sweets so, while it's not quite Halloweentown,  we have to be ready.

To that point:

Multiple (at least 10) bags of candy have been bought and prepared.

We have the porch all ghastly and spooky....in a disco sort of way....

The ghost looks he's doing The Hustle

The projector to run old Halloween movies (such as the above mentioned Halloween Town, Hotel Transylvania and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein....my pick, of course) has been purchased and tested on our makeshift screen. We plan on hanging the screen in front of the garage so kids coming up the driveway will get the best view.

The fog machine to put behind the projector screen, for that added bit of eeriness, has been purchased....still needs testing.

We even put our front yard palm and oak trees to work...

I told my wife's sisters "My wife's sister ran into the tree.." I'll let them decide which witch is which :)

We'll see if Bartlebee's arms make it another week

The guy up the street has his place decked out to the hilt. It looks very cool and I'll try to snap a picture tonight if I get a chance. There's no way we can 'compete' (meant in the most good natured way possible, of course) this year....but there's always.....next year. <insert Vincent Price laughter here>

So, what sort of decorations, if any, do you like to put up on Halloween? Do you get lots of 'trick or treaters'? If not, does that bother you?

More updates to come......hopefully <again, insert Vincent Price laughter here>

Long Time, No....

....See?

....Hear?

....Blog?

Yep, all of the above.

My wife gets home from work in about thirty minutes (it's now 3:01pm EST), so I challenged myself to get a (VERY) long overdue blog post out there before she gets home.

So, what have I been doing in the past two months, since I've put fingers to keyboard at the ole' blog?

Not much, really. We're still basking in the afterglow of getting our new home and getting settled. It's at a point, now, where everything has it's place and it's looking like we've been here for years.

Besides that, we bought a new vehicle.

We had two....a 2007 Ford Focus, that my wife bought before I came into the picture, and a 1996 Honda Civic that my wife won in a raffle about a year ago. The Honda has been very dependable, especially for having over 196,000 mile on it. The Focus....not so much. Don't get me wrong, it's been a pretty solid car but it's now getting to the "little things going wrong with it each month" stage....and usually to the tune of around $200.00-$300.00 a month.  Since we've both seen where this could lead, we decided to go car hunting before we really needed to. Long story short, we wound up getting a 2016 Jeep Patriot. We were lucky in that we were in a good position to put down a sizable (almost half) down payment. That, along with trading in the Focus (so long, pal) put our monthly payments at around $200.00 a month, so it didn't work out too badly.

My new home project is to get my office area set up and, as you can tell, it needs a lot of work.

Which I could use because, believe it, or not, I'm still writing....here and there...as well as going back and doing some editing on my NaNo project from four years (man, has it been that long?) ago. 

Speaking of NaNo, I've decided to not even attempt it this year. The past three years have been dismal failures....no one's fault but my own...and I don't want to disappoint myself again. To those of you doing it, I doff my Panama Jack and support you all the way. Maybe next year for me.

Next month, my wife and I will be celebrating our five year wedding anniversary. Not bad for a guy who had relegated himself to being a bachelor for the rest of his life. More to come on that topic next month.

So, how have you all been keeping? 

Tell me what's new and exciting in your lives. I have to live vicariously through someone! :)

Oh, and by the way, it's now 3:27pm EST. 

Challenge complete!

Five Word Review!

It's been quite a while since I've done one of these and, since I've seen a few movies over the past few months, I figured I'd have some decent material to work with.

If you're not familiar with the format, it's simple. I tell you what I thought of a movie I've recently seen using only five words.

See, told you it was simple.

Now, onto the movies....

Kingsman:The Secret Service

Good story,way too violent.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Another home run by Marvel.

Tomorrowland

Could've been fun.Clooney's terrible.

San Andreas

More cheese than dairy factory.

Jurassic World

Star Lord meets dinos....meh.

Inside Out

Cute story, better than expected.

Ant Man

Small package, but big fun.

While I'll readily admit that my wife drug me to a few of these, most of them were of my own choosing, so I have no one to blame but myself.....and, possibly, my brother in law. We'll just leave it at that, shall we?

I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend and take care.