July 29, 2008 - Evan Is Back to School

This week Evan has gone back to school. It is hard to believe that he is in 2nd grade already! His teach is Mrs. Edwards, he says she is nice. He will have homework every week, which is a BIG change from last year where he practically had no homework at all. But this is good, I am glad he has homework. I was a little nervous about Monday. I anticipated Evan would be very difficult to get to school through all the crying and complaining since that is how he went to bed Sunday night. But much to my surprise, he got excited about going. His big thing was that he wanted to find out who would be sitting at his table with him. I was glad he was able to find something positive and he stuck with that. It definitely made my morning easier. Today went off just as well, in fact, maybe a little easier. He woke up early, which I was not happy to see since I wanted every minute of sleep I could get this morning. On the bright side, I didn't have to spend any time waking him up and we got started earlier (I even got him to school on time today, he was late yesterday). This afternoon we bought him some new cleats for soccer, tomorrow is his first practice or the season.

Now that Evan is back at school, I will be going to the gym every morning straight from dropping him off. I have been sticking with the plan laid out by the physical trainer I met with but I some how don't feel like I am doing enough. I feel my routine lacks variety. That is to say, I work on cardio everyday (which I am supposed to do) but every other day I alternate between exercises and lower aerobic cardio versus high aerobic cardio only. I am thinking about adding a few exercises for my abs on the high cardio days and see how I respond to it.

I have also begun some school work. All new textbooks this year is going to make things a little more challenging but will also force me to rely less on the textbooks and focus more on student directed inquiry. We'll see how that goes. I also finished book 7 of Harry Potter (again). It was the only one I hadn't read twice so I had to have another go. I did have to read book 6 again before book 7, so now I have read book 6 thrice. Now that I am done, I believe the books will sit on the book shelf until Evan is old enough and desires to read them.

July 19, 2008: More Beach

In case you don't know me, I can't stand the beach. The sand is everywhere, nothing is ever truly dry, the sun burns. I can't stand it. So when I woke up this morning to find that it was raining, and would most likely do so most of the day, let's just say I was relieved. So we went to Kure Beach and had breakfast at a little corner restaurant, the kind with little more than a dozen tables, near a dozen people waiting, and plenty of homemade food. This little spot was Dan's suggestion, who was also eating breakfast their with his family and sister's family (who are in town from California) and his father. With the weather dreary, went headed down the road a short distance to the aquarium. It was a nice aquarium, Evan, Aidan, and Dan's nieces Sarah and Jenny enjoyed all that there was to see. It seems that both Evan and Sarah share an interest in marine life, they were following each other throughout the aquarium. Not long after we returned to the hotel, the weather cleared enough to down to the beach. I chose not to, which is giving me the time to upload pictures and write this post. I can everyone at the beach from the balcony here, but I can also see the clouds getting darker and drawing nearer to the shore. I don't think they will be down there much longer.

This weekend's pictures have been added to My Photo Album:
Carolina Beach (July 17-20)

July 18, 2008: Carolina Beach

Earlier this week, Michelle made the plans to head to the beach. She has been desperately needing this trip, and here we are, Carolina Beach. The weather is awesome, not too hot, and of course, it is the summer, so not cold. We arrived yesterday about 3pm and hit the beach within 20 minutes of checking in. We spent a few hours on the beach, came back upstairs to shower then went to town to get some flip flops for me and some dinner. We scoped out what appeared to a good seafood place, and it was confirmed by the wait, but we did not stay to critique the food. So we went next door to Wings, bought some flip flops and beach pull over for Michelle. Then we hit Pop's Diner for some chicken fingers and hot dogs, went out to the boardwalk and tooled around until 9pm for the fireworks on the beach. Back at the hotel, we just chilled out, watched tv, took pictures of the moon, and then hit the hay.

This morning we woke up to sunny skies that quickly darkened and dumped a lot of rain in a short time. Fortunately this hotel has an indoor pool, and that is where we stayed dry, so to speak. Once the rain stopped and the skies cleared we spent the rest of the day on the beach (which amounted to six hours) and then went back to the indoor pool at 4:30pm, until about 5:45. So here we are getting ready to head out to dinner listening to the band play at the tiki hut on the pier right outside our window. Very nice. I will upload some pictures soon.

July 15, 2008: Body Age = 40

Evan and I spent another 4 hours at the gym today. Unfortunately the rock climbing wall was not there while we were there so Evan did not get a chance to do that. Instead he hung out in the kids room while I met with a physical trainer and then we ate lunch at the cafe and headed out to the pool. The physical trainer today gave me a body evaluation, sort of a baseline for before I begin my routine. This test included a brisk walk on the treadmill, a flexibility test (where I sit on the floor and stretch as far as I can), a strength test (where I curl a fixed curling bar), and body fat measurement (with the "pincher"). I was expecting my body age to come back somewhere around 50. Instead I was surprised to be evaluated at 40. Tomorrow I will meet with the trainer to create a work out regiment to reach my goals, or at least the goals put forth by the evaluation. I have bigger goals than the machine but one step at a time, I suppose.

July 14, 2008: New Gym

This weekend Michelle, Evan, and I joined Lifetime Fitness. It is the biggest gym I have ever seen! It has hundreds of weight lifting machines, dozens of ellipticals, what looks like a hundred treadmills, a bicycle studio, a gym with two full length basketball courts, a rock climbing wall, racketball courts, a kids center, cafe, spa, three pools. It is an experience more than a gym. Evan and I spent more than three hours there today. He spent nearly two hours in the kids center while I worked out, then we went rock climbing, that is Evan climbed the wall, I supported him, then wewent to the pool, and had it been earlier, we would have spent more time at the pool. As it was, we got home at about 7pm. The place is great! Tomorrow I am meeting with a trainer in order to get a fitness evaluation and a fitness plan. I am really looking forward to utilizing this new facility. And on top of it all, it is open 24 hours. Can't beat that.

July 10, 2008: Mobster

Today, I am a mobster. That's right, a mobster. I spent parts of my day robbing liquor stores, pulling off stoplight car thefts, and dealing drugs, not to mention the occasional hit and attacks I carried out against rival gang members. It is pretty dangerous, I must say. I nearly died, and visited the hospital in order to patch up some wounds, but I inflicted some serious damage on my foes as well. I mean, you have to expect that mobster toting a Colt 1911, .44 Magnum, Pump-Action Shotgun, Tommy Gun, and Assault Rifle while wearing a bullet proof vest and cruisin in a Ford Crown Vic is a force to be reckoned with. I have successfully recruited three additional members below me in my gang so we are poised to do some serious damage in the up coming days.

In between my criminal activities, Evan and I went up to Rooms to Go and measured the staircase section of the loft we bought. I am pretty sure that it will fit up the stairs if we take it out of the box. We also hit a McDonald's for lunch, and played around for a while at North Cary Park, off of Cary Parkway. We played some MarioKart and Monopoly before heading out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner.

And in case you are wondering, my mob activities all took place within the confines of Facebook. It is an add on application which passes a little bit of time. If you are interested, check out my Facebook page and if you have a Facebook page yourself, add the Mob Wars application. The larger our mob, the bigger and better crimes we can pull of!

July 9, 2008: No Bed

The big event for today was the delivery of Evan's new bed. It was going to be REALLY cool, with a loft, a desk, a twin bed below, and stairs. Evan was even excited to get it, more excited than upset to be losing his old bed. The delivery from Rooms to Go was scheduled for somewhere between 2-4pm. And I know that you must be thinking that they never showed up, but you would be wrong. What happened was even worse. The solid stairs section of the bed set would not fit up the stairs in the box and I was a little worried to take it out of the box and still not be able to get it up the stairs and then be stuck with a piece of furniture I could not use. So here we are, Evan's old bed dismantled and downstairs in the playroom, and him sleeping on the two mattresses set on the floor in his room. Bummer. Tomorrow he and I will head back up to Rooms to Go to measure the piece out of the box and then come home and figure out if it would be able to fit up the stairs. I have a feeling it will, but we'll see.

Picture of the bed set from Rooms to Go

July 6, 2008: Fireworks!

Friday was our nation's 232nd birthday and it was celebrated in traditional fashion, with fireworks. Well, not here at least. We were all set up on Kildaire Farm Road at about 8pm to see the 9 o'clock firework from the nearby park. But as 9pm drew near, so did the dark storm clouds as well as the lightning and thunder. There would be no fireworks that night - postponed until Saturday.

Saturday we were at Michelle's coworker's house for a cul-de-sac cookout. We enjoyed the small fireworks display by the neighbors, but did not go back to our spot on Kildaire Farm Road to watch the "big" show. Fortunately we chose to stay put since it began to storm, again, right before 9pm. The good news is that Evan got to play with the kids on the street who all partook in inventive ways to set off firecrackers and other miniature explosives.

It has also been confirmed that I wirk best under pressure and with deadlines. Friday evening before the fireworks, Dan, Wendy, Aidan, and Poppy came over for a small cookout. That morning Michelle asked if I could rehang the old bathroom door upstars or hang the new one. If I a mgoing to hang a door, it may as well be a new one. And believe it or not, I hung it in what was, for me, record time, about an hour and a half. That includes, cutting it down to size in height, trimming its width using the router, routing hinges, fitting and hanging the door. I was amazed since the other three doors I have hung this past week each took far longer - admittedly, there is a bit of a learning curve. Today included doorknobs, as will tomorrow.

This evening we went to see Get Smart. Very funny, even Evan laughed for most of the movie. If you haven't seen the movie and were thinking about it, I suggest you see it. I am often times worried that the trailers or TV commercials show all three of the funny scenes from a movie, but that is not the case here, the scenes from the the commercials and trailers are, of course, funny, but there are far more funny scenes throughout the movie. And as for Maxwell Smart, he is the bungling secret agent of Control, but not nearly as bungling as the TV show, he often times has a plan and is also quite capable as a secret agent.