100 Things

Challenged by Erin's 100 Things list to produce a similarly stellar list, I decided to list 100 things about me.

1. I'm a bicentennial baby.
2. My favorite movie of all time is 1776 (yes I like musicals)
3. America's favorite past-time Baseball, is my favorite sport.
   
4. Football is a close second.
5. I had my first asthma attack when I was about 8, I still remember the fear and the home remedy things that we tried to get me breathing again.
6. I had my last asthma attack when I was 20, the 12 years in between were hell, I love to run.
7. I love to run.
8. I've run a marathon, 26.2 miles, it's the greatest physical feat that I have performed.
   
9. I hate losing.
10. I started coaching Little League when I was 13.
11. I've never had a losing season coaching.
12. I've had two undefeated seasons, it was coaching junior high girls softball, and both seasons were amazing.
13. My oldest boy is named Jonas, the name came to me when I was 12 and I always knew that it would be the name of my son.
14. I have a little plastic white tiger that I bought at the Mall of America that I named Jonas to always remind me that I would name my son Jonas one day.
15. I had my first kiss at 4 in Kindergarten, with Michelle.
16. I had my first girlfriend when I was 17, with Alison.
17. The 12 years between were hell.
18. I've won the Superbowl in Super Tecmo Bowl (Nintendo) as every team in the game.
19. I could beat The Legend of Zelda in 2 hours.
20. Tom Elroy and I once played the same game on Nintendo non-stop for 36 hours, sleeping in shifts in order to beat the game. Save on the Nintendo had stopped working correctly so we could not stop.
21. My best friend, Scott, lives in Arizona and I don't get to see him anymore.
22. I started programming when I was 9 on a Commodore 64. The manual had the commands for BASIC and I taught myself.
23. I have been self taught at practically every language I have ever learned, with Turbo Pascal being the only exception.
24. I almost got kicked out of school in high school for screwing up the grading program. I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be and the teachers grades for the year were lost 1 week before the end of the year.
25. I had a college room mate that lit me on fire.
26. I like to go above and beyond, doing more than the minimum.
27. I am very orderly and once I figure out how something works best for me, I do it almost the same way every time.
28. When loading the dishwasher knives go in sharp side down, all other utensils go in eating side up. It gets them the cleanest.
29. I stepped on a broken bottle when I was young and cut the artery in the bottom of my foot. I still have a scar from the stitches.
30. I don't go out barefoot anymore.
31. I cut my ankle down to the bone playing on a slip-n-slide.
32. I cut my finger in a Roast Beef slicer when I was 17.
    
33. Erin doesn't think I'm as funny as she is.
    
34. I babysat 2 kids full time in the summer when I was 12.
    
35. I started working at Hardees when I was 16. I worked there until my junior year in college.
36. This one time at band camp...I was in band camp for 5 years, and although I heard crazy stories about it, I was never a part of them.
37. I played soccer for 5 years, but chose band when I got to high school.
38. My high school band won state all 4 years I was there.
39. This list is not 100 ways I love my wife, that list has to remain out of the public domain.
40. I hate to have my nose touched.
41. I love programming and if I were rich enough to not need to work, I'd still program.
42. My heart is truly filled by my wife and kids.
43. Erin gave me an unexpected wedding wearing White Sox jerseys, I wouldn't have asked for it, but it is more memorable to me than a more traditional wedding would have been.
44. My ex-wife and I are still friends good friends.
    
45. The coolest vacation I have ever been on was staying at a Holiday Inn in Decatur when I was young. It had an indoor putting range and a pool.
46. I have seen Billy Joel in concert, I loved it.
47. I have also seen Carrot Top in concert. I laughed so hard my sides hurt for days.
48. I'm not spontaneous. Even the things that appear spontaneous to others, I have been thinking about and planning.
49. I want to be stronger, but I lose motivation to lift weights quickly.
50. The coolest medal I earned was for helping a friend coach his Little League team in a post-season tournament, we won. I wasn't really part of the staff, but they appreciated me so much they gave me a medal.
51. The 2nd coolest was for first place in a math test taken in high school. It was multiple choice and I didn't know the topic, so i just guessed on everything. I scored an 85%, the next highest was 40% and he was the smartest person I knew.
52. I hate pretty much all games with dice, when it comes to dice I have no luck.
53. My kids amaze me nearly every day.
54. Jonas is crazy smart, almost to the point that I worry that his social skills will suffer.
55. Ady is amazing and will be in charge of whatever she does.
56. Jaden has an ability to solve puzzles that I've never seen in a 2 year old.
57. I love how my kids ask me questions about everything, the curiosity is amazing.
58. I am a life long learner and try to learn new things on purpose daily.
59. If I could take a pill to not sleep, I would.
60. I miss that Jonas lives far enough away from me that I won't get to coach the sports he plays growing up, and I'll probably miss most of his games.
    
61. When I was growing up my parents came to practically every event of everything I was ever in, even in college they would drive 2 hours to watch a 30 minute concert.
62. In college I took a rifle/pistol class where I earned a Marksman metal for rifle.
63. I also took a bowling class.
64. I was so far ahead in classes needed to graduate that my last semester I only needed 6 hours, so I had to take additional courses to remain a full time student and live on campus.
65. I worked through the work program at EIU at the TV station. I wrote a few programs to help ease data entry.
66. I have never left the country, not even to Mexico or Canada.
67. The sweetest sound in the world is my wife's voice, unless she's mad at me.
68. I follow politics and think that everyone should participate by speaking their mind and voting.
69. I believe in smaller government and less programs.
70. Atlas Shrugged is the greatest philosophical book of all times, and it's written as fiction.
71. My career as a poet never took off, I was not published in any of the 50+ contests I entered between 5th grade and graduating college.
72. I own leaves of grass but have not been able to get into reading it, despite trying several times.
73. I hate not finishing a book that I start, even if it's bad.
74. I once had an argument with a gay man about whether people were born that way or chose to be that way. I didn't know he was gay, to me it was just a philosophical discussion. Looking back it's pretty funny.
75. I grew up with religion, but I never had faith until Lloye.
76. If I could afford to, I would only have office chairs in my house for seats, no couches, no kitchen chairs, just office chairs.
77. Every computer deserves 2 monitors.
78. Ady can amaze me with her love, then turn around and scare the hell out of me with her anger.
    
79. My kids are the greatest source of joy in my life.
80. My wife is the greatest source of passion.
81. My kitchen is the greatest source of dishes. Erin hates to hand wash dishes.
82. I have seen both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
83. I've been to Washington DC twice and still haven't made it to the top of the Washington Monument.
84. I've lived within 3 hours of Wrigley field my entire life and never been to a game there, what can I say, I'm a White Sox fan.
85. I love to walk through nature and nothing is as soothing as running water.
86. I've been accused of having the mind of a 15 year old. Whatever that means.
87. One day I plan on getting another tattoo, yes another.
88. I'm a tech geek who doesn't own anything from Apple.
89. My hair is thinning and in a few years I will be bald on top.
90. I play musical instruments, Trombone and Piano, I am learning guitar very slowly.
91. I have all of my wisdom teeth, I have since I was in high school
92. I want to be more handy and help out with things like Habitat for Humanity.
93. I like being involved in coaching my kids in sports and look forward to the many years of activity to come.
94. We squeeze our family of 5 into a Chevy Cavalier.
    
95. One day I will get a bigger car, when we can afford it.
96. I own as many pairs of shoes as my wife, she's an anomaly and doesn't own very many.
97. I cook a really good omelet.
98. I prefer to have no icons on my computer.
99. My favorite food is hamburgers on the fire pit at Aunt Shel's.
100. I prefer to be environmentally friendly and would love to work at home and use natural products for as many things as possible. I recycle as much as I can.

Strangely 100 things was not hard to come up with. I probably could have made a list of 200 things, but that would just make me look conceited.

Lazy Man's Ironman: Half way recap.

The first half of the Lazy man's Ironman has been interesting. My plan was to keep myself busy running, biking and swimming as often as possible, and I would be done by the 20th without much of a problem.

Instead I'm now at the half way point with 11.4 miles left to run (Less than half), 20 laps left to swim (less than 1/3) and 75.8 miles left (well over half).

Initially I thought swimming would be the most difficult portion of the adventure. I can only swim at the Y and I hadn't swam laps in a long time. Swimming however, has been the easiest for me.

I thought running would be the easiest for me. I run frequently and ran a lot last year. This month I have gotten back into the habit of running, but I'm still way behind where I was last year. Running has been harder on my feet and back than I anticipated.

Biking. I expected this to be the hardest and it has been. Partly because I lost my recumbent bike in my flooded basement last month. Riding on a real bike outside works my legs slightly different and is probably easier on my legs, but it hurts my butt so much more that I can't ride more than twice a week outside and tolerate sitting the rest of the time. That has limited me to one real bike riding day with the rest of my rides being at the Y on their recumbent bike.

I think I'll still accomplish my goal. It will take me 4 days of running, 2 days of swimming and 9 to 11 days of riding. As long as I do two things in a day I'll be able to complete them all before the month ends.

The hundred pushup challenge: week 4

Day 1. Monday
27, 20, 20, 17, 40 Total 124

Day 2. Wednesday
27, 21, 21, 18, 45 Total 132

Day 3. Friday
30, 22, 22, 20, 31 Total 125

The fourth week was practically a repeat of week three. This didn't stop me from pushing myself harder. I was amazed with myself at being able to increase my max sets by so much, except for Friday. Friday my arms were really tired and I didn't have much energy at 10 PM when I started the pushups after having taken Jaden swimming for nearly 2 hours and then running for 3 miles. I may have been too tired at that point. The rest from last week helped a lot on Monday. I'll need it to help again because the jump between week 4 and week 5 is substantial.

A Car that empties your wallet

I saw a commercial yesterday where the selling point was the number of miles between a fill up.

Then again this morning, I heard a radio commercial for the Nissan Altima. It gets over 600 miles between fill ups. This had me interested, so I went and checked. 32 miles per gallon, with a 20 gallon tank. It may be 600 miles between fill ups, but each trip to the gas station will cost more than $80. Yikes.

I want to get 600 miles for $40, get me one of those cars.

My little man

My little man peed standing up tonight. I'm so proud.

The hundred pushup challenge: week 3

Day 1. Monday
25, 17, 17, 27, 18. Total 104.

Day 2. Wednesday
27, 19, 19, 15, 31 Total 111

Day 3. Friday
30, 22, 22, 20, 30 Total 124

The third week was quite a bit tougher than the second. I managed to squeak by the maximum amounts for each day. I had to force myself to think positively through each set in order to make it through. The swimming that I am doing has my arms and back a bit more sore than it had been previously. I hope the extra exercise helps with my overall weight loss.

Lazy Man's Iron Man

For some reason I allowed myself to get talked into attempting a lazy man's Iron Man at the Y this month. That means that I have a month to complete 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles riding a bike and 26.2 miles running.

This will be a big challenge, and make sure that I am focusing on exercise during July.

I think the swimming will be the most challenging part of this for me. I haven't swam laps in a few years. And the only time that lap swimming is open at the Y for me, is before work, which means getting up earlier, or trying to convince my boss to let me work from home more in order to swim and still get to work on time easier. I'll have to go about 180 lengths of the pool.

I think the running will be the easiest for me, since I have a natural habit of running for my exercise already. I haven't run 26 miles in a month yet this year, but was doing close to 60 miles in a month last year, so I believe that I can get those miles in.

Biking will be another challenge. My exercise bike at home was part of the loss from the recent flood in my basement. That means riding the bike at the Y, or riding on a normal bike, which is a lot harder on my back and butt.

When will the internet offer replacements for Cable?

When will the internet offer replacements for Cable TV? On Cable, or Satelite TV, I'm forced to pay a large fee in order to get the channels that I want. I love baseball and want to watch the White Sox, but those games are on the extended cable package. So in order for me to have 1 channel to watch I have to pay $50 a month. I don't care about almost any of the other channels that are available, I just want to be able to watch the White Sox play.

You would think that something would exist to fill this void, and on the surface of things, it appeared that MLB.tv may be what I was looking for. However, when I started looking more cloesly at it, there is a black out policy. Basically any game that would be on the extended Cable channel is not available on MLB.tv because it's my local team. If I were a huge Texas Rangers fan I'd be ok, but since I live "close" to Chicago and it would be on TV I am not allowed to pay in order to watch the games that I want to watch. MLB.tv makes sense. It's only $60 for the entire season, which is all the games for every team, not just the games that I would have had on TV. I'm a big enough fan that I'm willing to pay for that kind of immersion enjoyment, but only if I can get my favorite team.

Thus, no sale. I will not pay the $60, even to see a lot more baseball than what I could see if I paid for extended cable. And I will not pay for extended cable. And since I won't pay $60 for all the games for a season, you can bet I'm not paying to go to a game. Thus, the team that I love to cheer for and watch doesn't make any money off of me. I'm stuck just reading summaries on the internet and catching an occasional game when I'm at someone else's house, when they have the channel.

Baseball is not the only sport missing out here. All the major sports could also get more viewership, hockey and soccer could probably benefit more than baseball and football can. Plus many other sports with avid practicioners that have no way to view them other than to attend events live. They cannot always make it to an event. Imagine college baseball, volleyball, swim meets. Alumni's of school, especially past athletes may love to keep up with their school and pay for watching, all that has to happen is they need to be recorded and posted.

How long will it be, before the internet actually offers us the opportunity to view content that is just not available anywhere else?