Friday came and went, and bootcamp classes ended with many grunts and groans.  The last day's workout was pretty brutal, but knowing it was the last one seemed to help get me through it.  We went to the closing ceremony on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it was about 105 plus humidity, and since my knees have been screaming at me, I opted not to do the final PT Test.

I am pleased with the results.

After 2 weeks,

Body Fat was down 2%
I lost 3 inches around my thighs
2 1/2 inches off my waist
1 1/2 inches off my chest

not bad!!

Jennifer had this wonderful idea - let's join a local gym's bootcamp class. It's only two weeks long, and you get prizes. She further tried to entice me, by telling me how many people failed out of the last one (uhhh) and how they give you more bootcamp as a reward.

So, being the masochist I am, I agreed to it.

Turns out it's only three days a week, so technically six classes in all. Tomorrow is the last regular class. I've got to admit - it's a total ass kicker - but I'm pleased with the results. The diet blows, I haven't had over 1800 calories in two weeks, and I'm averaging closer to 1300 calories a day.

That's a fairly restrictive intake for a guy that's 6'4 and close to 300 pounds. I do feel better, but I don't think I can do this "class" long term. It might just be the kick in the ass I've needed though to get back on track with my fitness. I actually don't mind getting up early a few days a week and then working out. Our regular gym, Lifetime Fitness is on the way into the office, so I think we're going to start going regularly in the AM.

Here's to smaller belt sizes and loose XL t shirts! More to come on that front I hope!

It's Friday, and I had to run to the grocery store to get a few things for the weekend. This particular grocery store happens to have half a dozen or so of these signs at prime parking spots in the lot.

Being the fair minded, non-discriminatory person that I am, I promptly parked in one of these vacant spots. As I am getting out of my car and heading into the store, this hag looks at me and shouts "congratulations!!". Her point, I'm sure, meaning to embarrass me and shame me for parking in a preferred spot like this. I just smiled at her with a warm and genuine smile, didn't break my stride, and said "thank you!".

Allow me give a little more background.

I actually had a difficult time pulling into this parking space, because there was a monstrous Mercedes Benz SUV parked over my side of the line. It's engine was running full boar, nobody was inside. Apparently the driver, too caught up in their own pathetic, self-absorbed life, couldn't be bothered not to park like the fucking asshole she is.

You guessed it, the very same hag who tried to shame me from parking in the "women with a functioning reproductive system" spot was the very same person who parked so horribly and was killing the environment while her v8 powered SUV chugged along pumping out bushels of toxic fumes.

I could go on and on about this, but I bet you understand where I'm going with it.

Am I bothered? Hell no. The signs on these spaces carry no legal authority whatsoever. I merely pretend they don't exist. I should note however, that I do NOT have the same opinion in regards to handicap parking. Anyone who parks in a "tart cart" space without proper authority should be slapped until they cry.

P.S. I was at Fry's Electronics last Sunday picking up some lovely goodies. For those that don't know, Fry's is like Home Depot for nerds and geeks. Anyway, I had ridden the Harley that day, and decided to park in the "Electric Vehicle Only" parking. These spots are never used and since my motorcycle gets 42+ MPG (well within the range of hybrids and electrics) I deemed it authorized to park there.

Got it back!!

Yesterday I went to the body shop and finally picked up the speed3 from repair. It's nice to be back driving that car again. I found a local shop I'm going to visit to start looking for mods. After the house in San Antonio sells, I'll prioritize the list.

This has me pissed. Does ANYONE take any personal fucking responsibility anymore?

Video is here, it's MP4

Essentially, this 11 year old twat was being an attention whore and an idiot online. She had videos posted where she acts like an idiot and brags about stupid shit. Like her sex life, killing people, how popular she is, swearing like a motherfucker, etc.

The field reporter did try a little. She asked the girl why all the swearing. The girl gave some lame ass excuse. I just cannot believe nobody at GMA or their stupid fucking guests actually told the truth and said that this was all that little cunt's fault.

If she wasn't:
*on websites she wasn't supposed to be
*or posting about her sex life
*or posting videos about making "brain slushies with a Glock"
*or being a retarded fuck
*or cussing like a sailor

NOBODY anywhere would've given a fuck. But no, this is all "the internet's" fault. The internet is full of bullies! Come on - you do that shit and post it publicly and the wolves are going to come out.

Here's some examples of her wonderful judgement

What kind of backwards trailer trash swamp fume sniffin assholes LET THEIR 11 YEAR OLD ACT LIKE THAT - AND POST IT FOR ALL TO SEE?!? This is 100% the parent's fault!

Did you learn your lesson? Guess what babe, the world is full of bad people. Taunt them, harass them, practically beg them to retaliate and don't be surprised when they do.

Oh, and lesson #2 is - if "the internet" really starts to get to you, DON'T KEEP POSTING!!! That only encourages them.

Here it is, two weeks after my last post, and guess what I'm still driving? Yep, that white piece of shit Chevy Cobalt rental car. I've put over 1000 miles on it since picking it up. It doesn't help that the insurance company kept jerking the body shop around on a supplement for over 9 days.

Since they're fixing my car, I'm obviously out of the market now for a new car. I'm OK with that! I really do love my speed3. I also found out that the resale is so high on it, it's nice knowing I'm not upside down on my auto loan. To quell this "I need some change" bug, I've decided to modify my speed3 instead. I have a short list of mods which are relatively inexpensive - and I also thing I can do the myself.

In other news - THE HOUSE SOLD!!! Thank Christ! Right now we're in a waiting period with the process. Earnest and Option money has been received, so we're just waiting for the inspection and appraisal. I will be SO glad when that closes.

Well, it's July 7th, and I'm still waiting for word from the body shop on my car. Friends of ours say that they think it's going to be totaled just based on the photos and the fact that the C pillars were rippled. (You can see pics of that on my Facebook)

So, I've been doing some preemptive auto shopping. There's still some others I want to look at, but the list is this:

Another Mazdaspeed3
Mazda CX7
Scion xB
Honda Element SC
Ford Escape V6
Chevy Camaro SS (I can dream, can't I?)
Hyundai Santa Fe
GMC Terrain

Of course, because I've done all of this searching, they won't total the car. But that wouldn't be a bad thing either

So, as you no doubt have read, I got rear ended by some stupid ass in a white Chevy car. If not, see below.

Anyway, after a week of trying to get my copy of the damn police report, I got the claim started with her insurance. I get to the car rental place this morning, and not only do they not have the "full size" vehicle I was supposed to get, but I ended up with a white Chevy Cobalt.

Jesus-Tap-Dancing-Christ!!

I must have pissed off the Chevy Gods something. For the second time I have been hit by a woman in a white or off-white Chevy car.

Today, she rear-ended me at the intersection of US-380 and FM423. Traffic was moderate, and I was stopped for the red light in the left center lane. Traffic started to go with the green light, then it stopped again. I stopped, the lady behind me didn't. She hit me pretty hard, it was definitely her fault.

The bumper is fucked up beyond all repair. It will definitely need to me replaced. I can't open the rear lift gate. That will probably need to be replaced as well.

I am annoyed...

So, here is where my geeky side shines through like a supernova. You probably know that I got the new Google Nexus One phone a couple months back. Well, that phone came loaded with Android operating system 2.1, codename Eclair. Google IO was last week, and they had quite a showing of their new Android operating system 2.2, codename FroYo.

Since then, I've been literally lusting after FroYo, wanting to get my hot little hands on that spiffy new OS. In addition to it just being the new hotness, there were some significant improvements. The new OS is super fast - about 7 times faster than Eclair. With the new OS, Adobe Flash is now supported, there is a new native WIFI hotspot tethering capability.

I'm going to be spending the next few weeks figuring and tweaking all the new hotness with my phone!

This has been a great weekend! First of all, we had a special visitor come in for the weekend. (News about that will be posted soon.) Spent Friday night celebrating our friend Zac's birthday at Dave & Busters. Granted, it's basically chuck-E-cheese for adults, but with the drinks, food, games and friends - it was a lot of fun! After coming home, we chilled out and watched Kill Bill 2 on DVD. Our guest had never seen the series, and it was well received.

Saturday started out slow. After lazing around the morning, we headed out to Ink Inc in McKinney. Our visitor wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate the visit. Luckily, I brought my artwork with me, and had the artist Hector Ortega take a look. We agreed on a price, and he went to work. I had been bugging Jenn for months now about getting my 2nd tattoo done, so I was glad it was finally happening.

Here's the artwork we started with

Here's the finished product

Part of the reason I wanted to move to North Texas so badly. The weather her is fantastic, and the storms are wonderful!! I love watching the storms come in at night. The lightning is almost always impressive. The video cam on my phone just couldn't capture how awesome the storm was.

I've almost always got the new full screen WunderMap up on one of my screens.

After the debacle with our first realtor, Coldwell Banker D'Ann Harper, specifically Karen Roland, our home is FINALLY back on the market.

Our new realtor has been very responsive and thus far, I'm very pleased with him. We let our previous listing expire, and the new listing is now on the market. This allows us to be shown as a "new" listing, instead of having been on the market since July 2009.

We already had our first showing (which I was pleased to hear), and I hope this finally gets sold to someone.

See the new listing here!

Well, it's happened. The product I've been working on for the last year and a half has finally launched.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the AT&T 3G MicroCell:

I've got one at the rental house, and now we've got 5 bars of delicious 3G signal goodness! I. Love. It.

Here's my Nexus One happily displaying the AT&T MicroCell network tag.

It's been a very long time, I admit. I've been busy. Here's the short story.

We still own the house in San Antonio. We're not pleased with our realtor - not one bit. She goes WEEKS without contacting us, and when she does, she bitches about the condition of things there. For some reason, she has this infatuation with that cheap Mexican cleaner "fabulouso". It smells like Mango-Monkey-Ass, but to her, it "means" that the house is clean. Although, she will be the first to admit that what people associate with "clean" or "home" smell varies by person.

So, we're heading to San Antonio this weekend for a few things. We're going to be interviewing another broker. Also, Gina and Aaron are coming in, and we're going to be spending the weekend with them. Can't wait to see them, it's been too damn long.

...but I've been busy!

As is typical, this year was so busy I wasn't able to use all my vacation time so I have to burn what's left the last two weeks of the year.

We're getting settled into the new house. We got new carpet is installed in the San Antonio house, so it is now listed as "move in ready". It doesn't seem to be helping much with any offers...yet. We are 90% unpacked here, but that last 10% is a bitch. I'm thinking of seriously trashing what's left. I mean, if we've lived without it for three months now, how badly could we really need it anyway?

Well, I should be getting back to unpacking those last boxes. Happy Holidays y'all!!

This is IT! The week I've been waiting for, for years now.

Jennifer starts her new (new) job on Monday 11/2 (long story, yes it's a 2nd new job) and we are moving this week.

We got the call from the property manager on yesterday that we could be in the rental as soon as we wanted. It's clean and ready to go, he just needed to get the locks re-keyed which he was going to get done today.

The truck gets picked up Thursday morning and then the loading begins. We're going to load all day Thursday, rest up overnight, and then head out Friday mid morning. Jenn's mom and Ed are going up as well. Mom will drive up Jenn's car, Ed will drive up one of their vehicles. We're coordinating with the Barnett's, one of them will likely drive up my car later on Friday.

Still have quite a bit of packing to get done, and this afternoon we're heading down to my office to get what I need out of there. Gonna hit up Florio's one last time for lunch as well.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Things are just as hectic as can be.

Things here are progressing along in preparation for the move. Utilities have been ordered. Time off for me has been scheduled. I am just itching to start taking apart rooms and bring beds, dressers, etc. downstairs so that loading the moving truck is nice and easy.

I'm getting a little frustrated with the property manager. I was hoping to hear by now a date when the current tennant is moving out. I asked him about it last week, and he just told me that the tenant hadn't informed him. When we looked at the house, it appeared he was going to be gone in a day or two. Everything was half packed and he sure looked like he was ready to go. I'll be calling the property manager again tomorrow to see if there is an updated status. If we can get in before 11/1, we could start moving things up next week!

I found some cool satellite photos of the house and yard on http://maps.bing.com/
As much as I really don't like MicroSoft, and despise their Bing product, their birdseye view of a map area is pretty sweet. It looks like the photos are from low flying aircraft and seem to be relatively recent. You can usually rotate around to see views of the same location.

Here's the house. From these angles, you can see the odd shape of the back yard. That's ok, the dogs will love it!
Viewing North

Viewing East

Viewing South

Viewing West

Jenn got a job!!

We got approved for the lease on a house in Providence Village!!

It's been an interesting time since my last post. Jenn had some interviews in Dallas. After spending a few days up there, she finally got the call. The job offer was long overdue. So, now with the job looming in the future, it was time to hunker down and get serious about finding the new place to live.

As usual, it started with scouring realtor.com for a good lease. A new listing showed up, so I called to get some more information. We planned a quick trip up to Dallas so we could look around a little. On our second day up here, we got to see the house we wanted.

The layout is great. It's got lots of tile, almost the entire house, except for two bedrooms that have carpet. One of the best things is the backyard. It's at the outside corner of a street, which means the back yard is nice and wide and deep. The dogs will LOVE it!!

We thought about it for a few hours, drove around and looked at a couple other homes, then decided that this was the house we really wanted to see if we could get. After filling out the lease application and paying the application fees, the waiting game began. The wait didn't last too long. It's official, we are approved for the lease at the house we really like!

LOTS of stuff coming up for me in the next few weeks.

Fall is officially here. College Football is in full effect, and today is Michigan vs. Michigan State game day. After 3 consecutive losses, State is pissed off and hungry. Michigan thus far is undefeated.

With under 6 minutes left in the game, Michigan is losing 20 to 6. Doesn't seem like Blue is gonna pull this one out. Gotta give it to State though, they've played a good game, and Michigan seemed to make them work for every point.

We have an open house tomorrow, this will be our 3rd open house since it went on the market. Hopefully this could bring us a buyer. So, this week and weekend will be focused on doing some deep cleaning and getting the house ready.

Watching the game, it's mid 50s and overcast with occasional rain in East Lansing. Really makes me miss the traditional fall weather right now. If the weather here in San Antonio clears up a little, I hope to get some miles on the motorcycle this weekend.

Holy crap, Summer is officially over. South Texas had a real dry barn-burner in July and most of August, but it sure seems like the weather might be changing!

I've been super busy with work. Sorry for not updating too recently. I've also started back into the game I like to call "the time-suck", aka World of Warcraft. Got the latest expansion pack and have been questing my way up to level 80. (what a freakin' dork!)

So here's some updates.

The house is still for sale. Showings have picked up significantly in the last few weeks. The feedback is still atrocious, if we get any at all. The latest one has to be my favorite. "Saw the $3000 flooring allowance, but the house would show better with carpet replaced and dogs living outside".

Um, hello, what!? Hey asshole, those dogs are the closest thing I've got to kids. I care way more about them than I do you. Why don't you live outside in Texas in the summer?? Also, don't you think if I'm selling the house and I replace the carpet, I'm going to install the shittiest, cheapest carpet I can find? It's not like I have to live with it, I'll be moving out!

What the fuck do I care how the house "shows". All I care is that someone sees the potential and wants to BUY IT. We acknowledge the carpet needs to be replaced, that's why there's a $3000 flooring allowance at closing.

The stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me.

Our house hunt is also ongoing. We're sure about the area we want to move to, but some of the specific houses have gone off the market. That's ok, it was to be expected. We spent the last weekend up in DFW just relaxing and goofing off with friends and family. It was a great time.

I promise I'll post more later, and it won't be so long in between postings.

Hasta yer mama!