The Diet Coke heart ache

I love Diet Coke.  I love the taste, especially when it is on ice.  Not too much ice but just enough to keep it cold.  YUMMY. 

Let me tell you a story about a fat man who loves diet coke.  Surprise the fat man is me.  Shortly after we moved back to Idaho I bought a mountian bike and decided it was time for me to get back in shape.  I love to mountian bike by the way.  Just up the hill from my house are some trails that are great to ride on.  I love it.  I can get in a quick ride get a great workout and it only takes 30-45 minutes.  It is perfect.  I am not the most consistent when it comes to exercise.  One day I decided to go out and push myself, now keep in mind it has been months since I've done more than sit on the couch eating myself into a coma, but I dont start exercising the smart way, I do it the have a massive heart attack way.  I get on my bike and push myself and say I am going to get to the top of this hill no matter what I nearly make it.  I get almost to the top and I have to stop.  My heart is racing so fast I am getting dizzy and feel on the verge of vomiting. (I know! I am an idiot sometimes.)  I actually got a little scared that I was on the verge of a heart attack.  I stand nearly at the top of the hill breathing so hard people in the neighboring county could hear me and I let my heart slow down.  Now I dont feel so hot so what does a genius like me do?  Turn around and go home?  Nope not this rocket scientist I walk my bike to the top of the hill.  Then I ride down hill to my house.  I felt wiped out the rest of the evening.  

What does this have to do with caffine??  Simple, ever since that fateful day if I drink too much caffine my heart acts up.  I have had an ekg and had it looked at by my doctor and he says I am fine.  He said that it is fairly common to experience what I do when I drink too much of my favorite beverage.  So now I drink caffine free I dont like it as much but I guess it is better than nothing.  What is the moral of the story?  Dont be a maniac when you start an exercise regimine, work into it so you dont endanger your life, most of all dont be a massive idiot like myself.  But do exercise regularly you will feel better as your body gets in shape.  

The Diet OH NO!!!!

I am on a diet.  Ok I am on an eating plan.  I dont really like the word diet.  A couple of months ago I was a swim meet with Avery and my wife Kristi.  I was curious how many calories I ate on a regular basis.  I down loaded two apps for my phone one that is like a food journal the other has a ton of resturants listed so I can look up nutritional information when I eat out.  I was horrified to see how many calories are in one of my favorite fast food combo meals.  I love to go to Jack in the Box.  I would get a combo meal there and would add some stuffed jalapenos.  I would go there for lunch more often than I would like to admit.  I tabulated the calories and just about passed out.  It was over 1800 calories.  My food journal tracks exercise water intake etc.  It also will ask how much weight you would like to lose and will tell you how many calories you can eat and lose the weight you want. 

That one combo meal was more than my daily allotment of calories.  No wonder I am getting bigger by the second.  I think that if I listened really closely after consuming that meal I could hear my arteries clogging.  So now I am on an eating plan and it is actually working nicely.  I dont refrain from any foods except really high sugar things like cake cookies etc.  I have lost 9 pounds so far and have been really working on it for about two and a half weeks.  I take it a little easier on the weekends but try not to go overboard.  In addition to an eating plan I am exercising regualrly now as well.  If you dont know and would like to find out there are many ways to see how many calories are in your favorite meals.  I think that if your look into it you will be quite surprised.  Am I done with Jack in the Box?  No way.  I have set goals and when I reach one I am allowed to go there for a meal.  But I certianly wont be there nearly as often as I used to be.

The appliance curse. Not to be confused with the curse of the mummy.

Have you ever felt cursed?  Have you ever felt like anytime you engage in a particular activity it almost always blows up in your face?  Let me tell you about the appliance curse.  Now you may have heard about the curse of the mummy or various other curses.  The appliance curse is not as evil as those particular curses.  The appliance curse started almost 7 years ago, when we bought our very first house.  We were able to pick out all the appliances because it was new construction, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, stove etc. 
Since that fateful day we moved into our house we have had to replace every appliance in the kitchen except for the gas stove.  New fridge, dishwasher, microwave, garbage disposal.  We have even had to replace our clothes washer and dryer.  We have had problems with our garage door opener motor and had to replace one panel of our garage door because it rusted.  The guy who replaced the garage door said he has been doing it for over 20 years and had never seen that happen before. 
I shouldn't complain, and I am not.  Because at some point you just have to throw your hands up and laugh.  I don't think it would qualify as a curse except now our new fridge which is just 3 years old is having problems.  The repair guy has been out three times and is now coming for a fourth visit.  Thanks goodness for extended warranties.  I buy one on every appliance now and I have saved a ton on repair costs.  I have noticed that the warranty costs about how much it takes to pay for just one repair .  Moral of the story, buy appliance warranties.  As for the curse, I hope it is nearing its end but time will tell.  I guess if I had to choose between a mummy chasing me or appliance problems I will take the appliance problems, at least there is a warranty for that!!

My Dog the Lawyer

I am writing a book.  Now I know that my grammar and punctuation isn't the best, but that is what editors are for.  It is the first book in a series about a talking dog and the little girl who knows and keeps his secret.  I am very excited to publish it.  I have started the second book and hope to have it published later this year.  I will keep you posted and let you know the official release date.

Swim meet

A few weekends ago we took Avery my middle child to a swim meet in a neighboring town.  We had to travel about 3 hours to get there.  She is a great swimmer in my opinion, (not that I am biased at all) she improved her times in every event she swam.  I never really understood swimming very much until I became involved in it two years ago.  It really is a very fun sport to watch.  I love to see Avery swim of course but it is also very exciting to see the older swimmers on her team.  It is amazing how fast they can be.  We were at this pool in the towns rec center.  They had an amazing rec center, big jogging track, lots of weight machines, huge basket ball/volleyball courts, it was amazing.  That being said I had to sit outside the pool in the hall and watch most of the meet through the glass.  When it was time for Avery to race I went pool side of course but the rest of the time I was in the hall.  In the pool area my eyes would start burning if I was in there too long.  This was caused by what I can only assume was chlorine.  I was a little perplexed by this as I haven't experienced this before.  It made me wonder why they had so much chlorine in the water to cause my eyes to burn.  My wife experienced the same thing burning eyes.  We even found that after the first night when we had spent a couple hours in the pool area that our eyes burned for almost half an hour after we left the complex.  I am not sure why it was so bad in there but it was.  We have been in several other swimming complexes and this is the only one I even noticed any chlorine at all.  Hopefully it was just a fluke that weekend.  So if you are looking for a fun activity to get your kids involved in now or in the future, take a look at swimming. 

Missing Teeth

So you dentist tells you that one of your teeth can't be saved, it has to be pulled.  What do you do?  Well there are several different options.  But best longest lasting most predictable option is a dental implant.  Dental implants have been studied for many years with some studies lasting for a period of 30 years.  These studies show a 95-98% success rate.  Nothing else in dentistry will last as long and serve you as well as a dental implant.  If your dentist tells you that you need a bridge ask about an implant.  If he says its not possible get a second opinion.  There are very few instances where a dental implant won't work. 

Dental implants can also be used to help keep dentures in a persons mouth.  You may have seen videos of people losing their dentures in very embarrasing situations.  If they as few as two implants those teeth would have stayed put.  I am a huge fan of dental implants.  I would never consider any other option if I were missing teeth.  I would never let my family choose another option.  If your dentist doesnt work with them much perhaps you should seek a new dentist.  They are the latest and greatest in replacing one or more missing teeth.

Sick Kids

Why is it that when your kids get sick and vomit it's always in the middle of the night??  Now I admit that isn't always the case, but with my kids it sure seems like it is.  There is nothing better than being jarred out of sleep by a child telling you her sister just threw up in her bed!!!  YEEE HAAAA.  Let the good times roll.  Look at the clock 2am.  Great!!

Cruises

I recently took my wife on a cruise.  I had not been on a cruise ship in almost 20 years.  I was quite excited to go.  We sailed out of San Diego California and had 5 nights aboard the Carnival Spirit.  One of the things that really struck me about a cruise is how much stuff they try to sell you. 
They offer presentations on various aspects of cruise life.  For example they had one presentation on shore excursions, the cruise ship director told us that the only safe excursions were the ones booked through Carnival, and that we shouldn't take any water taxi's.  I of course looked at the excursions but they were horribly over priced.  How did I know this?  We had several e-mails from our booking website with shore excursions we could purchase through them.  The most expensive excursion offered through the booking website was less than the cheapest one on board the ship.  So moral of the story buy your excursions once you get there.  Trust me there will be plenty of locals more than willing to take your money for an excursion.  In addition I was able to negotiate a cheaper price with every excursion we took part in. 
Another presentation was about how to find the best places to shop.  I was excited to go to this one because I love to find a good deal.  I like walking through the open air markets where the locals try to sell all kinds of stuff.  I went to the presentation and all he talked about were the jewelery stores that would be in Cabo.  Not a single tip on the type of shopping I wanted to do.  Then I looked at the small print on the map he handed out and every store he mentioned pays Carnival money to talk about them.  LAME!!!  Needless to say that was the last presentation I attended.  I am not sure what I expected, I know they need to make money and that is really their ultimate goal.  I enjoyed my time on our cruise and almost ate myself into a coma (SO MUCH FOOD).  Some more advice, don't cruise if you or anyone in your party gets very motion sick.  That is all.

Cabo

My wife and I just got back from a cruise to Cabo Mexico.  We had a great time down in Cabo.  We don't drink but we had so much fun on the beach.  We went to a beach called lovers beach.  It is a fairly popular beach and can only be reached by water taxi.  The cruise ships cant dock in Cabo so we took a tender from the ship to a little dock in Cabo.  As soon as we get off the tender there are tons of Cabo residents trying to sell us shore excursions.  They offer anything from scuba diving to para sailing.  We took a "glass bottom boat" tour the first day.  I use the term "glass bottom" loosely as the bottom wasn't glass but a small strip down the middle of the boat was Plexiglas. Our second day is the day we went to lovers beach.  When we told the "captain" that we wanted to go to lovers beach he kind of tried to talk us into going to another beach.  He said that the surf was big that day and that getting on the beach would be difficult.  We said we wanted to go there and he relented.  We arrived to find that there is no dock at the beach so the boat would "surf" in to the shore and we hopped out.  Our unloading went without incident.  I sat on the bow of the boat and held my wife's hand she jumped off with perfect timing and I hopped of just after her.  We had fun on the beach.  The waves were really quite big especially on the other side of the beach called Bull beach. We sat in the sun and did some exploring and collected some shells.  The funny part was when we had to get back on the water taxi.  The surf was still fairly large.  We saw our taxi flagged him down and headed out toward the boat.  He pulled in and I am proud to say my wife and I hopped on almost like pros!!  Then we got to watch other people try to get on.  Alcohol, heavy surf, and water taxi's don't mix.  I wish I had a video camera  I would win Americas funniest home videos for sure!!  I saw many people more concerned with saving their beer than they were with their own safety.  I saw women falling completely under the water but keeping their beer held high so as to not ruin the beverage.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Good times.  That is all.