Enjoy Life, Blood, Double Your Salary, Anniversary, Stickers, Cool and Damp

Happy January 31, friends! Rain's clearing out, and it's nice and cool and damp here - usually I prefer the sun, but it's been so dry lately. A little change is just fine.

Picture of the day!

A super cute picture of the baby.

Friends! I need your help and advice on the following topics!

- I'm in desperate need of a local (or internet) printing company to print up some bumper stickers for Orange County Atheists. The various places I've found online are super expensive save one, and that one hasn't returned any of my email questions, so I'm weary of submitting an order. Do you know of any?

- The girlfriend and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary yesterday, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner out with the baby. But we're having a "date" in a couple weeks, and can't think of a single thing to do that we enjoy doing that we can't already do with the baby. Have any suggestions for entertainment or dinner locations?

- Do you think it's possible to earn more than your salary in one year without getting another full-time job? Just doing things like paid projects, gigs, selling things you create, freelance writing, etc.? If it were easy I'm sure more people would do it, but I'm wondering if it's feasible at all.

I got to get my blood drawn today, as I finally went to a doctor for a physical. I wasn't planning on it, but Katherine's doctor needed me to have my doctor sign off on some separate blood tests, so I figured I might as well. I like to think that while I'm a big chubby, I'm in pretty good health. We'll see what the blood says.

Enjoy life today, friends. Well, enjoy life every day. Make a point of it today, though.

Rainy, Meat Loaf, Zenness, Fast, Anniversary

Happy Anniversary - to me! 9 years ago today, the girlfriend and I had our first "date". "Date" is in quotes because dating is a weird and not always defined thing in my experience. But we've chosen today to celebrate. And who knows, perhaps next year at this time we'll have a big party of some sort for the 10 year occasion. I do enjoy parties.

Picture of the day!

A Rocky Horror rehearsal in early 1998, and one of the earliest pictures I have of us as a couple. FYI, this was a pretty normal sight.

Maybe because I have a lot going on in my life, but it's really weird that it's almost February 2007 already. My daughter is 7 1/2 months old. Life is fast.

Your zenness for today: There's more value in asking the happy man why he's not sad than asking the sad man why he is.

About 7 or 8 years ago, I added a screen name to my AIM account that someone told me belonged to Meat Loaf. I never saw the account log on, so I assumed it was totally inactive. This week, however, it started logging on. I sent one message and didn't get a response. Could it be the Loaf? Perhaps the account DID expire, and this is just some new guy with the same screen name? We'll see...

It's kinda rainy here, for the first time in weeks. How's it going with you?

Pictures, Standing, Diet Blog, No Illness

Good day and happy Monday, friends! It's nice to have a weekend without intestinal illness!

Picture of the day!

Jen with a camera, February 2005.

The Weight Loss Blog is coming along nicely, including many posts! Feel free to join in the discussion. There's a new box on the left that has recent posts as well. Take a look!

The baby is standing, and can get herself into a standing position all by herself. So it begins.

Speaking of the baby and cameras, we haven't been taking enough pictures. Next time you see me, ask me if I have a camera with me. If I don't, ask me why.

How's it going with you, friends?

Birthdays!

Happy Birthday Joe and Marie! This means it's only 78 days until my own birthday! Yay!

Feelin' Fine, Blog additions, WLC Blog, Baby Pictures, Late Post

Wow, busy morning, so I didn't get to post until Lunch. Hello and happy Friday, and Happy Birthday to Misty today!

Picture of the day!

Chris Clark, making faces at his cake.

Gary and Emily have a set of baby pictures up at Gary's Flickr page - that kid is adorable!

The Weight Loss Blog is up and running! I still have a few tweaks to make, but the blog posting is in full swing and the auto-updating statistics are all working. I'm especially proud of those (on the left side of the page, listing everyone's stats), as it updates via a creative hacking of Movable Type tags to show stats with users only needing to enter their weight. It looks nice and clean, but that's only because it took me about 10 hours to finish. Enjoy!

On the topic of the weight loss blog, and as a note for myself as much as my readers, future features will include user icons on each post, a feed of the blog at Insignifica, possible changes to the colors, and individual author archive pages.

We're hoping this weekend is illness free - the baby's doing much better, though she seems disinterested in sleeping, and is developing attitude about eating in the middle of the night. But otherwise, we're doing better. Hope you're feelin' fine too!

WLC Blog, Anniversary, Thursday

Thursday! Quick week! Baby's getting better, but isn't 100%. Illness sucks.

Picture of the day!

Chris and Jennifer from our 10 year High School reunion in September.

My anniversary with The Girlfriend is next week, and we're looking for somewhere good/fun to go. Any suggestions?

The weight loss blog is coming along. However, I might need someone good with PERL if I can't get my uber-hacked MT script to work how I want it to. I'll let you know.

Friends, that's all I've got for you today. What's new?

Meat Loaf, New Links, Hounddog, Birthday, Baby Still Sick

Wednesday. Hump Day. "Baby is still sick and gets mad and frustrated and throws up at 4am day" too. But she was all smiles after that, and this morning. I guess I feel the same way when I'm sick. Hopefully she's getting better.

Picture of the day!

The Girlfriend and baby at Disneyland last month.

Happy birthday to my sister Virginia today!

I'm proud of actress Dakota Fanning, and annoyed/amused at the Christians having a problem with her film. In "Hounddog", Fanning plays a 12 year old who gets raped. Serious stuff. Happens in real life. The scene isn't graphic. But that hasn't stopped Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission and publisher of the Web site movieguide.org, from saying the film breaks federal child-pornography law. He's apparently unaware that child pornography actually involves something sexual happening.

Nonsense like that, a lack of understanding of what constitutes pornography, and the need to censor from people like him really make me worry about who's in power, considering they have the same views. How come a 12 year old can realize "It's not really happening, it's a movie, and it's called acting. I'm not going through anything. Cody and Isabelle aren't going through anything, their characters are", but grown men don't know the difference?

In much less annoying and disturbing news, I've added links to a few more blogs, including Cynthia's Food Frenzy and Iona Lynn's website and blog. Be aware that Iona's sites contain artistic nudity which may or may not be appropriate for you to look at where you are. Enjoy!

No takers for Meat Loaf. Sad =(

How's it going, friends? What's new?

Baby Parkhurst Hoggatt, Mystery Illness. Food Co-op

First off, congrats to Gary and Emily on the birth of their son! Nathan Robert Parkhurst Hoggatt was born around 9 pm last night by C-section, and both mother and baby are doing fine. The new arrival was 6lbs 9.5oz. More info as I find out. Congrats!

Picture of the day!

The new parents, last Halloween.

I'm better from the Mystery Illness, but it seems I've spread it to several friends. Sorry 'bout that. It's possible also that it's going around everywhere, and you were bound to get it eventually. Icky.

Have any of you ever participated in a food co-op? When I was looking at the 5lb block of cheese at Costco this weekend, I realized that I'd love to buy it for the price, but I'd die if I tried to eat that much cheese before it went bad. I'd love to be able to share large, cheap items with friends from places like Costco, but also with anything that I don't use a lot and might go to waste. Thoughts?

Not much else yet today. Congrats again to Emily and Gary, and hope all is well!

Contact List, WLC Blog, Stairs, Mystery Illness

Happy Monday! When we last spoke (or, when you last read this), I was doing Just Fine. However, a Mystery Illness hit my household, hitting The Girlfriend Friday afternoon, laying her up until Saturday morning, when it hit me. I was sidelined until about 5am Sunday morning, going from "I'm not getting out of bed" the night before to "Sure, I'll eat at Claim Jumper" the next day. Quick! Unfortunately the baby has a longer such illness (they hit babies differently), but she's in good spirits. She also loves water. Who knew?

Picture of the day!

The guard tower on Alcatraz. I like the stairs.

Speaking of stairs, does anyone know of any spiral staircase showrooms in Southern California? We might need to get ourselves a new one, lest the baby falls through.

The weight loss contest has begun! We did our weigh-in (and height measurements - is there a verb to describe measuring your height?), and Gary applied Excel Magic to calculate all the formulas and info we'd need. I'll be working on the blog in the coming days, and will surely let you all know when it's up and going.

My free-time project this week (in addition to the blog above) is to create a master address/contact list for myself. If I know you, and you think it's entirely possible I don't have a current address, phone, or email for you, email me and let me know. I'm tired of having to dig through old emails or blog posts to get a hold of people. Yay for projects!

How were your weekends, folks? Any projects yourself?

Weekends, Videos, Meat Loaf, Game Shows, Heroes, Friday

Welcome, Friday! Busy weekend planned, but I have a suspicion that it'll be a good one...

Picture of the day!

Chris, having his garter removed by Jenn. Yes, it was that kind of party. Good time at St. Patty's Day!

I don't watch much series television, but I'm very geeked that Heroes comes back new next Monday. It's exciting TV!

Someone, please, bug/remind me to make my audition tapes for "1 vs. 100" and "Deal or No Deal". Just send me a note or call me or something.

Still no takers for Meat Loaf? I gotta know - soon! Like, today!

Add to the things having a baby has taught me: There's nothing on at 4am except good music videos on MTV and VH1. Weird how that works.

I hope your weekends rock - it's a beautiful day out there in Southern California. The rest of you, watch out for ice. Seriously.

Comments, Punctuation, Diet Contest, Photoshop, Weather

Happy Thursday! The week's passing quickly. The whole of January has been cold days, followed by a weak rain system that moves out quickly, followed by a couple days of strong winds. It's interesting, but the lack of humidity and winds are kicking my ass. Better than the icing the rest of the country is getting, though.

Picture of the day!

Chris holding Luke, from our Christmas party.

The above image is also the first of possibly many Insignifica Photoshop Contests. Take the image and do a fark-style photoshop, making it interesting or funny. Chris' entry is here. Let's see what you can do!

Our diet contest starts this weekend! We're weighing in together and finishing up the rules discussion. There's still time for you to be involved if you like - just drop me a comment. You can be mostly anonymous about it too, if that's your style. Join the fun!

Every sentence above contains an exclamation point. Do I use too many? I used to be Mr. Comma, mostly because I write like I speak. I'm a sucker for grammar and punctuation - what are your thoughts on mine?

Yesterday's entry got so many comments. It was nice! I love comments. Just leave one. Say hello. Don't make me beg anymore. Thanks!

Hump Day, Meat Loaf, Things I'm Looking For, Hopefully Recovering

Happy Wednesday! I'm working on recovering from my cold. I don't really feel that bad, but I get a little lightheaded and tight chested if I try doing anything. I hate that.

Picture of the day!

Marek and a couple of his ladies, from Halloween 2006. It's good to host the party.

Things I'm looking for. Can you help?

- Good Chinese food in OC - I need more vegetarian options than rice and one noodle dish. Ideally, you'd find me somewhere like Dragon House in Riverside, with a HUGE vegetarian menu.

- The same thing for Sushi, but I'm willing to go to LA for this too. I've heard of some places, but never found them. There has to be some places with more than just a cucumber roll.

- Free software that quickly/easily lets you drag/drop any format of video into the program, make a few clicks, and burn a DVD. Just about everything out there involves all kinds of crazy steps that even someone computer literate like me finds confusing.

- A local (or internet) printer that makes high quality stickers quickly and cheaply. I don't need anything fancy, just standard size bumper stickers, solid colors, no graphics.

Thanks for your help on that!

If you didn't see it yesterday, check out my Meat Loaf post right below this one. Thanks!

How's hump day, readers?

Come see Meat Loaf with me!

Meat Loaf, my favorite artist I've never seen live, is touring at a limited number of Southern California locations (namely, two inland empire casinos) before leaving the west coast for good, at least until July. He's never had many west coast shows, so this might very well be it.

My girlfriend isn't interested in going, and while I'd go alone, it'd be more fun to have someone to go with. Tickets are expensive ($80), but I'd drive and pay for gas. Wanna go? Let me know SOON - I have to buy the tickets this week!

Weight Loss Contest, Neave, Faith Day, OC Atheists, Sick

Feh. I'm getting sick, again. Lots of colds out there this year, it seems. I don't think the baby has anything to do with it, as she's not in daycare yet. But the winds are making the allergies worse, which I'm sure is combined with the cold for more symptoms. Oh well.

Picture of the day!

Luke, when he was around Katherine's age. They grow up so fast.

Reminder: The next meeting of the Orange County Atheists will be held Tonight, January 16 at 7:30PM at the International House of Pancakes at 18542 MacArthur Blvd in Irvine. If you consider yourself an atheist, an agnostic, a freethinker, a humanist, or are just curious, check out this month's event. If you're planning on attending please RSVP at our website forums. Hope to see you there!

Baseball news of the day: 'Faith Day' part of Rockies' promotions lineup. A good follow-up from a USA Today article last year on faith in the Rockies' clubhouse. Thoughts? Y'all can probably guess at mine.

I've been spending a lot of time at Neave - slick, useful and fun apps. Check it out.

The field is getting set for our weight loss contest. If you'd like to participate, let me know in comments - I think having a few more people would be fun.

That's all for today - Keep on rockin'!

2007, Hair, Sex Laws, USB drives, MLK Jr., Brr

Brr! Good morning and happy Monday, friends! It was colder last night in Orange County than it was in Boston. Now it's windy, too. Buy stock in lip balm and lotion!

Picture of the day!

Katherine taking a little nap at Disneyland last month. It's tough being so cute all day.

It's Martin Luther King Jr. day (and his actual birthday), so if you're not working (or even if you are), find a way to serve your community today. No one's watching and there won't be a quiz. Just do a little something for the world.

I've been around the internets and computers a long time, and I'm still amazed and delighted that for $10, I can buy a 1 gig USB drive - a full quarter of the space of my first Windows hard drive just 10 years ago. I honestly think space won't be much of an issue ever again.

This is scary: Michigan's second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison. The story goes on to say "No one expects prosecutors to declare open season on cheating spouses", but they said the same thing about sodomy laws in Texas, and those were used as recently as 1998 (though those have since been found unconstitutional). Scary stuff anytime the government is that involved in your sex life.

My hair is finally to the length it is after I cut it normally - that is, it's grown to that length after my October Shaving. If I had a Michael Doss wikipedia, there'd be an entry for "October Shaving" detailing how my most radical hair changes take place in October in preparation for Halloween.

What's new with you, readers? How's 2007 treating you?

Rock!, Diet Blog, Ramen, Quiz, Holidays

Hello friends! Happy Friday! Busy weekend planned, but it should be a good time. I realized this week that I have no more work holidays until Memorial Day, 5 1/2 months from now. Gotta enjoy those weekends!

Picture of the day!

Ken, opening Kenny's bottle at New Years.

You can view my worky goodness today with my interactive news quiz. I write these every week for the paper (typically they appear on the first inside page of Local on Saturdays), but we're experimenting with an online version. Enjoy!

The fine folks at Nissin Foods have a relatively new flavor of Top Ramen - "Spicy Vegetable", that's not only vegetarian, but says so in big letters on the front of the package (specifically, it says "No Meat, No Animal Fat"). This is awesome - most of the time I have to read through a thousand ingredients, but if more manufacturers would just do this, I’d pick up their products right off the bat. Good on Nissin!

I'll be starting a diet/food/health blog soon. Not sure if I'll get a separate domain, but I'll let you all know. There's still time to get in the contest if you're interested.

I hope your weekends rock, friends. What's new with you?

Prop Bets, WLC Blog, Magic Mountain, Birthday Thursday

Wow, it's Thursday already? It almost feels like it, but not quite. A whole new busy weekend coming up, including the party for my brother, who turns 40 today. Happy birthday, Dave!

Picture of the day!

Cranberries and Vodka. Delicious!

News of the day: Magic Mountain not for sale. Thank goodness I still have a filthy theme park open only on weekends to go to!

Readers (and participants): Would you be interested in reading about my (and my competitors) experiences on our year-long weight loss contest on a separate blog? Would you read regularly, especially if I linked new entries from here? Lemme know.

In the same spirit of challenge and competition, I'm interested in your prop bets. I've made this request before, but without a whole lot of response. What would you like to see me do, and what will I get for it? I'm pretty open, with the following exceptions:

- I won't eat meat, unless you're offering more than $10,000 (everybody has their price - and even then, I get to choose the meat).

- I won't do anything that is likely to cause me grave bodily harm. I'm weird, not stupid.

- I won't do anything that causes uninvolved people undue embarrassment or problems. I like harmless pranks.

Give me your ideas! There's a good story about them here. I think this has a lot of potential for fun, stories, YouTube, and excitement!

Fitness Celebrity, WLC, Hump Day

Happy Wednesday/Hump Day. It's cooling down here in Southern California, and while they're not predicting much rain from tomorrow's storm, snow levels are expected to drop to between 1,000 and 2,000 feet. That rules.

Picture of the day!

The Girlfriend with my hand protruding from her chest at New Years. Good times!?

We've got at least 4 competitors in our weight loss contest, and we're finalizing rules now. If you're local and would to participate, leave a comment! I think it'll be more fun with more players, and the prize pool will be grander. We'll be starting in the next week or two.

When I'm tired, I get songs stuck in my head easily. This morning, and many other times, it's the "Fitness Made Simple" theme song. Damn you, Fitness Celebrity John Basedow!

That's it for today. Come say hello!

Orange County Atheists, Weight Loss Contest, Feels Like Thursday, Snow, Birthday

Happy Tuesday, my friends! And Happy Happy birthday to Beth today! =D

Picture of the day!

The Girlfriend and Baby in the snow in Sequoia last week. Click for more detailed goodness.

Note on above: I've never been in falling snow. I've been IN snow, but not while it was falling.

Since being on vacation last week, the days are still not unblended in my mind, so for some reason it's felt like Thursday for a couple days. I'm not sure what Thursday will actually feel like when it rolls around. Not that there's anything wrong with it feeling like Thursday.

Gary's got an idea for a fair weight loss contest: a House-Senate style split, with some points coming from total percentage of weight lost (which gives the advantage to bigger competitors), and other points coming from personal distance to a BMI of 25 (which gives the advantage to not as big competitors). I'll have to work out some figures, but that may be a good, more fair way to go. I'd also like to throw in some rules requiring a healthy approach to weight loss for the contest - we'll see how big it gets. Now, with that: Would you like to compete? It'll likely be for a small prize pool, though mainly for competition. Leave comments with your comments.

Orange County Atheists

The next meeting of the Orange County Atheists will be held Tuesday, January 16 at 7:30PM at the International House of Pancakes at 18542 MacArthur Blvd in Irvine. If you consider yourself an atheist, an agnostic, a freethinker, a humanist, or are just curious, check out this month's event. If you're planning on attending please RSVP at our website forums. Hope to see you there!

How are things, my friends?

Meat Loaf, Challenges, Weight Loss, Primm, 2007

Happy day, friends, and welcome to the first "real" post of 2007! I'm going back to work today, meaning I'm up early and ready to rock.

Picture of the day!

New Year's Eve, with more of the rocky crew gathered in one place than we've had in years. From left: Garrett, Ken, Bunny, Myself, The Girlfriend, and Kenny, who none of us had seen in years. Good times!

Primm was fun, though I lost money. I did go up and down quite a bit, and played three-card poker for the first time. It's a very easy game, and pretty fun if you enjoy Let It Ride. There's really no strategy to learn other than "Stay if you have Q-6-4 or better" - that's it. That said, it's a fun communal game when you've got cool other players.

JFW made me the offer of a weight-loss contest, which I'd normally jump all over, except I realized that there might not be a fair way to hold one. Let me explain: Instead of pounds lost, which is certainly easier for someone larger to do than someone smaller, lots of weight loss contests are done by percentage of weight lost. It's certainly more fair, but crunching the numbers, I realized that if there are two people with similar body frames, one of them 220lbs and one of them 290lbs, the larger guy only has to lose 7 more pounds than the smaller guy to have an equal weight loss percentage. Do any of you think there's a fair way to do it?

All that said, I'm still looking for other challenges, and I'd love to do the above challenge if there's a fair way to do it. Weigh in yourself!

I found out that Meat Loaf's only west coast American gig is at the Pala Casino events center on Friday, February 23. Anyone want to go with? Tickets aren't cheap ($70), but it's a relatively small venue. Lemme know.

I hope all is well, friends. What'd you do for the last week?

Happy New Year, Nevada

Happy New Year, friends! It's been a busy few days, and I'm now on a painfully slow dialup connection in beautiful Primm, Nevada. No highspeed or even wireless in the hotel, but after several calls to 800 Information, AT&T, SBC and finally tech support in India, I got some local access numbers and my login information. No free local calls here either, but the Phone Book assures me that all Vegas numbers are local to Primm, so I should be good. Should be...

I'll be back in town Thursday, and I'll be working on the house then. I'll be checking email now and again before that - drop me a note and say hello!