Three more pounds gone

Total weight lost: 15 pounds

Vacations are NEVER good for novice fitness people, and for people like me who are trying to stick to healthy diets. Next time, I've got to find any way I can to stay active.

Also, a few times, I've shoved some food in my mouth between meals when I've gotten quite hungry. What I should have done (and I know this works) is drink a huge glass of water or two. That'll quiet my stomach for a while. Or, I can find some activity to get my mind off food, which also works. We also need more fibrous fruit in the house, which makes an acceptable snack. Self-control does not develop overnight.

Hopefully this isn't a plateau, and I'll boost my weight loss over the next seven days.

Thanks for all the support, everyone!

Down six more pounds...

Total weight lost: 12 pounds. To put that in some perpsective, that's 1.2 sledgehammers, 8.6 Outback porterhouse steaks, or $172,064.64 in gold *lol*.

Yes, I've laid off margarine. Every one can now calm down and switch to decaf. :-) But you are right, it's a very long ingredient list, and it certainly does not belong on the border of the grocery store.

I've gotta get more weights in. Thank goodness my gym has plenty, and some useful machines. I've also found a few good weight routines in Men's Health. I hope I can move afterwards.

Thank you, God, and thank you everyone for all the support!

I was hoping to lose 2 pounds... I lost 6 instead

Hello everyone! I hope all are well. Just wanted to drop a note to say I've lost six pounds since my quest to get skinny again started last week. I was expecting two, maybe three pounds at most would be gone, but no, I lost six. Which is way more than I've ever lost in a week.

I realize it'd be quite hard to maintain that kind of weight loss, and it may not even be the healthiest thing for me. I'll look in to that (and any input from my Facebook peeps on that issue would be much appreciated... Katie, I'm sure you're about to chime in). Still, this weight has gotta come off.

My exercise has been limited largely to cardiovascular work. I'll start to get weights in a little more often, but getting that heart rate up for 45 minutes or so five times a week is the biggest priority.

I've made some modifications to my diet. Protein and fiber are key ingredients to feeling full. The challenge, however, is finding food that'll do that without being filled with carbs, LDL cholesterol and saturated fat.

If it's green, I eat it, and I eat it with reckless abandon. Raw spinach with my mom's sharp vinaigrette is a lunch-time staple. On Saturday, after interviewing a potential new babysitter, Kimberly, Richard and I went to Ruby Tuesday for a salad and baked potato, and I found myself rather full after covering my field greens with broccoli and a few good scoops of edamame, which not only has tons of fiber, but just enough of those very handy plant fats which help you absorb more nutrients. Fat is not always a really bad thing! In fact, putting a little bit of margarine on your asparagus, green beans or what have you will allow you to absorb about 15 times more of the plants' nutrients. The key phrase in that last sentence is "a little bit."

Here's another tip for salads. Skip regular dressing and splash a good amount of balsamic vinegar on there. The flavors in your vegetables will become a lot more apparent. When you're done adding the vinegar, add just a few drops of olive oil.

Also, beans are a huge help in fighting hunger while keeping the fat down. One serving of black beans has 15 grams each of fiber and protein. I don't know of any other food - except maybe quinoa - that can do that. Anyone know any good quinoa recipes? Anyway, I've been replacing rice and such with beans instead. Kimberly made this pinto bean and spinach salad that's the bomb.

One food I've discovered over this past week is greek-style yogurt. I saw a report about the stuff's popularity while watching the news in the gym. It's got no fat at all (can't say that about my usual Yoplait), 13 to 15 grams of protein (in yogurt!!!) and barely any sugar. The downside is its fully organic status rings in at about $1.80 for one container. Yoplait is generally $0.50 - 0.60 a container. Still, I would eat two containers of Yoplait a day, as opposed to one five ounce container of greek-style yogurt, so I'm not out that much cash.

My thanks to God and to everyone for their support. With your help, I'm gonna beat this weight. Bless you all!

Let's See if Jeff can be Skinny Again

I've heard about other people blogging about their weight loss efforts, and I'm hoping it will help me, too. With a little encouragement from my online peeps, I bet I'll be able to drop this weight like I cut it off with a sling blade. Some folks call it a kaiser blade, I call it a sling blade. OK. Enough.

My body looks like a pear. From my head down to the top of my abdomen, I look OK. Then I start to balloon out a little bit. Go down further, and I balloon out even more. From the side, I don't have too much of a gut, because the weight is all stored on my sides. That doesn't mean I don't have tons and tons of room to lose the gut.

I started to gain weight when I was a reporter. With the freedom to eat whatever I wanted... well, I ate whatever I wanted. Plus, I got home way too late at night, and ate then, rather than bringing my dinner to work with me as well as my lunch (reporters tend to work real late, in case you're scratching your head right now).

Now let's get something straight. Eating what I wanted didn't mean I was scarfing down thrice-fried chicken thighs and 55-gallon drums of Coca Cola every day. I was eating too much and I was eating too fast. Oh, a banana? It's good for me. I'll eat the whole bunch. Apples? Awesome! I'll eat three. Chicken breasts! I'll take two! Corn on the cob? Well, I can't stop at just one.

I needed to slow down and chew my food a lot more. You fill up faster that way. I don't know why I ate (and usually still eat, unfortunately) too fast. I think it may stem from my days before college when I was a favorite bullying target (which deserves a separate blog on its own). The gigantic jock types would steal food from me, and I was too scared and lanky to do anything about it. So, I ate as fast as I could so there was nothing to steal. I feel marginally better about this now that I know these guys are all still in Botetourt County, making 1/5th the money I do and cruising the high school football games for chicks a few days before their court dates for whatever misdemeanors you can imagine.

Another cause of my weight gain is my love for the taste of beer. I still believe light beer is nasty, but I was drinking way too much of the stuff I thought tasted good. Newcastle, Lowenbrau, Sam Adams... the list goes on. In retrospect, I didn't make enough money reporting to afford beer that costs $9/six pack, but there are some things that are worth a little more money.

About 17 months after being on my own, I was trying on jeans one day at Marshall's, and I got a bad case of muffin top. You all know what that is, and if it's ever happened to you, it doesn't feel good.

With heart disease and cancer in my family, I knew I had to do something. So I started trying my best to eat a lot less.

Again, understand I am not one of those people who hates vegetables. I love them. I love them raw, grilled, or steamed. I don't much care for them boiled into unrecognizable mush. I relish a great salad (but I hate iceberg lettuce, so I use field greens or spinach). I love grilled, steamed or baked fish. I love sweet potatoes baked, opened, and eaten (hold the marshmallows). I didn't grow up eating garbage. So, the food I eat isn't so much what needs to change now as much as the amount I move.

I have, however, cut back significantly on my beer intake. I have maybe one or two a week now, and it's usually a Guiness Draught, which, believe it or not, has fewer calories than all those carbonated spit-and-urine beers so many people think are so great. Liquor is a rare treat. Plus, I've axed all the excess sugar I can in my diet. Have any of you had Coke Zero? I can't believe how good that stuff is to have no calories at all. Diet Mountain Dew still has quite a bit of bite, as well, as does the Black Cherry Citrus version of Fresca. If I'm feeling totally drained from nights the baby doesn't sleep well or just plain run down, I grab a sugar-free Red Bull. I also eat fat-free ice cream now, but only maybe three nights a week. I still can't bring myself to try sugar-free, fat-free ice cream. I think that'd be like buying a Lamborghini with the V-12 removed and replaced with a four-banger from a '97 Toyota Camry. I've also discovered the glory of Jimmy Dean D-Light breakfast sandwiches which gives me some protein to smack that sluggish metabolism around. There are a few gutbomb splurges, but I will swear on a stack they are few and far between. Plus, if you don't eat something fattening every once in a while, when you find it's your only choice, you'll also find yourself binging on it when the satiety hits you.

So, the real change: exercise. I was a regular exerciser up until around November 2004, when graduate school got nuts, then finding a job after graduate school about killed me, as I decided mid-way through graduate school I would not pursue broadcast journalism, but use my degree towards a related profession. I got back on the wagon around 2006 with Weight Watchers, but then I got married to my beautiful wife, and our lives got crazy. Good, my dear Kimberly, very, very good. But crazy. I tried NutriSystem for a few weeks, but that food, no matter what they tell you on TV, is absolutely horrible. It's really the worst food I've ever had. The packaging it comes in would be more palatable. Becoming a parent also leaves little to no time to take care of yourself. But for the sake of my wife and my son, I've gotta get this weight off.

Kimberly has been nothing less than fantastically supportive. When she gets home, she lets me take an hour or so break from being a "manny" and go to the gym. Generally, I knock out about 600 calories or so with a combination of weight lifting, body weight exercises, and intense cardiovascular work on an elliptical machine. My HOA fees paid, for a while, for a personal trainer, but my community decided not to renew his contract, so I'm trying to remember the lessons he taught me.

What I'll try to do as well is post my calorie burning total after each workout on Facebook (I hope I can do that through my BlackBerry and not through a status update) and post total weight loss at the beginning of each week. I'm not going to post my current weight until I'm where I want to be. I realize that could take a year, maybe more, with my new habits. Y'all can just do the math if you're really curious about how much thunder my thighs really made. *Pause* Wow, that sounded really awful.

Anyway, I'm tagging all Facebook friends to this post because I want everyone to know this problem can happen to anyone. If currently you're at where I want to be, thank God every day for it, and pray for the strength to stay there. If you're not where you want to be, pray for the strength to get there.

Blessings, and be well.

Fuck AmEx and Bank of America

I am so tired of getting screwed in the ass by credit card companies lowering my credit limit due to the economy. How much money have these fucktwits been given? Tax payer money?! And then, Bank of America blames ME for this? I have made every single payment on that card on time and I dealt with any collections issues three years ago (a 2004 physical that should have been covered by insurance anyway, and no one sent me a bill). Yeah, I made a few credit mistakes in my younger years, but Kimberly and I have all but thrown our credit cards into the freezer. Because of rich people fucking up this economy and then padding their cashmere chinos with lower- and middle-class tax dollars, regular people continue to get destroyed over and over again.

Lord, I know I fail you every day. I am so, so sorry for that. Still, so many of your children are suffering at the oblivious hands of a few of your other children. Guide them away from that path, and guide them down a constructive one. Open their eyes; open all our eyes. Make us all grateful for our countless blessings. Amen.

The Freakonomy

I just wanted to write a quick note to express my disgust with the economy. If I told you precisely what Kimberly and I make each year, most of you would expect we lived in a McMansion and we had matching BMWs in the driveway. But this is Northern Virginia, one of the most overpriced places on this planet. We're only here because this is where our jobs are, and there's no way in hell we could sell and relocate now.

We've gotten several letters in the mail, all singing the praises of FHA refinances and loan modification. Uh, how dumb are these people? No one these days has money for closing costs. I know I don't. And house values have fallen so damn far you need to go spelunking to pull them out of the hole. It's infuriating. And loan modifications, even though I don't know much about them, seem to require thousands of dollars up front. Great. To get yourself a little more out of debt, you get yourself a lot more in debt. That makes sense, yes.

Eighteen years from now, a year of college tuition - at a public university, mind you - is projected to cost $50,000. How the f*&k am I going to send Richard to college? Just my salary alone sets us way over the limit for financial aid. Of course, the dopes in those financial aid offices think a rose is a rose is a rose and say, $100,000/year in New York City is the same as $100,000/year in Missoula, Montana. I refuse to burden my son with a six-figure pile of debt when he goes into the working world. My family worked their asses off for years so Katie and I didn't need loans. A big part of being a parent is to give your kid every chance you had and more, right? Am I wrong here? No, I'm not.

Someone actually suggested to me I stop paying my mortgage so my loan servicer would be more than happy to negotiate with me. Who the... what the... how... whatever. If I stop paying my mortgage for any reason, my credit rating plunges. That means I lose my secret security clearance. That means I lose my job. I don't have tens of thousands of dollars sitting around to support my family while I hunt for something that pays as well and doesn't require clearance.

We've cut every expense we can. We go to work, we come home, we go to church, that's it. We keep track of every penny that goes out, and every penny that comes in. These days, it feels like only pennies. Kimberly and I are both looking to start freelancing in addition to working 40+ hours/week at our current jobs. We are so, so tired.

This may not sound related, but I should not have gone to the Washington Auto Show this past weekend. There were so many cars there that would usually be in my price range, and God forgive me, I became green with envy at people who could afford them. I hate it when I go to that place. I'm a huge car enthusiast, and I've never had a car to be enthusiastic about. I can't stand to see those Sweet Sixteen shows on MTV or whatever they're called, because it only reminds me of the quicksand so many Americans are standing in while children are being handed $90,000 cars and have birthday parties that cost more than what most people make in a year, some in a lifetime. Despite my father being a corporate VP, for my 16th birthday, I got a Van Halen t-shirt, some CDs, and we ate cheeseburgers. I drove a 1981 Volvo wagon with a 2-speaker radio and no air conditioning.

All told, I am grateful for my Lord and Savior, my family, friends, our good jobs, cars that function and are paid off, and our home. So many people, here and around the world, don't have any of that. I try to tell myself that when Kimberly and I become frustrated with money to the point we feel utterly hopeless. Even with all the ranting I do here, I commend all of you to look to what God has given you when you feel you have nothing. Sometimes it isn't easy. I usually suck at it.

Like everyone else, I want to thrive. Not so much for me, but for my wife and my son. Just getting by will not do for much longer. But please, Lord, don't let me lose myself in the process.

Holy 2009, Batman!

Hello everyone! I hope all have been well. Christmas was a good time: Kimberly, Richard and I had Christmas Eve at the in-laws, opening presents surrounded by screaming children and just enough wine to go around. Then we went over to Mom and Dad's house. It was 9:45 p.m. when we got there, but hey, you gotta feed the baby and make sure he's gotten in his second nap, or else you'll have Cranky McPoopypants on your hands.
We had hoped to get in a Christmas Eve service at Bonsack Baptist, like good Christians would do, but we didn't watch the clock and things just got away from us.
Christmas morning was great: Mama Q (my mother in law) made eggs, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, and a fruit salad (and it would have been fine if that was the only gift she gave me). Richard stared amorously at his new toys, including the Fisher Price Singing Stage, which he babbles at every night now. Kimberly is very excited about the waffle maker I bought her, and her oversized Vera Wang purse for girly stuff and baby stuff. I got "Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles" for the Wii. Katie came down from Maryland, and I think she's still in town right now. Justin came down on New Years' Eve, a few days after Kimberly, Richard and I had gone back up to Gainesville to restart business as usual. It stinks I didn't get to see Justin, as he's a hell of a great guy, and he makes my sister happier than she's ever been.
It also stunk that I didn't see my Uncle Marc. However, I am proud he stepped up to let his bartender with a wife and family take Christmas Eve and Day off to spend with his family. Uncle Marc is my mom's brother, and he's been divorced twice. I don't know why; he seems like quite a catch to me.
I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. Monday was a good housecleaning day, and I spent a big chunk of yesterday hammering away at Umbrella Chronicles. Damn good game. It would be easier with two players, because some of those bosses are really hard. I'm hoping Stevedogg will come up to visit soon and we can tackle those bastards.
So, my New Year's resolution is the typical lose weight resolution. Last night on TLC I watched this show about the "super morbidly obese" and I was horrified at all the health problems. This 29-year-old woman had a fatal heart attack two weeks after gastric bypass surgery, and this other guy was 1,031 pounds with the worst skin I've ever seen from bedsores. Doctors had to cut the fat off of his legs. I am overweight, but not that by that much.
I know how I got here: not enough sleep, not enough exercise, and too many times my schedule was too hectic to cook myself healthy food. I generally ended up grabbing something somewhere, and that's usually the worst option. Oh, and let's not forget my love for beer.
I think if I force myself to exercise for the first few days, my body will start to crave it. And I've always loved vegetables. Kimberly has started making several meals at once, saving some for the rest of the week when things get nuts and we're too exhausted to make a meal from scratch. I'm not averse to healthy food at all. In fact, I was on Weight Watchers the summer before my wedding, and I lost 10 pounds before things got even crazier and I fell off the wagon. I wish there was something geared for men, though. WW was nice, but the support groups were all women in their 40s and 50s. I have so little in common with them. Anyone kow of anything?

Glad I left Micron.

I learned from an unidentified source Micron Technology, where I spent a year as a technical writer, will be cutting employee salaries as part of its effort to stave off further financial injury. The chairman of the board, Steve Appleton, and the CEO, Mark Durcan, took a 10 percent pay cut on top of the 20 percent cut they already took. Sounds like true leadership, right? Hardcore going to bat for your employees? Going without so the people who help you out can get by a little easier?

No.

They're also cutting the salaries of anyone making over $60,000 by one percent. That's 600 dollars. Cumulatively, that's an insurance payment someone won't be able to make. That's five or six months of electric bills. That's 25 or so tanks of gas. Anyone making over $100,000 gets a five percent cut. $70-79k, two percent. $80-89k, three percent. $90-99k, four percent.

Maybe that would fly in Boise, Idaho, where the company is headquartered and the cost of living is stupid low. But Micron has one of its flagship, 300mm fabricators in Manassas, VA, right in the middle of the super-expensive Washington, D.C., metro area. Most folks there are tool operators, associate engineers and cubicle warriors who are barely cresting the $60,000 mark; beginning operators make half that, so thankfully they aren't affected. I know from living up here it's really hard to get by on $60k; in fact, I made less as a technical writer during my entire, painful tenure there. Rent is higher, mortgages are higher, insurance is higher, taxes are higher, groceries are higher... the list goes on and on. You need all you can get up here.

Micron has sent another big middle finger to its non-Boise crowd.

The right thing to do would be for the entire board to go without salaries and live on their accumulated hundreds of millions until this economy calms down. But no, they won't. Appleton could sell his planes and other six-figure-price-tag toys for some cash-on-hand, but no, he won't. Appleton's salary outside of options was $900,000 in 2006, or thereabouts. That would be $720,000 after a 20 percent cut, then $648,000 after the most recent 10 percent.

Boo fucking hoo. I hope Micron gets bought out by Samsung and then some major housecleaning takes place.

I think it may be over...

I sent back the assemblies with broken adjustors, and I'll get a full refund. My mother-in-law used to work for Berglund, a big car dealer in Roanoke, and we can get new assemblies for the Cadillac for a lot cheaper than most folks would pay. It can pay to have connections.

I'd like to be connected to the winning numbers in Friday's MegaMillions jackpot drawing. I can't seem to pull up the MegaMillions site to see what it's up to now, but it has to be close to $200 million. If the winner were to take the lump sum amount, then pay the taxes on that, it'd be around $90 million or so. That's nothing to sneeze at.

I play every now and then. I don't feel too bad when I find out I didn't win even $2, because the money went to schools. But it'd be nice to win a little something, to say nothing of the big prize. We could use some extra cash: this economy is sucking my family dry. With a 1 in 176 million chance of winning, the odds are against most everyone. But when it grows huge like this, tons of people play, and someone eventually wins.

I think everyone has his/her jackpot winning fantasy. Here's mine:

• Pay off every debt we have. Mortgage, credit cards, student loans, bookies (just kidding on that last one).
• Pay off every debt my parents, in-laws, sister and siblings-in-law have.
• Build our house on "the farm" in Hillsville, VA. Make it big enough to fill with people during the holidays, but not so sickly big that vacuuming becomes a week-long task. And it'll be run fully on solar panels.
• Start college funds and IRAs for all the kids in the family, even those not born yet.
• Donate a pile of money to religious organizations, and NPOs dedicated to finding cures for cancer, Alzheimer's Disease and uncommon diseases (like polycythemia vera, a mostly nuisance myloproliferative disease my father has).
• The indulgent part: new cars! For us, an '09 Ford Flex Limited, an '09 Cadillac CTS-V (yes, it's a Cadillac, but it's not like the one I have now, not by any stretch of the imagination), and something to commute in, maybe an Infiniti. I think we'd donate our current cars (it's $90 million bucks for goodness sake, how much more do you need?!). For my parents, some kind of station wagon for Mom, and an '09 Nissan 370Z for Dad... in roadster form, if it's available yet. Plus a '50 Mercury 2-door hardtop in "driveable dream" condition. For Kimberly's parents, an '09 Ford F-250 XLT Lariat 4X4 with PowerStroke Diesel for Ronnie, and an '09 Ford Mustang GT for Evelyn. And I'd buy every part Ronnie needs to finish his '70 Mustang Fastback and Evelyn's '69 GMC Pickup.
• Invest in gems and metals on top of different stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
• Finance Kimberly's ideas to start a line of baby clothing and open a professional theater.
• Start really working on my creative writing projects.
• Spend more time volunteering in the community and going on mission trips.
• Take Richard out to see the world.
• Would I keep working? I don't know. Seems like this hypothetical schedule is even crazier than the one I have now. Might not be time for "cubing."

Yeah, I think that's about it. I may just pick up a ticket before Friday's drawing; you never know, but I do know you have no chance of winning if you don't play. Whoever eventually wins, let's pray s/he looks to God for guidance on how the money must be put to use. I'd hate to see such a blessing be squandered on golden teeth and Maybachs (dude, I looked those up on Cars.com... they lose their value quicker than Audis... that's not good at all).

whew retracted.

DAMN IT. The headlights arrived on time, but with broken adjustors. I am calmed down now, somewhat, but still mad. Will send back parts via UPS ground, and I expect to get the parts (not broken) this coming weekend.

Everytime something small goes wrong in my life - something small - it always mushrooms and becomes inflated to ridiculous proportions. Someone always doesn't listen, someone always doesn't update the system, someone is always speaking without knowing all the facts, and someone always assumes I have no idea what I am talking about. Nothing can be simple, and everything has to cost money I sometimes don't have.

I've got a lot to be thankful for. Doesn't mean bumps in the road piss me off any less.

Whew

Got the parts for the Cadillac from that supplier in Chicago. They'll be here before 5 p.m. tomorrow. It cost a bit, but that's OK. I'm predicting things are going to go wrong often with a 10-year-old American car.

I realized I didn't write out what the first part of my blog URL is (you can figure out the name of the blog). I am living in the city, but I am in love with mountains. So there you go.

I guess you could have figured that out on your own, too.

I am very stoked to see "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Apparently Keanu Reeves never does remakes, but he thought this was a "reimagining." We'll see just how Klaatu and Gort pan out in this 2008 flick. Kathy Bates as Secretary of Defense should be interesting. What I know for sure is the original, which came out the year my parents were born, is damn near flawless. Seriously. It's almost as good as The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" or a perfectly mixed margarita. I wish I had a chance to meet Patricia Neal when my parents brought her to the Buchanan Theatre and asked her about the role. Apparently my parents had a great conversation with her.

And when they brought in Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H*, also known as Bill Christopher, my dad and he apparently talked to no end about canals. They now have a standing invitation to each other to go canal gawking. I don't know if that's what it's called, but it's appropriate.

Canals! To see canal enthusiasts talk about their passion, you'd think you were watching a 14-year-old boy learn Vida Guerra would be the main ingredient in his birthday cake. You should see my dad geek whenever something comes up about a canal. Buchanan was supposed to be the end of the James River Kanawha canal, but that was thwarted by the railroads. If you look hard enough, you can still find the building blocks of some canals in the brush and ailanthus trees off the side of U.S. Route 11 just as soon as you cross over the river.

As much as I want to continue writing (this is a very good thing... maybe I'll get back on that novel!), I need to do some dishes, then get Richard up and feed him some vegetable and fruit goo.

Slaintè!

OK, as promised

I'm Jeffrey Lawrence Davis, but you can call me Jeff. In fact, I would prefer it. Jeffrey sounds like some freckly kid with a messy PBJ in his face.

I'm 27. I'm originally from Buchanan, Virginia, a tiny town on the James River in Botetourt County, in the southwestern part of the state. I live in Gainesville, VA, now, 25 miles west of D.C., with my wife of two years, Kimberly, and our 7-month-old son, Richard. We have two cats, Simba and Amber.

I work for Allied Technology Group as a senior technical writer/information management specialist on a State department contract. It's a bonzer job: plenty to do and the freedom to do it as I see fit. Wifey works for Unisys as an instructional designer on the Army's radio frequency ID contract. We both have secret security clearance, but I'm assuming what she knows is probably more interesting than what I know.

Anyway.

I guess the most important thing to know about me is I'm a Christian. Better yet, I'm working on being a Christian. Jesus died for my sins; simple as that. I'm working on the rest. I think Maya Angelou said it best: "You're a Christian? You already got it? I'm still working on it." I became a believer a week after my grandfather died. In a fit of severe depression, I walked into a small Baptist church in Haymarket, and for the first time since his funeral, I was at the beginning of peace. So, I'll let you know more about that journey as I walk... but not everything, not at first. Sharing my spiritual views is new to me. It can be uncomfortable. I'm still inching toward a decent hymn voice.

I'm also a liberal. That's right, a li-ber-al. SNAP. I am a tree-hugging, pro-tax, pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-regulation liberal. Nothing will ever change that. This country needs to move forward. Liberals and pre-idiot Republicans moved it forward, and conservatives generally held it back. That trend continues today. I am elated beyond language Barack Obama will become President Obama on January 20. We have to be patient with him because BushCo (thanks Mark Morford) ruined everything it could for eight years. But he is the right man for the job and I am proud of my country for electing him.

I think the most significant thing that's happened this year is becoming a father. I can't describe it other than my life is changed forever. All that I work for, all effort I exert, every dream I dream will be for my wife and children. We have one now, and we'll have another whenever the market perks up and we can sell the condo for somewhere with a lot more space.

Anyway.

That's all I've got time for right now. More later.

My head hurts from all this wall-banging

The Crapillac did not pass inspection. Great. Just great.

I need two new headlamp assemblies because the adjustors are bad and the headlamps are shaking around in the buckets like cafeteria jello. It's highly unlikely the adjustors can be found on their own.

I found a place in Chicago that will sell the assemblies and ship them to me for $129 each. My father-in-law may have found the parts cheaper on eBay; we'll see.

Funny enough, one of the head mechanics where I got the car inspected worked at the Cadillac factory at the time the Catera came out. Apparently they all called it the "Caterrible." He said it's a tank of a car and quite safe (which is the main reason we bought it), but the issues you don't see on the surface will drive you nuts. He proceeded to rattle off a distressing list of things that can and probably will go wrong with this car during my course of ownership.

It's times like this when I wish I was a kid again, with no money and virtually no responsibilities. Or at the very least, in college and surrounded by friends, intelligent conversation and loads of New Castle Brown Ale. But we've all got to deal with these things, and somehow realize they are minor bumps in the road.

Bottom line: if driving the car won't kill us, we'll keep it and drive it until it dies. It is safe, and I feel fine putting Kimberly and Richard in there and driving long distances. Sure, I'm a car guy and I wish it had a lot more power and a lot more luxury ($35,000 new and no CD player or sunroof? Criminies!), but our money has to go elsewhere now, and this Cadillac will do fine for now.

I'm hoping if I stop calling it the Crapillac, it'll stop malfunctioning and being a headache factory. Nice car, niiiiiiiiiice caaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr, coochie coochie coo.

I promise I'll write my big introductory blog sometime soon.

The Second Post (BEWARE: Extreme Creativity)

I hate waiting. I'm currently sitting in line at Piedmont Tire and Auto, hoping to get our Crapillac inspected and avoid a fine for an expired state inspection. Last thing we need is another expense. This car will pass, even though I'd like to light it on fire and toss it in a swamp. Our Nissan Murano, on the other hand, desperately needs new tires before it'll pass inspection.Cheapest place I can find for that is CostCo; $604 for four 18s, mounted and balanced. Fantastic.

We were hoping to replace the Murano this year with an '09 Ford Flex Limited, but since we're upside down on our mortgage and virtually no one will work with us on refinancing, we'll have to wait a while. The Murano will last as long as we need it to, but this Cadillac is a turkey: the transmission slips, the gas mileage is poor for a car with only 200 horses, it's rear wheel drive and the stereo is lousy. But it'll pass inspection. We bought it for $3000 from Kimberly's uncle, needing another four door car to fit our new baby. It's not too awful a car, but my family deserves better.

I hate waiting for the government bailout to work for people who actually need the help. Now, total disclosure: together my wife and I make a huge pile of money... well into the six figures. But throw in a $3000/month mortgage payment, Richard's hospital bills, credit cards, stupid high HOA and condo fees, utilities, and whatever unexpected expense du jour comes up, and you're left with very little lubricant to work with.

What puzzles me is all these banks have hoarded their bailout cash to buy other banks and line their golden parachutes. They all seemed to be eager to lend so everyone would have more money, including responsible, middle class adults such as myself, but they aren't fixing their situations with payments from responsible debtors. They're like 11-year-olds who just got credit cards in the mail by mistake.

I'm hoping that with Barack Obama at the helm next month, these bailouts will have a healthy dose of common sense in their actual text. Such as, lend this money, do not hoard it, you Grey Poupon assholes.

But until then, I can only wait. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I tend to vent and sound rather negative. More on the vastly more great things in my life later.

First Post

It's been a long time since I blogged. It was probably my undergrad years, which is nearly 10 years back. Sheesh. That makes me feel old.

I'm not really sure why I'm doing this... maybe to make sense of things and see if people think I'm succeeding.

I'll post something more detailed later today, perhaps while waiting on the car inspection before picking up my son at daycare.