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Ever since we got on face book it has been my excuse to keep me from this blog. I thought I would give a quick update. We are reviewing churches down here and have nearly settled on a Methodist Church where Zach has attended a couple of concerts. I was looking at a unitarian universalist church, but it seemed more like a club.

I am focusing on staying in the neighborhood of 200 through the holidays and have been keeping up running. I will be participating in a half-marathon in January with Joel and maybe Roger and Zach as well. I have gotten away from working out at the gym and have been doing a lot of pushups instead. I do about 200 a night. 200 is a common theme with me. Working nights makes me feel like I am 200 years old. I hope to eventually work up to 500 pushups a night, but we will see. I start my masters classes in January. I am taking Intro to Public Admin and Personnel Mgmt. We shall see. I didn't want to go the Criminal Justice route so that I could keep my options open.

Zach is grounded again because of grades. He is employing his tried and true method of waiting until the last minute to turn things in and rallying at the end of the quarter for a B. He reminds me of myself at his age except that I am able to check his grades and assignments online and e-mail his teachers. He will be getting his learner's permit in January(Yikes!).

Nicole is finally recovered from her crushed toe. I think it was a combination of Facebook and massive amounts of shopping that ultimately healed her.

Chloe is well behaved and talks non-stop. Zach was always able to entertain himself, but Chloe seems to lack that gene. She is an orchestrator and does not possess a pause button.

Cold November Rain

I worked alot of OT to pay for Georgia-Florida game experience. We had fun. We went to the Landing on Friday night and I had assured Nicole there would be kids there trick-or-treating and it would be appropriate family fun. The tricks time plays on our memories. There were very few kids, but we saw enough drunken young adult skin to last us a long while. If we go back we will either leave the youngins with a baby sitter or skip the Landing.

The game was tough. I hated it because I felt we were dominating in the first half everywhere but on the scoreboard. I don't think Urban Meyer is a good coach. He is a good recruiter and has unbelievable talent to play with, but his game plans are transparent and he doesn't seem to adjust well on game day. That makes it so hard to lose to his crying ass. I had talked a lot of garbage going into this game, but I was worried because of all the injuries and because I don't understand Willie Martinez. I work with a lot of Florida fans and will have to eat a ton of crow after this debacle. I will even have to hear it from a Mizzou fan for no reason other than my merciless non-stop trash talking with each of their losses.

We should be very good next year with all the experience our O-line is getting this year. Even with Stafford and Knowshon leaving we will be fine. This loss will sting, but I don't let it ruin a good time. We had a nice dinner after the game when Nicole and Chloe joined us (they were out spending money all day, Nicole decided to get her birthday present early). I stayed up late with the kids in the hotel room watching SNL. One thing I have decided is to take more trips. Even if they are short it is good to get out of the house. I also want to go on at least one trip a year with just me and the missus.

Georgia game...yikes

I was hoping it wouldn't be close, but I was afraid it would be. The Gator fans at work are smelling blood. I don't mind the true fans, but the Red Sox fans who come in at the end of conversations and don't know anything bug me with their comments. I am going to bed.

Palin pick, weight loss update

When I first heard that McCain picked Palin I thought it was pure genius. Especially the timing of the thing. I heard most of her speech at the convention and she brings a lot of fire to the table.
I think the pick was calculated to give independents and women a reason to vote for McCain and to give conservatives hope that McCain dies early in office. I still don't know who I will vote for this time around. I am leaning towards Obama because I think McCain is a bit old and those torture years had to make an impact on his life expectancy. I am not crazy about Palin as a president if something happens to McCain because I think she lets religion influence her too much.

I honestly think both candidates are moderates. Obama has a liberal voting record because there hasn't been too much that was really crazy come up for a vote and I don't have a problem with his votes for the most part. I think McCain has conservative beliefs, but he mostly votes like a moderate and he knows how to give to get. I think Obama also has this quality. Obama also seems even tempered and he smokes on the sly. I really can't lose in this election.

Weight loss update:
I have been stuck at about 195 for about a month. This week I may get it down to 192, but it is difficult to push like I used to. My goal weight is 185. I think I will make October the month where I hit it hard and log it down. I am running at least 1 5K that month and I can celebrate the achievement with a UGA victory over Florida.

Work update:
I took the Corrections Sergeant exam last month. 49 signed up to take it, 37 showed up for the initial exam. 13 of us made it to phase 2. 9 of us made it to phase 3. 7 of us passed the test and were placed on a waiting list. I am ranked 2nd on the list and expect to be promoted to Sergeant next spring.

Kid update:
Zach plays his first high school football game tomorrow. We are all looking forward to it. He has straight A's so far and has been keeping up with his homework. He is taking AP Human Geography and several advanced classes. He is looking at playing Lacrosse this winter(Lacrosse?)...
Chloe loves kindergarten and is going to Nicole's school. She is a bit bossy and wants to include everyone in her games all the time. She loves to play teacher especially and rule the roost.

Everyone is healthy and Nicole starts her second Master's class soon.

Religion and me...cont.

I can't remember where I was...Here we go.

I have had a few crises in faith over the years and am now trying to figure out where I am. We don't attend church much if at all and I don't miss it. We are going to start going back because I want the kids to have exposure to something to keep the cults off of them in college. I want their minds to have a healthy skepticism and be unafraid to challenge anyone who tries to pigeon hole their beliefs.

I have always struggled with the whole concept of evangelism. Maybe it is because it was never really stressed in the church I grew up in (they just wanted your soul, not everybody elses). I never felt like converting anyone. I tried to find some kind of "burden on my soul" for people close to me over the years and I just can't seem to swing it. I guess I view people's relationship with God to be too personal for my two cents or conversely I hold my own beliefs too closely to care to share them with anyone else.

Mission trips have never impressed me too much as a spiritual exercise either. I admire people going to help other people, but I just question how much starving folks care about the message when all they can think about is the cup of rice. My old partner at work was a jerk and very full of himself. He cared more about what people thought about evolution than anything else. I think it is because he read a few books about creationism and wanted to convert everyone to it. He was going on about this other deputy who was a Good Christian(as opposed to the bad kind) and had used his own savings to fly to Afghanistan and while there pay for some guy's surgery. I was impressed by the act and have met this guy and he seems nice. All I think about in this situation is that this guy works in Immokalee where some of the poorest people in the country live and he wants to fly to Afghanistan to help people? He could have quietly helped a dozen folks in Immokalee for what it cost him, but I guess it wasn't splashy enough. The Methodist Church in Ball Ground that we went to kept trying to get people together for trips to Mexico. One example of a good deed they kept bringing up was that they built this old lady a porch. I kept thinking, why in the hell are all you people going to Mexico to build porches? Mexicans know how to build a porch.

I am not trying to be negative. I am just trying to illustrate some of the reasons I don't feel as if I belong in any of the churches I can think of or have recently visited. Mega churches scare me to death. T.V. churches and churchmen scare me because they scared my mother and grandmother.

It would be easier to illustrate my beliefs if I said what I don't believe in. Here goes...

I don't believe I know enough about the 6 billion people on earth to know what works for everyone or what is right for everyone.

I don't believe religion should have any influence on government and that religious institutions should have to pay taxes. (I know this will never happen)

I don't believe every word in the Bible came straight out of God's mouth.

That was a little heavy so here are some things I do believe in...

God

Heaven(although I have no idea what it would be like, the closest definition of both heaven and hell that I have had explained to me and that makes any sense to me follows...Heaven is closeness to God and hell is distance from God)

Hell...there just has to be a Hell. There is no justice on earth. There has to be punishment for the wicked. I admire atheist countries justice system more than ours. In China, a death sentence is carried out in weeks not decades. I wish we could cane people.

I am religioned out for now.

Religion...briefly

I wanted to briefly throw in a few things about religion before I have to run Zach to Football. I have never been one to love a church. Growing up we would try to make it to Salem on First Sundays, but more often than not we would miss it. We would usually make it to most of revival week and when younger this was fun because you would sit in the hot church for the initial singing and preaching (about 30 minutes) and could then run around outside until the festivities inside died down (this could take anywhere from 1 hour on a slow night to nearly 3 hours).

As one neared the Age Of Accountability this church became less and less attractive. The Age of Accountability is reached when all the hellfire preaching and pressure from the congregation sinks into your skull and you actually think you are going to go to hell in the next second if you don't do something immediately. I have seen this, tragically, in children as young as 7 or 8 and in older people up into their 40s. With older people the congregation generally would have to convince them that whatever spiritual struggles they had been through and whatever church they had been to up until that point was not enough and their damnation was ensured unless they repented in the approved fashion. This generally worked best if they married into the church (e.g.-my father) as most newly married people cherish the idea of eternity with their spouse and generally want to get along with the crazy in-laws. People older than 40 aren't usually sought after and have too much pride as a rule to humble themselves appropriately before strangers.

Mercifully for me I passed through this age in one brutal week at revival through many altar callings and hours of prayer. I will always be thankful to this church and love it for the good music and the fact that it is where I first reached God. The only way it worked for me then was that I eventually entered into a place where everyone around me was forgotten and I reached out knowing I was accepted. I don't know how I knew or even how I got there, but I knew. I was 12 at the time and we were about to move to Waleska so it was a time of change in every sense of the word.

I started to become dissatisfied with the church because the impetus on individual salvation led me to think my work was done and also led me to become very judgemental of every other faith. I am not overstating things to say that in this church Catholicism(or for that matter Methodism) were as likely to lead to damnation as Budhism or Islam. These faiths were no better than atheism in many eyes (mine included for too many years) and even First Baptists were viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism(first at what, we wondered, with their indoor baptismal pools and fake wine and AC and indoor plumbing).

I didn't really begin to change my views until I got married to a strong willed woman (that's putting it kindly) who had seen much more of the world than I had and knew there were good people everywhere. She was also mortified when my Opera singing aunt tried to drag her to the front of the church for an altar calling one time. My wife thought they were going to pray for someone else and when she realized what was going on she was none too pleased. The arrogance of these people to assume they knew anything of her or what she had been through without even really talking to her is what inflamed her. We left immediately and never went back until my mother's funeral. We attended a small methodist church for awhile and really liked it until it started getting bigger and had all these committees. We literally had about 25 committees and only about 150 regularly attending parishioners. I will continue later as Zach is going to be late.

It's been a while

I haven't posted anything in a while because I get lazy. I have also been working a good bit of OT. Next pay period will be tough because I will have one stretch of 8 straight 12.5 hour days. We have a Sergeant's test coming up at work and I don't know what to do about it. I am eligible and would probably pass it if I decided to take it. It would be about a 10% raise and the earlier you get that in your career the better. It would also mean that I would be dealing with other people's problems. If I go the Sergeant route on the corrections side of things I feel like I would be stuck for a while. I am close now to a transfer to the Immokalee facility which is near the house and I should be first in line to train to go on road patrol for the next agency sponsored road academy.

I think I will take the test and at least give myself more options down the road. If I get the promotion I will be able to work less overtime and spend more time at home. I am unlikely to be high on the promotion rankings because I have always been a line housing officer with no booking or back office experience. I don't know a lot about the policies that don't relate to housing and I don't agree with all the policies that do relate to housing.

I will try and post more now that I remember my password.

Nicole is in her last week teaching summer school. Zach is in the summer conditioning program for Freshman Football and goes to a camp in Tampa at the end of the month. Chloe talks our ears off all day long and is very excited about starting kindergarten at Nicole's school. I bought the college and pro football previews and tried to get a trip together with this guy from work to go to Jacksonville, but he backed out once we saw the ticket prices. I called Roger and set the trip up, but it will end up costing me $1400 and a trip to Disney to be named later. I had to throw in the trip to Disney because Nicole was curious as to how we could afford a nice Georgia Football trip and not afford the trip to Disney she had been wanting for Chloe's sake(we may go to Seaworld instead because that is all Chloe can talk about).

I am still losing weight, but the easy pounds are long gone. I average about 2.5 lbs. a week and my new short term goal is to be steady under 200 and then I get to go to this French Bakery in East Naples(with real French people inside(the wife is a MILF)) and eat whatever I want. I used to go and get their chocolate croissants in my fatter days, but I am now holding out for a Napolean. I am steady now between 203-207 after a morning run so I am about 2-3 weeks from bakery heaven.

That's about all for now, I hope everyone is well

Been a while

I haven't posted in a while because we switched to a new computer and I haven't updated all my web stuff yet (fantasy baseball folks may have noticed). What happened was everything worked on the old computer, but it would not read new programs. I decided to "fix" it and $1000 later I have a new computer. It worked out because now I can finally play Oblivion.

Work has been good. I have been working a lot of overtime to pay for the Best Buy spree that went along with the new computer purchase. Nicole got a laptop out of the deal, Zach got a stereo and the kids play room got a new t.v. All Chloe got was a new alarm clock, but she wasn't complaining. I have continued running and weight watchers. I have lost about 45 lbs. and am starting to feel the pressure. The weight loss is noticeable at work and now there is increased pressure to keep it off. I need to lose about 35 more lbs. to hit my goal weight of 185.

Every time I start to plateau I have been going on what I call a plateau buster run. I have been doing a lot of reading about running and watching shows on human performance and these helped inspire the runs. Basically they all say that the body can take a lot more than you think. I watched a special on this guy who swam the English Channel and his body burned up 14 lbs of fat in the process. I also read in Men's Health about these tribes that hunt by focusing on one herd animal that is isolated and then they start running it down. Humans have a superior cooling system and can sustain a running pace for long distances. The herd animals can't and after 5-12 miles they fall over and everybody eats. For it to be a plateau buster I run for at least an hour. The last one I did I ran for an hour and a half. I mostly lose about 5 lbs. water weight as a result of this, but I have found that after a day or two of recovery I keep at least two of those lbs. off permanently. I have been good about not going crazy overeating anything. One day I screwed up and cooked chorizos on the grill. No one else would eat them and I ended up having two plus some steak. It turns out the chorizos were 12 points a piece. Yikes. It is not that bad though because in the past that would have been a normal serving for me. Last night I had pinto beans cooked with pork. Even though I was stuffed when I was done the whole thing was only about 15 pts. and that's alot of beans.

Chloe graduates pre-k today and we registered her for kindergarten yesterday. Zach is playing football again and spring practice is on hot and heavy. Nicole has started her masters at UF. I am still waiting for transfer. They are now saying that it could take 1-2 years for the previous class to transfer out of the jail and there may not be another class for 3-4 years. This could mean I will spend up to 6 years in the jail before I can transfer. In the meantime I have decided to pursue a masters in public administration while a wait since the county will pay for it. When Zach graduates high school Nicole and I should both have our masters degrees and the economy should have recovered enough for us to have some options to go along with our education and experience. We have always talked about moving close to Athens.

It's been a while

I haven't posted in a while because I felt guilty about not finishing my letter to Sara. I finished it today and decided to include it here. It was good to see old friends and tell funny stories about Kris. I will never forgive myself for not speaking at his funeral. Here is the letter I wrote.

I met Kris Andrews my junior year at Georgia. I had taken a job with Food Services at Bolton Dining Hall and my job was dishwasher. It is possible I met Kris before this time because we had mutual friends at Sequoyah (his high school) and his step-brother Adam and my brother played soccer together for several years, but if so I don’t remember. Anyway, we got along pretty well and it turned out that we lived just down the hall from one another at College Place Apartments. I remember that we used to play this game when we were washing dishes as the trays came down the conveyor belt. We would take the dishes off the line and dump the food on the other guy’s hands and he had to guess what specific food was being dumped. It helped pass the time as the mostly minority staff played endless loops of Clarence Carter tapes. We didn’t last long and I think we eventually just stopped going, but an enduring friendship began.

I remember we hung out a lot at College Place. I think we were some of the only people in the country to watch Bay Watch Nights (an X-Files rip off with David Hasselhoff investigating strange goings on). We eventually decided to get an apartment at River Mill near the stadium for our Senior year where he would soon meet Sara when she brought a friend’s dog into our apartment. Kris was not pleased, but it all worked out. This was a hard time for me in some ways because I was coming to the end of a long relationship that just didn’t want to die. Kris helped me through it and when the leech was finally gone he also helped cover her side of the rent until we eventually got new roomies. He didn’t have to do that and I will never forget it.
It was one of the many ways he showed his true colors when it came to friendship.
Another way was taking out all my CD covers and stapling them to the wall with clever speech or thought bubbles attached that questioned my masculinity. You haven’t lived until an early 80’s picture of Dan Seals is talking dirty to you. There were numerous good times in this apartment. Kris started the Kappa Mu Lamdas (K for Kris, M for Mike, and L for Lawsons) while on a pottery date with Sara. We all attended most of the football games that year together including the Florida game, the Tennessee game and the Outback Bowl in Tampa. The maintenance man for the complex lived above us and he would come down every once in a while for a beer. I remember Kris and Dave and Drew all on the porch one time playing guitar, that was cool. Clint came over a good bit after Kris and Joel started up with the business fraternity.
One funny time ended up with Joel getting a MIP ticket(Minor in Possession). We had a few and I decided with Kris’s encouragement to wear my boots downtown. We didn’t go downtown much unless it was for coffee or a concert so the evening was already exceptional. My boots wouldn’t fit under my jeans leg so we decided to cut my jeans up the side and then staple them together after my boots were on. I looked ridiculous and that is probably what attracted the attention of the bike cops in the parking garage. They saw us and then saw Joel trying to throw away an empty beer bottle and decided to investigate. Joel got the ticket while I tried to argue probable cause with the cops. We ended up at Waffle House trying to convince Joel that he wouldn’t be disowned by his parents.
I met my wife and son while living there and that brings up another funny story. At some point after I started dating Nicole, Zach contracted lice at day care. I don’t think I have ever seen Sara so freaked out. She had long hair and she seemed convinced that there were already nits crawling through it.
Kris loved music and helped drag me out of my shell by making me go to strange shows with him. We saw Korn in Athens and moshed with a bunch of 14 year olds (Zach thinks that is a cool story). We saw GWAR in Atlanta and moshed with a bunch of weight lifting skin heads. We went to the Masquerade several times for their bubble nights. We saw Buddy Guy in Atlanta with Joel and almost got in a fight. We went to the last concert held at the Omni together, it was my first time seeing Metallica and probably his 50th time.
Kris loved to argue and if you had an opinion about most anything then you had better be ready to back it up. He asked me one time after we saw Metallica what I thought was the best concert I had ever been to. I told him either George Strait because I had good seats and it was such a simple show or the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge tour because it was so elaborate. You would have thought I slapped him in the face he was so insulted. If you made a compelling case he would come around to what you were saying, but you had to be convincing. He always liked Baby Gordon, but I think eventually he respected Dale Sr. some. He never seemed to like any of the movies I liked, but I think it was because he had extremely high standards. We never really reached an accord on religion either, but these days I am closer to him on that issue than I ever have been. We used to go to Jittey Joe’s or Blue Sky when in Athens and he would get his cup and sit down and say “Which of the world’s problems are we going to solve tonight?”
After we left school we would get together at I-hop or Waffle House when we could and catch up. Kris and I stayed close through our weddings where we were each others best men and when we both lived in Holly Springs. He was always there for me when I needed him. When I finally left my dad’s business to work for Cobb County I realized belatedly that I would need a vehicle since I had been driving a company truck. Kris and Sara sold me her old red car at a loss and allowed me to make payments. I will never forget that. When I went to work for American Express and had no clients and didn’t know what I was doing they became clients and bought a plan from me and listened to my sales pitches. When my mother died they took time to comfort me and my family. Not long after Chloe was born Nicole came down with acute appendicitis and had to have her appendix out. My immediate family was notoriously unreliable at this time and I was a mess running around with a new job and the kids. They kept putting off Nicole’s release date because she couldn’t get rid of the infection. Finally they decided to release her and I was on the other side of Atlanta somewhere. Sara and Vicki drove all the way over to the hospital and picked up Nicole and took her home and made her comfortable.
I don’t now know how I didn’t make more time for Kris and his wonderful family before now. I miss this true friend every day. There are many more stories I can tell, but I think I will put a few off. I have pictures around I think that have survived numerous moves and somewhere there is the funny video we made for his bachelor party. I often pondered the saying “only the good die young” when my mother-in-law and then my mother passed away. My take on it is somewhat different than the traditional view. I think it means when someone good and worthy passes away and they are truly missed then it has happened too early no matter the age. My heart aches for my friend.

Good first week so far

I have had a good first week so far with the diet and exercise. I haven't really been craving anything too bad. If I want something sweet I have a 15 calorie Popsicle or yogurt. If I want something salty I have popcorn with a ton of hot sauce on it. So far, so good. I have been drinking a ton of water and I have lost the easy pounds that drop quick in the first week. My goal is to be under 250 by April 1st and I am at about 257 now. I hope that by running and doing the martial arts I can avoid plateaus. We have a Notice Board on our intranet at work that I believe every agency member looks at during the day at some point when it's slow. I put a notice on there that I wanted to know about any 5ks coming up for me and Zach and I have had an overwhelming response. I got no response when I tried to sell my $100 holster for next to nothing, but now I got SWAT guys e-mailing me and sergeants I have never heard of e-mailing me. There is one coming up on the 22nd at the beach park we go to in Naples. It is called the Beach Bum Run. It is beach running so it is hard, but you get a cool tiedie t-shirt. It is good motivation for me when I don't want to run in the morning especially that I now know so many agency members will be there. I gotta represent, yo.

I have ran about 8 miles this week and will do 3 more today. I have attended jiu jitsu class with Zach twice and tonight we are going to the Kali stick fighting class. It is funny to go with Zach because it drives him nuts for someone to touch him with wet hands, much less rolling around on the mats with jiu jitsu. The first class everyone was laughing because sweat was rolling off me and on this one move I ended up smearing my ankle and foot all over his face. It is alright though because he has kicked me in the nose and nuts enough times to make up for it. I am thankful that they hang close. I want to start the kick boxing next week, but my schedule really only allows me to make it once next week.

On an unrelated note my mothers grave bench has finally been installed. I look forward to visiting it the next time I am up there.

Motivation

I left a comment on a friends blog and in the process I realized something important about myself. I think I can finally give voice to what motivates me professionally. If asked I would usually say that I want to do what is necessary to pay my bills and provide for my family. That is still true, but it does not go to the marrow of how I wish to carry myself as I go about my job.
There is fear in my work. That is one part of what drives me to get the job done. There is fear that you will get fired for not doing your job. There is fear that an inmate will manipulate you into making a mistake(they will manipulate you, you just have to manipulate them more). There is fear that you will contract staph or MRSA from all the nasty asses and funk you encounter daily(this has happened to several friends). There is fear that you will be sued by a worthless humanoid for no reason. There is fear that one day, one or more of these 30 or 50 or 90 inmates that share the room with you as you feed them or walk through will decide that they have nothing left to lose and that they are going to take you or a coworker out with them. All this fear motivates you to remain vigilant and think and do a good job.

It is not enough for me by itself.

What motivates me more than anything...what makes me want to lose more weight, run more, work out more, take martial arts training, further my education, and work hard at work is the desire to be well thought of at the lowest levels by the people who matter.

I go out of my way at work to get along with the people I am assigned to work with. I do not duck calls for assistance. I counsel and try not to judge when they tell me about their latest personal mistake or professional error. This all appeals to both my positive and negative personality traits.

I have always liked for people to think I am smart and at least question if I am smarter than them. I do this even though I haven't been the best at putting in the hard work to truly master anything. I have usually skimmed the surface picking up trivia or minutia. It is easy to know a little about a lot. It is hard to sacrifice and study and become truly proficient.

I am what they call an amiable personality. I like to be liked and that can make my job difficult at times. My fear that I will let down coworkers is what allows me to use it to my advantage. I can never admit this to the people I work with because some are not good people, but I will always follow orders and I will do anything that is not illegal or immoral if a coworker asks me. My desire to please and assist and help those I work with is that strong. If an inmate is about to start something I try to get in front to either deescalate or take the first shot of spit or piss or the first hit. If there is doubt as to who will take a job and write the report I will volunteer. If you don't want to feed 100 inmates lunch or dinner because you are "tired" but really afraid I will do it if you ask me. If they knew that all they had to do was ask I would be wasted by the end of the day.
I had a good partner when I started and worked nights and he taught me a lot. In the end one of the reasons I transferred to days was because he slept too much at night. Now I know that I wouldn't mind. We busted ass every day until lock down helping the jail to run. We worked so much that supervisors told us to ease back because no one else was answering any calls. We had an expression that we would use when asked to do some special assignment. We would say, "These shoulders are broad sarge, pile it on." That is how I want my coworkers to see me. I want to be the horse that is always ready to pull the load. That is my motivation.

Movies from this weekend, weightwatchers

We rented a bunch of movies over the weekend. The two that I watched were Beowulf and We Own the Night. I enjoyed both movies for different reasons. Beowulf made an effort to remain true to the legend and for that reason it was unexpected and entertaining. We Own the Night was ok, but I felt like Joaquim Phoenix was a poor choice. I understand that he had to be whiny for the role at times, but he struggles to transition from whiny to stoic tough guy in the end. Eva Mendes was muy caliente. I have determined after watching this movie that if you dress up Eva Mendes in the outfits she was wearing in this movie and have her sitting at a table smoking a cigarette and reading from the phone book for two hours that I would pay to watch.
The best I have seen Mark Wahlberg was in The Departed. In We Own the Night he does a good job, but I would like to have seen more of his character. If they had developed the plot to allow an exploration of his struggle and sacrifice the movie could have been Oscar worthy because of its perfect counterbalance to his brothers seedy and non-stop party life. In short his character is wooden, but he plays it well. Robert Duvall is believable and excellent as the man who has already sacrificed much for his city and who in the end gives everything.

I also started weight watchers online again this weekend. I do well when I have to record every thing I eat and all my exercise. It should help me attain some of my weighty goals this year. However, I am hungry already after my All-Bran with Extra Fiber breakfast.

Anniversary

Today is my 8th wedding anniversary. I mentioned it to the guy sitting next to me in the class I am taking for work and he couldn't believe it because he was married on the same day and the same year. Unfortunately he is now divorced, but it is still a small world. I am big on setting goals right now because of this class and so I wrote down all my short term goals for 2008. They included the usual weight loss and I threw in I wanted to start my masters. I also plan to visit three colleges with Zach this summer because he will be starting high school in the fall and I want him to visualize the prize. I also plan to run in 5 5k races by the end of the year.

I haven't written down any long term goals on paper so I thought I would just do it here and now or make a list and post it. I think I will make a list so that it will be there everytime I log in to this site.

I cooked linguini with clam sauce for Nicole for our anniversary since it is one of her faves. We also worked out a way in the budget to allow her to do some shopping so she took off on her own this past weekend and did some damage. My present is not for public consumption as I don't know who all will end up reading this.

My stimulus check

I haven't posted in a while and decided that I would go on for a minute about my stimulus package check. First of all, stimulus package sounds like verbiage from a viagra ad campaign and that is probably where a lot of people's dough will go. I plan to use it to continue paying for last Christmas. I should be finished paying for last Christmas in time for next Christmas, but that is how it goes.

Everyone is well down here. Zach chipped one of his $5000 orthodontically straightened teeth the night of the super bowl at a friends birthday party while driving a four wheeler. I was upset. The endodontist(if it ends in -dontist it means you will have to pay them at least $300 just to find out how much your bill is going to be) said the braces probably saved the tooth. Good news for him since that means I will be making his next boat payment. Chloe has started calling me Dad. It makes her seem more grownup than Daddy used to. She is not a baby anymore and is more of a little girl.

Well, I have to go get ready so that I can take Zach to the orthodontist and he can extract his pound of flesh.

Property tax amendment and Huckabee

I voted early last Friday because I knew I would have to work Tuesday. I went with Huckabee and yes on amendment one down here on property tax relief. I like Huckabee for the same reasons I dislike Charlie Crist. Huckabee seems earnest and I feel like he was a worker when he was governor of Arkansas. Romney seems like a robot who tries on different issues and policies based on what gets him votes. McCain(sp?) is old and I worry about what he will do with Iran. If Huckabee goes down I will support McCain over Hillary because I feel like McCain has shown character by taking a stand on tough issues when they were not popular. I will vote for Obama if he wins the democratic nomination because I like charismatic speakers and I read somewhere that he smokes cigarettes on occasion. Obama seems human. When he is tired he looks tired. When he is happy, he looks happy. He is smart and he is not afraid of Bill Clinton. I trust Obama even though I don't agree with him on everything because he is running against the Clinton smear machine and you know that whatever skeletons he has are open and out to view.

I feel like Crist is using Florida as a stepping stone for the presidency. Crist is also way too skinny and I don't trust skinny people. Crist sits in Tallahassee and dictates to the counties how much money they can tax and how much they can spend. In Florida the state sucks money from all counties and then reapportions it to meet the state needs. If you live in a rich county like I do and you want more services you elect local politicians to tax and spend how you want. This is how I like it. Crist has limited the people's power by taking money from their elected local officials and claimed to be a man of the people by backing paltry tax cuts to boost his popularity. I voted for the most recent paltry cut because I will take whatever I can get and hope that more is coming. I just wish Crist would allow local government to police itself. If we don't like our schoolboard we will replace it and the same with the commissioners.

Knowshon

I don't believe I ever related the Knowshon story so here it is. I had been thinking for a couple of months that I might want the family to have a dog in the new house. We haven't had a lot of luck with dogs so I was concerned about how it would go over. I started dropping hints about what kind of dog I thought would be good for us. I had the 4 year old on my side immediately, but Zach seemed to be on the fence and Nicole wasn't too hot for the idea. I eventually came up with a plan that would satisfy everyone. We would leave it to chance and the Georgia Bulldawgs. It was decided that if Georgia beat Florida we would get a dog and name it after the player of the game. At the time it didn't seem very likely since Georgia had just struggled to beat lowly Vanderbit and Florida was the defending national champs. Long story short we won and adopted Knowshon (As a resident of SW Florida we couldn't name her Moreno because everyone would assume she was named Marino) a few weeks later. She is well behaved and patient and we couldn't be happier with her.

training and snakes

I saw this big snake in the middle of the road this morning when I walked the dog. I asked Zach if it was poisonous, but he didn't know. We killed it to be on the safe side since alot of kids walk to school and I didn't want them messing with it. I will hang it in a tree later since that makes it rain. In my neighborhood they will probably burn me at the stake for practicing witchcraft.

I don't have to go to work until Saturday because I have training all week. The county will pay for you to go if it is required training, but I am taking this class and a two week class next month so that I can get my Corporal raise in April. This means I have to burn through PDO.

Work

I decided to talk about work a little today. I worked in our version of the on-site hospital yesterday. Depending on your personality, you either like it or you hate it. It is where we keep both the mentally and physically sick. When I first started at the jail it was a more difficult place for me to work for a variety of reasons both personal and professional.

On the professional side the state of Florida has a law making the state responsible for the housing and treatment of those who are determined to be unfit for trial due to mental incompetence. Once an individual is adjudicated unfit the state has so many days to take them to a facility for treatment. This was not happening. As a result jails became(and still are to a certain extent) an extension of the mental health treatment industry. This is not good for a variety of reasons, but the problem was alleviated temporarily when the state opened additional beds. Now we have fewer of the mentally ill in our infirmary and it is an easier place to work for the time being.

Personally, I found it difficult at times to supervise individuals who reminded me of my crazy brother. This doesn't bother me in the least currently and I actually request to work in the infirmary when I work overtime. I feel the change came about because of an increased familiarity and a determination to eventually work full time in the mental health field. I have the right personality for it.

The work personality I strive for is that of a defusing wet blanket. I am usually able to calm excited inmates and get them to do what I want. When that fails I call for back up and handle business. This keeps everyone safe and out of trouble.

Our family work goals right now are for Nicole to start and complete her Masters since her work pays for it and she will receive more money from it than I will. I am approved to attend the next law enforcement crossover academy and hopefully will complete it by '09. Nicole will finish her Masters at about the same time I begin to feel competent as a road deputy. When this happens I will start my Masters with one caveat. This will all fall into place at about the same time Zach is finishing high school. If it comes down to it I will put off my Masters until he is settled in college or completes his bachelors. The way I look at it, I have 23 years to complete my education so there is no rush. I have no professional law enforcement ambition other than to be left alone and eventually make sergeant. As long as the checks continue to clear I will be good to go.

Recent events for us

Things are going well in SW Florida. We moved into the new house in September and the kids haven't had to change schools midstream. The house and neighborhood are wonderful. Nicole and Chloe saw an alligator this week in one of the lakes we walk the dog by every day. There are plenty of sidewalks and not too many people yet. The university (I'll capitalize it if it every gets over 2000 students. Current count is about 700 and that is less than most middle schools.) is well funded and growing. The town center opened its first restaurant before Christmas.

It was cold yesterday and colder today. I like to froze my nudget off walking the dog this morning. The town still has all its Christmas lights up. Zach and Chloe got a Wii for Christmas and we had fun visiting the Nick hotel and then family and friends in Georgia. I enjoyed seeing everyone and catching up.

The Friday before we left we had Jeremy and his family over. I cooked a standing rib roast and Nicole's moms potato casserole and Nicole's green beans. It was delicious if I do say so myself. We made Jeremy take the leftovers home and when his shift relieved me yesterday he said he had stuffed himself on it for days on after. I wish now that I had invited more friends over as I rarely get to see the ones that work on the other side of the week unless I'm working overtime.

My first post

Wow, I feel like a commentator or is that common tater. Here I will share my wisdom with the world. We will all be richer for the experience.