This sedentary life

I'm fat. I'm fat and something needs to be done about it. Matt, Dion, Rixen, don't come knockin on my cube at 11:58 a.m. for awhile cause the winter has been rough on me. Pizza Ranch, A&B Pizza, The Truck Stop, Chinese, Bonanza Thursdays..... all of them have conspired to make me fat. For those of you not in the know on these eating establishments, they aren't what one would consider weight conscientious eating alternatives.

The worst part is that I run and lift more than I have in 6 months, but the 300 or 400 calories you burn doing that aren't enough to counteract the nacho platter that I've perfected at Bonanza over the years. Seriously, when you get to the point where you feel like pulling the restaurant manager to the side and giving him pointers on the layout of the food bar to minimize the time it takes me to get from the jalapenos to the nacho cheese to the black olives...... it's time to unstrap the feed bag. Throw on top of it all a couple of work weeks in Wisconsin next month, some site analysis visits in Gerogia or Texas or wherever in the next year and also the eminant arrival of little baby Skeet! It could turn into a sedentary life for me as far as working out is concerned.

Now we've had this contest for the last few years called the Fatty Fit Club where we get 8-10 guys in the office to throw in a dollar and see who can lose the most weight in a certain period of time, usually 8 weeks or so. This year we added a twist and anyone who gains weight week to week has to throw in a quarter. One year I even won the contest, but this year I'm in danger of weighing more at the end than I did at the start. To top things off I wasn't exactly svelte to begin with. Here is the scale that we use to weight ourselves every Monday.

It's a stupid scale. You step on it one time, 198.3, step on it again 202.4, third time and survey says!! 199.5!! Next week I'm going to step on the scale twice, parse out the numbers it reads, take them to the gas station and throw $5 down on a Powerball lottery ticket with them.

So all you waiter and waitress friends that I've met over the years, I hope to get to know you less in the coming months. Of course, per the rules of The Fatty Fit Club, I am still obligated to attend Bonanza Thursday, but my noon hours will now be spent more often at the Mandan Community Center getting re-acquainted with Cole, Roz and the crew. I may not win the $23.75 prize this year, but at least I won't be burping up mini corn bites and taco salad up at 2:30 in the afternoon either.

If your doing the math, 10 guys times $1 + .25 times the # of guys gaining weight each week shouldn't equal that much money........... I'm not the only fatty there.

For the record, the scale at gym has never had me over 200.

Somewhere between Anglo-Zanzibar and The Second Balkan

Thats where the Risk game rates right now. As you all know, the Anglo-Zanzibar war lasted 38 minutes back on August 27th, 1896 and The Second Balkan War lasted for a month and 2 days. As it stands, our Risk game started on January 26th so we are just shy of 1 month......... Somewhere between Anglo-Zanzibar and The Second Balkan wars.

You're probably wondering how does a war last only 38 minutes? I guess when you gather up 20 guards, 500 slaves, a donkey and 7 chickens to stand up against the entire British Navy your palace is going to get a remodeling by force rather quickly. Zanzibar relenquished their title of "world power" after that and changed their country flag.

We actually had plans last night to get some rolls in on the game, but Dave "Lewey" Lewis and his boy Isaac stopped over and brought along with them a height chair they no longer use. Free stuff is good. Thanks Dave and DeAnn!

I try not to blog during work hours except for at breaks and the noonish hour and I just looked at my desk clock to see what time it is. Apparently like me, the clock has stopped working.

That really ticks me off... That was my 5 year anniversary gift at NISC. I should have went with one of the other gifts - I think the other choices were a mood ring or a 1 year subscription to the Jelly Of The Month Club.

Rules of Engagement

I've never really noticed in the past when my friends have kids. Not to say that I turn a blind eye to it, kids are cool, love kids, in fact I love them so much that I decided to have one of my own. What I mean is that you have friends that get married and a year or two later you see them walking up to softball or wherever with a kid in tote. You remember that they had the kid sometime in the past, but when and how old they are now, along with their name escapes you.

"Oh, I see you brought little...... Timmy??? with you? Oh right!! Casandra! She must be in about what? 3rd grade now?........ Oh....... she's 4...... my bad, guess they don't grow up as fast as one thinks."

Obviously it's lead to some awkward moments for me in the past. These days I tend to be more observent and wow, I have a ton of friends that have either just had a baby or will be in the very near future.

The post is directed towards them - Rhett Benning, Steve Thompson, Travis Opdahl and Jason Horner to name a few.

"For without law, we are left with anarchy."
-Scott Miller
(I'm taking credit for this quote, I Googled it and didn't find any exact matches so it's mine now.)

In the spirit of avoiding anarchy, here are some general rules I think we should all try to follow.

1.) If my kid is the opposite sex of your's, they will not be allowed to date when they are older.

I think we can all agree on this? Not? Some of us knew each other in our formidable years and I think it's in our best interest.

2.) ..............

3.) ..............

Ummmmmm. That should be enough rules. Rhetts already had a boy, I have a feeling at least one of the others may also be having one and if Katies premonition is correct we'll be having a girl. Of course if we have a boy also, then I guess we don't need any rules.

At any rate, if we do have a girl, show this picture to your sons often.

Boycott Hooters!

No, I haven't turned into a feminist supporter. I'm not even asking that you boycott every Hooters, just the one in Bismarck ND, and specifically to boycott the chicken. (I also apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors in advance, I'm working on 4 1/2 hours of sleep.)

To set this all up, yesterday at noon I had my evening planned out: Go to the Mandan/BHS basketball game, come home by 9:00, get a couple rolls in on the Risk game and go to bed. At 5:30 on my way home those plans changed. Rhett Benning calls me for the second week in a row, "Scotty, we only have 4 guys for basketball tonight, can you play?" First off, I don't know why anyone would pick me up for their city league team. Yes, I play every Wednesday, but the best thing that can be said about my game anymore is that it's "fundamentally sound". I don't dribble drive, create my own shot or post up with the idea of shooting. I play defense, make a few nice passes and will stick the 3 on occasion.

It was a game of runs. They started the game with a run that lasted until about 4 minutes left in the 2nd half, then we made a run to make it respectable at the end. After the game, it was decided that we should all go somewhere for some post-game food and spirits. Since most of their team lived up north, Hooters was the spot of choice. I had picked up Katie from work and since she had never been there, she said she would go along cause she was hungry too.

I ordered the 10 piece wings and she had the chicken breast sandwich. I was a little disappointed in them - at best they were pigeon and at worst they were some unknown bird, but they were food and I was hungry.

We got home around 10:00ish, watched some TV and went to sleep. At that point, this is when the rest of the night became like the game...... it was a night of runs. Around 3:00 in the morning I woke up with possibly the worst stomach ache I've ever had and too put it delicately, I spent more time sitting than lying down over the next 4 hours.

I had supplanted myself on the couch so that at least one of us could sleep, but to find out at 7:00 this morning, Katie had taken the midnight to 3:00 shift. So both of us were sick, both of us ate at Hooters and both of us ate chicken. Not being able to slip anything by either of us, we both deduced that the chicken was tainted.

Not that I frequent Hooters, but I do like their crab legs a lot. I'm sure I'll go there again and I can't imagine any issues with possibly eating undercooked or mishandled shellfish.

"I'll take a double order please."

Potholes

The streets of Bismarck ND have turned into a war zone. All of the snow, rain and ice that we've received this winter has snuck it's way into the cracks of the streets, froze, unfrozen and refroze again. It's opened up some fairly large holes on some of the busier street - including Bismarck Expressway, which is the main route Katie takes to the bank.

A couple days ago, she hit one of them going about 30 and it caused a couple of warning lights to come on in her car and in turn she took it into the repair shop. When she told the mechanic what she had done and what lights were coming on, he said "Ohhhhh, thats not good"...... thats really bad when they say that. Insurance is going to cover most of it by the sounds of things, but the adjuster asked her about the stupidest question I think I've ever heard. She asked, "So you drive this road every day? And you didn't remember there was a pothole here?" Katie just said "no".......... I wish I could have been there to inform the adjuster lady that "Life is tough, but it's a lot tougher when you're stupid." to continue, "There are on average 37 potholes right now in any 100 yard stretch of any road in the greater Bismarck/Mandan metropolitan area and swerving to miss one only puts you in direct line to tag two others, so to answer your dumb question, no, I'm sure she didn't remember that pothole was there".

I told Katie that she should maybe think on getting a new vehicle. Maybe like the Wagon Queen Family Truckster? "You think you hate it now, just wait until you drive it."

Oh yes, and it was some wheel bearings that had went out on her car. I told her to ask them to check the chrome muffler bearings and the blinker fluid while they were at it. She didn't find that as funny as I did.

The battle rages on

After my bout with laryngitis and subsequent cold, I finally have the energy to roll the Risk dice again.

Last night was the most signifigant battle to date, lasting almost 2 hours. The dice were not friendly to Katie and she lost a territory or two. I was able to gain the South American continent and reinforce troops in the African and North American theaters. Her strategy has been to gain control of Asia, not a bad move, considering its the largest of the continents. I think she only has one or two territories left there to control that continent.

We're about at the point that we can't ignore the sea of blue and green on the board and will start the all out battle for world domination soon. I'll be rolling for the blue pawns, her for the green. May the best man (or woman) win!!

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

The results of the poll are in and it looks like we have........ well, I'm not sure what we have.

2 people said "yes" put it up, 3 said "no" and 3 each said to either put it in a non-conspicous place or above the baby's crib. These are the kind of things that happen when you rig a poll.

The only non-conspicous place in the apartment is the laundry room, so Katie will get scared stiff everytime she turns the light on to get laundry. The upside to putting it above the baby's crib is that the baby would probably be used to seeing monsters in it's room and never be afraid of things that go bump in the night.

In turn when the baby gets older you can always say "if you go to sleep, the monster on the wall won't wake up and get you." and "If you eat your vegetables I'll speak with the wall monster and make sure he doesn't come to life tonight." But I don't know that I'm ready to deal with years of parental hatred and thousands of dollars in therapy bills.

I suppose catch and release is out of the question at this point as well??

Happy Trees

I'm thoroughly convinced that either I know too much useless information or everyone has lived under rocks their whole lives.

Just down the row from my cube, a couple of guys, Kivisto and Ruff share an office that I hang out in from time to time. In one corner is a pile of stuffed animals that we have won off the Crane Game at Bonanza on Thursday's over the years.

Above that pile is a whiteboard that I suppose is there to jot down work related information; conversion time lines, software ideas and for general work related brainstorming. As exciting as dreaming and brainstorming about software sounds, the board is never used for that purpose. Which also goes to show that those two are as motivated as me sometimes. Anyways, one day a couple months ago I doodled a nice 5x5 whitetail buck with double drop tines on the whiteboard, the next month a pheasant. This month we decided to go with a landing goose scene. I call it "Landing Goose".

Like any good piece of art, it creates discussion. It's been determined by everyone that has seen it and pondered on it and discussed it's merits that, "we would let the lone goose land in the decoys because he's already committed. The three to the left are cuttin wind and coming and the pair will drop in once those commit." Some have argued that they would pass on the first six and wait on the main flock in the way back for a complete slaughter. Those people are idiots. If the three of us in the room looking at the picture were in blinds looking at this live scene, we'd hammer the 6, give some high fives and be 2/3's of the way to our limit.

Back to my story though. I signed my little work of art "Bob Ross". Nobody knew who Bob Ross was.......... This is Bob Ross.

Bob had a show on PBS for the better part of the 80's and 90's called "The Joy Of Painting" where he would throw some wet paint on a clean canvas and after a half hour of painting, whispering about "Happy Trees" and little woodland animals that played by this stream in the moonlight, he'd have created a masterpiece. One would think that something that easy could be done by anyone. Anyone, except 97% of the general population that has no spatial concepts or lack the ability to meld colors. People like me.

It was fun to watch though and right after his show was was more fun when "Sewing With Susan" came on. You haven't truly lived until you see someone hemming a pair of pants on TV. I think PBS planned it that way. Show two hours of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Sesame Street to get the kids fired up about the alphabet and numbers, then put on an hour of this to make them go to sleep for their afternoon nap.

But yeah, I thought everyone knew about Bob Ross. Guess it's just people, circa 1983, Sherwood ND. Thats in the 58782 zip code in case you were wondering.

Happy Valentines Day

Katie is a lot like me when it comes to Valentines day. To her, it's a stupid day, that people overspend on and treat their spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend like they should the other 364 days a year. She's actually going to Sioux Falls this weekend anyways to do some kind of pre-wedding shopping for her friend so I'll be playing Playstation and going to the gym all weekend long.

I did decide to make supper last night though to celebrate it, nothing super fancy - Italian Tuscana Soup and popovers. She'd never had popovers, which for those of you not in the know, they are kind of a pasty thingy that sort of look like a muffin, but are a bread that rises with steam and are hollowish inside. The trick with them is that if you overmix, don't use the right kind of milk or open the oven at all, they turn into burnt biscuts. To add a degree of difficulty, the oven, like the apt. itself, has two temperature settings. "Off" and "surface of the sun hot". That they turned out as good as they did was a miracle in itself, but when you're a master chef like me, it's not difficult.

I figured I could be as messy as I wanted too, cuz Katie doesn't get home until around 7:30. First I busted the myth that you can't take an egg in your hand and squeeze it until it breaks. They break and they splatter a lot.

Then I did my LeBron James imiation with the flour.

Finally, I went to the garage, got the fan, piled some flour on the counter by the doorway and prepared to give Katie a Miami Hurricane tunnel football entrance.

In the end, I decided against giving her the spectacular welcome.

Oh yeah, the soup I made calls for Kale. It's fun to watch the checkout girls at the store look at it and make it the last thing they scan. Then finally ask, "what's this?" Someday I'm going to go to the store, buy nothing but Kale, endive, kohlrabi and every other odd vegatable I can find, throw it on the checkout counter and see what happens.

Livin with the Mek

Pretty exciting weekend around the apt.... Friday I woke up and couldn't talk at all, bad cold. It was so bad that I couldn't even call into my phone at work to change my voicemail - all I could do was whisper. I didn't feel all that bad otherwise, but I decided to stay home. I've been trying to finish the hardest PlayStation game I've ever played, Call of Duty: Finest Hour, so I was on that for about 5 hours. I never got through it on Friday, but I knew I had all day Saturday and Sunday to try as well. I finally broke through Remagen Saturday morning and took the bridge on the Rhine later that afternoon, completing the game. That made me feel better.

I didn't have the energy to start Call of Duty; The Big Red One on Sunday so I just sat in the chair, flipping channels. On the Travel Channel at noon I came across a show "The Adventures of Mark and Olly: Living With the Mek". It's about 2 guys that travel to countries with remote locations that ancient tribes still live in. They try to make friends with them and live with them for 3 or 4 months. The tribe they were befriending were the Meks of Papua New Guinea, who used pigs for money, wrote off a case of Malaria as witches coming into their village to suck their blood and smoked cigarettes all day. Serious. I don't know where they got tobacco from, but the head chief just sat their all day smoking ciggy's.

9 hours later I had watched every single episode in the series and also the first episode of the new series "Living with the Mechigenga", a tribe in the Amazon rain forest. It seems like this tribes solution to issues of not liking someone is to kill them and skin them out. I suppose any police or authorities being a 7 day trek through snake infested rain forests away from them allows for that sort of luxury. This tribe also favors making beer out of sugar cane and their spit instead of smoking cigarettes. Appently and ironically enough, this tribe killed a guy and skinned him out for smoking in front of them about a year ago. Anyways, now I have this show on Sunday's, Man vs. Wild on Monday's and The Office on Thursday's to watch....... once baseball season starts and the Twins are on again, I may never leave the house.

One other note, it's really hard to avoid a person in a two bedroom apt. so they don't get sick as well. Cross your fingers that she avoids this plauge.

You and me and fishy makes 3

I think I've reached the limits as to what and what not Katie will have on the walls. Mr. Slew Shark isn't there yet and he may not make it there in this apt.

The taxidermist that did the mount lives in Sherwood and does geological work or something for oil companies. He's rarely home so it may be awhile before my Dad can go out and get it and then for him to bring it down here. We'll see how he fits in the decor and go from there.

There were always two mounts I said I would never do because the are too common. A Northern and a Pheasant. Well, of the two actual mounts that I have, they are a Northern and Pheasant. Oh well, they are like my little pets that I don't have to feed or treat for fleas and ticks.

I'm going to add a poll to see if it should go on the wall. Vote early and often.

Theres one..... set for stun.

Today we went to Target and started registering for baby stuff. I'm sure that most of you have went through something similar with weddings and baby showers, but we're both rookies at it and I found it kinda cool. They gave us a little scanner gun like this and turned us loose in the baby section.

Secretly to myself on every item I would say "Theres one..... set for stun" just like the Stormtroopers in Star Wars. After awhile I got a little more daring and tried a few long distance shots and then a few trick shots. Taking a baby mirror in hand, I aimed over my shoulder and let loose on a 5 pack of onesies........ Annie Oakley style.

I think I hit everything that I was aiming at, but if any of you see "The Waltons: Season 1" on the registry, I just got a little loose with my aim and overshot into the Electronics Dept.

I think that if I could have mounted a Leupold Mark 4 8.5-25x50mm scope on the thing my shooting could have been much better.

May 20th

It's been suggested by brother Brad that May 20th would be a helluva day for the baby to be born.

A little history on May 20th.

Famous birthdays:

Bronson Pinchot of "Perfect Strangers" Balki Bartokomous fame
Cher
Jimmy Stewart

Happened on May 20th:

Charles Lindbergh began his flight around the world.
Last episode of "Cheers" aired.
Levi Strauss patented the blue jean.

Hmmmmmmm. Not exactly December 7th-esque, but not bad.

I'm gonna have to go with you Melissa...... Even though "Perfect Strangers" was an intelligent, thought provoking show for about 2 years in the 1980's, I'm gonna see if I can get Katie to hold out until next January to have the baby.

The weekend that was.

Lots of time for working, little time for posting. We called a bit of an Armistice over the weekend with just a quick few rolls of the dice in the big Risk game on Saturday night. Positions were jockeyed, lands were taken, lands were lost. Overall I think I've strengthened my positions in the America's and Europe, while Katie added some force on the Russian fronts. Thus far we've taken very few pot shots at each other, concentrating mainly on building forces up. My assault in America was the bloodiest of the battles and she's now trying to reinforce those units. It may leave her thin elsewhere and that's what I'm hoping for......

Friday night Jason Horners #1 Mandan Braves took on the #2 ranked Williston Coyotes so I decided to take in the contest. Good game, with Mandan prevailing 63-60, proving that talent can overcome poor coaching. Williston was the benefactor of some home cooking on the road, combine that with some poor free throw shooting by the Braves towards the end of the game and it ended up as a nail biter. Here is a photo of Jason doing his best Norman Dale impression as he leaves the court at halftime.

Saturday we had to move Katie's sister from her apt. into a condo that her friend Britanni had bought. The place is just down the road from the apt., so it shouldn't be too hard for her to come over and babysit on short notice. Right Kaylan? Thanks in advance.

Sunday was the Super Bore and Katies Steelers were playing. Game was good, Steelers tried their best to lose it at the end, none of my numbers hit on the boards so I didn't win any money and with the exception of the one E-Trade commercial with the babies they were all a waste of $3 million dollars each. Economy must be bad..... companies must have started hiring bloggers like me to write their spots. The one saving grace was that The Office had an hour long new episode after the game that was probably the best episode of the year to date.

Ok, so this blog is about the baby that isn't born yet, so an update on that as well!! Katie had an appt this morning and we're now more confused as to when to expect the little tike. May 10th? May 16th? May of 2010. They always pull out the little wheel thingy that tells you when things are due, that says one thing, the ultrasound says another. All I know for sure is the heartbeat is 140 beats per minute, something else is 27 centimeters and that theres lots of stuff to play with in the Dr's office while you're waiting for them to come in.

Also, we've decided to not find out if it's a boy or a girl kind of like they did in the old days back when I was born. Quick shout out to my boy Rhett Benning, who's wife recently had a baby boy - Kaleb or Caleb....... I can't remember if it's K or C? Anyways, he'll probably be the QB of Bismarck High or Century someday, so maybe we can work on getting you a receiver, or a cheerleader. Just one note, they are not allowed to date in the future if we have a girl!!!! But more on that in a future post.....