To put some things in perspective.  Sine Lisa started Weight Watchers she lost around 90 pounds, since I started I lost 20 pounds.  She’s managed to keep herself close to her lost weight, I’ve gained it all back.  I mostly blame my gain on my lack of physical activity in the past 6-8 months.  Since I stopped going to Tae Kwon Do in the summer I haven’t replaced that with any other physical activity.  With the cold weather we’ve done much less walking.  The path has been fairly obvious, but I haven’t done much about it.  I said I’d start something after the cruise.  Lisa on the other hand wanted to do something sooner.

There’s a fitness center in the “new” shopping center right next door.  It has the convenience of being close, and being open 24 hours.  It’s not much more than a big room with treadmills, stationary bikes, and weight equipment, but it’s more than the equipment in the house, and it’s easy to ignore the equipment in your house.  I find that when you setup a schedule to go do something, it’s usually a lot easier to stick to it once it’s routine.  With both of us going, it’ll be easier for each of us to keep the other on the routine as well.

Our bodies aren’t the only thing we’re trying to get fit.  Our finances, while not a disaster have too much money going out against debt and not just bills.  I’ve tried getting a handle on the credit cards before, and while none of them are maxed out anymore they all carry balances a high percentage of their limit.

When we agreed to let our daughter move back in for a time we all agreed to a rent amount.  While we certainly  didn’t need that money, it will help to offset increased utilities etc.  The thing Lisa and I agreed to do with the money was put it toward the credit cards.  So part of what I did Tuesday night was plan out all the payments for serveral months.  Credit card number one should be paid off in March.  Credit card number two in May.

It’s amazing what a little planning can do for you.  I’ve tried this method of paying off credit cards before, but I didn’t do enough planning, so while I eliminated one or two cards from the list I didn’t have a good road map for the future.  Even this time until I started planning out all the payments it was a vague sense of sometime in the future.

I’ve been somewhat displeased with my site as of late, so I decided to do an overhaul.  Wordpress let’s you integrate everything in with it, so I went that route being happy with their software.  I’m not overly thrilled with my theme right now.  But one step at a time.

We rounded the year out quite well with movies.  The first movie of the year was on New Years day, and the last was December 30th.

• 01-01 – The Curious case of Benjamin Button
• 01-11 – Yes Man
• 01-24 – Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
• 01-31 – Taken
• 02-14 – Push
• 03-06 – Watchmen (IMAX)
• 03-28 – Monsters V. Aliens (3D)
• 03-31 – Knowing
• 04-18 – Fast & Furious
• 05-03 – X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• 05-09 – Star Trek (IMAX)
• 05-20 – Star Trek
• 05-23 – Terminator: Salvation
• 05-30 – Angels & Demons
• 06-03 – Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
• 06-13 – Taking of Pelham 123
• 06-20 – Up (3D)
• 06-28 – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (IMAX)
• 07-03 – Public Enemies
• 07-04 – Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• 08-01 – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (IMAX)
• 08-16 – District 9
• 08-29 – Inglourious Basterds
• 09-05 – Star Trek (IMAX)
• 09-06 – Gamer
• 09-12 – 9
• 09-27 – Surrogates
• 10-10 – Zombieland
• 10-18 – Fame
• 10-31 – Cirque Du Freak: The Vampires Assistant
• 11-13 – 2012
• 11-20 – Law Abiding Citizen
• 12-23 – Avatar (IMAX)
• 12-25 – Sherlock Holmes
• 12-30 – Avatar (IMAX)

…..

Meh, I’ve been sitting on this post for a month.  Always the way it seems.  The movies of 2010 are already rolling in, we’ve already seen 3.  I might talk about things in more detail later.

Carying a murse is not a crime

Frankly I’m tired of the discrimination.  On the left we have my wife’s purse.  On the right we have my murse, or man-bag, or whatever you want to call it.  See much of a size difference?  Didn’t think so.

So anyway, my wife needed a new lightweight coat.  After a few failed attempts at department stores we decided to try a “coat” place.  Shortly after dinner we headed out to BCF.  Upon entering we were approached my a gentleman from the fron of the store asking to check my bag.  I then asked him if he was going to chek my wife’s purse, the response was no.  I then politely informed him that he was not going to check my bag.  He continued to press the issue, citing “company policy”.  I pointed out that my wife’s purse was just as big as my bag, and that whatever I could steal she could steal just as easy. Since he continued to press the issue stating company policy I chose to leave the store, and doubt I will ever return.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me since I started carying my murse.  But damnit I like to do something to make it the last.  I doubt the local news agencies consumer rights reporting will touch this as I haven’t been cheated out of anything, but I’m not sure where to go.  I can address it with this one company by contacting thier corporate offices.  But what are they going to give me, and I’m very disinclined to go back to the store anyway.

Weather was quite crazy yesterday, with winds up to 30 mph at times and gusts past that.  Big flat things interact poorly with strong wind.  Fences among them… old fences espically.  In the 12 years we’ve lived in the house we’ve replaced almost all of the fence in the back yard.  The only section remaining is between us and our neighbor on the left.   By common “definition” the owner of a fence is the side where the posts and rails are, so this section of fence belongs to them.  This is where I have to admit that I don’t know many of my neighbors well, and couldn’t tell you if the residents of the house own or rent.

Regardless, sometime yesterday the wind blew out a plank of the fence large enough for the dogs to get through.  Now usually this wouldn’t be too big of a problem.  We might realise it, the neighbors might see the dogs and realise it, but they were going from one yard to the other.  Unfortuneatly these neighbors don’t close thier gate, so the dogs just strolled right out.

The mind can be a funny thing.  Lisa swears that the dogs were underfoot while she was cooking.  Elise swears that Jazz as curled up on the couch with her before she left for work.  Neither of these things are possible since Animal Control picked them up about 12:30.  I had the “excuse” that I was upstaris most of the time, and a quiet afternoon is never unappreciated.  The doggy-door is always open, so it’s not like any of us have to let them in and out.  Quite often they snuggle into thier crates and snooze the day away.  So when I went to go feed them at 6pm…

After a little bit of searching through the neighborhood we got a story from someone that at least Missy was at Animal Control.  We hopped in the truck and went to see if she was there, but they were closed for the evening.  We headed back home and looked around a bit more.  Lisa decided to head to the house that supposedly called Animal  Control.  It was the right house, and she was so sorry, but she couldn’t have kept missy at her house with her big lab.  She had knocked on all the houses on the street and cul-de-sacs… except for our house and the house to the right, the first two houses on the street.  She also informed us that after AC picked up Missy from her, they found Jazz on the street and took both of them in.

So, it’s 7pm, and AC doesn’t open until 11am, with no-one to call to confirm.  So I head out as soon as reasonable, getting there a bit early, and wait for the doors to open.  Thankfully they were there and physically fine.  Someone had the foresight to place them in the same pen, so at least they had each other.  After a little bit of paperwork, of the white and green kind, I went back and took them home.  They got in the door and were a bit clingly for a while (understandaby so), so I sat with them and gave them the attention they needed.  After some water and a trip out back, they both curled up in their crates and zonked out, not even touching the food I gave them.