Healthier Living: Take 49 Return Edition

Week 49 -- 201.3 (Back to week 21 not a good sign)
---------------------
Week 41 -- 192.6 (+2.2 lbs in 10 weeks, therefore total loss of 18.8 lbs after 40 weeks)
Week 31 --190.4 (11.4 lbs in 10 weeks and total of 21 lbs after 30 weeks)
Week 21 -- 201.8 (5.6 lbs in 10 weeks and total of 9.6 lbs after 20 weeks)
Week 11 -- 207.4 (4 lbs after 10 weeks)
Week 1  -- 211.4 pounds (Starting Weight)

Exercise has been minimal to non-existent for the past 8 weeks. Eating habits have been horrendous due to laziness, lack of shopping, and never being around.

The mini-marathon in April is not going to happen. Between being injured, sick, and extremely busy, I am way out of shape at this point in time. The foot is not really sore but I also have not done anything on it for months now. I have ran once on the treadmill in the last almost 4 months and that is about it.

Hopefully after the first week of April things will settle back in, and I can get back into a better routine. One problem is my schedule versus my friends schedule places us not able to get to the gym at the same time. But maybe I will figure out a way to work out at work instead.

I am not sure what the plan is going to be in terms of running. Currently, I am disengaged from the mini-marathon idea because it truly does not seem that the Derby mini is going to work. Contemplating finding another one of interest to run in but really not sure. I believe a lot can start taking shape in the coming months once a couple things settle out.

Thanks for checking in and supporting me on this journey. Plan to get back to weekly writing. Next week may be hit or miss as spring break takes me to Appalachia next week with the HS youth.

Saturday Smiles Veintiocho

Wow, what a week!!

Last Saturday night was a great night spent with the youth ministry coordinator, assistant coordinator, and 3 youth parent couples that assist greatly with the youth program. We had a wonderful night hanging out, having fun, talking, playing games, and of course eating some delicious food. It was a very late night but a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, that meant I missed out on another fun party on Sunday in Lexington for Epiphany, but preparing for a new job and getting some other things done around the apartment took priority.

It was a blessed week at my new job. There are some really great people and a wonderful, honest organization. I am rather looking forward to the opportunities to come in this new job. Though, it will take some time to learn another industry and to wrap my head around all the processes and ways of doing things. And as always the world is small, the Sr. Developer on my team and I actually worked briefly together at a previous IT job.

Thursday night provided a wonderful opportunity to catch up with an old supervisor and then Friday night hanging out with other young professionals at a chili supper and seeing other church folks. It was great to catch up and hang out with the various folks.

The Lord provides great blessings! Wishing you all the best this coming week!

May God's love bring a smile to your face.

New Adventures & Back to Kentucky

Six weeks ago, another new segment of life began. As most of you know on July 12, I started a new job back in Kentucky. I now work at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY as Residence Life Coordinator in the Department of Residence Life and Housing.

Bellarmine University is celebrating their 60th Anniversary as an Independent Catholic Institution. The opportunities abound here and I am looking forward to the learning and educating of others.

My position consists of supporting three residence halls on the top of the hill by the Chapel. I have 10 Resident Assistants who support me in my efforts throughout the three buildings. In addition, I work 12 hours a week in the Student Activities Office with Registered Student Organizations and their financials. I live on campus in a nice two bedroom apartment overlooking the Chapel. These are only the start of many things that I will do and be involved in during my time at Bellarmine.

The semester is officially underway and training has concluded. Normalcy should soon follow and hopefully that will lead to more opportunities to blog and share with you. Though I look to get involved at the same time, I hope to take time out for you and my other friends and family.

Return to the Blog

Dear Friends and Readers:

Thanks for all of your support! I feel that I continue to leave you alone and not share the happenings or thoughts of life. When I return, I promise to do better but often again fail. I make no promises of the success or continued consistent future of this blog, but I do hope to write and share more this coming year after apparently a year hiatus.

Last year was a very busy and difficult year. I pushed myself hard to succeed and accomplish things and kept pushing myself and friends away. A resolution for the new year was to work on getting back to my old ways of keeping in contact with friends, sending birthday cards, and sharing personal time with those that mean so much to me. It is a continued struggle to find the right balance between work and personal life, career success and personal enjoyment, when to say no and when to say yes. I ask for your prayers and thoughts as I search for the answers of life and future.

Where am I heading is such a big question in life right now. There are so many options and the true right direction is not evident, though I feel confident that God has placed me back in Louisville and in Kentucky for a reason. Now I just need to take time out to listen to Him and seek the reasons for this placement. Your prayers and thoughts as I transition and seek out the future is very much appreciated.

I look forward to catching up with each of you and spending time sharing and rejoicing in God's love for us all. God Bless!

No Free Weekends Until January

How does one's schedule get full so fast? I really don't have that much of a life. My phone never rings, emails rarely appear, Facebook conversations are minimal, IM chats only occur with a couple people, but somehow my calendar has something scheduled every weekend from now until Jan 8. You better claim the date now.

What does all this mean? Not sure that it means a whole lot because they are not all set in stone. (22 Weekends)
10 - I have to work.
1 - Work related but a trip to Stratford, Canada.
3 - I have tickets to the IU Football games. Anyone interested in watching Wisconsin or Purdue. I believe the Ohio State game is taken. I also have tickets for sale for Illinois and Western Michigan.
2 - Weekends are Holidays
2 - Weekend is my Birthday/Christmas Visiting (Not Planned)
4 - Weekends various, KY, Church, and other activities available

Well, it is time to get back to work as this is one of those working weekends. Football moved in today and lots of prep work to be completed for training.

Why so much work to register your car?

Today's adventure to the BMV was a bust. I went to register my car at the local BMV to find out that I had to have a document verifying my right to have the college's specialty plate. It really does not make sense to me, especially since I already have an FC plate on my car. Why would it not be okay for me to have such a plate again? I can see the reason for an initial document stating that it is okay for me to have an FC plate. This would keep anyone from going to the BMV and getting a college's specialty plate, but why to renew it.

You may be asking what happens in other states. I know for a fact and through experience that in KY you do not need any type of documentation in order to get a private college's specialty plate. Now depending on the county you live in you might need to pre-order the initial plate because they do not have a stock of them in all departments. But to renew you go in as you would for a regular plate and pay the slight extra fee that goes in part to the institution.

KYR SCCA Event #2

Results from the first autocross of the season and unfortunately, I am not sure how many more I will attend. It's amazing how fast weekends fill up.

It poured to start the day, cleared off in time to race, and rained again to finish the day off. Here are my times in order of runs:
47.206
44.593
45.052
45.621
44.798

NO CONES - The car handled a lot better than I thought it would in the rain. I am in dire need of seat time to improve.

The winning G Stock time was 41.608.
28/34 in PAX
32/34 in RAW

Top 100 Places to Live - Lexington, Columbus

Relocate-America's™ Top 100 Places to Live in 2009

Lexington, KY ranks in the top 12 best places to live.

Did you know that in 2008, Lexington was ranked as the 2nd most educated city in the U.S. behind Seattle, WA? This comes from Business Facilities.

Did you know that Toyota is apparently a major employer of Lexington? Unfortunately soon Lexington is going to eat up all of the neighboring towns into a greater Lexington area.

Check out the blurb about Lexington for some other interesting insights.

A couple other interesting cities to me and my other readers in the top 100 include:
Columbus, IN (approx 20 miles south of Franklin)
Noblesville and Fishers, IN
Columbus, OH

Enjoy the reading and finding your next location to live!

What a Weekend

First of all thanks to all of those who allowed me to visit and/or stay with them this weekend. It was awesome to see each and everyone of you.

For those I did not see especially those ill, I hope you get to feeling better soon and do not worry as this story continues, you will see I will be back maybe sooner than later.

Here are just a few of the highlights:

Congrats and Best Wishes to Dr. French! He served Georgetown proudly for 33 years and all of his fellow humans will never forget the compassion and love he showed for each of his students. By the way class starts at 9:30 Naval Observatory Time, you better set your watches appropriately. It was wonderful to see and catch up with professors, staff, and alumni.

Saturday was my first experience of Thunder over Louisville at least that I can remember. I did not actually head downtown for Thunder, but I did catch it on the TV at my friends, RJ squared. It was a lovely production and maybe one day I will venture down to the river to witness it first hand.

Autocross season is HERE. Though a very rainy, rainy day, I enjoyed my first autocross of the season and am now trying to rationalize going to EKU next weekend. Or maybe I should check out the rest of the month and rationalize another event. Either way, I really do not know if I can wait until June to race again. Also if I plan on being in anyway competitive this season, I must practice.

My overall results were not stellar today. I finished 28 out of 34 cars with my second run being the best of 5. The car was quite impressive and stayed under me plus no cones were taken out. The braking before the turns seemed to be good but the line was not all that smooth. The key to improvement is practice and driving the car approximately 300 miles a month is not very good practice.

Children, Children, and more Children The cute little ones of all of my friends was a joy to be around this weekend. I definitely had a good fill of children this weekend though very glad when mom, dad, and grandma were around to take care of the dirty diapers. :-)

Those are just a few of the many highlights from this weekend.

Please keep me in your thoughts this week as I prepare for a large event on Saturday.

The Skullbuster Rally

Another event on last weekends schedule was a Road Rally. The first rally in several years and the skills were a bit rusty, especially at the beginning.

The Skullbuster Rally was a Time Speed Distance rally in northern Scott County, which actually went through Skullbuster, KY. G and I paired up once again to work on defeating the men's teams as well as all others. The skills as mentioned earlier were a bit rusty and sleep deprived, but that did not matter as we still finished 2nd. We defeated all the teams we really sought out and will look to improve in the future.

Definitely had some eventful moments with 2-3 missed turns and one navigator second guessing, which resulted in a couple minutes loss plus a potty break. All worked out as I was able to correct our time and purchase a time allowance to keep us inline for a victory. I try hard not to take time allowances but with a potty break there was not a whole lot of options.

Key things learned from this and past rallies:
- Remind driver to have gas in car.
- Keep driver from drinking too much before the event starts especially caffeinated beverages.
- I really need more sleep before starting and I'm definitely the nerd with the calculator and table for calculating :-)

I encourage you to try it out. If you like to drive and enjoy the country side, it can be fun times. The next event is a Gimmick rally which does not require time calculations like the TSD rallies. Unfortunately, I will not be in attendance as I have to be within 15 minutes of FC, but it should be a lot of fun. Check out the CKRSCCA website Rally Schedule.

Basketball Madness Before March

Last weekend was full of basketball.

Transylvania hosted the men's and women's HCAC Division III basketball tournament, which was great but not great. Not great because Franklin men had a chance to host the tournament had they defeated Defiance the week before. Great because I was headed to Lexington anyway that weekend therefore I could actually watch the games.

Friday at Transylvania
- Franklin women were defeated by Transy in the semifinal game during the early afternoon.
- Franklin men revenged the loss to Defiance to gain a final berth.

I enjoyed watching the second half of the game, unfortunately I was unable to leave in time to watch the full game or the women play.

Saturday Basketball
The afternoon started off with a nice walk from Transy to Rupp Arena to watch the UK vs LSU game. Reminder section 231 is a standing section, but I had a wonderful time with friends and Father. Unfortunately, the end result was not so great.

Previous post mentions the great dinner I had at Sawyers before walking back to Transy in the sleet/freezing rain to watch the Franklin vs Transy men's game, again an exciting game but one with unfortunate results. Franklin loss at the end.

March Basketball
A blessing in disguise may be at hand. With all the work ahead of me, I have not been watching a lot of basketball minus last weekend and doubt a lot will be watched in the upcoming weeks. Therefore, I will not be saddened by the fact the majority of my teams will most likely be missing from the tournament and keep on losing. I wish them all the best.

GO TIGERS!!!! They play tomorrow in the championship of the NAIA MSC in Frankfort.

Dump Your Plump - 6 Full Weeks In

A little late on this post, but thought I would share quickly anyway. Last week I had a weight loss of 1 lb though I am pretty impressed with that after last weekends fun.

Friday, February 27 was a light day but Saturday, February 28 was nothing but unhealthy eating. It was quite delicious and savoring, but not so healthy.

Saturday the enjoyment of a bacon, egg, cheese bagel from McDonalds. Lunch at Galvin's in Georgetown for a semi healthy buffalo chicken salad w/ blue cheese. The kicker comes Saturday night with a lovely, delicious famous Sawyer's burger with bacon, provolone, mushrooms, ketchup, and mustard, along with some fries and a Bass.

At least, I did get some exercise on Saturday walking to and from Transy and Rupp along with lots of standing at the UK/LSU and Franklin/Transy games more on that in another post.

Sunday included a wonderful breakfast at Alfalfa's but again not the healthiest. 3 blueberry/blackberry griddle cakes, over easy egg, bacon, and fruit. I did try kiwi for the first time. It is a very sweet fruit.

Well that is last weeks update. This weeks update will be forthcoming after Monday.

Current weight loss 16 lbs.

After Week 6 - 191 (-1 lb)
After Week 5 - 192 (-3 lbs)
After Week 4 - 195 (0 lbs)
After Week 3 - 195 (-4 lbs)
After Week 2 - 199 (-2 lbs)
After Week 1 - 201 (-6 lbs)
The Start - 207

Try to forget...Duke vs UK 1992

A quick check of the latest local news in Lexington resulted in the following article New Ad Features Laettner, Pitino.

Ice, Snow, Sleet, Electricity, Phone, Gas, ......

Wow what a week was had by many. Here in Indiana, we received around a foot of snow and sleet. Thank goodness! I will take a foot of snow any day over the massive amounts of freezing rain and ice that hit Kentucky.

Thanks to all of those who have prayed for my family, who have gone out to help those throughout the state, and continue to provide support and prayers!

My hometown was quite crippled with all of the ice. Curfews were set and I even saw that liquor sales were to stop at 10:30 in the evening. Electricity went out to many on Tuesday morning and did not come back for several days. I still have some family and friends without power though I believe a majority of them have regained electricity. Phone lines are working much better now after being down for several days and then very spotty for several more days.

Communication has been an interesting task over the past week. A lot of communication occurred between family and friends outside of the area who in one way or another had contact with their family down home. The connections created by Facebook helped me know that a) most of my family was out of power b) the reason I could not contact family was because the only phone service was Verizon. Without Facebook, I would have continued to sit in the dark unknowing of what was really happening. Friends' statuses were updated all in search for any news of those back home and the situation.

The stories of the family pulling together to help one another and others sharing and providing are wonderful. May God continue to bless and keep everyone safe who need power and who are working to provide power and clean the roads.

Check out this link for pictures of the Snow of 2009.

Tim Tam's, an Australian Biscuit, in the USA, with a KY tie!!!

Yes, you are hearing correctly. For a limited time, you can purchase Australia's top chocolate biscuit (cookie) in the United States!! And if you have never been to Australia or had the privilege of a friend sharing a Tim Tam Slam with you, then I encourage you to head to your local Target (if you have one). Once you have a package of Tim Tam's in your position along with some hot cocoa, Milo, or hot tea, then we can share in the experience of a Tim Tam Slam. If you have had prior privilege of indulging in a Tim Tam Slam, then you know where to head in order to indulge again for a limited time.

Pepperidge Farm, a sister company of Arnott's the maker of the Tim Tam, is producing Tim Tam's for the American market through March (Market Watch Story). Thanks to Ashlee and Nick for their discovery at their local Target store!!! Check out the Pepperidge Farm link for a $1 off coupon and an opportunity to enter a sweepstakes for a trip to Australia.

For all my Kentucky friends:
"Tim Tam biscuits first hit supermarket shelves in 1964. They were named after a horse that won the Kentucky Derby in 1958. A member of the Arnott family, Ross Arnott, attended the race day and decided ‘Tim Tam’ was the perfect name for his new biscuit." Arnott's Website

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of my dear friends here and there!

The weather held off nicely for my drive home on Tuesday. It was rainy but luckily not icy minus that freezing on the front of the car as I drove in the wind. I saw an old high school friend on my journey at the infamous Beaver Dam rest stop. I wasn't going to stop but was not sure after a large water for lunch that I could make it the last 1.5 without making a pit stop and that is my last choice. So I stopped and on the way out, I ran into Sherry. It was great to see her and catch up quickly. You never know who you may run into on your travels to and fro. May your travels be smooth as well.

Christmas Eve was spent in the traditional manner with family lunch/dinner, Christmas Eve Mass, and time with my mother's family opening presents and eating.

Christmas Day brings more family time in the morning, followed with Christmas with dad's family, and I am sure some dominoes with the grandparents.

Have a Merry Merry Christmas!

Hurricane Winds lead to rare phenomenon in Kentucky

Here is the news report from Paducah. I might try to write more on this later.

"UPDATE: David S. White, professor of Biological Sciences at Murray State University is reporting more evidence supporting our story.
White writes, "Our water monitors (taking measurements every 15 min) in Kentucky Lake actually picked up the seiche and the changes in water levels. The changes in water level perfectly match the changes in wind speed from our weather station."

Marshall County, KY - As cleanup continues from this weekend's hurricane-driven wind storm... a new mystery. Why were so many boats left high and dry? It turns out they were not simply swept away by high winds.

It is suspected that a rare phenomenon known as a seiche raised one end of the lake by several feet.
It's similar to a storm surge -- those walls of water we've all seen as hurricanes slam into shore. Except on inland waters it's called a seiche. The strong sustained winds push the water to one side of the lake and hold it there. The national weather service says it's likely that's what happened on Kentucky Lake.
Copyright 2008 WPSD-TV, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcasted, rewritten, or redistributed."

Ryder Cup in Kentucky

The past several days Kentucky has hosted the Ryder Cup. I have never been a real huge golf fan for many reasons. I don't know a lot about golf: the rules, skills, philosophy, etc. It has always seemed like a very boring sport to watch on tv. My uncles constantly watched it when I was a child, but I never fully understood it or got into it. There are other sports that attract my attention and keep me interested on tv over golf.

All that said my tv was on the Ryder Cup the majority of Saturday. Why, I kept asking myself. I believe there are a couple key reasons for watching the Ryder Cup. It is exciting to have such a big event in your home state. I was also curious how things were going after the devastation of Ike. There are still thousands of people in the Louisville area without power. The Ryder Cup appeared to go off without a hitch which is good since it was an international event. Another reason is there were two Kentuckians on the USA Ryder Cup team. I feel like I have grown up hearing about Kenny Perry and was interested to see how he was fairing. Though I watched, it was not an intense, continuous watching. I put the tv on mute several times and caught glimpses of what was going on throughout the day. It was definitely not something that peaked me interest continuously as I totally forgot that it was on again today until I was reading the news headlines and Facebook statuses.

Congrats to the US Ryder Cup Team for bringing the Ryder Cup back to the US for the first time since 1999! Congrats to the two Kentuckians for showing the world what Kentucky has to offer!

Quick Update

I know everyone is looking forward to stories and pics from Ghana. They are coming in the near future. I have over 2000 digital pics and 5 rolls of film to process through before I can get things uploaded to share. I will try to upload things here and there for your viewing and knowledge attainment. The trip was awesome and the stories are almost endless and of great variety.

I returned to the United States on June 20th and spent two days with a friend in Baltimore seeing Philadelphia and Washington DC before returning to Bloomington on June 23. In which time the job process started back in full swing with three phone interviews and a campus interview scheduled for July 16. I have sense returned from Kentucky and the Lexington/Louisville area, where I attended a college friends wedding and was able to catch up with some other friends.

A Month Later - Lots of Things Happening

Wow...this has turned out to be one crazy but fun semester. I will attempt to touch on some highlights of the last multitude of weeks, without boring you too much.

In five weeks, I have made 4 trips to Kentucky, 1 to Indy/Cleveland/Chicago/Indy, and 2 to Indianapolis. This is the first weekend in the last five weeks that I will not be leaving town, though on Wednesday I will depart for Western Kentucky for Thanksgiving.

Kentucky
* UK vs LSU Football game and Georgetown's Homecoming - Both of which turned out to be wonderful opportunities and experiences. I will post a picture or two of the game in another post.
* A couple from YAACK and two friends of mine got married on Oct 20 at Christ the King. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend for a fall wedding, and I was honored to be apart of the wedding as a reader. I am just thankful that I still had a voice on Saturday and was not too sick with a cold at that point in time. God was watching over everything.
* Halloween night provided a quick trip to KY for the Georgetown College vs University of Louisville basketball game. Thanks to a friend of mine who invited me to join her and her husband for the game. I was proudly wearing my orange and black in support of the Tigers. The game did not prove to be as exciting as the previous years but it was still nice to watch the Alma Mater and attend my first game in Freedom Hall.
* Last trip was to celebrate my friend Chris's 30th Birthday party. I had to make sure he rang his 30th birthday in right :-)

Cleveland (Indianapolis/Chicago)
* Between the wedding weekend and the birthday weekend, I attended a conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Travels took me to Indy with a return flight through Chicago. The conference was very small and different from other conferences that I have attended in the past. It was the History of Education Society and programs are base more on paper submissions with panel discussions.

The purpose of attending the conference was to present a paper on faculty governance. My previous supervisor, our spring practicum student, and I put together a paper on faculty governance at IU, which we then presented on a panel with two other papers on the history of faculty governance. The panel presentation went very well, except for unlike the wedding, the cold was a bit worse and affecting my voice. We received some good feedback from the panel discussant and others in the audience. I will update you more in the future on how things progress towards potential publishing of some of our work in the future. There are no guarantees at this time, but we are looking to publish a journal article somewhere.

Indianapolis
* Both trips were for the same reason, but instead of staying in Indy, I went with others back and forth last weekend for another conference. This conference was specifically for graduate students in higher education student affairs programs in the midwest. IU and our student personnel association was the host of the conference this year. A friend of mine was the chair of the conference and did a fantastic job of putting together a nice conference. On Sunday of the conference, I presented a program on leadership, which went fairly well though could have been better. It was definitely a learning opportunity and the start of what will hopefully be further program presentations on leadership.

This Weekend
* IU vs Purdue Football Game - Tomorrow, I will attend my first Big Ten and IU football game and tailgate. I did attend one other tailgate at the beginning of the semester but this will be my first full blown experience of Big Ten football. I am looking forward to it, as long as I get a few hours of sleep tonight.

Well there are some of the highlights from the past 5 weeks. I will try to post a few more stories soon.