William Drew

Another Day, Another Pound

Wow, I'm now half excited and half angry at the same time.  I'm excited because I've now dropped four pounds so far this week!  I'm blown away at how fast the blubber is melting away.  But I'm angry because all I'm doing is re-focusing on my plan and sticking to it.  I've been doing the BFL thing for seven+ months now, but the past few months have been more hit or miss than what I should have been doing.  I was still seeing small changes, but now that I've re-focused, I'm losing weight again like I did back in February and March.  I know that the scale isn't everything, and they can be pretty damn evil sometimes, but the weight loss is a BIG boost to my moral and my commitment. 

The most amazing thing about this week is I've cut 500-600 calories out of what I was eating a week ago, and I'm never hungry!  How does that work?  The past few weeks have seen me eat clean meals, but cheat at work by grabbing some M&M's here or some Reese's peanut butter cups there.  I was snacking because I was always hungry.  It was driving me nuts because since I've been doing bfl, I noticed I never really got hungry anymore.  Then the last few weeks hit and WHAM!  Hunger rumblin' in my belly.  Now this week, I cut way down on my calories, and not only am I not ever hungry, I'm usually still feeling full when my next meal time comes around.  It's been a weird change, but right now it's working, so I'm going keep riding it.   

Pancakes & Cookies

After a couple of 'off' weeks in my BFL ways, I am fully back on this week, and in just three days, I am already three pounds lighter!  I have re-focused my eating habits with much stricter goals, and after three days, it looks like it is working.  So what do I do on my 4th day?  Yeah, I eat pancakes and cookies.  But it's all good.  The pancakes were out of the Eating for Life cookbook, and the cookies recipe was passed around on the Bodyforlife-tracker web site.  The pancakes are not the best tasting pancakes in the world, but damn, for something that is made to be 'healthy' they are yummy!  Before I make these again I have to go get a flat top skillet.  I could only make one pancake at a time and when the recipe calls for 10, it took a looooooooong time to make them.  The cookies were oatmeal/peanutbutter cookies.  They were very good!  I'm gonna go get some raisins for the next time I make them.

One of the things that has kept me focused on my eating is I'm using the fitday website again.   Fitday is a website that allows you to enter the foods you ate, or are going to eat, and it will tell you how you are doing as far as calories, fat grams, carbs and protein intake.  I've used this website in the past, but I wasn't setting strict goals with it.  Now I've set firm goals for each day for how many grams of fat, carb and protein I eat each day.  So far, three days in I'm doing good.

 

It really WAS a Dark and Story Night...

So, Wednesday came along.  I was all psyched and ready to watch the premier of 'Lost'.  Then the local station interrupted the broadcast of the pre-show 'Lost' special with weather news.  There was a big, nasty storm coming.  Since I just switched to satellite TV instead of cable, my first reaction was, great, the storm might disrupt the signal for part of the show.  Boy was I ever wrong.  This was one of the fiercest, most violent storms I have ever seen. 

As the reports came in describing what this storm was bringing, I actually started tightening down the house and any loose things in the yard.  They were talking 70 MPH straight line winds, hail, tons of lightning, and flash floods.  As the storm approached, I went and stood out on my side step watching it approach.  I'm one of those people that LOVE watching storms.  My neighbors were out on their deck,  so we talked a little about how bizarre the sky was looking.  Then something freaky happened.  My neighbors and I share a driveway.  They have a day care at their house, and they have one of those play-school houses out on their driveway.  Well, that got thrown across their driveway towards my house.  At the same exact time, both of the garbage cans were launched from behind my house across my driveway towards their house.  Yes, they got blown towards each other at the same time.  Yeah, I was back in the house faster than you can say 'ay'.  It wasn't too long after wards that the power went out.  Great now I'd be sitting here in the dark.  I then grabbed my cell phone to use it as a flash light as I looked ar0und for my real flash light and my lighter so I could light some candles.  I noticed that I had forgot to charge my phone, and it was REALLY low on battery power.  Yeah, good time for power to go out, and my only communication to the outside world was almost out of juice. 

Shortly after getting a few candles lit to light up the house a bit, the storm then got really nasty.  I actually headed down to my basement.  Like I said, I LOVE watching storms come in, this one drove me to run and hide.  After the storm started to let up, I called a couple of friends to see if they had power.  When I found one who did, I quick ran to my truck and drove to his house so I could watch 'Lost'.  Man, even as the storm was subsiding, driving was very difficult.  A trip that should take 12-15 minutes took 30.  The freeway on-ramp was littered with trees and branches that turned it into an obstacle course.  Most cars on the freeway with me were all driving 20-30 MPH as there was standing water on the freeway, and the rain picked back up again so it was difficult to see more than 20 feet or so.  By the time I made it to his house, the rain had stopped.  I got there a few minutes late, but I was still able to see most of the premier. 

As the show ended, I decided to head up to my parents house.  They live in a part of town that most reports were saying was hit hard, and they are currently enjoying the beauty of Hawaii.  As I was heading up there, another wave of storms came crashing in.  I have never driven through anything like this before.  Power was out every where, so pretty much every intersection was without stop lights to direct people.  Combine that with not being able to see more than 15 feet, and flooded roads, and trees laying across the roads, wow.  It was a crazy journey trying to get to my parents house.  As I drove up to my parents house, my thoughts were to just get there and hide out as this storm passed.  Well, I never made it there.  I turned into their neighborhood.  There was no power there, it was all dark and I could barely see the road.  I got freaked out at one point as a pair of head light appeared out of no where right ahead of me.  It turned out there was a tree down laying across the on-coming lanes of the road.  Visibility was so bad that I hadn't even seen the tree yet, and then this car came out from behind it, into my lane to get around the tree.  I drove past that tree only to see two more trees down across the road.  I was also driving through 1-2 feet of water in some spots.  Then I got to the street I had to run down and I had to abandon my journey to their house.  Not only was the water 2-3 feet deep, but there were trees down blocking the road.  The rest of the drive through their neighborhood only got worse.  The entire road was flooded, some parts fairly deep.  Trees were down everywhere.  As I was getting back to the main road, the water got deeper than I had ever thought I would have to drive through.  Luckily my truck made it through.  There were a couple of cars stalled out.  I got back to the main road, and set my coarse for home.  Even on the main road, there were flooded streets with water 1-2 feet deep.  There were trees down over the main streets.  I got back home safe and sound shortly after 10:30 PM.  Since the power was out, I decided the just try going to bed.  Not long after laying down, I was awoken by my parents calling from Hawaii.  I told them I tried getting to their house but couldn't get there.  They gave me the number to their neighbors house and I tried calling them, but the power knocked out their phone.  I then decided to try getting over to their house again and as I was heading out the door, my brother called and he was over at my parents house and said everything was fine.  So, that saved me a trip. 

The next morning the site of all of the destruction was amazing.  Houses destroyed.  50-60 foot trees toppled.  I didn't have power for over 24 hours.  I was actually happy it got on that fast.  I saw all of the trees down in my neighborhood, all of the power lines laying across the roads under the trees that fell, and I suspected that I would be one of the people that the energy company said would be without power for up to five days.  The pictures through out this  post are a mixed bag of some of my photos, and some from the StarTribune storm coverage.

My house was spared any damage.  I had a few twigs and small branches in my yard.  But just around the corner from my house trees were laying on top of houses, laying across the roads, laying on neighbors cars.  It was a mind-numbing morning.

Ready For 'Lost' tonight!!!

Tonight is the night!!!  Season 2 for 'Lost' starts tonight.  I've never been hooked on a show like this one before.  In fact, right now if I had to choose, I would rather watch Lost than football.  Even though I missed most of the first six episodes last season, I couldn't tear myself away from the TV when I finally started recording or watching the shows. 

Last week I purchased the Lost Complete Season One DVD set.  I literally spent every minute of my free time watching each and every one of the episodes.  My gawd, this show simply blows my mind with how good it is.  I have never uttered more 'Oh my gawds' or 'Holy Shits' watching anything before.  The twists and turns the show takes you on.  The little snippets of how some of the characters were connected at some time in the past (Like seeing Hurley on the TV at the Korean mans house where Jin went to "leave a message").  And the back stories for  each character.  Man, I LOVE the back stories. 

One of my favorite scenes was when Jack and Kate were searching for Charlie and Claire, and they found Charlie hanging in the bamboo trees.  That entire scene of Jack trying to revive him.  Wow, I think that might be the number one best scene I have seen anywhere.  Including all of the movies that I've seen. 

The way that the writers have tied all of the characters together has completely amazed me.  What I mean by that is what happened to each one that brought them to that flight.  Hurley and his 'bad luck' since using the numbers.  Claire and the psychic that may have known the flight was going down. 

And the island.  Man, all of the mysteries that they have given the island.  How Locke regained the use of his legs.  The hatch and the numbers on it.  The 'Others'.  Even the damn Polar Bears on a tropical island! 

I also can't wait to find out what the numbers mean.  All of the ways that they sneak those numbers into the show.  Seeing it on the side of the hatch, seeing the girls soccer team in the final episode with those numbers (and only those numbers) on their uniforms.  I don't really expect to find out what the numbers mean.  I'm guessing that those will stay a mystery for as long as the show is on. The new set of 'survivors' on the other side of the island.  The girl that Jack had drinks with at the airport bar is supposed to be amongst them.  Anna was her name, and she was played last season by Michelle Rodriguez.  I'm hoping she is playing the part again this year 'cause she is friggen HOT!!  She's also a damn good actress who can kick some ass. 

Oh, and the raft!  What is going to happen with Michael and the raft?  We never saw what happened with Sawyer and Jin after Sawyer was either shot or fell in the water getting out of the way and Jin jumped in after him.  And Walt getting taken away by the people that I could only expect are the 'Others' (I've read that the girl that threw the 'bomb' onto the raft is Russo's long lost daughter).

From what I have seen, there will be more and more twists thrown at us in tonight's 1st episode. 

Alright... show time starts in 36 minutes.  I'm ready for the season to blow me away again!      

Where's William?

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted.  Last week my time was at a premium, and unfortunately sitting in front of the computer did not get much of my time.  I worked like an idiot last week.  Our sales have been down, so our labor has been WAY too high.  Because of that I decided to stick around for the dinner shift every day so I could send a few employees home to help our labor numbers.  Well, each day I stayed, the sales were even worse, so no matter how many I sent home, it just didn't help.  I put in 5 shifts of 12-14 hours last week. 

Then when I wasn't at work, I had a new diversion to occupy my time.  I purchased the 1st season of 'Lost' on DVD.  I spent pretty much all of my free time watching the entire season.  I now only have the final two episodes left, which is perfect as the new season starts up on two days!  I can't wait.  That show is SO freaking good.  I love having the DVDs as I missed most of the first 5 or 6 episodes.  I would always catch the last 10-15 minutes of them, and I completely missed one or two of them.  I also missed one or two episodes from the rest of the season as well.  So being able to see the entire season has been a treat. 

One of the best scenes from 'Lost' was when Charlie and Claire had been kidnapped, and Jack found Charlie hanging and tried to revive him.  Damn, that has got to be one of the best scenes I've ever seen, whether it was TV or a Movie. 

I'll be back getting things updated again.  I have a bunch of new photos to post from my trip to the Renaissance Festival.  So stay tuned, more new is coming soon!

Oh, and that photo at the beginning was taken by me as I was heading out my door to get to my car to go to work last week.  I noticed how gorgeous the sunrise was, so I quick ran back in the house and took that picture. 

3 Free days in 8 days....

OMG, I am one over-stuffed guy right now.  Today was my free day for the week.  I usually wait for Sunday to have my free day, but since it's a holiday, and I was going to spend the day at my parents for some BBQ and swimming, it was a good day for a free day.  I also had a free day on Saturday as I went to the State Fair.  You can't go to the state fair without gorging yourself on food.  And I also had a free day on Monday 8/29.  Yeah, that was two free days last week.  The one I took last Monday was the one I would have taken on Sunday 8/28, but I knew I was going to the fair, so I pushed it off one day.  So now I'm just over stuffed and ready to get back to some normal BFL meals on Tuesday.

I did have a very good UBWO today.  I upped a the weights on a couple of the workouts, but I didn't go high enough on one of them.  My new bicep workout must really be working.  Two  weeks ago when I started with this new workout, I had a hard time finishing.  When I did it on Friday, I finished, but it took all I had to get to the end.  On Wednesday of last week, I not only finished, but it was almost easy.  So today, I upped the weights, and I breezed through the bicep workout.  I got done and I was amazed at how just two weeks ago I couldn't finish and was sore for four days after doing this workout, and now after upping the weights, I had an easy time of it. 

Now that I've already had my free-day for the week, it's going to be a looong week making sure I don't cheat.  Actually, it will be a long TWO weeks making sure I don't cheat.  Right now I don't have anything on my schedule to change it, so my next free day will be Sunday the 18th.

And while I am on the subject of working out and eating right, my dad has been working on losing weight and he's been doing a fantastic job.  He's back down below 200 and seeing him today he's looking slim for the trip my parents are taking to Hawaii in a little over a week.  I don't think he is doing any particular program other than eating right and exercising.  I was hoping to be down below 200 by this time, and he made it there.

One final picture.  This one is my brother doing a belly flop onto the fun island in my parents pool.  My dad is holding the raft, and my niece and nephew are on the deck in the background.  

State Fair Again

I went to the state fair again on Saturday.  When I went to work at 7 AM, it was a nice, clear, beautiful day.  Then as the afternoon approached, the rain came, and it brought some lightning and thunder with it.  As I was getting off of work at 5 PM, there was some heavy thunderstorms coming in on us.  We still decided to go to the fair as we saw on the weather radar that after these heavy storms went throug h it would clear up, which it did.  We walked around in a little bit of rain as we arrived at the fair, but shortly after arriving it stopped raining and our only concern then was not walking though the sometimes huge water puddles, the patches of slick mud, or the presents left behind by the cows and horses.  I saw two different people slip and fall in the mud.   It's too bad that I wasn't ready with the camera as it would have made a nice shot. 

This time we were at the fair to take in the grand stand show for the night.  It was REO Speedwagon and Styx.  I don't own a single album by either one of these bands, but Renegade by Styx was one of the very 1st 45's that I bought when I was just a wee little lad.  I was going in with the impression that I would know a few songs from REO, and a bunch of them from Styx.  Man was I ever wrong.  We arrived at the grand stand just before 8 PM.  They were supposed to have let people in starting at 7:30 PM, but because of the threat of some storms, they were waiting to see if they were going to cancel the shows, or go ahead and play.  It wasn't until close to 8:30 PM that they started letting people in.  So the show got off to a late start.  First off, I have to mention that being in the grand stand at this show felt like being at a high school reunion.  Damn near everyone there was right around my age.  It was the most non-diverse crowd that I've seen at a concert.  And from the sound of it, most of the people around us follow these two bands around a LOT.  I guess REO and Styx tour together every other year.  There were people behind us taking about previous shows, and future ones that they were going to.  There were people in-front of us wearing t-shirts from earlier REO & Styx tours. 

REO took the stage sometime around 9 PM.  I gotta tell ya, these guys were GOOD.  They put on a hell of a show, and they sounded great.  They were a lot more 'rock' than I was expecting as I remember most of their light rock songs.  And except for a song or two, I knew all of the songs they performed.  I had forgot how many good songs they had that I liked back in the day.  There was one odd moment during the show.  The lead singer went behind the stage as they finished one song, and the band tore into a new song.  As the singer came back on stage, someone was carrying his guitar, and there were two security guys with him.  He then had to make an announcement that the powers that be have to temporarily stop the show as there was a lightning show approaching.  So he announced that they were going to go backstage and take cover, and he said we were all supposed to leave the grandstand and take cover.  Well, a few people left, most of us stuck around, and I went over to the side of the grandstand to take some photos of the midway.  There was a lot of lightning out in the distance, and I took a TON of photos trying to get one with lightning in it.  I did get one with lightning, but it was one I took as I was heading back and I wasn't using the railing to brace myself anymore so I moved and the shot was all blurry.  Dang it.  It wasn't five minutes after they made the announcement to leave the grandstand then the announce the band would be back out in a few minutes.  No rain, no lightning, nothing.  It just ended up being a break in the show.  REO came back out, and continued where they left off and finished with a great show. 

After 30 or so minutes of watching the stage hands get everything set up, Styx took the stage.  During their whole show, I maybe recognized three or four songs, the rest of the show it was my first time hearing the songs they were playing.  But that was alright as these guys put on a SHOW.  Now, REO put on a great show, and they sounded great too, but they just play their songs, and have a good time doing that.  Styx puts on a show while they are playing their songs.  I guess the best way to say it is they are a lot more 'theatrical'.  Their keyboardist, who took over for Dennis DeYoung had this really cool set up where his keyboard would spin around so he could face any direction he wanted to.  And there were times when he would back away and just spin the thing.  He was also a VERY animated performer.  He was always interacting with the crowd, with his band-mates, and quite often doing some 'I'm-a-rock-star-I-can-dance-how-I-want-to-dance' dancing.  Tommy Shaw was also always putting on a show.  Even though I didn't know a lot of the songs they performed, it was a good time. 

The only downfall to the show starting late, and then taking a break, is they had to cancel the fireworks.  Here I was hoping I could get in some photos of the fireworks so I could see which setting worked best for that before I get out to Disney in October.  Oh well, it was still a good night.  As we left the show, we stopped for some of Martha's cookies.  Man, that place makes a TON of money.  I think damn near half of the people at the show stopped there just like we did.  It was a very good night, even if it did start off with us walking around in the rain.

I put a few of my pictures through-out this post.  The rest of the photos are in the photo album which you can see over in the left hand column.    

Minnesota State Fair

I was out at the Minnesota State Fair on Monday.  I LOVE going to the fair.  The food, the people watching... it's all good.  However, since I am saving up my money for my trip to Disney in October, I didn't buy any merchandise this time.  And since I've changed my eating habits, I didn't go hog wild on the food like I normally would.  Now, I didn't exactly skimp.  I had me some grub!  But no where near what I used to eat.  One disappointment that I had was the Pasty stand was gone.  If you haven't had a Pasty, you're missing some good food!  Pasties are HUGE in Michigan's U.P.  The past few years Someone has been selling the pasties at the fair, but this year they were no where to be found.  Oh well.  That just left more room in my belly for other goodies! 

The 1st stop was getting some Bull Bites.  I could sit by this booth ALL day long and be a very happy man.  Bull bites are good.  I also helped myself to some mini-doughnus, a gourmet sausage (that I made a big stinking mess  of myself as I was trying to eat it.  Let's just say I'm glad that Matt didn't have a camera), and... hmm, I guess I shouldn't have waited so long to post this as I don't remember too much else of what I had.  I know one thing that BFL has doen for me.  I was way beyond thirsty all day while I was out there.  I'm now used to drinking over a gallon of water a day.  On the days that I don't get that much, I get dehydrated in a hurry.  I think I drank three 1-liter bottles of water in the 1st two hours after getting home.

The fair is also a good place to see what is hot in the automotive business.  These two trucks that I'm showing here were both priced at well over $70,000!!!  That's more than I paid for my house!!!  But yeah, these trucks look HOT.

 

We were walking past one of the main stages at the fair and we hear some amazingly beautiful acoustic guitar, so we walked over to check it out.  When we got there we saw one guy all alone on stage, just him and a few acoustic guitars.  This guy was amazing.  Shortly after we got there, he did a version of 'Over The Rainbow' that put goosebumps on my arms.  He then did a couple of his own songs.  The whole time it was just him playing his guitar, he didn't sing at all and the whole time it was just this sound that was too beautiful to describe.  At the end of one of his songs, he started slapping his guitar, and started playing it like it was a set of bongos.  I've seen guys slap their guitar before, but it was always just once or twice during a song and usually used to imitate a kick drum.  This guy was literally using his guitar as a percussion set.  It was sooo cool all of the different sounds he was getting from different parts of the guitar.  I took a video of him doing this.  It starts out kind of shaky, and my camera does not have a zoom function when it's in video mode, so it is not very easy to see.  Click here to see the video.  Unfortunatly, I don't remember the guys name.    

I was hoping to stick around long enough in the day to get some night time shots as I want to get some practice in before going to Disney World.  But after putting in around 7 hours, Matt and I were pretty beat so we left around 7 PM.  This last photo I took while on the cheap, flimsy walkway that gets people in and out of the fair on the south side.  It was hard getting this photo set up as anytime someone was on the walkway, the thing shook like you wouldn't believe.  I had also passed up an earlier shot of the Coliseum with the sun setting behind it as there was a lot of people coming up behind us so I didn't want to block up the walk way.  But for this shot of downtown, I let everyone pass, but still had to wait until the walkway stopped bouncing and swaying around before I took this shot.

I'll be heading back out to the fair on Saturday night.  A friend of mine ended up with two extra tickets to the... yes, I'm admitting it... REO Speedwagen and Styx concert.  Unfortunatly, that friend had a family tragedy and won't be going with us.  So, if all goes well, I'll have a short clip or two of the show, and some night time shots from the fair!

Fantasy Football!!!

I had my Fantasy Football Draft on Sunday, August 28th (yeah, I'm a little behind in the updates, eh?).  I started this league 17 years ago and it is still going strong.  Yeah, I have employees at work that weren't even born when I started this league.  Anyway, as much as I was excited about the draft, I was also nervous about how crappy my picks were.  We draw names out of a hat to decide the draft order, and we then reverse the order for the next round.  We re-draw the order for every-other round, and my first few picks were about as bad as you could get.  I ended up with the 2nd over-all pick.  In most drafts, that would be something to be excited about, but not this year.  Because I have the 2nd pick, that means I don't pick again until the 23rd pick.  I then got stuck with the last pick in the 3rd round as well.  The 1st three rounds of a Fantasy Football draft are where you get your big name, stud players.  I had picks that left me without many choices and I had to pick up what the other guys left for me. 

98% of all fantasy football regulars say you have to go with Running backs right away.  I went against that though process and took Daunte Culpepper with my 1st pick.  Obviously being a Vikings fan, I'm happy to have him, but I'm also happy as I firmly believe that Daunte will be the best player in the league this year.  So I was very happy with that pick.  My next two picks, the happiness factor wasn't anywhere near as high.  By the time my pick came up at the end of the 2nd round, all of the stud running backs were gone.  I was stuck taking Ahman Green, who in years past has put up numbers worthy of a late 1st round pick or early 2nd round pick, but people are down on him this year.  The Packers are going to have to score a lot of points this year as their defense will suck, so hopefully Ahman can benefit from all those points. 

My 3rd round pick saw me taking Reggie Wayne from Indianapolis.  He should put up good numbers, but in no way is this a 'sexy' pick.  So with my 1st three picks, I took a QB where most guys would have taken a RB; I was stuck with a RB most people were avoiding, and I have a #2 WR.  A very ugly start in building a team.  I'm happy with Daunte, but I'm hoping the next two guys don't blow it for me. 

I am very happy with the rest of my draft.  The 1st three rounds you really are at the mercy of where your picks fall.  Most of the owners in our league are pretty good, so we can't really count of good players falling down anymore.  After the 3rd round, it doesn't really matter where your draft picks are, at that point it all comes down to how well you build your team, and like I said, I am happy with my team.  I have what most people would say are 3 or the top 12 WR's and my 4th WR is still in the top 20.  When I finally got back to picking up a RB, I took a risk on a rookie, but he lead the nation in rushing last year in college, and he is the main guy on a team that is looking to be very good this year.  I also got Larry Johnson way down in the 8th round which was such a steel.  This guy was a top 10 RB last year, and he has look a LOT better this year.  The only reason he lasted so long is he is technically a backup RB.  But he will still get plenty of touches.

Our season starts up with the 1st game of the NFL season next Thursday.  I'm ready to start this thing up!