Scuplt + ab-ripper = ouch! Completed, although I hope I don’t have to combine the sculpting and ab routine together again…

Friday afternoon thought to myself, “we should go to a Lions game”. Well, picked up some tickets not too overly priced at ticket exchange and had an awesome time today! We were half-way up in the endzone where the lions scored 3 out of 4 of their touchdowns, lots of fun! (except for the overly, obnoxiously loud, Lions fans behind us…)

I’ve been meaning to add a new post on here for awhile, just haven’t gotten around to it. 😉 November seemed to sneak up on us this year, maybe its because we’re used to lots of white stuff covering the ground and being very cold. I managed to finish my second ever five mile race the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

I developed an app to help keep me on track during my training for the race. Although I didn’t beat my previous time, I felt a lot better finishing this race then that one. It also didn’t help my time that the course was a lot tougher, a stiff wind that always seemed to be coming right at you (even after the turn-around point) and hilly! I took a quick lead ahead of Susan to put some time between us, and as we passed each other, her words “I’m catching up to you!” was all the motivation I needed to keep going strong!

Susan was on call for Thanksgiving so we watched the game and had a nice little meal for ourselves. Susan made the dessert and I somehow got to do everything else! Waldo has been doing good, he seems almost like another dog now that we let him out by himself. We should have gotten the invisible fence a lot sooner!

After finding a good deal on cyber Monday for a 32″ LED HDTV and hooking it up, I started looking into alternative means to Charter for cable and internet. To get the HD Channels on a 2nd tv we would need to rent another receiver from Charter and get charged five more bucks per month. Charter’s internet pricing was cheaper than AT&T’s for high speed, so I started looking for options for cable. DirectTV definitely had the best 2-year contract deal, but once the 2 years was up, it jumped to a ridiculous amount and I didn’t really want to enter into a contract. The other option, Dish network, was pretty closely priced to Charter and provided more channels, but we’d still have to get two receivers and charged extra per month for the second one (I think it was 7 bucks here).

Then I had a radical idea, what if we ditched cable altogether? I don’t typically watch a whole lot of tv anyway, so after convincing Susan we could save quite a bit of money, we decided to give it a shot.

The first step was to see what major networks were in range of our house. Using a couple tools on the internet, I found ABC to be the furthest one out at around 40 miles. This is important as someone is addicted to Once Upon a Time, no ABC meant no deal!

The next step was to test an antenna with at least a 40 mile range. There’s some pretty neat antennas out now-a days, including ones that are paper thin and can actually look like part of your decor. I saw Best Buy had an antenna with a 50 mile range and figured if I wasn’t able to get all the stations I needed *ahem* ABC *ahem*, I’d return it and for go this great idea. After getting the antenna home and hooking it up to the tv, I was able to get 18 channels (most in HD), including ABC!

One of these days I’m going to actually figure out WTF is up with our coaxial cable wiring. We have a dish in our backyard with three lines attached to it. Our cable box has a 2-way splitter and a 4-way splitter (the 2-way feeds into the 4-way). Inside our house, we have a wall jack in each of the upstairs bedrooms, the upstairs tv area, a wall jack and a line in the living room, a wall jack and TWO lines in the master bedroom. Hauling my old school CRT around I determined neither upstairs jack worked nor the wall jack in the master. Outside there are two sets of three wires cut. One set comes from the satellite and one set obviously goes to the wall jacks. I still don’t know why 2 working lines were needed for the living room and bedroom, but that’s what I got…

Before venturing off into the attic I wanted to make sure I got my wiring figured right. The plans were to keep the one tv upstairs and the other for the master. I disconnected the 4-way splitter from the 2-way and wanted to get one of the lines that went to the master. I must have been lucky as the first cable I tried happened to be the right one. After marking each end of the cable, I saw the upstairs jack was already marked (isn’t that convenient?). I moved the incoming line to the 4-way splitter that way I could hook up the modem to whatever line I wanted and both of the tv lines to the 2-way splitter.

Once the wiring was figured out I was off to get a 50′ line to run from the attic to the cable box. We don’t have a full attic and a tall person doesn’t belong in ours. It wasn’t easy and the A/C unit didn’t make it pleasant going in and out of the attic. Once I started the mounting process I found out there was enough slop that I couldn’t use my ratchet wrench for the lag bolts, no it wasn’t metric because I tried that to and didn’t have much luck. I also thought to myself, gee I better not drop one of these bolts in the 6 inches of blown insulation, but happened to do that at least 5 or 6 times, almost gave up looking for the last one I dropped… 🙁 After a dozen trips in and out of the attic I finally had the antenna mounted. Using an app on my phone, I pointed in the direction I thought would be good and went to program the tv’s. Lo and behold I managed to pick up 22 channels including all of the major broadcasting networks, success! I was really happy to not have to play the adjust, scan, adjust, scan, adjust, scan game!

Along with the antenna, I also got a set top box. I went with Roku XS. It lets you stream HD content to your tv from a few different sources, including NetFlix (which we had) and HuluPlus (which I signed up for, $7.99 / month). So, after taxes and fees and all that fun stuff, we were paying close to $85 / month for cable television, add $5 for HD channels on the second tv and figuring the $8 for HuluPlus let’s say that’s a savings of $80 per month. That’s almost 1000 dollars a year we’ll be saving by dropping cable, I know there’s a better way to spend that money… such as say a new triathlon bike! 😉

Speaking of which, my triathlon training has officially started a couple weeks ago. Watching the Kona coverage (the Super Bowl of triathlons) last Saturday has got me pumped up and I can’t wait to get to the starting line to see how my training pays off!

The weekend went by way too quickly. After finally getting out of work on Friday (my job has gotten to be quite boring), I ran a couple of errands and picked up a bottle of champagne for later that evening. After eating I surprised Susan with the bottle… We put in Lake House (pretty decent romance movie, gotta love Keaneu Reeves acting, or lack thereof), snuggled on the couch and sipped champagne in our flutes that we got from Beth and Matthew. It was a nice relaxing night.

Saturday, we got almost all of our Christmas shopping done and had quite the experience with a couple of sales associates at Wal-mart. We printed off three 4×6″ prints at the Kodak printing machine. Written clearly above (I know because I went back and checked) was 28 cents a print. A logical person would think three prints at 28 cents each, a total of 84 cents plus tax (as you might have guessed, logical is a hard concept for Wal-mart to grasp, or simply put, the wheel’s spinning but the hamster’s dead). We took the two slips (yes… two slips, one slip was for two printouts and the other slip for one printout… this is important…) We finished the rest of our shopping and proceeded to the checkout. As per typical Wal-mart there wasn’t a whole lot of checkout lanes opened (hmmm… Christmas season is upon us, let’s have fewer lanes opened!) and we had well over 16 for the express lane. When we finally got to check out, the sales associate greeted us (yes… some don’t and you can actually provide feedback on the credit card swiper machine, but that’s a different story…) She began to swipe our items after which I handed the two slips for our pictures. As she swiped the first I noticed a sale of ten dollars came across the screen. I thought, whoa that seems pricey and sure enough the second slip also came up to ten dollars. At this point I mentioned to the sales associate, “Ten dollars for a 4×6″ print?!” Her face went blank; she shrugged and said “I don’t know”. So I asked again and she went through the same dumbfounded actions. I thought, okay this is getting me nowhere and figured if I wanted something done I better not deal with her. After paying the ridiculous amount of twenty bucks for three pictures, we went over to the service counter (after I ran back and checked the sign…) We showed this other sales associate (after again waiting in line) our receipt that had two (this is where it gets tricky) items labeled ‘PM 4×6″‘ with a price of ten dollars each. We said we had three pictures but only two slips. This sales associate was like I only see two items not three (yes, but this receipt only shows we had two slips, and one slip had two pictures on it…) Sigh, after about ten minutes of trying to convince her we actually did have three pictures (we did show them to her) with two slips (guess the hamster had a jolt or something) we managed to get our money back. An after thought of this occurrence was, gee I could print a thousand pictures get one slip and it’d only cost ten dollars (better try this quick before they fix the machine 😉 ).

Sunday was a pretty fun filled day as well (I know, it ranks just a bit higher than going to Wal-mart and having the fun I mentioned above… just a wee bit of sarcasm). We went to church and as Susan said after choir practice last Monday (she plays her violin in church) St. Anthony’s/St. Joseph’s Parish have a thing for O Come Emmanuel. Just about every song sung had the same music behind it, just different words (even the Alleluia… this is going to be an exciting advent… well I guess it’s better than no music at all). Afterwards we stopped for a bite to eat and headed to Grandma’s house (over the river and through the woods, well sort of). Me and Susan took part in the annual frosting of the sugar cookies and had a pretty good time visiting, frosting, and eating any cookies that were “accidentally” broken (a rules a rule…) We managed to get back just as the third quarter of the Lions-Patriots game ended. Somehow the Lions were keeping up against the once World Champs. Of course if I were the Patriots and I saw the Lions put the 2nd string quarterback in as a wide receiver I wouldn’t know what to think either… I’m not just saying once or twice, but I guess Josh McCown played quite a bit of wide receiver and he did make a couple of catches as strange as that may be… Well after the Lions got a safety I was thinking, oh boy wouldn’t that be something if they win (at this point they were up 18-13). A turnover and another field goal for the Lions (21-13), and I was getting pretty excited. Somehow the Patriots managed to stomp down the field, go for two and tie the game. The Patriots then come up with another touchdown and pull into the lead. After the kickoff the Lions turned the ball over again (this makes the third one this game for them) and I thought eh it’s over now. But somehow they managed to get the ball back again (Patriots now had three turnovers). I look to Susan and say two plays and Jon Kitna throws an interception. Sure enough just like clockwork, two plays and tada an early Christmas present for the Pats… those stupid, stupid Lions. Feeling a little disappointed, I flipped on Zelda (which made the thought of the Lions losing another game by seven points or less go away) and got to play a few hours. I made dinner (lemon chicken, always a favorite) and watched Law & Order and went to bed in anticipation of another exciting week at Dow (doing not much at all…)

Day number two of the Dowtran Development Class and boy is it exciting. I’ve got three more days and a project due at the end of the week. At least they give us free food! Other than taking this course, my job’s going pretty good. I’m making a big impact on validation of a system we’re adding onto. This weekend I got to try something new, me and Susan went to a wine tasting party. We got to test a few different wines (even though I don’t care for wine, pass the sparkling grape juice for me please!) Susan’s co-workers put it on and they made a ton of hors d’voers, so that was good for me (I ate most of the sesame crackers and sampled a variety of cheeses). Unfortunately the Lions (those stupid, stupid Lions) couldn’t manage to increase their win record to three… typical Jon Kitna, down in the 4th with a chance to win, let’s throw an interception… On a happy note, I just picked up a couple tickets for the Bears-Lions game on December 24th, section 129 row 6, about the 15 yard line (look for us on the TV, even if Susan may have a Bears jersery on… traitor!)

Okay, this entry’s gonna be kinda long so hold on to your hats… Last weekend, the weekend before Halloween… I know I should have put an entry way back then, but anywho… Susan’s folks came down to visit and we went to Frankenmuth. I somehow “lucked” out and got to be the driver. It was a nut house, especially if you try to go the wrong way down a one way in a parking lot (in my defense, it wasn’t marked clear at all). After finding a spot to park at the Bavarian Inn we met up with Susan’s aunt, uncle, and cousin. Last February me and Susan met up with her aunt and uncle and went to Zender’s and the indoor water park. Zender’s and the Bavarian Inn have a speciality dinner (better be… it’s like 30 bucks a plate) where you get a full course meal brought out to you. I was really excited because the chicken was so salty at Zender’s that you couldn’t hardly beat it, needless to say it was really good (and probably really bad for you). Unfortunately the Bavarian Inn’s chicken wasn’t quite as salty but they did have orange sherbert twist for dessert which was pretty good (and the rest of the meal was good too!)

Well if you go to Frankenmuth, you better stop at Bronner’s (open 361 days of the year…) Lucky me I got to try and find a parking spot again. As I was scanning the lot for a space, a minivan driver decided since they were bigger than me, they owned the lot. After a couple toots on my horn they backed down (they were trying to back out into me…) After that little escapade (no harm no foul), me and Susan went on a hunt to find a “Our First Christmas” ornament. After looking at the personalized ones we decided a laser engraved one would look really neat (I was gonna take a picture of it, but the fact it reflects the camera makes that kind of difficult, you’ll just have to stop by at Christmas to see it =P). The engraving process is pretty sweet, they use a laser to cut the design we picked out and it took all of about 5 seconds to finish. The ornament also comes with a light you can hook up to your regular Christmas light string (now all we need is a tree). After we got our ornament and paid for it, it was time to round up the gang (I think everyone was at a different end of the store). Eventually everyone found there way to the South entrance, except for Susan’s mom. She was lost and had to call Susan’s dad to rescue her. As they made their way back to the South entrance, it was time to go. All and all a pretty exciting weekend.

Halloween, the night of ghosts and ghouls and most importantly, candy! Wanting to save a few bucks, I decided getting candy the night before Halloween would be a good idea. I bought about 12 bags of candy for 2 bucks a piece, saving almost a dollar on each bag (yeah I know I’m a smart shopper). I probably went a little overboard on the candy, as we didn’t know exactly how many kids we would be getting. We also got our pumpkins the day before Halloween (and we got a good deal on them too!) Actually, I’m not so sure we got the best deal as my pumpkin was starting to rot on the bottom. I figured if I flipped it over it’d be alright, but it still looked pretty sad. We picked up a carving kit and Susan made an owl, while I took the easy road and finished mine in about 20 minutes start to finish (I think she put in atleast 2 hours… and I quote “It doesn’t take that long, it’s easy.”) Besides… my pumpkin made hers look better, a good pumpkin by itself is alright, but put it next to a sad one, presto, it becomes magnificant! We did get quite a few trick-or-treaters, though I was dishing out the candy by the hand full. We set up a couple of chairs on our porch and after it died down (and someone couldn’t take the cold and wimped out) we came in with about half a bag of Twix bars and a handful of other candy bars. The next day I come home anticipating biting into a chewy, chocolatey, caramel candy bar, I found out there were none left (someone had eaten them all, and not just one or two or a few, but like two dozen, thus she got her new nickname, Twixie).

This weekend wasn’t too exciting, except for the Lions won and da Bears lost (aw poor Rexy lost to Joey Joey Joey). My jobs going pretty good, or shall I say I have a lot todo. Today I had a meeting to review the protocol I was working on the past 3-4 weeks to validate the system that will be going in. I only have to rewrite pretty much the whole thing by the end of the week. Oh and I have class all day tomorrow and Thursday… luckily I can work some overtime this week and if the need be next week (I have a full week of class next week, all day long…) Time and half here I come! (sometimes it’s good to be hourly) I did interview with a company last week about a job opening. That job sounds pretty exciting and I’ll be “the man”. The guy that is currently in the position is leaving and no one else can fill his shows at the company, so they’re looking to hire someone to do everything (sounds like a phat paycheck to me, cha-ching!) I dunno if I’ll get a call back as they were looking for someone with a ton of experience I didn’t have, but it was a fun interview nonetheless. I’m gonna cut myself off here as I still have quite a bit to do tonight (new Heroes tonight, “Save the cheerleader, save the world”, check it out at 9 on NBC).

Hmmm… haven’t added an entry in awhile… I’ve been pretty busy. The job’s going pretty good, I’m currently working on developing a simulation of a chemical process. We tried to compile it today, but the guy who I’m working with had about 150 errors with his code. Needless to say, he had some things to fix. I’ve also developed a test protocol for validation (I am a software validation engineer after all) of our current systems. It’s being reviewed and once that’s done I get to do up about half a dozen more (whoopee…)

Unfortunately Great Lakes Ice Cream Company closed, so we went to Cold Stone Creamery the other day. I got white chocolate ice cream with white chocolate chunks and caramel and whipped topping; it was a little too sweet for me… Susan got watermelon sorbet with gummi bears, her’s was a little overkill on the watermelon flavor and the gummi bears were stale. This place has nothing on the other ice cream shop. We went to TCBY today and their cotton candy ice cream is pretty good (I know… I’m an ice cream addict).

This weekend wasn’t too exciting, the Lions lost (those stupid, stupid Lions), but we did go see The Prestige. That movie was pretty awesome, even if you sound like a dork saying it’s about magicians. I bought a ticket for me (Susan didn’t want to go) to a late night showing of Saw 3 tomorrow, I’m pretty pumped about that. If you haven’t seen the first or second Saw, I suggest going done to your local video store and rent them (they are worth it, then check out Saw 3 in theaters). Just a caution though, it’s about a serial killer (though he doesn’t actually kill anyone), so it is kind of gruesome.

An update if you’ve been following the picture of the day, Susan has gotten really good at tossing the football back and forth. Hopefully it stays nice enough for us to go out after work… it’s suppose to start snowing soon (though they projected some flurries this week and they haven’t come yet…)

Let’s see what’s new this week, oh yeah… the Lions won!! About time they got their first win of the season, though I thought they were gonna do typical Jon Kitna and lose it in the 4th quarter. They played a decent game, even if number 98, Kalimba Edwards, had two off sides and a roughing the passer penalty (bet he’s gonna run some laps at practice!) Our kitty’s doing good, for some reason she thinks an old palm leave is really exciting. She’ll jump up on the coffee table and run with it in her mouth. We actually didn’t know where it was for awhile, she had hidden it in her house (see picture of the day for a visual…) Ebgames had their Wii preorders on Friday, I went at lunch and missed getting one of the twelve by about twenty minutes… someone said they’d drop by and reserve one because they had the day off, but she didn’t go… Oh well, I guess I can forgive her, she did make a delicious lasagna with fake wine and apple crisp for dessert! We ended up getting some ice cream today, and the guy had to smile when I wanted sprinkles and gummy bears in it (yup… I typically get that) Other than that, work is going pretty good, I might start programming soon… Right now I’m creating a software acceptance test protocol which gets to be a template for all future projects… probably should do a good job on it then 😉