30 Day Ab Challenge

So I saw online that someone is doing something called "30 Day Ab Challenge".  Self explanatory right?  For those who are not good with the.. brains, you start the month off doing an assortment of exercises and likely the numbers or "repetitions" are low.  As the month progresses the reps should be increased and at the end of the month you should be doing a whole lot more than you did in the beginning. 

EDIT:  This is not meant to turn a fatty (me) into Brad Pitt (not me). 

This is simply to get myself in better shape, hopefully get my core a little stronger and trim some of the fat.  I make no promises that I reach the end of the month goal, but I sure as shit will try.  I use to be skinny...  I was never a 6 pack guy, but I was skinny and I liked that.  I don't think I am really overweight but I definitely have some belly fat to get rid of and I am not interested in eating only vegetables for the rest of my life, I'd rather drive off a bridge than cut out my favorite foods. 

There are many versions of this challenge, I am assuming people just do what they think suits them... So I looked at one that I liked and tweaked it just a bit.  Here it is below...

An Unspeakable Tragedy

The Boston Marathon, a historic event with people running from ALL over the world.  One of the best days to be From Massachusetts, and better yet, from Boston.  We take Pride in our Marathon.  It's the best one out there.  But this year it changed forever.  and who knows what it will look like in years to come.

I have had to turn off the News lately because it makes me sick to my stomach to watch the gruesome footage and watch that poor old man crumble to the ground.  I can only take solace in the fact that he is ok.  But not everyone was as lucky as him.  I wont spit out the statistics, we all know them.  Something horrible happened and I wish it would stop.

I have talked to many people over the last couple days, and I have heard MANY opinions and many thoughts regarding this terrorist attack.  All I know is that whomever is responsible will undoubtedly be brought to justice.  This is not something you "get away with"  We are a strong city, and we are unforgiving in situations like this.

Some are calling this "war".  and I can understand why they would do so.  The images from the finish line are horrific, they do not belong here.  So yes, you can say "this is war".  But it's a different kind of war.  War use to have a purpose, albeit a controversial one...  If you saw a visible threat, you'd send in the troops.  And even then, the guys with the guns were only suppose to shoot at other guys with guns.  What threat did a bunch of marathoners pose?  What threat did a crowd of civilians cheering on their family and friends pose?  This is a different kind of war.  War has changed over the span of our history and it scares me.  So where do we go from here?  What is going to happen next?  I wish I could believe that this will be the last attack, but that would be naive.  I can only do my part and stand strong. 

"Not on my watch" - A Few Good Men

Slacking Off

Ok, So it appears I have been slacking off on this blog lately.  My bad, sometimes I get busy and don't have time, sometimes I get lazy and say "I'll post tomorrow".  Other times, I simply forget.  I will let you be the judge of which it was. 

So Maybe what I will do is just "brief" you on some tings that have a happened lately...

In the World:

Pope Benedict XVI decides "Pope-ing" is not for him and announces his retirement.  This sends the world into a spiral and was ultimately the cause of the destruction of the planet...  Ohh wait, never mind.  That's from the script I am writing.  "Pope's From Outter Space".
What really happened, was people were shocked that the sitting pope would do such a thing.  Apparently Popes like to stay in office until rigor mortis sets in.  Benedict was the first Pope to just up and quit in over 600 years.  That's a long ass time to say "all the popes before you died in order to get out..."  And so the world started to make predictions on the next Pope, and in probably the least decent thing you could do in the situation, Vegas drew odds on it...  Yes, you could actually bet on the next Pope.  I lost.  Over the next few weeks the Vatican went all "Election Stile" and Cardinals were nominated to be [supreme ruler of church] Is that what it's called?  In the end the newest Pope was chosen: Pope Francis from Argentina.  And apparently this dude is changing everything from hats to chairs..  I like it.  Lets put big screen TV's in church so we can watch the games too...

                                                            Is that Gollum?

Winter Storm Nemo drops about 3 feet of snow on New England and generations threaten to kill each other over the dumbest thing ever.  "whose storm was bigger"  Generation X is excited to say "This is the biggest storm I have ever seen!!"  And the Wet Blankets that the Baby boomers are had to get all pretentious and say "that's nothing compared to the blizzard of 78!"  My uncle Kevin would call them "toppers"  because they need to top your story.  Well guess what Kevin, you happen to be a topper in this story simply by being born in the stone age (sorry).  The only thing that separates 78' from 2013 is the advancement of technology.  So yeah, you had it worse, but I don't care so shut up.

      
A meteorite blasts it's way into Russia, and Russians think "not a bad day"  so yeah, that happened. 

In my World:

Jenn is still Pregnant but VERY close to having the baby and we are getting really excited.  Everything that needs to be done before a baby comes is done, the room is put together, the pack n' play is set up, the high chair is set up, the swing is set up, the car seat is good to go...  We're ready!  Now we just need a baby to put in there.  Of course saying you are ready means nothing, because everyone tells me "yeah you say you are ready but you are not".  So that's good.

The baby has pretty much taken up all the news worthy things in my life, but here is a quick list of some others.  My windshield is broken, my commute still sucks, I get to slap my brother in the face as hard as I want, my laptop died, my March Madness bracket is getting pummeled, baseball starts soon, Still don't follow hockey, professional basketball sucks, started watching "The Newsroom" it's awesome, and finally I am 2 lbs lighter than I was when I made my last post....  good for me. 

                                                  Thank you again Aaron Sorkin


That's all for now.

FEAR...

Lets talk about fear, not tangible fear... like bees (fuck that), *we don't need to be scared of bees. but the fear that is spreading through America slowly but surely. This is the kind of fear that has people treat every day situations like they are life threatening.

This post comes to you courtesy of my ride into work this morning. I turned on to Fisher St. as I do every day, Today by luck of traffic I was a few minutes earlier than usual (crap). Fisher is about 2 miles long and usually a painless drive, HOWEVER, today instead of it taking me about 4 minutes to get from one end to the other it took me 15. Do you want to know why? Of course you do, I ended up behind a school bus, which normally would annoy me... Today it pissed me off. This bus in the span of half a mile stopped 14 times. 14!! Are you kidding me?! Basically I could see 4 stops in advance around the buss, the freaking thing stopped at every other house to pick up 1 or 2 kids. I was losing my shit by the 6^th stop. And this went on for 8 more stops before the bus finally turned onto another street (Thank Christ).

It got me thinking, and since I had plenty of time to think with that yellow monstrosity creeping along in front of me I hammered out some good thoughts. First I thought of all the things I would do with 106 million dollars... They had just announced the Power Ball and well, come on you think about it too. Anyway, back to the topic at hand; I thought of my childhood, I would walk from my house to the center of town (¼ mile maybe) where about a dozen kids would pick up the bus. At some point the bus stop was moved to right in front of my house, what a great day that was! But still, the other kids had to walk to it. And this was me at maybe 9 or 10 years old, yeah I am sure most parents watched their kids and whatnot, but even still today on the drive almost all of the kids were sitting in their parents cars waiting for the bus anyway. So what's the difference? What has us so scared that we can;t let our kids walk 4 houses over and catch the bus? If the thing stopped 5 times in that stretch I would have been fine, It would have been unnecessary but I would have been fine. But the bus stopped at nearly every other house for only half a mile. Is it kids getting abducted? Is it the “helicopter” parents who are scared that their children will be left out of the fun? In all honesty bus stops are a blast. We use to play wiffel ball in my yard waiting for the bus, and then if there was time, we would hit each other with the bat... Ahh the good days.

America seems scared of it's own shadow these days, we constantly make up reasons for our bad behaviors. We are trying to justify them as if it matters... It doesn't. “Listen, person who isn't me, it's ok to be scared of bees, you don’t need to say that you ran away screaming as a 'joke' because it's totally funny to do that.” Just be honest. I swear that person isn't me.

My wife is a teacher, she teaches 3^rd grade, and let me tell you, her kids are dumb. Not all of them, but if you had a hand full of rocks and you threw them at her students (don't do this) the kids the rocks hit are dumb. Let me also clarify this, all kids are dumb.. . It's not a bad thing, it's just a fact. They haven't had the life experiences that you and I have had. Guess what, you were dumb too once (maybe still), but for some reason, parents today are not letting their kids fail and then learn from their mistakes. Instead parents are making excuses for their kids which is totally enabling them to be dumb forever. I'm going to give you an example of something that recently was done in her class... I might change a detail or two just to ensure anonymity.

Jenn hands out a Test which the kids have known about for weeks and have been studying/practicing IN CLASS with her the whole time. This test was based on a story they read in class. One kid gets several questions wrong and as a result needs to have the test signed by a parent and returned the next day, you all remember these...

So here is the question that the student got wrong, and then her note afterward...

1. What might Dogzilla realistically do?
   A) Chase cars        B) Chew a furniture store
   C) Fly                    D) Prepare taxes

The student chose B... which is wrong.

“Billy didn't understand this question because we have cats not dogs, so he wouldn't know that dogs chase cars”

Two things lady, 1) they read the story in class, which meant that he was at least EXPOSED to dogs. 2) You are a stupid bitch.

Don't make excuses for your kid! Let him learn, tell him what he did wrong and maybe get the kid a dog you ignorant twit. Cats suck. Period.

So this is the end of this particular rant. Don’t be so scared America, like FDR said “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” And Bees... Seriously, they are winged demons. 

 * Yes we do.

It's Been a While...

So I haven't written anything in a while.  I could blame it on the Holidays, I could blame it on Obama...  Or I could blame it on being lazy and having little to say.  I blame Obama.  But enough about the messiah/villain of the century!

I am just about 3 months away from being a father...  The baby (Jack) is due in April, and the pregnancy has been LONG  but at the same time very short.  I remember finding out that Jenn was "with child" like it was yesterday, I feel like it was yesterday.  With that said, the sleepless nights and mood swings are not entirely "lovely".  She is a delightful woman but when you upset her, she is a tiny weeny bit more sensitive...  Occasionally this translates to anger (I LOVE YOU).  In those situations I have found it is best to say "I'm sorry baby, I love you"  and just let her cool off.  But in general the Pregnancy has been exciting, like crazy excitement.  We get all giddy when we talk about what we are gonna do with the bedroom, or what cool little outfits we will buy him.  We are very excited to be parents and the next 3 months seem like an eternity right now.  But I know they will go by like the snap of your fingers.  I expect that I will be terrified in the Hospital, Jenn will be in more pain than ever and I don't like seeing her in pain and I am also very awkward around emotional women...   I don't know why but I am.

                                                          "Happen this will"


JACK
My son is on his way, he is growing and growing, and becoming more of a little person every day.  I can't wait to see what he is like.   I currently have four nephews and each one of them has their own little personality, and they are all hysterical.  My sister even tells me that her youngest is me "Chris, Nate is a little you.."  I know better now than to ask why... "He is a little shit!"  she'd say, he gets into everything, he intentionally defies everything we say and he just simply has your personality.  Well.. If my nephew got that much of me simply though my gene pool...  How much of me will be in MY OWN son?  I cannot wait, because I am going to love that little kid with all my heart.

Things I am scared of...
1)  Diapers - Maybe I am not scared, but I want no part of it.
2)  Hurting my child (physically OR emotionally)
3)  Making parenting mistakes, I am told everyone does, but what if I make a BIG one?
4)  Money.
5)  Bees.  This really has nothing to do with my baby, I am just scared of bees.

                                                                    
                                                                  Terrifying