GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLL!

I have to say, I am absolutely loving this past month! The birthday parties I went to have been a lot of fun, visiting with my family last weekend was wonderful and relaxing, and I've been absolutely addicted to watching the World Cup! I'm sure many people didn't know I am a huge soccer fan, but I don't follow any of the leagues like the English Premier League or German Bundesliga. I watch World Cup, and I do so with an almost religious fervor every 4 years when it rolls around again. The teams I root for are (1) Germany, (2) USA, and (3) Britain. The sport itself is beautiful to watch with teams executing crisp, sharp passes and powerful shots on goal. Then again, I could be watching for all the beautiful women that follow soccer as well ...

Yeah, she's probably just some British model and could care less about football (as they call it everywhere else), but a man can dream can't he?!

In other news, I have decided to secure my geekness by adding skins to my PS2 and Xbox360. It's just a little something to personalize them a little more and I like the way they turned out. Here are some pictures. And if you are interested in getting some skins of your own, I purchased mine from Decal Girl.

Well, that's about it for now. I doubt there will be much to report on this week, but come next weekend I will be out of town up in the Disney area at the 2006 US Open & ISKA World Martial Arts Championships. Should be a lot of fun!

In Honor of Badstar: 02:22

In honor of Badstar, a post at 02:22. I'm about halfway through my all-nighter and I realized I had not posted here in quite some time. Figured now would be as good a time as any to provide some updates.

Had a couple of birthdays in the past month with another one coming up this week. Lady V (Badstar's lady for those that do not know) celebrated her birth a little while ago, and we had a good time celebrating it with her. Part of it we spent at Fort DeSoto, where we grilled out in the picnic areas and then headed out to the beach and enjoyed the ocean and sun. The gulf waters felt great that day, and I can't begin to describe the feast that was made for everyone. I spent a lot of time increasing my chances of skin cancer that day, and I couldn't have been much happier.

The night before that, X and I took our friend Mike out on the town. Mike works at our gym, is from New York, and he was going back up there for the summer to make some quick cash working construction. We thought it would be good to take him out on his last night and get him drunk. Since he's not from Tampa, we figured we'd go out to Ybor City and have some fun. I have to say, Ybor is not like I remember it. We got out there at 22:30 on a Friday night and it was relatively quiet. We didn't have any trouble getting into any bars, and these were bars that I was used to fighting to get into. Nothing, not even a struggle. Now, they opened up 7th Street to traffic now so I'm sure that had something to do with it. I've also heard from others who party harder than I that a lot of the old clubs and bars are gone from Ybor and it is better to go to Channelside now. We still had a good time, but it was kind of disappointing to see a place I remember as pretty wild looking dead.

Monday, around that same weekend, the celebration for Lady V continued. This time it was in Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, Orlando. For those that don't already know, the Hulk fucking rocks!!! Universal has put together two great theme parks, and the group of us (5 total) had a blast going everywhere in both parks. Got some interesting pictures from there too. The first is of our friend Matt, with his half-yard of Guiness.

The second is evidence of Universal's nefarious Stage 2 for their plan for world domination.

Tired of your own baby? Come swap him/her out for a new model! Enjoy the benefits of the white slave trade! (Before I get sued, Universal Studios is in no way a part of the slave trade, white or otherwise. But c'mon, look at that sign! I know what the real purpose is but it just doesn't sound right.)

I've been working out like a fiend lately. Finally getting some good results too, which calms the anger that had been building from the last couple of months. Weighed in at 176 lbs. and I reduced my body fat percentage 1.1%. I think I am at 21.4%, and I plan on working out just as hard this month to get it under the 20% mark.

Well, that's pretty much it for now. I'm sure I am forgetting plenty of things but I'm tired from this all-nighter. I'm heading out to visit family this weekend in Colombus, OH, so I should have more to talk about after I get back. Hope everyone is doing well and take care!

*grumble* *grumble*

So to add on to my grumblings over not getting in shape how I want to, now my car gets hit. It isn't bad at all, really just some scratches on the front bumper, but you can imagine how annoyed I am over this.

I went bowling last Thursday night (like always), and parked my car in the second row of parking spaces on the side of the building. I usually park there because no one else really does, and I try to keep the side of my car from getting dinged by other peoples' car doors. So, no cars around me and I feel like I'm safe. Not so. Some asshole backing out of the space in front of me decides to back all the way into my car. My friend, Bruce, who works at the lanes saw the whole thing and yelled at the guy driving the other car. He started walking over to the car, but then the guy turned his lights off and tore out of the parking lot. Bruce could only give me a description of the car, but we could not get the license plate. After looking at the damage I decided to just get it fixed and not waste time calling cops or insurance. But if I ever find out who that fucker is, I'll dispense with some vigilante justice on his ass!

*grumble*

I don't know why I even bother to put myself through these trials. Weight and body fat time at the gym today. I think I worked out harder and ate better this entire last month. Didn't really help though. My weight dropped to 175 lbs., but as I have mentioned before that really isn't a big deal to me. My body fat % was at 22.5%, which is about equal to what it was last month. This does not make me a happy person. At this point, I really don't know what to do about it except stay the course and try to push myself harder. We'll see what this next month brings.

Quick post Saturday

Not much to post today. Have a couple of links to post, and I may add more throughout the day. Hope everyone is doing well.

• An AP article about the world's last ninja, Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi.
• Ever wanted to change jobs, but would really like to "try before you buy"? You may be ablwe to.
• Chicago Bears Draft Central
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers Draft Central

Death of the Dream

Before I move on to the subject of today's post, I just want to point out that I've finally activated my homepage link over there on the left. My homepage is really what I would consider a "beta" at this point, but I wanted to activate it so people can at least look at some of my vacation photo albums. I recommend the galleries of Japan 2005 and California 2003.

Death of the Dream

For those of you that know me, you know that I like all kinds of sports. Back, oh, about 10 or so years ago a friend of mine, Don Bolton, got me to go out bowling with him. I wasn't very good then, but we were both extremely competitive so it became a kind of competition between us. We started meeting up every Thursday night at a local bowling alley, Tampa Lanes, and we would bowl a couple of games before going home. Before long, we had most of our friends coming along with us and it became a kind of excursion. Not everyone bowled, but we were all there together to have fun and enjoy each others company. It pretty much became tradition that we would all meet up for bowling Thursday night at Tampa Lanes, and this continued until we all dispersed out to college and on with our lives.

Once I had graduated from UF and moved back to Tampa, I joined with a new group of friends and it wasn't too long before I brought back the bowling tradition. Just like before, not everyone bowled. It became a chance to catch up with people you may only get to see that one time a week, since we all worked now and didn't see each other in school. It would be rare that you would not see the likes of myself, X, Badstar, JerseyStrangler and others at Tampa Lanes on a Thursday. In fact, I think in the last 5 years I may only have missed about 10-15 bowling nights. On our best night of attendance I think we had about 12 people and we had taken over 4 lanes. Some might consider this sad, but I've been to Tampa Lanes for so long they reserve lanes for me on Thursday nights (without me even asking) and I know most of the staff on a first-name basis. But as time has passed, people have gotten busier and busier and now pretty much no one is left to join me on Thursday nights. I would stop going, but I have promised myself that as long as I stay in Tampa I will continue to be there on Thursdays. But the times of getting the my whole gang of friends out there, they seem like a dream. So much, that I adapated a Tenacious D sketch for the end of this rant. I've already gone through all the stages. Anger, Denial, Door-to-door Rocking, Temp Job, and finally Acceptance.

The whole bowling mythos is a lie! It'll lead you nowhere. It's like when you believe in the Easter Bunny or the Sasquatch. Let the dream die! LET THE DREAM DIE!

Let it die ...

Links, links and more links

Just a quick post today. Some links to sites or stories that piqued my interest. Most of these were pulled right from Slashdot, so if the links don't work you can always look there.

• NASA has launched a new educational site targeting children in kindergarten through fourth grade.
• Listing of Firefox extensions, hacks and keyboard command guide. Geared towards the average power user and web developer.
• The International Herald Tribune is reporting that the European Space Agency is planning to send a spacecraft to peer at Venus.

Also, that Gaineville landmark known as Burrito Brothers opened their new location here in Tampa, FL. I was there at opening, of course, to make sure things tasted just like I remembered. Everything tasted great. Some poor-looking camera pics from the store below.

Stronger, faster, better

So, this week was not unlike any other but I had a pretty bad Wednesday. My day at work seemed to really put me in a poor mood, and I found myself getting annoyed pretty easily with pretty much anything. I went to the gym after work, hoping that I could work out some frustrations. But it seems that I was fated to have a bad day overall. I went to the Blitz, and it was time for my monthly weigh-in. I had been doing decent in reducing body fat % since I started in January, but Wednesday was simply not my day. I weighed in at 179 lbs. which was 5 lbs. heavier that what I had been. My body fat % had ballooned back up to 22.4% from 20.8%. This was worse that what it was when I started! With the way the day had gone so far, I was not too surprised that my scores were bad so I didn't hang my head or leave or anything. I worked out like always, and pretty much resigned myself to living through a bad day and getting a new start the next morning. But I'll tell you, inside I was pissed off! I had a goal in mind with my workouts and now I had just suffered a major setback. I'm not giving up, nowhere near that. I am thinking of ways to change my routine (thinking that my body may have gotten use to my workout regiment), planning on eating healthier (wasn't eating that bad to begin with, and hadn't made any eating changes in the last month, but why not be a little more diligent), and maximizing my efforts during my workouts. We'll see how I do in this next month.

2006 NCAA National Champions

Gators 73 -- UCLA 57

UF, 2006 National Champions!

Bleeding Orage & Blue

Well, you get busy for a while and come back to find new posts on your own blog. But, that's OK since I was the one who gave Ms. Ammy access. And Jack is pretty cute ...

So, I figured I would write a little bit about this past weekend while I sit here and watch the NCAA Basketball Championship between UF and UCLA. Actually, I can't concentrate on this post too much as I can't stop watching the Gators playing in this Championship Game.

Anyway, I had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday I invited a bunch of friends from work and personal life over for a game party. People started showing up around 18:30 that evening and I think the last group of people left about 01:00 on Sunday (before adjusting for Daylight Saving Time). X made plenty of food and drinks for everyone to enjoy. I am happy to say that everyone enjoyed themselves the entire night. The main attraction to the party were all the different games available for people to play. In the living room, we had the Xbox360 and PS2 going with SoulCalibur III, Dead or Alive 4, Fight Night Round 3, and Rumble Roses XX. Some of our friends (who aren't all that in to playing video games) brought some board games (like Trivial Pursuit and Cranium). For those of us playing video games, I think the game of the night would have to have been Fight Night. Challenges were issued, battles were fought and feelings were hurt. It was a great night!

... Commercial break, Gators 34 -- UCLA 22 ...

Sunday I joined my good friends to watch Wrestlemania 22. Yeah, I know. Professional wrestling? But it brings us all together for one or two nights a month where we all eat some dinner and relax and have a good time.

... Halftime, Gators 36 -- UCLA 25 ...

Oh, saw the greatest "This is Sportscenter" commercial a couple of nights ago and found it up on YouTube. Go check it out.

More than meets the eye

As a child, I was always entranced by robots. Whether it was in cartoons that showed us "visions of the future", Robotech, Transformers, or in video games like Virtual ON, robots were always present in my imagination. Everytime I see articles describing what new advanced scientists have made in robotic engineering, I always read over it and research where we are. But listed below is a cool piece on something the Mythbusters did with a robotics kit from Radio Shack.

Mythbusters Test the VEX Robotics Design System: Article 1

Mythbusters Test the VEX Robotics Design System: Article 2

I have seen things no one else has seen ...

Not really, but I have had a good time this past week.

At work, my training has completed. Had a good time working with some of the other departments within our IT division. I may have even learned a few things, but I try to keep them from knowing that.

Between the end of my training and the resumption of my normal work week, I had 4 days off. So I flew out to visit a friend of mine in San Jose, CA. The weather was pretty cold (at least compared to what we are getting in Florida), but overall I cannot complain. Met my friend at his work on Saturday. Learned a little about what he does, and then we went out and met his girlfriend and some of their friends for some drinks and dinner. We first went off to the Tonga Room, which is a cool Polynesian-themed bar. Had a drink or two there, then we met the rest of our group at a sushi restaurant in San Francisco. Sushi was pretty good, but they did not have a Volcano Roll of some kind so their rating is lowered a little in my book. After dinner, I realized I had been nearing about 24 hours of being awake so I felt like I should get to my hotel room and check in. It was a 40-45 minute drive over to the hotel from San Francisco and luckily I only attempted to kill myself once (I don't know what it is about driving that puts you to sleep, but I gotta stock some Full Throtle or Bawls next time). Sunday we ended up going around San Jose and hanging out. I asked him about the working environment out there, as well as what companies are where. Monday we went back over to San Francisco to Chinatown. Bought a couple of DVDs, Tom-Yum-Goong and The God of Cookery, then purchased some freshly baked pork buns from a local bakery. I always enjoy the area of Chinatown as it is so different than anything I am used to where I live. The trip pretty much ended here, as I had a full day of travel on Tuesday to get back home. I already plan on going back for at least a week next time.

God, there's really nothing else to talk about. St. Patrick's Day today, but I haven't been feeling too well so I don't know if I will do anything other than sleep.

Link time:

• Well, I guess I know some people who will never get prostrate cancer.
• For my next gaming rig setup, I would like to have this.

Hope everyone is doing well, and I will post more soon.

Still fat, just not as much

Oh, forgot to post this earlier. Had my body fat % and weight done at the gym the other day. Weighed in at 174 lbs. again (no change) but only went down to 20.8% body fat. I really wanted to be lower than that, preferably sub-20% so I am not too happy. Need to work out harder and faster I guess. Bah.

And looking back, I see I haven't posted my progression for this three-month period. I stayed at roughly the same weight, going from 173 --> 174 --> 174 lbs. My body fat % has gone from 22.1% --> 21.2% --> 20.8%. So I am losing fat, but not at the rate I would like. And don't talk to me about how it takes time and I should be happy with any loss. I'm impatient and want to work harder.

I *really* need to get out of here

I can't wait for this week to be over. This will be my last week of "training" at work and then I'll be back on my 4-day work week. Feels like I've gotten a little worn down these last few weeks, so getting back to my normal schedule will probably help. A couple of other activities will help as well. Got somewhere to be tonight. Then I will be going on vacation this Saturday, March 11 through Tuesday, March 14. I will be visiting a friend of mine out in San Jose, CA. I go out to visit him about once a year, and I always have a good time. Got some plans for my time out there, and hopefully I'll be able to speak more on that later. Regardless, it's only Tuesday and I wish it were Friday already.

Fun links for the week:

• http://chrono.ocremix.org/ -- remixed songs from the RPG Chrono Trigger. I had a lot of friends who loved this game back in the day, so this is for all of them.
• Suntory has some commercials in Japan for some kind of FF “potion” energy drinks, linked here and here.
  
• This has got to be a joke. And if not, then I worry for my German heritage. Look everyone, it's Accordian Hero!
• Rockstar, makers of the Grand Theft Auto games, Manhunt and Red Dead Revolver have now come up with their most auspicious and violent game yet. Table Tennis!
• Ever wanted to build your own Linux distribution. Well, now you can.
• And for those of us that spend time posting stuff out on the web, here's a resource about free icons for use.

That's it for now. Later!

I need to get out of here

Sorry, posting from work right now. Shouldn't be doing this, but right now I don't care.

Not too much to talk about right now. Been trying to go to the gym consistently now, and eventually I may see some results. My gym attendance averages about 4 times a week now. Sometime this week I'll have my weight and body fat % taken, so we'll see if I have continued to lose fat.

I will be out of town in a couple of weeks. I will be visiting a friend of mine in San Jose, CA for a few days. It's partly a vacation, and partly personal work. I have certain expectations I want to meet for this trip, but I won't be too disappointed if nothing comes to fruition. At the very least, I just want to go out there and get to meet some people and do some social networking.

Will probably post some new links soon. I am working on a few personal projects which I hope to have finished shortly. Hope everyone is doing well, and I'll post again soon.

CCNA/CCDA Training: Day 6 & 7 Recap

OK, where did I leave off. Last time I spoke, I had just taken the ICND exam to complete my attempt to become a CCNA. I passed with a 900 out of 1000, and that combined with my 914 out of 1000 on the INTRO exam means I had achieved my goal of becoming a Cisco Certified Network Associate.

Now, during most of the training camp I did nothing except go to class and study in my room. There were 12 people attending this camp in Austin, TX and I met quite a few intelligent and cool people. After our ICND exam, I went out with two guys for a quick night on the town. Before leaving for Texas a friend of mine from work was giving me advice on where to spend my time in Austin. Evidently, the place to go in downtown Austin is 6th Street. So, we left off to eat and see what the big deal was about 6th. On a recommendation from our instructor we tried the Iron Works BBQ. The food there was excellent, as evidenced by the fact that the beef briskett could be cut with a plastic fork. From there we walked out to 6th Street and we stopped into a local pool hall. I can't remember the name, but this was a nice place to shoot pool. They had plenty of tables for billiards, as well as dart boards, foosball tables and shuffleboard tables. And let's not forget a good amount of beer on tap. We shot a couple rounds of pool, then headed back to the hotel because it would be back to work tomorrow.


Saturday we spent the entire day studying for the second certification offered in this course, the Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA). Our teacher pretty much admitted it was a joke that we were only taking one day to study for this exam, since we studied 5-6 days for the CCNA and the CCDA contained quite a bit of material itself. I honestly did not care too much about this certification. I mainly did this bootcamp to get the CCNA, so if I could get the CCDA on top of that then great. So, we worked through the material all day and then that evening I went out with two others to go to Chuy's. It's a Tex-Mex restaurant that was recommended to me and it did not disappoint. Really good food and service, and it was a good ending to my trip. We didn't go out on the town that evening, since most of us had to take our test in the morning and then we were all leaving to go home.

Woke up Sunday, grabbed some breakfast and met the others in the classroom. Took the CCDA exam at about 10:30. Only got a 600 out of 1000, but again I wasn't too interested in this certification so I wasn't too disappointed. Thanked the instructor, said goodbye to the people I met, and then headed for the airport. Had a bit of time to wait until my flight left for Houston, then once I arrived in Houston I had a slight layover until my second flight left for Tampa. I finally arrived home at about 23:15 EST. Got home, dumped my baggage on the floor and pretty much went to bed since I had work the next morning. But I got my CCNA, so it was a great trip and experience.

Argh

I don't know whether to curse Firefox or Blogger, but I had a pretty decent post going before one of the two crashed on me and I had to End Task to get out. Bah! Will try again later.

This is all you get for Valentine's Day

Choose one of the following cards ...

CCNA/CCDA Training: Day 5 -- Cram and Exam

So, all we did today was cram for our second exam. Those of us that passed the first exam last Tuesday were now taking the second part to the CCNA certification. So, after passing the first one (640-821 INTRO) I was now set to take the final part (640-811 ICND). Again, to make a long story short I needed to get a score of at least 849 out of 1000 to pass. I scored a 900.

CCNA/CCDA Training: Days 3 & 4

Thought I forgot to post, didn't you? Well, there really isn't much to say about yesterday or today. We moved on to studying for the second exam, so we covered a lot of new material yesterday from 09:00 - 21:00. It should be the same for today. I'll be studying like crazy tonight and tomorrow, so wish me luck.