Sigh, pause from jillian...

So we have taken a trip north to visit my parents, and leading up to this trip I had taken a couple of days off from exercising. I hope to get back to it tomorrow, brought all the requisite equipment with me, now just need to kick the audience out of the room and get er done...

Mom has a digital scale, and its far less optimistic, 205... I like our scale better..

Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred: Day 14-15-16

Well well well, half way there... Honestly didn't think I would make it this far, and there have been moments where I was pretty sure I was done. This morning was one of those moments, with Jillian kicking my ass at 5am, and no weight loss to show for it I began to wonder why I am doing this.

Then I thought back to yesterday, where Kyle and I were outside shoveling the driveway. 6 inches of snow (pshaw you canadians say, well shutup) and we got started later than most of the neighborhood. I was secretly racing against the guy across the street with the snowblower, and the funny part is, we won... I ended that day, without the usual litany of aches and pains that I usually have from shoveling... I felt fine. Its a very subtle change, but I find I have more endurance than previous, I can exercise longer without falling into a quivering heap on the floor (though I do eventually...) and over all its a very positive experience.

I have found I am toning up, and I am sure if I had done this exercise twice a day instead of just once, I'd be even that much farther along... however something inside me refuses to exercise with an audience, hence the 5am exercises and not wanting to go to the gym... All my friends who do exercise, are telling me take it slow, ease yourself into it, you're doing fine. All my friends who don't exercise are laughing at the 2lb weights, and asking me if I worked out this morning when i reach for a bun at lunch... funny bunch of friends I have, seriously...

Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred: Day 12-13

OK well my posting is dying off a little bit because its not only boring to read, did the same thing, its also more than a little boring to write...;)

Weight: 201 lbs.

Hrm, would seem that I'm either doing something wrong (eating too much holiday foods mehbe?) or the weight loss should start soon...

I'm Surprised to not be too bumed about the lack of weight loss.. I know my goal was to lose the last 20 lbs I feel like I need to lose, but I'm gaining muscle mass and toning which is nice too... I'm not sure I can carry 200 lbs and look "good" doing it, so it will have to happen eventually, but yeah, still carrying on with the workout... especially since its still kicking my ass...

Back on Advil duty, and had to sit out a 30s interval of cardio... some of the moves make me feel like I'm going to dislocate something.... A couple of people have said I have motivated them into try it, I probably should have posted a starting pic to give you an idea where I started from, but basically I've never been in a gym, I've never voluntarily done a work out routine, and I can safely say other than going to work, I've never done anything for 30 days straight.... Its not impossible, anyone can do it. You just have to keep fighting yourself, this morning was a good example of that... 5 am, alarm goes off and the debate begins...

I made the mistake of drinking 1.5 cups of coffee last night (having poured most of a cup of coffee all over Tristen's homework!! He was stoked, now he had an excuse why his homework wasn't done, except it was on the page we had finished already!) and so when we went to bed at 11:30, I couldn't sleep... Secretly I think Jenn loves it when I can't sleep because we sit up talking for an hour, but thats just a guess on my part... anyways, after 4.5 hours of sleep lazy me was chanting that we could sleep another hour without a problem...and he almost won, I won't lie.... but I beat him into submission and went down to exercise, you can do it, keep it up.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 11

Level 2. First off, I HIGHLY recommend that if you are thinking of doing this, that you watch the next level the day before trying it. There were quite a few wtf is she doing moments that made the work out a little less intense than it might have been. That being said, there was a lot more swearing and sweating this morning, it felt like day 1 all over again.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 10

Well sort of, I took a 4 day break due to illness and not being able to find the damn dvd. This morning I played is safe and did level 1 but level 2 starts tomorrow.

Even after a 4 day break I still hate those skinny bitches... Though Jillian is right, its getting easier. Toon in tomorrow as I try all new exercises and flex some muscles that haven't been used since I was 6

Jillian Michaels on hold

So friday I wasn't feeling well, stayed home from work and spent most of the day in bed, that would be when the problems officially started I suppose, but it kind of went out of control from there. Nyquil is an excellent product, sure does what its advertised to do anyways.

This morning I tried to get back into the groove and my weights and dvd are missing.... Thanks kyle. So now I am up, its 5 am, and I have nothing to do for the next 45 minutes until I get ready for work... Tomorrow (secretly my fat self is laughing at me) I will be back on the weight loss bandwagon.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 9

Well 1 more day on zone 1 of the fitness regime, this morning (thanks to some late night homework *cough* Kyle *cough*) was really hard to get out of bed.. you know those days where the rain is pouring outside, and you think, bah I should call in dead... well I got up anyways, and did my routine.

Switched out the 2 lb weights for 5 lbs on the dumbell row and chest bobs (yeah not boobs) and it did make them more challenging so I'll probably hold onto that for tomorrow. My knees are giving me a bit of a problem on the lunges, and having trouble distributing weight on the correct leg to ensure they are getting exercised, but over all things are progressing nicely. I'm as surprised as anyone that I am keeping this up, both the blogging and the exercise, 1/3 of the way there, I'm sure day 11 will be amusing as the entire workout gets changed on me...

Calling all techies, wives of techies or people who have techies handy...

So here's my problem. I have a dell Inspiron (My old HP computer killed its self on the weekend re my other post) and while its nice, quiet, fast, its a slim line profile... So the technies are now nodding, foreseeing the problem that I came across...

I bring the computer home, take it out of the box and  open it up, start salvaging the parts from my old computer. First things first the video card. Hrm, doesnt fit. Now I am as hard core as the next guy so I paused for about 5 seconds and a little voice (from across the room that sounded remarkably like Jenn) said Just leave the box open. Problem solved, now I go looking for power, and low and behold, no spare power.

Now noramlly I would say a mile away from Dell, they put the BARE MINIMUM in all their boxes, the upgrade potential of a dell is almost nil. The boxes you buy online are worse, their motherboards sometimes exclude pcie slots, or have only 2 banks of ram... its barbaric... So now my question for you tech heads out there who know this stuff better than me is, can I split the power to the DVD drive like I would have done in the old days, or are these new power supplies low wattage and geared for the contents? Ie am I screwed? Or if I buy a low profile video card (having installed the old one in Kyles machine along with the spare gig of ram that wouldn't fit in my machine) could I harvest some of the raw power from the adapter and hook it up?

Any thoughts would be appreciated, even if they run along the lines of YOU BOUGHT A DELL? ARE YOU INSANE?!?!

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 8

Once again, beat my fat self into submission and dragged him downstairs into the basement to be abused by a bunch of skinny chicks... Sounds kinky I know, but its not really as much fun as it sounds... Its a WHOLE lot easier to do now, day 1-3 I was dreading doing it, I would be silently moaning and complaining to myself that I was going to do it, and it HURT. I have 0 pain atm, which tells me, its time to move to round 2 of this DVD... Lets see some votes on that, I'll go to it tomorrow if I get at least a couple of comments from you guys suggesting it... otherwise I'll wait it out as planned and get to day 10.

I may it through all of the ab workouts, my co-workers have started commenting that I look good (The haircut has NOTHING to do with that I'm sure..>.>) so somethings working. I find myself feeling better and the workout is not as stressful as it used to be. You can still play the guitar on my hambstring, not sure that will ever change, but everything else doesn't hurt anymore. If I do stay on round 1, I'll be subbing in the 5 lb weights on a couple of the exercises, the dumbell roll and the shoulder press are boring with 2lb weights, they will probably be more amusing (read painful) with some heavier weights...

So nows your chance to inflict some pain, post a comment stick with Round 1 to Day 10, or move on to round 2 (Which I have never even watched so I have NO idea what I am getting myself into)

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 6 and 7

Well week 1 is down, and time for the weigh in... Drum roll please...

Weight: 200 lbs...

Seems anticlimatic but I will continue, I have already noticed I had more energy and its easier to get through the exercises so I'll hang in there. Keep in mind I am only doing the exercise routine, I am not following any kind of diet so that probably isn't helping... Hotdogs in speghetti sauce covered in cheese and a large helping of brownie bar and ice cream will likely slow things down.

So Day 6, sunday, Fat me won the argument with Skinny me and when the alarm went off at 6 am they both silently agreed that it would be stupid to get up and exercise. We normally sleep till 10, sometimes even later on sunday. It really is our day of rest. However, before Fat me could wake up, skinny me was downstairs at 8 cursing the skinny bitches on the TV who make it look easy. One thing that occured to me is the importance of breathing. If you want to make it through, pay attention to Jillian and breath properly. Inhaling while doing an ab work out hurts like hell and makes it about impossible to complete.

Day 7: Monday, back to schedule. Alarm went off at 5am, got downstairs and completed the work out. Having some trouble with the lunges due to bad knees, but other than that breezing through the exercises. Less swearing, no lingering pain from the last days workout. Starting to think I should move to cycle 2 sooner than 10 days, someone talk me out of it. One thing I wish they would do is tell you where you should feel it, sometimes when I am doing the lunges I only feel it in one leg, sometimes in both so I am probably not doing it right, would be nice if they told you where you should be feeling it as a guide.

PC dies an untimely death, man mourns its loss...

Well as most of my friends know, I am a hard core WOW fan.. Its basically my only hobby, and so when my computer started acting up, I started sweating... Its been two weeks since our raids have gone off, and so wtih the raid last night a little sketchy I was feeling shitty that I couldn't get online.

The pc was freezing, and causing BSOD periodically. After a restart it would sometimes start up, sometimes not. I went and got a windows 7 cd thinking maybe that would solve things, um no.. it looked like it but didn't last more than 15 minutes before the PC crashed again.

I took it apart, took out the video card and blew some compressed air on it. blew out everything else, let it cool off and tried again. Now it doesn't even get into the windows is loading please wait... Jenn talked me into going to Best buy to take a look at what a computer costs.. I didn't want to go because I knew I wouldn't leave without a computer... and sure enough, here I am typing on my brand new dell inspiron... they aren't that expensive when you don't need anything but the tower... Now comes the hours long task of downloading and installing wow, and trying to recover all my documents and pictures from the old shell...

We don't think it will happen to us, but it does. So find some regular routine that backsup everything that is important to you, either to DVD, one of those online upload cloud computing sites, or a USB drive, but do it before your computers magic blue smoke escapes like mine did...

Jillian Michael's 30 Day shred: Day 4 and 5

This post is a touch late, but day 4 went without too much different. I am making it all the way to round 3 without having to cheat, my weakness continues to be ab's...

This morning, I had a minor conversation with myself about how I shouldn't get up at 6am on a saturday just to exercise... needless to say, I did. That little voice is tough to ignore at times, but its worth it.. One thing I would NOT recommend, is after your work out, don't go back to bed... it seems that I did something to my ciatic nerve and now lifting my left leg hurts.. sitting is fine, standing is OK but walking is tough...

I'll weigh in tomorrow and see how day 6 treats me... I don't expect to have lost much if anything, but it is starting to get much easier and this morning (day 5) was the first time I woke up without any lingering pain in my shoulders or legs... something is going well anyways.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 3

Well the day started out like any, looking at the alarm clock in disbelief, but once I got started I was pleasantly surprised that I got all the way to the third cycle before I had to stop and take the 5s break on the ab section. Still having to go girly on pushups but whatever.

This is the first time, literally, in my life that I have been doing any kind of work out routine. Didn't do it in college (Does lifting a toddler count?) didn't do much in highschool (I was so naturally buffed I didn't have to, LOL more like I was more interested in computer games..) so some of this is not coming as much of a surprise to me.

My plan is to work on level 1 until either its so easy that I can get through it without much of a problem or I hit day 10. This morning, incidentally, was also the first time I broke into a full on sweat during the work out, so maybe this morning is the first time I am actually doing all the exercises right? Then I will move to round 2 and see what that brings. I'll be weighing in once a week, more often is kinda pointless in my mind and won't show much, if any change... I doubt I will see any big numbers but I am hoping to see some kind of change. I already feel better than I have felt in a long time, since the summer when Jenn and I were walking 4 miles a day, if for a different reason..:)

Again, my biggest problem is me and making sure I make the time. I was talking to Jenn last night and was saying that while missing my bus sucked, it was because I putzed around in the morning and didn't get started until 5:25. I will NOT use (and this is more positive re-inforcement for me than you really) missing my bus as an excuse to not work out. This is hard, breaking my sloth routine is hard, I won't kid you. I don't kid myself, I know its hard, and I know my biggest challenger in all of this is me. If I give myself the out of have to catch the bus, if I miss one day I'll probably fall apart again and not continue. Oh, btw, I didn't miss my bus this morning..;)

This is a grand plan, and you are helping me by making me accountable to the countless people who are checking this every day (Hey put it on follow so I know how many of you are out there, especially the 4 people from holland and the two from Australia...O.O) and I appreciate your helping me through this with just your digital interest.

The lady behind me decided that it was a good time to get in touch with everyone she knows instead of letting the rest of us sleep, so early post today...:) See you all tomorrow.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 2

Day 2: Alarm went off at 5 am and I managed to only stall for 15 minutes before getting to the basement. End result, missed my bus by about 2 minutes...

Figured out why I keep waking up at 2am, on a side note, Love you tristen, but stop setting your alarm clock for 2am...

So everyone (meaning Jenn) wants to know how its going, and its going. Thanks to a downgrade in the weights, have I mention recently how much I love my wife?, I made it through all the strength exercises without having to cheat, still having a little trouble on the pushups to my chagrin.

I made it all the way to cycle three without cheating on anything, and by cheating I take the allowed 5 second pause and then get back to it... Your biggest problem in all of this, is yourself... If you skip your walk (sorry sawyer) or stop exercising, or "phone it in" a term Jillian uses often, then you're not goin to get anywhere and I'm doing this to get somewhere... so off to pop some advil and a walk with the big dumb blond.

Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred: Day 1

OK so day one complete.

Alarm went off at 5am, I stared at it (having woken up at 2am, 3am, 3:30, 4 thinking about work because I forgot to bring my laptop home) and thought go away bother me tomorrow. Then my groggy conscience kicked me in the butt and I lunged out of bed before I could change my mind, surprising Sawyer to no end...

Pop in the DVD and grab the 5lbs weights ( HAHAHA you're thinking, 5lb weights, what a wimp... wait for it, it gets better) and start out the shred. Jilian has an interesting tactic, 3 minutes of strength, 2 of cardio and 1 of abs, constant motion is the key for 20 minutes. 20 minutes, of non stop agony... from the first 1 minute of push ups, and no I am not cheating, I am trying to keep up with the skinny bitches on the TV, to the last 15 seconds of "stretching" its non stop pain and suffering.

After the first set, I couldn't lift the 5lb weights anymore. They do lunges where you have to lunge and lify the weights up to your shoulders, sounds like cake right. Well cake is what got me into this mess, and now I'm dealing with it. By the time that particular activity was over, nothing but willpower was making those weights go up and down... my arms sure as hell weren't. I couldn't get my shaving cream out of the cabinet when I was done... All I kept telling myself, and she does an excellent job of this as well, was that 400 lbs people on biggest loser do this all the time (they want a million dollars, but shh) I can do it.

Day 1: over.
Results: Mild pain for about an hour, once I got to work I just had a residual "yep your alive and that was stupid" feeling in a couple of places
Weight: 200 lbs on the button.
Goal: 180 lbs (should be 170, but meh, I'll deal with that last 10 lbs)

Next up.. Day 2. If memory serves its Day 4 and 5 that were the real bitch last time...

Pre-emptive strike against holiday nom noms

Alright well the time has come for me to re-vitalize my efforts at losing weight... our department had a biggest loser challenge, and shockingly I won... of course I beat out Madhukar, my skinny ass employee, everyone else seemed to give up when they realized that people were actually trying, but anyways, since coming down to Coach I have lost 20 lbs... now, I just have to lose the last 20....

One thing we were doing, that had relative success when I had more time, was Jillian Michaels (from the biggest loser) 30 day shred... and tell you what, make fun of my all you want, joke about exercising with cans of beans all you want, by day 5 that shit hurt.... then part 1 got yanked from utube and we lost interest. Well I bought the damn CD, so tomorrow, December 1, will be day 1 of the 30 day shred for me... be interesting trying to keep it up through Christmas, but I have every intention of posting my results here as I go.

I will save you from picture.
I will provide critical details such as my weight as I go through this.
I am also adding a walk for me and "the big dumb blond" a.k.a Sawyer our Golden retriever, every day for at least an hour. I have the route, just a matter of actually doing it.. Time to get off my ass and do something about my ever increasing ass... Jenn re-confirmed over the weekend that she actually wants me to survive until I retire so we can have some us time (I hope to the powers that be that I don't have to wait 28 years for some alone time..) so time to get serious about it....

What's it mean to me in reality?

Getting up at 5am instead of 5:30 for a 30 minute workout in the morning.
Pain, suffering....

Whats it mean to you?
Endless hours of me complaining, and regaling you about how much I hurt... until it stops hurting and I start seeing effects, then endless hours of me selling the DVD to you...;)

Anyways, wish me luck, and I'll check back more often now that I actually have something to talk about!

I'm in love, again....

OK so it should come as no surprise that I am a gadget junky... I'm sure those of you who know Jenn have heard the many tales of my purchases... I bought a laptop back when they were ridiculously expensive, bought an Iphone when you couldn't use them in Canada (successfully hacked it, used it for a month, and ended up with a HUGE cell phone bill, now use it as no more than a glorified i touch) I'm a geek, and proud of it...

My most recent infatuation is a star trek type tablet PC. I spend 3-4 hours a day on a bus going to and from work, and while the Iphone is nice, its small and you have to deal with itunes to get stuff onto and off of it. Some of the stuff I watch doesn't work with itunes, for one reason or another... What I really want (don't need, I know better than that, I want it) is something like this....

Thats Archos's new tablet PC, it runs windows 7 (yeah well if mac would finally come out with their tablet PC I might consider them instead) and looks super sexy... Also its not retardedly expensive at around 600$... (http://www.archos.com/products/nb/archos_9/index.html?country=us&lang=en) Now.... I don't have 100$ to rub together at the moment, but if I can hold off my crazy impulse buy tendancy until I can actually afford this baby it would be cool! Maybe everyone I know will get together and buy it for me for xmas, who knows...:)

I came up with this crazy idea while I was sitting here waiting for my next meeting, why don't laptop manufacturers come out with upgradeable laptops... I know what you are going to say, they don't do it because they want to sell more laptops, but a lot of people don't buy laptops because they can't upgrade them.... Food for thought, what if you could upgrade the video card, and CPU to a certain extent, what if the card was in a compact module like the hard drive that could just be unscrewed and replaced... The next step would be to replace the screen as well, which is possible now if you drop it, but it would be important to be able to replace it with a better one... though not as important...

Anyways Dell/IBM/Cisco executives that read my posts avidly looking for technological advances, have at it, idea is all yours, just send me an email when you are done so I can buy one!

Off to another meeting...

Long time no post...

I am sure that most of my posts start with long time no post these days... Life is getting a little crazy, we are getting into a routine but the routine requires a lot of running and last minute aha moments that would otherwise not be considered a routine....

We are basically settled into the new place, we probably jhave a half a dozen boxes that we are too scared to open and everything else has managed to find a home.

I guess I could rant about our house a little, but everything that was wrong with it I basically fixed at this point so not sure there is much point.

This blog originally started out as a therapeutic place for me to vent my random thoughts to the world, if anyone happened to read it great, but I wasn't setting out to have a huge web presence and I'm sure I have achieved that....

I need a topic to post, I'm not someone who can post about what I am doing, and frankly most of what I do is not all that interesting, the only really interesting things in my life are jenn and the boys, and occasionally the dogs, but so many people blog about their kds that I don't see the point... I'm also pretty sure most of my parenting decisions could be second guessed until infinity... We had an interesting discussion over dinner tonight about relationships and parenting, and it weas interesting to get perspectives from just about every walk of life.

Jenn asdked me the other day, are you a verticle thinker, or a horizontal thinker. Of course I was playing bejewled blitz at the time, but it actually made me stop and think about it, right after I beat her high score... We all think differently, and fundamentally if uyou don't understand that everyone around you sees everything differently than you do, be it tinged in their own glow, jaded by past experience, or just verticle instead of horizontal, your doomed to be arguing with people forever.

I tell tristen to stop trying to convince kyle that he is right. He doesn't have to agree with you on most things, plus I know for a fact that kyle is deliberatly disagreeing because it bothers tristen...but its not important for everyone to agree with me all the time, it doesn't mean I always do what I want or do what someone else wants, but it also doesn't mean that I have to agree with what someone wants me to do, in order to do it. Sometimes its not important, and while you may approach it from a different angle, you may also be wrong... There is that 50% chance, and in some cases its much much higher...;)

Summer fridays rule...

Coach has this cool concept of summer fridays, what it amounts to, is you work 10 hours a day for the first 4 days of the week, and then go home early on fridays!

Anyways last time around I promised photos!! Now time for me to figure out how this shit works... Jenn's friends post pics all the time, some seriously amazing photos are up there, makes me want to grab my camera, blow off the dust and try and remember what I know about photography...

The above is an example of a really bad picture... I've been shooting for about 4 years, very off and on... My previous life was a traveling consultant whereby I would be all over the country, sometimes around the world, and so had lots of opportunitites to shoot photo's and refine my talents (much, much refining is required...) but if you shoot 4,000 photo's a day you get lucky once in awhile...

Somewhere in there is Kyle... This was shortly after his 11th birthday... With my previous life I had to travel a lot, so much so, that I was not home for my birthday, or Jenn's for 6 years straight.. just had crazy bad timing. I was however usually able to make it home for the kids, but missed Kyle's Bday, so to make up for it I told him we could go anywhere he wanted to go! I however suggested we go Deep sea fishing (he loves fishing) in Florda, and he went for it...:) One of the perks of being a consultant on the road 60-80% of the time, is you have a ton of frequent flyer points, car points, hotel points so it was also relatively inexpensive.. Most expensive part of the trip, was chartering the boat for fishing (Hey good news there, dad gets sea sick...)

We had a lot of fun in Flordia, went fishing, and swiming in the ocean, it was good times, a good bonding experience, at least for me and that was the intention.

So yeah, occasionally I get lucky, I am definately not a natural at this. I walk around the world in a bit of a daze, I go about my business with the intent of getting where I am going wihtout much thought to the world around me. Probably why I fit in so well in New York frankly... but thats a topic for another blog... Whenever I pick up my camera I have to literally flick a switch in my head to change the way I view the world and be able to take some decent pictures...

This one is from the botanical gardan in San fran, I was there with a friend photographer who was busy out shooying me everywhere, I spotted this little flower floating perfectly in the small pond and thought hey cool and shot it... as soon as he saw it he got a little miffed with me, we were of the habit of not taking pictures of what they other shot...:)

All things considered that was one of my better days for photo's..

Our internet is hella slow tonight, but theres some samples of what you can do with an over priced camera and a lot of luck...:) My advise to anyone starting out, get a good beginner camera SLR preferrably as they will stretch as far as you want them to. I'd also heavily suggest taking some courses if you are going to take it seriously.. F stops, ISO, BW bracketing, all kinds of strange things you need to be mildly aware of, or your pictures can turn out like that first one, instead of

We're going to the Diva's BBQ tomorrow, I'll be snapping a ton of photo's there and put them here or on FB... each image took around 5 minutes to upload, feels like dialup, and the process is a little bit of a pain in the ass... more power to you ladies out there that post every day...:)

I like the new little widget that tells you who visit's...now I know I am blogging for a reason

Well, more eventful days... I've never really had an easy life, let me change that up a little, I have never had a SIMPLE life...:) I'd hazard a guess that 95% of the world would say my life has been easy.

But I have kind of specialized in being complicated... I think I get it from my mom..

anyways enough boohooing.

We put in a offer to lease on a place in Jersey.. no idea if it will be accepted, process if very different/strange as its almost like buying a house, you negotiate the move in date, the price, the down payment/deposit, everything.... and then wait to see if the landlord will accept it...

Its not what we were hoping for, 3 bedroom place so the kids will be bunking together but its in a good neighborhood and was all we could afford with the house still not sold.

Then we got an offer on the house! They offered 20% less than what we were asking... and they can't afford anything more than 15% less than what we are asking. What is it about tough economic times that brings the parasites out in people? To put that in perspective, houses down where we are looking run 500,000 for a 4 bedroom in a reasonable neighborhood.. that would be like me walking in and offering someone 400,000 for their house...

Thank god I have my family behind me, because if we agree on the price I believe we need to agree on, we will lose 25,000$ selling the house we already put 20,000$ in improvements in to sell.... In order to even make that a possibility I have to borrow all of the money from my parents so I can write a check to the bank to walk away from the house I paid so much for and did so much work on... Here I am, a grown man, working for a living for the past 11 years, and I had to cash in all of my RRSP (401k for you americans), steal money from my youngest sons college/schooling fund, and once all is said and done I will have a 25,000$ debt to show for it. Actually, its quite a bit more than that, but I can blame the other debts on things we actually enjoyed so not going into that here...:)

Anyways hopefully this move was the right things to do, hopefully Coach recovers before everyone else in this economic blah blah and we can start making some money... for now its going to be tough. But, as someone keeps reminding me, we're all together finally. I am working for a great company that my wife's friends all love, my boss is great, the team I work with is great, my kids are great... I really have more to be happy about than sad, but who the hell likes losing money? I know everyone is losing money right now, anyone watching their retirement savings are watching it do nothing but go down, but the only time that really matters, is if you need it right now...

If you don't need your retirement savings, leave it where it is, keep investing in the same investments and they will come back. The market always bounces back, it just sometimes takes awhile.. Luckily, I have no money in the market, one less thing to stress about...:)

OK, next step, posting pictures of the family, dogs, disney trip etc... this weekend I swear I'll get some various shots up on here and start making a concerted effort to make this more than just a wall o text.

Wow once again, letting the blog slide...

Well been an eventful couple of months….

We closed up the house up north, packed up everything consumable, gave away whatever we couldn't bring, and packed the kids, dogs and ourselves into the rented mini van and drove down to New York… what I normally drive in 6 hours, took us 10 door to door. We were on the road for 12 hours, but Jenn doesn't want me counting the first two hours because we were getting lunch, and driving her brother home, walking the dogs before we started for the border etc etc, but hell we left home at 10am, and the car was in the garage in NJ (empty for the most part) at 10pm, that in my books is 12 hours…>.>

Getting across the border, oh man was I terrified something would go wrong there.. Jenn had packed up a bunch of dry goods to bring with us, pasta, canned crap, flour, sugar and I was too paranoid to bring it with us… We breezed through the border.. I think it helped that the lady who was interviewing us loved Coach and wanted us to adopt her… We didn't even have to show the dogs papers that I spent 2 days getting, or really answer any questions… we just walked up, got the passports stamped and the visas put in, and off we went..

We moved down July 4th weekend, and I promptly threw my back out, spent 4 days being waited on hand and foot… I thank god it happened when it did, can't imagine my friends helping me as much as Jenn did…. Ever hurt your back? There is no pain as intense, except I am told child brith… Of course for the really luck ones, child birth doesn't last 4 fing days, but whatever… It hurt so bad I could not get out of bed, I literally could not lift my legs, was almost paralyzed by the pain and lack of mobility. That was some of the scariest time in my young life… I couldn't help but think what if this stays this way, what are we going to do..

Gavyn came in on Thursday (first day of the ordeal) and demanded Breakfast.. Jenn was busy trying to help me find a position that would allow me to stop screaming, and Gavyn wanted to know what was wrong with me. I asked him, have you ever seen Daddy cry before, Um nope, well that’s how much this hurts… he promptly turned around and left. I never take time off work for illness, my parents raised us to believe that if you didn't break a bone, or have a fever you didn't stay home.. I was out for two days, feeling guilty the entire time, but I just couldn't do it.. The first day, late in the afternoon I managed to get into the car and drive to the chiropractor, by using my hands on my legs to push on the peddles… talk about horrifically unsafe… Jenn came with me to help me into and out of the car, talk about a stupid plan… here I am driving with my hands on my leg to control the gas/breaks with my wife in the car.. Bad enough I should die in a car crash but to take her with me? Luckily nothing went wrong, and the chiro/massage really helped…

Other than that, we are in our luxurious 4 story town home, boy are the kids ever in for a surprise when we rent some other place that is a hovel because we haven't sold our house yet and we need to have somewhere to live….but while it lasts it sure is fun…!We're all getting a lot of exercise from the TV being in the basement and the computers being on the 4th floor..:)

I'm sure some of you have teenagers… Kyle is 14, and a fine upstanding young man don't get my wrong.. But there are times where I want to grab him and shake him until his head falls off… He never thinks, he just does stuff… he gets bored and eats, or finds a raspberry in the container of raspberries that are designated for a special desert, and tosses the entire thing in the garbage…. Or eats my secret stash of cashews in my office, not just one of them, but rips the bag open and spreads them all over the inside of my drawer..He was grounded from use of his computer for reasons that I can't even remember anymore, but he goes on my computer, his brothers computer, he gets up in the middle of the night and plays on my computer so we won't notice….he watches TV until all hours and sleeps until 1… I mean I remember doing some of this shit, but I still listened to my parents for the most part… he listens, agrees, then completely ignores us and does whatever he wants..

Other than grabbing him and shaking him until his head falls off, I'm running out of ideas… One thought we had was that we are going to have him use his money/allowance to buy food for himself, so he knows how much things cost… secretly I am going to go eat his food once he does that… to show him how irritating it is to be saving a half bag of chips for Friday night all week, to avoid the temptation of eating them so you can enjoy the guilty pleasure at the end of the week, and then when it comes time, to open the bag and find it completely empty.. Or just missing.. See how much he likes it.. Will have to do it randomly though so he doesn't get blase about it…I just don't know what to do to get through to him…

Nanyways, serious wall of text, but there you have it.. I hopefully will be able to write we sold the house for real this time, the next time I write… shh don’t tell Jenn.

Long time no talk...

Don't even remember the last time I wrote to my blog.. Its been crazy busy at work and I just fall asleep on the bus on the way home... Not much different about today except its Jenn's birthday today.

Happy bday girl!! You say you wish you were stronger, but I don't know many people who could raise three kids on their own while their absentee husband is god knows where in the world dooing whatever the hell it is he calls work. From meetings at the school, to late night trips up north to find a runaway son who doesn't know how lucky he is, to a husband who isn't even home for your birthday... You are the strongest person I know, bar none.

I miss you with all my being, and am counting the days to when you guys move down here. I don't know how the hell we"re going to afford it... But I'm ignoring that for now because I miss you all so much.

We lost the bid on the house, and our agent felt that our best chance of selling was to take care of some of the items from the inspection report like the asbestos in the attic. 10,000 dollars before taxes, which is 15% in mtl btw, to remove this shit from the attic... Of courde halfway through the find an issue... Just like everything else in this stupid house the guy who did the renovations did them half assed and we have a suspended ceiling... The asbestos has fallen through the first one, and is sitting on the second one...

now what? Its not buyer be ware in montreal. I can't just remove half and leave the rest, so I have to take care of it... 6,000 dollars more, before taxes... I have no idea where I am going to get all this money, the bank of mom has offered up but that's just humiliating... I love her, but she has had to bail me out so often that my dad looks at me sideways every time I visit wondering when I am going to ask for money no doubt...

Its not that bad of course, I have paid back every cent I borrowed each time, but still...

Anyways enough self pity...

Bummed on bday...

Happy tax day, er bday!

Just another day I know but sucks to be alone for it, for what the 8th year in a row Jenn? Anyways its only wednesday but this is the culmination of a shitty week.

Get to deal with a new batch of consultants that someone on high decided I needed... They are doing a great job of repackaging the work my team has done over the last month and showing our upper management all that "we" have done... Just awesome...

Got my taxes in... Jebbus... Nuff said there...

The offer on the house fell through, even if it was a shit offer it would have given us closure. Now we have nothing but a bunch of stuff we should fix to make the next offer (if there is one) smoother... Not things that will give us roi mind you, just things that will make it possible to sell the damn thing.. More awesome...

Meh, thought it would feel good to "talk" to someone, it really doesn't..

Been awhile.

I was reminded that it has been awhile since I last posted, we've been busy...

We got an offer on the house! Yay!

The offer sucked. Boo!!

We countered and they didn't run away screaming, yay!

They countered with a slightly less shitty offer, boo!

We had no choice but to accept, ya... Oh wait, boooo!

They want a building inspection, ok. The building inspection turns up vermiculite in the attic. Wtf is vermiculite? Apparently it contains asbestos! Booo! Its safe to leave and no law in quebec requires that you remove it, but.... It will cost 10000 to remove! Boo again!

Well water needs to be tested, ok. Comes back as hazardous! Boo!

Meanwhile jenn is down south with me for a week to look at houses! Yay!

We find one, it has been one the market for over a year! Can anyone smell a deal? Yay!

The day we look at it they drop the price! Yay!

Someone else makes an offer! Boo, forcing us to make our best offer! Boo so much for getting a deal!

The other guys offer is accepted! Boo some more!

U get the point. I know we have all been brainwashed into thinking that if we don't own a house we aren't successful and are just throwing our money away, but I would be 30 or 60k richer if we hadn't moved depending on how carefully I loolk at the numbers, and believe me, neither of those numbers are ones I want to dwell on for a prolonged period...

So we are waiting for the final decision from our buyer, who will no doubt try and make me pay for ecerything, not sure what I will do. Surfing the nj bus home to take jenn to the airport where a bunch of mean people will take here away from me.

Much as I love my foster family, the last week has been the most relaxing and amazing week of this adventure! Can't wait for jenn and the boys to be here full time.

Before I wipe out, these drivers don't drive any smoother when there is someone standing, ill sign off. Keep smilng, at the very least you can have the satisfaction of knowing that everyone around you will wonder what you are up to.

God I hate eating alone...

Possibly the only thing worse than eating out alone is going to a movie alone. Seriously, I'm not a shy person but sitting here with nothing to do but talk to you guys while I wait for my food is meh.

Just found out that as soon as I apply for my h1 visa I will not be able to leave the country... Guess I should have given the kids an extra big hug before I left yesterday, but at least things are moving afyer a 5 month pause. We are moving, wether we sell the house or not wheels up july 1! Wootness.

Its funny because my relo package includes a packing and move service, but jenn wants to pack for us... Not that the professional packers will do a good job... At least when jenn packs we know what is in the box...

Well boredom apparently does not equate to elloquence so I will call this a post and move on to staring at the wall, less depressing than watching the families eating around me.

Twice a week?

Its 42 degrees in florida right now.. Any guess where my kids are? You guessed it, swiming in the outdoor pool. At what age do we lose that sense of fun and adventure? When do we decide that being warm and comfy I'd more important than half an hour of fun? No idea, but clearly I have passed that point as I sit covered in 4 towels and wearing my winter jacket...

So we went to epcot, epic fail as kyle would say, and holywood studios, my favorite park thus far. Tristen has found a girl to hit on in the pool... If he had a little more self confidence he would be truly dangerous...

Looks like we missed the weather by a week. Saturday is supposed to be 80, first time since we got here and of course we have to go home that day... We are scheduled to go to blizzard beach tomorrow with temps in the upper 60s should be entertaining.

Ok so maybe not every day...

Well I claimed I would write every day, here we are day three and I probably wouldn't be writing now except jenn is out talking to an elementary school friend so I am abusing this time to clean out my in box, and write you all.

Our first day started as most of my trips do, I couldn't find my passport, so the kids and jenn were in the car, at 5 am, while I frantically tried to remember what really safe and totally non obvious place I put my passport... That ended fine, we got to the airport and on to our plane with no issues.

Once we got through the magical express and to our resort we couldn't check in because our room wasn't ready, nor was our luggage here... So we chilled and looked at the flamingos, Gavyns new favorite creature, and generally just enjoyed the 70 degree weather. Around 230 our room was ready and magically our luggage was here.

By the time we were all cleaned up and ready to face the world it was 4, so we hung out in the pool for a couple of hours and ate at the boma buffet for dinner. Now this buffet is the best I have ever eaten at in my life, the service is awesome, the food is all really good, and the spit screens are really big... Of course I have been sick for 2 days, but doubt that is related.

Second day was threatening rain, so we got up extra early and took full advantage of the extra hour we get in the park due to staying on site. Before I forget again, the meal plan is way worth it. One dinner would cost us 170 without tip without the plan. With the plan, its free. We hit the animal kingdom the second day, didn't get to see it all but did go on a couple of cool rides. Gavyn has decided he will not do any rides, so that's been entertaining. On the plus side the older two get to ride each major ride at least once.

We took the animal kingdom safari, a moderately over priced ride through the various sevannahs along with what felt like a 8 course meal. The ride was fun, got some pictures I never would have otherwise. Jenn tried to convince me that the tour was better because it was raining (yeah nice truy babe).

Today was magical kingdom day, and it certainly is. Some rides have bot changed since the early 80s when I was here, others are completely new. Space mountain is a bone jarring vomit inducing nightmare, and the safari is full of animatronic silliness. A good day was had by all, especially kyle who turned 14.

14, I still vividly remember grade 8. When the cool kids built a bonfire in math class when the substitute teach wasn't looking... Clearly proving that he was not cut out for teaching. I remember the three girls I dated in grade 8... One of whom was in grade 10... Yikes, doubt I am ready for kyle to start dating.

Anyways have blathered on long enough, more to come I am sure.

Walt Disney is satan?

Well we are almost there, we are going to disney next week on this tree of the desrosiers first real family vacation. Sure I have gone places with the kids seperately, and jenn and I went out what like ONCE? But this is our first all together outing, I am excited for it.

I have heard very bizar tales of disney from multiple source, kids in strollers with 3rd degree burns, passed out from all the "fun". Mothers in the bathroom with their kids smacking them because they spent so much money on this trip you better have "fun".

I am a entirely different person, for better or worse, when on vacation. I say for better or worse because it usually means I spend a bunch of money I didn't have to, but the point of these trips is to build memories, not spend as little as possible. If I coulsnt afford to go, we jus wouldn't but since I am away for so long this is a good time to get re aquainted.

Some of my friends were suggesting going to mgm, or universal, but as I said to jenn last night, its not like this is the last trip we will ever take. This is the first, and mgm would be cool if you are 10 or 20, disney kind of looses its wow factor after 14.

Things are good at work, we have a new real estate agent who is actually showing an interest in selling our place so I am boyed by that. Looks like our property is going to be tough tp sell though, at least until municiple water comes in (god only knows when that will be). I figure we will sit on the land, leave it on the market and see. Maybe the people who buy the house will also buy our land, maybe not. I've had a pretty blessed life, someone is watching over me and I firmly believe, as hokey as it sounds from a pragmatic rationalist, that things happen for a reason.

I am where I am because I met Jenn and we had kyle. If I hadn't would I have been as driven, and motivated to excel, probably, would I be where I am today? Almost certainly not. I would likely be an electrical engineer, cause that's what my dad is, and more or less miserable. To this day, I could really tell you what a eng does. I'm sure its some cool shit, I just don't know what it is. All things considered I should probably have gone into computer programming (like my bro) because I like it, and am relatively good at it. Too late now though, so I use it when I can and try to pickup new languages as it is possible and relevant.

I bought an iphone the first month it came out, and hacked it so I could use it in canada. An amazingly large cellphone bill later, I stopped using it for the most part as anything more that a phone and video player. Friend of mine wants to buy it, allowing me to invest in an I touch, hush now. Yes I know an I touch is just an iphone without the phone, but this is seriously the coolest piece of geekwear I have ever owned. Apple outdid themselves, while they did overlook some rather obvious items, push instead of pull for email, they did well overall. The screen, at arms length as if reading a book, is the same size as my 42 inch plasma (I no right? Such a small screen? Well I bought that the way I buy everything, one weekend went to look at tvs having done no research and bought the best one we couldn't afford.) The video is very crisp and now that I live in the states, content for it is awesome. You can rent movies for it and everything... Makes the bus ride home that much more tolerable...

I plan on posting a blog, it might even have pics (gasp) of disney, maybe even one for each day. Not bringing the crackberry or laptop so we will see...

Happy new year?

I was all set to post on my blog this morning about how great my holiday season was, how I enjoyed spending time with my wife and two kids (kyle is 13 and a vampire, I think I saw him a total of 3 hours in 10 days and then only necause we forced him to come out for breakfast and dinner) but today we received some shocking news that a friend of ours passed away at the age of 42.

You never imagine these things happening, sure you think if I passed away what would happen to the kids and jenn, but you never give much thought to those around you and that they might not be there the next time you turn around. This loss has hit jenn hard, he was an old boyfriend of hers and a source on anx for me (pretty sure I spelled that wrong), but a fixture of sorts in our life. Facebook reunited them recently and they were comparing notes on life and getting back in touch. A blessing of sorts was that he passed quickly and painlessly, those left behind would rather some warning but by the same token its a reminder to not left things unsaid.

Kyle, your growing up great. I am harder on you that your brothers because you are older and have always acted older. I don't know what is normal for a 13 year old and don't know what I can or should expect from you, but all the same I love you, am proud of the man you are becoming, and hope you will leave room for us in your life.

Tristen, I love both of you. I love the tempermental grumpy kid who can't take anything I say without crying, I love the happy go lucky kid who understands that dads need alone time too, I love your sense of humour, your wit and desire to please. You too are growing up a fine young man, just stop measuring yourself against kyle. He does things his way, you do them yours, no one is better we are all different. Wheb you measure yourself against someone else, one of you will be disapointed. Be your own person, be the strong willed independant person you are, but do what I say!

Gavyn, oh my Gavyn. I hope I am strong enough for you litle man. You are the strongest willed of all my boys, and the only one who has won the vegetable argument. You take life at your own speed and the hell with life if it doesn't like it. You do need to lighten up a little and be more aware of those around you, that they have feelings to and though you can't feel them theyu hurt just as bad as yours do when someone calls you a name or makes fun of you.

Jenn. The center of my being, the only reason I do any of what I do. I know I don't say it often enough, and could never say it often enough, but I love you. I love you more and more each day we spend together. I don't know what I would be had we not met, so much of my life has been shared with you, so many if my experiences with you that I literally cannpot imagine what life would be like without you in it. Nevermind what would happen to the boys etc, I just do not know how I would go on without knowing you are a phone call or email away. I love you.

Mom, dad. Pretty sure neither of you know this exists, but I love you as well. I understand each of you more and more as my boys grow, and understand what I put you through and often wonder how you coped with you emotionally retarded self centered son.

Phil, don't think we ever got to know one another. You've always been my bigger brother the fountain of all knowledge, most of it later determined to be complete bullshit, but I've never know you as a person, or really though of you as anything more than my big brother. We have a bit in common, not a lot though I am sure if we made an effort we would find it was more than we expected.

Ulan, I know you read this, so chill out. The saphron raid this weekend was a pleasant change where when you screamed at the shammies for dropping a elemental totem you could laugh it off. Palla, bear with him, I think deep down there might be a nice guy in there somewhere, I'd recommend a golden retriever puppy to find it... Worked for me.

For the rest of you, if your not crying like a baby seek professional help. Lord knows I should.