travis' brain dump

ahhh the latest and greatest… ok, maybe not the greatest… lol

Nothing too crazy to report. I finally got off my rear and posted up more pictures and such. I think the only thing I’m lacking at this point is the finished photos from doing this last round of remodel action. I’ll get to it. Just need to take them. I think we were so thrilled to be back into all our rooms and have the house back after that week long nightmare I haven’t cared much to take the time to take more photos.

I finally ran the Bolder Boulder again. For being 9 years later and about 20 lbs heavier I think I can be pleased with my time. In 2001 I ran a 1:20:57. Not too bad, but not the best time for someone who was 22 year old and weighed 210 lbs. LOL This year I’m pleased to say I came in at 1:14:50 pulling a total time drop of 6 minutes and 7 seconds. If only we didn’t get stuck in the walk/jog heat I might have pulled an even better time. We ended up adding just over a half a mile in extra steps dodging folks which made it a little difficult to keep a good pace. However, that being said, next year it’s ON! I’ll be going in for the qualification run or hopefully run another race before hand to log as a qualifying time and get into a jogger heat or something. My goal is to bust the hour mark next 10k I run. I was sad that Amanda couldn’t run with me this year but she was having some problems with her leg while training which kept her out. I ended up running with my neighbor Cristal who did an awesome job as well.

Aside from that, the last three weeks have been uber crap for me working out. I really need to get some workout time in before I end up plumping up again. I looked at some pics of me from 2 yrs ago when I started working to drop the weight and the me at 270 compared to the me at 232 is nothing if not motivating to never let myself get back there. I’ll get back to it but it’s been hard with work lately. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that I’ll be having much time the next month or two. Work is going to kill me, I’m convinced. We’re incredibly busy right now trying to bust out a pretty large project in a pretty tight schedule. It’s an improbable schedule which of course we’ll knock out. We’ll see how positive my next monthly update post is now won’t we?

All in all everything else is going well. Finally getting the Camaro restored. It only sat for about 5 years with no work on it… At the rate I’m going I think I *MIGHT* be able to drive it in a couple years. The only thing slowing me down now is money and I’m about 10k from finishing it, lol.

Anyway… that about does it. If something else comes to mind i’ll certainly drop another update (if i can find the time, lol)

That’s me. I am the professional blog slacker.

Well, to be honest I think I have a decent excuse or ten… It’s been pretty hectic. I think where I last posted was a good sign things were ramping up to drive me completely nuts. To be honest, I don’t recall everything that has occurred over the last couple months but it’s been somewhere in the lines of tons of career work and lots of home related work (remodel, kiddos, car stuff, workout, etc) so needless to say blogging has been the last thing on my list.

So to bring my little online community up to speed for things they may or may not already know. I successfully made it into the 220′s (albeit high 220′s) on the weight loss and I’m hovering around 19% on the body fat count. I can’t complain really, that’s pretty good considering I was out around 270 when I started this whole thing two years ago. So, almost 42 lbs down and more than 6″ off my waist is nothing to be disappointed over. We’ll see how this next round goes. I’m doing quite a bit more cardio as Amanda and I are training up to run the Bolder Boulder at the end of this month. Projections say I should see around 215 again. That would be nice… lol

In other news, we finished cleaning up the three bedrooms and the hallway to the upstairs in the house with a little remodel. Nothing like pulling out all the insulation in the exterior walls and replacing it with 2 levels higher of an R factor to make things a little cooler/warmer in the bedrooms. It pretty much wraps up most of the work in the house in the odd areas. All that’s left is the kitchen/livingroom combo remodel and the two bathrooms and this house is done. I kinda wonder what we’ll do after that… Hopefully start building the house in the mountains if all goes well. Some pictures will be posted up shortly if they’re not already there when this is read.

I also passed another birthday… 31, wooo… I dunno. I remember thinking as a kid that I would be lucky to see 21 and here I am with 10 more years on top of that, two kids, a wife, a career, debt and everything else that goes in between. Wow.

Tons of stuff in between but hey, I’m still alive and all is well so that’s pretty much where we’re at. Hopefully I can get at least one or two posts a month as things go forward eh? *rolls eyes* riiiight.

Shortly before we left for GA there was a mouse we had busted digging into some things in the garage. This little isolated incident turned into a huge mess in our absence adding to the phrase “while the cat’s away, the mice will play”. Seriously, it was like an army had moved into our garage while our house sat quiet for that week and a half.

My solution?

<evil streak>

… the most painful looking, horrific feeling device I could find for a mouse trap. It’s got teeth and all. PETA eat your f`n heart out!! So, I’m not completely without a heart though… I did buy one of those ultrasonic devices to ward off the little buggers. But in the mean time it’s open season on those rodents! So far the score is 1-9. Only one trap has been robbed of the bait but I do believe that crafty mouse bit the big one when he hit the next trap for some more peanut butter. We even got a two for one special with one…

So until they stop coming in, I’ll get excited every time I hear a “snap” or walk out to find another one bit the dust. >=D

</evil streak>

Well, it’s definitely been a crazy few weeks. Perhaps that’s even an understatement.

Kicking it all off, the family and I packed up and went down to Georgia for the holidays. Talk about a crazy jam packed trip. I think the entire family had a blast down there though. Arwen got to meet her cousin Chloe for the first time and those two hit it off. It pretty much kept her occupied a good chunk of the trip when she wasn’t riding around with the rest of us while I played tour guide for Amanda. Travis had a blast being the new baby in the group. Between my parents and my sister that kiddo was not lacking for attention. Amanda however I think had the most fun. Between seeing some sights and the food, I think she was a little sad to leave. To quote Amanda concerning the food she had down there, ‘I would weigh a ton if I lived here… literally a ton.’  She did however raid a few really good recipies from my mom so she’ll be sure to cook up some of those favorites here. Let’s hope she doesn’t go too nuts and I end up weighing a ton afterwards.

While I didn’t get to see everyone I had intended to see while down there it was definitely great to hang out with at least some of my friends again for a bit. We also did get a chance to catch a couple movies while down there as well. Yay for grandparents that will keep an eye on the kids while the parents escape for a couple hours here and there. So, I suffered through New Moon with Amanda. Ok, it wasn’t *that* bad. Although the commentary Randy and I carried on with during the movie made it all the better. We also went to see Avatar in IMAX 3D. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it, but my advice? Spend the extra few bucks on the IMAX version. It’s well worth it.

Aside from seeing family and friends for that first week, Christmas went really well, especially for the kids. They both made out like bandits. LOL Trying to pack everything to go home was a little bit of a challenge although the hardest challenge was rolling home with a head cold. It never fails to happen. I get a sinus flair up before I head down and coming back I’ve got one heck of a headcold. *shrug* Whaddya do? At least we did stop on the way back to rest before tackling the evil that is Kansas. To those that live there, I’m sure there are some very nice places there, but the I-70 corridor is forsaken by all that is good.

So home and sick… I pretty much slept for Thursday, barely made it through New Years, slept more and then subjected myself to snowboarding on Saturday. Powder=Good, Head cold and 23 degrees = BAD. I seriously thought my head was going to explode on the drive back home. It felt and sounded like my head was in a plastic bag squeezing in on my head. No fun but it was worth it. I so needed to get up there if only for a short time.

All in all though it’s been a pretty good few weeks. I am looking forward to returning to work tomorrow though. It should be an interesting week of catching up.

More to come…