End of Summer 2013 Update

I was down 36 pounds a few weeks ago, but I gained some in the last fortnight.  Since the very end of April, I had lost 26 pounds, but again there is a need to refocus.   My shoulder is a bit messed up, so I've been getting a relatively lot of massages & stretching & doing 5 lb db exercises to help fix it, but I have let it frustrate me more than I should have.  My plan was to supplement weight training with cardio, and I can't seem to steer toward a cardio focus with supplemental weight training.   

I have had a job since May, so that is nice, although the training program really sux and they pay me a relatively lot of money without giving me any billable training work.  I did go out & shadow an integration for a week in Philadelphia/New Jersey in August.  I think the highlight of that trip was going to a Bobby Flay burger restaurant & getting Rebecca a t-shirt, as she was so jealous! Microsoft Dynamics AX is a huge program that I feel is overly complicated in a lot of areas.  The perks are great, and on Aug 10th we had our company location picnic at a Rockies game.

I got a great deal on a black Louisville Slugger bat.  Each attendee got $20 in addition to the ticket. We invited the family across the street to attend as there were extra tickets.  They did not respond, so I got to keep an extra ticket with $20 on it ($60 total).  During a long lightning delay, we went to the main store to see if we could find anything we liked.  Rebecca found some stuff, but neither of us like the Rockies enough to pay $90+ for a sweatshirt, etc.  I found a small Louisville Slugger bat like the Steve Garvey I still keep at the head of my bed (it's a nice little billy club).  I filled out how I wanted it inscribed, & noted that I wanted a SF Giants logo put on it as well.  I believe I applied $30 of our credits to the price.  The relatively young man processing the order took a very long time to ring up the sale in the customer service area as he did not know how to process credits from our tickets.  Anyway, after all that was done, I told him that I wanted to switch to the $90 full sized bat.  He got a panicked look on his face & said that we could settle the difference when I returned.  When we returned, there was a shiny black regular sized bat waiting for us, and it showed as paid.  I asked the worker there how I should pay and she said it was taken care of, after I mentioned I thought I owed money.  Sweet! So now I have a cool black Louisville Slugger with a Giants logo, the date, and the inscription "I love Rebecca," (which is a little private joke that I have with Rebecca, she says all my fantasy teams & characters in games, etc. should be "I love Rebecca"), all essentially gratis.  Needless to say that I did not get a hot dog/polish dog in the 9th inning this time. 


That wasn't my best deal of the summer though.  When we went to CA for our vacation in June, Enterprise totally messed up on the car order, confusing me with another Mark Nelson who flew into SFO on the same day.  Essentially, I got his bill for $300 for a one day rental, when we had rented for nine days total.  I called to inquire about my missing rental points & incorrect totals, and the representative gave me a credit for the entire rental.  9 days of renting a car for free! That saved us a bill of over $600.  It was hard to go back to the ole VUE after driving a new Nissan Maxima.  It was a big impetus in getting new brakes & front stabilizer parts put on the VUE in July. 

Thusly VUE upgraded, on August 24th, for the first time in 8 years, we went up to the mountains by ourselves to see an attraction mentioned in AAA magazine.  We went to the town of Fairplay to see the South Park City 1880's mining town/ghost town.   That was pretty cool.


August 24th was also the 3rd anniversary of our dog Louie's passing.  He was my first dog.  I can't believe that 2010 was three years ago.

Now that school is over & job somewhat solidified, I've been looking to put together a new RPG group.  We are meeting this Saturday to solidify the player characters (I will be DMing).  We bug "bombed" the basement last night, and I will be cleaning out the basement on Thursday night with help from a teenager from the ward (the same one who house sat for us in June).  We last cleaned the basement two years ago, after we had some mice.  Rebecca had put out poison and we caught 2 upstairs.  So we did a bug bomb below and we found at least two dead mice, so hopefully we'll find none tomorrow night.

I still play a lot of computer games, namely Star Wars the Old Republic.  It is my first MMO, and it's cool that I get to play & speak with my brother Steven almost every time that I play.

Anyway, we are pretty much unscathed from the unprecedented storms here in Colorado.  Luckily we had a lot of work done on the backyard in the summer, putting in a garden for Rebecca, taking out a lot of shrubs & replacing with rocks, tripling the size of our patio, and most importantly adding dirt & rocks to the base of the house.  Only one of the landscapers pointed out how the soil had shifted and more of the cement foundation was showing, leaving it susceptible to flooding in the basement.  We hired that guy.  The work was finished in mid August, and the rain and floods came in September.  Counting our blessings there.

Rebecca has been sewing/starting a new quilt, and we are both loving the start of the NFL season.   We will be celebrating our 11th anniversary soon, and decided that we could not afford a weekend in Estes Park after the car repairs & backyard expenses, with Bully still needing new tires & the kitchen countertop being busted up.  Estes Park also happens to be under water after the flooding, so while we pray that the town recovers quickly, I'm glad that we did not prepay for an impossible weekend stay as it turns out.