Heluva day

Wow, so we're in the process of major upgrades here at work and it's killing us all.  A lot of long hours, extra work and blah blah blah, same thing everyone else deals with.  I thought I'd bang out a blog right quick while I'm waiting on the results from my query to populate to tell everyone that I've stopped watching the news.  The news is too depressing right now. I don't even like looking at the headlines anymore.  If it's not the economy, it's the oil in the gulf, or the war.  I just can't take it anymore.  I'm going to stick to my happy place, ignorance.  Ignorance really is bliss.  Not knowing is now my key to happiness.  Can someone come whack me in the head so I can forget all the things that I already know?  Maybe I can slip myself a roofy like in the hangover, aka "dude I lost my groom", and forget about everything that is going on right now.  Alright I'm going to try and finish up my work so maybe I can get to the field in time to sit on the bench and cheer on my teammates that get in the game.  If you need me I'll be fist bumping everyone as the walk in the dugout. 

"If you're not first you're last"  Ricky Bobby

Update on sideburns

So it appears that most people like me better with sideburns so I've started the process of growing them back.  right now I'm just growing a full beard then I'll shave off most of the beardage to be left with the sideburns that everyone knows and loves.  As a side note, I've been given more responsibilities at work so I really don't have but a few minutes of free time to type up my blogs.  I'm going to continue to try and keep everyone entered as best as I can though.  Hope everyone is as bumped as I am about the 4th coming up. 

Great Suggestion

LG suggested that I post a poll for everyone to vote on rather they like me better with or without the sideburns.  If you'll scroll down you'll see a poll on the right side of my blog.  Please vote so I'll know if I should grow them back, or keep on shaving.  I dug around and found some pictures for everyone to judge.

With sideburns:

Without:

More than just a threat

As promised, I shaved the burns off.  I didn't tell Melissa, I just went into the bathroom and did work on them.  I've already gotten two votes from some people at church that they like the sideburnless version of Cas better than the sideburned version.  Most people haven't noticed, and some have just asked me if I got a hair cut.   I forgot to take a before picture, but you can pretty much just look back any any picture of me from the past 12 years and see what they looked like.  Sorry for the crappy pictures, but this is all I have right now.  Weight in, let me know what you think.  All I know right now is that it feels pretty strange shaving so far up on my face.

Do I look younger? 

30 day shred day 2 FAIL

When I got home last night I had all intentions of completing day 2 of the 30 day shred.  Well...  I guess what they say is life happens.  Melissa was cooking when I got home, so when she finished we ate.  Well you can't just eat and then get your butt kicked by Jillian.  So we decided to take on the task of grooming the animals.  Melissa bought some new nail clippers and a defurring brush for the cats.  Let the fun begin...  First kitty was possum, he's so easy going, he pretty much doesn't even care you're cutting his nails.  Victim, I mean kitty, number 2, my man, Snoogans.  He likes to moan and complain, but really he's easy to do.  Killer number 3, Momma Tills.  Sweet Jesus, Mary and the shepherds.  She is the words smallest, quietest, sweetest cats, until you try and clip her nails.  The demons come out of her when she sees the nail clippers.    Melissa is scared to death of her, and she's Melissa's cat.  We ended up having to wrap her in a towel, Melissa held her, and I clipped while she bit my hands.Snittens was the final kitten to be clipped and he was pretty uneventful.  Maggy was last in line to her pedicure.  She is probably worse then Tilly to try and clip.  Not that she bites, growls, or becomes aggressive.  She is just the hardest thing to hold on to.  Well, by the time we finished giving everyone their pedicures it was my bedtime.  Tonight I get to sit on the bench for another softball game, but after the game I'm going to make sure we get our Jillian on. 

Put me in coach

Well, as I stated yesterday, softball season started last night.  We had our first game and boy was it something.  I discovered last year that our coach doesn’t think too highly of my softball skills.  The trend has carried into this year as I found myself on the bench doing nothing more than being the “extra hitter”.  Since we had 10 players he had to use an EH.  At least since I had limited playing time, what happened last night cannot be hung on me.  The game was very short.  We pretty much got skunked.  The game only lasted 5 innings, that’s right, we were mercy ruled in the 5th.  I got one at bat, which I promptly grounded to 3rd. 
Since I played so little I was well rested when I got home.  Melissa made me a salad, and then we watched “Losing it with Jillian Michaels”.  After watching this, Melissa and I were inspired to finally break out the 30 day shred video I bought her for Christmas.  We took the DVD out of it’s wrapper, and slid it into the player.  I had read reviews online about the video and I knew that it was going to be rough.  We didn’t have any dumbbells so we just did those parts with our arms.  I must say I kept up with the ladies pretty well.  I believe I took 3 breaks, during the cardio.  Hopefully we can stick with this and see some results.  I’m going to weigh myself tonight to see what my starting weight is.  I know, a little late for that since we started last night.  I’m really doing this to support Melissa as she wants to look as good as possible for our wedding.  But I also really want to get into better shape.  I’m a pretty thin man, so if I lose the 20 pounds they promise in 30 days there won’t be anything left of me.  Speaking of weight, I just had my license renewed and my weight is still listed at 165 pounds!  Do you think anyone is going to believe that I weigh 165 pounds?  Or can you believe that at my height I once weighted only 165 pounds?  I was nothing but a rail with an inverted booty.  If we can ever get our scanner working maybe I can find some of these old pictures of my weighting 165 and share with everyone. 

America's Past time, (for old men)

So Softball season starts tonight.  My first chance to embarrass myself.  We've had two practice games, both of which I did ok in.  So here's to hoping that I'm not Casey at the plate and striking out like I used to do with the ladies.  This brings me to a question.  If someone tells me that I play softball like a girl, is that supposed to be a compliment?  I took it as one.  Everyone cross your fingers that I don't don't take any balls to the face.  (That's what she said)  In the famous words of Harry Carry, "I'm too drunk to taste this chicken"

The weekend to end all weekends

It finally happened.  After 10 years of dating each other Melissa and I took the big leap that has locked us together forever.  No, we didn’t elope, even though we’ve thought about it, our parents met for the first time ever.   To most people that probably isn’t that big of a deal, but for us this was a huge deal.  Our families couldn’t be any further apart from each other if they tried.  I think the only thing they have in common is that they both love me, I mean us.  We kind of, but not really, invited them to our house for the meet, greet, and eat.  Seems simple enough right?  Well no…  We had to plan the menu around my father, who doesn’t really eat anything but meat and potatoes.  Melissa’s family and my mother will eat just about anything.  We decided the cheapest and easiest menu would be to grill a drunken chicken.  Sam’s has the whole chickens for hardly anything so Melissa scooped two of those bad boys up for us.  We probably could have gotten by with grilling just one chicken, which is super evident looking back at all the leftover chicken, but a drunken chicken is cooked sitting on a beer can…  Well my Southern Baptist Minister father doesn’t like to eat anything cooked with alcohol.  So I grilled one Drunk Chicken and one Sober chicken.  *funny side note, after Melissa’s father carved both chickens and separated the meat to a Sober pile and a drunk pile, my dad got chicken from both piles so he ate some of the drunk chicken, all that work for nothing.  With the chicken I grilled Corn on the Cob, Melissa made potatoes, and Mary brought some yummy squash casserole.  For Dessert, Melissa made a Paula Dean, “Not yo momma’s banana pudding”, Delish! And she also picked up a key lime pie from Publix. 

Melissa and I tried our best to make sure that no two opposing parents were left alone with each other.  This meant that we spent a lot of time checking on our parents and babysitting.  I guess this is what it’s going to feel like to have kids and to having to keep an eye on them?  It’s pretty stressful work.  It was very hot outside and my father isn’t too much for getting out and doing, so he was easy to find sitting on the couch watching TV.  My mom, Marry and Melissa’s dad were all over the place though.  They were looking at our flowers, trying to find ways to help, and generally keeping themselves entertained.  Since the meet, greet, and eat was at our house there wasn’t too much for them to do.  Our house is pretty small, the yard is large, but it was so hot and muggy who really wanted to be out there?  My mom, Mary, and Melissa’s dad wanted to be out there, that’s who!  The three of them love to do yard work, plant flowers and have gardens.  So they were out pointing out all our flowers and naming everything we had.  We did get a lot of compliments for the work that we have done in the yard.  All in all everything went great.  We’re glad to have this over with.  We were so exhausted that after we cleaned up everything Saturday and went to bed early we over slept Sunday morning and was super late for church. 

Please, let me know how the meeting of your parental’s went?  Were any of you guys as nervous about the meeting as Melissa and I were? 

Side note, incase you’re wondering, I still have my burns.  I planned to shave them Sunday, but overslept.  I’m so scared to do it because they’ve been apart of me for so long.  I know, it’s to suck it up and grow up.  I mean have side burns really been cool since the original 90210? 

(Yeah, I'm that cool!)

Question to the group...

I posted this as my facebook status, but I thought I'd post this on here as well to get some more insight.  I've had side burns for at least the last 12 years.  Melissa has never seen me without them.  Well with the wedding coming up I was thinking about shaving them.  Do I really want side burns in our wedding pictures?  Can someone give me some insight?  I know I could shave them now and they'd grow back before the wedding.  But, for some reason I'm just nervous about letting them go.  I only grew them because I was tired of shaving so high up on my face, so they should be easy to let go right?  Somebody please help me!  Oh, and my rapidly receding hair line I was thinking about giving up on the part, it's starting to look more like a comb over, and just cutting my hair short.  Maybe just use the clippers to cut my hair the same length all the way around.  Any thoughts on this?  If I'm going bald, I want to do it gracefully. 

Here is one of the most recent pictures I could find.

Hard Knock Live Volume IV

So, I’ve pretty much given up on getting the pictures from the Conan show to add to the blog so I’m going to go ahead and post the blog before I forget everything that happened at the show.  Question, how do you know it was a great show?  It’s been a month and I’m still talking about it.  This might be a long blog so I’ll just jump right into it.
The opening Act was a Comic named Reggie Watts.  He was funny, but has a different type of humor. You have to be ready for him and not be offended by cussing.  If you want a little taste of Reggie click HERE.  (just a warning it’s quite graphic with the F bombs.)
After Reggie I sat for a second trying to process everything that I had just seen and heard…  After I gathered my thoughts the main show was beginning.  The band came out and played some songs, and yes it was his band from the TV show.  The band was amazing, since you hear so little of them while they’re cutting to commercial you really don’t appreciate how talented they really are.  Then the Co-coets came out and danced for us, just a group of hot ladies dancing in tight outfits.  Video starts playing on the jumbo-tron of an overweight Conan acting depressed because he had the tonight show taken from him.  The excitement is starting to build.  Ladies and Gentlemen Conan is in the building.  Conan starts the show by filling everyone in on why he’s doing a live show, explains why his show is named, Legally prohibited from being funny on Television, because he is legally banned from being funny on TV.  He talks about how they’re still hashing out what skits are property of NBC and what skits he has the rights too.  Due to this legal matter the “Masturbating Bear” couldn’t appear, but the “Self Pleasuring Panda” could!  There was also a video from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.  They have the recorded Triumph bit and then crudely recorded over the city the show was in, and some famous land marks from the city.  Conan apparently walked around the campus before the show and talked to some locals.  He learned that school was out so he didn’t get to interact with too many people, but I’m guessing the ones he did talk to were pot smoking hippies.  A lot of the jokes he did centered around the pot smoking hippies in Boulder CO.  At one point during the show Andy broke out a camera and was scanning the crowd for “chicks” to hang out with after the show.  Well wouldn’t you know, Andy stopped the camera right on Adam and I.  More focused on Adam than me, but none the less I made the Jumbo-tron at the show.  A high point in my life.  The Show had a lot of props that they used.  The ones I can remember are a HUGE inflatable bat from a Meatloaf tour, the crazy leather outfit Eddie Murphy wore when he did “Raw”, and then there was Andy wearing a horse around his waist singing a cowboy tune.  These are just some of high points of the show.  I really can’t express enough how much fun this show was.  Conan has a super quick wit and interacts with the fans causing some classic moments.  Sorry for the lack of pictures.  Sorry this is so vague, but this has been a month since I saw this show and I have the memory of a gold fish.