LOST Wall Hanging...

So, I've got some stuff on the way to make what I think will be a pretty cool framed piece to go downstairs in our media room.

The first thing on the way is a picture of John Locke. It's one of those montage photos. You know, the ones that are a picture that's made up of hundreds of smaller pictures. The smaller pictures are all scenes from the series. It's an 8.5x11 inch photo, and it will be the center of the piece. This is the picture here.


Below the photo, I have some actual props from the show on the way. They are boarding passes from Oceanic Air Flight 815 with Locke's information on them. They are actual props from the show and have all the correct information about the flight and Locke's seat/section and things like that. Here's what they look like...these ones actually have Sawyer's information on them, but the ones I have coming are for John Locke.


Lastly, on the right of all of this, I have a small photograph of Terry O'Quinn, the actor who plays Locke, on the way. Not really that important, right?? Well, what if it's got his autograph on it?? Yup, it will be autographed by the actor.

I'm going to take all of these things and put them into a nice modern looking frame and hang them up in the basement. I think it will end up looking pretty cool. I was initially going to do all of this with Sawyer's things, but ended up not being able to get his boarding passes.

If it turns out pretty good, I may try to do another one or two. I'm thinking one with Dr. Jack Shephard might be pretty cool.

The More I Think About It...

...the more I like the idea of working on the Bianchi to make it more personal for me.

I'm thinking that I'll, for the most part, ride it as is this summer...but this winter I think I'm going to go ahead and give it a bit of an overhaul.

The one thing that I am going to do to it pretty quickly is switch the handlebars from the typical "Tour de France" style "drop bars" to some bullhorn handlebars. I have ridden road bikes before, and I simply don't find the drop bars to be very comfortable. They are typically for sprinting and high speed. The bullhorn bars will give better leverage for gaining speed and climbing. They will still afford me several hand positions, but most of all they will look fairly unique. The nice part about having the OLD style friction shifters on the bike is that I don't have to worry about mounting shifters anywhere on the bullhorns...which is typically a problem when switching to these types of bars.

In case anyone doesn't know, this is what bullhorn bars look like.

A nice (and cheap) way to get a set of bullhorns is to do what's called a "flop and chop." That's where you take the handlebars that are already installed on the bike, cut them off at the drops and flip them over. I'm not sure if I want to do that, because I don't know if the "savings" are really worth it. With the flop and chop you obviously could never put those bars back to the way they were...you'd have to buy new ones if you ever wanted to go back to the drops. I can get a set of decent bullhorns off of Ebay for around $25 shipped...so I think I'll just end up buying some instead of ruining the bars that are on the bike now.

Once I've got the bullhorns installed, I'll probably be upgrading the brake handles. I like the Cane Creek 200tt model brake levers, and they seem to be the perfect match to bullhorn bars. They actually mount INTO the holes that would be at the end of the bars. The cables are then routed down the bars and to the brakes, so it ends up looking very clean.


The next thing that I will do right away will be to lighten the bike up a bit. This will actually be accomplished by REMOVING the rear brake. I know this might sound crazy, but from my experience on motorcycles (and what I've been reading about bikes) the front brake is really all you need on just about any two wheeled vehicle. The back brake's effectiveness falls of drastically due to simple physics. When you're slowing something down, weight shifts to the FRONT of the vehicle, which inherently puts LESS weight on the back. So stopping a wheel that isn't bearing any weight doesn't do an awful lot to actually stop the vehicle.

So going with just the front brake will do a couple of things. One, it will lighten the bike up just a touch. Not really much, but a little. And every little bit counts. Two, it will make things "simpler" on the bikes...less cables, less moving parts, less things to worry about maintenance on. Three, and I admit this is a bit cheesey, it's "cool."

After that I will be getting a new seat for it. The one that's on it seems to have the cover coming loose. I may try to find a Bianchi Celeste colored seat...but that's not that big of a deal.

Those will be the main changes that I do to the bike relatively quickly, once I get it back from the shop.

Now, for over the winter, I will probably go a bit crazy...because it gives me something to do. And in the winter in Michigan, it's always important to have something to do!!!

I have found decal kits on Ebay that will replace all the decals currently on the bike. This means I can strip the bike down to just it's frame and then get it painted or powdercoated. Right now I'm leaning towards powdercoating it yellow. I think it would look great in yellow, and yellow would be a perfect color to clash with the Bianchi Celeste colored parts I'm going with for the rest of the components.

The other major thing that I would be doing would be upgrading the wheels to something a bit more modern. I'm thinking something a bit lighter with a few less spokes. Something like this.


The nice thing about those more modern wheels is that they accept more modern rear cassettes (the thing the gear cogs are mounted on). That would allow me to up the speeds on the bike very easily from 12-20 if I wanted to. I will have to measure some things when I get it back to figure out exactly what kind of wheels I can go with...if any at all...but I'm guessing that there will be some options out there for me to upgrade to. I believe that the current derailleurs on the bike would still work just fine with more gears on the back, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I've sent a couple of messages out to guys I know that KNOW bikes to find out for sure.

The best part of all of this?? It will upgrade an already decent bike really well...for not a ton of money.

The bullhorn bars will cost me about $25 and the Cane Creek brakes will cost me another $25. The brake cable and housing to replace the cable that's already on the bike will be another $10 or so. The bar tape to give the bars some comfortable padding will be another $10 or so. That's a total of $70 to upgrade the bike immediately to what I want it to be.

Then this winter, the cost of the decals is about $10, the powdercoating (I'm guessing) will be about $50, the wheels cost $100, and the higher speed cassette costs around $30. So that would be a total of around $190 to get the bike completely updated and looking HOT this winter.

Add that to the cost of tires that I just put on it ($60) and I'll have a VERY nice road bike for a grand total of $320. That will have many modern components on it and still come in at a price point of well over $200 less than what I would have spent to get a comparable modern bike. That, and it will already be personalized to exactly what I want it to be.

The stuff this winter is still really debatable...but I think I'm definitely going to go for the early stuff. The bars and brakes will be great...and I already need new bar tape anyways. The brake cables that are on it MIGHT still work, but I kind of wanted to get some crazy colored one to go on there!!!

New Puppet...

I won this guy on Ebay today.

He's a professional quality puppet made by Luna's Puppets. They sell on the site for nearly $200, and I got him for less than half of that from the company themselves off of Ebay. They mention in the auction that from time to time they list one of their puppets on Ebay so that people can get them for a great deal.

He's my first non-ventriloquist style puppet. That means he's the first one that you actually use both hands to operate. I think it's pretty cool.

New Road Bike...

So Heather brought the Bianchi in to work, and I took it.

It's awesome. It's a 12 speed road bike with top end components...for it's time. From what I've been able to find out, it's probably from the mid 80s and it's one of the Bianchi frames that was made in Japan. Too bad it's not really Italian, right?? Apparently the Japanese versions of the Bianchi frames were actually assembled better than the Italian frames.

It's in good shape and seems to function really well. I took it to the bike shop and dropped it off to get some new tires for it, because the ones on it were shot. I had no idea that I'd end up spending $60 on tires!! But hey, if they last me a good long time I'll have a good road bike for a good price.

It's clean and in good condition, but it does have a few spots of surface rust. I'm kind of thinking at this point in time that maybe this winter I'll tear it all apart and strip the frame and have it powdercoated. That would be a pretty fun winter project for me that wouldn't be nearly as labor intensive or messy as working on a motorcycle. I'll just take the bike into the basement and get to work on it.

Oh yah, I forgot to mention...it's the PERFECT sized frame for me. I measured myself and the frame on the Bianchi is exactly the size frame that I should have. Awesome.

Sick...

I've somehow come down with something.

I think it's just a cold, but it's been kicking my butt. My chest is a big congested, my head is stuffy, and I've been coughing a lot.

Hopefully it will go away in a day or two.

It's really annoying to be doing so many things recently to try to get into better health, but still get sick so easily. I've been eating better, working out, and taking vitamins. I guess I had this false sense that these things would make me invulnerable to disease.

Oh well, I'll be better soon.

And So It Ends...

...as it began. With Jack's eye in a field of bamboo.

Only this time, the eye wasn't opening, it was closing.

I have to say, that after six years of religiously watching "LOST," the ending to me was absolutely fantastic. We may not have gotten every single answer that we always wanted (why couldn't women have kids on The Island, how did Walt have super powers, what exactly was The Island?") but I think that's actually a good thing. It lets you form your own ideas and opinions on what the place actually was and go from there. An underlying theme in "LOST" has always been about choices, and here in a roundabout way they have given the audience an opportunity to make a choice about the answers to questions.

What we did get, however, was absolute closure to our beloved characters.

We know The Island was left in good hands...Hurley and Ben should make an excellent team to replace Jacob and Richard.

We know that Kate, Sawyer, Lapidus, Miles, and Richard safely made it off The Island.

We know that Jack died to save The Island.

Most importantly, we know that everyone ends up together in the end...to move on to whatever place it is they go to next.

I think it was absolutely fantastic the direction that they closed the Flash-Sideways out in. Over the years, many people have said that they felt that The Island was a kind of Purgatory. They said that the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 all died when the plane crashed, and that The Island was where they were at while they waited to move on to the afterlife. Yet the show's creators have ALWAYS said this wasn't the case. In a pretty good "we told you so," the Flash-Sideways that we've been watching all season turned out to be the actual Purgatory. Everything on The Island was real...and everything in the Flash-Sideways was a place where our characters waited for each other before they could move on.

I will admit, when the show first ended, I thought "You mean they've been dead this whole time??" But a few moments of thinking killed that idea.

Hurley told Ben "You were always a good Number Two." To which Ben responded: "You were always a GREAT Number One." This led me to believe that Ben and Hurley looked after The Island for quite some time after Jack died and the others left.

Christian Shephard also told Jack that "some died before you, some died after you" which made me realize that the people in the Flash-Sideways were all there together...regardless of how long they lived or when they died. For example, Boone died before Jack and they were both in the Flash-Sideways. Jack died before the people that were alive at the end, but they are all in the Flash-Sideways together.

Christian Shephard also told Jack "There is no 'now.'" That says to me that in the Flash-Sideways, time didn't really exist...once a person died in real life, they entered the world that the Flash-Sideways were in and fell immediately in place as if nothing had happened.

All it took was everyone remembering their lives for them all to be able to move on.

I will miss this show. I don't know what I'll do for my weekly "must watch" TV show from now on. I don't really know how anything will come close to "LOST" for me.

But, if it has to be gone...at least it went out on a good note. I loved the Series Finale. Amazing stuff.

One Hour Away...

In one hour, one of my favorite TV shows of all time will begin it's Series Finale Event.

By 11:35 PM tonight, we'll know how it all ends.

I'm excited to see it...but disappointed that the show is going away. I'm going to have to find something else to watch now!!

Might Get a Road Bike...

Today at work I was talking about wanting to get a road bike, and one of the girls that I work with mentioned that she has a couple of nice road bikes in her basement that she doesn't use.

She got them to do a long ride on, but ended up just doing the ride on the bike she was already using and comfortable on. So they got tuned up and have just been sitting in her basement ever since.

She said she'd bring them in and let me have one of them if I wanted it. They are a Bianchi and a Nishiki. I'm right now leaning towards the Bianchi, because they are really nice bikes.

If it's in good enough condition, I probably wouldn't take it from her for free. I'd probably try to pay her some money for it...because Bianchis can be worth quite a bit of money...and I don't really know if I would feel comfortable taking it for free if it's in really good condition.

She should have them with her on Monday for me to take a look at.

If I can get a good road bike for free or cheap, then I can work on saving some money to get that Trek mountain bike I like. I would then have a road bike, a mountain bike, and a bike path bike. Cathy could use the Giant mountain bike I just got to go out on the trails with me, and she could use her Trek to ride with me on the road bike or the path bike.

Hit the Trails...

Today I went and got the Giant back from the doctor. I came home and tried it out, and the gears were all working correctly.

So I decided to hit the trails at Ella Sharp Park here in Jackson. They have a trail system that is maintained by a local cycle club.

I found the park with no problem, but I had some issues locating the trails. I came across a gentleman on a mountain bike, so I figured he would be a good source to find out where the trails were.

I told him I was pretty new, and he pointed me towards a trail that would be good to get my feet wet.

Unfortunately, I didn't find that trail, and instead found one of the more difficult trails at the park. Undaunted, I decided to give it a go anyways.

Man, what a workout. I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life.

About halfway through the trail that I was riding, I think I got turned around and ended up on another trail. I know this because I went over a part of one of the trails that I know from the map wasn't supposed to be on the trail that I had chosen. This, of course, meant that I had no idea whatsoever where I was at.

After riding around in the woods for about an hour, I finally decided I was hopelessly lost...well, as hopelessly lost as one can be on some trails that are inside a park that is inside a city. I eventually ended up just blazing my own trail through some underbrush and coming out in a field. I knew I was back in the park, but had no idea where in the park. I asked another person if he knew how to get back to the area I knew I had parked in, and he gave me some good directions and I quickly found my way back to the car.

I learned a couple of things while I was out there.

1. Mountain biking is TOUGH. I'm posting this about six hours after I got done, and I'm still sore all over.

2. I need to learn what markers are on the trails so that I can make sure I stay on one instead of getting switched from one to another.

3. I need to practic shifting gears a bit. I was having some difficulty shifting while on the fly through the woods. When I got home I was riding around the neighborhood and was again having some shifting issues, but then I discovered that I don't think it was the bike...it was me. I learned a technique to use while pedaling that was making the gears shift much more quickly and easily. I need to make sure I'm doing that while out in the woods.

Unfortunately, I also found out that my back derailleur might be in need of some tuning. It WAS
working fine before I took it to the bike shop. I'm guessing that it was set to work with the front derailleur not working...and now that the front one is in tune the back one needs to be adjusted. It still switches through the gears just fine, but if I hold it a bit too much it can throw the chain off of the gears and onto the rear wheel's axle. It can easily be fixed instantly, but I think it can be adjusted so it can't do that at all.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Exhausting. But fun.

Dropped Off the Giant at the Bike Shop...

I dropped off the Giant mountain bike that I bought the other day at the bike shop here in Jackson, On 2 Wheels. The guy there took a look at it and I explained to him what I wanted done, and he told me I can pick it up Thursday in the early afternoon.

Not bad, one day turn around at a bike shop in the early summer?? Seems like a pretty good deal to me. He told me again that the price would be about $8, unless they needed some other parts to do the fix. I told him if it was just a cable or whatever to go ahead and just install it...but if anything else was needed to contact me.

After I got my claim ticket, I looked around the shop a bit...and I found a mountain bike that I REALLY like. It caught my eye more than any of the other bikes there, and oddly enough it's actually the cheapest of the decent bikes that they sell.

It's a Trek 3700 mountain bike. It's a basic/beginner mountain bike designed for light trail riding and everyday use. Basically, it's the same thing as the Giant that I have only it's lighter and it's got some better components on it. It also looks absolutely fantastic. It runs about $300. I think if I start really enjoying riding the mountain bike, I may have to think aboug getting some money together to pick one up in a few months.

This is the Trek here, I think it's pretty sharp.

Alan Wake is Here...

Tonight after work I stopped by Best Buy to pick up the copy of "Alan Wake" that I had reserved a while back.

The Limited Edition of this is probably the coolest Limited Edition I've got in a while. It comes with a bonus DVD with "making of" segments, a CD with the soundtrack from the game on it, and the coolest part is a novella written by Alan Wake. I may take some time in the next couple of weeks to read the book.

I started the game pretty late at night after I picked it up. I figured a game like "Alan Wake," which is a survival horror/psychological thriller needed to be played late at night with no lights on. I was right. The game didn't disappoint at all. It's creepy, atmospheric, and has some events that make you jump out of your chair.

I played through the first episode and really wanted to keep going...but I figured since it was nearly 5 am it was time to go to sleep.

I really look forward to continuing on with the game...if the rest of it is nearly as good as the first part, I'm sure it's going to be fantastic!!

Clown Puppet Got Here...

Today the clown marionette arrived.

It's not nearly as creepy as it appeared in the photos. It's actually pretty cool looking.

It looks old and hand made, which is really cool. I could make it wave it's hand immediately, and I was practicing getting him to walk. I think I may need to adjust some of the strings on the controller to get him to walk correctly. I'm not sure, though, so I'll continue to play around with him to see whether I just don't know what I'm doing or if it needs to have some adjusting.

Either way, I think it's really neat, and I'm definitely glad I bought it.

New Bike...

I've been riding my bike quite a bit lately, but I have been finding that the fact that it's only seven speeds limits my ability to use it how I want to. So I have been looking at mountain bikes with more speeds to get as a "second" bike to use when I want to go a bit harder than I can on the Giant hybrid that I have right now.

At the end of the day at work on Sunday I checked out SearchTempest.com, which is a search engine that searches all of the Craig's List sites within a distance that you select.

I found a mountain bike in Lansing that looked promising. It was a Giant Boulder 21 speed with the step through frame. A step through frame is what might commonly be known as a "woman's frame," but more and more bikes are considered unisex, and are more often than not any more classified as a woman's bike based on the colors. This one is navy blue and chrome. Not really woman's colors at all.

It's a $400 bike, the guy wanted $85 for it. I e-mailed him, and right before I left work he responded and I called him. As luck would have it, he lived about a minute out of the way on our drive home from work, so I asked him if he was going to be around that evening. He said he was, so I went to the ATM at work and got out some money just in case it looked promising.

When I got there, the bike was in pretty good condition. It shows signs of use, but nothing that I wouldn't expect for a mountain bike that was a couple of years old. It is a 21 speed with the trigger style shifters...which are nice shifters. Just flip a switch and the gear is changed.

The brakes and every component on it seemed to be solid. Maybe a bit of adjustment might be needed, but overall I felt the bike was a good deal at $85.

So I gave the guy the money and brought it home. When I got it home I was playing around with it a bit. I adjusted the brakes to work the way I wanted them to, and started trying to adjust the front derailleur because it wasn't shifting as quickly as I wanted it to. Unfortunately, I have never done this before and I wasn't very good at it. Fairly quickly I had it working worse than it was before I started.

Uh oh.

I called the bike shop here in Jackson today, On 2 Wheels, to ask if they work on brands that they don't sell. The guy at the shop told me that they work on everything, and they have two mechanics that have been to schools to learn how to fix everything on any bike. I told him the issue I was having and he said it was something they could definitely fix, and that they should be able to get it done in one day if I dropped it shortly after they opened. I asked him if he could give me a rough estimate of what the damage to my wallet would be, and he told me if it just needed to be adjusted (which I think it does) it would cost about $8. If it needs a new cable, it would probably be about $15.

So I'm planning on it being $15, which means that for a total of $100 I'll have a solid functioning Giant mountain bike...with all the bells and whistles that I was looking for.

I guess I got lucky...the bike had been listed that afternoon, I e-mailed him at 7:15 PM, he got home from work at 7:45 and e-mailed me back, I called him at 7:55 and had the bike by about 8:15. It all seemed like it was meant to be!!

How Could I Forget???

I can't believe that I forgot to post about...

...our new vacuum!!!

Cathy and I got some "pet eraser" vacuum thing about 2 years ago...probably less actually...but for the last several months it simply hasn't worked. It wouldn't pick anything up, and quite often when we had it running it smelled like it was about to catch on fire.

So the other day Cathy went out and got us a new one...it's a Shark Navigator, and according to reviews all over the web (Amazon, Target, Best Buy, etc) it's about the best vacuum that you can get for the money. It picks things up like a Dyson does, but does it for less than half the price.

We used it the day we got it and it worked great...then I used it again today and it worked great again. I really like it...it picks up the pet hair like never before!!!

All in all, a great vacuum!!

Loving the New Mower...

I didn't feel well today, so I stayed home from work. For some reason I simply couldn't get to sleep last night.

Well, after I finally got a little bit of rest I got up and saw how nice it was outside. I figured it was a perfect time to get the lawn mowing out of the way.

I figured this would be a great time to mention how much I love the new mower. I get done mowing the entire lawn in the time that it used to take me to do probably half of the back yard. It saves so much time and effort, I really can't believe that I managed to use a push mower on this yard for three years!!!

Only One More Episode...

...of "LOST" before the Season Finale Event.

That's right, "Event."

As best I can tell, it's going to be about 6 hours long. There is a two hour retrospective of the whole series. Then the series finale is 2 and a half hours long. Then there is a break for 30 minutes for local news, followed by Jimmy Kimmel's show which is supposedly live from Hawai'i with the cast and producers of the show.

I can't wait for the finale...but at the same time I wish the show wasn't ending. I guess I'll have to find something else to occupy my "main TV show" slot. I kind of like a few of the newer shows on USA, so maybe I will get caught up on those and have those be my "go to" shows for a while.

Another New Puppet...

I found this guy on Ebay, and I thought it was pretty awesome...in a creepy kind of way.

Naturally, I had to have it...so I bid on it and won.

What do you think??

Cooper and the Cone...

Cooper's nails have continued to fall off, and lately he's had two of them that won't stop bleeding.

They probably won't stop bleeding because he won't stop licking them. so the other day I covered his paws with some bandages to try and help the quicks dry out so that they wouldn't bleed any more.

It was working pretty well...until this morning...

When Cathy got up he had somehow managed to get one of the bandages half way off...and in the process of doing that, he had cut off circulation to his paw...and now his paw was all swollen up. It was like he had a club foot.

So I took him to the vet to make sure it wasn't infected. The vet said it looked like it was just caused by the bandage, but gave me some antibiotics to give to him just in case. He also suggested that I get an Elizabethan Collar for him.

So I did...and I have to admit, it's kind of funny to watch him walk around running into things. He's not getting around so well with it on, and even though it's kind of amusing, it's kind of sad at the same time.

Hopefully in a few days his nails will dry out and heal up, and then he won't have to wear it any more.

Until then, you tell me...does he look unhappy??

Recovering From Purchasing New Laptop...

So, as I posted yesterday, I bought a new laptop to replace the one that I've had for the last several years.

Also, if you've been following my blog, you may remember that I've been saving some extra money by recording purchases in my register for more than what they actually are. For instance, if something costs $21.24, I have been putting it in as $22 or $23. This has allowed me to build up an excess amount in my checking account that is basically "unaccounted" for. It's like free money. I had built that up to about $210, which is what allowed me to get the new laptop.

However, even though I had that "free" money to spend on the computer, I didn't really want to spend it. I don't really know WHAT I DO want to spend the money on, but it definitely wasn't on a computer.

So I set to work late last night going through some stuff to find and sell on Ebay. Things that I haven't been using or that I no longer needed that might be worth some value.

Well, it worked. In less than 24 hours I ended up selling $200 worth of stuff on Ebay, which basically gets me back to "even" as far as my "free" money goes. I still have the old laptop that I am going to try to sell, because it still works...it's just the wireless that doesn't work. I'm finding that they go on Ebay for about $90 or more just for units that are good for parts, so I'm hoping to get $100 for it, which will bring me to a total of $300 worth of stuff sold...which will actually put me ahead of where I was before I bought the computer.

Good stuff.

New Laptop...

Today my trusty Dell B120 laptop seemed to finally kick the bucket.

A few weeks ago it got knocked off of the table when Dillon got tangled in it's cord while I was trying to put him on his dog bed. It just hasn't really seemed to be right since then. It's been having really slow internet connectivity...and when I primarily use it for the internet, that's a pretty big blow to it's usefulness.

Well, the other day it wouldn't connect at all...I had Cathy reset the router and I got it to come back online after a couple of restarts. Then last night while I was trying to update the score of the Red Wings game it was literally taken several minutes to get to each reload.

Then today when I woke up, it wouldn't connect at all. It would find the network, communicate with it, but not secure an IP address. All the other wireless things we have were working fine, so I know it was the laptop. I messed with it for about an hour before finally giving up and deciding to just go with a new computer.

We headed to Best Buy to look, and nothing really caught my eye. I did like two of them, but I wanted to check Walmart before making the purchase because our Walmart has a pretty good selection of computers. So we headed there, and I found one of the ones I liked at Best Buy for $21 less. So I went ahead and picked it up.

It's a Compaq CQ61-411.

Built in wireless G.

2.1 GHZ AMD processor

2 GB of RAM

Windows 7 Home Premium

The coolest part about it is the keyboard. It's actually got a numeric keypad on it...so instead of having to use the numbers at the top of the keyboard, I can use the numeric pad like I prefer!!

I got it home and fired it up and it worked great. Of course, the Dell started working right then, as well. Oh well, it seems like it's going to give me trouble, so I guess replacing it was a good idea.

I got all my stuff transfered from the Dell to the Compaq tonight, and so far I'm really enjoying it.

Getting Close...

I'm getting close to my next goal for weight loss.

I had said that I wanted to get down to 220 pounds for my next major milestone, and today I weighed in at 221.4.

I've been doing much better losing weight since I started eating a bit more food. Odd how that works, but it does.

I'm hoping to be at the goal of 220 pounds by next Wednesday or so. I think it should be able to be done.

Alan Wake...

The wait is almost over. Remedy has been working on making "Alan Wake" for about five years now. It comes out next Tuesday.

I've got the Collector's Edition that's pictured above reserved at Best Buy, a $50 Best Buy gift card to put towards it, and possibly a $10 Reward Zone Certificate. I'll probably be able to pick it up for about $20 cash total, which is awesome.

The best part?? IGN gave it a very solid 9 for the review today...and the only reason that they "only" gave it a 9 was because it's got a bit of a cliffhanger ending due to the fact that it's supposed to have some DLC come out for it in the future.

I look forward to playing this one. It looks great!!

Awesome Commercial!!!

I can't believe I had never seen this before. A coworker told me about it so I found it on the iPod this afternoon. Great stuff!!

New Balloons...

Today Cathy had some time off of work to go to a baby shower.

When she got done with the shower, she went to the book store and found a cool book with some balloon animals in it for me to twist.

One of them is really cool. It's a dragon. I really like the way it looks.



Cathy really likes a turtle that is in there.

There are a couple other ones that look like they will be really cool, but I didn't get a chance to make them tonight. One is a spider, and the other looks like a pretty advanced sculpture...it's a crab. It looks like it takes several balloons and should be pretty tough...I'll give it a try sometime soon.