In other news I ran my fastest 5K time this morning: 27:16! It was very humid too. Towards the end of the 5K I felt like I was going to fall over, but Branden was at the 5K mark waving his hands at me to finish strong, so I kept it up. He ended up running a 23:13, and has been progressively getting faster.

Lets see… what else… Overall things are going well. Christmas was fun, and thankfully uneventful with how much travelling we did. I am going to start the Velocity Diet January 1st. I’m waiting on my order of supplies and supplements to get here, but i’m starting it as soon as they do (which should be hopefully the 31st). I will be keeping up with weekly stats and photos, and if I can get my butt in gear i’ll keep everything updated on here (on it’s own new page). I’ve been wanting to do this diet for some time, and it’s time I actually did something good for myself.

2008 was a good year in weight loss for me. I actually saw under 200 lbs. for the first time since I was 15 or 16 (10 years!). After the honeymoon I came up in weight but i’ve been working on that. I feel really resolved now, and failure just simply isn’t an option anymore. I’m tired of feeling bloated and nasty, and I simply want to look amazing naked. I will definitely update more when I get everything, as it will help me be more accountable!

camaraderie
–noun, comradeship; good-fellowship.

Rob planned for my bachelor party a trip to San Antonio, TX. The agenda was Six Flags on Saturday, and the Alamo on Sunday before coming home.

My excitement really began when we picked up the rental van on Friday. I was already looking forward to the trip, but once I saw the actual van I knew already what was to be my favorite part: The ride together. There’s a lot to talk about, and to learn about each other, when you’re crammed together for 12 hours at a time.

All in all the actual road trip was uneventful (luckily). We encountered some congested traffic, wrecks, and VERY crazy road conditions both ways. Oh yeah, to the roads in Beaumont, Texas, screw you. Seemingly at times the concrete barriers were squishing you into the other vehicles at interstate speeds.

We arrived at our hotel, The Knights Inn, at roughly 3AM Saturday. After the van and bladders were unloaded, everyone crashed pretty hard. Everyone’s sentiments were “Lets not get up early, and there’s no scheduled plan.” Worked for me. Everyone more (Branden) or less (Rob, Havard, Jake) woke up around 9-9:30AM. Our first event of the day was Denny’s (right across from the hotel); Denny’s is always delicious! Post pancake pandemonium, a short 10-15 minute trip up the road we found ourselves at the gates of the Six Flags Fiesta theme park. We arrived right around noon, and knew right away that coming towards the end of the season was a good plan. We were able to park fairly close in a practically empty parking lot (considering the size of the lot).

Everyone prepaid for their tickets online and we all had ticket print outs. This resulted in a super fast entrance (Also note, there were no entry lines, we walked straight in!). Once we were in the gates, it was on like Donkey Kong, so to speak. I have very little experience with roller coasters and theme parks, so this was a nervous/exciting experience for me. We all agreed we would ride the Goliath as our first coaster. It was also the closest to the entrance. The Goliath is an inverted coaster, meaning that the seat attachment is above your head and your feet are dangling. It’s hard to describe the insanity of the Goliath, but I think it lasts somewhere around 20-30 seconds. Being my first real twisty, turny, upside-downy, coaster, it was a religious experience.

I won’t describe in detail all of the coasters (we have some videos to prove that!), but we hit up almost every single ride in the park. One of the last couple rides we did was the Gully Washer. It’s a water rafting ride that thrashes around concrete walls and wooden, spinning tumblers. Little did we know that toward the end of the ride was a waterfall. About half of us got soaked, the other half was on the lucky side. Since the day wasn’t very hot, there wasn’t much to dry us out except riding more roller coasters!

We stayed until they closed, which was 6PM if I remember correctly. It just occured to me that time had very little meaning for me this weekend. I just didn’t care what was going on of if we got there fast. Leaving the park, we headed back to the rooms for a much needed change of clothes and refreshing before dinner.

At Branden’s suggestion, we ate at Pappadeaux’s restaurant. It’s a seafood/cajun style place with a good atmosphere. The place was very packed, and our wait time was estimate around 1 to 1.5 hours. I think in total we waited a little over an hour. All I can say about this place: phenominal. The food was a flavor orgasm, every single bite. I’m not kidding when I say all 8 of us repeated over and over “That was the best (insert food) i’ve ever eaten!”. It was also great that we all shared food, passed around plates, etc. Everybody got to taste everything. In our eating frenzy, the liquor and beer was almost free flowing. I personally had a pina colada, two long island ice teas (large glasses), and a glass(maybe two?) of red wine. Needless to say I was feeling pretty good.

After dinner we headed to the historic river walk/Alamo area in downtown. What a beautiful place. The alamo at night was beautiful (I tried to take pictures, we’ll see how those come out). On the river walk there are no rails protecting you from the river as you walk around. Granted it’s not a raging river, and I don’t imagine it to be too deep, but it added to whole experience. We walked up one side for a bit, went into a gift store, and then hit up a mexican restuarant. This is where things get fuzzy. Mark ordered one of their large pitchers of frozen Margaritas, and we both proceeded to guzzle the thing. After that we went back to to the river walk, and headed down our original path towards the van. We left the area and headed back to the hotel room.

The next morning we planned to go back to the Alamo for a real tour. It’s amazing being inside a piece of history, and actually getting to touch some of the cannons that were used, the walls, and the artifacts that are out for public display.

On our way back home we stopped at the Ikea in Houston. Also another amazing experience. I can see furnishing my whole house from Ikea

All in all this was one of the most incredible weekends i’ve ever had. I have tons of pictures to upload to my flickr account, which i’ll start working on tonight.

Jake, Mark, Rob, Matthew, Rory, Havard, Branden – You guys are awesome.

More Pictures

1. Last Saturday night we went to New Orleans for Karen’s 21st birthday. It was a ton of fun. We stayed the night at the Best Western on N. Rampart. The location was perfect, as it was just a couple blocks up from Bourbon street, and not close enough to hear all the noise.
2. I started book 3 in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. This is an excellent series.
3. I’ve lost a good bit of weight the past 6-7 weeks. I was at 221, and a couple days ago I was at 206. This is the lowest I’ve been in almost 10 years. It’s hard to keep on trucking down to 200, I feel comfortable at this level, even though it’s not my goal!
4. Car updates: My car has still been running great. I believe the regulator in the alternator is going out, but then again it is a 21 year old car (with an original alternator I believe). My future plans are now doing a MegaSquirt DIY ECU, with EDIS. I’d also like to get new cams, adjustable cam gears, and possibly independent throttle bodies
5. I got contacts! This is a big change from glasses. It’s taken me a few days to get used to them but I’m really enjoying it.

I tried on the new goggles with the helmet last night, and finally got fed up with my glasses. They have been a minor hinderence over the years:

1. Paintball – The worst. It’s so hard to keep your glasses from fogging up inside a mask.
2. Motorcycle – Just having to take them off, put the helmet on, put them back on (and have the legs smash into the side of your head) is a pain.
3. Sunglasses – I’ve never worn them. I also never found a pair of clip-on style sun glasses I liked.
4. Swimming – I don’t swim with them on, so that means everything 5 feet away from me is blurry. This also goes for snorkeling. You can’t wear glasses and a snorkel mask, but you can buy prescription masks.

I’m happy in the fact that glasses do allow me to see, but it’s time to upgrade!

Computer: I ordered 2GB of DDR 400 ram from new egg a few nights ago, and they shipped it basically in 1 day (and that was with free shipping!). I now have 3GB of ram installed, woo. Everything is most definitely faster, and overall OS use is less laggy.

Life: Bonita and I have both been staying pretty active. Last weekend I rode Rob’s 2nd bike to a park between our houses, and kicked a soccer ball around with Rob and Karen. Afterward we rested at their apartment for a while, and then I rode back to the house, showered, and we went out to eat. Randomly throughout the past couple weeks we’ve gone swimming at April and Thomas’ apartment. Other random times Bonita and I go and walk around the neighborhood. All this while still keeping a regular gym schedule Busy busy!

Speaking of the gym, our progress has been good and steady. A few weeks ago I pulled or overextended something in my left shoulder/rotator cuff area. I gave my arm a few days of gentle care and use, to see if I really needed to go to a specialist or not. Luckily it did heal on it’s own. I found some pictorial guides on rotator cuff physical therapy, and those really helped. I’m back into my normal routine, but taking things very slow. This program we’re doing now is typically 3×8 sets, but i’ve broken the heavy shoulder work down into 6×4 sets. It seems to be fine so far. This morning I weighed 210.5 again (I hit 210 about two weeks ago, and have steadily floated around 211). It’s time to see 209 hit the scale.

This weekend i’m going with Bonita to her 10 year high school reunion. It’s been quite an asinine experience on the planning side… lack of interest, delays, not picking venues that anyone liked. Finally they agreed everyone will meet at the Bulldog in Jackson. I think all 5 people and myself will have a good time….

Mark and I have finally set a date to go get our motorcycle endorsements. I’ve been studying a bit each night through the manual. I’ll definitely be ready when the time comes. We’ll have to take a written test, and then do a riding test. The current plan is to haul the bike to the Laurel DMV, do everything, and I ride the bike back home, and Mark heads into work. I’ve taken the day off because a) It may take a while to get both tests completed b) I want to ride around for a while with my new found 2-wheel freedom. The on-bike experience I have now has been riding around the neighborhood, and a local church parking lot that’s connected to the neighborhood roads.

This has been the most random post evar, but I wasn’t sure how to get it all down, so I just started typing .

In other news, the scale showed 218.5 again today. At least from last week to now i’ve maintained. Yesterday I ate about 97% healthy. So far today i’m on good track again. Once I stay on track for a couple weeks I should see a scale change. I need to start measuring again, that is always the best way.

I’m going to set a goal publicly: 210lbs by July 1st. That’s 2 pounds a week, I need to start busting ass. I just set a reminder in my blackberry to remind me every day. Hopefully that will help.