It’s been a minute. Lets see, what’s been going on…

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 never did follow up, but we got our endorsements! This upcoming Saturday i’m taking the motorcycle with a group of work friends to go dirt/trail riding. I’ll be the only motorcycle in the group (all ATV’s), but it should be a blast. I’m also going today for a contacts appointment, so hopefully I can get the contacts today and not have to worry about the goggles I bought pressing into my glasses.

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!

This post is broken up into random bits of things happening, life, and updates:

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 .