Computer and one helluva nice guy

Sorry about not writing for a few. My computer blew up and I was kind of cheesed about it. Last Friday it just started stopping! Did that make sense to everyone? Good. Anyway, about my computer skills, I can follow directions on how to fix something and I can play Lego with putting a new computer together. What I can’t do is diagnose a problem when the computer won’t remain running.

I bring the silly thing to Best Buy where I bought it. Ok ok… yes, it’s an Emachine and as embarrassing as that is, it really has performed for me considering I have had it for about 3 years now. It has an AMD Athlon with 2g of ram and Nvidia 8600 GTS in there. World of Warcraft is not that demanding of a game to run and I don’t double box or anything so I was quite fine running with what I had.

So at Best Buy, the Geek Squad people tell me that it will be $75 just for them to tell me what is wrong with it! F(*K that! So I am without my computer for all of last weekend. I stop by my work IT and ask the guy if he knows a good shop to bring it to. He asks me what happened and I tell him. He tells me to bring it in and he will look at it and tell me what is wrong with it.

This makes me happy. He just saved me $75! I bring it in and drop it off to him. I forgot to mention that after 3 years I no longer have the restore disks. After a day or so he lets me know that the hard drive is going bad. Bummer I say. Where can I buy one of those? He says he has one or 10 lying around his house but they are only 80gigs. I’m like pfft that works for me since I plan on buying a new computer in like 6 months.

I ask him how much I owe him and he says not to worry about it but to just be sure when I get the new computer to give him the hard drive back. REALLY?! So my computer is fixed and I have to go reinstall WoW ( I do have the original disk for that with passkeys!) and I am good to go.

Question is… I am going to get the guy a gift card for Best Buy because that is what he wanted. Should I go $35 or $50 for the gift card?

Furthering the silliness

If anyone was reading the comments on the last post, I am sure you saw Noobed's archtype comment. He is getting things confused as he is want to do these days. He has such a massive amount of intelligence and knowledge that he looks at things in overall manner much too much these days.

Let's run this down real quick for him. I am skipping the original Dragonball series since I started with DBZ but I will give highlights.

Goku is an alien sent to destroy earth. Later this is retconned into his father sending him away so as not to be killed by Freeza.

Same thing with Superman almost. Supe's dad sends him down to Earth and supe's is raised by us to cheerish our values yada yada.

That's exactly where that ends for me. Supes back in the day was ULTRA POWERFUL in that anything he needed to do he could do. Move the moon out of the way? No problem! Kinda powerful. As Superman progresses in his comic he constantly gets power downgrades (Nerfs) in order to make Supes seem that he needs to struggle. Without that struggle, he is less human and less relatable for people. I am not going into all the fights Supes gets/got into. However, there are two things we need to bring about Supes and his battles.

Kryptonite:

Minus all that color crap... Green Kryptonite put the all powerful on his ass. Lex Luthor the foil for Superman? er Not in my opinion. Superman's real foil is Batman. Batman uses Kryptonite to knock Superman out of any given fight. Superman should not be able to do anything with the kryptonite out. Goku has no such weakness because he is not all powerful and it is not needed.

Doomsday:

Something more powerful than the most powerful. Superman had to be shown to have a match somewhere in the universe and Doomsday came a calling. Classic imo.

On the other hand with Goku...

First up in DBZ, he is not all powerful. He must team up with his enemy Piccolo and he still dies. Yes, the wish him back in a year with the Dragonballz but Goku was beaten by his brother Radditz.

After a year of training he is back and guess what?! Vegeta stomps a mudhole in him after going Ape. Krillin is the one to overcome his fears and cutoff Vegeta's tail. Loss number 2 for Goku.

Ginyu Force... after intense training, Goku steps up and wins straight.

Freeza... Goku wins bigtime after seeing his friend Krillin killed.

Cell... Goku know he can not win but that his son has surpassed him and therefore can.

I will not go into everything. Suffice it to say, Goku is akin more to Rocky than Superman. He doesn't always win but he does his best and there is ALWAYS a training montage!

Why Goku Fits better than Superman

So some of you who read Renoobed's stuff might remember his post a while back where he explains how he is Batman (the thinker) and I am Superman (the moron who rushes in and thinks he is invincible.)

Again yesterday, more with the Batman stuff and it got me to thinking how off the original post was. We had a great comments section between Sonvar and himself concerning Batman and Spider-man.

It got me to thinking about which "toon" I would be. It hit upon me that I mostly identify myself with a Goku style.

See, Goku there he don't fit in easy somtimes and likes to be alone. He also likes the ladies and his sons. He likes to train. He likes to eat. He likes challenges. He hates losing. When he is defeated he trains harder. He will bullheadidly fight someone stronger than him and charge in to do it. He goes on and on and aggravates people with his sameness. He, in his head, has his own ideals that he follows. You can predict after a while how he will handle any given situation. He's strong in his friendships. He will fight for his friends at any given time. He is not indestructable, he is flawed and overcomes through perseverance and skill. He trains for the skill not reading it out of a book and claiming it as his own. He also has his own gravitas even tho some people hate him and others love him.

P.S. Renoobed flat out said he was Buu on a trip the store once. Something about I may be doing good but I would need to merge with someone before I was able to take on the Buu. You'll have to ask him about it.

Weightloss Month 2

Great googlely! This American Gladiator looks like she was taken straight out of anime. It's the damnable pink hair and wings!

Start of my 2nd month weight training and I think I have stepped it up a notch. Any comments or suggestions are always welcome and appreciated.

Monday hit the gym at 4:15ish after work.

I started off with 12 min on the elliptical machine. I no longer hate it and it is no longer evil. I would like to train up to doing the thing for about 30 min at a time. After the warm up I started the weights.

I am using a new routing that goes Mon-Fri so you will see that I do less each time but work out more per week. This also allows for more cardio/ fat burning.

Monday=Chest

Bench Press

2 warm up sets with 135lbs
4 sets 6 to 8 reps at 195ibs

This was really rough after the first 3 sets. I had to mentally push the bar up on the last time. I don’t know if anyone else who lifts weights reads this blog but there are moments when I am working out when I realize that if I don’t finish the push up… I am going to drop the damn thing on myself. This realization makes me pause for just a split second and I continue pushing.

Dumbbell Flyes

4 sets 6 to 8 reps at 35lbs

I did these slow. The weight was right for this time but I think next week I can do 40lbs no problem. I usually do these on a cable machine which is just altogether easier than doing it free weight style.

Incline Bench Press

3 sets of 10 at 135

This sucked to try and do after all that. I had to rest a good deal of time in between sets too. I got it down though.

Ab work (weight crunches) 30lbs 3 sets of 20

I’ll post tomorrow what I did Tuesday morning! That’s right! My lazy butt was up and at the gym for 6:15am and I worked my back out.

Some people are crazier than others... or they just think its fun!

I was reading Laser Chicken this morning and he has a discussion thread of why PvP. I have been trying to get a friend of mine to play full time on my PvP server and he has the exact same mindset as the LaserChicken. Why do I want to play on a PvP server when players higher than me can 1 shot and generally harass me?

I've done both types of servers, PvP and PvE. My first warrior ever was on PvE and he is at 70 and kind of forgotten. Now my new warrior and druid and shaman are on PvP and I have no plans of ever going back to a PvE server.

I will actually go to STV on the weekends with my Shaman because it is fun for me. I like getting into it with Alliance and starting the small scale wars.
I will go and park my 70s in STV, play my 35 Shaman. If the ganks are by the same level toons then we just fight and a have a good ole time. If the 70s show up and kill me more than once, I log Herk or Aerthson and we get into it and a good ole time is had by all.

The other part for a PvP server is questing and gathering. You can actually kill that tard who tries to gank that node off of you. Sure they could be your faction but this happens rarely with Horde in my experience.

Questing also becomes competitive and more interesting for me. In Ashenvale if you are Horde on a weekend, it is well advised to stay OFF the road and to duck out of Splintertree as soon as you hit the landing on Flight Path since a 70 hunter can sit there and one shot everyone who lands without aggroing the guards. There are all sorts of things that add up to make my experience in WoW altogether different than on a PvE server. On PvE, you do NOT have to get off the road unless you want to. On PvP, going through “the wild” is almost a must given the area.

When Wrath opens up it will be balls to the wall action in trying to get that quest done before the other 70 faction shows up. No one will know the wilds and there will be roaming bands of factions trying to stay safe out there.

I have a history professor who said that if anyone had seen the movie Jeremiah Johnson about trappers back in the day, to disregard it completely. Trappers back in the ole days where roaming, well-armed and defensive gangs rather than one lone man. The same can be said for WoW on PvP. If you are questing alone and don’t want to be bothered, you need to roll PvE. On the other hand, if you like to quest with a bit of danger other than mobs and your own stupidity (I can not believe I walked off of Tanaris into Un’Goro that one time0 then you should try PvP.

On the Isle of Quel’Danas right now it is not unusual to see the gank squads of Alliance form and delcare war on any Horde on the isle which leads to Horde declaring war and it is go time. Full on war at it’s best.

It's PvP server guys. You either like it or you don't. Sometime it's the moral victory that counts. When I was bringing Herk to Badlands through Loch Modan, a 70 Dwarf Rogue made it his mission in life to kill me and get me to log before I made it to the Badlands. Knowing what I have gotten myself into, I kept rezzing and walking. We gathered a LARGE crowd of Alliance who would keep killing me after I rezzed. I would make it a ways a away from my actual corpse because I would rez at the very limit and keep on walking. Sure it took a long time, but that Dwarf left me alone before I logged. Moral Victory or just sheer stubbornness? I leave you to make up your mind.

Living in Louisiana

We get storms here in Louisiana. You may have heard of a little one called Hurricane Katrina? Yesterday I get a call from my wife and she says that instead of hitting the gym I should come home because a nasty storm is incoming.

I look outside of the office building and sure enough it is Wizard of Oz time out there. I head home like a good husband/father so that I can look after my family. Now, the rain started when I hit the interstate and sweet monkeys!! I could barely see to drive. The flooding came quickly after. I have the wipers going full blast and it still looks like I am in a carwash instead of rain. Of course, as I start getting closer to home, the power is out.

I get home and see my son on the phone making sure all his friends at Noggin are safe. They are. Apparently, they don't live anywhere close. We shuffle around and open up the blinds a bit to get light into the house and then wait and wait some more.

I eventually get hungry and me and the kiddo rough it with can of tuna, bread and some goldfish. Now, this might be a meal for some but the last thing one wants in a storm with the power out is crap food out of a can. It was raining too hard to hit the grill up.

I start reading my books as my father in law is entertaining the boy by opening the door and look at the storm. He does this a lot. It really entertains him if there is a big storm and he can open the door without getting the house flooded to look at it.

A few minutes later, all hells breaks loose and I hear people freaking out. Since we are under all sorts of watches (i.e. Tornado, Nasty Winds, occasional flying cow) I run up to see my father in law standing in the front doorway with a shotgun pointed out of it. "Looters already?!" I ask.

KERRRBLAM!!


In case you were wondering, there are about 4 million people in Louisiana roughly and about 90% of us are armed. Yes, we will shoot right out the front door.


Now, either my father in law is the best shot ever or lucky as hell. I look out the door and the thing is missing its head from about 20 feet away. I ask, "Did you blow him in half or did you get his head?" He didn't know. Now the thing is... you have to finf the things head. It's still poisonous and you have to be sure no one steps on it and what not. I throw my shoes on and head into the rain. As I get closer, I notice something is really off about this snake. Sure it's raining but it has no scales it has a slick... hrmm... I think he did blow its head off though because I can't find it.


Looking closer I realize that it is not a snake but an... EEL!!! WTF?!



What is an Eel doing in the yard?! Wow... strange storm. Still no power at the house. Hopefully, it will be back on when I get home tonight.

Too much a guy at times.

New mail girl says, “Everyone is so nice here!” I immediately think of that movie Liar Liar and think, “That’s because you have big jugs!” I know I know, I am horrible and a guy. Thing is, I don’t know if she is nice or not but I appreciate that she shows the top part of the girls in a workplace setting. Is this wrong of her? I mean even if she was in a complete slack suit and just showed a hint of cleavage I would be glimpsing anyways, which brings me to the next topic of women in the gym.

Now some women go and hide in the women’s only area and some don’t. This is not a weight oriented issue either. Those who work out in the coed section are of all shapes and sizes. However, GOD BLESS the hot ones that makes me try harder and push more weight or go for that extra set. Seeing my flab in the same mirror next to what could be a Maxim girl is great encouragement for me to work harder!

I know what you are thinking. Don’t you want to look good for your wife? Isn’t that encouragement enough? My wife is great! I love her! Her encouragement department is down for repairs. We worked out together once and I was trying to beef it up and throw on the heavy weight for squats to impress her. I toss on 800lbs and show her that I can squat it 4 times. She then tells me I take too long between sets to rest. Sigh.

I am trying to get Renoobed to do some exercise. For some reason he thinks since he walks to work he is getting exercise. This is almost a Melvin response in WoW. Melvin, “Wow, two healers make a difference! We lasted longer there!” Renoobed hits me with “Got back from the Dr. Gained some weight. More than I thought.” I ask him if he is going to exercise and he is non committal. I bother him until he tells me he walked to work in the rain! This is the same walk he has been doing while he gained the weight! For God’s sake, don’t go Melvin on me.

Speaking of Melvin, we did do 5v5 last night. Noobed seems to think we have a new “World’s Worst Warrior” but am not so sure. The guy followed me to every target like Pogar does. I understand Bursting down an enemy. Yet, when you have 2 MS warriors with decent gear you need to separate those guys out and keep the MS up on multiple targets to keep that/those healers busy. The Mage and the elemental Shammy or Boomkin are the BURST toons. Quit following me!!! Another keen Melvin observation that makes me want smack Pogar, “The warriors should go in first.” I know why Melvin felt the need to say this and I blame Pogar. Pogar used to wait til Noobed had targeted someone instead of blitzing out the gate.

I am working on getting Herk exalted with the SSO now. I am doing the occasional MrT run for the rep. I get in a group for regular MrT and they ask if I am prot. I tell them know and they start conversing on whether I can even tank it. Listen up, if it’s Regular and a 5man it can be tanked as Arms. It can be healed by Boomkin. It can not be tanked by Enhance Shaman or Healed by Ret Paladin. Is it slightly tougher? Yes. Is it impossible or even a sure repair bill? Hell no! I went back to my dailies and 30min later when they still have no tank, they tell me I can tank it. /flipbird

Macros for the ArmsandFury warriors

Sorry this post took so long! Here are the macros I use on Herk for PvP.

This is my Charge macro. It activates my Bladefist's and uses regular charge. If I am out of combat and in Berserker it will switch me over to Arms and charge. If I am in Arms and need to Intercept, mashing the same button will switch me over to Berserker, cast Bloodrage and Intercept. Mashing again will Hamstring.

#show [combat] Intercept; Charge
/cast Bloodrage
/cast [nocombat,stance:1] Charge; [combat,stance:3] Intercept; [nocombat,nostance:1] Battle Stance; [combat,nostance:3] Berserker Stance
/stopcasting
/cast [stance:1/3] Hamstring

Next up is a very simple Execute macro. It will either Execute or cast Heroic Strike depending on which is available at the time.


/cast Execute
/stopcasting
/cast Heroic Strike

Fear and Bandage

/cast Intimidating Shout
/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

Help out a friend and close the distance if charge and intercept are down.

/target whoever
/cast Defensive Stance
/cast Intervene

Overpower from anystance

#showtooltip Overpower
/cast [stance:1] Overpower; Battle Stance

Stop that caster! Shield bash or Pummel from any stance

/cast [equipped:Shields, stance:1/2] Shield Bash; [noequipped:Shields, stance:1/2] Berserker Stance; [stance: 3] Pummel

Go Sheep yourself mage! Cast Shield Reflect from any stance and equips shield for you.

#showtooltip Spell Reflection
/cast Bloodrage
/cast [stance:1/2,equipped:Shields] Spell Reflection; [stance:3] Defensive Stance
/stopmacro [equipped: Shields]
/equip Ogri'la Aegis
/equip Grom'tor's Charge

Basic Stance switch.

/cast [modifier:ctrl,nostance:2] Defensive Stance; [stance:1] Berserker Stance; Battle Stance

There are plenty more but these are the ones I like the most.

Lower Body

I did hit the gym last night after work. I really should do the gym BEFORE work to jump start my metabolism but with fam and the late night WoW it is really hard for me to get up that early. I did take Bobpally's suggestion and hit the elliptical machine for 10 min before I started my legs. I did notice a difference in that after I finished the weightlifting I was able to go back and do another 15min on the bike for more fat burning.

I started a push/pull philosophy the last time I worked out. I read that using the same muscle group motion on the same days was more conducive to muscle growth. I have somewhat kept up with it. I try to save some of my upper body exercises for when I do my legs so I don’t overload on the upper days. I also read somewhere that 1hour of weightlifting in the gym should really be your max.

Hack Squat

350x10
400x10
400x10
400x10

Wide Grip Lat Pull Down

70x10
105x10
105x10

Leg Extension

90x10
115x10
115x10

Seated Cable Row

90x10
90x10
105x8

Hamstring

75x10
90x10
90x10

Weighted Crunches

35lbs weight added

15
15
10
10

Calves raises

200x10
200x10
200x10

Bent over dumbbell row

55x10
55x10
55x10

I would have liked to do some hip abductors but I don’t think my gym has the machine or the cable attachment. I need to ask.

After I finished is where I noticed a difference. I was able to go back to the bike and keep going and my legs didn’t feel dead. I don’t know if this was from the warm up or not so I will keep doing the warm and see if that is the difference.

More on Weightloss

2lbs lighter!

It takes a lot of work for me to lose 2lbs a week the healthy way. I have been hitting the gym on Mon, Tues, Thur, Sat and Sun. Unfortunately, cardio is not my bag but lifting weights is. If you can cycle through the weight lifting fast enough, you can get your heart rate up to what is supposed to be your Fat Burn level. For my age and weight, the treadmill tells me I should be at 123 bpm for Fat Loss. I can achieve this lifting weights as well.

Since it was a "heavy weight" day, I went into the gym and did some lite stretching and went immediately to the bench press. I like to do this to max out my bench. I have read and found to be true that I will be weaker after too much warm up. If I do a set of 10 at 135lbs, I will not be able to max out at 245 with a set of 3. Whether it be the store of glucose being gone or any other chemical reaction, I just can not max out after it.

I put 265 on the bar and press it once with a lot difficulty. Take 20 off and do a set of 3. Take 40 off and do 3 sets of 6 to finish out. This is it for my benching but not for working my chest. From here I went to bicep curls. For this I started off curling 40lbs and doing a set of 6 on each arm. 6 was honest to God all I had in me at 40lbs. I went down to 35lbs and was able to pull out 8 on each arm for another set of 3. Then I switched over to Tricep push with the a 55lbs barbell over my head. This was really the right weight here since the first set was for 10, then 10 (struggle) and 8 on the last.

This type of routine gives my muscle groups time to relax as well. By the time I finish with triceps I am going back to my chest and it is rested. Within this workout, I also did my shoulders with shrugs, lateral detloid raises and barbel lifts.

Whenever I hit the gym I do my abs these day. I do your basic weighted crunch on a machine that has you laying down instead of sitting up. The one that I am using is a beast too. It must work cuz I am sore as hell the next day. Not hurt, but very sore.

I cap it off with 15-30 min of walking, biking or that evil contraption called the ellipctical machine.

Tonight is lower body! Wish me luck.

Books and Movies

Since I have decided to blog more regularly, I need more stuff to blog about. Here is what I am reading right now. I remember reading some Dan Simmons in college but not remembering it well. I had a chance to visit the bookstore on Friday right before I went to see Iron Man. I usually pick up anywhere between 4-6 books and proceed to read the prologue or first chapter and make my decision from there.

Ilium is some king of crazy space opera style book that flashes between a guy who is observing the Iliad as is happened and a future when. I can't really tell what it is about just yet as I am only 50 some odd pages in. However, the writing is very good in style. For some reason, it reminds me of Cryptonomicon.

I will give it a review when I am done. If you have read it please don't give me any spoilers.




It's Sunday which means it is time to clean and do some laundry. I usually watch a movie or some such while this is going on. Encore is showing L.A. Confidential. I remember hearing rave reviews and Oscar stuff about this movie when it came out. I decide it's my pick. Luck of the draw!! This movie was really fantastic. I didn't get much cleaning done after this first half hour of this show.

Everyone in this movie is a fantastic actor/actress. I was so completely surprised by Kevin Spacey again. Kevin Spacey is one of my all time favorite actors. Excepting his turn as Lex Luthor (WTF?! How could he be a bad Lex?! /sigh) I don't think the man has had a bad showing.

Anyways, if you are looking for a murder mystery or the noirish type I recommend giving this a shot.

Arena

This is what my screen looks like in arena. Never mind the crazy long spell bar since it has been shortened since then. I am thinking about getting Proximo instead of Arena Unit Frames this weekend and seeing if I like that one any better. Anyone out there swear by Proximo? Anyways, let me know what you think or how I could improve the layout. All suggestions would be helpful in some manner.

I have recently added all the Armory links for my toons over to the right there. Aerthson has better gear now than in the screenshots shown so check him out. Herk is protection right now for tanking fun so he doesn’t have any Arena gear on him.

We all know Noobed and I have an odd rivalry. He is bar none the most intelligent person I know. I have bursts of intelligence at times and this gives him enough ammo to call me lazy about reading or finding out some tidbit or whatnot. What he fails to mention is that in having every character class…

A small interlude:

Noobed has the following that I know of.

60 Nelf Rogue
60 Human Priest
60 Gnome Mage
50ish or so Nelf Hunter
70 Mage
70 Shaman
70 Hunter
30 Lock
30 Pally
30 Warrior

… he has PLAYED everything. He ask me things like, “So you know about Mana Burn?” My response, “ Erm it does damage to people with mana?” Noobed, “How are you ever gonna play this game… you have a druid that has mana and you don’t know what mana burn does?” My response, “See I just shift into Bear form…” Noobed lets out long drawn sigh. Shortly followed by the “why are you on an alt /w hrm.”

See this is the evilness that is Noobed. I don’t have the knowledge and he fusses when I try and get the knowledge. While this is going on, I still learn a hell of a lot from him and he rocks socks as a player!

But to put him on notice, I am the burst DPS on the 3v3. He is the steady DPS that is better at CC than I. We are still trying to work things out.




Of course this is just one example but this weekend I will get others.



Where Noobed and I really click is in 5v5. We are almost instantly on the same target or coordinating without talking. Give me Bloodlust, a dedicated healer and I will trounce everthing around me. Manlytotems had a match where he had over 50k damage. Sometimes on that shammy he is truly to be feared. Also, if he is tanking on his Druid he is truly to be feared but for a different reason. He kills more people on that tank of his than he does in arena.

Sugars is teh Uber tank. I love it when they focus on Sugars. I came out the gate stealthed like I was supposed to and the Warlock immediately came in like a warrior for a nice Pounce. Sugars starts dotting and mana draining and they just leave me alone and try to burst poor Sugars and her Siphon Life butt down.

The priest was dead so fast from Wrath spam she didn't know what happened. The warlock didn't even know his healer had died until he was dead as well. Boomkin, I love thee.

Later

The Return of the LaserChicken

When I started playing my Druid again after a 2 years hiatus, he was level 40 and probably thought Stranglethorn was his permanent residence. I grow bored of the sneaky classes bit. My problem is moving slowly because going slow just isn’t my thing. I would hate how I would have to stealth walk behind someone only to open up on them. I came from the Arms warrior school which is CHARGE oriented.

Now, my thought, after getting Herk to 70 and burning out on him a bit, was to play a healer. I was going to start a priest! Then I see Aerthson sitting there in Stranglethorn all alone and at lv40. Why am I not leveling him? He’s already at 40! The reason why is that I can’t level as a healing spec and I don’t really want to stealth my way to 70. What about the bear? What about it… Bears are tanks. Bears are not warriors.

Then I remembered seeing all those trees pop up from a Balance druid and go take a look at the tree. After that, I had to hit the AH for all new gear. Then I was off to Thunder Bluff to respec. Now, where to learn how to play this thing? Where do I find out all the tricks? Who plays this spec and blogs?

erm

Laser Chicken that’s who!

I’m sorry? What was that? Laser Chicken quit playing? WTF?! He went to find himself? Ah, gotcha! I been there and need to go there more often.

Without further ado, I present the return of

LASERCHICKEN

Along with his newly update hints on playing the Boomkin.

Welcome back!

Weightloss

So I am/was very much subject to the WoW weight gain. I think in the 3-4 years I have been playing I gained roughly 10-15lbs from WoW playing. I then gained another 10-15lbs when my wife was pregnant. Now after awhile I noticed that the pants size I had to buy to be comfortable was entirely too big. In January of 2007, I quit playing WoW for a good 4 months. This was done for several reasons not the least of which was me being tired of being obese.

I have enjoyed weightlifting from High School on. I am not a bodybuilder by any stretch, but when I get in the mode to go workout I do turn into a gym junkie. I managed to work out for about 4 months straight when I just burned out. Going to the gym or weightlifting after a few months really takes a toll on the body and I was pushing hard. When I started out lifting weights, I realized it had been 3 years (the amount of time my wife and I had been dating) since I worked out or lifted weights on a regular basis.

I was weak. I was silly weak. I could not bench press 135lbs more than a couple of times kind of weak. I used to bench (realize when I say bench and it’s a high number I am talking about my 1 rep max) 245lbs. There was a huge obstacle to overcome here which was my own disgust with what I had let happen. I kept pushing and eventually got my muscle back and more besides then the wedding happened.

About a month before I got married the stress of the wedding stuff got to me. What did I do? Yup, I quit working out. /sigh

So another year goes by, I am playing WoW again, and again I start to feel the weight creep back on. What was I doing?! I had lost almost 2 pants sizes worth of weight and I was just going to pack it back on? No way!

I have been working out now for 3 weeks straight and have started doing 2 workouts a day. I am doing cardio in the morning before I have anything to eat so I have to burn fat to keep going and then I weight train in the evening. It is not the easiest thing to find time for lately. My wife hurt her back and has been having a hard time getting around. The easiest time for me to go is butt crack of dawn early when they are both asleep which is hard for me to do. I am not into the waking up early, but I am beginning to see the benefit of it.

I have decided to keep up with my weight and progress on this blog so I know where I am and where I was at. Hope everyone enjoys the weight loss countdown.

Weight 260lbs
Bench Press 245lbs
Curl Bar 95lbs
Squat 750lbs
Waist 40” snug.

My goal is to have 30lbs gone 3 months from now. Lets see what I can do.