Start And Step

The New Year is coming up!

startand — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:08:32 +0000

The New Year is rapidly approaching, as we’ve already entered the holiday season. This time of the year, it’s time to look at the new year’s resolutions I made last January, and see what I can do to finish as many as possible. It’s also time to start thinking about what I’m going to set for my next new year’s resolutions. Over the next week I’ll make a series of posts about my current new year’s resolutions, and then I’ll start to look forward to the next year’s resolutions. It should be fun and interesting to look at my resolutions for next year, because I have a pretty big milestone coming up in April. I turn 30 years of age, and I want to do a lot before, and after, my birthday, including a nice vacation to Tunica to celebrate my birthday.

Just when you think you’re about to be alright

startand — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:35 +0000

Just when you think you’re about to be alright. Just when you think you’ve got your plan ready to go, and your ready to take the first step towards achieving your goals. Just when your psyched that you are starting along a new path to better yourself. Why does it always seem something bad happens right at that moment?
I’m going through that right now. I was on my way to being able to attack my debt, save up some money, and even maybe buy me something along the way. Instead, I had a big money item come up, where I had to come up with some money immediately. As it seems with most unexpected money emergencies, it had to do with my car. Because of this unexpected expense, I put myself back into a hole that I must now climb back out of. I know I can do it, it just makes me mad that I was just about to turn the corner when my plans got crushed.
But, I have to make it just a dip in the road. I’m going to get through this little tough patch, and keep working towards my goals. I can still keep making those small steps I need to make, and I will get to where I want to be. It just take those little steps forward, no matter how many steps I’m forced to take backwards in a moment time. Always forward… And Keep Steppin’

Obama Wins

startand — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:18:50 +0000

Although I voted Libertarian yesterday, and I’m proud of my vote, it was great to see the USA have a moment like it did last night. John McCain made the best speach of his entire campaign with his succession speech. I hope Obama can be a great president and channel the spirit of the great Jackie Robinson.
The one thing I truly hoped for last night, though, I don’t think happened. There was five serious candidates for the US President, not two. I wish people would have gotten a chance to see that and voted for someone they cared about and not which of the two candidates that had the most money to spend.
This election got me out there to do some research on politics. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever been interested in this kind of stuff (I’m 29). What got me was the fact that there was a party out there that aligned with my thinking much, much more than either the republicans or the democrats. From that research, I now believe that most people would find out the same thing I did. Of course, I don’t mean that they would find the same party I did, but some other party.
So, even after the Presidency has been won, and we wait for the transition to our 44th President, it’s still important to do some research, and I challenge you to go read up on the “third-party” platforms. The Libertarian party, the Green party, the Constitution Party. You might find out that you could have voted for someone you believed in, instead of voting for the “lesser of two evils.”

And, on the health front…

startand — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:13:52 +0000

So, the past couple of weeks have been pretty interesting on the health front. I guess I’m now ready to start putting everything into perspective, and that includes getting it up here. Long story short, I’m 29 years old, and I’ve had to go ahead and get a colonoscopy and endoscopy. The colonoscopy came up clean, fortunately, so I didn’t have any polyps or anything to worry about. The endoscopy, on the other hand, showed some stuff going on. First, the most obvious thing that they could see was that I have an ulcer in my esophogus. It was sort of surprising for me to hear that since I hadn’t had any real symptoms or anything. The doctor told me to avoid spicy foods, lose some weight, and start taking some medicine. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. I’ve got some other stuff I have to worry about, especially my diet (more on that in upcoming posts). The big thing here is that the doctor told me I need to lose a significant amount of weight, so hopefuly, that will give me a little more motivation to do just that.

Fox did what!

startand — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:39:06 +0000

The presidential voting is set to begin pretty soon, so I’m trying to figure out who I’m going to vote for. I opened up the yahoo front page a little while ago, and I got a kick in at least one direction. That direction is away from Obama. He’s causing a World Series game to be pushed back. You don’t effect my baseball and then get my vote, I’m sorry. Baseball is much more important.

I’m kidding of course…sorta

What you DON’T do CAN hurt you

startand — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:50:11 +0000

Lately, I’ve come to the relization that my biggest problem are all the things that I DON’T do. By inaction, I am costing myself a whole bunch of money on all sorts of stuff. For example, not taking a movie back on time. The only reason that I don’t take it back is because of lazyness, but that costs me money in late fees. I do this all the time, and it’s costing me way too much money. I don’t really have a plan on how to fix it, because it’s just now sort of a revelation to me. I know it should be obvious, but I’m lazy by nature. That’s not really an excuse, but since it was just how I am, I never realized how much I was hurting myself. Now, I just have to make sure I do the things that, if I don’t, will cost me money

So Fast

startand — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:23:34 +0000

I can’t believe eight days has already passed since my last post! The days are starting to zoom by me.
Anyway, I picked up the body for life book at are local used book store here, and I’m in the middle of checking it out. It’s an older book, but I think it looks like it’s gonna have some good stuff in it. I think with my upcoming diet problems (i’ll explain in another post soon…), I’m unsure whether I could follow the program exactly, but I’m going to look into it. It has a twelve week program in it, and I would love to do it, though.
I did use it to get me back in the gym yesterday. Me and a buddy went during lunch, and we did a bunch of upper body exercises. I’m not as sore as I thought I would be for some reason. I think I didn’t use enough weight for most of the exercises. At least I used to little instead of the other way around. Next week, when I do my upper body workout, I’m going to increase the amount of weight I’m using. Tomorrow, we’ll be doing lower body, so I have to find some good exercises for that as well.

September Review

startand — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:42:42 +0000

September in Review

Intro…
It has been a long while since I put a month-in-review post up here. I need to get back on track and really start getting these posts up here more often. In fact, that’s pretty much the theme of the past couple of months. I need to develop that consistency, where I continue to do the things that I know are good for me forever, instead of just for a few weeks.
In general, I’m not writing near as much as I used to, or need to be, and I’m including all writing, not just this blog. My goals for the coming month definitely include my writing. Also, I need to focus on my money and my health. More below…

Money
As part of my loss of consistency the past few weeks, I’ve gotten behind and writing everything down that I spend. In fact, I haven’t done it at all lately. It’s really bad because that’s information that I can pretty much never get again. I’ll never be able to remember all the information, and since I’ve been using mostly cash lately, I can’ just go look at my receipts or anything. Also, and probably because of the not-writing it down, I have spent way too much money lately, getting me into a financial trap. With the economy the way it is, this is no time for me to be in a bad financial situation, but that’s where I’m at right now.
For the month to come, my main goal is to write down everything I spend and curb my spending a little bit. The main thing is that I need to get “back to good”. What I mean by back to good is I need to get to the point where I’m really not needing to come up with a bunch of money right away. Right now, my paycheck is pretty much spent before i get it, and I need to get to the point where I have some freedom with that money coming in.
This month, I also have a couple of things I want to do that cost some money, but I’m going to have to do these in a smart fashion. My girlfriend’s birthday is this month, and I want to get her a couple of different special things. Nothing individually is going to cost a lot of money, but i know that as they acumulate, it’ll cost me a pretty penny. I also need to take my dog to the vet, so I have to plan for that money, which will be around $200. Lastly, there’s the big want. I really, really want to buy Fable 2 for the XBox 360. The problem is that I don’t have a XBox 360 yet, so I would have to buy one of those as well. Arggh!

Health & Fitness
It turns out that I’ve had to see the doctor a little bit lately. My brother got diagnosed with Colon cancer and Celiac disease. Fortunately, they caught the colon cancer, and he’s doing great. Apparently, colon cancer and celiac disease probabilities get a bunch higher if you have a sibling with the problem. So, I had to go get myself checked out for both. I went to get a colonoscopy a few weeks ago, and it turns out I’m alright. Mine was pretty clean in that arena. In fact, the only thing they found was something they weren’t specifically looking for. I’ve got an ulcer in my esiphogus, and some erosion in there as well. What that means is that I need to lose some weight, avoid spicy foods, and take some medicine so I can get rid of that ulcer. I’m still not sure about the celiac disease, though. They said they would call with the results, and I expect to get that call at the end of this week.
For October, the goals are going to be non-specific, and they are workout, exercise, and eat better. The reason I’m being non-specific is because I feel that I need to take sometime and plan a little bit. I need to find out if I have celiac disease. If I don’t, then I need to figure out what I’m going to do for a diet. I really need to change my lifestyle a little bit when it comes to eating, but I also need to see that I can’t completely change, so I need to incorporate that into my diet plan. But, like I said, I’m putting that off until I find out the test results.

Work & Career
Work is going awesome! I love my new job, and I’m having a great time and like the people I’m working with. I swear, liking your co-workers makes such a huge difference on whether or not you enjoy your job. I’m also starting to study up for a certification, as well as a couple of other things I need to learn for the job. I’m also starting to get some more work done on the internet, with my blogs and other things I’ve got going on. I’m hoping to get some more online stuff finished so that maybe I can start turning that into some money-making opportunities.

Overall
Overall, i think the general theme of the past few weeks is my coasting through and not doing the things I need to do. It’s one of those things where I have to make the things I do to make me better a part of my daily life and a natural habit that I don’t think about. Obviously that’s a very hard road to travel, but the rewards will be worth it!

A Body at rest stays at rest…

startand — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:36:51 +0000

Have you ever noticed that as your moving and getting things done, it’s much easier to keep going and getting more and more stuff done? On the flip side, I’ve been noticing how hard it is to get up from doing nothing to suddenly becoming productive and getting stuff done. On the other hand, if I’m sitting there doing nothing, it’s extremely easy for me to keep sitting there like a vegetable and get nothing done.
Recently, I’ve had examples of both of these. First, I was cleaning the house, and I noticed that I was much more ready to go to the next task after I finished one task. It just felt easier to keep going, so I did. Next thing I knew, I had been going for quite a while, and most of my to do list was finished. Last night, on the otherhand, I started watching TV, so I never got up to do the couple things I needed to do last night. It wasn’t that I even had a bunch of stuff to do. I just got in front of the TV and veged out. Heroes was on, and it was awesome, but that’s absolutely no excuse!

New Goal: NO FAST FOOD!

startand — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:30:30 +0000

So, right now, I’m readying a book about the fast food industry. On top of that, I need to lose weight, and I know I eat out too much. Eating out usually means over eating too easily. So, now my goal is to have a life style change where I don’t eat any fast food. I’m still going to eat at Restaurants and stuff. But if I can, I’m going to eat food that I make myself.
For me, It’s going to be really difficult. I’ve used fast food as my main food source for so long, that I’m going to have to work on the quick, easy food fix argument my mind is going to give me when I get hungry. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it, but at least I have a major goal, and I can work towards it.

I’ve added this goal as a negative in my joe’s goals page, so every time I eat fast food from now on, it will decrease my score. One of these days I’m going to have a perfect day on joes goals where I have checks in all the positive columns and none in the negative!!