Today begins the first day of a 6-month session of Kickboxing for me.  I went to a class a few weeks ago and enjoyed it.  Although I was VERY intimated because the class is actually held in a legit Martial Arts facility and they expect you to bow and follow other forms of etiquette not usually found in your typical gym.  After going through CrossFit and the casual yet organized feel of the gym there, I was caught off guard when I walked in.  It also didn’t help that I walked in about 10 minutes late the class either.

I’m hoping to stay committed for the duration of the next 6 months.  Hopefully by posting here will add some level of accountability to me going twice a week.  By friends and family not seeing results or updates here, is a sure fire way of making sure I say on top of all of this.

So here’s to the next 6 months!

I find that I might be a bit of a contradiction.  I don’t go see movies all that often.  Although I do love them, I just don’t find that I go to the movie theater that often to catch the recent releases.  However, I always tune into the Oscars.  A lot of it has to do with the production value, sets, and the way they run the show.  I’m a bit of a nerd in that area to be honest.  I’m usually looking for camera men, backstage people and other things the usual person doesn’t look for.  I think it’s one of the reason that I like “Season 25″ the behind the scenes show that follows Oprah and her crew around as they put together many of the shows 25th Season episodes.

Here’s the short of what I thought of the 2011 Academy Awards show: BORING.  Granted, I didn’t watch any of the pre-show crap as I don’t really care who or what is wearing who or what and how bad or good they look in the tux that looks like something I wore in the last wedding I was in but really is a $2000 tux.  Same goes for all the dresses and hairdos of all the leading ladies – although I do find it fasinating how, when watching some of the movie clips, they are able to make these people look so different in the role they are playing.

I was bored – there were no good set’s.  No good entertainment value.  Unless you want to count the number of different dresses that Anne Hathoway changed into through out the night.  Her Co-Host, James, was boring too.  Most of the night he stood there and looked off camera until he was his turn to read a line.  He was stiff and didn’t even look like he was into it.  Overall, I was pretty board and I ended up fast-forwarding through most of the speeches.

I know the Academy is trying to cut back on costs and stuff, but I just didn’t think anything about this years Oscar’s was good.

My worst nightmare has come true. My DVR died.  Something in the back of my mind told me that it was coming.  I guess, in a way, I was being naive and/or didn’t want to believe that the end was near.

I’ve been pretty busy with work and life and my DVR had been filling up with the numerous shows that I tend to record on a weekly basis.  DirecTv has a DVR that can hold a lot more shows than the Time Warner DVR’s so I had taken full advantage of the amount of space that was on the sucker.  Many times though, I have been given a hard time from friends when they have seen the huge amount of content on my DVR or the fact that I hadn’t caught up on current running shows that everyone talked about.  This was again the case for me.  The menus were running slow. I thought at one point maybe the remote batteries were dying because of the huge lag from pushing a button to the time the screen changed.  All of this happened one night and I went to bed not giving it a second thought.  The next, nothing.

I cried a little that day.  There were episodes I never got around to watching.  Don’t judge here, but the series finales of 24 and Heros were still yet to be watched, 20 episodes of the office, 5 of The Soup, 10 of the Apprentice, and tons of other shows.  But I also had saved some of my favorite episodes of Modern Family, Deadliest Catch and numerous other shows that I went and watched at other times too.  All this said, on Monday, we said goodbye.

I’ve moved on.  It’s been rough and feels weird starting a new.  A replacement has arrived but it’s just not the same.  We’re getting to know each other and I’m learning some new things about her.  It will take some to get back to the days when I don’t think about my old DVR when I turn on the new one.

Here’s to 2011 and new changes.

A few months ago I lost my FitBit and I have been pretty bummed to say the least.  I’m kind of a data freak and this little device was one that I became obsessed with in terms of tracking my fitness levels, food, weight, sleep patterns and a whole slew of other things in life.

After loosing it at the family ranch and having placed an order on the FitBit website, and after months of delays because of back orders and other demand issues, I finally got my replacement.  And all of this comes at such a good time too since I starting up CrossFit again after taking the month of November off.  Because I am so obessed with this little guy and all the data it collects, I set these small, random and totally dorky goals to meet each day, week and month.

For those of you not familiar with FitBit, Fitbit is a tiny magical device($99 USD) that automatically tracks your fitness and sleep statistics. Throughout the day it will track your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, your activity level, and even track your sleep patterns. All of this data is synced wirelessly through your base station to Fitbit’s website where you can get very detailed daily and historical graphs.

December is a hard month to get on board with this thing again since it’s the Holidays but I’m hopeful to be getting on track again.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to work with some people that are apart of the Timothy Team, a year long discipleship program at T Bar M Camps.  We worked with a high school youth group from Austin out at Camp Travis and I had a great time getting to know some new people.  I think in the middle of working with people and finding joy in just being together really gives you a picture of what it means to be in community with others.  Sure we got paid to be there over the weekend, but it’s not easy work.

I think one of the biggest things I took away from this past weekend, was the idea of looking at life, work, and relationships from a younger perspective.  It’s been easy for me to get stuck in this idea of what life is and what life looks like as I get older.  But being in this new small group and working with the Tim Team this past weekend is just a reminder of God’s love and the powerful of meaningful, deep relationships truly does for and to someone.

A lot of this excitement has also been spurred on by watching the first three seasons of Friday Night Lights on Netflix.  I’ve been streaming the past three seasons and shamefully admit that I blazed through the first three season in about 2 weeks.  I would have started on season 4 already but Netflix doesn’t have season 4 up for streaming up yet so I’m waiting on the DVD’s to show up.  If you haven’t ever seen it, you should check it out.  My friend Amanda and Doug are also hooked on the show.  Amanda even has an upcoming role (small but still) in Season 5 that just wrapped up filming.

Easter weekend was one of these weekends that I wish could have gone on forever.  Time spent with family and just laughing, hanging out and enjoying the weather.  My cousin Brandy and her neice (my second cousin) had a birthday party over Easter weekend that was full of bounce houses, cake, presents and all the fun stuff that goes along with birthdays.  Chloe (pictured here) got all kinds of gifts.  She sure didn’t like me being a part of her opening gifts though.  You should have seen some of the looks I got for being right in the middle of the opening of presents.

It’s times like these than make me so thankful for family and the small joys that life brings. How was your Easter weekend?  Do you and your family have any traditions that you follow?

So here I go – This is probably going to be one of the more humiliating and honest posts I have written in awhile:

Running this business has taken it’s toll on me for sure.  It’s been a lot of fun and I have learned a ton of new things.  But a lot of that negative toll has been weight gain – long hours on the computer, working from home where there is a constant source of food and drinks and the ability to move from my office straight into the living room to watch TV when work is done…  It’s all been very nice and “comfortable”.

At the end of September I got the scale one morning and couldn’t believe my eyes. I weight in at 272 pounds.  It was the biggest that I have ever been and probably one of the lowest feeling moments I have felt in a long time.  I kept thinking to myself, I’m in contender weight for being a contestant on the Biggest Looser.  I knew I had to do something about this and to honest, I wasn’t really excited to get started either since I knew the holiday’s were quickly approaching.  I have quite a sweet tooth so Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually big struggles for me.

Weight is something that I have struggled with almost my entire life.  I just wasn’t blessed with a high metabolism.  I have joked for years that when I eat a chocolate chip it goes right to my gut!  And that seems to be pretty true recently.

I do have good news though, I started a pretty strict diet shortly after getting on the scale that morning and I have since lost over 30 pounds – I’m down to 242 with about 43 more pounds to go.

I purchased a device called FitBit.  It’s been a wonderful tool to help me track my fitness goals and be held accountable with friends online that have access to my profile.  FitBit keeps tracks of my steps, activity levels, calorie burn and sleep patterns.  And their website allows me to enter my weight, food intake and other activities that adjust the FitBit as my fitness level and goals increase and decrease.  I’m pretty excited about having lost the 30 pounds over the past few months.  Now I just looking forward to next 40 or so more coming off.

If you want to see my progress you can view my online profile here: http://www.fitbit.com/user/2299F3

Mainly from a personal perspective.  Spending time with friends and staying plugged in have been two of the hardest things the past few weeks.  And I because of how busy I have been, I haven’t been back here to make an updates on what is going.

Thanksgiving is upon is in the next few days and something that I am truly Thankful for this season is my family and friends.  I haven’t been home in sometime and I’m excited to see my friends and family back home.  I think I have realized the past few days how much I truly have been working to stay on top of everything going on, that I am longing for the contact with friends and family back home – just to relax and hang out.

What are some things that you are thankful for this thanksgiving?