R is for Retro

On Sunday afternoon, I wanted to get a little exercise, but it was too cold outside. What other option did I have? Pull out the good ole DDR pad and get busy! I was remembering some of those great college days of arrow stamping, smelly footed joy. For those of you who don’t know. I sadly do have some DDR skills. Running through a series of songs on heavy, followed by push-ups and crunches is a decent workout.

After my rousing DDR session, I found myself even more nostalgic for those long lost college fads. I therefore decided to do some target shooting with my air soft gun and even played some Super Monkey Ball. After rocking the beginner stages, I headed straight for Monkey Target to land on that small yellow beacon in the middle of the water. What a wonderful time! Thank you college me for your silly, fun-junkie, finely honed skills.

Que?

I’ve spent the last few days occasionally thinking about what I wanted to write for my Q post. There are a number of words that start with the letter Q, but I couldn’t manage to fit a Q word to any of the events of my life over the past week. In fact, nothing very interesting happened to me over the past week. I did have the opportunity to be an expert witness for questioning in a bankruptcy court. However, that ended up not being a significant event as I drove all the way to Wilmington, DE to find out the judge approved our motion outside of court, and I turned around and drove back immediately.

I considered writing about the humorously boring evening that Keith and I spent walking around Best Buy talking geeky tech talk. I kid you not, it declined to serious discussion on the type of washing machines and refrigerators we might one day purchase. But then my thoughts trended toward the letter Q itself, and how peculiar it is. Liz and I occasionally play the alphabet game on our trips together. Though she normally dominates me, the key to victory is finding the Q. It is all down hill from there. It’s hard to find words with Q because I honestly think the letter is not all that important. Are there any words with the letter Q that couldn’t ultimately have the Q replaced by a C or K? It would make some words look a little funny, because we are familiar with the Q, but I believe it would work. At the same time, other languages rely on the Q a bit more that we do. I think the French might struggle to erase the letter from there language. “Ku’est-ce kue tu dis” just doesn’t work the same.

That concludes my thoughts for the day.

Merci pour la lecture

P is for Pompous

Do you have conversations from deep in your past that you wish you could go back and change? Sure people have regrets and wish they could do things differently in retrospect, but I’m talking about something a little different. Just a brief conversation where your words got away from you, and though you realize it soon afterward, it is too late to bring it up again and apologize to that person. This happens occasionally to me, but normally after a couple days I forget about it. However, there are a few of these moments that have stayed with me for significant periods of time. I have decided my blog is a good forum to at last apologize and hopefully move on.

Item 1: Bowling manager Kevin.

This is just so silly, but when I was 15ish I walked into the bowling alley wearing a Colorado Avalanche jersey. Kevin made a simple joke exclaiming “Avalanche! Man, I used to like you.” I had to come back with something, and though I should have pursued something about the strength of my team or the weakness of his, I blurted out “well I never liked you!” He was on his way out the door and paused for a moment at the peculiarity of my response, and then continued on his way. He probably forgot about it 2 mins later, but I felt like a jerk. It was a crappy joke that was borderline mean. Kevin, I’m sorry for my stupid response. You were an alright guy and my statement was untrue.

Item 2: Keith

You read by blog which makes this a little more personal than the last item. There is very little chance of this ever coming up in conversation, so this is a good opportunity. When we had our last young life bible study (campaigners) of senior year, we took some time for everyone in the room to say some good things about the graduating seniors. When it came around to your turn, I was struggling to come up with the right thing to say on the spot in a group setting. There are a multitude of things that I appreciate about our friendship, and much more importantly, about you as a person. I failed to say anything along those lines, but instead said some crap about my appreciation for how much you cared for me and being instrumental in me becoming a Christian.

Not only did I make your moment about me, I also accidentally insinuated that the thing I appreciated most about you was how you cared for me. How terrible is that? I’m sorry buddy. Furthermore, I often joke about how much I look forward to the wedding that you will someday have. Planning your bachelor party, giving a speech, etc. First, I shouldn’t put that kind of pressure on you. Though it would be an incredible honor to be your best man, you have brothers and many other close people in your life. I am saying this to you now to avoid an awkwardly bad moment whenever you announce your engagement. Second, every time I make one of these jokes, I always secretly think about that moment at our last bible study. I think to myself “he would never want me to give a speech about him. He saw the train wreck that ensued the last time I tried to talk about him in front of a group.”

Item 3: Aunt Linda

This one is a little more recent. A couple months ago, Liz’s family was gathered for an event (don’t remember which one). The Gibson’s brought their newly acquired Rock Band for the family to enjoy. We all had a wonderful time, and I must say, I was quite impressed with some of the playing and vocal talent. Especially Aaron singing “Roxanne” on expert. I didn’t think he could pull it off, but was pleasantly surprised. Well done dude. Some time after we finished playing and were getting some refreshments, Aunt Linda kindly complemented my singing ability. The appropriate and reasonable response to someone complementing you is of course “thank you.” Perhaps even a “how nice of you to notice.” Either way, accept the complement and move on. I chose a much different and horrible approach. Despite human decency, I used her complement to segue into a list of my notable musical achievements. You can just picture the terrible situation.

Aunt Linda: “Zack, you have a very nice signing voice, I enjoyed listening to you”
Me in an overly obnoxious voice: “oh you didn’t know I was a good singer? Why when I was in high school, bla bla bla bla bla. Then in college I blobbity bla and even bla bla bla…. Me, myself, and I bla bla bla…. Meeeeee!

That’s right, I was a “Me Monster.” What a pompous douche! I can’t believe I did that. When I realized the horribleness of my response later that evening, it was too late. I can only imagine the thoughts she and the other people at the table had after I left. I would in no way be surprised if my stupidity in that moment altered her family’s viewpoint of me. Aunt Linda, I apologize for my foolishness. I hope you don’t think less of me.

I am certain there are more cases such as this that didn’t come to mind while typing this post. To all: I am sorry for the dumb things I have said in the past. As you can tell from the above items, I am not an eloquent speaker. I hope that you will forgive me and we can move forward with sound relationships.

Thank you for reading.

O is for OPEC??

Can you believe I am actually writing a blog post about OPEC? Me neither. To be honest, my first thought after reading this request was “what is OPEC again?” I admit I have heard the acronym, but had to double check exactly what it stood for. I thought that I would study up on the subject and write a very educated position paper, but after reading just the wikipedia page, I was ready to tap out.

OPEC of course stands for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. This group of 12 countries gathers from time to time for the goal of safeguarding their own interest of the exportation of oil. They discuss economic conditions to set proper competitive prices that best protect the economic needs and goals of their country. As you can undoubtedly surmise, this is one international organization that the US is not a part of. Though we do export a small amount of oil to Mexico, Canada, and some other countries, we wouldn’t dream of exporting enough to be a part of this group since we need to hoard most of it for ourselves.

I do understand the goal of OPEC and if they are indeed seeking the best interest for all the exporting countries as well as the global economy, than it is a good thing. However, one organization setting oil prices with the primary goal of protecting the oil producers is a very scary thing. That is why many people are against the existence of the OPEC leading to many conspiracy theories and criticism of their actions.

I do not know enough detail to formulate my own opinion about whether or not this organization should be in existence. I do think it is fairly interesting topic for discussion. What is your opinion?

N is for Nonsense

I spend an unreasonable amount of time in my life drifting off into long trains of meaningless thought. About what I am doing later today, or where I’m going in life, or things going on around me. I’m sure many other people do the same. You can tell when a person makes some crazy off the wall comment that fits right into the conversation from their point of view. I decided my blog needed a little more nonsense and therefore thought to type out one of these useless strings of tangents that I claim to be a thought process. It reminds me of a scene from The Weatherman where Nick Cage is tasked to pick up some tartar sauce. Ah, what a humorous scene.

 Nick Cage was awesome when he was carrying that bow around the city
 I should get into archery
 I did just find that old bow, but where would I shoot it
 Can you target shoot at a public park?
 Probably not, but what are they going to do? Will the park police approach me with their flashlights while I’m holding a freaking bow and arrow
 Shooting in my back yard would be a bad decision, too much room for error
 I need a bigger back yard
 We should buy a house
 But then we are stuck in central PA for the indefinite future
 We should move, but where?
 I like my job, I shouldn’t leave it
 Is a good job worth staying in an area you don’t want to live?
 I want to live in Colorado, but that wouldn’t go over well with the family
 Whenever I do move, we need to have some space
 Then I would need and lawn mower and a bunch of tools
 I want to get back into forging
 Wherever we move, I need to have a work shop for my forge
 I could make some sweet swords and other items for around the house
 I should ask for an anvil for Christmas
 That would cost like $500
 But that’s all I need, an anvil and a big bag of coal
 I was in great shape last time I was forging steel
 I need to get back in shape, I should go for a run later
 I really dislike working out
 I should get a good cheeseburger instead
 But then I’ll just get fatter
 When we move to Colorado, I’m going to buy a nice roadbike
 I wish I went on the motorcycle trip
 We’ll go next year, but we already have so much planned
 I need to schedule vacation time
 I really should get back to work

M is for Melancholy

I have lost my happiness
And I do not care to go searching
Though I remember how good it was to have
I would rather sit here and sulk

Even if I wanted to go looking
Where would I begin
It is best to retrace my steps
But I doubt that would be effective

Did I lose it when I wasn’t feeling well
Or when you were mad at me
Maybe while visiting a stressed family
Or when my dreams felt crushed

I know it was dropped somewhere in there
But there’s just too many places it could be
For now I’ll ignore it and sit here forlorn
I’m certain it will turn up again someday

L is for Lacking

Keith and I traveled the long journey to King of Prussia on Friday for the premier of Boondock Saints 2. Despite some minor challenges of detours and meeting up with friends, we had a great time. We arrived at the theater nearly an hour early which was convenient because we were able to get into the theater 40 mins early. We got the best seats by my opinion and we watched as the people slowly filled up the theater beyond capacity. Not only were most of the seats filled, people were actually sitting on the floor in the front and 10-15 were standing at the entrance for the entire movie. Crazy right? But I would have done the same.

If you have not seen Boondock Saints, then shame on you. Get thee to a movie store and prepare for an awesome movie. I am not going to speak to the details about the sequel since most of you have not seen it, and there is a slim chance you may someday. Ultimately I would rate it as a 6 on a scale from 1 – 10 with 10 being Boondock Saints. At first I thought I really liked it, aside from 2-3 scenes that should have been done another way. But after some discussion with the others that joined us, I came to dislike the movie more and more. The intensity of the first movie was lost and some of the characters just seem to be trying too hard to be funny. Especially the 2 characters that were made to replace lost characters from the 1st movie. I greatly appreciate the comical aspect of the first movie that existed amongst the intensity, but some of the action scenes of the second movie were made to be too fun and humorous. They were but a step away from throwing up a big “BANG!” after a gun shot like the old Batman tv show. I have already heard talk of a 3rd movie, but am even more concerned than I was with the 2nd. If you are a Boondock Saints fan, then you absolutely need to see the sequel. But don’t get your hopes up too much, nothing will ever match the fantastic glory that is Boondock Saints.

Beside the movie, we had a wonderful trip. I always enjoy a solid piece of time to have deep conversation with Keith. I also got to hang out with Pat Brown and some of their friends from West Chester that I’ve met a few times. We went out after the movie and had a wonderful time catching up. We also met up with one of my old friends from Lock Haven that I haven’t seen in a couple years. Great trip and relatively decent movie. I believe one of the local theaters in my area is going to pick up Boondock Saints 2, but I in no way regret catching the movie on the day it premiered with some good friends.

Thanks for reading.

K is for Kicking with Excitement

Boondock Saints 2 All Saints Day is premiering this Friday. Though I am very concerned that the sequel will fail miserably in comparison to the 1st one, I am also extremely excited. As far as I can tell, it will not be played in my area, so my friends and I are going to have to drive to Philadelphia either for a midnight showing on Thursday night, or Friday evening sometime.

I know what you are thinking. That is a lot of time in money just for a movie, but I don’t adhere to the famous adage “a penny saved is worth 2 in the bush.” You know what I really need for a trip like this? Some rope. “Charlie Bronson’s always got rope…he’s got rope strapped around em in the movies and they always end up using it…You don’t know what you’re gonna need it for, they just always need it.”

J is for Jack-O’-Lantern

It has been much too long since I have posted. For a while, it was due to my busy schedule, but for the last week I have just been waiting until the right time. That time is of course directly after carving my pumpkin for Halloween this year. Could there be a better use for the letter J? I submit that there can not!

2 years ago, I decided to get into pumpkin carving. My first 2 attempts were very successful as I found patterns online that looked good but weren’t too challenging. This year I was torn between a few ideas and decided to make up my own pattern incorporating a number of designs. I think it turned out very well. Liz also carved a great looking pumpkin, but the pumpkin was unfortunately rotting and cracked a bit at the end. It will not survive the week, but we got a few pictures of it to remember its greatness. I tried to take pictures along the way to show its progression. Here are a few of those pictures for your enjoyment.

I is for…. I

I am tired
I am frustrated
I am beat down
I am angered
I wish I could re-do the last 2 weeks
I am behind
I dislike other opinions
I hate drama
I know I am right
I know they are wrong
I want more time
I am glad I’m a child or God or else
I would cry and feel the false weight of my state


I am writing this entry on a train on my way back from Philadelphia. I arranged a meeting to discuss an insurance matter. It was somewhat exciting to arrange a meeting myself where I had to bring people in from Philly, Harrisburg, Chicago, and Atlanta. I set the agenda and tried to lead the meeting. This meeting included people with titles like partner, treasurer, director, and CFO. Despite the excitement of this meeting, I don’t think it went very well. It went as expected I suppose, but I wish it would have gone better. We are arguing over business forecasts with our insurance company for a claim that could bring in as much as $5.5 million for our company. So far they only want to give us $2.5. 2.5 is a nice chunk of change, don’t get me wrong, but their arguments for giving us less just make me want to slap someone in the face with a glove and challenge them to a duel.
“Here’s something that… if you don’t want your dad to think you are a silly f***, don’t hit another man in the face with a glove. Because if you do, that is exactly what he will think. Unless you are a nobleman, or something out of the 18th century.”

If you have never seen the movie “The Weatherman” I recommend you go see it. Try to ignore the profanity and just enjoy the excellent subtle humor.

Anyway, as you can tell I am a little frustrated and angered about the results of the meeting. But why am I so tired you may ask? Because it is Thursday and I have already worked a total of 46 hours, most of which was some of the most stressful work I have ever had to do. I had people getting very upset looking for number and results right that instant. Running multiple scenarios and what-if analyses across Excel models that span over 50+ tabs is not an easy task. You would think that running numbers through a model would not be a stressful event, after all, they are just numbers. But the pressure would surprise you. Hours of changes and need to be made to the model in a matter of 20 mins. The information is needed that soon because we have a call in 20 mins to the CEO. He wants a group of changes to be made in the following 20 mins so he can have a call with our lenders where the numbers will be used to help them to decide whether or not to liquidate our business. I could go on, but it just gets depressing. I am really tired and just need a good break, but instead I need to go in early tomorrow to prepare for another all day meeting with a different group of people. Yikes. I can not wait until the weekend. Get some rest, hang out with some family, and get some good father and son time in with Wes. To follow all of that up, I am taking my motorcycle license test on Sunday. Then I can hit the open rode and celebrate freedom and realize why I do all of this crazy work.

Thanks for reading.

H is for Hummus

As per reader request… H is for Hummus. I was intrigued by this challenge of suggested writing topics. This was especially true of hummus as I had never actually tried hummus before. I thought this might be a challenge since I would have to go somewhere to buy some or try to make it myself. As it turned out, I was invited to a dinner party where hummus was served as an appetizer. I am very fortunate to have a boss who is Greek and loves to have guests and make ridiculously good food. The hummus was ridiculously garlicy and was served with pita bread. With Ali in mind, I dove right in. To my surprise, the hummus was actually quite tasty. I might even try it again sometime. Probably won’t make it, but if someone else does, I won’t avoid it like I have in the past.

Thank you for your suggestion and challenging me to expand my horizons.

G is for Great

Do you want to know why G is for Great? It is because I wrote a freaking Great poem in my last post. I put quite a bit of time into it and like it a little more every time I read it. If you haven’t read it, you should right now. If you have, you should re-read it and enjoy its awesomeness.

Why else is G for Great? Because I think it is great how ridiculous people can be sometimes. There are some out there that take everything they do so seriously that it becomes funny. Of course I have an example to back this up…

A few days a go I received a subpoena at work requesting information for a workers comp claim. I have never directly received a subpoena, so I read the whole thing over to fully understand exactly what was needed. Reading legal language can be surprising challenging. I think they write in a specific way to make people so confused that they give up on trying to understand the document and just sign.

So I start reading though the main page wish starts in Latin at the top “Subpoena Duces Tecum.” I figured the lawyers are just trying to sound smart by using other languages, but literally translated means “bring with you under penalty of punishment.” Clearly they don’t want to just write that at the top, so they use the Latin. Either way, you can tell this document is meant to intimidate you to get something done. There isn’t a lot more to the document, just names, addresses, and such followed by “YOU ARE HERBY REQUIRED” in all caps to provide some information. Here is where it gets good. Many letters have the body of the letter followed by a closing or sign-off like “sincerely, john.” The writers of this subpoena went with the closing of “fail not at your peril.”

I looked at that, was a little shocked, and then nearly fell at of my chair laughing. This is a great example of taking things a bit too seriously. Apparently they felt that this request for information was so important that it required a threat or curse of some kind. I shared this humorous line with some of my co-workers, and asked around to get the data as soon as possible since I was concerned that I would meet my peril. I don’t know if my failure meant that someone was going to come looking for me to mess me up, or the brakes of my car were going to mysteriously go out while I was on the highway. Either way I didn’t want to find out.

Admittedly, there may be some use for this statement in daily life. Perhaps if I start using it in conversation, things will get done faster. I could write an email: Mark, please send me the total sales figures for last month. Fail not at your peril. –Zack. I have a feeling I would be getting those sales figures pretty quickly. Maybe in a text: Hey Justin, do you want to hang out tonight? Fail not at your peril. Something tells me that Justin’s schedule would clear right up.

Honestly though, what are these people thinking?

Thanks for reading.

Far From Flying

Are you a little surprised and excited that I was able to jam 3 words that start with F into this post? You really should be.

I’m sorry I have to do this, but I have decided to “Keith-out” in this blog post and write a poem (that’s right my friend, I just used your name as a verb). I wrote this out pretty quickly, but then spent some time to make it rhyme. I fear that compromised the integrity of the poem and my point by doing this, but there is a strong flawed part of me that thinks all poems should rhyme. Well here we go, I hope you enjoy.


On long summer days stuck at work
I am often lost in reflection
Not on projects or politics or finances
But on the life moving past my vision

There are busy bees moving between buildings
Delivering a message or going to a meeting
They seem too determined for something so trivial
I wonder if they ever consider their meaning

They file into the parking lot at the stroke of 8
Their reliability no one denies
Many park quickly and scurry off
But some take more than 3 tries

I assume they are just bad drivers
Trying so dearly to get in the lines
But perhaps they are greatly concerned
On perfection regardless of time

I find this an interesting judge of character
And presume this is how they live their lives
I think it a waste of time, but how can I judge
I’m just sitting here watching them drive

I shake the thoughts and go back to work
After all I’m not paid to stare
But then I think of living differently
Like my meticulous friends out there

To take the time to do things right
Would instill in me more passion
I could be a better worker / lover / father
For caring more is just good fashion

Coming to work I listen to the news
And hear about all the terrible topics
I take fleeting interest, but soon forget
Lock the doors and drop the keys in my pocket

I think passion would make me better at life
But would I care more about mankind
There is likely nothing I could do to help
I fear stress and worry is all I would find

My mind defaults to what all men think
What if I were a super hero
Passion of course would come naturally
As I fight to drive crime down to zero

I would be strong, fast, and daring
And you know I am able to fly
I would be adored by all across the globe
The glory would be such a high

But is this responsibility too much pressure
Would life really be that great
I’d feel the weight of every failure
And hate every time I needed a break

Perhaps I am being foolish
Of course flying would be sublime
I dream about flight for a few more minutes
Then try to get back to my daily grind

Those people outside are doing what they should
And I should do the same
Isn’t that what life is all about
Follow the rules so no one can blame

The busy bees go where they are told
Bad drivers scare us all
Reporters deliver terrible news
And perfectionists are on the ball

I know I will never be a superhero
It’s my design, there’s no sense lying
I focus back on my computer and accept
That I am far from flying

E is for Engine

…and W is for Without. Bad news on my car people. It is missing a critical component.


A little belt snapped, and everything went downhill. The value of my car… my savings. YIKES. After much debate over scrapping the car or fixing it and arguing with the dealership I got it from, I have decided to keep it alive and fix it. So I had to purchase a new engine and the garage is putting it back in as I type.

It is quite a shame, but I guess that is life.

That is all.

Danger

Have you ever daydreamed about living life a completely different way than you are right now? That question is ridiculously rhetorical as I suspect everyone does from time to time. The sad sinful wordly part of me occasionally wishes I could just be bad. I don’t want to always be bad, just spend a night or a weekend throwing caution to the wind and acting on every impulse.

There is one characteristic that a portion of me wishes I could possess. It isn’t always a bad thing, but can be, that characteristic is of course: dangerous. If I could live life over again, I think I would be a little more dangerous. I know I could probably change now, but most likely will not. In fact, I am tremendously far from dangerous. I am G rated, I am cautious, I am responsible… I am the battle equivalent of a Nerf gun.

Think about most of the famous men through history or even in movies. They are passionate, charismatic, confident, but I also think they are dangerous. Sure dangerous could be a bad thing when you consider someone to be reckless or unstable, but most often, having an appropriate amount of danger in a man’s personality is desirable. It is the danger that makes them exciting, that shows their strength, that makes them protective. It is the danger that makes a guy a man.

Part of me thinks a man that is dangerous is a man I wouldn’t want to mess with because he is willing take whatever action necessary to protect himself and those around him, but that isn’t always the case. I man can be passive and dangerous. I would say Gandhi was dangerous. He was strong willed and a threat to those in power. Civil disobedience certainly requires a significant amount of risk. I also think a man of integrity is a dangerous man. He is willing to stand for what he knows to be right and honorable regardless of consequence.

I think my life is a little too fluffy. The risks are managed too much. That is why I like to do some crazy things from time to time such as building a cannon. Danger is certainly something I hope to instill in Wes as he grows up. If he is the right amount of dangerous when he grows up, then I would have done my job as a father. In fact, adventure is by far the most exciting thing I look forward to in having a son. I can’t wait to take him out into the woods, down a river, or up a mountain. I want him to step into the batter’s box and not be afraid of getting hit by the ball. I want him to skate as hard as he can into the corner for a puck without worrying about the size of his opponent skating against him. I want his team mates to think he is crazy and put him out there for that very reason. I want the other team to be afraid when he is out there, to move back toward the fence, or have to double cover him. I want poker players to be afraid to sit to his right. Ok, so these are things I want for myself, but don’t know if I will achieve them. I do want to be dangerous. Now I just need to figure out how to implement that plan.

Thank you for reading.

Covering the C’s

I’ve been thinking all week about what to post for C post. A number of things have popped in my head, but nothing specifically worth a full post. This will therefore be a Combination of Cuneiform Collectively Covering C’s.

C is for Challenge

Work around our office can at times be hard and stressful, but many other times are just exciting and fun. It is fun in examples such as yesterday when my boss made a minor joke about an Excel model being a little weird because the newly hired employee who sent it out was Canadian. My immediate response was “wait… he’s Canadian!? And we hired him!?” She just about fell out of her chair laughing, and then called him to make fun of his Canadian descent. It gets exciting when the CFO is around asking for odd analyses out of the blue with very quick deadlines. 2 days ago, I went into my boss’s office for a video conference with the CFO to discuss a topic. I brought my computer as a resource, and before we got into that topic, the CFO asked if I knew the other reason I was on the conference. He wanted an analysis done comparing the results of 2 different Excel models and my boss had previously assured him that I could rattle that out in under 10 mins. He looked at me and said “it is 9:21, you have until 9:30. Go.” I looked at my boss and asked if I should go back to my office or stick around. She thought I should just stay there and rattle through it and be there for the beginning of the discussion of the primary topic. I started working like a mad man, and though the task was not overly challenging, it is tough to do it in that time frame and check for accuracy before sending it off. At 9:30, the CFO stopped the conversation and said “time’s up.” I replied “it is in your inbox.” Good challenge, good fun.

C is for Chicken

Have you ever purchased food from the hot meal counter near the deli at a Wal-Mart? If you haven’t, you should make a special trip, right now. They have some roasted chicken, miscellaneous potato choices, popcorn chicken, and wings. All of these items are pretty good, but fail miserably in comparison to the boneless BBQ chicken kickers. These little guys are an absolute delight. I discovered them in college with my roommates when they could be purchased for 4.50 a pound, though the price is now up to 7.00 per pound, it is still completely worth it. You only need just over a half pound and they are complimented well by a quarter pound of potato wedges. You seriously must give these a try, and more than once because they taste better each time you get them as long as they haven’t been sitting out for too long. Despite the fact that it is a 20 min drive to the closest Wal-Mart, I still blow a full lunch break almost once a week to drive out there and get these delectable treats. I even pass a chick-fil-a on the way. Yes they are that good, and are a pretty quality piece of chicken I might add. The potato wedges aren’t nearly as good as chick-fil-a waffle fries, but are none the less very decent. Go get some right now.

C is for Cannibalism is the Cure

I’ve had this song stuck in my head all day by Get Set Go. If you have never heard of Get Set Go, I don’t necessarily recommend them. At times they can be rather vulgar and even blasphemous, but their music is very catchy and fun. They have some wonderful melodies and song arrangements, almost all of which are very bouncy and fun, but set to dismal lyrics. That is basically their trademark. One of their more popular songs you may have heard of is I Hate Everyone which of course fun and catchy, but singing about bad or annoying situations leading the singer to the conclusion that he hates every person in the world. Cannibalism is the Cure of course suggests that the way to cure the problems in our society would be to “eat them all.” If you are bold enough to go out and listen to some of their songs, I also recommend Gotta Getta Job.

Thank you for reading.

B is for Brown

I have decided after my last post to make my way through the alphabet with titles. I know I am stealing that idea from Sue Grafton books (no I do not read Sue Grafton books), but I think that may inspire me to write about some odd topics.

I went with B is for Brown because that is the only color surface my ball hit when playing golf this past week. The fairways were narrow, and woods were mighty; at least they were mighty before I nearly cracked them in half with my crazed shots. I have also been paying some more Tiger Woods golf which just gets to be more and more awesome. Here is the gist of it: I am almost ready to take on Tiger Woods, but don’t stand a chance against Liz’s family. I played 18 holes on the Wii 8 under par, but Liz’s Uncle Gary and I shot a sad 24 over. The family tournament at Running Deer Lodge went well. I played a decent game, but never really found my swing. We finished 2 over par in the wet conditions which landed us 5th out of 17 teams. I thought my game might come back together, so I went out with Liz’s family. I thought for a moment that they would never invite me back to play, but I was later assured they would gladly have me out again to play for money. It was ugly, but the weather was absolutely beautiful and the fun was outstanding. I will save you details since well over 50% of my readership is Liz’s family, but I will say I nearly fell out of the cart on many occasions from laughter, crazy driving, and pranking the other team.

I am sadly back to work now after 5 days off. I only had to work a half day yesterday, but it went by so slowly. I was only in for like 40 minutes and started checking the clock to see how close I was to going home. Today has been a bit better, but it is tough to sit in an office on such a beautiful day knowing most of Liz’s family is still enjoying their vacation. I am actually starting to think about going back to Beaverdale for the weekend, but I’m going to hold out and hope to be enticed to come back by promises of tennis and sausage and peppers.

I suppose I should get back to work.

Thanks for reading.

The A is for Abysmal

Well, today is the first day in a very long time that I have run out of things to do at work. I’m not really sure what to do with myself. I have no doubt that something will pop up at 4:00 and suddenly I’ll be working like a mad man and trying not to stay too late. But in case that doesn’t happen, perhaps I should go looking for some work. I’ll give it a little longer and see what else pops up. I do have a giant stack of papers on my desk of things that I didn’t know if I should throw away or not. I could make my way through and throw away or file. Cleaning up around the office is always a great way to seem busy and waste a lot of time.

This weekend is my family’s big golf tournament, followed by Liz’s family’s large get together. Anyone that knows me probably knows about the golf tournament. 80-85 people getting together at my family camp, and 72ish of us going out for a great round of golf at a surprisingly nice course. I have played very little golf in the last couple years. I love golf and wish I could get out more, but it just costs way too much money and takes up a little too much time. I did get to go out 2 weeks ago for the first time in 10 months to get a little practice. I was going to hit some balls before that round, but instead decided just to go for it. I think that worked out pretty well. It wasn’t the best, but I started to find my swing again about 2/3 of the way through. Unfortunately, despite the very little golf I have played, I will probably be an A player again this year. Everyone is ranked as an A, B, C, or D so the teams are close to even. The golfers are for the most part, not nearly as good as they used to be, so we are struggling for A players. Because of this struggle, the general mentality is “once an A, always an A.” I used to be a good A when I played on the school golf team, but that was along time and many terrible shots ago. About 3 years ago, I did win the tournament as an A that set my status in stone for a long time. Though the very next year, I got last place as an A with one of the worst scores in our tournament’s history.

Due to all of this pressure of being an A, it is clear that I need to prepare more for the event. So I did what any player would do, went out and bought Wii Tiger Woods Golf 2010. I have no doubt that I will be striking the ball like Tiger inside a couple days. Even if it doesn’t improve my game, and clearly it won’t, I think it was a good investment. I have been playing a little bit of Tiger Woods 2007 lately and actually really liked the game. The swing is no where near a real golf swing, but the game is a lot of fun. At the same time, Nintendo has released the Wii Motion Plus which is supposed to give you character a much more 1:1 movement ratio. I just bought the game on my lunch break and can’t wait to get home to play. They say it is much more like swinging a real club. I know that is not going to be true, but I think it will be a big step in the right direction. I’m pretty certain you can’t miss hit the ball. If you swing too slowly, you can hit really short, and you can miss hit puts, but I know you can’t miss swing and top the ball, or miss altogether. That would be cool. I do know you can fade or slice easily, and control much more short shots. Apparently there are a lot of added features to the game over the older versions that I am looking forward to. More modes and realistic tournament settings. There is online play to take on other people 1 on 1 or enter tournaments, and you best score is compared against others. I look forward to that. You can also play with real time weather. The wii looks up the weather conditions for the course you are playing, and if it is rainy or windy in real life, it is rainy or windy in the game. That is awesome. Now I really can’t wait to get home and play. I’m bound to be one of the best players at the Running Deer Lodge Open this weekend.

Thanks for reading.

Just Numbers

Working in treasury and finance for a mid size company has put me in some interesting situations. One thing I think of from time to time is the amount to money I deal with or see on spreadsheets on a daily basis. At times I deal with very large numbers. For starters, every spreadsheet I work with is at least shown in thousands. No one cares about seeing the full detail of numbers. If a lot of calculations are being run, people become very comfortable with variances of 5 – 10 thousand dollars. If someone is attempting the very challenging task of reconciling our database with some other list of numbers, and that person can come within 10k, they did a great job. There are times I do high level calculations that are only shown in millions, and if I’m off 1 or 2, it is simply chalked up to rounding errors. It is odd how comfortable I can get with working with such large numbers, and at the same time not be ok with my personal checkbook not tying out to the exact penny.

I oversee the insurance for our company, and consequently oversee the spending of approximately 7 million dollars a year. That is real money that I receive invoices for, review, and submit to my boss for payment approval. These numbers are often regular payments, but occasionally not. Last week I had to walk into my boss’s office with the bad news that some large claims came in and we had to write a check that day for 160k. These thinks happen, and I’m use to it, but from time to time I realize the craziness of the words I am speaking.

The big project I have been working on for that past few months is an insurance claim for a machinery failure at one of our plants. This has been a challenging, partially exciting, partially sad project that I have dedicated a silly amount of time to. All of the manufacturing of this plant relies on this piece of equipment that took 5 months to fix. This essentially shut down the whole plant and just ruined their business for that time and will most likely never recover from all of the customers they lost. For some help, we have an insurance policy that covers such an event. I have done all of the work on this claim and have had all of the contact with the insurance carrier. I have assembled mass amounts of data and presented it to all of our executives for their review before submitting it. After submitting this data, I have had some meetings with the insurance carrier to discuss the details of the claim. The basis of these meetings is another one of those odd moments to wrap my mind around the reality. I am person representing a company asking other people for a few million dollars. Weird right? “Hi I’m Zack, nice to meet you in person. How can I answer any questions, and when can you write me a multi-million dollar check?”

The peculiar part of working with such large sums of money is how comfortable I can be with it. This brings me to the challenging part, how does it relate to my relationship with Christ when I spend over 40 hours a week focused on money. It is my job and we are certainly called to do our jobs well, but when you think about not focusing on worldly things, money is one of the big ones. I’m not saying that I’m living in sin by having the job that I have; these are really just thoughts that happen to be flowing through my head. I could most likely chalk it up to trying to live a balanced life in a fallen world, but maybe I shouldn’t.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the day. Thanks for reading.

Big… Bodda Boom

Greetings to you good and faithful reader of my blog. I have not posted in over a month. I am ashamed and undoubtedly certain that the World Wide Web may have shed a tear in my absence. Where have I been? What have I been doing? Both good questions with somewhat non-profound answers. For the most part, I have been right here, doing much of the same thing I have been doing. The only different things I have done are, being sick for nearly 2 weeks and MAN WEEKEND. Being sick has kept me far from focusing on my computer aside from the work I had to do, and Man weekend kept all of my spare computer use time looking up ideas for explosives, and then making videos. I apologize for my lack of posts, but I dare say the wait was worth it. This post on the weekend manhood definition will most likely spit in the face of my past few posts and be awarded a medal for doing so.

The idea and planning for a man weekend began as a small glimmer of imagination, from the feeble minds of a few good friends. We thought perhaps we could pick a time in late spring for a large group of our friends to get together to celebrate that which every man longs to do… really stupid things. All we had to do was gather the people, pick a setting, and decide what we wanted to do. Gathering the people is surprisingly not an easy task. Picking a weekend that more than 10 people have free is nearly impossible at this stage in our lives, but we pulled off a solid 13 showing. The setting was easy, and deciding what to do what half the fun. We had some amazing food, solid poker (which I add I won both tournaments), good debates, sweet campfires, shooting, cannons, and explosives. Here is a video summing up a good portion of Man Weekend 09.




Upon my return from Man Weekend, I was alas able to tell some more people of the details, since we survived with no serious injuries. Though I questioned my judgment for a moment, I told my boss that I built a cannon from one of our products. Her immediate reaction: “tell me you have pictures.” I of course told her I had videos and she immediately stepped into my office to see the video of us firing the cannon. I also showed her the explosion from some propane tanks and another one of our products. She of course thought the videos were fantastic and exclaimed that I had to show our CFO. I showed the CFO who was thrilled and had me put it on a jump drive to mail out to some of our other offices. RIDICULOUS! I just sent around the video of the cannon, but have since made a video just for our company to enjoy with 2 cannon shots, and 2 explosions. I identified what product it was for everyone. I think they are all proud.

Man Weekend is officially here to stay. Everyone that was there wants to make it an annual event, and I suspect it will be easier to get an even larger group together next year. I’ve already got some calls about what we can do to improve the cannon for next year. The nice thing is, with all the enthusiasm at work, we might just get corporate sponsors for our next event.

Thanks for reading.

Miscellaneous

There has not been very much of writable stature that has crossed my path in the last couple weeks. Minor things to note, but that is about all. You will therefore get a post of assorted items, I’m sorry that is all you get.

For a while I got re-hooked on watching Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia… Fantastic. I know that show is the bottom line of morality, but that is what makes it so hysterical. I watched the entire 4th season in 3 days. Favorite moment: "Is it racist that I would rather eat this guy than that guy? I don’t think I can handle being a cannibal and racist."

A new hockey season started last week and an awesome game. We had a terrible goalie last season that would flip out every time we lost. He would yell at us and throw his gear against the wall in anger both on the rink and the locker room. He would get especially mad if the other team came from behind to beat us. After a series of tough losses, he vowed never to play for us again, and we were honestly happy about that. The first game of the new season, we were playing a very good team and they picked up our old goalie. The other team was beating us by 2 the entire game. Every time we scored a goal, the other team would immediately get one to reclaim the 2 goal lead. With 7 mins to go, my line mate and I scored 2 goals to tie, and then they scored 2 goals against us while I was on the bench to reclaim the lead. The next time I was out, my line mate and I scored 3 goals to take the lead, and the other line held the lead for the win. Not only was it great to come from behind, our old goalie was furious and was back to throwing stuff and yelling at his team. I must say, it was satisfying to redeem our team against our old goalie.

Weston is coming up on 5 months! Crazy how much that kid has grown. I am so excited for him to start crawling, walking, talking, and playing. I know I still have a way to go, but it is going to be so great to play with my son. He just started dabbling in some real food which is great because I get to feed him. Liz and I just took him to a park and gave a shot at putting him in a swing. It was much too big for him, but we made it work. He loves the outdoors, and I really hope it stays that way.

Work has finally started to calm down a little bit for me. For a couple weeks there I was working a lot of overtime and even doing a little bit of traveling. We got a lot of good work done, but I’m glad to get back to my normal work load. The extra hours may have been worth it though, because out of that I got a sweet new monitor for my office. I’m working with huge spreadsheets, so my boss worked for me a bit to get the approval, and now I am typing on a 24’’ HD monitor. This thing is fantastic! When I open a spreadsheet I can see columns A – AC and rows 1 – 50. As promised, here are some pictures of my office. I took them before I got the new monitor, so you will just have to imagine it.

From the Hallway.

The other side of my office and my white board.

My View.

And of course, my basketball hoop.

Believe, When I say…

Every afternoon I make a phone call

Listen to the voice that warms my heart

I drag myself through a few more hours

Then head on home to try and beat the dark

Her smile will be right there

when I step through that door

And it will be that way tomorrow,

just like everyday before

It's ordinary plain and simple

Typical, this everyday love

Same ol', same ol' keeping it new

Emotional, so familiar

Nothing about it too peculiar

Oh, but I can't get enough

Of this everyday love

What qualities should love possess to know that it is true and long lasting? This is a debatable subject, but I doubt anyone would argue this simple truth:

You know its love when:

• You are completely comfortable singing with each other,
  
• You are completely comfortable singing Backstreet Boys “I Want It That Way” with each other (and sounding pretty good I might add),
  
• You take turns on solo parts to let the other person have their fun,
  
• And most importantly: There is silence at the climax of the song when one of the guys sings really loud “Don’t Wanna Hear You Say…” because each of you were letting the other person have it.

Holy Moley!

First of all, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to spell Holy Moley, so I Googled it. The site I used my spelling from was http://en.wiktionary.org. This concerns me. I understand Wikipdia. There is a lot of stuff in this world and standard encyclopedia made by one group of people simply can’t come close to covering everything. People out there know stuff, and many times it is useful. Other times, it is not. Some people can get on there and make things up or simply be wrong. Because of this, you need to be careful. This is all understandable, but I don’t know about a dictionary version. I trust that one group of people, say Webster’s can put together a book of definitions and catch just about everything that should be in there. There are other slang dictionaries and such, again understandable, but could be put together by one group of people. I don’t want everyday common people to be able to make up words and change the definitions of words. Not cool! I’m thinking about adding vertichee, it is just a made up word that I think should be in the dictionary. Most of you may not know what that word means, but the few of you that do should hopefully be laughing.

So…. I haven’t bloged in nearly a third of my son’s lifetime…. That’s quite a while. I’ve wanted to, but other things just kept coming up. A number of things at home with being parents and such, but mainly, work has been very hectic. Lots of large, important projects with challenging deadlines. I’ve been working through some lunches and working late most days. I’m not complaining. I like being really busy. The days have gone by very fast. I got a lot of stuff wrapped up at the end of last week and this week, and my white board is finally close to clear. All of this hard work has paid off though. 2 weeks ago the CFO was walking around and decided that I should have an office. Awesome! I didn’t know if he was serious for a while until later he was talking with the HR director, then stopped by and told me to move my stuff. So now I am in an office. I have a door, a fairly large U shaped desk, chairs for others to sit in, a filing cabinet, and windows that go from floor to ceiling that run the entire width of my office. It is so nice to be able to look out the window and have my office filled with natural light. I have my basketball hoop up and even a dock for my Zune with speakers wired under my desk to be able to listen to music all day. It is absolutely great.

What has been interesting is the people that realize I now have an office and stopping by to say hi. Some of them are happy for me, and some are just jealous, and possibly even a bit angered. I’ve gotten everything from “look at you” to how did you get an office?” I just told them that I sucked up to the right people, which in part is true. I do confess that I feel a little bad. I am certainly young and early in my career to have an office. There are also others at work that work very very hard and probably deserve an office, but our office is split up into different departments and therefore has different space availability. I work for a small department and answer directly to the top officers of the company. There is one person who has always been very friendly to me who hasn’t said a word to me (other than responding to a work related question) since I moved. Oh well, I’m living it up in here for now. I’ll try to post some pictures sometime soon.

Thanks for reading.

All This Time, I Could Have Been Seein’ Things!

Have you ever regularly performed an action for a long period of time, and then suddenly realize there is a much easier way to accomplish it? I feel like this is something that happens to many people that use computers on a daily basis. You discover a short cut key, or a much faster way to do something. Especially in Excel as you find new formulas and quick ways to perform tasks. If you have read my blog, then you know I am a fairly advanced user of Excel, but recently I learned something that was so simple, I was embarrassed that I didn’t know about it. If you have a list with 1000 rows of data and you put in a formula in a new column, I used to put the formula in the top row, and drag the box on the bottom right of the cell down to copy to formula. The annoying thing is stopping at the right spot. The page scrolls down and you try to be careful not to scroll too fast, then you accidentally blow past the last row, then move back up, then down again until you eventually control the mouse well enough the end at row 1000. Instead of playing this game, you could just double click the box on the bottom right of the first cell with the formula and it will automatically copy to the bottom of the list. Brilliant! Finding that has time and again saved me significant hassle and time.

This applies in many other aspects of life. Perhaps you drive the same way to work every day, then one day find out there is a shortcut that is much faster and easier. Maybe you’ve never had the correct form in a sport or game, and if someone just showed you how to properly shoot a basket ball, swing a bat, etc. it would be so much easier. Think about somebody playing wii for the first time. They might swing the wiimote with all their might to hit a baseball, and you could get a better hit sitting on the couch and flicking your wrist. I’d make an argument that it is not as fun to do that, but it certainly is easier. There are even more basic things this applies to. Since I got my drivers license, when I got into the drivers seat of the car, I grabbed the seatbelt with my left hand, pulled it across my body and fully extended my arm reaching to find the receiving end of the seatbelt. If I have had a jacket on, it would be even more challenging. Recently, it just occurred to me to hand the seatbelt from my left hand to my right hand to click it in. I find the receiving end much faster and don’t have to contort my back in the process.

Reflecting on these things makes me wonder… What else in my life could be done differently making the task much easier and less time consuming. Maybe there is a much simpler and faster way to shave or brush my teeth that I never knew about. Maybe there is a trick I am missing to falling asleep at night and sleeping better. Maybe there is something so simple, so terribly obvious that I am missing that could vastly improve my life. Maybe I’ll be 60 years old, and have somebody mention to me, “you breathe funny,” and I find out that all my life I could have been breathing a different way that would have improved my lung capacity for exercise and provided more oxygen to my brain to make me more awake and allowed me to think clearer. Wouldn’t that be terrible to one day found out your life could have been much better?

At the gym, there are trainers you can hire to introduce you to new exercises and give you useful tips and tricks. I overhear trainers giving these tips all the time. “Good job, but if you make this small obvious adjustment, it is easier to lift this weight and will make the exercise more effective.” I try to listen in on these tips because there is a good chance that I am working much too hard to accomplish an exercise that isn’t actually benefiting me in any way. I think we should be able to hire these trainers to give us tips on our daily lives. What if you could hire a professional to spend every moment with you for a week and tell you as your going along how to make everything you do more effective? Hmm… interesting business idea. As Brian Regan puts it, “how could instantly improved vision not be at the top of your to do list?”

Thanks for reading.

Traveling

*Note: this was written last Friday, but I did not get a chance to post it.

I got to take a road trip today at work. Thus far it has been going fairly well. Though our company is headquartered in Mechanicsburg, the top executives work out of an office in Allentown. Typically, the CFO and controller spend 2 days a week in Mechanicsburg, but on special occasions, they summon some people to make the trip to Allentown. Today my boss and I are in there for a meeting. We came up early to add to get some other work done and make sure we were here on time which has left me some free time. Surprisingly, I have accomplished a great deal of work in the hour and a half I have been sitting across a conference table from my boss. She is in the meeting at the moment and I am starting to run out of things to do.

Driving up here got me thinking about some of the driving experiences in my life. Have you ever been in a high pressure driving situation because of the people you are riding with or following? I have been in a few in my time. I got a little nervous the first time I drove with the associate pastor of our church in Lock Haven. I was just taking on a leadership role and didn’t want to show I was reckless in any way. Even the first time I was driving with my mother-in-law in the car added a little bit of pressure. I didn’t want her to think her baby married some out of control guy based on his driving. Today went pretty well, though the pressure did cross my mind. I am escorting about my boss who is an officer of our company. It would be terrible if I made some kind of goofy turn or slammed on my breaks deciding whether or not to make a yellow light and she calmly mentioned “how about I drive?” Luckily, nothing like that happened. You even have to consider the speed of driving. You want to make good time on a business trip, but excessively speeding is bad news, especially if you got pulled over. I kept it pretty close to 10 over, and my boss seemed comfortable. She was working on her laptop the whole time, so comfort was important.

The main reason I bring up travel is to share 2 quick and fairly funny things I have seen on the road in the last week. There are many times I just don’t understand what people are thinking when the drive, but these instances are so odd that they deserve to be mentioned.

Number 1: The Bad Advice Lady. Yesterday while driving back to work on my lunch break, I came to a 3 way intersection with a light. My road was the non-dominate road and I got to the intersection just as it turned red, so I knew I would be there for a while. There was a long line of cars to the right and to the left and teenage boy standing on the corner to my left waiting to cross. The cars on my right got to go first because they had a green turn arrow onto my road. The kid saw that cars were turning his way and waited at the corner. When the arrow went away, the right side stayed green for going straight and the left side got a green light. It was at this moment that the kid decided to walk. It was the absolute correct time for him to go because he was going parallel to the green light traffic. The first car in the line of cars to my left was an older woman driving her brown Buick. She started moving just after the light turned green and nearly hit the kid crossing the road. He was walking at the correct time, and pedestrians always have the right of way anyway. Not only did this woman come close to severely injuring an innocent kid, she felt that it necessary to tell him that he was in the wrong. Despite the long line of cars and dangers of the intersection. She stopped right in the middle of everything, cranked down her window, and gave the kid a piece of her mind. I did not have time to get my window down to hear what she had to say, by I venture to guess it was something about his incompetence, blaming it on rap music, and told him to go home to his mother. I felt bad for the kid who did nothing wrong, and was very tempted to role down my window and give the lady some advice, most important of which was to get out of the intersection before she caused a wreck.

The 2nd story is even more surprising. Liz and I were on our way home from the movies last weekend. There has been a silly amount of construction on all the roads around the theater. The main road to the theater is normally 4 lanes, but has been reduced to 2 lanes on one side for a while, then 2 lanes on the other side, and now back to 4 lanes. There was a line of cars in the left turn lane waiting at the light, and I went up the right side. I got to the light and was looking to go right on red. There was a single car coming down the intersecting road, so I waited for it. The driver put on a turning signal; I waited until they started making the turn to be safe, then started to make my turn. While making my turn, Liz and I noticed the other turning vehicle taking the turn much wider than expected, and going surprisingly slow. I can understand their mistake. They didn’t know it had been reopened to 4 lanes, and they were looking to turn into the slot as if it was still 2 lanes which put them facing oncoming traffic in “their right lane” which was actually our left turning lane. I understand the mistake and the slow driving due to confusion, but here is what I don’t understand, the car kept moving! There was no speeding up, slowing down, or turning off the projected path, just slow constant speed head first into a car that had been sitting at the red light for some time with headlights on in the evening and honking their horn! We were completely amazed at the spectacle we just saw. Using my deductive reasoning, I suggest this happened: the driver was confused and slowed down to the pace her car drove when not applying pressure to the break or accelerator. At the moment the driver realized they were in the wrong lane, they panicked and froze. Being froze, they made no effort to prevent what was about to happen, they just sat there in shock for a few seconds as their car ran head first into a parked car. I can think of no other reasonable solution, though it is entirely possible that the driver thought they were right and the cars waiting at the light were wrong. Liz and I didn’t stick around to listen to the conversation following the accident, but I imagine it was unpleasant.

Time to get back to work. Thanks for reading.

A Post To Pass Things Along

I don’t really have much to talk about today. I’ve been wanting to post all week, not because of anything specific going on, I just knew it had been too long since the last post and I was tired of seeing the same heading anytime I happened upon my own blog.

I’ve been fairly busy at work for the past couple weeks giving me much less free time on my computer. Even if I had some free time, I didn’t think I had any blog worthy writing. Instead of writing out a full post, I shall make a brief list of things going on.

I’ve been working out quite a bit and making good progress in the distance and speed that I am running. I have also been lifting, and noticing some progess there. These are all good things, except my weight has not changed at all. That is just frustrating. Hopefully I can keep progressing and my body will actually react.

I am planning a Man’s Weekend and it is going to be amazing. I’m really hoping we can 12-15 guys to join in for a trip to my cabin to blow some stuff up and do some other really dumb man things.

It is time to start doing taxes! I am a nerd, and that has already been defined. Because of my nerdocity, I actually look forward to tax time. I already know to the penny how much money I made / contributed to 401k / paid for benefits / paid for taxes. Now I get to show the government those numbers and make them give me back the money I overpaid. Good times.

Finally, I bought a new computer. Yes, in these tough economic times I a swimming in new items with the zune, grill, and computer. I’m doing my part to boost this economy, why aren’t you? Anyway, this computer is amazing. I did a ton of research and waited patiently for the right deal. It all came down to a decision between 2 models of the same computer that were on sale. There was a $200 difference, but a significant processing power difference. With all the video encoding I do, I opted for the speed and celebrate that decision every day I look at the computer. I am converting files and making dvd’s like a mad man. I am also greatly enjoying Windows Vista and all the other features of the new computer. Here is a picture.

It is a Lenovo Y530. This puppy is blazingly fast with it s 2.2 ghz 8400 processor, 4gb of ram, and other features. Aside from being able to covert a movie in about 30 mins (work computer would take 2 hours, house computer would take 8 hours) I downloaded a video file last night and hit 1.8MB per second! I downloaded an office episode in like 4 mins. I was drooling as I watched to bar go across the screen.

That is what is going on with me in a nutshell. Thank you for reading.

Please Do Not Read

Before you venture down this path, I ask you to heed the warning of the title of this post. Should you choose to continue, then you walk that line at your own risk. I ask you please not to pass judgment on me for I am about to use my blog, which has served as an outlet to relay my thoughts and my life to all the world, for the silly and useless purpose of cursing the weather.

I know that is ridiculous because it is something I have no control over, and there is nothing to do to make it better. I know I should just deal with it and it may even be sinful to shake my fist at the climatic circumstance that God has chosen for me to be in. None the less, I bite my thumb at thee Weather. Honestly, what the heck!?

If you are still reading this, then you must really care about me since this is a significant waste of both your time and of mine. On the other hand, maybe you care about me, but not enough to take my advice in the title seriously. That is an odd thing to ponder. I am just going to assume that if you have read this far, you have also read much of my blog and therefore must care about me. If that is the case, then you probably know that I like snow. I am not so crazy about snow that I want to move further North and get blasted by snow on a weekly basis throughout a long and cold winter, but I great appreciate 5 – 7 significant snow falls a year. When it is snowing, I get excited. I love to sit and watch the snowfall. When it is dark outside, I step away from what I am doing once every 20 mins or so just to flick on a light and see how much as accumulated, how hard it is snowing and simply admire the event for a moment. Beyond watching it, I like playing in it. Even in college I would suit up and make some homemade sled and go out and play, or jump in my truck because I love the fun of driving in snow.

Here is the problem with all of that…. I submit that there has not been a truly decent snowfall in the location that I living since December of 2005. There is one small exception last winter when we got 2-3 inches and Liz and I attempted to go sledding. Beyond that, crap, pure unadulterated crap! My frustration has been building for over 3 years, and it is time to come out. I remember in November and December of 2005 when we got 2 good snow falls in Lock Haven and a few friends piled in the back of my pick up and ventured over to a huge parking lot where we strapped a rope and crappy circular sled to my bumper and pulled people around for the time of their lives. It was crazy and fun and I loved it so much that I asked for snow tubes for Christmas. My parents pulled through and I got 2 adult sized extra strength snow tubes and I could not wait for the good snowfalls I expected to hit us in the beginning of 2006. Every time the weatherman predicted some snow might hit, I waited by the window with eager anticipation only to have my spirits crushed by a measly 1-2 inches. The winter passed by and the snow tubes remained in their original packaging. The frustration had starting building then, but I was able to put it aside until the next year.

Unfortunately both snow tubes popped while using them to travel down the Yellow Breeches a few times over that summer. When winter hit again, all I could hope was for a good snow before mid December since I was going to be leaving Lock Haven and the people that originally joined me for those wonderful days in late 2005. Alas, the frustration mounted even more as we got jack by the start of 2007. By then, I thought the frustration would go away. I started working and wouldn’t be able to enjoy snow days anyway, but then things took a terrible turn for the worse as a new age came upon us: “The Season of Ice.” Seriously, what is going on with this ice malarkey? From Jan of 2007 to March 2008 I have only seen light dustings and freezing rain. In that time period I completely obliterated 3 scrappers trying to pound my way trough the ice that was mounted on my car. I got a little more frustrated because I missed snow, but even more so at the hours, yes hours I spent chipping away at ice on my car in the 3-4 ice storms we got in that time frame. The only glimpse of joy I got during that time was the one snowfall that we got 2-3 inches of snow followed by enough freezing rain to harden the snow to the point that I could jump on it and not fall through. That was some crazy fun sledding. By this time my frustrations were starting to become vocal to the poor people that accompanied me in those harsh times.

This winter has been the last straw. It has been a little different than before, instead of small dustings OR freezing rain, we have only got some small dustings followed by freezing rain followed by rain. I have no idea what is going on, but there has been 3 separate times this winter that I have had to work hard to chip away ice on my car in the rain. I doubt anyone would disagree, that is the worth weather imaginable. 32 degrees and raining? With ice on everything? Just awful. I can’t take it any more. I am giving Mechanicsburg one more winter, and then I am out of here! I had so much hope for this last snow fall. The weathermen, if they can actually call themselves that, predicted “significant snowfall.” The next day they said 3-5 inches, but it will most likely turn to freezing rain. Finally, the eve of the storm brought the correct prediction, 2-3 inches, then freezing rain, then just rain. Why is it raining in Pennsylvania in the dead of winter?? I don’t understand, but I am frustrated! I think other people are too because I kid you not, I saw kids sledding through this painfully icy mess IN THE RAIN. Kids are so desperate to play in snow that they will put aside reasonable thinking to slide around on ice in the rain. My friends have been planning of a ski weekend this weekend for the last 2 months. We are still going to go, but this weather has tried to stop us. Ski resorts around here are so desperate that they have resorted to making their own snow that covers the entire mountain. They used to make snow to help the popular areas of the slope not get too icy and stay open, now they have to make snow for every place on the mountain because we don’t get any natural snow anymore. Then after they spend all this effort making fake snow, the weather goes and rains on top to make the conditions terrible. We would have been better off getting nothing over this crap we got this week. GHA!!

Ok, I am done. That was much longer than I thought it would be. I’m sorry if you did indeed waste your time reading all of that complaining. I think I feel a little better having that all out. I can now move on with my life and hope for a darker snowier future.

Arrgh! Hear The Man-Cries of Zackery

Upon this Christmas past, I have acquired through gracious gift by the ones who bore me, a possession of such great magnitude that it will take me much more than one full sentence to introduce. This gargantuan item is so magnificent that I would venture to say it has expanded my manhood by a great multiple. In fact, this item has induced such levels of testosterone that I ensure you the very hairs upon my chest have grown to a richness known only to the likes of David Hasselhoff and others of his enormity.

Yes ladies and gentleman. I have obtained…. A Man’s Grill!

I have at last ventured away from my pubescent state of before, and shot forward in a blaze of glory to manhood. I must warn you before scrolling down to feast your eyes upon this object of splendor that you should back away from your computer screen, as the picture may educe salivation or possibly even seizures.

You must also know that this picture does not fully do it justice. For this grill stands taller than a man. It has 4 glorious tube burners heating below a field of porcelain coated cast iron grates. It has such depth that it could surely cook a slain wild boar whole. It is accompanied by a side burner, table, drink shelf, and even a bottle opener. This puppy can burn at 40,000 BTUs and will straight up kick you in the crotch with awesomeness.

So at last, here it is.

Drink in its majesty.

I have been required on more than one occasion since its installation to call the authorities to clear out the crowd of people that have gathered to kneel before it and lay herbs and spices at its legs. If you feel the driving need to come and visit it to experience its magnificence, then please, come. You are all invited to revel in its grilled goodness.

Listen, Calm Down, I Am Back

It has been over a month since I last posted. I know that is normally shameful, but I have a good excuse…

… and look how cute that excuse is.

Yea… I’m a father. Crazy isn’t it? There were a number of times in the last month that I thought about posting, but then found myself a little too busy caring for my son, changing diapers, making food, and spending time with all the many visitors and family we saw over the holidays. Not to mention I was basically off work for 3 weeks, and I rarely look at a computer when I’m not at work. So please forgive me. Now I am back to blogging. I started to write this post about a week ago, and then it got pushed off by madness at work. We are in the midst of closing the books for 2008 which has everyone working a bit harder than normal and a bit longer. Thankfully I can now say that our book have closed, though the closing was pushed back 2 full days on account of insurance numbers that was on me to provide. We were doing reconciliation after reconciliation to have the numbers work out correctly, and then we were waiting for some data from our brokers.

I’m sure the reader doesn’t necessarily care about that work information, but HAH! You’ve already read it… It’s too late to take it back. I’m just going to have to assume that you did care.

Moving on. Life has been going pretty well. I am enjoying fatherhood. Weston will be 1 month old tomorrow, wow did that month go by fast. He is starting to get more interactive which is nice. Every couple of days something new would happen that would make his parents proud. Right in the beginning he was able to lift his head (though it would flop right back down), then his eyes were open more often, then he would try to suck his thumb but get frustrated because he couldn’t figure out how to separate his thumb from the rest of his hand. Those little excitements led to him putting himself in some funny positions. One day, not kidding, he was sleeping and raised his arm straight in the air and held it for about 30 seconds. Liz and I were astonished and asked “Weston, do you have a question?” Then there were other times when he would ball up his fist and put it to his chin between his thumb and pointer finger and looked like he was pondering some intense thought. Liz and I can tell that he is going to be smart. Soon after that he started looking at people instead of staring off to no where and being able to control his head a bit more. We also think he is strong and will more than likely start walking before he can talk. We have tried to put him on his stomach on the floor to see if he tries to move around, and he works with all of his might to move. One time, to our amazement, he nearly pulled off a pushup. This is quite impressive since I’m not sure if I could pull off a pushup at this time. He had his arms just about straight and only one small part of his body touching the floor. I guess you would consider it as more of a “girl” pushup (sorry if that is an offensive term, not sure what else to call it). All in all, fatherhood has been very excited. Granted, there are some nights that we weren’t able to get a lot of sleep, but that is to be expected.

Beside Weston, not a whole lot is going on. I had a great vacation from work that was enjoyable. I don’t wish that it was longer, I just wish I was home for a bit more of it. We spent a whole lot of time with family, or with people visiting, and I missed having some time to myself on the only time off I took all year. Actually, by the end of the time off, I was ready to go back to work. I was happy to discover that as it meant that I do like my job. Since I’ve been back, work has been very busy, but that is a good thing. I do have a couple of blog post ideas for the very near future, so I don’t want to get too much into other things going on. Don’t get too excited, it isn’t much. As a side note, Liz and I finished watching the series of West Wing for the 2nd time through. I really appreciate that show. We are now watching Alias and are into the 2nd season. I know the hard hitting female hero may be a bit against my normal viewing pleasure, but the show is pretty good. I always knew I would watch it since Liz really likes it. We just had to wait to get the 1st season on DVD as a gift. Liz already owned the 2nd-5th seasons. We also got sports night on DVD. I am greatly looking forward to that when we are done with Alias.

Finally, Dan Kenyon got married. It was a great celebration and I am very glad that I was able to go. I don’t have time at the moment to get into the fun of that day, but I do have this great picture of all the Boiling Springs friends that I had to share.

Thank you for reading.