This is really the first year where I (mostly) kept up with and tracked my previous resolutions.  Here are my final thoughts about 2009’s resolutions:

• Daily Devotional – This had its ups and downs throughout the year and ended more down than up so I can only give myself a ‘C’ for this (as you can tell, I am MUCH more honest about my grading myself than Obama is).
• Weight Loss – My goal for the year was 190, and I ended up the year at 182.  This gets the ‘A’.
• Regular Blogging – I took the summer off from bowling and blogging and had a rough time getting back into it in the fall.  I’ll give myself the ‘B+’.

This year, while I will work to maintain my weight, I don’t have any specific loss goals or resolutions.  As far as blogging, I’m taking the same approach.  I’ll try to post fairly regularly, but don’t really have any targets or goals.  This year, I have one resolution; something I’ve never tried before and there isn’t any grading except for pass/fail… read the Holy Bible in a year.  I’ve found a schedule that has me read it through in book order which I felt was important for my first attempt.  Today I will start with the first 3 chapters of Genesis.  I have always tended toward the New International Version of the Bible and plan to use that for my first go through.

To keep myself held accountable, I will continue to give updates through this blog of my status and any setbacks I may encounter.

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful 2010.  Our country especially has a lot of trials coming up with our government set on taking away our freedoms and liberties right in front of our eyes.  I have hesitated on turning this into a primarily political blog, but expect more political commentary and insight as it suits the times.

I had run some tests a while back of burning WMA discs to use in our mini-van and they worked well.  Now that we are about to go on a trip and I have completed ripping all of our CD’s I wanted to burn the WMA files to discs to take on the trip.  Great idea but one issue: the brand of CD-R I bought don’t match those I tested with…

I have long heard that different media can have trouble in different players, but I really thought we would be past those days.  Apparently not.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to for this trip or not, but in order to try again, I’ll have to buy a different brand (preferably those that tested well before).  I’ve gone through 5 discs burning different ways to get a playable one without success.  I’ve been using the same burner so I know that isn’t the issue.

If I do go buy another set, I’ll let you all know how that plays out.

UPDATE:  Now we’re trying plan ‘B’… using our MP3 players instead.  This had some drawbacks as over time and moves I had lost the AC charger for my MP3 player and we can’t find the USB cable to charge/transfer on Kylah’s iPod.  We also didn’t have just a straight through stereo cable to plug into the AUX jack in the van.  Luckily, Fry’s Electronics is the best store ever!  I was able to get a new charger/transfer cable for the iPod, a universal AC adapter with the proper connection for my MP3 player and the straight through cable.

I’m currently charging my MP3 player and have downloaded our entire music collection to it.  After the charge is complete, I’ll test it out in the car and hopefully we’ll be good to go.

First, let me apologize for my lack in posting this season.  There really isn’t any excuse other than my time was being used in other ways (more on that a bit later).  I hope to be back to regular posting for the rest of this season.

Last night was finally a consistent, solid night.  Earlier in the year, I had  a 299 and finished with a 716 series for my best overall series.  Since then, however, I had been seeing more red than green and my average had trailed from a 198 to a 194.  Still so far my best average in a league, but short of my 200 goal I have for this season.

Last night, I shot a 201, 235, 203 for a 639 series and my first night where all games were above 200.  That was a pleasant feeling.  Of course, I needed to strike out the last 5 shots on the 3rd game to keep that alive, but was able to pull it off.  If you want to take a look at my stats for this league, you can click here.

Now for one of the reasons for the lack of posting.  A couple of years ago, I wrote a program to keep track of all of my leagues and scores and those of my teammates as well.  It worked well for the most part and I was happy with it since it was my first time trying to develop an entire application.  While it did work, there were areas for improvement and I decided if I was going to work on it again, I should try to get it to a point where I can make it available to people.  So I spent my free hours on weekend evenings redesigning and coding from scratch bowlingSTATS, along with all the help files and registration information needed to make it public.  It is available freely to download, and is fully functional for entering up to 8 weeks worth of scores; after that, registration is required.  Please check it out and let me know what you think.  Any feedback is welcome.

I know this is getting to be a lengthy post, but if you’re still with me I’ll give a quick resolution update:

• Bowling Blog – D, this is only the second week of 13 where I’ve posted any notes at all.  My apologies.
• Devotional – B, I’m reading most of the passages most days, but do tend to rush through instead of taking the necessary time to reflect.  This has still been my best year for doing a devotional, but better habits are still needed.
• Weight Loss – A+, I’m currently settled in around 185 and am very happy.  I have exceeded my goal of 190 for the year.  I don’t have any immediate goals right now, but for next year may want to add some weight training to build overall strength.

Have a great day and I hope everyone had as wonderful a Thanksgiving as I did.  Take care!

After a summer hiatus, bowling starts for me again tonight.  The season technically started last week but I was on vacation so I missed it.  My goal for this league is a lofty 200 average.  This will be tough especially considering that I only bowled twice all summer (had planned to continue to bowl practice regularly, but it didn’t pan out that way).  We’ll see how rusty I am after tonight.

As for the rest of my resolutions for this year… I’ve hit the weight goal of 190 so I’m really excited about that.  The summer has seen a bit of a drop in the devotionals, especially during vacation so still some room to improve.

Take care and you can expect more regular posting to start up again!

Anecdote 1:

Early last week, I received my league bowling money; which was a fairly decent payout with my 300 game and good sweeper weeks.  We decided to purchase a patio set with some/all of the money depending on how it worked out.  We went to Kmart and found one that we really liked.  I went up to purchase and got rang up.  After nearly 20 minutes, they come out with the chairs but say they are out of the table.  They call around to other stores and find one that has one in stock.  This was after the Kmart associate was on hold for 15 minutes with the another store.  It was about 30 minutes away, and we decided to make the drive even though it was already passed C-man’s bed time.

I get to the store and they inform me that yes, they have the table, but that it is on lay away for another customer.  I ask for my money back and they say they can refund the chairs but not the table since I don’t physically have it.  Furthermore, they state that the other store should have refunded my money for the table before I left (which begs the question of what would have happened if they did have the table available to me, would I have had to pay again?).  So, we drive back to the original store… another 30 minutes.

When I get back, I demand to talk to a manager who agrees to refund all the money, corraborates the story of the other store stating that I should have been refunded there and offers me a whopping $5 gift card, to help cover the gas.  How nice… we won’t be going back to that Kmart ever again (and preferrably not to Kmart at all).

Anecdote 2:

On Sunday, while watching golf, I decided to take a few practice swings trying something new in my living room… yes something bad was bound to happen and I’d be up for a Darwin Award if I had in fact lost my life.  I made sure I was clear of all furniture and things were ok… until I forgot about the ceiling fan.  A few swings were fine and then all of the sudden, crash, chink, oh crap!  Two of the glass bowls that surround the lights broke.  I own up to it and expect to buy a new fan.  We really like the fan in the family room and I knew it was from Lowe’s even though it was here when we got the house.

I e-mailed Lowe’s and got a response back saying they can probably help me if I get them the model number and the store I would most likely work with.  On Wednesday, we got a call from our local Lowe’s stating that they could order two new glass bowls for $14.50 each.  I just need to come in to order the bowls and they’d call me back when they came in.

Today, I went in and asked for the associate that had called.  The manager (although I didn’t know he was the manager at the time) told me he was off but we could work with someone else in the department to get it ordered.  I was able to point out which glass it was even though they didn’t have the estimate in the system as I hadn’t come in before.  They also had two of the later model of the fan in a shopping cart next to the desk; either they had been returned, or the original associate had used it to get the part for the bowl on my behalf.  I’m not sure which.

The manager quietly told the electrical representative to just get two bowls out and give them to me and they would worry about re-ordering if they need to later on.  As he gave them to me, I stressed that I was willing to pay and they told me no and told me that if I had trouble leaving to say that Eric (the manager) gave them to me.  I had no trouble leaving.  I’ve given that Lowe’s quite a bit of business in general (but they didn’t know that) and they really impressed me.

Such a contrast… one store that truly wasted my time was willing to give me a spit in the face (really, what can you get for $5, they want you to spend more)… the other, which had done nothing wrong at all, really took care of me.

A little customer service can go a long way… Lowe’s gets an A+ in my book!

• Daily Devotional – I don’t think I missed a day this month, but did have to do two one day to catch up for a missed Sunday.  I still rushed on a few, but overall this is becoming a part of my daily routine.
• Bowling – The blog was consistent and the 300 game trumps all.
• Weight – Came in at 202.4 this morning, so no real loss.  I’ve been pretty good with the Wii Fit but have found a number of limitations.  I’d like to have a more structured workout so I need to look into other inexpensive options.

This month, I’ll give myself a B+.  Since I didn’t lose any weight this month, or reach my goal of 200 I can’t give myself the A quite yet.

The gifts ranged from $8 million at Purdue to $1.5 million donated to the University of North Carolina at Asheville. The University of Iowa received $7 million; the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Maryland University College got $6 million each; the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was given $5.5 million; and Penn State-Harrisburg received $3 million.

I wanted to give it all to Purdue but was afraid that you’d all catch on too quickly.  I just had an extra $45M lying around and said, what the heck, let’s give it to some schools. Of course the article mentions that they weren’t supposed to try and find the donor (me, of course) but aren’t they trying to find me by running the article to begin with.  It appears Purdue was one to actually keep its promise by not submitting comments for this article.

I have half a mind to ask for that money back, but it was so hard to arrange anonymously the first time, that getting it back would probably prove way too difficult.  Just remember universities, say nothing more!

NOTE: THIS IS JUST A JOKE, I AM NOT THE DONOR.  How sad is that; most people can’t take a joke so to be safe, I’m adding this kind of qualifier?

I have worn contacts on and off (mostly off lately) since I was in 6th grade.  When I wear them, I’ve never had any real problem with them and my eyes tend to take to them fairly well.  The only issue as I’ve gotten older is the lack in desire to put them in and take them out each day.  It’s hard to put my finger in my eye around 5:00 am.

I had heard about extended wear contacts but had never inquired about them with my eye doctor.  My yearly exam was yesterday so I thought I’d ask.  He told me my current lenses were approved for extended wear and told me to wear them for a week, take a break overnight, and then wear them for another week before throwing them away.  I can sleep in them and everything.

Excited, I put in a new pair yesterday and am seeing how this works out.  For the first time, I slept overnight in my contacts.  It was a bit strange.  When I woke up in the middle of the night, I could see; and this morning could see the alarm clock time without squinting.  So far, other than my eyes feeling a little dry periodically (I’ll pick up some drops the next time I’m at the store as it isn’t a major issue at this point) I’m liking it. Of course, it will take a few weeks to really determine if this will work for me.

As part of our goal to get healthier and lose weight, both Kylah and I had wanted to find something we could do to have a more steady workout.  We thought about a gym membership but that isn’t overly feasible since we’d have to go at different times in order to watch Connor.  I have my bowling but that is only once a week and while helpful, isn’t the best way to really help get in shape.  We wanted something we could do together, at home, and not too expensive.

Enter the Wii Fit.  After a couple of weeks of looking for one and stores sold out, we finally got one yesterday.  The process starts with analyzing your balance and taking your weight to calculate your BMI.  From there, you can set a goal; and start your training in four different areas.  Yoga, which helps with stretching and breathing; Strength, nothing with weights, rather using the Wii Board and your body; Aerobics, get that heart rate pumping; and Balance, exercises to help improve posture and coordination.

After we both got our first body analysis, we went through some of the exercises.  It was actually quite a workout and fairly difficult.  The board is very sensitive so maintaining good form throughout is essential and tricky.  There is a bit of a learning curve, but we like what we see so far.  We finished up doing a two person run which really got our heart rates up.  Our plan is to each do a workout on the Wii every evening after we put Connor to bed and before we relax/watch TV for the evening.

Nintendo has really stretched the limits with their Wii console.  They came up with ideas that are so nice and fresh to help get people active while playing video games.  I’m quite impressed with a lot of the things they are coming up with.