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Camping Trip
Spring is here in Texas, and it's a great time to be outside, so we're going on a camping trip! The location is some private property just outside of Austin, that a friend of mine has hooked us up with. The property is setup like a campground and several people live there, so we'll be guests on the property. Water and electricity are provided, and the rest is up to us. So to prepare we picked up a new tent, a very sturdy cover for dining, and tiki torches, and a few other odds and ends. I also bought a turkey fryer. Now it's useful for several things. First off it's the ideal stove for brewing beer, because you can do it outside and make a mess rather than brewing in the kitchen and having a lot of cleanup to do. Second the turkey fryer comes with a 30 quart pot, that's 7.5 gallons. If you have checked out any of my beer recipes, they are all for 5 gallon batches, that that is pretty standard, but up until now I have been using two 12 quart pots and combining them at the end. Now I can use a single pot without having to split and combine at all. Third since the cooker part of the kit uses propane it can also double as a camping stove. So we can have a fire to cook over, but also will have a nice propane burner. I also started a batch of pilsner which is now fermenting at a cool 55F, and I hope that it will come along camping with us.
Weight Loss
So about a week ago I went looking for a very good weight loss article that I read a couple of years ago, and I came upon
The Hacker's Diet Online. I have since setup accounts for both myself and Abisha, and we have started weighing in daily to track our progress. My goal is 180, and Abisha's is 140. I have a lot further to go than Abisha, but we're both progressing very well so far. I believe one of the factors that helps so much is the correct feedback that the statistics package on the sites generates. It uses a moving daily average to compute your current weight, and uses all data available to calculate this number. This results in a smoothed out chart showing your weight instead of an up and down chart as explained in the book. We have also started giving the daily work-outs a go, and decided to take the weekend off, but will start back on the routine today. The workout is 15 minutes a day, and gets harder as you improve, so you can start at a beginner's level, and work your way up in only 15 minutes a day, no equipment required (unless you want a mat on the floor), and the only space required is enough space to lay down.
New Update
So, it's been a while since I posted an update, but it's time now since I have quite a lot of big news to share. First off Friday was Abisha's last day as a full-time employee, and next Monday will be her first day as a full time student for the summer session. That's because Abisha is going back to school full time to work on her Human Resources Management degree. That's the first big thing. The second big thing is even better, if it can get better. We're buying a new place, and fixing up my current townhouse to sell it. We're going to have it listed up for sale by the end of the month to cash in on the excellent real-estate market right now. Since I started watching homes prices in the Houston area, I have seen foreclosure's rolling in day after day. I have seen homes drop in prices by more than 10%. The housing market is definitely a buyer's market. I'm hoping that my townhouse will sell despite the current market since it is an entry level property that is affordable for almost anyone making a decent salary. After all that we can move up to a nice 3 or 4 bedroom house. So this weekend the fun started, kicked off by replacing our toilet, and re-tiling the bathroom. Since Abisha is off today, and my parents came to help out, I expect I'll come home to a finished bathroom floor today, and we'll move on to the kitchen next. I'm also out to take on a number of other projects with the house before we put it up for sale. We'll be doing plenty of painting, which will mostly take place after my parents have gone. We found out that the cabinets have all but fallen apart in some places so we'll be replacing the cabinets. We'll be tiling all of the downstairs. We moved out a good amount of our stuff this weekend, including my home PC, and all of my gaming stuff. The front door only opens to about 30 degrees because the tile behind it was not laid flat. I'm thinking we'd be best off replacing that tile. We'll be getting the upstairs recarpeted. There are a couple of window and sliding screens that need to be replaced, and we'll be installing a new kitchen sink and counter-tops. There is also a wall that I'd like to take a piece out of to open up the kitchen. We have a new microwave hood to install over the oven. Many many things to do, so I'll be very busy working away at it all during the evenings and weekends, and then hopefully our place will sell quickly, and we'll get to go house shopping.
Movie Review: Terminator Salvation
Let me cut right to the chase and just tell you up front this movie is pure crap. It is the most manufactured, cheezy movie that I have seen lately. Let me tell you why.
1. The original Terminator was well thought out. It was a great action film, but what made it a really great film for me was that it made sense. The best movies are those that introduce an element of fiction into reality, and continue to play within those rules of reality. Terminator did a beautiful job of this. The last release here, fell far far short of living up the the previous movies, and it does not even deserve to carry the name Terminator. Skynet is out to kill John Connor by any means possible, so when his father is processed into Skynet's holding facility. The #1 priority should have been to terminate him immediately. The movie should have ended at that point, since without Reese to travel back in time, John Connor can't exist, and the Terminators have altered the time line and invalidated everything we've seen up to this point.
2. Terminators are perfect killing machines. They are programmed with the best killing techniques and knowledge of human anatomy. So why can't a T-600 impale someone who is holding still from behind through the heart to kill them? Again this movie just threw away all of the previous work that had been put into the series to produce a crap movie and make a quick buck off of fans.
3. Where the hell did Dr. Serena Kogan come from? This was the character played by Helena Bonham Carter. This character was introduced out of nowhere, and when Skynet uses her to represent itself, it's a huge let down, and just looks like a rip-off of the borg queen from Star Trek. A really badly done rip-off.
4. Did they bother to use any of the awesome material done in Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles? No of course not, this is a stupid hollywood film. This series was excellent, and well ahead of it's time, so much so that the short-sighted execs at Fox dropped it.
So overall the movie gets 0 out of 5 from me. It has no redeeming qualities. Even the use of Arnold as the T-600 was cheezy and horribly done. Do no go see this movie. You will regret it.
Not so fast
Well my excitement is dead, as we now know there will be no baby come September. Over the weekend things went wrong, and Abisha had a miscarriage. She is now on her way to recovery, and things are going well so far. All the doctors have been very nice, and explained that this is a very common thing, and we should not worry about it, although it's hard not to think that there isn't something we could have done(or not done) to prevent this. It may be for the best right now, as Abisha has settled on going into Human Resources, and is enrolling for the summer semester at HCCS, and will likely be doing the Human Resources Management program at SHSU after she has the first two years of credits out of the way. This also means the financial pressure has dropped a little, and I'm not so concerned about living expenses while Abisha is going to school. I am very excited about remodelling our condo this summer, and looking forward to it all. We're also planning our visit to Abisha's cousin Brittney for her 21st birthday, that should be a good time. Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures and post them if everyone behaves. We're also thinking about Six Flags since Abisha won't have to sit out the rides anymore.
Wedding come and gone
So if you haven't kept up with me, you probably want to go over to my wedding blog and check out the pictures. Our wedding was on Feb 12th, 2009 in Loscoe, Derbyshire, UK. It was a beautiful day, and it started to snow just as our service ended. The reception was wonderful, and after our honeymoon in Europe, we had a second reception in Houston on Feb 28th, 2009 for our friends and family who did not get to travel with us. We are so grateful for all the love and support of family and friends, and I hope that your generosity is repaid in kind.
Our wedding blog
