Okay so today in my browsing about frenzy of ADD I came across many things. An article in the Star Tribune online today about Google Maps (which I guess is now called Google Local), which then brought me to Google Mobile, which then has brought me to Google Groups to which brought me to Google Calendar which is now out.
Now a few weeks ago a friend of mine had sent me an invite to Google Mail, after I asked him to. I decided I would give Google Mail a try because all of the hip kids were using it. Honestly I wanted to check it out in hopes of having another email address and just to see what it was like. Well it is a nice program for online email, leagues ahead of Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. But what is it's use for me? I use Mail.app, which is the Mail program that comes with the Mac, and we have a .Mac subscription. Well I have emailed a few items with Gmail (as it is referred to in the biz), and it is nice. Now that Google Calendar is out there and I have discovered these Google Mash-ups, as well I recently found Google Finance. I might become a Google man....only time will tell.

Well my latest thing is I should get back to blogging but
#1: it has been quite difficult to write everyday
#2: my blog is not the most aesthetically pleasing but hey I never made any claims to be a graphic designer I leave that to the pros.
#3: I just finished school so I should (and I am dear....that is for my wife to not worry about what I am doing) looking for jobs
#4: I should be working on my novel instead of worrying about writing in a blog everyday


Well anyways I sit here tonight writing this after being totally obsessed with the Mac the past two days, and my imagination has been running wild with possibilities. Then those dreams are smashed buy the prices of software and the applicability in my life.

Biased or reporting what they can?

I got TASER'ed at school today. Check it out. There is NSFW language so be warned.

Okay, so maybe I was a little premature in saying "tomorrow is a new day" in my last entry - it would appear that we fell into the "it's the holidays, we can eat whatever we want!" cycle. We completely ignored our new scale following our "moment of truth" until the first of the year. On that day we once again stepped up to see where we would be starting at in 2006. I will not lie to you, I was horrified to learn that I was up to 170!!! Granted, we had just eaten out for both lunch and dinner (lunch being a buffet!) so I was carrying even more than usual, but I can't blame it all on the food! Ugh. Russ was also up, though not as much as me - 205.2lbs. Starting January 2nd I was officially back on the diet, counting religiously and making healthy meals AT HOME. We also started working out in the mornings again, and will be participating in an online journaling program set up by our friend David Hemenway called Body Revolution. It is a 12 week program aimed at helping people work together to achieve workout and weight loss goals. I'll include a link to the site once it is up and running - today is day one of the 12 weeks. We decided that Sunday nights will be our weigh in night, so last night we once again stepped on the dreaded scale. After a week of being back on the diet and working out I am THRILLED to report that I was down to 164.2!!! Woo-hoo!!! Hot DAMN this Weight Watchers thing WORKS! The working out doesn't hurt either. ;-) Russ was also down, he weighed in at 202.4. Yeah baby! Thanks for checking in - talk at you later!

I am jazzed up because my finally semester of schooling starts next week. It should only last until about mid to end March (I know but I am not looking the exact date up right now). For 5 days a week from 8am-5pm I will be fully engrossed in classes so time should fly. Now if I could only get a job so as soon as I was done with the POST test I would be working...

On Wednesday December 21st, 2005 at 4:32pm my sister Cassandra gave birth to a new addition to the Schlick's. Chayce Trenten Schlick was born. Go here to see pictures of the little guy.

Alright cats and kittens - we have our digital scale and we are ready to start giving this WW at Home thing a try. We had our moment of truth tonight and stepped on our new scale for the first time. I have to admit I was really nervous because I have NOT been watching what I eat nor have I been working out - my pants starting to feel a little tighter and I started to imagine I could even see myself looking chubbier! Stepped up and...165.6. So YES I have put some weight back on, but I am still 22.8 down from where I was when I first stepped up on the scale at Weight Watchers! Russell also stepped up, and he is at 203 - still 13.4 down from when he first weighed in at WW! Tomorrow is a new day my friends.

Okay Weight Watchers fans.  Here is the deal.  We are poor.  Okay, we’re not actually poor (“on a budget” might be a better way of putting it), but we have come to the realization that we can’t really afford to shell out $100 each month ($23.90 each week for the two of us) to find out how fat we are!  So here is the new plan (and we may eventually return to WW when we have more fundage, but for now we have had to say our goodbyes).  I am going to purchase a digital scale that includes the decimal, and we are going to take our good base knowledge of “point counting” that we have learned from WW thus far, and we are going to do our own homemade version of the plan.  I don’t know if it will work or not, but when I think about it I realize that going to the meetings each week had become more for the weighing in than anything else – yes, it helped keep me motivated (kind-of) and on track with the plan (sort-of) but lately it was just sucking money out of our bank account more than anything else!  So we will now have the ability to check our weight once each week and keep track that way.  Here is to homemade weight watching – wish us luck! 

Since school has started it has been quite fun (while okay not really fun, but interesting and entertaining), and has been a lot of work. Yet I haven't even really committed myself to doing all of the work, so there is a lot more soul sucking that is soon to happen. I feel like the former me (the summer me), is slowly going away. But just as I am about to swallow all of my former lazy-self, a little bit escapes my mouth and flows back into the bottle which is my brain.
Example: This morning I am sitting at the table reading a chapter for class, and backwash tasting happens. It leads me to the computer to waste (so far) 1 hour, and I am sure that my tasting isn't complete yet. Maybe I need more coffee to get me going... We will find out.
Also of note I have weaned myself off of Flickr, cold-turkey like. You see I was up at Camp Ripley this weekend for guard and upon coming back, the obsession faded. So the road is smooth, no relapses yet, knock on wood. Recovery is going well. 

I sometimes miss working in a coffee shop, the odd banter with the customers but almost all really for making the drinks. And by drinks I mean espresso drinks or brewing up coffee. There isn't anything better, in my mind, then go straight from sleep to a shop before anyone else is there customers or coworkers, and starting up that espresso machine. Obviously running the machine through a few times, and then having that first drink of espresso. Be it straight up espresso, a mocha, a latte, the ever famous cappuccino, or some wacky drink that you and a friend made up. Such as the banana monkey slammer or anything else crazy. Now especially with having a laptop and a lot of shops have free WiFi I miss the coffeeshop experience, and I am not talking about the corporate plywood cut-out shops, i.e. Caribou Coffee, Starbucks, etc.

 

So as many of you know updating is a problem for some. Hence all of the computer virus's that hit large corporations, another reason is peoples stupidity at opening up attachments from people they don't know. I am guilt of both the stupidity factor (not virus's, but for not people a good blogger) and the not updating the site. Some quips that I almost always feel incapable of doing that I read on others sites intimidate me. Why am I writing this you ask...ummm to write again. Also damn Flickr...it is evil. That is where my energy has been spent for quite some time as well, heck even google tells me that is what German Chocolate Ladies is known for. Tsk Tsk.