This is a test...

I am taking a bit of a break from Facebook. I find it way too distracting and I am sort of over it. I am connected with over 500 people but I truly have a personal relationship with about 50. Sure it is fun to see what old friends are up to and I will probably reactivate sometime after Christmas... The hardest part is not getting those extra lives for Candy Crush. Ah well. I also want to finish a project I have been working and will use this to get writing more. (I have a cool idea for a book, but need to hone my writing skills). So long for now...

Best Commercial

I normally skip commercials. Use them to grab a drink, take a bio-break or something other than watching the commercial. This however is one of the best I have seen in a long time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V57v_UlaZP0 at about 30 seconds there is a magical move that even the best air drummers can't pull off... Love it. VW also has one of the most unclear commercials I have seen. How does this even sell a car? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR_UYx4vSPs not that its not infectious... but still? later

Wouldn't it be cool?

If the location on your smart phone was really specific? Like instead of "near Austin, TX" it said "third floor executive bathrooms"

Telekinesis was a skill you could develop.

You could rewind the radio?

Your kids really rinsed their dishes before putting them in the sink, or even better they just put them in the dishwasher.  Which incidentally is right below where they stacked them in the first place.  (I think this is about as real as me developing telekinesis). 

I am resolving to resolve

I find myself a year from my last post. But I think of this as a new beginning. I am working on my writing skills and hope that blogging will help. So come back often, or not. This is just an exercise in writing for me About a month ago I deactivated my Facebook account. It has been incredibly freeing. I found myself spending too much time focusing on people I am not with whist ignoring the people I am with. I would find myself during lulls in conversation or while trying to look something up on the interweb - drifting into a Facebook loop. Sure it was entertaining. It was great fun to see the accomplishments of friends and their kids, looking at vacation photos, keeping in touch with those I had lost contact with and staying connected to family who are not near us. But also a little creepy. Not to mention I felt very narcissistic every time I posted - "look what cool thing I am did" and my so called friends feed the narcissism by commenting or even worse liking them. Since I have not been on Facebook I have been more productive at work and way more relaxed. I am not caught up in drama that some feel the need to share with world, I am not baited into pointless debates over which sports teams are better (though I am pretty sure LES is the Great and Spacious Building), who the best Presidential candidate is and find impossible to make comments on posts that are deserving of a quip or like that could be mistaken as mean or convoluted into something that it was never meant to be. This leads me to my next peeve - the internet provides a platform - myself included - to spew worthless dribble. It seems more and more there are any number of folks who think they are SME (Subject Matter Experts) on any number of topics just because they have an internet connection. Read any product review on Amazon and you will see... "I gave one star because the UPS guy was wearing white shoes after labor day" That is not an actual feedback, but I have read just some that are similar. Seriously how does that help me decide if I should order the Three Wolves one Moon shirt? http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Three-Short-Sleeve/dp/B002HJ377A/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top In case you are looking...

WOW,,,,

It really has been too long. There has been so much that has happened since I have done anything here. I have decided that it is time I started blogging again. It seems to be good for the soul and a good place to vent, or vette out the thoughts on my mind.

Here is a rundown of what has happened in the last year or so -

1) Natalie started High School.
2) All four kids are in four different schools.
3) Benson is a second year varsity football player
4) Xander turned 8 and was baptized by Benson
5)I left Salient Systems for a position at IBM.

So there have been some great and fun things that have occurred in out lives. I have also committed to really get better about eating better and exercising. I have to do something big by Feb.

Hello blog - it has been a while, how you doin?

I have been thinking that I needed to blog about something but lets face it - I am lazy. Facebook is a little easier as users are limited by the number of words. So you can say things quick and simple, where blogging takes effort and I am not always feeling it. But there are too many things that I want to say that I suddenly feel the need to take up eatherworld space on.

I don't fancy myself as a old-school husband. For our whole marriage I have tried to encourage Chrissta to have some "Chrissta" time, whatever she defines that as. She is extremely busy working with our kids, working with the youth from church and generally being a great person. Not to mention the best wife EVER. So she deserves some "me" time. With the age of our children, 16, 14, 12 and 7, everyone is going different directions most of the time. So I get to spend quality time with the 7 year old. One thing about this kiddo is that he is pretty dang cool and says some very funny things. So I thought I would share them - mostly because I want to put them somewhere so I wont forget them.

Before I start I think it best to tell you about him. His name is Xander Joshua. We actually call him XanderBob, Exity, Xman or just X. (Just last night I realized that we call all of our kids by their first initial or some other nick name Benson is B,B McPheaster, Bster and white boy. Madison is M.J. MadiMad, Madafrad, or just frad. Natalie gets the short end of many things, as it is with the nicknames, poor middle kid, so She gets Na-Ta-Leee and Nat, but really Natalie is hard to shorten so mostly from me its sug, like in sugar.) Wow that was like a sub blog!

Anyway, back to Xander. He is the last of the Josh and Chrissta Hinze kids, will be in 2nd grade @ Great Oaks Elementary where he spend many a day with his mom, and called the office staff "My Yadies". He loves McDonald's, Whataburger, going to movies, white chocolate chips, fried egg sandwiches, Wicked, Lady GaGa, the music from Glee, Phineas and Ferb, Sponge Bob, Tim Burton Movies, Johnny Depp, Netflix streaming, any art project all in addition to all the other things 7 year olds like, except chocolate. He has blond hair is two and a third couch cushions long, weighs about 4 pounds, and is quite the ladies man. He is engaged to Emmy, a girl from his kindergarten class, he proudly wears a shirt that says "Chick Magnet", and loves to find a random pack of cute girls at football games and introduce himself as Bensons Brother.

So with all the time he and I have been spending together we have had some pretty funny things coming out of his mouth. Like the other day he was asking me when mom was going to be home, I said a little later, to which he replied - "Well at least she comes to my Christmas Party."

Last week in a an attempt to be voted the best dad in the world, I took him to the mall to spend his allowance. While there I thought it would be fun to have an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen. So I asked him if he would like to get one. He patted me on the belly and said "What we waitin for big boy."

Tonight we were driving and listening to the radio and asked if I had the Glee CD in the car, I did not so I suggested that we sing, as we were singing Bad Romance he said "You need to work on your tone."

Speaking of singing in the car, he loves to do that, especially to Glee. He and the Hinze ladies all have their parts and he is very insistent on who does what and that they sing. This was a little worry some to me as I have some strong musical opinions, until he burst out with Beth by KISS. What a guy.

He also is very honest and told his grandma that Mrs. Ruth, one of his Yadies, is a better grandma than she is. He also said to me, after complementing him on is politeness to a lady in the store, "I am a chick Magnet - I even have the shirt."

There are many more but this is seems a little self indulgent but what the heck its my blog...

Back Again

I had a rough couple of weeks. I got me some bronchitis which put the breaks on the workout. But I made it back on Wed morning and then just got back from a little racket ball match. Man I have I lost a step or 4 since I played and I think my elbow needs some work. Anyway it felt good and am looking forward to keeping the trend up.

Speaking of working out, I am going to brag a bit. Benson is a beast. They are working on off season training. Which started the Monday after the last game of the season. For those of you that have not lived in Texas - all the hype is real, football is king. So back to the Bast. Lifting weights is obviously a huge part of this and they track the players progress. His latest results are impressive, to me anyway.

Here are his three rep max:
Bench - 250
Incline Bench - 235
Dead Lift - 475
Squat - 435

I think he is stronger than I, for sure. He is a great example to me. Now if we can just get him to work as hard in the class room. I also think that the country music is sucking the strength as well.