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.

I am doing it...

It has been a pretty good week so far. This week and last I have been going to the gym. Big thanks to UK for the motivation. I have not really started dieting per se but interesting enough, I have been wantinig to eat better. I went to lunch with a client to a place with a good burger. I love a good burger. Do you know what I had? Fish. I had fish.

I am working on losing weight, AGAIN. It is not a New Years Resolution, it is a life style change, AGAIN. I know I can do it. Chrissta and a few friends have joind a few other folks in a quest to loose 10% of our weight by April 2. We all put a little $$ into the mix and all we have to do to get it back is loose the 10%. Seems pretty easy, but I am thinking this time that slow and steady will get me there.

Here is my plan:
Week 1 & 2 get on a steady work out plan.
Week 3 - off sugar - continue to work out
week 4 - hard core diet.
Then keep it all up.

So far I am only down a couple of pounds, but I feel good I am getting stronger and this seems to be a good thing.

Anywhoo stay tuned and we will see...

It has been a while...

Since I got hooked on Facebook - and spent a lot of time ignoring the folks I need to stay connected to and paying attention to folks I have not had a meaningful conversation with in years or ever, I have not been very good about blogging.   The interesting thing is that I think I need this.  It helps me organize my thoughts and get them out without interupution.  Well that's not exactly true as I do have 4 kids, but at least I can look back and find my train of thought. Needless to say I have lots to think about.

So stay tuned there will be more.

Fishing in Montana

I got back from an amazing 4 day fishing tip to in Montana late Sunday night with my good friend Kyle. I posted the pics on Facebook and had a couple of questions about there not being any fish in the pictures. Before I get too far into my fish story let me say that the White River in Arkansas will forever be the place to catch a billion trout, but Montana has to be the one of the most picturesque places to be and to relax. Here is my travel log:

7/29 Travel Day -

I got up and started the day the best way I know how - a breakfast date with Chrissta. I travel quite a bit with work, so I would say that I am a pretty good packer and I like to pack at the last moment. I did the same as I always do for this trip as well. Only MAN, rounding up all my gear took a little longer than I thought it would and I had a couple of minor issues. First off I got my wading boots out and noticed that the felt on the bottom of one boot was coming off. That is a good way to ruin a trip, but no worries, a little Shoe Goo and I was in business. I put my newly repaired boots in my fully packed L.L. Bean fishing bag and noticed that I had over packed. I usually make fun of Chrissta doing that, but I is hard to pack for non - 103 degree weather. Well I noticed that I forgot to put my fly rod in the bag - no problem I will just carry it on. Plus I will look cool.

11:30 Kyle shows up and we load my crap in the car. Normally this would not deserve a mention in the blog, but he opens the back of his Explorer and he brought his same bag. I did not have much time to do anything about it so off we went. Did I mention that our bags are monogrammed? OH YEAH!

We flew to SLC then on into Bozeman. The flight to SLC was non-eventful but I did have the most leg room ever on a plane. Landing in Salt Lake was cool. I love to look at the big U on the hill. Living and going to school there was so fun. That is where Chrissta and I grew into a family. So it was a nice touch. The air port was was nutso and the plane to Bozeman was at the furthest reaches in the place, I think the gate was actually in Draper. (look at a map of the Salt Lake valley and that will be funny) So we are kickin it looking for a place to chill before we board, so we find a table in a lounge area.

It is time to go, we gather up our stuff and make it over to our gate about 15 min before we thought we were going to board. I find a nice place, out of the way by the pay phone to wait, and what do you know, someone needed to use the phone. I can't tell you when the last time a used a pay phone. But I looked down and there was no Rod Tube. I had left it on the table... BUMMER, I booked it over and thankfully it was still sitting on the table. That would have been a bummer trip.

While we were waiting, this not very quiet man was yelling throughout the gate area saying, "that is Jeff Bridges!" so of course I looked and sure enough there he was. Looking really normal. In fact if Mr. Loud man (in the yellow shirt) had not been shouting and calling everyone in his address book I would not have noticed that was him just a very normal un-assuming looking guy. I felt kind of bad cause this guy was telling the world that Jeff Bridges was there and all he was trying to do was catch a flight, but he was very calm and seemed flattered but not pretentious.

Jeff Bridges was not the only famous person at our gate. The other was non other than Coach Ron McBride. Coach McBride was the head coach of the Runnin Utes while I was there. Many consider Coach McBride the one who brought Utah football to where it is today. Urban Meyer won with all of McBrides guys and he is the one who hired Coach Wittingham, the current head coach, as his Defensive Coordinator. I have to admit I was more giddy about seeing him than Jeff Bridges...

We landed in Bozeman, it was about 60 degrees and I have to admit, I was cold... We went and checked in to the hotel with our matching monogrammed bags in a little red sports car. I said Chrissta's name about 500 times in about 15 min.... We ate dinner and went to Walmart to get water and snacks for our drive to Yellowstone the next day.

7/30 - Yellowstone

We got up and drove to Yellowstone the next day. The drive was awesome. All sorts of hills and trees and green. It was cool and very green, a nice change from the hot brown Texas we have been dealing with. Into Yellowstone we stopped, not by choice, to see a Moose, a bear, countless dear and antelope, a buffalo and 3000 ground squirrels... We saw the petrified tree and ate lunch on the porch of the Roosevelt Lodge. Oh, and there were no trout in the Gibbon river and the Yellowstone was too fast, deep and crowded...

7/31 - Ennis/Jeffers

Great spot. We fished all day on the Madison. I saw a couple of otters and a Beaver. I did see a nice brown because Kyle was nice enough to fight it over near me so I could see it. I did not catch anything but some mosquito bites and a sunburn, but boy was I relaxed and felt at one with nature. At about 4 pm we started back and decided to fish our way back to Bozeman up the Madison. We stopped at one place that looked promising, but ended up being a 5 mile drive up washbard road. I think I lost all my teeth - and there were no fish.

8/1 - The Gallatin to West Yellowstone up over to Jefffers and back to Bozeman.

That about covers it, lots of driving stopping, fishing and driving. The Gallatin was fast and the rocks were slick. West Yellowstone was interesting and I finally caught one on the Madison in Jeffers. (I had a nice little brown, about 8 inches but he was a good fighter and had nice color. I then hooked a dinker on a dry but it was what I like to call an LDR (Long Distance Release). Kyle then had the great idea to walk down stream through the brush, and mosquitoes - large as birds and love the taste of Deet... All for no fish, bit we saw a deer cross the rivers, that was cool. And on the way back to Bozeman, we actually had to figure out what day it was. We did something right.

8/2 Travel Day

OK we slipped into the river at Spain Bridge on the Gallatin, and there was one more fish, and it was mine. I avoided being skunked on the Gallatin, then it was back to reality on an oversold flight, that was late and way too hot. But it was home to my wife and family.

All in all I had a great relaxing time and Kyle is a great friend but I wished I could have shared the sights with my wife.

Peace out!