Day 386 - 387: Sister, Mothers & Gas

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and especially their Mothers Day celebrations. My wife & I got away on Saturday to continue the celebration of her birthday and start the Mothers Day festivities. We took off to our backyard play ground, Wisconsin. The Wollersheim Winery was the destination (pictured above). There we picked up a case of wine as we do each trip. We also picked up the gifts for our mothers there, ceramic wine chillers. Of course we couldn't give the moms just wine chillers without a bottle of wine in each.

On the way up there we gassed up in Milwaukee, here is the price of gas (cheap stuff) there...

 Cheapest we've seen around home it in well over a month, so we gassed up there on the way up & back.

We stayed in Pweaukee (a burb of Milwaukee) Saturday night. There we dined at Thunder Bay Grille which has been a favorite of ours for a decade. All of us who are serious about making a better life for ourselves embrace change. Change is good, change is needed if we want to see a better result from our efforts. And a different result from the recent changes in menu and style is what I believe Thunder Bay Grille will see. And not for the better. Seriously, we were disappointed. This rustic northwoods centric restaurant went modern in a bad way. It used to stand apart from its competition, now it reflects at least a dozen other places in the Milwaukee area. Oh well, we had a good decade, best of luck to them.

After dinner we went out to Champps to watch the Nascar race and NBA playoff games while knocking back a couple of beers and just hanging out. Along the way we felt the need to fill in the corners left from our dinner experience. To do that we ordered a hot pretzel from the apps menu. I was expecting a pretzel like you'd get at the ball game, but to my surprise and horror this is what we got...

 Not healthy, not one bit. But it was good I must admit. And so was our time together eating this, drinking Leinenkugel's and Spotted Cow, excellent day with my wife!

Back home on Sunday we took in a soccer game for our sophomore, they lost 0-6; way to go winning one for Mom guys. And then off to meet our Mom's for dinner at Bonefish Grill which never disappoints; lets hope they don't embrace too much change.

Dinner was in Schaumburg, IL which is a Chicago suburb. On the way there I snapped this picture of the typical gas price there...

Ugly ugly ugly that gas marquee is. Way too ugly to just end this post on such a downer note. So let me move to a final bit of positive news to share.

This past Saturday my sister walked the stage at Olivet Nazarene University with her Masters of Arts in Teaching. How cool is that!

Congrats Kim & best of luck in that your search to secure a full time teaching position will be a short one.

OK, that is how I spent my weekend, how did you spend yours?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 334-335: We Deserve a PBR

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For most of life PBR meant Pabst Blue Ribbon, good stuff if flavor is not key to your beer drinking experience. Oh, and NO, I did NOT pose for that photo!

Today & in recent years PBR is a popular acronym in the business world including I.T. (Information Technology) the industry I work in.

P-Plan, reduce time/cost associated with determining how to build what we've been tasked to build; e.g. physical vs virtual platforms, online vs nearline data storage, blah blah more i.t. speak

B-Build, increase throughput/capacity to deliver more builds; e.g. standard vs custom, pull vs push processes/methodologies, blah blah more flavor of the day speak

R-Run, reduce time/cost associated with keeping what we've built running; e.g. preventative vs predictive maintenance, system redundancies & availability, blah blah more captain obvious speak

This week I spent 3 hours at work immersed in PBR. During this time my mind wandered & began to ponder how PBR correlates to my health mission. Here is what I came up with...

P-Plan, Reduce my trigger-finger mindset to fire off excuses and increase my knowledge; learn best practices to lose weight & keep it off. In other words you can only do what you plan to do, don't leave success to chance or accident!

B-Build, Create a schedule & menu consisting of a variety of exercise & foods to build a healthier me. In other words create a healthy lifestyle to live!

R-Run, Consistently, one day at a time, Do what I know I am supposed to do; don't just want it, don't just plan it, DO IT! In other words maintain the plan which I have created changing the approach as needed to prevent slipping back into the days of excuses and complacency.

Hey, you deserve a PBR, now go get it!

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 274 - I am Irresistibly Sweet

Saturday is here, sweet!

No real big plans this weekend. My wife has been fighting a naggy cold all week so depending on how she feels when she wakes up that will go a ways to determining whether it is a quiet weekend at home or if we venture out a ways.

Exercise is in my plans for this weekend. I did not get in as much during the week as I wanted. Now I know I cannot make up for lost exercise and I don't plan to try. But I want this weekend to include a couple of excellent work outs because I need them and I get a great rush at the end of a work out which was challenging, executed well and leaves me sweating.

Yesterday I received a very sweet surprise in the form of  The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award which Stephanie of She's In There Somewhere honored me with. I must say that is one delicious award.

With this award I need to list five guilty pleasures and then pass this on to three fabulous (& sweet) bloggers that I know and love; so here we go...

Let me do this backwards and hit up the trio of sweet bloggers to honor:
Karen @ Sunshine's Heart
MandaPanda @ Candyland To Bandland
Patsy @ Musings on a 100+ Weight Loss Journey

So, five guilty pleasures, hhmmm...


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Bacon!
Bacon is romantic
Bacon is sexy
Bacon is intoxicating
Bacon is the secret to world peace
Bacon is the perfect vegetable
I LOVE Bacon

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Buffalo Wings
We served wings at our wedding.
Wings are part of just about every party we host.
Even on my weight losing ways I enjoy wings once a week.








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Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby
OMG, the best ice cream this side of Neptune.
Pretzels in Ice Cream - BRILLIANT!












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White Almond Bark.
My Grandma would make this for me every year at the holidays.
That was the only time of year I got this treat.
These days my wife & daughter make it for me at the holidays.
They come real close to Grandma's work, close.








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Labatt Blue, my favorite beer on the planet.
Yep, I am as patriotic an American as there is, but Americans just can't brew great beer.
Oh we brew some good ones, but great ones, not.












Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!