So hey, how you doing? How's yamamaandem?

I have been working on a project for my daughter, Trisha.

Here is a little sneak preview of it. Hopefully I will be able to start staining it this coming weekend. I can't work on it much in the evenings this time of year because it gets dark so early and that makes it hard for me to find enough time during the week to play on projects and work out too. But, hopefully I can finish it soon and ship it to Colorado, where she is now living, and put a slide show together from when I started this project until completion.

P90X Mid-Term Results

I started working out on June 15, 2009 using the P90X program. It is without a doubt the most intense workout with which I have ever been involved.

It takes a seven day commitment for 90 days. Although, the seventh day of each week is either a rest day or a stretch day. I have used it both ways.

I had a heart attack on July 20, 2006 and went back for a three year checkup shortly after beginning the P90X program. The test results indicated that something may not be functioning properly, so the doctor suggested that he would like to do a heart catherization so that he could determine what was wrong. Hell, I know what is wrong. I haven't taken Plavix like the doctor said I should do and that decision has probably resulted in plaque buildup around the stent that was inserted in 2006. I guess I brought this one on myself.

The most devastating part of that news was that I would have to experience a break in my workout schedule, in which I had TOTALLY immersed myself. I put off the heart cath for awhile because I didn't want to stop what I was doing.

I started noticing that the workouts were getting harder or at least I was getting more exhausted and decided that it was time to let the doctor do his thing. What really sealed the deal was last Friday when I was home alone and doing the Legs & Back routine and got so short-winded that I actually thought I was going to faint. I continued with the workout. It took me about an hour and a half to do the one hour workout.

I haven't worked out since then.

The results I have been seeing are way beyond what I expected. I have included a before picture and a few during pictures to show the results so far. I'll admit that the pictures are somewhat low tech, but hey, what can I say. And yeah, I realize that I am hairy but I'm not planning on doing the hot wax thingy that Her Majesty (my wife) has suggested. Hey, I'm 50 years old, so let's just all deal with it, OK.

I can't wait to get back on the program again in a week or so. As I near the end of the program I will go to a NO fat, high protein diet in order to get rid of that stubborn layer of fat around the mid section and get ripped the way I want. I have already modified my diet substantially, but those last few weeks will be radical. I have a friend who is a bodybuilder. Six weeks prior to a competition he consumes nothing but tuna fish and water three times a day. Yeah, that is probably what I will do. Well, maybe for three weeks anyway. I might be hard to live with during that time though.

BEFORE (Duh!)

DURING

DURING

DURING

Well needed Rest and Relaxation

It has been a beautiful Sunday in south Mississippi today.

I woke up this morning before 7 AM, which is relatively early for a Sunday, and went out to my shop and worked on a project that I recently started.

The project is a small fishing boat that I am building. I will have something about it on here soon. The reason that I wanted to do some work on it this morning is because I wanted to take a scooter ride to Gulf Shores, AL this afternoon.

After I accomplished what I could and wanted to do in the shop, I went back inside and settled into my usual Sunday morning routine of drinking coffee and reading the newspaper prior to streaming the service at Church In The Now.

For anyone interested in checking them out go to http://www.churchinthenow.org/ and just look around and you will figure out how to tap into the streaming. It is on at 9 AM central time on Sunday mornings and at 6 PM on Wednesday nights.

I've never seen or heard anything like it, and I've been a church person my entire life.

But anyway, Her Majesty and I got on the scooter this afternoon and rode over to Gulf Shores. It was a nice ride and the temperatures were perfect.

We found a nice, quiet spot on the beach and relaxed for an hour or so before returning home.

On the way over we stopped at a place that sells tons of items for outdoor projects like patios, sunrooms, etc. We are planning on making us a little oasis in the backyard and have been looking around for stuff to get some ideas from.

Check out the pics and eat your heart out. It sure is nice to know that we live only about an hour and a half from beaches like this.

Square Foot Gardening

I have always been a fanatic about gardening. Over the years I have had some fairly good results planting conventional gardens, but it has never been as successful as what I thought it should be.
Usually the garden would start out looking great and I would spend huge amounts of time weeding and watering and then later in the season when rains came quite frequently the ground would stay so wet that I could not get in the garden to maintain it properly and weeds would finally win the battle.
Also, it seems that once the ground got saturated the plants started to rot. The plants that would be most susceptible to this would be my squash. The tomato plants themselves held up through all the rain, but the tomatoes would start to rot before they would get ripe.
I tried every concoction I could find to prevent this from happening, but nothing seemed to work.
Someone told me about a concept called Square Foot Gardening. I found a book about it written by Mel Bartholomew and started reading it. What I read in the book made sense so I decided that this year I would give it a whirl.
I built a container for my plants out of some wood that I had laying around in my shop and this afternoon I finally had a chance to get something planted in it.
I went to a local plant nursery and got some "special" soil that they had and a bag of "worm castings". I think that it is soil that is taken from an earthworm farm after they get through crapping in it for awhile. While I was in the nursery buying this stuff a lady asked me if that soil grew worms. She acted like she was serious! I told her that it would and that Cheerios were really doughnut seeds.
After that I went to Lowe's and bought a bag of mushroom compost and a bag of cow sh.. I mean manure.
Once I got home I mixed all the this stuff together in a specially designed soil combining container. OK, so it was an old kids swimming pool, but it worked.
As you can see from the pictures in the slide show, I was able to get 16 plants in a relatively small area.
Check back every few weeks and I will post some pictures so that you can see how things are progressing.
Who knows, you may decide to try it yourself.

Oh by the way. That ratty looking fence you see in some of the pictures is my neighbor's fence. I've already told him that I would replace it for him since he doesn't seem to be concerned about it.