yeah it's my blog…get over it

I worked out today! Just did some stuff on the Wii, mostly strength exercises and walked 10min. Total of 255 calories burned. I ate a 490 calorie breakfast of scrambled eggs with some with a cherry coke (my 1 sugar drink for the day.)

Lunch from Taco Bell will be 2 Doritos Locos Tacos (@170cal each,) Mexican Rice and a Pintos and Cheese with a Large Diet Pepsi (total of 630cal.)

Dinner will be Turkey Crock Pot Lasagna, still gotta calculate that one, but I have 1235 calories remaining (2100-490-630+255 = 1235)

Ok, gotta shower and try to get supper started before Harrison wakes up.

A good thing? A bad thing? Either way its a cold, wet thing! In any case since the kids are at my parents’ house it gives me a chance to get some cleaning done around the house (after I watch House of course!)

Tell ya what, having snow days was one of my favorite things as a kid, now as an adult they kind of suck. Mostly because they mean I don’t get paid for these days. Then again if the cities put down salt it could turn this weekend into a bankroll. Assuming, of course, the weather gets and stays nice!

I love Amy. She is my world. And we never would have met if it weren’t for the internet. Yep, we met on an internet dating site, OkCupid.com (I can never say or type .com without saying/thinking it like the end of Expedia.com commercials, but I digress.)

Tonight I got an email from OkStupid alerting me that “Connielingus” was checking out my profile! So I logged in to delete my profile, but I didn’t want to lose the first conversation that began it all!

Honestly, what does one write here?
Jul 18, 2008 – 8:34pm
(I have no idea what to say so I’ll just start my rambling now….no editing!)
My name’s Andy, 25, live with ‘rents, taking classes at OCC, employed full time since I was 15, have an IRA and a 2007 Chevy Cobalt.

Wait, that’s not me. Well the facts are but listing them off like that…let’s start over.

Hi! I’m Andy. I’m 25 years old and working on a college degree (starting small with aiming for an Associates from Oakland Community, then we’ll see where I go from there.) I find myself feeling behind in the game of life being 2 months from 26 and still living with my parents, but I take life as it comes at me and I’m trying my best to improve myself, if only a little at a time.

I decided to message you because I would like to think that I fit fully into your description of a person who should.

First: I love kids! As I’ve gotten older my friends have started to have kids and I love every one of them to death (one two year old recently started calling me “Guy” much to the chagrin of his big sister(and the amusement of the other adults.))

I consider myself to be infinitely patient laughing a lot at things that others sometimes become irritated with (especially driving related matters.)

I can also hold a conversation just fine as long as you don’t mind 1500 ADD-style deviations in topic, I’ve been getting distracted mid-sentence for years and usually have no problem getting back on track. I won’t say that I can carry a conversation, but I will listen as long as is needed to gather my thoughts until they’re in perfect form to bring to light.

As far as having a streak of geekiness, well I saved the best/worst for last. I do not just have a streak of geekiness, I am a geek. Pure and simple. I play Dungeons and Dragons on occasion (just picked up a game with some friends after not playing for a few years,) I play online video games and am hopelessly addicted to texting/messaging from my Sidekick III cell phone.

Now the reasons I messaged you are simple: first off I find you attractive, I don’t want to beat around the bush. When I clicked the “Find Matches” button I scrolled down, thought “she’s cute” and clicked, honestly the 4 line blurb they give of one section of each profile isn’t nearly enough.

Second it seemed like both you and I are at very similar points in our lives. Both of us are getting edumacationed at an age above that which is considered to be ‘the norm,’ and we both seem to have long term goals with future success being in order.

Ok I guess that second one wasn’t quite as simple as the first but like I said, no editing, I’m going to spew my words at you like a volcano at Pompeii, no mercy.

I don’t know exactly what I hope to get out of messaging you, but I hope it could start with friendship. Well it looks like I’ve run out of things to say, I guess the Pompeii comment was a little late in the message but, oh well.

I hope you got this far in the message and to hear back from you soon.

PS. Ok I did edit a few things, but it was only adding words to make sentences flow better and hitting enter a few times so that the GIANT paragraphs weren’t obnoxiously long.

Jul 20, 2008 – 10:03pm
Hi Andy.

Sorry it has been taking me so long to respond. I could make up excuses, but I’ve honestly just been quite lazy lately. A little overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to respond. Witty and clever just haven’t been flowing very easily for me. Must be the warmer weather, lol. What are you getting your Associates in? I got mine just in liberal arts so I could finally figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Took classes in just about everything that could possibly interest me. It worked out well since I now know the field I want to go into AND all my gen eds are out of the way. Le sigh… my tater tot is calling so I will have to cut this short for now.

Amy

Jul 20, 2008 – 11:50pm
Amy,

Well in all fairness it was was only two days, pittance in the grand scheme of things. And I’m glad you took the time to respond. To be honest the Associates is my own version of slacking. For the last year and a half I have been claiming to want to wind up with a MBA, but everyone I’ve talked to has claimed that for what I wanted it for it was overkill. (Now’s the part where you sit there and ask, "Well golly gee! What in the world did he want it for??" Go ahead, take your time, I can wait……..THERE WE GO!)

As I said I’ve been working in the same business since I was 15, it’s not glamorous and it doesn’t pay spectacularly but it gives me the freedom to do what I want when I want. Well eventually I’d like to own my own business, a Car Wash. (sexy I know) When you look at it, I’ve been washing cars for more than 3/5ths of my life, I know what the hell I’m doing. Wouldn’t it make sense to stick with a business I know? So when I tell people this, they tell me that an MBA is overkill, and that an Associates along with my prior experience will impress a bank more than enough to provide a business loan. Now I just need to find some investors to back me…

So for now I stick with the slow and steady approach to school. I took this past winter semester off hoping that the weather would be conducive to a busy winter at the car wash (snow + nice weather = dry roads = lots of business = lots of $$$$ for me) but it wasn’t. There were a couple marginally good days but nothing to have warranted my taking time off of school. Live and learn I guess.

Well I don’t have a munchkin stealing me away but I do work in the morning. Start work at seven in the morning and won’t get off until seven in the eve. Luckily I have a vast library of movies/TV shows on a hard drive to keep me occupied.

Talk to you again soon,
Andy

Jul 21, 2008 – 1:49pm
As I never seem to have more than a spare minute or two here and there to respond, and when I do have more than that I find myself unable to force myself to email, wanna im? I’m ********* on yahoo if you get a chance sometime.

So I’ve decided that, in my life, I have a new motto. I used to have the motto “Fuck ‘em!” Only to the extent of “if they have a problem with me and how I live my life then fuck ‘em!”

But as I’ve grown and matured I’ve figured out a new motto for me, “I’m a fuckin’ problem solver!”

As I think back over the years I can point out MANY situations where my quick improvisational thinking has come in in an invaluable way. There was the guy with the flat tire at the school Art was applying for a job at — he couldn’t get the flat tire off, it was rusted to the axle, so I used the spare as a mallet to pound it off — or the makeshift bumper I put on the tire brush at work — just a tennis ball with a bolt through it — which actually worked better at keeping the brush from making noise when it retracted than the real one we had professionally installed.

So that’s my new lot in life, problem solver extraordinaire! Got a problem that needs a quick but effective fix? Let me know, I’ll see what I can do! After all, I am a fuckin’ problem solver!

The D stands for “delivery” and the time has come, finally, at 2:46 PM the world got its first glimpses of Harrison Danger Costanza. I kind of feel like Amy right now. She was telling me the other day how hard it is to just get started writing something and that once you start is when you can’t stop. So here, I’ll start.

This post was initially going to be a letter from me to my newborn son, but I really don’t know what to say. It was hard enough starting this post let alone starting a letter to my son.

Harrison,

You are a mere 5 hours old as I write this and already I know that I will never let you come to any harm. I mean, sure, there’s going to be skinned knees, bumped noggins, and other various maladies, but there is nothing that I wouldn’t do to take care of you, no lengths I won’t go to to make sure that you never want.

I am scared though, I am scared that I will not be able to provide the kind of life that you deserve. I look around at other parents that I know and see the hardships and trials that they go through and I hope, I pray, that we won’t experience that. But I also know that it isn’t just me here taking care of you. Your mommy loves you and you have an AMAZING extended family of cousins and grand-parents that would go through hell and back to do the same things that I would do.

In any event, I am exuberant (I had to think for a few seconds to come up with the right word) that you’re here and the only thing I want to do now is snuggle you and hold you and feel your warmth in my arms. I feel so much love and happiness right now that I am just completely overwhelmed. In fact, I’ll be coming to visit you (for the 8th time) in a few minutes when your Aunt Jenna gets here.

With love, and more happiness than I’ve ever felt,

Your Dad

And I’m in the basement with a crappy cough, watching RENT to make myself feel better except it is sadly dredging up memories of an ex I’d rather forget. So as I sit here procrastinating with more of the organization of the basement that I swore to myself I would start doing (I “started” it) I will ignore the movie on the TV and think forward to the coming months.

I got my W2 today so my tax refund should “solve” at least temporarily my money problems, at least in regards….

brb changing the movie…

At least in regards to buying the last things we need for the baby: Car seat, mobile, more sheets. Clothes we are set on (at least for a week) and diapers we will get as we go along.

Amy likes to do lists, so now to honor her I will do one of my own. Aside from not ruining my son from birth here are the things I would like to accomplish in 2011:

1. Get the ramp out out the garage
2. Get the basement organized
3. Get the basement kid friendly
4. Power wash and re-stain the deck
5. At least one trip out of state as a family
6. Get rid of my Chase card debt (the card has been cut for a year now)
7. New counter tops
8. A real work bench (with one for Tarquin next to it)
9. Lose at least 40lbs

Ok, for now that’s it. Not as glamorous as Amy’s but it’s what I’ve got to do.

That’s it for now. At least it was a real post.

So this update is being brought to you from about 200 miles north of my usual posting place. I have been up north since friday night with a few friends to visit my best friend who just moved up here not 6 months ago. I’ve gotta say I love it here much more than downstate. The air is cleaner, theres a LOT less noise, and a lot more wilderness for to be having fun in. I’ve already caught a 19-20″ garter snake and a bunch toads for it to eat. I have also eaten a frog myself(just a little tiny one)on a bet. Honestly it wasnt that bad. It was so small that I threw it in my mouth and swallowed it whole with some water. Just like taking a pill….a pill that crawls around in your mouth. I shall return home tomorrow night so don’t fear.

She’s right, this blog does freaking suck. And one day I will begin to make more of an effort to update it.

For now a brief interlude. It’s cold, I work a lot, Amy’s pregnant due end of March, Tarquin is at his father’s in Miami which leaves us bored, the Christmas tree is dying, and bills suck.

That is all.