2011.10.31 Monday - Halloween

Pretty average day at work, except I didn't do any sports over lunch. Instead, I went with Mark to the Sprint store to get his phone worked on. I was able to play around with some new smartphones for a few minutes.

After work the trick-or-treaters started coming by. I chose to go to Sprouts for groceries and goods during that time.

Home, watched some football and cooked up some pasta and meat, beefaroni.

2011.10.30 Sunday

Slept in beautifully. Woke up to watch some NFL. I heard the F-word loud and clear on the Houston game. Oops.

Met up with Tyler and company to play some Vennis. We played I think 3 games then went over to Sonic to rehydrate. The sun was surprisingly strong even though the temperature was fantastic. The back to more vennis. This time we played with a volleyball.

Over to Kelc's for the tail end of Steeler's game. It was crazy for the last few minutes.

Home, snooze.

2011.10.29 Saturday - Halloween Party

Today I really didn't have much going on, and I felt a little restless being around the house all day yesterday. So I called up my parents and brought them some BBQ for lunch. We watched some football and chatted about houses. Relaxing and a change of pace, sort of.

Drove back to my place, put on my costume, then headed over to Tyler's for a party. We played Murder In The Dark, and some various halloween-themed games. Also consumed large amounts of flavored sugar, aka candy.

Back at home, I had to scrub out all the hair product before going to bed. The cost of being a super saiyan.

2011.10.28 Friday

Couldn't sleep in.

Cooked up breakfast and cleaned up around the house.

Habs came home from his trip. Kelc came over and we looked online at a few houses.

Played some games, but mostly spent today just sitting around relaxing. I'm hoping my legs heal up some.

For a late dinner, I cooked up a pound of bacon and some cookie dough. Dinner of champions.

2011.10.27 Thursday

Soccer for lunch, long work day, then top it off with kickball. My legs are shot. And to add to that, I think my eye has a scratch on it.

Today was mostly in flux since nobody knew for sure if we would get rained on, but the weather turned out nice.

Home - sleep like a baby.

2011.10.26 Wednesday

Just another day. For lunch time today, Mark Andy and myself went over to the soccer fields to kick the ball around and practice some. By the end, my legs were pretty tired.

Our normal conference room for class was stolen out from under our feet, so we had to shift into a different room. I couldn't really pay much attention during class. I really don't feel like I'm getting much new information. Soo cool story: We ordered some Domino's pizza around 3:45p, and we didn't get it until class ended at 6:20p. What the F. Seriously.

Home, gamed a bit, then bed.

2011.10.25 Tuesday

I slept rather restless. I think the spicy chicken was plowing through trying to get out.

This morning was a change-up. Instead of going to work, I went to a wisdom teeth removal consultation. This is technically the second time for me to go through a consultation, but the first time was such a long time ago that it was useless. Looks like sometime after the new year I will have 4 less teeth.

Played volleyball over lunch. Work is dragging on like normal.

Hung out with Kelc.

2011.10.24 Monday

Normal work day with volleyball for lunch. Normal is starting to include working late. Bummer.

Took care of some animals and sat around until Kelc came over. (She was unfortunately called in to work on her day off.) We agreed that we should hang out and do something, but what that was remained undetermined most of the night. Watched some of the World Series and MNF. Picked up Chikfila for dinner.

2011.10.23 Sunday

Today I took my parents to see some open houses, to get some of their feedback and opinions. My mom keeps saying they made their share of mistakes when buying a home, but I have yet to find out what those were. The market was completely different 10 or 20 years ago.

Hung out with my parents most of the evening.

Went over to Kelc's after to chat some more.

Then home, for sleep.

2011.10.22 Saturday

Slept in rather late.

Went with Habs and Taytay to view some houses with his realtor. There is one house that Habs really likes, I would guess that he is already blind to other options. But hey, if you find something you like, might as well snatch it up and take advantage of the great record-low interest rates.

Back home, showered and cleaned myself up, then downtown. My sister and Erik are now engaged, and wanted to throw a little celebration with friends and family. Sort of a meet-and-greet, with a bar tab and awesome pizza. As the event was winding down, a band showed up. I stuck around to check out the music. It was interesting.

Drove home, then received a text from Marisa seeing if Kerbey Lane could happen. I drank some red bull and headed over to grab a small bite.

2011.10.21 Friday

Late getting up. Those two steaks made me groggy and full all night.

Work had a weird feel to it. Lunch turned out to be a pretty fun discussion of random things with coworkers. I had a tasty chicken pot pie.

Left work later than normal Fridays. Went home and wound down a bit, then laid down for a much needed nap. Then ended up sleeping through all the fun stuff happening at night.

2011.10.20 Thursday

Late to bed, late to rise. Grumperton too. Add in a long day at work, broken up only by some volleyball at lunch. Recipe for not a great day in general.

Then straight over to the kickball fields. I arrived a little late because I lost track of time in the midst of tests. The game lasted a whopping 4 innings. I kicked exactly once, and was in the outfield once. Talk about a waste of time.

After the game, I pulled out the soccer ball Mark generously is letting me borrow, and kicked the ball around with Erik and Crystal. Then we went over to his condo to chat and so I could see where they actually live.

Home, double steak dinner, cookie dough, then bed.

2011.10.19 Wednesday

I cracked my window last night to get some free air conditioning. Woke up still wrapped up in blankets. Normally I kick most of them off throughout the night.

Over lunch, we hopped over to the YMCA nearby and played soccer on the field. It was amazingly well kept, and it definitely tired me out.

Then after work we had class and chinese food for dinner. I ended up taking a nap during a break.

I stopped by my parents house in the evening to discuss some things, then went home and to bed.

2011.10.18 Tuesday

Today I had a lot of trouble getting myself motivated. Then a guy that I work with came by to chat, saying he too was having difficulty getting off the ground. Just one of those days. Feeling like a cog in a machine that just never stops. Squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Originally, there were plans to have volleyball today, but that fell through because we were experiencing 20mph winds with gusts on top of that. Feels great outside, but would make volleyball an interesting battle. At the end of the work day, I went to the gym to do some exercises with low weight.

Post-work, I spent some time getting more music lined up. I'm still cranking through music.

Habs and I went for a little bike ride over to Taylor's apartment. It was about 10k total distance, but has some interesting hills and slopes. Felt a little on the chilly side, but was great. I have decided I need to get myself a bike now. It is much less impact on my knees and ankles, and I can feel my muscles getting more of a workout. Instead of aching at the end of a run, I feel the burn.

2011.10.17 Monday

Grumpy getting up.

Today at work I had a health screening by my health insurance provider. They worked out a deal with our site to bring in representatives and nurses to help get people engaged in their health, and provided suggestions and directions on how to improve their current state. I'm still mixed about this setup because I know how the general population doesn't like to deal with doctors. I guess it's easy for me to not care or be timid because I'm in pretty decent state. Not that I'm perfect by any means; I have my own set of issues, just things that weren't tested and aren't very common. My blood pressure was slightly elevated than other times I've been measured. After asking around, I think their device was not calibrated as everybody was showing higher-than-expected numbers. Even still, I was within the healthy range. My cholesterol and glucose levels were also fine, and I have a BMI of 20 (so I can put on some weight).

The rest of the day went by slowly and I just couldn't get any enthusiasm behind my work, so I took off right at the 9-hour mark. That hasn't happened in such a long time, I forgot what it felt like to get home that early.

I designated today as a rest day, so no working out. Kelc called me up late into the evening to meet up at PF Chang's for dinner. Then home, cooked up a ny strip and caught the end of MNF.

2011.10.16 Sunday - BCS

What an interesting night that was. Cooked up some eggs in the morning and ray made some kickass coffee.

Around mid day, we went over to the nearby park to meet up with the team for some kickball practice. I did some stretching and put on my cleats, and ran around like a crazy man. Nobody else from the team showed up, so it became just a for-fun day at the park.

Back at the house, then off to HEB to pick up goods for the evening.

We got things cooking and then set up for our ceremony. We had music and incense and candles to set the mood. I don't consider myself that great at meditation, but I think it went ok. I had a few visions that had pretty obvious meanings, but also saw things that I couldn't decipher.

Dinner had finished cooking in the meantime. Delicious chili from a seemingly simple recipe by Marisa.

Wrapped up, packed up and shipped out.

Home late, and tired.

Drive home

2011.10.15 Saturday - BCS

Woke up at a reasonable time. Breakfast of champions: red bull.

We spent a chunk of the middle of the day working on the yard. Parts had been killed by city workers, and other parts died of lack of water, so we broke up the soil some and put down some sod. Eventually we got through enough work to break away from the group.

We went over to Chase's, then over to Lenny's Subs for a late lunch/early dinner. Their large-sized subs cost over 10 dollars, but it's also pretty much 2 footlongs worth. Not bad.

Back to Chase's to watched the Rangers game, and to discuss and plan out a ceremony that we would like to try out. The game ended up lasting longer than I expected, but hey they won and are going to the world series. Good job.

Back to Ray's place, where a crazy party was already happening. Very much different than when we left. We decided it best to put our ceremony on hold and just hang out and mingle.

2011.10.14 Friday - BCS

Woke up early and got busy with yardwork. Yay. Lots of taming to do.

Cooked up a bunch of meals of eggs. I think I ate about 6 eggs through the course of the day.

Did laundry, but mostly goofed around.

Later in the evening, met up with Paul and drove to Bryan/College Station. Upon arrival, we had some interesting dancers and lots of catching up.

2011.10.13 Thursday - Kickball

Woke up late.

Played some volleyball over lunch, but ran late because I got into some discussions.

Home, took a nap and played games. Then off to our kickball game. We ended up doing really well and pulled out a W. MVP of the game was Amog. I think he caught around 7 pop flys.

Home, snooze.

2011.10.12 Wednesday - Midterm

Work as usual. Volleyball for lunch.

Today's class is the midterm. Crazy that this is the midway point through the class. I feel like I haven't really soaked up much information to be tested over.

Post-work/-class, stopped by the hotel to visit Kelc while she worked. A few ideas were tossed around, then I left.

Once home, I did my workout and went for a decent run. Felt great outside.

Decided to go ahead and cook dinner for Kelc. Chicken, couscous and green beans. Dinner of champions. It ended up taking longer than expected, and packing stuff up for to-go is a hassle, but I made it work. Met up with Kelc and enjoyed some grub.

Back home, cleaned up and prepared for bed.

2011.10.11 Tuesday

Long day at work. Nobody could get together to play any sports over lunch, so instead I went to the gym. I did a lot of variety in my workouts, with just a little weight. I will likely be rather sore from this.

Studied at home. Cooked up tilapia, pasta, and edamame for dinner.

More studying. Bed early.

2011.10.10 Monday

Slept pretty well last night. I tried getting to bed early, but still wasn't asleep until midnight.

Long work day. No sports for lunch. Bummer.

Once home, I did my mini workout and went for a run. I'm right under a pace of 10 minutes per mile, but I also only ran for a little over a mile. Oh well, it takes time to get back into shape.

I cooked up a reasonably healthy dinner: tilapia and pasta. Protein and carbs.

Watched what was left for MNF and read for class.

2011.10.09 Sunday

Cooked up some eggs for breakfast. Turned out moist, but not wet, and delicious from garlic.

I went outside to check on my plants, and noticed that there were a couple hives of ants underneath the okra and pepper pots. I guess the rain and change of temperature has them already hunkering down. Not here, fellas. I took a huge bucket of water and blasted them off, and gave them some "ant food" as a good measure. Somehow, they still managed to crawl up my shoes and bite me a few times. Blasted!

Made my way down south to meet up with Mark for our Costco outing. Overall, a rather successful journey. The only thing on my list that I did not get was the coffee. Two and a half pounds of beans just seems a little overwhelming, and the idea of getting tired of a blend made me opt out. On the way out, we had to get some hot dogs. Such a good deal.

After Costco, we unpacked some things, then scurried our way out to look at some properties for sale. There was a house near Enfield and Mopac that was previously a party house, a condo on 5th street, and a condo/house on Windsor. Each one had their own set of strong points and faults, so it really boils down to what you are ok living with. I'm still trying to decide how far in, or how far out of town my ideal place is. Having a condo in the middle of downtown sounds fun for being close to a lot of action, but sucks for parking and having gatherings.

Back home, plugged in my phone since it died (and I forgot to plug it in last night). Put away my groceries and dilly-dally'd for a bit while it charged up. Then off to Kelc's Mom's house to hang out with family.

We played a few games and chatted for a while. Korey decided to complain about watching football and 60 minutes, rather than watching some Kardashian junk. Sorry if that offends you, but I don't want to give any attention to something so irrelevant. Waste of brain.

Nobody could figure out where they wanted to grab dinner, then our choices started getting limited because it was getting late. Ended up going to True Grits. I think they do a pretty good job of providing meals that taste home-cooked.

I left to go back home, everybody else went back to the lakehouse.

Nighty night.

2011.10.08 Saturday

Woke up early to make some bread. Sounds weird, I know. Water, flour, yeast, pinch of salt and pinch of oil.

Went back to sleep.

Woke up a few hours later to see the bread done. It turned out okay. I like more of a French style bread with a tough crust, but this bread was intended to be part of sandwiches so the crust was a little bit softer. Habs and Taytay provided some deli selections and a big pot of queso, all for watching the UT vs OU game.

As soon as I put on my Texas shirt, things went pretty downhill. Oh well. We are playing with a bunch of young ones, and our offensive line was being trampled. Nothing good will come from that.

I watched some of the LSU-Florida game, then fell asleep again. Felt really good to catch up on sleep.

Later picked up Kelc and went out to Coleman's to celebrate his birthday. Games and hilarity ensued.

2011.10.07 Friday

Running late today. Great way to wrap up the week.

Mark organized some futbol (soccer) over lunch. I was able to get Kelc and Tyler to join at the last minute, which then caused some confusion because we weren't completely sure which fields we were going to play on. We found some awesome fields, but then some guy came up to us and told us we couldn't play there. Then we went back to a park that had a field of dead grass and sticks. Not bad.

What a great workout.

Back at work, felt like I couldn't really get much started because of interruptions. Wrapped up the week and went home.

At home, I grabbed a few items then headed over to Kelc's to watch a movie and eat a dinner. We had some frozen tilapia and couscous. We watched The Lincoln Lawyer. Overall a pretty good movie, with some twists and turns. Still pretty ridiculous how they make the judicial system out to be something swift moving.

After the movie everybody just got into a bad mood and started bickering, so I left.

Played some games, relaxed.

2011.10.06 Thursday

Quick Summary: Awoke late. Played soccer. Worked late. Missed kickball.

I'm kinda bummed about missing kickball, but at least our team is huge, so everything probably went alright.

I pumped up my tires and went grocery shopping. I'm so excited about having meat to cook finally. I've been living off whatever scraps of junk I had lying around.

The HEB I normally go to is still going through some changes, so I was a tad lost. It looks like there will be more options, especially in the "health" section.

Watched a bit of tv, then went to bed.

2011.10.05 Wednesday

Less sleep than normal, so I was a little delayed in getting started today. Totally worth it though.

Ate a big breakfast and my stomach started cramping. What did I do to deserve that? Oh, I ate undercooked pancakes. Yeah...

Post work was class. We spent just under 2 hours going over presentations. Complete waste in my opinion. Then the remainder of class was learning about 1 thing, then talking about how next class is our midterm. WAIT WHAT??? How are we supposed to have a midterm when we really haven't learned much? Dangit.

I did some laundry and cleaning up at home. Originally I was hoping to go out to The Melting Pot for the last day of Austin Restaurant Week, but food from work filled me up.

2011.10.04 Tuesday

I woke up slightly groggy, but mostly hungry. That is very unusual. I supposed I could eat something for breakfast.

Played some more volleyball over lunch. The weather was great.

Stayed at work late. My class group was planning on meeting around 6:30 to get cracking on the assignment, but just about everybody was late. We spent a good portion of the evening working on it.

I ended up leaving just before everything was finished. A good friend from college, also a roommate for most of my years, Rudy, was in town. We met up at Mozart's to chat and catch up on life. Good to see him, and good to hear things are going well for him. The part that shocked me the most was that his sister is currently a senior in high school... so she will be going to college soon. Dang. That tidbit of information definitely makes me feel a bit older.

Home late. Snooze.

2011.10.03 Monday

Start off the week with a Dentist Appointment. WOO HOO. Not. So it actually went ok, just a standard cleaning, but still not on my list of fun activities. No cavities, nice. I still need to get my wisdom teeth removed; definitely not looking forward to that. Actually, the thought of being put under kinda scares me.

Oh and I almost died on the way to the appointment this morning. There was a light that should have been green, but I didn't notice until I was already entering the intersection. Not Cool.

Back to work, didn't get much done and then it was volleyball time. Score. Just about every day we play volleyball, I get the same thoughts about life. I mean, sure work is an important part of life, but really health should be valued more.

Home late. Watched MNF and ate a taquito dinner.

2011.10.02 Sunday - NFL

I was able to sleep in pretty long, but my sleep was interrupted quite a few times throughout the night. Even though we arrived at 1am, there were people drinking and celebrating in the downstairs lobby of the hotel. Girls love screaming.

Also, the air conditioning would kick on loudly once it was too hot in the room, then would cool it down to being too cold. Repeat that about 20 times.

Got dressed and skidattled down to checkout. We set everything up so that once we came back later in the day, all we had to do was grab our luggage from the desk, then grab our vehicles from the valet. Not bad.

Then the trek started. First, a quick 3-4 block walk over to the metro rail stop. Then a ~10 minute walk from the train to the stadium. Then waiting in line. Then walking up tons of ramps. Then waiting in line to buy a drink. Finally... we were in our seats. By the time we were situated, it was rather close to game time. Good timing.

The game went by rather quickly. The commercial breaks didn't feel that long at all. The Texans Fans do a few things that I haven't experienced with a live football game. For instance, the announcer guy will leave sentences unfinished for the fans to fill in like "12-yard gain, good for a Texans....." (then the fans pipe in) "FIRST DOWN". Interesting way of getting the crowd involved. They also had a few news-reporter-style people giving updates on other games during the downtime, but the lady was pretty bleh at it, and you could barely hear her. The fans weren't that bad, but some were really obnoxious. A few bad apples can spoil the bunch. Overall, most of the fans around us were pretty civil. If I had to guess, about 1 out of every 10 fans was a Steelers fan. That could be way off, but that's what it seemed like. A lot more fans than I was expecting.

Unfortunately, the Steelers could not pull it together as a team, and the Texans wasted a lot of time off the clock. Not looking to be that great of a season for the Black and Yellow.

Did the reverse steps to get back to the hotel. There we stopped for dinner at Benihanna, since the ATX location closed.

Grabbed our luggage, packed up the cars and rolled on home. I listened to a couple episodes of radiolab. That really helped the time fly by. Kelc took another nap.

Home, sleep.

2011.10.01 Saturday

Today was a much more relaxed day. I spent a good portion trying to finish up what is left with Just Cause 2. So close... yet a good 20-30 hours still remain.

Travis and Roxana came over to watch the UT game. The first half rocked. Not only did we enjoy pizza, but UT was dominating the game. The second half was a bit more toned down, because UT was putting in their secondary players. That shows a lot of confidence in both their first and second string right there. Feels good.

I played some more JC2. Then Kelc came over, I packed up, and we headed out to Houston.