After Thanksgiving Blues

The Foltice's had a great Thanksgiving. Dana's parents came up from Ft. Lauderdale on Wednesday night and will stay until Saturday morning. It was about 70 degrees yesterday, so we took an hour long walk in the morning with Oscar. That walk set the stage for some guilt free calorie consumption.

We watched the Lions game in the afternoon. After about 30 minutes of that, I had to hide all sharp objects so I wouldn't be tempted to do anything crazy. I can't believe how bad they are. I think of the Lions the way I think about the economy these days; it can't possibly get worse and I can only hope that things get better some day.

After a great day of eating, I had to wake up at 6am and make the lonely commute to work. If there is anything positive to take out of having to work today is that I was able to get some Christmas shopping done online.

I better get back to work. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

Highlight Video Released

My college basketball highlight video is in the works. I use the term 'highlights' very loosely as it is a montage of pull-up jumpers.

Here are the links to them:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFVb40Djuw

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUyw0h0C8Tk

Quick Update

It's been a while since the last post. I guess its that time of the yeat when things get crazy.

I have been consumed with papers and projects for the last two weeks. These will come to a head and all be gone in another four weeks. I will not need to do any more research projects for a long while.

School will be over with on the second week of December and I will have to go back to reality. I have no idea what the future has in store. I am excited and terrified at the same time.

One one side, Dana and I feel completely in line with what God wants us to do right now. There is no peace like being there. I am excited about what our next step is going to be, even though I don't know exactly what it will be.

On the other hand, I know that God's plans are not my own, and that terrifies me. His plans require us to make decisions that sometimes do not make logical sense and that is what scares me. It requires us to step out in faith even if those close to us think we are crazy.

The good news about all of this:

God's plans are better than mine.
He is smart, I am not. All I have to do is listen.
His plan is to help us, not hurt us
After death, my eternal reward will not be based on how logical my decisions were, but rather how I followed God's Will.

Knowing all of this, I am definitely leaning towards excitement.

Amendment: Reasons 7&8 added

Reason numbers 7&8 occured to me this week why I am a dork:

Number 8: Two separate occasions this week someone has asked me to take good notes in a class that they would miss. They wanted to make copies of my notes. I passed high school and college by using other peoples notes. It's flattering to have someone ask me for once.

Number 7: Here is the card that my Grandma sent me this week.

The picture says it all.

Reasons 1-5 are posted on a previous blog post (Dana added number 6 in the comments field)

Results

Happy Birthweek to me. Happy birthweek to me. We have changed my birthday to a birthweek as my presents have not arrived as of today and my birthday cake has not been made. Is this how Hannukah turned into eight nights?

Both of my readers have been eager to hear the results from todays physical test (okay, maybe the term 'both' is a stretch.)

Nevertheless,

172.5 lbs of lovin'. A gain of 12.5 lbs.

Bench Press 235lbs X3 (a new record)

Bicep Curls 45lbs X4 (a new record

Dips 43 times (a new record)

46 out of 50 free throws Booooo!

42 out of 50 3 pointers Yay!

48 out of 50 free throw the second time around Double Boooooo!

All and all, a pretty good 28th birthday.

Yes, Dana is still alive. She just hasn't blogged in a really long time.

Quarter Life Crisis

When you turn 28 years old, it really doesn't mean much. You have been able to drink (legally) for seven years. You could buy cigarettes (theoretically) for ten years. If you really wanted to push it, you could rent a car for three years.

But for me, my 28th birthday means something. It means that I am supposed to be in the best shape of my life. Studies have shown that men reach their physical peak at the age of 28. So, where do I stand?

Let's just say that when I decided to attempt to get here at the beginning of the year, the odds weren't exactly in my favor. Since my basketball playing days, I had gained the Fidelity fifteen, the corporate version of the freshman fifteen, with an additional ten from school on top of that.

That's a total of 185 lbs of lovin at the beginning of January.

If you don't believe me, check out these pictures from Christmas of last year:

I think there is an orb from a ghost in the first picture (if this makes no sense, read the next blog post)

Dana and I did a 21 day fast of fruits and veggies only with our church (this is a whole other series of posts), but I lost 25 pounds. The goal of the fast was not to lose weight, but it happened anyway.

End of January: 160 lbs of skinny lovin.

My goals for Oct. 22 include:
Gaining 10-15 lbs of muscle
In the weight room beating my personal records of:
bicep curls (40lbs.X2)
bench press (225lbs.X2)
tricep dips (35X)
Still be able to after lifting:
Make 49 of 50 free throws (not a record, something I should be able to do any day)
Make 40 of 50 three pointers (not a record, something I should be able to do any day)

Results, as well as before and after pictures, to follow on Wednesday.

Pip and LB come to visit

At Hotel Foltice, we take the comfort of our out of town visitors very seriuously. This past weekend, from Wednesday to Tuesday, we had Pip (short for my brother, Derek) and his girlfriend LB (short for Laura Becker) visiting from Michigan. We had a great time catching up with them and feel that we did a sufficient job of not scaring off LB from the family.

Highlights of the trip included:

Watching youtube videos of Flight of the Conchords and Nick Burns the Company's Computer Guy. The only reason Pip and LB didn't think "Business Time" is not funny is because they are not married yet. (To my defense, there really is nothing on TV Wednesday night.)

Going on the Haunted Ghost tour in Historic St Augustine. Our guide, Karen (who rotted of incense by the way,) claimed that the fort is an 'epicenter' for spirits and if you keep an open mind, the pictures you take with have bright flashes out of nowhere, which are the spirits.
How then, Karen, does the spirit know that the camera is taken from someone with an open mind? Hmmm. I'll let you think about that one for a minute.

Can you see the ghouls?

We exercised all of the ghost tour out of our system during the weekend where we went to church and hosted our weekly small group of married couples. I think the married group really scared Pip and LB more than the ghost tour.

All and all it was a good few days and I hope they come back to Hotel Foltice really soon.

Matt Millen Fired

The Detoit Free Press

It's confirmed -- the Lions have fired Millen
by Tom Kowalski
Wednesday September 24, 2008, 12:31 PM



I can't stop smiling after reading it this afternoon. I got a text from my friend, Jon from Salt Lake City, this morning saying that Millen was fired! It is a great day. Not that it changes the Lions current situation, we be will be dealing with that for a while. Thanks for the memories, Matt.

All I can ask is, What took so long? The only thing I can think of is that Mr. Ford was so used to dealing with union workers that he assumed that people could not be fired. How else can you stay employed for so long while continuing to do piss poor work?

All I need to do to gain closure on this is to file a lawsuit for emotional distress; the people vs. Millen. I want 7 years of Sunday afternoons back!

My hand at a Blog

The Top 5 Reasons I have turned into a dork.

I have always taken pride in being labeled a jock or a basketball player while in school. I took refuge in the fact that I did not know where the library was on campus and that I only showed up to class half of the time. Something happened to me when I enrolled in graduate school at UNF this past semester. Now in my final semester, 5 things occurred to me last week that made me know that I have become a dork.

5. I double booked a group meeting on Thursday. I was in the library meeting in person with one group and online via 'virtual chat' with another group. Now that I know that this can be pulled off, I may have to try going on a virtual date with cybergirl69 while eating dinner with Dana. Just kidding, Dear, I love ya!

4. I am working on projects that aren't due until Thanksgiving. Doesn't sound too dorky to you maybe, but this is unprecedented compared to my undergrad track record. I was in denial about this until I mentioned to my international management group consisting of three global MBA students from Germany that I would like to have our project done one month before its due date. Aren't the foreign students supposed to be the pushy ones?

3. I can tell you when the library opens on Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, this is not just a useless tidbit of information like my knowledge of 80's Rock and Roll music. I actually need to know this as I am there on Saturday opening the doors at 8:00am. I always wondered what went on in a library on a Saturday morning. I don't need to wonder anymore.

2. I cancelled a workout last Tuesday because ‘I was on a roll doing homework.’ In my defense, I did get a lot of homework done that day, but nothing was urgent or due even that week. Working out is one of the very few things I can do these days to counteract being a dork. Where have my priorities gone?

1. I have a favorite rest room in the library. It is always clean, because it is off the beaten path on the third floor and nobody goes back there. They all use the main restroom on the first floor, which is always dirty and it is always out of paper towels. I feel like George Costanza in that I can tell you all of the good bathrooms on campus.

I should get going. Still need to put tape on my glasses, polish some apples, and remind my professor to assign the class homework.

More pics from St. George's Island

Don't laugh - I still use an old fashioned camera ... you know, the ones that use film (gasp!). So, it's taken a few weeks to come around to rewinding the film, dropping it off, picking it up and downloading it on the computer. Better late than never!

Kayak Trip

This past weekend my parents were in town and we decided to take a kayaking trip down the Ocklawaha River. We went to the very 5-star Outpost Resort and shoved off the boat ramp around 10:30 a.m.

It was Bryan's first time kayaking so there was a learning curve regarding steering. We zig-zagged down the river for pretty much the entire 8 miles. I also row a little "strong" on the left, so I wasn't helping either.

We saw lots of turles and gators. The gators were quite large and very scary. The Outpost rental guy also told us there were wild monkey's. We didn't see any, but a co-worker of mine told me that there used to be a monkey sanctuary in that area and a hurricane in the 1990's blew it down and all the monkey's escaped into the Ocklawaha State Forrest. Not sure how reliable that story is, but it offers a better explanation to the monkey population than "unwanted pets."

Long Weekend

It has been a rainy, relaxing 4-day weekend at the Foltice household. What did we do all weekend? Take a look at the photo - we were stuck inside because of the storm, so we cleaned out our closets. Can you believe that all of that stuff was in our guest bedroom closet?

Tomorrow night we are going to Mediterrania Restaurant to celebrate my birthday, which is actually on Tuesday (only one more shopping day left before the big 2-7). Bryan has class at 7:30 on Tuesday night, we we'll be celebrating Monday instead.

Another Storm Day

Neither Bryan nor I had to go into work again today because of the inclement weather. It's been a mostly uneventful day until about an hour ago when the weather people spotted a tornado about 5 miles south of our house and said it was headed our way at about 50 mph! We grabbed Oscar and sat in our storage closet underneath our staircase for about 15 minutes until the weatherman said it has moved north of where we are.

So, we decided to head outside and check out how the rest of the neighborhood was handling all of the rain, which has been pretty much non-stop all day. Here are some pictures. Looks like we picked a good, dry lot when we selected this townhome. I'd be pretty nervous if I lived on one of the lakes. I also heard that Leo Maguire Road (the road that leads to our neighborhood entrance) is flooded too. Good thing Jacksonville has the weekend to recover.

The community pool is to the right, so this is about 1/8th of a mile past our house.
These homes are across the street from our house.

The community pool is to the left of this photo, so this also is just a little bit further in the neighborhood from our house.

Weathering the Storm

My office was closed today due to lack of electricity at the beach and some windy, rainy weather, so I have been able to stay home with Bryan. Oscar is being very brave and hasn't been hiding too much from the storm. We're just sitting around hoping the power doesn't go out. I brought stuff home to work on but haven't touched any of it. I guess I'll just work extra hard tomorrow. Instead I've been reading a new book that I got from the library - The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien. It is about the Vietnam War, and is excellent and harrowing thus far.

The Hurricane is Here!

Well, actually it is Tropical Storm Fay and it is headed our way. Bryan does not have to go to work tomorrow (but that is because he doesn't work on Thursdays). I will find out tomorrow morning around 7 am if I have to go in to work. Just in case, I was allowed to bring stuff home to work on in case all of the bridges are closed and I can't make it to work - lucky me!

First post ever ... scary

Welcome to our blog! We've started this on a whim and can't really agree about what we're going to write about. Hopefully it will be interesting enough to keep our friends and family coming back for more.

Currently, Bryan is on break inbetween semesters of grad school (one semester left!) and I'm working like crazy at Clockwork Marketing. I also run our company's blog about Jacksonville - it is http://www.whatsupjacksonville.com/. Check it out!

You'll also see lots of pictures of our dog, Oscar, up here. Since we don't have any kids, we take an unusually high number of pictures of Oscar.