Dreary Days

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Dana Pellerin

It’s raining here in Fresno and that’s a good thing. We only get something like 10 inches of rain a year, so when it does come down, we don’t complain about it. It kind of sets a tone though for how the last month or so has been.

I saw my family back in December and while it was a good visit, I’m reminded at how many challenges they have. Years of drug abuse, and lack of strong leadership have left our family with a lot of problems. I don’t want to get too personal here and start spilling crap about my family, but there’s so much disfunction it’s not even funny. I love my family, but I’m glad I don’t live close enough to get sucked into all the garbage.

The other thing that’s been kind of sucky is just that I haven’t been to church or bible study in over a month. I think that’s having a big effect on me. On one hand, church is different for me now. I think having my wife work there and having to hear all the back end stuff that happens on a day to day basis is really getting me down. When I go on Sunday it’s hard to concentrate. Maybe I should start going to a different church just so I can focus again. lol.

Anyway, on an up note, the post Christmas Detox is going pretty good. Have to work back up to daily workouts again and get back to eating right. My weigh in is tomorrow and I expect at least 3 pounds, maybe 4 lost. So that’s a good start. If I can keep that up, I’ll be down to 200 in 30 days with no problems.

Still trying to figure out where my Epic Ride 2012 will be going as well. Thinking Sturgis, but then again, the ride there is going to be awful. Flat and boring. It would be cool just to be able to say I went to Sturgis, but it doesn’t seem like a great ride. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just do a long tour through Northern Cali and southern Oregon. Last time I was up there, there was a ton of stuff I wanted to see but didn’t have time. I think I need more of a leisurely adventure this year instead of doing 500 miles a day.

Well, that’s all that’s going on. Peace.

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Post Christmas Detox 2012 Edition

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Dana Pellerin

I hate the holidays. Without fail I gain at least 10lbs, then I have to spend the rest of the winter trying to burn it off. The winter is the worst time to try and lose weight too because it’s cold and honestly, I could just hibernate all winter. I don’t want to get sweaty and stuff. I just want to climb in bed and stay there until April.

But I can’t let that happen. So it’s time for my annual Post Christmas Detox. I looked up my blog post from last year and at this time I was 209.5. This year I’m at a grotesque 213. I have my work cut out for me for sure.

So why am I so much heavier this year? Well, I think it’s because I made a mistake in November with my workouts. I listened too much to young guys who work out twice a day and started using a high calorie protein shake thinking I could build more muscle. And I could have built more muscle if I worked out twice as much as I normally do. But that’s simply not possible without giving up the rest of my life, so basically I gained weight and never turned it into muscle. Add on the usual holiday feasts, a week spent in Nashville eating my mom’s home cooked meals three times a day, and a week of being sick, and well…. here I am.

So enough excuses. What’s the recovery plan? Well starting yesterday I go back to healthy clean foods. Vegetables, fruit, rice, and whole grains. Secondly, I’m going to get back to working out. An hour a day at least 5 days a week. I’m also going to try and ride my bicycle one day a week depending on the weather. Lastly, I’m cutting back on the alcohol. No beer. Period. I’ll allow one small glass of red wine in the evening with dinner.

So, today I’m at 213, I plan to be back to 200 in 30 days. Let’s do this!

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Will God Win the Super Bowl? My Thoughts on Tim Tebow.

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Dana Pellerin

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Tim Tebow. For those who don’t follow sports (I don’t) he’s a quarterback having a great year and also he’s a very vocal Christian.

The talk I hear is this: Christians are claiming that God is winning football games for them and Tebow’s success if proof there’s a God. The other side counters that God must be pretty shallow if he lets Christians suffer in other parts of the world while he wins football games in America.

Both arguments are completely idiotic.

Here’s my take. I don’t think God gives a crap about football. What I think God really cares about is bringing his creation, people, into a relationship with him. God wants us to know him and he wants to love us and us to love him. And if God is doing anything through Tim Tebow right now, he’s making his presence known. Not by winning football games, but through the words and actions of one of his creations.

I think when you look at it that way, then it becomes clear that God is also working every bit as hard in places where Christians are having a tough time. When I went to Ethiopia a few years back I saw this first hand. People in absolute poverty having their spirits lifted and hope instilled in them because they were learning about Jesus.

So my fellow Christians, if you’re gloating over won football games, knock it off. You’re totally missing the point and screwing up the message. Take this opportunity not to say “believe in God and you’ll win the playoffs”… but take the time to share what the gift of Jesus really means. It means a relationship with our Creator. It means forgiveness, personal fulfillment, peace, compassion and love, in all circumstances.

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New Toys

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Dana Pellerin

I’m a techie tightwad. For as much as I’ve been involved in technology both from a professional and personal aspect, I really hate buying technology. The reason is because technology rarely lives up to the hype. Either that or the usefulness is so short-lived that it’s not worth the investment. I have BOXES of crap that I bought and no longer use, believe me.

This weekend however I decided that I needed to buy some technology to replace some stuff that was just getting old so I went shopping to replace my printer and my TV.

First, my printer. My old printer was an HP Deskjet 5850 and I gotta say I hated to see that sucker go. It was reliable, fast and printed beautifully. The downside was that it was only compatible with Wireless B and did not use WPA2 encryption. This meant I had to keep an old Apple Airport router around to make it work and it also means that I had to have a physical cable connecting my Cisco router to the Airport. So I decided to buy a new printer so I could get rid of the extra router and cabling. I ended up buying an HP 3050a. The 3050a is a low end combo printer/scanner. It’s 100% wifi, connects to my existing network just fine and has really good mac support. It cost me $70 which is crazy cheap. I can also print to it via the iPhone/iPad and even over the internet. I don’t know why I’d want to print over the internet, but printing from the iPad is really handy.

My second purchase was a new TV. We had an old tube Sony 36″ for the last 15 years and honestly I just grew to hate looking at it. Everything is in letterbox these days which means on my square TV I was looking at this tiny little picture. And when you have a Roku or computer hooked up to it, the graphics on the menus are horribly blurry. So I went to Costco and bought a new Vizio 47″ LCD. Now I know what some are saying…. you gotta have LED, you gotta have 120hz refresh, blah, blah, blah. No I don’t have to have any of that crap. The hottest price point right now in my opinion are 60hz LCD’s. To get a substantial increase in viewing quality you really have to just go up a few sizes and for that you’ll spend a grand easy. The increase in quality between LED and traditional LCD is not worth it when you consider it’s at least 30% more expensive, especially when moving up from a tube TV. We watched a few HD movies on it last night and it looks STUNNING. I’m really happy with it.

So those are my latest technology purchases. That will probably be the last things I buy for a while.

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New Years Follow Up

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Dana Pellerin

So yesterday I posted my new years resolutions and already went about making some of them happen. I’m posting about it mainly because I want to get back to blogging, and also because I think it helps to build accountability when you actually write something down. Sometime in the future, I’ll look back on this post and either be reminded of a horrible failure, or be proud that I kept taking steps forward.

Yesterday I went out and did some shopping in order to proceed with my resolutions. First I bought a new set of strings for my guitar. I came home and strung her up and she sounds mighty fat let me tell you. There’s still a slight buzz in the jack, but I’ll fix that later. I fired up the computer and laid down an idea that was floating around in my fat skull. Three guitar tracks and a drum track later, it was sounding pretty cool. It’s still just a riff, but it’s inspiring. I also downloaded the EverNote app and started making notes of riffs and stuff as they come into my head. I already have some more stuff to work on.

I bought some cool ink pens and a sketch book as well. I started sketching yesterday and finished one, and started a new one this morning. My goal is to sketch something every single day. It doesn’t really matter what it is, it’s just gotta be something. That way I can experiment with techniques and get my chops back up without stressing over the result. honestly, it felt good to do some drawing. A bit frustrating because I don’t like to suck at stuff and I definitely suck right now, but I can feel it coming back quickly. My ultimate goal is to come up with a dozen or so t-shirt designs and start my clothing company. We’ll see how I progress.

So I’m off to a good start. I’ll check in and post some songs and drawings once I feel comfortable enough with them.

 

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Happy New Year 2012!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Dana Pellerin

Well it’s that time of year when everyone comes up with a bunch of junk that they want to do in the new year that they should have been doing anyway. Normally I forgo these resolutions because they only last about a day and a half anyway. This year I’m going to break down and make some resolutions. Why? Because I feel like it, and it’s my blog. How’s that?

Seriously though, I feel like I’m just surviving lately. I’m kind of walking through life and not really doing anything cool. I sit in front of the TV or computer and just watch what everyone else is creating and it sucks. So 2012 is going to be about stripping out the noise and creating instead of just consuming.

Therefore, here are my 2012 New Years resolutions:

1.  Spend less time consuming. Didn’t I just say that? I’ve already started this one by making this blog post, killing my twitter account and killing my Google + account. I’ve also deleted about a dozen “friends” from Facebook.

2. Create music. Bob from SOS and I are going to write some tunes and today I’m going to re-string and re-wire my guitar and start recording ideas again. I was listening to some old stuff Frank and I did with Smoke This and I really dug it. I have a lot of ideas, I just need to get them on tape.

3. Create art. I haven’t done any serious sketching in decades. I’ve been kicking around starting my own clothing company but I’m not happy with other people’s art. So I think I need to just put in the time and make my own. I’m gonna do it.

4. This is a professional resolution. I’m going to earn my first certificate on my way to becoming a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer. Here’s why; I’m getting old. The young guys coming up have time to spend doing open source stuff and living for code. I don’t. I have a family, a house to keep up, and other hobbies that bring me joy. Also, I don’t really fit in with the new brand of coder. I don’t like fancy coffee, or listen to John Mayer and I don’t really like talking about coding (or any technology) socially. What I do know is that I have 20 years of corporate IT experience. I think this certification will bolster that experience and also give me a much needed skills and confidence boost.

So there you have it. It’s all about creating and being productive this year. Yes there’s the usual stuff like keeping in shape and continuing to foster my relationship with God, which is not trivial, but i’ve already managed to work those things into my life. I don’t need a resolution to continue them.

I hope everyone has a productive and exciting 2012! God Bless!

 

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This is how we roll at Clovis Hills Community Church

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Dana Pellerin

Just wanted to share a little video of our morning services here at Clovis Hills Community Church. Sorry for the zoom in on me… my wife was doing the filming. :-)

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23 Years of Marriage

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Dana Pellerin

A little over a week ago my wife and I celebrated 23 years of marriage! Yes this post is late, but no I didn’t forget my anniversary, I’ve just been too busy to post about it.

Every year I do a post on my anniversary and try to pass on a little information about how the heck we’ve lasted so long. It’s kind of mind blowing every year to look back on everything we’ve been through together. It’s also interesting to see the responses from other people.

I think people were more amazed at how long we’ve been married when we were around year 16 or 17. That blows people away. If you get divorced within the first 10 years, I don’t think anyone is really surprised by that anymore. They just assume you didn’t try. If you get divorced between year 10 and 15, it’s really sad, but all too common. So if you make it to years 15 to 20 or so, it’s really amazing to people. The funny thing is, once you pass 20 years of marriage, it’s no longer amazing to people. They just expect you to be married forever now. It’s old news.

I think marriage in a way works like that too. Once you’ve been with a person for so long, hopefully you’ve worked out all the kinks, and that person just becomes an extension of you. I think that’s where I’m at now. Michelle is such a part of everything I do, that I could never imagine her not being there. Or worse, somebody else being in her place. We’ve learned to deal with each other’s quirks, we’ve learned to work together and depend on each other, and so even the thought of starting over and dating and all that just completely preposterous. Besides, do you know any single people in their 40′s or older? I do, and generally speaking there are good reasons they are single. Not all of them are messed up, but most of them are. Just saying.

Anyway, the longer I’m married and the more I watch my younger married (and divorced) friends makes me realize a few things about how to stay married. And I think it comes down to how you approach your relationship in the first place. On my Facebook account I have several female friends that go through a new relationship about once a month. And their attitude when they get a new guy is all about how good they feel. I think people who approach relationships with the attitude that they are doing something to make themselves feel good are always going to fail.

Marriage is not about making you feel good. If you want to feel good, go buy a freaking car, or some new clothes or something. Relationships are about being part of a unit, a team. Let that sink in. If you could play football pretty good and you went to a coach and said “hey coach, I want to play football because I think your team will make me feel good”, the coach would kick you off his field. Each player is chosen for a team strictly because of what they can put back into the whole. I think that’s the secret to marriage. Marriage should be entered into with the idea that you have something to offer to the team, and you’re going to give 100%. If both people go in with that attitude, that relationship can’t fail.

So there you have it. A football analogy for the success of marriage. This coming from a guy that hasn’t watched a game in 10 years. I must truly be getting old. I was going to use a rock ‘n’ roll analogy, but all bands are dysfunctional so I couldn’t make that work. Sorry.

Anyway, here’s to 23 years of marriage to my beautiful and loving wife. I could not imagine my life any other way.

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America’s Quirks

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Dana Pellerin

Came across a great discussion on the web where foreigners were asked to post about the things that they noticed were unique about America. There’s a lot of great points made. Some embarrass me, but most make me happy I’m American.

A few things I found interesting though; Many people pointed out that they were shocked that Christianity is so ingrained into our culture and how open we are to talking about our faith. In the same breath they would voice amazement at how plentiful everything is here. Don’t see a connection?

I also thought it was funny that people were amazed at how great the customer service is in general, but then were dismayed that tipping is expected. Again, don’t you think these things are related?

I also found it interesting that foreigners were shocked at how worried we are about being able to afford healthcare. That’s disconcerting to me. Definitely a black eye for the US.

I think it’s fun though to see our quirks through the eyes of visitors. Check out the forum at the link below. The site is kind of clunky and hard to read, but it’s very interesting.

http://ask.metafilter.com/200224/What-are-Americas-quirks

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Rollercoaster

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Dana Pellerin

So we’re at that time of year when I fall into a bit of a depressing mood. It happens every year for me. I didn’t realize a pattern until about 5 years ago. Looking back now, I realize that most of the job changes I’ve had in my life took place in the winter. Interesting, no? Science has a name for this, but I just call it the winter time blues. And now I just push through it and don’t fret too much.

Today though I got some bad news from the doc which is going to make this season even suckier, and it’s bumming me out. All my blood levels are out of whack again, and at over 200lbs I’ve put on quite a bit of weight from being in the 190′s a year or so ago. *sigh*.

I’m telling you man, maintaining my fitness has proven to be a ridiculously hard endeavor. It shouldn’t be because all it takes in 60 lousy minutes of jumping or running a day and not putting garbage into my mouth, but never the less, the discipline escapes me. It probably hurts me too that I don’t look fat, and nobody would call me overweight, so that makes it easier for me to justify skipping a workout or having an few extra beers here and there. But my bloodwork says I’m not as healthy as I need to be, and so to get there I need a sustained focus and work ethic.

The Doc says to lower my carb intake and cut the alcohol. That sucks because I really, really, really love my beer. A lot. And I suppose I could try just cutting back, but that never really works for me. If I cut something completely out of my life, it’s much easier to know when I’m cheating.

The bad part of all this is not that I’m a few pounds heavier, it’s that it’s a continual area of failure in my life. This is one of the few things that I really have a hard time making permanent. And I really, really hate sucking at stuff.

So here’s to a renewed focus on fitness. Again.

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