MUSH!

Just a quick note about a recent undertaking. Currently we own a four and a half year old Alaskan Malamute. Her name is Tundra. She's very strong and in fact her litter mate, Badger, from Cascade Malamutes Kennels, I believe, is the current IWPA champ. Tundra is pretty strong and I think she'd be a good puller. I'd like to get her into pulling in some of the pulls held by the International Weight Pulling Association (IWPA).

Well, today her training began. It wasn't much, but it was a good start for a dog who had never been harnessed up to something. We took the bicycle trailer and after a fashion were able to rig it to her harness. With my four year old and sixteen month old boys riding along we went on about a mile walk. At first Tundra was nervous and kept looking back, wondering what in the world was following her. But, it didn't take long for her to fall into step and figure out what was going on. She actually seemed to enjoy the excercise.


This phot of Tundra was taken during her first hike, the day after we brought her home...about a year ago.


I went to Home Depot tonight and bought some hardware and a couple wooden dowles to improve the rigging so she can pull more comfortably. For now just pulling the bike trailer around will suffice for training until she's used to the harness and pulling. Eventually and gradually we'll start adding weight to increase her strength and get her used to pulling against resistance. I will try to report our progress on the blog.

Out of Bordom

Made this little music video of friends and me playing paintball back in 94' At the same time I'm testing to see if I've succesfully been able to link my youtube account up with my blog.  I apologize for the absolutely hideous quality of the video.  It was taken off of a dusty old VCR tape and then reduced even more in size for emailing.  Still kind of nostalgic for me.  Maybe someday I'll try to redo this and re-edit into a better version.

Up We Go....

Just wanted to post an update with my efforts to start up my aerial video and photography business using UAVs ( Unammned Aerial Vehichle ) or radio controlled helicopters in my case.

Cool news is I have made a contact with a guy who I won't name without his permission here, who is somewhat of an expert in the field and has agreed to build for me a custom helicopter for the purpose of taking Aerial video and photography. I am really excited about this one. This means that I will be selling my Bergen EB shortly. I just can't seem to chase down all the vibrations in this gas powered heli and have decided to give up on it. Meanwhile my new heli will be electric powered, which will mean much much less vibrations to deal with.

The goal to have the new heli in the air is Sept 1st. Also that week I have a TV shoot scheduled for a local bank here. So, that will most likely be my first paying job in AP. I am excited but also scared to death. I hope it all goes well. Right now the main concern is getting this new heli up and going in time to do the shoot on schedule.

The new heli is going to be a mesh of about five different brands of helis out there. Basically we are taking the best components of some and combining them with others to create kind of a super Frankenstein AP heli. It will be one of a kind.

I worry about the amount of debt that I have incurred to get this business going. Maybe I should have just been content with how things are going for me now without having to start this business. I just hope that I can at least make enough money to pay it all back and get out of debt. Of course I also hope that I can be wildy succesfull with it too. Time will tell.

At least very soon I will get to actually get out there and really give it a go. For the last two years I have been screwing around with this gasser trying to get it in good enough shape to do the job. But, it's always been one problem after another with the engine tuning and vibrations, etc. I have several potential clients I've wanted to pitch to, but haven't had the confidence in the heli to actually be able to tell people that, YEAH I can go out there and do this for you.

With this new heli in the works, I am ninety nine point nine percent positive that I will have the correct tools to do the job now. I can finally get out there and do it. Now I just need to see if I can get people to pay me for it!

Here we go again!

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are. Did I say stupid? Maybe I should just call them Scum of the Earth. I am now refering to another story that just popped up on the Fox News website. Apparently some idiot lady from MI is sueing Mars Candy because a Starburts chew caused her jaw to lock up! That's right. And she thinks she is owed $25,000.00 for her pain and suffering.

Once again quoting from the article. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286855,00.html

one Boston-area woman says the candies are so chewy, they should come with a warning label.

Yeah whatever lady! As if a warning label would have stopped you from stuffing your face with Starbursts.

Muawad says McArthur offered to negotiate a settlement with Starburst's insurer to pay for her rehabilitation, but the company said no way. A spokesman for Mars refused to comment.

Go Mars! Stand up! I hope Mars drains every last drop of its corporate finances to legally bury this moron.

McArthur says she just wants to make sure nobody else meets the same end she did when she decided to indulge her sweetooth.

"I don't want to see anybody else have to go through what I have gone through from eating a piece of candy that was supposed to be soft chew," she said.

Oh my hero! I'm so glad there are people out there like Victoria McArthur. Champions of liberty and fairness to watch over the rest of us....willing to take on the big, evil, nameless corporations all out of care and concern for her fellow shipmates here on spaceship Earth. Gee I wonder which charity she plans on donating her $25k to if she wins. Maybe she can help children of the Ozarks get dental care or something.

Give me a break people! We've got Thousands, maybe millions of radical islamists in the world plotting our extinction, and here we are sueing candy companies for being too chewy! No wonder they think we're weak and have the confindence to attack us! Look at us!!

The United Communist States of America?

Is this what it's coming to anymore in this country? I am specifically writing about the story I read about Kellog bowing to the will of advocacy groups to reformulate their LEGALLY distributed products like Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Pop Tarts to meet more "nutritional" guidelines. To read the whole article go to Fox News:


I will be quoting here from the article.

The Battle Creek, Mich., company avoided a lawsuit threatened by parents and nutrition advocacy groups worried about increasing child obesity. Kellogg intends to formally announce its decision Thursday.

The company said it won't promote foods in TV, radio, print or Web site ads that reach audiences at least half of whom are under age 12 unless a single serving of the product meets these standards:

Remember this is AMERICA! When did minority advocacy groups in this country get this kind of power? American companies are becoming slaves bent to the whims of these lunatic groups who can use the court system to destroy companies and people who don't conduct legal business in a manner that these groups deem acceptable!! Twenty years ago if this happened, Kellogg would have laughed it off knowing that any judge in the country would toss a case like this out.

"By committing to these nutrition standards and marketing reforms, Kellogg has vaulted over the rest of the food industry," said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "This commitment means that parents will find it a little easier to steer their children toward healthy food choices — especially if other food manufacturers and broadcasters follow Kellogg's lead."

Unbelievable! Parents will find it easier to STEER their children toward healthy food choices!? This is ridiculous. This Mr. Jacobson is assuming that we as parents in America have no control over what our kids eat and do not eat? Especially the younger than twelves? COME ON! I don't wake up on Saturday morning and see my kids eating Frosted Flakes and think to myself, "Gee...I sure wish my kids wouldn't eat that crap...sigh...but what can I do?" WRONG! My kids eat what I give them to eat. I do the shopping. I make the choices of what cereal goes in the cart, not the kids! There's no "steering" going on at my home.

I love to reward them once in a while with a sweetened cereal. It's been a family tradition that on your birthday as a kid you get to choose a cereal. You know...Cookie Crisp, Frosted Flakes, Fruity Pebbles, Lucky Charms etc. But on a regular day you see my kids eating oatmeal or Cheerios, or Grape Nuts, or Shredded Wheat. I'm not such a moron to feed my kids straight sugar all day long and then wonder why they are fat, and neither is the rest of America's parents.

Sueing companies like Kellog, KFC and McDonald's is not going to do one bit of a dent in this country's obesity problem. This country needs nutritional education! It's 2007 and we are still going by the USDA's food pyramid that's been around since the 1940s. Despite a few modifications over the years it's the same dang pyramid. Maybe it's time for a revaluation on our nutritional approach as a country. Forcing companys through litigation is not the answer here! What's next, Nintendo, Playstation, and XBOX? How about that for contributing to obesity? Let's sue the gamer industry next to put microchips in consoles that force them to shut off after a certain ammount of play time every day. Yeah, parents don't know what's best for their kids. Let's introduce a robomom and robodad while we're at it.

Back To The Drawing Board

Well, today is day four of my new Atkins diet. I have spent two years trying to do the Body For Life program and have not made much progress. Sure, I have had good weeks with BFL, I even lost 12 pounds in 5 weeks on BFL once. Unfortunately, I can't seem to stay with it consistently enough to keep the weight off, and have spent the last two years gaining back twenty five pounds. I can say that in my experience with BFL I only lost weight if I was working out every day as the diet prescribes. The plus was if I stuck to the diet part but missed the workouts I did not gain weight. So, it's a great way for me to maintain my weight, but I just don't think I can use it to lose signifigant body fat.

I am not blaming the diet or program itself, but more my personal life and schedule. I work fourteen hour shifts four times a week and overtimes on top of that. I have a wife and three kids plus two dogs. Getting to the gym consitently is not easy. I believe if you have the time and schedule to get into the gym than BFL will work for anyone. But, at least on Atkins you lose weight whether you are working out or not. If I miss a workout on Atkins it isn't a big deal. I still lose weight.

Why back to Atkins? My first experience with Atkins I lost around thirty five pounds. I read alot of negatives about Atkins on the internet that made me wary to do it. I found these negatives to be false in my own case. Here's what I found to be untrue for me.

1- Atkins will make your cholesterol go up
2- Atkins will cause your blood pressure to rise
3- Atkins will make you grumpy and irritable
4- Atkins will make you tired and non-energetic
5- The weight you lose on Atkins is mostly water and lean muscle, not fat.
6- You will gain all the weight back that you lose.

These were the major things I was hearing about Atkins when I started it. I found every single one of those to be wrong in my case. In my job I have to get a complete medical physical every year. My first physical after eight months of Atkins was A+ My blood pressure was down from the year before. My resting heart rate was down. My HDLs were up and my LDLs were down. I was not irritable or non-energetic. My blood sugar stayed nice and level all the time so I never felt that mid-afternoon "crash" that alot of people feel every day. And as far as gaining the weight back....well what diet out there can you go off and NOT gain back the weight. My mistake was going off in the first place.

I also have to mention a recent study out of Stanford, the longest of its kind to date, where the Atkins diet came out on top by a significant amount. The study shows that people on Atkins lost 40% more fat than people on the next best diet. The article I read didn't mention what the "next best" diet is.

So, here's to another try at weight loss, one that I know from personal experience works. From this last study I can do it without fear or doubts to the benefits. I'm thinking that I can probably slowly transition to more of a BFL lifestyle once I lose the weight I want. I will probably count the carbs still. If I start gaining weight, I will cut back the carbs until I find the magic number. So, I guess in the end I will be doing kind of a blend of Atkins and BFL. Atkins For Life? I would do this just because I find the food choices and diet of BFL preferable to Atkins. So, if I can use Atkins to lose the weight first, then BFL to maintain, that would be ideal.

I will keep my progress posted here.

ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY!

I just rented and watched the movie, "Rocky Balboa" tonight. Let me first admit before the world that I like the first four Rocky movies. I know they are considered campy and cliche by most of the world out there, but I like em!

I rented the movie basically expecting another heaping serving of the same old Rocky movie formula. I have to admit I was a bit surprised at the depth of character developement that went into this one. It is mostly a character piece really that deals with issues of growing older and feeling out of touch with one's potential. It also deals with family relationships. Rocky has to overcome negative feelings from his grown up son who is tired of living in Rocky's shadow. He also has to combat his loneliness as his wife, Adrian, has passed away.

I don't want to get all into the plot and all, but just thought that the film showed alot of guts. Stallone puts his soul out there for the audience, and one can't help but to wonder if he is personally dealing with these similar issues in his real life as he deals with growing older.

The message is clear. Never give up on what you want to do. Don't let other people tell you what you can and can't do. There is a great scene where Rocky puts the smack down on his pouting son, and gives him a talk on the reality of life. Basic message, stop mopping about like a victim and blaming this and that for your failures. Stand up and hit life back with all you have!

All and all a well acted movie with a positive, up-beat message. I think I will be adding this one to my personal library.

Have a turned my blog into a movie critic blog? Nah. I'm just going to start putting crap like this on here too. Books, movies, thoughts, etc.

The Slaughter of Noobies

Had a great day of paintball last Saturday, the 21st. We actually had seventeen people show up to play. We played in the river bottoms which aren't quite yet lush and green so I wore my brown realtree camo which seemed to work superbly.

The weather was what I would call perfect. I'm not sure of the temps but it was on the cool side with the sun behind clouds often, and a few intermittent sprinkles of rain throughout the day. We played for about three hours.

The first game was Mutant. I was on the human team, but a bunch of new and very young players volunteered to be mutants. I felt bad for them as I saw them getting mowed down, so I rushed into the open to give them a chance, and BINGO I was hit, so I joined up with the mutants, who went on to eliminate all humans...as usual!

The next game was Spawn, which we played for quite a long time. I had numerous kills in the game, but was also taken out many times. It was pretty confusing with so many teams. I think in the future with that many players it will be better to play three man teams.

After Spawn we played a game of Grand Bush ( protect the president ) we sent out four snipers, and made history by having our very first female president. She did a good job and ordered her men well. The snipers were defeated easily. Afterwards the four snipers were complaining that 4 vs 13 was just plain impossible. So...Clay, Jon, Blake, and I ( all seasoned players ) volunteered to be the snipers for another game of Grand Bush.

We devised a simple diversion / flank plan. Clay and Blake hung back near the flag that the president is supposed to capture, while Jon and I hid ourselves off to the side. Eventually the president and her men moved right past us and got into a fire fight with Clay and Blake. Once the shooting began, Jon and I made a dash right up the center of the field, and caught the whole group unawares from behind.

The rest of what happened just seems like a blurr to me. I just remember putting my sights on the whole group, and ripping off automatic rounds from the Egrip A-5 with extreme prejudice. I could here Jon's gun next to me doing like wise. The noobies were in a dead panic as they danced around flayling their arms in the air as if trying to swat the paintballs like they were angry hornets. All the while they were yelling "HIT HIT HIT!" But due to some lingering survivors we continued the barrage for a bit more until the entire group had been eliminated.

I almost feel evil for implementing such an effective plan on a group of mostly newbies. But....IT SURE WAS A KICK!!! HA HA HA!

After playing a few times now that my A-5 is all modified to look like the real thing, I am starting to have second thoughts. I find that although the gun sure looks cool, it might actually be impairing my performance as it is now twice as long and twice as heavy and cumbersome. I'm starting to think I made a mistake getting all that after market crap. I might be looking to sell it all, and strip the gun down to it's basic original look. I will still run the Egrip, and a remote line, and probably buy a nice barrel like the kevlar Black Cell from Special Ops Paintball.

First Paintball Day of The Year

Well, I got my first paintballing in for the year. I played on a six acre forested field with about six of us. Not a huge turnout, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

I did pretty good actually. I was quite pleased. I had a total of about seven eliminations, with myself only getting eliminated about three times. Not a bad ratio. I ditched my Flatline barrel and went back to playing with my old Armson, and was very happy with the results. I kinda feel like my old self is back....the old self that oppenents needed to be wary of.

At one point in the game I actually flanked a guy from behind so bad that I ended up too close to shoot him, so called out for him to surrender, which he was more than happy to do. There was another memorable moment when it was two guys vs me and both were moving for me. I was able to eliminate them both as they moved up on me. That was pretty fun.

The field is called Fast Eddy's in Blackfoot, Idaho. I almost didn't go because I'm generally a little shy and felt apprehensive about just showing up by myself and playing with a bunch of guys I didn't know. Amazingly, I got there and actually knew a few people including the owner, who I have played paintball with once before when we just happened to meet up playing outlaw one day. Plus, I made contact with two other players from my home town that were interested in getting together. So, two fresh recruits! That's just what we need.

Well, hopefully there will be more paintball games to report as the summer goes on. Not just his one.

A Ray Of Hope

Well, things may be looking up as far as the fitness goals go. For about a year now, I have been trapped in a bunker at work, and not let out to workout as often as I need to, in order to really make any headway. I have just found out that as of April 1st, I will no longer be required to work in this position. This will most definatley allow me more opportunity to run a more stringent and controlled routine. Hopefully once and for all I can get back into the Body For Life routine and take it all the way this time. I have been so discourage lately as I've seen myself gaining weight over the last year, pound by pound.

In the paintball world I'm a bit frustrated as well. I am hoping to get a game going for sometime in April. The weather should be nice enough by then. I hope. This is Idaho!! But, the major frustration is realizing that I don't have much of a player's pool anymore. Almost all of the original gang is moved away. I'm going to have to try to get out there and recruit some fresh blood into the paintball pool.

I flew my helicopter for the first time of the year. Didn't fly all winter. It flew great. Nice and smooth with no incidents. I am a bit rusty and am not as confident as I was. For now I will just have to take it slow and easy and gain back my confidence. No reason to rush it.

cough....cough

That's been me for the last week. Sunday night I felt a tickle in my throat that caused me to cough a bit. I thought I had inhaled some dust or something when moving a refrigerator. Monday morning while driving to the gym I felt a bit of tightness in my chest associated with a small cough, but I felt well enought, and went through with my workout.

About half way into the workout, I suddenly felt very drained. My lungs were burning, and there was a raspy, raw sensation in the back of my throat. I came to terms with myself and admitted that I must indeed have come down with something. I quit the workout, and went straight to the sauna hoping to sweat out whatever it was afflicting me. Unfortunately some kind of virus has entrenched itself into my system, and has been reeking havoc on me all week. Runny nose, pounding head, stuffy sinuses, terrible cough, aching muscles and joints etc.

The fact that I've been working these last four days hasn't helped me in getting any better. Getting up at 4:30 am every morning, and not getting to bed till 11:00 pm. AAARGH! I get the next three days off, so tonight after I get home, I'm going to do a double dose of Nyquil and try to sleep for three days. Then maybe I will feel better.

Kudos to my wife who has gotten in a workout every day this week, and done a good job on her eating. Meanwhile she leaves me in the dust.

Hmmmm....Go figure

This is strange. In my previous post, I lamented about not being able to lose weight even after a very dedicated week. I also mentioned that my discouragement led to four days of eating oblivion including raw cookie dough late at night on the couch.

The really strange thing is after all that, I weighed myself today, after two days back on the program, and I am down about three and half pounds! What the HECK?! I don't know what to make of it, but I will take what I can get. It's a mystery for sure. It goes to show that you can't rely so much on the scale. I should not have allowed myself to become so discouraged last week.

Today went good. I ran on the treadmill for twenty minutes before coming into work. It was a little tough since my hams are pretty sore from my all out sprint the other day to keep the job, but I did push through it, and it felt good.

As far as food goes, I have stumbled onto a culinary discovery that will make things nicer. When I bring food to work, I try to make it as easy and simple as possible. I love fish, but lately have been finding it harder and harder to gag down a can of tuna a day. Never fear! I found these great little pre cooked, sealed packets of marinated salmon steaks. These are absolutely delicious to me. tonight I had one with a portion of brown rice, and green beans. Bill Phillips would have burst his buttons with pride if he had seen my plate.

Well, that's it for today.

I get to keep my job

Well, another year has come, and once again I had to prove my worthiness to keep wearing a gun as a responder on the job. No biggie, but I still get all nervous for it for some reason. Probably because I'm being timed by an X-Oakland Raiders player. We just call him The Griz around here.

Anyway, to keep my job, every year I am required to run a half mile in under 4:40, and a 40 yard dash starting from a prone position in under 7.8 seconds. I made my run in about forty degrees this year, which was nice compared to the six degrees I ran it in last year. Due to the cool air however, I always try to run a moderate pace and try to beat any land speed records. I ran my half mile in 4:05, and my 40 yards in 6.45. Not bad. Could be better if I could lose a good 3o pounds.

Well, I am working on that. I hate to report that last week after not losing one pound after such a successful week before of working out, I kinda fell off the wagon, and ate whatever for four days, including a bowl of cookie dough with my wife while we watched episodes of 24 till three in the morning. The good news is, I talked to my friend Jon, the personal trainer, and I think we figured out why I didn't lose weight.

Basically, in trying to follow Bill Phillips' advice on working out on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, most mornings I wasn't eating anything till noon! Which is unacceptable according to Jon. Which makes sense. You gotta start the metabolism up asap. So for now on, if I want to do the empty stomach thing, I need to get up and to the gym earlier. No more sleeping in. Otherwise, it would be better for me to just go ahead and eat something before heading to the gym. The other problem, is my diet isn't as strict as it was when I tried Body For Life last spring. Mainly I have been eating these collossal sandwiches, that are probably holding me back as well. So, I'm cutting out the big Dagwood daily sandwich.

I am happy to report that despite my own laziness, today ( monday ) I began once again the program with new hope for success. I had a great upper body weight lifting workout to kick it off. So the new goal is to lose 5 lbs in two weeks. Hopefully I can at least see some results this time. If not, it will almost be tempting to go back on Atkins again. Just for the results. I kinda wonder how it would work to do the Atkins diet while working out the Body For Life way.

nuff for now.

Update

Well, it's been a while! I guess there really hasn't been alot to say about paintball these days. Unfortunatley we only got together once last summer to play and that was the last time I basically posted. Yeah it was pathetic. Even mediocre half-hearted paintballers make it out more often than once a year! Anyway, as we approach the nearing of spring I am in a new mode of enthusiasm for paintball, and am gearing up for what will hopefully be a great summer of balln'.

I think that gearing this blog strictly towards paintball might have been a mistake. There just isn't enough to write about at this point to keep the blog going day in and day out, hence the major lack of posts over the last several months.

So, I have decided to just have a themeless blog. Yep, it's going to go in no particular direction. It's just going to be me. If paintball happens to be dominating my thoughts then the posts will be on paintball, or fitness, or RC aircraft, my job, my family, whatever. But, I still want to specialize on paintball to a degree, and make a concerted effort to still put it at the top of the list.

So now that's out of the way, here is a life update:

As far as the aerial photo business goes, I have all my gear and equipment together, and am just waiting for the weather to warm up so I can get out there and do some flying.

I am back on Body For Life after several false starts. I finally had one solid week without missing a workout, and staying on the right track diet wise. Although for some strange reason I didn't lose one single pound. I am very perplexed. I am not losing faith however, and will continue on and see how this next week goes. So for the record, Week One - 0 pounds lost. =(

As far as paintball goes, after playing last summer, I have decided to give up on the Flat Line barrel for my A-5. Don't get me wrong. It's a good barrel for
reaching out there far. But, the accuracy just isn't up to my standards. So, I have gone back to my trusty old Armson that I bought clear back in 1994. It still does well. Plus, both barrels can be interchanged pretty easily so if I decide I want to go back to the Flat Line it will be no big deal. Chances are though, I will sell it and try to put the money towards the new Tac 8, which would be a serious pistol to have, not that I need one, but really WANT one!







Well, that's all it in a nutshell. I'm not going to go so long this time without a post. Now that I can allow myself other topics to talk about.