Sorry I haven’t been posting a lot. I need to get my butt back to the gym so I have interesting stuff to blog about.

This weekend started off nice & innocent. Friday night I bought some pork spare ribs & hamburgers to cook on the grill. I figured I would invite my parents over & do the whole family thing. Yes, I know this sounds like I was asking for trouble.

Saturday I woke up to Michelle waiting for me to come back to the world of the living. She was waiting for me to wake up so she could cook breakfast. Yes, I know I am spoiled. After breakfast we went to a gun show in Concord. Well it was suppose to be a gun show, but there less guns for sale & more beef jerky.

I hate it when gun show promoters let non-gun related booths set up at these shows. There was 2 or 3 beef jerky booths set up. I think 2 booths for jewelry, and 1 booth selling satellite tv service. The majority of the rest was guys selling hunting rifles and a couple people selling gun parts. WHAT THE HELL???? Where are all the gun collector booths. Seriously, who do you know that says “I’m going to the gun show to get me some beef jerky & jewelry. While I am there I may get me a satellite dish too.” Save the money that you will pay for entry fee to the gun show & run down to the gas station to get some damn beef jerky.

Come on people…. Can you see some 400 pound hillbilly buying a rifle, getting his woman some crappy cheap jewelry, then on his way out the door stopping to get some jerky & a satellite dish? Well, ok I can see it too, but it still doesn’t belong at a gun show damn it…….

Just before I got fed up & walked out I found a couple guys that were actually selling old rifles. Wow, someone actually selling something collectible. Even though most of the rifles for sale were either ones I already had in the collection or ones I could not afford it was nice to see something of historical value. That is the whole reason for gun collecting. You are collecting a piece of history. It is no different than someone collecting ancient books or artifacts. It is a look into the past.

After a couple minutes of looking I found one that would fit nicely into my collection & the guy eventually gave me a decent price so it came home with me.

After the show we went home & started cooking. Everything was going good until I got around to the ribs. They did not smell right. Come to find out they were spoiled. I will try not to get to vivid in my description, but it ties in to what else happened…

Lets just say I went to the bathroom to get sick. This is where the getting old part comes in. I threw out my back with a dry heave…. WHAT THE F*CK…..

There was a loud pop & when I opened my eyes I was laying on the floor. I think all the years of not taking care of myself are catching up to me. All those years of “Walk it off”, “Suck it up”.

Speaking of “Walk it off”, there was no time to cry & whine about my back. I had food to cook. Yes, food takes priority over my back pain. Isn’t in the Declaration of Independence that no pain shall stand between a man & his food? It’s not? Maybe it should be.

Even though I was in pain, spending the afternoon with my parents turned out pretty good. We had a good time.

Sunday was spent taking medicine & laying around. This worked out well since it rained all day.

I have a doctors appointment on Wednesday to find out what is wrong with me. Ok, well not really what ALL is wrong with me, just the new physical stuff….

Well I guess writing a blog doesnt really do any good if you do not publish the page. Geez….

I wrote this last Monday and forgot to check & make sure it posted.

This weekend (4/19 & 4/20) was kind of boring. Sorry. No funny story or anything.

We did have a great time on Saturday visiting with my friends Jared & Jess. We met at a coffee shop & spent a little while talking. I realized I have become very boring & Jared is determined to get me out of this rut. I spent the rest of the evening sitting in front of the TV.

On Sunday after a couple hours of rain & me trying to find something to get into, I decided to build an 8ft wide set of stairs for our back room. The people that lived here before us (for some ODD reason) demolished the deck that was on the back of the house.

Hopefully in a couple weeks Jared & Jess will be able to come out to our house & I can show Jared how to build stuff (or how to cuss & throw things when it doesnt go right).

Have you ever tried to do something and no matter what you do it doesn’t work? Then when you back off everything falls into place and you are like “Wow, that was simple”.

That is sort of what happened with me & the 2 computers I have been working on. For the last week they have been giving me problems, but I was determined to beat them. Last night everything seemed to fall into place. The new parts showed up for the one computer, and they were actually the correct parts so everything went together fine.

The laptop I have been trying to “disinfect” has been a huge pain in the a**. Last night I finally made a breakthrough. Don’t take that the wrong way. The laptop is still infected with numerous viruses & malware, but at least it finally boots up & shows the taskbar. That is something I had been working on for a couple days.

If anyone that is reading this doesn’t have an anti-virus program, stop right now & get one. If you have an anti-virus program that is out of date, get it updated or uninstall it & get a new one. An out of date anti-virus program does you absolutely no good.

Actually, wait what am I doing? Hire me to fix your computer….LOL

Maybe things are looking up.

Have a good weekend.

So last week I made a decision to start a computer repair business on the side. After all, it is what I went to school for many, many, many years ago. In my area there are only 2 or 3 options for computer repair. One of them is a local retail store that even by computer service standards charges way to much & provides very poor service. Another option is someone that does it from their home (like I will be doing), charges way more than they should & has a reputation of keeping your computer for months without repairing anything.

So I feel I will be able to do ok at it. This will not be a money maker, but will provide some extra money & will keep me from being bored. Al I will do is spend a couple hours on the weekend doing what I already do for some people for free (yes Betsy I am talking about you). The permits & required licenses for operating a business in my area are easy & cheap to obtain. I found good liability insurance. I have already lined up some resources to help me out, got hold of some parts warehouses, etc… So going into this I have a pretty good feeling about it. That is until I had my first & second “clients”.

My first client seemed easy enough. The power supply on his computer was going out. It was an older model gateway & from the info I had found on internet (who knew you could find the WRONG info on internet) this model needed a power supply with a special connector only available from gateway. I contacted gateway to find out which model power supply I needed. The sales agent transfered me to tech support to make sure I was ordering the correct part. Having worked for a tech support call center I should have known this was going to be trouble. The tech rep “cross referenced his chart” and gave me the part numbered I needed. Needless to say when the part showed up (and $60 later), it was not the correct power supply.

I called customer service only to be informed I would have to pay the cost of shipping the part back (wow this really does sound like the call center I worked for) and I would also be charged a 15% restocking fee. Ok, wait… hold on.. Now I am pissed…. So after spending an hour storming around the house, upsetting Michelle and having nothing else go right, I emailed off a complaint. I immediately received a response that all the info about tech support giving me the wrong info had been documented and I would be receiving an RMA with instructions on dropping off the package at FedEx on gateways dime. Ok, customer #1 taken care of. Boy is it fun running your own business.

Now on to customer #2. A woman at work tells me she has a laptop with a virus on it. I inform her of my charge for just looking at the computer, followed by my charge for removing a virus. I make sure she is aware even if I can not remove it there will still be the diagnosis fee. She is fine with this. Cool, from what she tells me it sounds like a simple fix. You would think I had learned my lesson about simple fixes.

Today I receive the laptop & this thing is screwed….. From what I can tell there are multiple malwares running on this thing. The desktop doesn’t display, all the admin rights have been locked down, even in safe mode. Ok, no problem. This is why I have a boot cd with diagnostic tools on it. LOL. Guess what? Her CD drive doesn’t work…..Luckily she understand this will not be an easy fix & that she may have to lose all her info. She has already started looking into buying a new laptop, so even if I have to do a complete reformat she will be happy.

Man if I survive my first week at this I will be ok… maybe….. I hate computers. Things were a lot more fun when I was just injuring myself at the gym

Let me just say - WOOHOO

Michelle surprised me today with my early birthday gift. She is so sweet. Love you honey.

And the following pics were taken with my friend Tim in mind. He was gracious enough to invite us over to his house for a party last Christmas. While we were there admiring his flat screen TV we noticed he had never taken the plastic film off of it. That is all I could think of as I un-boxed this TV. I guess you were right Tim, it is always about you.

The last week I have been a slacker. I haven’t made it to the gym. So yesterday morning I decided I should at least being doing a cardio workout at home when I don’t go to the gym.

We have digital cable, so we get all the “on demand” programs & channels. One of these is the exercise channel. I scrolled through numerous workouts that either took to long (I only had 30 minutes before I needed to go to work & I still needed to shower) or I knew I couldn’t do (Carmen Electra’s Striptease Workout). Eventually I found one that sounded good. It was called Billy Blanks’ 18 minute Beginners Cardio Workout.

For those of you that don’t know, Billy Blanks is the inventor of the Tae Bo workout. I knew Tae Bo was hard. That could also be read, I am so out of shape I knew I couldn’t handle a Tae Bo workout. But I figured this was called beginners & it was only 18 minutes, I could handle that. How hard could it be? Well as you have seen in many of my writings, once again I was wrong.

It started off with stretching. Ok, so I can’t touch my toes but I was close. No damage, YET.

Then they moved on to some twisting moves. Ok, I am keeping up. Wait what did he just say? He repeats it - “Let’s amp it up”. What? All of a sudden they are moving at the speed of light. How the hell can the human body twist that fast. Wow, finally done with that.

Oh great, there’s more. Now we are simulating swing a baseball bat, making sure you get the complete follow through so your twisting at your mid-section. No problem. I know how to swing a bat. Cool, this works. WHAT? Amp it up? Again? Not even Barry Bonds on steroids can swing this fast. How the hell are they doing this. Whew… Thankfully it’s over. Nope. Damn. Switch sides. I am right handed, how the hell am I suppose to swing a bat left handed? Amp it up? Dude, slow down. I haven’t even figured out if I am standing correctly. Oh well. They are already finished. Yay! Everyone on TV is saying yay and jumping around. Me? I am trying to catch my breath & keep from falling over.

Oh goodie, we are going to do more stretches. Turn to the left, stretch your arms out. Now kick behind you & pull your arms into your chest at the same time. In case you didn’t know this, the human body balances itself either by you having your feet planted firmly on the ground or by you stretching your arms out for balance. Guess what happens if you only have 1 foot on the ground & you pull your arms into your chest? You fall over. Luckily my fat ass has a large center of gravity so I only partially fell over. After a little practice this wasn’t to bad, until the sadistic S.O.B. named Billy Blanks “amped it up”.

Really, by this time I am sweating like a pig. There can’t be any more. They said this was beginners & it was only suppose to last 18 minutes. I look at the clock, only 10 minutes had passed. Wonderful.

Next was jumping jacks. Good. I can do those. Unfortunately they added an extra step. Instead of clapping your hands above your head, you push above your head like you are lifting a barbell. Almost like a reverse chin-up. Yeah, not that coordinated. I can either do the jumping jack or the barbell above my head thing, not both. Thankfully that is over. NEXT.

More stretching? Wait. Last time I thought we were stretching it turned into something else. I am not falling for this again. Oh, ok. We are going to act like we have a long stick or barbell stretching from one hand to another. Kinda of like holding a broom stick or something. So you take this “bar” and raise it above your head. Of course, after a minute of doing this they go into super fast mode. I cant even move it half way towards my head before they have already moved it back down. Damn, I can’t keep up.

Finally on to the last exercise. This is very similar to a basic karate stance. One foot in front of the other. Arms & hands held at your side like you are going to do a karate “punch”, for lack of a better term.

So I start to do this, but what the hell are they doing on TV. They have added some extra step to it. The are doing some kind of double step with it. Ok let me figure this out. Wait, NO… don’t go to “amped up” I am trying to see what you are doing…. damn it….fine.. whatever…

WOOHOO it’s over. Thank you…… wow…

All I have to say is F*ck you Billy Blanks and all you freaks of nature that were on TV with him. You are not normal.

I’m off to work.