Is The Year Technially Still New?

I mean, it is a day old. At a doughnut shop, it'd be half off. Well, either way, I hope everybody's new year is going well.

With the new year there is a lot of talk about resolutions and how to make them and how to keep them. The most common articles I have read either talk about how you should write them down to solidify the commitment, and either break down big goals into sizable daily or weekly chunks, or make smaller eaiser obtainable goals that are easier to accomplish. I see the same articles every year, and it seems that now they're just taking what they wrote last year (or fifteeen years ago) and just re-hashing it and rearranging the sentences a little. Then, it's publish and considered a new article. Well, this ain't going to be one of those posts. I'm not even going to talk about how you should do anything about your resolutions. I'm just going to talk about what mine are and how I plan on accomplishing them. Now, I've never been big on making resoultions. In fact, I have never even considered making any. But, there are a few things I need to get straight in my life, and I figured I might as well do it this way.

First off I need some get some of this fat off. Personally, I'm don't give a damn about how much I weigh. According to the doctors and tables and posters, I should weigh around 190 to 215 pounds (being as that I'm about six feet tall, and have a big bone structure). Some charts and and caclutlators I've found on the web go as low as about 140 to 175 pounds. I weighed 187 pounds when we had our eight grade football weigh ins. But, I digress. As I was saying, I'm not concerned with my actual weight, but how I actually feel and look. A few years back, when I first got into the oilfield, I worked six days a week with two off afterward. And, I got down to about 250 punds, and the back up to about 270 and I wasn't what you'd call ripped. But, I didn't have a big gut, and had some damn big arms.
Back to my resoulution. My plan is to get into better shape throughout the year. But, my resoulution is to start exercising more everyday. And, to spend at least two hours outside every day I'm not working, and one on the days I do work. And, the plan is simple. I will start by doing one push-up, one sit-up, and two repetitions of each of five different dumbell exercises a day, and then add one push-up and one sit-up and double the dumbell exercises each week till the end of the year. By the end of the year I will be doing fifty two push-ups and sit-ups a day, and one hundred and four repetitions of each bumbell exercise. I haven't quite worked out my biking plan just yet, but I want to work up to five miles a day riding, may do twelve and start out at a mile a day and add a mile every month.

Secondly, I'm going to do more volunteer work. My plan is to do a day or weekend a month helping out at the local homeless shelter, or soup kitchen. The day or weekend will depend on how long the voulenteer work is. If I'm just going up there and helping to serve lunch, then I'll come back and do lunch again the next day. But, If I'm up there from seven to four or so, I'll take the next day to do stuff at home.

Thirdly, I'm going to be the example I want my kids to emulate. I'm going to use please and thank you more often and just be generally more plesant when interacting with others. I figure since I want my kids to be like that, I should be the example of what I want them to be and do.

Lastly, I'm going back to my teaching and what I learned from my Grandpaw. This is specific but covers more that just one subject. He had a quite simple philosophy about everything, "Why create more work than necessary. Especially for someone else." We were at some barell races this weekend, and after every body had run and packed up and gone, I noticed that people had just left their trash and chairs all over the damn arena. And, it aggrivated the piss-water out of me. The chairs belonged to the fairgrounds, and people were just too damn lazy to put up what they got out. So, me and my daughters started picking put the chairs and putting them away, and picking up the trash and throwing it away. My grandpaw was anal about this kind of crap. I remember when we would go out to eat, when we were done, we would wipe off the table and put all our trash on our plates and stack the plates and glasses (if they were empty, the plates always were). He wouldn't even allow a straw wrapper to be leaft on the table. Said, "It ain't right to create work for someone else when you can do it youself just sitting there." There'd be hell to pay if you threw your candy wrapper out the window going down the road or on the ground anywhere you were. He'd say' "It ain't too far to walk to a trash can. And if it is, it ain't hurt ya to hold on to it this long. So, you can hold on to it a little while longer till you can throw it away."

Another of my grandpaw's rules were, "Ya don't cuss in front the women folk." Now, I'm terrible at that, and will need a major over haul to stop cussing around women. But, it's a risk I'm willing to make. Not, that it'll be insurmountablly hard, but more so I'm just use to cussing a lot and don't even think about it most of the time. And, yes, that even includes this blog. Wish me luck on this one.

Ya know, ya just can't change a part of your life or behaviour. Nor, just change it at certian times, you have to make a life choice to change something and make is encompass everything you do all the time, or it will never change and you will end up back where you started.

Weather you believe in a higher power or not, you have to create your own blessings. Because, even if he can come down and do it for you, he won't. Just like, you won't do your childs homework for them.

To all a Happy New Year, and may it be blessed with nothing but good times.

WalMart' What's Wrong Here?

I mean, seriously!?

This is the sink in my local WalMart. The whole bathroom is "touchless". From the toilets, to the towel dispenser, you don't have to touch anything when using this bathroom, except....

I was using this exact basin to wash my hands, and the whole time, my knuckels and the back of my hand were rubbing the bottom of the basin. While I was washing all the germs I didn't get off.

I mean the whole idea of the touchless faucet is great. No handles to mess with, with no telling who's germs are residing on them. And, no telling what else is usually on them. Hell, I'm sure Dr. Oz could find something on them that will cause cancer and kill you in the next three days. UNLESS, you scour them with alcohol and vinegar. Then, he'll give you five days to live. I can't stand Dr. Oz, but that's a subject for another day. They also have the touchless paper towel dispensers, and hand driers, and those are ok and work perfectly fine. Not so much the faucets. First off, you have to put your hands under the sensor and find the sweet spot to get it to turn on. See the black square on the front of there? That's the sensor, and guess where the water comes from and you have to put your hands? Under the little half moon piece that the sensor in on the front of. And, then when you go to lather your hands, you lose it and have to find it again. They put out three streams of water that's barely enough to get a finger wet, so that takes you ten minutes to rinse the soap off. But, what's even worse is the distance from the faucet from the fucking bottom of the basin. You have maybe five, six inches (approximately 12, 17 cm for you metric folks) of clearance between them. And, if you're of any size at all, such as myself, your damn hands rub the bottom of the damn basin while your washing and rinsing your hands. So, you're sitting here rinsing your hands in a catch tub of bacteria, viriuses, germs, and disease. But, it's a touchless faucet so it's more sanitary. Now, I'm not exactly a germaphobe, hell I don't even really give a shit, I'll eat a side of cow off the fucking ground, raw and not even think twice about it. The way I look at it is my body, white blood cells, and immune system need a work out to stay tuned up like they should. Yes, I do wash my hands regularly when I preparing food. But, other than that fuck it, unless they're just nasty. But, that's not why I mention the WalMart sinks, it's the principle and idea of it. Just the sheer irony of the situation. They want to be a sterile as possible, using touchless faucets, towel dispensers, hand dryers, toilets, and urinals. But, in the end, after not touching all that shit, you have to set your hands in the bottom of the sink to wash all the germs you didn't get by not touching anything.

Humm, wonder where all the washed off germs go...before they go down the drain?