Thanks for the extra 10% off, Best Buy!

So, our clothes dryer crapped the bed after 13 years of faithful service. This evening I went on a hunt for a new dryer. I'm still boycotting sears from 2.5 years ago, so I scouted Lowes, Home Depot, and Best Buy. Lowes had the model I wanted, but since I visited there first, I didn't want to buy right away. The same model was at Best Buy, but was about $50 more, it also wasn't in stock for pickup tonight. How does that equate to BB saving me 10%? Glad you asked. Best Buy had these 10% off coupons at the front door for a variety of items, including appliances. I took one, called Lowes and asked if they took competitors coupons, they said they would honor it. Saved me nearly $50.

Moral of the story, you never know if you don't ask!

Joys of a cube farm

Hey, I can appreciate why we have cubicles instead of offices in most buildings today. It's MUCH cheaper, does foster a sense of community (somewhat), easier to pull cable through, easier to reconfigure the floor...

I really try hard to not infringe on the space of those around me when I'm in the office. I bring my lunch, but try to bring things that aren't too smelly when they are heated up, I keep my conversations quiet, I NEVER use my speaker phone, I don't clip my nails in my cube, and I NEVER, EVER eat an apple while sitting at my desk. I have this weird aversion to food noises, and eating an apple in your cube, to me, is as tasteless as taking a shower in your front yard. Have some common courtesy people, slice that damn apple up BEFORE you get to work.

I cope with about 12 gigs of iTunes music and a set of Sony noise reducing (although it doesn't really reduce enough, but its better than none) headphones.

Guess what the guy next to me had for lunch today?

You're here thanks to LOTD

Yeah, I haven't blogged in like a year or so. I've been too busy Facebooking (I think that's a real word like Twibe or Tweets). Anyway, yeah, I need to get back to the blog and thanks to Cary, I've been motivated to start doing that again. Look out world, more meaningless diatribe from Big Lew!

But, since you're here, and we're all now BFF's, help me beat my wife in this important contest. I've bet her I will have more friends on Facebook than her. It was a dumb bet on my part as she's more popular, and good looking, than me. But Fans of LOTD can help. Look me up on FB and send me a friend request. I'm the kind of friend you want. I'll be there when you need a shoulder to cry on, or need validation. I'll even help you move if you live within a 300 yard radius of me. My FB email is biglew27 AT yahoo.com.

Thanks,

Jeff

Colorado Trip

I had the great fortune to spend a couple of days with friends in Colorado this past weekend. I got some good cajun cooking (you can take the cajun out of Louisiana...) and saw some beautiful scenery. You can visit my photobucket album to see more pics. Here are a couple of good ones:

From Garden of the Gods

From some Indian Cave Dwellings. James, what were they called?

How did you score?

I am a VERY SUPERIOR 1930's husband, regardless what James from Colorado would say.

154 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

3 slabs of ribs, 2 chickens...

...one happy crowd. For Labor Day festivities, we had several people over to the house (14 adults and their kids). I got a chance to break in my new upright smoker. It's gas, which really makes cooking easy. At any rate, I was taking a big chance since I hadn't cooked on this unit yet (you have to get to know your smoker), but things seemed to work out well. The ribs were OK, definitely not the best I've ever cooked, but they were decent enough and every one seemed to like them. I'm my own worst critic when it comes to cooking, but I have to say, the chickens (2 whole chickens) were INCREDIBLE. My mom gave me a beercan chicken recipe book a couple of years ago and I've never really had the facilities to put the book to use. That's no longer an excuse as this smoker has tons of room in it. That chicken was INCREDIBLE. completely full of flavor and very moist. It was so good, I'm going buy a couple of chickens tomorrow to cook during the week. It's easy, and healthy. My mouth is watering just writing about it!

Hundred pushups - My shoulders are beginning to hurt, so I took a few days off to give myself a couple of days to recover. I did my end of week 2 assessment, I pushed out 35 pushups. I'd imagine at the end of another week I'll be very close to 50. We'll see if this old body will hold out.

Enjoy Labor Day!

Wearing your dad's clothes

When I was 5 years old (1984), my grandfather (who was a railroad engineer for Southern Pacific) surprised me for my birthday by taking me on a train ride. I got to drive and everything. It was one of the greatest days of my young life, and I still remember it fondly. As part of my day, he gave me a set of engineers coveralls. I still have those, and as I was rummaging through a drawer today, I came across those coveralls. I remember that I loved them so much, as I began to outgrow them, my mom made them into shorts so I could still wear them. Tonight, I let my 5 year old wear them, and we snapped this picture. For those of you with a Cajun or French background, I'm sure you'll agree with me that the only words appropriate here are "awww, cher."

No sleeping tonight

Well...here it is, a quarter to 1AM and I'm still awake. Ironic considering that today is the first day I've woken up at 6AM since school let out.

First day of school - both kids came home excited today. Kylie is no longer nervous about Kindergarten and she's written a "letter" to her "boyfriend" from last year. It's nothing more than a piece of paper with a bunch of stickers on it that she folded and put in an envelope, but to her, it's of utter importance, no doubt.

Dillon informed me tonight that he likes the way I think ahead, and that he thinks ahead too. Here's how our conversation went:

• Dillon - If I had a girlfriend I would tell her I was a racer and I would go to her house in my racing uniform. I would tell her that I came in first place in my race. But she would ask where my trophy is, and I would tell her I came in 4th place.


• Jeff - Good thinking Dillon. Did you have a specific girl in mind?


• D - No, but I would like a girlfriend.


• J - You would?


• D - Yes, I think that would be good for me, but I'm a little nervous about asking a girl to be my girlfriend.


• J - Well...you can have a girlfriend if you want, but you should probably just take your time getting one.


• D - Yeah, you're right. Good night daddy.

Pushups - I'm still on my quest to 100 pushups. I've added crunches / situps back into my routine. More than my scrawny arms, I'm really unhappy with my gut, er stomach. I lost a LOT of muscle as a result of my injury a couple of years ago (you don't know, I might have had a lot of muscle then), and it just never came back. My stomach and arms atrophied the most, so I'm really on a quest to get them back into decent shape. I pushed out 66 pushups tonight (in 4 sets.) Not too bad, my initial test to see how many I could do was only 14 just less than 2 weeks ago. In a single set now, I can run off about 26.

DNC - I started to watch the DNC tonight, but then I saw James Carville on and that was enough. I got in all of 13 seconds of the convention, that's enough. Bring back rythmic gymnastics from Beijing please.

Enjoy your week. Work hard, you have a nice 3 day weekend coming your way as a reward!

First Day of School

Well...we managed to get the kids off to school, and Suzanne officially started the new school year. Kylie was "nervous", and Dillon was so excited he wasn't "even tired" at 6:30 this morning. I wish I had more pics of Dillon, but as soon as we got to the school, he took off to hang with his buds in the cafeteria until classes started. Kylie hung with me until time to go to her class. If her teacher looks familiar, that's the same teacher Dillon had when he was in Kindergarten.

Week 2, Day 1

I'm still on my quest to 100 pushups with the help of hundredpushups.com. Today was week 2, day 1 (I'm not like most normal people, I didn't start my routine on a Monday.) I had to do 50 pushups today, which was a LOT harder than the 63 I did on Wednesday. I get the weekend to rest and then on Monday I have to do 66. Considering my level of "Fitness" today, I'm a bit concerned I may hit a wall at week 2. Worst case scenario, I do week 2 twice. I've had bigger problems in my life.

Big night tonight, huge concert. As many of you know, I'm a fan of all kinds of music. I have an appreciation for everything from Gershwin to jazz to Christian contemporary to country to rap, but my heart really lies with 80's metal / hair metal (longing for the good old days, I guess). So, tonight is the "Masters of Metal" tour with Judas Priest and Motorhead. I'm looking forward to hearing some songs from back in the day, but more than that, I'm looking for affirmation. Every time I go to one of these concerts I feel better about myself when I walk out than when I walked in. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Getting ready to take the kids to school to meet their teachers. School starts on Monday. Dillon is absolutely excited and anxious about starting 4th grade. Kylie on the other hand...is a little "nervous" about starting Kindergarten. Justifiable in her mind, I'm sure.

Have a great weekend.

Photobucket Album

Day 2, Week 1

I'm on the 2nd day of my 100 pushup challenge. It's not as fun as it sounded when I started, but I'm going to keep up with it. Did 54 pushups this morning, I get tomorrow off and then on Wednesday I have to do 63. Of course, right now it comes in 5 sets. The end goal is 100 with no break.

The program has already done a LOT for my physique, as proved in this picture.

Hundred Pushups

So, Mark Daddy posted on his website how he's trying to get to, and maintain the ability to do 100 pushups. Not to be underdone, I've decided to go for it as well, except I'm applying the same program to not only pushups, but situps as well. I'm only a couple of days into it, but man, I'm sore already, but feeling good about what I'm going to achieve.

Let me know that you're going to do 100 pushups by publishing a comment here.

Big Lew is hardcore

Cary from List of the Day sent this to me. This is the most hardcore Big Lew out there. I only thought I was hardcore til I saw this.

You gotta hear this...

Judas Priests new album.

Lightbulb Joke

I worked at Lifechurch.tv this weekend and got to sit in on part of their service. Their pastor told a joke, you may have heard it:

How many Charismatics does it take to change a lightbulb?
10. 1 to change it and 9 to cast the darkness out.

How many Presbyterians does it take to change a lightbulb?
None - it was pre-destined to fail.

How many Baptists (Catholics works well here as well) does it take to change a lightbulb?
Change?

Donut holes make everything better

I had to go work at Lifechurch.tv today. They're down in SW Fort Worth. Yeah, it's a little bit of a jog for me to get there. I managed to pass up my exit, making me just under 10 minutes late. As soon as I walked in, we had an issue that I had to call support on. Everything was fairly inconsequential though. Took a tour of the facility, for a church with an attendance of less than 400 on average, they really do things first class, ESPECIALLY the donut holes. That's right, everyone who wants one, gets a little baggy of donut holes. I've always thought the hole of the donut tasted a lot better than the ring that went around it.

Got home around 1:15 to listen to my neighbors in their pool, AGAIN. They're still loud during the day, nothing seems to work to quiet them down. They are quiet at night though, after I called the cops on them twice last week...I hate being THAT neighbor, but I've asked them to be quiet for 4 years and nothing else worked.

OK Susan, I'll change my vote to keep you...

NOT!

Here's another hollywood elitist that's threatening to leave the country if a Republican gets elected. It's fine by me if Susan Sarandon leaves, she's pompas anyway, and hasn't made a decent movie in years. I have a feeling that if I bet on her staying, I won't lose. She's another Alec Baldwin, who "threatened" to bless Canada with his citizenship if Bush got elected, according to this article.

From the New York Post -
SUSAN SARANDON, who appeared in three films last year and won kudos for her TV movie "Bernard and Doris," is still not a contented soul. She says if John McCain gets elected, she will move to Italy or Canada. She adds, "It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people."
OK, American people. You don't want Susan to move out of the country, so it's up to you to elect Barack Obama. What? You thought Susan of all people would be for Hillary Clinton? Well, no. She told John Hiscock: "I thought the whole point of feminism is that you're not supposed to be defined by gender. I don't understand the reasoning behind that, because I wouldn't vote for Condoleezza Rice, and I hated Margaret Thatcher."

Siamese Elephants

I wish more people could pull off sketch comedy like Carol Burnett. Her show was one of the funniest ever. Her cast was awesome. This was probably one of the funniest sketches they ever did, and when they get on a roll, it's awesome.

It's a good day

Last Comic Standing started its new season tonight. I totally love that show. I really enjoy standup comedy, I just can't afford to go to comedy clubs, so this is a GREAT alternative.

Here's my favorite skit from any episode of Last Comic Standing, EVER! Gerry Dee is greatness. "And THEN the beearrr likeded the hoeney"



So, as there's a commercial on during the greatest show NBC has on right now, I see the trailer for the new reality show they have coming out, Celebrity Circus. My question is, isn't a celebrities life pretty much a circus anyway?

I had no intention of watching the show until I saw the cast. Rachel Hunter as a circus performer is going to be AWESOME.

The celebrities competing in Celebrity Circus will be: soaps actor Antonio Sabato, Jr., R&B singer Blu Cantrell, former Brady kid Christopher Knight, Olympian Janet Evans, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna of Jackass fame, and supermodel Rachel Hunter.

Its gonna be a good summer...