mmm...

My wife found the newest, greatest product ever released from Hershey’s. It’s called Reese’s Snacksters. They’ve got Reese’s cereal puffs, peanut butter chips, Reese’s cereal squares, and Reese’s pieces. You can buy them in individual packs that have only 100 calories, and they are SO good! They make a great afternoon snack when I need a little sugar fix to keep me going till the end of the day. I just had one and figured I’d write about them.
Speaking of calories, I’ve been cutting down on my food intake recently because I’m trying to lose about 10 pounds in the next few weeks. I’ve been running pretty much every day, and doing numerous push-ups and sit-ups. As I type this, my abs feel like someone sliced through them with a scalpel from hip to hip. Hopefully they’ll feel better by Saturday because I’ve got some heavy training planned.

Till next time,

Counting Calories in Melbourne

wedding pictures

Well, we finally got our wedding pictures (9 months later). Here's the deali-o:
We paid several hundred dollars for a midrange package including about 4 hours of picture taking, a small photo album with a bunch of proofs in it, and a pretty nice wedding album. After the wedding, Beth decided she wanted to go all out on the wedding album, so we needed to pay an extra $600 for the wedding album upgrade. Don't get me wrong, the album was very nice, and I wanted to provide for my new wife's every whim, but $600 is alot of cash, and being newly wedded, we didn't have that just lying around.
We'd been saving for awhile for the album for her, and a glock for me. The glock was cheaper, so once we had the money, we went ahead and bought it. I wasn't being selfish, though, because we had some money coming in for my tax return, and I had every intention of getting the album within a few weeks. Well, a few unexpected bills came up and drained the rest of the money we'd saved, so no album yet. We were going to just keep saving for it, but we got a call a couple of weeks ago saying that the price of the album was going up, so we'd have to pay the $600 now, or even more later. Well, it's been nearly 9 months since our wedding, and the desire for that expensive album has been waning for awhile in my bride's mind. Beth called Dan last week and they decided that in lieu of getting either album, or a refund of some of the money, we'd just get all of our pictures on a cd for us to do with them what we will. I think this is a much better deal, because we can always take our pictures and convert them to an album later, but you cannot do the reverse. Plus, now I have all the pictures in digital format, so I can post and email them to my heart's content.
So, that's the short version of the story...
And here's one of my favorite pictures (mostly because my eyes are actually open in it):

Range Report

Well, I took the wife to the range last Friday with my new Glock 23. I probably should have started her out shooting a 9mm, but seeing as how I don't have one, we didn't have much choice. She was excited to go, but a little hesitant once we got there. Nevertheless, she did some shooting and did pretty well too. Here's one of the targets she shot at about 3 yards.
She was proud of this one because she got one in the red. She'll be dry-firing before she goes the next time, because, as you can see, she was shooting a tad low due to some flinching just before she fired. If she's ever forced to actually shoot someone though, a few shots in the abdomen are just as good as in the chest. Well done, Beth!
I don't usually save my targets, but I think I'll start so I can post a few up here and track my progress.
Until next time...

Sticks of Death

I’ve been an amateur practitioner of the art of nunchaku since I was 9. My first pair of nunchucks were made of black plastic and foam with golden dragons printed on the grips. Eventually, I got tired of the wussy foam covers, so I unsheathed the hollow, plastic handles from their wimpy, foam prisons. In doing so, I had transformed my unthreatening marshmallow grips into terrifying sticks of death. I destroyed everything in sight. No tree or pole was safe from the maniacal swinging of my death sticks. Until, of course, I broke them on the corner of the shed in the backyard. Defeated and depressed, I was forced to grow up a nunchuckless boy, whose dreams of battlefield valor had been dashed on the hard, plywood corners of reality. I swore then and there that I would never again be suckered into buying a cheap, kiddie-version of Bruce Lee’s baddest weapon!
Fast forward to 1998: Marc Tolentino, one of my roommates my freshman year of college at PCC. He had no qualms about bringing contraband on campus and into our dorm room. Illegal CDs, DVDs, hotpots, and…oh yes…nunchucks! No visitor to our room was safe from the occasional wayward swing of those trusty nunchucks. Kevin Kelley spent many an evening crouched in the corner due to a low swing of the chucks by his own hand. Scott and Michael would occasionally come over and Michael would grace us with a demonstration which we would all immediately attempt to imitate. Amazingly, by the end of the year, most of us could use them decently without dropping them on our bare feet or whacking the inside of our elbows. We were grand masters!
Recently, I’ve procured a pair of hardwood nunchucks which I occasionally swing around for old times’ sake. I’m pretty rusty so I’m usually not swinging them nearly as fast as I used to. Last night, however, I got a little cocky and was going a little faster than I ought to. It wasn’t long before I cracked my elbow and dropped them on the floor, barely missing my bare toes. Clutching my elbow, it was all I could do to keep myself from throwing those nunchucks out the window! As I sat there in my pain and self-loathing, I’m ashamed to say that a nice new pair of golden dragon marshmallow sticks started to sound pretty good.
No offense, Bruce, but I’m only half-asian, so cut me some slack.

Prayer

My wife and I, along with about a dozen other church members, have recently started praying together on a weekly basis. We meet on Saturday nights at 9 at a different home each week. We started meeting about 5 weeks ago in response to a great need of one of my friends. I think we all regret, to some degree, the fact that it took such dire circumstances to commit ourselves to group prayer outside of church; however, I am sure that we are all glad that we are now bound in this manner, and we are thankful, albeit solemnly, for those circumstances which have joined us together.
In the short time that we’ve been attending our humble prayer group, Beth and I have learned much about prayer, and our faith increases as we see the Lord move as a direct result of our prayers. On a weekly basis we claim the promises of Matthew 18:19-20:

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Slowly, but surely, we’ve seen the Lord working in my friend’s life. Yesterday in particular we received a huge answer to prayer on his behalf. We’ve also seen the Lord moving in our church in other situations that we’ve been praying for. Thank God for the privilege we have in going to the Lord in prayer!

The sacrifice of the wicked [is] an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright [is] his delight.