Chronicles: Alan B. Rowley II - Success Warrior - ECoach - P90X

Blasts From The Past

Each week, we spend some time cleaning and sorting in preparation for our eventual move.  My wife was going through her cedar chest and came across tons of pictures.  I'm posting some here so you can see a few glimpses of my life (and a surprise photo at the end).

Here I am at the police academy after doing a crime scene drill.  I was team captain.  I was always team captain except the one time that I said that I would be team captain and then I ended up taking charge once the scenario started and oddly enough ended up shooting the bad guy who charged me with a knife.

I didn't really like the academy but I really enjoyed all the other students.  We had a great time and we were told that we were one of the rowdier sessions to come through.  It was quite the mix of people but we all seemed to get along from the very beginning.

Commentary for November 26th, 2007

How about some awards today?

The award for the candidate that hasn't learned an incredibly valuable lesson yet.  Envelope please.

Hillary Clinton, with this beautiful comment on how she would fix the Social Security problem:

"I don't think I should be negotiating about what I would do as president. You know, I want to see what other people come to the table with."

Even after taking quite a bit of heat about not being able to take a stance, she continues complete ambivalence.  I don't know about you but this statement says to me, "I have no clue how to be president so I'm going to see what my opponents say, take a poll of likely voters to see which idea they like the best, and then I'll say what I'll do."

"If I was president, I would . . ." is a staple in a candidates vocabulary and it should be.  Maybe Bill will make all the decisions for her between blow jobs.

Commentary for November 22nd, 2007 - Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving, and even more importantly, it's my birthday (on the 25th but I always lump the two together). 

Here are some of the things that I'm thankful for:

Number one is my wife.  She thinks that I like my son better than her but it's not true.  I see my son more.  My son *needs* me more.  I feel extremely responsible for his development but Tia is the guardian angel of my mind, my heart, and my well being.  If you're a Heroes fan, I'm Maya and she's Alejandro.  If you don't know that the means, watch season 2 of Heroes.  If you do know what that means, be thankful that Tia is here for me and has been for 7 years.  Just about everyone that knew us before we got together said our marriage wouldn't last.  In 7 years, I can say that our marriage has just gotten stronger and stronger.  We started out as great friends and have become such wonderful partners in everything that it's amazing.

Commentary for November 20th, 2007

Today's post on the SW Blog is about my thoughts on my retirement.  It's my own personal point of view but it might be worth checking out if you're the least bit curious about a retirement plan unlike the majority of plans currently being circulated.

I did a news report on thespoof.com for fun.  I have read some of the spoof articles and had been signed up with them for a couple of days trying to decide whether or not to write an article for them when my wife made a comment that sparked a thought that sparked a spoof.com post.

I'm still working on getting my house more organized and PTE Rick called me today to discuss my possible move to Minneapolis.  It could happen.  We also talked about money and getting strong for a declining economy.  If you aren't doing the same, I highly recommend it.  Call me if you want to bounce thoughts off of me.  You can get my phone number off of my coaching website.

By the way, if you Google "PTE Rick," the number 1 site is this blog.  How cool is that?

Commentary for November 18th, 2007

I have decided on a completely new plan for my P90X training in the future, the very near future in fact.  90 days (well, I only made 70 before my injury but anyway) was fine to have every single day planned out but I have a hard time living my life that way.  I was going to plan out several P90X phases over the first half of the year but in trying to plan one out for the last part of this year, I failed miserably.  I have done a few workouts but not many.  So I'm going to set it up in a way that works with how my brain is wired.

My exercise DVD collection has P90X, Turbo Jam, and Power Yoga.  My wife also has several exercise DVD sets that I can throw in the mix.

What I'm going to do is go with a general outline of the types of workouts that I want to do for that day so that I have enough structure that I will make progress.  I'm not going to list the exact workout for each day and will leave that up to how I'm feeling.

What I found was that if work interfered and I missed a week, my whole plan seemed botched.  This way, there is no definitive plan and I'll just pick up with the type of workout that I have planned.  If I feel that I need a recovery week, I'll work that in but with my life recovery weeks seem to be built right in.  It's trying to keep to a plan that's the hard part.

I'm going to do 3 of the P90X weight workouts each week and alternate the other tapes in between them.  I am planning on doing Plyometrics X each week because I am determined to beat that workout.  I'm also going to try and get a yoga workout and the X Stretch workout in so that I can stay limber. 

I start it today so we'll see how it goes and of course, I'll keep you posted.

What Does Neurotypical Physical Mean?

I took the Aspie quiz that PTE Rick blogged about yesterday and this chart shows my results.  It looks like I'm extremely heavy in the physical aspect of the Neurotypical side.  That's soooo me.

I'm joking.  I have no idea what that means.  Can anyone out there tell me this supposedly says about me?

From looking at the chart, my guess is that it has me pegged as a Pisces, which is totally off base because I'm Sagittarius.  Maybe the test isn't accurate.

It could actually represent the FSM Pirate Fish.  If that's the case, then there might just be some validity to this test after all.

The American Academy of Religion will be meeting this weekend and one of the items on their agenda will be a discussion into whether or not the Pastafarian belief can now be classified as a religion.

If it can, I wonder what kind of implications that could have as far as what His believers can garner under their religious protection. 

Commentary for November 14th, 2007

Check out this pic that Cherise was kind enough to share with me.  What do you think?  McGuyver ingenuity or as redneck as you can possibly get?

Today's post on the SW blog is about internet gambling.  The woman in the picture was gambling that no one would take a picture of her face.

Gambling and lottery participation will probably increase this next year.  People will spend money they should be spending elsewhere on the slight chance of winning. 

I just got this month's Money magazine and there's a piece in there on predictions for 2008.  I have only read the introducing paragraph and they state that there isn't going to be a recession.  I'm going to have to finish reading the article to see how they came to that conclusion.  I'm sticking with my forecast of 80% chance of recession with 100% of people taking foolish risks with their money out of desperation.

Commentary for November 12th, 2007

The post in the SW blog today was about gambling versus investing and control over those activities on the internet.  Who gets to pick what's gambling and what's allowed on the internet?  The US government is trying (in vain, in my opinion) to control the internet.

Intrade.com has shown the big loophole that exists.  Maybe the government will try to stop Americans from participating.

Ron Paul (you knew I was going to mention him) doesn't want the government to control the internet.  That was his belief before getting into the presidential race and I'm sure that he believes it even more now that the internet has been shown to be so valuable for sharing information (especially Ron Paul information).

The government probably has the same problem with the internet as mainstream media.  It makes it much harder to sneak around and decieve the people if we are allowed to talk to each other en masse.

I've never looked into it but I suspect that the internet gambling ban was because of taxes.

Commentary for November 8th, 2007

I finally got around to talking about my own finances in today's SW blog post.  I still ended up talking about the national economy because it's been on my mind a lot lately.

I have some questions for you.

The media is doing a poor job of warning people about the impending downturn in the economy.  I know.  You're surprised.  I am too.  Usually, they are right on top of things.

What would be the best way to warn people about the upcoming recession?

Is it too late for them to do anything about it?

If it's not too late, would they do anything about it?

These questions run through my head every day.  Maybe you can put them to rest for me.

This Morning's Eructation

Friday night, the Beach Boys were here.  At least a couple of them were here.  Some of the Beach Boys are actually boys.  They look like they are the grandsons of the couple remaining real Beach Boys.  The young ones did most of the singing.  It was like listening to a tribute band. 

Yesterday, there was a car show with hundreds of cars from the 50s and 60s.  I took my camera with me to work.  I was driving by the parking lot where all the cars were and as I got past it, I realized that I had not looked at a single car.  I was planning on coming back to take the pictures but I hadn't even glanced at the cars.

I did look at all the people that were there hanging out on the grass under their dining flies.  It was about 100 degrees and there was very little activity.  Many of you are writers so I'm sure you're guilty of doing the same thing.  Going somewhere interesting and watching the people instead. 

I never did get back up to see the cars or take pictures.  Rhiia said she took over 100 pictures but selfishly, she has decided not to share them with us.  Go to her comments section and demand that she post them.