Some Life Changes!

I have a date scheduled for my oral exam - finally! Well, sort of. I scheduled it for November 9th. The "tentativeness" is because it turns out my boss will be out of town that day and would prefer I do it on the 8th. He doesn't HAVE to be there, though, so we'll see what my committee says.

I also got rid of Twitter. I just really didn't use it that much, and to be honest, does anyone really care what I'm doing every few hours or so? Probably not. I don't really care that John Smith (fake name) is having coffee with eggs at 9am and then at 12 he checked in at the bike shop on 55th ave. I don't need to be that involved in people's lives. I'd rather be able to write a whole explanation out with basic updates every few days or weeks and let people read it if they want to, rather than blow their twitter feed up with stupid useless information.

I did, however, join a social site called Culinary Culture. It's similar to the other networking sites in that you friend/follow people, etc. but it's all about food. People post reviews of restaurants and recipes/techniques they're trying out. I followed a forum buddy o' mine named Jennifer who has some really great recipes. She's also got a great foodie vlog for healthier eating aimed at gamers. I'm not much of a gamer anymore, but her tips can apply to EVERYONE not just gamers. Her first vlog was about different herbs and what they go with. It was a great video. Check her out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6aP3zpHs6c&feature=related

Her second video is good too, a recipe for basil garlic chicken (Yum!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N59rD1isZ7Y&feature=related

I started working out last week as well. So far it's been tough but good. I'm really sore, but it's a good sore. I've been riding my bike to work for a couple of months now and I really really like it. I picked up a pair of Shimano MTB shoes last night at REI and some Pearl Izumi leg warmers so I can ride when it's cold out. I've been to 2 different Yoga classes and I liked those as well. We'll see where it all ends up, but for now I'm eating healthier, working out and riding a bike. I'd like this to last for a long time, and that's my goal - WILLPOWER!!!

Off to work and studying for now.

Some Paintball Stuff :)

I've played paintball 2 times since I last posted. One was a great time at MN Pro where we had a huge game - I think there were close to 150 people? I'm not entirely sure but it was fun. I got some great kills and even though a lot of the field was up to my thighs with water, I still had fun.

Most of our guys weren't there due to the weather kind of being off and on, but there were 3 of us and 3 more guys who are now in the process of joining the team. (In case you care, my team is Dead Squad... www.dead-squad.com Please ignore the awful picture of me - it really might be the worst picture ever) Our team lost, but I ended up with the 2nd most points of all and I won a $225 gift card to MN Pro's shop. I'm currently now in the process of figuring out if the CCM karnivor pump kit I mentioned in an earlier post will fit my gun. It looks like it will and so it seems I will FINALLY be able to work on that project!!!! Yay!!

The second game was this past weekend at Splat Tag in Hudson, WI. It was the Giant Big Game, and Darrin runs a great field with great refs. Usually. I have to say, this was not such a good game. We lost, which is ok. We didn't play that great and the larger team we were on had quite a few players who really weren't interested in playing that much. But the reason I didn't have as much fun was because the referees had NO clue what was going on. No one seemed to know the rules - points were given then taken away, bases were lost because the referees didn't know who was where - just awful. The referees even had radios that died on them. Who plans an event for 300 or more people and doesn't charge the radios for those who are RUNNING the game and need to be in contact at all times? I had my radio on from 10 am until 5 pm, and it never went down... Blech. If the referees had actually been good, I'd have had a blast. I was in some of the longest and most challenging firefights I've ever been in. I got shot more times in the first 15-20 minutes than I have ALL year in my other games. It was nuts!

Most of my shots were taken in the gun or the mask, but I got a few on my legs - pardon the extreme paleness. I'm in MN and refuse to go to tanning beds.

Note: these have all been healing for 4 days now. They're not as bad as they were.

These 3 bruises are on my right leg and hit me from about 60 feet:

This is a picture of a bruise on my outer left thigh. Was about 20 feet away:

This was the nastiest one. I got shot from the same person as the one above, but I was closer when I got hit. Maybe 10 feet. The one above was after I called myself out and was walking away. You can actually see the two bruises in each of the photographs a bit.

In retrospect, as pissed as I was at the refs, it was still fun.