Here I am, aged 3 with vintage Bobba Fett--before he was cool! I still get that same smile when playing with my toys.



Here is the Sixth Period Posse. I'm the one with the big penis.



This was taken during one of my two trips with Duff (one of the greatest teachers ever to take up the trade--the man had a huge blow up picture above his office door of him and Carl Sagan shaking hands) to Hueston Woods in good old Ohio.



Here's a larger group shot during the same Duff trip.



Here I am with the worst haircut ever! This is the last book from the last class being dropped on the last day of high school. Now, how many people have a picture of this moment?



And here I am with the legendary guitar case for my 1972 Fender acoustic which I have treasured like a baby and never get to play enough. This case was decorated during a night filled with powerful hallucinogenics and serious soul-searching--it isn't a statement as much as it is a scream.

...colleges who bar recruiters on campus no longer get federal funding. And the whole thing started because some administrations didn't approve of the "no ask-no tell policy" regarding homosexuality in a combat unit.

Look, gayness has no place in the war zone. If you like the feel of a foreign throbbing member in your hand, then grab an AR-15 and shoot some Islamo-Fascist asshole right in the forehead. That's gotta be better than having your asshole reamed out with seven inches of veiny, anus tearing, manhood.

And it's got to be better than getting shot at by your own unit out of jealousy or whatever motive Pat Tillman's family is claiming he died at the hands of in Afghanistan.

And it's got to be better than dying in a bullshit attack on women and children like what happened only 1,638 days ago in New York City on a clear Fall day while I sat in computer medical claims processing software training in a hovel of an office that had no windows. I only found out about the attack after the first building had fallen.

That's like knowing your distant Aunt is dead before you knew she had cancer.

You've got to be ready for the unexpected.

One time, about ten years ago, when Fantastic Bastard and I had eaten some really good mushrooms, we went out a walking in the Spring time campus at BG. He stopped to piss on the side of a building, behind a tree. I stood in the middle of the causeway, admiring the stars that only Northern Ohio can provide.

The tree he was pissing behind was a roosting haven for hundreds of small birds who apparently didn't care much for being uproosted by the sound of FB's urine steaming off the building. They took to flock, hundreds of wings beating around his head, going skyborn.

I never saw him run so quickly.

After that, we headed out to "the tree" by the football stadium where something happened that I can't quite remember but sent him home to bed early, freaked out, boxers and T-shirt, Pink Floyd on the 5-disc changer, out like a light by 10 PM.

Back then I gave soaked sermons in the rain and God knows what I said because I let something else take over my voice and my heart. I know what it means to be outside yourself watching your animated mouth move but yet unknowing of what the next words will be.

What I do know is that the times that I can remember, the right words came out because I saw the effect they had on others.

I made a deal with God about eight years ago. My life was mine and I would do it my way. I told him to stop speaking from my mouth and my mind and stay in my heart. I told him that I would handle the speaking and thinking if he kept balance in the most delicate organ each of us have.

God is just a word. And what the word is pointing to is not of this world or any other. And when that sacred reference takes over your mind and mouth which are of this world, things can happen which are far worse than death.

But the heart is the doorway to the great beyond and it is there that the Man in Black must wait for us each to take us to our master.

I was once stuck in a Florida county jail. Some of my fraternity brothers had driven a golf cart into the ocean and I was standing around laughing at them. It was guilt by associated laughter. The cart belonged to club La Vela in Panama City and the kid who stole the cart was a diagnosed manic depressive. Ten years later, that same kid stopped taking his pills one day and consequently stopped wanting to live. He died within two days. It was a Friday.

He did not rise again on Sunday.

I have been stuck on the same fugging Call of Duty 2 board now for a week. The fugging Brtish are in fugging France and I've got the shittiest weapons going up against ruthless muthafuggers with the best weapons. So, I steal the best weapons and find myself constantly shooting my own team mates because they like to step in my line of fire.

I'll bet that happens a lot in war--when the passion for the kill overtakes the passion for the flag. All colors blend into one--the color of blood. A life is a life. A kill is, well, you get it...

And I couldn't bear to watch the Academy Awards last night. I tried. I truly did. The whole thing with the dresses that had to be sewn on, taking hours and hours, just repulsed me in a deep down place that I don't talk about at parties. That being said, Keira Knightly makes my flaccid penis fill up with blood and poke out the bottom of my boxer briefs. I hope she wins so she gets a lot of money to show her B-cups on screen one day.

And Tony Pierce almost pissed me off yesterday, with his pro-Christian, anti-Catholic rant. He would have pissed me off if I didn't respect the act of standing on a mountain top and shouting in a voice of thunder. I understand all about that and nod my head in deference to anyone with balls big enough to do it. I'll even share a little bit of the mountain top now and then. But at the bottom of all the talk about religion, there has to be the corpuscle of love or you ain't talking about nothing that means anything. If the person talking to you has never stood before God, their family, and their closest friends, and broken down speaking vows of unconditional love to another human being--then they don't truly know. If they haven't looked into the eyes of a child who calls them "Dadda" or "Momma" and broken down, realizing that it is so possible to love something so much in the moment that you dissolve completely and only the love remains, then ultimately that person is full of shit.

There are things in this world far worse than death, things like shooting your brother with friendly fire. Things like a good man not taking the pills that make him see the sun shine and losing the light altogether. Things like bloggers talking about God while ignoring the life that could be theirs if they only seized upon the relationships around them, picking the fresh fruit from the tree instead of continuing to eat those which are already dead from the ground.

These are the times that try men's souls...

LINKS:
Tony's Post Yesterday
Keira Knightly was in Star Wars Episode I
Academy Awards
Club La Vela

My wife has announced some big news for our family over at the Family Bliss Blog for anyone interested.

I sat in front of the gym salesman and said, "It's either this membership or cable."

He was dumbstruck, had no response. Obviously, this was not a Sopranos fan.

So, I joined another gym. But this one is different. There are over 8,000 members at this gym and they have so much equipment, so many baskaracquet courts, swimming pools, massage parlors, etc. that it's like going to Disneyworld with a seas of toned up tanned out people.

I made a commitment to myself this week. I committed to bringing my body to the peak of physical perfection. I don't want to grimace at the tug of my waistline against pants that used to fit comfortably and which leave indentations in my gut flesh when I remove them.

I am the heaviest now that I've ever been and its because I was a sad sack when I was laid off for two months, sitting on the couch and building this damn blog.

Now, I'm back on The Abs Diet and there was something fundamental I forgot about eating right. For those that have never read the book, it is written by the Editor-in-Chief of Men's Health which is the best magazine on the planet for health and lifestyle information. I know women who read it religiously.

In that book, he makes the point that 10-30% of our calories are burned off from just digesting our food. He also says that protein takes more calories to burn than fat and carbs (protein burns 25 calories for every 100 consumed whereas fat and carbs burn about 10 to 15 for every 100--trust me, this adds up).

He said that 10 to 15% of our calories are burned during workouts.

This leaves between 60 and 80% of our calories being burned off by simply existing. It's called our basal metabolism and this lifestyle change puts emphasis on eating a higher protein (but still nutritonally balanced) diet and focusing on lifting weights moderately three times a week while supplementing with aerobic exercise.

But here is what really blew my mind:

Add up the percentages and you'll see that the majority of your daily calorie burn comes from physiological functions that you don't even think about--the termic effect of eating and your basal metabolism. While exercise is important, you need to realize that the calories you burn off during exercise aren't important. Let me repeat that: the calories you burn off during exercise aren't important.

Imagine if there was a way that you could harness the 80% instead of focusing on the 20% which doesn't work.

And if that wasn't enough, consider this: several studies have concluded that, while you burn more calories during aerobic workout (running, etc.), you actually burn calories up to 48 hours later with a healthy weight training program complimented with aerobic workouts.

Now think abou this, by doing the right kind of exercise and eating the right kind of diet, you could actually be turning that 60-80% of basal metabolism into free fat burning time that takes the flesh right off your abdomen.

Well, I'm positive that you can and I've actually seen it work on myself. I went on the Abs Diet once before, back in the Fall and Winter of 2004 and I was never in better shape. I didn't lose my goal weight because I didn't have one. My goal was to look in the mirror and feel comfortable with what I saw looking back at me. My goal was to feel healthy again.

And I've renegotiated a deal with the better angels of my nature to get my white ass into the gym an hour before work five days a week so that I can reclaim my health before things start to spiral out of control.

I'm far from obese, but my BMI has reached the upper levels of "safe" and, to be frank, I simply felt better when I worked out all the time.

That being said, I was absolutely have to work out in the morning because I went to the gym the other day after work to sign the membership agreement and I haven't ever seen so much Duke in one place ever. There were so many good looking women there that I would never be able to concentrate on what I was doing. I need an empty gym, something where space needs to be filled.

So there you go. It's not a Contract with America. It's a Contract with my Life. It's about quality of life. They may have a pill that can make you live to 479 soemday soon, but the bottom line is who would want to if you felt and looked like Jabba the Hutt?

PICTURED:
My fat ass in a waterfall in Mexico on my honeymoon five years ago

Links:
The Abs Diet

TAGS: The Abs Diet, David Zinczenko, Health, Working Out, Gym