Trying to Get Tickets

It seems like concert tickets are getting harder and harder to get. Rush recently announced their latest tours dates and Chicago is the closet that they are coming to me. I was logged into Ticketmaster at 10:00 when the tickets went on sale this morning and immediately searched for tickets. I tried for 15 minutes and never found any available. There were resale tickets available but no tickets from the venue. The cheapest resale tickets were over $100 and were on the upper level. With tickets getting this expensive I may just stop going to concerts. It's just ridiculous that you can't get a ticket on the main level for under $200.

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2015 3-Day - Fundraising

This afternoon I spent some time printing up sheets for the Super Bowl Pool that I run as a fundraiser for my walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  This is the second year that I have run this as a fundraiser and it really helps a lot.  A full grid nets $1000 towards my $2300 Fundraising minimum.  I am really thankful that I have family that helps me sell the squares.  Now that my fundraising is in decent shape I need to start spending some time on the treadmill getting ready for when the weather gets decent here and I can start walking outdoors.  With only 251 days before the Philadelpha 3-Day I don't have time to waste.

Unintended Consequences

For months I have had occasional issues with being really tired or getting short of breath when I had hardly done anything.  Then last week I went to donate blood and was deferred because my hemoglobin level was too low.  I was anemic.  I had never been deferred  before so that was really weird for me.  I started doing some searching on the Internet and found some articles that suggested that one possible cause of anemia was low stomach acid. I had never heard of this before but it did make sense.  With low stomach acid there issues with absorbing nutrients and that can cause anemia.  I went to the Dr this week and he confirmed that I am indeed mildly anemic.  I had to adjust my stomach meds to a lower dose and start iron supplements.  Not sure how long this will take get my iron levels back to normal but it is nice to have at least a clue on what may have been bothering me for some time.  I still get to see my GI specialist to make sure there is nothing else going on.  Just goes to show you that you need to keep track of your meds and how they affect you because they can cause other issues.

Twin Cities 2014 3-Day

For 2014 my team had decided to minimize travel and return to a City that some of us could travel to without flying. Part of our team had walked the Twin Cities before and had enjoyed it. We saw it as an opportunity for the rest of the team to experience it. As typical, my 3-Day weekend started on Thursday with my travel day. I was driving and picked up one teammate in Waukesha and then went on to pick up another teammate and her daughter outside of Madison. We made pretty good time and we were in the Twin Cities a little after noon. We met our last teammate at the Hotel and went out for lunch because it was so early and we needed to be back to get back for the team meeting that afternoon for our teammate that was on Youth Corps. It was another early night as the bus to opening comes way to early.

The rest of the weekend did not go quite as I had planned. I was still getting over a sinus infection that was irritating my lungs and the weather was not cooperating. At the start of Day 1 the humidity was about 98%. I could feel the humidity as soon as we started walking. It was aggravating my asthma within a mile or two. I took my inhaler and that helped for awhile but by mile 8 or so it was getting difficult to breathe again. I decided to take a sweep van to lunch and see if the rest would help. After lunch the humidity went down a little and I was able to walk from lunch to the end of the day.

The beginning of Day 2 was not a good one for me. The humidity had been high all night and spending a humid night in a tent was not a good night. I had gotten very little sleep and my lungs were still bothering me. I had intended to sweep right to lunch but since that was not an option I walked a couple miles and then got on a sweep van and went to lunch. I was there very early so I got to watch walkers come in and leave. I got to sit and talk to several other walkers that had come in early in sweep vans also. One woman that I tWalked to had walked six miles on Day 1 and was hoping to do that on Day 2 and 3. That's all she was capable of walking because her Cancer had come back. She had been fighting off and on for mor than 10 years and she walked the 3 Day each year. It didn't matter to her how many miles she walked. She raised the money and was there to walk what she could. After lunch I decided to go back to camp and check out to go to a hotel for the night. I was not going to spend another sleepless night in a humid tent taking my inhaler every 4-6 hours. Finding a hotel was not an easy task since this was the opening weekend of the Minnesota State Fair. I did manage to find a room and spent the night with air conditioning and that helped me quite a bit.

On Sunday morning I was up early because that's what my body expects for Day 3. I decided that since I couldn't walk I was going to be a walker stalker for the day. I made it to the first cheering station about the time the first walkers were coming through and stayed until my teammates came through. I managed to meet my team at lunch before I headed to holding. Holding and Closing were much the same as I remembered from my previous walk here. Once we were done with closing it was time to say goodbye to Kathy as she was the only teammate that was not driving back to Wisconsin with us. We had an uneventful ride back and I was home before midnight.

The weekend was not what I had planned but was still a great experience. I got to see old friends and meet some interesting new people who once again reminded me why I have to keep walking. Thank you all for your continued support. Next year will be my ninth year walking and it will be in a new city for me. I have heard good things about Philadelphia and look forward to walking there.

God Bless

Greg

Giving Up Facebook and Twitter for Lent

Well saying that I am giving up Facebook and Twitter for Lent is easier than actually doing it.  During the first two days there were multiple times where I would look at my iPhone or iPad or open a browser window on my Mac and would go to Facebook and then realize that I was not supposed to be there.  I immediately closed it again so that I was not actually looking at updates but I want to avoid even that for now.  I went back in on my browser one more time and logged out of Facebook so that even if I go to Facebook I am logged out and won't see anything for now.  I also deleted the apps off of my idevices so that I am not tempted there.  It is giving me more time to focus on other things and my life and overall I think this will be a good experience.  I do enjoy interacting with people on Facebook but I also know that there are times when I spend too much time on Facebook.

Start of Lent 2014

Today is the start of Lent and I have decided to make some changes for Lent that will get me to spend more time offline and rely less on technology.  I am a big fan of Technology and I spend more time than I should checking things like Facebook and Twitter.  I have decided to give up Facebook and Twitter for Lent.  This won't be any easy thing for me to do.  I do enjoy interacting with friends on Facebook but think that going without it for this time will help me focus on other things.  Twitter is also something that i will miss.  I follow quite a few people for announcements on programs that I use and find some interesting things there.

Lent is not all about giving things up though.  I am also using the time to focus more on how I treat people and and what kind of choices that I make in my life.  I am like everyone else in that I am not perfect.  I try to be a good person and make good choices but there are some times that I do or say things that I am not really proud of and I want to do that less.

To Sail a Darkling Sea - Great Read

Just finished my second time through To Sail A Darkling Sea. It's the second book in the Black Tide series by John Ringo and it's another great read. John has a knack for Character development that really engages his readers. This books continues the story of how a group of survivors are dealing with a Zombie Apocalypse. The Central characters are two teen girls that are larger than life and have been prepared for this kind of event by their father. The first book was great and this one is even better. I can't wait for the next book and that is a common trait of John Ringo books.
 
 
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Detox for Healthier Me

Today I started a 7 Day Detox Program to try and up my metabolism and lose some weight.  I am using the NuLean products that I got through my Chiropractor and friend Dan Hyatt.  I have seen plenty of programs that claim they will help you lose weight fast so I was skeptical at first.  Dan was holding a free class about the program Wednesday night so I attended his class and decided to give it a try.  The information that he presented made sense to me and I new that I was not being taken in by a Snake Oil Salesman.  I have known Dan since High School and I know him to be a very honest person so if he says he has used the product himself and uses it with his patients then it is worth my taking a look at it.

I know that it's not a miracle cure to my overweight issue but it is a first step.  I need to take off some weight and make some diet changes to keep losing weight to avoid many of the health issues that can come with being overweight.  It gets harder as you get older so now is as good a time as any to  make this step.

Happy New Year - Welcome 2014

Happy New Year to all. Hope that you all have a great 2014.  I spent a rather uneventful New Years Eve watching TV with my daughter and am wide awake to start a new year.  I am going to try and make a couple of changes in 2014.

• Use My Blog More Often.  I am going to try and post something to my blog at least once a week.  I have not used this nearly as much as I wanted to when I initially started this.  I now have it setup with Wordpress and am not going to be tweaking it much so I can just spend time using it instead.


• Stop Procrastinating.  When I identify something that needs to be done I am going to try to get it done soon rather than put it on a list and never get around to it.


• Read more.  I would like to read a new book every month.  Going to make it a habit to read every night before bed.


• Stop stress eating. I need to exercise more and not eat when I am stressed.  I am going to get my weight down this year.

So now that I have some goals set for 2014 I can come back and look at them to be reminded of what I am trying to accomplish.

Goodbye to Drupal

I converted my blog from Drupal back to Wordpress several months ago and have not gone back so far.  Wordpress is much easier to deal with from a user perspective.  Media Handling is so much easier than Drupal for something like my basic blog.  I am now working on converting my Church Website and my one other site from Drupal to Wordpress also.  I have found there are several plugins for Wordpress that give me the ability to setup my website similar to how I could with Drupal in the past.  There are different ways to do things in Wordpress but I am going to stay this time.  Drupal keeps getting more complex and is getting beyond the reach of the casual user or hobbyist.