Operation Push

Operation PUSH commenced on 10FEB2010 at 1700 when my wife checked into Beaches Baptist Hospital. We "settled in" for the long night of Labor. I could go on about how uncomfortable the couch was or how the nurses came in every hour to do clinical things that made me uncomfortable to watch; but that isn't important. No one remembers the play by play, they only remember the score at the end of the game. My Daughter Dixie Bright Fout was Born unto this mortal coil at 1223, 11FEB2010 weighing 7 pounds, 1.7 ounces with blond hair and a smooshed nose. She scored an impressive 9.5 APGAR test, and is absolutely perfect.

She is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and this experience has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. The whole reason we, as humans, are here on this earth is to reproduce. Everything we are geared for is for the creation of new lives.

Welcome to the world Dixie Bright Fout. We love you.

Beef Labels Clarified

Beef Label Decoder

All the stickers on Beef and what they mean.

Not much going on today... It's cold in South Louisiana. I head back to an aven colder Florida tomorrow.

2009 Re-cap (as a robot)

2009 was a very good year for me.

Daddy Takes Pretty Pictures of Mommy

I don't need to add words when a picture speaks one thousand. We decided to take some maternity pictures yesterday. I present to you, for your viewing pleasure, My babymamma in all her beauty.

My Dog Loves When I'm Home

My Boxer mix loves loves LOVES to pull me on my Gravity Board. She will pester me for hours nudging her leash to tell me to take her on a skate. When I put on my vans, she goes ape-sh*t, and dances all the way out to the street. She knows when I put on my skate shoes, things are gonna be fun. As can be seen in the video, she puts the leash in her mouth and physically pulls me along (I help out by skating as fast as I can). She will pull the leash until she gets tired of that, then lets go, downshifts, and kicks in the turbo. We have been clocked at 25 mph before in my old neighborhood. So much fun. She only gets to "skate" when I'm home. Unfortunately for her, my pregnant Wife cannot handle the danger.

This used to be a daily occurrence when she was younger. She had so much pent up energy when she was young, I had to burn it out somehow. There were many days i came home to a house full of disaster and destruction due to her pent up energy and abandonment issues. She is all grown up now, and has outgrown these puppy traits, but she still LOVES to run full speed around the neighborhood. I taught her "left turn" and "right turn" when she was young, and she knows "whoah," but she has a hard time hearing that one. I get to steer, watch for on-coming traffic, and generally make sure we don't get killed on the road.

Fun Times

The Best Part of Makin Babies So Far

...Besides the practice...

Is getting smacked in the ear by a fetus in the womb.

I love watching my wife carry our Daughter. I always thought it sappy or cheesy when dads gush about their kids, but now I'm starting to get it. This is the opposite of abstract, and the most amazing thing to happen to me in my 29 years of adventure. A piece of me, and a Piece of her makes a new life altogether. It's assisted along for the first 40 weeks (give or take) by the mobile human factory called Mommy to be painfully thrust into the world to become the next potetial Nobel Peace Prize winner, or the next Great American Author, or rock star, sports star, astronaut, etc...

But I digress. My beautiful Wife has a living being inside her I have yet to be introduced to. I talk to her, and everyonce in a while get booted. She's moving. She especially likes moving while I play the guitar next to her, or after I cook an amazing meal. She does a little dance in the morning when Mommy finishes her decaf. She likes to kick things too. She kicked the sonar wand thinga-ma-jig at the last ultra sound. And daddy got a boot to the ear when I was trying to hear her in there. It was awesome!

I try to imagine what she's doing in there all day. Mostly it is the in utero version of sleeping, but i know that has to get bored just growing and stuff, so the rest of the time I imagine her to be practicing her butterfly stroke for the 2028 Olympics, or just getting her dance moves down for American Day Care Idol. Either way, I'm cool with it. Keep Kickin Little girl. We're waiting patiently for you.

I'm Doing My Best

I'm in a difficult environment right now, so I will not be writing a long Blog. When thing settle out, I will be able to devote more time to writing her, but for now, I am just not able to write.

Keep checking, and I will try to post interesting articles as they come up.

I have workouts as well. I'm hurting from getting back on the horse.

Lates

Back in the Bayou. Here is some good reading:

Well I'm back on the job in Louisiana. Not much else to say about that.

Here is a good article on the fallacies of The Biggest Loser by Mark Sisson and his Website Mark's Daily Apple. For those not familiar with his site, I highly recommend it!

Home and About to Leave Again

As I'm getting everything around after our journey, here is a link to a good article from the Fitness Spotlight:

Get Bigger Muscles By Walking

Just a little something to show how the body building magazines are wrong as usual.

AND!!! Michael Pollan wrote an OpEd on Health Care in the New York times. I Love his style of writing and his books are definitely worth the read.

Michael Pollan NY Times

I'll be posting pictures soon, but i have some things to take care of first. My lawn looks like a savanna, I need to keep up some Navy Reserve training, my dog misses me, and I need to spend some time with mother ocean and mother to be before I head Back to the Bayou. Have a great weekend.

Sympathy Weight is NO Joke; or Pee-Yew, who Fartlek'd?

Pregnancy is an amazing process. The woman's body transforms itself in to a walking, talking, human factory -- completely rerouting every nutrient, calorie, and molecule of her being into the formation of a new life: Nature's Perfect Parasite. I personally find this part to be the most intriguing. All of this transformation happens on a deeper, evolutionary level. Its all involuntary. She doesn't know why its happening, other than the fact she's carrying a baby, its just nature; the same way the human race has been reproducing since the beginning of our sense of time. Amazing.
In the same regards, Dads-to-be have been caring for the womenfolk, and getting fat for just about the same time. Its definitely worse now than in caveman times, since we're aren't out with the boys for weeks chasing down woolly mammoths to throw on the grill, or running from sabre-tooth tigers while our ladies are growing the tribe. Men now get caught in the house eat, sleep, complain, repeat cycle along with their ladies. As the mommies put on baby weight, so do the daddies. This sucks. I have managed to put back on the weight i started to lose when i first discovered Crossfit. I work-out when I am on the job, but vacationing has been rough on the slim-down front. I am in full-on sympathy weight mode.
The biggest speed bump in a diet, and in my opinion, the reason diets don't usually work for long-term results, is the fact you end being the "weird guy on some weird diet," and are alienating yourself from your friends and loved ones. My wife has a Get-Out-o-Jail-Free card on most things. I don't like it when she goes crazy on the junk food when I'm gone, but its better than her starving our little cinnamon bun. When I'm home, I end up eating when she eats. Even if I don't want to, I always end up eating something. Its also harder to find the time to work out. I can get a run in here and there, i go surfing o skating when i can, but regularity is a thing of the past, and I am making the assumption its not coming back anytime soon when the little one arrives. Either way, i'm getting bigger too. Screw that.

I decided to fight off the vacation-crap-eating-hangover today with a run in my Brother-in-Law's neighborhood today. I haven't ran enough in the past few weeks, and my body is thanking me now. However, running on inclines for the first time since I lived in Ohio combined with the afore mentioned "Daddy Belly" left me gassed and nauseous WAY too early. I had a 2.3 mile route planned, but cut it down to just under 2. I was fighting off pukie after the first hill. This caused me to run an unplanned Fartlek style shuttle run. It definitely wasn't fast, and it wasn't very pretty, but i got off the couch, and got my ass moving again. Now I just need to dial in my diet again, and let the belly fall off. As much as I don't want to, I will have to go on a modified zone diet as soon as we get back.

As a cool down, I got to do a little niece workout using lunges and squats. They didn't know why I was doing it, but they had fun trying it too!