Tonight's State of the Union address

I can sum up President Obama's State of the Union address tonight in two words:  "deficit spending".  The President is promising the world and I'm sitting here wondering how he's going to pay for it.  The problem is, I won't end up paying for it.  My kids, grandkids and great grand kids will be paying for this deficit spending.

Home PC upgrade

The home PC is about 4 years old.  The PC is continually being upgraded (new hard drives, more RAM, etc.), but the core machine (CPU and video card) hasn't changed much.

A couple of years ago my motherboard fried.  So I had to get a new motherboard.  So here's the upgrade path for the box:

1.)  CPU upgrade (already done)

2.)  Power supply upgrade (done)

3.)  Video card upgrade.  I had to upgrade the power supply before I could upgrade the video card.  The card I'm looking at is the Nvidia GeForce 260.

4.)  Remove smaller hard drives and replace them with larger hard drives.

5.)  Buy more RAM (max it out to 8GB of RAM) and then install Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

The old parts don't get thrown away or given away.  They are recycled, meaning they get reused in my lab.  I have a couple of dead PCs that are occupying computer cases.  The dead PC will be taken apart and revamped with the other stuff that is no longer used.

I don't know how long this will take.  It totally depends on money, and money is a HUGE factor at this point in time.  I hope to complete the upgrade by the end of the year.  For now, I'll just enjoy what I've got.

New Years Resolution(s) for 2010

On New Year's day I thought I was having a heart attack.  Come to find out I didn't have one afterall.  Which is nice to know.  In the course of my visits with the doctor, she said I needed to lose 50 pounds (about 23 kilos) of weight off my frame.  So what do I do, eh?  I guess I'll do what the doctor has ordered.  I figure if I can drop a pound a week, then I'll be able to drop 50 in a year.  Not a bad goal, eh?  Only thing is that I can go to the restroom and drop a pound or more in one sitting.  And yes, pun intended.  So here's a list of my New Year's Resolutions for 2010:

• Drop 50 pounds by December 31, 2010
• Eat better
• Exercise regularly
• Enjoy life, my wife and my children

I love my wife dearly.  She's been exercising like crazy (she's training for a half marathon in April) and dang, she looks pretty good.  She dyed her hair her natural color (she's been coloring it lighter to cover the ever increasing gray) and she looks smoking hot.  In fact, she bought this nice little black dress and wore it to my company Christmas party, and I just could not take my eyes off her.  She wore the same outfit to Church on Sunday (first time for the outfit and a first for the hair) and she got tons of comments.  So if she's looking good, then I've got to look good too.  So time to loose the fat.

Annual visit to the ER

Seems like I end up in the ER at least once a year for chest pains.  So this year was no different. 

We had a New Year's party.  I was up with my friends.  Eating things I knew would do bad things to my body.  Midnight came.  The guests left.  We cleaned up and went to bed.

I could not go to sleep.  No way.  No how.  I felt like crap.  I had pressure in my chest.  Finally at around 4AM, I woke the wife up and we went to the ER.  On the way there, things started to feel better, but I still thought it would be a good idea to check in and get checked out.

I went in there.  They drew blood.  Did an EKG.  Did all sorts of stuff.  Everything looked good.  But after about five or six hours, they decided to admit me just in case.  More blood tests.  Heart enzymes looked good.

Long story short, the heart is OK.  And I didn't have a heart attack afterall.  They did a stress test (now I feel like an Obama bank) on me and it looked good.  So I've been cleared for exercise.  So what's causing the pain?  1.)  Heartburn (?)  2.)  Possible bad gall bladder.  For the burn, I've got a prescription for some mighty good acid reflux meds.  For the gall bladder, I've got to have some more expensive tests run to see if it needs to come out or not.  I suspect that my gall bladder is probably acting up.  And I wouldn't be surprised if it has been bad for a while.  As long as I eat fairly decent, I can get away with it.  But when I eat crap, I have pressure in the chest.

Check out my new years resolutions for some interesting stuff.

Mom, what's for dinner?

Last night my 4 year old asked my wife, "Mom, what's for dinner?"  To which my wife replied, "Tuna casserole."  And now for the famous response:  "I HATE tuna casserole."

To all you Moms (and Dads) out there with small children, isn't it wonderful when your kids knock your menu choices?  Yeah, tuna casserole doesn't sound very appealing to me either (and I'm the Dad), but I have to go along for the ride.  Besides it was a new recipe from our Eating for Life book that we have.

Here are a few photos of the finished product:

Doesn't that just look tasty?  Here's another photo:

Hopefully I haven't grossed anyone out.  If this actually looks appealing to you, then look at the recipe from Eating for Life and you can make your own tuna casserole.