Van Damme is still awesome.

    If you’re a casual fan, you probably know Van Damme from his classics like “Universal Soldier”, “Kickboxer”, “Bloodsport”, etc.  Die hard fans, like myself, have seen everything he’s made, which during the later years have been 80% garbage.  After the release of “JCVD”, Van Damme displayed  (to everyone that saw the movie) that he could act.  His main problem seemed to be the projects he was taking on.  Not all of the in the later year films were like “JCVD”, in fact 99% of them were not.  In  “Assassination Games”,  Van Damme is at his best again.  He is definitely a guy that looks way cooler the older he gets.  He goes from this:

To This:

    The film stars Scot Adkins and Van Damme.  I’ve never seen Scott Adkins in anything else but I was fairly impressed with him as an action star, he was pretty awesome.  Van Damme and Adkins play two rival assassins, one has a personal history with the target, the other is purely business.  The two have great chemistry and both play their parts perfectly.  Without getting too detailed, the film quality, action scenes, acting, and violence were better then most action films I’ve seen recently.  Its a shame these movies go straight to DVD as I think that people would go to the movies to see action flicks like these.  Instead we get watered down action movies full of teen heartthrobs and bad CGI.  Watch “Assassination Games” if you are in the mood for a good action film, its currently on Netflix streaming.

Bottling Weekend for Batch 1

    This weekend was bottling weekend for my first batch of home brew.  Last Thursday I made my way out to the home brew store to get some bottling supplies.  I really only knew the basics for what I needed when I walked in there so instead of making it a terrible experience from forgetting things or buying the wrong things, I asked the guy at the counter for some advice.  He actually took the time to bring me into the back to show me a few things about bottling.  If you are in Buffalo, NY and want to get into home brewing, I highly suggest going to Niagara Tradition Home Brew Supply.  After watching him show me a few things, I was introduced to a few cool gadgets that make things easier, one being this:

This thing is awesome.  You basically fill the bowl portion with about an inch of sanitizer, place the bottle on the thing in the center, and push down.  It projects a forceful spray of sanitizer inside the bottle.  This made it very easy to sanitize 2 cases of bottles in minutes. 
    I used the auto-siphon which was recommended to me over using a bottling bucket.  Its a lot better for the beer.  Starting the siphon was a bit of a challenge for me because I had never used one before.  I ended up blowing the tip off my filler wand and sprayed beer all over, but hey, you live and learn.  Once I got the siphon going it was super easy.  

Ignore my pants, It’s Sunday, a day where normally we have things to do but this particular Sunday was a total day off so I was in no hurry to get dressed.

After a while, I got the hang of it and set up a little bottle stand.  This allowed me to cap while the siphon slowly filled the bottles.
    The bottle capping device was fairly easy to use.  Again, I’m no expert so the first 5 minutes I looked like a cave man.
    Overall my beer had a nice color and smelled good.  I now have to keep the bottles in a 65-70 degree environment for 6-7 more days before moving them to the basement where they will be in a 50-60 degree environment.  I hope its good.  The guy at the brew store said that if he knew this was my first brew he would have advised against me trying to brew a beer this complicated, but its the type of beer I love, so its the one I want to be good at making!

In a little over a month, I find out if I’m any good!

Week 8 Weight Watchers

     Week 8, the weekend following Easter.  Last weekend I drank a ton and ate more than normal, although I stayed within my point allowance.  I thought for sure I was going to gain some weight but I didn’t!  I broke even.  So next week I should hopefully lose some more, now that there is no holiday weekend.
      This weekend is bottling weekend for my home brew.  Its tough to remain optimistic about my first batch, for some reason I still feel like its not going to go well.  I have to hit up the home brew store when Nicole gets home because I need bottling supplies.  I’ll be sure to snap some pictures of the process.  Also this weekend Nicole and I are going to tackle a few things in the back yard as we prepare it for the fence we are putting up.
More pictures to come!

Small backyards…

   So if you have been reading my blog, you probably know from past posts, that our backyard is really awful.  Its small, it doesn’t get much sun, and its unattractive and muddy.  With all of those things going for us, it’s still our project for the summer and should make for a great before and after picture.
   Nicole started finding pictures of small backyards online.  Its amazing what people come up with for small spaces.  Some of the pictures could possible be out of our range, maybe not, but we will easily be able to create something awesome.  I think we are still going to shoot for a style similar to what we saw in San Francisco last summer, with some of the ideas that we have seen from these pictures.

Easter Weekend!

   Easter weekend was exhausting but fun.  Nicole and I managed to enjoy two  Easter dinners without exceeding our weight watcher point allowances.  It was challenging but not impossible.  What has actually become challenging to me is getting used to my new tolerance for alcohol.  This weekend, I failed this test miserably!  When I was 20 pounds heavier, I could throw back a decent amount of alcohol, and the following morning would be nothing.  Now that I am 20 pounds lighter, it seems my new limit is like 3 beers max!  Super embarrassing, this weekend brought me a morning that I spent partially on the bathroom floor, and partially on a couch laying down nibbling on oyster crackers and sipping ginger ale.  It was total amateur day for me, super embarrassing.  After a few hours I was feeling decent enough to leave and head over to Nicole’s mom’s house.  When we finished up over there, I was in bed by 6:30pm….for the night.  I feel great this morning after all of that sleep though!
  Today, Nicole and I head downtown to get our marriage license.  Hopefully all goes well!

Wrestlemania Sunday!

    For millions of people, the most famous Sunday in sports is “Superbowl Sunday”.  For me its “Wrestlemania” Sunday!  This is an event many of us have been watching every year since childhood.  Some of us (like myself) have traveled to different states to see the event live.  I have attended two Wrestlemanias and have witnessed history.  This weekend will be the first Wrestlemania that I host at our new home and I am pretty excited.  Nicole most likely is not, but she understands the passion dudes like myself have for an event such as this.
    I’m going to cook up some chicken on grill, kick back, and hopefully watch some great matches.

 

     I took off Monday so that I wouldn’t have to work after Wrestlemania.  I have decided to try my hand at brewing on this day.  I picked up the last of the things I need so that I can do it.  The liquid yeast I have has a shelf life, and the date stamped on it doesn’t allow me much time.  I will start cooking Monday, hopefully I will be successful.  This is really something I’d like to be good at.  I discovered that we have a home brewing store in Buffalo.  I went there over the weekend, it is totally awesome and will make it easier for me to pursue this hobby.  I’m going to try and get some pictures from the process to add during the week!

Week 5 weigh-in

     I crushed it this week.  After a disappointing weight loss of .2 pounds last week, I strolled into the bathroom this morning, hopped onto the scale and looked down at a “196”, a loss of 6.2 pounds.  I had reached my initial goal weight.  When we first started, I gave myself a “realistic” goal to reach.  I was going to get down from 212-196.  This morning I set a new goal of getting below 190.
    This is the biggest weight loss week I’ve had so far which makes me sit back and wonder what I did different this week.  What I had done this week was simply eat more of my weekly bonus points and I stopped eating anything of substance after dinner.  I pretty much have a routine down now where my breakfast is the biggest meal I have of the day.  Usually hovering around 16 points, I have two cups of coffee with two servings of creamer, a sausage, egg, and cheese English muffin, and maybe some granola mixed in with some yogurt and fruit.  Between breakfast and lunch, I may have an apple.  For lunch I usually have a sandwich with rye bread, turkey, lettuce tomato, light mayo, mustard, turkey bacon. and fat free swiss. Sounds like a lot?  Its a pretty big sandwich. 6 points!  I may have a weight watchers ice cream between lunch, or some other 2 point snack, but I always have my serving of V-8 low sodium vegetable juice. Then for dinner I keep it around 3-6 points.  I love eating fish because its so low in points usually.  Then at the end of the night, I may have some fruit or a tomato w/ balsamic.  I also usually have a beer or glass of wine.  One thing Nicole and I like to do is have some Tea right before bed, its become sort of a ritual.
    This program is awesome.  Its not really a diet as much as it is just getting healthy.  I eat more on this diet then I did when I wasn’t dieting, it just helps you eat the right combination of foods to boost your metabolism.  I am sure next week I will lose almost nothing again (seems to be a pattern, every other week), but this week I’m feeling pretty good!

New Storm Door

    Today after work, I installed the new storm door.  I had never installed anything like this before, but for the most part it was pretty easy.  I was able to find a video online from the window company itself.  The video was simple and easy to follow so I had no real problems.  We don’t get the screen for like 2 weeks because I took a chance on a 400 dollar door, marked almost half off at Home Depot because it was labeled “slow moving”.  I asked the salesman what this had meant, and he said that it was because the door was returned and the box had been opened.  He said there would be a risk of missing parts but that the door company would mail me any parts that were missing for free.  I went for it. The door was too sweet to turn down, and without the discount it would have been just out of our price range.  When I got home, there was an insane amount of things missing including the screen.  I called the window company and they mailed me out everything.  They said the screen would take longer because it was a big item and needed to be on the Home Depot truck.  Today I got all the parts I needed to install the door so I went at it (I ran a little late, my apologies to any neighbors that read this).

    Tomorrow is Friday, I am ready to relax and see plenty of this…

It’s so beautiful.

I love watching shows…

    A few weeks back I started watching “Breaking Bad”.  The more I watched it, the more I loved the show and I ended up tearing through 3 seasons.  This is perhaps the best show I have ever watched.  It’s amazing.  I am now waiting for season 4 to show up on Netflix.  In the past, I would normally find “alternative methods” of gaining access of the 4th season, but I will wait.  I want the anticipation to build.

   I now have space for a new show to watch.  I’ve thrown around some options, two of them being “Walking Dead” and “Mad Men” however, tonight I decided that those shows will wait for a while.  I randomly chose to watch “Twin Peaks”.  My parents were heavy into the show when it was on Television, they even got married to the theme song.  I was pretty young at the time and only remember little tidbits of the show.  30 minutes into the first episode, Nicole and I were drawn in.  I think this is the next series we will be watching.

We have been busy!

   A couple new items this week hit our shops and will soon be up on the website.  The first is the new Thelonious Monk T-shirt.  This shirt pays tribute to one of the greatest jazz artists ever and we decided to make it a onesie and a T-shirt.  I love jazz so I wanted to do something for other jazz lovers out there.

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