Blog is moving...

So I finally got around to making my own site, blog, online resume...and not using Blogger's. I'd been wanting to do it forever, but just hadn't pulled the trigger.

Anyway, you can check it out if you want at what else... www.BubbaJay.com ! Tell 'em Bubba sent 'ya.

Post Thanksgiving Happenings...

Well I had a great Thanksgiving. Got up a bit later than normal and went to the gym. I ran on the treadmill for about 45 minutes, then did some ab work and stretching and then rode the stationary bike for about 15 minutes before heading over to my Mother-In-Law's house for the big feast. I ate too much, but didn't make myself sick - so a happy medium by my standards. I followed that up with a nap in the reclining chair and then some dessert.

Friday followed with a bit of guilt from over-eating, so I returned to the gym for a swim. Got in 2300 meters in the hour and headed home for a day of non-commitment. After two days in a row of no work, I was starting to relax.

This morning I awoke refreshed. Another day with no particular agenda other than baseball practice this afternoon. I could get used to this schedule...ah yes, I was used to it, then I went back to work. Dang!

Anyway, it had been raining for the past few days here, and I decided a nice muddy trail run was in order. I headed over to Calavera Lake for the dirty deed.

I hadn't been on the trail for a few weeks, and it always amazes me both how tough it is, and how wonderful it is. The uneven terrain and unregulated inclines make your lungs and legs burn equally, and the beautiful surroundings and lack of anything but nature soothes them right back. The latter overcoming the former and making the run fantastic.

I got good and sloshy from the rain soaked paths and muddy bogs where the small foot bridges had been washed away from the torrents. I did cross paths with a few folks, exchanged pleasantries and kept on truckin'.

I usually run with my music on - on the street that is. But on the trail, I never bring it. I like to hear the quiet - unlike the traffic filled suburban routes we run on. Occasionally a duck or goose or some creature inhabiting the area surrounding the lake will squawk or run through the brush letting me know I'm intruding, but other than that it's pretty darn quiet.

By the time I hit the last mile back on the road to home, I'm feeling the impact of the hour on the trails up Calavera Mtn. and around the base, the short steep ascents around the lakes edge and the extra effort made by my leg muscles to find sure footing in the slippery clay footpaths.

I drink some water, and jog it on home. I find myself basking in the sun stretching outside my front door - not quite ready to return to the inside. I cool off, and finally stop sweating. Suddently I'm chilled and ready for a warm shower. Great day - great run. Time for a bike ride this afternoon maybe, or tomorrow.

27 days 'till Christmas I think...I better get back to the hustle and bustle.

10 day giveaway

If you've been reading my blog much over the past few years, you probably already know that I've made my living doing Internet Marketing and web design for the most part. I made two very successful membership websites with a buddy of mine named Chris Vendilli.

Chris lives in Pittsburgh and I've actually never met him face to face. We met online in an internet discussion forum about eBay, started a project together, got incorporated and made some money together. We made another site a year later...and that's our history.

Over time we continued to do our own projects and recently Chris put together an awesome promotion. He's actually a police officer for the city of Pittsburgh, and if you go to this link
10daygiveaway you'll learn more about what he did, and why he did it.

'Tis the season...

Wow, Halloween is gone, Thanksgiving is just over a week away, and before you know it, Christmas will be here followed closely by New Year's. Squeeze in work, family and...heck, there's no more squeezing.

I've been putting off my workouts and gained some weight. Nothing too major, but it adds up...15lbs over the last 6 months. I lost 100 lbs 2 years ago. It took me a year to do it, and kept it off for a year...and now I've gained a bit back.

I don't like it. 'Tis the season to over eat and gain weight. I've got to get a handle on it before it I end up with a few of those handles again!

Head clearing

What is 'head clearing'? It's when I do a download...a mind dump to get stuff off my mind.

Work - too much. I remember now why I didn't like having a 'job' and a boss. It's not either the job or the boss - I have two jobs now, and two bosses, and really like both. But it's the loss of freedom. I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I like to be free to make my own path, my own decisions and work - at least mine - just doesn't lend itself to that.

But, times are tough out there, and I need to feed my family, pay bills and take care of business - so I suck it up, shut up and go to work.

Kids - love 'em. I have four kids. They're all so unique and different and I love each of them for their own merits. My oldest son Cole is turning 18 today. Wow, feeling old right about now. My youngest, Jacob is 8. And I have two in the middle, Dylan 12 and Teddi my daughter is almost 16.

The older two live with their mom locally, and the younger two with me. The younger two keep me busy and unfortunately between their Baseball, Boy Scouts, School, and my two jobs, I don't see my older two very often. Add to this that they're teen agers..heck adults and they just don't really want to hang out with Dad too much. It's kind of a bummer - but life I guess.

Location - we've been trying to move to Big Bear, California for a few years now, but with the housing market stinking it up out here in California, it's just not happening. We talked with a mortgage guy the other day about refinancing and that's not going to happen either. So, the newest plan, save some money, pay off some debt and move to Big Bear and rent our home and hope and pray for the best renters in the world. Cross you fingers.

Racing - I haven't done any Adventure Races in months. If you've known me for long, I did 4 two years ago I think, and 7 last year as I recall. Love them...but need to be fit and honestly it's been tough...well if we're being honest - I've been lazy. With my schedule, when I did have time to train I usually opted not too. But, I'm back at it. I have a snowshoe race coming up in 2 months. I got third last year so I'm going to start shooting for that. I've been running 5-6 miles 3 days a week - either road or trail runs, and riding my road or mtn. bike the days in between. I usually don't do any workouts on the two days that I work my day job and then night job in the same day - my 'double' as we call it, pretty much zaps me. They're 16 hour work days and they're always back to back so I just can't do it. But other than that I've been pretty disciplined lately. I wanted to get some kayaking in again and some high altitude hiking to get my legs and lungs strong for the snowshoe race as it's up in Big Bear at over 6,000 feet to START and climbs around 1000 to 1500 feet from there.

Halloween came and went, before you know it Thanksgiving will be past and Christmas is just around the corner. Dang, it only reminds me we were hoping to be in Big Bear by now. Bummer. We booked a week up there at Christmas...keep the dream alive!

Ok, so you're all caught up. I'm busy, but doing well. Hanging in there - you do the same!

Blogs

Interesting...I just got a Blog comment from "anonymous" on my post below titled "Getting Red Going Green". I was chastised for not keeping up on my Blog. I'm not sure how to feel...first they're right - I haven't kept up on my writing lately. But, second - where is their Blog? Who are they? What right do they have to judge my frequency of writing? Third, I put the Blog out there so should I be judged? Perhaps.

Anyway, here come the excuses...

Times are tough. I've been working from home for 5 or 6 years now I think, providing for my family from my various e-commerce endeavours. I started looking for work outside of the online realm, much to my demise. Even worse I found a job. And to top it off, I found another.

So, a month later, I went from working at home full-time to working two jobs for a total of around 70 hours a week for someone else.

I have a background in restaurant management, and fell into position as the Front of the House Manager at a local Irish Pub. The Pub is owned by Matt Hensley - ex-professional skateboarder, and band member of the fairly famous Flogging Molly. It's a fun, lively atmosphere with live music every night and a young clientele and staff. I enjoy it despite the fact that I don't drink and am not Irish. I work there approximately 30 hours a week, 4 nights a week.

I was happy to find a job in the evening allowing me to pursue my own businesses in the daytime, still be home when my boys get out of school and so on. But when I got the Pub job, I was just filling is serving, and the hours were less regular and not management, so I kept looking.

Amazingly after a few weeks I found another job doing basically what I've been doing myself - at home, though for someone else. The company has more business than I did, and they know more than I do about several areas of web-design and I was excited to learn some new stuff, get paid and still be working with eBay and websites. It was a part-time gig too and I could basically make my own schedule.

Then it all came together...or fell apart - depending on how you look at it. My skills were appreciated at the web design job and they gave me an enormous raise and asked me to work full-time. I accepted and things have been great there.

A few weeks later, the Pub asked me to start managing 3-4 nights a week - a raise was given and now I suddenly have two jobs for 70-hours a week or more. Don't forget I never quit running my own businesses at home, but they've definitely taken a back seat.

So, why haven't I been Blogging? Maybe I could start a band - Blogging Molly!

Getting Red trying to be Green

For the past several years we've had our boys doing chores around the house for a small allowance. The goal besides distributing the household workload was to teach the boys some

responsibility towards doing work as wall as managing their money. Honestly, it's worked wonders!

One of the bi-weekly chores is to sort the plastic bottles from the aluminum cans. Once a few bags has accumulated we take a trip to our local recycling drop-off to turn them in for cash. What better way to show the boys the value of recycling, right?

So today - Monday, I tell the boys to get the cans and bottles in the car so we can go turn them in. We head down to the Albertson's by our house where Re-Planet has a recycling drop-off location.

As we pull up, I can see the two big bins have the doors closed and as we pull closer I see a sign stating that they're closed because the bins are full. A bit frustrating after putting the sticky, leaking soda can filled bags in the back of my car, but we head South to the City of Carlsbad's recycling facility off of Faraday. I can't believe my eyes when we arrive to see a sign saying they're closed on Monday's.

I head North again as I had to make a stop at the Post Office anyway. I recall a recycling spot off of Tamarack next to the Sav-On Drugstore, right by the I-5 freeway. As we pull up, my youngest starts to giggle as he sees before me that it's closed as well. No sign explaining why, no business hours posted, no signage at all...just locked up tight. We continue to mail our packages and head over to the mall off Jefferson. I have to stop by Sports Authority. As I get closer I recall they had two self-serve recycling machines out in front of Stater Bros. grocery store. And as you can imagine by now...no luck. They'd replaced the machines with a water dispensing machine.

I was ready to quit at this point. Just thrown the dang things in the garbage can somewhere, and my older son reminded me of one last shot - the Re-Planet recycling facility next to Ralph's off of Oceanside Blvd, just East of the I-5 freeway. It was just over the hill, so why not. Heck, I'd already spent $10 on gas at $4.59/gallon trying to drop them off somewhere, what was another mile or two?

As we pulled into the lot, my son was elated, "they're open, they're open" he chipped. But as we got closer it turns out they're replaced the nice Hispanic man that ran this recycling center with two large bins and two self-serve machines. Oh well, a sign of the times I thought as we got out to feed the cans into the beast.

After an hour of driving, and literally five locations we were ready to get our $5.00 to give to the boys for their work.

***WARNING*** was what the little window said. As both machines were inoperable and jammed with something other than cans and bottles apparently. My boys looked at me not quite understanding when I told them to load the sticky bags back into the back of the car.

I was quiet for a bit on the drive home, reflecting on our adventure. My son, with his infinite wisdom said "it's tough to help take care of the environment isn't it Dad?" Yes it is, yes it is.