What's been new in 2013?

Back in the long ago year of 2010 when I was fatter and grouchier I posted a list of things my 3 years younger self was boy cotting. As I have not blogged this year at all I figured I would update a few things. I will share that list and update. Here it is:

1. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Update: Proud to say I have been strict and have not watched this show since Conan was messed over. I will watch again when Jimmy Fallon takes over next year.

2. BP- I still haven't bought gas from this company. It has been over 3 years since their mess and now they are whining  and not wanting to continue to fulfill their agreement to reimburse people for the harm they caused to their lives. Boycott still on indefinitely.

3. Kate plus 8--- Show was canceled. Now I refuse to watch Honey Boo Boo and that Double Divas show.

4. Anything on T.V. associated with Tyra Banks... not sure if she is on T.V. much anymore... boycott still in effect just in case

5. Jersey Shore-- Bam! Canceled.. I also have refused to watch Amish Mafia and and many other fakely produced shows.. especially those on MTV

6. Anything with a Kardassian-- This is a lifetime Ban... especially since they joined evil forces with Kanye and produced more entitled demon spawn

7. That Pretty Wild Show-- Don't think this one lasted.. one of the girls was arrested I think I heard

8. Chevron--- Not sure I remember why I was upset with them but I haven't bought any fuel from them that I am aware of... but this boycott won't last as I can't recall why I started it to begin with

9. The Bachelorette---- Lifetime ban

10. The Bachelor--- same as #9

11. Dancing with the Stars-- same as #9

12.Sushi-- This FAD has died down alot around here.. I could probably go for it given the opportunity now.. Not my first choice for dinner though

13.Partisan Politics--- I can't ever agree with either party.. Both are corrupted by special interest groups and are flawed and out of touch with the common working man

14.Jessie James (of West Coast Choppers)--- poser... tool.. etc..

15. Anything with Tom Cruise-- This ban is still in effect in the Barnes house...

What has changed? My first born is growing and growing and my Wife and I are extremely proud of her. We have still been dedicated to our workouts during the week. I don't have a GoRuck Challenge planned for this year.. but I am doing a MudRun.. The GoRuck Nasty obstacle course race.. and a Half Marathon this year.. Next year I hope to at least get another GoRuck event in and maybe a Ragnar Race if I can get enough team mates lined up and a marathon if I can get trained for it...

What's new Fall 2012??

Well,

College is behind me now, mostly. I do have about a year's worth of credits left on the Post 9/11 GI Bill left that I may be able to use towards my Master's degree should I choose to pursue that later. The baby will be 9 months old tomorrow on September 1st. My wife is still as always awesome and she has been helping me to stay healthy and in shape. She has even surpassed me and has lost more weight than I have and she had a baby last December. As for me, she thinks I might be a little crazy. I've been doing things a normal person, or at the least the old me would never have attempted. After I left the Army 5 years ago I kind of let myself go and when I started my Corporate desk job the pounds started piling on. Somehow in all this I was still able to meet my awesome hot wife and she even agreed to marry me after dating for about a year and a half. I saw my wedding photos and started to realize how unhealthy and out of shape I was. Meanwhile, around the same time I started working for my company we were blessed to get a corporate gym on our property. I joined but never really committed to any sort of routine. The gym would have fitness challenges every so often and I would consider participating but never really did it. Finally after my wife and I were married for a little while and we started trying to conceive our child I decided if I was going to be a father I wanted to be a healthy parent that would be around for a while. I told myself that if my BMI was high enough and I qualified to participate that I would finally make myself do it. I went to our onsite clinic and was measured and weighed and discovered how unhealthy I was. Thankfully with the help of some good people including my wife who helped me plan healthier meals, my nurse practitioner, and my coach at the gym, I was able to not only lose weight but I won that challenge as well as the confidence to continue my newly formed healthy habits. I started taking CrossFit classes at our gym, running more 5K races, started attending a Bi-Annual running clinic local to my area known as Death at Dawn, and during this time I completed my bachelors' degree and we gave birth to our daughter. All in all alot has happened to get me where I am now. A group of us CrossFitters at the our gym decided to sign up for a running series that tours our country. We signed up for the Tennessee event coming up outside of Nashville this year. As we were getting ready for this one, I found out that a different local mud race was coming up sooner here in town and signed up for that one as well to train for the Nashville Warrior Dash. Finally my boss ran across some videos on YouTube of a team building event led and conducted by Army Special Forces and other Military Special Operations professionals known as the GORUCK challenge. This one wasn't scheduled to come through our town but we found out that with enough participants and the right price, they would come to you. So we found 30 like minds that were likewise not in the right mind, so we will be going through this 9-12 hour 15-30 mile challenge on November 2nd. Tomorrow is the first of these three events, the Mud Run, and then I go through Warrior Dash in two weeks. Its hard to believe that I am in the shape to do this or that I would even be brave enough to try. It's been a great year and it's going to be a great Fall.

Almost Done

And we are in the Home Stretch.....

I picked up my cap and gown for graduation today. I have at least three research assignments left as well as some other miscellaneous assignments and then in May I will walk and become a bonefied College Graduate with a Bachelors Degree in Interdisciplinary studies. I gave a piece of my life to the United States Army for 6 years and the best thing I got out of it was the Post 9/11 GI Bill to help me finish my degree. My wife has been very supportive and understanding these last couple of years and I am thankful for her and for our new baby daughter Brogan. I can't wait for what our future holds for us.

Saturday Afternoon Summer Rantings and Ramblings

My pregnant wifey is napping away on this July 16th afternoon of 2011. I am watching an episode of Doctor Who with the 10th Doctor on Netflix(It is complicated the character is an alien that regenerates into different bodies when seriously injured, ie new actors). I have already watched every epidsode available featuring the 11th Doctor so I started midway in the series that had Doctor 10. If you've never watched these they can be overwhelming and complicated to jump into at first but then they get addicting. Anyway the Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack have been brought aboard the Dalek Crucible ship. Those Daleks are pretty creepy inside and out. They have a so called reality bomb.

 Meanwhile back in the real world my wife is pregnant with our baby daughter whom we will get to meet in December. Our elected officials are sitting up on Capitol Hill pointing fingers at each other throwing the blame back and forth as the government gets closer and closer to defaulting on the national debt if they don't pass a budget and make some much needed changes. Repubs want to slash Medicare and Social Security that the working taxpayers have been paying into for years and years. Dems want to tax the rich and I'm not really sure what else. Both sides are warped and are both fighting over how to spend the money that hard working class people like me and most of the rest of us have paid into the system for years. These politicians of BOTH parties are nothing more than bad money managers with their own opposing agendas but neither side can come together to a solution to clean up the mess that THEY the politicians made to begin with. I must admit I don't understand all of it, but what I do know is that DOCTOR WHO is way more entertaining than this and although complicated in itself, much easier to follow than this debt crisis mess.

Boo on Washington and this Debt Crisis  

Hurray for the Doctor and Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy and River Song.

Awesome business trip.

So in my job I work Corporate Security, but not how you might think. For our whole company there are only 2 people on the security team. My boss and myself. We are not security guards. That job is contracted out to several different companies at our many service centers. We coordinated security ops within the whole company and use our resources to handle any issue that comes up such as theft, safety, backgrounds, and access control. Recently down in Atlanta at our facility there had been a rash of pharmaceutical thefts. My boss and I had to pour through over 160 hours of video before we finally had a suspect. From there all we had to do was put out some bait and coordinate with the DEA in Atlanta. This was not easy and took us about a month to get going before we finally got to take our trip. It was an awesome sting operation and it was great to get to work in conjunction with the law enforcement officers down there to get our drug thief.  The guy was true to form and followed the pattern that we spotted on video. Everything went off without a hitch and we even finished on time to make the Braves game that afternoon. One of the many reasons I am thankful for and love my job.

It is officially Summer time..

Summer came almost 2 weeks early but it wasn't official until this past Monday. It has been the hottest most humid June in TN that I remember in a while. Praise Jesus for Air Conditioning. I dread getting my electric bill.  At this moment on this Saturday I got up early and mowed the huge yard around the rental house Wifey and I just moved into almost 2 weeks ago. Due to other commitments, etc. we are still unpacking at a slow rate. At this time the US is behing to Ghana by 1 point in their 30 minute overtime period against Ghana. I'm hoping they pull through but the announcers are already talking gloom and doom as fickle sports announcers are so well known to do. On this not as hot as it has been Saturday my wife and I will be going to visitation for 2 people I went to church with in my hometown who lost their lives in a house fire. They are with God and I am happy for them although my heart hurts for their Surviving family. The BP Oil Spill continues to regurgetate(is that how you spell that word) the black mess into our Gulf waters damaging the environment in such a way as it will not be contained for many many years. The economy is on the rebound and hiring is on the upswing again so that is a good thing. My cousin just got married a week ago today and she is currently on her honeymoon in Antigua. The ceremony was awesome and Texas weather was suprisingly more bearable than it has been here with all of our TN humidity. going on about 8.5 minutes left in this match an the US will have to step up to even get a tie today and stay in the series. Soccer just looks like an awkward sport to me and I have to respect the athletes that play it. I've never really paid close attention to it before this year. Michael Jackson has been gone a year and just when the media hoopla started to let him rest they started up the one year remembrance stories. His doctor/enabler is just now getting ready to go to trial. I will probably purchasing a weedeater at some point this weekend to finish the problem areas in our yard. This is a major adult purchase for me and makes me feel all the more older. Now I need a chain saw and an air compressor. Met my 3 month old nephew on my wife's side Cole for the first time this past week. He is a good baby. Gives me positive hope that the wifey and I will have kids as good as our nieces and nephews. Well, not much more to ramble on about so I will end this for now. Ghana 2 USA 1. Less than 2 minutes left...
_OUT

Boycotts and other random ramblings etc.......

Things I am presently boycotting:

1. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
2. BP- (They spilled another 100,000 gallons on the pipelines in Alaska not to mention their giant mess that keeps growing in the Gulf)
3.Kate plus 8
4. Anything on TV associated with Tyra Banks
5. Jersey Shore
6. Anything with a Kardassian
7. That Pretty Wild Show
8. Chevron- Yep they made a mess somewhere in the world too.
9. The Bachelorette
10. The Bachelor
11. Dancing with the Stars
12. Sushi (nothing against the food, I just avoid fads that lots of mindless sheep jump on just to do it rather than appreciating something for what it actually is. I might try it more later when the fad dies down)
13. Partisan Politics- I catch it from both sides. Dad's a Bluedog Dem- Wife's side of the Family are Reaganesque Conservatives. Both sides are corrupt and have their own selfish agendas and are out of touch with the common man.
14. Jessie James(He needs to give his name back to the Dead Outlaw. He is a whiner and he is weird)
15. Anything with Tom Cruise.

That's it for now. I'll add more are it comes to me.
-OUT
14.