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May 30 Make room for Fred Thompson?The field of GOP presidential hopefuls is about to get more crowded now that Fred Thompson has announced he will form a presidential committee.
While forming a presidential committee is no guarantee he'll run, I can't imagine at this point that he won't. He's got a lot going for him:
Some may take issue with that last statement in this analysis. But here's what I mean: Of the "big three" in the field, each one has a knock on him that doesn't necessarily sit well with some GOP voters. For instance, Mitt Romney is saying the kinds of things that voting bloc wants to hear now, but don't some of those statements run counter to what he said when running for governor of Massachusettes? Rudy Giuliani, on the other hand, is on record as saying he personally opposes abortion but supports a woman's right to choose. And John McCain? Critics contend he's too old to be president, was once too much of a maverick to be president, and that he's spent too much time trying to bury his maverick image to be president. For McCain, it's truly a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. The reason Thompson has ranked so high in the polls probably has more to do with the fact he doesn't stray far from the party line. The fact he's part of a popular TV juggernaut helps boost him over other potentially credible Republicans the rest of the nation apparently hasn't heard of. I'm honestly surprised two candidates in particular, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback, aren't smoking Giuliani, McCain and Romney in the polls right now. For Brownback, is the problem his message that he's a "bleeding-heart conservative." Or does it really all come down to money raised, an area in which he lags behind? As for Huckabee, I'm guessing the reason he's not in it has a lot to do with his outside-the-box suggestion that America scrap income and corporate taxes in favor of a 23 percent sales tax. Kind of reminds me of when Steve Forbes ran for president on the promise of a flat income tax rate for everyone. That didn't fly so well either. And really, can you expect to elect more than one man from Hope, Ark., to the White House in any given lifetime? May 26 Great day at the gymNot sure why it happened this way, but I did have a great day at the gym today. I did 45 minutes of hard cardio on the elliptical trainer. Rob, my trainer, was doing his own workout today and commended me on the effort. For whatever reason, I just got into a groove and really enjoyed it today. I haven't felt this good about my cardio in a long time. Now I'm at work, anxiously anticipating my final shift before a week of vacation. All we have to do is produce a Sunday paper, then I'm out of here! Powered by ScribeFire. Today's roundup of presidential election funIs Mitt Romney destined to be the flip-flopper of the '08 campaign? The Washington Post points out how Romney seems to have changed his mind on another issue since his days as governor of Massachusettes. Romney has decided McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform has got to go, which isn't exactly what he said when he was governor.
In the other political party, the Clintons have apparently found themselves a sugar daddy. Vinod Gupta was one of those famous Lincoln Bedroom visitors who continue to lavish the Clintons with his money. Not that they're the only ones who benefit from corporate largesse. I'd start listing incidents of politicians getting fat off of corporate donors, but who has that kind of time?
Today's lesson? Politics is about money. If you ain't got it, they don't really care about you. This week's workoutsNot so much good to report this week. I made it to both of my appointments with the personal trainer, but I didn't do any extra cardio. I'm feeling pretty guilty about that right now, so I may still head to the gym this morning. I do have to work this afternoon, and Jenny and I are planning to give one of our dogs a haircut before I go. Still, should be enough time to do both if I can get myself motivated.
I didn't eat too badly this week. Liquids, on the other hand, are another story. I drank quite a bit of beer this week, which is unusual for me. Normally I only drink once or twice a week, but this week I think I knocked back a few beers almost every night. Not enough beer to get drunk on, mind you, but enough to catch a little buzz.
On the flipside, I've been better about soda this week. I've even come to stomach the taste of Diet Coke instead of the good ol' fashioned kind. I still much prefer the taste of Fatty Coke, but I can live with the diet stuff.
May 20 Gas pricesI just have to bitch about this: I just dropped $47.15 for half a tank of gas. It's easy to do when the price is $3.19 per gallon.
I've seen a lot of people predict we'll be paying an average of $4 per gallon by Labor Day. I'm starting to think it could be by the Fourth of July.
This pretty much sums up how I feel about the state of gas prices today (probably not work-place safe) May 19 New York Times article on Hillary ClintonFirst, read this. Then, tell me how The New York Times is a liberal rag.
I think it's safe to say that there is no more polarizing presidential candidate out there than Hillary Clinton. People who hate here really, really hate her. People who like her generally have some reservations -- she is a Clinton, and we know the Clintons are far from perfect, by their own admissions -- but support her with much vigor. Bottom line: You either like her or you don't.
So what's my point here? That this article is a great example of what "fair and balanced" really means. Are you listening Fox News? This is very much a "we report, you decide" piece of journalism, and I think Michael Barbaro should be commended.
For all those Fox News fans who like your news with a slant, I beg you to read this story. Just because an article highlights something about a candidate that makes you uncomfortable doesn't make that news organization "just another example of the damn liberal media." It means that Mr. Barbaro did his job very well. Training and softballI had a good training session yesterday, I played some softball and I ate decently too. Not a bad day all around for the Shapin' Up project.
Training -- I worked out for an hour with my trainer, plus I did some cardio before and after. We mostly concentrated on legs, though we did some work on the abs as well. I hope to one day actually see my abs. But I need to lose about 50 pounds of fat before that happens.
Diet -- Again, not a bad day, but not a great one either. Here's the menu breakdown:
Breakfast -- Toast with a little bit of butter and coffee
Lunch -- Warmed up pizza from the night before (at least it was eaten in the middle of the day, right after my workout, and not right before bed)
Dinner -- I was starving before the game, so I grabbed a patty melt at Hardee's. That's not good, but at least it was just the patty melt. No fries, no coke, just the burger. After the game, Jenny and Amy had a hankerin' for Red Lobster, so we went there. I nibbled on a few of Amy's cheese sticks and a cheddar biscuit (the best thing about Red Lobster!), but wasn't hungry enough to order a full meal. But I do have to say, Jenny's ultimate platter did look pretty good. Especially the crab legs.
The game -- We won via forfeit because our opponents, Team USA, didn't show. I don't think they should be able to call themselves Team USA anymore. Don't give America a bad name by not showing up! I hope Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity stumble over this blog and call Team USA out on their failure to show. I also hope they stumble across future blogs where I rip O'Reilly and Hannity for being the partisan hacks they are, but that's a post for a different day ...
Anyway, with the forfeit we're now 2-2 on the season going into the bye week (no games Memorial Day weekend). And we did get a chance to scrimmage with a co-ed team, which was good because it gave us a chance to try out a different pitcher. And I got to play a little behind the plate again too. The sun was in my eyes the entire game (game time was right at sundown), so I let a few get by me that I normally wouldn't have. But I did all right, and I even got a legitimate hit. Rob gave me some pointers with my stance, and it really helped. Take that Verizon! Your company absolutely sucks!If you haven't heard, Verizon shareholders voted for a say-on-pay proposal for their CEO. I couldn't be happier about this.
Did you know that Ivan G. Seidenberg made $20 million last year as Verizon's CEO? Based on my dealings with the company, he should put some of that money -- if not all of it -- into customer service. Until the customer service gets better, the company slogan should be "We never start working for you."
When Jenny and I got married, we opted to save money by getting us on a family share plan (really, we should have done it from the moment we moved in together, but hindsight is always 20/20). We chose Verizon because most of our friends and family have it, so we could go with a lower minutes plan since most of the time we'd be on in-network time anyway.
And I pushed hard for Verizon because, up until I moved to Missouri, their customer service was great. But in the last two years, the company has just gone down the toilet as far as customer service.
Like when Jenny accidently washed my phone while we were home visiting her parents. We had an 800-mile drive ahead of us, and I really wanted a phone for the trip. You know, just in case you break down in the middle of Nebraska and need a tow. But when I took my insured phone (I was paying an extra $10 a month for the protection) to the Verizon store for a replacement, I was told they couldn't give me one then and there even though they had the same model in the store. The excuse was that they contracted with an outside company on the insurance deal, so the phone had to come from the other company. I could have saved myself the $10 a month (plus the $50 co-pay for replacement) and bought a brand-new phone that was bigger and badder right there on the spot. I don't fall that scam anymore.
Then there was the day-long hassle the day we tried to get Jenny on my calling plan. We had to go to two different stores and spend hours (and that is not an exaggeration) on the phone before someone could tell us that, contrary to what they advertise, you can't always keep your phone number. You see, I still have a Wyoming phone number, but Jenny had switched to a local number. But because the account is still based in the west, one of us had to give up our number. Now, this wouldn't have pissed me off so much had the first flunky we worked with had told me that. Or the second. Or the third. Or the fourth. It wasn't until after I had spent an entire afternoon trying to get answers that one bright guy at the Verizon store here finally told me the rules of the game. He was even nice enough to work past closing time that night to get a phone in Jenny's hands, which meant he had to cut through a ton of red tape. Later, he also had to credit my account with the $60 rebate we were entitled to after the rebate center declared we weren't eligible for it.
And will the company listen to my complaints? No. Try calling the customer service line and ask to speak with someone about a complaint. They'll tell you to go to the Web site. So the phone company won't take customer feedback over the phone? Am I the only person who thinks that's wrong?
Until Mr. Seidenberg gets his company on track with some decent customer service, he sure as hell doesn't deserve $20 million per year. More like $20 per year for the job that company does. May 18 May 18 updateToday should be a pretty good exercise day for me. I have an appointment with my trainer this morning, then the softball team I play on has a game tonight.
I didn't do so well yesterday. I took the day off from the gym, and I didn't do so great on the eating. I started out OK, but I ended weak. Here's yesterday's menu:
Breakfast: Bagel and peanut butter, coffee
Lunch: Sandwich at the Bread Basket, 20 ounce bottle of Cherry Coke. The sandwich isn't terrible for dieting, but the Coke is no good. And the fact I didn't eat until 4 p.m. is really bad.
Dinner: Imo's pizza (thin crust), followed by a slice of Jenny's French Silk Pie. This was all absolutely delicious, but it's also a lot of calories for late at night.
I know I'll do much better today as far as exercise goes. So far the diet isn't going too bad -- toast with a little bit of butter and coffee for breakfast. I know I'll work that off pretty easy at the gym this morning.
I hope the game tonight goes well. We've lost our last two games after winning the opener, and last week was a game we really could have won. We led 6-0 after the first inning and then our bats went pretty much silent. We ended up losing 9-7, and both Scott (our player/manager and one of my co-workers) and I have been grousing about how we coulda/shoulda/woulda won last week. So much for it just being a recreation league! I guess I'm just a tad more competitive than that. May 16 May 16 workout entryNot much to today's workout. I did about 10 minutes on the elliptical, then 40 crunches on the ab roller, then another 20 minutes of cardio on the elliptical. I thought I'd take it kind of easy today since I worked pretty hard yesterday. Yesterday's workout saw Rob, my trainer, really challenge me as far as amount of weight I've been doing. We really targeted the upper body, and I responded well to the increased weight. I'm starting to see some definition return to my upper body -- it's still obscured by the fat rolls a little bit, but you can start to see my pectoral muscles taking shape. My arms aren't nearly as flabby as they once were either. I need to write a post about how I fell off the fitness bandwagon and then got back on. That's going to come soon. In the meantime, here's part of the reason why I fell off the wagon (this should make a nice cliffhanger for ya):  Powered by ScribeFire. Our new fenceWhen we moved to Columbia in the summer of 2005, the house we bought didn't have a fence. That didn't really work for our family of three dogs, so we had a chain link fence installed. Just last week, we had that chain link torn down and we put up a new wood privacy fence. Here are some pictures:
One of my other favorite topicsBeing a journalist, I like to comment from time to time on things happening in the news and especially in politics. But because of my job as a journalist, I take my committment to objectivity very seriously. This is why when I do post about news and politics, I try to keep my own opinion out of it. I know this runs contrary to what a blog is supposed to be -- i.e. someone's opinion -- but it's important to me that I don't give the appearance that my own views color how the news is presented in the publications for which I work.
So when I write about politics, I'll do so from a non-partisan viewpoint. That shouldn't be too hard, considering I am an independent voter who believes both major political parties have their good points and their bad.
As for commenting on the news, I'm more likely to comment on how other newspapers and media outlets cover big national events, like the Virginia Tech shooting, for instance. Again, commenting on the news compromises my objectivity as a journalist. But commenting on how the news is presented is something I debate with my co-workers everyday, and I'd like to share that with the world. Too often news organizations get bashed for how they choose to present the news by pundits who claim there was no thought put into it at all.
This was pretty common recently with NBC's decision to run the video from the Virginia Tech shooter. Whether you agree with the decision or not, let's at least give NBC the benefit of the doubt that it at least thought about its decision. And really, could NBC have made a decision there that would make everyone happy? If you want to criticize the decision, I say bash away. But don't act like this major news organization didn't at least go over the pros and cons. To suggest that is insulting to the crew there. Re-starting the Shapin' Up blogWhat is Shapin' Up version 2.0, you ask?
Well, it's the re-start of a project I did a while back while working as the night editor for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. In fact, you can find those old columns right here on this site.
Back then, I wrote a weekly column for the newspaper and tried to maintain a daily blog. I found the blog to be a little difficult to keep up with, mostly because at the time I was working a job that demanded way too much of my time. My current job is considerably better in that regard.
So here's the plan: I will blog about my experiences working out, and you can check in and read it whenever the mood strikes you. Topics will range from what I'm listening to on my iPod, to my own successes and failures, to what wacky thing my trainer told me today.
I actually started getting back into shape a few weeks ago. But that's another post ... |
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