zenhunterbob's Xanga

Middle Age

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:18:33 GMT

As I live vicariously through my kids, I have come to enjoy talking them into doing things that stretch the limits of their known capability's. Today for example, I was able to convince my 14yr old son to run with his old man (that would be me) in an organized 5 mile run in Fredericksburg. Convincing him to run was easier than I had expected. As I have noted somewhere on this Xanga page, football is the sport of the moment. I calmly explained to him that he did not have to race this run just jog along with his old man for company and that jogging 5 miles would help build endurance for the football field. He agreed. We ran. Being the young buck he is, he left me behind somewhere around the 4.5 mile mark. I was happy to see him go. I don't believe he could stand to see his old man suffer any longer. Anyway his time was around 45:22 and my time was around 46:25.

I chose to start running again to try and lose some of this weight hanging around my midsection (spare tire syndrome). I initially lost 10 pounds (and kept it off I might add) and haven't lost a pound since. However, I can officially run 5 miles in a little less than 47 minutes. I chose running because you don't see many overweight runners out there. I say officially since running on the treadmill and timing yourself just doesn't seem to match what happens on the street. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the YMCA in my area in order to add aerobics to my weekly routine. I will also be adding a little weightlifting into that routine.

Since I quit smoking over 2 years ago, I wanted to work on my lung capacity and try to speed up the clean up process going on in the lungs. For those of you looking to start a workout program google the following Presidents Challenge I found this to be a fun log for my running and also motivated me to work out a little longer each time. As of June 27th, I have earned the Bronze Award. I am now working towards the Silver Award. Only 25000 points to go.

Anyway, I titled this as middle age, because I find my state of mind totally different at "middle age" than when I was younger. Case in point. The above run with my son. A younger me, would have passed out running as hard as I could to prevent anyone from breezing by me on the run much less my own son. Now I am just kinda mellowing out.

I would also like to thank Spazmom40 for stopping by and providing me some laughs. Great sense of humor.

ZMAN

What the heck happened to this place while I was gone?

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:30:42 GMT

Hey Ho All!

Those that stuck around and kept me in their loop (subscription list) thank you. I guess I became a bit of a voyeur over the last 4 years. Wow how time flies. I've been living vicariously through my two boys during this time. Between football, baseball, basketball, and hunting, fishing and gardening, and lets not forget work. Hopefully I may be able to catch ya'll up with the craziness of my life.

I hope to provide some pictures of my boys shortly. My oldest (just turned 14) is a football fanatic. He has grown so much over the last 4 years. Vital stats: 6', 165lbs, size 13 shoe. It is pretty tuff looking up at your own kid but also fills you with a bit of pride. All A's and B's last year. This year will be his first year of JV Football.

My youngest (11 1/2) is trying to keep up with my oldest. Very determined yet only weighing 65lbs.

Short and sweet. More to come. Once I figure out all the changes they have made on Xanga. Took me a half hour to find how to blog. Never mind remembering my silly password.

ZMAN

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Wed, 11 Feb 2004 02:39:06 GMT

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Wed, 28 May 2003 01:34:18 GMT

Sunday, February 16, 2003

Sun, 16 Feb 2003 03:22:09 GMT

Thursday, February 13, 2003

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 01:41:11 GMT

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Wed, 12 Feb 2003 00:33:55 GMT

A father, son and grandson go out to the country club for their weekly round of golf. Just as they reach the first tee, a beautiful young blonde woman carrying her bag of clubs approaches them. She explains that the member who brought her to the club for a round of golf had an emergency which called him away and asks the trio whether she can join them.

Naturally, the guys all agree. Smiling, the blonde thanks them and says, "Look, fellows, I work in a topless bar as a dancer, so nothing shocks me anymore. If any of you wants to smoke cigars, have a beer, bet, swear or tell off-color stories or do anything that you normally do when playing a round together, go ahead. But I enjoy playing golf, consider myself pretty good at it, so don't try to coach me on how to play my shots."

With that the guys agree to relax and invite her to drive first. All eyes are fastened on her shapely behind as she bends to place her ball
on the tee. She then takes her driver and hits the ball 270 yards down the middle, right in front of the green. The father's mouth is agape.

"That was beautiful," said the dad. The blonde puts her driver away and says, "I really didn't get into it and I should have faded it a little."

After the three guys hit their drives and their second shots (she was closest to the pin) the blonde takes out a nine iron and lofts the ball
within five feet of the hole.

The son says "damn, lady, you played that perfectly."

The blonde frowns and says, "it was a little weak. I've left a tricky little putt." After the son buries a long putt for a par, dad two putts for a bogey and granddad overruns the green with his pitching wedge, chips back and putts for a double bogey, the blonde taps in the five-footer for a birdie.

The guys all congratulate her on her fine game. She puts her putter back in the bag and says, "Thanks, but I really haven't played much lately, and I'm a little rusty. "Maybe I'll really get into this next drive."

Having the honors, she drives first on the second hole and knocks the hell out of the ball, and it lands nearly 300 yards away smack in the
middle of the fairway. For the rest of the round the statuesque blonde continues to amaze the guys, quietly and methodically shooting for par or less on every hole.

When they get to the 18th green, the blonde is three under par, but has a very nasty 12-foot putt on an undulating green for a par. She turns to the three guys and says, "I really want to thank you all for not acting like a bunch of chauvinists and telling me what club to use or how to play a shot, but I need this putt for a 69 and I'd really like to break 70 on this course. If any one of you can tell me how to make par on this hole, I'll take him back to my apartment, pour some 25-year old Royal Salute Scotch in him, fix him dinner and then show him a good time the rest of the night."

The yuppie son jumps at the thought. He strolls across the green, carefully eyes the line of the putt and finally says, "Honey, aim about 6 inches to the right of the hole and hit it firm. It will get over that little hump and break right into the cup."

The father kneels down and sights the putt using his putter as a plumb. "Don't listen to the kid, darlin', you want to hit it softly 10 inches
to the right and run it left down that little hogback, so it falls into the cup."

The old gray haired grandfather walks over to the blonde's ball on the green, picks it up and hands it to the her. "That's a gimme, sweetheart.
Your car or mine?"

AGE AND TREACHERY WILL TRIUMPH OVER YOUTH AND SKILL EVERY TIME

Keep Smilin' ZMAN!

Saturday, February 01, 2003

Sat, 01 Feb 2003 04:21:51 GMT

Off to Cali Sunday. Great to have a break from the office. Hope ya'll enjoy the following: You get to look at it for a week!

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the
first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd
wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome
built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.
Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be
exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story... When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you
now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important.

Why men are not secretaries!

Husband's note on the fridge to his wife:

Someone from the Gyna Colleges called.

They said the Pabst beer is normal.

I didn't know you liked beer.

Keep Smilin' Zman!!

Thursday, January 23, 2003

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 00:53:47 GMT

Time for some new old jokes: For all my blond readers The Seven Degrees of Blondness:

1st Degree

A married couple was asleep when the telephone rang at two in the morning. The wife (undoubtedly blonde), picked up the telephone, listened a moment, and said, "How should I know, that's 200 miles from here!" and hung up. The husband said, "Who was that?" The wife said, "I don't know; some woman wanting to know 'if the coast is clear."

2nd Degree

Two blondes are walking down the street. One notices a compact on the sidewalk and leans down to pick it up. She opens it, looks in the mirror, and says, "Hmm, this person looks familiar." She hands it to the second blonde. The second blonde looks in the mirror and says, "You dummy, it's me!"

3rd Degree

A blonde suspects her boyfriend of cheating on her, so she goes out and buys a gun. She goes to his apartment unexpectedly and when she opens the door, she finds him in the arms of a redhead. Well, the blonde is really angry. She opens her purse to take out the gun, and as she does so, she is overcome with grief. She takes the gun and puts it to her head. The boyfriend yells, "No, honey, don't do it." The blonde replies, "Shut up, you're next!"

4th Degree

A blonde brags about her knowledge of state capitals. She proudly says, "Go ahead; ask me, I know all of them." A friend says, "OK, what's the capital of Wisconsin?" The blonde replies, "Oh that's easy W."

5th Degree

What did the blonde ask her doctor when he told her she was pregnant? "Is it mine?"

6th Degree

A blonde had just totaled her car in a horrific accident. Miraculously, she managed to pry herself from the wreckage without a scratch. "Wow!" the trooper gasped. "Your car looks like an accordion that was stomped on by an elephant. Are you OK ma'am?" "Why, yes, officer, I'm just fine" the blonde chirped. "Well, how in the world did this happen?" the officer asked as he surveyed the wrecked car. "Officer, it was the strangest thing!" the blonde began. "I was driving along this road when from out of nowhere this tree popped up in front of me. So I swerved to the right, and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was another tree! I swerved to the right and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was...." "Uh, ma'am, 'the officer said, cutting her off as he looked inside the car, "There isn't a tree on this road for 30 miles. That was your air freshener swinging back and forth."

7th Degree

Returning home from work, a blonde was astonished to see that she had been robbed. She telephoned the police at once and reported the crime. The police dispatcher broadcast the call on the channels, and a K-9 unit patrolling nearby was the first to respond. As the K-9 officer approached the house with his dog on a leash, the blonde ran out on the porch, shuddered at the sight of the cop and his dog, and then sat down on the steps. Putting her face in her hands, she moaned, "I come home to find all my possessions stolen. I call the police for help, and what do they do? They send me a BLIND policeman!"

Keep smilin' Zman!!

A little over a week away from Cali!

Friday, January 17, 2003

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 02:14:04 GMT

Here's one I've never heard before! You guys will love it. You gals might not find it so funny! Zman!

An old man and his wife have gone to bed.

After laying in bed for a few minutes, the old man cut a fart and says, "seven points."

His wife rolls over and asks, "What in the world was that?"

The old man says, "Touchdown. I'm ahead 7 to nothing."

A few minutes later, the wife lets one go and says, "Touchdown, tie score."

After about ten minutes, the old man farts again and says, "Touchdown, I'm ahead 14 to 7.

Now starting to get into this, the wife quickly farts again and says, "Touchdown, tie score."

The old man strains really hard, but to no avail -- he can't fart.

So not to be outdone by his wife, he gives it everything he has and strains real hard to get out just one more fart.

Straining, the old man tries so hard, he poops in the bed.

The wife asks, "Now what in the world was that?"

The old man replies, "Half-time, switch sides."

Keep Smilin'!