finally through the big project

That is right. I have finally made it through the hell that has eaten up my social life for the past 3 1/2 months. I am dog tired right now because of it, but I am just happy to be through it. Our project was completed in time to meet our deadline. That was a pretty huge feat considering that we kept designing and building new web forms up until the end of the project with the client consistently adding more items as well. Let's just say that this project was not as simple as originally thought. It feels good to get it out of the way now.

As many of you probably already know, my band is back at square one. We had gotten out and played a few shows with a decent response considering the issues. However, after our last show, our drummer and bass player decided to move along. So, we are currently auditioning if you know anyone looking. We have sample music up on our MySpace. Feel free to check it out. Let us know what you think. Keep in mind that the quality isn't the best because those were recorded in our jam room with a personal audio recorder. We had to put something out there to give other musicians an idea of what we are doing. So spread the word, and get me back on stage, please. :)

I have picked up on my "off-season training" at the gym. I have been working with a personal trainer to get in shape. We are working hard on my speed and endurance. We have also been working pretty hard on the core to make a bigger impact on arm strength and raw power swinging the bat. As a secondary goal, and I would like to think an ambitious one at that, I plan on entering into a 10k Mud Run. It is the marine boot camp obstacle course and it is for charity. It's just like running a marathon except you run an obstacle course and get to play in the mud. I am super stoked, and I have been training hard for that alone. I am now running over 5 miles every day, and I expect to be running 6.2 miles (10k) within the next month.

So finishing up this project has freed up some critical time that I have needed to get back to my normal hobbies. With that out of the way, I can now get out of the house and be more sociable. Look forward to seeing more of me during down time from projects. Hehe

Well, i was playing around in Facebook today, and I found that I can import my blog to my profile as stories. I figure a few more people might actually read them if they are notified of their existence.

A while back I created a blog on Blogger. The browser I am using, Flock, remembers accounts for a lot of social networking and web 2.0 sites, and Blogger was one of them. In case you are wondering, it handles Flickr, Photobucket, Deli.cio.us, Tiwtter, Gmail, YouTube, Digg, MySpace, and Facebook. It really is pretty cool. There are several more web 2.0 sites that Flock supports, but the ones listed are the ones that I subscribe to, and they add more all the time. Enough with the sales pitch though.

Just to keep everyone in the loop, there are several things that have been keeping me tied up lately. The band, LifeSideDown is getting ready to hit the stage for the first time in a couple of weeks (November 15th @ Toppers in Watauga). You should add us and go check out the show. Secondly, my side business, Code Powered Technologies, has really taken off. I have a full time employee that keeps rounding up business and that is eating up most of my free time in the evenings. Softball just finished up for the season, so that gives me a couple of nights that I can throw some work in.

Finally, I am getting ready for my big bad ass Halloween Party. This year is going to be huge. I have people from all over coming. Well, they were invited anyways. We all know how that goes. Regardless, it is going to be loads of fun. I hope to see you there.

Up and comers

This blog is going to be mostly based on the future. The only thing real interesting in the present, to me at least, is that I have lost more weight, and I have dropped another belt size. Woot woot! Yay me. :) It is great to see progress like this, especially when you girlfriend tells you that it looks like your flabby gut is almost gone.

This is going to be a busy weekend around the house. Tonight, I am going to a show at the Ridglea with my girlfriend and her niece. Tomorrow, we are heading out to Longview to play a show at Benny's Bar. That show is going to be a blast because we are having an after party at my old friend Kelly's house. Drunken madness is sure to ensue.

Sunday is the biggest day of the weekend. We are driving back early (between 8 and 10) so that we can start moving. Moving always sucks, and moving on a sunday, possibly in the rain is going to make it even worse. I am not really looking forward to moving all of my stuff as I have accumulated quite a bit over the years. So, I have been weeding out some old junk. Stuff that I haven't used since I moved into the current residence. It is still going to be an ass kicking.

Anyways... I hope your weekend is a little more relaxing than my hectic life. Hope to see you soon.

Blogged with Flock

Feel the power

I am becoming stronger!!! Yesterday, I just kept going up and up in weights. I was killing the ab work outs. It was a very productive day, and I really feel like I am starting see tremendous gains. I am getting concerned about being able to continue the routine after I move and start softball. They both happen around the same time.

Blogged with Flock

Weekend of work

Ever have one of those weekends that you feel like you didn't get any rest? One that you are constantly on the go? For me, that was this weekend.

I knew this weekend was going to be hectic, so Friday I decided to stay in for the evening. We got up around 8 a.m. Saturday morning and started running around. Tara had her things to do, and I had tons of my own stuff to do.

After a busy morning, I met up with Tara aroudn1:00 p.m. and we headed out. We were to meet Brian at his house and head out to Wichita Falls. Well, because we have several gifted people in the band, they kept getting lost on the way out there, so our departure was delayed. We finally left Brian's house around 3:30 p.m. We then had to stop for the geniuses to grab some food. Then we were finally on our way.

The drive to Wichita Falls really didn't seem too long. Although driving in the rain made me pay closer attention to the road, it still was not bad. We got to the venue around 5 or 6. We barely made our load in time. We decided to go get our rooms at the hotel instead of loading in though, which kind of hurt us, but not bad.

So we got our rooms, and we headed back to the venue. Tara and I arrived in time to catch the first band. They were a decent band. In fact the first three bands were decent. They were all metal, and it was entertaining to watch the kids in the crowd in the pit. They were doing spin kicks and they had their arms flailing. If they were 13 or 14 years old, I would have loved to bury an elbow in their back. j/k

We got up on stage around 8 and the place was packed wall to wall with teen agers. We don't care just as long as they enjoy the set. Well, we got into our set and things started out a little slow for us in the pit, so we picked the set up a notch and things started going crazy. We had reports of people leaving limping, covered in blood, knocked out, and fighting in the parking lot. We love it when things get rough. To us that means that they really got into our music.

After we took what seemed like an hour to play, we were rushed off stage so that the remaining 4 bands could play their sets in two hours. I felt bad about that. There was a band from San Antonio that only got to play for 30 minutes after us. It was ok, because we were the last metal band. Everything after us just went to hell. There were emo bands and then it started getting into techno stuff. Luckily we got to set the stage on fire with our blistering riffs and thunderous beats.

We loved playing out there and we definitely look forward to returning. It should be a great time. Thanks to everyone for making it a great show.

Blogged with Flock

All is well

I am quite excited. I got to see my progress pictures last night of my exercise and diet. There is a noticeable difference between the before and after. It would appear that my flabby love handles are on the way out. Hooray!!!

Also, I just created a chart of my recorded weight during this exercise regiment. While I have not seen significant losses for the six weeks that I have been on it, I have dropped a few pounds. I can see this week that my average weight has been lower than in previous weeks.

What really has me pumped is the fact that this is the second phase of the program and this is the point where we are expected to start dropping the weight like mad and really start to shape the body. The next phase is even better.

Look out world a remodeled Fizch is coming your way. See ya in the "scene".

Blogged with Flock

Catching up

I've been a busy mofo. If you know me, then you know I stay pretty busy with my very hectic schedule and that leaves little time for sleep. Maybe one day I will get tired of always being on the go, but until that day keep me busy so I can stay out of trouble.

So what has been keeping me busy? Work for one. I am rushing to meet an ambitious deadline on our portal project. Why do I have to do this to myself? To make myself look good? Yeah, that is probably why. That and to keep me from sleeping at my desk.

The next big item on the sleep deprivation list is exercise. We (Jim, Christy, and I) are now officially into week 5 of the P90X fitness program. It has been fun so far. We have been doing some different exercises as this is the second phase of the workout and luckily it is also the second phase of the diet. So I can now eat more carbs and feel like I am almost eating normal food again. Hooray! 4+ weeks of the high protein diet was really an ass whooping.

The last big item keeping me up at night is the new girlfriend. She has stuck around for 2 months now. Hooray! She has made a milestone that many of women have not. So I have been spending a lot of time with her.

I have not had a chance to do any more development on NeuroPortal which is a damn shame. I am really excited about that project and would like to see my dream come to reality real soon. So until next time....

Blogged with Flock

Getting things done

Well, I think I have managed to get all my sites bookmarked using del.icio.us, so I should be good there. I have been working pretty hard to get things setup here at work and at home. I think I have finally got everything handled. My accounts are setup in both places, and finalizing the online favorites with del.icio.us was the icing on the cake.

I managed to get all of the tables setup for the modules within the database yesterday. NeuroPortal is off to a start now. I won't say a good start because there were too many distractions yesterday, and I could have coded many stored procedures if I hadn't needed to cook, do laundry, and pc repair, I could have made some serious progress. I am real excited about this project.

Blogged with Flock

Getting started

Welcome to my first blog. I am just starting to use this service as you can probably tell, but I figured I might as well jump on the band wagon. How did I get here? Well, I read about a new browser called Flock and I downloaded it to make sure that my web applications will run on it. I did not know that Flock was built off of Firefox, so I am safe there. I was really surprised to see that it is the "Social Networkers Browser". I That really caught my attention, so now I have setup Flock at home and at work. I've got all of my services setup and I am ready to rock and roll.

What kind of stuff will you hear from me? Well, I am an application developer (as you might have noticed above) and I absolutely live for programming. It has to be my biggest passion. I play guitar in a metal band. I enjoy working out. I play softball several nights a week. I love to skateboard. I play video games on my XBox 360.

So stick around and you might see something really cool come up. God knows I am busy enough.