The Flying Turtle

My son in a senior and applying now. This past year we "unofficially" visited several schools while in the area for soccer games. These quick walk throughs helped him decide on the campuses he liked (Duke, UNC, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech) and those he did not like (Wake Forest, NC State) before even applying.

I have everything Ryobi and will not go back to gas. Everything I have uses the same batteries so I have never run out of juice. I started with the string trimmer with exchangable attachments to replace my Ryobi gas unit. All of the same attachments I already own (hedge trimmer, blower and edger) still work. The only time I have an issue is edging when I have not done it in a few weeks. If I try to go too fast the unit stalls, but after about 30 seconds it starts again. I then bought the mower and it works great. It is very lightweight and easy to use. It is all plastic and seems like it will be much less durable than the Honda I replaced, but so far I have had it two seasons without issue. I finally added a pole saw which works great for trimming the trees up to 2-3 inches in diameter.

By “real” I was just referring to anything without “beginner” in the title. Just a bad joke.

We finally took the plunge and so far I am really impressed. I moved from the 20 minute beginner classes after taking 3 (and finishing in the top 5%-10%) to the 30 minute advanced beginner. I think I will be here for a week or so to get more comfortable with everything before moving up to "Real" classes. Would the Building your Power Zone classes be the best next step for me or is it too early in my journey?

That is all I am trying to do too. If it can help one person make sense of this jumbled mess it is worth it.

At least the DA is gone. That was a step in the right direction to get things simpler.

I get confused with all of the letters (ECNL, NPL, etc.) so I had to look this up. It looks like this is based on teams that won their state cups. I know our ECNL teams do not play in the state league, only the ECNL league. It looks like there are some ECNL teams that do play in the state league and that is why they attended this tournament.

04 ECNL was won by Eclipse from Chicago this year. My son’s team made it to the quarterfinals but lost to a team from San Diego. Our club had 3 teams (04,05 and 06) make it to the Nationals in St Louis. 04’s lost in the quarterfinals, 05 lost in the finals and 06 won it all. Also, ECNL just released the overall club rankings today. San Diego Surf is numbe r 1, followed by Dallas FC, Eclipse and Carolina Elite (our Club).

On Black Friday I bought the 85” for $1996.

I bought the X900CH from Costco on Black Friday and we are very happy with it. We mostly watch sports and normal TV, but I have watched a few 4k movies off of Netflix and they are great. It was a great sale and ended up saving over $1k vs the Samsung. As long as you don't have the 2 TV's are not side-by-side in your house, you will likely be happy with either one.

2 days in a row under calories and NO CRAPPY SNACKS. Only walked 45 miles. I will make up for that today.

Thanks for the positivity BF. If I were still under 230, I would agree. Letting the 10 lbs. creep back on is the disappointing part, but it is ok. I will be under 230 again soon and then onto the next goal.

1/1 weight 243 239 this morning (up 0.5 this week) I was not very strict on the diet this week and wasn’t great about exercise so up 0.5 is less than expected. I have no reason for the poor behaviors other than minor stuff I should have overcome. Seeing the progress you are all making and thinking “that could have been me” will hopefully kick me in the butt to get focused again. Otis is the same size as me and he has lost 10 lb. in the same time I have only lost 4. I need to catch up! Yesterday was the start of a new trend.

Starting weight 1/1/21 - 243 Weigh in - 238.5 (down 0.7 this week) I was hoping for a bigger loss, but I did go off the rails a bit on Wednesday. I had a work dinner that consisted of wings and beer which led to more wings. Overall I wasn't too bad and ended up at about 1700 NET calories for the day. If that only happens once every couple of weeks instead of every couple of days I will be fine! I behaved yesterday with 1500 calories, 30 minute walk and 30 minute bike.

Stayed under 1500 for the day. I knew I wanted a few beers during the game so I ate low calorie lunch and dinner. rode 30 minutes and walked 30 minutes.