Juicy

Some time ago I watched Fat Sick and Nearly Dead on Netflix. I recommend it to everyone. It's a great video whether you believe int he healing power of fruits and veg or not. Premise is that guy goes on 60 day juice only diet, fresh homemade juice. Loses a ton of weight, heals ills and lives happily ever after while influencing others to better health. One of his converts does the same, losing 202 pounds in just over a year and becoming a moonie for juicing. It's a feel good movie and turns conventional diet ideas on their ear. It's nothing new, Jack Lalanne did it for years, but something in this video just clicks for so many, probably the transformation you witness right before your eyes of both guys. Anyway, I made my family watch it, made Chad watch it and talked it up a ton. I knew that I was going to add fresh juices to my diet but wasn't sure how far I wanted to go with it. I ordered my juicer and it finally showed up Thursday. I got the Breville just like the one in the movie. It's an expensive machine but easy to use and priceless if I can skip the heart disease that runs like a wild stallion in my genes. 

Once it showed up, I promptly hit the store and bought a bunch of fruits and veg and headed back to the house. I read some blogs and articles online during the week and have started adding juicing and fasting to my daily regime. To prime my system, the weekend consisted of all juice including the holiday. So far, I've tried several combinations of fruit and veg including Kale, Bok Choy, Spinach, apple, orange, lemon, celery, cucumber, carrot, beets, pineapple and even ginger. At worst, the concoctions have tasted like fresh cut grass smells (high in Kale) and at best as good as the freshest OJ. While I'm not a purist by any means yet, I am thinking of doing a full juice fast for Lent. I am feeling cleaned out compared to the bloat I developed over Christmas, love that junk food. 

I'm fortunate in that the local market at the Country Club that I live at has a good selection of fresh greenery. I did get a lot of strange looks the other night at the checkout with my basket full of strange produce. 

boilt peanuts anyone?!

Palm Springs Lobster Orgy

I knew the other lock rugger from Alaska was coming to visit SoCal over the holidays, so I'd been working out when I'd find time to visit him down this way. His girl is from Palm Springs which is about 2 hours from me, but is supposed to be beautiful, but with all the travel I did in December, I was excited to see him but just worn down a little. I hit Palm Springs on Friday night and met them at a parking garage downtown. We headed straight to the bar for fish tacos and margaritas then it was off to a bar to meet Heather's friends, who I had met in Alaska, where they live now as well. We hit up a bar called the Hood and polished off some beers while people watching and trying to talk over the band. It was good to hang. I had a total cliche moment in the bathroom though. This guy was in the bathroom going on and on, no idea why, but he kept talking about how great the party was the night before, how he snorted this much coke, smoked this much weed, popped this many pills and hooked up with the hottest up and coming actress. I just started laughing it was so incredulous. I headed back out and got back to my PBR as I could tell the guy was less than excited with my amusement at his ridiculousness. A short time later we headed home to heather's mom's and I took up my position on the couch, oh fun. The following day we had planned on a strenuous hike down following the famous Palm Springs Tram ride but I had to put a stop to that asap. I was too hungover, so I began championing for a day at a spa, I mean really, it's not called Palm "SPRINGS" for nothing. We hit a hotel and spa with a half dozen hot tubs and a sauna. We sweated out the badness from the night before and felt better by dinner time. Originally there were plans for a BBQ but Zac remembered all you can eat Lobster, so we were off to the casino. The wait was 2 hours, during which a little Asian lady dealer took me for $40 in no time at Blackjack. Just destroyed me. So damn pleasant while picking my pocket. 

Dinner was worth the wait though. the buffet was crazy good. Lobster, crab legs, shrimp, prime rib, filet and tiramisu. I ate 7 lobster tails. Heather's dad polished off 14. We spent about 2 hours slowly filling up and then some. Oh joy. I decided not to stay the night since we were pretty worn out and headed back to my condo around 10 getting in around midnight. It was great to see the kids and catch up but I wanted to wake up in my own bed and very late in the morning. 

Zac

Excited.

Zac and Heather.

Sounds like she is joining the Marines to become a pilot sometime in the next year. 

Heather's friends. The one on the left is in the Air Force in Alaska. 

At some point I got bored and started stealing her drink when she wasn't looking, then I started putting utensils in it, this was the logical end, a dozen plastic knives. 

Lahbsta!!

I was of course worried that all of the seafood would whoop my butt with a gout bat but it just didn't happen. I guess the combo of water and NSAIDS kept Mr. Ouch at bay this time. Getting old sucks! The stuff you start to worry about, UGH!

Christmas Holiday

I haven't blogged in awhile and with good reason, no internet at the new condo I moved into upon my return from Illinois. So today is a catch up day. I am sitting in a Starbucks in Lenwood CA, just outside of Barstow. A lot of my pictures are on my camera which I don't have with me, so for those that can't read and need the picture menu from McDonald's, I apologize, these blogs will bore you to tears.

Well, I made it home for the holidays, back to Illinois. I hadn't been in Mt. Zion since May of 2010, so it had been awhile. For those that don't know, two of my best friends that I grew up with and their assorted families live in MZ and most of my family lives within an hour drive or so. That is to say, when I go home, I am running. It's not like Alaska or Cali where I spend most nights and weekends alone, it's just the opposite. I wear my self out and usually come back sick from running and visiting so much. I love it, but it does wear me down. This visit was no different.

I flew in from Ontario on the Friday night redeye. I got into Bloomington late in the morning on Christmas eve then we grabbed lunch and headed back down to MZ. I took a nap, I was beat then headed to my maternal grandma's to visit with mom's side of the family. Everyone was there except my cousin Greg and his wife and sons. I miss those guys a ton. They live in Wyoming now so I hope to see them in May when I head up to Montana for rugby. The food was great and I had 3 glasses of my aunt's pineapple slush, so tasty.

On Christmas day, we started off with Christmas movies, but got sidetracked by the Walking Dead, my mom, dad and brother hadn't seen it, so we watched the whole first season. Such a good show.

The rest of the week, I visited with family and ate out a whole bunch everyday. Oh so bad for my waist line but I got to experience all the great eats of home. I have 3 places I always try to visit, a pizza joint, a burger joint and a burrito place. Monicals, Kreckels and La Bambas. I hit all three while home, so glorious.

New Years Eve was up in the air all week. My friend Chad is a new year baby, but he hates to celebrate, so it was back and forth on if we would do anything substantial. Ryan finally decided he was going to have people over and that ended it. We drank and ate and talked and laughed until 4am. Whoa. At some point Ryan started pulling out his high test to sample and my eyes went crossed. I remember pulling Chad out of the van and thumping him in the front yard but not a whole lot else. Lori, Ryan's wife, made a pizza in the morning on her new Pizzaz pizza cooker, and the greasy cheesy goodness helped cure what ailed me. that and lots and lots of H2O and Alleve. Mom ran me to Bloomington on Monday and kept trying to take me shopping to buy stuff. Mom's always worry about you wether you're 5 or 75. Just the way it works I guess.

On the 3rd, my stuff showed up at my new condo and the movers had it all in by 1pm. It was nice to have my stuff again in my own space after living in a hotel for a couple months but I did not look forward to unpacking it all. Then the 4th consisted of Southern California Edison Power shutting down the entire Fort Irwin to update the power grid. Public Works connected giant generators to some of our facilities so we could still offer critical services such as a gym. the day went exceedingly well then it was back to unpacking.

The old family homestead in Mt. Zion Illinois.

Mom taking down holiday decorations. That's a real runner sled that I used to use when I was a kid. We'd wax the skids and it'd fly. 

Front door, pretty damn midwest.

Good hooch a la Cassity

More of the good stuff.