Fences and Fireworks . . .

So this past weekend, my neighbor Mike (yes I have another neighbor named Mike) and I decided we were going to build our fences. We have 3 fences to put up. The one between us, and the two on the opposite side of our respective yards. We thought we'd get the holes dug on Sunday, the posts set on Monday and throw up the cross members and fencing on Tuesday. WELL, we DID get the holes dug on Sunday and we DID get the posts set on Monday. But GEEZUS was it work! The Puyallup valley may be some of the most fertile soil in the world, but South Hill is certainly some of the rockiest! We rented an auger to dig the holes and the guy at the rental place said "I hope you have better luck than I did, it took me 5 hours to dig 5 holes" . . . well it took us a good 15 - 30 minutes per hole. One hole in particular got moved and I'll have a very short fence section and a very long fence section because of it. But the rock we unearthed, I swear must be the keystone for the western hemisphere! So be thankful we didn't pull it out or surely our half of the world would have slid off into space. We dug a hole that was at least 3' in diameter and still had not uncovered more than 50% of the rock. We decided that should we get it all uncovered, there was no way the four of us were getting it out of the hole, so we just moved the hole. Then on Monday, we realized that a few of our holes were off center and we had to move them over . . . well the auger was long gone by that point and the hand tools came out. By the time we finally quit around 7 on Monday, we were all spent. I honestly don't think I've ever worked that hard over 2 days in my life. So we decided to take Tuesday off. We'll work on it in the evenings for the next week or so and get er' done.

Tuesday, we just bought a whole s*** load of fireworks and proceeded to blow up the neighborhood . . . it was great! Mike and Jen had us over for a BBQ and we ate, drank and were merry until dusk when the mayhem erupted. It reminded me a lot of 4th of July as a kid. Cooooooooool.

I was happy though on Monday morning. I stepped on the scale and although I've had a month or more of debauchery, I've only gained 1.5 pounds back of the 13 I had lost. So that feels good to know I don't have to start all over again. Hopefully I can get another 10 or so gone before Teri and I head to California next month. We do have an elliptical trainer now. My parents were kind enough to buy us one for a housewarming present. The unfortunate part is it has a weight limit of 250 pounds. So I have to lose 80 before I can use it. DOH! Handy though that one of my Life Goals is to weigh less than 250 pounds.

Speaking of the life goals, since I put them here, I've been thinking of them more and more. And actually I do think there is a somewhat logical order to them. So here they are repeated, but in order of importance:



01. Weigh Less than 250 Pounds
02. Enter and Complete a Triathalon
03. Summit Mount Rainier
04. Obtain Private Pilot's License
05. Shoot Under 90 in Golf (I guess I should try for under 100 first?)
06. Visit Australia for more than 2 weeks
07. Ride across the United States and back on a Motorcycle
08. Write a Novel
09. Get aforementioned Novel Published
10. Have a net worth somewhere north of $1,000,000

So here's my thinking . . . If I can get my weight down to a managable level, i.e. under 250 . . it's likely that by obtaining that goal, I'll be in good enough shape to enter and complete a tri. Now with the newfound confidence of completing the tri, I'll go for Mt. Rainier again. While weighing less than 250 is not necessarily a pre-requisite for obtaining my pilot's license, it does make plane rental and lessons cheaper because we can use a smaller plane. Again, I'll likely be in pretty good shape from all that swimming, biking, running and mountain climbing that my core strength will be much better and shooting a decent round of golf will just kind of fit in. After all that exercise, it'll be time for a break and my new sexy body will look awesome on the shores of an Australian beach. Of course I'll be more comfortable on my motorcycle too, so a quick jaunt out to Boston, down to Key West, over to San Diego and back to P-town will seem like the right thing to do. Now with all of this new found skill and confidence, I'll have to write a book about my adventures. Publisher's will eat up this normal guy to American legend story and be beating down my door to publish it. It'll end up on the NYT non-fiction bestseller list and my net worth will be all the richer for the experience.

So there you have it . . . a refinement of my goals and a plan for the next few years of my life. I won't forget you . . . :-)

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