Fuzzy Couch

The blog what speaks for Guido, Troy, Ryan, Brett and Matt

Guido Strotheide | Troy Lowe | Ryan Seggelke | Brett Thomson | Matt Janet

Friday, March 31, 2006

Healthier Troy

Posted by Troy @ 9:43 AM

In November 2005 I applied for a premium rate on some life insurance. They required some blood work, and when the results came back, I didn't qualify for the premium rate because there were a couple of red flags (Triglyceride levels were too high, and HDL was too low).

During Christmas vacation in Lincoln, I met up with David and his dad to visit, right away noticing they've both lost weight. Soon discovered after talking with them that they were on a health system called ISAGENIX. To this day, I don't buy into a lot of the marketing explanations behind the why and how this product works. However, 1) I saw results staring me in the face 2) Nutrition is difficult for me to figure out, especially eating on the road so much 3) I already had my follow-up appointment with the doctor scheduled for March 31st ... So I figured that I could see concrete results.

So I did the program; The 9-day package, followed by the 30-day package, and now I continue on the "maintenance" package.

Here are my statistics:
I started with a pant size of 36, 191 pounds, BMI of 26.6 (overweight).

In November 2005, my lab results from the life insurance blood work showed:
Triglycerides 235 (should be less than 150)
Cholesterol 180
HDL Cholesterol 29 (too low)

March 2006 (today) my lab results showed:
Triglycerides 75
Cholesterol 157
HDL Cholesterol 39 (still low, but improving!)

As of today, I lost a total of 29 pounds, pant size now 33, BMI of 22.5 (Normal).

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Test drive

Posted by guido @ 11:50 PM

MONDAY
Test drove a few cars, the 2007 Dodge Caliber, The 2006 Pontiac Vibe, 2005 Chevy Malibu Maxx. Trying to figure out what we want. One of the salesmen who helped me was extra salesmany and it nearly ruined my day.

WEDNESDAY
Not much beside work.

WEDNESDAY
Went home from work sick and slept. Ate a sandwich. Went back into work 7 p.m.-Midnight.

THURSDAY
Hung out at Josh and Amanda's after work. Thunderstorm knocked power out at work, so I came in to help out. Everything running on a backup generator. We're going to have to print our paper at another newspaper we have a deal with in case of emergency. ... And the power just came back on. Time to warm up the big machines.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Hey howdy Fuzzy Couch

Posted by Matt @ 10:40 PM

Where do I start? I didn't fall out of my chair with Troy's ultimate makeover, but I can't top that. It's not a competition anyhow.

All I have been doing is watching out for Mandy and trying to shore up the bathroom. I'm so close I can taste it. I did manage to break the toilet tank lid, so that has set me back, but the tub is in with water and the sink could get done tomorrow if I pushed. I need to get the tools out of the baby's room.

Sort of slow here waiting for the apocolypse. Just taking care of the snow, dog shots (fletcher let out the glands from you know where for the shots, ewww) and trying to finish projects. Nothing too big.

I think the biggest thing is I did break down and get basic cable with 10 channels. This was only to facilitate the broadband internet access. I do admit that the clarity of the channels is nice. It is all intended to get rid of the local phone company that I am not pleased with. So goodby Qwest, hello cable. Maybe I'll get VOIP as well.

Last big news: I sold my calculator from college. The HP 48 SX with 4 expansion cards. I hope it goes to a good home. It could fly the shuttle, you know! It could also be used as a remote for the TV, but that is beside the point.

Indulgent breakfast

Posted by Troy @ 8:39 AM

Mmm, I'm hooked. While Hershey's Special Dark is a "Mildly Sweet Chocolate" Hershey's Extra Dark is "Pure Dark Chocolate" 60% Cacao :)

I thought I was craving dark chocolate, so my wife picked up a bag of Special Dark miniatures. It includes minis with peanuts and others with rice crisps in addition to plain. I explained that I preferred the plain ones, so next time she was at the store she thought she found what I was looking for. However, I noticed the label was purple instead of red, and then noticed these were something even more special. She brought home a pouch of "Extra Dark," which neither of us knew existed before! So this morning, I'm snacking on a mini Extra Dark with a cup of Kona coffee (the coffee beans are over a year old though, time for another trip to Hawaii !).

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Alone in the car

Posted by guido @ 11:45 PM

Happy birthday, Mom!

I brought a variety of sushi over to Josh and Amanda's that I picked up on my way home from Springfield, since I didn't have anyone riding with me to and from Ultimate today. I usually have Carlos and maybe one or two more, now that Scott moved back up to the greater Chicago area.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Goatee update

Posted by Troy @ 4:44 PM

Troy

Quick update on the character appearance customization:

I bought a cap at L.L. Bean this week because I did get a tiny sunburn even though I try to use plenty of sun block. Now I'll wear a cap when I know I'll be outside for extended periods.

Nothing else too exciting here. I'm playing Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter and Burnout Revenge, both on the XBOX 360 ... excellent games.

I splurged on my "diet" yesterday, ate some Tiramisu at Maggiano's in D.C.

Sassy is doing well in the intermediate training class, learning to "heel."

Well, that's about it. Maybe I'll have an exciting weekend to post about later.

Cell-break

Posted by guido @ 1:33 PM

Mom just called to tell me she bought me a cell phone. I feel like one of the last hold-outs, but I'm sure there are still quite a few of them out there. I checked to see if the numbers happened to spell anything fun. The best I could come up with was: R-Dry-IL-0, R-Dry-GJ-0, Serzil-0, Serwik-0, Sepwil-0, Repzil-0, Repwil-0 ... in other words, nothing good.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Election night

Posted by guido @ 1:20 PM

Had a late, busy night at work last night due to it being primary election night. The results were coming in pretty late and our county had some technical difficulties with the new voting equipment that delayed the results. I thought we were going to have a bunch of question marks, but we pushed our deadline back and got about everything in. I might post today's front page on the News Page Designer site.

I'm adding "Serenity" to my movie list.

Friday, March 17, 2006

St. Pat's

Posted by guido @ 11:52 PM

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all. Josh and Amanda made corned beef and cabbage! Woo! We had that, I was forced to watch America's Funniest Videos -- which I thought had been cancelled long ago -- and we played Mario Party.

Added "Steamboy" to my 2006 movie list.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Tornado/storms

Posted by guido @ 4:30 AM

Two storms that formed in the middle of Missouri, blew all the way across Central Illinois about 8-9 p.m. last night then around midnight. Those storms included tornados that touched down in, at least, a couple areas. Julie and I had to stay in Lincoln for a few extra hours as we waited to see if we'd be able to make it home. The storms let up a lot, so we left Lincoln at 10 p.m.

Springfield was hit pretty hard. As we drove around it on the way home, much of the city was black -- a strange sight. On Interstate 72 between Springfield and Jacksonville, we ran over a set of downed powerlines (didn't see them until we ran over them), and officials have since closed I-72. Road signs were blown over all along the way.

UPDATE: Two tornados hit Springfield, both F2. That's 120 MPH winds. One stayed on the ground for 4 miles and the other for 5.5 miles according to the National Weather Service.

IMG_3177
Originally uploaded by mandalorian30.

UPDATE: Here's a photo from Flickr.

This billboard along Wabash Ave. in Springfield was blown over by one of Sunday's tornados. It just missed landing on that store.

There are lots of photos of the tornado damage to be found on Flickr, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Like this group and this group.

Chicago weekend

Posted by guido @ 4:11 AM

We're back from our weekend in Chicago.

Team Vespers Party Central tried out for a TV game show Saturday morning and made it past the initial written test. Out of about 40 teams in their round, they made it to the top eight that continued on to the interview sessions. (Very nice, guys!) There were several more rounds, so the casting people called Saturday evening to let teams know if they made it to Sunday rounds. So, late Saturday, they got the call that Team VPC didn't get to continue. (Bummer.)

Saturday was also the St. Patrick's Day Parade in downtown Chicago. We headed out to find some lunch and found ourselves amidst tons of people in green shirts, pants, beads, plastic hats, moustaches, etc. We ate at a sushi place just a couple blocks north of our hotel (so much sushi, plus fruit slushes with boba) then headed to the Art Institute a few more blocks north.

At the Art Institute, we went to the Girodet exhibit and a little bit of miscellaneous.

Saturday evening we ate lots of tapas at Cafe Iberico, a little north of the river.

Sunday we got some breakfast near Watertower Place and went shopping at a couple places around there before heading back home.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

11th wedding anniversary

Posted by Troy @ 10:49 AM

Today is our eleventh wedding anniversary! We have reservations at Artist Point at Disney's Wilderness Lodge for dinner, we are both excited since we've not eaten there yet! We might go to the show as well, if there is anything worth seeing.

We started our morning slowly, eating leftover banana split cake for breakfast (we celebrated Scott's birthday last night at our place and had cake to spare), watched some E! News Weekend, and then Jantina gave me a haircut.

Before and after pics:

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Animals freed

Posted by Troy @ 10:59 AM

This morning we began some pool maintenance, and two very large dogs came bounding around the neighbor's house and into our yard! A Doberman and a Pitbull! Sassy was out with us also, but luckily she was within the pool fence. She was barking like crazy, wanting to play with them most likely, but she would have been a nice snack for either of them. Especially not knowing the dogs or who their owner was, we went inside and called animal control.

By the time they arrived, we had noticed the two dogs were running in and out of the same open gate a few houses down. The Animal Control people noticed the same thing, and eventually caught both dogs in that house's back yard and secured the gate. They left a note on the door.... I sure hope that was the owner's yard!

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

News design

Posted by guido @ 4:28 PM

The results database for SND's Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition are online as of last night. I didn't know about it until just now when Mike Rice congratulated me.

Here are the links to the two Awards of Excellence:

"Pumped: Ethanol"(see right) [link]

"Waiting in the Wings" I'm still trying to figure out which page this is. [link]

UPDATE
Copper knew which page it was ... it's about bird flu, with a big, striking image of a raven. I'll try to find the PDF when I have time.
...
OK, I posted it over in my NewsPageDesigner portfolio. (See Guido's links over on the left, there.)

Monday, March 06, 2006

Casimir

Posted by guido @ 11:14 PM

TWO MOVIES

Julie had today off from school (Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski Day) , so we watched "Grizzly Man" at home and also went to see "Walk the Line" in Springfield.

INCOME TAXES

We've probably filled out our taxes about five times so far, because I wanted to test out the various online services, but I did the final fill-out and filed 'em today. There were a couple confusing parts in TaxAct's service, but liked it pretty well overall.

DISC

While we did get to play Ultimate last Thursday, Sunday got rained/sleeted out. Disappointing.

PHOTOS

Josh took some pictures of me Sunday to use as examples for one of his art classes. I'm hoping to post a couple favs here.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Oscars watching

Posted by guido @ 6:58 PM

We're over at Josh and Amanda's watching the Academy Awards. We just saw a brief ad for Coca-Cola Blāk ... so we had to figure out what it is. Seems to be Coke Classic combined with coffee flavors. Yes, some kind of coffee flavored pop. Sounds odd.

It seems like the actual Oscars broadcast is starting, so I'll check in later...

UPDATE: Of the 23 categories Julie made predictions on, she got 14 right. Not bad since we've only seen three of the nominated films.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

The supple tick

Posted by guido @ 11:34 AM

Added a couple movies to the list lately. The Replacements Ltd. employees' stories in "Junebug" are pretty funny -- like the supple tick! [link]

known Issues

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other credits

Green pattern by Travis Beckham. Pink and blue patterns by (now defunct) Pixel Adventures.

LCHS song

"Lincoln, Lincoln, we are proud of you. Lincoln, Lincoln, we will e'er be true. Following the bright Golden Rule, we get things done without much ado. We're happy, we're snappy when we send our call. Lend your voices one and all. If dear old Abe were here I know just what he'd do; He'd say Lincoln, we're proud of you!"

Jacksonville, IL, 62650

Lincoln, IL, 62656