Building "The Dungeon"

I am on track to officially begin P90X this next Monday (2/21). In order to make it easier to stay consistent (I hope), I am in the process of turning part of the basement into a fitness area. I am nicknaming it “The Dungeon” in tribute to the Hart family’s infamous basement dojo. I hope to sweat buckets down there. The plan is to go through P90X probably twice and then move onto INSANITY. In between, maybe do some work with HIP HOP ABS and TURBO FIRE. I also have some other videos dealing with kettlebells as well as several martial arts training sets. I will take some pictures and post here soon.

New Logo and More!

I want to profusely thank Jimmy Bacon, one of my friends over at Lockflow.com for hooking me up with the new blog logo. He's a talented dude. If you need graphic design work, I recommend him highly. He can be reached at http://www.jrbaconproductions.com/

Weird news story of the day...the "Food Liberation Army" kidnapped and threatened to execute Ronald McDonald unless the company answered questions regarding their food quality. The statue of Ronald was taken from outside a McDonald's in Finland. Apparently, the company and the local constabulary took a dim view of the activity because the house of a local artist (and apparently the head of the FLA) was raided, Ronald was rescued unharmed and two people were arrested.

Comic Books and Hollywood

Growing up I was a fan of comic books. Between the "big 2" I was a Marvel guy. I always thought their characters and storylines were more compelling than those offered by DC. I loved Spiderman from earliest memory and grew to love the X-Men, the Avengers, Daredevil, and Iron Man. On the DC side, I did enjoy Batman and The Flash. Hollywood's attempts to bring comic books to life on the big screen have been largely hit-and-miss. Some notable hits have been BATMAN BEGINS and its sequel THE DARK KNIGHT, with its freakishly awesome portrayal of The Joker by the late Heath Ledger. Other well-done comic book adaptations have been both IRON MAN films. Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast as Tony Stark, in my opinion.

This summer brings 3 new Marvel offerings: CAPTAIN AMERICA, THOR, and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. I was never a huge fan of Captain America or Thor, so I am likely to wait for video on both of those unless I just can’t resist. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, however, I may have to go see in the theater. It is supposed to be the back story on the founding of Charles Xavier’s School for the “Gifted”. From the looks of the trailer, the Cuban Missile Crisis is heavily involved in the plotline. Hoping for good things.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS


CAPTAIN AMERICA


THOR

Incorporating the Past, Moving to the Future

I just imported all posts from previous blog attempts into this blog. This just allows me to consolidate my blogosphere into one place. So, you can feel free to explore back if you wish, or just hang with me going forward.

I want to comment on the news of Kenny Florian making the decision to move to the featherweight division. Those of you who know me know that I am a big Kenny Florian fan. I think he is a talented and smart fighter. However, I think he finds himself in a very peculiar position. After losing to Gray Maynard, he would need to string together several wins in lightweight to get back in the title mix. Going to featherweight, if he can successfully make the cut to 145, he would likely have a quicker route to title contention. That being said, Jose Aldo, the current featherweight champion is just scary. I really think Florian would be a victim of yet another devastating knockout. There are some rumblings that Aldo may be considering moving up to lightweight, which could explain Florian's move.

If Aldo does depart featherweight, Kenny could do very well in the division. My first concern is whether he can successfully make the cut. Even at 155, he sometimes looks somewhat skeletal as he walks around at around 170.

Tonight is BJJ. Really looking forward to it. Been 2 weeks since I have been able to train. Been sick and had other stuff going on that has prevented me from getting there. Be good to get back on the mat. On the subject of fitness, I have decided to start P90X this coming Monday. I am going to really try to do this right, following the diet and everything. I played with a couple of the workouts not too long ago and they are quite demanding. The hardest part is going to be carving out the time to do it each day. But, I am determined to do it.

Gunfire and Other Happenings

This weekend, Julia and I went out to Douglasville on Saturday. The trip was multi-purpose. Julia, her sister, and her mom went and spent most of the day (not to mention a good bit of money) at Babies R Us. We are now registered for all kinds of accoutrements for Zach. While they did that, Glen (my father-in-law), John (my brother-in-law) and I went to the property of a friend of Glen's called Chigger Ridge Farm. John (Glen's friend) owns about 25 acres and has several private shooting ranges set up. He is an NRA-certified shooting instructor and gave us a gun safety refresher and then some instruction on handgun shooting. I grew up shooting rifles, but have little experience with handguns. I actually got a lot out of the session and feel like I really improved as a shooter. We had the opportunity to shoot a wide variety of guns, including .22 caliber revolvers and semi-automatics, a .357 magnum revolver, 2 different 9mm semi-automatics,a 12 gauge sawed-off shotgun, and a contraption called "The Judge" that is a pistol that will fire either shotgun shells or .45 caliber rounds. A few pics from our shooting excursion are below. Needless to say, I look forward to future trips to Chigger Ridge Farm.

Various Thoughts

Welcome to another scintillating installment of GWF! First off, my apologies for not posting for a few days. I am sure you were thinking “Oh, there he goes again---starting a blog off strong and then falling by the wayside!” But, no, faithful reader, I have had the blog on my mind. I have been fighting off sinus crud the last couple of days so I haven’t been feeling all that hot. Plus, Julia and I have been continuing to navigate the paperwork jungle that goes along with our forthcoming journey to China to get Zach. So, anyway, on with the show.
First topic for today is Egypt and the uprising/revolution that is occurring there. This is a VERY dangerous situation and I don’t think the average person understands the potential implications of what is going on. The uprising is being puppeteered by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the group that gave birth to both Al Qaeda and Hamas. Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Kalid Sheikh Mohammed, the number two in Al Qaeda and the architect of the 9/11 attacks respectively, both have strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. With Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, apparently on his way out, there is likely to be a power vacuum. This is an opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to make a power grab, establishing a theocracy similar to that in Iran, ruling Egypt under sharia law. If Egypt falls under the control of the islamists, what happens to the Suez Canal? If it is closed or disrupted, we could see gas prices skyrocket. Similar uprisings seem to be breaking out in other Arab countries. If something similar occurs in Saudi Arabia, we could see gas prices skyrocket further. I am watching coverage on Fox News while at work and the protests are becoming truly and deeply violent.

Second topic for today is geocaching. I went out on Sunday and did some caching with Julia was scrapbooking with Connie. This was the first time I had gone in quite a while and I had forgotten how much fun it is. I found 8 for the day and am definitely looking forward to caching with Zach when he is old enough. A couple of pics from my adventures today are below:




Third topic for today is Sting. No, not the singer…the professional wrestler. I grew up watching pro wrestling and have fond memories of Sting. I remember him when he first came on the scene, tag-teaming with another guy named Rock (who went on to be the Ultimate Warrior) as the Blade Runners. That team didn’t last terribly long and he became a highly successful singles wrestler. Sting truly became the “face” of WCW. He was the icon of the promotion, whether it was while wearing the brightly colored facepaint and the short blond hair, or the “crow” facepaint and the long dark hair. Steve Borden, who is the man behind the facepaint, is a committed and outspoken Christian and a guy who really can be admired. I don’t watch wrestling these days, but I have heard rumors that Sting has signed with World Wrestling Entertainment. The exciting part of this is that Wrestlemania, the WWE’s “flagship” pay-per-view show is being held in Atlanta this year. WCW was an Atlanta-based promotion and Sting has a long association with Atlanta for that reason. The rumor is that Sting may be main-eventing Wrestlemania and taking on The Undertaker. It would be an exciting last hurrah for the man called Sting and I hope it happens.