Not really, but that is how I feel. I haven’t felt this level of muscle burn since boot camp. As close as I can figure, the next 90 days will be like going through “boot” again, minus the heavy artillery and yelling…. Since this is only the first day, I can’t really recommend anyone do this workout unless you like a challenge and want to have a hard time stepping out of the shower because your legs are sore.

Maybe I’ll post an after, maybe not. My main motivation for doing this is to get toned and back in shape. I want to run a marathon next year and need to be in top shape to do it (in my mind). Besides, it’s not like I was doing anything at 4:00AM when I wake up other than run and watch SportsCenter, so why not get a little extra workout in before I head off to work.

Fast forward appoximately 10 years.  Dan calls me and says “Guess what I found?  The remote control for the TV from our hotel in Hollywood.”  He was cleaning out an old suitcase, and he found it in there.  So, coupled with the hotel directory that I “borrowed,” we have two souvenirs from our hotel in Hollywood.

Hats off to you, Dan.  Thanks for serving our country, and have a happy birthday.

In honor of such bad-assery, I’ve modified some of my favorite Chuck Norris & Jack Bauer lines to honor the soldier/lawman/friend/political advisor/and brother-from-another-mother:

- Dan is currently suing NBC, claiming Law & Order are trademarked names for his left and right fists

- Dan once sued the Houghton-Mifflin textbook company when it became apparent that their account of the war of 1812 was plagiarized from his autobiography.

- Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Dan pajamas.

- Hellen Keller’s favorite color is the color “Dan.”

-There is no such thing as global warming. Dan was cold, so he turned the sun up.

-Dan was what Willis was talkin’ bout.

-Dan just says “no” to drugs. If he said “yes”, it would collapse Colombia’s infrastructure.

-Dan once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves

-Dan doesn’t have nightmares…Nightmares have “Dans.”

-James Bond has posters of Dan in his room.

-And finally, if he were alive in 1941, Germany would now be called The United States of Dan.

In all seriousness, happy birthday buddy, you’re in all of our thoughts and prayers and we can’t wait for you to get back.  I need me some political rants and stock tips.

August 21, 1998, my 21st birthday. Dan’s parents ran the local beach, and as such had two big pontoon boats. The plan for the evening was that after Dan got off work at the beach, he’d join Carmen, me, and another couple, which will remain nameless, on one of the pontoons for a party. After arriving at the beach with the other couple, Dan informed us he could not go out, but that we should take the boat anyway and have a good time. We reluctantly agreed and took the pontoon.

We were out on the water for several hours, listening to music, talking, and enjoying the evening when we realized we were the only ones out on the lake. The reason, it was 1:00AM! The girls were at the front of the boat talking when the idea hit my friend and I at the same time. We’ve known each other for a long time and knew exactly what the other was thinking. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I said “we’ll take the back of the boat, if you want the front”. He laughed, agreed and we went over to the girls.

I grabbed Carmen’s hand and headed for the back of the boat. The other couple took the front of the boat and we did what couples do. I’ll spare you the details, but that boat was a rockin’ my friends. Shortly after 2:00AM we decided to call it a night and head in. I only got three hours of sleep before having to go to work, but it was well worth it. Later that day, I talked to Dan, thanked him again for letting us use the boat, and then told him what went down. He wasn’t upset and we still laugh about it to this day.

Check back later today for more Dan-tales from me and my posse of bloggers.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY, WE LOVE AND MISS YA!

This is our day of deliverance.” – John Adams

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the N
ame, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend those States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even though we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not.

-From the Works of John Adams

Another Tonight Show re-run tonight. I’d watch it, but Eddie Murphy is the guest and he hasn’t been funny since 1988, so I won’t be watching. For 1,000 Frankpoints, what was the last funny movie Eddie Murphy made?

The one with the cat was sent to me by Snyderman. Every time I look at it, I laugh out loud. I’ve obviously marked out one key word, but you all know what it is.

Yes, the last one was a bit crude, but funny. Now on a more serious note. This Saturday our great nation, and an American hero (another one of my brothers-from-another-mother) celebrate their birthdays. Check back for several special posts honoring both on Saturday. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll laugh some more…..I promise.

Of course, this idea would cost some money upfront, but how much would it run, and how long would it take to break even? First I had to look at our monthly power usage. Pre-death-of-dryer, our average kWh usage from February 2008 – February 2009 was 1,082 kWh per month. Post-death-of-dryer for February 2009 – February 2010 (projected) is 546 kWh per month, which means two things. One, our old dryer, even though it was the most energy efficient at the time of purchase, was highly inefficient by today’s standards. Two, we used the crap outta that thing!

The next step in the process was to find out if our house is located in a good location for solar power generation. After a few quick mouse clicks at www.energy.iastate.edu, I had the info I needed.

A chart……cool.

With a 1kWh system, I could reduce the amount of power I purchase from MidAmerican by roughly 20%! The only problem is price. A small system like that is around $8,000. Factor in the Federal Tax credit of $2,400, and the net price is $5,600. Not bad, but if we only plan on staying in this house another year or two, is it really worth it? To disconnect the house from the grid for good, we’d need to spend nearly $50,000!

I really want to embrace clean, renewable energy, but I’m also extremely cheap. For that system to pay for itself, we’d have to stay in our house a little over seven more years. Any more than two and Carmen is going to kill me, so I think for now we’ll just continue on our current plan and hold off on the large scale solar implementation until we move. That doesn’t mean I won’t slap a small panel on the garage and power the shop lights and garage door opener with the sun!