Gratitude vs. Black Friday

I have not been shopping on a Black Friday before but I hear it's hectic. Merchants and retailers are putting their best foot forward to try and lure purses and wallets into their storefronts with hopes of replacing some of the padding in their pocketbooks with all kinds of items. On my way in to work this morning, it seemed that there were more interruptions in the music for radio commercials promoting $10 gift cards for the first $100 spent at the mall or 60% off body sculpting procedures for those who come in before 10:00 AM. It was such a nuisance. I want to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday first yet these ads are starting to crowd out my gratitude and thankfulness.

I'm grateful for clever advertising, as demonstrated by linking to the above commercial. But what if someone came up with a handful of clever commercials emphasizing being thankful, showing goodwill and helping others? Kenneth, if you're reading this, here's your chance.

With that said, I'd be interested to know what you do to make Thanksgiving more than just a day of gluttony. How to you celebrate it? Is it even a special day for you? I can't think of any traditions we have in connection with the day other than a Thanksgiving feast.

Also, if you have a link to a good, uplifting or funny video about Thanksgiving, feel free to post it here too!

Banned from Running

Nope. I didn't assault someone in a race nor did I sabotage a marathon either. Actually, I have a couple of herniated discs and they've ruined my future days of being a famous marathon runner. Here are some of the pictures from the MRI I had. One shows a picture of my back from a side angle. You can see the two darker spots indicated are actually discs that lack the bright white center. The doctor told me they don't have much fluid in them. But it gets worse.

The next two pictures are cross sections of my back, with the spinal cord circled. The first one looks good. But when you compare it to the second one, the second one shows a herniated disc with part of it pushing against the spinal cord.

This particular condition is not very fun. I've had back pain for probably 10 years and it just seems to get worse as time goes on. Right now, there's some aching pain in my right thigh and occasionally I feel a burning feeling down the back of my left leg.

Anyway, this past 4th of July weekend, I ran 6 miles which is quite an accomplishment for me. But on that run, I tweaked my back somehow and it took about 10 weeks for the pain to go away. I explained this to the doctor and he said that running is one of the worst things I can do with my back the way it is. That sucks! I enjoyed running with some of my friends and was disappointed to have to stop. As an aside, the doctor told me that dead lifting weight and squats are some of the best ways to ruin a perfectly good disc. So to all of you weight lifters who read my blog, be careful with what you're doing at the gym.

So, I'm looking for a new recreational sport that I can do. I'm open to suggestions.

The Joy of Costco!

Today I had the first time privilege of cruising the isles of Costco in the middle of a Saturday. I missed breakfast and it looked like I was about to miss lunch. However, I found a way to get a modest lunch for free. Do you know where I'm going with this yet?

I'm sure I'm alone on this one but in the past I've usually avoided the food sampling tables and booths. I've sometimes thought that I'm obligated to consider purchasing the food item after sampling it and that I shouldn't just sample it because I'm hungry. But where it was lunch time and I missed breakfast, I mentally snubbed that thought after getting a whiff of the freshly baked cookie dough. There was too much of a crowd around that table that I couldn't get to it. But I determined to stop at the next table for a sample. That table turned out to be a cheese and spinach ravioli in tomato sauce. I was hooked! In fact, I stopped at every other sampling table and tried one of everything... except for the jalapeno bratwurst and the camembert cheese, of which I took two. Lunch consisted of a meatball in some type of teriyaki sauce, some chicken in the Panda Express orange sauce, the spinach and cheese ravioli in tomato sauce, a few bites of jalapeno bratwurst, two pieces of camembert cheese, some pecan pie and a small cherry tort dessert. Of all of the samples I had, I only purchased a 12-pack of the bratwurst, which I've had before and would have purchased regardless of the sample. Come to think of it, I only bought it the last time because I tried a sample of it then and it was delicious! It must have been destiny that I did so because, like I said at the beginning of the post, I don't usually stop and sample at the tables.

Is anyone else a fan of food samples at your favorite grocery warehouse? Long live Costco!

Our Halloween

Halloween is one of the best holidays the calendar has to offer! From decorating the house and my desk at work to dressing up along with the kids to go trick-or-treating, it's just a lot of fun! This year, for my work party, I went as Frankenstein. The make up was a lot of fun, especially making the scars on my forehead and the side of my face. It reminded me of dressing up as a pirate for a cub scout pack meeting one year. My dad painted a line of rubber cement on my face and once it started to dry a bit, he pushed the skin together to make it look like a scar. I think I protested it long enough, claiming that it was uncomfortable and so my dad removed it. But I've since come around to getting into the holiday spirit. I have this application on my Mac at work called PhotoBooth and took some funny pictures at my desk the morning of our work Halloween party. I actually won third place for my costume!

This year, the kids had a lot of fun with some new costumes.
Crystal and Jerel are staying with us so we were able to get some pictures of their kids in costumes! From left to right, there's Emma in her pajamas, MaKayla as Susan from the Chronicles of Narnia, Belle as a wizard, Isaac as Dracula, and Gordon and Tyler as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker.

Johnny is featured twice because he's just funny! The pictures only portray a small part of his personality. He can make me laugh at will.