We’ve been busy in our neck of the woods as I’m sure all of you have. MBM & I spent most of the day yesterday gallivanting around our little section of Houston doing our last minute Xmas shopping… Which just happens to be the only Xmas shopping we’ve done. Traffic was a nightmare. People were rude. Lines were long. But, we got’er done. I even went to Wally World last night at 1am to get a little more. Lines were still long and people were still rude. Gotta love Christmas.
In other news, we’ve been playing tennis lately. MBM had a match a couple of days ago and I ended up being the person to keep the 5th player warmed up since they were playing doubles and had 5 people. It was about 34 degrees outside that morning and MBM was in shorts! I was only expecting to watch and take pictures so I had jeans on. Not very good for playing tennis but I made out OK. I could still feel my limbs after the 1.5hr ordeal which is more than MBM can say.
The same night, we did the Jingle run around the neighborhood with 12 other Wortham neighbors. It was still freakin’ cold. We had fun but I just about died because I’m so out of shape. We ran about 2.5mi total, looking at the Xmas lights, and yelling and waving at people like idiots. Like I said, it was fun. A picture of us before we got started is below. It came out blurry so clicking on it won’t do much good.
That’s about all I know. Gabby is crashed on the bed sleeping. Justin & Savannah are playing Lego StarWars on the Xbox 360, James is in Wichita Falls, MBM is out running around somewhere, and I’m holding down the fort.
Come back tomorrow sometime to see our Xmas tree and what Santa left behind. We’re headed to Texarkana but I’ll try to put it up before we leave.
Merry Christmas!!!
PS - There’s a new picture up on Gabby’s site. Go check it out if you haven’t done so all ready.
That’s how exciting things are around these parts. MBM has engulfed herself in other apparently more important endeavors and can’t be bothered with updating our little slice of the web. Guess that leaves me. So sorry for you because I don’t have any new pictures or videos today. I did manage to see a flaming car yesterday on the way home from work and it’s smoldering remains were still in the middle of the road this morning. Don’t know what happened to it. It’ll probably stay smack-dab in the middle of the road for a month or two. Nothing happens quick here.
In other news, I actually started the Hundred Push Up Challenge last week. I’m now on week two and it’s getting hard. I managed to eek out 63 total push ups this evening. You can see the training schedule by clicking on the Hundred Push Up Challenge Graphic on the right in the sidebar. If I manage to follow the schedule (which after tonight seems a tad bit unlikely) I should be doing 100 consecutive push ups by the day I get outta here.
In more unfortunate news, it’s still the rainy season and has rained almost everyday I’ve been here. That does not make me a happy camper. Sometimes it rains all day, but most of the time it starts around 4pm or so and goes until 8pm or 9pm. My usual running times of course. I’m contemplating getting up extra early and going in the morning. The temperature would be cooler, but there would be the pesky rats and malaria ridden mosquitoes to fend off. No jogs in the park for me.
In even more unfortunate news, my boss is away yet again. He’ll be back this weekend for a week or 10 days and then he leaves again for the rest of my hitch. That means I’m back at the helm. I still don’t like it. It would be a lot easier to swallow if they were paying me for such things. Hint hint $3 or $4 billion-dollar-a-year-oilfield-services-company. I think you can spare an extra dime or two for my troubles.
Ok, MBM will be calling shortly. Wouldn’t want to miss a call from the queen.
So, I’m back in PHC and back on my quest to get back my girlish figure. It seems like my quest only happens while I’m here as long as it’s not the rainy season and not back home. When I’m in the USA there is too much to do with theatre, karate, baking classes, book clubs, neighborhood stuff, catch with the boys, homework, shopping, etc… When I do have free time the last thing I want to be doing is running around!
Anyway, MBM and I have a little contest going that should help jumpstart the process… Assuming it doesn’t rain everyday like it did last hitch. FYI - it rained most of the day yesterday. Our contest involves tiered mileage. Tier one is 40mi, Tier two is 60mi, and Tier 3 is 80mi. We have 42 days to run as many miles as we can. Our total mileage will fall between one of those tiers and we get a prize for that tier. Make sense? If we both run 50mi we both get the 40mi tier prize. We haven’t decided what the prizes are yet but they’ll be decent… Like $50, $100, & $150.
You can follow our progress here. The sheet is still blank, but today is the starting day so it should be filling up fast.
It’s painful to look at, but the weight-loss button on the right-hand side is back up to where it was at the beginning of my last hitch, minus 1lb. I fell off the wagon when I got home last time and gained it all back in one fell swoop! Sucks to be me. Now I have to do it all over again. Guess that’s what happens when all you do is sit there and stare at a tiny baby for hours on end. This time it’s not MBM’s fault… It’s Gabby’s!
However, I did come more prepared this time. I have my trusty GPS watch to track my runs. I have my trusty iPod and Nike+ Sports kit for music motivation. I have plenty of water flavor packets to keep off the Diet Coke (not high in calories but bad for you nontheless.) and my cook has started right with no instruction. See picture below for what was cooking tonight. Doesn’t look too appetizing, but nothing a little salt, pepper, and Louisiana Hot Sauce couldn’t fix.
To top it all off, I’m going to try my hand and the newest exercise craze that has taken the internet by storm. It’s a training program designed to take you from 0 push ups to 100 push ups (consecutively) in 6 weeks. I’m going to do the initial test tomorrow night and get started on it on Saturday. Who wants to join me? You can check out the program at One Hundred Push Ups. If you’re lucky I’ll capture it on video for all you stalkers to see.
Finally, I do have pictures of the adventure Justin and I went on last weekend at the Houston Aquarium. Hopefully I’ll get those up sometime tomorrow.
Well, the run I had tonight was probably the best I’ve had in almost a year. We got home from work late and I talked to MBM for quite a while and I almost didn’t go but of course I got to feeling guilty about it and took off. I did a little over 4.5mi in 45min - around 9min 45sec per mile and didn’t stop once. When I get my total time up to 60min and my speed down around 9min miles I’ll be close to the old days. I figure by the time I get back for my next hitch I’ll be there… Assuming I can keep it up while I’m home!
As you can see from the title, I’ve been eating as healthy as ever and that probably has a lot to do with my runs getting better. Yea yea yea MBM, I know you told me that many moons ago. Go ahead and say it, “I told you so!” After many buttchewings the cook has done away with the butter, mayo, most of the oils, and I’m pretty much on a grilled chicken and veggie diet. Today for lunch I had a grilled chicken breast and a pile of spinach and onions. I’m sure my breath was SAAMOKIN! Tonight I had another grilled chicken breast with green beans and one of those big white things that some folks call a leek and others call a Nigerian radish. Either way it was pretty tasty. POTD #12 is a picture of tonights dinner. POTD #11 was from Saturday night.
In other news, the boss is leaving for Lagos tomorrow so I’m back in command for a while. Not something I’m looking forward to. This hitch has gone by easier and faster than any of the others, I just hope it doesn’t get to crazy for the next few days.
And finally, there is a slideshow below of MBM’s thrifty finding’s of late. She’s taken thrifty to a new level by spending all of our money on cheap things. I don’t know how well it’s working though. When we bought a few expensive things we didn’t have any money. Now she buys a bunch of inexpensive things and we still don’t have any money! Something is not right here. (That’s a joke mom, don’t get your knickers in a twist. Nobody is going hungry.)
To end it all, it’s 10:30pm and I just had a guy call and holler and scream at me over the phone about one of our compressors going down. Guess my last few days are going to be fun filled after all.
It’s yet another dreary day in Port Harcourt. It rained pretty much all day today, yesterday, and the day before. It’s put a damper on my running and I’m not pleased. Hopefully tomorrow will be rain-free, at least after 5pm or I will be forced to find another means of exercise that might just drive my downstairs neighbors into a frenzy… I’m talking about jumping rope of course.
So, today is an important day because it marks the official release of version 3 of the greatest web-browser ever… FIREFOX. Are you all still using that tired, busted, ugly, Microsoft Internet Explorer browser? Well do yourself a favor and go download the latest and greatest version of Firefox. You know what you’ll be doing when you download it? You’ll be contributing to the breaking of a world record. Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) are trying to break the world record for most downloads in a 24hr period. The servers are a bit slow because half the universe is downloading it but it’s worth the wait. So, go get it!
And now for the POTD. Brenda’s Bar. What more can I say? My mothers dream of owning her own bar have finally come true. She never would share any of her Santa money with us, said she was saving it for something big and now we know what it is. Congrats Mom. We’re so proud of your new establishment. Don’t steal too many waitresses from the Waffle House.
I’m outta here. The season finale of Lost is calling my name and I must go watch.
So Gabe, how was your run tonight? Why it was great! It was probably one of the best runs I’ve had this year. I did 4.5mi without stopping at a 10min/mi pace. It’s a far cry from the sub 9min/mi I used to do but it’s a step in the right direction. The weather was cooler thanks to the crazy downpour we had all day and my iPod even cooperated for most of the run. I only had to reset it and start over once just after the halfway point. So, I guess I did stop for a few seconds technically, but only to do the rest.
Anyway, when I was running I spotted a gargantuan snail crawling up the wall and I was going to take a picture of him (or her) to use as todays POTD. It was there the first lap and it was there 45min later when I finished. Of course during the 3min it took me to go upstairs, check my messages, grab my camera, and get back to the snail location it was gone. Not only was it gone, but all of its’ siblings had disappeared too. They weren’t quite as large, but they were larger than what I’m used to seeing back home.
I then went in search of the man-eating rats. I came up with zilch on those too. So, all I had left to take pictures of was my running route and my reward at the end. There are two things on my reward plate that did not get consumed… They went straight to the trash. Care to guess what they were? I know, there are starving people in the world and blah blah blah and I shouldn’t waste good food and blah blah blah but I’m back on the Gabe Little diet and two of those items just ain’t on the menu.
Speaking of Gabe Little, I canceled the original Gabelittle.com & Carolinalittle.com last night but decided to keep the domain names. I then forwarded them to the location I copied all the files too which means you can still go to Gabelittle.com & Carolinalittle.com and see all the old stuff. However, my site shows zero comments on all of my posts. Do not fret dear readers, the comments are still there they just aren’t counted for some strange reason.
So, that’s all I got. Enjoy the pics.
NOTE: Don’t forget to scroll down and see snaggle-tooth and MBM’s pictures too!
NOTENOTE: The pics are really small in the slideshow so you’ll probably want to see the larger version at my Picasa Web Album page. Click any picture during the slideshow to go there.
I downloaded a new blogging client this morning and I needed an excuse to try it out so I had to come up with something to write about. Unfortunately, I don’t have much to write about so I’ll just ramble for a while.
Have you heard about the new iPhone that’s coming out on July 11th? It has built in GPS and works on the AT&T 3G system which means much faster internet. Of course they timed the release with my trip home on July 10th so I wouldn’t feel left out like I did last year. There is a hitch in my gittup though… MBM said I don’t need no stinkin’ new iPhone so I might just have to eBay some stuff to come up with the funds. Mark my words friends… This phone is going to change the way people use their mobile to access the web and stay connected. My iPhone is the one gadget I can’t live without.
Now on to other things. I got home early today & got my jog out of the way (I can’t consider it a run at the pace I’ve been going) so I had plenty of time to update the “What Gabe Has Been Reading” list at the bottom right of this page in the sidebar. If you’re bored you might want to give it a gander. There’s something there for everyone. If you don’t like the first 10 that are shown hit the “Read More…” link to see a bunch more. There are plenty.
I’ve been here a week now and managed to burn 3046 calories running. Not too shabby. I’ve only missed two days so far, once because rain was pouring down and the other because I forgot to charge my iPod. Running without my iPod is simply not an option. Speaking of, all of my distance calculating gadgets are on the fritz. My VERY expensive Polar Running Computer watch has a broken band (happened while moving) and needs a new battery. I can’t get the back off the stupid thing so I’ll have to send it in. Then there’s my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch. I couldn’t get it to lock signals with the satellites when I was in Houston to save my life. I tried 3 different times on 3 different days. The only working thing I had left was my iPod modded up with the Nike+ kit and it is the least accurate but I figured it would do in Nigeria. Guess what crapped out last night? That’s right, my iPod works fine as an iPod but it’s having big wahala (wahala is Nigerian for problem) with the Nike+ kit. So, to make a long story longer I don’t know how far I’m running anymore and it really chaps my ass!
On a lighter note (no pun intended) I’ve pretty much weaned myself off of Diet Cokes as per MBM’s directive and I’m now hooked on the flavor packets you put in a bottle of water. My favorite is the Kroger branded Peach Tea flavor. I can’t get enough!
And finally, the POTD. I took this a long time ago and didn’t find it that interesting so I never posted it. Most of the trucks here have some sort of religious gibberish on the back of them and I thought this was one of the more interesting ones. I won’t say anything else because I don’t want to insight a religious riot on our “Little” site.
