Back to the Grindstone

Weekend fun as we have enjoyed it is now over with, it's time to take our collective noses and stick them back to the grindstone for yet another fun filled week of sewing what wish wish to reap.

Hopefully Phil and Mother Nature will start to be cooperative this week and we won't get the bad weather that we have experienced not only last week, but for the past few moths. I work inside in an office, so the elements really have no affect upon me and what I do, other than traveling to and from my place of employment. However, I am getting sick and tired of the snow and am ready for some nice warm weather to be bestowed upon us.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend and had the chance to relax a little bit before entering another week of work. Hopefully by next weekend, the Super Bowl weekend featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers, the weather will break and our health will be back at 100% so we can enjoy the game.

Hi ho hi ho

Hey Phil

My little groundhog buddy, king of all things groundhog. I am humbly coming to you this year to appeal to both you and Mother Nature to not see your shadow on Wed.

I know this is your day, Eric and Kevin will try not to live the nightmare that Phil Conners had to live some 18 years ago, and try to do a live remote from Gobblers Knob with you.

Tens of Thousands of people will flock to your little knoll and await to see what you say about our future weather. But Phil, my old dear and trusted groundhog friend. I've tried bribing you in the past, I've tried scaring you in the past, this year I humbly come to you and ask what it is you desire to fail to see your shadow?

A bottle of Scotch? A new car? A couple slutty midget groundhogs? What ever it is you need to "not see your shadow" just tell me and I will do my best to arrange it.

Please Phil, I HATE SNOW and am sick of it.

Saturday Morning Ramblings

Ah yes, yet another Saturday. The only bad thing about it is now Michelle has come down with a touch of the flu that I am still trying to shake. This has been one horrible cold and flu season and I am more than tired of the snow and cold weather and am ready for springtime.

I'm suffering a little bit of the cabin fever and am just ready for a nice fun filled outdoor day to enjoy. With everyone's health and the current weather conditions however, this is looking like it will be sometime in the future rather than today.

Have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

I swear I hate this time of the year, nothing really going on and the weather, well is less than cooperative so to say. It would be nice to get out and run around a little bit, especially after having the flu and being down for so long. I'm ready to get out of the house and do something.

However that may not be the case this weekend. I think we are planning on doing a little bit of after holidays after sickness cleaning tomorrow. So nothing really on our agenda for the weekend.

I did get a start on my taxes last night, I use the H&R Block Software, they sent me my software this year and they were charging me $34.95 for it (I use it every year) and they sent one to Hayley exactly like mine for $14.95, so I used hers and bought the state program with it. Plus I get five free Federal e-files, so I am off to a good start.

Hope everyone has a great weekend, I'm ready for one.

Hi ho hi ho

Ok Let's try this again

Yesterday was one for the ages, my work let out at noon because of the road conditions that we were getting handed in the Morgantown area. A thick and heavy snow blanketed the area in a very short period of time making travel next to impossible.

Roads were being shut down, including the one I live on, a Jeep was in the ditch outside my driveway and it was burried. Many local roads were also being shut down and the Interstate was going to be shut down for a while.

Businesses were closing as well as the town center.

It was a great day to stay put, eat some home made Chilli and Corn bread and watch the movie RED.

Today is a different day, so let's try this again and hi ho hi ho

Hump Day

Well we have made it through these first two days of the week with little trouble, now it's just a matter of going over the hump and heading towards the weekend.

I don't know about anyone else, but I am getting sick and tired of the short days, cold weather and winter all together. I'm ready for a little bit of springtime weather, cookouts and longer days where we actually have a little bit of sunlight when we get home from work.

Alas we are still stuck with this white crap on the ground.

Come on springtime and hi ho hi ho

Well I Finally Made it Back to Work

I finally made it back to work yesterday after pretty much being off last week due to illness. It was a little rough initially and that was just walking to my office because I hadn't been out in the elements much in the past week. However I made it through the day and am ready for another one.

The flu bug has hit the office pretty hard also even without me being there. One co-worker has been out since Friday and another has been shaking it off for a few weeks. I would say though this year may have me reassessing whether or not I will get a flu shot next year.

Well here we go again, hi ho hi ho

Steelers Advance to Eight SuperBowl

I have to say that I am lucky, I have been fortunate enough to watch my favorite NFL team advance to their record tying eighth SuperBowl with a 24-19 against the New York Jet's last night.

It was an exciting game at the start when we jumped out to a 24-0 lead, but then the Jets just tried to give us everything they could and scored the next 19 points, but it wasn't enough.

The Steelers advance to Dallas to take on the Green Bay Packers who beat the Chicago bears 21-14 earlier in the day.

Follow the boys in two weeks as their Stairway to Seven continues.

Feeling a Little Better

Well, I am finally starting to feel a little bit better believe it or not. This flu has kicked my rear end and let me know just how vulnerable to being pretty much incapacitated that we can all be. I was finally able to get some rest last night, something that I had not been able to do for a few days due to the congestion build up in my chest.

Michelle is an absolute trooper, she did all of our grocery shopping yesterday without me so that I could have another day to rest without having to go out and exert myself. I did try shoveling the snow on the back patio while she was gone, which lead to a 10 minute coughing fit from hell for just about two minutes of pushing a shovel.

We;ll see after today though, a Steelers victory will make everything go away.

Just Can't Shake This

I started to feel a little better yesterday afternoon, but had a bad night as I can't sleep or lay down flat. No matter what I do I just can not seem to shake this flu bug as hard as I am trying.

Now I think Chad is getting it too and Hayley sounded like she was getting a touch of it.

This is a bad one and it is tending to linger on for a while.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

For me however it is day three of recovering from the flu. I am home from work once again and Michelle is taking today as her birthday Holiday for a few things she needs to do.

Not too much to say today, but I am starting to feel a little better today after letting some of the meds kick in and do their job. I'll be staying home and resting once again.

Have a great day and stay safe

Still Sick

Well at least I managed to make to see a Doctor yesterday, the bad news if I am positively infected with the flu bug and am contagious.

I went out and bought a number of surgical masks as well as a few prescriptions yesterday, so I am going to take another day and rest and relax in an attempt to recover this virus.

I'm trying not to infect anyone with what I have, so I'll be staying home coughing and trying to watch a few movies.

Under the Weather Again

I was ill arouind Christmas time, I waited around and let it linger much longer than it needed to and it got worse.

Well I am sick again. It's in my chest and have some high temperatures to go along with it, this could very well be the early stages of Pneumonia, so I am considering taking the day off and visiting a Doctor.

Isabella's Journey Update # 3

The latest update, Enjoy:




Hello Everyone,

I hope that your weight loss efforts are going well for you. This week we will be adding two additional habits that will add to the previous weeks. Week 3 Homework Assignment:

-Add 2 pieces of fruit a day. You can either add a piece of fruit as a side to one of your meals or use it as a snack. Pick something that you like and make sure to give yourself some variety. For example, don't eat apples everyday. If you eat 2 apples per day that is 14 apples per week, you're going to get tired of them. Make sure to mix it up. Apples, oranges, bananas, peaches, etc. Branch out and try something that you haven't before. Another reason for variety is because various fruits have different vitamins and minerals. Get a good mix and pick things that are convenient for you to consume throughout your day.

-Take the TV challenge. TV is one of America's ultimate time wasters. Take the TV challenge this week by commiting to exercising 15 minutes for every 30 minutes of television that you watch. This will be in addition to the exercise guidelines below. If you watch 2 hours of TV every night that means you're looking at an hour of extra activity per day. Acceptable activity examples are listed below. We can't spend so much time sitting. We gotta get up and move! Either that or pull the treadmill, stationary bike, or elyptical machine in front of the tube and get moving! We all have the same 24 hours, some people just manage their time better than others ;)
 
This week we are going to bump up our exercise time by 5 minutes. Let's shoot for 20 minutes of daily physical activity for 4 days this week.  Again, examples include: walking, biking, jogging, hiking, etc. Just get out and do it! Be active and move! In addition, continue your strength training exercises that I have attached from week 2. Please keep me updated on your progress and if you have any questions that need answered. Remember, I am here to help. Good luck this week!

-Mike Snader

Tuesday's Tidbits

* It's Tuesday, I can't think of a better reason to do a tidbits.

* If you are keeping track, it's been 1040 days since mine Michelle's first date. We're a couple months away from a three year anniversary.

* It has been 263 days nice I proposed to Michelle and she said yes.

* We leads me to say it is 200 days until we will be getting married.

* Well I just had a three day weekend, but it is back to the grindstone for me today.

* The Steelers will be playing for the Conference Championship for their 15th time Sunday. This will make the Steelers the team that has played for the most Conference Championships in League History. The Dullus (yes I spelled it right) Cowgirls have played for 14, this breaks the tie with the Cowgirls. The Steelers have more Super Bowl wins than any other franchise with 6, if they win Sunday they will tie the Cowboys for most ever Super Bowl Appearances.

* The annual Capital Classic basketball game is going to be played tomorrow night in Charleston. Hopefully Bob Huggins can beat the blundering turds again.

* And Last but certainly not least, I would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to Layla Marie Rosiak who will be celebrating her third birthday today.

* Hi ho hi ho, it's back to work I go.

Martin Luther King's Birthday

Today is a Federal Holiday, it is Martin Luther King's Birthday so any banking you may have wanted to do or any mail your anticipating will just have to wait until tomorrow. I am fortunate enough to have this day as a holiday and will extend my weekend yet another day.

In honor of Dr. King, I will repost his "I have a Dream" speech.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.


It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Sunday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit, in a quiet house collecting my thoughts from the previous day and looking ahead to what this day carries.

The Pittsburgh Steelers advanced to the AFC Championship game next week with a 31-24 victory over the arch rival Baltimore Ravens. I have to say after being down 7-21 and with the manner of how the first half went, I had given up on them. The Ravens scored one of the most "What were you thinking" touchdowns I have ever seen when Ben was being sacked and fumbled forward, 21 of the 22 guys on the field were standing around thinking incomplete pass, all except one player who knew there was no whistle. Touchdown Ravens.

The second half, the Steelers absolutely initiated their will and dominated. It was to different football teams.

We had a small dinner and Trish came over for birthday cake and to help Michelle celebrate her birthday. It was a complete day.

Today there is nothing special planned. Trip to the grocery store and probably a little relaxation to get ready for the week ahead.

Have a good day.

Happy Birthday to the Love of My Life

Today is the birthday of the women who has filled my life with so much joy. Today is my Fiancée, my best friend and my lover Michelle's birthday. I would like to take this opportunity to wish her the very Happiest of Birthdays today, or maybe I should make that Hoppiest.

Thank you for everything you do for me, done for me and for fulfilling my life of emptiness with so much joy, I love you with all my heart.

Happy Birthday Sweetie.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday AND a three day weekend for me.

Well if you are looking for something fun to do tonight and something for everyone, try going over to the WVU Coliseum tonight at 7:30 for Beauty and the Beast. Both the WVU Men's Wrestling team and the WVU Womens Gymnastics team will both take the Coliseum floor simultaneousness and face Michigan State. Here is the good part, admission and select concessions are only $1.00. So if you are looking for some cheap entertainment, the WVU Coliseum is the place to be.

Both Michelle and I are planning on being in attendance for the event, so come on out and enjoy the evening with us.

Hi ho hi ho

On the downside

Well we are over the hump for the week and on our way downhill towards another fun filled weekend. I think we are passed the worst part of the storm, but it is still winter, at least we'll have some time off for the weekend.

Speaking of the weekend, Monday is a Federal Holiday and I am off. Michelle has to work though, so it will just be me that is off for the day.

Oh well, Hi ho hi ho