lately, i have been growing exceedingly frustrated with leasing an ‘apartment’. not only are neighbors annoying, noisy, slobs, – but rent is expensive where i live. its not worth it to me to pay so much money and have absolutely no return on that investment. All that money could be going towards a house.

So, the process of home owning is now rolling. I qualify for up to 135 grand (although those mortgage payments would be less than affordable)… In reality im looking to spend 110 – 115 k. So i’m 99 % sure that i’m going to own a home before, perhaps way before; my lease ends in may. We have looked at one, and are scheduled to look at two more… If i find something i like for an affordable price, consider me homeownerberge. I dont even mind if it’s a bit of a fixer upper. Pretty much as long as it is not an apartment, and my stuff can fit into it, i would possibly be interested.

in addition to house shopping… i love every one of my friends. This was one of the better weekends of my entire life. Thanks to everyone who participated. It was especially nice to let loose after a fairly stressful week at work. My position is really evolving to a point where i am the go to guy for alot of different things. Blackberries, the SAN, pretty much anythin server related, etc. etc… Its very exciting. But, in cases where you have to be the one to administer a “Disaster recovery SAN failover test” – it can be a slight bit stressful.

At any rate – the D.R test was a success, im vanberge, payner can arrest me legally, vanlandw lost 10 knockout matches straight, vanbergs is my brother, flo throws up if he bowls, i suck at bowling, uccello’s has the best pizza ever, some day i’m eating “the legend”, and Gran Turismo 4 has gotten me back into it.

A bit prior to thanksgiving, i weighed myself on my parents scale… Typically, i could care less about my body or my weight… But, this day, i saw something i have never seen before “245”. I typically thought i weighed 235, which was fine with me on every accord. However, when i realized that the elusive “250” was so close, i felt like something had to be done.

I started drinking less pop… drinking black coffee at work… minor changes. I got to about 235 this way.

Then comes the new year at work. Somehow, somebody organized a ‘biggest losers’ type club; with a catch. Each person puts in 10 dollars… and at the end of a year, the biggest loser takes all. That, in combination with ENFUEGO MIGUEL weighing less than me (although i am taller…), have inspired me to drastically change my lifestlye. So, for the past week, i have: Eaten a banana and grape nuts cereal every day for breakfast, drank only water and black coffee, eaten very light lunches (1 sandwitch without mayo, an apple, etc), and eaten sensible dinners. I have even gone out to eat twice and ordered only salads. Blah blah blah, i changed my eating habits.

Keeping in mind that i did not do any additional exercise of any kind, read on: Initial weigh in at work for the ‘biggest losers’ club i weighed 238… Over the weekend I purchased a scale, and was astounded that i currently weigh 228 pounds. I havent been that light in probably 24 years. I was absolutely shocked to see that changing my eating habits for 7 days yielded a 10 pound reduction in my body weight…

Now the trick is ‘staying motivated’… as it grows harder and harder to avoid calling papa john.

I’m back into scionlife.com
I want to buy this
I love third strike.

i took my last week of vacation. i got a new cell phone. christmas happened. i got an ipod video. i really like my car. everyone i know is undecisive. the lead singer of the “Guano Apes” is not a male. I have a new found love for “3rd Strike – No light”. videora kicks ass. “The Boondock Saints” resides on my ipod and on my cell phone. www.myspace.com/vanbergs. i’m never leaving my job. i dont know your “hoo ha” name. i wish mickeyvb would make a website. ef digital catch phrase. ef tom. i really love 16 pound 95 dollar cuts of prime rib that mickeyvb prepares to perfection. jesus. literally jesus. i have the same cell phone number. fieldy is a slap bassist. ef flo. four brothers is an awesome move. looking forward to beer dogs.

can you hear me now

Our society and culture as we know it is very very young. The internet? 10 years old give or take.. Television? 50 years old give or take. Cell phones? 10 or 15 give or take? Cars as we know them (expressways, 70 mph speed limits)? 50 years old give or take. The point is, the world as we know it is extremely young. So much is changing in so little time that its actually a challenge to even keep up. How different were things just 100 years ago? completely. 100 years sounds like a long time; but put that in the perspective of how long the world has been around – it is a fraction of an instant. Over time, every great civilization has fallen. The roman empire would be just one example.

Our human intelligence, probably our greatest gift; seems fundamentally flawed. Build bigger sky scrapers. Drive bigger diesel trucks. Make faster internet. Make smaller cell phones. Make everything as fast as possible, as big as possible. Churn the fires of electronic industry and shovel more and more coal into them.

I feel like we are on the very apex of an astounding bell curve. The curve grows taller and taller, our confidence soars. Advances here, advances there; grow, expand, consume, transform. Soaring gas prices. Expensive heating bills. 5 hour commutes in 5 lanes of slow moving traffic. Fax machines. Fast food. Drive through everythings. Get everywhere as fast as you can and stomp on anyone in your way. Honk your horn. Flip the bird. Everyone is more important than everyone else. – It feels more and more like our priorities are not straight by any means.

We’re a roman empire. We need to keep in mind that bell curves have a downward slope as well.