We are in a new decade and everything is looking good. So far neither me or barb have missed the gym in 2010 and I ended 2009 at work on top. This means I start 2010 on top too. I reached all my goals, actually I shattered them. This is a great feeling. I'm stoked to go to work tomorrow. We are also gearing up for barb's birthday which is Wednesday. Musically there are a couple of hot releases slated for 2010. Bad Company is releasing their 17 song live reunion show from 2009. I saw a part of that on TV and it was stunning. I also learned that Tool will have a CD out in April. I'm stoked for that.

Once again I am going to try to read 12 books in 12 months. I have already started the first one. I'm in the middle of reading Blackwater – The Rise and Fall of the Worlds Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill. So far that book is great. Other books I will hope to read in 2010 are Almost Home by Damien Echolls, Inside, Life Behind bars in America by Mike Santos, I Am Ozzy by Ozzy Osbourne and From The Front Lines of Punk Rock by Cheetah Chrome. I think that's a good start. Me and barb are also gearing up for some events. At the moment the main focus is SPLF. I'm the Emcee and we are presenting so there's is good work to be done. In short I guess we are starting off this year with a bang.

Most important, on January 1^st barb re-signed her contract with me. That's so hot and that makes me so happy.

We have watched some hot movies lately too. We watched District 9, 28 Days, Inglorious Bastards, Sherlock Holmes and 2012. All of these movies are worth checking out.

It occurred to me the other day that I have not updated my workout schedule in a very long time. There is not too much that's the same anymore. My workout has become an even bigger part of my life. I lift so I can stay healthy, I lift to take care of barb, I lift so I can work hard at my job, I lift for confidence, I lift to test myself, I lift for fun. Since weight lifting is so important to me I would once again like to share what I do with you. I have updated that portion of my site. Please check it out. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about it. On the other hand if you have any questions about any topic please feel free to contact me. I rarely am at a loss for words.

Dear 2009,

    I can remember vividly ringing you in. I was home watching you on TV as you made your traditional moonlight entrance. At that moment I had trouble focusing on you. I found myself thinking about your counterpart 2008. 2008 left us all hanging from a proverbial thread. The news of the world was grim and spirits seemed collectively low. We greeted you with trepidation.

  It’s not for me to speak for the world but I feel that my statements are pretty much accurate. As for me, you were the year that tested my mettle. You were the year that kept my eyes and ears glued to financial reports. You were the year that drove me deeper into the political landscape. You were the year that made me feel very grateful for what I have and you were the year that showed me how to work harder than ever. You were the year that told me to keep fun to a minimum and work more than you ever have before and so I did.

 I chose to work harder at the job, home, the gym and at my personal finances. I chose to ensconce myself in books and learn everything that I can about a wide range of topics. Twelve books read in twelve months and countless magazine articles too. Your storms made me wiser, your storms made me stronger. I can look back and say that you taught me many good lessons.

 On the surface you were like any other year. You gave us historical firsts like an African American President. You gave us a new hero in the likes of Captain Chesley Sullenberger who somehow managed to land a plane in the Hudson River with no fatalities. You offered us Tsunami’s, wars, and illness and of course you surprised us with untimely losses like David Caradine, Michael Jackson and Ron Ashton. (There are just too many to list). For good measure and thought provoking conversation you offered us the health care debate. That one was a slick move; I commend you on that one.

 So now it’s time to bid you farewell. You will quietly slip away into the darkness and as always the New Year will be rung into the moonlight and we will collectively have a crack at it.

 Dude, you were one heck of a roller coaster ride but in the end I give thanks for what you have taught me and I’m not afraid to say how grateful I am. Thank you for the lessons. My gut tells me that many others may feel the same way. If nothing else I’m sure that everyone agrees that you were one tripped out roller coaster ride.

 For anyone that took a moment to read this, I wish you the best of luck in 2010. There will be new challenges and equally important there will be new hope. We are all human and we share this planet together. So in short, we are in this together. May we all find it in ourselves to work together as we go through our next set of trials, tribulations and celebrations.

I went to the gym the other day and I think I walked into Bizzaro land or maybe it was an alternate universe, I don’t know but I definitely didn’t feel like I was in Jersey anymore.

 I get to the gym and I’m ready to work Biceps. I’m putting the plates on one side of the bar and some High School kid who is not even going to work in with me asks if I would like a hand putting the weights on the opposite end of the bar? My first thought was oh my god do I look weak and frail today? My second thought is why is this stranger being nice to me? I wanted to say no, you are scaring me with your random act of kindness but I mustered up the courage and said “yeah, sure drop the weights on the bar”. Then I go look for clips to secure the weights and I see this kid looking for a clip to put on his side too. We secure the weights and then I lift. Wow, that was strange. Later on in my workout I’m off to do some Tricep dips and someone is on the machine. No problem, I’ll wait. This is a different kid than the helpful guy I encountered earlier; he stops in mid dip and says would you like to work in? My first thought is this is some kind of candid camera / punked set up? Once I again I mustered up the courage and accepted this act of kindness. From there we alternated on the machine. People at this gym never ask if you want to work in with them. But wait there’s more! Another kid comes up to me and says “excuse me sir, I know you are busy but can you take a look at my new tattoo, I have a few questions”? Wait a minute, Excuse me Sir? This is Jersey, the Jersey method is to interrupt someone while they are talking and say Dude, I gotta question. Today is different, today is manners day at the gym. I help the kid out, he shakes my hand and says “thank you Sir” and wanders away. By now I’m shaking in my sneakers, I can’t help to think that nobody will ever be nice to me again. All the worlds’ niceness towards to me is going to get used up in forty five minutes and from here on in people will just pelt me with sticks as I walk down the street. I can deal with this, I’m ok, really, I am. Now I’m off to do Tricep pull downs. In order to do this I needed a straight bar. While I’m hunting around for the bar a guy and a girl, seperatly (they don’t seem to be together) ask me what I’m looking for. Sheepishly I tell them and then both assist me in finding the bar. I just assumed they would beat with it when they found it. No, she handed me the bar and smiled.

Ok I must be in Kansas and Dorothy is going to come skipping up to me with Toto and ask if I would like to play Hopscotch, I finished my work out and I’m outta there.

  I went home and told barb about the random kindness at the gym. When I was done with my story I said “how weird is that?” She replied “very”. Then she said “isn’t that sad?”

 Yes, that is sad. In Jersey we live the gasoline for breakfast napalm for lunch pace. Often we metro people forget to be kind, we forget that random acts of kindness are cool and we can have trouble accepting kindness. It’s shameful for me to wonder if there was an angle. I feel like I was given an opportunity view the world with new eyes or maybe just the proper outlook.

There has been something that has been burning on my mind in the last two weeks. This issue has been on my mind so much that at times I had some trouble sleeping and was building up a great hourly dose of neurosis over this issue. Well, I guess it's time to shed some light on my latest greatest self imposed prison of neurosis.

Roughly two and half weeks ago my my boss (one of the coolest people I have ever met) asked me if I would like to take over a vacant office. Yes, I could have my own office. I guess I could use it? Maybe I deserve it? I don't know. I had this conversation with my boss while sitting in my cube AKA The Hovel. The boss dude told me that due to the nature of my work some privacy could be helpful and that I can take over an office in the main office space. I was quick to answer NO. That really frightened me. Me in an office? It didn't add up to me. Offices are occupied by the elite perimeter people. The indigenous land of the perimeter people is the office. The perimeter people live on the outskirts of the main office. They are management and they have college educations. They watch and SUPPORT the worker bee's as they toil in their respective Hovels to get the job done. The perimeter people are good people they mean no harm, they are there to help and assist, they are there for guidance and direction. They command the day from the perimeter and we bravely report back to them from our hovels. I am a worker bee in a hovel, not management, not college educated.

But now I have been asked to be a perimeter person. Would would the other perimeter people think? I don't have all the criteria to be perimeter person. After some long nights, moping, self imposed mind bending torture and a ton of conversations with barb I decided that maybe I do want to crawl from the cloth lined dimly lit walls of my hovel and explore work society from the perimeter. So I semi boldly approached my boss this week, I entered his office with my head held medium and butt cheeks sagging and said yes I would like to take you up on your offer. He said good and he said that he would get the ball rolling.

The ball was to start rolling on Thursday. Apparently the perimeter people have turbo charged balls, by Friday morning I was moving into the office and by Friday afternoon I was fully functional.

The question is how would others react to this social imbalance? I'm so happy that everyone was thrilled for me, they made me feel welcomed and they said I deserved it. Some even asked if they could come visit. But no matter what, everyone was so damn supportive. What a relief.

So I have moved from the hovel into my own office, I will call this office the pod. I have a desk, credenza, space to hang tons of pictures, book shelves, and multiple file cabinets, a plant I have named Robert (after Robert Plant of Led Zepplin) and coat hooks on the back of my door. Yes, I will be adding a stereo real soon. This will be a rock n roll pod.

A very nice lady a fellow hovel dweller has moved from her hovel into my old hovel. She promises to take care of it. I do believe her.

For whatever reason I feel proud. I feel that others may see things in me that I didn't see in myself. This is all pretty amazing and cool yet it's only a room.

Earlier did I say what relief? Hm, that may be an issue. I have now gotten more than I have had before. I have a work rule that goes with that. The more I get the harder I'll work. I hope to be the hardest working perimeter person in the history of mankind

 I woke up this morning at 4:53. By 5:00 I was out of bed and my overall consensus is that I’m feeling tons better and of course I’m very happy about that. As I got ready to head to work as usual I found myself working my way to the kitchen and then something caught my eye. I saw some left over Halloween candy. Instantly I stopped and I realized I was just staring at the candy and then I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. It seems that Halloween was only last week. I remember the cloudy overcast day. I remember going to the gym and the Dentist, I remember walking the dogs with barb through the trail. I remember that we listened to Kiss and Starz CD’s that day. I remember some of the kids and their costumes, I remember reading a Rollins book and I remember putting the cushions back on the couch after washing them. All this clarity of Halloween, it had to have been yesterday. But no, that was almost an entire month ago. The holiday season in just about to go into full swing. December is almost here. Holiday lights the whole nine yards. 2009 is almost over and I’m stressing on my year end numbers at work. A new year is driving down the highway and it’s only a few miles out. It’s almost 2010.

 Where does time go? How does it seem to slip by so fast? Time didn’t always feel like it went by so fast and now feels like it doesn’t even stop to say hello. Maybe I’m moving too fast, maybe time is moving too fast. Maybe time and I are in sync and it’s supposed to feel this way. Sometimes it feels like a loss of control, sometimes it feels like the 9^th wonder of the world.

This has been a very challenging week. As I mentioned in my last post barb is sick. She does seem to be feeling much better almost 100% but of course late Sunday into Monday morning I started to get it. I may not have even got it from barb. I have been around so many sick people who knows where I may have contracted my creeping crud. I have not run or worked out all week and that's eating away at me. I did go to the Dr. on Wednesday and he gave me some good meds and I think I'm starting to feel better.

The real challenge to this week was my schedule. Of course I need to get sick during a very grueling work week. Let's review my schedule this week.

Monday – 6:00AM – 3:30PM

Tuesday - 5:30AM – 1:30PM and then 4:30PM to 11:00PM

Wednesday – 7:30AM – 1:00PM and then 6:30PM to 12:00

Thursday – 7:30AM – 4:00

Friday – 6:00AM – 2:00PM

Actually I love the schedule. I worked hard and did about nine verbal presentations too. I got a lot done

I really made some shit happen. I just wish I felt better. On the other hand I'm so glad that I didn't feel worse. This could have been much worse.

I feel like I really pushed through this week. I had a very hectic schedule, I was ill, barb was ill but we both pushed through. We showed strength and we didn't let things get in our way. I'm proud of both of us.

One more day of work and then it's the weekend. Friday we will do some grocery shopping and catch up on shows that I wasn't home to watch and Saturday we will go see 2012. We were going to see that last week but barb was too sick for that and I didn't want to go alone. I also have hopes of getting back to the gym. Sunday we take the dogs for Rabies shots and of course it's a day of football too.

I got a new book to crack open probably on Monday. Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq. A Soldiers Perspective by Paul Rieckhoff.

I can't wait to be feeling 100% again. I'm also looking forward to a full nights sleep. Being home tonight is going to be awesome.

It's a Sunday and I'm watching some football, of course and I thought I would try to settle in and do some blogging.

I will break this down into categories but in most recent news barb has been feeling rather ill the last few days. She has a nasty cold. The bummer is that we were going to go to a leather family dinner in Asbury park tonight. Barb is feeling better but it's really best for us to stay in. I want her to get all better and my guess is that being around lots of people will not speed up her recovery. For some other news that's a bummer I went to Good Year this morning for a simple oil change. Of course there's nothing that simple. The good folks at Good Year showed me that one of my front tires had a bubble brewing in it. So I ended up buying two front tires. So my $25.00 oil change turned into a $300.00 financial bonanza. So that's the news of the day I will now will do an comprehensive update.

Work: The job is great. I'm still loving this very challenging and exciting position. The last week and a half have been very challenging and tough. I working through it and It seems that I'm still getting good reviews on what I'm doing. One of the things that's weighing on my mind is that the end of the year is soon approaching and with the end of the year means I get to wonder if my Dept. will meet the goals that the company set. I'm competitive and I don't like to lose and truth be told I don't fail too often. I don't fail too often because I hate to let people down. I'm also not a big fan of letting myself down either. If I don't make my goals that could have an impact on some of my managers bonuses. I would really hate that. These people are great to me. I would hate for my Dept. to take money away from them. On the other hand I hope I meet my goals, I would love to be able to contribute to them. These things weigh on my mind. I take these things personally. I guess that's part of being dedicated.

Leather: Not too much going on in that area. Though Santa Saturday is in a couple of weeks. That's a great charity event and I'm glad that NJ is a part of it now. Of course Thanksgiving is around the corner and there's a lot of leather spirit built into that. This is the time of year when the community slows down. Of course there are a few holiday gatherings but the HUGE events are planning for the the next year. Let's face it it's time to concentrate on the holidays.

The Holidays: I do love this time of year. I'm actually already done with my shopping for barb. I think she' going to be pretty blown away and that's a great feeling. I'm looking forward to getting our tree and decorations out of storage and decorating the house. The funny thing is nobody ever comes to visit. We don't really don't have the opportunity to share the decorations with other people but it doesn't matter. We take full pride and enjoyment in it and we love having the decorations up. So bring it on.

The Gym: I am kicking ass at the gym. I'm lifting hard five times a week and I'm increasing the distance in my running too. I have taken a newer approach to working out lately. I have taken more of a body builders approach. Sure I'm a small guy and a hard gainer but I'm doing more research and different things. It's paying off, I'm getting bigger even at the age of 44 I'm making great improvements. It's a lot of fun.

The Weather and My General mood: I'm happy but I'm ready for Winter to settle in. The weather has been very mild through October and November. On average the temperatures have been in the mid sixties and even up to the seventies. I'll admit I don't like the cold but I feel that I'm ready for Winter. To be honest I hope the Winter is harsh. Some heavy snow storms and some bitchin' cold too. I feel like I want to come out of this Winter saying wow that was tough and cold glad it's spring again. I guess I'm just feeling very competitive.

Books: I finished another book. The book I just finished is A mad Dash by Henry Rollins. Henry wrote another great one. There's so much inspiration in his writing. I'm very proud of myself. I read ten books this year. That's almost a book a month. I think my brain is working. Reading is good for my writing and considering I have two presentations to write and a keynote address too. This reading could be pretty damn helpful.

Music : Ok this is a big one. On one front there's not too much going on. The new Kiss CD is great. We saw UFO recently and they were tremendous. Other than that music is pretty bland. Along with the blandness came a revelation. Last night we were watching a show called the End of America. This was a documentary by Naomi Wolf. It was about the closing of America's free society post 911. It was an excellent documentary with some stunning points. One of the points that was made was that Clear Chanel ( now Live Nation) was in the pocket of the Bush White House. Now I will admit that they didn't go into to great detail about this but just that sentence answered a lot of questions. Clear Chanel / Live Nation control radio, ticket sales and artist signing. Now I understand why there has not been any revolutionary bands that made a mark during the Bush administration. One of the things that barb said was that at least the second term of the Bush administration would bring great radical music but it never really came. So here's my thought. If Clear Chanel and all their influence was in bed with the Bush administration then I bet Clear Chanel was tasked with making sure that the youth didn't get restless. The last time the youth got restless in America we had all the protests etc. in the sixties and early seventies. Great stuff, great freedom.

I believe that the goal was to keep the youth quite and make sure there's not too much happening to fuel that youthful fire. It all makes sense. Of course pop and top 40 was just silly and the lowest common denominator. Radical punk music ended up being pop punk. The record companies gave them a punk look and out of the blue punk music was all about High School crushes. The newest wave of aggressive metal had been headed up by aggressive sounding Christian metal bands. Now I have no problem with Christian rock but let's face you are not going to find revolution of the system in Christian metal. Clear Chanel also accounts for the resurgence of eighties bands like Ratt, Whitesnake, Pretty Boy Floyd etc. How do you distract a generation? Send them on a rock n roll trip down memory lane. Last but not least, we got bland singer song writers shoved down everyone's throat like John Mayer. All this is a perfect plan to keep America bland. I can only hope that the plan changes soon. All walls will tumble at some point.

I think that's everything. I hope to check back soon.

It's nice to actually have a moment or two to myself before the mayhem starts up again. I can't complain, my life is excellent mayhem. This weekend was the NJ Leather Weekend and Mr and Ms. NJ Leather contest. As always I was the stage manager and this year barb was a judge and of course she made me proud. We had a blast all weekend and we worked our asses off. To get to reconnect with that family is awesome. The laughter, fun, flirting and friendship is awesome. A toast to old friends, new friends and our new title holders Mr D and Morgan.

I was up around 7:30 this morning and at the moment barb is sleeping. I got to do some chores around the house including laundry and recycling. Yes, Masters do this stuff too. I also got to catch up on email and go over my fantasy football line up.

Today I'm going to hit it at the gym hard and do legs and abs and then spend the entire day watching football. Sounds perfect huh? From there it will get insane. Although I have an easy schedule on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday is shaping up to be a rockin fifteen hour day. I also need to get my Aunt off to Florida this week and even more insane I (on my own) have a whirlwind trip to to Florida for a wedding (yuck) next weekend. I will be leaving on Friday, I have a 6:00PM flight ( I'll be working and going to the gym prior to that) then the wedding is on Saturday and I have an 11:00AM flight home on Sunday. If all goes well I'll be home in time to watch the Jets at four.

There it is the interesting hectic life of me!

Bless me father for I have sinned it has been a month and a half since my last blog entry. Oh how the memories of CCD classes don't go away regardless if you are into it or not in your adult years.

Well it has been a while and I come with good news, I am fine. Sure I have not blogged but to be honest it's because I have not really felt like it. This is not for a dislike of blogging, I have just been doing other things and at the same time trying to have a balance at home. So I pretty much said to myself in order to relax a little at night I will either blog or read and lately I have been heavily into reading. Of course my time is shaved down a bit due to crazy and fun work schedule but that's my reality. To quote Rick Derringer, “I'm still alive and well”. So what's up with me? I'm glad you asked.

WORK: Work is going very well. I do keep very busy and I'm willing to work all hours and sometimes very long hours to get the job done. The bottom line is I'm happy and I still love the position. If we have a good fourth quarter I may part of setting some facility records. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and I can feel the stress building already. If only I had control over everything.

HSL: Well, HSL is going well. Myself and barb are rockin'. Sadly though I found it difficult to keep paul in the household. There was no way I could create the proper balance so I needed to do what was best for everyone. I'm still interested at some point in trying a third party again but that is certainly in the future. Recently we had a blast at the MR. Eagle contest. Congratulations to Preacher, he's the new Mr. Eagle. He deserved to win and I think will do a great job. Myself and barb are looking forward to this weekend. It's our hometown event, The Mr and Ms. NJ Leather contest. I will run the stage ad this year barb is a judge. She's going to rock it again. Actually she's a wonderful tough but fair judge. The other thing that's cool is that our leather gigs for 2010 are starting to come in. I will be the MC at SPLF, Myself and barb will be giving a key note at SELF. It also looks like we will presenting at MAsT Philly and of course presenting at other events around the country. So all that stuff is coming together once again.

THE GYM: I am ripping it up big time. My arms and chest have gotten bigger again. I'm starting to follow some more body builder style routines and it's helping. What really makes this fun besides the extra size and strength is that barb is ripping it up too. We also have both gotten into the sport of bodybuilding. We started to get into it a while ago but now we have a greater knowledge of it and the people so we are down with it. So much so that it looks like we are saving our pennies to go to Mr. Olympia in Vegas next year. STOKED for that.

MUSIC: The scene is lame and we live in the soft generation no doubt about that. But we did get to see UFO and Monster Magnet recently and both of those shows were fab. As for CD's Ted Nugent's new live CD is amazing. Yeah he's a turd with his politics but his music which is not political is amazing. Kiss has a fantastic new CD out, Sonic Boom that was a pleasant surprise, The new Alice In Chains CD is pretty good and of course the New Clutch and the new Wildhearts CD's are rad to the tenth power.

BOOKS: I finally finished reading the Shock Doctrine. That was an amazing book about shock warfare politics and economies. The book really does a great job of explaining the steps to oppression. I also just finished Fear and Loathing in Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Train 72. Both are Hunter S. Thompson books and both are fantastic. Read, read and read these books. I just got the new Henry Rollins book in the mail. Signed and numbered for my pleasure and entertainment. The book is called A mad Dash. I hope to start to read it next week.

So that's the update. I hope to blog a little more. If not, be patient, I'll get to it one way or another.

I hope you are all well.

It's been a good weekend.

Yesterday we took the dogs to the dog park again and that was a lot of fun. I also had a good conversation with paul. I also did a lot of reading in the book I'm currently reading, Hit Hard.

The main focus of Saturday was to head to Jersey City and attend an event in which our Leather friends ( and family)Sal, Dion and Tom are getting an award for their contributions to their community. These guys deserve the award and we were honored to be asked to be there.

The night was pretty awesome. I will say the dance party that they were holding was not my bag but many of the Asbury family came out to the event. I have not seen a lot of these guys since June so it was awesome to see everyone again. Of course it was great to see Sal, Dion and Tom get their award.

Shortly after they got their award we headed home. Of course our drive through Jersey City consisted of getting horribly lost. We got lost going and coming from the event. Thank goodness barb has Google Maps in her Blackberry or we would still be driving around.

As for Sunday, the second part of the weekend it was a good day. We kicked off the day with a good breakfast and then we both had excellent workouts.

When we got back from the gym I finished off Hit Hard. It wasn't the best book that I ever read but it was pretty cool. The last chapter was really great. So much so I found myself doing something that I don't normally do, I highlighted a paragraph in the book that really hit home. In the end I'm glad I bought the book.

Tonight we will grill up some dinner, have Sunday conversation, watch True Blood and gear up for the work week.

I may start my next book too. This book is called Shock Doctrine. This book is supposed to be really complex and I hope I can grasp it all. The book is about how and why the most recent Bush administration did what they did. Or in their case their reason for fucking up our country.