Phew! I just got back from bowling. Luckily Yvan was able to buff out the large gouges from my ball. I was actually quite surprised that it came out as well as it did, I thought for sure that my ball was a goner. It does feel a little different though, and I was noticing that the thumb holes seemed a bit "sharper".

I dropped off my medical records and signed up with a new doctor today. There is a new doctor coming to town so he is taking patients. I haven't been able to get in anywhere else because most of them aren't taking new patients now, so that is good. I haven't had a physical since I left the Air Force a few years ago, so Jaime is happy that I took care of it finally.

My knees have been killing me lately. I am not sure what it is. But bowling definitely aggravates them. However, they hurt all the time whether or not I have been hitting the gym I guess I am either too overweight (duh) or starting to get old.

Last Thursday night when I was bowling, in the third game, my bowling ball got stuck down in the ball return. I didn't notice it didn't come back for a couple of minutes. Yvan (owner) wasn't there that night, so Rosie had do go back to get my ball and a few others unstuck. When my ball came back, it was covered in white stuff. When I looked at it, I noticed that it was completely gouged out on one side and the white stuff was presumably the dust from either a pin getting ground up or the remnants of my ball. Dad's ball also sustained some damage. He tried to clean it off but it didn't come off either. To say the least, I was not amused. I had to bowl the rest of the game with a house ball. I brought my ball to the desk and Linda assured me that Yvan would be able to "buff" it out. I am curious to see tomorrow night if he was indeed successful or if they will be providing me with a new ball.

We went to mom and dad's for Easter. It was just the four of us and mom cooked a Turkey. Dad gave me his old set of golf clubs because he got all new ones. He really went through the effort of hooking me up. Now I will need to take some lessons and learn how to play!

204.8 this morning. Woohoo! That is less than when I started tracking it last April. I did dip below this before in that time frame, but gained it all back and then some. What I am doing is working.

We bowled last night and won two games. We won a couple last week as well. I have still not been able to get into a good groove. We would be a decent team if we could all get good at the same time. Seems like I have good games when the rest of the team doesn't or vice versa, so we never maximize our score. I do get disappointed that I never seem to improve, and sometimes I wonder why I shell out close to $20 a week just to make myself feel bad.

Jaime's grandfather had a heart attack last Friday. He doesn't have insurance and goes to the VA hospital. So he sat in his living room and endured a heart attack for 3 hours because he knew he couldn't pay to go to the emergency room here. It is a sad state of affairs with our health care system. He went to the VA on Saturday, then they sent him to Dartmouth. Jaime went down there and took Monday off to visit him there as well. They put in some stents into his arteries. He is now back home. While he was in the hospital, his thermostat broke and his oil tank sprung a leak that was not fixable. So he had to get a new thermostat and oil tank, which was not good. I guess bad things happen in threes.

I have been faithful about going to the gym every day. I don't usually go when I bowl that night though. I have found that I bowl a lot worse when I work out first, it must make me tired or dehydrated or something. And I usually meet with my nutritionist on Thursdays, but I didn't have an appointment this week.

Sarah has returned from her trip to Thailand and Vietnam. I have not been on the computer too much lately, so I have not gotten around to checking out her blog and pictures. We were happy to get a post card from her though.

We went to Mom and Dad's for lunch this weekend. I also went in to work for most of Saturday. I am working basically all day this Saturday as well. We have a meeting on Saturday morning that I need to facilitate, and I simply have too much work to do to get it done during the week. I am sure my efforts will go unnoticed and unrecognized as usual, but at least I can work uninterrupted on the weekends.

We are probably going to watch the Superbowl at Julie and Travis's house this weekend. I am trying to convince Chris Sloan to come. He has been traveling a lot lately.

I cranked up the Madden game and it is still kicking my butt. I think I am gradually getting a little better, but I am still having a losing season. It can be frustrating, but I guess the challenge keeps me interested.

Jaime didn't get her W2 again. That's two years in a row. I don't know why they say you have to get it by the end of January. There seems to be no recourse against the employer who doesn't provide it. I think the IRS should fine the employer for every day after the cutoff. It isn't fair because it causes the government to be able to hold onto your money for longer and you are giving them an interest free loan. But alas, Jaime is getting screwed over by her payroll department yet again. She finally got her 2006 social security straightened out after about 10 months of struggling. The social security office said they had never seen anything like it before, what is happening at her school.

You can tell it is getting close to Christmas because there have been non-stop advertisements on TV for Chia pets. Cha cha cha chia! It always reminds me of when I was in basic training. During basic training, we "Basics" were only allowed 7 basic responses (if memory serves me; and also can be Ma'am as well):

• Yes Sir
• No Sir
• Sir I do not know
• Sir I do not understand
• Sir may I ask a question?
• Sir may I make a statement?
• No excuse sir

However, while I was going through Basic, I seemed to always get a 5 o'clock shadow by the end of the day. So I earned the nickname "Chia Pet" from my upperclassmen. I was only allowed one basic response: cha cha cha Chia! No matter what was said to me, that was all I was allowed to say. It was actually kind of funny, especially when people asked me things that were not aware of the fact that I had been ordered to only make that one basic response.

Well, bowling was my all-time career low last night. I think it was even worse than when I was a youth bowler like twenty years ago. I only bowled a 299. Yes, that is a three game series, not a single game. That is unbelievably low. I am so ashamed. If I hadn't even bowled, my absentee score would have netted our team 120 additional points over what I actually got. With my handicap added in, I didn't even hit my average! I am getting to the point where I wonder if I will even bowl at all next year. I can't seem to get out of the rut. I don't know what it is, I never used to be this bad. I think there are several factors that contribute to it besides my inborn suckiness at all things requiring bodily movement.

One thing is that it is consistently extremely hot in the bowling alley. I am the type of person that absolutely cannot function when it is hot. So that stresses me out and just makes a bad situation worse. Also, we bowl on Thursday night. That is usually the point in the week when I am the most tired and burnt out from work. I have usually gotten in about 40 hours by then, and I am fatigued mentally and physically. Probably the last contributing factor is the lanes themselves. They always seem to break or you are waiting on the other team just when you get into the groove, so that messes things up. But probably the majority of the blame for me sucking so bad is just my own fault. I can't blame everything on the excuses!

Tonight was bowling night for me. Boy, do I suck! I have been doing so poorly lately that my average has dropped about 3 pins in the last couple of weeks. This is awful and has to stop. I think I only bowled a 406 tonight- very poor. My dad must be regretting joinin our last place team since we never win!

I went to see Anick tonight. I have been doing well this week so far. I have lost about a pound or two, mostly because I haven't been a hog and I have been hitting the gym. But I was bad tonight because I had a Tony's pizza for supper and I didn't go to the gym because I had bowling and the nutritionist appointment. Like I have said before, two steps forward, one step back!

We have gotten some more snow. There are a couple of big storms rolling in. Only a couple of inches so far, but the roads are very icy since it was so warm the past couple of days. I am sure I wll be using the snowblower tomorrow morning. There is a storm a-brewin' outside now.

I heard this story on the news this morning where this woman hired a contractor to do some work in their house. When he tore out the wall he found $182,000 in bills from the 1930's. They said it would be worth over $500,000 today. The contractor claims that he should get to keep it because of the "finders, keepers" principle. I think that is total bullshit. The homeowners actually offered to give him 10% in the first place, but he thought he had the right to it all. He said they would never have found it if it wasn't for him. I don't care, I don't think he has any claim on it whatsoever. When they bought the house, they got everything that came with it. If he happened to find something when doing contracted work for them, he has no right to it (unless it was specifically laid out in his contract that he could). He should have taken the generous 10% and been happy for it. I am sure he will sue and it will be tied up in court and no one will get the money for a long time. And they will have to waste money paying for lawyers and everything. People will sue for anything these days, and that is just sad. He has no claim on it whatsoever, in my opinion.