Go School, Go!

Read this.

Nice story about an NFL player giving up oodles of money for an offseason workout plan in order to finish his college degree.

We need more stories like this.

JUMPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stokes loves jumping.

We have the evidence to prove it:

Dreams

So, last night I had a dream that both my brother (Erik) and my father were professors of History at UF, and that I found a job as a professor there (because an undergraduate degree in History totally qualifies you to teach at UF).

I got there my first day and was informed I would be teaching British Military History and.... drum roll please..... a class entitled "The Persian influence on Thailand and Vietnam"

I can only imagine starting my lecture during the first class of the semester:

"There is none."

Dreams are weird.

Alice in Wonderland

So, the new Tim Burton joint is coming out in the coming weeks... a surrealistic sequel to the Lewis Carroll/Disney class "Through the Looking Glass" or "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" or "Alice in Wonderland" (Way too many variations of a title...)

Johnny Depp is portraying the Mad Hatter, the mercury-high host of the tea party in the original story.

My real question is: Why in the world do you cast Johnny Depp when you obviously were going to use makeup to make him look just like Elijah Wood? They both play crazy/insane very well... and Elijah Wood is already pretty creepy. I think they could've saved some money by paying Wood half of what they gave Depp.

See?:

Desert Island: Part Two

This time around... songs. So basically, your 5 favorite songs, or the 5 songs you could listen to forever without getting tired of them. The 1st 2 for me are easy choices, the next 3 could vary if I think about this for more than 2 minutes.

1. Only In Dreams - Weezer
2. Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
3. I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness
4. Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
5. Ramble On - Led Zeppelin

Obviously I am alive in the wrong era for music... or simply, today's music is stupid and not worth listening to very often. The most recent song on the list, I Believe in Thing Called Love, is 8 or so years old... and just makes me happy, it isn't the greatest song ever... it's just fun.

Desert Island

I love Top 5 Lists... or Top "#" Lists of any sort. What are your top 5 movies of all-time, that you would take with you to a desert island for the rest of your life? (trilogies, etc. count as 1 movie)

You can tell from my list that A) I'm a total nerd, and B) My taste in movies does not match my mental acumen in the least. I find dumb things funny.

1. Lord of the Rings Trilogy
2. Star Wars Trilogy
3. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
4. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
5. Best in Show

Politics I can get behind...

The Sports Fans Coalition is a group founded recently, whose main goals are listed below. I urge you all to join, as it really boils down to accountability in spending, curbing waste, and helping the average American gain access to the games they love, without fattening the pockets of lobbyists and mega-TV conglomerates.

I know only one of my readers really cares about sports (That's you, Ms. Greene), but in general this is an idea we can all get behind right?

Who We Are

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Stokes at 1 Month

He's got lots of swagger and eats and sleeps like a champion. He weighing in at 10 lbs 8 oz these days, and is in the 70th %ile for height and weight. Somehow he's only in the 40th for head size, which is odd because Jen and I have huge noggins. For those that haven't seen, and for those that always like to look at cute babies (I'm talking about you, Tat), and for those that happen to stumble across my blog (creepers)... here is a smattering of photographic representations of C. Stokes Bryan.

New Born (9/29/2009)

At the hospital, Day One

First Car Ride

Addison Brown meeting Stokes

Stokes and Yoshi are friends

First Tub Bath

Almost 1 Month Old! (a few hours shy)

I'm Terrible...

Well... actually I'm pretty amazing, but I'm terrible at posting.

Since the last time I was here, I got a year older, started another semester of grad school, have witnessed the football team I know and love collapse spectacularly (except against BYU, suck it BYU), and become a father.

Fatherhood is something I'm still trying to understand. I love Stokes, trust me, I do, but I feel so helpless at this early stage in his life... I don't provide nourishment, I don't think I can really teach him anything at this point... I'm simply a diaper changer and rock-to-sleeper. I know that will all change all too soon (he is growing so fast!!), but for now, I will just enjoy having such a beautiful young man to share a roof with.

I'll try to be better about posting, between the baby and classes I'm just about going nuts. Classes are entirely hard... just tedious, especially my online Data Mining class... doesn't it sound fun? It's even duller than it sounds... But, I can persevere.

Love you all (the 8 of you that read this)... for pictures of the young man check my Facebook profile... I will post pics here later, but I'm pretty lazy today.

Birthday Fish!

So today my Birthday Fish arrived, a wonderful gift from my wife.

I'm letting my loyal blog readers (all 8 of you) have a hand in naming these new beauties:

I got a Royal Gramma:

A Sixline Wrasse (also known as the Jap Wrasse or Pajama Wrasse... feel free to get racist with your naming of this one):


And... a Knobby Starfish:
Give names to 1, or all 3... I may or may not use them, as I reserve all rights to do whatever I want.

IM Bowling is over....

For us.

For the teams that actually win games and come through in the clutch... it is still going on.

We lost in heart-breaking fashion, in the last 2 frames of the 3rd game.... 8-7.

I personally shoulder the blame as I bowled 2 horrible games, after starting with a 178.

1st Game - 178
2nd Game - 97
3rd Game - 120

Average for the day: 133.67

Average for the season: 146.0

To adjust for potential outliers, I will find the standard deviation for the sample, and determine if any scores from the season need to be disregarded as outliers.

Mean: 146
SD: 27
Range of 2 SD: 96 - 200

As all scores fall in that range, my true average for the season was 146. Not 150, but at least I don't have caterpillars on my face, Lish.

Jen has a protector...

Yoshi has been demonstrably better in the last few months... which is a welcome relief, as he can be a real pain sometimes. Ever since we've had him, his favorite activity has been to sit on our bed, or on the floor, and look out our window that looks over the driveway and the street below. He has never really barked at anything at all, but has simply made whining noises when he saw something that he wanted to chase... but his whine is barely audible.

However, ever since Jen has been pregnant, he has progressively started barking more and more at passersby (who can probably barely hear him due to the distance from our window to the street) in a fairly menacing manner. He has become quite territorial of our driveway (even though we share it with 3 other apartments) and considers it his territory. Additionally, he has followed Jen around more often that he used to, and has been quite the lapdog for her.

This got me thinking, and I used the Internet-machine to discover if dogs can tell if someone is pregnant, after all, they have been found to be able to tell certain types of illnesses and even cancer in humans. While there is little scientific evidence, there are mounds of anecdotal instances that have been reported. The change in hormones/pheromones are perceptible to our little dog, and he has been great... even when he wakes us up in the middle of the night barking at some passing car. I'm glad to know that there are 2 of us that are concerned about Jen.

Additionally, he has been really good with the "baby training" we are putting him through. Randomly we'll just pull his tail, grab his paws, yank his ears, etc., to prepare him for a little kid. It is recommended so that Yoshi is prepared to react kindly and not with aggression when irritants are presented to him. He gets lots of positive reinforcement when he doesn't react with snarls, barks, and bites, and he has become pretty good.

You can't help but love this little guy....

(crawling inside an empty food bag)

(sleeping on Grandma Kelli's couch)

(wrapped up in our Papasan cushion, like a doggy-burrito)

(Yoshi hiding from Jazz by getting on top of his crate)

VICTORY!!

We (Kyre, Richie, and I ) finally got over the hump, in a big way, and won our 1st IM Bowling match. By a score of 10-0, we crushed our opponent, giving us momentum going into the playoffs next week.

Because of the blowout, we only bowled 2 games, not 3... my personal scores: 128 (horrible) and 159 (acceptable).

Week 3 Average: 143.5

Total IM Average: 150.3 (Still above 150)

Diet is going well, Jen is mostly happy and healthy (about as happy and healthy as one could be during the 7th month of pregnancy), and the summer semester is finally winding down (thankfully).

Bowling Update

Tonight, Rollin' Dirty was narrowly defeated by a tally of 8-7. It's OK though... we are pretty certain we can turn it on during the playoffs.

My individual scores:
1st Game - 145
2nd Game - 164
3rd Game - 180

Avg: 163

Overall Season Average: 152

Diet Update: Back on the wagon, doing fairly well, but it's only been a few days... so it doesn't really count yet.

IM Bowling

Intramural Bowling started tonight... and in accordance with Lish's wishes (rhyme time!) I will be posting my scores, as he does not believe I bowl in the neighborhood of 15o.

I bowled 5 games, and though I'm not one to make excuses... my arm/hand were falling off the last 2 games.

1st - 182
2nd - 141
3rd - 161
4th - 110
5th - 133

That is a total average of: 145.4

I will continue to post the scores, in order to appease Lish's evil desire to see me fail.

Overall, the team of Kyre, Mark, and myself lost 11-4, after a great 4-1 start.... next time Kyre and I won't practice beforehand.... and we may have a shot.

Diet Update: I fell off the wagon... soda is too good. Send me messages of encouragement (nice ones and mean ones) to get me back to where I should be.

I think I'm gonna be afraid all the time now... ALL OF THE TIME!!

Read this article.


Now tell me you aren't afraid of random bursts of meteor-air that will destroy us all!



BubbleSpinner Update: 35,677

Diet Update: Feelin' healthy... cheated a couple times on the soda... but overall doing better. This heat helps in the weight loss.

Stumbled upon this....

So I had occasion to break out some of my old C.S. Lewis books and quote lists when discussing life with a friend a few weeks back... and one quote in particular has been weighing on my mind:

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in."

Too often I catch myself viewing the actions of others as bad, deplorable, what have you. However, I'm sure there are other things I do that are just as bad, just in a different way. I don't know what temptations are placed upon others, just as they don't know what tempts me. We are all "bad people" in some regard, there is something that each of us gives in to, without any fight, that is inherently bad. It isn't the same for everyone, for we aren't all the same.

I don't want to look back at my life and find that I've been "sheltered" by never resisting temptation.


Diet Update: The diet is going well, some weight loss, I certainly feel less fat.

BubbleSpinner Update: 34,254. Word to your mother.

I went to James S. Rickards High School

And at least 2 of my readers did too... so the next message is not directed at them...

SUCK IT! (to all other Tallahassee high schools, and most schools in general)

Rickards has been ranked as the #48 high school in the United States, by Newsweek. While the 4 of the 5 Tallahassee high schools were ranked in the top 300 (Godby was somehow absent altogether from the top 1500 schools... oh yeah, that's no surprise)... Rickards was the cream of the proverbially crop.

While these rankings are really based on Rickards 2 biggest strengths, IB Testing and small graduating classes, and shouldn't be considered to be indicative of anything... I'll gladly take the honor of being a graduate of the #48 school in the US of A.

Find your school here!!! (I bet it is ranked lower than mine!)


Diet Update: Still no soda and I have had fruit everyday so far.

Updates

So, after 3 days... I have refrained from the soda and had nothing to eat that's bad for me.

No real news other than that... but oh well. Just keepin' me honest.

Averagest Loser

I have no desire to drop 100 lbs... that would be terrible and traumatic on my body, I would probably need to be in the hospital or something.

However, I do want to lose 10-20 lbs (like 5-8 stones, Tat). 'How in the world will you do this Trevor?', you may ask. 'You are the healthiest, most fit guy I know!' you may demand. I know, I know.

In all seriousness, I will have a hard time, because I love the Coke. I am dropping soda from my daily diet (unless you count icees/slurpees, because I can't go to get Jen one and not get one for me!) and adding some light to mild exercise (above and beyond playing sports).

I will be logging my success daily here... hopefully I'll have other stories too... but this is a way of keeping me honest.