Too much physical activity

Is it possible to have too much physical activity? (rhetorical question) Perhaps my body is just telling me I've been doing a bit too much lately. So what happened? Well lets see... On Saturday Feb 23rd I ran in my first 5k.


You may notice the watermark on this picture, I decided not to pay $30 to get a digital copy of it. Instead I used a creative screen capture application to get it. And unfortunately the camera caught me just before I smiled, (see the grin on my running partners face?) so I ended up looking like I was half dead. Oh well, I never was very photogenic.

The following Wednesday Aaron, Brian and I went snowboarding. This was only my second time snowboarding, the first time was several years ago, so I didn't do very well.


Here's the three of us riding the lift up to the top of the mountain.


Here's one of Aaron and I.


Now that is one beautiful view of the lake.


Me giving a thumbs up sign from my knees.

At the end of the day I tried to go skiing and found my legs were just too dead already. So much for having fun skiing after a hard day of snowboarding. (sigh) Oh well...

On the way home my legs started cramping something fierce and later in the evening I could feel some pretty intense cramps in three different places in each of my legs. Starting to sound like too much physical activity yet? Ok, well I have one more for you then.

Last week I signed up for a gym membership and this evening was my first time working with a personal trainer. (no pictures with this one) One of the exercises he had me do was push ups. Now I already knew my arms were extremely weak, but somehow I only managed two! (how embarrassing) He also had me do several other more interesting exercises and as a result just about my whole body feels worn out. He also wants me to up my calorie intake to 1000 a day and my protein intake to 100 grams a day and to do this resistance training 3-5 days a week. Ouch! And I thought training for a 5k was hard!

Ok, I realize for some of you that may not seem like a lot of physical activity, but I can tell you, it's a lot more than I'm used to. :)

If you feel so inclined you can post a comment or else just keep poking back in to see when I update this again. (it may be sooner than you think)

A trip to Arizona

No you're not hallucinating, I actually am posting an update. This week I had something worth posting about. Ok, I'll let you decide if it was worth posting about. And if you post a comment I'll assume you came by and survived the heart attack of seeing an update.

Anyway, if you hadn't already guessed by reading the title I'm in Arizona this week, on a business trip no less. Unfortunately as business trips oftentimes go Murphy's law was in full effect and our first day onsite was a 14 hour day. Thankfully I was able to get about 9 hours of sleep last night so I'm feeling much better today. One thing I will say about Arizona, the scenery is much prettier than California. (though not quite as pretty as Colorado) So without further adieu here are a couple of pictures we were able to take...


Here's an example of that beauty, you can kind of see the red in the soil with the mesa in the background. We actually did see a sign on this trip for an exit called Table Mesa, talk about redundant. :)


A picture taken at daybreak, unfortunately I didn't catch it while the sun was on the horizon, which was much prettier. This picture still doesn't do it justice though.


Our handy GPS, which kept us from getting lost when we were driving in the middle of nowhere.


Yes there was snow, at least at the higher elevations, there was quite a bit in Flagstaff actually. Hopefully the storm they're predicting won't cause a problem friday when driving back to the airport.


Beyond the stop sign warning sign you can see a lovely horizon with the National Forest in the middle. We are working in the Apache-Sitgreave National Forest and it is actually quite beautiful.


Our destination at last, the Black Mesa ranger station. This was our view when we arrived.


A lovely view of the forest near the ranger station.


A typical information center like you often see at rest stops and ranger stations off of major interstate highways.


And I thought they only had these in the Northeast, like in Vermont.


A view of the entire tree. (almost)


A very nice tribute to a man with a very good name. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to ask about who he was.


The only "fast food" in town. I guess maybe that's why Subway is the largest fast food chain in the US. (that's our Infiniti M35 parked out front by the way, it's a very fast car!)


Why does my co-worker JT look so happy? Perhaps it's because we're getting ready to leave at a little after 4 instead of a little after 11 like the night before.


Here's a little better view of the stuffed bear in the lobby of the ranger station.


I couldn't resist getting my picture taken with it. :)


A double warning about the ice.


The name says it all, though I think perhaps trimming is in order here.


A lovely view of the ranger station as we leave.


As we drove back through Holbrook on our way to Winslow I snapped a shot of this place. Don't see too many of these anymore.





A couple pictures of the clouds, though again, the pictures don't do that sunset justice.

Now just in case some of you took offense at what I said about Arizona not being as pretty as Colorado; here are a couple of pictures that I did take while in Colorado that will hopefully give you somewhat of an idea of why I said that.



Ok, so two pictures may not seem like much proof, so I guess you'll have to take my word for it.

With that I'll conclude this post. Until next time, (hopefully in less than 2 months) thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed it!

A Saturday in San Diego

Ok, I realize I've been really bad about posting, given the fact I haven't posted anything for over 2 months, but hopefully this one will kind of make up for it.

Last Saturday (11/3) we went down to San Diego for the day to practice brass for Nov 18th, when we are going back down to play on a Sunday. While we were there we also had a fun day at the park, (see pictures below) playing volleyball and football. After that we went back and practiced our Men's Chorus singing, also in preperation for the 18th. If you need any further detail on what we will be playing/singing my brother Justin has it all outlined in one of his previous posts. A link to his blog is located on the right, in case you don't already know how to get there.

And with that we will start with the pictures, I apologize that they aren't the greatest quality but I'm still getting used to my new camera. Also I didn't take all of them, as evidenced by the fact you can actually see me in a couple of them. (Andrew, where are you when I need you!) :)

Right after lunch some of the guys started out by throwing the football around for a little bit. Here's Jonathan getting ready to throw the ball to somebody.

Here's Kyle launching one.

And another one of Kyle as he gets ready to launch one.

I think Justin had a little too much too eat for lunch. But then I can't blame him, I did too, it was really good!

Jonathan gets ready to launch one.

Justin catching the football.

Kyle looks so relieved to catch this one. :)

Jonathan celebrating ... something.

The frowning photographer.

And here's a couple of shots while we were getting ready to play volleyball.

And finally the game starts, I think...

Ok, those last several pictures weren't that interesting, but here you can see where I just crushed the ball. (at least that's what I think happened) :)

And here's a different angle on the action.

And that'll do it for this post. In case you're wondering, the date listed is the date I started the post, talk about procrastination! Almost three weeks later I finished it. Well, the upload process for the pictures was very time consuming and I had problems with it a few times. Hopefully I'll have something new to post soon. Until then, thanks for stopping by.

A night at the symphony

A little over a week ago I had an opportunity to take my brother with me to see the Pacific Symphony play a tribute to John Williams. It was a really neat concert.

Here is a shot of the stage before the concert started.

Here are a few shots of the actual concert.

And here is a shot of Aaron during the intermission.

And a shot of your's truly during the intermission.

For the last piece (Raider March) there was also a fireworks display.

Here's the orchestra during the final piece.

And more shots of fireworks!

I really liked how this shot turned out with the blue colors!

After the concert was over, while we were on our way out, we ran into a couple of interesting characters!

As well as a very interesting looking car!

Here you can see the difference in colors between Aaron's camera phone and mine. Personally I like these next two pictures better, but I may be biased. :)

Here Aaron decided he wanted to have his picture taken with the car!

And that's all for this time, thanks for stopping by!

A Day at Sea World

Here's a post for all you animal lovers out there!

I got to spend the day at Sea World yesterday and the following are some pictures I took.


Starting off, we got some great views of the polar bear(s)!

Then from the underwater view we got to see a Walrus.

And a Beluga Whale!

Since none of the pictures inside the Penguin Encounter turned out, here's a few of the South American penguins outside!

Here they are in line to get fed!

But what's this! An intruder pulling the towel off of the fish pail!

And now he's stolen a fish!

Here he is taking a peek to see if the trainers have noticed his sneaky stealing!

Apparently so!

(Believe it or not, that actually happened!)



Here's a few shots from the Shamu show!

And the Dolphin show!

Actually this is a pilot whale!
(In the dolphin show, go figure?!?)

Another Dolphin, this one jumping for the flag!

And here's the rest of them!

And that concludes this post, Hope you enjoyed it!

Thanks for stopping by!

A long overdue update

Considering it's now been over a month since I posted anything,
I decided, since I had a few free minutes, I would post an update.

Ok, since I am calling this a "horn players blog"
I decided I should post a picture of a horn,
or more specifically "my" horn.

So here is my horn!!!

And here is where I spend most of my evenings,
and if you think I'm kidding just ask my family.

And when I'm not practicing horn
this is usually where you'll find me.

Here's a memorable moment that happened in the last month.
I got to meet and get my picture taken with "Coach" Wooden!

What else happened this last month?

Well, other than working a lot of long hours
and starting a new treatment, not much.

July actually went by rather quickly
and now we're a week into August already.

I'll try to use my camera a little bit more this month.
If anything exciting happens I'll post something new.

Until then, thanks for stopping by!

4th of July Park Day

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July! I'm finally getting this up a day late since I was completely worn out after all of the activites of the park day. There wasn't quite as many people there as we sometimes have so some of us got a little extra exercise, and unfortunately I'm still feeling it a bit. I guess it's a sign I'm getting old...

But enough of an introduction I'm sure you're more interested in seeing pictures than hearing me ramble.

The pastor (my dad) pitched the entire game again for both teams!

Sometimes I wonder how he does it.

Here's Aaron putting a charge into one, I'm not sure if that's the one that ended up over the fence or not.

Here's the other team, watching as someone bats.

Jonathan must have really gotten a hold of that one!

Justin putting one into play.

These next two were "borrowed" (sorry) without asking,

though it's kind of hard to ask after 10:30 at night.

Here's Steven really laying into one!

Here's me, probably popping it up to Andrew out in left field. He seemed to be catching everything out there!

After softball was over a couple of us went to play volleyball.

Here's me getting ready to set one for Aaron.

Here's me again serving one. (I never realized how awkward I look when I do that!)

Ok, I'm either getting ready to hit the ball or I'm trying to keep the sun out of my eyes. Considering that I'm wearing sunglasses it's probably the former.

Jonathan looks like he's getting ready to crush the ball, while I get ready to attempt a block.

Please tell me he's not higher than me!

Jonathan and I getting ready to receive the serve.

Aaron attempting to hit over Jonathan's block.

Jonathan really got some air on that serve!

And Jonathan pounds another one!

If you saw the last picture on Andrew's blog post, this is the other side!

Unfortunately there wasn't much else to do, but the girls didn't seem to mind too much.

And they actually did get to play in a game after all!

After all that excitement I was pretty exhausted, and I look it too.

But overall it was a very fun day, and I'm glad I was able to make it instead of spending the day in the hospital like on Memorial Day. If you enjoyed reading this please feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for stopping by!