Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I think anyone with a blog would understand the feeling of sitting down to write an entry and not knowing exactly what to write about. So I thought I would just start with the events from our lives as well as the holiday season and we'll go from there.

New Job for Liz:
In early December, Liz started a new job. I would say the company but I don't know if that's an appropriate thing to say on a blog, besides, I think most everyone who reads this blog knows what it is. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a huge step forward for her in career growth, personal growth, and personal happiness in general. Her job title is the administrative assistant to the Senior Vice President. There are tons of reasons why this job is much better than the last one but I think there are two pros that trump all the rest. The first reason is that she is just a happier person for it. She is working with reasonable people and is working in a quiet atmosphere. You'd think in most jobs you'd take those characteristics for granted but we know now that you shouldn't. She is no longer in an office in which her clients have the opportunity to yell at her. When she comes home from work she may still be tired but she is anything but unhappy. The other glaring reason is that she is seeing how her work makes a difference and that it's appreciated. At her old job, no matter what she did or how good of a job she did, it was never recognized or appreciated. The clients still treated her like crap when she tried hard to make them happy and her superior gave her no respect when she worked so hard to deserve it. But I think it's nice for her to see exactly how she is making a difference and that what she is doing is benefiting the company in a way for it to prosper. I hope all these good things won't change because it looks like she is setup to have a fantastic year in 2008.

Our Pups, Daisy:
Daisy has had a rough December and it is not going to get any easier. At the end of November she had a bout of diarrhea that she got from my cousin's dog Yoshi. She got over it pretty quick but then in the middle of December it came back with a vengeance and we had to take her to the Vet where she got some good canned food as well as some medicine. She is finally over it and back to normal which is fantastic. Then this past weekend we went down to Hilton Head where we stayed in a resort where they don't allow dogs. She being so small and quiet, we figured we'd have no problem taking her. For the most part we didn't have any problems but it also meant we had to be conspicuous and take her out after dark in the woods and take her out in the morning before the sun came up. Since it was winter, it was much more manageable since the sun came up at 7 and went down around 5. So this meant we had to make one trip out during the day with her so we took her to the beach during those times. It was impressive she did so well in a new place but it was rough on her when you consider the 5 hour drive both ways. This coming weekend we are going down to Atlanta but we aren't able to bring her so she is staying with our friends Matt and Meg. This is awfully generous of them since they have two cats who aren't exactly friendly. We visited once and one of them liked her and the other one slapped her in the face, so we'll make one more visit tonight and see what happens.

After having Daisy for 4 months now, Liz and I both agree that getting her was a fantastic decision. It was a lot more work than we anticipated but she has just been a dream. I don't think we could have asked for a more well behaved dog and while she still has her annoying habits, they aren't things we can't work on with her.

Happy Holidays:
Like I said we went to Hilton Head this past weekend and that was a lot of fun. We went down with Mama and Papa D (Liz's Parents) and Scott, Hillary, Brynn, and Callie. Her parents drove almost 1200 miles from Michigan and Scott and Hilary flew all the way from Colorado to be there. We arrived on Sunday night and on Monday we went for a very long bike ride all over the island. I mapped it and it was just about a 19 mile bike ride, and for a group of 6 bikes, I'd say that is pretty good. I have to give a little recognition to the seafood place we stopped at for lunch on Monday, I think it was called Captain Seafood (creative). I had the best tilapia or fish for that matter, I've ever tasted. It was awesome. Then on Monday night we went in the hot tub and enjoyed the night together playing Mexican Train. While we couldn't stay past Christmas because we both had to work, we spent the morning opening presents and down by the pool swimming and playing shuffleboard. I'm sad we couldn't stay longer but it was a great time.

This coming weekend we will be driving to Atlanta to see my family and it will again be a shortened weekend, we will only be there from Friday night through Sunday.

Biggest Loser:
Just to give an update on the competition, it looks like as a group we have lost about 60 pounds so far. For 20 people after a month, that's a little disappointing, but 60 is better than 0 and that's the point. I personally am down about 5 pounds but I think that will be changing very soon since I've been biking and lifting so much.

Also in case anyone wants to know, on Tuesday the greatest show in the world starts back up, The Biggest Loser season 5. Liz and I are super excited.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not obsessed with television, but there are 3 relatively unknown TV shows that I have to advertise for because they are the epitome of awesome.

American Gladiators:
I am probably far too obsessed with certain television shows but American Gladiators was a childhood favorite of mine and it is coming back on TV on January 6th. I've never been so excited and it looks better than ever. Why am I excited? Because when I was a kid this show is what I lived for. I had to watch it. I lived for the action and competition. I wanted so badly to be on it. There were two things when I was a kid that I thought, "that is something that I want to eventually achieve". The two things were be on American Gladiators and run a marathon. Well with 2 marathons under my belt and a 3rd looking more and more likely, American Gladiators looks about as unlikely a reality as sliced bread, or something like that. Well all I can do is watch and live for the nights that it is on. This might be a group watching type show, because I have a bunch of friends who are excited for it as well.

Lost:
Lost is another show that Liz and I love and it is coming back for something like 20 straight episodes beginning on January 31st. We might need to get the last few episodes from Netflix because I am not quite sure I remember everything that was going on. It was such an awesome show when it started out because while it had a ton of mystery and secrets, it didn't feel like it was dragging it's feet on the action. There were always things going on and information being handed to you as vague is it might have been. But into Season 2 and 3 it fizzled out because it got to the point where you stopped caring about the secrets because the show would go so slow and your attention span was just lost (ha! pun intended) every episode. But with the ending of Season 3, it looks like it's heading in the right direction. We'll see what Season 4 has in store.

Battlestar Galactica (BSG):
This is another "Lost" type situation where it stopped early last year and hasn't had a new episode since. It will be starting back up in March 2008 and I am frakking excited!! I think a lot people look at this show as a geeky show and just write it off, unwilling to watch it. Well it's on the Sci-fi channel and the premise is that humans created robots (on the show they call them cylons (sigh-lons) also referred to as toasters) and the robots turned on the humans. They created the capability to think on their own and realized humans used them but they wanted representation (sounds familiar based on US History). Well humans wouldn't give it to them so the cylons retreated to another part of the galaxy. In BSG, they could travel through space very quickly. After many many years of hiding the cylons came back and attacked the humans in what was almost a complete obliteration of human life. Only a few survived and they are traveling in a fleet of ships fleeing from the cylons. The leader of that fleet is the Galactica, which is a ship from the Battlestar class, just like we use the words USS for the Navy. What the humans find out is during the time, the cylons were able to duplicate the human form and now the humans don't know who is a cylon and who isnt and there is only a certain blood test that can determine it. There are 13 cylons that look like humans and we are just now finding out who they are as we move into a new season. So this whole time we could have been watching our favorite characters assuming they were on the human side but really they were cylons in disguise.

That is just a rough description of what the show is about. There is such a dumb stigma that comes along with Sci-fi, that you have to be a dork or a geek to enjoy it. BSG is just an action drama staged in a different environment. And it's one of the best shows I've ever watched.

Well that concludes an awfully bland blog posting, just informational information, imagine that. I will try and come up with something more interesting soon.

I have to give picture credits to Hillary for posting them to her album. Here's a link