Then there were three (or five)

So it's official, we are about to have a baby wookiee running around. Here is the very first pictures of our Gummy Bear!!!!!



We are about 12 weeks along now (picture was at 10 weeks) and so far so good. :-) SO with our puppies this makes a team of 5, going strong.

Personal Updates - October 09 Edition

9 Months in

1. Finish the first draft of my fiction novel.
Start of 2009 - I have the first 1/3rd of the book written
February 1st - Nothing more written
March 1st - Nothing more written
April 1st - Nothing more written
May 1st - Nothing
June 1st - Nothing
July 1st - Still Nothing
August 1st - Notta
September 1st - Still nothing, I hope to start once my new laptop arrives and I am a little more organized with school.
October 1st - Still nothing. Have laptop, just need time now.

2. Drop my weight to 167lbs.
Start of 2009 - I started the year at ~185
February 1st - ~180
March 1st - 175.2
April 1st - 172.2
May 1st - 172.2 (somehow again)
June 1st - 171.0 (Finally something)
July 1st - 172.2 (I bet the scale likes me at this)
August 1st - 171.2 (Yea, back down a little)
September 1st - 172.8 (and back up, apparently doing only aerobics does not help you lose weight. Unfortunately I am doing a triathlon in 2 weeks so that is the main focus of my training.
October 1st - 172.2

3. Pay off all my credit cards.
Start of 2009 - I started the year with 5 credit cards with balances and one relative we owed money to.
February 1st - Payed back the relative. Still 5 cards with balances.
March 1st - Payed off 1 card. 4 cards with balances.
April 1st - Payed off another card. Currently 3 cards with balances.
May 1st - Payed off one more. Down to 2 cards with balances. 1 with 0% APR until 2011 though so that one may be waiting a while.
June 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
July 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
August 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
September 1st - Still 2
October 1st - Actually down to 1 now. Payed off the one card, and now the last card has a 0% APR until 2011, so this will probably not be payed off this year. But otherwise I mostly achieved this goal.

Other achievements of note.
School is full steam ahead. I still feel like I am always behind but 2 classes end in the middle of October so hopefully I will get a better grasp on the situation after that. But otherwise I seem to still be a float. Finally got my new laptop so I can actually update a little more often now which I have been slowly doing. There are a bunch of updates that I have been wanting to compose so expect to see them sometime in the future.
I completed my first real triathlon a couple of weeks ago and I will have a more indepth post on that soon as well. Other than that nothing really, reading lots for school but almost nothing for fun.

Personal Goals Update - September Edition

7 Months

1. Finish the first draft of my fiction novel.
Start of 2009 - I have the first 1/3rd of the book written
February 1st - Nothing more written
March 1st - Nothing more written
April 1st - Nothing more written
May 1st - Nothing
June 1st - Nothing
July 1st - Still Nothing
August 1st - Notta
September 1st - Still nothing, I hope to start once my new laptop arrives and I am a little more organized with school.

2. Drop my weight to 167lbs.
Start of 2009 - I started the year at ~185
February 1st - ~180
March 1st - 175.2
April 1st - 172.2
May 1st - 172.2 (somehow again)
June 1st - 171.0 (Finally something)
July 1st - 172.2 (I bet the scale likes me at this)
August 1st - 171.2 (Yea, back down a little)
September 1st - 172.8 (and back up, apparently doing only aerobics does not help you lose weight. Unfortunately I am doing a triathlon in 2 weeks so that is the main focus of my training.

3. Pay off all my credit cards.
Start of 2009 - I started the year with 5 credit cards with balances and one relative we owed money to.
February 1st - Payed back the relative. Still 5 cards with balances.
March 1st - Payed off 1 card. 4 cards with balances.
April 1st - Payed off another card. Currently 3 cards with balances.
May 1st - Payed off one more. Down to 2 cards with balances. 1 with 0% APR until 2011 though so that one may be waiting a while.
June 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
July 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
August 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
September 1st - Still 2

Other achievements of note.
Started school and I am currently in week 2. Already I feel several weeks behind though with at least 3-4 papers to read a day. Plus labs to prepare for and grade so needless to say I have been busy. Other than that I started reading the second prequel Dune trilogy and I am about half way through that now. I don't think anything else of note really has happened. So here is to a productive month.

Religious Declaration

After reading an article a little while ago about an Agnostic-Humanist married to a Roman-Catholic I got to thinking "What is an Agnostic-Humanist?"

Now recently I have been referring to myself as an Agnostic but I was not entirely sure of what the definition of one was. I just assumed I did (and I was mostly right as it turned out). And I could assume what a Humanist was (but I was pretty wrong on that one). So I wondered, what am I really? Well after some research it turns out that there is a variety of Agnostics (of course) and I am in essence what is called a Strong Agnostic which believes "that it is impossible for humans to know whether or not any deities exist." This strengthens my belief that I have always viewed Agnosticism as the great indecisive category, the maybe-maybe not of the religious world. I have always felt that people are entitled to their own beliefs but any of that stuff always falls short for me. I believe what i can see and test. Anything outside of that I can't prove it doesn't exist so I leave it open for interpretation.

But I am also a Humanist it seems. Humanism is the belief in morals and other such stuff that religion can teach you just without the religion. I for one have always been in the camp that you don't need religion to be a good person (i.e. not all atheists are bad). Morals and ethics stem from a belief in good and bad, something that is in human nature, not a book (i.e. killing is bad, obviously, you don't need divine inspiration to figure that out).

So in essence I am a: Strong Agnostic Humanist.

2009 Personal Goals - August Update

7 Months

1. Finish the first draft of my fiction novel.
Start of 2009 - I have the first 1/3rd of the book written
February 1st - Nothing more written
March 1st - Nothing more written
April 1st - Nothing more written
May 1st - Nothing
June 1st - Nothing
July 1st - Still Nothing
August 1st - Notta

2. Drop my weight to 167lbs.
Start of 2009 - I started the year at ~185
February 1st - ~180
March 1st - 175.2
April 1st - 172.2
May 1st - 172.2 (somehow again)
June 1st - 171.0 (Finally something)
July 1st - 172.2 (I bet the scale likes me at this)
August 1st - 171.2 (Yea, back down a little)

3. Pay off all my credit cards.
Start of 2009 - I started the year with 5 credit cards with balances and one relative we owed money to.
February 1st - Payed back the relative. Still 5 cards with balances.
March 1st - Payed off 1 card. 4 cards with balances.
April 1st - Payed off another card. Currently 3 cards with balances.
May 1st - Payed off one more. Down to 2 cards with balances. 1 with 0% APR until 2011 though so that one may be waiting a while.
June 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
July 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off
August 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off

Other achievements of note.
School prep is still going pretty much on schedule. I start at the end of the month. Loans have pretty much been set and I have an office and a TA position. I can get my student ID on the 11th. So I am pretty excited.
I also finished fixing the sprinkler system which was a big job I was worried about. I replaced 3 out of the 4 valves, the timer, and 10/13 sprinkler heads, cut-off one sprinkler completely (it was outside the fence) and added a new one.
Training for the triathlon goes eh but it is in 6 weeks, so I best get on that. On a bright note I believe I have all the equipment that I need.