It's not only easy, it's cheap.

As you all know I have started a diet that lets me eat whatever I want as long as I don't over eat. We have discovered that it is much cheaper to eat out now.
EX: We would usually go to Chipolte and spend at least $18 - $20. Now we spend around 8 dollars to feed the entire family. Kristina and I split a burrito, Jenna gets a small quesadilla ( Instead of the large that I would eat half of), then we get a side of pinto beans for the baby. This saves us at least $10 - $12 each visit. Now we don't feel guilty about over eating or the cost of eating out.

This diet is awesome!! I have stopped going to the gym because of my very busy life with work, football, and family right now and I still continue to lose weight. I'm averaging about a pound a week. The diet is amazing and I can't wait to get back to the gym and watch the pounds melt away even quicker.

Mutual Growth

I have for about a month and a half now been helping to coach a tackle football team for Arizona Charter Academy. A great school, with great staff, and kids. I have never actually worked with kids before so this has been a new adventure me. I have been amazed and proud at the growth of my team. In the process of molding these young men, I myself have been molded into a better person. Last night we had a practice scrimmage against another team. Our guys really got to see what they are made and I was amazed at how well they played. I have a lot of confidence in the team and love playing a part in the lives off these young men. I'm a better person today for being apart of this organization.
Our season is just getting started and I can't wait to see how it all comes together on game day 1 next Friday at 7pm. Don't be late!!!
Go bulldogs!!!!
Season Schedule link

2 weeks of hell = 1 day off

I really hate holidays at my work. I will be off on Labor day this coming Monday but it at a cost of 2 weeks of hell. I have more work to do because of the increased sales during the holiday, but I have one less day to do it in. This week I worked my but off trying to prepare for the holiday, and next week I will be playing catch up since I will be starting a day late. I can understand getting off the major days like Christmas and Thanksgiving but I would just rather work the rest of them.

Stephens Monday life thought

After over week of no radio in my work truck. I have come to the conclusion that silence is gold but music is peace. Silence is OK until you have a 20 minute argument with yourself. Silence breeds anger which leads me to thoughts I didn't care to have.
A great line from 1 of my favorite Cd's.
"Ahhhhh, it's time to relax,
and you know what that means,
a glass of wine, your favourite easy chair,
and of course this compact disc playing and your home stereo.
So go on and indulge yourself,
that's right, kick off your shoes, put your feet up,
lean back and just enjoy the melodies.
After all, music soothes even the savage beast." - Offspring

Too much food.

I watched the last ten minutes of some show about how to be skinny. I have ADD. so I can't watch an hour of some guy going on and on. But the last ten minutes was about everything he had talked about in the show. One point he made was we eat what is given to us not what will make us full. So on a quest to be skinny I figured I would eat what made me full instead of what I was given. I started Monday and cut all meals in half. If I was still hungry I would eat the second half of my meal and if I wasn't I would get a to-go box. It was very hard at first since I have always cleared my plate and then moved on to other peoples until the table was empty of food. It was also hard to see the difference between hungry and habit. But I have not eaten more than half of a meal all week. So that means I have taken in half the calories of the previous week. Not diet just less of the crap I eat.
Example:
At chipolte I usually eat an entire burrito and then help my daughter finish her quesadilla. This week I ate half a burrito and stopped. I was full 10 minutes later and I'm not hungry any sooner than if I was to eat the entire burrito.
So I will not diet any more and I will eat whatever I want. I will on the other hand only eat enough to make me full and not what I'm given. I will continue to report on my progress and welcome all to try this and let me know if it worked for you. You can eat fried chicken every night of the week, you just can't eat the entire chicken.

Some more oversees tech support

So yesterday I had another problem with my Internet so I set out to make attempt at calling Quest again and again I ended up in India. Very frustrated after 30minutes of talk to a person that can't help me I said please transfer me to Quest customer service so I can cancel my service. He didn't have the capability to transfer to another country so he gave me the number. I really didn't want to cancel my service I just wanted them to fix my problem. So I called the number the man gave me and it was the same automated women that sent me to India last time. I told the automated women I want to cancel all my services with you and it immediately transferred me directly to a domestic customer service rep. Laughing at my angry yell at a automated computer, Tom answered and wanted to help me. I mentioned that I had spent over 2 hours on the phone with a tech and he has been unable to solve my problem. My contract is up at the end of the month and I want to cancel my services with you, if you can't fix my service. Tom was very quick to say he will make it right he will just need to transfer me to customer products department to get me a new modem and if that does not fix your problem we will send out a tech to fix it. I had to ask "Tom are you going to transfer me out of the country"? He laughed and said no I wont, but I do get that question a lot.
It's not over. The new guy on the phone wants to charge me for a new modem because mine is no longer under warranty. I nicely told him NO. Then said "my contract is up at the end of the month so please just send me a new modem and I wont cancel my service." The Price of the modem was waved and I only had to pay $20 something for shipping and taxes. I was willing to rest at that point and thank the man for his time. So hopefully on the 25Th my new modem will arrive and it will make the Internet a happier place for me.

Any domestic help?

Saturday night I called Quest my internet provider to help with a problem I am having connecting to my own web site. I think I started in America and I know I ended in India. After I got done with my 2 hour phone call with a man in India, my problem was not solved. But I did find out some wonderful information about India, Internet tech support:

• They do not have the ability to get on the Internet. ( Something I think you would need)
  
• They go through a data base of what the problem could be without seeing what the problem is.
• He was unable to help after we tried everything in the data base. (this took 2 hours to do)
• If you call during normal business hours you get Americans, and after hours you get Abo.
  
• He ended the call after already admitting that he was in India, by saying "and we thank you for being our customer here at Quest."

I ended the phone call irritated and upset that I had just wasted 2 hours of my life that I will never get back. On a man that knows less about computer than me. Thanks for the help Quest of India. I look forward to yelling at an American Monday - Friday 8am to 5pm, about my service that is do for a new contract. I think I will being tell them to piss off or come help me.

Stephens monday life thoughts

Life is as good as you make it.
Everyday for me is just another day in paradise. It's not filled with beaches and palm trees, but it could be a lot worse. I'm just fortunate to have all that I have.

My new ride

This week I purchased a Jeep from my very generous grandfather John Atkinson. I have been very interested in his Jeep for some time now and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I'm very excited about having such a nice vehicle to drive. My 88 Honda accord is a nice vehicle but it is not a 2000 Jeep Wrangler. Thank you very much grandpa John I am a very happy man.
The Jeep.

End of an insane week.

Our lives have gotten out of control in a hurry. This week started many new things in our lives that we need to adjust to. Jenna our oldest has started kindergarten and I have started coaching a high school football team. I also purchased a new vehicle this week, and I'm trying to sell my old vehicle. I'm sure we will get a hold of things soon but we need to adjust to a new schedule and that is always hard.

Come one come all, it is time for football.

As most of you know I'm a coach for the Arizona Charter Academy tackle football team. I'm very excited for our first season and I hope many of you can come out and see us play. Living in a home that is full of estrogen with very little testosterone around has lead me to really enjoy the man time I'm getting everyday. Please follow this link to the schedule for our team and hopefully you can make it out to cheer us on. http://www.azcharteracademy.com/hs_football_schedule

Go Bulldogs!!!!!!!!

Stephens monday life thoughts (On a Tuesday)

Self Discipline

Working as a high school football I'm trying to teach my players self-discipline. This will help them when things get hard at the end of the game and it's time to dig deep. It's not easy when you are tired, completely drained, with bruised arms, and burping up your last meal to come to the field all pumped up and get seriously physical with somebody. But this is when games are won, and lost.
As I left the practice today I was thinking about what I just taught my players. I started to wonder if I can teach discipline in a world of excuses, self pity, laziness, and quitters. So few have the discipline it takes to really reach the goals they want to reach. If you can learn and master self discipline the world is yours for the taking and you will do anything you choose to do.
I found this article on "How to build self Discipline". Please read and start being the person you want to be. This article will be passed out to my high school football players, who are going to be the future of the world.

26 digits

I found a man with 12 fingers and 14 toes. Make sure look at both pictures of the proud man.
26 digit link

End of the world!!!

Near Geneva, Switzerland physicists are building something a little crazy. I have linked up a video and articles about the large hadron collider. They don't think it will end the world, but it could. They say it could create Microscopic black holes, strangelet, magnetic monopole, and supersymmetry. The first link is the video and it seems like a really bad idea to start this thing up after watching that. But I am no physicist so we will just have to see what happens. I hope they don't just screw us all with abnormality's or blow up the sun so we suffer. I want it to be either successful with no complications, or just blow this mother up.

Video Link
Article link
Wikipedia Link

Stephens monday life thoughts

A little research is never wasted time. Wasted time is going in having no idea.

I recieved a double wep

This Saturday I spent fighting my computer network and my 1/2 knowledge of it. I have never been able to get my second laptop on my wireless network for Jenna and I never understood why. Then when I went to set up my grandmothers laptop on my network it also didn't work. I printed out my network settings hand type my wep code and it would say I was not able to connect the network. I figured I would just reset everything and it should work, right.

How it broke down:

• I reset the modem which I was thinking should help. It erased all setting and required a phone call to Quest to get it get back on line. But not before I messed with it for awhile.
• 1 1/2 hours later I'm back were I started just more frustrated.
• I attempted another round of manual set up and set up through my jump drive. Still failing and not understanding why.
• So lets try the reset things again. I reset my wireless router this time. Now I have no Internet connection to any computers and I'm being asked to for a user name and password with no clue as to what that would be, I'm completely frustrated. Another hour has gone by and I need to clear my head.
• A buddies birthday party and 4 beers later I'm feeling better.
• When I got home I bypassed the router and plugged directly into my modem to do some research on my wireless router. It turns out when you reset it has a default user name and password.
  
• On my way to recovery, I hope.
• I get in to my modem and start to set it up when I see a different set of wep codes then I was using to set up my network. A light turns on in my head and realize, I have 2 wep codes. 1 for the router and 1 for the network. You can't log into a network without access to the router.
• Now I quickly solve a 10 minute problem in 4 hours. But I walked away with 4 hours of knowledge about my network and computer.

I hope you all enjoyed and learned from my 1/2 knowledge of my computer. Join me for the next installment of Stephen Vs. the dumb computer.

Huff, huff dead

I saw a guy die today, I think. When I pulled into my last stop today I say a guy rolling around under a tree across the parking lot. I just figured he was drunk and just catching a nap. When I went into the account I told the manager and he called the police. When I came out from completing the delivery a lot of police, and fire trucks were over where the guy was and an ambulance was driving away. The manager was outside so I walked over and asked him what had happened. He said the man was surrounded by 15 empty cans of furniture polish and unconscious. He also said the paramedics were trying to revive him but when he left in the ambulance he was still unconscious. So I guess the guy was huffing and 15 cans later I guess he was done. It was very odd because I thought I saw him move when I pulled up. 30 minutes later he is dead. This just happens to be the same store I seen a car catch fire and blow up near the gas pumps on Monday.