This is my first post here and I do not have a lot of time right now, but since I have the site up and running I figured I should at least say something.

I am planning on posting here often about things that I am doing to lose weight and live a healthier life. I am not looking to bulk up or be some kind of muscled up body builder or whatever, just looking to drop a few of the extra pounds I have put on, eat a little better, and be more active and healthy than I have been in the past.

I will post a little more about me later but I just wanted to howdy and I look forward to sharing what I do and learn with you.

Today my wife and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary!

I LOVE YOU SANDY! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

My step daughter Vic is living out in Breckenridge, Colorado. I know she stops by and reads this from time to time so I just wanted to drop here a note.

HI VIC!

I reckon it is just about time for snow to start falling out there so not too much longer before she will be back on the mountain with her snowboard.

Sandy and I drove out there to visit her last winter. Even though I do not ski and I definitely do not snowboard Breckenridge is a cool little town and I am looking forward to when we can get out there again.
Hope all is going well Vic, see you soon.

The 1996 Jeep that we had with nearly 250,000 miles was starting to have a few problems. Nothing major, but is it really worth dumping cash into a vehicle that is over 10 years old with a bunch of hard miles on it? It was a good vehicle and it was kind of hard letting it go (would have been a bit easier if it had actually been worth something as a trade in).

Anyway we picked up this 2003 Nissan Xterra with only 39,000 miles on it. Got it for a pretty good deal from our friend Larry over at Duke Automotive in downtown Suffolk. If you live in the area and you are looking for a car check them out. Larry and the guys over at Duke will treat you right. We have actually bought 3 cars from them, Sandy’s mom’s car, Sandy’s Jeep Wrangler, and now the Xterra and they have always treated us right.

Here are a couple of pics of the new toy.

So far I like it a lot. It rides nice and the gas mileage is not too bad. It is 4 wheel drive so I am looking forward to the chance to take it out on the beach.

Lastnight Sandy and I went to the Kenny Chesney Concert. It was a sold out show at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. We met a friend of ours, Dawn, for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays and then went to the show. We were running a little late and traffic was terrible. Took us a good while to get into the parking area and get a spot. We met Kevin and Danna at the show.

I took a few pics at the show with my phone. First time I have used the phone for that since I got it and that was several years ago. I guess it takes an ok pic for what it is.

Danna and Kevin

Sandy

Kenny Chesney

It was a pretty good show. We missed the first act but got there in time for Dierks Bentley’s performance and he was pretty good. We have seen Kenny before and this is who we really wanted to see.

Kenny does put on a pretty good show, but for some reason lastnight the sound kind of sucked.

Since it was a school night we did not stay for the whole concert, we left about half way through Kenny’s show. Probably a good thing anyway, with the number of people there if we had stayed till the end it probably would have taken hours to get out of there.

Anyway we had a good time, now it is back to work.

Took yesterday off work, for no real reason other than to take a break.

Did not do much in the morning. Some site maintenance on ChopperStickers.com, a few other little things on my server, paid all my bills, stupid stuff like that.

Sandy had some work that had to get done so she was not able to take the whole day off. She got home about noon and we headed out on the bike for some lunch. Then we went bowling for a bit, I WON. This is unusual, she usually beats me pretty good. I actually bowled over 100 all three games that we bowled, again this is unusual since I usually bowl about an 80.

Came home and spent couple hours in the pool.

Just a great relaxing day off.

Today is my birthday. :)

This past weekend Sandy took me to Ocracoke Village in North Carolina as a birthday present. Ocracoke is small fishing village on North Carolina’s outerbanks just south of Hatteras. It is an island and you have to take a ferry or plane to get there.

We had a great time.

This is the first time that we have been down there during season. We usually go in February and just before the summer season starts in May.

I really enjoy Ocracoke there is not much to do there, especially off season, but relax. Yes there are still a lot of visitors but the island is just kind of layed back.

We took off early on Friday and headed south. Stopping at Southland just across the Virginia/NC border for lunch. Then heading on south. Was not much traffic, figured we headed out early enough to beat the weekend rush.

When Sandy and I go down by ourselves (with out the rest of the family) we always stay at the same place, The Bluff Shoals Motel. It is nothing fancy, just a clean room and it is cheap. The owners and employees are nice, the view from rooms 6 and 7 are great, they have a private deck on the water, and free bicycles for guest to use.

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A Weekend in Ocracoke

I have a lot of things that I want to do to several of my websites. So I am going to list some of them here, mainly just for my reference.

1. Redesign http://www.ridinggearonline.com/
   This site actually gets some decent traffic and I do make a few affiliate sales off of it every month. Nothing to get rally excited about but there is some potential there. I had originially set it up as a review site but there has been no participation in it so I think it is about time for a redesign.Not really sure what direction I am going to go with it but it does need to be done.
2. Clean up index and ads at http://www.vabiker.net/ads/
   Now here is where I get a lot of traffic and the splash pages do well. I do really good with commissions from this index. Problem is that several of the pages link to affiliate programs that are not active anymore, a few of them are just thrown together, I really need to get this area cleaned up.
3. Figure out what to do with http://www.customchopperbuilding.com/ and http://www.custombikebuilding.com/
   Currently both of these point to http://www.custommotorcyclebuilding.com/ need to actually create seperate sites for them. Not sure what I am going to do yet but I will figure it out.
4. Clean up Meta Tags on http://www.vabiker.com/ and set up search engine friendly URLs.
   I get A LOT of traffic to this site but no conversions. Going to do some fooling around with the design and clean some things up.
5. Need to clean up my database a bit, there are a few databases in there that I am no longer used. Just need to clean things up.

There is more on the list but I think that is enough for now. Not sure when I am going to find time to work on this stuff. Think I might start with #2 actually. This area needs the most work. I reckon I will get around to it sometime, hopefully soon.

This past weekend was my son Johnathan’s Birthday. He had a pool party on Sunday at it was a really good time. The kids played in the pool and had cake and ice cream. They really had a great time. Trying to keep everything straight for the party and what not I did not even think about the camera so I have no pictures, which sucks.

Friday when I picked him up for the weekend I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said “I want a Mohawk”. No problem. I had one when I was in High School so it is cool with me. I had to call his mom though, that was the last thing I wanted was to go get him a mohawk and then she freak out. She ok’d it and my wife Sandy ok’d it so off to the barber we went. I usually cut his hair, but I just buzz it with the clippers and I did not want to screw it up so I took him to someone else. At least if they screwed it up I could throw a fit about it :)

Anyway he got his mohawk and he looks really cool. We ended up having a great weekend. Even though his party was on Sunday, Saturday was his actual birthday so we let him choose whatever he wanted to do that day. We had breakfast at Ed’s Place in Suffolk and then Dinner at Red Robin. They sang happy birthady to him and he got a kick out of that.

It was a great weekend and the kids had a good time.

This coming weekend is my birthday and Sandy is taking me to Ocracoke for the weekend. Looking forward to that. Ocracoke is one of my favorite places to get away to. It is close and quiet and a great place to relax.

Sandy and I decided to take yesterday off. We just needed a bit of a break. She needed it a bit more than me since she has been putting in some really long hours at work.

We didn’t do a whole lot. Went to Ed’s Place in Suffolk and had breakfast then ran a few errands then spent the rest of the day just hanging out by the pool.

It was a great day, but today it is back to work.