Suburban Intro to Homesteading

I'm still alive. Without trying to sound overly dramatic, I want to write about why I believe in and support the current protests going on in America. We have for a time now seen NFL players taking a knee, or sitting on the bench during the National Anthem. So here is a story from my life, and some thoughts. I'm still alive, and it's because I'm white. My family and a few close friends and colleagues know this story, but it wasn't until recently that the entire event has really taken a deeper meaning with me. Before my wife was pregnant I spent some time basically wasting life away as an Uber driver trying to avoid the daily 9-5 grind. What I found was that to make money, I had to drive drunk people home at night. About this time, there were surfacing stories about people attacking their Uber drivers. Well, I'm a little dude with little muscles. And at the time, didn't have the money to get a CCW license to carry a firearm. So I did what I thought was ...

I want to take a couple minutes to celebrate my wife today on her birthday. Opposites attract is pretty much the foundational building blocks of our relationship, and I have been very blessed to learn so much about life from my perfect opposite. We are very excited to go out and celebrate her birthday together, just the two of us. Which is mind blowing to me. I can't even dream of not going out with 15 people and having heck big party with tons of attention. But that's why Lindsey is so perfect in my eyes. She asked that we go out to her favorite spot, just the two of us for an evening. Elegant, simple, independent. Three characteristics that I love about her so much and want to celebrate. Lindsey knows exactly how to be elegant. She can hold herself with class, knows how to put together clothes, makeup and jewelry in just a way where it isn't flashyn but when you look a little closer she is perfectly put together. Simple. Simple might sound negative at first, but with...

Last week I shared an article on Facebook that talked about how the FDA has approved butchering chickens here in the US, shipping them to China to be processed, and sending them back to be sold here. I also mentioned that a grocery store was selling eggs for 88 cents per 18 eggs and how I think that equates too getting a really terrible product. You get what you pay for essentially, and if a factory can produce eggs for literally less than a dime a piece, maybe you might as well just pass. Some friends brought it to my attention that it can be difficult to eat quality food on a budget, which I have experienced. Trust me, I'm a baller on a budget. I truly love good food with every ounce of my being, and yet, I work a high school diploma level job and my wife and I are raising a baby. We don't have Jay Z money. For real. So I thought I would do the math, including an embarrassing phone call asking for some conversion help, to see what a quality and deliscious breakfast act...

Everyone knows the phrase "Space, the final frontier". Because you know, Star Trek is awesome. Who doesn't love Yoda and the Jabarwakis?? Exactly. But let's be real here and look at this differently. I don't think Space is the final frontier. It's time. Our futures. The only thing we have left to explore is everything. Nothing exists 5 seconds from now, it only exists now and in the past. Our futures are the final frontier. Ok, put to doobie down and lets get to work. Anyone who knows me in the realm of fitness knows that I talk about the five year change. Anything can happen in 5 years. Lets be honest, 5 years are going to come and go. in fact, 10 years are going to come and go, but that's a little harder to wrap your head around. So for context, lets stick with 5 years. Right now, you could decide that your done with your desk job, your tired of being single, your ready to have a family, and your ready to become healthy. In 5 years you...

If you ask for something, it will be given to you. Of course, it wont necessarily be what your expecting. All day I've been looking for something to write about that matters. I feel like my blogs have been pretty running focused, but that's only a part of me and honestly, not even my favorite part. One of my favorite things is to sit and talk with people about unmentionables. Unmentionables? You know what they are. Religion and Politics. 30 people just stopped reading and closed out of the blog. Ha-ha. That's ok. Kind of. But it's time they talk about them anyways, and Juan Vasquez is my case and point. Who the heck is Juan Vasquez? Juan was the answer I was looking for today as I was scrolling through a popular time wasting website. Juan was an LA gangster. He did gangster things.  However, the story didn't end there. Juan had a baby, and a familiar story emerged. His "I don't care to die" mentality turned into "My kids are more important tha...

"Some things cannot be learned until it is time to lean them". After an extended absence from church, I have learned a lot about my personal relationship with God. I have also learned a lot about religion. Most importantly is that these are different things. But I have learned my biggest lesson from my 4 month old son just the other day. It was an amazing Aha moment that left me feeling like God was sitting next to us. There are many different ways to think about God, some see him as a Him, some as an Almighty Smiter, maybe as a Brother, as the Earth itself, or possibly even just an Ancient sense of Awe and Wonder. The most common way I've been taught about God is as a Father. So it's no wonder this lesson has been lost on me for the better part of 29 years. I've never had the opportunity to be a Father before! Humans struggle to understand people of different political views, people on the other side of a battlefield, people of different socio-econom...

Why do I run? I run to suffer. For thousands of years humans evolved because running was a necessity. Running was the way of life whether to gather food, defend the village, or just to travel. But these days, none of these essential reasons to run are applicable. Our food is gathered into shopping carts, we have police to protect us from small disputes, and a military to protect from larger ones. But even the United States' enormous military force is only comprised of 1.9 million Americans (0.4 percent of the population). So, very little of our population needs to run. Except that we do need to run. We need to suffer. This idea sounds scary and sadistic at first, I know that. But bear with me. As we let more and more technology and creature comforts seep into our lives we see sharp increases in obesity and chronic stress. Our society has a 50 percent divorce rate, while heart disease and diabetes are crippling a huge portion of our population. Our bodies ...