Camp Nolan

If you check out the picture, you’ll see a helicopter next to the house. Who has a chopper land at their party? That’s the fun for at least two years in a row at my friend, Nolan’s party.

First, it was great getting to see some of my former co-workers. I live in the same city, work in the same industry but get to see them so infrequently. I guess it takes a party with something like cars, choppers, food and libations to bring people together. I got to see Newshutr and meet Mrs. Newshutr along with enjoying some dinner talk with them at the picnic table. I work for the competition of many people at this party but they all seem like family.

I got to meet the daughter of one of my friends. I got a lot of e-mail photos and picturemail but never got to meet Olivia in person. She’s cute and loves the water even though she got her dad’s shorts soaked. Soaked shorts suck!

Two of the radio stations were represented. The Buzzard and that Majic station showed up for the party.

It’s always great to see my friend’s mom and her husband. She’s a social butterfly at these events. Everyone who hasn’t met her, wants to. I saw her pulled in a hundred different directions about five or six times throughout the night. I don’t know how you couldn’t love her.

I love it when people you don’t know ask you your age and then come way low. I can never tell if people are being polite or telling the truth. You get the truth from me so if I guess old, well, I don’t have a degree in guessing people’s ages so don’t worry too much about it. I digress. The boyfriend of one of my friends and I got to talking him about getting older. He was older than I guessed. He was divorced. I didn’t get married, we stopped short. Anyhow, he told me how he dropped 30 pounds right after the break-up. I laughed. He didn’t understand until I told him I did the same thing. He said he’s working out a lot. I laughed. He understood. It’s fun sharing life changing information with people you don’t know.

I spent time with one of my former directors, Mark, and his wife, Julie. They are a riot. Their kids are grown-up enough to take care of themselves while Mom & Dad are away so they had a good time. Mark has always been supportive of my work. He’s one of the people always asking me when I’ll come back.

I have to admit getting a little old my bodyclock was getting the best of me at the end of the night and left around 10:3opm to go home. I arrived back downtown around 11:15 and was sawing logs around midnight. I argued with myself this morning when the clock read 7:15am. I woke up again around 10:30am. My body needed the sleep.

Is that another week and busy weekend staring at me?

Confused (& Probably Just Tired)

It’s the end of the week for me and I’m confused.

I have friends who are playing right now at “Around The Corner”. I should go.

I haven’t worked out today. I should.

I got some sleep during the day but I don’t feel like it was enough. I’m not going back to sleep for now.

I haven’t biked since the first day I was out because it was raining yesterday and Tuesday I worked out. I’m biking to Tremont tomorrow to go to the bank. (Robbers, I will have no money before or after I visit said bank so don’t even try. You will just be wasting your time and risk me running over your butt with my bike. I’m warning you I will do it. Seriously, don’t try!) Seriously!

I have a lot planned this weekend. I have a lot planned over the next three weekends. At the end of the week, it catches up with me, the lack of sleep, the “to-do” list grows out of control. Why can’t we have eight days to a week where we get three days off? I’d just probably plan more things on the extra day and ignore all of the little tasks I really need to accomplish.

Tomorrow night promises to be fun with the Ingenuity party that Cool Cleveland is hosting plus, I’ll be hanging out with a new friend. One of my out of town friends is visiting Cleveland. It’ll be good to see him since he’s sort of fallen off the face of the earth.

Saturday night will be fun. I’ll get to see one of my best friends as he hosts his annual pool party. I’ll have pictures probably posted via the cell phone. It’ll be a blast, I promise.

Okay, enough stalling. I’m going to Lakewood to “Around the Corner” to wish one of my friends happy birthday. I’ll work out tonight, I promise. Make sure to ask me tomorrow if I did, that way I won’t be able to skate on that promise.

Alas, the weekend cometh… At least that means a night’s sleep,

Weekend Recap

Good times so far this weekend.

I got my new computer up and running fully. I have to do some housekeeping inside the machine; tie-wrapping cables, installing the hard drives in their bays, putting the cover together. I will probably spend some of the day getting software installed on it. It runs Windows Vista like a champ. Basically, the freeze problem centered around the fact that I was running a hard drive and a cd-rom drive off the same IDE bus. It’s well-documented that you can do this but for some reason my computer/mobo didn’t like it and pouted (read: froze up!).

I’m writing this blog before I officially start my day. I’m going down to my friend, Kevin’s house to get my new bicycle. What a friend! He’s giving me the bike. Of course, I’ll ask him like 50 times if I won’t take any money for it and he won’t but that’s how we roll. I’ll probably have to stop at Target for a bike lock and cereal.

I got to meet Mel, a fellow blogger, whose place on the Internet garners a lot more attention than my little space. Say it ain’t so! You think she’s awesome from reading her posts? Try meeting her in person. She’s great and a laugh riot. ‘Nuff said for now.

Housework definately is in the plans for today. I have a load of clean laundry sitting in the dryer. Thank God, I have an iron. Oh, and there’s another load of clean laundry that somehow found it’s way on the floor. {looks around like he doesn’t know who did that}

And there’s sleep… I’m in early for the next two days at work to help with our morning newscast. One of the producers is off so I’m going to be a writing machine. My fingers and typing skills are going to get a workout.

Speaking of that, I don’t know what I pulled on the right side of my chest but it hurts like a mutha. I suspended my workouts for about four days and tried working out Friday and it seems to have come back. It HURTS! When I sneeze, I have to hold my hands to my face to stop from jerking forward, otherwise it feels like someone suckerpunched me in the ribs. Zowie!

Okay, seriously, I have to get going else all of the aforementioned things are just either not getting done or they’re all going to back into one another.

So, I’m off…

A Relaxin’ Weekend, A Busy Week Ahead…

I had one of the most relaxing weekends in a long time. On Friday night, we went to Rock Bottom for dinner. By the way, for all of the complaining commenting I do about the sign outside of the restaurant, I really do like the place inside a lot. The manager, Marco, is a great guy. I was in bed by 12:30am. I worked that day from about 7:45am until about 6:15pm. That’s after switching by body schedule around from the overnight shift. I liked being “dayside” because it’s different and provided me with some variety in my job.

Saturday, my friend, Kevin, came up and we played frisbee in the Powerhouse parking lot. We started up on the Viaduct but that idea quickly played itself out as a bad one when one of the frisbees landing in the parking lot below and the other one on the rooftop of a building on the other side. We recovered one of them I hope to recover the other one as well. Kevin doesn’t own up to the bad throws but claims my lack of catching them. I played/helped with “Zelda” for several hours. Basically lounging around until about 11:30, again, I was in bed by midnight-ish.

Side note about “Zelda”: We experienced something we call “Sand Foot” when we were inside of the Arbiter’s Grounds. Link starts moving outside of the sand like he’s walking in it. You most likely have bugs on you, use the nunchuk to shake them off of you and you’ll move faster again. We honestly thought it was either a bug in the game or the Wii was malfunctioning. How could that be? Side note out…

I got up this morning around 8am. Wow, eight hours of sleep. Amazing! I got a full workout, laundry started and I’m going for another killer run with Molly. I think she’s trying to kill me. Really, if I turn up dead on the side of a Cleveland street in a running outfit, you’ll know who to question.

After that, I’m off to my sister’s house for the second Sunday in a row. I’m getting bonus family points for this. Yes, you don’t have to warn me, I’ll wear the sunscreen because I’m not going through another week with burn and blistered shoulders like I did last week complaining to all of my co-workers. They’re tired of hearing me complain but they don’t have any choice.

I’m not getting into everything I have on the schedule for the upcoming week now or I won’t have anything to blog about later this week. Hey, it’s a tease, I’m in the TV news business, it’s what we do!

If you haven’t read my blog entry about my dad, please check it out.

To all of the Dad’s out there, have a happy one!

Two Person Life

One of my friends recently said something that hit home for me. He said he led a “two-person life”. I feel the same way.

When I arrive home, I look around and think how can one person create such a mess, where does all of the laundry come from, how can everything get so dusty and dirty so quickly, how can the carpet have crumbs and strands of fuzz all over it? I can barely keep up with everything.

Hence, the “two person life”. I need one more person around me to get things done, remember things and keep my life organized. By the time, I’m done with work, sleep and workout, I’m tired. Maybe not enough to sleep but just exhausted. I want to watch TV, surf the ‘net or just stare out my window.

The rest of my week will fly by because I have something planned every night. By the weekend, I’ll be exhausted and not even want to have any fun.

How do you get through your days, weeks and months?

The Workout Continues

I’ve been so proud of myself keeping up with my workout routine. If Paul isn’t available to go downstairs to our workout facility, Dan is. Dan always wants to work out weights, abs and cardio all at the same time. I have to remind him that I’m not as young as he is. I, am not however, admitting being older than him.

He does have a point though, I need to get back into my routine of doing more cardio. Remember when I was up to seven miles on the elliptical? I do, that’s how I lost a lot of weight. I’ve toned up a lot. I’m very proud of what I’ve done. I still want to lose a little more weight, especially around that mid-region area. I know it involves diet. I hate dieting, I’d rather run all day than worry about dieting.

Like I’ve said before, it’s better to have people to encourage you while you’re working out. I know that’s the case for me.

Sick & Tired

Literally, I’m sick and tired. I had to leave work early this morning because this cold bug has gotten the best of me. It came out of nowhere and hit me like nobody’s business. I tried to get sleep yesterday but the cold prevented any real sleep. I came home and got about three hours of sleep this morning but it’s tough when construction crews are working outside of my window.

Tomorrow is the first day of the May book. I need to be on my best form because on this schedule, it’s very easy to get behind in the sleep department and become exhausted. They call the May ratings period one of the most important because we don’t have another true book until November. This year will be different because People Meters are coming to our Cleveland market.

I digress though, I told someone this morning that I’m shocked that I got sick because I take vitamins, workout everyday and am eating more healthy than ever.

I watched an interview recently with Dr. Michael Roizen who said basically it’s tough to do anything for yourself, whether it’s working out, quitting smoking or dieting. He says you have to have a friend prop you up and you have to do the same thing for them. You know Roizen from Oprah’s show. I agree because working out with friends help keep you on schedule, however, I’ve become so addicted to exercise, something feels not right when I don’t do it.

That’s all for now because I’m exhausted…

Weekend Update

Nope, this isn’t a post about Saturday Night Live. It’s already been an interesting weekend.

My friends and I went to the aforementioned Domestic Violence Center benefit at St. Helena’s Church. On the way there, we made an ATM stop. I never carry cash so I needed money for the donation to get into the fundraiser. Remember, the fact about me not carrying cash by the way. While at the ATM, a couple pestered us for a couple of bucks for bus fare. They weren’t violent just persistent. I didn’t wan t hang out for too much longer so I think in my haste I left my debit card in machine. I didn’t even notice this had happened until this morning. Since I had cash, I didn’t use my card. Only today at lunch did I notice the missing card.

Remember the whole thing about not carrying cash? Now, I only have what I have left in my wallet. I need to locate my original ATM card. Remember, it’s not a debit card though. I called the bank and cancelled my last card and ordered another one. It’s going to cost me five dollars to get the card to me quicker. I can expect it on Wednesday. I can go to the bank and get any money on Monday. I now also have to change over all of my online bill payments to reflect the new card number. That’s just going to be a little bit of a pain.

You’re probably wondering if there was any activity on my card. No, there wasn’t. I only assume the above story is correct becuase I don’t remember getting the card out of the machine but I don’t remember not getting it either. If that didn’t happen, it slipped out of my pocket at the benefit.

So, this whole process is a little bit of a pain but no real trouble came out of except I have to go without a debit card for four days and it cost me five bucks.

On another topic, both of my neighbors, Dan & Molly are sick. They have the flu and I hope they get better. They’re struggling right now. Dan just got a Wii and he hasn’t even played it because he doesn’t feel up to it. I, on the other hang, am feeling good enough and I love bowling, golf and trivia. I beat their brother, Kevin, on baseball. He beats me on bowling though.

I do have a couple of thoughts and questions about the Wii though. Why don’t the baseball players have any legs? Also why do some of the people on the Party Pack keep rubbing their stomachs during the game?

Don’t expect me to go out and buy a Wii though. I don’t have enough time to get the things I need to get accomplished without the temptation of the Wii. I will tell you however they are addicting and they will tired you out, especially if you’re playing boxing.

On yet another topic, I’m sore. I put in two good workouts with the toughest being Friday. My abs are still sore, my neck aches, my elbows are are tight. I guess it’s all about no pain, no gain.

I’m excited about hanging out with my friend, Missy, tonight. I haven’t seen her for a while. We’re going to have dinner. She, too, has been sick recently and traveling a lot so I haven’t gotten any rock star time with her.

Enjoy the remainder of your weekend, here’s to being cashless!

The Fame Index

You ever just wonder how much information is out there about you? I decided I’d “google” my name Todd Sheppard. I get all sorts of hits back on people who aren’t me but also see a couple of hits. It’s a fame index sort of thing.

I also “googled” (I use Yahoo! however) “taawd” and found something else. My blog entries get picked up by all sorts of websites (at least the good ones!). I was glad to see the Plain Dealer put one of my posts on their website. Check it out here.

I got in a good workout today. I’m going to be sore tomorrow. I’m going to try to get back to doing more cardio. This means back to the Elliptical but I don’t think I’ll be hitting my seven miles a day that I was doing for a while this past summer. I just want to burn some calories. I’ve got someone to keep me motivated too, although I haven’t needed that help in the past. I’m proud to say I got some discipline apparently. That’s a rather new trait for me. My friend, Paul, will probably just keep me honest. I’m a little worried about working out with this new schedule, we’ll see how that goes…

Have a great Tuesday,

Weekend Vibrations…

An active day. I got up and cleaned. Believe me, I needed to clean. How can things get so messy? Rhetorical question but one that can be easily answered. I’ve also been wanting to go to the local Farmer’s Market for some weeks now. I’ve just had plans that prevented me from doing so. I got a dozen ears of corn and already had three of them. I love sweet corn on the cob! It’s a dinner tradition this time of year for my family. I’d never think of corn as an entire meal any other time but it’s acceptable now.

Speaking of meals, I had brunch at First Watch and some quality conversation. Good catch-up time outside that almost reminded me a little of Europe. Okay, it was just the whole sitting outside deal. But I digress… I also did a little shopping at Trader Joe’s. It’s a fairly small grocery store but you could spend a lot of time inside looking at everything for sale.

I’ve increased my run once again. Today, I got in six miles on the elliptical. I’m thankful for that. I’m going to try to get an off day run in tomorrow of three miles.

What I’m most thankful for today is the two hour nap God granted me. Why do I say this? First, that I was able to sleep for this long in the middle of the day, that’s amazing. Secondly, I didn’t turn my cell phone off and that’s just a recipe for someone to wake me up is even more amazing!

BBAD Update: Things are relatively quiet in the Big Brother house. Amber is distancing herself from the rest of the houseguests. She and Zach are upon the block. Zach is using every chance he gets to campaign for himself with everyone. I think he’s cloned himself. Everytime they change cameras he seems to be in the frame. Jessica is loving her HOH status. Jameka is also using Jessica’s win to hang out and plot with her. During Friday night’s BBAD, they showed Jameka praying and crying for a long time before Jessica came up to the room and started talking to her. Jessica also claimed she’s very into church but doesn’t bring it up much for competitive reasons. ED and Daniele spent a lot of time plotting their moves in the house. Eric’s keeping a low-profile. He doesn’t have much to worry about with Jessica in control of the house.

Lastly, I finally got some additional pictures back from Europe and my friend took one of me that I really like. You have to look at it closely but it’s a great picture and I plan on framing it. In fact, after posting it, you probably have to click on it to get the full effect.

Hope you’re enjoying you weekend so far as much as I have!