Fan Festivites!

Today I ventured out to Safeco Field with a few friends for the second day of the 2010 Seattle Mariners FanFest! A yearly event where fans can go run the bases, play catch in the outfield, meet their favorite players, explore the clubhouse, and buy lots of merchandise, the FanFest officially kicks of the upcoming Mariners season. I could do a writeup, but the pictures do a lot better job showcasing everything. I will add that luckily I only walked away with a hott [read: subdued] grey M's cap. It's very stylish. Lots of money could have been spent today -- especially if we bought those 16-game season tickets we were thinking about. Still might happen!

Why don't we get paid millions of dollars to lean against this railing?

Follow along as we made our away around and into the underbelly of Safeco Field!

Mariner's FanFest

Hard Gains

Luckily for me I work a "swing shift" on Fridays, which means that I report to work at 11AM. This allowed me to make a 7:40 appointment at the body fat testing truck yesterday, which once again made its way to the island (read about my first adventure and details of the process here).



Shady looking from the outside? Yes. But getting a reading is important to me because body fat percentage is the best indicator of whether all the work I've put into my body these past months is actually resulting in a positive outcome. The answer? A resounding yes. It turns out that in a little over three months all the trips to the gym, the tracking and planning of food, and sparse bouts of cardio have resulted in an addition of four pounds to my frame. Not spectacular by itself as my goal the whole time was to add weight, but apparently all the weight gained was lean muscle. To be precise, I had gained five pounds of muscle and lost one pound of fat since my last reading. My body fat percentage dropped from 8.7 to 7.5. Definitely reasons to celebrate!

This fantastic news only hardens my resolve to continue onward. The baseball season is coming up soon, so I have broken up my schedule into a preliminary outline:

• Jan/Feb: gain as much weight as I can, weekly plyometric sessions (build power base)
• Mar/Apr: decrease weight training, more plyometrics and skill work (explosive power (and beach ready body?))
• May: season starts, weight train once (maybe twice) a week for maintenance around game schedule

2010 is off to a good start!

Cobbled Greens

I might have just accomplished my greatest creation in the kitchen -- Cobb style salad. In classical no-fun Shin fashion, it is without dressing or added salts/additives, but it does include 3 ounces of romaine lettuce sitting under one and a third strips of turkey bacon, two egg whites, 1/3 of a medium avacado, and a half pound of chicken. Portioned out perfectly to three servings of an estimated 418 calories of healthy goodness.

Can I mention that I LOVE Snapware glasslock containers?

Details! 418 calories, 12g fat (0.083g sat), 498mg sodium, 6g carbs, 2g sugar, 70g protien.

I'm thinking of seeing if I can make bland tasting jambalaya next...

WoW

Even though he is no longer with us, the spirit of my former coworker lives on. In the hard drive of what used to be his workstation.



Wow.

Hurting Hand

In a meeting at work my bosses asked what happened to my hand.



I'm not sure if they believed my wild story of a drunken fistfight. But it was better than telling them that I injured it at the work place -- by waving my arms about my head in a reckless fashion while walking down the hall, stopping only when my hand connected with a door jamb causing me to double over in pain of a newly opened gash. This happened New Years Eve. At 10AM. Luckily no one was there to witness this act.

Out With the Old...

As a new year is upon us, I've taken a look at where I am in my life. Not so much in terms of careers or goals or relationships, but literally where I am -- my parent's house. Having been back here since I moved out of my college era apartment, I came with a goal of saving up my money to purchase me a place of my very own. A year and four months down, and I'm on my way with my resolve not dwindled at all. Sure it'd be nice to be able to be completely independent from time to time, but with the promise of a greater tomorrow on the horizon I find the thought of being here for potentially a few more years easier to accept. Though, hopefully sooner... (hint hint, boss).

But as I will be here for quite a bit longer, I've taken a look around and decided to upgrade my digs a bit. I am fortunate to have a sizable room that I can have both my bed and my "office" in, with ample space to configure in some fashion that I find both comfortable and pleasing. Unfortunately, I am also a bit of a pack rat and with all this space it can easily end up being filled with lots of crap. So my project over the past few weeks has been to go through everything in here and really evaluate whether I want to keep things or not. Old toys, trophies, mementos from the past, things I've bought with the intention of using but never have -- all were scrutinized. I've managed to fill a garbage bag as well as a large box dedicated for recyclables with stuff that I hope I'll never need or miss again.

"Oh no, my greatest weakness... eBay."

I really wish I took a before picture (maybe I have one floating around my hard drive...), but I've already moved onto phase two of rearranging everything in here. I'm debating splashing on some new paint (I'm thinking an off-white yellow) to compliment the springtime green I'm planning for the bathroom, but I might be too lazy to re-move and cover everything up. New furniture will also be needed. My current furniture was purchased with my small apartment room in mind, and now such a large shelf seems a bit of an eyesore in here. And my dream of having larger than a twin size bed may finally be realized. This all is costing a bit of money that I could be putting towards that dream home of mine, but again if I'm going to be living here for a while more I might as well make it some place I really enjoy being.