Lose Weight and Get Healthy

Sadly I’m a computer geek and I sit of my butt most of the day. Sadly I’ve never really considered myself an athletic person. I grew up with asthma therefore I never really did good at sports or running in particular.

I do seem to do well riding a mountain bike. I think all the different gears make riding easier for me. Then again, it could be just a mindset thing.

My first bike was a big-wheel – I guess you could call that a bike. It had pedals and it got me around the cul-de-sac (our house was on a cul-de-sac).

When I was 14 I delivered papers on a 1970’s banana seat bike with huge baskets on the front and back. At 4 in the morning I would load that bike up with about 100 pounds of papers and go out delivering papers in my neighborhood. Good times!

I know I had a ten speed in high school and I never really road a bike on my mission. Most of the time we had a car or we just relied on public transportation. I could tell you stories about the RTA!

My first mountain bike was a Giant. Then I upgraded that to a Cannondale. The Cannondale was awesome. I road the Cannondale to ASU and almost everywhere in between. While I was at ASU I had 2 “U” locks and a cable lock. I made sure if anyone wanted to steal my bike they would have to get through all 3 locks. I had no doubt a thief could steal my bike if he wanted but it would take him 10 minutes to get my bike and only a minute to get the other guy’s bike.

My Cannondale ended up getting stolen right out of my apartment. Someone just walked in and walked out with it.

My current bike is a Trek 4300. I bought it back in 2007 and I really like it. I couldn’t afford to spend $1000 and the Trek 4300 is a really good bike for the money (less than $1000).

Two years ago I was really good about riding it several days a week. Then, I just got too busy with work, church and family. And, for whatever reason, I lost my energy or enthusiasm for riding. I think I just got lazy.

Now, I’m on it again. I am focused and motivated!

Eat less... Exercise more...

This year...

We just had a very good Stake Conference. A lot happened... They split our ward and I am no longer in the bishopric. Mela and I are not in the Palo Verde Ward anymore. We are in a new ward called the Westpark Ward. As to what callings we will have we have no idea. I hope I get made a Gospel Doctrine teacher or a teacher in Sunday School. I really enjoy teaching.

We are really going to miss our friends in our old ward. Mela & I cried when we found out that most of our close friends and families we have looked up to and people we have served with are now in another ward.

Every ward is what you make of it. Mela & I will make the Westpark Ward our best ward ever just like we did with Palo Verde.

All this being said... I am very happy to not be in charge of anything. I’m a much better Indian than I am a Chief.

On another note:

Stake Conference always gets me thinking. I need to set some goals and get on them. Some of these goals are more urgent than others. I think I will list them in this blog post and the talk about each of them in future posts... They may give me something to write about.

This year I will...

• Lose weight and get healthy
• Get my family ready for any sort of emergency
• Get out of debt
• Have a green lawn
• Get and stay organized
• Serve others
• Put off the world
• Immerse myself in the lives of my children and my wife
• Not waste time

The above goals are not in any particular order. I think they are all going to have to be worked on at the same time.

SB1070

Is it just me or is life and the world just getting crazy?
 
SB1070 – boy I don’t even know where to start.

First of all, unlike most of SB1070’s critics, I’ve read the bill.  It’s only 17 pages long.  Click here...


My humble suggestion is for everyone to read the bill and form your own opinion.  Stop listening to the talking heads on radio and TV.  Also, if you read the bill think of it from Arizona’s perspective.  Phoenix is the #2 city when it comes to home invasions and kidnappings – second only to Mexico City.  Arizona is #1 when it comes to ID theft.  Citizens down on the boarder sleep with their guns because of the recent murders and the drug traffic happening on their land.  We’ve had several gun fights on I-10 between rival gangs.  All of these are just to name a few.

If you read the bill you likely won’t find anything in it that is racist.  There is nothing in it that says we are going to deport all the illegals or start rounding people up.

The federal government hasn’t done anything for years.  SB1070 literally mirrors federal laws when it comes to resident aliens.  What’s the difference?  If the FED isn’t going to do their job then Arizona will.  Frankly put we (70% of Arizona voters) are sick of the “it’s not my job” excuse.  It needs to end.  If FED won’t take care of illegal immigration then the states will and should.
 
On a personal note...
 
Mela and I had a drop house two doors down from us when we lived in Avondale where armed men were holding 30 illegal immigrants hostage.  I personally have been in an accident with a person who didn’t have a driver’s license or insurance who was here illegally.  Guess who had to pay for the accident... me and my insurance.
 
I really don’t want to offend anyone.  I am very sorry if I do...

Update...

I need to update my blog more often.

Unfortunately I have a deficit of time and creativity. It’s kind of sad really.

So, I will just suffice to say my family is doing great. We are getting used to having little Preston in our family. It’s funny how Mela and I feel like we have known Preston for a very long time.

Andrew loves school.

Jaedyn is still the prettiest little girl I have ever seen.

Life is good in the Christiansen world.

Christiansen News

Mela & I send a newsletter out almost every year for Christmas. This year we sent it out after Christmas so we could show off Preston (child unit #3)...

I hope everyone enjoys it. I get a kick out of making it.

I have had enough!

When in doubt, vote them out!

Very good article:

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1861-WE-THE-PEOPLE-Have-Had-Enough.html

Preston Don Christiansen

Just happy to be here!!

Step-By-Step

How to change a diaper.

Preston Don Christiansen is the newest member of the Christiansen family. For my friends who don’t have children yet or for my friends who may have forgotten the joy of changing a diaper on an infant let me give you the step-by-step process of changing a diaper.

Once piece of advice before I go forward... A good friend of mine gave me a fundamental truth of being a parent – “don’t fear the poopie.”

Step 1
Determine when a diaper needs to be changed. This can be done by smell usually. Smell is often the best way to indentify the need for a diaper change. Some more novice baby owners will use the peek method. I strongly discourage this method!

Step 2
Yell loudly, “Mela, the boy has a poopie!” If you are not married to Mela then you may need to use someone else’s name when you yell. If your baby is a girl then you may want to change the gender when you yell.

I hope this detailed step-by-step method helps.

Halloween

Jaedyn is Hannah Montana

Andrew is Tony Stewart

More On Windows 7

One of my favorite websites is lifehacker.com. They recently had an article on some Windows 7 shortcuts. I love keyboard shortcuts:

Win+Home: Clear all but the active window.
Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop.
Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window.
Shift+Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window vertically.
Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized.
Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor.
Shift+Win+Left/Right arrows: Move the window to the monitor on the left or right.

I'm a PC

I installed Windows 7 over the weekend. I just did an in-place upgrade. I went from Vista Home Premium (32bit) to Windows 7 Home Premium (32bit). I know it’s always better to do a clean install of a new operating system but I really didn’t want to go through the iTunes mess I went through a year ago.

A clean install would have formatted my drive and I would have had to recover my extensive 324 gigabyte iTunes library from my backup drive (aka The Tank). For some reason only known to Steve Jobs iTunes makes the process of moving an iTunes library an inconsistent pain in the ___. I hate iTunes but I sold my soul... I’m an idiot and I could design a better interface than iTunes.

So, the in-place upgrade was my work-around.

The upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 worked great. No significant problems.

I really like the new taskbar. I really like the customizable libraries. All the Aero stuff looks great.



Microsoft, you done good.