We fans of the epic HBO series Game of Thrones have been waiting an awful long time for the final season of the show to finally air. In the meantime each of us has had a different strategy for coping with the long, cold, dark winter between seasons. One popular strategy is to watch the previous seasons again, and it’s a great approach to helping decipher all the political undercurrents of this great series. I…Read More

[[ This is a sponsored post ]] Can you imagine a day when you are no longer working and when you’re going to be relying on earnings from savings and investments rather than a paycheck? When you’re in your 20’s that seems a just about impossible concept, but when you get into your 50’s and 60’s, the Big R is starting to stare you in the face. Heck, not working is starting to sound pretty…Read More

On average, people buy a new mattress every 8-10 years or so. That’s a long time to wait. But how often do you get new sheets for your bed? It’s actually quite surprising just how luxurious it feels to slip into a bed with new high-quality sheets. Heck, truth be told, people don’t even wash their bedsheets very often: science suggests that you should wash them weekly, but on average, people change them about once…Read More

When the local Westminster restaurant 5280 Burger Bar reached out to invite me to check out their menu, I shanghaied a couple of buddies and we headed over on a weekend afternoon to see what they had to offer. Our agenda: Eat. We had a tentative plan about going to see the film Hunter Killer afterwards, but it was pretty loose because we weren’t sure how long lunch would last and because, well, any movie with…Read More

Ah college. Since I’m poised to get my son to the dorms at his college in California and then help my older daughter move into her apartment so she can continue her college journey here in Colorado, campus life has definitely been on my mind lately. When I did my undergrad at UC San Diego, I can remember having down time between classes and always utilizing it to go to the student center and play…Read More

About a decade ago I had Lasik laser eye surgery and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Prior to that I wore glasses and contact lenses, dealing with an astigmatism and gradually decaying vision which was muchly affected by the many hours of staring at computer screens in college and later. Turns out our human eyes aren’t designed for endless staring at a surface 15″ from our nose. Glasses weren’t too…Read More

I’ll own it. I don’t like New Years Eve. I haven’t liked it since I was a kid and many years I just pointedly ignore it as a sort of protest against the hype, craziness and rather mindless optimism that “this year is going to be better”. Do I set New Years Resolutions for myself? Nope. If I want to do or change something, I just get started rather than wait for an arbitrary date…Read More

Another week on Nutrisystem, and while I seem to have plateaued with actual weight loss on the scale – stuck at 270.x which puts me down about 20 pounds – I am exercising more and slimming up. To the point where my snug pants are falling down if I don’t cinch my belt up, which is, well, a bit awkward. I admit, I’m getting some diet fatigue and find that I am straying off menu…Read More

One of the best things about being on Nutrisystem – other than that I’m slimming up and have lost about 20 pounds so far – is that it’s reminding me of a variety of healthy behaviors that I have a bad tendency to let slide on a day to day basis. Eat breakfast, have small, healthy snacks throughout the day so I’m not starving at dinner, and eat smaller portions, slowly are three that immediately…Read More

I’m on about the tenth week of Nutrisystem and it’s going well: Starting at just under 290, I finally stepped on the scale and saw “270.1” appear. I’d like to keep losing – and my goal for the 12 weeks I’m on Nutrisystem was 25 pounds, but as I suspected, that’s a little bit aggressive. Still, dropping 20 pounds has been terrific so far and I still have a few more weeks to get into…Read More

The kids might be the ones in cute little costumes this Halloween, but I know it’s us Dads that do all the decorating and get everything ready. From cueing up the scary music on the Amazon Echo to changing the front porch light to a creepy blacklight, hanging skeletons on the door to building those mock tombstones for the yard, much of making a home ready for Halloween is a typically dad task. The bigger…Read More

I’m on week, uhmmm, eight with Nutrisystem and now I’m in a rhythm and don’t pay much attention to the program. I get up, prepare one of their breakfasts, supplement with a PowerFuel, grab something for my 10am snack (a PowerFuel and a SmartCarb, I like combos like a yogurt and apple, or cheese stick and banana, though sometimes I’ll plan ahead and allocate “milk” as a SmartCarb and then have it in my morning…Read More

I’m in my seventh week of Nutrisystem and am down 15 pounds on the program from my starting weight, which is good news. I haven’t been fantastic at sticking on the program because I meet friends for meals, I’m not always home, and sometimes I have an extra snack late at night because I’m a bit hungry. Still, lots of salads, lots of carrot sticks and red peppers and a whole lotta water. It’s going…Read More

With apologies to Jimmy Buffet, this is the first week I have actually noticed a reduction in waist size, which is reasonable given that I’ve lost about 14 pounds in the 5 1/2 weeks I’ve been on the Nutrisystem program. My goal is 25 pounds, but my real goal would be to lose more than that. I don’t have a desire to be skinny or scrawny, but it’d be nice to err on the side…Read More

This is my fifth week with Nutrisystem and so far it’s going pretty darn well. I’m down just about 12 pounds in that time and hoping I can keep the trend of 1-2 pounds/week. As with every change in eating, the first week on Nutrisystem tends to be a jump out of the starting line: I lost about 6 pounds in my first week, which was pretty nice! My goal is to lose 25 pounds…Read More

It didn’t take me long in my Nutrisystem journey to recognize that while the foods are healthy and easy to prepare, they don’t all taste fantastic. Fortunately, there are few meals that can’t be improved with some spices or hot sauce (depending on the food: French Toast is not a good candidate for Tabasco, though an omelette is always enhanced!) This week as I head into my fourth week of Nutrisystem, I thought I’d share…Read More

There’s lots to like about the Nutrisystem program; it’s simple, there’s very little prep time involved in eating, you get to enjoy snacks and lots of veggies, and the food ranges from good to surprisingly tasty. Where it’s a bit challenging is when you’re not at home and not near an oven, stove or microwave. Like, say, at a baseball game… Which is where I ended up last night when I was driving through Denver…Read More

I started my journey to drop some excess pounds with Nutrisystem last week and it went well. I didn’t feel particularly hungry, I cheated one night with birthday dinner with my girls, and I still managed to get a good jump start on my weight loss. The first week is the Turbo Takeoff and the program drops you down rather dramatically to a modest 1000 calories/day. I can tell you that’s a lot less than…Read More

I’ve tried dieting for a few years and can only say that my weight has continued to creep upwards. It’s hard for me to imagine, but two years ago I was 40 pounds lighter than I am now. I suppose I’m fortunate that I’m tall so I don’t immediately look morbidly obese, but adding that much weight not only impacts your wardrobe, but your health too. I know I’m not as healthy as I was…Read More

Note: This post was sponsored by Essilor as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own. As usual. 🙂 Most people don’t realize just how tough bright sunlight is on your eyes. Yes, you can get a headache and your eyes can hurt after a bike ride, drive or hike on a bright, sunny day, but just like UV exposure isn’t good for your skin…Read More

As part of his promotional tour for the new blockbuster sci-fi comedy action film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, star Chris Pratt apparently said something outrageous in one of his Instagram videos and has to now adopt that all-too-familiar celebrity behavior of the public apology. But what he said really isn’t particularly offensive and the fact that there was a backlash and that it got loud enough that Pratt felt the need to respond speaks…Read More