Diet? Not So Much

After 4 days of being on our diet, Erin and I decided to modify it back to our normal eating habits. Erin wasn't feeling well and began to feel ill because her body wasn't adjusting to the lack of peanut butter in her system I guess. That and we were getting sick of eating nothing but salad and brown rice.

I'm still doing parts of Phase 1 of the diet but we have reintroduced breads, meats, alcohol, and sugars back into the diet. We just couldn't live without the pizza.

I did lose about 3 pounds so far. Erin lost 2.

The Green Concert

Great show last night at Piedmont Park. Erin and I parked at Turner's Techwood campus and then walked 1.5 miles over to the park. When we got there Allman Brothers had already taken the stage. We found a spot near the middle of the lawn and towards the back. Put our blanket down and had a good location speaker and video screen wise amongst the 50,000 people.

The Allman Brothers sounded great and everyone seemed to be in a mellow mood. The reason could have been the 6 packs of Bud Light people were walking around with. How do you know you are seeing a concert in the South? When they sell people 6 packs of beer on one trip to the beer stand that's how.

Their set list:

Trouble No More, Ain't Wastin' Time No More, Hot 'lanta, Woman Across The River, Midnight Rider, Statesboro Blues, Hoochie Coochie Man, Come And Go Blues, One Way Out, Black Hearted Woman, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
Encore: Whipping Post

I spent most of the time between bands waiting on line for Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. Erin's idea.

At 8:14 Dave Matthews Band took the stage and everyone seemed to come alive. They played a good mix of older and some newer songs that I wasn't too familiar with. The sound was perfect, the setting was perfect, and the weather was perfect.

Their set list:

One Sweet World, Two Step, Corn Bread, Don’t Drink the Water, You Might Die Trying, Grey Street, #27, What Would You Say, Melissa, Louisiana Bayou, Dreaming Tree, Eh Hee, So Much To Say, Anyone Seen The Bridge, Too Much, #40 [tease], Warehouse, Stay (Wasting Time)
Encore: All Along The Watchtower, Ants Marching

Highlights were having Warren Haynes play electric guitar on What Would You Say and Gregg Allman sharing vocals with Dave Matthews on Melissa with the band backing them up.

Best Dave quote: "We are gonna do kind of a newer song for you. If you like it great, if you don't like it, what can I do about it."

We left before the encore so that we could make the 1.5 mile journey back to our car. Susan was nice enough to watch Shannon for us so we didn't want to get caught up in the crowds getting back home. I left my Turner ID in my car so they stopped us at the gate. After running my drivers license thru their system we were allowed to get back to our car and go home.

Song stuck in my head today: Louisiana Bayou.

Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band is playing a "green" concert in Piedmont Park here in Atlanta on Saturday. The proceeds of the show are going to a planned 53 acre expansion of the park.

Turner is a corporate sponsor of the show and they had a ticket give away this week. There was a set of 5 true and false questions and you had to find the answers by looking around the Piedmont Park website.

From looking at the website I found out that not only is DMB playing but the Allman Brothers Band is opening for them and palying a 2 hour set. How cool is that?

So I filled it out and I actually won tickets to the show. It is general admisson and they are expecting 50,000 people to attend. So Erin and I will be bringing our blanket and hopefully pulling up a nice piece of grass to see the show from.

Fat Smash Diet

Erin and I are both doing the Fat Smash Diet right now. We are into day 3 of Phase 1 which lasts for 9 days.

I did this diet last year and lost 15 pounds over the course of a month. This time around seems to be a little harder. Erin has used the word starving a few times but has been good so far.

For the first 9 days we are in a "detox" phase where all we can eat are fruits, veggies, egg whites, yogurt and brown rice. You have to eat at least 5 meals a day. Phase 2 lasts for 3 weeks and we get to eat small portions of meat and cheese but no breads.

The breads don't come back till Phase 3 so no pizza for a month!!! That is huge in our house where Friday pizza night is an institution. Did I mention no alcohol this whole time either???

By the end of the diet you are eating all the stuff you used to eat but in smaller portions. So the goal for us to shed a few pounds and improve on our eating habits.

My first weigh in was 171.5 pounds. I don't get to weigh myself gain till day 9. We'll see how good I do.

A Big Step Forward

For the past few days Shannon has gone completly "nooch" less. She was still getting her pacifier for naps and bedtime. Since going back to daycare she wasn't getting it for naps, so last Wednesday we decided to not give it to her at night.

We were prepared for a long night of crying and general unpleasantness, but to our surprise it was fairly minimal. There was some protest complaints but she seemed to calm herself down enough to fall asleep.

Each night we take her to bed she complains a little but eventually falls asleep. This is huge for us cause the nooch was her most cherished belonging. Taking it away from her would be like taking the blanket away from Linus. This is something she fell in love with when she was only hours old, so you can imagaine the attachment to it.

So for now things look good. Up next, potty training.

Drunk Talk

When does drunk talk cost you a few hundred dollars?? When you decide to go on a road trip to see Van Halen after a few beers.

Living with the fear that Van Halen might not play Atlanta on this tour, Buck and I decided to road trip it to Greensboro, NC to see the 2nd night of the tour. I got tickets as soon as they went on sale Saturday and we ended up getting some good seats in the 200 level of the Greensboro Coliseum.

The date is Saturday September 29th and the plan is to take the 5 hour drive on Saturday morning and then come back on Sunday morning so Buck can get to the Falcons game by 1pm. Should be a fun trip and the first time I've road tripped it to see a show since college.

John From Cincinnati

Erin and I were both big fans of Deadwood. so we were sad to see that HBO cancelled it after last season. The good news was that David Milch was gonna do another show about a family of surfers called John From Cincinnati.

Being Deeadwood and NYPD Blue fans we gave John From Cincinnati a shot. Man does it suck. Not only does it suck, but is sucks so bad that HBO announced on Tuesday that the show will not be returning for a second season.

The show was loaded with good actors like Rebecca De Mornay, Willie Garson, Bruce Greenwood, Luis Guzmán, and Ed O'Neill. Even Luke Perry wasn't bad in it. There were also like 4 or 5 actors from Deadwood.

The problem was the story went nowhere and the dialog was dry, boring, and way over every ones head. It is Milch so I was expecting some of that but it was really unwatchable.

Every time we watched an episode all I could think of was, "they cancelled Deadwood for this?"

We have one more episode on the DVR left. The question is do I watch it or delete it into the DVR abyss??? I won't get any kind of conclusion out of it and it will only remind me why the show got cancelled.