Life

Never, ever thought I would read this. BTW, my company has used Penn Schoen for company polling.

According to pollster Doug Schoen, whose new poll shows vast support for the Tea Party movement among voters, the president (Obama) is still liked by about half the nation.

But that personal favorability doesn’t translate into re-election support when voters are asked if Obama deserves a second term. Says Schoen: “43 percent say that Barack Obama has been a better president than George W. Bush, while 48 percent say Bush was a better president than Obama has been.”

Henry's near touchdown run in the Pumpkin Bowl. I was proud of our team, we won 12-8 to place third in the league. Henry just needed a block here and he would have been in. Or a better pass from me.

P90x update: I have officially lost 10 pounds on p90x. Pretty much the gut I acquired in the last year is gone and I'm happy about that. Thrilled about it actually. However, I haven't bulked up as much as I thought I would but maybe that's coming. Or maybe I haven't been bringing it like I should be. It is definitely hard work with the weight lifting; I hate the yoga workout and enjoy the kenpo (karate stuff). I am a lot more lean than I've been in a long time.

I'm not sure what day I'm on, somewhere around 43 or so which means I'm about half way done. I've cheated one meal, if you can call crabcakes cheating. I've also had a few beers, probably 8 total in the last six weeks. 3 of those were at the Reds playoff game and one of those was bought for me by a State Rep and I couldn't exactly refuse it. 2 of them were at the Dubliner Pub in D.C.--a favorite haunt of mine where I met an old couple from Ireland and enjoyed a nice conversation. But no beers doesn't account for the weight loss; I stop drinking once a year for usually 2 months and I've never lost weight before.

All in all, I'm a convert. It's a great program if you can commit 90 days to working out and eating healthy.

I posted some new photos below but I thought I would fill in about some of the last week. I went to DC for the day/night last Thursday. I went down for a Mitch Daniels lunch; I don't think I've been to DC since the Bush inauguration in 2000. The whole trip brought back a lot of memories when I briefly lived there in 1988. I'm amazed at a few things, much more security now of course and you can't just walk around by yourself in the Capitol Building. It was raining and I couldn't even take the underground tunnels I was so familiar with when I was there. They moved a bunch of things around too, my favorite ice cream place was closed, moved to another location. The cafeteria in the Longworth Building is now on the other side of the hall. Just little things, but I enjoyed walking around. I stopped in our DC office and had a late dinner with an old friend who is working for an Ohio Congressman now. Great trip except for the late train to Baltimore and the 5:00 wakeup call to get home.

I had to get home early because Henry didn't have school on Friday so I took him and Jack to the zoo in the afternoon. Beautiful day. Saturday Henry had an all-star flag football game then we took off for the lake. Turned the heat on for the first time and built a fire which kept us plenty warm, anxious to see how it heats up when its 20 degrees out. Sunday we went to Roscoe Village for an apple butter festival and I was very impressed. We will definitely go back again but we had the perfect fall day for it. Today Henry was off again so we went to Marietta and looked around. Another great little town that would be a fun weekend trip because most things are closed on Monday and some only open on the weekends. Enjoy the photos:

Henry has gotten his reading and math assessments so far. For reading, he is achieving in all categories, which means that he already knows everything that he is supposed to know by year end in first grade. In math, he's extending in all categories except one (extending subtraction), which means that he exceeds year-end expectations. I know he is at level 22 in reading and the next closest is 18 in his class with a lot of kids still at 3-4.



He's a special boy and we are proud of him.

back after a Massillon Mckinley game.