.: bistan.net :.

March is over and we didn’t eat out, except for the two exceptions noted in the original goal post: one trip to Chick-fil-A (because of the monthly calendar coupon), and free food at work.  Although I can’t quantify any health benefits of the hiatus, I can certainly quantify the financial aspects.

The difference in food expenses from 2009 to 2010: $549.78

Below is a screenshot from my (now obsolete) Microsoft Money report, comparing this March with last March.  You can clearly see, that in the Fast Food category, my expenditures dropped from $206.86 last year to only $19.30, which was the aforementioned Chick-fil-A transaction.  My Dining Out category, which is generally any restaurant food other than fast food went from $375.15 to Zero!

I didn’t have School Lunch expenses last year, because Tristan wasn’t yet in Kindergarten.  His food was built into day-care expenses for 2009.  As for the Misc for the month, that $7.00 went to a snack for Mackenzie at the ballpark and purchasing a bag of boiled peanuts to support a non-profit.

It is worth noting that for three days last March, we were at Walt Disney World, so the Dining Out expenses for 2009 may be a little higher than the typical month.  Even if I scratched out $50.00 due to the high cost of food at Disney, I still saved right at $500.00.  Imagine if we did that every month.  That would be an extra $6,000.00 in our pockets!

One thing that amazed me looking at the report was the negligible increase in Grocery expenses: only a $10.00 increase.  I guess I have been the coupon king lately, but I didn’t realize that it was paying off that much!  We haven’t been eating any differently.  On Sunday I grilled some steaks.  We’ve had fish several times this month and red meat about twice a week.  I’m not sure how the Grocery costs remained the same even though we ate many more meals at home.

This past weekend was Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend.  This is the second year that I’ve participated.  On Thursday, we checked the kids out of school early and headed down to the Wide World of Sports for the expo and packet-pick up.

The Expo

Friday morning I ran the Up and Away Family Fun Run 5K.  I didn’t really have any time goals for this race.  My current 5K PR is around 24 minutes and I knew I wouldn’t come close to that.  With 5000 runners in a race, it’s nearly impossible to run for a time goal.  Besides, I wanted to save my energy for the Half-Marathon on Saturday.  It was around 40 degrees at the beginning of the 5K, which I thought was pretty cold at the time.  Little did I know. 

The 5K was a nice run around and through a pre-dawn Epcot. I finished in a little over 26 minutes.

UP house at the 5K start

5K Start at Epcot

On Saturday came the race I’ve been waiting for.  The Half-Marathon.  This was the race I had trained for.  I thought the 5K was cold, but on Saturday it was in the very low 30s with a wind chill in the 20s.  And sleet . . . in Central Florida.  Lots of sleet and rain for the entire 13.1 miles.  Nevertheless, the family came out and cheered for me.  We had previously made signs and shirts and Kimberlie committed to getting up at 3:30 in the morning and chasing me around Walt Disney World.

My family at 3:30 in the morning

Me and an army man before the start

Tristan with his sign

The race started and I felt really good at first, but then the heel pain started creeping on. My time goal was 2 hours, but it ended up taking me 2 hours and 14 minutes. Of course, part of that was stopping to take pictures with characters, part of it was the sleet (and ice in my eyes) and the rest can be attributed to heal pain.  By 8:00 am, it was over and we were back in the hotel.  It took my body until well after noon to heat up and stop shivvering.

Princess Tiana along the course

Daisy with the family after the half-marathon

On Sunday morning, my feet were killing me.  Unfortunately, I had to get out of bed at 3:30 and run 26.2 miles before sitting in the car for a six hour ride home.  How was I going to do it?  On marathon morning, it was 26 degrees with a wind chill in the teens.  Brrrrr.

Starting Line	Characters at the Start	Pluto at Epcot
Hot air balloon	Reindeer in the cold	Dopey

It was so cold, that the course was icy. The powerade was slushy. The bananas were frozen solid. People dressed in layers and shed them as they ran. Disney collected the clothing, laundered them, and donated them to charity — over 30,000 pieces.

Somehow, I was able to finish. Over 8,000 of the 24,000+ marathoners did not finish.  Although it took over 6 hours.  At the time, I didn’t think I had ever been in that much pain before, but now I can’t remember — sort of like when a female goes through childbirth.  In fact, I plan on registering for all of the races again next year.

This photo made it worth all of the time, energy, effort and expense.

My bling bling: UP medal, Donald medal, Mickey medal and Goofy medal

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we attended part of the taping for the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade.  I also included a few of the 500 pictures I snapped and one of the videos I shot.  Here is a tilt-shift video, created by Disney of the Christmas parade.

As you can see, tilt-shift is a cool technology.  I consider it analogous to HDR photography, but even cooler.  Here are links to two other tilt-shift videos with short explanations by Disney if you are interested in the technology:

Magic Kingdom Tilt-shift
Epcot Tilt-shift
Tilt-shift Explanation

Here are some screen shots from the video, so that you can see where to find us in the parade.  It airs tomorrow, Christmas Day, at 10:00 AM on your local ABC channel.

For the second time in my life, I was able to take part in the taping of a very popular Christmas special.  In 2007, Kimberlie and I were a part of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” and were showered with overpriced merchandise by a television diva.  Other than that, there is only one other holiday television special that I would love to be a part of, and somehow I managed to pull it off this year.

This past weekend, we were invited to be part of the taping of the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade.  Basically, they entice you to come be a part of the crowd with free entry into the Magic Kingdom for the day.  We were unable to make the Kris Allen (American Idol) taping on Thursday or the Celine Dion taping on Friday due to work and school schedules, so we decided to go down for the Jonas Brothers on Saturday. 

The Jonas Brothers sang a three minute song called Summertime Anthem, but it took us four hours to shoot the performance.  The director made them sing it no less than 10 times.  Part of that was teaching the 5000 member audience to break out into a flash-mob style dance routine towards the end of the song.  It was awesome!  By shear luck, we ended up at the very front of the stage!

The parade taping was another grueling six hours, because performers had to perform over and over and over for the perfect camera angles.  Steve Rushton (singer) and the Santa Buddies (dogs from a new Disney Christmas movie) were there and all of it was hosted by Kelly Ripa.  No Regis this year due to surgery!  And by shear accident, we ended up on center street, where the performers performed.

Of course I shot over 500 pictures and 3 videos.  Here is a small sample:

Check out the video to see how close we were to the action!

Be sure to watch the parade Christmas morning on ABC.  There is no possible way that they can show the parade without including some very good shots of us.  You should definitely watch for the shot of  Tristan and me dancing (above) during the “Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it” portion of the parade.

This weekend, we celebrated Tristan’s 6th birthday with a final trip to the Disney theme parks (for a long time).

I can’t believe I have a SIX year old!

About six months ago, I came across pictures of a fad I had not heard about: Duct-tape prom dresses.  I was intriqued to say the least!  I wish I had a prom to go to!  Fast forward until now . . .  We knew that we were going to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom and we needed costumes.  Mackenzie has a Cinderella dress and Kimberlie and I could easily wing it, but what about Tristan?

Would it be possible to make a duct-tape costume?  Could I pull it off? Will the weather be mild enough to dress my son up in nothing but duct-tape?  I decided to go for it.  But what kind of costume?  Of course it had to be Disney-related, relatively easy to construct, and they had to have the colors available in duct-tape.  As I looked at all of our pictures with Disney characters from over the past year, I came across this one of me and Pinocchio.

I’m certainly no seamstress, but somehow I made it work. After all, it’s tape, so if you screw up, you just cut out the mistake and tape it back together!

It went really well. Everyone at the party typically dresses up as the popular characters: pirates, princesses, pooh, etc. Nobody else considered Pinocchio. One of the cast members told us that he sees about 50,000 costumes a night and it was the first Pinocchio he had seen. Others were amazed when they discovered that it was constructed of solely duct-tape.  Tristan thrived on all of the attention he received.  Many told us that if there had been a costume contest, he would have one it.  Wow!  Of course, it wasn’t comfortable walking around in duct-tape so he was walking a little funny — like a puppet — which is exactly what Pinocchio is.  Pottying proved difficult, but he could always hold it until the next day — when he became a real boy again!

By the way, it took 5 rolls of duct tape and about seven hours to put it all together.  I will certainly do it again in the future!

When I was 18, it was cool to have a credit card.  Flashing that plastic was cool stuff.  Now that I’m 30, everyone I know has a credit card.  It’s just part of life.  Nothing special.  You would think that the days are gone where flashing the plastic impresses the chicks.

Not for me . . .

As any reader of this blog knows, I am a Disney Fanatic.  So naturally I jumped on getting a Disney Visa card when they debuted in 2003.  At least 1% of every purchase is returned in Disney rewards which are good for anything Disney.  Four years ago we spent a week at WDW for free and we went on a Disney cruise two years ago for nearly free.  And we bought Disney annual passes this year and paid for several nights at WDW with our rewards.  I put nearly everything on my Disney Visa (and yes, I pay it off immediately).

You can choose from about seven different card designs and for the last four or so years, I’ve had a Finding Nemo card.  Let me tell you that this card serves as an icebreaker with nearly everyone who I present it to for payment . . . especially hot chicks.

My coworkers couldn’t believe at first how fast I could melt a girl’s heart with my credit card.  Now, they just roll their eyes because they’ve seen it happen so much.  It’s unbelievable. Kimberlie didn’t notice as much at first, until I remarked one day that I should have had a Finding Nemo credit card before I got married.  It would have been so much easier finding girls.

When I’m paying for something with Kimberlie, the waitress/cashier/etc. aren’t usually as vocal about it, but they always mention it.  Some of them, however, could care less that my wife is with me.  Kimberlie used to get a little jealous, but now, she just rolls her eyes too because it happens so much.  Tonight, the very soft spoken waitress at Applebee’s returned my card, thanked us for dining with them, smiled, and quietly said, “Oh yeah, I like your Visa”.

So here’s a hint for all of the single guys out there: I’m happily married, but Nemo can have any chick he wants!

When we found out we were going to Las Vegas, I thought I was going to hate it.  I loved it!

When we found out we were going to Baltimore, I thought I was going to hate it.  I loved it!

When we found out we were going to Boulder, I thought I was going to hate it.  But, I loved it, too!

So naturally, when Kimberlie’s class was scheduled for New Orleans, I knew I would hate it.  My vision of this place was people who eat weird food, drunks wondering between bars checking out strippers and ignorant people that don’t pay attention to hurricane evacuation warnings.

Of course, I LOVE IT HERE!

Yesterday on the way, I added two new states to the list of state that I’ve been to: Mississippi and Louisiana.  Today, after checking out the local mall (which is fabulous — better than any Atlanta mall), I took the kids and drove down to the French Quarter to take a steamboat ride up and down the Mississippi River.  The French Quarter was awesome . . . tons of history, interesting people, and beautiful architecture.  Parts of it remind me of Savannah but also reminds me of Nassau.  We didn’t have much time because we had to pick Kimberlie up not long after our boat returned, but I can’t wait to go back tomorrow.

After picking Kimberlie up, we went back to the mall so that the kids could get stuff from the Disney store and make an overpriced bear at the Build-A-Bear factory.  Then we hit Acme Oyster House.  I got the New Orleans sampler: jambalaya, red beans & rice, sausage, mojo potatos and gumbo.  I hadn’t tried any of it before and I’m usually funny about trying new things but all of it was delicious.  These people really know how to eat here!  Before I ordered, I asked the waiter to describe each item.  This would be the equivalent of him going to Georgia and asking what barbebue and bruswick stew is.  He even brought me some free oysters since I had never tasted them either.  They were great as well!

Tomorrow we hit up Storyland, which is a giant playground, and then chill for a while until Kimberlie gets out of class. Then its back to the French Quarter for some more culture!

Monday we plan to tour a cemetery before heading back to boring Macon.  My Day Two post may have to wait until I return home because I’m too frugal to pay this hotel another $13.00 for another day of internet.  I guess I can’t complain since I got the (really nice) hotel for $60 a night.

The folks at Disney have made a 3 minute video of this January’s marathon. Of course, it took me a lot longer than 3 minutes to run it — but the video certainly motivates me for 2010.

This is only my 8th blog post this month.  Sad.

This month, my blog made $65.23.  That’s $141.68 since this blog began on July 15, 2008.  I’m a loooong way from being a professional blogger.  Thanks to whoever is clicking on my amazon links and purchasing stuff.  Also, thanks to those who are clicking on my adsense links.

I uploaded my final C# project tonight.  I am 1/10 of the way towards another masters degree.

I ran 37.2 miles this month, totaling 458.19 miles since I began running in February 2009.  That’s a pathetic average of 35 miles per month.

Hopefully, that chart will start to look more like an upward curve.  Then again, the summer heat is not a runner’s friend.

This fall, I plan to run 4 10Ks, a 13K, and a half marathon — all in preparation for the 2010 Goofy Race at Disney.

That’s enough math for tonight!