Back in school there was a guy whose favorite phrase was “Sweet Livin”.  He also liked “don’t break stride” which I didn’t completely understand but he also used it when crossing the street.  He got hit by a car.

Today is Thursday and it’s 8am.  I woke up at 6:10 to take a few pictures of the sunrise with my camera on the beach.  Jeff and Julie met me down there and I’ll post them when I get back home because I don’t have the mini USB cord.  They came out pretty cool though.

I’ve really embraced this no work life.    I’m relaxed and stress free.  Eating good and working out.  Actually enjoying this week compared to trudging through a Monday through Friday that I do 51 times a year.

Yesterday we golfed in one of the most spectacular rounds I’ve ever been a part of.  In my nearly 2 decades of golfing I’ve never seen a 16 carded.  Yesterday I saw 2!  Granted the course was too hard for the talents of the group but this will go down as a memorable round.  The night concluded with a few rounds of Wits and Wagers and dizzy bats.

Don’t worry Rob Kelly, tomorrow will be a day where I divulge my DFS lineups.  I’m more confident this week because of the data from last week.  I’ve reviewed all the matchups and targets from last week and am ready to get off the schneid.  I’m also shifting my strategy with regard to which tournaments I enter.  I’ll still play the 2 million tournament but then I plan to down my playing fields to less than 20 and as low as 5.  Props to Evan for cashing first in a $270 20 man.  I’ll also drop Fanduel because Bud clued me into a 2 TE approach in DraftKings that I think has at least a minor edge.

Tomorrow I’ll be back at work for a catch up day but I know it will still feel like vacation.  Either way, I’m happy.

I’m reading a book of interviews by Judd Apatow and there was a part where Harold Ramis says that he did an exercise of describing himself to the person across from him in 2 minutes.  As he started the exercise he found the person he starting describing wasn’t him.  Then he did it with another person and was still missing the mark.  I just tried it a minute ago and found it was harder than expected.  I’ve given this some thought (much more than 2 minutes) and this is what I came up with.

I want to be completely independent.  I strive to acquire new skills in order to adapt to the ever changing world.  I’m constantly trying to improve myself as an individual with regard to physical well being, how I treat others, and having a high level of respect for what I intend to accomplish.  I will be philanthropic as soon as I can achieve my personal levels of success.  I’d eventually like to have a family but cannot do so until I feel my growth is where I want it to be combined with meeting a person who shares a similar outlook.  Settling is not my motive.

Sam beat me in a race today!

Toying with the Chromebook and adding an image for the sake of an image.

Considering I haven’t beat Sam in a race since he came out of college this isn’t actually an exclamatory sentence.  The only reason I phrase it like that is because it was on the beach.  My toe running has given me such huge calves that I just don’t lose on the beach.  I beat an in shape Sam about 3 years ago in an 800 which was the upset of the century.  Today, however, the tables were turned.

There is a pier like structure that is what I thought about 1 mile away.  Sam eyeballed it and said he could run there and back in under 5 minutes.  I said it couldn’t be done in 1o.  Much to my dismay, he did it in 4:39.  Here is where it gets interesting.  Sam was trucking pretty hard at the end and probably wanted to finish it under a time just because that’s what the Stortz family does when put up against the clock.  I decided to give his time a challenge.  I finished in 4:41.  Now, this can’t be construed as a head to head race but I wasn’t slacking either.  Kudos to the victor.

What’s really fun about vacation is that there is a 200 meter track about 3/4 a mile away.  I’ve taken this vacation and look to improve my physical shape.  Today I ran 2 miles back to back (6:14, 5:58) and then did one all out after a bit of a break (5:33).  I feel great.

Without work life feels much more relaxed and I have more time to do whatever it is I want to do.  I’ve almost finished Colin Cowherd’s book and am still reading up on football.  I’ll post my picks and teams but just know that I do it under a losing first week.  Even still, I’m going to try to play some golf tomorrow and enjoy the next 2 days because I catch up on work Friday.

This computer is a pain in the but to post pictures with the touch pad so sorry if the post format isn’t as clean as it usually is.

Today is the real beginning of a week long vacation down in Avalon with my family. We moved our vacations from prime time Summer to the first week after Labor day for scheduling reasons. Although there isn’t as much action down here during this week, it’s peaceful and more enjoyable.

Yesterday was the first day of the football season and I spent it watching every game on Red Zone. My fantasy teams fared OK yesterday with at least 1 win and 3 games to be decided tonight. My DK and Fanduel teams also decide on tonight but I was underwhelmed for how much work I put into it. Adams and ODB were team killers. I put through a survival team (Jets, #1 pick) and was pretty average against the spread. We’ll see how tonight goes with my fate being decided by J Jones, Bradford, and A Pete.

With my obligatory football post out of the way, I’ll get further into this vacation. I very much enjoy days like this. Jeff, Sam, JC and myself went golfing today and it was pretty entertaining. I shot an 88 and had one of my best driving days of the year. Golf is so much different for me when I’m not golfing on the weekends feeling like a POS. JC was great too for someone who was golfing for the first time in a year, his expectations are sky high which leads to hilarious results because they shouldn’t be. Sam is improving and Jeff didn’t have is own set so was off his game.

After golf, Sam and I played a ridiculous game in the pool with a frisbee and a tennis ball. Then I went for a run, worked out, and am now typing this post before the Birds game.

It’s a lot different not working. Part of me feels guilty when orders come in and I can’t ship them but another part of me says nothing will be any different in life if the order doesn’t ship same day. It’ll take a bit to get used to but I’ll figure it out.

It also makes me realize that this is how life would be if you didn’t have to work for a living at all. Every day could be exactly like this one. Get up. Golf. Work out. Watch football. Repeat. I don’t know how much I’ll post when I’m down here but it’ll be at least once more.

Slow Response Texts 

If you’ve texted me before you know that I don’t respond to texts instantaneously as some people do.  This screenshot shows a text at 6:25 on 9/3 that clearly asks the question, “something I should look into?”  Notice I completely ignored it.

I started writing that it’s not because I purposely do it, and I really don’t purposely not respond, but then I thought about it further and subliminally it is because I don’t know what to write.  The answer to the question is obviously yes because I wouldn’t have brought it up.  If I answer yes though then I have to explain why and at that moment of time I wasn’t into it and just didn’t respond.

I ended up giving a further explanation on 9/8.

Dodgy Details

This is a conversation with my sister when we were talking about getting together on a Saturday night.  In my mind I’m telling her where I’m going to be with the idea that she could come if she wanted to.  The next day she tells me, “your texts don’t even say if I’m invited”.  She’s right.  I completely understand not knowing whether she’s invited where I’m under the belief she knows I have no problem if she ever wants to hang.

Being an Ass

One reason I’m showing this is because someone took a picture of their screen and sent it to me.  In the age of screenshots, I think this is hysterical.  The other is because I want nothing else to say that there is no way in hell I’d play Owen Daniels.  I held my tongue but it took all my will power not to say, are you kidding me?  One of my faults is believing that I know it all and this is both good and bad.  It’s tough to know when to say to someone that there is no way they can be right and when to say they might be on to something.