Well after nearly 3 weeks off of work for the surgery and ample recovery time I am heading back to work tomorrow. I can't believe how fast the time went and for that I thankful. I now able to walk around and wear normal clothes. Best of all I can drive again. In the next few weeks I feel as if I will make a full recovery and will begin in earnest to exercise again. I would like to thank everyone for their warm wishes and especially everyone who came and kept me company while I recovered. Your efforts made a difficult time seem well less difficult hahahaha. Emily especially took great care of me despite her grandfather becoming gravely ill and passing away just this morning. Irv rest well. You will be missed.

In other news I am hoping that my new winter coat that I got for Christmas from my Mom and Dad will be arriving tomorrow. Its a dark blue carhartt coat. I wore the same black leather coat for ten years before it family met its end last winter ( I ripped the zipper out of it). I think I might sow my Metropolis Police patch featuring Superman onto one of the sleeves to give it a little flair.

Tonight I managed to catch the 00 Gundam movie which was brilliantly animated, but whose story I felt was severely lacking and not only that but completely out of tune with the series which inspired it. I give them props for going with something different, but for the life of me I wished they did something else instead.

Thats about it for now, but I'll leave with this:
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. - Sun-tzu (~400 BC), The Art of War. Strategic Assessments

I started this blog at the beginning of 2010 and managed to fill it with 5 posts. Six if you want to count this one. You might ask why I failed at keeping this thing up to date and the honest reason is that 2010 sucked big time. It started with panic attacks, chest pains, heart palpitations. It continued on with headaches, eye aches, glasses, more panic and anxiety. This lead to the knowledge of herniated disc in my neck (4 to be exact)and then a car accident that left the curvature of my neck reversed. If that wasn't even enough I have cancer and just had a piece of me removed leaving me feeling a little off balance. Hopefully I am cancer free now, but won't know until sometime next week. Since the surgery I have to admit that over all I am feeling better though as of right now I am having some terrible chest pain. To top all of this off I am writing from a hospice room with my Wife's dying grandfather who is dying.
I started off the year convinced I was dying myself. Yet I am here. I survived just to witness the death of someone else. Someone who while I did not get a great chance to come to know personally, but for years have seen the love and attention he paid to his family. Irv you will be missed and I'm sorry we could not have gotten to spend more time together. I am happy you got to see Emily get married...to me.
Which brings me to the one bright spot of my year. My marriage to my best friend Emily who I have known for more than 10 years and despite my many claims to just the opposite I have loved for just as long. We had a beautiful wedding in on a warm fall day. It was a day I will never forget.
Looking back on this year I realized much. Mostly that life really is short. At 28 I'm not exactly old, but I've noticed that I'm not going to stay in my twenties forever either. For many years I've laid claim to the great things I would accomplish. First and foremost would be to lose weight and get healthy and yet I have done very little for that goal. Now is the time. 2011 will be the year not just for health, but for so much more.
I spent a lot of the year wrestling with God. I suppose there was a part of me that was angry. Angry for making me go through this. So much anger and bitterness was in my heart most of the year, especially leading up to my surgery. It started to fade after the procedure as I had to time to heal and relax. I found myself diving into my Bible and the more I read the more I was comforted and remembered a thought I had long ago. I would rather be wrong in my beliefs as a Christian than in what the world has to offer. Granted some of my beliefs may not be anything they teach in Sunday school, but overall I'm think we strive for the same things.
so I say this that in 2011 I will dedicate myself to health. Not just of my body, mind, and soul. But also what little I can do in the world to make it a better place. I will seek to become whatever God asks of me and to serve with a smile and a gracious heart. Whether you are religious or not, Christian or not, I feel now that life is just way to short to not go about it without a smile on your face and purpose in your heart. So as I challenge my myself I challenge you to reach for your goals in the new year and to do our part in making the world a better place.
See you in 2011-Brandt

I have been a Ghostbusters fan ever since I was a little kid. I had the Kenner proton pack and ghost trap and would go door to door offering to rid peoples houses of ghost. In fact one time I think I may have even saw one. Since I'll be graduating school here shortly I decided to take on a little project since I'll have some free time on my hands. I'm going to build a proton pack with all the bells and whistles. However I think I'm going to base my pack off the Real Ghostbusters Cartoon instead of the movies. Eventually I'll build a pack based off the movies, but I really loved the cartoon. I even think I got Emily on board to help me out. She is really the artistic one not me. Also I've been picking up the Real Ghostbuster dvd sets and I highly recommend them. Cartoons today just aren't up to par with the cartoons I watched as a kid. Thats it for now, but I'll leave with this video to give you an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish.