Pursuit of Honor...

...is the title of the new book by this man here (in the black jacket of course):

His name is Vince Flynn. He is AMAZING! This was at a book signing for his last book he published this past November.

He writes about top secret CIA, black ops kinda stuff. A friend of mine describes Flynn as similar to Tom Clancy but 10 times easier to read. Basically if you like to read about a badass who goes around torturing and assassinating terrorists in the name of keeping the good ol' US of A safe...this is your man. And you all know how much I enjoy reading about terrorists being tortured and assassinated. Mitch Rapp is his badass. If Mitch Rapp were a real person, he would totally be my "Get Out of Marriage Free" card. 

Unfortunately he's not a real person, so I'm going to have to stick with The Rock or Vin Diesel, or maybe Mark Wahlberg. 

Anyways, so yes, Vince Flynn's new book will be titled "Pursuit of Honor". It comes out October 13th. That's a little under 6 months away. It might as well be an eternity for me.

If you think Vince Flynn and his character Mitch Rapp sound like your kind of fun, you should pick up his book "Term Limits" or "Transfer of Power". 

"Term Limits" is his very first book, but it is somewhat hard to find. It is more like a prequel to his Mitch Rapp series. Its good if you can read it first but you can get by without it. "Transfer of Power" however is a complete must. Do NOT read any of the other books before it otherwise you'll ruin other parts of the books before it. 

My personal favorites of Flynn? Probably Memorial Day and Executive Power. Although his newest book, Extreme Measures was really good too. I got a friend of mine hooked on them and we both started reading it at the same time. We were constantly texting each other "Have you gotten to this part?" or "Oh my gosh! It gets SOOOO GOOOD!!!" It was quite fun. But honestly, all of his books are pure genius, suspenseful, an awesome good time. I read them in like 2 days. 

Here is a little excerpt from Memorial Day...quite possibly one of the best lines of all time.

Quick little background - Mitch Rapp (CIA guy, basically he goes around and assassinates terrorists...like I said, my kind of guy) is in this meeting with a bunch of overzealous liberal bureaucrats. Meanwhile, there is a credible threat that a nuke has made its way into the Washington D.C. area, set to go off on...Memorial Day! 

On a side note, CIA if you have stumbled across my blogs because of the terms "nuke", "terrorists" or "assassinates" or "nuke in Washington D.C." I would love an intel analyst job. I'm just saying...its an option...I'm sure you know how to find me. 

Okay, so here is Mitch Rapp telling off one of the liberal bureaucrat ladies...

Stealy stood so she could face Rapp eye to eye and started to lecture. "You have no idea what you're talking about. We can't simply deport American citizens and hand them over to the CIA for torture."

Rapp cut her off with a booming voice that was almost a full blown yell. "The debate portion of the evening is over. You are an idiot! You have no idea what you are talking about, and you have no idea what it takes to wage this war. Now sit down, and don't interrupt me again or I will throw you out of this room by the scruff of your neck."

Seriously...I laughed out loud when I read that. I just pictured this big bad ass guy saying that to the likes of Hilary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi...awesomeness.

That is all the little tidbit that I am giving. Trust me, once you get started, you are completely hooked. Its better than Twilight. I've never actually read Twilight but seriously...teenage vampire love or bad ass terrorist assassin? I'll take the bad ass terrorist assassin any day. 

Vince Flynn = Mitch Rapp = AWESOMENESS

Go check him out while I start a countdown for the book release.

A Sobering Experience

It was a somewhat dramatic day at school today. No, my kids weren't obnoxious, nobody came to school with a gun (at least that we know of) and I didn't catch any kids going at it in the back stairwell. (I've never actually witnessed that, thankfully, but I do work with people who have...yikes...).

Today my school had a program called "Shattered Dreams". Apparently this happens every other year as they didn't have it last year. 

All seniors, juniors and those sophomores who have a parking permit were called down to the band parking lot during 3rd period where they witnessed a mock car crash. They didn't actually see the cars crashing (obviously) but they saw the aftermath of a drunk driving accident. 

I didn't get to see it but during Advisory (don't get me started on that, its a post for another day) we watched the video of the last time they did Shattered Dreams. It was probably the best Advisory period we've had all year (which isn't really saying much, but I'm looking for the silver lining in the Advisory period they came up with this year).

I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty intense. One car was upside down, there were "dead" and bloody students strewn about. Once was even coming through the windshield. 

They had cops there, a fire truck complete with the jaws of life and parents wailing. 

One student left in handcuffs in the cop car, one in an ambulance, another in a helicopter (yes, they really had a helicopter!), and one in a hearse. The blood and everything looked fake, but when you add all of the other stuff into it, it was rather realistic. 

Then starting at 10:30 they have what they call the heartbeat. Every 10 minutes a heartbeat comes over the loud speaker and then flat lines. You actually hear it flat line. The after the heartbeat a cop and the grim reaper come into a classroom and take a student. 

That student's face gets painted white and they stand in the hall for the rest of the day. It is supposed to symbolize the statistic that every 10 minutes someone dies from a drunk driving accident.

Thankfully the grim reaper didn't visit my class. Too be honest I'm not really sure I would have handled it that well. I mean, I know its all drama and not "real", but the video alone from the year before of the grim reaper going into classes was enough to make me tear up. And I'm not really that sappy of a person and rarely cry at movies. I'm sure I would've been fine, but I'm glad I didn't lose a student. Especially in my 6th period, because I really like my 6th period kids.

One of the hardest parts of the video they showed was when a parent was waiting at the hospital and their child didn't make it. You saw him hearing the news from the doctors and they went into the room and lifted up the sheet to look at his son.

Like I said it was pretty intense. Especially hearing the heartbeat those first couple times, talk about freaky! Later on in the day, it got slightly annoying, especially while I was trying give directions for the test during 6th period, but it still made you think. I wish I could upload the videos, but A- I have no idea how to do that with this blog, and B-I'm sure I'd be violating all kinds of school district policies.

Some of the kids took it hard, some didn't care, or at least didn't seem too. But overall, for me at least, it was a pretty sobering experience. I just hope that it  really makes the kids think twice about drinking and driving, especially since this is right before prom. I would love for it to make the kids to think about drinking PERIOD, but I think that's probably a long shot. 

I don't know if they do this at other school's other than mine. I've never heard of it before, but it is definitely something that EVERY student and really every ADULT needs to see. 

The right motivation.

This summer, Nathan and I were really good about working out. It was really easy. We didn't have school, and really didn't have a whole lot to do, so we worked out. 

I truly enjoyed it, and of course enjoyed the results of working out even more. 

Then school started up, and we still did okay. We didn't work out as much as we did in the summer, but we were still consistent. 

Then Ike hit and everything went to crap (including our kitchen, but that's a post for another day).  

Well, we are going to the Bahamas in July (yippee!!!) and I want to make sure I have somewhat of a bikini-worthy body. You'd think that would be enough to inspire me to get back into the gym...but alas that has not been the case. We booked our trip in January, and we didn't start getting serious until about two weeks ago.

So I have two little items that have inspired my trek back to the gym. 

An iPod Shuffle. A pink one to be exact. 

All of you know about the love affair I have with my 80 gig iPod. But I found that the 80 gig iPod wasn't a very good workout partner. It took up my whole arm, and really its kinda heavy for a jog. The arm band I used made it hard to adjust the volume, and I lived in constant fear that the constant jostling would make the iPod stop working all together. And as attached as I am to my whole music library, did I really need 6200+ songs during a 30 minute workout? Not hardly. 

So I purchased my Shuffle back in February. I filled it with my workout playlist and it sat on my desk collecting dust until a few weeks ago when I got these...

Best. Running Shoe. Ever! Nathan and I had gone to the Nike outlet where I found these. I tried them on in the store of course and loved how they felt. Plus I'm a big fan of the air bubbles. I'm sure there is an industry correct term for those, but I'm just going to call them air bubbles.

My last good pair of running shoes had them. Recon ate them, and I was stuck with my every day Nikes. They were okay, but I felt every step on them and my legs always felt sore after running. They didn't have air bubbles. 

Maybe its just all in my head, but I truly believe that the air bubbles make a huge difference. And they did not disappoint me on my first run. Of course I hadn't really run since before Ike, but man, you wouldn't know with these shoes. 

Seriously, I felt like I was running on pillows! I was so giddy I almost started giggling while jogging on the treadmill. I've been running with these shoes about 3 times a week for 2 miles each time I run and my legs feel great afterwards. Now I really look forward to going to the gym and running. 

And I'm now running a 10 minute mile! Not too shabby considering I start out just two weeks ago running a 12 minute mile.

Now I'm just trying to keep my workout playlist updated. I have songs on there that I've been working out to for the past 4 years. They are great songs, but they get a little boring after hearing them so many times.

Here are a couple of my favorite running songs. When these songs come on, regardless of what speed I'm already running out, I always kick the speed up a few notches.

1. Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne
2. Cross My Heart - Marianas Trench (you've probably never heard of this band, and had it not been for emusic.com, I probably would've never heard of them either)
3. Single Ladies - Beyonce
4. Impossible - Manafest (This song inspired me to run an extra 1/4 mile after my 2nd mile and I was running at 6.5, which I think equates to about a 9 1/2 minute mile)
5. Fighter - Christina Aguilera
6. Ignition - TobyMac
7. Breathe Today - Flyleaf
8. Break the Silence - Thousand Foot Krutch
9. Boom - P.O.D
10. Your Still The One - Roper (This is a super fun punk remake of Shania Twain's song)

Feel free to share your favorite workout songs. I can always use more!

I am not my Grandma

I'm giving up on Gobs. Maybe for a very long time...maybe just for a couple more weeks, I don't know. I just know that I don't want to see the gob recipe or batter for a long time.

For those of you who don't know what a GOB is, its this delightful treat that my Grandma makes quite perfectly. Basically you have two soft chocolate cookies with a fluffy vanilla filling in between. Similar to an Oreo Cakester only much, MUCH better.

I made them WITH my Grandma back in March when I went to visit her for spring break. Then I got back to Houston and decided to try them on my own a couple weeks later. I like to bake sweet treats for my work peeps and I thought this would be the perfect new treat.

Wrong.

The cookie part turned out perfect, I mean, absolutely beautiful. I was so proud that my first Gob minus Grandma experience was going so well.

The came the filling...oh that bastardly filling. (I don't know if "bastardly" is actually a word, but I like it, so its staying in my post.)

The filling is supposed to be nice and light and fluffy. Mine was nice and sweet and RUNNY!!! Ugh, I went ahead made them that way, and wrapped them up and took them to work anyway. They are a lot of work and I couldn't just toss them. And really, they tasted pretty good, the filling just wasn't the right consistency.

Nathan ate two of them that night, and one of my mentor teachers ate a couple that next day, and then took a bunch home to his wife. So I mean, really, they were okay. But just OKAY.

My mentor teacher told me that it was a good thing I didn't get it perfect on the first try because then I wouldn't be trying it again and bringing more in a few weeks.

So it is said mentor teacher's birthday on Thursday, and I thought what better way to show my appreciation than to make him some gobs.

So tonight, I started making them again. It must be a sophomore slump or something. But this time the cookies part didn't turn out quite right. Terrible or bad? No...but just okay. And I don't like to make things "just okay".

Now onto the filling part. I had called my Grandma after that first batch and learned that I hadn't cooked the milk and the flour long enough. So I was determined not to make that mistake again.

Well, I don't know if I cooked it TOO long this time or what, but now the filling is too THICK and it just doesn't look or taste right at all.

And my hand mixer broke. I think I ran the poor thing into the ground trying to beat that stupid filling to death.

So I think its a sign folks...no more gobs until I can get back to Grandma's for another lesson. My Grandma thinks the reason its not working out is because I'm supposed to come visit her again! :)

On a funny note, when I called Grandma I told her "Grandma, I giving up on gobs." She doesn't hear very well, and she thought I said I was giving up on GOD. HA! Oh I love my Grandma, she is the coolest! :)

So Don, if you're reading this, I tried. You'll just have to make do with one of my other cookie options. :)