My youngest daughter's Halloween costume

So my youngest daughter had told me that she needed a Halloween costume this week. I'm sure I only half listened, but it turns out she needs it today. Of course, she chose to remind me of this last night at about 9:00 p.m.. So I put the kids in bed, and dashed off to the Walmart to see what I could find.

The caveat was that she really wanted to be a Ghostbuster.

I walked around for about 45 minutes trying to find matching clothes that could be turned into a Ghostbuster jumpsuit, but couldn't find anything. I called the wife and told her I wasn't having any luck, and she told to check in the misses exercise area for an extra small. I couldn't find that, but I did find a small green long-sleeve shirt and a matching pair of sweat pants. They were to become my canvas.

I took them home, and had to hand-draw the logo and name tag onto them, and thought I did okay. The left hand of the ghost is in the wrong position, but again, this is my first time drawing this, and I thought it was okay.

I realized that this was a very poor costume, although I thought my youngest daughter might think it was nice. I decided I had to do something else. So it was out to the garage. I found a 2'x2' sheet of 1/4" plywood. I also had some PVC fittings, so now it was time to make Ray's ecto-goggles. I didn't have some of the tools that I needed, but was able to use my tablesaw, bandsaw, and pin nailer to come up with this.



I got out the black spray paint and some elastic to complete them.

This morning when my youngest got up, she freaked out and loved it. I still think it isn't the greatest costume ever, but she is happy and that's what matters. Over the next week we'll work on the backpack. Here is the final photo.



Happy Halloween, two weeks early.

Fitness levels

So today at the gym we did a "fitness level test.". We do these every six weeks. Our trainer has six levels of fitness. As long as you go you can typically meet the levels. The higher you get, the more difficult they become. The good news is that there are set exercises, but Jason customizes the times to the individual. I tested for the fourth level today. My only concern was reaching my individual goal of weight loss.

I was dreading it all week, because I was sitting about two pounds over my goal two days ago. I showed up early to take my measurements. When I stepped on the scale, I was a full pound below my goal weight. I'm now officially 53 pounds lighter than I was in January. I kept my goal at six pounds over the next six weeks. I'm going to try for ten. 63 pounds sounds much better than 53.

The test days are fun because of the comroderie. Everyone is pushing each other on and having a good time. Jason has some other trainers on staff (none of them run classes yet, he makes them come for six months to fully understand their expectations.) they do help on test days, so I got to see a few of them than I usually do.

I'm stoked that I passed, I completed my mile and a half run in my best time since high school. I have to run more, I still can't keep it up as long as I'd like, running that is.

Last night at soccer practice the three coaches who where there took on the six players we had show up. I have to say we won, but I let them take back a goal I scored from 25 yards out. The coaches might have played a bit dirty, or as I like to say using our experience. In all fairness, I only had to pick three players up off the ground. It was fun, and thanks to my weight loss I was able to play the entire time!