My Name is Robbie and I'm a Coffee Racist

My name is Robbie ("Hello Robbie") I've never been to these kind of meetings before, but I guess the first step is to admit being racist; I'm a coffee racist ("That's good, keep telling us about it"). Well here is the story and how I realized it:

I went to bed at around midnight last night and know that I'd wake up needing some caffeine. So I woke up at 5:30am as usual for work, go ready and headed out the door at 6:10am. At 6:15am I made it to the Starbucks that's en route to my work. When I walked in, something nicely odd happened. The Starbucks coffee maker dude asked "Caramel Machiato, right?" I politely responded "Yea, for sure, thanks!"

It was at this moment that I realized 2 things. 1) I go there too often. 2) I'm not diverse in my drinking. And thus, I've been shown the light on my racism.. coffee racism that is. Thank you Starbucks coffee maker dude, without you my day would not be as great.

("Good job! Good job to every one today guy's. See you all next Monday")

How to get a date: the number's game.

To get a number, you have to play the number's game. "WTF Robbie! The title was how to get a date, not how to get a number." Cool it kid.

So you're average looking and you don't get many dates. Your ugly friend seems to get dates with pretty good looking women so what's wrong with you? Well, something is wrong because if nothing was wrong then you wouldn't have to be fishing; they'd just jump into (onto? lol) your boat.

Here's what's wrong:

1) You don't even talk to a girl

You need to play the numbers game to get a number. What's that mean? It means you need to actually talk to women, grow a pair and just go up and talk to her. If you talk to enough women, you're bound to get a number or two. If you want to increase your success percentage, do this:

2) Grow a pair and man up

I may be wrong but in my humble experience, girls want a guy who is, well, a guy. Take charge and go talk to her. Don't wimp out in the conversation either! You don't have to agree with EVERYTHING she is saying, just don't be rude or condescending to her. The girls that I've talked with like it when a guy is in charge... I'm not saying that in a sexist way, and don't act like you are better than her because you aren't. It's hard to explain without seeing it, but what I mean is just give direction to the conversation. Get used to going up to a woman and talking with her.. the nerves will never go away before you do it but it'll get easier to overcome those nerves.

3) She holds the key

Guess what? She makes the decision to say no. Get used to rejection because you'll get used to it and learn from it. There are more fish in the sea but please don't go fishing in the same pool all night. If a girl sees you just trying to talk with EVERY girl at the bar, she'll stay away from you. If you notice something about her that just bugs you and you aren't interested: BAIL! There's no reason to drag a conversation on with her if you don't want to.

So in summary: Walk, Talk, and Walk Away (quickly when necessary).

Who needs a title for awesomeness?

My fingers are tight, I'm slightly nervous, and I'm not too sure how I'll perform. Yup that's right it's been a while... since I've written on my blog. Sorry about that! Here's a brief recap of the last 4-6 weeks: hernia surgery, work, and school. Looks like you didn't miss much! haha

In reality though I've been really busy with a "project." This project will change the lives of everyone in the US: a new gift basket business haha. I'm actually starting up this website where you can buy pre-made gift baskets, customize those gift baskets if you want, or build a gift basket from scratch. I made the process simple, fun, and so you can make your gifts more personal. The website is KitsByDesign.com... don't go there yet though because it isn't even up and you'll just get a colorful "GoDaddy" page. Look for it to launch at the end of July or beginning of August.

I got a Swedish massage yesterday and it was an hour of warm, lotion-y goodness. The weird part was that it turned out that my masseuse used to work with my older brother at Petco.. so I did have the thoughts of what her hands used to touch in the pet shop with all of those animals running around. She was cool though and tried to get the knots out of my traps. I ended up getting a 12 month membership so now I'm going to get a massage every month. The girl at the front explained that I could use my "once a month massage" to get a facial instead because they'll be offering that soon. "Yeeaaa I'll stick with the massages," I said.

Next time I might explore different cultures and go for some other sort of massage. Or just stick with the Swedish because it was relaxing. I never quite understood those painful massages. Like, if I wanted to get beat up and get my pressure points pressed on, I would have joined mixed martial arts. No thank you.

This membership is part of my new push to bring good health to my mind and body. I've been working out 3 times a week for the past two weeks and will continue that, I'm eating way healthier, and I'm getting massages. Now if only I could start my business right now, I'd be set!

Aside from that, this summer I'm going to do a few things and I'll post a bucket list of things to-do.

Please Don't Diet Chicken

Mmmmm chicken, what I can do to you. Aside from it's great deliciousness and protein, chicken packs the versatility that makes my mouth water.

It can quickly become a boring food though, especially if not cooked perfectly. You probably can't see everything in the picture so I'll break it down for you:

2 Chicken Breasts -of course... mmmm

3 cups Rice chex

As much Bacon as you want - mmmm

1 cup shredded mozzarella

1 cup shredded cheddar

6 slices of monterey pepperjack cheese.

Fresh green onions -home grown goodness, rough cut

About a cup of oil

2 tablespoons of parsley

2 tbs each of salt/pepper

Sorry for not having pics of each step! I'll make this again and take the pictures.

Step 1) Cook the bacon. Some people like it super crispy, some like it limp... cook it how you like it. I always make a few extra pieces because I can't help but eat it before it gets onto my chicken. Tear it up so you can sprinkle it on the chicken later.

Step 2) crush the Chex until it's small pieces... you don't want all of it to be powder but keep on crushing until you get the big pieces broken down.

Step 3) Put oil, parsley, salt and pepper in medium sized bowl.

Step 4) butterfly the chicken breasts (this means if you have the breast laying on the table pretty flat, you should cut the chicken parallel to the table... don't cut all the way through though, leave it connected). Then put the butterflied chicken breasts in the oil mixture, then roll chicken in the Chex. Make sure that the entire chicken is coated with the Chex. Be sure to spread the chicken out as much as you can and cover it. The above picture is just one chicken breast, so that gives you and idea of how to butterfly and cook it.. keep it spread apart.

Step 5) Put about 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan and put on medium-high heat. Once oil and pan is heated, place open butterflied chicken breasts in it. Don't move the chicken around because you'll make the coating fall off.

Step 6) Cover and let it cook for about 5-7 minutes on one side, then carefully flip it and continue to cook another 4 minutes. At the 4 minute mark (as long as it's nearing completion) add the cheddar and mozzarella cheese on top. Cover again to let it melt and cook. about another minute or two.

Note: Cooking times vary with the thickness of the chicken and differences in stove tops. Make sure you cook the chicken thoroughly.

Step 7) Once the chicken is done, put the breasts on individual plates. Add the bacon slices, then the Monterey jack slices, and then the green onions.

The reason I call this "Please Don't Diet Chicken" is because the cheeses and bacon used increase the fat and calorie content. But it's freakin' good so who cares?

-Robbie

"Inspiration is a unique way of looking at something."

Things I Do For My Nieces

I love all of my nieces and my lil' nephew and I would do anything for them. Yesterday (March 5th) was one of my niece's birthday.

My sister just recently bought a new house and so I figured my now 4-year-old niece would like some girly toys to go into it. After going up and down the Barbie aisle over and over again, I thought deeply about just getting her Hot Wheels cars and a Nerf gun.

She would've just as easily loved both of those. I would know because I got her a bunch of Hot Wheels cars and a city floor mat thing for Christmas and she always plays with my Nerf Gun. She isn't quite strong enough for her own Nerf Gun though because it's somewhat difficult to use and I couldn't get her Hot Wheels AGAIN.

So my eureka moment came when I thought of her getting her own room soon. I know that little girls always love fun furry pillows so I set out to find one. Much to my disappointment, Target had a pretty limited selection at the time. I walked around some more, stopping by the DVD section once or twice to see if I should by anything for myself.

And then I saw them... the coolest girly piggy banks ever. I knew she would love it because 1) she plays with one that is at my house and 2) I have a bowl full of coins that she always plays with. So I picked one up and carried it under my arm to the check out. Before I got very far though I found this 4ft body pillow that matched the piggy. I picked one of those up too.

So here I found myself walking through a pretty busy Target with a giant pink pillow under one arm and a pink piggy bank in the other. I wasn't really bothered by it at all because I'm used to carrying around girly stuff for my nieces but I did get some pretty funny stares.

The cashier lady did one of those raised eyebrows to me as in to mean "really now? All this pink?" And that raised brow forced the sarcasm out of me and I had to say "I'm redoing my room... I needed these to match my bed and curtains. Do you know if Target carries pillow cases that look like this, too?" She let out one of those weird laughs when you're in an awkward moment and not sure what to say. All I could think of after saying that was I wondered if people even use curtains anymore.

BTW: My niece loved them. Apparently she's been bugging my sister about the piggy bank for quite some time and she made good use of the pillow as a crash landing pad.

-Robbie

"Thinking of others above ourselves is the best thing we can do at times."

Who's University? OUR UNIVERSITY

We walked out, marched around, and chanted war songs today. OK, so we didn't chant war songs but there were some catchy sayings that were used.

I'm not sure how effective the march will actually be. Actually, I have a pretty good feeling that it did nothing to help the universities in CA. What would make an impact? If every student wrote a letter and it was delivered to the governator and the legislature.

Can you imagine.. what would hundreds of thousands of letters look like in that mail room? Hmm.. one could only imagine. Do they actually open every letter that they get? Maybe someone should send them a "balancing a budget for dummies" book or something. I know what I'm getting Arny Schwarzenegger for xmas!

-Robbie

"Not trying is the only true failure"

The App that Weighs In

Though most people nowadays are watching their weight and trying to make sure it doesn't go up, I have problems keeping my weight on. "Oh you're so lucky," some may say but the truth is that Crohn's disease is anything but lucky. I just had pizza and my stomach is hurting already!

Anyways, I require a high protein, high calorie diet in order to maintain my weight.

I just installed a Calorie Counter by FatSecret on my Droid and I am so happy that I did! There is a setup menu where I select my age and height, whether I want to maintain, lose, or gain weight, and how active I am.

It told me that because I'm active and want to gain weight, I need to eat at least 3600 calories a day.

The "Home Screen" looks like this:

The food diary allows you to either scan the barcode of the product and input the number of servings you ate/drank, or you can do a search using a variety of options. This app makes everything just so easy, you'll want to start counting calories too!

You can't see from the picture above, but below "Diet Calendar" there is also a weight tracker so you can see how you're weight fluctuates over time. You can even register on www.FatSecret.com, sync your phone as well as iGoogle and Facebook.

Now, even though I want to gain weight, you can see how this is a great tool for keep track of your calories. In the "Food Diary" menu it also shows fats, carbs, and proteins that you've consumed for that day.

Download the app today or if you don't have a Droid (it probably has an app for iPhone too), you can stilll go onto www.FatSecret.com and track your intake that way.