divJesus Chavez is a great guy and showed my daughter a great time with a one hour workout. Interested in training with Jesus? Shoot me an email at jb@jbandsandy.com/divdivbr //divobject width="560" height="340"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MtFNnl7jbS0amp;hl=enamp;fs=1"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MtFNnl7jbS0amp;hl=enamp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"/embed/object
Jesus Chavez is a great guy and showed my daughter a great time with a one hour workout. Interested in training with Jesus? Shoot me an email at jb@jbandsandy.com
I was once on over the top, organized, anal-retentive freak. You know, to the point where it was quite annoying. I was pressed, waxed and sporting a handheld label maker with pride. My apartment was always ready for guests on a moments notice. I could have it visitor ready during their elevator ride up to my place. I recall a time when April 15th would roll around and I could pull my files out of my desk, run a report on quicken and my taxes where done. If I needed a receipt for the purchase of a battery from three years ago, I could find it in a heartbeat. My wife remembers that guy and wonders where he went. I donât know where the old JB is, but I can tell you when he left. He departed on November 26th, 2001. This was the day that I became a father and my mind warped and my priorities changed. Parents, you know what Iâm talking about. Those of you who have not yet had children or are expecting, I am about to give you a glimpse into your future.br /br /Let me take you on a little visual tour of my house. Just to be clear and avoid us coming across as slobs, my house is always clean. You could eat off the floor. It just has the distinct markings that a child lives there. Next to our front door youâll always find my daughters backpack, jacket and shoes. Our daughter can slip them off in one fluid motion when she walks in the door. Our living room is filled with extreme toys. Next to our lounge chair is an electric scooter that is charging. Next to the sofa is an electric car that is also charging. On the kitchen table is an remote control helicopter this is, you guessed it, charging. It seems every outlet is filled with a charger of some sort for portable dvd, ipods, DS Nitinendo or something. Whenever we sit on the sofa something needs to be moved, a pogo stick, hulk gloves or possibly and critter from outdoors, being held against itâs will. br /br /I always envisioned a quite office where I could find solitude. Itâs become the most chaotic room in the house. My office has become the office/playroom/family room/exercise room. The shelves meant to organize my work, taxes, books are filled with dinosaurs, board games, and puzzles. Itâs not uncommon to be working in the wee hours of the morning, the only time I am alone, only to have Squeeky the hamster cruise across my keyboard. The exercise equipment that âfolds for easy storageâ has lost its motivation to fold and store. At least itâs being used. On our tour, I can take you quickly from the family room to the bathroom because we have our choice of transportation available anywhere you look; skateboards, bikes, stilts. The bathroom is filled with gimmicks to entertain. When you pull back the shower curtain you literally canât see the bottom of the tub. Itâs a porcelain toy box of squirt guns, dolphins, mermaids and animal shaped bath gels. When I was growing up I donât recall needing scuba gear.br /br /Outside our home isnât much different. We have a small yard filled with nerfs, balls, bats, kites and inflatableâs. Not being much of a judge of size while ordering online, I apparently purchased the largest trampoline known to mankind. You open the door, walk to the end of the deck and all you see is my Ringling Brothers approved larger than life trampoline, leaving no yard whatsoever. Oh well, less mowing. Iâm not sure if our garage is organized or not. Itâs more of a magical David Copperfield sort of trick. Itâs really a mess but itâs all on the ceiling. Using every imaginable hook, shelf and pulley known available at Home Depot, Iâve managed to hang upside down every outdoor sports mechanism you can imagine; a Canoe, tent, surfboard, or fishing gear. What I basically have is an upside down REI. If you can find the right rope you are welcome to borrow anything you like. If you grab the wrong rope, they all come tumbling down.br /br /As crazy and chaotic as this all sounds, itâs also comforting. To walk into our home and find everything perfectly stowed away wouldnât feel right. I fully expect to walk up to the front door with the dog scratching at the glass, as if I hadnât been home in years, even though I just went to the mailbox. I expect the place to look as if a seven year old is loving every minute of being seven in this home, just as they did at six, five, and so on. Dinner wouldnât be the same if there werenât rubber frogs in the chair and fake poo on the table. I wouldnât know what to think if a dvd was actually in the correct case, or in a case at all. br /br /Priorities change when kids start taking those first steps. Itâs almost sad when we box up a years worth of her favorite toys and take it to our storage building, something I said I would NEVER have. We pull out a jumbo marker and write âRaleigh age oneâ and so on accordingly each year. She only gets to be a kid once and I hope she remembers how fun this house was. We always wanted it to be a creative, inspiring place to learn even if it meant mommy and daddy would have army men and jacks permanently embedded in their feet. There will always be plenty of time later in life to return to the old JB, but I donât miss him for now.br /br /I would like to make one last stop on our tour. I would like to show you my car but unfortunately melted crayons have jammed the doorlocks. But if you look inside and to the left youâll see a lovely design made of crushed goldfishâ¦
I was once on over the top, organized, anal-retentive freak. You know, to the point where it was quite annoying. I was pressed, waxed and sporting a handheld label maker with pride. My apartment was always ready for guests on a moments notice. I could have it visitor ready during their elevator ride up to my place. I recall a time when April 15th would roll around and I could pull my files out of my desk, run a report on quicken and my taxes where done. If I needed a receipt for the purchase of a battery from three years ago, I could find it in a heartbeat. My wife remembers that guy and wonders where he went. I donât know where the old JB is, but I can tell you when he left. He departed on November 26th, 2001. This was the day that I became a father and my mind warped and my priorities changed. Parents, you know what Iâm talking about. Those of you who have not yet had children or are expecting, I am about to give you a glimpse into your future.
Let me take you on a little visual tour of my house. Just to be clear and avoid us coming across as slobs, my house is always clean. You could eat off the floor. It just has the distinct markings that a child lives there. Next to our front door youâll always find my daughters backpack, jacket and shoes. Our daughter can slip them off in one fluid motion when she walks in the door. Our living room is filled with extreme toys. Next to our lounge chair is an electric scooter that is charging. Next to the sofa is an electric car that is also charging. On the kitchen table is an remote control helicopter this is, you guessed it, charging. It seems every outlet is filled with a charger of some sort for portable dvd, ipods, DS Nitinendo or something. Whenever we sit on the sofa something needs to be moved, a pogo stick, hulk gloves or possibly and critter from outdoors, being held against itâs will.
I always envisioned a quite office where I could find solitude. Itâs become the most chaotic room in the house. My office has become the office/playroom/family room/exercise room. The shelves meant to organize my work, taxes, books are filled with dinosaurs, board games, and puzzles. Itâs not uncommon to be working in the wee hours of the morning, the only time I am alone, only to have Squeeky the hamster cruise across my keyboard. The exercise equipment that âfolds for easy storageâ has lost its motivation to fold and store. At least itâs being used. On our tour, I can take you quickly from the family room to the bathroom because we have our choice of transportation available anywhere you look; skateboards, bikes, stilts. The bathroom is filled with gimmicks to entertain. When you pull back the shower curtain you literally canât see the bottom of the tub. Itâs a porcelain toy box of squirt guns, dolphins, mermaids and animal shaped bath gels. When I was growing up I donât recall needing scuba gear.
Outside our home isnât much different. We have a small yard filled with nerfs, balls, bats, kites and inflatableâs. Not being much of a judge of size while ordering online, I apparently purchased the largest trampoline known to mankind. You open the door, walk to the end of the deck and all you see is my Ringling Brothers approved larger than life trampoline, leaving no yard whatsoever. Oh well, less mowing. Iâm not sure if our garage is organized or not. Itâs more of a magical David Copperfield sort of trick. Itâs really a mess but itâs all on the ceiling. Using every imaginable hook, shelf and pulley known available at Home Depot, Iâve managed to hang upside down every outdoor sports mechanism you can imagine; a Canoe, tent, surfboard, or fishing gear. What I basically have is an upside down REI. If you can find the right rope you are welcome to borrow anything you like. If you grab the wrong rope, they all come tumbling down.
As crazy and chaotic as this all sounds, itâs also comforting. To walk into our home and find everything perfectly stowed away wouldnât feel right. I fully expect to walk up to the front door with the dog scratching at the glass, as if I hadnât been home in years, even though I just went to the mailbox. I expect the place to look as if a seven year old is loving every minute of being seven in this home, just as they did at six, five, and so on. Dinner wouldnât be the same if there werenât rubber frogs in the chair and fake poo on the table. I wouldnât know what to think if a dvd was actually in the correct case, or in a case at all.
Priorities change when kids start taking those first steps. Itâs almost sad when we box up a years worth of her favorite toys and take it to our storage building, something I said I would NEVER have. We pull out a jumbo marker and write âRaleigh age oneâ and so on accordingly each year. She only gets to be a kid once and I hope she remembers how fun this house was. We always wanted it to be a creative, inspiring place to learn even if it meant mommy and daddy would have army men and jacks permanently embedded in their feet. There will always be plenty of time later in life to return to the old JB, but I donât miss him for now.
I would like to make one last stop on our tour. I would like to show you my car but unfortunately melted crayons have jammed the doorlocks. But if you look inside and to the left youâll see a lovely design made of crushed goldfishâ¦
In case you missed my "Today I Marry My Best Friend" article for a href="http://www.rareaustin.com/"Rare Magazine/a. Here it is:br /br /Whenever I leave my mailbox with a calligraphy-ridden envelope, I wonder who else is about to tie the knot. I wager in my head whether they will be marrying their best friend or not. I sift through the first layer of tissue, then the second, then the third layer, then flick off the rose pedals or whatever accent theyâve thrown in. Ahhh, there it is âToday I Marry my Best friendâ¦â Isnât that sweet? Gag, cough, cough, gag. Really? Youâre âbest friendâ. Really? Even if you truly believe it that you are marrying your best friend, I want you to REALLY think about just how much the sound of it causes a perfectly healthy human being to double over and revert to high school peppermint schnapps style yakking.br /br /Donât get me wrong. Iâm a romantic to a fault. I love the concept of marriage and believe in it wholeheartedly. However, to me there are such distinct differences between a friend and a lover, that I canât possibly see the two overlapping. br /br /Youâre wife is someone you bond with because of the good times, the special pleasure you bring to each other, the release of endorphins through love, affection and hiding egg shaped objects in each other. That⦠is not your best friend. When I reflect on my best friends through the years, it always comes back to the same thing, overcoming adversity and killing time by being destructive. This is where young men bond. I ask you, âAre these things you would do with your spouse?âbr /br /At about age 7, my best friend was Brian. Our time together involved a lot of fort building. We were fearless little criminals taking lots of risks stealing lumber and heading off into the woods with our dads tools. Iâm not sure what our obsession was with having a fort. I think our moms forced us outside all day and many of those days called for shelter. Although dangerous to imagine the engineering of 7 year olds, the productivity and focus of it kept us from burning bugs with magnifying glasses all day.br /br /At age 9 my best friend, another Brian, and I started getting into real trouble. A single mom was raising him so we had all kinds of freedom from the time school ended til his mom came home from work. We spent a lot of winter afternoons using water hoses to turn the snow to ice and build our own luge track. The Olympics were much more popular then and I recall the Germans dominating in â76. So, we would give each other names like Helmut and Gunther then wish Godspeed on each other as we rocketed down the hill. We werenât steering at all, we were merely passengers of death. Itâs amazing weâre still alive. Our fun usually ended with afternoons by say âHey Karl-Hans, your leg bone is sticking out!âbr /br /By age 11 my best friend was Jack. I introduced Jack to skateboarding. He introduced me to smoking and porn. I was at least able to quit smoking after Jack moved away. br /br /At 13 I had moved to Texas and my first friend was Robbie. He stood next to me in choir as we pretended we were altos, our voices were changing daily. Robbie taught me two of the dirtiest jokes I have ever heard and I will never forget. My favorite being âhow can you tell if your girlfriends horny?â Unfortunately, I canât tell you the punch line.br /br /Finally 16. When my friend Larry and I werenât discussing girls or music, we worked on cars. Larry and I spent many grueling hours lying on hot pavement working on Mustangs and Camaros. We did it out of pure necessity. We had to get from point A to point B. Our cars werenât very good at going or stopping and every dime we made in our restaurant job went into making our cars go faster. The stopping we werenât so worried about. I am again amazed that Iâm still alive. You wouldnât believe some of the contraptions I rode around in during high school. It wasnât uncommon to see Larry and I walking through town with car parts slung over our shoulder.br /br /My wife and I have been together for 13 years, married the last 10. I canât imagine her building a fort, burning bugs, doing homemade luge, smoking, sheâs never told me a dirty joke or a joke for that matter and she sure as hell has never worked on my car. I love her dearly but sheâs not my âbest friendâ. Address your invitations accordingly, just as we did.
In case you missed my "Today I Marry My Best Friend" article for Rare Magazine. Here it is:
Whenever I leave my mailbox with a calligraphy-ridden envelope, I wonder who else is about to tie the knot. I wager in my head whether they will be marrying their best friend or not. I sift through the first layer of tissue, then the second, then the third layer, then flick off the rose pedals or whatever accent theyâve thrown in. Ahhh, there it is âToday I Marry my Best friendâ¦â Isnât that sweet? Gag, cough, cough, gag. Really? Youâre âbest friendâ. Really? Even if you truly believe it that you are marrying your best friend, I want you to REALLY think about just how much the sound of it causes a perfectly healthy human being to double over and revert to high school peppermint schnapps style yakking.
Donât get me wrong. Iâm a romantic to a fault. I love the concept of marriage and believe in it wholeheartedly. However, to me there are such distinct differences between a friend and a lover, that I canât possibly see the two overlapping.
Youâre wife is someone you bond with because of the good times, the special pleasure you bring to each other, the release of endorphins through love, affection and hiding egg shaped objects in each other. That⦠is not your best friend. When I reflect on my best friends through the years, it always comes back to the same thing, overcoming adversity and killing time by being destructive. This is where young men bond. I ask you, âAre these things you would do with your spouse?â
At about age 7, my best friend was Brian. Our time together involved a lot of fort building. We were fearless little criminals taking lots of risks stealing lumber and heading off into the woods with our dads tools. Iâm not sure what our obsession was with having a fort. I think our moms forced us outside all day and many of those days called for shelter. Although dangerous to imagine the engineering of 7 year olds, the productivity and focus of it kept us from burning bugs with magnifying glasses all day.
At age 9 my best friend, another Brian, and I started getting into real trouble. A single mom was raising him so we had all kinds of freedom from the time school ended til his mom came home from work. We spent a lot of winter afternoons using water hoses to turn the snow to ice and build our own luge track. The Olympics were much more popular then and I recall the Germans dominating in â76. So, we would give each other names like Helmut and Gunther then wish Godspeed on each other as we rocketed down the hill. We werenât steering at all, we were merely passengers of death. Itâs amazing weâre still alive. Our fun usually ended with afternoons by say âHey Karl-Hans, your leg bone is sticking out!â
By age 11 my best friend was Jack. I introduced Jack to skateboarding. He introduced me to smoking and porn. I was at least able to quit smoking after Jack moved away.
At 13 I had moved to Texas and my first friend was Robbie. He stood next to me in choir as we pretended we were altos, our voices were changing daily. Robbie taught me two of the dirtiest jokes I have ever heard and I will never forget. My favorite being âhow can you tell if your girlfriends horny?â Unfortunately, I canât tell you the punch line.
Finally 16. When my friend Larry and I werenât discussing girls or music, we worked on cars. Larry and I spent many grueling hours lying on hot pavement working on Mustangs and Camaros. We did it out of pure necessity. We had to get from point A to point B. Our cars werenât very good at going or stopping and every dime we made in our restaurant job went into making our cars go faster. The stopping we werenât so worried about. I am again amazed that Iâm still alive. You wouldnât believe some of the contraptions I rode around in during high school. It wasnât uncommon to see Larry and I walking through town with car parts slung over our shoulder.
My wife and I have been together for 13 years, married the last 10. I canât imagine her building a fort, burning bugs, doing homemade luge, smoking, sheâs never told me a dirty joke or a joke for that matter and she sure as hell has never worked on my car. I love her dearly but sheâs not my âbest friendâ. Address your invitations accordingly, just as we did.
