It’s going to be like 65 this weekend! I really feel for all my friends and family in the Midwest who are getting hit with the 40 below temps. I do not miss it. Ok, let me clarify, I miss the fun of the snow. I miss waking up in the morning to the whole yard covered by a fresh snowfall, everything just completely beautiful and still and quiet. I also miss skiing, sledding and ice skating on a real pond. I do not miss shoveling, scraping, freezing and having to wear a jacket, hat, scarf, gloves, boots, you get the picture.
So, who all jumped on the “I need to lose weight in 2009 bandwagon?” I am a regular visitor to the gym but my diet plan needed a little adjustment in order for me to reach what I feel is my ideal weight. I have found our Wii to also be an excellent calorie burner. Over the holidays I was trying to snag a Wii Fit for the family but I refused to pay over $100 and no one who sold it at that price had one in stock, so I decided to get a game called Active Life Outdoor Challenge.
Active Life Outdoor Challenge has been a blast. It comes with one of those mats like DDR and even after being at work all day, it’s no problem for me to pull it out. It has something like 15 different games such as a mine-cart race, roller blading, jump roping, log jumping, kayaking. And you can play alone or two-player or two-player team. This has definitely helped me solve my problem of when I get home from work I would like to do some additional exercise, but I also want to spend time with my kids.
I found a friend in the blogosphere at Losing Weight in 2009 where she is doing the same thing, except she also has the Wii Fit. The tennis and boxing games that come with the Wii are also a great workout. My arms were seriously sore for like two days after 5 rounds of boxing and then a bunch of tennis matches with my daughter! Finally, video games and working out all in one, I am in heaven! 
Who else is a little disappointed by Governor Jim Gibbons’ State of the State budget proposal? I need someone to explain to me why when our state’s education and cultural department are so already so dismal, that this is what the Governor wants cut the most money from?A few excerpts from the RJ’s article I linked to above:
” . . . the governor’s budget also included a 6 percent cut in state worker salaries, including those of teachers . . .”
“. . . the biggest surprise, in the budget plan was the $473 million higher education cut.”
” . . . a typical state worker makes about $50,000 per year. Under the budget plan, that typical employee would lose $3,000 in pay, while paying more than $1,000 a year more for health insurance.”
“The only agency hit harder, proportionally, than the higher education system under Gibbons’ plan is the Department of Cultural Affairs, slated for a nearly 40 percent cut.”
To sum it up, a quote from Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes, “The salary cuts, in essence, are a cut in services . . .”
Isn’t there somewhere else we can get the money from? Is it time that we start paying some state taxes? Do we need a state lottery? Is this something Las Vegas can really afford?
Good news, it looks like the Yucca Mountain Project is going to be off the table pretty soon. President Obama does not think it is safe to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is going to zero out the budget and the state currently has more than 200 legal objections on file to the application to license the repository. Thank you! The thought of nuclear waste trucking through town or leaking into the water made me vow I would pack and leave if Yucca Mountain ever happened. I don’t care how safe people say it is, we really don’t know. The final decision that needs to take place is for Congress to repeal the Nuclear Waste Policy Act .
