End of mango season and otai is so good

Its the end of the mango season, the end of summer. My niece in Laie has been selling mangoes from her tree and I think this past weekend was her last sale. She would make an average of $30 within 20 minutes. Her driveway is right across the college so there are always cars passing by. I think she made over $150 this summer selling mangoes from her back yard. My niece wants to use the proceeds of her sale to send her young cousin, who lives in Utah, to Hawaii.

With the end of summer is the end of watermelon season. I just had some awesome otai, a Tongan drink with watermelon and pineapple, this past weekend. Yeah, its my favorite drink, I drank like 6 plastic cup fulls. I'm sorry I don't know the recipe yet. Keeping this blog short because I am holding my sleeping 5 month old daughter and typing with one hand.

P90X update

I have been doing P90X for the past 3 weeks and so far I have lost 8 pounds! I believe one of the factors for my successful weight loss is my dieting. I eat much less during my meals but I snack inbetween them. I snack on high protein foods or fruits and vegetables. I eat more fresh vegetables and no soda.
P90X is the most intense workouts you'll ever get on a DVD workout program. I love the various workouts. Theres weight lifting exercises, plyometrics, yoga, kenpo, and ab exercises. I thought yoga was weird because the weird stretching and poses. I have a different take on it now because it totally uses all parts of your body. After a yoga workout, my legs are all wobbly and I'm drenched with sweat. Its pretty cool. I've done plyometrics before when I was on my high school volleyball team. But I don't remember plyometrics being this difficult, maybe because I'm older or maybe this workout is just more intense.
You're probably wondering, "when do you have time to do your workouts ?" I do it when the kids are napping after their lunch or after dinner and bathtime for the kids. Sometimes my kids will try to do some of the workouts with me like the jumping in plyometrics or the leg exercises. I'm always nervous if I'm lifting weights and they're near by. So I use the weight bands which are just as effective as the free weight dumbells.

With any workout routine you have to plan to set aside time to do your thing. Then commit yourself to do it everyday.

Work what?

Job hunting stinks but I gotta do it. It takes forever to make a resume and you have to make a resume specifically to the job you're applying to. You know you hope and pray that something falls in your lap. That rarely happens. So I've applied to like 2o plus jobs this past year and had a handful of interviews. I learned from my sister-in-law that I just need to network, network, network. When I think about it, yeah that is so true. All the jobs that I have done were from family, friends, and neighbors. So I read this article from monster.com called, "Broaden your Network." It gives you 3 things to ask your contacts: Jobs, People, and Qualifications. Its good, Google it and read it.
This stay at home Dad needs to get a job...well thats if anyone will hire me. Everyone is feeling the effects of this economic recession. Companies are cutting their employees and having the existing employees do more work than before. Not much hiring is being done. Consumers are actually saving their money and putting it in saving accounts or trying to get out of debt. I guess I could be a financial planner....nah, thats not my cup of tea. Or work at Walmart? No way, I don't think retail is my thing. But they give you best deals for stuff. Walmart is one of the few Fortune 500 companies that are going strong at this time. Consumers save money shopping at Walmart. There are many times that I go to Walmart and have a list of things I need and I come back with way more stuff because I think I should buy it because its cheap. I know just because I'm almost an MBA graduate you'd think that I was too good enough for these jobs. I'm almost about to settle for anything that pays good. One of my professors said that money is not a motivator for work, it is a satisfier. I think he meant that once you receive the pay you want you'll be happy, thus satisfied for a while. Then when you start spending more because you have more income you realize that you want or need to make more money. I forget the actual theory that this is called. There is truth in this theory.
I'm reading this book called "Balance Scorecard Step by Step for Government and Nonprofit Agencies" for my final class for my MBA program. Its not half bad, pretty interesting stuff. It kind of covers all lot of the material I learned. Well the business principles and models that are contained in the book make sense to me because of the things I learned from all my business classes.
Well this past couple years staying at home with my kids I learned a ton of stuff. Home management, morning tv schedules, meal planning, patience, and more patience. I sometimes wish I'd be working instead of being at home. I know for sure that my wife is much smarter than I am. She catches on to things quickly, meaning shes a better learner. She has this huge vocabulary and says words I heard once or studied once in my life time. Yeah, its because she reads a lot of books and plays crossword puzzles. Anyways my point being is that she could easily get her MBA or whatever graduate program she wants.

New hobbies, Rock Band 2 and P90X

Its been a while... I have some new hobbies. Rock band 2 and P90X.

We got Rock Band 2 from a Best Buy gift card from my parents. My wife and kids love to play Rock Band 2, we have the entire set. We have the guitar, the drums, and microphone. My son loves to play the drums, he doesn't really play he just thinks that he plays and beats the drum. My daughter loves to sing the songs....

she dances, holds the mike and sings just the chorus of 4 songs. My wife is the better guitar player and drummer. I think its because she knows how to play the piano. The game is pretty addicting, I have yet to play guitar hero world tour.

About P90X, I got it for Christmas from my Dad. Its awesome...I got my buttkicked from the first workout, it was a Chest and Back workout. I started last week but put it on hold this week because I'm overcoming a cold... but I've been following the diet. I lost 3 pounds since I started! We'll see how it goes...

Daddy belly

So its been 2 months since the last blog. No excuse just lazy. I had two pretty intense classes, Finance for Managers and Business Strategy. We've had some family emergencies. We have to move out of our apartment because the owner wants to sell it and my wife is expecting our 3rd child. So I'm pregnant too, I'm always hungry and my mood changes sometimes. It seems that whenever my wife is pregnant I gain a little weight. So to offset that I've been trying to workout atleast 3 times a week. I'm following a "Men's Health Belly Off" program. Its pretty good. I know I get a good work out because I'm all sweaty when I finish one of the work outs. I use to have a six-pack, that was when I was single and danced at the Polynesian Cultural Center and worked out 3-4 days a week. Sigh, like in the movie, "The Incredibles", 'the glory days'. I now have a 'Daddy belly', you know the belly that your kid can sit on your tummy while you're holding them while standing. I gained like 25 pounds since I've been married.
I just saw the movie on DVD, "Run Fat Boy Run", it is hilarious. I laughed so hard with that movie. It kind of motivates me to continue to workout. Its about this out of shape and out of luck guy, Dennis who ran away from his girlfriend, Libby who was pregnant at the altar. Its now 5 years later and Dennis wants to run a marathon to earn the respect for Libby who is the mother of his 4 year old impressionable son and most of all to compete with her handsome boyfriend. Its British humor and I think its funny. I won't tell you what happens at the end. You have to find out for yourself.
The last movie I saw in the movie theater was High School Musical 3, Senior Year. It was surprisingly really good. I loved the singing and the dancing. The acting was pretty good. The best movie of the series. Yes, I have seen all 3 HSMs. I have the soundtracks. I have seen the first movie over 20 times. Its because of my daughter liked to watch it alot. Yeah, right.
Back to working out. I would love to get a 24 hour Fitness membership but its so crazy expensive. Hmm 4oo bucks for 3 years and I gotta pay up front, what if I don't go as often? Lose money if you're lazy. What a cool concept, pay a fee to work out for 1-3 years upfront. These guys that started gyms are smart. Yeah, diet can help too. I don't eat as much as I did in college. Just gotta eat smarter like an adult. I tend to eat my kids leftovers. I didn't know that men can gain weight eating they're children's left overs. There have been studies on this. Sorry I forgot the article title. Its just the Hawaiian culture, no waste especially food.

TV or read?

I just read an article online from msn.com about TV and if there is a link to ADHD. It says that that TV affects children's ability to concentrate and pay attention. Kinda scary because I let my kids watch TV in the morning. Playhouse Disney and Nick Jr. is our morning choice of TV programming. My kids love "Little Einstein", "My Friends Tigger and Pooh", "Dora the Exporer", and "Yo Gabba Gabba". So its about 2 hours worth of TV in the morning. Then I have them watch good ole "Sesame Street". Yeah, I guess thats too much. I did talk to few moms at church and some let their kids watch TV all day. But they only let them watch Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. I usually sometimes let my kids watch a DVD, a kid one like "Curious George" the movie. My son gets that glazed look when he watches, he can be a couch potatoe. Its kinda scary sometimes when I call him and he doesn't respond after 3 times. Here's the article for TV and ADHD:

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/adhd/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100161248

I noticed my daughter who is 4, usually gets bored from TV shows after 15 minutes and leaves to play with her toys. She does not like to read or have us read to her as often as her brother. My son loves to be read to. He loves to open books and look at the pictures and I can hear him sometimes pretending to read outloud. I bought my kids the Bob Books, to help them to read. Its simple reading and repetitive. I did not like to read when I was kindergarten age, my wife, my opposite, loved to read. She still does. Maybe thats why shes so smart. My wife and I try to read to our kids everyday. We borrow books at the library. Our kids get excited because its a novelty thing. New books, yayy!

Believe it or not our kids are much smarter than we were and they are learning faster and better because of improved education and teaching methods. I really gotta get on the ball in educating my kids more than letting Mr. TV teach them. On that same article mentioned above it said to continue to teach your child the subject or object that was displayed. Like on "Sesame Street" if the letter of the day was "M". Continue to help your kid understand words that start with "M" and point out objects at home, like "mat", "man".

Video Games

Its been a while since my last blog. Been busy with classes and homework, family, and other things. One of those other things has been video games. I've been playing Madden 09 on my Playstation 2. Its pretty good. Not much more different than that of the year before. I guess all the cool newer features for the game are for the PS3 and the Xbox 360. I seen the demos, tons more better than the PS2.
Alright so you're wondering when do I have the time to play? I play at night when the kids are sleeping and at naptime. Yeah, I am suppose to be working out during naptime or clean the house during that time. So I've been up late or early in the morning playing till my eyes can't stay open. Video games is like an outlet for me, like working out. We have a Nintendo Wii also, I don't play it as much since I got the new Madden game. I'll get a PS3 after I get a HDTV. That will be next year Christmas time. We can't afford it so we won't buy it. I think preschool payments take priority then our entertainment gadgets. Oh, can't forget my student loan...one day we will buy a house....one day...some day.