When my son, Bailey, was born, I didn’t realize what exactly I had looking back at me from within my arms. It took the better part of a year to wrap my brain around the fact that I am now a father. I expect and hope for him to learn from me and my examples and how I’ve lived. To my surprise, my son has shown me a lot in his brief two years with me – perhaps more so than I’ve shown him.

Every time I am with my son, he reiterates within me all that is good, decent and right in my world. Being only two years old, he doesn’t yet know the inner workings of human emotion and as such, his emotions are true and untarnished. The term “dad” can mean a lot to some or nothing at all to others but when I catch Bailey’s gaze and get a smile followed by “hi daddy”, it means the world to me. He looks at me expecting nothing but for me to love him unconditionally and with all my heart which is the easiest part of my job as a father.

I’m not much of a religious person but seeing the perfect little miracle I helped create leads me to believe that someone cared about me enough to bestow upon me the best gift I’ve ever received these past 28 years. If my purpose in life is nothing else, it’s to take what I’ve been given and help him grow as only a father can. I’ve been entrusted with a life not my own and I have a responsibility to make that life the best I possibly can.

The bond I have with my son transcends anything I’ve had with anyone else – including my own father. I feel everything he feels be it good or bad. He may not be able to articulate his thoughts just yet but I know what’s going on in his mind with a simple look into his innocent eyes. If only it were possible, I’d bear any and all of the pain and hurt that life holds in store for him while letting him reap the joys of being happy. But alas, all I can do is teach him how to overcome obstacles and be a stronger person for it.

Never will there come I time where my son doesn’t come first. Regardless if he’s a few miles away or halfway across the world, I’ll never be out of his reach. I’ll pick him up when he falls and be the first to praise him on the achievements and accomplishments he will have earned in his lifetime. I can already see within him that he is a wonderful person and as he grows, I hope others are able to experience the unsurpassed happiness he has brought to me.

One day, I’ll be able to tell him and he will be able to understand that I’m so proud of him for simply being my son.

I have an infinite amount of memories from my grandpa but I have a few favorites that I’d like to share.

When I was maybe four or five years old, Grandpa started teaching me how to swing a golf club. He took an old driver that he had and cut it down to little-guy size for me. We went into his back yard and he gave me a few balls to hit. He showed me the basics of how to swing and let me take it from there. I whiffed the first few swings which made Grandpa chuckle and me get mad. The next attempt I made sent a Titleist sailing into the neighbors yard narrowly missing a window. Grandpa promptly took my new driver away and he decided we had better go to the range after that.

I had gone fishing with Grandpa ever since I could walk and that was my favorite thing in the world to do with him. We had gone charter fishing for Walleye at Lake Erie several times and one year we went with a group of his buddies. We had a little contest going to see who could catch the biggest fish. There was no prize, just the pride of the biggest catch and bragging rights for the day along with some good eats. After about six hours, we came back to port and took inventory of the days catch. Low and behold, out of all the guys that went, I caught the biggest fish. Or so I was told… I don’t know if I really did or if Grandpa told me I did to make me happy but either way, the smile on his face is one I’ll always remember.

Finally, the last thing I want to say would probably make him the happiest. When I knew that his great grandchild was going to be a baby boy, I knew I had to pay him a visit. We were sitting in the kitchen casually talking as we often did when I told him I was going to have a son. He asked if I knew what the name would be and I said I did. Grandpa asked what it would be so I looked him square in the eye and simply said “Bailey”. He had a puzzled look on his face and I then told him his great grandson was going to be named after him. God love my grandpa, all he could say in response was “why?” I can’t remember exactly how I explained it but I had made a promise to myself ever since I knew I wanted children that if I ever had a son, he was going to be named after Grandpa. He was never fond of the name Bailey but I think his feelings on the subject changed once I told him that. He lit up every time he saw little Bailey and he always called him “Bailey the Great”.

My Grandpa means more to me than I can ever express and anything I can do to honor him means everything to me. He always said that I had a lot of Ray Clark in me. I never really understood that until I realized that the way I am with my son is the same way he was with me. My grandpa is the most amazing man I’ve known in my life and he will carry on through me and his great grandson.

Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I closed my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open

Well I don’t know if I’m ready
To be the man I have to be
I’ll take a breath, I’ll take her by my side
We stand in awe, we’ve created life

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I’ll show you love
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open
I’ll show you everything …oh yeah
With arms wide open..wide open

[Guitar Break]

If I had just one wish
Only one demand
I hope he’s not like me
I hope he understands
That he can take this life
And hold it by the hand
And he can greet the world
With arms wide open…

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I’ll show you love
I’ll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open
I’ll show you everything..oh yeah
With arms wide open….wide open

The “peanut butter cup” shake:
1 scoop Optimum Gold Standard chocolate whey protein
3 ounces of water
2 whole eggs
1 tablespoon of peanut butter
1 teaspoon of l-glutamine powder

The “mocha” shake:
1 scoop of Optimum Gold Standard chocolate whey protein
3 ounces of black (preferably a bold roast) coffee
3 whole eggs
1 teaspoon of l-glutamine powder

When making the “mocha” shake, make sure the coffee is NOT HOT. If it is, it will essentially boil the egg whites and you’ll get chunks of it in your shake. A shaker bottle won’t work when making these either. The peanut butter is too think to blend properly and the eggs won’t mix as well. The reason I like whole eggs is because the thickness of them helps suspend the relatively heavy granules of the l-glutamine powder so as to prevent the powder from settling at the bottom of the cup and making the last few sips of the shake fell like your drinking wet sand. Use whatever chocolate protein you like. I just happen to prefer Optimum’s whey because it works well for me and it’s what I’ve always used. Both shakes contain around 48 to 54 grams of protein which, from what I’ve read, is about the maximum amount of protein you want to take in at once. I’m not a supplement guru, however, so do your own research and make some of your own concoctions. Get creative! If you come up with anything you think I may like, post it in the comments or shoot me a message via the “Contact” page.

Almost two years later, I have watched you grow and develop into my little man. When you look at me and say “daddy!” my heart melts and I have to choke back tears of joy. I love just watching you do what you do. You fascinate me with how you’ve grown and the things you have learned. Playing with you, coloring with you and especially watching Blue’s Clues with you are some of the things I will remember for the rest of my life. I’ve watched you take your first steps, I’ve watched you speak your first words, I’ve watched you grow and develop your own personality and will continue to do so for the rest of my years.

I will do my best to raise you like your Great Grandpa raised me. I will show you how to be a good, honest, caring and loving person. I can only hope that I will be an influential part of your life and you will continue to be Daddy’s little buddy. You will always be my baby boy even when you’re a full grown man. As you grow, I hope you take cues from me as far what to do as a person and especially learn from my mistakes and learn what not to do.

I feel everything that you feel. When you’re happy, so am I. When you hurt, I do as well. We have a special connection that can only be had by a father and son. I will foster this bond as I hope you will to and it will only get stronger as the days, months and years go by. I not only am proud to be your father, but hopefully, I will also be your friend that you can come to whenever you want or need to. I will always be there for you.

I love you my son. Always and forever.

Today, I had my initial body shots taken and I was disgusted with what I saw. Looking at myself in the mirror is one thing, but seeing photos of myself gave me a new perspective on my body image. To sum it up, I look like a grabastic wad of cookie dough. I absolutely have to do something about the way I look. Not just for superficial reasons like you may think, but to boost my self esteem like I did in the past when I transformed myself to get into the Air Force as well as to improve my overall health and quality of life.

Over the last week, I’ve started to get re-acclimated to the gym. I had forgotten a lot of what I had taught myself and what I had learned from Dan, but it’s coming back to me slowly. My areas of focus will be my upper body with a strong focus on my arms. My arms aren’t all that small for the time I took off from the gym, but I want to go beyond having ‘twin cannons’ and stack myself with some BFG’s (for those that remember playing Doom back in the day, you will know what I mean; those that don’t, the BFG was the ‘biggest fucking gun’ in the game…) My legs are still pretty decent, but I’ve always been blessed with two tree trunks to walk on and massive calves from playing drums and working a double-bass pedal for so many years. I can see three out of four of the various muscles that make up the quads. With a little work, I should be able to get my leg press back to well over a half a ton and make all four muscles visible and striated.

Lifting won’t be enough, though. Diet and supplementing will also play a critical part in my overall transformation. Right now, my supplement stack consists of L-glutamine, L-arginine, creatine, protein and some additional BCAA’s (‘Branch Chain Amino Acids’ for those that aren’t familiar with that acronym). My protein shakes are my own concoction. Protein alone is great, but I add a little extra to it in the form of a teaspoon of Jif peanut butter and two whole eggs. I know that egg yolks have a fair amount of cholesterol in them but the extra grams of protein are worth the cholesterol, in my opinion. When I was training for the Air Force, my primary focus was to lose weight and my calorie intake on a daily basis was no more than 1200 to 1400 kcal. This time around, I’m trying to find a balance of muscle building and weight loss. Those that are into fitness know that one pound of muscle is a lot more dense than one pound of fat so adding, for example, 10 pounds of muscle won’t add nearly as much extra mass than 10 pounds of fat carries. Adding muscle is also beneficial in the fact that muscle mass can consume fat for energy, so in a round about way putting on extra weight in the form of muscle mass can reduce body fat. It’s a win-win situation.

I’m going to switch gears and talk a little about my strength training. Once upon a time, when I was younger, my bench was a solid 315 to 325 and my body weight was right around 200lbs. I want to get my bench press-to-body-weight ratio back to at least 1.5. What do I mean? I mean that I want to be able to bench press at least 1.5 times my own body weight. As of right now, I weigh between 210 and 215 depending on the scale I use and my one rep max on a bench press is only 235 as of a few days ago. This is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable to me. Referencing what I remember I could do in the gym a few years ago compared to now shows how lazy I got and how much I slacked off. This is all going to change starting last week.

All in all and in conclusion, I’m turning myself around and am going to make myself look the way I want to. I’m sick and tired of how I look now and I’m damn determined to do something about it. Stay tuned for updates and more documentation on my progress.