A day of rest

I have decided that Mondays are the day that I rest. Mondays seem to be the days I have the most going on, and I know that I need to rest my legs at least one day a week. I am not sore anymore, but my legs feel very heavy.

I would rather take a day and rest, than try and workout and quit half way through.

I promise I will be back at it tomorrow.

The History of #3

I went to the book store today, and picked up a copy of, My Side of the Mountain, and while looking for, The Art of War, came across another book that I thought would help. I picked up, The Perfect Mile, which chronicles the efforts of three individuals to break the 4 minute mile.

Running the mile, to me has always been one of my favorite things. It goes back to 3rd grade. At the end of the year we had a mini skills day at my school. The school was so small we only had one class per grade. My class maybe had 8-12 boys in it. While I was fairly athletic, I was not good at most of the skill competitions that they had.

The one I excelled in was the mile. Due to my best friend, Nate Wolff, I can't say that I have ever won a mile race. I did come in second a lot. It was my one ribbon on skills day in elementary school.

This spilled over into Middle and High School. In Middle School we had a track day. Where both middle schools, Birnamwood and Wittenberg would come together and you could compete in Track and Field events. Here again I looked forward to the mile as my time to shine, I would come in second to Nate, but loved in none the less. My favorite moment here, and my favorite mile, was when my father, a middle school teacher, ran the mile with us. I was in eight grade at the time, new my father ran on a regular basis, and also new that I couldn't lose to my father. I again came in second that year, and my dad came in third.

In High School the mile got more competitive. I now ran against other schools. So finishing second to Nate, typically didn't happen anymore. He still came in first, I was now a couple of spots back. High School is where I ran my fastest mile. I ran a 4:51 at the conference meet my sophomore year. I came in 6th.

My Junior year, I seemed to upset my coach, and I was not run in the mile again in high school. I will never know how fast I could have run it then.

My ultimate goal is to run a mile under 4:51. I figured that under 5:30 by 30 is a good start.

A lot of people wonder why I love the mile. I will watch Track on TV, just to see them run the mile. The mile to me, is one one of the most challenging races. You need to be fast, and have endurance. You need to learn when to kick, when to draft, when to run with the pack, and when to leave them behind. All races under a mile come down to speed. How fast can you go and for how long. You don't have time to make a mistake, because you just run. Any race over a mile, and it comes down to endurance. You can relax for parts of the race, run as a group, and burn off the laps until it is time to kick. You can make a mistake here, and still recover.

The mile is, the Perfect Race.

So I hope that the book brings me inspiration. Helps me keep going when I want to stop. People used to say it was impossible to break 4 minutes in the mile. They said you would die trying. People also thought the world was flat and that George W Bush would be a good president. I am sure there a people who don't think I can dunk a basketball or run a 5:30 mile, or lose weight. When I complete my 30 by 30 and shed 30-40 pounds, they will be the ones wondering what they have accomplished.

Movie Pitch #2

I was going to wait a while before throwing another movie idea out, but since the last one sparked some great feedback, I figured I would put another one out their.

This movie is much darker than the first. This one wasn't sparked by a song, but actually Nancy Grace. For those of you who don't know, Nancy Grace has a show on the Headline News Channel. Most of the topics of discussion involve recent high profile murders, kidnappings, child mistreatment, etc, etc. While the idea is great, stick it to bad people. I can't stand the way she goes about bullying people. Anyway, what sparked my thought was anytime a wife goes missing, or a child disappears, the husband and or parents seem to now become immediate suspects. While a lot of the time it turns out that they are the responsible party, some times, people that are in a horrible situation, now have to deal with being blamed for the crime, that has hurt them so much. Nancy Grace always seems to be leading the charge in placing the blame on them as well.

So my movie idea revolves around this subject. The movie starts out with a man/woman coming home. You can tell the house hasn't been lived in for a while. Piles of mail, newspapers, a thick coating of dust everywhere. The story is then told two ways.

Half of the story revolves around a court case. This individuals family has been killed, while him/her was in the house sleeping. After a week of finding nothing, he is arrested. No evidence links him to the murder, other than the fact he was in the home sleeping at the time. With the public outcry growing over the lack of progress in the case, the DA makes an arrest and proceeds on with the case. During the trial, the man always proclaims his innocence, even concocting his own theory as to what happened, how a loaner had snuck into their house and lived in their attic. Eventually killing his family. When the trial ends the jury sides in his favor, and he is set free.

The second piece to this movie takes place as the man packs up his house to move. The trial scenes are told in flashbacks, and triggered by things that he packs. All of the house scenes are packed with suspense. The flashbacks are not chronological, so one of the first flashbacks you see is him giving his loaner/attic theory. Lots of doors closing, mirrors moving, where you assume that the loaner is going to be seen. The attic door is often shown, but he never goes up.

The movie ends with the last flashback of him telling the jury about his love for his family, and the last scene is of him leaving the house.

The movie is set up to do two things. One be a thriller, the scariest scenes for me in movies are the ones where you wait and anticipate. All the scenes in the house are filled with waiting and anticipation. The movie then would also be set up so you question whether you believe he is Innocent or not. I want to leave it so it spurs nothing but discussion over who really killed his family.

Anyway, a much different movie than the other. One though, that I feel if I could write it, the way I invision it, could be a very good movie.

A Wall

I didn't hit THE wall but I hit a wall today while working out. I said to myself, you've done a great job so far, reward yourself and stop a little early today. Then I realized that stopping early would only set a presedent to stop early other days. I pushed through it, and next thing I knew I was done. I felt a real sense of accomplishment.

I didn't see the cat today so no pictures. I want to think that it just used our deck as a place to flop for a couple of days. It is one of those cats, that was lost on vacation, and is trekking across country back to it's family. Though maybe it was just doing what cats do, and slept all day. I will try again tomorrow, I know how many of you were looking forward to pictures of some random lost cat.

Didn't make it to the library today, I didn't end up leaving the house at all, except for a walk that we took as a family. I am in dire need of a haircut though, so I plan to head out tomorrow.

Taking it to the Streets

I went for a jog/walk tonight. Inspired by opening night of "Run Fatboy Run" the new Simon Pegg comedy, I decided it was time to leave the elliptical behind and submit my self to some public exercise. Though the public part is somewhat of a cop out, since I didn't really see anyone, since it was dark and late.

Though I must say, I am happy that I have stuck with it so far. I know most of you are thinking, this guy has only been at it for four days, and he is acting like he deserves an Olympic medal. What you don't realize is that I haven't exercised for four days in a row in 5 years. When I decided to start running again, went 30 days straight, and just stopped. Before that would have been senior year of High School, when I ran Cross Country, played Basketball, and ran Track. So four days is impressive.

The next task is making it through the weekend. One would think that with all of the extra time the weekend gives you, I would find plenty of time to exercise. That should be and I hope to make it true. My love of naps though might have to take a back seat.

I figure I will also hit up the local library, and pick of The Art of War. I've got to start crossing some things off of my list. I am planning to take care of stay up for 48 hours straight, in a couple of weekends during Trivia (For those of you not from Stevens Point, the local college radio station runs a 54 hour trivia contest each April).

Oh, and I believe a cat is living under the deck off of our bedroom. If I can be stealthy enough, I will try and snap some pictures and post them tomorrow.

Come on Eileen

#18 on my list is to write a screen play. I have always had a lot of ideas floating around in my head as to what I think would be a good story to tell. Since I now have an open forum to share these ideas, I figured over the next few weeks I would share some of these ideas to see what people think. It is very possible that these ideas will suck, so feel free to say so. I don't want to waste one of my 30 on a crappy screen play.

One of the ideas I had is based on the song, Come on Eileen, which happens to be one of my favorite songs. The hardest part of this screen play would actually be getting the rights to the song. Assuming that has been taken care of, here is a brief overview.

The movie is split into two main parts. The first half starts with a twenty something mail on the sidewalk. Across the street at an outdoor cafe, is the woman of his dreams. He goes to step onto the street to meet her, and stops short as a large truck drives in front of him. Once the truck passes the woman is gone. He then goes on a wacky romp to find the girl and convince her that he is the one for her. Crazy restaurant bus boy assists in his quest. Ending with him playing, Come on Eileen, ala Say Anything outside her apartment, winning her over. As she comes out to kiss him. Cut to black and start part two.

Part two, starts with him waking up in a hospital bed. That truck that passed in front of him, actually hit him. He imagined the whole first half of the movie while in a coma. The second half mirrors the first half in that he attempts to recreate this "dream quest" he was on. Since this is real life, things do not play out as they did in his head.

The two halves would have drastically different styles. The first half would be bright, plasticky almost in the look of the movie. Overly Hollywood schlock in every way. The second half would be much darker. The footage appearing grainier, dirty.

That's it in a nutshell. I always liked the idea of the big change in the middle, and having the main character go through similar actions in both halves, with vastly different outcomes.

Thoughts?

On the exercise front, I was back at it today. More time on the elliptical along with some other strength building activities. I watched the second episode of Undeclared and was Underwhelmed.

I am hoping for some nice weather this weekend, so I can take it to the streets, and go for a jog. It was admittedly harder to head to the basement and exercise today. I am still pretty sore, but I know that I need to keep plugging away and the chore of working out will turn into something that I look forward to.

Though I have found that my extra girth is a great substitute for a weight set. Push ups, leg lifts, sit ups, all are more difficult than I remember. I assume it is the extra 5o pounds I am lugging around.

I haven't quit yet!

Yay for me.

It is day two and I have again worked out, and again blogged. Good stuff.

I have realized though, that I don't so much mind the working out part, it is the day after part that sucks. Since all the people that I know that can dunk (one of the 30x30) have big calves, I did a lot of calf (calve?) type exercises. Every step I take now, it like a cat is digging its nails in my legs as I walk. Fairly crap tastic. Though not enough to stop me from doing them again today.

The big test will be day three, getting over the hump from when things continusly hurt, to having the feeling of a good workout. I look forward to those days.

On a side note, I watched Undeclared, one of the short lived Judd Apatow TV shows. Not a bad first episode. If it dosen't improve greatly, I can see how it got canceled. The demograpic it plays to, was not at an age that was overly into TV Comedies at the time it was released. Though after falling in love with Firefly, I am a little leary of watching TV shows, that were canned after one year.

While I am plugging mass media that I enjoy, Netflix (that's right I now use it as a verb), Brick. Great movie.

It Begins

Wow, two posts in one day. That's Crazy.

So my plan has worked so far, after posting the first blog only a few hours ago, I got on our elliptical and worked out. I should have shamed myself into exercise months ago.

A note to CBS, when you provide the option of full screen on your online viewing, actually have it be full screen. Don't just center the box and remove all other information.

I also wanted to take a minute to expand on why I have decided to shed some weight. Not only for the health reasons, but my workplace has created a biggest loser type competition. They have split all willing participants into two teams, weighed us in on a giant scale, and provide prizes for those that lose the most.

While I enjoy a healthier body, I enjoy winning more.

I am a blogger now!!!

I have thought about blogging for quite some time, though I have never thought I would have enough material to fill one. I know that I am an amazingly entertaining individual whose few words posted daily would help solve the worlds problems. After a week and the problems were solved, I figured I would run out of things to write about.

So I have decided to use this blog as a a tool to help me in my quest to complete two projects I am currently working on. I have decided that the only way for me to stay on top of things is to write about it, semi regularly, and endure public humiliation if I fall back into my lazy ways.

On to the projects:

Project 1:

Shed 30-40 pounds. Now those of you that know me must be saying, "If you shed 30-40 pounds you will waste away to nothing", and I understand why you would think that, and thank you. In order to remain in full disclosure, I currently weigh 234 pounds. So 30-40 would put me around 185-190 pounds, which I think is a perfectly fine weight.

Project B:

Complete my list of 30 things to do by the time I turn 30, which is May 6th 2011. I always here people say, "My God, I am 30 and haven't seen Star Wars or eaten a Happy Meal, what have I done with my life so far!", and decided that I will create a list of 30 things to do by the time I am 30, to eliminate that life shattering moment. Now some of you may be shocked by the things on my list, but in order to remain in full disclosure, I have to put the list out for public consumption. It is the only way I will stay on task.

Here are the 30, in no particular order:

1. Ride in the front of a Roller Coaster
2. Ride the Wisconsin Dells Ducks
3. Run a mile in under 5:30
4. Watch the Godfather Trilogy
5. Go to a Badgers Mens Basketball game
6. Dunk a Basketball
7. Go to the top of the Sears Tower
8. Read the Art of War
9. Put up a mantle over our fireplace
10. Go to the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum
11. Run a triatholon
12. Make my own Sushi
13. Stay up for 48 hours
14. See the Pacific Ocean
15. Watch Raging Bull
16. Ride a Unicycle
17. Swim a mile
18. Write a Screen Play
19. See Eric Clapton in Concert
20. Finish the Friday New York Times Crossword Puzzle
21. Build an Igloo
22. Bench 200 pounds
23. Attempt to learn Chinese (If I actually learn it, Bonus)
24. Buy a snow blower
25. Drink Green Beer on St. Patricks Day
26. Watch The Hidden Fortress
27. Read My Side of the Mountain to Trevor
28. Ride on the top level of a double decker bus
29. Own Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Complete series
30. Create 40 things to do by 40

So anyway that is the 30. Some of them might not make sense to you, but it is not your list, so shut it.

Now it is time to get the rock out of here.