Friendly People

I always find it weird that when I am out walking, other walkers find it neccesary to say hi. I don't mind the plesantries, I just find it a bit odd. Like we are connected somehow, because we are both out walking.

I weighed in today and was down to 224 pounds. I hope to drop under 220 for my next weigh in. It's only 2 pounds a week, so I think it is possible. I notice that I have more energy on walks now as well. I walked for an hour tonight, and was still feeling good. I want to get new shoes before I start running again, my left foot does okay while I walk, it starts feeling funny when I start running. I think I will hit some stores up this weekend and try some shoes on. I am a big New Balance fan, due to my wide feet, I figure I will try some other shoes out before I settle.

Next week Tuesday I plan to head to a track and run a mile. I want to see where I am at, and start tracking some progress. I want to know what sort of time I need to shave to get under 5:30.

Like Whoopi Goldberg.....

In Sister Act II I am back in the habit.

I have a lot to ramble on about so sit back, relax, and enjoy.

So I was in Vegas last week. It was a great couple of days. I flew out on Tuesday. I had to get up around 3 AM, to get to the airport for our 5 AM flight. We got into Vegas around 8:30 AM. We got to our hotel, The RIO, and checked our bags. We walked the Casino, went next door to the Gold Coast (ghetto) and then to the Palms (not ghetto). In the afternoon we had a "mini session" where we talked to the travel agent community about why they should sell our insurance. After that we had a opening reception at Voodoo, a lounge/car on the 51st floor. They have an outside area, and the view is amazing. The RIO is a little ways off the strip, so you have a great view of the strip. While at Voodoo, one of the guys I know that was part of the organization running the show gave us his tickets to Zumanity.

Zumanity was pretty awesome. For those that don't know, Zumanity is a Cirque Du Soleil show, an adult themed Cirqu Du Soleil show that is. It was pretty amazing to watch, not only were the people in the show able to do some pretty amazing things, they were funny, and at times fairly naked. It was some of the oddest audience participation I have ever seen. Nothing like a guy from the audience, hold ziplock bags full of scotch over another girls breasts so she can put her top back on and have scotch baggie implants. I feel if I went into more detail I would get my blog slapped with an explicit warning, so I will stop.

That night, just a couple of drinks at the ibar, and then off to bed.

The next day was filled with sessions at the Convention, and then we tended our booth at the trade show. We went to eat at a nice Italian place in the hotel (it is always nice to have an executive with you to pick up the tab) and then met up with some of the people from the show for drinks.

Thursday was filled general sessions again. Then the closing night "Graduation Party". It was at BARE, a European adult pool lounge at the Mirage. It is called European because during the day people can go topless. Though I hear one travel agent took her top off. I did not see it to confirm though. Once the "Graduation Party" wound down, we walked over to Kahunaville at Treasure Island. While there we took in a flair bartending contest (boring) and I could have gotten into a fight. Now I am not a fighter, so that is why I didn't. This is how the story goes though. A group of us were at the bar. Five friends of one of the people who put on the convention came in to hang out for the night, and then spend the weekend. While there, a drunk fellow came up to one of the girls and asked her to dance. She respectfully declined, and he continued to badger her. The gentleman that I am, I told the a-hole to leave her alone. He gave me some guff, but eventually left. A couple of minutes later, he walks over at us, and basically runs into the girl. I guess he thought since the girl told him know, he could ram his shoulder into hers. It was not cool. I let him know, and think this time, gave him a little shove back towards his table. At that point his friends came over to see what was going on. I explained how he decided to run into a girl, and they agreed he was being a dick. Throughout the night though, you could see him staring over at our table. If I was a fighter, I would have kicked his ass. He was pretty drunk, plus I was with a 240 pound former Marine, so I had backup. I am not a fighter though, so I let it go. Though later in the night, the guy decided to jump onto the stage, and fell backwards onto his head. I am fairly certain he had a concussion, not sure what happened to him after that, since they kicked him out of the bar.

We went back to the ibar, in the RIO had another drink (when I say drink, I mean water) then headed up to bed.

Our travels back sucked. We were bumped from our flight in MN, and ended up driving. I do have a free round trip ticket to anywhere in the lower 48, Canada, and Alaska.

I am happy to report that even though I didn't get to do much exercising in Vegas, I did manage to lose a couple of pounds. I hope to be under 220 soon.

I have rambled on enough for tonight.

Golf

I got my first 9 holes of golf in today. It was great to get out on the course again. I still an fairly bad at it, but to me that is not what golf is about. It is a great walk, with great friends. Every once in a while, one of us hits a ball with a stick. Fairly simplistic, and I like it. Though I have come to the conclusion that my slolwy balding head, needs a hat to cover it from now on. I do not enjoy having the top of my head get sun burned. Since I am not a hat guy, I am not sure what I am going to do.

On the hair note, I am getting a step closer to cutting it extremely short. Not shaved, but close. I am sick of paying for haircuts, when it takes the barber 10 minutes, and I have realzied that I am not growing any hair back. What I have, has been holding steady for a while, but no reason to hang on to hope. One of these days.

I have also started in on my screen play. I had an idea hit me today, and decided to run with it while things were still fresh. I started on it tonight. Once I have a first draft I will share. I know that all of you are so disapointed that I won't be starting off with my thriller, that all of you raved about. I will get to it someday, just not by the time I am 30.

The next challenge in my weight loss, excersise quest lies ahead for me this week. On Tuesday I fly out to Las Vegas for a conference. I come back on Friday. Late nights, great food, and lack of time does not make for a healthy week. I am going to try and stay away from the bad for me foods as much as possible, try and drink very little if at all, and get to the gym at least once while I am out their. I am making progress and don't want to slip. If I can come out even, I will be happy.

Babies

I just got done watching Juno. I always enjoy a good teenage pregnancy movie. The one scene that really hit home for me was the scene in which she tells her dad and step mom that she is pregnant. For those of you who don't know my life story, I found out my freshman year of college that I was going to be a father. I was 18 and had to make the phone call to my parents that I was going to be a dad. I can't say that it was the easiest thing to do. Fortunatley like Juno, I had parents that while were a little concerned at first, ultimately were supportive. Fast forward 8 years. Trevor is now 7, and awesome, and my wife and I are expecting our second child. This phone call was much easier to make.

Now that I have officially told most people that I should, I figured it was time to talk baby. Mandy is 4 months along, and due early October. We are both pretty excited.

New Baby to be is another reason that I want to get into better shape. I always thought one of the perks of being a teenage dad, was that I would be the young, hip, in shape, dad. That hasn't been the case so far. I figured that the young and hip thing might not be salvageable, but the in shape dad part can.

Anyway, I am off to donate a couple dollars to Susan Sommmers or Sally Struthers, whoever, I have a consious to clense.

Back at it

After a 4 day break from serious exercise, I was back at it today. Not only did a take a 20 minute walk at lunch, a walk with the dog and family after work, but I took a 40 minute walk tonight, followed by some push ups and sit ups.

On my walk I discovered that I love the Green Circle Trail. I have always thought that the 26 plus mile trail that circles Stevens Point and Plover was an asset to the community, but have never truly enjoyed it. Until today. I took off down the trail and realized, that the stretch by my house at least, is beautiful. The path is in great shape, and takes you through the woods. At some point you know you are in a neighborhood, but the houses are far enough away that you can tune them out. It was a really great walk, and I can't wait until I build up enough endurance to jog more of the trail. I think this is the first time I have really been excited about running since I started.

Also, I have dropped below the 230 mark in weight. I weighed in today, assuming to have put weight back on after this weekend. To my suprise I was down about a half a pound. I really want to keep at it and drop the next 10 pound quickly. I think that I am getting to a point where I can do more when I exercise, to burn more calories. With it being nicer out as well, I have been walking at lunch. I walk along the Wisconsin River, while not as nice as the Green Circle, it definitely is a relaxing place to walk.

Trivia: Conclusion

It's over. 54 hours chalk full of trivia goodness is over. We came in 133 place, and I didn't make it 48 hours.

I have decided that I can make 48 hours straight. I slept for about 7 hours of the 54 hour contest. From when I woke up on Friday, I was up for 59 of 66 hours. In the 48 hours I was planning to stay up, I slept for about 3 hours. I think that with the right planning, I would be able to do 48 hours. I have decided that Trivia is not the right time. Once I hit 35 hours I don't want to be responsible for thinking anymore, this can't be accomplished during Trivia.

As for the Trivia experience as a whole, I loved every tired, challenging, frustrating minute of it. I am eternally grateful to all of those who came up and helped. 133 place in our first Trivia tournament I think is a great accomplishment, and as a team, we couldn't have done it without any of you.

We were about 400 points out of the top 100. Here are a couple of things I think we can change to get into the top 100. If you don't care, stop reading. This really is more of a list for me to refer back to, than you to care about.

1. Schedule shift times. We did great when we had rested people, on computers, searching for answers. We struggled when it was only a few people, or only tired people. We ended up loosing ground early Sunday morning, when it was just two and a half of us.(Thanks for staying up with me Stacy, thanks for being in the room Jeff). Then again Sunday afternoon and night we lost some ground when it was down to three and then two of us.

2. Have Snoop run a class on how to maximize searches on the internet. This kid can search things like nobody else. If we had four Snoops we would make the top 50 no problem.

3. Devote people to things. Such as the music question and the Trivia Times. I know that if we could have gotten half of the music questions, and the Trivia Times we would have been close to the top 100. We saw big drops at times soon after the music question was handed in. I am sure this hurt us. Also we missed out on easy Trivia Times points, by not being as prepared in that area as we should have.

4. Recruit more people, and older people. At first I thought that it would diminish things if we invited 50 people over to play. I realized that we need to invite 50 people over and have them come in shifts. The core group, those here this weekend, can come and play the whole time. I just need to convinve people like my dad, to come over for the day on Saturday, and direct us in our internet searches. If he could point us in the right direction on questions he is familiar with, it makes finding things easier.

5. Play in our basement. This allows us to control the environment better. There is more room, and we can set up stations. A music station, a trivia times station, a food package station, etc. It also allows for people to hang out upstairs and get away from Trivia for a while. Over a long weekend people need a breather. It would be nice to have a Trivia free zone set up that people can just hang out in and recharge.

6. Take notes at the movie.

I think that about covers it for now.

So start taking notes when you watch TV, reading obscure comics, and taking pictures of snack food packaging. Trivia is only a year away.

It's over

I slept, after 30 hours, I took about a 2 hour nap. I will blog more about it later, but I just wanted to let you know I will have to cross it off my list another day.

Almost to 24

So I am going to make 24, halfway to the goal. I need to head out soon to do a running question, which I think will help wake me up. The question that I had to leave for at 3, got me until where I am now.

I have a feeling that posts are going to stop making sense.

Only 24 more hours to go.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

hour 17

Trivia is off and running. We have been doing okay so far. We have averaged four of the eight questions the last three hours. We have been in the hundereds for placing so far. Which is in the top half.

I am still feeling good. With lots of activity, and people to talk with I am doing great.

I feel though that I will have a lot of extra baggage to burn off next week. I have eaten a lot of crap, and we are only 6 hours in.

See you around hour 24.

hour 1

My quest for staying up for 48 hours straight has started. I am almost through hour 1. If all hours are like this, it will be cake. I don't assume that will be the case though. My hope for the 48 hours rests on Trivia. The Trivia contest starts at 6 pm tonight and runs through Sunday at midnight. They read 8 questions per hour. They read a question, play a song, re read the question, play another song, and then give the answer. You have two songs to find the answer and call it in. Since I know that my time awake will always have a purpose I should be able to focus in on my task at hand. The last time I tried for 48 hours, I made it to 40. Then I found myself at home, with everyone else sleeping at 1 am. I had nothing to do. It was a receipe for falling asleep, and I did.

I will also have a good number of people here for the Trivia weekend. Knowing that I should always have someone to talk to, also will help me get through it. Only time will tell though.

I will try and update as we go. Once the questions start, they might be shorter posts.

So it begins.

Caring what you eat

I think I have said this before, but it sucks caring about what you eat. I wanted to run and pick up something quick to have for lunch. I scoured all of the fast food websites to try and find something remotely healthy to eat. Mission not accomplished. So I went to one of the down town resturants for a sandwich. In looking at the menu's I realized how I put on so much weight. Well that and the lack of excersise.

I weighed in today. I was at 230, so around 3 pounds lost in the last two weeks and 5 pounds in total. I was also down about .7% in body fat. I was fairly happy with my progress. If I sustain that pace I will be down around 210 in August, and should be in the low 20's in body fat %. I hope that as I build my endurance and have the ability to lift more that I start burning fat faster.

I am happy to see that my work has paid off so far.

Holy Grail

So my son is writing a story, along the lines of Monty Pythons Holy Grail at school. My son is in second grade. I think that it is awesome. He brought home, what I can only describe as a story board. One section has characters (knights), another the scenes (forests), and another has a killer rabbit. I hope that the teacher appreciates Monty Python, otherwise it might make for an odd next parent teacher conference.

As I mentioned previously I am reading the perfect mile. I read a chapter last night that made me feel really good. It talked about a miler from Australia, who ran what at the time was the third fastest mile in history at 4:03. He had a disapointing showing at the Olympics in Helsinki, while he was at the Olympics he studied the great European runners of the time. He took their training regements back with him, and started to coach himself. When he got back he ran his first mile in 4:50. He trained at midnight, because of school. He talked about how he often had to talk himself into working out. How sometimes he just wanted to rest for a day. He new that if he let an excuse go one time, it would just make it easier the next, and always went and worked out. It is funny to hear someone as good as he was, also have the same issues I do. He stuck with his plan, ran when he didn't want to, and accomplished his goal of beating the Australian Mile record. It was just the motiviation I needed to keep going.

I weigh in again offically this week on Thursday. I have been weighing in everyday myself, but this one gets recorded, and I do my body fat test. I hope to get into the 220's for the weigh in, and loose at least a percentage point in body fat. We will see what Thursday brings. I will keep you posted.

El Muatachio

People have no love for the mustache. Or so I have found while trying to find a team name for our Trivia team for the upcoming weekend. We plan on registering tomorrow and a team name is one of if not the most important part. I thought I would throw a couple of names out to see what people like:

Wernham Hogg: Plover Branch
Care Bear Stare
Form Blazing Sword
Bah weep granah weep ninni bong
Don't Panic
Hoopy Froods
Cool as Ice

There, a collection of non specific pop culture referencing names. Let me know what you think.

I decided to download some running companion podcasts. I am not sure if I will like them, but figured I would give them a listen. Anything to help the cause.

Midnight Movies are not for me

In preperation for next weeks massive Trivia contest, a friend and I went to see the Trivia Movie. It played at midnight. We had to get in line at 10:40, I was tired. I hope to remember the basic premise of the movie, let alone the tiny details that they will ask questions on. The movie was titled, Special, and the basic plot is a parking meter cop, enrolls in a drug testing program, and the drug makes him think he has super powers. A funny concept, done in a dark way.

Going to see a movie at midnight though, makes the next day tough. Especially when watching three kids, and having to drop of scouting for food bags at 10 in the morning. Needless to say I took a nap this afternoon.

Tommorrow is another long day of driving, boo, Brewers, YAY, and then driving, boo.

I walked a lot today, I am going to estimate between bags and the walk I took tonight 8 miles. My legs are tired.

Thank You Aaron Peterson

I love the Ipod. I love it because long ago I realized that given the chance, I would talk myself out of working out. Left alone with my thoughts while jogging I would rationalize why stopping was a good idea, cutting it short today would be okay, or walking for just the next block is fine. Once I started giving into to cutting corners, it became easier to to justify skipping a day. It was rest, or I didn't have time, or I ate a big meal. Eventually I didn't need to make excuses anymore I just didn't care.

The Ipod helps keep me from myself. If I am listening to a song or a podcast, I don't have time to talk myself out of it.

So today while I cleaned up, I tossed the ipod on to pick some songs to listen to tomorrow. This is when I came across, Bob Marley. I had forgotten about Bob Marley until a couple of weeks ago when I watched, I Am Legend, (not as good as the book). So with that memory still in my head, when I was scrolling through my ipod today, and saw Bob Marley, I turned it on, and remembered how much I love Bob Marley.

I came to love Bob Marley in an unusual way. As a freshman in high school, I was walking through the hall and stopped to talk to a senior who I knew. He was wearing a T-Shirt with the face of the dreadlocked music legend. I, not knowing this, asked who he was. After being looked at like I was mentally incompetent, I was advised that it was Bob Marley.

I soon started telling people when asked what musicians I liked I mentioned Bob Marley as one of them. I looked up to Aaron, and figured if he liked it, I was sure I did to. Coming from a small school in central Wisconsin, I could get away with people not questioning me on it. Though I eventually decided that I needed to actually know some of what I was talking about and picked up Legend. Which is amazing.

So tomorrow when I go for a jog I will have Bob Marley to take my mind of quitting. The senior who clued me in on the music genius was Aaron Peterson. So thank you Aaron Peterson, thank you for Bob Marley.

Fat Tracker

So people in our IT department like to gamble. As I have mentioned previously my work is doing a weight loss challenge. Along with that I am in a side competition. It was cooked up by members of our IT department. I am not sure how the whole breakdown works since it was created by an actuary, but I figured I would share my stats. As of the last weigh in on 3/26 I was 5th of 9, here are my fat stats.

Total Weight= 233.4
Body Fat= 27.9%
Remaining Target Fat Loss per Pounds= 46.4
Excess Lard as a % of weight= 19.9%

So if I lose 46.4 pounds of fat, I should be at 8% body fat.

The health coach thinks that my foot falling asleep was caused by a pinched nerve and that if it continues I should go see a chiropractor. I decided to change things up and run/walk today. My foot didn't fall asleep but my middle toe felt a little numb, which might mean I am pinching a nerve while working out. We will see what happens tomorrow.

I haven't crossed anything off the 30x30 yet. Though I have read some of My Side of the Mountain to Trevor, and all of the exercising I have been doing will lead to crossing more items off of my list. I have decided that I am going to try for the mile under 5:30 the weekend of my 28th birthday. I want to go back to my hometown and run it on my high schools track. I think that it would be a nice way to connect the past to the present. That is a little over a year away. I am fairly confident that if I can drop most of the weight I want to by the end of August, I can start training specifically for the mile. It will be harder to get some of the speed work in that I want to, I figure I can use the indoor track at the university for that if needed. That summer then I want to run the Triathlon, and with that take care of the mile swim.

I miss food

By no means am I starving myself. Though I have started eating much healthier. I have realized that wheat bread is not the devil, and that I don't need to get something out of the vending machine every day. Grilled chicken sandwiches are also just as good as bacon covered burgers. So when I say that I miss food, I should really say that I miss bad for me food.

I have also decided that I need to spend some quality time with my belly. I know that sounds weird but I realized today that if all goes as planned, my belly will go away. It is somewhat sad that I have grown accustom to it, but it has been a part of me for 5-6 years now. We have gone through a lot of good times together.

So I think that I will watch some Chris Farley movies, rest a bowl on it, and maybe just maybe eat one last bacon covered burger. Then one morning I will wake up and realize that my belly has moved on. Tear.

On the exercise front something odd happened today. My right foot fell asleep while I was on the elliptical. The day of rest worked wonders, and I was really in a groove. Then my foot fell asleep. I am not sure what that means, but I am slightly concerned. I will stop by the health coach at work tomorrow and see what she has to say.