Joined a Gym!

I "worked out" today for the first time since my weight training class, freshman year at UPS in 2000. Working out doesn't include the Push Up Challenge I have feebly kept going almost 11 months now (18581 push ups, 20882 sit ups, 12880 frog squats, 23.5 miles jogged). I feel alright now, but I think I'll be sore tomorrow. I joined LA Fitness, and I didn't realize how much I miss having a place to run around and go to get out of the house.

My last gym membership was in Tahoe, and I never worked out, but I did ride the exercise bike and I played a lot of basketball. The LA Fitness near my house has a basketball court, four racquetball courts, a swimming pool and a sauna--it is freaking nice. I checked out the gym a month ago when I moved up here, but it was way too expensive... until I found out the school district I work for has a great wellness program and I don't have to pay the initiation fee, and the monthly fee for gym use is cut in half!

I joined on Thursday, and decided to practice my racquetball skills (or lack there of). I borrowed a racquet from the front desk and had been hitting for about ten minutes when a guy knocked and asked if I was waiting for anyone, or if I would want to play a game? Awesome. The guy wasn't great, and the only other racquet the front desk had was about the size of a ping pong paddle. I won the first game with the good racquet and I gifted him the second game (I felt kind of bad beating him with a ping pong paddle, and he is a burly ex-army guy).

It is just cool to join a gym and be playing pick up racquetball an hour later! There is a racquetball league I need to inquire about, and also basketball leagues--I am looking forward to a fun and active winter.

Another perk of the LA Fitness membership is Dr. Chako belongs to the same gym, but south of Seattle. I played a few games with him on Saturday, albeit being a little hungover, and while he is still up in the Northwest I plan on leeching all of his racquetball skills.

Jiggly Ta-Tas and Rock Hard Abs

Every real man knows the final step up the staircase that is manhood: the ability to jiggle your pecs by flexing.

Since Thanksgiving I have done 5,217 push ups and 3,082 sit ups. My A-cup pecs are now on full jiggle mode. When I look in the mirror after doing my 100 daily push ups and sit ups (I stopped adding one a few weeks back), I see Dee-Bo from "Friday" and "Next Friday" (also w/ Ice Cube) staring back at me, flexing his muscular pecs. I think there is an optical illusion taking place, but I can not be certain.

Tequila, Seahawks, Push Ups and Fantasy Finals OH MY!

Man oh man. Saturday night was a rough one. Josh and I rolled into Dare's a little before 9pm, when the party was set to start. I'm used to rolling into parties a little late, but Josh reasoned that the earlier we get to the party, the earlier we get to start drinking--and that made a whole lot of sense to me on Saturday night. Dare and Will were already at the house, but Josh and I made 4.

Dare came up with the brilliant idea of everyone doing shots of tequila when each new group of visitors arrived. I don't do shots, but it just felt right. A.Flew showed up and the five of us took shots. A few minutes later, a car-full of people showed up, which meant another round. I convinced dare to put a shot of tequila on top of the toilet, so whoever broke the seal first had to take a shot.

We played some cards in between rounds of shots, and we had a big game of Asshole going. First rule, made by Will, was President gets to be thumb-master, always a good rule. The second rule, made by Dare, was that if you make eye-contact with the Asshole, you have to take a drink. This rule was new to me, and amazing! I got to give a trivia question (holding a 2 as my only remaining card), and I asked what color the asshole's eyes are, which got plenty of people drinks.

I ended the night on the floor, after hugging the toilet for a while. Josh got us back to his place, and I woke up around 10:30am to the Seahawks leading the Rams, and a nice headache. I looked at my phone and had 3 voice mails from Tyler and Marc, who were supposed to come down to watch the game, but chicken-shitted out because of the snow. Bullshit!

The Seahawks pulled out the last-second field goal to win it in the 4th quarter, for our 3rd win of the season (two against the Rams! Eight in a row against the large beasts). Josh made some red beans and rice, and the meal was finally ready around 3:30pm, which was actually perfect for me, because up until about 3pm I had absolutely no appetite.

Sunday was definitely the hardest day of Push Up Challenge 2.0, but I got in my 117th push up of the day around 11pm. I also recruited Push Up Challenge 2.0's second official member, Will! Welcome aboard! Will got the crazy idea to add sit ups to the challenge, which I'm a fan of. So today I've got 118 push ups and 100 sit ups to do, each increasing by one until I max out at 200 or 300 of each. Will says 300, but I'm leaning towards 200. I like his style. I also got in my 2,000th push up since Thanksgiving in today, so that was a nice milestone on this chilly Monday.

Speaking of chilly, Stevens Pass opens limited operations on Thursday, so that is where I'll be! Gotta take advantage of my first season's pass while I'm on break!

In Fantasy news, if David Akers doesn't kick for 26 points tonight, I'm moving on to the fantasy finals in my money league! The $20 buy in represents a third of my Full Tilt Bankroll, so if I can get 1st or 2nd place money, it'll be a huge boost to the roll! I only made one decision this week that was not the best possible decision in setting my line up. I played the NY Jets defense over the NY Giants defense for the 2nd time all season (1st was bye week), and it paid off huge. My only mistake was not starting Minnesota's back up running back, he scored more than Lendale White or NYG's Ward--but both of those guys started and Minnesota's back up obviously did not, which is why I kept him on the bench.

Lastly, Suvivor Gabon ended...

(slight spoiler ahead)

...and it was a really good season to watch. Sugar was amazing towards the end of the game, giving up her chance for a million bucks so a more deserving person, could claim their rightful prize. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else do that in my years of watching.

Power... Overwhelming!!!

That's right, toss in an old Protoss Archon quote for all my dorks out there. Pushup Challenge 2.0 is in full swing, and doing 100 push ups a day is starting to get easy. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but instead of just doing 100 a day, I decided to add one each day, so today my quota is 106. This new addition to the challenge--adding one push up every day--adds another element to betting on when I drop dead and don't meet my daily quota. Pick a day, and if I can make it past that day, you donate money to charity--simple as that. You specify the amount and the charity, but for God's sake! Give me some incentive to keep this challenge going!

In Bankroll Challenge news, I won! I couldn't believe it either! Waffles was wrong, and bells rang from here to China in celebration. Waffles is actually talking about joining us for our next challenge, which I think the good doctor should set up. I'm not sure if this is a good month for it--it works for me, especially because my bankroll shot down to $60 over the last two days of play. I've also got tons of time to play, which could really be a bad thing if the last bankroll challenge has any bearing on this one.

Turkey Bowl 2008

I just got back from playing in the 11th annual Turkey Bowl game at Greenlake. Sunny skies and 50 degree temps made for an unusually warm and dry Turkey Bowl. This year we reverted back to full-on tackle football. I'm not sure why I played, because I have no health insurance and I will be proper fucked if I get injured--but play I did! It was another amazing turkey bowl, but before I get into that, I want to take a look back at past Turkey Bowls:

Turkey Bowl 2007
Last year was a lot of fun, but a little on the tame side.

Turkey Bowl 2006
Not much of a recap for 2006, but I did mention my push up bet with Brandon, and how much push ups on Black Friday SUCK!

Turkey Bowl 2003
2003 was amazing. I don't think I'll ever have another Turkey Bowl like I did in 2003. 5TDs, 1INT, 2sacks--in an 11 on 11 tackle football game?! Come on! Also, watching butterball own Marc--it was an amazing year of football.

2007 might be my second best effort over the years. To start off the day, I was not really sure if we would have a game this year, because all of the usual suspects had morning plans this year. I headed down to Greenlake anyways, just in case the old Garfield crew showed up. When I got to the fields, there were big FIELD CLOSED signs all over the place, much to my dismay. But then I spotted a group of scruffy looking guys on the side of the field. I only recognized one guy from past Turkey Bowls, but the group was welcoming, and started picking teams right away.

Now, I'll let you in on a little secret... I'm not the most menacing football player. I'm pretty much a stick. Which isn't bad for flag football, but when it comes to tackle football I'm probably not the best choice to be on your team. So I've got one knee on the ground, putting in my contacts when I get picked... 2nd overall, first pick for the dark team... WHAAAT?!? I expected to get picked last or second to last, but I'll take it!

As the first pick, I felt obligated to step up. This year I surpassed my yearly quota of one tackle. If I get one tackle, I'm happy. I finished the day with probably five tackles, one sack, two interceptions and a TD on defense. We were playing 8 on 8, so I was very pleased with my defensive performance. On offense, I played a lot of offensive line (again, I'm a stick--but a stick that is willing to mix it up!), I caught a few passes at wide receiver, and also got to QB a few sets. I think my first set we turned the ball over on downs, and the second set I threw a screen pass to Frank "The Tank", who rumbled about 80 yards for the score, breaking multiple tackles along the way.

All in all, it was another great Turkey Bowl, even though none of my friends were able to go. I am going to be beyond sore tomorrow, and I am thankful for the day of rest between football Turkey Bowl and frisbee Turkey Bowl on Saturday. In one of my dumbest moves in a long time, I started a push up challenge on Thanksgiving Day. I'm an idiot. I'm so sore from football, I'll barely be able to move for the next 24 hours, yet I'm expected to do 200 push ups. I've got frisbee all day Saturday and an all-day hike on Sunday, how the fuck am I supposed to do 400 pushups over the next four days???

Start lining the charity coffers, chumps! Bet against me! You can't lose!

*edit* sadly, there were no TV crews this year--maybe next year!

Push-up Challenge

It begins.

100 push-ups a day for the entire week. And I'll up the ante--do them all in one hour.

Vene Vide Vice

He came, he saw, he conquered.

My friend Brandon gave me a call Friday morning, saying he would be swinging through Portland Friday night and was wondering what I was up to. Fortunately, not much, so we got to hang out a bit for the first time in a year or so. He's been up to no good for a while now, as evidenced on his blog.

Stacey and I and our friend Rob were down at Ground Kontrol (21+ arcade) when Brandon showed up. They have some sweet old arcade games like Street Fighter 2, the original Mortal Kombat, Missile Command, a slew of pinball games, the old Simpsons arcade game... the list goes on. Since there were four of us, we obviously chose to play the old Simpsons game first, so all four of us could play at the same time.

We pumped quarters in and quickly found out that the "Marge" character wasn't playable. So Rob, Stacey and I played Homer, Bart and Lisa while Brandon kept trying to feed quarters into various slots to get Marge working. Then I noticed that Homer had 11 lives. OOps. We rotated and had a good time.

Next we played some pinball games and Brandon smoked us, hitting multi-ball glory on the Star Wars game.

We headed home and played a little bit of poker, then after Rob left we had an intense Spider Solitaire event. 3 computers, 3 games of spider solitaire trying to get the highest score/lowest moves on the easy, medium and difficult settings. Brandon "Phil-Ivey'd" my high scores. And as I was going to bed he said, "If I'm asleep when you wake up tomorrow, it means that I've got the new high score."

Bastard.

His scores to beat are 98 on easy and 114 on medium and 304 on difficult. I tried once yesterday and got 99 on easy*with* a mis-click, just to let you know Brandon...

Brandon and I are going to start a push-up bet. 50 push-ups a day for the first week, then 100 a day indefinitely. We are still trying to work out a bet for whoever bails first. Brandon, what do you think about a %0.5 or %1 bankroll entry into a tourney of the other's chosing? Another way we could do it is say until the end of the year, if one of us doesn't do the 100 pushups a day 700/week, on Sunday that loser has to deposit $5 into the other person's stars account at the end of the week.

For me, I've got to have good incentive to keep something up for longer than a week, and I think this will do just fine. We can always fall back on having the loser wear a dress to Thanksgiving Turkey bowl at Greenlake...

The bet starts tomorrow, my shoulders are going to be killing me.