Old Christmas gift

So a friend of mine from work stopped by my cubicle with an old present the two of us had received. He is moving offices, and told me it was my turn to have it. He wants it back in a year.

This is it.

Now you might be wondering what it is, truth be known, so am I. I believe it is a fox. It is made out of some sort of dead plant. It blasts dust and who knows what into the air if you so much as look at it. That being said, I like it because of it's story. So step into the "Way Back" machine, and set it for October 2007.

I had to go to a conference in Breckenridge, CO with four other coworkers. I coordinated my travel with my friend. We found out a few days before leaving that the first big storm of the year was scheduled to hit on our travel day. Many people from Utah were just driving out, because it isn't that far.

After getting through security, and getting to our terminal, we noticed a few familiar faces. Two ladies, the higher ed sales group for a local credit union, came over to talk with us. They were supposed to drive out, but their boss had heard about the storm coming in, and booked them flights and a rental car instead. They were worried about getting from Denver to Breckenridge, which is about an hour away. They asked if they could follow us. We didn't think much of it, and told them okay.

Anyway, we get to Denver, and the credit union people are really embarrassing. My friend suggests we go and get our rental car, while the credit union people waited for their baggage. After leaving the airport he tells me that none of the rental car places are together, and that there is no way we will see them again until the conference. We have a laugh, and proceed through tons of snow, and horrible driving conditions to get to the conference.

Throughout the entire conference, these two ladies called us names, threw things at us, etc. It was all in good fun.

Well one day the following spring my coworker and I had to visit a college in the area of the credit union corporate office. We decided to take a peace offering. We put together a bag of company swag, and stopped by the dollar store to get a few extra supplies.

We went into the main lobby, which also is an active branch. We asked for the two ladies. After a few minutes waiting, one of them appeared. We talked for a few minutes, gave her the bags, and then gave her the final present. We each pulled out two cans of silly string, and sprayed her down in front of their customers and her coworkers. In fact, her laughing and screaming brought out more coworkers who laughed and went back into their offices. She asked one of the guys why he didn't step in to defend her, his response was that, "they're bigger than me."

Being good sports, we helped her clean up the mess. Everyone had a good laugh, and I ended up with some weird plant fox.

"Dodge 'em" cars

So I just read this article and had to laugh.

Basically a British Theme park has banned using the bumper cars to bump each other. You see, the real excitement comes from dodging the other cars!

Wow that sounds almost as exciting as dodging other pedestrians while walking!

Bad picture, tough workout

Okay, the picture sucks, and so did the workout.

We showed up at the gym, and I glances at the workout board. At first I thought it was empty, but it was just a very simple workout. The board reads - Cycle 1 250 roundhouse kicks per leg, Cycle 2 1,000 mountain climbers, Cycle 3 1,000 jump ropes.

I started out strong with the kicks. My left leg was a little tired.

Mountain climbers are one of my least favorite exercises, especially when I have to do 1,000. To do a mountain climber you put your hands on a medicine ball on the floor. You get in pushup position with one leg bent forward, then you jump and change leg positions. I would bust out 100 really quick then rest and go again. The wife would just go slow and steady. We finished about the same time.

We then moved to the jump ropes. I can only bust out around 100 at a time. We got to the gym a little late, so I only finished 777, but I still felt retched, I mean good about that.

It's amazing what three simple exercises can do.

Monday Soccer Review

So we drove to Orem for a soccer match on Monday. The oldest's team is really playing good soccer. This was a make up game from earlier this month.

So we made it to the game on time, despite the weather. We warmed up, and started the game. The team we were playing scored on us in the first two minutes. They were great. Our biggest problem was the other team chipping our keeper. He was to short to get the really high balls, and they were really good at picking out the upper corners.

We had five goals against us in the first half. We created some good opportunities, but couldn't get a clean shot on goal.

Starting the second half, we switched keepers. We really settled back in defense, and attempted to ride it out. (Just so you know, that wasn't the coaches strategy, but the kids naturally did it.)

My oldest son kept getting mad at the other team for little things. When the ball went out of bounds, they would all signal their way, trying to influence the ref. My son said, "Who do they think they are? They aren't reffing this match." I had to explain to him that this is quite normal in soccer. You act as if it is yours, and play that way, hoping that the ref will not whistle again, and give it to the other team.

We escaped the second half with only three more goals against us. Now this may seem horrible, 8-0. I thought it was pretty good. In looking over our competitions stats, they had already played one team we had faced. We beat the team 3-2, and had the most shots on goal in a game I have ever seen. They beat the same team 17-0. Needless to say, they need to move up a division. I overheard one of their team comment that they had only one goal scored against them this entire season.

The kids were bummed, but I was pretty happy with the result. Next stop, practice. Hopefully we will have a rain-free practice for a change.

Time to invest

So part of being sick, was having an upset stomach. Due to that, I really couldn't eat anything. This, in turn made my stomach more upset and led to a proclivity to waft air biscuits, as we said in Jr. High. (That's supposed to be a polite way of saying I was passing a lot of gas.)

I did feel sick, which I'm sure contributed to the odor, which was exceptional, in a very male punishing their friends kind of way.

Now you are all probably wondering why I would write an entire post on gas. It was to share this story from 2:30 this morning.

I woke myself up with a loud toot, and tried to go back to sleep. The wife rolled over and said, "Brett, you are going to kill me!". She then rolled back over facing away from me and fell back asleep. When I asked her about it this morning she denied having any recollection.

I'm thinking for Father's Day I'm going to end up with a Better Marriage Blanket and a bunch of vitamin C pills.

Flu

So last night the younger daughter was sick in the van. Then the oldest was sick at about 1 a.m. Now it's my turn. I stayed home today with a fever and an upset stomach. I haven't thrown up, but I've felt like it. Here's hoping the wife, oldest daughter, and the baby don't get it.

Beefy and the Manly Principles

I'm not sure this is the word that most people want to be described as. Yet last night was the second time I've been called that, and it was meant as a compliment.

We went to the gym last night, and my gluteus maximus (aka butt cheek) was sore. It kind of felt like I had a charlie horse in it. We were doing lunges and really focusing on our glutes.

After the first round of exercises, I told our trainer, and he told me some things I could do to stretch it out. He then offered to help work the knot out after class, if I was comfortable with that. I agreed, for some reason.

Now I have to tell you that this isn't the first time Jason has laid his hands on me. When we started going, I was experiencing bursitis in my shoulder. He wanted to show me how hyper-tense muscles around the shoulder were pulling it out of whack. He massaged up under my shoulder blade, and it hurt a little. He then said that the worst place on most men was their pecs. He had me raise my arm strait out, so the outer edge of the pectoral was exposed. He then grabbed that muscle. This might seem an odd statement, but raise your arm strait to the side, shoulder level. Now put your fingers in your armpit, and your thumb on the top of your pectoral muscle. Now squeeze.

I have to again describe Jason to let you know how much pain this caused. Jason is about my height. Weighs almost 300 pounds, but it is all muscle. He's been doing strongman competitions, and has an iron grip.

Now being male, there is a certain code I live by. I had to apply the "Don't show pain" principle at this moment. He was talking about how tight the muscle was, and what that means to the shoulder alignment. I was probably turning blue, as I couldn't show any pain, and the best way to do that in this situation was not to breath. I mean, without breath, I can't make any sounds, right?

Jason worked on my pectoral for a few minutes, then laughed and said, "I'm not letting go until you show how this really feels."

In response, I invoked another manly principle, the "When in doubt, call someone a bad name" section. This resulted in him letting go, so mission accomplished.

This was the first time I heard the word "beefy" as a compliment, except to certain livestock. Jason said, "You are so beefy!" Like I said, he does strongman competitions, and that's a crowd I'm not familiar with. I like to I think they would find it a nice thing to say.

Back to last night. We finished our workout, and were stretching. Jason told me to lie down on my stomach. (We had three new people in class, who were all confused. After watching for a moment, I think they were all dreading this happening to them.) He stood over me, and started feeling for knots in my lower back, and hamstring. Then I felt a lot of pressure on my right cheek, and to put it bluntly, it hurt. It turns out that he was kneeling on it, as applying direct pressure will help remove the knots.

At this point I invoked the same principle as above, no pain. I did think some bad words though, in case I was required to invoke the second principle of calling someone a name.

After kneeling on my butt for about five minutes a cheek, he looked over to my wife and told her, "He has a beefy butt."

Is this a compliment?

He then moved his knee down onto my hamstrings, they have been tight, so this helped them relax. Thinking he was done as he stood up, I was very surprised when he grabbed my calves. This led me to skip the first principle of manhood quoted above, and move directly into the second.

The past two weeks we have been jumping rope, and doing calf raises. I have big calves anyway, and they are the one part of my body that gets really tense. I don't know that this would help them relax, because I made him stop at this point.

On a total tangent, the last time someone rubbed my calved (the wife), I made a comment about how toned they were getting. Not thinking about the fact that the wife had told me a few days before that she wasn't seeing any improvement in her calves (which is a lie.) This resulted in my sore calves receiving a solid punch, and being called "show off".

I guess I do prefer "beefy" over "show off".

Replace brakes, fridge breaks, no gym break, oh my!

So our minivans brakes have been sounding pretty loud lately. I haven't had much time to look at them. Yesterday, when I got home, the wife told me that they were horrible, and we needed to cancel all plans and look at them.

I took off the driver side tire, and surprise, there was no pad left. The outside of the driver side rotor has to be turned, and possibly needs to be replaced. The wear isn't even, which could mean that the caliper needs replacing also. Not having time to commit to that, I just replaced the pads last night. The other stuff will have to wait until the weekend.

Knowing that I had free lifetime brake pad replacement, I borrowed a car from my folks, and drove up to Autozone to get the new brake pads. It took the guy helping me about 20 minutes to figure out which items should be replaced. They didn't have them in stock. He looked for me, and the closest store with them in stock was Kaysville. So our journey continued.

When we got to Kaysville, I explained the situation, and helped the clerk navigate their "Warranty System" to find my brakes. Due to the extremely poor condition of the pads, the clerk had to get a manager's approval to process the return. The manager reminded me of this guy:



I have to say the kid was really nice, and very helpful. It was weird to see the older guy being deferential to him, and the black rubber bands on his braces didn't help the situation. It turns out the "warranty" I had were for an old part they don't carry anymore. The price has gone up, but the manager refunded the old part, and discounted the new brakes, so I wasn't out any money. Very happy!

When we got home, the wife made my oldest son come out to "help" me install the new brake pads. I talked him through the process, and let him install the driver's side pads. He thought it was pretty cool, and kept telling me how complicated cars are.

The reason we had to get the brakes fixed, besides stopping the car, was that our refrigerator isn't staying cold. The freezer of our frost free fridge has been frosting up. This might not seem to have anything to do with car brakes, but stay with me for a minute. Now I have to have a flashback.

Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo (picture Wayne and Garth waving their hands down by their faces, and the picture becoming wavy for a minute.)

The wife: "Honey, why is there water dripping down in the fridge?"

Me: "No idea, put a bowl under it to catch it."

Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo (back to the present.)

That was my idea of fixing the fridge. In doing some research on refrigerators, I found that my problem is probably related to one of two items. First, it could be that there is a problem with the defrost cycles. This could be bad, it might require an actual repairman. Second, it could do with the fact that the cold air from the freezer is not circulating down into the fridge. Since I can now see ice stalactites hanging down from the vents at the back of the fridge, I'm betting on the second. I also found the reason for the water dripping, ice stalactite developing problem in our fridge. It seems that the condenser hose at the back of the fridge is plugged. I guess this is pretty common. Since the moisture cant vent out, it is building up inside. I'm hoping that by clearing out that hose, and letting the fridge thaw for a few days our problems will be fixed.

The big problem is what to do with all of our perishable food for the next few days? My mother has a "spare" fridge in her basement. It's pretty small, but would hold our food for a few days. She demanded that we borrow it, so I had to get to her house to move a fridge (see there is a tie in.)

We successfully relocated the fridge into our kitchen, just in time for me to get the kids to bed. This sounds simple, but anyone who has children, or was a child knows this is not true. After dealing with about 30 minutes of child wrangling, everyone was in bed and being quiet. I consider this success.

This leads me to the next adventure of the night, my new job as church bouncer. Our Elder's quorum is responsible for building security this month. Unfortunately we didn't get cool black t-shirts with the word "SECURITY" on back. Basically, two members of our quorum go over every night, and make sure all the doors and windows are shut and locked, and that everyone is out of the building. Last night was my turn.

I used to think it was really spooky walking around a dark church at night, but it wasn't too bad, I did have backup. We had to kick some guys out who were playing basketball, and one lady who was updating a bulletin board. Although we were very polite, and let them finish their activities first.

Between all of this excitement, I didn't get a chance to go to the gym, but since I was so active I don't feel bad. This morning I officially hit 30 pounds lost. I still have a lot more to go, but I'm getting there.

UPDATE: I just reread this post, and have to apologize for the gratuitous use of quotation marks. The sad thing is, I wanted to use more.

Quotations, the gateway to other punctuation!

Utah Springtime Haiku

Utah April snow
Are there any solutions?
Global warming please!

Soccer practice and the gym

So this is what Spring soccer practice looks like in Utah. The funny thing is this was right before it got bad. I just thought it was cool looking seeing the clouds move in and collide with the mountains. Then it got windy, then rainy, then we started to see lightning in the distance at the end of practice.

It had been a pretty nice day, then we had a 10 degree temperature drop.

So after practice I decided to hit the gym. I'm not sure that was a great decision. Our trainer told us that he had been told that all the workouts were hard, so he was going to show us a hard workout.

I was never very big on jumping rope, even when I was young. I was decent at it, I just didn't think it was that exciting. That being said, I'm less of a fan now. We started the workout with 500 "jumps" over the jump rope. I can get out about 100 before I step on the rope. This is a huge improvement from when we started at <a HREF="http://muirfitness.com" target="_blank">Firehouse Fitness</a>, when I could only get out 20, and could only do about 80 total in one workout. I did have to teach my wife not to double bounce or you do twice the work, and it takes forever.

After the jump rope, we moved to 100 exercise band touch and reach. You take a heavy exercise band, stand on it with the handles in your hand, spread your feet apart, then squat down and touch the floor and stand up and press your arms all the way up. (I never did this as a kid but wouldn't have liked it either.)

We then moved into mountain climbers with our hands on a medicine ball. Mountain climbers are the exercise where you have one foot forward, and one foot back then jump and switch. The position of your feet. We did 200 of these.

Now to relax from these fairly aerobic types of exercises we did 100 jack knifes. We laid down, put your arms above your head, and your knees together, then raise your arms and legs and touch them together. This is a wonderful combination of a crunch and a leg lift. I actually like doing these, just not doing 100.

After this, Jason wanted to get our hearts pumping again. So we did a new TRX exercise. He called them "body thrusts". As he was explaining the workout he looked at me and said, "No dirty jokes." This exercise consisted of taking the TRX straps and holding them like you are doing a row. This leaves you leaning back in a squat. You then lower yourself to the ground, son your behind barely touches, then pull yourself back up until you're on your tiptoes. I asked if it was meant as a row, or a shoulder exercise and was told that it didn't matter it was just meant to drain your energy and get your body working together. I started these and they seemed easy, but they did drain my energy.

After that he wanted us to run. This didn't excite most of us because of the weather I mentioned earlier. Jason managed to convince me to do the run. Only one other person did, everyone else threw 100 roundhouse kicks per leg to get their heart rate up. By the time I finished my run our class was almost over.

There were two more exercises, throw 200 punches with five pound weights in your hands, and 200 bicycle crunches. He did have me get in the final part of class, which he calls the "Ring of Fire.". It was jumping squats.

It was a really good workout, and helped me fall asleep quickly, even though the weather is so rough for April.

Eye troubles

My oldest daughter has had some significant eye problems during her life. This weekend she started complaining about her eye feeling like it was bruised. The wife took a look at it, and there were some ruptured blood vessels in her eye, which always looks good.

I looked up broken blood vessels online, and it turns out they are pretty common. The wife was pretty freaked out, and since we have the number for the on-call doctor at the Moran Eye Center, she gave him a call. He basically reiterated everything I had found online, and followed with if it gets worse or starts hurting bring her in.

My wife, being smarter than me or the doctor, she got in touch with our nurse practitioner who told us it looked infected and that we needed to have it looked at on Monday.

So my wife has been into one doctor, and is currently waiting for our retinal specialist. They think her eye condition might be linked to her first retina detachment surgery. I'm blogging this from my phone, so I'll update it later, and include some more information about what I fin out, and her past surgery.

Update Hooray, it was nothing, well it is something, but nothing serious. The older daughter saw her ophthalmologist, and he didn't like the discoloration all the way around her eye. He got her in to the retinal specialist. He took some time getting to her, but when he looked at it said she would be okay. He was concerned that her scleral buckle was having problems. After looking at her eye, he said that it appears her eye experienced some trauma (the youngest child, most likely), and that it ruptured some blood vessels. He said she had surface blood, and that it should go away in the next week or so. The discoloration around the eye was from the fact that the blood followed the buckle around her eye. No surgery required!

"Don't hurt yourself showing off"

We went to the gym today, and my back has been hurting a little, although today it felt much better. When we got there, there were five new people. It's nice to have more people coming to the gym. There were two guys from my wife's high school who were pretty buff, and a third, smaller guy, she didn't know. As the trainer broke us up into groups, he grouped the four guys together. My wife just looked at me and said, "Don't hurt yourself showing off."

Now I first lifted weights about 20 years ago. I know my limits. I have always been pretty strong, but realize I'm getting older, especially with my recent back incident. I didn't know these guys from Adam, and their opinion of me just isn't that important. I set out just to get my workout in.

Today was a heavy arm, and core day. We started out doing some dumbbell lifts. I started with my usual weight, and the new guys all started much higher. I finished pretty quickly, and they all had to drop down to smaller dumbbells to finish.

We then moved into some tire lunges. Only one of the tractor tires was out. I got started. When I was done with my first set, one of the other guys came over and started. When I started my last set, the other two came over. At this point, my wife looked over and saw me doing lunges at the same tempo as the other guys. We were all trying to look funny, four big guys going up and down in unison around one tire. My wife pulled the trainer over, and told him to watch out for me so I didn't hurt myself.

Well, we went through the workout, and I actually finished more exercises than any of the other guys, and felt pretty good about myself. I was not injured, nor did I show off.

As my trainer said afterward, "Be glad you have someone who looks out for you, and cares whether or not you get hurt." And I am glad. Love you honey, even if you worry a bit too much!

Attack of the citrus

This is what happens when I cook. For the past month or so, I've been doing a lot of cooking on Saturday so I can have decent meals during the week.

Typically I marinate chicken, cook it, then eat it on a salad for lunch. My two favorites are a Greek souvlaki recipe, and a super easy fajitas recipe. Both require citrus, and garlic. What's not to love?

Today I decided I would try something new, well not new but the first time I've made it. I had a really good salad at Z'tejas. It was jerked chicken, with feta cheese and a vinaigrette. I looked for a jerk marinade recipe, but none of them sounded right. Finally I put in the restaurant's name and they had posted their recipe. It calls for 3/4 cups of chipotle chili, rosemary, basil, thyme, parsley, pepper, salt, vinegar, lime juice, and water. The only chipotles I had are in adobo sauce, and it has just added a little twist. This is really spicy, but when combined with the feta is just amazing. I have my chicken marinating, and will report back on the success, or failure, of this dish.

UPDATE: So I just finished cooking the chicken. I added the full can of chipotle in adobo, it was about 7/8 of a cup, and it was a bit much. I made the wife try some, but brought her a cup of water. She thought it was too spicy, and it is very spicy. I love the contrast with the feta cheese to mellow it out. I succeeded in making the chicken I wanted, but in cooking it on the stove top, I smoked everyone else out of the house. Next time I'll use the grill outside.

Fitness check

So our trainer likes to do a little "test" every six weeks to see where everyone is. It is a standardized test, and the more I think about it, the more this sounds like PE class.

Anyway, this week was our testing week. We've been pushing pretty hard lately, I did a four minute static squat the other day, my wife did a five. We've been running more, and really working hard. We got to the gym, and started with a 3/4 mile run. Did some burpees, some push ups, some crunches, a 90 second static squat, and some more ab exercises. Finished in about 30 minutes. I couldn't believe how easy it seemed, but our trainer asked us if we could have done it six weeks ago, and the answer is probably not.

So the trainer wanted us to take a few days off to let our bodies recoup. So what do I do the first day away from the gym? Why, go to In-N-Out Burger of course. (As a side note, I haven't had a fast food hamburger in about three months.) And what do you order when you go to In-N-Out Burger? A Double-double with of course! And you can't go to In-N-Out without ordering fries.

Needless to say, I was content until I put my lunch into Livestrong's MyPlate food tracker. I ate more calories in that one meal than I usually eat in a day. There was more fat in it than I usually eat in two or three days. I guess that's why it taste so good.

The wife had a Relief Society activity, she left after we ate dinner and took my oldest daughter with her. I got the youngest to bed, and the other two watching TV. Then I thought I better get off my lazy butt and burn some of those calories. It was raining, and I wasn't feeling hardcore enough to go out jogging, so I just did calisthenics. I did 100 push ups, 100 crunches, and 100 squats. This morning I was down some more weight, so no regrets. In another three months I can go back.

Guess I won't get as much of a break from the gym as I'm supposed to though.

I'm losing it

 

Weight that is. I started going to the gym about three months ago, and I'm down 26 pounds. Hooray me! I got down to this weight about a year ago, but a vacation and job change got memoir of the exercise habit and I shot back up (and then some.)

As you can see above, my actual weight was witheld because I feel bad about the undo stress I have caused the bathroom scale.

I have been tracking my health regimen using Livestrong's website. They have a huge nutrition and exercise database. Looking at my trendline, I'm losing a little over 12 pounds a month. Now that the weather is improving, some days, I'm going to start adding more cardio and see if I can accelerate that a little.

Wish me luck!

Sleep, on and off

As my wife posted yesterday, our youngest was very tired. The oldest has a soccer game, and right before we left, the youngest fell asleep.

He slept through the game, and until we were almost home. He then stirred, and came into the kitchen where I was cooking. The youngest has a thing for oranges, mainly just peeling them. He grabbed an orange and walked into the front room. When I went to check on him he was asleep, doing a wall squat against our couch, with an orange in his hand. Needless to say he wasn't ready to go to sleep last night.

I on the other hand was very tired, so was the wife. Our solution? Turn on the TV, close our door, and try to ignore him.

Was it effective? A little, I woke up every 30-60 minutes. He finally fell asleep at about 2:15 a.m. He slept until 8:30 a.m., but with the "nap" he had yesterday he seems to be doing well. Now if we can just get him to stay awake long enough today.

Ab h@#!

What you see above is the result of our workout this morning, and before you ask, yes it was that bad.

As I reported yesterday, we did a horrendous workout focusing on our core. My wife did not join me yesterday, so I considered staying home today, but was up anyway, and decided it would be good for me.

We showed up to the gym at the same time as our trainer. We went in the gym, and the previous day's workout was still on the board. No one else in the 8 a.m. class had shown up on Friday, so I was telling them all how bad it was. As I finished my recount, the trainer agreed, and added, "That's why we're doing it again today!"

There was a moan from the group, well at least me. We hit our 12 ab exercises, and before class my abs hadn't felt bad. As soon as we started in on TRX Pikes to Upward Dog (a useful video at the link), my core started to scream at me, and I started mumbling things I shouldn't. The lowest amount of reps for a single ab exercise was 15 (that was for leg raises) up to 40 reps (for things like bicycle crunches.)

Here is the list:

• 20 - TRX Pikes to Upward Dog


• 20 - TRX Pendulum


• 20 - TRX Mt. Climbers (We didn't do the pendulum at the same time.)


• 20 - Crunches holding a Swiss Ball between our feet, about two feet off the ground.


• 20 - Swiss Ball Pikes


• 20 - Swiss Ball Leg Lifts (although we didn't pass the ball to our hands this time, just up and back down.)


• 20 - Power Wheel leg lifts


• 20 - Power Wheel Leg Curls (You lie on your back, lift your hips, and curl the legs back towards your buttocks. Really works the hamstrings with the curl, and the abs by lifting your hips.)


• 20 - Power Wheel Pikes


• 40 - Crunches


• 40 - Bicycle Crunches


• 15 - Leg Lifts

That was the end of abs. We then moved on to a run, which was about a mile.

This moved into the second stage of the workout.

• 15 - Medicine ball "Hop-Touch-Reach" (I know the video is of burpies, which is another difficult workout, but picture the first variation, holding a medicine ball.)


• 50 - Round house kicks per leg


• 100 - Walking lunges


• 30 - Swiss Ball Jumping Squats (I couldn't find a video of this, but you place a swiss ball in your lower back, against a wall. You start with your feet apart, jump up and bring your feet together and go into a narrow stance squat. Then you jump back out and do a wide stance squat. Every two squats counts as one for the rep count.)


• 4 lengths of the gym crawling like a bear. (You get into the upward dog yoga stance, and alternate hands and feet. It looks like Balu in the Jungle Book.)

Then we were supposed to do the ab portion again, but no one got that far.

Good workout, my abs hurt, and now I have to go be comatose somewhere. Enjoy your Saturday!

Thank goodness it's Friday, too bad it's April Fools Day.

Ah Friday, the beginning of the weekend, and more importantly the end of the work week.

My folks couldn't watch the youngest today, and my wife had to work this morning, so I took half a day of vacation. Since I didn't have to worry about catching the train this morning, I decided to hit the 6 a.m. class at the gym. I love to go to the gym in the morning, it wakes me up and gets me ready for the day. You start the day with all the wonderful endorphins. I hate to go to the gym in the morning, because you get your buttocks handed to you.

This morning we focused on our abs, and did 12 different ab exercises in a row to start off. We then went for a run, and I knocked over two minutes of my time from the last run. (We don't run quite a mile, but it's close.) We then hit the burnout phase of the workout and I had to throw 100 round house kicks, and do 100 walking lunges. That sucked.

On a side note, last night at the gym I flipped a tractor tire that weighs about 650 pounds. That made me feel good, and impressed our trainer.

Since I was so awake, I've done a ton (almost literally) of laundry, washed the dishes, and been a jungle gym for the youngest.



Here you see him trying to climb, and then either try to sit or lay on our headboard. The only way to reach such heights? Climb Dad's legs.

When I got home from the gym I did have to deal with my children trying to play practical jokes on each other. The oldest daughter slipped her iPod under the oldest door with a creepy message on it. So he tried to get her by taping down the sprayer on the kitchen faucet (the funny thing about that is he did get his other sister when he was trying to wash a spoon for her.) Then it turned into bickering and arguing about who was going to get each other. I finally had to threaten to get involved unless they got ready for school. Seemed to work for me, but my wife is pulling out her hair.

I might have to update this later, "if" I get involved in the April Fool's Day.