2008 Resolution Challange - Month 3

Here we go; a summary for month 2 and onto month 3 goals:

We'll start with Doug. After scoring an impressive 0 points last month, he finally got his act together in February. He started a blog , and even posted 3 times about an Elderberry Cleanse he was trying to do near the end of this month. I'll summarize that for yah: Elderberries > Doug. I'm hoping that'll he'll do a final report.

He needed to get to 253lbs; and managed 251.2. Holy crap, yes, he got some points. The world just might end. Keep it up bro.

There's still no activity in his kitchen, but that's on quarter goals; so here's hoping to a busy March for him.

2 of 3 points

For March: Get to 248.2 lbs, keep the blog going, and get phase 1 of 4 done in the kitchen.

*****

Kristy did well again, though it took her until the 29th to get in all 12 workouts. Thank goodness for leap year I guess Kristy? James and I were hoping we'd get a point lead that way we can be fat for a month. No luck.

Her blog was updated three times, and she's way ahead on her business plan. Her latest blog is a detailed account of her actual workout. No thanks - I'll stick to eating less. ;-)

3 of 3 points

For March: Working out, Blogging, and Continue with the marketing plan

*****

James: He needed to get down to 173.2, and again he's using my blog to guest blog - you'll also notice in his blog he references his Picasaweb account doing his part to get his photo trips in:

Starting weight: 174.2

Current weight: 172

Between Birthday parties, Wedding Receptions, and getting together with friends I didn't find it easy to stick to my diet this month. I had a brief moment of glory where I dropped below 170 but that quickly changed....like the next day. I'm still losing weight so I don't think I need to change anything yet. 2 pounds a month would be fine with me. I'd be done with the diet by June just in time for BBQ's and summer fun.

As for the Hiking and picture taking side of my agreement here. I started out with a nice easy 1.5 mile hike through Wathershed Park. It was a nice day, decent temp and I got a few nice pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/JamesBentow/2008_02_17
Susan and I have started planning our summer trips also. I believe we are going to attempt a Yellowstone trip this summer, Ape Caves, Blue lake Rhino, and Luna lake. I'm pushing for Luna lake being the last trip as it's a 14 mile hike up 3 or 4k feet in bear country.

Guest Blog Over

3 of 3 Points

For March: Get to 171, get a blog up, and go on another photo trip

*****

Yours Truly:

Its been a crazy up and down month for me. I knew February was going to be a pain. I was on track until last Friday - when I went up to Seattle to see some highly recommended bands, two days in a row, and between beers and bar food ended up gaining over 3 pounds. This put me nearly 2 pounds away from my goal with only this week left. Of course this did 'satisfy' my goal of going out to a bar at least once a month - but nearly cost me on the other side. I think Doug devised the goals this way.

Luckily it shed away as quickly as it went on; and I was back on track (and even hitting an all time best).

This morning I came in at 163.8

Whew...

Now, if I only had recorded every day since the beginning of the year, inputted that date into excel, crafted up a graph, cropped and uploaded that graph to the web and linked that graph into my blog. That would be cool.

Oh wait, almost forgot, I am that much of a nerd.



3 of 3 points

For March: Lose another pound down to 162.8, Blog (haha, like that won't happen), and go out to some more bars (already have some plans).


Totals:

Kristy 6
James 6
Bryce 6
Doug 2


****



Side note - if you know anyone that is interested in a starter home in the south sound area (Lakewood), Melissa and Jason (yes, the Jason that used the Tow Pansy Rule) have their house for sale @ $217k. Very neat place, fireplace, great backyard, and a lot more room than you'd expect. Honestly I don't know why they are moving (well, the new place they are looking at is exceptional, but still).

Here's the listing: CLICK ME

And some keywords as a practical google matter. lakewood, washington, naked, house, sale, unique, awesome, mp3, Britney, big back yard, boobies, great price, new windows, nude


(hey, google hits are google hits). ;-)

Originality

Okay, so I finally got tired of only posting up stuff I was stealing from others. Even if that's what 95% of the internet is; I'd like to think periodically I actually put something up here that's "new".

Today (Sunday) I was happy to finally have a minute or two to empty my camera; though over the past couple months I've only managed 50 pictures or so, which I was fairly disappointed about. I'll have to do a bit better over the next couple months.

First picture - taken straight off my porch as I was leaving for work a couple days ago. I just couldn't pass it up.



I liked the contrast between the stream and the graffiti; though without a tripod or good sunlight not quite as good as this picture can look. Luckily this is right behind my house and I'll have another shot at it hopefully.



Just me wasting some time out and about with the good weather



More fun stuff for me. I actually found some great open source (read: free) panorama software. Much more interesting if you click the picture, click the magnifying glass and look around. I'm hoping to play around with this even more in the future. Ideally I'd like to see if I can get creative enough to do a panoramic HDR.

This shot was from softball the other weekend (ahh, nothing like softball in February)....



What does one wear for softball, in Febrary, in Washington? Well, anything you can find... but me specifically: Thermal Underwear, normal baseball outwear, and top it off with my Rally Racing Hat (this was after the games, notice how I'm standing there like I have been hit by a truck - well, a Durango more specifically):



And lastly - a couple quick ones for Scott & Amber. Best wishes to the both of you:

(truth in advertising; specifically if you know Amber). ;-)





I think the cameras out numbered the people at this wedding



Notoriously hard to photograph a kid that runs from cameras. We herded him my direction and I got lucky. ;-)



And hey, look, a panorama for you guys too.

From Scott

I figured I'd continue this week with more unoriginal postings. I'm stealing this from a link my brother sent me.

Its just a simple video of 3 burnouts (internationally diverse burnouts). It starts a bit slow, but the end is golden. Not to mention the end music is Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun; better known as the male draenai dance music. That link in itself if you haven't seen Daler Mehndi is worth it - a crash course in another culture. Hah.

Enjoy





Oh, and I hope everyone was lucky enough to catch the eclipse.

For those not; here's a glorious picture (yes, it almost looks fake) of the eclipse from the Astronomy Picture of the Day website (yes, I know I'm a nerd):

Photo Stealing

Maybe someday soon I'll get back into the swing of things and post up some pictures that I've taken; though for now - these are stolen from my Mom. Thanks Mom. =)

Over this last weekend they went up to the Cabin just to see how much snow was really up there. As you can tell by the picture at the Summit - there's some pretty big mounds up there.



One of my brother's goals was to have enough snow at the cabin that you could walk out the door and right onto the snow (I believe there's at least 6 steps that are gone) - and yes, I think that's close enough to count for Scott's book



Here's one specifically for Tighe (happily married for all of 4 days now). In December he left his snowmobile at the cabin, just park off to the right hand side of it for "safe keepings".

Well its real safe now (yes, its still there)



Though, at least his snowmobile isn't as bad off as this car. Might as well come back in July - you're not getting that one out for a while; unless you buy a mighty good number of beers for the guy parked next to you.



Oh right, I'm an uncle too. Awesome.

:-D

Spoken like only Keith can

Sweden 2008

- - - Sweden Rally 2008 - - -



Ah, nothing cheers me up more than some rally racing; which is probably a good thing as this is Single Awareness Day (SAD); more later in this post how I balance out my evil contempt for this day, this year.

There's little bits in rally that make it special. For the Sweden rally, one is the fact that since this race has been run, every year since 1950, only once has it been won by a non-Scandinavian (Loeb in 2004).

I mean, could you imagine if the Indianapolis 500 had been won 99% of the time by someone from Indiana? That's unfathomable I know, but that's what makes Rally so unique. These courses and conditions change so much from race to race that someone born into the conditions actually has a huge advantage (either that, or Scandinavians make amazing Rally drivers (they do)).

Regardless I think its brilliant that a group of the best drivers in the world can get together in a place, and the "home town guy" has won 57 out of 58 times.



This years Sweden rally was marred a little by by global warming. At least that's what people will say; it could just be unseasonably warm and next year we'll have our 4 foot snowbanks again. I was very interested to see if the lack of huge amounts of snow was going to cut into that home field advantage for the flying fins / crazy swedes / nutty nordics.

Here's the Torrent Links:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Again, if those confuse you or if you have any other questions about them, go read the Monte Carlo Post



Oh, so I mentioned above I might be a bit more cynical this V.Day than most (hmm, I wonder why?). At least I know that, so I did my best to balance out my discontent. My I left a gift card at the Starbucks I normally hit in the mornings to buy as many ladies following behind me drinks as it could. Hopefully their day will be made; and the world will stay in balance. =)

Either way, concentrate on the flying Subarus. They are way more interesting.

Delegate Totals

Am I the only one that is frustrated by all the different delegate totals running around?

I know that some of the democratic super delegates have verbally committed, but they haven't actually voted yet - so why the heck do they count? There's all this big news this week about Obama finally taking the lead - when in fact, in my book (I count, like MSNBC does, only those who actually have voted), Obama hasn't ever been behind.

Let me continue with dead horse beating. Currently the Associated Press (used by Fox News, NPR and such) have the totals as:

Hillary Clinton 1,198
Barack Obama 1,223 (Up by 25 for those bad at math)

Whereas NBC (MSNBC) has the totals:
Hillary Clinton 969
Barack Obama 1078 (up by 109)

I guess it will feel like less of a super delegate, special interest cock block if they put Hillary through when you inflate the numbers that way. Just show me who actually cast their ACTUAL votes (thank you MSNBC)

Foresight

As I neared the end of January, I made the harsh realization that my weight-loss challenge just might hit a bit of a snag in February. Things had kind of crawled to a halt after my first couple weeks of purging what only had to have been pure fast food toxins. (mmm.. fast food toxins; yum)

Anyways, things were actually looking pretty good for February. The start of this month I was 166; and last Friday I weighed in at 164. Perfect. I can ease off just a bit.

Or so I thought.

That weigh-in was Friday morning. The night before I had got busy and only managed some water and pistachio nuts for dinner (yeah, I know, not healthy - thank you Mom). Friday morning I had my normal breakfast (bagel) and lunch (tuna, cracks and water) and headed off to physical therapy that evening a little drained - where I proceeded to get my worn out ass handed to me. Its never good when your PT trainer looks at you and says, "Are you going to throw up?".

"Yeah Lady, just make me do one more squat and find out."

Hungry and demoralized I stopped to get some teriyaki; which I normally break into two dinners, though not Friday night. Oh no, through the powers of delusional weight success that morning, lactic acid pains, and some alcohol, I ate it all (yum).

Then Saturday rolled around and to add to my already sore body from PT, I played softball (6 for 7). They had me play shortstop so my sportcenter moments were few and far between compaired to my times in the outfield.

Oh, and on my way home I decided I was going to be too sore and tired to cook anything; so I got two grilled steak burritos from Taco Bell (yum). I mean hey, I just played softball all day, and I was 164 on Friday morning. A man has to indulge.

Sunday Morning, I was an indulgent 168.

Doh - and 167.8 this morning (double doh)

So, now I'm nearly 2 pounds over for Feb. Not to mention my body feels like I fell down about 500 stairs, ran back up them, and proceeded to do it again. I don't think I have a spot that doesn't hurt right now. Oh wait.. nope found a spot. The end of my nose it okay. Yeah, just the little tip at the end there; I can move that without hurting.

Ahh, the bright side (as I stare cross-eyed at it).

Call of Duty 4

By my favorite reviewer, Mr. Zero Punctuation (Punctuation is overrated imo)

And as always, his language is absolutely not suitable work (EAR MUFFS!)

Dogs > Cats

And a humorous look at why I don't have a cat:

I'm an Uncle... o.O

Mr. Jack Ryan Kerker

Weight: 5 pounds, 15 ounces
Length: 19 1/2
Time: 5:44 p.m.
Date: Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Congrats Scott & Rachel

Resolution Challenge 2008 - Month 2

Okay, so here we go:

Kristy - 3 Points

She went to the gym 12 times and you can see her blogs, her business plan (second objective in the challenge), sticking to her cleanse, and obviously, blogging about it have all been met. I have a feeling like we're going to owe her a lot of cash.

Here's a snippet from her blog:

Workouts: Check
Marketting Plan in the works: Check
Blog about it: Check
Money bryce is going to owe me at the end of the year: Cheque

Cheque? pfft.. Canadians talk funny.

For February: Continue with the marketing plan, gym visits (12), and blogging

James - 3 (weak) Points

Well, I say weak because he wasn't too sure was evening going to stick this out; you might remember the Pansy Tow rule. Since he was waving he didn't have a second objective to do this month - though we have agreed on a secondary objective. He is going to plan out at least 4 trips this year per trimester. Yes, I know that boils out to 1 trip per month (which sounds a bit less odd), but trying to find a day in January or February that isn't down-pouring rain is sometimes a challenge in itself.

As for the weight loss - he kicked everyones' ass: 188.4 down to 174.2 He just has to lose at least 1 pound in February to keep to his goal.

For the blog - he didn't want to set one up, so I said he could just email it to me and I would post it. Officially I received it in January, so it counts. See the end of this post for his blog.

For February: Lose at least 1 pound, do a photo trip and post some photos online, "blog" about it

ME! - 3 Points

My secondary challenge was to head out and socialize, which I did with Melissa, Jason and Hayley at Chopstix. I believe Hayley has some interesting video of that night and some random brunette hitting on me. Fun times.

Obviously I've blogged once or twice in January (or 16 times) and for weight I've gone from 176.4 down to 166.4. February is going to be a BITCH of a month to keep this going; the latter half of January slowed down to a near stop for weight loss.

For February: Lose at least 1 pound, Head out to a bar, and blog about it. (Man, I feel like I'm getting off easy.... shh, don't tell my competitors)

Doug - 0 points

He'll admit it. Failed Miserably. He was working harder than he's had to work over the last couple years - but as he put it "that's what I'm telling myself, but that's not an acceptable excuse"

His "kitchen" goal - which is on quarters is obviously due by the end of march, could net him 3 points - so he's still hasn't lost that one completely -- though he is now at 256 pounds, and we've allowed him to revise the weight to 225 "by the end of the year".

January wasn't ever his favorite month, I have to say even less so now.

For February: Lose at least 3 pounds, Get a blog up and blog about this crap at least once, and come up with a plan to finish the kitchen.


*************************************************************

The James Blog.

Starting weight 188.6 (aka fat)

Current weight 174.2 (aka fluffy)


Originally started out as a extreme diet that my girlfriend dictated. That only lasted a week, I almost had a breakdown from a lack of sugar in my diet. The first week I lost 4 lbs. and I struck a deal with her that if I did not continue to lose weight the second week with a small amount of Mountain Dew in my diet that I would continue to cut it out completely. Week 2 I allowed myself 12 oz a day for 6 days and I still lost 3 lbs. I’m still losing a pound per week and I was told that it slows down after the first week or two. I’m fine with a pound a week, that gives me 9 more weeks to reach my ideal weight and then start on maintenance.



I don’t consider this a diet. I’m looking at it as I’m not 21 years old anymore so 2 or 3 liters of Mountain Dew a day and 3 Hot pockets for dinner won’t work. I’m getting older and if I want people to stop asking me when I’m due; I need to make some changes.



Last thing, I’ll end on a positive note. Sunday morning someone actually said, “Wow James, you’re looking slim. You must have lost some weight”. And it felt good.



~James