and so starts my career as a world's strongest man competitor

I pulled a plane today. A big 737 plane. With 19 coworkers, yes, but I'm pretty sure I was the one actually pulling the plane. Check out my form:

Well, sadly, our team came in last place. Hard to believe I know, after looking at all those body builders in the photo here, but tis true. Our time was about 9 seconds. However, we were #2 in terms of money raised for the Special Olympics, so doesn't that really make us the big winners of the day?

week #26

Whoa. We're at the halfway point. Can't believe the year is half over. YAY - Christmas is only 6 months away.

I'm pulling a plane this week. Check me out. I'm part of a 20-person team that will pull a 737 12-feet. It's all for a good cause, but come on, how many people will ever get to say, "oh, yah, I've pulled a plane."

It's an early Sunday morning for me. Off to the airport at 8:30 a.m. I'll let you know how it goes. Go Team PRN.

week of the warrior

I was looking forward to this week for months. WARRIOR DASH! Did you check out the web site? No? what the... All right, here's the gist. It's basically a 5K with 12 obstacles -- things like climbing over junkyard cars and cargo nets, jumping over fire, crawling through mud, lots of fun stuff like that.

I don't know if you know me, but I'm not really much of a runner. I'm doing this whole "mile challenge" thing too, so it's not like I'm super out of shape. But honestly, I'm about a 10-minute miler. I'm going to try to get that lower, but that's where I'm at in my old age. So my goal for the race was to do it in under 45 minutes. I wanted to give myself some breathing room. Guess how long it took... 36 minutes and some change. For me, that's like lightening.

It was really tons of fun. Muddy, muddy fun. Tiring as well, but a great time with great people. Here's a photo op of the dashers. Sadly, one dasher suffered a pre-race injury and didn't get to run, but I want to sign up for the warrior dash in Delaware, so maybe we'll all regroup there.

Oh, and you want to hear a bit about last week's no-sugar challenge? I failed. Twice I broke down and cheated. I'll have to make another effort for that one at a later date. I just love me some sugar. And my office doesn't help. Not when every single day someone is bringing in brownies, doughnuts, cookies, cake, baklava, pie, candy...

week #25

Off to warrior dash today. Check it out. www.warriordash.com

day 3 - week #24

All right... I failed. I didn't mean to - and I plan on continuing on the rest of the sugar-free week, and I'll add on a day or two for good measure. But here's what happened.

I was able to deftly navigate Friday and Saturday without going for any dessert. So I had breakfast this morning, and walked into work and found a note on my desk that said I had a Schmidt's cream puff waiting for me in the fridge. A SCHMIDT'S JUMBO CREAM PUFF! I don't know if any of you are a fan of the TV show Man vs. Food, but these things were on there. My friend had been to Schmidt's in Columbus over the weekend and brought one back for me. I can't say no to that. Impossible. I'm never in Columbus, and even if I am there, I'm never able to get to Schmidt's.

So... sadly... at 10 p.m. ET this evening, I failed.

I'm going right back at it, though.

I honestly didn't even eat the whole thing. Really I didn't. But maaaaaan, it was gooooooooooood.

day 1 - week #24

Day 1: So far, so good. I didn't succumb to temptation when I went out to eat tonight. Although man, the cheesecake sounded delicious. I got a withdrawal headache around 9 p.m. Not to worry though, 2 beers eased the pain.

On a side note: Do you think about Christina Aguilera much? Right, me neither. But the other day I was at the gym, just treadmilling along and Live with Regis and Kelly was on the TV. I glanced up at one point and was super excited to see Lady Gaga was on. The sound wasn't on, so I watched it for a bit, and all of sudden realized it wasn't Gags, it was Xtina. Look at her! Stealing Lady G's signature no-pants look. I really never had any feelings about Christina, good or bad, but now I'm pretty annoyed at her. I really feel like she's trying to be Lady Gaga. Get your own look Christina. I know your dirty hair, leather chaps, look never took off, but come on. Massive fail Christina, massive fail.

Oh snap - immediate update. I just googled them both and seems like I'm not the only one who thinks Christina is a copycat. And to make matters worse, Christina's response?

"This person [Lady Gaga] was just brought to my attention not too long ago. I'm not quite sure who this person is, to be honest. I don't know if it is a man or a woman."

OH FRIGGING SNAP

week #24

So, last week.

I kept trying to think of something to do last week, and then all of a sudden it was Friday and now it's a new week. Sorry. I know it's a big disappointment. I'm disappointed, but I just couldn't think of anything. I mean, I was trying to come up with something sad like "watched a new movie," but I didn't even do that.

This week though, I'm giving up sugar. Another sort of cop out week, but I've got some good stuff coming up soon, just you wait and see. Plus, the sugar thing is going to be hard. I think I am addicted. Lately I just feel like I always am craving candy or cookies or brownies or ice cream or whatever. I'm almost ashamed to say it, but my favorite thing to eat recently is a hershey's chocolate bar, with creamy jif peanut butter, with sugar on it. Straight, white, granulated sugar. When you are topping chocolate and peanut butter with extra sugar, I think there's a problem. So I'm going to try to make it through this week without it. I mean, I guess just desserts, because there's sugar in everything. But no chocolate, cake, cookies, candy, etc. for me. No thanks.

Also, I want to amend a post I made a couple weeks ago about a bar by my house called "Carney's." I'm taking back my rave reviews. It's still a nice looking bar, and has a dog, and serves Blatz, but the other night some friends and I were there and overheard the management saying some inappropriate things. Things that I won't repeat, and that I don't agree with at all. So I don't want to be associated with a kind of place like that. Who knows, maybe they have rallies in the basement, I don't know. I'm just saying, in a town full of pretty great dive bars, I can find a better one than this.

week #23

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