Updated Links

Only a quick post to let you know that I have updated my Read 'em and Weep... or Laugh sections with some new blogs.

Highlights are:

• Banazattack - Anne's blog. You may also know her as @banaza on the Twitter. She is also my Team Challenge coach.
• Living on the Front Side of Thirty - Good old Bruce. aka @btothed. You never know what you will get.
• Losing it Without Losing me - Amy Kant - @amykant - Follow her as she loses weight. Amy is one of my Team Challenge friends.
  
• Ok, just one more beer - Suzi's journey with Weight Watchers, myself, & that 30 pack of beer sitting in my fridge. @suzistorm
  
• Twitter Beer Club - We drink beer and tweet about it every Monday at 8pm. What more can you ask for??
  

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Smoke Out

Today is 35th annual Great American Smoke Out.

I would like to take this day to encourage anyone who does smoke to make a plan to not smoke today. If you can do it today, then maybe you can not smoke tomorrow and so on. One day at a time.

The American Cancer Society offers many great resources to help you quit.

I quit smoking over 10 years ago. It got to be one day that Randy (who chewed tobacco) and I said enough is enough. We were probably both bitches to be around for the first few weeks. I know we both had our setbacks. I remember taking a puff or two, three from time to time. Especially when drinking. But eventually it got easier and easier to not smoke. I look back at it and even though I gained close to 40 lbs since then, it was still the best decision I have ever made.

I look back and think how smoking has hurt people in my life. My inlaws both dies from smoking related complications. My dad's cancer was more than likely caused by his smoking. My mom has sorta stopped but still has health issues related to her smoking. My sister seems to always be sicking and coughing. Same thing with my nieces. One of them always seems to be sick.

Since I stopped smoking I noticed that my colds have decreased in frequency and intensity. Somoe of that may be to the more healthier lifestyle I try to lead but I'm sure that by not smoking it helped my lungs have the ability to heal and stay stronger.

So, I urge you to give great thought to take this day and make it the first day of your life smoke free!

Sweet Dreams

I had a weird dream last night.  It was pretty easy to figure out the meaning of it but it was strange none the less.

I am at Disney in Florida.  It is early in the day. I'm getting ready to run a marathon. I can't find things I packed. No shoes. No Carmex. 

My dad is there. He and someone else that I don't know are supposed to take me to the starting line by 1:30. It is like 1:00 and they can't get the tractor started.  It is an hour drive to get there. I am all upset that I depended on them to get me there and just before I need to leave they are trying to fix the tractor. 

I am yelling at them to get me a cab.  They tell me that everyone else is trying to get to the race so there are no cabs. 

My alarm goes off and I never made it to the race.

I wonder if this has to do with the fact I have already started to pack for Vegas. 

Things That Make Me Go Hmmmm....

Lately, I have been finding articles in the local newspaper that just make me go "Huh??". Some are things that irritate me, some are funny and other are truly just weird.

Like the one from the AP. There was a conference that ended this past Saturday for priests to learn how to do exorcisms. Yes, exorcisms. I guess someone has to teach them how to do this but it just seems really odd.

More than 50 bishops and 60 prieists attended this conference. That is alot of people. The one fact I found interesting is that the Catholic church receives 400 requests a year to perform an exorcism but they only end up doing 2 or 3 a year. I wonder what they think is going on with the other 397 cases. Are the people nut jobs or faking it? Makes you wonder....

Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

Today is Veteran's Day.

I give thanks to the men and women, past, present and future, who have fought and gave their lives to protect the freedoms we hold dear. Or at least you should.

I remember on this day, my dad and uncles who served during peace time. During WWII, my great uncle, Ray served in Africa. Uncle Herman who served in Germany. I will remember my great uncle Melvin, who gave his live in France on July 30, 1944.

At our last family reunion, I found out that his transport casket had been located on the family farm. It is being donated to the National World War II museum in New Orleans, LA. Here are a couple of articles about it.

I remember my brother-in-law, Corey, who served during peace time in the Air Force and now continues to serve in a civilian capacity with the NSA.

I am remembering my nephew, Kyle, who also works for the NSA in a civilian capacity, who by now should be in Afghanistan for the next few months. May God keep him safe.

I am remembering my many friends who have served or are serving in peace time and war.

Thanks you for making sure that we can continue to call the United States, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!

Beer Run

This afternoon StB and I volunteered at the Tyranena Brewery's 5th annual Beer Run. We had previously volunteered at their beer bike ride last month and had a good time (even if it was freezing cold, cloudy and windy out). We had such a good time we decided to do it again. It also never hurts that there is good beer there to drink.

The day was cold but sunny and calm winds. Much better than last time. As we walked in, I ran into some Team Challenge friends. They were out there cheering on a couple other people.

Our duty, this time, was in the recovery tent. It is where runners come after they finish to get water, snacks, heat blankets and their much coveted medal. We had cookie table detail. Keep the cookies well stocked and organized. Not too terribly difficult. Also much more fun than taking ticket for the food line like we did last time.

The first runners came in. They cranked out the 1/2 marathon in about 1 hour 14 minutes. An awesome time. Tried to give them some cookies but there were more interested in the fruit and peanut butter sammiches.

A few more runners started coming in here and there. The people who ran the 1/6 barrel (4.37 miles) were now also coming in. Then the rush hit. We had a good time laughing and cheering the runners as they came past us. StB kept trying to push the orange pumpkin frosting cookies. He kept comparing them to the McRib. Saying that they were only around for a limited time and when they were gone, they were gone until next year. He got some laughs out of people and more than a few strange looks.

The runners kept us busy for the better part of the next 2 hours. By about 3 it was dying down so I moved over to the area where they were collecting the timing chips. We had to fold them back up and attached them to the boards that they came on. Not a difficult job with but there were just alot of them. 1500 to be exact. Like the saying goes "Many hands make for light work" That was true here. Some people were folding them up and others were putting them back on the boards. The task was quickly completed.

I was excited to see one of my dailymile and Twitter friends, Augie complete his first 1/2 marathon. It was nice to finally get to meet him.

I was also super happy to see one of my Team Challenge teammates, Courtney (you read about her story here). She completed the 1/6 barrel run. She said that she was saving her 1/2 marathon for Vegas next month.

By this time there was not much left to do except pack things up. We found Stacey (who did a kick ass job of running the event today) and asked what should be done with the food. Got that quickly put away and went to enjoy ourselves. Ate a bit and drank a bit. Got a good laugh out of the people who brought a couple of blow up New Glarus Brewery cows.

We sat in on part of the brewery tour. I loved the tour guy. He was cracking jokes and having a good time. The one question I wanted to ask but didn't was who was always responsible for the labeling mistakes that they always seem to be having. Almost every other newsletter has a note about how someone messed up and labels a batch of bottle wrong.

Things were now winding down, so we headed for home.

It was a great day and knowing that you got to help put on a great event made the day even better.

Pumpkin Pies

I couldn't decide if I should post this for Halloween or Thanksgiving. Halloween is closer.

Enjoy!

How Pumpkin Pies are Made

Addicted

The past few weeks I have been playing more games on my phone. I am normally not a gamer type person. Don't get me wrong, I love playing with my Wii but don't use it every day. I tend to go in streaks.

It started with Angry Birds. This originally was an iPhone game and has now been developed for Android. The Beta version was out for about 2 months. I could get so far and then got stuck and kinda stopped playing for awhile. Then two weeks ago they released the production version. It was sooo much better than the beta. I would sail thru several levels and then get stuck. I would go nuts trying to get past a few levels. One level had me for almost a week. Them damn pigs are going to be the death of me yet. For some crazy reason the big ones with mustaches remind me of Randy. No idea why....











Then, earlier this week WordFeud happened. It is basically Scrabble against another person. I've been playing against several Twitter tweeps and other random people. At any given time, I will have 5-6 + games going. Several of the games have been going on for a few days now as you wait for the other person to make a move.

I like the thrill of getting some crazy ass tiles and then being able to make a word from it. I spend alot of time rearranging the tiles in my tray before some words pop out at me. I guess that is just the inner geek in me.

Why I'm Running

If you don't know by now, I'm running a half marathon in December.

Here is why I'm running this. Courtney is a teammate of mine on Team Challenge WI. If this doesn't inspire you to donate, I'm not sure what will. She is a rock star and kicks some major ass!

Here is her story.

Courtney’s Story

I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in August 2006. I didn’t think too much of it at the time. What most concerned me was that my doctor said many people have to learn to make dietary changes, and he mentioned cheese as something some patients had to limit. I was appalled – “You mean even like cheese on tacos?!?” was my reply. I clearly had no clue what I was in for.

I maintained on my medications relatively symptom free until January 2008. Right at the start of spring semester, I went through a very serious flare up that eventually landed me in the hospital. I opted to go to a hospital in Kenosha near my family and the GI doctor I had been seeing. I was in the hospital for 10 days, and left in even worse condition having contracted a C Difficile infection on top of the UC flare. I saw my doctor a few times on an outpatient basis and he insisted I was getting better but it would be a “long road.” He was wrong.

At this point, I was barely able to walk (partially due to abdominal pain and partially due to my enormously swollen feet and ankles from the prednisone). I was taking around 25 different pills a day, and I had dropped from a healthy 130 to 103 pounds. I had been unable to attend school or work for over a month. My father was getting frustrated and urged me to get a second opinion. He brought me to Froedtert.

I will never forget the look on the GI doctor’s face when he saw me. He went completely white. I didn’t see him again because when I came back from my X-Ray I was greeted by the surgical team. It was the scariest moment of my life. Everyone who has UC knows that surgery is a possibility (and everyone who has UC also knows this means ostomy, perhaps the scariest word in the English vocabulary to a 23 year old female). I began to cry.

Little did I know, this doctor who was making me so angry was really just trying to save my life. He told me I had toxic megacolon, and I needed emergency surgery to remove my colon. However, they needed to get me hydrated and give me a blood transfusion before they could do the surgery, otherwise they weren’t sure if I would make it. They scheduled me for the 8am slot the next day. Nobody wanted to tell me at that point, but I was basically knocking on death’s door – had I waited much longer my colon would have eventually burst and fatality was a real danger. I found out afterwards that I may have been in the worst condition anyone there had ever seen.

Surgery for me gave me a new life. Yes, it was a long tough road, but I felt immediately better. Adjusting to life with an ostomy was hard at first (mentally and physically). Because I had been in particularly horrible condition, the construction of my jpouch had to be broken up into three surgeries over a 9 month period. I also tended to be a patient plagued with unexpected complications. Even today, I have to be on maintenance medications to treat recurrent pouchitis which my doctors think may be a by-product of the C Diff infections.

However, the ordeal has made me stronger. I am proud to say that even though the most difficult part of my illness occurred while I was in school I was able to stay on track with my program and graduate with my Master’s degree in Educational Psychology in May 2009. Despite small adjustments you have to make for living with a jpouch and pesky pouchitis flares (which, honestly, you may as well just have ulcerative colitis), I feel like myself again. I still have challenging days here and there, and I never know what the future will bring but, given all I’ve already been through, I do feel like I can handle just about anything. For me, this ½ marathon is extremely personal, and will make me feel like I have finally conquered the disease that kept me down for so long.

What is a j-pouch you ask?

A j-pouch is a surgical procedure that eliminates the need for an ostomy (external pouch) for patients who’ve had their colon removed due to ulcerative colitis. When the colon is removed, the rectum is also taken out because it is typically diseased as well. The surgeon then constructs a new “rectum” out of the patient’s small intestine.

The surgery can be performed in two or three steps, depending on the health of the patient, and a temporary ileostomy is necessary until the new plumbing is healed enough to operate. After the operation, “j-pouchers” are able to pass stool through the *ehem*” usual route,” but because they lack a colon, they have to use the restroom much more frequently than other people. In addition, there are new dietary restrictions – generally, people with a j-pouch would want to avoid veggies and other high fiber food as they take longer to digest, and well…. Let’s face it, we just don’t have as long as the rest of you ;).

Haunted

With the Halloween season approaching, I thought I'd write about scary movies.

Part of this post started with my watching Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. The first episode I seen was where they went back to a place called Bobby Mackeys.  This was a place where several years ago they had some video "proof" of something they called a spirit.  They captured EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena ) telling these guys that they were not welcome and other weird stuff. In many cases if you closed your eyes and didn't see the words on your TV you could not make out anything but white noise. There were a couple that you could make stuff out.

I watched another episode last Friday. They went to the Stanley Hotel. The inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shining".   Here to the caught something in the background that looked like a person walking into the woods. I don't know. I'm not sure. Same thing with the EVPs. Not very clear.

Now I should back up and say that I'm not sure if I believe or not. I have never personally experienced anything paranormal but I can't say that it doesn't exist.  This thinking would also apply to my opinions on UFO and aliens. I think it is very naive to think we are the only intelligent life form out there.   I should also say that stuff like this I do not like to watch alone. I do freak out easily. 

Ok back to topic. I started to watch Paranormal Activity last weekend.  I say started.  I got about 25 minutes into it and had to stop. I was home alone and it was getting a bit to freaky for me.  I will try to watch the rest of it this week. I really only seen the first part of it when the door moved a little bit.  That was enough to freak me out.

On Saturday there is a Haunted Brewers tour. I'm not sure what it all entails but sounds like we meet at this bar and walk over to a cemetery and visit the graves of some of Milwaukee's founding brewing families.  It is supposed to be nice out and could be interesting.  I think I will bring my camera along to see if I can capture anything. 

Scary Thought

This morning I was talking with a couple of other women while getting a birthday bagel. 

I asked them if they had been watching the miners being rescued. 

One girl, who is 38, said what miners? 

I replied with "The ones in Chile. They have been trapped there since late August." 

She replied back with "Oh, I don't watch the news."

I asked her if she read the paper either online or in print.

She said that she never read the paper. But she does read People magazine every week.  

I was dumbfounded. How can someone at that age be so, for a lack of a better term, ignorant about the world around them?

I guess I have always loved to read and the newspaper is something that to this day I look forward to reading each evening. I may not always be the most knowledgeable about some topics but I try to at least have an idea of what is going on around me.

Back to the miners. I have been reading the coverage on CNN.com most of the morning.  It is riveting.  I remember being in Las Vegas and getting ready for lunch one day and turned on the TV to catch a bit about the mine collapsing. I remember hearing that they thought the miners may be down there until Christmas time before they could be rescued.  I'm glad that the miners didn't have to wait that long. 

I watched the first miner being brought up last night. It brought tears to my eyes to see how a group of people and a government can work together to achieve something so good.

I'm glad this mining accident has a happy ending.  Most do not.

Today's the Day

Well as of about 6:00pm tonight, I will have committed myself to raising awareness and money for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation and Team Challenge WI.

That means I need your help.

I need to raise a shitload (yes, you will get the bad jokes about digestive diseases) of money. $3600 to be exact. So far, I'm at $645. Very short of my goal.

How can you help, you ask? Well, go to my website and make a donation. It doesn't have to be alot. I know that not everyone can afford large donations but maybe think about just giving $1 for each mile I am running. $13.10. For some of you, that may mean giving up your Starbucks for a couple of days. But to me, that will move me closer to my goal.

My fundraising deadline is Nov 15th. I don't want to be sitting there a day or two before that stressing out about this, when I should be concentrating on my training.

As an added bonus, for every donation that is made, you can pick a song for my marathon playlist. I figure I need about 100 songs to cover my running time. Just leave the song and artist in the comments section of this post and I'll add it to my very empty, as of now, playlist. All I ask is that there is no Christmas music. Anything else, I'm game for.

Also don't forget you can also help out by attending my fundraiser at Horny Goat Brewery on Nov 28th. You can RSVP either on the facebook page or the Twtvite page.

If you have already donated, a huge THANK YOU!!!

Seriously??

So here are a few of the latest emails I received from Match.com.

Do guys think this really works? I hope not.

First up we have this guy. Guess his name is Mark. Maybe. Has he ever heard of a capital letter? I don't think so. Also, I know I look good. Thanks you for pointing that out.



Then we follow it up with Bruce. WTF!?!



Did he really say "I Guess the Lords Angel spent several Hours when Creating you"?? Where do guys gets this crap?? What is up with the random capital letters on words? Can you send a few of them to mark. He is missing a few.

Needless to say, I hit the delete button on both of them.

I Love Boobs

Yesterday was the annual Susan G. Koman Walk for a Cure in Milwaukee. 

We have walked this as a group for the past several years. Ever since our good friend, Gambino became a survivor. 

I was thinking about that time yesterday.  I remember getting the call that she had been diagnosed.  Thinking "What the hell! "  and "No fucking way! ".  Next thing I recall was sitting in the bar, waiting to hear from A on how the surgery went.  Feeling relived when the call finally came and the news was good.

Gambino had to go back for a second surgery.  I'm still not sure it wasn't a ploy to get out of Thanksgiving at her home. (J, you know I'm only kidding ).  That was followed up with several weeks of radiation treatment.  She was fortunate to not have to go through chemo.

Much of that time seems like a blur to me. I'm sure she will never forget it.

The best part is that she is now a Survivor.

And yesterday we walked in her honor. 

Dirty Dancing??

Men, this just doesn't work. EVER!!!

And if you don't know why.... there's no hope.

Camping: This and That - Part 1

Note: Apparently, the blog app on my phone only saves things in draft mode and you can't edit the posts from your phone. So, sit down and enjoy part.

It is camping week for the gang. We are short one gang member, who's wit is missed. Sadly, sometimes real life gets in the way of fun.

The ride out was uneventful which is good. Stopped for lunch in Blanchardville. It is scary when the waitress remembers you from previous years. I guess we are the unforgettable sort of folks.

The weather was a little uncooperative. We still have a credit crumming for the rain on the way out and overnight Monday.

Tuesday dawned rather windy. Thank God for pony tails. The day started out on a sour note as one of the gang was not able to work from the campground. We had tested use my phone's internet connection and tethering her laptop to it. While I have a good cell signal my 3G coverage faded in and out. It was a downer for both of us. So we did what any good camper does. Hit the @newglarusbeer brewery.

Picked up a bunch of new beers to try. A few are their regular year round beers and a few were what they call their R&D beer. Trial runs of potential new beers. Since they have special labels I will wait to try them at home so I don't mess the labels up by sitting in a cooler of water and ice. I will have pictures when I drink them. Or see my #beerclub tweets.

It was cold overnight. Thank goodness for campers with furnace in it.

Team Challenge WI (or Pony Up The Bucks, Kids)

Ok folks. You knew this was coming. I have talked about it in my last couple posts and you will continue to hear about this until December. So if you don't like it... get over it.


I am run/walking in the 13.1-mile Las Vegas Rock N Roll Half Marathon on December 5, 2010. I have to raise $3600.00. Yes, that's right 3600 smack-a-roos. Now if one person wants to be super generous and make a large donation, I would love it. But I'm pretty sure most of you can't do that so here can be a guideline to donating. Donate if you have:

1. You’ve been cursed at, honked at, or flipped off while biking or running. – $1
2. You lost a toenail because of running. – $2
3. You spend more money on training gear/clothes than regular clothes. – $3
4. You stopped making fun of fanny packs because your running belt looks very similar (and cooler) to one. - $4
5. You run barefoot or with those five fingers thingys because it feels better. – $5
6. You’ve ever discovered a hole in your pants during a fitness class. – $6
7. You’ve had chaffing near your lady (or man) business – $7
8. When someone tells you their pace, you calculate their 5k/half marathon/marathon time. – $8
9. You extend the length of your runs or rides so you can have another beer (or three) guilt-free. – $9
10. You have no problem talking about bodily functions with your training buddies. – $10
11. You’ve come in first in any race you’ve ever competed in. – $20 (screw you)
12. You’ve seen one of the following during your swim, bike and/or run training:
    a.) Asian Carp – $10
    b.) mountain lion – $15
    c.) bear – $20
    d.) dog – $1
    e.) frog or turtle – $5
    f.) deer - $3 add $2 if you have almost hit one
    

If none of those apply to you, then give what you can. I know times are tough for alot of people now. Think about donating $1 or $2 dollars for each mile of the race.

So here is the link to make your super duper generous donation. Just click here.

.

Coming Down

Back from Vegas and life is somewhat back to 'normal'. At least for a few days.

I realized that when I was unpacking some stuff last night that There really was no need as some of it would be going right back into the suitcase again in a couple days.

I'm heading up to MN for work on Monday. Visiting the mothership as we like to call it. Boss man was able to confirm that we can leave on Wednesday evening. He is leaving for Vegas on Thursday for the Badger game so he felt it was not necessary for my work hubby and I to stay a night just to leave mid morning. I was happy with that decision.

It will be a nice trip up there as work hubby and I are driving together. Hoping that he will want to drive some of the time. We are also getting to meet the rest of our team who we have been a part of for over a year now. I met a couple of them last year but one guy is also coming up from Houston.

But back to Vegas.

It was a good time with good friends. Learned how to play craps (won $86) and Pai Gow (lost $100). Thanks to StB for having the patience to teach me and answer my million questions. I appreciated it. I may now drag him down to the local casino to play more Pai Gow. It was addicting and I seemed to have the need to yell "PAI GOW" alot. Guess that means my cards also sucked alot for awhile there. Hopefully that trend does not continue.

We did the Price is Right Live game show. It was a blast. Although, no one from our group made it to the stage there was one moment at the end when he called the name Steve and two of the guys in our group got excited for a moment. Alas, it was not meant to be. I would recommend it to others if you are in Vegas and looking for something to do. Todd Newton and David Ruprecht (from Supermarket Sweep) were the host and announcer. We met up with them after the show. Nice guys and it was a pleasure to talk to them for a couple of minutes. It doesn't hurt that Todd is rather hot. I have a picture that I at some time will take off of my phone and post.

It is always fun to people watch in Vegas. You see all types. The good, the bad and the downright freaking scary. Fremont street was in the 70's theme so there were alot of street performers dressed up in that theme. Rather neat but a bit too warm at times to sit outside and enjoy.

After I got home, I went to get the pups. I missed them and Rufus sure missed me as he has barely left my side. I dropped them off and headed out to the Team Challenge kickoff party. It was great to meet the other 52 people who I will be training with over the next few months. We have our first training session on Sunday morning. Happy that it is at South Shore park, just down the road from me. I think I may even ride my bike there. It is only maybe a mile tops.

I'm really excited to do this. To try and challenge myself physically, mentally and I'm sure emotionally as well.

As I was thinking about this over the past week I thought that even though I work hard at some stuff many things tend to come easy to me. When something interests me, I tend to be a bit anal about it and will do research on the subject. A recent example was eminent domain. A friend's place of employment was fighting the city over the fact the the city wanted to take several businesses along a stretch of road using the eminent domain. So I went out and found the Supreme Court records on the issue and read. I spent several hours reading about it. It was rather interesting. I did the same thing several months ago when the Court ruled on something that could have had an impact on my job. I put together a summary of the Court's ruling and sent it along to my boss and a few higher up mucky mucks. It will probably end up being something that our legal department will have to look at but it was good to know where our legal rights may be on the issue. Yeah, I know. You are most likely thinking "dork".

Wow, I guess I got off topic a bit there. That happens sometimes. Your mind just wanders from one thing to another.

~Peace Out~

What the Hell Have I Done?!?

It started innocently enough. Follow a bunch of people on Twitter, interact with them, get to know a few of them in person. See them at bars or at a liquor store. Live vicariously through a few of them as the undertake new challenges. Thinking to myself, if they can do this, so can I.

I procrastinated. ALOT. Had several bouts of self doubt. Am I too old for this, too fat, too unmotivated. Until I clicked the link in a Tweet. "Who wants to go to Las Vegas in December? I do, I do! Join Team Challenge and come with!" I clicked on the link and it took me here. I looked at the page and was intrigued. I then clicked here to get more information.

Thought to myself that this looks pretty cool. I looked at a couple other blogs from people who had completed the last one in Napa Valley last month. Amy, in patricular, inspired me. She was 267 lbs and did it.

I seen that there was a meeting in Oak Creek. It timed out well that I was going to be going right past there anyway to pick up the camper. So I thought "What the heck" I'll check this out.

So I did. I showed up tonight with no intention of signing up. I just wanted to get more info. Checked in, introduced myself to several of the tweeps (Amy, Sarah, Tim and Anne) that I heard 'talking' about the last one. They were telling me about how much fun the last one was. What it felt like to cross the line. It hooked me.

So I did it.

I committed myself to walk/run the Rock 'n Roll half marathon on Dec. 5, 2010 in Las Vegas!

A half marathon is 13.1 miles. 13.1 freaking long-ass miles. That is 69,168 feet. Or an even scarier number 830,016 inches. Over 3/4 of a million inches. Holy shit!!!!


So my fellow bloggers, in the coming weeks and months, I'm going to ask that you give me your moral support, pick me up when I'm getting down, kick my ass when I don't want to train as well.

I will also need your financial support. I have to raise a shit load of money. It goes for a good cause, the Crohn's and Colitis foundation of America. I have some ideas so it should be interesting.

Stayed tuned for more updates.

Sweet Dreams

I normally don't remember my dreams but last night I had three of them that were very odd and very different.

One was a sex dream.  Let's just say it had nothing to do with Jack Black and leave it at that.

The second one was weird. Howie Mandel from America's Got Talent kept trying to steal my dogs. I had caught parts of the show on Sunday.  But it was more on for the background noise. When I woke up I actually looked for the dogs. Happy to see they were all there. Even Boomer.

The third dream was the most bizarre.  Was with the people going to Vegas in a few weeks. Gambino was driving.  We were in a yellow Hummer convertible. There were two people in the car that we didn't know.  No clue as to why they were there.  We are driving to the airport and there are all these weird UFOs all over. There are like thousands of these little things in the sky. One starts following us as we are going under the airport tunnel.  StB grabs his phone and starts taking pictures of it.  He gets a really good picture of it an realizes there is a price sticker on it from Merchandise Outlet.  It cost $5.98.  It was weird how I could see that clear as day.  All of a sudden one gets close enough and we grab it. We look at it for a few minutes and Gambino puts it in her purse. 

Next thing I know we are sitting in the airport.  Waiting for our flight.  We are sitting on the floor kinda like you see the teams in Amazing Race always doing.  All of a sudden one of the people who were in the Hummer with us whips a guitar out of his pocket.  It was small at first and then got bigger to a normal size.  We all start singing.  As I look around I realize that we all have instruments.  It was like we had formed some weird band.   I don't recall ever getting on a plane or going to Vegas.

So I'm sure the next question will be asking what I ate. I had a ham and cheese sub (left over from camping) and tuna roll sushi.  No ice cream or anything else strange. 

When I woke up I just remember feeling very confused by the dreams.