Non-Essential Mnemonics

Yes, I'm forgetful... this I know, and I recognize as a fault.  In no way would I ever claim anything different, so in that vain, I present you with my useless Mnemonic devices.

For those of you who never took chemistry or any other useless subject that required you to memorize ridiculous amounts of material, and list after list, Mnemonic devices are where you make up a sentence where the first word of every letter corresponds to the first word of the list or thing you're meant to memorize - for instance, Never Eat Soggy Waffles is a mnemonic for North East South West, the points on a compass...

But some mnemonics are more descriptive than others: 

And to anticipate your questions, yes, I'm incredibly bored...

Asinine Dares Beget Asinine Deaths.

Most likely the inscription on Matt's or Joe's headstone... and a mnemonic for the five stages of grief in reverse order (acceptance, depression, bargaining, anger, denial).

Goliath Expects Lenience? No Dice.

Ancient Jewish proverb and a mnemonic for the first five books of the Old Testament (or the Torah) (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers Deuteronomy).

Lli-llo-lli Siaadth Patya.

18th century Hawaiian Princess of the Kamahameha Dynasty and a mnemonic for the steps to the Hokey-Pokey (left leg in, left leg out, left leg in, shake it all about, do the Hokey-Pokey, and turn yourself around) So it's technically an acronym... close enough...

Tony Kornheiser Gets Very Small Children to Handle Growing Sports CrossWord Division of the Crummudgeon-Man Chronicle.

A description of how a sports radio icon would handle his personal newspaper and a mnemonic for all the places Andy has lived in his life, in order (Tallahassee, Kansas, Germany, Virginia, South Carolina, Hawaii, Guatemala, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., Missouri, California)

Guys You Better Always Audit

Famous last words of advice from Virgil Friedman, who worked at Enron until he disappeared in early November 2001 and a mnemonic for the top five internet search engines, in order of popularity (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL)

Don't! Please No! Jimminy Gillickers! Crap! Mama Mama! Smokey Can Never Handle Violence! Name Your New Cryptonite and Ready It!

What you might say when getting attacked by a bear, and then rallying yourself to beat it, and a mnemonic for the 13 original colonies, in chronological order (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island)

I Is Not a Kunklehead

Rebuttal from W after being taunted by a 2nd grader, and also a mnemonic for the Axis of Evil (Iran, Iraq, North Korea)

Another Seemingly Anonymous Alien Angers All Except Nathaniel Ayers

A description of the mentally ill state of an American violin virtuoso and a mnemonic for remember the continents, in order from least to greatest all-time Olympic medal count (Antarctica, South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, North America)

Obi-Wan dies; Han and Chewy save Skywalker.

A summay of the last 45 minutes of Star Wars IV, and a mnemonic for the starting lineup of the Houston Rockets' 1995 NBA Championship team (Olajuwon, Drexler, Horry, Cassell and Smith)

Andy Passes Out and FINALLY Visits El Doctor

So as many of you know, I've been experiencing some mild cough issues over the past several weeks, and by mild cough issues I mean that it sounds and feels like I'm a two-pack-a-day smoker... which I'm not...

Well everything finally came to a head on Saturday morning... I woke up after a tremendously bad night of not sleeping, hacking my lungs out and shivering in 80-degree weather and went to the bathroom where, shall we just say for tact's sake, I'm glad no one was in the house at the time... 

I was feeling weak, faint, cold, and achy from the night before, and I had gone to bed with the intention of running for the  first time in almost a week since my foot had just healed from my putting a nail though it...

Well I got up from the throne, and headed into the living room to recoup on the couch... my first though was "Man, I really hope this isn't food poisoning from the pig, cause then a lot of people's lives are going to be upended..." My second thought was "

WTH..." Allow me to explain...

I had taken all my clothes off before I used the bathroom in anticipation of jumping in the shower after... And right after my thought about food poisoning I woke up naked, in a cold sweat, shivering, on the floor with blood pooled around my head... I had no idea where I was for a good 30-45 seconds, and once I realized I was in the spare room between the bathroom and the living room, I figured that I had passed out... I crept back into my bedroom, grabbed my phone, and made a call to Joe, cause somewhere in the  back of my mind I new that he was available, Ryan was on his way to Utahr and Matt was with Taylor and Kellie...

Joe answered and I asked him to take me to the hospital, which he did without question... good friend there... and stayed with me while they checked me in and ran tests, until I made him promise to leave so he could fulfill his prior commitments at the retirement home where he volunteers on the weekends (sorry Ladies, he's married...)  I knew I was going to be there awhile and I appreciated his being there, but there was nothing he could have done for me while they ran me through test after test, stiches, etc...

To make a long story short, it turns out that I've been battling Pnemonia (mostly unsuccessful) for the past several weeks and it finally got the better of me... And don't worry... IT'S NOT CONTAGIOUS!

I passed out due to lack of energy after getting to bed at 2:30 on Wednesday night, then 4:30 on Thursday, then not getting any sleep because of violent hacking on Friday night... add that to my body's fight against the Pn, and I was a goner...

I ended up hitting my chin on the doorknob to my spare room and needed eight stitches, along with some pretty heavy antibiotic for the inside of my lips which are all shredded as well... I got two inhalers and some other antibiotics for the Pn and the swelling and inflammation... I was discharged later that day and spent the rest of the day in and out of sleep, in a stupor, and not really knowing what was going on...

I'm much better know... the meds are seemingly doing their job - I still have a cough, but they say that's the last thing to go.  The only downside to the meds so far is that it feels like something crawled into and died in my mouth... gross, I know... but that's the way it is...

I also can't run for at least two weeks, so the half marathon I have coming up in Disneyland on Sep 6 might be a SLOW one for me... 

Thanks for all the wellwishes... I'm feeling good enough that I'm back at work, but taking it easy... stay tuned...

Pig Pickin' Perfection!

So Friday night was Ryan and Ashley's last night in California - they would take off early Saturday morning to start a new, less exciting life in Utahr as a BYU student and a BYU Student's wife... I'll let you decide who would play which role...

But we decided that a good way to see them off would be have a Luau-style pig roast, which we had been talking about for awhile and seized the opportunity of them leaving to accomplish said goal.

Joe took care of almost everything: getting the pig (originally we were going to buy a live pig, "take care of it" ourselves, and be totally us on this thing, but that proved to be difficult, so we bought an already-dead and prepped whole pig from the meat dudes in town), getting the banana leaves and lava rocks, digging the pit (in his backyard) etc...

So Joe took the day off work, and Ryan was being lazy on his last day before heading to Utahr so he didn't work, and with Matt with the baby and being sleep deprived, I was the only one at work that day... even Timmer, Kellie's dad who's spearheading the trailer remodel and who spent all night at the hostpital, too, took off work... so Joe, Ryan and Tim prepped the pig with olive oil, some spices, salt and pepper, then stuffed him with red-hot lava rocks, wrapped in banana leaves and wet newspaper, and placed him onto the hot coals that had been going since that morning, and covered him up with dirt...

Then that afternoon, once we all got off work, we congregated at Joe's to uncover the gloriousness that was to be the pig... unearthing the thing turned out to be a team effort, with several people digging with shovels, several more digging with hands, clearing coals... and several more cheering them on while drinking Dr. Pepper... I don't remember who was doing what though...

This is what the finally-unearthed pig looks like, still wrapped in the banana leaves that the native Hawaiians have been using for generations as a natural smoker and insulator... we are just like them in many ways...

I enjoyed the pleasure of the first bite - Tim but a piece from the shoulder and handed it to me, and once by tastebuds cooled down from the fire, it was pronounced DELECTABLE and ready to be eaten... 

Then we actually had to get it out of the ground, which after digging up you would think would be easy... not so much... for all those interested in Luau-ing in the future, make sure you place something with which to lift the pig into the ground when you place the pig there... might I suggest a piece of chainlink fence... perhaps you have other ideas?

Tasty...

The pig group - we actually ended up having several more people than this, but this was the group that was there for the unveiling, so really the only ones who matter enough to be in the blog... I mean, if you cared about the pig roast, show up on time!

Joe and his pig snout... no, he did not eat it... the big wuss...

And like I said before, this was Ashley and Ryan's last night with us, so Matt and Kell gave her what she's wanted for so long - her very own Snuggie! So now the last image we'll have of Ashley will be of her doing her best impression of a Branch Dividian...

In all seriousness though - we're gonna miss Ashley and Ryan... mostly because they skewered our numbers to a ridiculously younger demographic, but also because they were, well, two of the Mag 7, and I don't think a better compliment could be paid to anyone...

In an unrelated note, there are now two openings in the Mag 7, and we are taking applications...

More Time With Taylor

So as we all know, baby Taylor was born early early Friday morning, and after an exhausting day at work the Mag 7 went down to the hospital as a group to see her for the first time together - Tiff took some incredible shots that I'll display, and you can also see more on her blog, posted on my bloglist...

This is the first picture of the Mag 7 + Taylor - after this weekend, which was Ashley and Ryan's last in the state before moving to Utahr, and with the addition of the mini-one, we may have to retire the name and come up with something new... any suggestions?? (BTW - more on Ash and Ryan's leaving later...)

Shiny, Happy Parents beaming... I'm pretty sure Kellie is still high here, otherwise the pain from the c-section less than  16 hours prior probably would have been keeping her from being in such a good mood - she was a trooper though - there were tons of visitors, from her family coming in from out of state, the family she has here, all us goober friends and Matt's family who can play full-sided soccer matches against each other...

This is my favorite picture of me and Tay - Tiff took it (of course) and I'm now using it as my wallpaper - seriously this child is awesome, and I can't quite get enough of her...

Joe holding Tay here... it's almost like she's ready to talk, but couldn't quite get an edge in wordwise when the rest of us are all talking at once... then she's like "Y'know what? Forget it... I'm just gonna chill and look cute... maybe sleep some..."

And yes there was a baby in the room, but you didn't really think that would stop us from acting the fool did you??

Tiff preparing for her next step in life - their adoption page went live a few weeks ago, and we all have a feeling that things are going to start happening fast for her and Joe to get one of these things for their own...

Ryan and Ash's maybe ONLY time with Taylor for the year - they are off to Utahr to go to school.  Why? WHo knows... but at least they took time out of their busy schedules to see the child!

Taylor Felt

And so at four in the morning I exit the hospital, leaving a brand new and beautiful little person in the hands of Matt, Kellie and their moms...

If turns out that Kellie needed a vestiab (which aparently is what they call a cesarian when you're trying to blog in sleep deprivation), so around 1:30 they prepped and wheeled her into surgery, and ninety minutes later Matt came in to yell us that Taylor had opened her eyes for the first time - all 7.9 pounds and 20 inches of her...

And if you can't tell from the pictures, she's beautiful, strong, and one of a kind, just like her parents...

And yes, she has a huge head and little arms...

Kellie's Having a Baby Part Sinc

And yes, this is when I realize I don't know french...

Anyway, I know it's been a while since my last update, but that's because not much has happened - (at least not at the hospital - away from there, Joe, Ryan and I loaded his moving truck up and then we won our really fun soccer game 3-2... more on that tomorrow...) 

There hasn't been that much progress as far as the baby goes, but Kell has now gotten the epidural and is lucid and hopeful...

She's dilated to 7, and they're going to check on her at 12:30 to see how to proceed - if she's coming along, they might let her do her thing, but more likely that not there's going to be a cesarian involved...

Stay tuned...

Kellie's Having A Baby Part Catre

So aparently Kell is dilated to five, and they've given her some drugs
(not the epidural) to help ease the pain and she seems to be drifting
in and out of sleep.

The doctors still say the thing's gonna happen at 8-9, so that'll put
a stressor on soccer tonight...

Kellie's Having A Baby Part Troix

So no more pictures because the room is filling up now that Kellie's
mom from Utah is here as well as Crust, Aron, her Dad, Paulette,
Debbie, Kathy Bragg and of course Matt are in the room and truth be
told it's getting to the point where I don't think I wanna be in there
anyway...

But they've broken her waters manually (seriously, her body does NOT
want Taylor to come out) and they say on average once that happens
it'll be 6-8 hours before it actually happens, which puts us somewhere
between 8-9:00 tonight...

Of course that's just an estimate and it could be here a lot sooner
than that... They can't tell how much she's dilated because of the
risk of infection once they broken the waters so we really have no way
of knowing how close it is...

Stay tuned...

Kellie's Having A Baby Part Deaux

So so far so good - Kell has been soldiering through without an epidural or any anesthesia, which is awesome considering they've put her on potossin (sp?) and it's supposed to multiply the intensity of the contractions (read: they hurt more)

Matt has been doing all he can to keep Kell comfortable, from allowing her to squeeze the crap out of her hand to doing the maneuver below, which I can't remember what it's called...

And if this were possible, it would be Kell who figured it out - to SLEEP between contractions... Yeah... I don't get it either...

More updates to come...

Kellie's Having A Baby!!

Kellie checked into the hospital (and we all got the text message at 2:47 am) in preparation for Taylor's being welcomed into the world.

Oh, and today seems to be THURSDAY! In your face all you naysayers who told me I couldn't predict when the baby was gonna come!

Hah!


Anyway, Matt's mom is Kellie's coach and this room in STUSH... it's the handicapped special single suite birthing room... I don't know if they're trying to say something by putting her in this room...

Hmmmm...

Month of Baseball Begins

So starting today, and over the next six weeks, I'm going to be seeing seven games played by eight teams and will be headed to San Diego, Anaheim and NEW YORK CITY!

Full reports to follow for sure, but it all starts today with the YANKEES at the A's - a birthday present from Steph that Ryan and I are at RIGHT NOW!

YEAH BOY!!

(Update - the YANKS won tonight, 3-2, and we got to Jeter go 2-4, Texeira belt a homer and both Phil Hughes and Mo Rivera pitch perfect innings... and that makes me 5-0 for the five Yanks games I've been to... yes, I am the lucky charm... knock on wood...)

There's A Hole... And Naked Dudes... And Skidmarks...

So what do we do when we don't have enough to post a real, honest-to-goodness post? We take miscellany of course!

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So we are still remodeling Matt's place, and we took a huge leap on Saturday - putting up almost all of the drywall and getting a working toilet in the already-tiled and -painted bathroom in Taylor's room (which is what we've taken to calling the room where I used to live... probably because that's where the baby is going to stay, but I'm thinking it MAY be because having me leave the house was like getting hit with a Lawrence Taylor-sized truck of emotion...) Anyway, as we were DONE with the drywall, the klutz that I am stepped on a nail... and it went through my sneaker, popped my air pocket, and went straight on through the bottom of my foot...

The picture isn't very good, but I have a perfect pinhole in the ball of my left foot - truth be told it's not that bad, but it's causing me too much pain to run (that's right, I'm not Joe) and that's driving me crazy.  Luckily I got my long run in on Saturday and didn't wait until Sunday like I was planning on, but not being able to run is KILLING me... so I've taken to swimming in a feeble attempt to keep my fitness up... and that's not the same thing...

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Yesterday I was sitting in a committee hearing room all day listening to EIGHT different panels square off against the Legislature on the Delta Water Package that I've been working on... it was a day so boring it made me with I was being treated by Michael Jackson's doctor... (what? too soon??)

But it brightened up a bit when I got this video from Kellie:

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That's (from left to right) Ryan, Me, Matt, Joe and Paul... I personally think I look good... not like the rest of those goofballs... I only wish they would have made me more like me and not that out of shape bastard that's in the video...

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So yesterday I was in Target to get the new Simpsons DVD that came out and some essentials for the Yankees game tonight (Twizzlers and peanuts) and I decided to walk through the store to see what was new (they recently renovated it)...

I went to the clothing aisle and found some new stuff, and I was looking through the shorts for a new pair, and I found some that I liked, but they were scuffed... as was the next pair... and the pair after that until it finally dawned on me that they were all like that - they had been pre-scuffed at the shorts factory... 

Now, I know this is not new - we've all seen the scuffed jeans and "destroyed" or "aged" or "frayed" or "Afghanistanized" clothing that they sell, but this really got me to thinking, how lazy have we as a society become that we can no longer be bothered to scuff our own clothing?? Can you imagine trying to explain that to someone in the Third World?

"No, they're not old but sometimes we make our brand new clothes look old because we like the way it looks... we give out ACTUALLY old and worn clothes away to stores that sell them to people like you, who can't afford brand new, PROFESSIONALLY-scuffed clothing..."

Do you think this will filter into other products? Do you think down the line we'll be able to pick up a professionally pre-dented Chevy? Or maybe professionally pre-skidmarked undies? Because really... who can be bothered to do it themselves??

Tahoe May Be Geocaching Heaven...

So last weekend (the weekend before last maybe?) the May 7 took a trip up to Tahoe for a last hurrah of sorts with Ryan and Ashley at their parents' cabin... they aren't leaving for another few weeks, and we're having a REAL last hurrah next week when we're roasting a pig Hawaiian style, but whatever...

Anyway, the weekend was awesome, the cabin - including the black Italian marble bathroom in the middle of a picturesque log cabin - was amazing and I, of course, being the single, got to sleep on the airmattress in the living room... (Sidenote: I'm okay with it and everything, but seriously, in the last four major trips I've taken, including home for the holidays, Mexico, reunion in Tennessee and now Tahoe, I've had to sleep in the living room - two futons (home for the holidays and Tennessee, one mattress taken out of a room and plopped on the floor (Mexico) and one airmattress (Tahoe) - I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'...) 

The trip was short, just two days, but it was really fun to introduce the group to geocaching - I took the three guys on a cross-country adventure and then introduced the rest of the muggle group (read: geocaching virgins) to it around town after we had dinner Saturday night - for all those out there who don't know what this is,  look it up at www.geocaching.com and join in the fun... now on to the picture essay!! 

So here we are at Emerald Bay, a cove on the Lake that's just gorgeous - literally, there are a ton of gorges... and we started geocaching... you can't tell in this picture, but the water is just to the left of Cool Moe Joe and me... 

Before we got started on out cross-country (again, in the literal sense, if you take it to mean across the rocks and waterfalls and countryside) we found this cool tree... and Ryan and I decided to see what it would be like if we were twins... 

And I just want to say to my dear sister who chastised me for making a picture goofy... well, rest assured that it's not only family pictures I do that in... This will also be a good time to give props where props are due, to Tiffany, who was behind the camera for a lot of these pictures and therefor doesn't show up - there are a few more pictures than these, but I didn't want to duplicate what she already had on her blog, so I encourage everyone who can't get enough Mag 7 adventure to check hers out... you can find it under "TallTiff" on my blog listing to the right...

But back to the geocaching - this is one of the many obstacles we had on our way - this is a picture from the underside after climbing down it.  You see, the cache was located about .3 miles away, and we could take a trail there that we found out later would have taken more than 1.5 miles, or we could head there over rocks, quarries, dales, valleys, deserts, mountains, rivers, and tourists to get there directly... we chose the direct route because in our hearts we're adventurers... in real life we're a soon-to-be business student, an accountant, a risk management specialist and a non-official lobbyist... but that doesn't matter when you're in the wild...

And these are the intrepid explorers from above after traversing the waterfall... Tiff and Ashley stayed above with Kellie who for some reason didn't want to climb down after us...

Oh yeah this is why...

Anyway, after much trial, tribulation, river crossing, rock climbing and muggle-shooing, we found a nice-sized cache in the middle of a pile of 15-foot rocks... very nice... and thus three virgins were converted...

And so off we went again, in search of more treasure! This time we were taken through a flood plain meadow where the snow in the winter can get high, so we knew the cache wasn't going to be on the ground, especially since it said you can "Ski or snowshoe" there in winter... right...

So we got the coordinates down and decided that it must be in this gnarly tree... the clue was "Old Gray Hag" or maybe "Old Gray Stag" I can't remember... but we searched all around this thing, Joe climbed and couldn't find it, then Matt climbed and fell from 10 feet when the branches broke... I did not climb, but rather supervised... see, I'm learning something from working with the construction industry...

We finally found it - Ryan spotted it in the middle of all the gnarled branches... a white film canister suspended with fishing line... not the easiest thing to spot and I can't imagine finding the thing in the winter when everything is covered in snow... sheesh...

I suppose I should also mention, in keeping with the timeline, that on the way back from this particular cache, we decided it would be a good idea to climb through a stormdrain from one side of the street to the other - about 150 feet... I can't remember how it started, and I'm sad that we don't have pictures of it (Tiff left us, as she sometimes does when we're being juvenile) but I think it started when Matt said that he needed to get over his fear of small spaces, at which point Ryan spotted the drain and told him to climb in and that would help - I then jokingly said that whoever climbed through I would pay for their dinner (really... who climbs through 150 feet of stormdrain??) 

Well that was all the motivation Joe needed to get down in there... so Joe went, Matt followed, and then after that Ryan and I couldn't get shown up so I went and Ryan went... I don't know if it helped Matt get over his fear (snake pit next?) but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and not as dirty either, causing all of us to call Andy Dufresne a wimp for making such a big deal of it... even though there was no sewage in our pipe... details, though, right??

Anyway, the next cache we found was after dinner around town - we got to a cool viewing spot of the lake around town and we couldn't find this one cache to save our lives... "Hole in One" - what kind of clue is that? Well, after about 20 minutes, Kellie decided to pull out the screws in the holes and came up with this... a false screw... complete with tiny log inside.  I had been warned by all-knowing Geocaching Guru Jamus that this happened, and I even told the group about it, but I never thought we'd actually run into one... pretty cool...

The we found another simple one under this sign about 50 yards away before calling it a night on account of darkness...

So that was out Tahoe trip in a nutshell... maybe the last time for a while that this group is going to be together in the wilderness... Good times, good times...

Sharks Don't Need Japanese Philosophy...

So Shark Week is over, and the few programs I could watch while in my hotel room flipping back and forth from the Discovery Channel to the Yankees beatdown of John Schmoltz were amazing... Shark Week is seriously one of only TWO (yes, two) television events I would consider getting cable for... the other being Le Tour... 

Anyway, one program in particular got me to thinking about sharks - it was about evolution... You see, sharks are cunning, survivalist creatures... they know how to do what they do better than anything else on the planet... but I wouldn't call them intelligent - I mean, if you can hit one on the nose and it turns tail and run instead of using its cognitive thought to realize, "Hey, I have a huge head, a docile body and teeth that go on for days and that dude's got a fist the size of the crudite I had before my midnight snack and I can probably prevent him from again hitting me on the nose" then no, that's not intelligence... which leads me to the what can only be classified as Darwinian question of...

"Is intelligence really beneficial to a species in the long run??"

Now, the shark doesn't give a crap about quantum mechanics, thermal dynamics, Feng Shui or punctuation...

It swims.

It eats.

It repeats.

It hasn't evolved a single iota in the last 10-20,000 years of so...

And if you ate and swam without sleeping or evolving for that long, wouldn't you be grumpy?? I mean, why DO you think 'ole Mikey Phelps as sucking on that bong...?

Sharks are content to do what they do - I mean, not like they have much choice in the matter... The most a shark could hope for with its level of attitude and intelligence is maybe a job at the DMV... 

Or a telemarketer if he were ambitious enough...

Sharks don't need the lofty concepts of evolution or intelligence, thank you very much...

Maybe a dental plan...

Or a few breath mints... but that's it!

Where the Wild Things Are

So I posted the first trailer, which got me super stoked to see this movie, and then I saw the trailer on the big screen before some crappy summer movie or another, and it got me stoked even more, and NOW I've seen the second trailer and I simply cannot wait - I don't care if that makes me whatever it makes me, I am more excited about this than I had been for any of this summer's movies...

So mark your calendars for October 16 - I know I will...



And I still love that they're using Arcade Fire as the music... LOVE LOVE LOVE that song..

AND in doing my due-diligent research I saw that Dave Eggers wrote the screenplay with Spike Jonze - for those of you who don't know Dave Eggers, you need to pick up "A Breathtaking Work of Staggering Genius" - it's an actually funny and breathtaking book about dealing with his mother's cancer... and "What is the What" which is about African emigrants to America and what it took to get here and the challenges they face once here. They're both pretty heavy books, but they're also very funny, poignant and relevant - I have both if you need to borrow them...

This movie is going to be incredible...

On Food

So as most of you know, I have been watching what I eat to properly train for my second life as a runner - that is, except when I'm on vacation... the seven people who read this are all people I've spent vacation time with this year, either at my family reunion or Lake Tahoe with the Mag 7...

The point is I eat like crap when I'm on vacation, and as it turns out, even when I'm on the road for work I eat like crap... the amount of crap that goes into my body is directly and proportionately tied to how far away I am from home - the further I am from the G-Bay, the more crap I eat...

Tonight after running ten miles on Monday, eight miles on Wednesday and four miles today, I pretty much ruined the whole thing by eating almost a whole bag of Twizzlers, a tube of fruit Mentos and a bag of peanut M&Ms... gross, I know, and now I'm feeling it...

So here's the thing: I am giving up candy completely.. 100%... Nada mas... No more candy whatsoever... Zilch, zippo... I'm going to be eating as much candy as there are former 80's pop icons judging the new season of American Idol...

Well, with two exceptions... I will still eat Mentos cause they're awesome, and I can't imagine going to the ballpark without a package of Twizzlers... but that's it!! If you see me with candy that's not those two exceptions, feel free to make me drop and give you 20... or something...

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And while we're on food - every Thursday when I head to our Concord office I get a club sandwich from the deli on the first floor (sidenote: those who really know me know that I'm a creature of habit when it comes to food - almost every day unless I'm having a work lunch I eat at Subway: chicken breast on wheat with honey mustard, pickles olives and jalapenos, and every morning I get Jamba Juice's chunky strawberry topper... seriously, you have to try it...)

No, I love a good club sandwich... and for those of you who don't know, a club sandwhich is ham, turkey, bacon, mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato on three (yes, one in the middle) pieces of toasted bread and cut into fourths... And you know I don't get lettuce or tomato on mine, but that's an entire other blog entry...

So what brought this on is the guy who makes the club at this place, though, has NEVER made a club the same way twice - he tries to put onions on it, he tries to put avocado on it, one time he forgot the third piece of bread, another time he forgot THE BACON... he doesn't toast the bread unless I say something, be puts pickles on the sandwich, but today took the cake...

I usually pay attention to how he's making it, but didn't today cause I got a call and just made sure he was toasting the bread and was using bacon and leaving off the tomato and lettuce... but after that I stopped paying attention... and then I got back to the office and took a look... not only was there pepperoccinis (SERIOUSLY??) on the sandwich, but he must have felt like he didn't put enough ham on it, because the peppers (oh, AND pickles) were hidden under a single slice of ham... RANDOM...

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And now, I'm gonna go see if I need to throw up...