You can be the Biggest Loser!

Okay, here are some of the details for the planned Biggest Loser competition I am throwing together.

This thing starts on January 1st, 2012. It will run for 13 weeks, ending on March 31st, 2012. It starts on a Sunday, and ends on a Saturday. We'll have a party / awards ceremony for everyone who finishes that last Saturday.

Everyone will weigh in on Sunday each week, starting on January 1st. It is very important that you use the same scale for each weigh in. I'm not as concerned about the precise accuracy of each scale, just that the same scale is used each time, since each scale varies, but the same scale will vary the same amount each week. Once you weigh in, you'll put your weight in the Google Spreadsheet that I've set up for this purpose. Don't worry, no one else will see the spreadsheet - it will be locked down to only people participating in the competition. I think it's important to track it like this so that everyone can help motivate each other.

The entry fee of $20 can be mailed to me or you can drop it by however you need to. I would like to collect these entry fees by the end of January - I know that being right after Christmas, no one has extra cash. :) You do need to put up an entry fee to participate though. You'll have more interest if you have put some money down on it.

I would also like to challenge everyone who participates to join in running a 5K together when this is over. A 5K is a short enough distance that it could be walked if necessary, but giving everyone a target to work and train for helps with that motivation. If you have signed up for a race (just to finish...), it gives you that extra push you need at times. There aren't a bunch listed yet, but one is already scheduled on April 7th going from the Provo Temple to the Provo Tabernacle. That sounds fun, and it's all downhill! There's also one in Orem on the 14th.
It also gives you an excellent training plan, like the "couch potato to 5K" plan. I have lots of links to share on that score.

I will be throwing a blog together for this at http://reidbiggestloser.blogspot.com/
While it's titled 'reidbiggestloser', it's for family and friends! Once you are onboard, I'll grant access to post on it, so you can share tips, commiserate with each other, and encourage each other.

Finally, I'm hoping this thing gives each of us a chance to improve our health. Regardless of weight loss, getting more active and watching what we eat will make each of us have a better quality of life. I know that we're all busy, but it's time to draw a line in the sand and make some time to take care of ourselves - even if it's just a half hour each day. I would love to share some of the things I've learned over the last couple of years, going from not having run in years to running in the Red Rock Relay two years in a row.

Let me know if you want in!

A Real Sports Fan?

Today, the sports world (at least in the United States) sits riveted, awaiting that most cherished of sporting events, game 7 in a best of 7 series to determine the national (and/or world?) champions... in baseball.
I, however, am only mildly interested. Scandalous as it may be, I am not a huge fan of baseball. Yes, yes, I know. "As American as baseball and apple pie" is one of those phrases that demonstrates just how much of a national pastime baseball is. What's more American than playing some stickball on the sandlot? Or playing catch and pepper with some buddies and their well used, worn leather gloves? Most baseball fans I know have cherished memories of going to the ball park with their fathers, eating hot dogs and trying to catch a foul ball. The argument, furthered in this article, is that you aren't a real sports fan if you aren't into baseball.

The real problem is that I wasn't born a sports fan. I'm more of a convert, if you will. My father wasn't particularly into sports. Once in a great while, if a BYU football game was on TV late enough that he wasn't out working in the shop, he'd pull off his boots while sitting in the recliner, and catch the fourth quarter of the game, but it was only the slightest interest. We went to a few BYU basketball games, when one of his friends who had season tickets decided not to go and gave his tickets to Dad instead. For the most part, my Dad just wasn't a sports guy.

So how did I become a "convert"? I first discovered how much fun I could have watching sports when I was about 8 years old, and my sister became the point guard for her high school basketball team. My sister was a lethal point guard, grabbing steals, setting picks and shredding defenses. There was always something happening. A wonderful combination of team play and one on one battles. That was my first introduction into how much fun sports could be.

Next I was introduced properly to football. "You mean they are supposed to hit each other as hard as they can?" I thought in wonder. I became enamored of the explosive excitement of football games, where every play is a possible down the field breakthrough of epic proportions, running backs cutting left and right, avoiding maniac defenders, making it into the end zone in a burst of speed.

Then there's baseball. Three or four hours of game, with often just a few points scored by either team. Lots of time spent with a pitcher staring down at a batter. I didn't want an enjoyable afternoon at the park. I wanted to see points being scored. I wanted to see violent displays of aggression. To borrow from George Carlin:
"Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning."

Thus I have grown up without much appreciation of baseball, and am finding myself questioning: Am I a Real Sports Fan?

Fun and Danger at Denny's

When in my early 20's, I hung out with a group of friends who were a mix of co-workers & extended friends from those co-workers. We would get off work at around 10:30 in the evening, and go find ways to create general mayhem and chaos throughout the city for the rest of the night. Whether it was gathering to watch a Jazz game at "Momma Fuzzy's", hiking up to the giant concrete "Y" on the mountain, hiking to the hot springs, playing pool at my apartment, playing mario kart or renting out the local lazer tag arena for an hour, it was almost always in the middle of the night and it often involved a trip to one of the few 24 hour sit-down restaurants in the area.

Really, we were pretty much limited to Denny's and the truck stop over in Springville.

Now I know that lots of people have "Denny's" stories, because wherever you are, there is a Denny's nearby and it's one of the few nationwide chains that are open 24 hours. (IHOP is another in this same vein, but we didn't have one in our area at the time) Our Denny's stories are probably just a little different due to the crazy things that seemed to happen to us.

We admittedly weren't the best customers. Dipping sugar packets into a glass of water before throwing them on the big picture windows to have sugar races, while fun, was one of the things which caused us to be asked to leave. Another time, our waitress (and the night manager for the night) was none other than a woman I had arrested for employee theft from the store we both worked at. (We declined to order anything that night - didn't want the 'manager special'...) She was far from the last person we encountered that either my friend Rob or I had arrested at some point.

For some reason, my friend Jeremy attracted more than his share of attention. Once, while everyone was chatting like normal, some guys outside threw huge hunks of ice from the ground outside at the window right next to us. They had apparently felt like Jeremy had somehow offended them, and wanted him to come out and fight them.

The most memorable of all the incidents has to be the Ikkaka incident. At the time, Beavis and Butthead were pretty new on MTV. Jeremy did a great Beavis impersonation, specifically when Beavis was being Cornholio.
Jeremy was in full Cornholio when we walked into Denny's, and were greeted by the host who was wearing a name tag which had been made with one of those old school label makers, and read "IKKAKA". Jeremy, still doing the Cornholio, spots that and starts repeating it. "IKKAKA! EEE KA KA! EYE KA KA! Are you threatening me?!?!"

Ikkaka got really upset, saying "You need to knock that off!", to which Jeremy/Cornholio replied "Are you threatening me???" Ikkaka yelled back "Look, I don't care if I lose my job tonight!" He started to try to get to Jeremy, but some of us had stepped between them. Cornholio is still going full steam ahead. "I need TP for my bunghole! AAAAAaaaaAAAAHHHhhh!" This sets Ikkaka off completely. He was trying to get past us, but we got Cornholio pushed back out of the restaurant while some other restaurant employees were trying to hold him back.

We ate at the truck stop that night.

Netflix Customer Service Sucks

Have you ever tried to contact Netflix?
I hadn't before tonight, but I found a very frustrating experience awaited me.
Apparently quite some time ago, Netflix eliminated any way to e-mail them, and have only their 1-800 number to contact them about anything.
I just now wanted to contact support to file a request/complaint about the parental controls. If you haven't needed or wanted to use them, you haven't missed out. There is only a simple selection that is "R or below", "PG-13 or below", etc...

My initial problem is that even though I accept full responsibility as a parent for what my children watch, there are so many things on Netflix that appear to be a kids show but really aren't that visitors/babysitters can be confused. X-Men is a kids cartoon, but it can also be a Mature Audience/Adults Only cartoon. Imagine my kids surprise when the ask if they can watch an X-Men cartoon they found on Netflix, only to find themselves staring at very adult content that has no business being in front of children.

After researching and finding that Netflix will only accept phone calls, I called in to register my complaint. After holding for 7 minutes, I get on the phone with "Daniel", and explain my problem. I ended with the statement "It's a large enough concern to me that I am re-evaluating my membership and am considering closing my account."

Daniel responded "Can I get the name on the account?" I give him my name, and he says "okay, I have your account right here and am going to close it for you now."

?!?!

I told Daniel that I hadn't intended to actually close my account at this time, but that I was evaluating that option as a solution to my problem. He didn't care, he just wanted to get me off the phone, and if he had to close my account to do it, that was just fine with him.

So in the end, I didn't close my account, but I am even now seriously considering it. With all the garbage the kids can see even in the preview windows (look at some of the porn available under categories like "Drama", "Thrillers", and "Foreign" for examples), it just became that much harder to keep the filth out of your home. I have to decide if the benefit is worth the negatives of having it.

Once again, it is up to parents to monitor what is being displayed in their homes, no dispute. However, companies like Netflix could make this job a little easier, but they don't care and are more than willing to close your account if you complain about it.

Bitten by the nostalgia bug

I'm feeling very nostalgic today. I went to a funeral for a great man, and saw people I haven't seen for 20 years. Dennis was my scoutmaster when I was young, and I couldn't help but be swept away in the memories from my youth.

I remember that after scouts, all the boys would stay and play "night games" around his house, like hide & seek, kick the can, tag, or some variant of all of the above. He owned several houses all surrounding his business, so there was lots of space to play. We would play for hours, until late into the night. When we did finally get around to leaving, Dennis would often either give us a ride home or at least follow us as we rode our bikes to make sure we got home safely.

We also had adventurous campouts. They usually resulted in a boy named Brad Jensen getting hurt somehow. One of my personal favorites was when we went on a winter campout, and after we set up the springbar tents, we were riding tubes down a hill. Brad wanted to go even faster and higher, so he went farther up the hill, not paying attention to the fact that his path now took him directly into the tents. With everyone yelling at him to stop, Brad jumped on and laid as flat as he could, to pick up speed. He shot down the hill and as expected, straight into the back of one of the tents and disappeared underneath. We ran around to the front of the tent to see if he had come out the other side, and through the open door of the tent, we could see a Brad shape on top of the outline of the inner tube, poking up through the tent floor.

On another campout we went to the headwaters for the Duchesne Tunnel, a small shallow diversion reservoir. When we went, it was very empty because it was later in the summer. Dennis's son Tim, another boy named Matt & I set up our tent quickly, and waded out into the pond well in advance of the other boys. We walked carefully and found an underwater trench a few feet across, but very deep, running underwater across the pond in otherwise knee-deep water. We had jumped across the trench when the other boys led by Brad Jensen took off running towards us. We stood right at the far edge of the trench, saying "look, it's not deep at all!" With Brad in the lead, all the boys ran right into the trench, disappearing for a moment under the water before finding the edge of the trench and climbing out.

These memories and many more came back as I greeted Tim at his father's funeral. Dennis had taught us so many things that had made 'his' boys into men.

As I left his funeral, I drove through the old neighborhood again, looking at the houses where I had spent my youth, remembering old faces and places. It only seems like a lifetime ago because it really has been that long.

It made me realize that although I now call somewhere else home, I will always be one of those kids from the wrong side of the tracks in Provo.

Little known facts about Ted

I recently found myself staring at the edit page for my Google profile, and it had all sorts of questions to answer about myself to let everyone know more about me. Things like "describe yourself in 10 words", and "list your 'bragging rights' here"

In that same spirit, I present the following lesser known facts about myself (for which the statue of limitations have expired) to my one reader:

- I enjoy reading history and science books.
- I have never been arrested or booked into any sort of detention or correctional facility.
- I can talk like Donald Duck.
- I have permanent hairline fractures in my front teeth resulting from a parasailing accident.
- I have an irrational fear of spiders.
- I once nearly lost a pickup truck into Utah Lake.
- I caused another boy to break his collar bone in first grade, leading us to become friends for life.
- I have a lead foot.
- I have never broken a bone (except for toes that were never x-rayed or treated).
- I have driven over 150 miles each direction just to get an Original Tommy's chili burger.
- ↑↑↑ More than once.
- I have 5 kids that I love and adore.
- I have jumped off a roof holding nothing more than an umbrella.
- I once threw an alarm clock through the screen on a window of a second story window.
- I once had hair long enough to put into a 6" ponytail.
- I carve pumpkins with power tools.
- I can fix cars, but my desire to do so is inversely proportional to the necessity of doing so.
- Despite frequently wearing a t-shirt that says "No, I will not fix your computer", I probably will anyway.
- I can and sometimes do answer the question "Are you really that stupid?" with "Yes".
- I will try nearly anything. Once. (See the umbrella and parasailing entries above)
- I am married to my best friend.
- I am the man your parents warned you about.
- I will be the man who walks 5000 miles and falls down at your door.
- I have probably not seen [insert latest trendy movie here].

Coolest knife for a serviceman

  Last night I took my 10 year old to visit our local Boy Scout Troop in order to pass off one of his requirements to earn his last Cub Scout award, the Arrow of Light.
They in turn went to visit a knife maker living in our neighborhood.

  I am familiar with metal work in general and knife making in particular, so I was mildly interested and impressed with his craftsmanship, right up until he showed us a material he created for a custom knife he built for his friend who is a US Marine serving in Afghanistan.
  He wanted to do something special for his friend, and so he found a way to create a rock hard (harder than leather, plastic or wood) handle material out of fabric. He had his friend's wife send him some of his old fatigues he had worn in a previous tour of duty. He used those fatigues to create the handle for a custom Ka-Bar style knife.

  He let us handle a scrap piece of the handle material - it has a grain pattern, and you can still see the camouflage pattern on some sections. Best of all, it feels like actual fabric, despite being rock hard, and it does not get slippery when wet or coated in an oil.
  He is swamped with orders right now from other Marines wanting their own. Most of them want to order one, have it engraved, and hang it in a case on their wall, but his favorite one is the first one he made for his friend, who is currently wearing it on his belt while serving his next tour of duty.

Thanks, Rick for a fantastic evening!

Winter Blues redux

Last year I wrote about having the winter blues. Even though I just spent a couple of weeks in warm weather and sunshine in California, I am very much feeling the winter blues right now.

Could use a little sunshine in my life right now. I hate to even complain because as down as I am, I know so many others in worse shape. Even still, I'm not feeling very grateful for the blessings I have right now and hope I can become so soon.

Where are you, spring?