pushups - take 2

I forgot to mention the main reason I was writing a blog tonight. I decided to jump back into the hundred pushup challenge, I know you're thinking "but you did that already and completed it" and you are right but I feel I am getting out of shape and want to do it again. This time I'm also doing the 200 situp challenge and the 200 squat challenge. Did the initial tests for pushups and situps on Monday night and did my first official night of them today. Due to my initial test I am starting the pushups on Day 1 of Week 3 at the highest rank which means I had to do 80 pushups today. Due to my unimpressive situp test I am starting in week 1 day 1 at the lowest level so I ended up doing 2o situps today. When I was done I didn't feel done so I jumped into the squats test, last time I did squats I couldn't do more than 5 and even those were tough, tonight I did 31 squats which puts me in the top tier of day 1 / week 1. I will start the first official day of those on Friday when I do my 2nd day of situps and pushups.

Push up - Sit up - Day 3

Just did my day 3.. Here are my day 3 numbers:

Set	Push ups	Sit ups
1	22	12
2	30	15
3	20	11
4
5

Remember that set 5 is supposed to be MAX, they give you minimum numbers for set 5. The minimum numbers were 28 and 15 respectively.

I failed this morning to complete this day.. I am planning on doing sets 4 & 5 later today, I will update this entry when I do them..

Push up - Sit up - Day 2

Just did my day 2.. Here are my day 2 numbers:

Set	Push ups	Sit ups
1	20	15
2	25	12
3	15	9
4	15	9
5	25	10

Remember that set 5 is supposed to be MAX, they give you minimum numbers for set 5. The minimum numbers were 25 and 10 respectively.

I apparently read the wrong column when I started the sit ups, I was only supposed to do 9 in set 1 and I did 15.

one hundred push ups - Take 2

You may remember last year before my tendon surgeries I had done the one hundred push up challenge. Well, I am feeling pretty darn fat lately so I am going to do it again. The site has gotten a bit cooler since last time, they now have a tracker and they also have a 200 sit-up program.

Alright well, I did the tests the other day and my push ups came in at 37 which means I skip to week 3 and start at the hardest level of week 3. My sit ups came in at 20 which means I start at the middle level of week 1.

Well, here are my day 1 numbers which I just did now:

Set	Push ups	Sit ups
1	14	9
2	18	9
3	14	6
4	14	6
5	30	20

Remember that set 5 is supposed to be MAX, they give you minimum numbers for set 5. The minimum numbers were 20 and 8 respectively.

What else am I going to do to get rid of my gut? Well, I am feeling inspired by Sara's 30 day challenges (I know, like half a year later) so I am going to go the month of Rock-Tober with no alcohol.

--Diversion of the Day
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20090925.html

ps - so apparently this site sucks when it comes to putting in tables.. I did an HTML table and it is not showing up correctly so I had to use underscores.. Will look into that more later.

pps - figured it out. :)

Comfort Food - aka - Eating my beer - Part II

Jessie left this morning and of course today is the first day class got out early.. I got back to the hotel to find ILY written out in socks on my bed... CUTE!! Did my pushups and chatted online with my sis...

After that I went into the city and wondered around.. I ended up walking all over the main city.. I walked down one street and found some guy selling crack, the best part about it was that all the people around him were not only buying it but they were smoking it right on the street!! I gotta imagine that's illegal everywhere... Speaking of illegal, I walked past two different red light districts tonight and they have these places called Eros Clubs. Eros Clubs are legal whore houses, I didn't go in but I did get accosted by one of the girls hanging out a window... A good portion of the night was spent sitting in an alley on the phone helping my girlfriend out with some problems.. I love you, hang in there... I swear there's some pavement up ahead, there's got to be right??

After I got off the phone it took a few hours of walking around to be able to eat.. Thanks for letting me rant and vent sis.. Now, when most people want comfort food they go to McDonalds or get some Ice Cream, if there real fat they get both.. Think of it, a nice Big Mac with Vanilla Ice Cream in between the burgers and bun.. EWWWW!! OK, so what does an average American get for comfort food in Germany? I have no idea, you'll have to ask the average American.. I got Fish and Chips from the Irish Pub and you guessed it, a Guiness.. If you didn't guess a Guiness then you obviously didn't read "Eating my Beer"..

I'm doing a bit better after reading my email.. Lynz wrote me and said things are "not great but getting better".. I guess I'll have to hold onto that for now...

Oh, speaking of beer... German beer is not all it's cracked up to be... German wine however is banging...

Love and peace to everyone tonight... I wish you all wonderful dreams...

---- Comic of the day
http://xkcd.com/308/

---- Thought of the day
Sometimes your friends are your family... It's amazing how so many amazing people can all come into your life in such a short space of time.. The trick to realizing that is being open to knowing them once they show up.. If you close your eyes and heart to them you're only hurting yourself..

Beer at work is nice, but wine at lunch is better... <3

Last night I attempted Week 6 day 1 of the 100 Pushup challenge. My body was too tired and beat to complete day 1 of week 6. I decided I would do week 5 again to build up more strength for week 6. Week 5 was tough last week, maybe it will be better this week..

On my way to work today the car told me that there was traffic ahead so it had me get off the highway early and drive down a bunch of side roads, it was a nice trip down roads that were only wide enough for one car. When a car came the other way both of you had to drive onto the sidewalk or hit each other.. Gotta love European streets..

Can this office get any better?? Today at 4:30 they have happy hour, I am not kidding when I say this but... They have free beer at work? Wow!! I am torn, part of me wants to stay and have at a free beer at work because how many times in your life does that happen, but I also want to get out and enjoy the nice weather since class will probably get out early today.. I can't actually post this blog till I get back to the hotel so the answer to what I choose will probably be in the next few paragraphs.. :)

Here is an article I saw on CNN (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vMjAwOC9DUklNRS8wOC8yNS9jb3VwbGUuY2hhcmdlZC5hcC9pbmRleC5odG1s).. Part of me wants to treat it as a joke, but I guess I know better... I guess you can laugh at it because she got caught, but holy crap!

Onto Vacation hours and what I need to use... Because I dropped so many of my vacations this year to help out with classes that needed to be run I am going to take next week as Vacation, that will still give me my December vacation and 4 more days I will have to use by the end of the year.

http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8veGtjZC5jb20vMjY3Lw== - words to live by?

So, my decision was made for me.. It's 4:45pm, my students are still working and I'm drinking a beer and eating a pretzel.. Yes, I took a picture!

I just came back to the hotel to drop some stuff off before heading into the city. I figured since I typed this at work today I would post it real quick while I'm able to access Myspace. I will probably post another update tonight..

---- Random email of the day
I found 3 sombreros last night under my car in the middle parking garage at 176. They are now at the main lobby security desk.

---- Thought of the day
It's amazing how the simplest things (like sitting on a log) can change so many people's lives.. I love the way the universe comes together sometimes..

37. In a row?

This morning started out with getting gas, now you may not think that's a process but it is.. I could not find the stupid gas cover release for a while. I searched in the car and then in the book (which was all in german) before finally getting it.. Gas was 73 Euro!!

Got to the facility and was shocked by what they offer the students/instructor. Free coffee, free water, free soda, free breakfast, free lunch, free ice cream, free fruit, pool table, dart board, and a fusball table. The break room has couches you could lay down on! I could really get spoiled here...

Class has students from England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany. The books that we had this morning were the wrong ones but that was fixed quickly and we were on our way.

Class went well but long.. I ended up leaving around 5:30, went back to the hotel and did my pushup test. I only did 53 pushups which puts my into the 2nd rank for week 6, this is the first week I am not in the top rank.

After the pushups I went to met Jessie in the city for dinner, we had Italian and pizza which was very good. You go in and get a card, when you order food you swipe the card and when you leave you pay.

Oh, so I did laundry here - or rather had the hotel do it. They charged 50 Euros to do some underwear, a few shirts and a pair of jeans! Speaking of expensive I paid 74 Euros to fill up the car with gas!

Going to head to the pool to relax a bit before bed..

Talk to ya all on the morrow...

A Christian Nation?

I got up this morning and decided it was pouring out so I promptly went back to bed.. :)

Got up again right before noon and the rain had slowed down a bit so I decided to venture out for some food and maybe some shopping. None of the stores are open on Sunday and the streets are empty, I ended up (for the 2nd day) having a bagel sandwich called "Stars & Stripes" which is a multi-seed bagel with bacon, cream cheese, guacamole and tomato. I walked to the four faced liar and took pictures of 3 of the 4 sides, I could not get around the other side of the building to get the 4th side. Walked down from there and ended up at the Murphy/Heineken brewery on the other side of town. I walked by the Comedy Club to see what was going on there and I found two bars right next to each other that both have Traditional Irish Music tonight, one of them is called SinE and Corner House. The Comedy Club had posters up for last night but nothing up for tonight or this week, I will check back with them when I go back to those two bars tonight.

By the way sports fans - I did 55 pushups today in one set..

On the way to the spa/hot tub/gym.. Be back later...

Cork Ireland - The center of the world??

For those of you who don't know, I drove to Newark NJ late Thursday night/early Friday morning and flew to Cork Ireland via London. I am here for a week teaching and then I go to Frankfurt Germany to teach for a week before heading back to NJ for the Laire 4-day. What have I done to prepare for this trip?? Nothing... I almost tried to learn some German but never found the time, I was going to look up cool things to do here in Cork and also never had the time. So, here I am flying by the seat of my pants..

My flight from NJ to London was nice, the plane was mostly empty so I got to lay out in a row of 4 seats (I actually fit laying flat without my feet even hanging off the end of the seats). I slept a little bit on that flight but didn't want to overdo the sleeping because I need to be in this timezone.. Anyway, I hung out in Heathrow airport for a few hours and decided I didn't want to eat there because it's always a hassle to expense stuff in London because of the GBP and VAT. If you've never flown from London to Ireland it should be noted that Aer Lingus has their own little section of Heathrow, there is a bar about half way between the main terminal and the Aer Lingus section and another bar at the gates.. I went through 5 security check points in Heathrow (1 - passport control of plane, 2 - they took a picture of me and gave me a bar code at the 2nd one [didn't know why], 3 - checked bag and had to go through metal detector, 4 - customs with bags, 5 - took my barcode and loaded picture (from 2) on the database to see if it was me)

The flight to Cork was full, the girl next to me made a comment about Ireland being the Center of the World because you can fly from Ireland to almost anywhere in the world in under 10 hours.

When we landed it Cork my first surprise was that the plane lets you on the runway and you have walk to the terminal (it was about 40 degrees and raining HARD), funny side note to that was that my coat was in my checked luggage.. Got to the hotel around midnight, checked in and went to get food.. Well, my decision to not eat in Heathrow ended up being the wrong one, apparently you can't get food in Cork after 10pm unless you consider McDonalds and Burger King food.. Well, after my Buger King bacon double cheeseburger I ended up at a "lap dancing club" for a Guiness before heading back to the hotel for my pushups. (4 hours sleep + long flights + burger king + guiness = really tough pushups)

So, on to today...
I woke up around the crack of noon and went out to check out Cork in the daytime. I decided to walk to the Beamish brewery to do a tour, on the way I stopped at a bagel place and had a multi-seed bagel with bacon, cream cheese, guacamole and tomato and a latte. Got to the brewery to find out they only run tours on Tuesday and Thursdays from 10:30am - noon?! So, where to now? The clouds decided to part so I decided today would be a good day for a double decker tour of Cork, I found a tour that did a run of Cork City and then went to Blarney Castle for a few hours. The tour of Cork was pretty lame really, the only cool things were they have a cathedral with 4 clocks (one on each side of the tower), they it the four faced liar, apparently all 4 clocks have different times and not one of them ever has the correct time!? The other cool thing is that apparently Cork is a shortened Gaelic word that means Marsh. Then the bus went onto a highway and went over to Blarney village, I was on the top of an open air bus, great idea till you hit highway speeds!

Blarney village was a pretty nice little town and the castle was really nice but was really great was the land around the castle. First of all, I did NOT kiss the Blarney stone, I did walk up to it and take a picture, but I did NOT kiss it. I walked around in the castle looking at all the rooms, it was pretty neat to see. When I left the castle I walked around the grounds and came to an ancient tree, the tree felt like one of the warmest places in the world, I went up and sat under the tree and could feel my energies hit overcharge levels. When I walked away I felt all tingley, as I continued my walk around the grounds I found a cave system that went under the castle, they had some small lights in the cave. I went in there and my energy levels and connection to the earth continued to grow, I ended up walking all the way into the cave till I hit a cave in. Went back out and started to leave the castle grounds. I got almost out when I decided to go back to the tree one last time. sat under the tree again for a few minutes and took some rocks from the base of the tree.

I felt like I was floating as I walked back to the mill shops and the bus. Walked around the shops for a bit before the bus left and got some really cool stuff. What I didn't get was a really nice wool cape sorta like this one (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJsYXJuZXkuY29tL2NhdGFsb2cvZGlzcGxheS9wcm9kdWN0X2RldGFpbHMucGhwP2lkPTYxMDY=), it was a light purple color and would look amazing on my lady folk but the price and size uncertainity scared me away. I did end up spending too much money on other stuff including a really nice greenman necklace (bought that before going to castle) for me.

Back to hotel...
A friend of mine who I used to work with in Hopkinton came and met me for dinner. We went to an Indian place and I got Tandori Quail and some Nan, afterwards we went to a pub for a pint and now I'm back in the hotel typing this up. I think I am going to head back out and see if I can find any live music at one of the local pubs.

I will try to blog more often, I know I said this before but I feel like there are so many people I want to update on my daily occurances and if I did that the phone bills would be out of control..