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2012-366 Day 344 – Weekend Wrap Up XXVI

Since it’s been a month since the last Weekend Wrap Up, and it’s not like I’ve been doing them for the duration of this project, I’m going to reset a bit today and just do the Wrap Up for the last week. If there’s a post from the interim time frame that you want me to comment on, just let me know in the comments (I’m not holding out high hopes).

Sunday (12/3) – Straight No Chaser: Augmented our Christmas cheer by going shopping for some Christmas gifts in the early afternoon (not so cheerful, there’s people out there) and hanging some Christmas lights just a little while ago (much more cheerful, except for one Command hook that wasn’t cooperating). Have probably listened to Straight No Chaser’s Twelve Days of Christmas one too many times in the last week, so I’m going to let that one cool off for a bit. Sang some classic carols in church this morning, so that helped too.

Monday (12/4) – Discovery: My commentary on the Veggietales country album was a little random, huh? And no, Father, I do not want to see it in my stocking! I hope it amused you as much as it amused me, but wouldn’t be surprised if it was just me, since that’s not too uncommon. Still thinking about maybe doing a weekly blog like that next year.

Tuesday (12/5) – Jessica II: Still incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful wife who puts up with me (and puts up with me blogging in bed next to her while she’s reading). After nearly eight years of marriage (already?!?), we’re still learning about each other and finding new things to love everyday, which I believe is how it is supposed to be.

Wednesday (12/6) – Internet Presence II: Narcissism is so much more fun in the Internet Age, although I’m glad my ego is not too wrapped up in Internet fame, because I’m not doing such a great job at it. Maybe one day someone will stumble on this blog and I will take off, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Thursday (12/7) – End of Semester: Got a good chunk of grading done today, but still have a bit left to do this week. Then it’s time to give and grade their final, as well as a final project. So close to the finish line, I’m excited for the break!

Friday (12/8) – Karate VII: Outside of these Weekend Wrap Ups, Karate definitely generated the most Roman Numerals. I probably could have renamed a few posts to up the count even more, since if you do a search for the word in my posts, it comes up sixty times (although many of those are due to the face that it was one of my resolutions). I’m about a third of the way to a Black Belt, which is pretty crazy, though if it goes as fast as the past year did it will be here before you know it.

Saturday (12/9) – Day Trip: I went twenty four hours between full meals because I ate so much yesterday. Totally worth it though.

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 360.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 9, 2012

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2012-366 Day 343 – Day Trip

A twelve hour drive
With twelve friends alongside
Makes for a spectacular way
to spend a Saturday

Twelve burgers consumed
Many shakes and fries too
And let’s not forget
All the onion rings yet

With places to stroll
From town to atoll
The conversation was lively
Even if the drive wasn’t timely

A full day was had
And no one left sad
A successful journey
With no need for a gurney

Now Christmas is near
And we add to our cheer
But this brings to mind
That it’s almost time!

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 360.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 8, 2012

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2012-366 Day 342 – Karate VII

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been so busy and forgetful that blogging slipped past midnight. But hey, at least one of the things I did tonight gave me the blog topic for today.

I started training in Tang Soo Do just over a year ago and have advanced several belts, but I had a first today. I had been putting it off as long as possible, as it was something I wasn’t particularly comfortable with, and also something that I felt I was sparing others by waiting to participate. Sadly, I could wait no longer, as I need two of these classes before my next test in January, and December is already nearly a third gone. What is this mystery class? Grappling.

Now, for those that don’t know, grappling is not the same as sparring. Grappling is actually what would happen if you let sparring matches go to their natural conclusion, because most real fights end up on the ground. Since American Tang Soo Do opted to focus more on self-defense, one must also learn to defend themselves on the ground. Why did I wait so long to participate (you know, until it was actually required of me)? Well, that’s mostly a function of two aspects of my body: 1) I’m big and 2) I sweat a lot. Now those two aspects give me an advantage in an actual grappling match, but actually inflicting those on people I like?

So, unable to stall any longer, I arrived at class not quite knowing what to expect. I did not expect the composition of my first class, with only three students (including myself) and Master K. The other two students were one of the women Black Belts and a pre-teen Purple Belt, although if you put them together I still outweighed them. After some warm up stretching and exercise, it was time to learn my first grappling techniques.

The details of the class aren’t that important, we learned a bit about how to deal with someone turtling and the over and under grips trying to achieve a choke hold. My size and weight were definitely to my advantage, but Master K was still able to fold me like a pretzel once I got my arm into a position where it wasn’t supposed to be a couple times. Never was quite able to pin him down, but I think I acquitted myself fairly well for a newbie. I wore my middle weight uniform to help with the sweating problem, which definitely helped the body, but I need to find something for my head/hair.

The funniest part, to me, was when we were practicing getting out of a spot where someone is sitting on your chest. The two main parts to escaping were to get their arms off of a straight line so their balance is thrown off, and then try and raise your hips to try and get onto either side so you have some space to maneuver your arm down by your leg and use the leverage to roll them off you. Seeing as my legs and hips are the main beneficiary of all my running, when I had to try and escape Master K I was able to throw him off of me with my hips (I’d say, conservatively, that Master K weighs about forty pounds less than I do). After trying again, he set up for a third time and wanted me to work on the arm to leg technique, and thus looked at me and uttered the line of the night that still makes me laugh when I think about it.

“Okay, now pretend I’m heavier.”

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 360.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 8, 2012

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2012-366 Day 341 – End of Semester

Wrapped up my fitness class today, have my last lecture tomorrow (and giving the final next week), and grading the final papers. I have to admit, probably like most teachers, that the end of the semester is my favorite time. As commitments start to come off the schedule, there is a certain feeling of lightness that comes around when you see the end in sight. The winter break from teaching and classes certainly helps recharge the batteries before the Spring semester swings back into gear.

The fitness class was a good experience, even if some of the exercises did get a little repetitive after the first few times. We had great students leaders and a fun teacher, and in the long run I improved in all of the tests they had us do at the beginning of the semester (run a mile and half, pushups, plank), so I guess we can consider that a success. I’m not sure what class I’m taking next semester (I might just do the same thing with a different name), but I have to figure it out pretty soon as we’re already knee-deep into registration for next semester’s classes. Yup, on a college campus, depending on your job, you may be living in three or four different semesters at once. Thankfully my schedule generally confines me to one or two at the most.

Unfortunately, the end of the semester also means that I have to do all the last minute things like updated finals, grade papers, and prepare the final lecture to make sure I cover everything on that aforementioned final. And that cuts into blog time. So see you tomorrow, when I will have completed that last lecture and will truly be in the home stretch.

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 360.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 6, 2012

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2012-366 Day 340 – Internet Presence II

Continuing in the vein of posts I wanted to do an update on, I came upon my post on Internet Presence. Way back on Day 40 (exactly 300 days ago! Sometimes I make it look like I know what I’m doing here), I ran a little experiment to see how I did when I Googled (still no better term? C’mon I gave everyone almost a whole year to come up with one) various iterations on my name. Now that I’ve been putting content up for nearly a full year and have hosted two more sports seasons on my personal site, I was curious to see if anything had changed. The same rules apply (Remember to log out of your Google account when searching – or better yet use incognito or InPrivate browsing sessions, otherwise Google’s accumulated information on you will skew the results.), and I’ve included the original results in parenthesis for easy comparison. All results as of 12/5/12.

Matthew Worland
Results: 260,000 (1,440,000)
Highest Rank: 1 (1)
Percent of top 5: 60% (80%)
I’m throwing out the two “View the profiles of professionals named Matthew Worland on LinkedIn” links, since obviously I’m one of them but really, it’s (apparently) only 1/7th of my link. My LinkedIn profile is still number one, my office hours page is number two, and my Twitter account has moved up to three. One of the other Matthew Worland’s Facebook page is now fourth and fifth place belongs to a newbie. Apparently a Matthew Worland is a DJ, because I’ve found the name showing up on things like last.fm and Spotify attached to a song called the Country Power Hour (Remix). I haven’t heard it, but I see the title out there every so often. Must not have taken off too much, however, since it’s not out pacing my lowly efforts on the Internet. Added bonus: I have three different pictures in the top line when you use Google Image Search on my name. Also, I’m not certain why there are so many fewer results this time.

Matt Worland
Results: 174,000 (690,000)
Highest Rank: 4 (3)
Percent of top 5: 20% (40%)
Apparently I’m falling down in the world of Matt Worlands. Although last time I counted the LinkedIn aggregate links, so the percent of the top 5 would have been the same. My ratemyprofessor page has dropped of the front page, too (which makes sense, since it was, you know, pretty old and outdated). Looks like I have to start updating mworland.com and see if I can make it to the top. Or not, because I have better things to do.

disciplev1
Results: 3,650 (3,300)
Highest Rank: 1 (1)
Percent of top 5: 100% (100%)
If you don’t put quotes around it, a couple of files on a file sharing site (DuelField Disciple V1 and the 13th Disciple V1) as well as a Hank Hanegraff book (Last Disciple V1 Repack) sneak into the list. Looks like I still have fairly strong claim to the name by itself, however, with every result on the first page being one of my accounts or Tweets. Actually, you get to page 5 before one of the links is not related to me (a pdf someone title disciplev1 for a Bible Study). If you don’t remember why I use this as my screen name, check Internet Presence I.

In all I would have expected a bit more change considering a I put up a year’s worth of work. Then again, I did so largely without using my name, so I suppose it just wasn’t enough to tip the scale. It was a fun experiment to run again, I’ll have to see if it changes any more in a few years.

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 360.7 miles (+2 miles)
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 5, 2012

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2012-366 Day 339 – Jessica II

As I’m wrapping up the year, I’m starting to compile a list of topics that I needed to revisit. One that has been ever present but so far only got one titled topic to her name is my lovely wife Jessica. But after the day she had helping others and her usual awesomeness, I decided I should rectify that. Today, though, I’m only going to focus on one aspect of her wonderful self, so we’re going to ignore her beautiful looks, wonderful personality, skill in the kitchen at both cooking and baking, wide ranging body of knowledge, ability to put up with me, and all the hard work she does. Nope, today we’re going to focus on her creativity.

Why her creativity, you ask? Well, simply because she’s given me several opportunities to show it off simply with pictures in starting to decorate for Christmas.

Exhibit A: Our Nativity Scene
We decided against doing a traditional nativity scene this year, opting instead for something more visually striking. Jess started with the idea to have a picture-based scene on our blank wall, and we batted it around a bit until we came up with this:

The left side:

The top:

The right side:

She took sheet music from a music book, cut out appropriate silhouettes, and glued them into the frames, a project she worked on while we were in Colorado on Thanksgiving Vacation. We hung them over the weekend and it looks great!

She also put together a place for us to pin our Christmas cards to:

She found the perfect fabric for it too (Christmas stamps if you can’t tell):

She also made a “centerpiece” to hang from our light:

And finally a couple “Orna-magnets” so even our fridge could feel festive:

I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful and creative wife. I’ll let her go into how these things were made, if she’s interested. I’ll simply settle for showing her off here.

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 358.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 4, 2012

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2012-366 Day 338 – Discovery

Actually, I should probably title this “The Horror of Discovery,” but I didn’t want to scare people away before they got here (yes, I know that this line is going to be visible in the Facebook summary, but I wager half the people don’t read that anyway). I don’t believe I can properly convey how much I wish that I had made this “discovery” much earlier in the life of this blog, as I guarantee I could have gotten a ton of mileage out of doing something similar for multiple blog posts. Maybe that will be my project for next year.

What am I going on about? Well, I was going to start with a bit of background, but floating around the back of my mind was the idea that I’d already covered it in the blog at some point in the past. Sure enough, in the Classy post, I go a little bit into my low-level hoarder . . . I mean “collector’s” mentality and how that manifests in my collecting digital music even when I may not have an immediate potential use for it (see my recent purchase of 13 hours of instrumental Christmas music – c’mon, it was only 99 cents and you never know when I’m going to host a 13 hour Christmas party for people who are afraid of lyrics!).

You can check the Classy post for a bit more, but, needless to say, this “problem” is why I check Amazon MP3’s five dollar albums at the beginning of the month when they put up a new batch. All was going great, with a couple of prospects opened up in new tabs (I have only purchased the Springsteen “Rising” album so far), until I reached the final page (they run 100 at a time, so it wasn’t a long time searching).

And here I have to make another aside for you to get the full effect of this revelation, so just hang in there a bit longer. If you’ve arrived at this blog and know me personally, I’m pretty certain you know of the show called Veggietales. I am a bit of a Veggietales hipster, being into Veggietales before it was cool to be into Veggietales (was it every cool? I’m not even sure). I’ve had to assemble two different collections, since my first collection on VHS went painfully out of style (see how old school I am). After being introduced to the show in my 12th grade English class (thanks Mr. Weitzel!), it struck the perfect balance of funny and childlike in me, and has been a mainstay ever since (with a little flagging recently, I’m a bit behind).

So when I saw the familiar sight of Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber on the last page of album covers, my first reaction was excitement. “That could be fun to get and play for the nieces and nephews,” I thought to myself (nieces and nephews, riiiight). I opened the link in a new tab so I could finish perusing the selection of albums and started to scan on when, suddenly, the realization of what I just read set in.

Bob and Larry Go Country

Oh no.

I clicked over to the newly opened tab and there it was, 10 country songs in the Veggietales (read: kid song) style. Surely it couldn’t be that bad, I mean the company behind Veggietales has had it’s problems in the past, but they’ve generally put out quality goods. I perused the track list:

Boondocks – Okay, not the opener I was expecting, and it doesn’t seem like a song the kids would be excited about. Then again, “Boondocks” is kind of a funny word, so maybe they were going with that.

Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys – Alright, that was more along the lines of what I was expecting.

9 To 5 – Really? How many kids you know fretting about their work week? Then again, I suppose it is catchy, although it seems weird that we’re kind of disregarding lyrical content so far.

I Will Always Love You – The Whitney Houston song? I guess there was a country version (Googling . . . alright, I guess Dolly Parton did it first, but Whitney owns that song now and I don’t know too many kids that would have heard Dolly’s version), but again, where are we going with the lyrics here? Any forlorn toddlers crooning about lost love or undying love? I’m confused.

You’re Still The One – Please, please, please tell me these aren’t being turned into “Jesus, my boyfriend” songs or, even worse, Jesus Jukes.

Achy Breaky Heart – Why? Why would you do this? Think of the children! Wait, forget the children. Think of the PARENTS! We killed this song once and swore never again. Now you bring it back with vegetables? I’m beginning to reconsider my allegiance to you, Veggietales.

God Bless The U.S.A. – All right, considering genre, subject, and tone, it would actually be a crime if this song was NOT on the CD.

Forever and Ever, Amen – Creepily veering back into the “Jesus, my boyfriend” genre, but given a pass for the title including the churchiest of words, “Amen.”

Jesus Take The Wheel – I guess . . . I mean there’s only so much . . . I don’t know if kids will relate . . . Jesus is right there in the title . . . You know what, fine.

Life is a Highway – It’s never too early to get kids hooked on any version of “Life is a Highway.” Rubber stamp approved.

Well, after that list and those reactions, I was certainly firmly on the side of “not buying this.” (“But it’s cheap!” “Shush, you, not cheap enough by far.”) But there was this one little button on the page calling my name. No, we’ve established it wasn’t the “Buy MP3 Album” button. It was the little round button entitled, “Play all samples.” Keep in mind I did this for you, so you would not have to go unto the place which I was about to embark.

Boondocks – Holy cow, they’ve got everyone singing on this one. Yup, they’re definitely playing with the word “Boondocks” here, and the French Pea chorus in the background is mildly amusing. Oh my word, was that Mr. Lunt or one of the Peas starting in on the next verse after the chorus ends? Which ever one, thanks goodness the preview cuts out when it does.

Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys – Well, okay, Larry is in his element here. Are we certain this wasn’t a long lost silly song that finally came back home? “Lawyers and such,” heh.

9 To 5 – Trying to decide if using Mr. Nezzer for the chorus is genius or subversive, since he runs the factory and doesn’t really work there. Mr. Lunt should be kept far away from the rest of these songs, although he’d make a perfect pop star nowadays since all he does is shout instead of sing.

I Will Always Love You – And we’ve gone full circle on Larry with only one song separating a natural (“Mammas”) from a “What the heck?” (here). And they let Lunt back in on the verse, although at least he’s not shouting this time (he’s still not singing, but you take what you can get).

You’re Still The One – Okay, this is either Junior and the Carrot girl or Junior and his mom, and I’m not certain which one is creepier. Okay, in context, Junior and his mom is creepier, but they’re both pretty bad (at least until Junior and Carrot girl get married one day. I suppose it’s inevitable, it’s not like Junior has any other young girl vegetable options).

Achy Breaky Heart – I didn’t want to. Understand I did it for you. It is almost tolerable if you view it as a silly song (reinforced by the fact that Larry starts improvising a joke based on the lyrics at the end of the sample – don’t listen to it, it’s not worth it!), but . . . I can’t believe I’m trying to talk myself into this. Run away, far away!

God Bless The U.S.A. – Wow, they went full on choir anthem here. Cue eagle with tear rolling down its cheek . . .

Forever and Ever, Amen – Wait, is Larry dueting this one with Jimmy the gourd? “You’re Still the One” has a new challenger for creepy champion! And Mr. Lunt has a new challenger for worst singing on this album! A double threat!

Jesus Take The Wheel – And in a stunning turn of events, they have Mr. Lunt sing the verse on this song to take the title right back from Jimmy! A shocking reversal to totally squash (heh heh heh) the rising challenger. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a performance of the utmost . . . well, utmost terribleness doesn’t seem to work, but it’s so appropriate we’re just going to have to invent the phrase. Truly historical!

Life is a Highway – We do not make fun of “Life is a Highway.” We respect “Life is a Highway.” Veggitales also respects “Life is a Highway” because it easily has the best sample of the set. We still don’t recommend you listen to it though.

Sadly, I’m pretty sure I put more thought and effort into making fun of this CD that the people who created it did in selecting the tracks.

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 358.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 3, 2012

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2012-366 Day 337 – Straight No Chaser

And here we start with everyone reading the title and going, “Wait, he doesn’t drink.” That’s true, but here’s where I tell you the title refers to a group, and not my drink of choice (maybe it is, actually, I don’t know, I’ve never tried it). Jess and I went out on a date Friday night to go see a group called Straight No Chaser at the Pantages in what has got to be a record for planning ahead for me, since I bought the tickets in May (dinner plans, not so far in advance, but we found a Mediterranean place – Chicken Dijon – across the street that was pretty good). Straight No Chaser is an a cappella group from Indiana that does versions of popular songs as well as Christmas songs. How did we find out about them? Well, that deserves a new paragraph.

As I mentioned, the group is known for their Christmas songs, especially their, how shall we say, unique take on them. Jess was listening to her Christmas Pandora station when the 12 Days of Christmas came on sung by an a cappella group. It sounded nice enough, and she didn’t think much of it . . . until the days started getting a little compressed and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer showed up. Confused, so was she (and apparently, they), but she had to pay attention now. After a veritable Christmas cornucopia in one song, she tracked them down on Youtube and sent me the link. We were both instantly hooked, and I went out and found them on Amazon. Oh, I’m sorry did you want to see what I’m talking about?

So when we heard that they were coming out to Los Angeles at the beginning of the Christmas season, we had to go. I found some decent but not too expensive seats, ordered the tickets, received them, and then waited. And waited. And waited. We actually lost the tickets for a few days at some point since, if you remember, I ordered them six months ahead of time.

Suddenly, though, it was time and the day had sprung upon us. Since it had been raining that day, we headed down early to make sure we had a time buffer and got down there with an hour and a half to spare, so it was time to eat. Oh, I will mention here that I’m sad my usual Pantages parking lot has been bulldozed over to make way for shops and living space (okay, that’s pretty good for everyone else though) and we tried a different lot that did stack parking, which turned out to be a minor mistake when we tried to leave at the end of the night and we had to wait in line. It normally wouldn’t have been a big deal, but my legs were really hurting and achy from a major stretching session the night before in karate and then standing while teaching for three hours, followed by a lot of sitting. It was kind of annoying is what I’m trying to say.

Anyway, about this group. Originally they were a club at Indiana University from 1996 to 1998. They graduated and went their separate ways, figuring that this chapter had closed in their life. In the meantime, someone went and popularized the Internet, World Wide Web, and Youtube. So when the group was going to get together for a ten year reunion, one of the members digitized and uploaded one of their performances (the Youtube video embedded above) and, as these things are wont to do, it went viral. One of the people who wound up seeing happened to be the President of Atlantic Records. He tracked down the group member who posted it on Youtube and asked if they would consider getting back together and putting out an album. Of course, they said yes. After making two Christmas albums, they started branching out into covering popular songs, and have three albums and two LPs out now. Their next album comes out in February and has them covering some more popular music.

I suppose I should get to the actual concert now. Our seats were in the second row of the second section of the balcony on one end, and they turned out pretty well. Jess had slight obstruction issues with the lady in front of her, so she had to look around her at times but in general was okay. I was behind the taller guy, but since I’m taller than he was, could see over him fine. The first half of the concert was their covers of popular music, most of which we weren’t familiar with but all of which was pretty awesome. Some of it was off the album that comes out next year and most was from their third album and LPs. When they started off with an a cappella version of “Some Nights” by Fun, I knew we’d made a good call. I wish I could describe the whole thing to you, but I know I’d miss some things and we’d be here all night (or at least I would be, and I’m writing it, so I’m trying to keep it shorter. Notice I’m failing). They had a lot of fun with the audience, including taunting the late people, which I always enjoy. They also played a short video at the beginning of the show that made fun of how hard it was to get ten guys to decide on anything, especially since they were all on the road together (and apparently have to all eat the same thing out of band unity). In a refreshing change of pace, they also encouraged people to take pictures and video during the performance, since they recognize the value of free advertising. Jess asked if I was going to record anything, and initially I said no, but decided I should have something of a more permanent memory while I had the chance. When they announced that their last song before intermission was going to be a medley where they put lyrics to famous movie themes, well I had to get in on that.

WARNING: Cell phone video ahead, probably best to just listen, but you can watch too if you want.

The second half opened with the part of the show featuring Christmas music, which was what we had come for in the first place. It did not disappoint, starting off with the classic Twelve Days of Christmas fiasco . . . I mean medley, and moving through many favorites (the Mission Impossible opening to We Three Kings nearly made me fall out of my seat) before wrapping up with the Christmas Can Can, which we actually heard for the first time on the XM Holiday Station on the way home from our Thanksgiving vacation last week. A couple more songs, three encores (including the final, final song which they did without their microphones like they would have rehearsing back when they started, that was particularly moving), and three standing ovations later, and the night had swiftly come to an end. I have never had time fly by so quickly at an event before.

We let everyone kind of filter out ahead of us, but, as I mentioned earlier, my legs were hurting and I was looking to head home. Sadly this meant that we had to forgo an opportunity to meet and greet with the band, which I now regret missing since Jess got her Tweet (did I mention that they encourage Tweeting and Facebooking during a certain portion of the show?) replied to by one of the group members a little bit after the show.

In all it was a great concert and one I would recommend to anyone who likes a cappella singing and a great time. I laughed, I was moved, and I got into the Holiday spirit. I don’t know what else you can ask.

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 358.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

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By Matt
December 2, 2012

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2012-366 Day 336 – Resolution Update

I suppose I’ll have to update this one more time before the end of the year, but this is the last first of the month Resolution Update. I cannot believe that it is already here. I find it a bit funny that I can actually call whether three of the five resolutions have already been successful, while two of them will likely go down to the wire, which I would not necessarily have predicted at the beginning with yearlong goals. One more time with feeling.

1) One blog post (long or short) every day this year. – I’m going to try and get together some statistics on this in the last month, to see if I can get my head around what’s gone on here, so I guess you can look forward to those posts in the next few weeks. Oddly enough, this will probably get easier for the last few days, as I can update some topics and start wrapping things up around here. Looks like I’ll also have to figure out a project for next year too. – On track.

2) Lose 20 pounds. – Had a bit of bounce back these last couple weeks with Thanksgiving, vacation, and a bit of laziness in running, so I’m in the mid-220’s again. If I really am careful over the next month, I can accomplish this goal, but it will be a bit of challenge. We’ll see how much I want it. – Behind.

3) Run 600 miles. – Well, I got halfway there, with a very outside shot at two-thirds. I’ll probably set my goal around four to five hundred next year depending on where I end up in the next month. As a sub-goal, I should probably try and run more this month than last month, which should be pretty easy since I only did 18.66 miles in November. – FAILED.

4) Complete 5th Gup Green belt test by end of year. – With vacations and the holiday season, it’s been hit or miss with class attendance, but I’ve been able to ramp back up the last week or so. I should be ready in a month for my test. – COMPLETE.

5) Complete first novel. – This was my stretch goal, and it never really got off the ground. I had hoped it would be the only goal I didn’t accomplish, but the running goal got a way from me. If the weight one gets away too, I’ll drop under fifty percent, which is kind of sad. Then again, some people don’t keep any of their resolutions, so maybe I should be focusing on the successes rather than the failures. – FAILED.

Thanks for hanging with me (or finding me) so far, and I hope to give you a great final month!

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 358.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , .

By Matt
December 1, 2012

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2012-366 Day 335 – Pictures VII

Went to a great concert with Jess tonight, but will have to cover that another time as it is getting late (and I promised you people pictures yesterday, although I suppose it wouldn’t have been the first time I lied to you all. Probably best to stay honest though). I finally got a good backlog on the phone, and managed not to delete them when I upgraded the phone a couple weeks ago, so here we go:

It turns out that hands-free technology doesn’t have to be expensive, especially when you have strong legs. Yes, I read an entire chapter like this, while eating some carrots and occasionally hitting the next button. Yes, I am also weird.

Jess and I went to Chevy’s in Burbank about a month ago, and driving out of the parking structure I did a double-take. Three SUV’s, all the same model, in red, white, and blue all in a row. I had to circle back around and take a picture, then hurry out since security had just driven by.

I’ve had this picture for a few weeks, and I’m still unable to determine what the filling is in McDonald’s Holiday Pie. I am also absolutely unwilling to buy and try one to find out. I’ll just have to keep studying the evidence.

This was in the waiting area at the local Walgreens around Halloween. I’m not certain it’s the message you want to be sending your potential customers (which is why I’m pretty sure that Walgreens wasn’t responsible for its placement).

Finally, we get to one of my idiosyncrasies (I know, I have more than one, shocking). Everyone has their favorite way to eat an Oreo, right? Well mine just happens to be a little unique. When I have multiple Oreos (and face it, when was the last time you only had one Oreo?), I will unscrew the top of the cookies and then combine the fillings into a mega cookie. I will continue doing this until I am out of Oreos, so I have one giant pile of cream between two cookies and a bunch of leftover lids. Our friend Dennis found some Oreos that apparently come prestacked, but with two different types of cream (chocolate and vanilla) and a cookie in between.

He gave me the container and said he already had his own, so I had to eat them. But I’m weird, right? Challenge Accepted.

I wish I had a microphone I could drop and walk of stage right now. I’ll just have to settle for

Weight: 222 Loss: 18 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 358.7 miles
Fitocracy Level: 26 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , , , , .

By Matt
November 30, 2012

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