Pump! You up!

I have fun coming up in 2010:
Trip 1: To Snowboard back home in the Rocky Mountains of UTAH
June is when I will attempt to climb Mount. Timpanogos, the third highest in the Utah Rockies with a 7,000 foot ascent.

I say attempt because the most likely result will be me being carried off the mountain on oxygen in a helicopter. Why? Well a couple of reasons: I haven't done any serious climbing since, oh, like the fall just before I met Macy, and the last couple of years the most exercise I have been getting is walking from the parking lot to my office.

I remember well the day the elevator was broken last year and walking up 4 stories I almost passed out. I thought, wow I need to get in shape! One year later I thought, wow I should get in shape, which is funny because I've had that thought two and three and four and five years previous.
"Wait, Brent, you are the skinniest person we know!"
That is because of my amazing metabolism that forces me to eat junk food and not work out to keep the lbs off. If I ate decent and got exercise I would put on 10 lbs easy. When it comes to exercise I have a motto: "Sounds too hard, where are the cookies?" I don't know that it's really a motto... I don't even know what's a motto (Nothing what's a motto with you?! LOL)
(Macy rolls eyes here)


So determined to climb Timp I am now forced to get into some kind of shape. So what to do? How to prepare to make a multi thousand foot vertical climb when 4 floors of stairs at work kicked my butt? Conquer the stairs! All 24 floors of them! Three times a week! Twice in a row! (Well not at first)




Week 1: You're a disappointment to yourself and others!
Psyched up and feeling ready I start in the basement. 5 Floors later is my office... I should probably check my email and get a drink and finish the other 19 floors after I catch my breath.
30 minutes later: "This still counts right?"
15th Floor: "I can see through my hand like Marty McFly! Elevator down? Sounds good."
Time: 7:10:00

Week 2: 24 Floors in 5 minutes.
Ready set... Go! I started out good and strong. 5th floor I hear my email calling my name... but I do not give in! I know, right?! 10th floor my legs are burning as are my lungs.
10th Floor: Brent's heart: "Ok, you need to stop this silliness. Seriously!
17th Floor: "Oh a drinking fountain! Ok, stop here but walk down."
Time: 7:30:00

Week 3: Try try again.
12th Floor: Out of breath but I can make it!
20th Floor: "Holy crap! Ok, there's a bathroom, go sit on a toilet and catch your breath. I don't care what the people in the law firm on the 20th floor think about the noise! Maybe they will call an EMT" I walked back down on my own! I almost passed out when my legs started to give out going down the 10th floor.
Time: 6:35:00

Week 4: Ok now do it again!
Attempt 1
15th Floor: Wow I can still breath!
24th Floor: Wow things are starting to spin! I'm going to sit here a minute before I walk down.
Time: 5:20:00

Attempt 2
15th Floor: Wow my legs burn a lot more than usual but still good.
24th Floor: I can still see! Lungs not burning too much. Legs still have feeling!
Time: 5:10:00

Week 5: No biggy. I can now do bottom to top two days apart without being too shaky coming back down and not too sore the next day.

Look forward to my blog about climbing the mountain. Or rather the transcript my my hospital bed at University of Utah Medical Center.

Wish me luck!

XOXO
Where my cookies at?!

O-M-Prah

Dear Oprah...

We've had a rough relationship, I gave you a chance in the early mid 2000's and we had a good run! Geez after Tom Cruise was on I was afraid to NOT watch you for fear I would miss something that insane again!

But alas you started getting more and more crazy and started the equivalent of the Church of Oprah and bought your own magazine, radio network and TV network, you went all two faced political... You lost me at the whole "Everyone needs to find their true self" crap.

I am anti Leno these days, and thus this creates a void in night-time television. The other night I was going through the channels and saw something that made me stop. They replay Oprah at like 10 something. It was this teenage boy who was like 580lbs and his friends and family put him on A&E's Intervention (did I spell that right?). This kid knew he had a problem and his dad was making him ice cup-cakes and the kid was like "You realize this is like sitting an alcoholic down at a bar and telling him he can't touch a drop right?" This was the part that got me to stop for a minute and watch. I swear this kids 500lbs Dad's response was to pickup an iced cupcake and shove the whole thing in his mouth in front of the kid who threw down his knife (rather than plunging it into his father's throat) and walked out.

Now at this point I am interested... I'm giving you a chance Op! And then you went all Maury Povich on me. It wasn't good enough that this kid lost half his body weight.

"It wasn't until you overcame the addiction that you found your true self... Why don't you tell everyone about that." To which the kid replies... "Yes, I found out that I am gay, that is who I am."
Oh frickin come on! Everytime I give you a chance you let me down Oprah! You let me down!

Maybe his true self was being 600lbs and society said that wasn't ok. Aren't you really just denying him from his real love of food?!

XOXO

You let me down

Not for the faint

I have this need to know every nook and cranny of my office building. I think it is because I fully expect to have to seek shelter in a good hiding place, Ala John McClane: Die Hard, when someone I work with finally looses it and starts shooting up the place. Anyway, I have explored empty offices on the 22nd floor, unknown stairwells, back doors, crawl spaces. But until today I didn't know I had a key that opens an ancient bathroom in our building!
Needing to go to the restroom I tried the bathroom that requires my key, finding it occupied I decided to try the door next to it. This door has no sign and is unsuspecting, but bathrooms usually come in twos, so what the hey. It worked!

The bathroom has been sealed off from humanity for many years, a time capsule of what once was. The wall paper is intact, a 60 year old chair in the corner, probably used for breast-feeding children who are now on Social Security, and a likewise 60 year old tampon dispenser is on the wall. The soap dispenser still half full of a strangely crystallizing dark pink soap, hung on the wall is yellowing plastic. The air.... Well its a bathroom no one has been in for years, INCLUDING THE CLEANING CREW!

I looked up to find a nest of cockroaches in the corner. I fled the scene. Later I told the story and a bunch of us took multiple tours to see the nest of 9 bugs. Mike would decide they are "ARMY ROACHES". Two of which were fornicating! Well not under the watch of me and my co-conspirator Jason! We went back armed. Myself with keyboard cleaner which when coming out of the can is about -1,000,000 degrees if you hold it upside down. So that's what I did.
Holding the can upside down I sneaked upto the bugs and pulled the trigger....

Do you know what happens when you spray air and liquid into a corner above you???? You don't? It comes back at you. Whatever is on the wall flies off and ALSO COMES BACK AT YOU!

I am not ashamed to say I did what anyone would have done... I screamed and flailing my hands about, I stumbled backward over the 60 year old feeding chair and into the wall, then onto the floor, which happened to be where the bugs also landed (something about gravity goes here).

Jason (whom I am so glad was there to witness this) then stepped around me and armed with cleaning spray easily took care of the bugs from a safe distance.

Sorry if there are typing errors, every time I think I see something move near my desk I jump.

XOXO
WHAT WAS THAT?! Oh its my stapler, phew!

I cant feel my toes...

Last week on Christmas Eve I slipped and fell, it left a very nice bruise on my hip and hurt very much bad. Last night I had to retrieve something I left in the rain gutter while I was roofing our porch this fall. Stretched out of an upstairs window I strained to pull the ice encased object from the gutter while beating it with a framing hammer and trying to chip away the ice. Finally it came free only to fall on the roof. No problem, let me just flatten myself in the windowcile and lean out there and pick it up.
Suddenly stinging pain shot throughout my body, I had no breath as it had all suddenly escaped me, and I couldn't see anything. If you don't know, our house is like 120 years old, which means the windows are 120 years old, which means they are basically made from 2x4's and leaded glass, which means they weigh about 2,000 lbs each.

Or at least that is how much they feel like when they come crashing down into your spine like a guilitine. The other thing about windows that old, the bottom is not flat, it is cut at an angle so water doesn't travel up and under the window. Like a blade. Like a spinal cord severing blade.
After I started breathing again I began seeing if I could wiggle my toes... Only I couldn't see them. I couldn't see anything! I WAS BLIND! And it was getting cold.... So cold....
Oh wait, it was like 10pm, that would explain the blindness and it was like 20 degrees out side and I was hanging out a 2nd story window, that would explain the cold.

None the less, unable to wheeze for help, I could wrap myself in fire crackers and jump through a flaming hoop and Macy wouldn't hear me from the other end of the house down stairs. It was up to me to somehow regain movement in my arms and get the window up and crawl back inside. Or I could just die there... I hear freezing to death isn't a bad way to go... but how long would that take with my back half in a warm house.... probably a week.

Long story short I chose life and fought my way back in! I seem to be ok but if I suddenly fall down and cant move... I'm probably just napping.

Tis the Season ...?

The day before Halloween I was in Walmart and they had already condenced their merchanidce into discount piles and brought in Christmas crap. The day after Halloween they started playing Christmas music and I almost ran my car into a light pole just to put an early end to it all!

Speaking of which, what is up with the song "It's the most wonderful time of the year"? There is a line where they talk about traditions and one of them is telling "scary ghost stories" .... What kind of Christmas tradition is that?! "Kids let's gather around and celebrate the birth of the savior with some scary ghost stories!" "Yeay!"

AT LEAST WAIT UNTIL THE THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS ARE IN THE FRIDGE!

Oooh speaking of... Jones Soda, known for their crazy and usually amazingly bold flavors of soda, cashes in as the ultimate abuser of the holidays with.......
JONES SODA HOLIDAY MEAL IN A SODA FAMILY PACK

Turkey and Gravy - YUM! Sweet Potatos - With marshmallows I hope! Dinner Roll! - Come on! Peas - Yeay! And who doesn't LOVE the flavor of Antacid?! In a SODA! Now you can have the wonderful flavor of antacid all the time without the side effect of not having any acidic bile to digest!

I always make a goal to eat until I puke, I guess now I can do just that in about the amount of time it takes to drink 5 bottles of Soda...

Seriously Im am shocked there isn't a chocolate nativity for sale! ....... Oh, wait!

And IM the one who is a grinch for having a problem with the commericalism of Christmas. Im just going to be over here...

XOXO - Tis the season

Rebecca Romjin... Just stop, please.

I did drama in highschool but real acting must be harder than I realize. It is the only explanation for all of the truly horrible actors that are making $$$.

Point in case: Rebecca Romijn and her new role in EASTWICK. If you know of and like this show let me know so I can de-friend you on facebook immediately.

First off Rebecca Romijn was pretty cute when she was like 20 on the cover of Sport Illustrated, but nowa days shes looking like the front runner on the PGA Tour and no, I dont mean the Women's PGA Tour.

She-looka-likea-man.
Like a cross dressing tranny man.

Like how women who wrestle "professionally" look manly. Thats Rebecca Romijn these days.

I was flipping through channels and Macy was like "Wait! You have to watch this for a minute, it's HORRIBLE" and it was! Wow was it ever!

If I ever have to watch her fake crying with no tears again I will shoot my self in the face. It was like watching my 4 year old fake cry while pretending her toys are made of solid gold she has no hope of picking up and then whaling "I can't do it!"



Seriously this show SUX! The premis is like Passions meets Hero's, they are witches but they are just all suddenly realizing they are witches with powers... This show is so good they have already played the celebrity guest appearance card with Cybil Sheppard, the mark of any successful show!

So this brings an interesting question to the table. Why is it bad writing and not really attractive people who can't really act very well equal an ABC series???



XOXO
Perplexed @ best