New Year's Resolutions Anyone?

I don't normally do any New Year's resolutions, but this year's beginning coincided with something that my roommates and I were doing anyway, so I guess I will call it one. We have decided to work on our fitness in preparation for softball next season. Also, I am weighing in at around 210, and with my frame of only 5'10", I am starting to feel like a fat ass. So we went to the track this past weekend and did some fitness exercises to gauge where we were. It turns out that I am really out of shape in some areas, and not nearly as out of shape as I thought I would be in others.

We started out with a 12 minute run, and I was able to do about 8.5 tenths of a mile (I could have probably done more, but I have some wicked shin splints). We did a shuttle run series and I did pretty well on that one (about 15.2 seconds for what we believed to be 80 yards). At the house we did some crunches (pulled out around 30 in a minute...but I think that will increase quickly), some push-ups (I sucked here...only 11 before I couldn't do any more), flexibility (7.5" will need to get to stretching), and something called a plank - you essentially balance your self on your toes and forearms and make you back straight as an arrow and hold it for as long as you can (I did this for over 45 seconds, which I was pleased with).

The goal is to improve on each of these and track that improvement to see where we will be in 2 months when softball starts back up. We are also working on lowering our portions sizes in an attempt to shrink the belly (my brother is working on this one with me) and also doing cardio and weight lifting workouts (we did an hour or so at the gym tonight).

I figure, by throwing it out here, the 4 of you that read this thing will be able to keep me honest and on track. Or maybe I will be able to do it myself...either way, I am exhausted and going to bed.

Good night, and Happy New Year!!

Congratulations UGA

Before I go to bed, I just want to congratulate the University of Georgia on their victory, nay, their absolute domination of the Hawaii Warriors in the Sugar Bowl. It has to be one of the most incredible performances I have seen out of the team. Marcus Howard was epic, Knowshan Moreno was his usual self, even Brandon Coutu was unstoppable. Great season by the Bulldogs, and I can only imagine what we would have accomplished had the voters gotten the final week's vote correct. Go Dawgs!! Sic em!! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!!

Happy New Year!!

So here I am sitting and waiting the final 5 hours for the sUGAr Bowl to start, and I realize that I never typed a blog about what we did for Thanksgiving this year. Now seems as good a time as any to reflect back on that weekend and explain about the festivities that surrounded the Friday after.

First of all, we had about a billion people come down for the weekend. They are:
My sister (Bex)
My sister's boyfriend (Jake)
My mom's best friend (Carrie)
My mom's best friend's daughter (Rory)
My mom's best friend's daughter's daughter (Mymy - not her real name, but I am protecting the innocent)
My mom's best friend's friend (Carol)
My mom's best friend's friend's husband (Adam)
My mom's best friend's friend's dog (Simon)
My mom's best friend's dog (Pepper)

This is all in addition to my mom and dad, my brother and me; plus Katie and Casey (the dogs).

We spent way too much time just hanging out and playing Guitar Hero III and Super Monkey Ball, but the greatest moment of the entire trip was on Friday afternoon when we officially moved Fruit Ball from a Christmas Day tradition to a Thanksgiving tradition. For those of you not in the know, Fruit Ball is essentially baseball with fruit (though there is no scoring, and everyone wins!!). It started several years ago when my mom asked my brother and me to clean out the fridge and we were exceptionally bored, so we decided to play baseball with the rotten oranges. Once we went through those, we realized that we needed to find anything else we could and play with them...we ended up hitting celery, lemon juice plastic containers...anything we could throw.

From there it evolved and we just starting playing it annually on Christmas. This year was different though because everyone was going to be here for Thanksgiving and not Christmas, so it was discussed and decided that we would play on Thanksgiving. Dad, Adam and I went to the store on Wednesday and picked up all of the fruit (we wouldn't show anyone else because we wanted them to be surprised). That Friday, the festivities commenced. What follows is a recap in pictures. Please enjoy (especially the one of my brother). Next year we film!!

And if you would like to see more pictures, please visit my MySpace page or my facebook page. Thanks!!