Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I don't have too much time to blog right now because my hair is driving me crazy and I'd like to go upstairs and cut it. So here is the final tally:


Considering that I was up by about 170 miles at one point. I'm not too terribly thrilled with 127. But I'll take it considering this challenge was supposed to be tough. Honestly, I mentally checked out from the challenge around Friday the 27th. You can tell by all the driving around I did. I figured there was nothing to lose since the challenge was completely in the bag.

I think I will be biking to work much more often but tomorrow I'll take a break and drive.

There are a few things that surprised me during the challenge:

• Right before the challenge started I bought a seat pad since biking tends to hurt the crotch. Wow did that do wonders, I had no pains all month in that region despite the constant biking.
  
• The first week affected my marathon training but once I got used to the biking, it had no effect whatsoever. I thought I'd at least miss some runs or be tired more often, but it wasn't bad.
  
• I ate a lot more seeing as I was exercising more and therefore did not lose weight.
  

Really this was not a challenge testing endurance or stamina or physical abilities. It was more a month that tested my ability to overcome inconvenience. It's inconvenient to get sweaty on the commute to work, carry extra clothes, and have to shower at work. It's inconvenient to take 25 minutes biking home when driving takes 6. There was nothing physically difficult about it, but there were many times I just didn't feel like jumping through hoops. It was worth it though.

I might do this challenge again during cooler weather. Maybe April or something in the Spring. We'll see.

I was told that my companies Rec Center will be writing an article in their newsletter about my challenge. That'll be kinda awesome.

Did I say I wasn't going to write very much? Yeah, I'm always far too long-winded.

"What is not started today is never finished tomorrow." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"For every finish-line tape a runner breaks - complete with the cheers of the crowd and the clicking of hundreds of cameras - there are the hours of hard and often lonely work that rarely gets talked about." -Grete Waitz

"Whatever accomplishment you boast of in the world, there is someone better than you." -Proverb

I donate blood very frequently and subscribe to the Durham Platelets newsletter and the newsletter that came through today was intriguing to me. I love donating blood and platelets and am really proud of my 10 gallons donated so far, but this guy has nothing on me. If ever there was a person to look up to or to call a "hero", I'd say it's this guy, Ken Lanter:

One day I hope to say I've donated 150 gallons. I highly recommend donating. It's just as Ken says, you never know when you'll need the donations and I'm not going to wait until it happens to me before giving back.

I'm not going to say much in this post, other than the fact that I'm tired of this month being a joke to everyone except me. I've been laughed at by almost everyone and have even been called sarcastic names. I really hate it. Creating challenges to get healthy and in shape isn't funny to me. This may be my last post about the challenge seeing as I could probably quit now (I'm not though) and still win.



“When we judge or criticize another person, it says nothing about that person; it merely says something about our own need to be critical.”

“One mustn't criticize other people on grounds where he can't stand perpendicular himself” - Mark Twain

Found this quote after my last post and it certainly resonates with me about the way I think life should be lived:

"A man should have any number of little aims about which he should be conscious and for which he should have names, but he should have neither name for, nor consciousness concerning, the main aim of his life."
- Samuel Butler

I'm kickin' the car's butt. Here are the updated stats:


On Thursday I didn't plan on going out for lunch but at the last minute decided to go to a co-worker's retirement party, so that added 31 miles to my total. The buffet was worth it. Fortunately Thursday was a heavy day as far as working out was concerned so it didn't hurt me too bad. Saturday and Sunday should include a TON of miles for biking and running so that's good. I should be over 100 on my buffer in no time.

One thing I have learned in the past week is that it's a LOT easier and safer to run and walk on the roads than it is to bike. I think that opens up a world of possibilities for me as far as exercise goes. If I have to run 17 or 18 miles, I might just find some roads to run on. What I usually do is go to the trails or get on the treadmill. I still don't feel entirely safe biking though. You can't see the cars coming while biking and you either hold your space on the side or if you have to bail, you fall off to the side where there might not be anything. Cars are mostly polite but I just don't trust other people when it comes to 2 ton moving objects.

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is." -Vince Lombardi

"Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving." - Dennis Waitley

I'm beginning to wonder how many days in a row I can bike to work. So far I'm up to 14, and I'm thinking I can do it for both September and October but the colder months might start getting difficult. I really don't enjoy sweating in the morning, but I love not having to drive my car everywhere. It really is just empowering. It gives me a good sense of distance and doesn't let me take for granted being able to just get up and drive 30 miles just because I can. I think when the month ends, I'm going to continue to bike to work.

Saturday should be kind of awesome. We are going to bike to the American Tobacco Trail, bike all the way down to downtown Durham and go to the farmers market, and then bike back. Should be a total of about 20 miles round trip. We'll also probably hit up the pool after that. It'll be a nice little Saturday.

Anyone who has listened to The Dave Ramsey Show has heard it before. If you want to get out of debt you have to get mad. You have to get gazelle intense, throw everything at your debt snowball and make every sacrifice to win. You have to eat beans & rice and rice & beans and never see the inside of a restaurant unless you are working there.

Well to be honest, while we were getting out debt, we never really ate beans & rice. We continue to scrimp and save and live on less than we make, but we haven't gone as far as to eat the cheapest meal ever made. This week a friend of mine, Jason, gave us a recipe for a delicious beans & rice recipe and I was intrigued. We tried it tonight and it was AWESOME.

At one point I said to Liz, "you know how much money we would save if we..." and Liz stopped me in my tracks and said "I am NOT eating rice & beans for a whole month." She knows me too well. The brilliance of this meal. It cost us exactly $1.62 in groceries when you exclude the stuff we already had in our pantry (like onion and peppers and stuff). Now that's some good math. It made 3 very full servings.

Here is the picture and followed up by the recipe.


I apologize for the language in the recipe, but that's how it was written, and it does add some humor to cooking. I highly recommend it:

Take a lesson from the Puerto Ricans. Millions of us have managed to survive in one of the most expensive cities on earth with recipes like this:
Find a supermarket that has black beans on sale. Buy as much as you can. Then buy 5 or so pounds of Carolina rice, a bag of onions, a few bulbs of garlic, and a box of Goya Sazon.
Set 2 cups of water to boil
Throw in one cup of rice, turn the heat down to simmer and lid that shit
Slice up a small onion
Smash up a clove of garlic
Throw some olive oil or butter into a HOT pan.
Throw the onions and garlic into the pan and fry them till the onion gets glassy. Throw some salt in there.
Grind some pepper in there for good luck.
Toss in half a packet of Sazon and stir till you get a paste. Now you have a ghetto sofrito.
Dump in your can of beans bean juice and all.
Stir that shit up.
Add a pinch of Cayenne pepper so you remember that you have a set of cojones
Set that shit on simmer
Your rice is done.
Throw the beans on top.
Win
You should get at least 2 meals out of one can of beans, and if your lucky you can get black beans 2 for $1. Adding the cost of the Garlic, Sazon and a small onion and you still eat a tasty, hearty, relatively healthy meal for less than $1.

Jason's modifications:
So, he says HOT pan, I say medium / medium-hot, don't burn the oil / onions. Along with the onion I usually add a green pepper and hot pepper chopped. and I smash / very roughly chop 3 cloves of garlic. I slowly saute the onions / peppers until they are fairly soft.. I also use brown rice, so 2.5 cups of water to 1 cup of rice for 45 min on simmer.

I don't feel like writing too much tonight because I'm crazy exhausted. I decided to run home from church today instead of bike and the afternoon heat just really took my energy away. I didn't leave church until about 11:30 and the 17 miles took me 2:42 so I didn't get home until 2PM. By then it was already 90 degrees and crazy humid out. It was not the smartest move I've made.

Here are the numbers. My buffer isn't as large as I want it to be, I can never be sure what happens on any given day so I still don't feel comfortable with 70 miles. I am going to try and build it up throughout the week and hopefully surpass the 100 mile buffer. We'll see though, after the run today, my energy is shot and I'm worried about starting the week off so exhausted. The document is getting too big so I excluded some of the early days. Click it to see it better.

One entertaining event happened while biking that I have to write about. I had a large dragonfly nail me in the forehead on my way home from work. I stopped the bike a half mile later thinking it flew away but realizing I never REALLY saw it fly away. As I took off my helmet it was laying there right in the middle of the helmet not moving. I dropped the bike and slapped the bug away. As I picked the bike back up, my brakes weren't right. Somehow in dropping the bike, my brakes were completely squeezed so the tires wouldn't move. I challenge anyone to stop reading right now and figure out what they think happened? How could dropping the bike to the ground cause my brakes to be engaged for no apparent reason?

My temporary solution was to get my tools out (that I packed in my bag just in case something like this happens) and spend 10 minutes loosening the brakes so I can bike again. It wasn't until next morning that I figured out what happened. I was pulling out of the drive way and as I turned the wheel, my brake prematurely engaged again and stopped me. That made me realize that when I dropped my bike the day before, the handlebars spun around causing the brake lines to tighten up around my handlebars. I turned the handlebars 360 degrees back around and had to tighten my brakes again to adjust for the changes I made the day before.

Hopefully I have no more stories like that the rest of the month. It's funny now and was a good learning experience diagnosing and fixing the brakes on the spot like that, but I was hot and sweaty having to work that out.

"Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain." ~Author Unknown

"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

You ever have a craving for chocolate or ice cream? I know Liz always has cravings for our neighborhood Mexican restaurant "El Dorado". There's no doubt about it, I give in every time that craving comes along. I don't usually get too many food cravings, mine seem to come in another form.

For some reason I have a craving every single day to watch a certain random movie. I'll be sitting at work or running on the treadmill and think "OH MAN! I want to watch that RIGHT NOW!" I'd be surprised if I'm alone in this feeling. This week, these were/are my cravings:

• Wednesday: James Bond - Casino Royale with Daniel Craig
• Thursday: The Hangover
• Friday: Avatar
• Saturday: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I usually never indulge my cravings mainly because they come up at the dumbest times and I forget about them. There have been times though and it's been glorious. Usually movies that become regular cravings are movies I have to buy. For example:

• I Love You, Man
• The Breakup
• Knocked Up
  
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
  
• A Knight's Tale
• Rocky (all of them)
• Rudy
• Cinderella Man
  
• Harry Potter (all of them)
• Love Actually

I think the reason I like "Love Actually" is more because it's so Christmas themed and the movie counts down to Christmas. I love that time of year with the coldness and music and atmosphere. The other movies invoke feelings in the extreme, being either humor or action or heroism and I think that's why I always crave them in particular. Like if I'm running and feeling energized and think "MAN! I could totally listen to Rocky right now!" because of how pumped it makes me.

I may indulge my craving later today, we'll see.

I talked to my sister tonight on the phone, and here's her response to my "Me vs. Machine" month:

"Michael! Life is more fun than constantly competing."

It's all about drive. Competition drives me. Setting goals and reaching for them is fun. I don't know why, but I always have a desire to accomplish something more or do something better. I haven't commented on this in a while but I have run about 650 miles in 2010 so far. There's no doubt, assuming no injuries, that I'm going to eclipse the 1000 mile New Year Resolution goal for the first time ever. It's my natural instincts once I get there to then think to myself "Now what can I do?" It's a constant cycle.

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals." - Zig Ziglar

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily." - Zig Ziglar

It's days like today when I realize why I have built up such a large buffer for my challenge. I was getting ready to have such a productive night of blogging and budgetting and website building but that all changed when I got called to do some Landlording work. So I headed out and racked up almost 19 miles on my car and thus my night was pretty much spent.

If this was 3 hours ago, the heading would have read "WhoDey's Got Nothing On ME!". Unfortunately, the unexpected took that confidence away from me and my car caught up a little bit. Here are the updated numbers:


One thing I have decided is that for the rest of the month, I don't see any reason to drive to work. That should make for some really good mileage.

I also added another column to my numbers above. The column titled "WhoDey" is the mileage for my car, and the column titled "Car" is for both WhoDey and Liz's car.

I'm starting to get over the fatigue of the month. Maybe I am getting in better shape, but I'm getting over being tired pretty quickly. So that's a good sign because if there is anything that'll stop me from succeeding is exhaustion or injury. So far both have stayed very far away... **knock on wood**.

Headin to bed.

"Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time."

Well it has been 5 days since the start of my challenge and holy cow do I have a lot I want to say about the month so far. I doubt I'll be able to fit it all into this one post since I want to try and keep these updates brief (yeah right, like I can ever keep anything brief). Here is an update on the numbers:

So far the month has been awesome. I've really enjoyed it a lot. It definitely has been hard and I have worked my butt off, but it has been really rewarding. Rewarding is probably the best word to describe it so far. It feels really good to get to work and know that it took effort to do it. It's an awesome feeling to stand at an intersection and get looks like "what are you doing?" I also can't help but laugh as I get on my bike to ride home today after having run 5 miles in the gym. I want to be all I can be! It really is empowering.

So I think the best thing to do now is to break the post into two sections. The good stuff and the bad stuff, because let's be honest, there is definitely a good amount of both.

The Good Stuff:

• My metabolism is through the freakin' roof. The other day I ate 7 tacos for dinner and still lost weight the following day. I have been eating a ton more this whole week and yet my weight is still continuing to drop a little bit every day. I'm still hovering at 170. I'd like to maintain 165 by the end of the month.
  
• I have come to LOVE showering at the gym showers. It is much more private than I thought it would be, the water pressure is nice, and we save on hot water at the house.
  
• I can already tell my legs are stronger and my biking endurance is getting better, and both will benefit my running.
  
• Assuming I keep up this schedule, we are going to save $100 this month on gas alone. That's insane! $100 just because I put in a little effort. I'll take it!
  
• I have to bike on two roads to get to the trails on my way to work, and it's no longer scary for me. I'm still not willing to bike on the busier roads, for those I stick to trails, but I'm no longer nervous at all about traffic.
  
• From the second I close the garage door in the morning, it takes me 45 minutes to bike to work, shower, change, and get into my cube. That's not a bad commute AT ALL.
  
• I really enjoy packing my lunch these days. It's so nice not to have to leave the building and I enjoy catching up with friends at lunch. That is one thing I might do more often even after the month ends.
• My plan has worked out well, between leaving my computer at work and having a locker at the gym, it hasn't really been a struggle coordinating the days.
• To be honest, I sometimes get a small case of road rage when I drive. Stop lights and their stupid sensors really tick me off and I am somewhat competitive when it comes to being passed. But when I'm biking, I LOVE stop lights. It's a chance to rest, I'm not in a hurry and my stress level is extremely low. And I don't have a desire to go super fast. Maybe it's the exercise, but it's so soothing to just get a constant rate going and put out a little effort like that in the mornings.
  
• I am getting up earlier every day so I can still get to work at the same time. If that continues when the month ends, I'll get work even earlier in September when I drive to work more often.
  

The Bad Stuff:

• It has already affected my Marathon Training schedule. On Wednesday I was supposed to run 8 miles but I woke up feeling incredibly sore like I had gotten run over. I think by the time 4PM rolled around, I could have still run, but I didn't pack my running stuff for the day, so it was a no-go. Today I ran 5 miles and felt totally fine and energized, so the soreness and tiredness didn't last long.
  
• I can't remember the last time I went a day without sweating. That's annoying.
  
• We will be doing an extra load of laundry each week to wash the clothes I stink up from biking.
  
• Even though I am not carrying my computer or anything, my bag is still pretty heavy with all the crap I have to bring. Not a big deal though, just a pain.
• Getting to be on time is CRUCIAL these days. I went to bed at midnight on Monday night, and I still got to work on time, but I was dragging in the morning.
  

One thing I've been surprised by is how easy it has been for me to stay ahead of my car miles. I was really hoping that during the month I wouldn't have to go to the gym and just bike endlessly to keep up, and I don't think I'm ever going to have to do that. Tomorrow I am going to bike to work and get 10 more miles, and Saturday I have to run 18 miles for my marathon training. If I don't drive anywhere during that time, I'll be up almost 50 miles on my car by Saturday. Sunday I am going to bike home from church again, and on Monday I took the day off and will bike to the gym and run some more. If that all happens, I really don't see how I can lose this challenge.

I am actually enjoying it so much that I'm starting to dream up other challenges and goals. Could I bike to work half the work days in 2011? What about 3 out of 5 work days every week in 2011? Ideas are welcome!

I think updating the blog on my progress every 5 days sounds good. So look for update 2 on the 10th.


"Those that say it can't be done should get out of the way of those doing it." - Chinese Proverb

I thought July was going to be a down month for movie watching, but it looks like we've held our own. Can you tell it's the Summer and our shows aren't on anymore? If you have any comments on the movies below, feel free to enter a comment. I love talking about movies.

1. Remember Me (2010) - 3 stars- This was a pretty melancholy and slow(hence only 3 stars) movie with a very strong, moving, and unexpected ending. And for all the people who think I just ruined the movie, I promise, I didn't, you WILL NOT see the ending coming. It honestly came out of left field and made us say "holy crap". This movie is definitely worth seeing.
   
2. What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) - 3 stars - An extremely forgettable movie. Johnny Depp was awesome, but there was no great plot or great ending holding this movie together. It just had people in it that did things and then it ended.
   
3. Iron Man (2008) - 5 stars - Just had an urge to see it over again since the second one came out. This movie (series) is certainly one of my favorite movies based on comic characters.
4. I Love You, Man (2009) - 5 stars - I LOVE THIS MOVIE! This is the third time we've gotten this movie delivered to us on Netflix, and that might mean I have to own it. It's one of those movies, like "A Knight's Tale" or "The Breakup" or "Love Actually" that sometimes I just have an urge to pop in. "SLAPPIN DA BASSS!!"
5. In the Line of Fire (1993) - 4 stars - Some popular 90's movies are starting to show their age, where you watch it and you can tell it's kinda old now. This movie is one of them. But I really like Clint Eastwood and thought this was a solid thriller.
   
6. Ninja Assassin (2009) - 2 stars - In the context of movies, who doesn't like ninjas and who doesn't like assassins? I thought this would be a sweet movie but it was terrible. The movie was an excuse to show fight scenes with LOTS AND LOTS of blood. It had "Kill Bill" levels of blood with the gushing and the spewing.
   
7. Dear John (2010) - 3 stars - Liz says "It was good, books are always better." I personally could not connect or sympathize with the end of this movie. I won't talk anymore than that about it, but I have very strong opinions about how it ended. In general though, it was a good dramatic movie.
   
8. Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009) - 3 stars - I don't care what Hugh Grant has done in the past, he's still awesome in my book. After all, he did narrate "Love Actually". I really wanted this to be a hilarious, quick-witted movie, but it was not that at all. It was a lot slower and serious than it should have been. I liked it in general though.
9. Whip It (2009) - 4 stars - I'm becoming a big fan of Ellen Page. She did really well in this movie. Who doesn't want to see a bunch of girls blind side each other in roller derby? It had all the makin's.
   
10. Edge of Darkness (2009) - 3 stars - We gave this movie 3 stars after watching it, but in thinking back, it was a lot better than that. This movie was a classic thriller where the plot is an onion constantly being peeled away and you continue to find out more about what is ACTUALLY going on. Worth seeing. One other thing, it had one of the most scary and sudden events I've EVER seen in a movie. You know in Scream when the bad guy jumps out and scares you, well that's NOTHING compared to one scene in this movie. Just made us almost fall off the couch it scared us so much. It's not a scary movie by any means, but that caught us off guard BIG TIME.
    
11. Fame (2009) - 2 stars - There was WAY too much talent and phenomenal music and dance in this movie for it to turn out so bad. Much like "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", it left you with nothing. No good feeling, no interest in what was happening. It had people in it that did things, and then it ended. I might patent that sentence.
    
12. Wanted (2008) - 4 stars - I really am not a fan of Angelina Jolie. She seems too much like a real-life Barbie doll and never does anything that doesn't involve heavy eye liner. But this movie was creative and had me intrigued. The only thing I didn't like is the same thing that bothered me in the movie "King Kong", and that is that there are some things normal people shouldn't be able to do. For example, two people should not be able to fall 1000 feet into a ravine and survive. That just doesn't happen.
13. Battlestar Galactica Season 4 (2007) - 5 stars - I don't know why I stopped watching after season 3 because it's "fracking" awesome. I'm still waiting to receive disc 4.
14. 30 Days Season 2 & 3 (2006 & 2008) - 4 stars - I'm a big fan of changing your life for a temporary amount of time and that's exactly the premise of this show. It sounds like it's cancelled for good now which is unfortunate, I really like Morgan Spurlock and his documentaries. This is very well worth it.
    
15. 30 Rock Season 1, 2, & 3 (2006, 2007, & 2008) - 5 stars - Who knew this show is sooo hilarious?! We are only a few episodes into the 3rd season, but it is really funny. Liz and I both love the main character "Liz Lemon" and her quirky personality. One of our favorite quotes from her, "HEEEY! I just bought this shirt like 8 years ago!". I also love Tracy Jordan and some of the ridiculous things he says: "I'm gonna be so rich, my grand kids will play lacrosse."
16. Hot Shots! (1991) - 1 star - I really don't enjoy this kind of humor. The slap stick and "Airplane!" type humor. It had me chuckling a few times, but for the most part, it's really made for the 12 year olds in all of us.
17. Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993) - 1 star - You know a movie is bad when it has a scene involving the Energizer bunny. Whoever made this movie should be fired and out of work.
    
18. Steel Magnolias (1989) - 4 stars - Liz saw this one, I did not. She watched it while I had to work late one night. She said she did not expect to be as moved as she was. She thought it was really good.
19. Maxed Out (2006) - 5 stars - This is a documentary on the predatory practices of credit card companies. It didn't offer any information I hadn't heard before, but certainly informative for anyone curious to know why debt might be a bad thing.
20. The Pillars of the Earth (2010) - (not rated yet) - This is a series from some channel named "Starz" based on the book. Liz says it's good, but is not following the book very well at all. It has some of the same plot lines and elements, but after having just seen two of the episodes, she says it's starting to deviate big time.
    
21. Arrested Development Season 2 (2004) - 3 stars - I'm starting to get tired of this show. It started out funny but the crazy antics seem to just go in a circle and it's getting less interesting.
    

In case you were wondering how in the world we watched so much? Items 14 through 21 we watched online through the "Watch Instantly" feature streaming Netflix onto our Wii. Since we got rid of our satellite, instead of watching something random on TV, we'd turn on an episode of 30 Rock or whatever else. It makes me not miss satellite even a little bit. Once our favorite shows come back for the Fall season, our movie and show watching will definitely decrease.

I've mentioned "Love Actually" twice in this blog post (now 3 times)... I feel the urge to watch it coming on... who cares if it's only August.