Day 27

push-ups & sit-ups: I got a huge headache later in the day, which is when I do my ups and so I decided to go to bed and not do the ups. So no ups done on this day.
alcohol: none.

Day 26

push-ups: 14.
sit-ups: 40.
alcohol: none.
weekend wake-up: 7:15am; from a call from my dad telling me of my grandmother's passing away. After being up for an hour, went back to bed and slept until 11:30am.

Dark Day

My grandmother passed away today. She was 78. She was a great lady and had this great jaded way at looking at the world. I always got the sense that when things went wrong she was able to deal with it as if she expected it to go wrong. Kind of a "what can you do?" attitide. A been-there-done-that kind of thing. But she wasn't jaded all the time. She loved her family - for better or for worse - and she loved to laugh. She also had been a smoker for decades - I think she started smoking when she was around 13 years old. I always expected her to get lung cancer but she never did.

In the end it was heart failure; my guess caused in part by the smoking. My grandpa, her husband, who is also 78, is a great guy and my heart goes out to him during this painful time. His sister died about a month ago and now he lost his wife. Just not fair. They were married just over 50 years.

My grandma is succeeded by 5 children, 14 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren, and various other friends and family. I will miss her.

Day 25

push-ups: 14. Better.
sit-ups: 40. Also better.
alcohol: none.
weekend wake-up: 10:30am.

Day 24

push-ups: 12. Ugh.
sit-ups: 35. Double ugh.
alcohol: none.

Day 23

push-ups: 12. I keep getting worse. Perhaps I shouldn't do these right before I got to bed, when I tired. Yeaaaaah, that's a pretty good idea.
sit-ups: 35.
alcohol: none.

Day 22 - start of week 4

push-ups: 13
sit-us: I had a show this day at 8pm and in the show I did about 8 sit-ups. Then 3 hours later I did my sit-ups and got to 30. So 38.
alcohol: none.

Bowling Greatness

Last Thursday after work my company had a company party at Lucky Strike. We had 8 lanes all to ourselves in our own little area and there were appetizers and later nice food served. The food was pretty good. I haven't bowled in probably a little over a year.

Back when I was in middle school, I joined a youth bowling league and it was fun although I was pretty bad at it. I think my average eventually got to around 120. But I never broke above 150. I think the league was only a fall league - meaning it only met in autumn - but I could be wrong about that. Either way, I only did it for 2 autumns before I moved on to a different hobby. Zoom forward to college and I bowled occasionally because there was a bowling alley on campus very close to the theater I was always at. I think I got my average up at around 140 during this time.

But then one day I just fell into the "zone." I got 6 strikes in a row and then in the 10th frame I got 3 strikes. My final score during that game was 222. I was so amazed I could hardly believe what I did. Luckily I was bowling with a friend so I had a witness. I believe my next highest score was around 180.

I bowled two games at Lucky Strike during the party. I got 114 the first game. Then I decided to try to get a spare every frame. I nearly did; only the 10th frame didn't have a spare or strike in it. And I got a turkey. This second game I got a score of 201. Again, I was amazed at my good fortune. But this time I had a camera.

Day 21

push-ups: 14. What the F arms?! Why can't you get better faster like your cousin, abs? I would have thought you'd be at 20 by now. Time to shape up.
sit-ups: 50. I did alternating twisting thing again this time. It didn't hurt until 30; I must be getting better!
alcohol: none.

Day 20

push-ups: 13.
sit-ups: I did crunches this time, just to see how different they were. 40.
alcohol: none.

Day 19

push-ups: 11. Spoke too soon I guess about the first 10 being pretty easy.
sit-ups: 40. Same thing as above; the first 14 were okay but then I started to slow down and feel the burn.
alcohol: none.
weekend wake-up: 11:30am.

Lollapalooza - Day 3

I was excited for Day 3 mostly because local band, The 1900s, were at the festival. I again woke up later than I wanted and rushed to the park and got to their early show half-way through it. I got to hear 3 songs but at least I got to see them. They had a good show and even got to meet Jeanine, whose one of the band members. My camera's battery died soon afterwards so I wasn't able to get more pictures taken of Day 3. But this is okay since Day 3 was pretty much a disappointment from that point on. It also felt hotter than Day 1, was WAY more packed, and the ground was wet and muddy in many places because of the rain during the night. So here's a few more pictures of The 1900s.





The other acts I saw on Day 3:
Rodrigo y Gabriela - amazing guitarists and I would expect to soon hear their music in Chipotles and Starbucks across America.
Amy Whinehouse - not into her stuff at all; kind of have a knee jerk reaction to the hyper surrounding her; wasn't impressed at all with her set and found her show (I left halfway through) to be boring.
Iggy and the Stooges - Great show; Iggy's such a spaz; he invited the audience on stage and instead of a few kids it turned into 300. It was crazy. I left halfway through the show to check out Peter Bjorn & John.
Peter Bjorn & John - their sound system blew out during their second song; waited 15 minutes before leaving; learn 15 minutes after I left that they finally got the sound system back and played a few more of their songs.
Modest Mouse - like their stuff and they sounded good but didn't really make an effort to connect or interact with the audience and so I though their show was so-so.

I didn't stay for Pearl Jam because I don't really like that band but those that did stay, I hear, had a real great time. Overall, Day 1 was the best, Day 2 had the best weather and I got to see YYY's for the 3rd time live, and Day 3 was a bust except for The 1900s. The organizers did a great job and their only slip up was putting the Cold War Kids on a small stage because their audience for their show was crazy huge and it was very hard to get through this crowd when I was trying to get over to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. There weren't any huge lines at the food tents and only time there were huge lines was on Day 3 for the beverage booths.


Doing the whole festival took a lot out of me and I don't think I'll be able to do it again next year. Maybe I'll only get a one day pass next year, if I do go. This is a picture of me at the end of Day 2.

Lollapalooza - Day 2

I woke up later than I wanted on this Saturday (check out Day 4 of Challenge for that info) and getting up and going down to Grant Park felt like having to go and clock-in to work on time. Saturday and Sunday really felt like this festival become my job. The first band I got to see was this band that I heard had 29 people in it. It's a Swedish band called "I'm From Barcelona" and on this day they had 20 people on stage. One of which was dressed up in a bear costume. They seemed to be genuinely happy to be at the festival and their enthusiams was contagious. Their songs were pop-y and cute.


After that I checked out a little bit of the for-kids band The Sippy Cups before tracking down my friend Bess at Tapes 'n Tapes. I thought Tapes 'n Tapes had an okay show. Then it was on to Stephen Marley. I'm not that into Regae but those that I could tell loved that type of music were having a great time during the show. I listened to a bit of STS9 before walking to the other side of the festival to get a spot close to the stage for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I like this band but the reason I went to them early was so that after their show I was hoping to get an even closer spot for the next band on that stage - the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But it seemed that everyone that was in front of me had the same idea.


Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were okay but the show made me kind of dislike the lead singer. His mic volume wasn't high enough either, so that was a little frustrating. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs had a freakin' amazing show and I loved it. They really brought it and I think this was my favorite show of the festival. Things got rough though in the crowd on their last song. It became sardine-ville and after their set people were pushing in, trying to get extra close for the next band on that stage, Muse. I was packed in so much it became a little hard to breathe and it reminded me of those soccer games in Eurpose where people get crushed to death by the shear volume of the crowd. I was right next to the barrier for the AV aisle (it ran between the stage and the AV tent) and because I figured getting out of the super tight crowd would have taken around 30 minutes, I had a security guard pull me over the barrier so that I could get out. Once free I was able to breahe easier.

I had a 10:30pm show at iO so I checked out a little bit of Patti Smith before eventually leaving the festival.

Day 18

push-ups: 16. I can tell I'm getting better even though the number I can do isn't getting higher. The first 10 are getting pretty easy now.
sit-ups: 50. Same with the sit-ups. The first 20 come pretty easy. The muscles don't start to burn until 23.

alcohol: I've got a bottle of wine on my book shelf. Normally I don't pay any attention to it. Today, though, I looked at it and though that since today was kind of yucky weather-wise, that it might be nice to have a glass or two of this wine. Alcohol occasionally is fine, I don't want to come off as Straight Edge by any means. The thing that is neat - and is always neat when I try this challenge - is that I recognize the difference between actually wanting a little bit of alcohol as apposed to having some because someone offers even if I don't want any.

In this day and age, I've felt that when someone says to you "can I get you a drink" or "can I buy you a beer" perhaps we take that to mean "I want to bond with you right now." Somehow the fact that you are both drinking a beer or a glass of wine together makes it easier to stand next to each other and talk about what's going on in your lives.

weekend wake-up: 10:40am

Day 17

push-ups: 16
sit-ups: 50
alcohol: none.

Lollapalooza - Day 1

Once I got into the park I was much happier. My festival buddy, Marla, was already there and she was at Electric Six's show. I couldn't find her so instead I situated myself behind the audio tent and put on sun block. When I was applying sun block to my ears, my hand brushed my glasses frame and knocked the frame off the glasses. I rarely tighten the screws that hold the frames on the glasses. I didn't even attempt to find the tiny, tiny silver screw on the gray asphalt street and resigned myself that it was lost. To my surprise, my glasses did a very good job staying on my face with one of the frames missing and they were able to stay in the right spot so that I could see clearly around myself. I expected them to drift down my nose or hang crookedly on my face so that one or both eyes was always out of focus.

But the start of the festival didn't look good. Were my troubles with getting in and having my glasses fall apart omens to how the rest of the festival was going to be?

Thankfully no.


Later in the day Marla and I caught The Rapture's show. They were amazing and the crowd was really into them. I was already a fan of the band but became even more of a fan afterwards. Marla commented that they were her new favorite band. I'd put their show in the Top 3 of shows I saw over the 3 days of the fest.


Another show that was in my Top 3 was later that first day. It was the Daft Punk show, which ended Day 1. Marla and I were relatively close to the stage, which was curtained off with a black curtain to hide the stage set-up for the show. Their show was, for a lack of a better word, amazing. Everything that they could have done to make their music show-worthy for an outdoor concert was done.

Light show. Check.
Mixing their own music so songs are on top of other songs so that it's not just like the songs are on the CDs. Check.
Cool stage set-up. Check.

I was worried before the show if I'd be entertained but those doubts were erased during the show. They BROUGHT it. Sure, it could have been all pre-recorded stuff, already pre-mixed, and they guys in the robot suits could have been some random actors and not the actual real two French guys that make up Daft Punk. But I have faith that it was the real guys and that they were mixing their songs in person.

Well done Day 1; you rocked my world.

Lollapalooza - Getting In Shouldn't Have Been This Hard

I got off work at noon. I got some pizza for lunch and ate it over by The Bean.


Then I walked through Millennium Park to get to the Festival, which was at Grant Park.


However, I mistakenly brought the receipt instead of the actual ticket so I had to go back home, get the ticket, and come back. Super bummer. I basically did the same thing with Pitchfork Festival (except completely forgot to bring the ticket) so I guess I didn't learn anything.

Once I got back to the festival it was around 3 hour after I planned on arriving there.

Day 16 of August Challenge

push-ups: 5. I got to 3 and all of the sudden the right side of my pelvis area started to hurt real bad. It's in the same location as the appendix and I really hope my push-ups didn't make my appendix burst. Knock on wood. I should check webmd.com about this.

sit-ups: 30. The pain in my lower right side was still there but I pushed through the discomfort. But I still wasn't able to do nearly as well as I did yesterday.

alcohol: After work the company I work for had a summer party at Lucky Strike. Most people were having drinks since the company was footing the bill. I had Sprite instead. Then, after my rehearsal, a few of us Snakes went to a bar and I was offered a beer since I covered a teammate for the location and coach fees. I accepted at first but then decided to not to abandon my monthly challenge. So I had a Sprite instead. No alcohol today. Still dry!

Day 15 - start of week 3

Today is the start of week 3 of the August Challenge.

sit-ups: 46
push-ups: 16
alcohol: none yet.

~~~~

I did FELT last night for the first time in 2 months and it was good to be back. We had a couple sit-ins and it was my first time to play with Jorin since he was added to the cast. The show was good and despite the fact that summer intensive is over at iO, we still had a large audience.

I also finally recharged by camera batteries and uploaded the pictures on it to my computer. Soon I'll have time to post pictures and entries for Lollapalooza.

Day 14 of August Challenge

sit-ups: 40.

push-ups: 14

alcohol: none. We pizza, pop, and beer at rehearsal tonight. The pop was only Pepsi, which I don't like. Luckily my friend Sarah offered her water bottle to me. So the temptation to have a beer was there tonight but didn't drink any.

Day 13

sit-ups: 40.

push-ups: 14!

alcohol: none.

Day 12

sit-ups: 20. I barely made it to 20 too. By 7 I was already feeling the burn in my abs. I'm not sure why. The only thing different is that I did the ups around 10pm, instead of waiting until just before bed-time.

push-ups: 13. I wanted to go for 14 but my lower back said no.

alcohol: none.

waking up during the weekend: 11am. Okay, I know that so far I haven't failed this challenge but having each of the times being between 11am and noon is a little pathetic. I'm hoping for around 10am next weekend. It's also my goal that sometime soon (within 6 months from now, say) I'll be waking up between 8 and 9am. I want to become more productive during the weekends and actually get stuff done. Step 1 is waking up earlier. Step 2 is actually using that gained time with doing productive things. Things other than sitting on the coach and watching TV.

Challenge #5: Broken! No! I don't want to speak on this subject that much, because it's just a little too personal for my comfort, but I must admit that sometime during this past week I just wasn't able to take the pressure. I'd say that I did it just so that I wasn't always thinking about NOT doing it. I rarely think about the topic in general but the fact that I created the challenge made it so that the topic was always in my mind, even if it was only at the back of my mind. I'm being vague on when the challenge failed on purpose.

Day 11

sit-ups: 30

push-ups: 11

alcohol: none.

waking up on the weekend: woke up at 11:15am. Still not great considering that I initially woke up around 10am. I thought at the time "sweet, 10am is much better; I've done good this weekend" but then I fell back asleep.

Day 10

sit-ups: I forgot to do my sit-ups this day. I normally do the ups right before I go to bed and I actually do my push-ups first and my sit-ups second. These past few days I've done my sit-ups while I'm bed. Then I flip over and stretch my stomach the opposite way to avoid abdominal cramps. This is fine since I usually fall asleep on my stomach anyways. But for some reason when I got into bed I forgot to do the sit-ups. But I did do my push-ups.

push-ups: 12

alcohol: After my Newbie show at CSz, I went to a bar for our stage manager's birthday. I didn't drink though. I wasn't even asked, though, by a waiter if I wanted a drink. So I wasn't extra pressured for a drink.

Day 9

sit-ups: 30

push-ups: 13

alcohol: none still.

Day 8

Sweet. I've been doing this challenge for a full week now. Today starts week 2 of the challenge. Let's see how much I've progressed since then. First, I reminder on how well I did on day 1:

Day 1
sit-ups: 10
push-ups: 6

Today, Day 8
sit-ups: 26. An increase of over 150%!
push-ups: 13. An increase of over 100%!

Granted, I didn't really push myself on the first day so the percentage increase is purposely inflated. This week I shall push myself to go farther than I think I can and actually stop the up when I actually cannot physically continue and not when I give up mentally.

alcohol: still dry.

Day 7

sit-ups: 20. This time I did this method: sit up normally, sit up and twist to the right, sit up normally, sit up and twist to the left, normal, right twist, normal, left twist, and so on and so on. That way is much tougher to do. I think tomorrow I'll try a total non-twist attempt and see how much I've improved over the week.

push-ups: 11.

alcohol: None.

Day 6

sit-ups: 18. On sit-up number 6 I decided to try that thing where you twist your torso to one side so that you also work out your side muscles. Man that started to kill two sit-ups later. I was surprised I was able to get to 10, let alone 18. So good job me.

push-ups: 8. Who's still a weakling? This guy.

alcohol: None and no urge to do so either.

Day 5 of August Challenge

sit- ups: 12

push ups: 6

alcohol: none.

waking up: 11:00am. I set my alarm at 10am and kept hitting snooze until 11am. I also went to bed at 4am so getting up at 11am is good for me.

I blame a hard weekend of walking around and being exhausted by seeing a lot of music for my poor performance in the ups.

Day 4 of August Challenge

sit-ups: 20.

push-ups: 10. Wow, I'm doing good.

alcohol: none. I went to a party after my iO show and was offered beer on two separate occasions. Politely declined the offers. Didn't really feel like drinking anyway.

weekend wake up: 11:30am. I set my alarm for 8am and it went off except I hit the snooze button and then fell asleep again. I didn't hear the alarm go off again and woke up 3 1/2 hours later. I went to bed around 12:30; woke up at 5:20am and had to take some puffs on my asthma inhaler. Could the waking up at 5:20 have made me extra sleepy during the 8am hour? So much so that I couldn't hear the alarm after I hit the snooze? We'll never really know.

Day 3 of August Challenge

sit-ups: 20

push-ups: 6

alcohol: none. My friend Marla is my Lollapalooza buddy and she mentioned that tomorrow she'll want a beer. I remarked "yeah" as if I also would want one tomorrow and then remembered my August Challenge. No real urge to drink today though.

Day 2

Oh no! I already failed at a challenge! I'm such a loser. It was #4. But I did it on accident. Don't believe me?

It was my July self that did me in. I had dowloaded a video clip of a nude scene in a movie that Alison Lohman was in. I normally watch such videos and then send them to the trash can. For whatever reason when I downloaded it, the screen was blank but I could hear sound. I got frustrated and moved on to some other thing. This evening after I got back from a Rattlesnake rehearsal, I noticed an .avi clip on my desktop. "What's this?" I said to myself. I opened it up and played it because I genuinely didn't remember saving a video clip to my desktop. It was the nude scene. Half way into the scene I suddenly remembered the challenge of number 3. "Oh no!" I said to myself, this time out loud. Although technically I wasn't on the Internet when I viewed the clip, it did come from the Internet and the underlining issue with challenge number 4 is to not view pics or video of naked ladies. So it's only day 2 and already one of them has bitten the dust.

But this does not mean I can now look at pictures of naked ladies all I want since I already failed the challenge. No. Because doing so would make challenge number 5 impossible. And I still want to be the master of my domain on that one.


Sit-ups: 15. Good job me.

Push-ups: 8. I was at 4 and I started to feel my arms respond with "hey, we did this yesterday! What the Hell are you doing to us?"

Alcohol: Was offered to go to the Holiday Club after rehearsal but I decided to go home instead. That's as close as I got on this challenge. Still dry!

~~~~~

Tomorrow is the first day of Lollapalooza and I've got a 3-day festival pass. I've also got a half-day at work tomorrow so I get to walk over to the festival at noon. I'm super excited for this. But the downside is that a) I cannot see The Bourne Ultimatum until next weekend and b) I don't have time to check out another Comedy Sportz show before my own newbie show.

The August Challenge

Last year on a whim I decided to not drink any alcohol during the month of August. I had been hung over one too many times that previous July. I think I even decided to do it on August 3rd and realized that I was still good since the last time I had drank any alcohol was something like July 28th. This time I was 13 hours into August before I decided to so it again.

But since I succeeded at this challenge last year, I feel I need to go further. And why not go overboard with it? So that's what I plan on doing.

For the next 31 days, I will try to post everyday about how I'm doing with my challenge. Here are my challenges:

THE CHALLENGES
1. To not drink any alcohol.
2. To do push-ups and sit ups everyday
3. To not log onto the Onion personals to check to see if any ladies have checked out my profile recently. No loggging in at all.
4. To not check out any pictures of naked ladies on the Internet.
5. To not master-b at all.
6. To wake up before noon on the weekend.

Numbers 3-5 are going to be tough. Number 3 maybe not so much because after awhile I'll forget about my profile and then won't care about checking it everyday. I expect to fail at number 5 but I'll try not to. I vow to give an 100% effort on this challenge. I also won't do a daily update about those three numbers because the object is to think less about sex and I can't do that if I'm updating everyday about it. So unless I fail at a task, I won't mention those three things again until September 1st. Oh, and I'm allowed to kiss ladies, but I've decided that I cannot make the first move. I don't expect any lady to throw herself at me but you never know, miracles could happen. I also want to allow for the loophole for making out because I don't want to be like "oh no, this girl wants to make out with me but I can't because of my personal challenge!"

Also notice that I don't have "do not go onto the Internet at work" on this list. This is because I want to try to do tasks that I think I can attempt without driving myself mad. I need the Internet at work in order to be happy. This is not a challenge in trying to punish myself. The is a self-improvement challenge. Also note that on September 1st, I fully expect to drink alcohol, not do any "ups," check out my personal ad stats, check out some naked ladies on the Net, master-b, and sleep past noon. Should making out or asking ladies out on dates come up that day too, then it could possibly become my best day ever this year.



DAY 1
Alcohol: still dry. Not even offered any so this hasn't been a challenge yet.

Sit-ups: 10. I could have done more, but I was starting to feel the burn at 7 and I thought, "you know, I'll stop early so that when the month ends it will look like I've progressed really well."
Push-ups: 6. Man I'm a weakling. I hope I can say that my August 31st self can beat up my current self easily by the month's end.

Progress: So far I'm on track! Good luck me!