Another typically atypical weekend

Don’t forget to donate to my Fight Gone Bad fundraiser! Scroll down for the link. And sincere thanks to everyone who has already. I’ll be getting in touch with each of you personally to let you know how it goes. To that end, I practiced FGB on Friday. It really, really sucks. It’s hard. A lot hard. But I am improving my score every time I do it: the first time was 193, second was 211, and this past Friday was 219. So 219 is the score for me to beat. And I promise all of you that I’ll beat it!

In other news, happy birthday to Chris! And happy birthday to Danny!

Last night Danny had a party to celebrate, along with his sister, Bianca, whose birthday is a day before his. It was a combination Transformers/Strawberry Shortcake party (and btw, Danny is 27 and Bianca is a couple years older). Danny’s girlfriend Lisa has also just moved to LA from Rio, so he is uncharacteristically happy. Well, it’s not that he’s unhappy. It’s just that he’s got a dark sense of humor. So I got him the first 2 seasons of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on DVD.

Today Becca convinced me to come with her and Michael (another CrossFitter) to the famous Gold’s Gym in Venice to try out for the new season of American Gladiator. Felicia, Brian, and Brian’s student Vince came too. Do you remember that show? Contestants competed against muscle-bound series regulars with names like Spyro, Blaze, and Meteor in physical challenges. My favorite one was the joust, I think it was called, where they would square off against each other on a balance beam and swat at one another with giant Q-tips. I’m sure you remember the Q-tips!

So they are looking for both contestants and regulars. It looks like they were eyeing Becca and Michael as regulars. I probably fell into the contestants camp. It looks like they’re going for a more reality-show vibe this time around, as evidenced by the ~15-page questionnaire they had us fill out, and the interview portion. Some of the questions were kinda wacky, like the one where we had to draw a picture of ourselves. So I drew a picture of a Hershey bar and said I am what I eat.

The physical portion was right out of the President’s Physical Fitness Award stuff we used to have to do in grade school: the shuttle run, pullups, a sprint, and then some modified burpees (squat thrust pushups). I did okay on that kind of stuff, though I wasn’t very fast, and all the stuff was for time. I think I’m pretty good personality-wise; at least, I felt like I was in the questionnaire. I got a bit nervous in the interview part because I had to answer the questions they asked me while staring into the camera. So I got a little shy. But since I didn’t decide to audition until about 12 hours ago, I’m not that worried. It was just a fun thing. And then we all went to eat. And that’s a fun thing too!

Eating has become a more complicated thing lately, though. I’ve started the Zone in earnest. I’m counting blocks and eating more protein than I used to and a lot less bread and sugar. So that’s an interesting and drastic change for me. We’ll see what happens.