Tough Mudder...

So this weekend, I did something like this...

It was a blast!  I didn't think I would complete 9 or so miles of running/walking/trudging the slopes of Wintergreen Ski Resort on a brisk Saturday morning, but I did.  Peppered along the trails were nearly two dozen obstacles to overcome; one of which was a long dumpster full of ice water.  Yeah, I couldn't feel my left toes for a couple of hours, but I eventually got the sensation back.  Here are some shots I took the day after I did my race.  I don't know any of these people.  It was tough to find the friends I knew who were running it that day, but I eventually spotted them.

As you can see, there are two paths; one uphill, the other downhill.  The uphill is the longest uphill walk that day which led into the middle half of the race into a golf course.  The downhill is after the golf course mess and the mystery obstacle.  After this little downhill was a shorter uphill which was a definite morale bummer.

This madness was after the slip and slide portion.  The downhill was surprisingly difficult to traverse.   My knees were not happy at the end of the day.  

I took this picture because the dude was wearing sandals!
What the heck!?!

Other Mudders were dressed in silly little costumes.
These guys were wearing hats and ties.
Some were wearing only speedos while others were in full Halloween gear.

This was the turn that took us to the shorter uphill.
That's why the people in the picture look so demoralize as they look ahead.

This was one of the obstacles that require teamwork.
It was a great  example of community among strangers working toward the same goal - to finish.
So everyone helped each other.
Below is a video of it. 

At the end of it was a gauntlet of wires armed with 10,000 volts of electricity that shocked any exposed skin.  Here are my friends finishing.

Dashing With Warriors

This weekend, a few friends and I ventured on one of those adventure races.  This one is called The Warrior Dash.  It was held in Lake Charles, Virginia, about 20 miles south of Richmond.   This particular location was a 3.56 mile run peppered by various obstacles which include walls, tires, ropes, water, logs, planks, more walls, more ropes, FIRE, and mud.  I must say it was tough.  It was a wake-up call to what the Tough Mudder will be like in about 3 weeks. That one will be 8-10 miles with similar obstacles throughout.
Here's a quick video of the Warrior Dash.

Here's what the day looked like.  It was pretty rad!

Dear Hurricane Irene,

Thanks for not doing too much damage and flooding outside the house.  But can you do something about getting our electricity back?

Sincerely,
rickybobby

P.S.  I don't know how you got in the house, but we've put everything back in place.

Quick Roadtrip

This past Friday, my good friend Erin (also known as The Best Imitation of Myself) and I trekked down to sunny Florida with a truck full of her furniture and stuffs!  Yep.  She's getting married to a naval aviator in about three weeks and will be moving down to the panhandle of Florida shortly thereafter to be with her future husband.
    We left about an hour before sunrise on Friday and headed south.  It was supposed to be a 14-16 hour ride with stops built in, but it somehow turned to a 21 hour journey.  Yes, it was a long time to be in a vehicle, however, it was not a tiresome trip.  I thoroughly enjoyed being with my friend and talking about all sorts of interesting stuffs.  Stuffs can be found in our trip minutes.  I just learned what trip minutes are.  It's basically a play by play of a roadtrip in written form.  When she was driving, I was taking minutes.  When I was driving, she was taking the notes.  Can't wait to look back for a good chuckle.
     We got there past midnight Central Time, met up with John and made mojitos!  Then I passed out on the air mattress.  The next day, we moved everything in the truck to inside the house.  John and I assembled the furnitures Erin and I picked up at the Charlotte IKEA with engineering precision.  The moving and the assembling and the thunderstorming took about 3 hours and we finished.  Then we made more mojitos.  Cheers!
     After gathering up our lives, we headed to a popular watering and eating hole called McGuire's Irish Pub.  Out of my entire weekend, the only recognizable picture I took was this.

Holy Crap DELICIOUS!

This concoction has 6 shots of something or other.  I think it's some rite of passage to consume one of these.  Whatever...I passaged it.  Thanks John and Erin!

   

"You'll Be Smittened!"

Please do yourself a favor and click and watch the video.  It will make your day as it did mine.
     Fun weekend.  I bought two rather large pieces of stretched canvas in order to begin my painting projects.  The more I think about doing them, the more stoked I'm becoming.  To be continued...
     Oh, got to see Band of Horses play at a sold out show.  Kings of Leon cancelled the rest of their tour leaving Band of Horses no where to go.  So they decided to find a local venue in the last minute and give us an amazing show.  I'm kinda glad Kings cancelled.  I wasn't going to pay to watch them, but definitely pay for Band of Horses.  They rocked and I'm a little deaf in my right ear!  I'll attach a little clip I took with my iPod.  Enjoy!

P.S...

Since July 29 does not exist on my work desk calendar, do I still have to exist at work today?

One thing is right...IT'S FRIDAY!!!

Camp Baltimore 2011

Spent last weekend in Baltimore County, MD to visit a buddy's hometown.  It was fun and relaxing.  The heatwave that struck the Midwest a few days earlier finally reached the East Coast and we felt its presence. So to relieve ourselves of the heat, we got in the water.

Tubing should be an endurance sport

In this scene, my head/face/shoulder pretty much slid across the surface of the water.  It was refreshing.

Phew!

It's been a loooong week but a good one.  I'm glad I was able to hang out with the familia.  I was dreading it before this week, but I just let it go, lived in the present, and enjoyed myself.  I am going away with very fond memories and stronger relationships with my family.  I found out some things that I never knew about some family members which makes me love them more...warts and all.

It's late.  I fly back tomorrow, but I want to post a couple pictures I took on my last day.

I was already walking around town trying to wait for 3 pm to roll around so my brother and I could get some happy hour sushi and brewski!  82 Stewart Street near Pike's Market.  Oh, and this pigeon shot seemed really cool at the time.

My point and shoot digital camera's battery kaputed and I didn't bring my charger so I used the second best thing - my iPod.  And I was able to do fancy stuff to it.

We took the bus to the closest drop off near the baseball stadium and it landed us here.  And we walked the rest.  I must say that this part of  Seattle is not its best.  I was sketched out the entire walk but saw this fantastic view of the city.

Even though it was played at Safeco, this was not the Seattle Mariners' home game.  Mariners lost to the Marlins 4-2 tonight.  

Ryan says...

...sea otters rarely come out of the water.  And so I found one here in Port Townsend that came out of the water, dried itself in the sand, and went back in.  Silly otter.

 Okay, it's uber dark but he's in the center top third of the images.  Below, he's walking away.

The phone camera can be deceiving but I think it allowed me to come pretty close to it.
Also, Leah flew her helicopter by around 10:16 PM last night.  She confirmed it, too.

What makes a good picture?

I suppose there could be several answers to this, but for now, my answer is a good line.  Lines, lines, lines! I really like lines right now...and geometric shapes.  I don't know when this took place but the simplicity of lines fascinate me.  Take a look.

Who needs a fancy shmancy digital SLR when you have a fancy digital point and shoot!?!?

Hmmm...where am I?

For the first time in 7 years, I get a vacation longer than two or three days!

 I'll let you figure out where I took these pictures and video.  The buildings below is a new and developing interest of mine.  I've found myself being really impressed with black & white visuals of buildings in big cities.  So I've been taking a lot of big cityscapes. There's just something ridiculously astounding to me about these mighty giants.  I have an idea of what to do with all these pictures but I shan't disclose it until I finish.

Geometric shapes are fun!

Beatles cover band?? Yes.

This is the first one of its kind.  Looks like every other one, in fact.

I Heart Summertime Activities

The first tournament of the season was the Tiger Blood Beach Volleyball Tournament held during the Memorial Day Weekend.  It was quite a success.  We had two courts up in two days of competition.  Once again, my quad team reached the finals, but just could not keep it together.  Then my doubles team didn't even make it out of the first round.  However, I must say that we did lose to the eventual winners so it was a tough tournament.  It was great. Everyone had fun. Afterwards, we came back to the house and cooked out, danced and a little bit of hookah.  No big deal.  Here are more pictures...

Once again, I did not win the trophy I created.  

Cakefest '11

My buddy, JBox, just ran a trail marathon race yesterday in the DC area.  He finished well out of two hundred some competitors - he said he placed in the 40s.  Not bad for his first full marathon using the unconventional and now proven CrossFit Endurance training regimen.  The only "injury" he came out with was a silly blood blister.  As a reward to himself, he wanted to throw a cakefest and a cakefest was thrown in his honor!  Below are some of the creations.

 This big white ball of buttercream icing hides 8 layers of unicorn poop.  I didn't even bother tasting it.

I had other creations from previous cake-makings...

 I was commissioned to create this water hole cake.  Ha!

...and I can't seem to locate my armadillo cake.  I'll have to post it when I find it.

What Should I Leave?

     I can be so forgetful.  I involuntary leave things behind.  I get a pretty good workout running up and down the stairs picking things up I remembered I forgot before finally leaving for work.  Sometimes, I wish I wasn't so forgetful.  It's nuts.
     On April 28, I went on a quick roadtrip to my alma mater about 4 hours away to say farewell to a friend.  No, he didn't pass away or anything like that, but he was leaving a ministry in which he had invested 19 years of his life.  And I am honored to be part of that.  His name is Dan. He's a father of three and a faithful and devoted husband.  To me, he is a spiritual mentor of sorts.  I have never been part of his Bible studies, but I just watched his example from a distance.  He handled his relationships with students and his gift of teaching as if God personally gave them to his care.  And he did.  He was and still is an example of integrity, devotion, and service to a God he loves and loves to teach and talk about.  Dan is leaving the campus ministry to pursue more of his gifts.  Most importantly, Dan is leaving a legacy of care and compassion and a brazen love for Jesus to those he invested in.  Thanks, Dan.
     So, I too, want to leave such things behind.  I don't know how but the Lord will lead me.  Perhaps I'll still forget things and leave things involuntarily.  In God's work, I hope to forget myself and leave His legacy voluntarily.

This is Dan in his silly graduation gown making his farewell speech.
Thanks again, Dan-O!

Skills...just watch

Good Friday indeed...

Today, I did this...

...30 obstacles in about 10 minutes and 21 seconds...for the Navy SEALS!  By "I" I mean Team R.E.A.R (Ryan, Eric, Aaron, Rickybobby)

Thank you Navy SEALS for all you do!
http://www.metrodash.com/the-course/
Above is the quick link to the course itself.  It was fun.  It wasn't as bad as I made it up to be in my head.  I'll put some pictures up when I get some.  Unfortunately, I couldn't take my own pictures.
     By the way, thank you friends for coming out to support Team R.E.A.R. or is it...Team Tiger Blood?    Props to Kelly, Nik, Josh, Brett, Jesse, Jessi, Wes, Christine, Sambo, Amy, Brandon, AK, Becca, Daniel, AMBox,  JBox,  ... am I missing anyone?  YOU GUYS ARE THE COOLEST FANS!!
     Also, I can still taste my lungs...
     Also, Ryan found this online...


Team REAR/Team Tiger Blood came in the unrecognized spot of 4th!  Yaaay!

Snowboarding Adventures

Loooooove snowboading!!

Especially when there's a brewery or two nearby!

Snowshoe and Wintergreen are a couple area spots around Virginia.
They're no British Columbia but it's all about the company.

...And with company like this, I don't care where I am.

Backpacking the AT

A three hour drive to the campsite turned into about a 7 hour trek through dense fog in high winding roads up the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We took two cars and I was following our fearless leader, Clint.
The original plan was to park our cars, hike a few hundred yards, and camp out.  In reality, we were so tired that once we got to the parking lot, I just crashed in my car.  And the others did as well.
The next morning, we hiked in the same misty soup the previous evening.  The sun never showed up.  We hiked nearly ten miles that day up and down the Appalachian Trail's Lewis Falls and Big Meadows.  We did not encounter any animals but there were other humans along the way.
I was fascinated by the little pods coming out of the branches in the picture.  You probably can't see them but they somehow reminded me of Christmas.
We set up tent on a wet and slopey surface and made this gigantic fire that kept us warm where we made s'mores and drank adult beverages and ate reconstituted food.
Finally, the next morning came and we were cold and wet.  Ate more reconstituted food and packed up.

The sun finally decided to show up and here's a quick view of what it revealed.  We were only 3500 feet above sea level but the view was still amazing.

It's like marshmallow spread.