Prior to starting camp, I always jokingly called it “fat camp”, and errr, yeah, that was wrong.  There are about a dozen of us campers and I’m “sorta chubby, if viewed at the right angle” and am in the top tier of fatty and out-of-shape.  Yikes.

I’ve updated my progress a little bit on facebook (at start, at least), so it’s probably easiest to start this post off by copying my updates from there…

Feb 6: Just got my intro email from fat camp. It starts on Monday. Yikes.

Feb 10: Update on fat camp: it’s hard. Really freakin’ hard. Day 1, I barfed. Yep, I’m the guy who barfed at boot camp in the park. Whoo! Day 2, no barfing, but plenty of pain. Lots and lots of running (which I loathe) and squats, lunges, push-ups, dips, etc, etc. Last night was better in the sense that it was more of what I was expecting (from it and myself), but 5 days a week of this is going to be brutal.

Now my facebook peeps got all hella cool and threw tons of encouragement my way, prompting this update:

Feb 10: thanks for all the encouragement with fat camp, peeps. finished day 4 an hour or so ago, and it’s gotten MUCH better. i actually *enjoyed* tonight’s workout. weird. it’s still hard as freakin’ hell, but there are less “maybe i’ll get lucky and fall over dead” moments.

And now, the tables started to turn. In a comment on that update, I said:

Feb 11: I guess I’m into it now… just got an email that it’s canceled due to snow and am sad. plenty i can do at the house to make up for it, though.

Then a week later…

Feb 19: Week 2 of boot camp is over, still really hard but I’m holding up better now. This coming Thursday is “bring friends” day – for every friend I bring my name is thrown in a hat and the name plucked out gets next month free. So, if you wanna have a great workout (Tichelaar, Troy – I’m looking at you) or hear me whine for another month, come on out.

Nobody did come out, though. Punks! (OK, in their defense, it was in the low 30’s that night, Josh was sick and it was his daughter’s birthday, and Matty had some physical ailments). Still, I was the only boot camper without friends there. Yay, loser!

So, OK, now here we are at the end of three weeks, and I’m totally loving fat camp. The workouts are still hard, but it does feel really rewarding. I am in so much better shape than I was before I started, and feel great. My energy level is through the roof (though, it’s made my body not want tons of sleep, and I love sleep, so that’s almost sad… if it wasn’t so awesome).

There are definitely still days that are brutal (actually, Thursday night, the “friends night” was probably my worst – I had really bad leg pains and it seemed my allergies went haywire so I was limping and unable to breathe… good times), but the feeling afterward is now always “hell yeah, that rocked”

As for future sustainability…. yesterday, Troy and I went and tried a Krav Maga class. And loved it. And signed up for a year. It’s a great workout, and you actually learn really great self defense techniques (it’s more “totally disable the attacker” than “look like a cool gynmast”, which I think is awesome).

Oh, and just to see what fat camp ends up doing, here are some metrics from day 1:

• Weight: 162.2 lbs
• 1 mile run: 9 minutes, 4 seconds
• Push-ups in a minute: 28
• Sit-ups in a minute: 24 (this seems sucky, my abs are weak)
• Dips in a minute: I barfed before doing any.
• ^*Body fat %: 37%

^*We have a scale that measures this, but I don’t know the accuracy, I’d assume it’s something like +/- 7%, but I just pulled that out of thin air.

I’ll check back in after Thursday night’s workout where I will do the same exercises listed above

For those of you who aren’t from the south, or don’t “get” college football, or hate sports and all us idiots who get rampant over it, it’s hard to explain the hype and energy of Iron Bowl.  It’s really unlike anything I’ve experienced in sports.  People are hyped.  To the extreme.  Even with the game held the day after Thanksgiving (in the early parts of the afternoon not far removed from turkey coma) and Auburn a 7-4 unranked enigma of a team facing an undefeated powerhouse national contender in Bama.

I’m there with my good friend Thomas, who is even more rabid a sports fan than I am, particularly with Auburn football.  We are both hella excited and at least moderately helped along by tailgate beers and feelin’ the vibe of our Alma mater and the crazyness of Iron Bowl.  Auburn jumps out on top quickly, which isn’t that much of a surprise, but still has us and all the orange and blue fans getting more and more hyped.  After a holy-shit-that-was-unreal onside kick recovered by Auburn, we’re about to jump up 14-0 and really get the place roaring.  Our quarterback throws an ill-advised pass that is intercepted, but luckily for us there was a false start penalty that negated the play.  At the end of the play, Bama’s cornerback takes the intercepted ball and throws it 20 yards down the field, caught up in the emotion and clearly over-reacting.  Flags are all over the place, and surely he’s going to get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for throwing the ball.

And now the ugliness begins.  The guy two “seats” to my left decides to yell out to the crowd his take on the play…

“Five yards on us for a false start!!!  15 yards on you for being a n****r!”

He didn’t get much reaction, but was clearly impressed with himself.  So, as the refs called it out over the loud speaker, he repeats himself, verbatim and much, much louder.  I’d already barfed in my mouth a little and alerted Thomas to the first rant, so he was ready (not that anybody would need to be) for the second.  Thomas and I cringed, shook our heads and tried to turn our attention to the game.  Auburn scored a touchdown moments later, but it was kind of hard to really cheer and go nuts, since I was still in shock and a little shaky from the rage and sadness this guy’s words caused.

I’m not sure how to flow this post into how that made me feel, really.  It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, and certainly wasn’t any more or less hateful than before (I’d heard “friends” say it before with all the hatred intended).  It was just one of those times where mere seconds before, we were in a “one of us” situation – screaming at the top of our lungs and putting all energy into rooting for a common cause.  Then slam, there is the abrupt feeling that this guy would spit on my heritage in a heartbeat if given the chance.  It’s draining.  More so than I was ready for and more so than I can explain.

After waiting on the game to get back to life and getting ready for kickoff, Thomas leans over to him and says something along the lines of “I’m glad you are having fun, but I don’t want to hear that word again”.  Dude sizes up the situation, hears Han Solo saying “it’s not wise to upset a wookie” and nods the ole discontent yet agreeable “OK”.  Even though I just called him a wookie, Thomas is my fucking hero.  Obviously, because he said something to the guy and I wasn’t going to, but also I can’t shake the feeling he was also going big brother and defending how upset I was.  I mean, really, saying something to that guy does nothing.  He probably won’t shout it again that day, but clearly it won’t change his ignorance.  Either way, it was cool, and turned an utterly shitty situation into something I could feel a warm fuzzy about later.

I asked Thomas later if it was worse that he said it or nobody else said anything back to him.  I’m still not sure, but I’d guess the latter, even though Thomas is certainly the exception there and I wouldn’t have said or done anything either.  One final note – after he said that, I looked out and counted one non-black player on the field at the time.  There are 22 players on both sides of the ball.  I realize nothing about the guy has to make sense, and I guess it’s better that way.

In the end, I hope “more of us than them” applies to Thomas and I and not this guy and his type.

Things have been great at the casa StoutMuntz. Ona turned two at the end of July and is a really fun kid. We took a three day vacation to Hilton Head with Momma D and Big Ron (aka “Ken”, aka “Big Papa”), and had an absolute blast. We actually spent the first day with just Ken. It’s very rare for us to spend time with just Ken, and he was super relaxed and easy going and fun. I was really happy with his ability to let go of work and get his vacation on. Here is some proof

Up next is a little trip to the mountains with Katy’s family. We’re headed to the north Georgia mountains somewhere. I think the plan is to relax, play cards, cook smores, and do other random relaxy vacation stuffs. Should be a nice getaway.

Hmmm, maybe this is why I haven’t blogged in four months – life feels boring when I write it down like this. That might sound terrible, but it’s not, to me. It’s been really great, just not overwhelmingly exciting enough to write a book about. I guess sometimes “just same ole same ole” can actually be “awesome”.

I think everybody likes hearing about Ona, so I’ll start there.  She’s 22 months old now, and doing well.  I guess this is the age in a child’s progression when they learn at a wickedly rapid pace and parents have no idea what they actually know.  Last week I said “Ona, do you want to count to three?” and she immediately responded “four, five six?”.  So, yeah, I guess counting to three is old news.  Her language progression is really neat to witness, though it’s officially time to shut the cursing off… at least until she can understand where and when it’s appropriate.

We did our annual March of Dimes benefit last night, buying a table for our friends and family at La Grotta here in Atlanta and then going to the after party to drink and hang out.  Very fun night, and I love the food at La Grotta.  It was a fixed menu, but they made an exception for me and Katy’s grandma and gave us mushroom risotto instead of seafood risotto and I’m very glad they did – it was my favorite dish.  Everybody else seemed to think the melon and prosciutto  with balsamic reduction was the best.  It was very good, but the risotto was really great.  Veal was the main dish and it was probably the best prepared I’ve had veal (I’m not a huge fan of veal usually, but I’ve only had it a few times).  It was good, but nothing really special.  Anyway, it was a good night.

I’ve joined weight watchers.  Most people look at me like the 90 pound pageant girl who thinks she’s fat when I say that, but that’s just because my baggy clothes hide the chub.  I’ve got about 15 to 20 pounds to drop.  So far, week 1 has been pretty good.  It’s a pretty easy plan to follow, though I did get anxiety about what to eat and how to track it at first.  I just weighed-in and lost 2.6 pounds in the first week.  I don’t expect that rate to stick around, though.

I need to do a few housekeeping things in my technical world.  I need to start using something like Picasa or Flickr again.  I’ve been posting pics to Facebook.  Actually, that’s my favorite part of Facebook, but I need to figure out a different approach.  I know I can use Flickr and share that on Facebook, but I’m not a fan of Flickr.  Maybe I’ll try Picasa again.  Maybe I’ll just keep posting them on Facebook and you people will have to look there for ‘em.  I like suggestions.

Researches discovered a tribe somewhere, called the amok tribe.  Some of the men were having delusions that their genitals were shrinking and that made them go crazy and run around doing all kinds of insane things.  And now we have the saying, “run amok”.

Hooray for the end to awkwardness, and that’s quite a story.  Wikipedia disagrees, but I don’t think I care.  Though, now all I can do is wonder: was he saying I was imagining my junk hurting and shrinking?  That’s not something you make up.

She’s stringing two words together every now and then… my personal favorite is, of course, “hi dada”.  Makes me melt every time.  Though, I’m starting to feel guilty that she’s stopped saying “momma” entirely, so I’m constantly trying to drill “momma” back into her vocabulary…. which is probably doing the opposite.

She’s standing up on her own and walking around with the help of the little “walker” thingy.  Apparently, she has taken some steps in school, but not at home yet (she’s not out of arms long enough, probably).  It seems like she could do it, but she still seems unsure that she can.  She kind of stands for a while and you can see the light bulb turn on and she looks a bit shocked like “whoa, I’m standing on my own!” and immediately sits down.  She gets positive reinforcement from that one (in the form of hysterical laughter, it’s really more funny that it sounds… for real) so that’s probably not “helping”.  Really, we’re in no rush for her to walk, though.  Whenever she’s ready, we’re ready (errr, I think… which probably means we’re not at all).

Food
Other than the surprisingly great filet mignon and eggs, the highlight for me was, get this, the sushi restaurant.  Not because I ate any fish, but because they had a roll I could eat and loved.  It was a veggie roll with soy paper wrapping.  No water creatures to make me gag.  And the veggies were of a “stir fried” consistency and delicious.  Was awesome to finally get to participate in the sushi fun.  We ordered a lot of good room service and I ate way too many chocolate covered almonds.  All the food was great, as usual.

Pool
We hit the pool every day from 8:30′ish to 12′ish.  We’d go down and grab a croissant and coffee and then grab a spot at the pool.  Once awake, it was time for the Mai Thai’s and the occasional dip in the pool to cool off.  Was great.

Gambling
We only played blackjack this time.  I usually hit the craps table as well, but stuck with blackjack this trip.  Ironically, I came away up about 21 hands.  I do the “slow and steady wins the race” routine and place the same bet all the time, follow my typical rules and only stray a bit from time to time.  Katy, on the other hand, is more risky.  And she paid for it the first day, but then rocked it out and might have come close to breaking even when it was all done.  I consider gambling worth money, so even losing is fine with me, so this was hugely successful.

Drinks
My drink of choice this time was Mai Thai at the pool, Baileys on ice at the tables, whatever comes to mind in restaurants.  Katy also did Mai Thais along with Bloody Marys, Vodka Tonic and her usuals.  I only barfed once. 

Other Junk
We saw Jay Leno.  Was pretty good…. nothing spectacular, but still a fun break from the booze and cards.  We also rode the NYNY roller coaster, which was fun as hell.  Katy did her usual anxiety attack as we went up the first incline, but seemed to enjoy it enough.  Great views of Vegas from on the coaster.

We took about three pictures, I think.  If I find ‘em, I’ll post ‘em.  Was a great vacation.  BIG, BIG LOVE to Momma D and Big Papa Ken for watching Ona while we were gone.  It’s so awesome to have people nearby who we know Ona loves and will have a blast with while we’re away.