I was reminded about my days in college, rowing for the crew team. The many hours spent on the old Concept 2 Model C.

Apparently the new Model D is quieter, so you can hear yourself crying as you do a long row. That was pretty much impossible with the C. Nice work. It also has the ability to upload your data to a website so you can see how bad you stink compared to the rest of the world. I used to only get beat by the other people in my boat and team. Now I have a whole world of rowers!

I’m thinking I want one. Here’s the link: Concept2

Where to begin? I was up in North Carolina a while ago. Yara and I visited UNC-Chapel Hill for residency programs, business schools, law schools, and Gerry Andrady. Gerry is a great friend from my Deloitte days. In some ways, he is a lot like a male Yara, careful, dependable, and risk-averse. Or maybe Yara is Gerry-like. He showed us what had changed in NC since we last left. His brother, Anthony, gave me one of the fastest experiences I’ve ever had. He let me ride in his silver bullet Acura NSX. This has to be one of the fastest production cars in the world. It was unbelievable how well that car gripped the road and adored the gas. Those things should be licensed as time machines because the world seems to slow down even though you are racing along at 90 mph in a 30 mph zone. We cruised with the T-tops off and wind blowing through our hair. Then he let me drive the car. Oh my God. There are no words to describe the experience, except a sacred communion between man and machine. Amen. Thank you Anthony from the bottom of my heart. We also got to drive around a Spyder convertible the whole weekend, but it of course paled in comparison after driving the NSX.

Let’s see here, Yara and I watched the peep show that was the Super Bowl. I’ve noticed that Justin’s apology stated that it was unintentional and an accident. Janet’s apology stated that it was planned after the final rehearsals. I really doubt that MTv will be doing the half-time show next year, but it will likely be some major entertainment stars without the channel sponsor. Her nipple ring was cool, but I don’t think it brought about the results Janet wanted. Apparently, Justin’s dumb album sales have risen since the incident. I still can’t believe that Janet did part of Rhythm Nation, that song is so old!!

Kerry for President? I guess Dean is too much of a radical and just too outside. Kerry is now the dominant front runner. He is considered the most electable and most likely to beat Bush. However, Kerry is the ultimate political insider. He’s been a career politician, married into a fortune (Heinz), and went to the same schools as GWB (Yale ‘66). He may end up being too much of an insider. Will we have a Goldilocks like situation and end up somewhere in the middle? Edwards or Clark. Doubtful. It seems Kerry will continue to ride the press wave through the March primaries and lock in the nomination. Unless, some A+ dirt can be dished out about him. If there was some, it would surely have been released by now. The only other case is if the Republicans release it for the fall election.

Personally, I’ve been doing my thing. I’ve been skiing a lot lately. We got back from a week of skiing in Steamboat and are going to Vail in another two weeks for another week. I’m trying to drop some quick pounds so my knees won’t throb so much after some long skiing. I’ve been doing blacks lately. The key for me was to learn how to use my poles to turn. Now moguls aren’t so daunting as long as they aren’t deeper than my knees. I even had a chance to practice my skiing in powder. It’s a lot different than skiing groomed snow when the powder gets deep. It’s fun to fall in though.

I’m off to bed now. Hope you are a little happier now Hume and the rest of you. I’m not dead.

Eating is fun. I’ve learned that eating is a good thing and you can pretty much change your habits quickly if you enforce good ones and understand your weaknesses. I had a problem with a caramel popcorn ball earlier this week, but I realized that I couldn’t leave it alone because I left it in a container on the kitchen counter. By moving it out of plain sight, I stopped craving it and eating it. I later threw it away because it had gotten a little stale. Having junk food out is a big problem for me. We only keep fruits out on the counter anymore.

Occasionally, I’ll eat something delicious and fattening like BBQ ribs. I just eat until I’m full and don’t try to blow the buttons off my pants. Also, if its not good, I throw it away. This happens a lot with french fries. I keep getting these ones that aren’t crispy, hot, golden and delicious. Hey, if I’m going to have to run for a half hour to burn this off, it better taste good. Otherwise, it’s not going down the chute.

I’m still a clean plate ranger. Instead of trying to change it, I just try to start with smaller portions and get seconds if I’m still ravenously hungry. It works pretty good for me. I get a clean plate with no “wasted” food and a full stomach. Nice.

I guess the biggest thing thats helped me is the encouragement I’ve received from Yara. She’s been helping me realize when I’m doing silly things. She’s also started eating healthier which helps me too. It’s hard to resist when your buddy is chomping down on chips or cookies next to you. Her encouragement has been great too. She doesn’t mind me telling her three times a day how much I weigh and stuff. She’s been real cool like that. Thanks Yara!

Mr Rohn puts forth that these little conflicts are very important. Mainly because there is not a lot of feedback except from ourselves. When we touch a hot stove, we get strong feedback that this is a bad thing to do and so we don’t do it again. When I open the door for a lady and she thanks me, that is nice feedback to keep doing it. But it is in the smallest of things that success or failure in big things is decided. Eating just one more chip may give short term satisfaction but it in the long term it detracts form a fitness goal. Blowing off one morning of calling people may relieve stress in the short term, but it hurts in the long term of being a business success. We get little to no feedback from the outside world for these decisions, so it is up to us to recognize and decide whether we want the long term victory or the short term pleasure.

We face a million little battles every day, easily won and lost. Will you win on the battle field today?

Basically, they create a steam room and you do stretching and balancing exercises in it. We got to the place and the room was a steamy 90+ degrees. It wasn’t too hot when we first started, but then they made us do the 26 poses of Bikram Yoga. I would tell you the names, but they all sound like curries I’ve eaten. Tran and I were looking forward to this, him more than me. He had already done it 4 times in California and has some goal to do it twice a month. Birmingham is the closest place for him to do it. I was just tagging along for the ride. Tran told the teacher that he had done it before, so she could just focus on my ineptness.

We were going pretty well, but then we got to the lamb ranganosh pose and something terrible happened. I look over at Tran and he has decided to sit down due to the heat. It’s pretty excessive. I’m breaking a nice sweat and aching to just wipe my brow. But apparently that would be wasting time I could be in the pose. Tran reaches for his water and tries to unscrew the cap. “WE DON’T DRINK WATER WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IS IN A POSE!!!”, the teacher sternly told Tran. Tran, then put the water back beside him. He then proceeded to pass out. I was shocked and just stayed in my pose. I was concerned, but the teacher caught his freshly shaved body as he fainted. He twitched on the ground and they eventually revived him. They allowed him to have some water and Tran recovered. He sat up and I thought he should go back into the cooler room, but he was a trooper and stuck it out. He even did some more of the exercises. He was a beast of a man, but I saw him stumble.

The rest of the exercises I just kinda tried to do a little correct, tried to not fart too loudly, and watched to see if Tran would fall again. Basically, I survived the experience. It was like the Grand Canyon adventure, only shorter. That’s how I survived it. I had a nice frame of reference. I figure anyone who really wants to do this all the time, probably hates themselves at some level and enjoys torturing themselves. I don’t know if I hate myself enough to do it again. I think I hate myself in the way that I put myself into a situation where escape is not just a few feet away. I really like to be in tough situations… but that’s another story.

My goal was to get to 185 lbs by the end of January. This morning I weighed in at 184.6 and 22.9% body fat. Thanks Tanita!

By the end of February, I hope to drop to 180. Go me!

Of course, I look pretty silly doing it. Actually, I feel like I’m back in elementary school doing stretches and stuff at P.E. Too bad kids don’t get that anymore. A lot of my friends are getting into Yoga and stuff. My friend, Marc, who kills for a living, even showed me some Yoga stretches they do in the Navy. Yoga is mainstream, Pilates is in Hollywood. Expect to see it in the mainstream in 5-10 years. Just like that 48 hour diet.