A Look-How-Funny-I-am Story for My Sister

I had to study until 2:30 in the morning tonight because we had case reviews that wasted our whole evening. Case reviews are these meetings we have with our sister department where we talk about certain calls we've had over the past month or so. These might be cases where we did something very well, and often they are cases where we've done something very wrong. Tonight's meeting was more or less benign.
But near the end of our meeting our Medical Director, a crazy physician that only wears kilts and army boots (not making this up) started talking about the new rules that say Paramedics are going to be allowed to give vaccines. This is all built around the big push to get everyone vaccinated against the H1N1 Flu virus (more commonly known as "Swine Flu") He gave us some good info and background into the politics behind the vaccine, the company that produces it and the PR around getting everyone dosed up. I won't go into it here, but it's all shady, and I won't be taking the vaccine.
The point here, is that near the end, our Medical Director a very serious man (despite the kilt and army boots) asked if there were any questions. There were some comments from the peanut gallery about who is and isn't going to take the vaccine and finally I raised my hand. When the doctor called on me I said, "As a Physician, what do you believe the chances are that this vaccination will eventually lead us into the zombie apocalypse?" Everyone laughed, and to that I said "You can't tell me you all weren't thinking the exact same thing!"
The end.

The Insanity Begins

So I fizzled out on Body for Life...again. I was doing good, and then school ended, and I realized that I wanted to cram as much fun and debauchery into the four weeks I had for vacation before starting Paramedic school.
That mission was accomplished. I managed to go on a few cool dates (more on that later), went camping, hung out at the river, drank A LOT of beer, played some videogames and saved some babies and kittens. All this summer fun crammed into four weeks.
So now that school has started, I've decided I needed a change up on my workouts. One night me and Brett were sitting up in the Fire Station talking about working out and in the background there was an infomercial playing about some fitness videos that we kept getting distracted by. It's called Insanity, and it's like the next P90x or whatever. Brett was like "I would do that,"
"really?"
"well, yeah. But I am not paying $105 for the DVDs"
"If I get them, will you do this program with me?"
"...uh, yeah I guess"
So yeah, I made some internetting happen and I got us some perfectly legitimate copies of the workout series. On Sunday we had to do the Physical Fitness test. So we all gathered down in the fire engine bays and set up my little laptop with speakers and we went to work. It wasn't long before we were all laying sweat-soaked, groaning and panting on the cold concrete floor. It was brutal.
Anyways, it's late and I am doing this because I promised my sister I would start keeping up with this again, and I think it's important. I love you sis (and the rest of my family and friends who read this)

4 Weeks Progress

Here are the pictures from last Friday. They don't show a whole lot of difference to me, but I know that my clothes fit better, and that I've lost about eleven pounds. They say the biggest changes take place after the first month, so I'm looking forward to that.

Reading from the Good Book

Today just to get myself motivated I started reading my Body for Life book again. It's amazing how inspirational some of the stories are, even though I've already read them at least ten times already. I also find myself thinking about the people in my life, and how I think some of those stories would really speak to them. I've learned by now that people need to find the will on their own to really make a change, and I am hoping that by accepting and ultimately completing this challenge that I will be able to lead by example. Once I have completed this first challenge, I am going to really start "preaching the gospel," to some of the people I care about that I think could really benefit from the Body for Life program.
I have four week pictures that I was going to upload today, but the batteries in my camera are dead, and so I have to charge them up. They should be posted tomorrow.

Back In Action

I had a great birthday. I ended up taking basically two days off from training and dieting, and I could totally feel it today when I was running. It felt like I started over from scratch. Like my body was saying "Whew, I'm glad we're done with all that exercising nonsense, back to slug land," and then I just shocked it back to life by running my balls off on the treadmill.

I got a new tattoo for my birthday. And I was looking at some of the pictures of me while I was getting it. Some of them were actually kind of encouraging but the ones of me with my shirt off definitely showed me that I have a lot of work left to do. My abdominal section is still flabby as all get out, but my arms have definitely showed improvement. Hopefully the tattoo will give me another good reason to hit the gym hard.

Adventures
I made a pledge to myself that while I was going to get through the 12 weeks of Body for Life, I wasn't going to let it totally dominate my time and ruin my summer. I knew I was going to have to be careful and plan my diet around some of the activities I wanted to do. I have had a really eventful and fun summer so far, even with all my responsibilities.

A Day in the Life...

Here is a quick summary of my day today.
Got up way too early this morning to go to rescue class, but I was psyched because I knew we were going to cut up cars.
Got to rescue class and had to scrounge through piles and piles of old turnouts (firefighter gear) because nobody told us we should bring our own. So I ended up wearing mismatched and ill-fitting gear all morning long.
Cut up a bunch of cars with cool tools like the jaws of life and the sawzall, even got to cut up an old ambulance. Learned a lot about auto-extrication. Sweated a lot in my jacked up gear in the blazing sun. Grabbed a quick lunch after class.
Went to ridiculous Intro to Computers class where I found out I did the wrong assignment. Had a talk with my hippy teacher after class and played the birthday card so she'd forgive me for missing homework and doing the wrong homework. Totally worked.
Headed out to work because I was on shift today. As soon as I walked in the door we all got called out to a field fire. Had to jump into my wildland gear even though I was still sweaty from Rescue Class. Jumped into the truck with Wes and buzzed out to the fire.
Me and Wes were some of the first to arrive in the Squad (small truck with a pump and hose set up) so we drove out into the field that was on fire and I jumped out grabbed the hose and hustled along side the truck putting out the fire. My first real fire!
Got back to the station and had to clean up everything. Then I was told that I was going out to the local fair/rodeo to work as an EMT in the first aid booth. Got dressed up in my new pants and boots and headed out to the rodeo.
Watched an awesome rodeo full of minor accidents that really didn't need too much attention from me. Put a band-aid on a pretty girl who got a rope-burn. Talked a lot of shit with my fellow EMTs working the rodeo.
After the rodeo there was a concert, some minor Country star that I can't remember. Did a lot of people watching (checking out girls) Drove around a lot in the Gator (golf-cart like thing) for no reason other than it was fun.
Went on the Zipper with Moon, the biggest guy in the department. We definitely did not meet the weight and size standards for that ride, but the carny didn't care, he just rammed us in there and we were off. Pretty sure I went from "this is a terrible idea" to "that was the best idea I ever had" in a few short moments. Screamed and laughed a lot.
Concert and fair over. Headed back to the station. Beat. Awesome day.

Week 4 Begins with a Hangover

I guess if I am going to blog on my days off, I should probably do it in the morning, because they have a way of getting away from me. Yesterday I went to my friend's baby shower/luau/bbq. It was all very wholesome and family friendly, in fact I think I when I showed up I was the only single person there, which is always so much fun. But as the night wore on and the grandparents and older folk began to disperse, the beer and assorted adult beverages began to flow more liberally. My friend (who I've decided to call Lacey) showed up and kept me company, so that I didn't have to feel like too much of an outcast amongst the seas of couples. We had lots to drink and eat, and it was a good night, but I was definitely a little slow moving this morning.
I really had to fight to maintain my diet today, for some reason nothing sounded better than getting some Taco Bell and just veg out in the air conditioning all day. Somehow I conquered that impulse and got through the day.
Tonight I made vegie burgers for dinner. I don't know, but for some reason they've been sounding good, so I decided to go for it. Turns out they are really good. The only problem is that they don't have near enough protein. So I ended up having a handful of almonds with my burger on whole wheat bread with fat-free swiss cheese.