Sunday, May 9, 2010

Call your mom!!

A powerlifting take on mothers day... from Elitefts

EFS Classic: 10 Reasons to Call Your Mom

Published: May 7, 2010


If you are like me, you probably forgot it was Mother’s Day this weekend. It’s not that I don’t love my mother; I love and admire her. But I had to clear the space in my head to make room for important things such as band tension, the history of Slayer and porn passwords.

Now the story behind this article is pretty funny. About two weeks ago, Dave called me up with panic in his voice.

Dave: Is Mother’s Day today?

Jim: I have no idea.

I began to panic and started searching the internet. It turns out that we had some weeks to spare, but that pretty much sums up Dave and me. So we decided to do an article about Mother’s Day and hope that this reminds you to at least call your mother. And if you are searching for reasons why, here are a few to keep you grounded.

1. All mothers’ are psychic. Several years ago, I began dating a girl that was 8 years younger than me. This wouldn’t be a big deal if I was 50 years old, but seeing as she was just barely legal, this was a little strange for many people to grasp. When my parents came to visit me in Kentucky, my mom asked me if I was dating anyone. I affirmed her suspicion and left it at that. She stopped, looked at me and said, “She’s really young, isn’t she?” I swear I looked up and saw her invoking the spirits of the underworld. This is interesting because I once saw my mother conjure Lucifuge.

So don’t think you are ever pulling the wool over your mother’s eyes. She knows. She knows all of your dirty secrets. Even the one involving your trip to Tiajuana, the monkey and the grapefruit.

2. Genetics. For whatever reason, any good genetics you possess seem to come from your mother. Looks, calves (all mom’s rock serious calf development), full head of hair, intelligence; whatever positive attributes you have come from your mother. Now if you are impatient, bald and have high cholesterol you can blame your father.

3. Cooking. As soon as you reared your head from your mother’s nether region, she instantly became a good cook. Now this doesn’t mean she is a world class chef. This means she could make some of the best Mac and Cheese known to man. Other dishes of importance include: chicken noodle soup, cut up apple with peanut butter, grilled cheese, any kind of breakfast food and Thanksgiving dinner. How anyone can stomach putting their hands into a turkey’s ass is beyond me. This is what makes mom’s so special – the ability to fist poultry.

4. Ability to stomach vomit and diarrhea. I can’t count the number of times my mom has cleaned up my vomit. And I don’t mean my vomit induced from the Cocktail Flu. I’m talking about the vomit that comes that is laced with hotdogs and baby carrots. And don’t get me started on changing diapers. I’ve wretched more times than I care to admit. But your mom can handle any kind of excrement – be it soupy or corn-filled. There is something special about someone that can be elbow deep in crap and still have a smile on their face.

5. The originator of Muscle Milk. Accept it and embrace it. Your mom has cans and there is a good chance that you sucked on them. These Lactation Stations kept you from hunger and provided you with nutrients that kept you strong and healthy. It is often referred to as the perfect food and only a mother can provide this. I have tried for many years to get the same effect from numerous women. And as a man who constantly seeks the best in health, I shall continue to try. You know…for the betterment of man.

6. The Look. I’ve stared in the eyes of fearsome linebackers. I’ve seen the intensity of elite lifters. But nothing can be more devastating as the The Look. The Look often comes after you break some fine china, write with permanent marker on the walls or come home 3 hours late with whiskey on your breath. The power of The Look can stop small armies and weaken the knees of all men. In fact, The Look can even be given over the phone or a brief e-mail message. So I highly recommend calling your mother on Mother’s Day. Or be prepared to get the Eyes of Death.

7. Love. I swear that I could be in jail after a murderous rampage and my mother would still love me. She’d find some way to still find the good in me. A good example of this is Varg Vikernes and his mother. Varg (aka Count Grishnackh) was the main man behind the black metal band Burzum and one of the most influential people in that scene. Varg was sentenced to 21 years in prison after he murdered Euronymous, guitarist of the band Mayhem. Several years after his incarceration, Varg’s mother broke him out of jail. Now most sane people would see this as stupidity. But any mother would probably do the same; or at least want to do the same thing. Now I do realize that there are better examples of love, but this one involved black metal so I had to include it.

8. The ability to gross you out. I really take pride in being a gross son of a bitch. There is something noble about being able to make someone wretch. But your mom can turn your stomach and fill your mouth with stomach acid faster than anyone I know. All they have to do is talk openly and loudly about their sex life.

Based on extensive research, I was put on this earth one of two ways:

  1. Aliens
  2. Hatching from egg

I refuse to believe that I am a result of carnal lust, especially between my mother and father.

9. Ability to fold clothes. I am a reasonably clean man. I put my clothes away, wash the dishes and can vacuum like an OCD demon. But I have yet figured out how to fold clothes like my mother. There is nothing better than getting a stack of clothes back from your mother, clean and folded. First, the clothes smell like they are actually clean. When I wash them, they smell like they are NOT dirty. Big difference. But the folding thing really baffles me. I tried many times to fold shirts, shorts and underwear. But they can never compare to the crisp clean cuts that mom makes.

10. She taught you everything. Sometimes my mom drives me nuts, but this is her job. She mostly drives me nuts because I know she is right. When I weighed about 4 metric tons, she told me that I looked like shit. Sure enough, I look at pictures of me when I was Fatty McGee and I did look like shit. But moms teach you a lot of things and all of them are correct. For example, she told you to shower, eat your vegetables and fruit, and do your homework. She told you to keep your penis in your pants and think with the right head. She told you to get up early and be on time. The only thing my mom is misguided on is the Led Zeppelin vs. Black Sabbath debate. She’s on Team Page and Plant and we all know that Iommi and Co. rule. But we can agree to disagree.

So there are 10 reasons why you should call your mom this Sunday. You might be like me; probably don’t call your mom as much as you should nor do you tell her how much you appreciate her. I’m not saying this is OK, but your mom knows how you really feel. But sometimes it makes her feel good to hear the words come from your mouth. And you know that when you do, you are probably going to get a killer care package from her – including a shirt that is WAY too small. But don’t blame her. No matter what age you are, you are still her baby.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

"Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character." -- Heraclitus


Todays workout during open gym: 2/3 McGhee
As many rounds as possible in 20minutes
5 275lb deadlift
13 pushups
9 box jumps

Result 12rnds plus 5 deadlifts

This workout just sucked. I felt really good going into it, but it was rediculously hard. My whole body will probably hurt for a while. I did this with my friend Mike who is an absolute beast. That is one of my favorite things about CrossFit, he came in to bench press but I said lets do this suckfest and he decided it was a great idea. Working out with someone else is the biggest boost I can personally ever have. I'm very competitive and even if I can't beat someone, I want to still try.

This is the first weekend I have nothing planned at all in quite a while (My mom went to florida for mother's day) and I'm loving it. I will have some time to play some poker and catch up on my duties of CEO for B Colin Inc. Catching up on sleep will be clutch too!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

good day


Today was a good day for no particular reason, just one of those days where your in a good mood. At work we had our spanish distributor come visit, it was his first time at our current factory, so I gave him a tour right when he got there. He seemed very on top of his market and had some good opinions. Most of the main office went out to a big lunch in Newark and it was awesome. Even at a place that specializes in arroz con pollo, it was easy to eat paleo. I just got some blackened tuna over arugala and had veggies on the side. The only hard part was they have these amazing potato chip type things, but I had sooooo much food I didn't need to worry. Needless to say with a nice dinner like that, the day flew buy. I did my usual and went to the gym, and did 2 workouts today.

Nicole:
As many rounds in 20min, run 400m, as many pullups in a row.

So basically you run a quarter mile then do as many pullups as you can, and as soon as you come off the bar, do it again. Your score is the total number of pullups you can do. I scored 51 over 6 rounds which is not great overall but I was happy in a workout combining 2 things I suck at.

After that I did the crossfit.com workout of the day

Complete as many rounds in seven minutes as you can of:
95 pound Squat clean, 10 reps
20 Sit-ups

The standard for the sit-up is feet anchored, back of the hands touch the ground above your head on the bottom, and hands touch the anchor at the top. No Abmat.

I got a solid 4 rounds and then my legs were just shot.


Wednesday, May 5, 2010





Cinco de mayo burgers


I try and eat completely paleo. Basically this means no grains, sugar, dairy, legumes, or proccessed foods. I did this for a full month before my birthday and felt amazing. After a few days of eating crap, I really felt it at my workout today, so I'll go back to eating that way. It's not a diet, its a lifestyle. Its really easy to follow and you get to eat incredible food. I actually am a decent cook, and like coming up with new stuff. So tonight to celebrate cinco de mayo I made some special burgers. This is how I made it, but anything can be changed according to taste or whatever you have around.

Ingredients:
1-2 lb grassfed ground beef
1 head of iceburg lettuce
3 multicolor peppers chopped
1 onion chopped
olive oil or coconut oil
spices to taste
guacamole
Sweet potatoes


First I chopped up the peppers and onions. I love the multi colors because they have different tastes and are yummy.

Then I sauted them with olive oil for about 10 minutes, until the onions are almost see through. Feel free to use a good amount of oil because this will be used for the burgers after. I took them out of the pan and put them to the side.

Next mix some spices into the ground beef (I used pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, cilantro, paprika, and almond flour) and form into burger patties. Throw those on the pan and cook till done through.

Next I simply layed down some lettuce (I use this instead of bread or wraps) and put some of the pepper mix and some guac down. I threw the burgers on top and topped with the same combo of pepper mix, guac, and lettuce.

I quickly added some sweet potato fries by frying them in the same pan.

Overall super easy to make and super delicious. There was no chance I would leave any over! (following post will have the pictures)

Birthday Recap


So technically my birthday was Monday, but who really wants to celebrate much on a Monday. So we decided to go out Saturday. Bryan wanted to go to a nice dinner but after calling places at 830 asking for a reservation for "now" we just decided to go around the corner to the tibeten place. Jake, Craig, Bryan and I had a relatively quiet dinner and grabbed some booze and headed back to the apartment.

Around 10 some people started coming over to pregame because we were going to head to the club relatively early. Infinite of course showed up at 11, because he's on a different time schedule.

<-----Infinite I mess with Infinite a lot but he's one of the coolest people ever. I've never met anyone who has such a positive outlook on life, and who makes literally everyone around him smile and laugh. (more on that later) So we got pretty drunk during pregaming, lots of Patron was had by everyone, and we headed out. From this point on everything started getting a little hazy. I do know that the group that went to Tenjune was Bryan, Joe, Farhad, Jake, Craig, Infinite, Dan, Mike, Julie, and Jessica. A decent group but we got there. On the way there Julie got a call that there was a bomb in Times Square. We didn't really know what to think about it and sort of ignored it, though looking back at it, that was really scary. I don't really know how to describe the night at the club for a couple reasons, mainly because its all hazy. I know I had a great time and everyone I talked to did also. I know there was a ton of girls and they were all smokin. I don't even want to think about how many magnums of Patron and champagne that we went through. It was really cool that they had balloons and even a cake for me! (I only remembered the cake after seeing a picture of it). There were also lots and lots of sparklers!! Yay for sparklers!!

Bryan and I... he totally hooked this up for me and is the coolest dude on earth.

My only real proof of cake.



Me with Jessica and Julie, super cool girls!


Jake and Craig, been friends with them for like 20 years.



Clearly Farhad feels that Jessica, him, Julie, and I are number 1. I can't argue.



So anyway the night was awesome and nuts. We headed back to the apartment for some late night hot tub. Unfortunately here I only remember some bits and pieces. Everyone was hammered and there were some passouts. I know Joe ended up cooking turkey burgers for at least himself Julie and Jessica. Aparently I was only supposed to invite a few people over, but there was like 15. Oops. Infinite made sure to stop at McDonalds with Craig. He proceded to give everyone high fives there and ask for a "crispy" sprite. There was some hot tub, some fun times and eventually passing out.

That morning we went to brunch and had a cool day. Craig and I came back to Hoboken for this giant street fair they had. I wasn't expecting much but it was a huge festival closing all of Washington st. There was some really neat artwork and we got some, including this caricature of us rollerblading, imagining the gayest possible scenerio. I also had Rita's, which was the first time I had sugar in over a month. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest, so I'm going to contine to avoid sugar.


Monday, my actual birthday a couple friends and I went out to dinner and for a drink at my favorite local bar (well not really but its literally around the corner which is cool).

Tuesday night, my family finally agreed to spend a little time with me for my birthday so the four of us went out to Wolfangs, which is very similar to peter lugers. I ate about 3 cows worth of steak, and it was amazing.

Friday, April 30, 2010

From 70s Big, one of the funniest and actually informative websites about getting big and strong, when asked about how to eat:

"Eating is training. Beowulf had Grendel. We have Mongolian and Chinese buffets. If you don’t have at least one dining experience every couple of weeks that resembles an epic struggle worthy of telling over beers, you’ll be putting from the rough for the foreseeable future."