Why No Updates?

It's been a while since I last updated. In the past month I have done a few unofficial, unscheduled events. Hiked in GA with family, attended the Vero Christmas parade (see pictures below). But in general, have been slowed down a bit with !#!@#!@#! plantar fasciitis. So very annoying. I've had cortisone, PT, stretches, night brace, day strap. As a last ditch effort before surgery I am now in a boot until the end of December. This has put somewhat of a damper on my walking goal. Despite the valiant effort, I don't think we will make our goal of 1000 miles for the year. 

But next year, oh yes, next year... I think maybe we should set something slightly more realistic - 750?  We will see. I am proud of the fact that we easily sailed past last year's goal of 500. I've been in the boot for 2 weeks now, and my walking was pretty hampered long before that, so I think were I healthy,  we would have sailed (or strolled) past 1000 as well. 

Anyway, I plan to resume events as soon as I get this stupid boot off. In the mean time, I will still be participating in the annual bird counts, although mostly as a passenger in a car, not walking. If anyone wants to help out in any way with the bird counts or post-count potluck, let me know!

In the mean time, here are a few pictures from the Vero Beach Christmas parade:

I just don't remember stuff like this in the parades back home. This was a giant bloodshot eyeball. In the Christmas parade with elves.

This is MacGruff the crime dog's little house. That is him waving from the back. I felt safe knowing he was on the job.

Kidney Walk Fundraiser Videos

Last year, my beloved aunt Kathy was diagnosed as being in stage 4 renal failure, and is now on dialysis. Her daughter, cousin Beth, got together a team to walk in the Kidney Foundation walk to support Kathy and to raise awareness of kidney disease. I joined the team, and wanted to raise as much money as possible. With that in mind, and inspired by trainer who did a similar fundraiser, I promised people that I would do some kind of gym related torture for every dollar raised, and would post the results here.

The fund raiser was this weekend. I raised about $700, and our team totaled over $1900. I'm very proud of us, and can't thank my donors enough. And extra special thanks to Heather, my partner in crime and videographer, and David, my partner in life and sound man, these videos couldn't have happened with out them!

Without further ado, here are the results. I didn't embed the videos to make this page load faster; just click the links to view the videos.

Joy decided I should do a warm up routine to the blue danube waltz. In a bizarre coincidence, a different pair of donors, Paul and Dawnell, requested that I wear a tutu for these tortures. Which worked out either quite nicely, or completely horrifically, I will let you decide.

Next, Wayne wanted 6 minutes of stretching. It just so happens that The Smiths, his favorite band ever, has a 6 minute song. Music in the background is  The Smith's "How Soon is Now?"

Joy also requested that I do calisthenics to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".

Allison requested clean and press with the 8Kg kettlebell (75 of these). Song in background is "Equalize" by Gomez.

Vikki requested tricep bench dips (90). Sharon requested catch and release kettle bell swings (with 12Kg kettlebell) (100).  Songs in backgound are Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa" by Shakira.  At this point, we realized that the camera wasn't big enough to hold all the video we shot and we had to start editing for time. But I really did do all of the required tasks. If I had been alone, I would have cheated, but David and Heather were there to keep me honest.

Lisa requested high press (with 12Kg kettlebell) (30). Songs in backgound are "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" by the Weavers and "But It's Alright" by J.J. Jackson.

Margi requested jackknifes with a ball, but my back wasn't quite up for that and I had to switch to crunches.

Heather requested 2 miles in 37 minutes, which we wound up doing 2 miles in 35 minutes! Woo-hoo. Also shown in this video, Mom and Dad did't specify anything, so I finished with a 100 second wall sit.

And last but not least, Shirley requested that I never ever take another picture of myself in a public rest room. (Part II)

Thanks again to my donors, I joke around a lot, but your support really means the world to me, and I really appreciate you all making me be able to do this for aunt Kathy!

Now's Your Chance: Torture Dee (Updated)

Click Here to Donate!

A while back, my trainer did a run for a children's cancer charity. To sweeten the pot, she agreed to do a burpee for every dollar pledged. Given that I get matching gifts at work, I pledged a lot just because the thought of her doing twice as many burpies made me laugh:-) So, inspired by her, I decided to offer a similar deal. If you pledge me for the "Kidney Walk in Tampa" I will do horrible things for every dollar raised.

$ 1 - 100 - 1 crunch for every dollar

$200 - above plus 100 pushups

$300 - above plus 100 squats

$400 - $900 above and will let a donor decide on each torture (let me know when you pledge your preferred form of torture)

$1000 - Above plus 100 burpies. With the push up. I hate burpies which is why I set the number so high here.

Bonus: For every dollar over 1000, I will perform a minute of interpretive dance and will have someone record the hightlights and post them here.

I know I've annoyed a lot of people with my bad puns and horrible facebook posts. This is time for your payback. Make me suffer! And thanks for your pledges, it's for a great cause and in honor of a great woman, aunt Kathy!

Note - if you get matching gifts at work, please let me know so I can add it to the torture tally.

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Update 28-Oct-2012: I have the coolest friends - Alison and Joy are pledging me two dollars for every day between now and the walk that I eat like a grown up (at least 2 real meal a day, and NO junkfood). I'm doing ok so far, and by ok I mean I haven't killed anything yet! So far, I am at $48 with that pledge, and $340 in other donations.  I also have another friend, Vikki, who is pledging me $1 for every day I get in 1/2 hour of exercise, and $2 for every day I get an hour in. Luckily she is letting me count walking, I'm up to $24 on that one, with matching gifts from work, which makes it $ 48!

Please pass the link to this page along to help me raise money for a good cause!

Click Here to Donate!

Unofficial Event Update: Treasure Coast Birding Festival

David and I, along with Tim, led a field trip out to Goodwin Wildlife Management Area today in conjunction with the Treasure Coast Birding Festival. It was a lot different than my DeeMotivation walks out there in that we were in a bus. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantage is that you can go further out into the area which gives you the potential to see stuff you might otherwise not get to. The disadvantages are that you don't get exercise and miss much of the smaller stuff like snakes. Either way it was a great day out there. If you didn't GOYB and join us, here's what you missed (click on pictures to enlarge):

This is a family of Black Bellied Whistling Ducks. There were a few family groups out there. The ones that don't have bright orange bills are the young ones. Bird Trivia: You know how a female duck pays for lipstick? She has the store put it on her bill.

This was my favorite sighting of the day. A mom bobcat with her two youngun.

This was a herd of spoonbills that flew over.

Goodwin is just the prettiest place on the planet. The color is incredible. These are egrets. We had a few.

This picture is out of focus, but I like how it shows snowy egrets, a juvenile white ibis, and a glossy ibis. One big happy family. It looked like one of those "love makes a family" schmaltzy after school tv specials.

This is a green heron trying his best to imitate an american bittern. Until David confirmed otherwise, I thought it was a bittern.

David jumped off the bus to grab this guy and introduce him to the bus. He was a garter snake.

If you look at the part of the snake nearest to David's sleeve, you see what looks like a cut in the snake's skin. It's actually a scent gland, from which the snake releases a really really nasty smelling musk if some big scary guy jumps off a bus and picks him up. David released the snake unharmed after I got the picture,  but I think he might have to burn the jacket.

Join us next week for a walk out at Split Oaks wildlife management area. Remember, you can see all kinds of cool pictures on the internet, but you can only experience snake musk if you GOYB and come out walking with us!

3 miles on the river

Heather and I did 3 miles on the river today. Saw a few cool things:

Juvenile Black Racer on a bush. He posed very
nicely for us.

A really cool steam-punk fish sculpture that
looks a lot like my tattoo.

Event Update: Bok Tower

We had an awesome day out at Bok Tower. Lots of birds, butterflies, flowers, etc. If you didn't GOYB today, you missed an awesome day including all of this: (make sure you click to enlarge, lots of cool stuff here)

This was one of the first birds we saw, hummingbird. It's a female though, so difficult to discern the species.

This is a black throated blue warbler getting some noms. I was surprised when I got home to realize that this wasn't a life bird for me.

This is an artsy shot of the black-throated blue warbler taking off.

 Tons of butterflies today. Here is a zebra longwing. If you click to enlarge, you can see he's got some pollen on his proboscis.

The beauty berry was amazing. There were so many berries that the plants were actually weighted down, which explains all the other wildlife we saw, lots of noms out there. None of us had ever seen such an abundance of beauty berries before, and all of the plants were like this.

Not sure what plant this was, but it was very cute.

This is a viceroy nomming on a plant.

This was kinda neat - it was a black swallowtail, but it's hanging from the plant so you can see his underside.

 This is a black swallowtail on top of a plant. I love how the out of focus flowers in the background bring out the color in his wings.

This was the first of 2 new critter porn shots that I got today. I'm not sure what they are. I thought at first that they were assassin bugs, but the shape wasn't right.

A purty yellow flower.

This is the underside of a gulf fritillary butterfly.

Another shot of the black swallowtail.

You can tell how old butterflies are by their color; they fade as they age. This guy is up there in age.

This was a weird, kind of funky mushroom we came across.

The next 3 are my favorite shots of the day. We stumbled across 2 gulf fritillaries having marital relations.

Yeah, baby!

Boom-chicka-waaa-wahhh...

This was a neat thing that Heather pointed out. When ever people talk about our ancestors, they mention using leaves for drinking cups. I've never really been able to picture that, but this cactus leaf was actually was holding water.

These look burned, but I think they are just the type of mushroom they are. I've never seen black mushrooms before. Don't think I would want to eat one.

There is this neat kind of play area on the grounds of Bok Tower. This is David and Heather going into the tunnel made of plants.

This is a seed pod of some kind that Heather found.

Me and HFC David in front of some plants that match my hat.

A close up of the flowers that match my hat.

This is Heather, demonstrating the shadow clock. You stand on today's date, and your shadow falls on the correct time. I need to build one of these in my yard, it was really neat.

I took this picture for Shirley. There were very few spiders out there today, and this wasn't even a real spider, it was just the shed skin of one.

This was my favorite plant of the day. I know it's name and can't remember it for the life of me. I need to start taking notes on these walks!

There are some bird feeders around the grounds. This is a cardinal giving me the stink eye from the feeder near the pond.

This is a tufted titmouse, also hanging out by the pond.

This was a life bird for me! A Rufous Hummingbird. I wasn't expecting to get a lifer today so that was pretty cool.

A mourning dove.

This was neat. It was some kind of fern, but it looked like lettuce.

I've never seen this before, it was white beauty berry. Not as pretty as the purple.

The wild coffee, like the beauty berry, had so many berries that it was weighing down the bushes. This is another of my favorite Florida native plants, the berries are just so bright and look so pretty against the deep green.

This was a neat plant, don't remember the name but it had these white stripes inside that were like a little surprise gift when you got close.

This is Bok tower. So pretty!

David and Heather at the highest point in peninsular Florida, near the base of Bok tower.

Another cool plant that I don't remember the name of.

This is a cool sundial on the tower. It is a snake and an eagle.

A balcony on the tower made of carved birds.

David, looking for birds (and overlooking central Florida.)

A black vulture on top of a pelican at the top of the tower. Not sure why, but this made me laugh.

I loved the purple, pink and green together. I need a shirt this color.

Some irises. Or lilies. Heather told me 10 times what they were but I've forgotten. I'm lucky my head is bolted on, I'd forget that too.

A big pink flower.

A lubber. I know these are voracious and eat everything in sight and are really bad for trees and gardens, but I still think they are are really pretty.

Heather thought this flower looked like a dropped egg. It was almost time for lunch though, everything looks edible when you are hungry.

This was Heather's favorite thing at the Bok Tower. It was a whole wall of bromilliads. Bromilliads are "air plants" that don't require dirt to grow. These are all just attached to vertical wires. It was a really beautiful effect. I had always thought that bromilliads at least had to be attached to a tree branch or something, I hadn't realized that they could just grow anywhere. Very cool.

If you didn't GOYB this weekend, you missed a really spectacular day out. Make sure you watch our schedule for our next walks. Remember, you can look at pictures of stuff on TV or the Internet, but you haven't really experienced life until you interrupt 2 butterflies getting down in person!