Loserocity

Why I love these guys...



I did complete the competition, looking forward to tomorrow's announcement.

End of the contest!

Just some stuff:

Ok, I'm an old person. But if you're an old person (particularly one who kinda likes new tech toys)this is just hysterically funny. Assuming you speak Spanish. And ever made a mix tape. And have a twisted sense of humor like mine:
Neat little Star Wars touch too.

Well the Bigger Loser than Marko contest is now over. We've submitted our final weights and it appears that in fact no one is a bigger loser than Marko! (His staff warned us of his immense loser-ness, lol) Marko is the head honcho over at Youth Specialties and lost 60 pounds in just 12 weeks. Truly amazing. Here's his before and after photos:

Props to him for an amazing effort. For myself in 12 weeks I lost 21 pounds. That's 10% of starting body weight. I still need to lose another 15-20 pounds but now I believe I can. The formula was one I outlined at the beginning:
Eat good food
Eat less
Exercise more.

Rule #1 was I wasn't going to eat nasty tasting food that was "good for me". Food should be enjoyed. If the only way to be slimmer was eating horrible things I'll die fat thank you. Well it isn't. I gave up NOTHING. I ate chocolate and ice cream and pasta and bread and drank wine and everything. I chose better quality foods (brown rice instead of white, whole grains instead of refined) and ate less than usual. Add in several days a week at the gym doing cardio, weight lifting and swimming and the weight came off.

Slowly, sometimes very slowly but surely. And I feel great. Other than my socks and shoes none of my clothes fit any more. I have more energy, my brain works better (keep your comments to yourself) and my outlook is brighter. It's been great. And I'm not sure I would have done it without Marko's challenge. So thank you Marko. From the bottom of my heart.

Busy Weekend!

I got a real workout as a Lutherpalian this weekend. In case you weren't aware the Southwestern Conference of the Upstate NY Synod of ELCA hired me just over a year ago to do basically the same thing that I do for the diocese. It is a "part time-part time job" but it helps fill in the gap while my position is still 80% of full time.

I started with a concert by Captive Free (Captive Free is a music ministry of young people through Youth Encounter. They give up a year of their lives to tour and play and minister. This is the group that I met this weekend, and This is a group that has a young friend of mine - Brice - touring with them. I've met both bands and their great young people!) and then followed that up with an overnight.

Honesty time - overnights are my LEAST favorite part of youth ministry. You can mess with just about any part of my routine and I can deal. Except my sleep routine.

The youth were very cool and I got about 5 hours sleep. On the whole I had a good time.

On Sunday I went back to Bethel to lead a class on Choice with their confirmation class and then worshiped with the congregation. Managed not to embarrass myself this time (don't ask).

Then it was off to Hamburg for the Core Workshop with Mark Ostreicher from Youth Specialties. I've come to be very impressed with Marko from reading his blog He just struck me as my kinda guy. He lived up to that at Core.

I will note that I expected him to be taller. Don't ask me why, but that was my thought when I saw him. In fact Marko was virtually the first person to speak to me at Core. He noticed my YS messenger bag as I was signing in. No, I was not trying to suck up. It's my day to day briefcase. The other thing that struck me about Marko (other than his intelligence and wit....OK that was a suck up)was that there's a certain Jerry Garcia quality to him. Sort of 21st Century indie rock kind of Jerry Garcia. Don't know why, just kind of struck me.

Felt sorry for him as the workshop went along. The Sabres playoff game was on TV and they were showing it on the TVs scattered around the youth center we were using. Well as the game headed into overtime there was shall we say a certain reluctance to head back in to the sessions. In the end the workshop worked out better than the game did (we lost 2-1 in double OT). We take our sports very seriously here in WNY.

At least it was fairly warm (yes Marko mid-50's is fairly warm for days in April round here) for his visit. Snow would not have been out of the question.

Kinda glad the weekend is over however.

Peace

And we're back, again

I've been on vacation for the last week, and promised myself no job/ministry related stuff at all. If I'm TOTALLY honest I was about 98% good. I did check e-mail just to make sure nothing vital got skipped. Sorry if you e-mailed me and it didn't make it to the vital level. But I needed this break. Oh, boy did I need this break! I feel much better now.

Here's something to chew on from Marko's blog. It's a great reminder of why I love working with young people.

Peace