The Big Box

Another event in the eating decathlon is complete. This one was easily my favorite, and I think Ryan and Drew agree with me. We did our Taco Bell challenge. Instead of doing 10 tacos as originally planned, we did a Big Box Value Meal. Has anyone had one of these? They are fantastic, and I believe they are ever-evolving. This version included a regular taco, a bean burrito, an order of cinnamon twists, a 32 oz. drink, and the new Black Jack taco (more on this tomorrow). The race itself was one of the more exciting ones. We were originally not going to include the drink, but we changed that at the last minute, and it really turned out to be the game-changer.

We started out quickly, all on different foods. Me on the taco, Drew on the Burrito, and Ryan on the Cinnamon twists. I personally felt like I led most of the way, devouring both tacos and then eating the burrito in about 4 bites. I started the cinnamon twists while Drew and Ryan still had a bit over 1 taco left. However, they had drank more of their Cokes during the actual eating that I had. I instead focused on the food and tried to chug the drink at the end. Instead, they caught and passed me when we were all trying to finish the drink. Ryan won by the slimmest of margins, with Drew right behind. I gave in when they had finished and decided to enjoy my Coke over the next few minutes. None of us felt 0ver-full at all and we agreed it was the best challenge yet. I now have a 2 point lead over Drew and a 6 point lead over Ryan. Should be an interesting finish.

Another Post of Ranting

I've fallen off the wagon of posting so I decided to add some gibberish to my pool of thoughts on this site. I've actually had a lot of time to watch people lately, and I've made some observations that anger, annoy, and amuse me. What do you think?

Why do people insist on backing into parking spaces. I don't really know why this annoys me so much, but it seems to me like it's more difficult to back into a parking spot than to back out of it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get fed up when I have to wait for someone to pull past a spot then back up (normally badly) into the spot they just passed up. Maybe someone can give me some insight into this one, but it's annoying enough to me to ruin my mood for an hour or so.

As a follow-up to that, I feel it's necessary to make a plea to people: Don't try to parallel park if you don't know how. There's plenty of spots elsewhere, so don't hold up traffic while you spend 5 minutes adjusting your car because you don't know what you're doing. Proper parallel parking should be done in 3 moves, not 15. Maybe I get annoyed by this because parallel parking is one of about 3 things in this life I can do well (I'm still trying to find the other 2). But if you can't do something, don't hold up other people because of your incompetence. Admit defeat and move on.

My college alma-mater is currently ranked #5 in Division 2 basketball, it's highest rank ever. Its last two home games have been in front of sellout crowds of 2,600: roughly equal to the attendance of Rams games at the end of this season. I wasn't in St. Louis, but how many Rams games were blacked out this year?

Speaking of football, St. Louis is trying to get a MLS team. While I'm all for that and think it will be great for the city, which truly deserves a franchise, I can't help but remember the last time I went to a soccer game in St. Louis. It was indoor soccer, and it's the first time I've seen only 500 people in a 20,000 seat arena...eerie to say the least.

The weather here has sucked over the past month, in both St. Louis and Louisville. My barometer on weather is based on what I wear when I run. So far in the past 3 weeks I've run in running pants, 2 shirts and a jacket, and a hat and gloves in one run. I've also run in running shorts and no shirt several times. I believe the range of temperatures we've seen is 3 degrees (-10 wind chill) all the way up to 68 degrees. But really, I think I would be bored living in a climate where the temperature stayed steady year-round. This just adds some excitement and unpredictability to life.

What turned out to be the most enjoyable event in the eating decathlon occurred a few hours ago. I'll post an update in a day or two.