Bark in the Park…

The other night I was sitting at a Gwinnett Braves game eating a giant hot dog covered in condiments and I thought to myself….

“Do you know what would make this moment perfect and really warm my heart?”  (besides antacids?)

“We should be able to bring our dogs out to enjoy this with us!”

Well low and behold, I found out that the promotions crew at the Gwinnett Braves have decided to risk it all and let us bring our dogs to the park for a day. Isn’t that awesome! You better believe I plan to be there and I’m asking (actually begging with little puppy dog eyes) for you all to come out and join us too! If you don’t own a dog, that’s fine too. (I’ll have one extra someone can borrow for the evening.) Just come out and support our four-legged friends and the Gwinnet Braves. The new stadium is seriously cool by the way.

Are you interested? If not, please have someone hold a mirror under your nose because I’m pretty sure you aren’t breathing… This is the ultimate doggie play date people! There are going to be contests happening and everything. Not to mention the fact that we all get to sit together all picnic style and watch a great baseball game and catch homers!

So here are the details: Bark in the Park – June 11th, 2009 7pm at the new Gwinnett stadium. Let me know if you are coming in the comment section below. We’ll be sitting in the berm area because we will have pets, I think it’s a fair trade…

Oh, by the way… Have I mentioned that I’ll buy the tickets for the first 5 people who comment below and say they are coming?

If you need more information or would like to buy tickets on your own, you can click on the following link and scroll down to June 11th. :  http://gwinnett.braves.milb.com/promotions/index.jsp?sid=t431

101 Things To Do In 1001 Days

Late one night a few months ago, I was surfing the net and “Stumbled” (more about StumbleUpon at a later date) across a site called Day Zero Project.  Following is the basic rundown of what this project is about.

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past – frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Being the list oriented person I am, How could I resist? It took me forever, but I have finally finished my list. I actually started it on April 1st, 2009 because I wanted to try it before I blogged about it. That means my end date will be December 28th, 2011. I’m sure I’ll need lots of encouragement and help with many of these, so please feel free to participate wherever you want. I’d love to have you around! My plan is to donate $5 per accomplished task to charity if I am able to complete all of the tasks on the list. So here they are in no particular order and not even categorized…

101 Things To Accomplish in 1001 Days
1) Get debt free
2) Lose 40 pounds. (10/40)
3) Do 10 things that risk rejection. (2/10) (No surprises yet…)
4) Buy another car with cash. ($5000 min.)
5) Buy an adventure motorcycle with cash. ($4000 min.)
6) Get a Commercial Driver’s License (Class A)
7) 2 Random ROAD TRIPS!! (0/2)
8 ) Write a book. (No matter how bad or short it is…)
9) Blog once per day for 60 days consecutively. (0/60)
10) Develop a growth plan for work, then work it…
11) Visit parents in WY twice. (0/2)
12) One adventure motorcycle trip. (Mostly offroad.)
13) Spend 4 days camping by myself.
14) Catch 10 different species of fish on fly rod. (Release them all… ) (0/10)
15) Travel to another country.
16) Think of 5 new items to invent and create a prototype for 1 of them. (0/5, 0/1)
17) Get 2 of my ideas on stage or in public. (0/2)
18) Learn to program lights at Buckhead Church.
19) Volunteer to feed the homeless 2 times. (0/2)
20) Go on 2 REAL dates with the same person. (0/2)
21) Write a letter to my Mom to tell her I love her.
22) Give blood 2 times. (0/2)
23) Make one lifelong dream come true for someone other than myself.
24) Cook 1 new recipe per month.
25) Commit 3 random acts of kindness.
26) Read at least 1 book per month.
27) Run 3 5k’s.
28) Run Peachtree Road Race.
29) Learn Spanish at a conversational level.
30) Have dinner or lunch with 1 new person every month.
31) Go on an overnight trip by canoe or kayak
32) Wear a superhero outfit under my clothes for a day and not tell anyone. (Blog about it the next day.)
33) Spend at least 1 day in 2 cities I’ve never been in.
34) Start roller-blading.
35) Go to 2 outdoor sporting events.
36) Go to 2 major music concerts.
37) See 8 movies on opening day. (2/8) (Wolverine and Star Trek April, 09)
38) Visit 1 new state that I’ve never been in.
39) Cook for friends
40) Eat nothing but Special K cereal for 1 week. (You didn’t think this whole thing would be serious did you?)
41) Notice 4 perfect days, stop everything planned and do something completely spontaneous.
42) Create 2 new yearly traditions for myself.
43) Start to learn to play a stringed instrument.
44) Meet 3 people in person that I’ve previously only known online.
45) Take 1 complete vacation. (Cabin, Hotel)
46) Run 3 days a week or more for 2 consecutive months.
47) Write a will
48) Organize my home and storage unit.
49) Organize 1 dog play date
50) Have a picnic on the roof of a building.
51) Join a mentoring group
52) Write a letter to someone who hurt me in the past, burn it, then call them and work it out in person.
53) Compliment excellent customer service to a manager 5 times.
54) Make a list of 50 things that I absolutely love and post it somewhere public so people can learn more about me.
55) Develop a plan to start mapping my brain and generate more useful ideas.
56) Babysit a child for free.
57) Send a “just because” care package to a friend.
58) Compliment 1 person sincerely per day for 30 days.
59) Plant a tree
60) Drink nothing but water for 1 week.
61) Get 8 hours of sleep every night for 1 week.
62) Send out Christmas cards  one year.
63) Make a reading list, then read it…
64) Paint/draw 1 picture I like and hang it.
65) See a play
66) Eat a meal in a nice restaurant by myself.
67) Take an interesting photo of myself.
68) Fast for 72 hours
69) Take a class for fun. (Scuba diving?)
70) Send 10 thank-you cards to people not on staff
71) Do a daily affirmation in the mirror for 30 consecutive days.
72) Write a letter to myself telling me what I like about me and blog it for others to see.
73) Write a letter to my past self giving advice I now realize I wish I had then.
74) Write one anonymous letter to someone and deliver it.
75) Surpass 200,000 miles on the Geo.
76) Teach one person how to fly-fish. (Jared Roman) ← nominated himself!
77) Read the bible in chronological order.
78) Watch every episode of McGuyver. (10/139)
79) Visit the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.
80) Make something explode.
81) Restore something old.
82) Build something from scratch. (electronics?)
83) Get on a TV show or commercial
84) Stay up all night talking to someone.
85) Organize a scavenger hunt
86) Create, shoot, and edit goofy videos for the blog.
87) Spend an entire day without talking.
88) Have someone else give me a fashion makeover.
89) Sit on top of a mountain and absorb for a day.
90) Create my own holiday and convince others to celebrate it.
91) Take a vacation day to play with children.
92) Quit caffeine for 1 week.
93) Do something that is a complete secret.
94) Spend a weekend experiencing another culture.
95) Record one entire day in photographs.
96) Ride on a train other than MARTA.
97) Spend a night looking at the stars.
98) Arrange a night out for someone else and their GF or spouse. Take care of all details for them.
99) Get CPR certification
100) Change 5 of the previous goals to make them more challenging.
101) Find someone who doesn’t like me and change their opinion of me.

Wow!

I know beatboxing is old school, but this guy is incredible…

And the winner was…

Providing you aren’t in the middle of your own personal Groundhog Day experience, you should have woken up this morning and realized that today is the day after Valentine’s Day. This means that we had a winner for the Win A Date With Jerry! contest and “the date” has happened…

Or did it?

Yeah, suspense on a blog just doesn’t work so well. The closest I could come was to hold out and not say anything until today. So here goes!

First I need to explain something: This contest was all for fun. That’s one reason why I was pleasantly surprised when people actually did enter it. My joke on me got real, and real fast… I am also not usually the type that would do a blog post regarding “a date”, but people have been asking and my mom is kind of expecting it.

Now onto details before my mom kills me!

Yes I did indeed have “a date” with one lucky lady. Truth be known, I was the lucky one. My friend from work Kristie Poll had entered and she made every effort to let me and the Selection Committee know that she intended to win. I think that a fear of what she would do if she lost may have had some bearing on the committee’s decision.  I keed!

This is Kristie on a trip she took a while back:

So what did we do?

You should know that I am not a “show and go” kind of guy. I enjoy sitting down and getting to know the person I am with rather than just going to a movie or show and leaving. Because of this, I called Kristie and arranged for us to meet before “the date” to hang out so that we would be more comfortable on “the date”.  After this call, I tried to pull together something cool for us to do but my mind completely shut down. (Give me a break! It’s been a while since I’ve had to plan something like this!) I went to bed on Friday night having absolutely no clue how I was going to pull off a fun ice-breaker activity while knowing that it was going to be raining.

Saturday morning comes and I wake up sometime between 6 or 7am and an idea came to me! But first I had to go back to sleep for a few hours…

Finally I got moving again and I stop by an art supply store and pick up this baby:

That is a kit that contains everything you need for oil/acrylic/chalk/sketching/watercolor paintings. The box also serves as an easel. It’s incredibly awesome and I’m probably going to get myself one soon because this one now belongs to Kristie.

So I get to Kristie’s condo and go through the process of getting up to her floor. This involves signing in and being escorted to the elevator by a concierge. I was surprised when I didn’t even have to knock before she opened the door for me and I gave her a pink rose. (I learned earlier that she loves pink…)  For the rest of the afternoon, we hung out at her place and we painted while we watched part of Down With Love and Top Gun and chatted about stuff. I had a great time!

This is the masterpiece that Kristie painted:

We have agreed not to discuss what I painted. We even tried to make it better by painting a giant heart on it, but even that couldn’t save it.

Then Jared and Meredith came and picked us up and we went to Medieval Times for dinner and JOUSTING!!!! Oh Yeah!!

If you are not familiar with Medieval Times, it is a dinner theater in which you eat dinner with your hands while actors re-enact a story of a princess and her prince, a tournament, and an evil knight trying to take over a kingdom. Pretty basic storyline, but really well done! I walked away from this experience absolutely amazed! I highly recommend it to anyone. We thought it was going to be a joke and we would just be people watching all night, but we actually got into it and had an incredible time!

After Medieval Times, we drove Kristie home, I walked her to her door, cried over my horrible painting, gave her a hug, and then I drove home and dreamed of castles and battles in far away kingdoms.

All in all, I would say that I had a wonderful time and Kristie is an extreme amount of fun to be around.

Both parties involved in this post are currently negotiating further (appropriate) activities and will disclose any pending arrangements in due course. We appreciate your interest, but we are not at liberty to discuss anything at the time of this publication due to the fact that we have no idea…

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS!!!

What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?

How many times have you heard that recently?

Are you tired of saying “I haven’t made plans yet?

Well have I got a deal for you!

Do you ever dream of the day when your knight in shining armor comes riding up to you on his battle steed? Do you long to sit in your very own castle and dine with other royalty? Do you secretly hope Westley from The Princess Bride will come rescue you? Well all of that can be yours on this Valentine’s Day because I am now accepting applications for my latest contest.

This contest will be a series of dates that will be happening occasionally in upcoming months. I can promise that all dates will be interesting and pretty different from most normal dates. I promise that some will be cheesy and some will actually be pretty amazing. I will have no control in who my dates are, so all inquiries must be emailed to my Selection Committee at winadatewithjerry@gmail.com.  I have been held down and tortured until I gave up my deepest and most sincere desires and an application has been created to indicate what I think is the perfect woman. So I encourage you to please email winadatewithjerry@gmail.com and someone from The Win A Date With Jerry Selection Committee will get an application right to you.

Act now! Supplies are limited!

“But Jerry! What am I applying for?”

To celebrate our first Win A Date With Jerry Contest, we’re going to be going old school. Medieval in fact!

Are you ready watch knights battle to the death for the hand of a fair maiden. OF COURSE YOU ARE!

Are you ready to see the forces of good and evil try to conquer each other? OF COURSE YOU ARE!

Are you ready to have a bar maid ask you if “Ma’Lord and Lady would like another Pepsi”? I’M BETTING SO!

If all of these things are appealing to you, then you’ll be excited to know that our inaugural event is going to be held at:

By The Way: All dates will be double dates with two of the most amazing people I know. Jared and Meredith Roman! So I would recommend applying just to hang out with them…

Sometimes I amuse myself…

…so much that I thought this conversation I had with Jared about me buying a pellet gun today  was hilarious.

I think it sums up our friendship pretty well!

Walking a mile in his shoes may be tough…

Very cool speaker with an incredible story…

Stepping up the game…

I think all three of you that read my blog have recently asked why I’m not blogging as much as I used to.

It’s simple…

I don’t have time for it.

In order to make a post interesting, you have to offer something to draw people in. I would do this with photos that I dig up off of the web or shots I took myself and uploaded. That’s all well and good, but over time I started feeling like it was burden to find interesting shots and photos and I was also feeling like I was just borrowing other people’s ideas and not really doing my own stuff. Since a blog is supposed to be a creative outlet, I started to think I was not really being creative.

Hopefully that won’t be the case any more because I should be getting this little guy sometime this afternoon.

It’s a Flip Mino HD Camera. (click here for more info). Simply put, this little video camera will allow me to capture videos of my ugly mug and upload them directly to YouTube within a few minutes.

Let’s hope this works…

Any ideas on what my first video should be?

I’m back!

I know, I’m a schmuck for not posting in a while…

Well here’s a really well done (and cute for the girls reading this!) video I saw recently. Very simple and creative. The shots are great and the music fits perfectly. I even think the little boy’s mullet was awesome too.

I’m sorry I’ve been distracted…

People around me know that my dogs are very important to me.  I will openly admit that I do have a favorite and that it is my Sheltie mix named Eilli’ (pronounced Eye-Lee). She is the sweetest dog ever and has never been sick a day in her life.

Until I left for Wyoming…

This is Eilli’ the day before I left:

This is Eilli’ two days after I got back.

It seems that while I was gone, Eilli’ was getting very sick. I am so proud of her for hanging tough until I got home from my trip. Once I got home though, she let me know something wasn’t right. She had developed an infection on a Polyp that had been inside of her for quite a while. She was literally hours away from death by the time I was able to get her to the veterinarian where they did emergency surgery to remove the growth and all of the infection. She is still recovering from the surgery, but we have been waiting for a biopsy on the growth. The past two weeks have been draining as every time I looked at her, I prayed that she wasn’t dying of cancer.

This is Eilli’ at the vet getting her stitches out. As you can see, she is not very happy about being there again. This is actually the only time I’ve ever seen her with that look on her face.

Today I received an email saying that the growth was not cancerous. This makes me happy enough to continue blogging about my trip later. But right now I’m going to buy her some treats to celebrate!