doing things 100 days at a time.

on June 1st, i committed to taking a class on peloton at least once a day, every day for the month. inspired by watching the iron cowboy complete 101 ironman distance triathalons in 101 days, i committed to 100 consecutive days of exercise. as i start this blog to document writing once a day for the next 100 days, i’m at 133.

to the moon!

day 7.

one week down, 93 more day to go. it is still too early to tell but have had the feeling my 100 day fitness (peloton class) challenge will prove to be the easier of the two but plenty of time for me to find my groove.

like many currently in the hobby, i dove head first into sports card collecting during the pandemic. but perhaps like only a few, i dove back into the hobby and if instagram is any indication many were not even born during my peak collecting days.

i remember my first pack of cards – 1988 donruss baseball cards that my dad bought for me at the lucky’s supermarket down the street from our house. i don’t remember the specific players from those packs but do know that was the beginning of what many, including myself, would refer to as an obsession. unfortunately, the bulk of my collecting years is referred to as the ‘junk wax era’ where cards were massed produced and today hold very little value. i might have been overselling (justifying) to my mom at one point when i told her my cards would pay for me to go to college. thankfully my parents helped with that and my childhood collection was spared.

and while i did a lot of collecting during the ‘junk wax era,’ i cannot say that all of my cards were junk. i grew up on michael jordan and while i do not have his rookie card, i did trade up with a local card shop to get his 2nd year fleer. shaq was hands down my favorite player when he entered the nba and i was focused to collect as many of his rookie cards as i could. and then there were players like derek jeter and alex rodriguez who had rookie years in 1993 and 1994. and as i spent the better part of a week earlier this year going through old boxes, came across a tony hawk ‘rookie card’ from the sports illustrated for kids magazine, a general norman schwarzkopf ‘rookie card’ from a dessert storm series made, and several wwf greats like hulk hogan, andre the giant and my favorite, bret ‘the hitman’ hart.

i was all in on cards until high school or some time around then but never completely left. on occasion i would pop into a card shop, rip a few packs, and stash them away. unfortunately, i didn’t end up with any tom brady or lebron rookie cards. but, about 5 years ago i met up with a lifelong family friend, ‘dr. b’ at the st. leander’s card show in san leandro with the goal of picking up a babe ruth card. i didn’t end up leaving with a babe ruth but did leave with a 1956 jackie robinson topps grey back and 1969 mickey mantle topps white letter. i love both cards, but especially the mantle because you can see just how hard the years were to him compared to the earlier years.

when i jumped back in to the hobby at the adult age of 38, it was tough to demonstrate self control and not do what i always dreamed of doing as a kid – buying boxes and ripping packs. the sad part for the future of the hobby is that there is no way i could afford to enter it today without some kind of major funding from a parent. buying boxes and ripping packs is certainly a disguised version of gambling when cards of today’s rookies like justin herbert, patrick mahomes, mike trout, zion, ja or lamelo will easily sell for 6 if not 7 figures if the card is rare enough. the hobby today is like a hybrid of finding willy wonka’s golden ticket and playing the lottery.

with tom brady’s rookie cards hitting healthy 5 figures, some in the 6’s and many in the 7 figures, i’ve tried to collect some of tom’s 2nd rookie cards from the 2020 season with the tampa bay buccaneers. my two favorites being a donruss optic downtown and select tie dye snapshot moments. with the value of cards rising to ridiculous levels, a lot the kids like to see ‘sports cards to the moon!’ and while i hope that some of the cards i’ve collected in the last year go to the moon, the greatest value has been sports cards taking me back to the nostalgia of being a kid, going to card shops, and chasing my favorite players.

and maybe that’s the point…

day 8.

i’ve been thinking a lot about the next 92 days. mostly random thoughts throughout the day along the lines of:

• what am i going to write about today?
• what is the best time for me to dedicate to writing?
• why do i keep doing what i said i was not going to do (write at the end of the night)? perhaps that is the best time for me, after dinner but with enough room to where i don’t forget about writing after laying down
• what are some challenges within the challenge that i can impose upon myself to make this a bit more focused?

i could ramble on but i am starting to think that i need more of a focus for the next 92 days, especially if i’d like to give this thing a shot of going past the goal of 100 days.

i completed my 140th consecutive day of peloton and don’t see any reason why i am not going to get to 150. and as i start to think about getting to 150, keeping it going until the end of the year doesn’t seem all that crazy. and if i am going to get to the end of the year, making it to my 40th birthday seems like the right move.

to be completely honest, all of this started because i was feeling like it wasn’t a good idea for me to continue tipping the scales at 228 pounds at the age of 39. i’m also not dreading 40 but i’d love to make it another 40 + 5 to 10 and i am not going to do that at a playing weight of 228. a 140 days and tweaking my diet without giving up the pleasures of life (wine, ice cream) has me flirting with the single digit 200’s.

i’m trying to benjamin button myself. my hair has not started to grey. the beard a little bit of salt and pepper but shaving is an easy fix to that. i’m paying more attention to the things i eat not because i eat like shit but because there are certain things that don’t work with me, like gluten. i’m also fairly certain that diary isn’t that great for my biology but i do really love ice cream. so i’ve kicked gluten 99% of the time and am in denial about dairy but i am coming around.

i decided that the recipe for benjamin button’ing myself is, thus far – exercise, diet, take care of my mentals and chicken, be present, be positive and do things that i didn’t or wasn’t able to do when i was 30. as an example, i haven’t run a marathon so i am thinking about that for 2022. i don’t have a tattoo and don’t really have a reason not to get one. i’d like to get to every continent and i may not bang out 3 continents next year but i can at least bang out 1. benjamin button myself and just live because you really only get to do it once and it always works itself out.

i’ve rambled. i sat down not wanting to write today because i didn’t know what to write about, i didn’t have a focus and maybe that is the point of all this. to just let it rip, which is also why i decided not to use any caps on day 1.

some random thoughts on the challenges within the challenge:

• juice cleanse. i’ve done 3 days but maybe i’ll give 4 a whip
• no dairy for 30 days. just typing it feels hard and i’d for sure need to finish the ice cream in the freezer before that kicks off.
• go out of my way to do something nice for someone for a week (i just thought of that now)

let’s see where this goes tomorrow…

friday night lights

day 9.

october 19.2021

for the last 4-5 months i have been watching friday night lights for the first time and am up to the last episode. it is an absolute classic and really taps into the nostalgia of the high school football. and then 10x’s that.

smash, jason street, saracen, michael b jordan, riggs, coach taylor – the highs, lows, the drama, the excitement, homecomings, all of it. and we’re sitting down for the last episode and only wish there were more.

that’s it.