Arlen Ward dot com

I know this blog has become a never ending stream of videos and comics lately, but this is too good to share. Maybe it rings true to me these days because I just recently added myself to the ranks of the iPhone users.

I love my phone. I hear that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, but if anyone wants to tell me their favorite iPhone app in the comments, I wouldn’t mind!

OK, you bunch of slackers.

I sent out the e-mail. I posted it on my blog. Told you all about the great causes that it will benefit. You know, things like the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project. That’s right, the group that helps those that volunteered to defend you and got severely injured in the process. I also mentioned the good karma it would produce, just in case.

I even gave you a link to my page on the charity site, where you can see progress to date. Have we noticed the lack of progress?

I know what you are waiting for. You need someone to sweeten the pot! So here you go. El Hefe at Emergent Fitness, a.k.a. Chris, has offered a prize to the person that raises the most money for the event. It is an iPod shuffle that is engraved with the Fight Gone Bad III logo. So here’s what I was thinking:

I will provide said iPod to whoever donates the most help me with this cause!

This of course requires two things:

1. Out of all the participants from EmerFit, I have the top dollar amount for donations.
2. Out of the multitudes that are going to donate to help me, you have the top dollar amount for donations.

Remember, if someone beats you out, you can always add to your donation!

Even if you already have an MP3 player, don’t you think a shuffle would be great for your own fitness excursions? Plus, I will ship it to you for free, even if you live in Brazil!

Now how can you beat that?

Ahem, now click here please.

P.S.- The “Bleg” in the title is not a typo, just a combination of Blog and Beg. I don’t know where I saw it first, but thought it was fitting for this post. Kinda makes you want to donate, doesn’t it?

Alright people, it looks as if I am now signed up to do a CrossFit workout for charity. The causes are Athletes for a Cure (to support protate cancer research) and the Wounded Warrior Project (to support and aid our service men and women who are severly injured in service to our country).

The workout is “Fight Gone Bad” and there are plenty of examples of it on YouTube.

Here’s the explanation from the Emerfit blog:

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. We’ve used this in 3 and 5 round versions. The stations are:

1. Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target. (Reps)
2. Sumo deadlift high-pull: 75 pounds (Reps)
3. Box Jump: 20″ box (Reps)
4. Push-press: 75 pounds (Reps)
5. Row: calories (Calories)

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of “rotate,” the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

So how about it? Ready to donate? Here’s my page on the charity site, you can donate there. I have a goal of $1200, so feel free to forward this to everyone you know. These are both good causes, they will do good things for your money. Knowing what I know about most of you, the additional good karma isn’t a bad thing either.

Have you donated yet? Get on it!

For those with clear skies tomorrow night, there will be a total lunar eclipse at 8:01 MST. It should last about 50 minutes or so, and will be visible in North and South America, Europe and Africa. The moon won’t disappear, but will turn red in color due to the light coming off the Earth’s atmosphere. Check it out if you can, next one is December 2010!

I saw an interview with Cookie Monster from NPR on one of their blog sites. Other than insight into Cookie’s sordid tales of compulsive eating and the trials of stardom (no, not really), I was interested in the reference to the modified questionaire the interviewer used. It turns out to be the “Proust Questionnaire”, now often used as a personality questionnaire. So I thought I would run though it here just for fun.

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It seems appropriate to wish my vast readership a happy Valentine’s day by linking to a couple of guys that have put together some science-based cards, and both amuse me to no end. Over at Ironic Sans David has a set that hits the big names like Darwin, Sagan, and Newton (and others!). I was going to go with the Newton card, but then I was reading the versions that came from the Jacks of Science blog. Chris’ set is more topic based, but my favorite is his Einstien card:

So Happy Valentine’s Day everybody!