T-Buck’s Blog I Rock

I just returned from our yearly conference that we put on in San Francisco, called the Elite Retreat. I am biased, but I have to say that this was by far the best one yet. Last year went really well, but it was my first time running it, and there was a big learning curve. Just stupid things that make a world of difference once you have done it before.

I chose the Hotel Vitale this year, because I felt like we needed a smaller venue, one that would pay attention to us, and only us. And compared to the Intercontinental from last year, I don’t think I would ever go to a bigger hotel again. The staff was unbelievable, and they all knew we were there, because we were the only meeting going on. Anything, absolutely anything that we wanted, we got, and we got it immediately. I can’t tell you how much stress that relieves from doing a conference.

And just because it’s a smaller hotel doesn’t mean that it is any less fancy. The hotel was pretty sweet, and with the outdoor terraces that we used for the reception, it was perfect.

I started planning for this event in October, so it was about 4 and half months for it to come together. But I found that when you have a group of 55 people and are looking for the best restaurants in town, you have to give them plenty of notice to reserve the space. So we got both of my top choices for food, Boulevard Restaurant, and Waterbar. I think that Boulevard is one of, if not the highest rated restaurant in San Francisco. And lucky for us, it was across the street from the hotel. Waterbar was just a few blocks down the road on the Embarcadero, so easily within walking distance which makes it nice for everyone. Last year we ate at Aqua, and it was nice, but it was a little to pretentious for me, we want nice food, but someplace that we can be comfortable wearing jeans and cussing And both of these places were phenomenal. When I was closing out the bill at Waterbar, our waitress there knew we had ate at Boulevard the night before, and her words as I walked out the door, were “Boulevard, shit, they don’t have anything on us”. That made me laugh, and also made me realize that I made good choices for restaurants. They fit our personalities very well.

Another Elite Retreat is in the books, and hopefully all of the attendees enjoyed it. Till next time…

Well after spending the last 3 years running, I’ve shifted focus to more of a whole body routine.  So I went to a personal trainer and got a weights routine.  Here is what my new workout schedule looks like:

Saturday:  Weights/Run

Sunday:  Weights

Monday:  Run

Tuesday:  Weights/Spinning

Wednesday:  Weights

Thursday:  Spinning

Friday:  Weights

My new weights routine looks like this, and rotates 2 days on, 1 off.

Day 1: Chest/Back

20 Degree Incline Dumbbell ( Tension)

20 Degree Decline Dumbbell (Tension)

30 Degree Incline Dumbbell ( Tension)

Flat Dumbbell Press ( Power)

Bilateral Lat Pulldown ( standard)

Triangle grip low cable row (standard)

Bilateral Low rows ( standard)

Wide grip overhand barbell row (power)

Day 2: Quadriceps/Hamstrings/Abdominals

Precor hack squat machine (power)

Leg Press feet close ( power)

Leg Press feet wide ( standard)

Squat shoulder width (power)

Lying hamstring curl (standard)

Standing Calf Extension (tension)

Reverse abdominal crunch ( tension)

Physio Ball crunch ( standard)

Day 3: Shoulders/trapezius/forearms

65 degree dumbbell shoulder press (power)

65 degree dumbbell Arnold shoulder press (standard)

Cable side deltoid raise (standard)

Wide grip upright rows (standard)

Smith machine upright rows (standard)

Dumbbell flexion wrist curls ( tension)

Dumbbell extension wrist curls ( tension)

Day 4: Biceps/triceps/abdominals

Standing ez bar bicep curl (tension)

Dumbbell concentration curl (tension)

Standing barbell curl (tension)

Dumbbell hammer bicep curl ( tension)

Cable V handle tricep pressdown (power)

Ez bar tricep skull crushers ( power)

Overhead tricep cable bar extension (tension)

Overhead tricep extension (tension)

Medicine ball Russian twists

Physio ball knees into chest

Whenever I go on business trips, I always find time to work out.  Which usually means checking out the hotel gym, or like when we were in Denver and Orlando, I just ran outside.

We stayed at the Luxor for ASW09, and so I of course had to see what their gym had to offer.  It was actually pretty decent, nice treadmills, big tvs in front of every one, AND the big bonus they had a sauna.  I’ve never actually used a sauna before, so I figured what the hell.  I think after a long night of drinking, the sauna is a perfect morning wake up tool.  Sweat out all of that alcohol

Another part of our trip to ASW was to work out with some UFC/MMA fighters at Randy Couture’s gym.  The ShoeMoney team are avid fans of Mixed Martial Arts stuff, which personally I am not.  I don’t mind watching some fights here and there, but I don’t follow the sport regularly.  So I figured the trip to the gym would be kind of boring, and I thought they might kick my ass when they found out that I didn’t know who any of them were. 

Much to my surprise, the training session was the best part!  These guys are in phenomenal shape, and were amazing to watch them train.  And thanks to DK, we were able to have our own training session with Shawn Tompkins before the professionals took over the gym.  He taught us basic fighting stances, and basic punches.  And then combinations.  Then we got to run through it all with the punching bag.  It totally kicked ass.  And was a really good workout.  I think we only hit the bag for like 30 minutes, and I was dead.  I woke up the next day and my shoulders, and arms were sore.  It was great.

Its already been a couple weeks since we returned from ASW09, but it was a crazy time.  We found out about 9 business days before the show that we could have a booth if we wanted.  So of course we said yes, because you can’t turn down an opportunity like that.  But we have one major issue, we’ve never done a booth, so we have nothing, absolutely nothing for booth displays, materials, etc.

So after some quick research online, Bri and I were able to start the wheels in motion, getting our designer to whip something up, getting in contact with the booth display company to see if they could meet our deadline, etc.  After stressing out for days, and completely focusing all of my time on ASW09, everything was SCHEDULED to be overnighted, and delivered on saturday before the show.  The booth display (which we did not see prior to putting it up), t-shirts, business cards, etc.

The ShoeMoney team wasn’t scheduled to arrive till Sunday, so I contacted Missy Ward’s assistant, Amy, who completely saved our ass.  Not only did she allow us to ship everything to her at the hotel, since we weren’t even staying at the conference hotel, she also delivered all of our boxes to our actual booth space.  So when we arrived on sunday, everything was already waiting for us.

I had 2 major things I was stressed about.  1, that the stuff didn’t arrive in time.  And if it didn’t arrive, then we were screwed.  Because even overnighting it on monday, the event was over on Tuesday.  2, that the booth display would look like shit, since I have never seen anything done by this company, I was very nervous about that.  Right when we arrived, we headed to the expo hall and started putting the booth together.  And thank god, it looked great.  Everything was there and looked like we had planned for months.

Take a look:

Overall the trip was really fun.  We did discover that the ShoeMoney Team is not necessarily a booth sort of company.  It’s a lot of work to run a booth, and with only 4 employees, that means we were all working pretty much the entire time.  It was a good experience, and now if we ever want to do a booth again, we have all of the stuff!

Below is a pic with myself, Bri and Dan sporting the Market Leverage track jackets and mugs.  Market Leverage took us out for a kick ass dinner at the new restaurant Switch which is located in the hotel Encore.  The walls actually “switched” (get it) during dinner.  It was pretty trippy, but the food was great, and even though it took 4 hours for our whole meal, it was well worth it.

With the new years, a lot of peoples resolutions will be to lose weight, or get in shape.  I think the best way to accomplish this, is to submit to the process.

You have to realize, that if you knew what you were doing, then you’d look like an elite athlete.

So take the new years, and get a trainer, see a nutrionist and gather the information you need to succeed.

So I used to watch the show, The Biggest Loser, on NBC.  It takes severely overweight people and puts them on a ranch with 2 “trainers” to teach them how to lose weight.  When I first saw the show a couple years ago, I thought it was awesome.  The transformations are insane at the end of the show!

But low and behold, I have been working out my entire life, and quite heavily for the past 3 years.  And by heavily, I mean every day. 

The more I have learned and done with fitness, the more I have looked at the show and don’t agree with what they are doing.  I’ve read some reports that talk about how the contestants weights at the finale is completely fake.  And they are all about 20lbs heavier, but they have been put on a diet that basically dehydrates them, so they aren’t retaining any water.  So as soon as they drink anything, they gain the 20lb right away.  Looking at the “Where are they now” article, it becomes apparent this is true:

Bill

Finale Weight: 178

Weight Now: 190

Amy

Finale Weight: 154

Weight Now: 195

Mark

Finale Weight: 178

Weight Now: 225

Now, I’m not saying that these contestants didn’t lose a great amount of weight.  Which is awesome.  But what I think they are taught, is unrealistic, unhealthy, and just overall bad.  To lose the amount of weight they are, in that short amount of time is setting them up for failure.  Its hard to lose weight.  Period.  The show can get very dramatic results because they seclude the contestants from everything they have ever known.  Which isn’t realistic.  When they are back at home, there will be fast food restaurants on every corner, and times when they don’t have time to make a healthy meal.  The show misses the point, I’d like to see them take people and try and change them, while still in their normal life.

I think we can all agree it would be a hell of a lot less dificult to lose weight, if we had no distractions, no job, no fast food around, and the only thing to eat was healthy food that was specifically portioned for you to lose weight.

So its been 3 years, and even though at times it feels like nothing has changed, I decided to list what has changed.

I graduated from college

I bought a house

I bought a car

I started running, and have ran in over 10 races including the Lincoln Half Marathon, Chicago Half Marathon, and finally doing a full 26.2 miles at the Kansas City Marathon.

I go to the Y so much, the staff knows my name

I’ve changed jobs, three times.  Leaving the Ross Theater for the Lincoln Children’s Museum and Nebraska CASA.  And then went to the Nebraska Medical Association.  And then leaving the NMA for ShoeMoney Media Group Inc.

I did the BRAN (Bike Ride Across Nebraska)

I’ve traveled.  A lot.  San Francisco, New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Vegas (multiple times), New York City (multiple times), Orlando, Chicago (multiple times), Denver, Tampa (multiple times), Pensacola, Washington D.C., Ocean City, Champaign, Deadwood, San Diego, Kansas City, and Austin.

I biked across the Gold Gate Bridge…tandem

I white water rafted for the first time with a great friend

I became a healthy eater, I’ve probably ate fast food less than 10 times in the past 3 years.

I went from drinking 6 pops a day, to drinking only water and protein shakes

I’ve read a lot of books, some that were great (Into the Wild, Hope in Hell, Year of Magical Thinking, both of Lance Armstrong’s books)

I learned a few things about myself:  I have a highly addictive personality, I can accomplish about anything I decide to do, and I’m a master drywaller

I’ve taken way too many pictures, I think because I was paranoid of missing a moment I would want to remember later

I reunited with old friends, and made some new ones

I helped some friends move away, and saw a few get married

I spent a lot of time with my family

I had lasik eye surgery

I’ve been getting this question a lot lately, and so I did a little research and found this great video.  He explains in good detail which one is probably right for you, so take a look:

2 weekends ago Nikki and I headed to Omaha to see Matt Nathanson in concert at the Slowdown.  The last time I had seen Matt in concert was 2002, so it had been a while.  Apparently the show was sold out, lucky for us we bought our tickets the day they went on sale.

I like artists like Matt, and these type of venues.  The tickets cost $14.  And the venue, held probably 200 people.  Oh and the beer isn’t $9 a glass like at the Qwest Center.

We met Ann and Eric, who live really close to the Slowdown, and had to stand in line for a bit.  We got kind of bored, so I got out the Flip to entertain us:

I also had 2 extra tickets so on our way to Omaha I txt my friend Sarah, to see if she wanted to come.  Sarah and Jason met us at the concert, and we had a good time.  Matt is one of the best live performers I have ever seen.  He’s always entertaining, and his music isn’t too bad either….

Here’s some video of him performing:

Klean Kanteen.

These BPA free, food grade stainless steel water bottles are about as perfect as it gets.  There was a lot of press about Sigg bottles, being stainless steal, but they are a Swiss company and apparently that means they aren’t required to disclose what the lining of the bottle is made of.  Most experts say the lining is made of plastic, so these bottles are as worthless as plastic bottles.

But, then came Klean Kanteen.  These bottles are awesome.  They come in the stainless steel color, as well as other colors, and are great on the environment.  I’ve seen them pop up recently, one was on the tv show “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia“.  Dee has one when her and Dennis decide they need to start working out.  And most recently, Matt Nathanson, had one on stage with him while he performed.

These bottles are awesome, and highly recommended.  But one warning, is they are not for warm liquids.  Stainless steel conducts heat and cold very well.  So if you have hot things in them, it will burn your hand.  I think they make covers for them, but I’m not sure.