Thunder John: In a New York Minute

October 22, 2010
83,000 pushups completed
917,000 pushups to go
2,222 ahead of schedule.


Greetings pushups fans. Thunder John here. You, there. A lot's been happening since my last posting. Let me bring you up to speed.


First off, did something I've always wanted to do. I ate some Dannon (fruit on the bottom) yogurt a full three days past expiry. Nothing happened. Yogurt cops did not knock down my door. Empowered by my act of rebellion, I taped and distributed a broadcast of the Cubs game without the express written permission of Major League Baseball. Again nothing happened. I later ate an unwashed apple. Nada. This puts in doubt every warning my mother had ever burdened me with. Should I go cross the street with my eyes closed and see what happens? Eat the candy of a stranger? Spit directly into the wind? Never again trust an Irishman? Suppose I've got a few things to figure out on my own now.


No time for that now though; life moves fast and TJ isn't gonna wait on the sidelines. Last Sunday I went to New York City for business for three days. It was the Society of Actuaries Annual Meeting near Times Square. Actuaries are just really great people on the whole, there's no two ways about it. Great with numbers. Really like following the rules. Conversation can be challenging. But if you're ever going to buy a used car from somebody and they tell you they're an actuary, chances are you're getting a square deal.

Fast Fact: In A New York Minute, Thunder John can perform 71 pushups.

Actuaries use the left side of their brain a lot in their jobs; this is the analytical side that likes to crunch numbers, use logic, follow a chain of causation, etc. The right side, the side of creativity is not always that important for actuarial work. I tried taking guitar lessons to keep my right brain from getting flabby, but that was a disaster. So writing this blog, a "creative writing" exercise, is how I am currently trying to keep my brain balanced. Not sure how it's going so far, so please, provide some constructive criticism via the comments section on this blog.

Where was I... oh yeah so my arms are getting huge, my brain is perfectly balanced and I can't play the guitar. I'm ready for the rapture. What more could a person want? Well now that I'm what Dr. Maslow would call "self actualized", it's my duty to help you the faithful blog follower achieve your own muscular samsara. Let me continue to tell my tale:

While in NYC, I decided to stretch my legs and go for a walk. Below you can see me striking a familiar pose in front of the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home of The Late Show with David Letterman. Note the finger blocking the bottom of the picture. It is so hard to find a competent homeless person to take your picture, so instead a work colleague snapped my visage. Maybe I should've went with the NY vagabond instead.

Afterward I went around the corner and had a sandwich at the Hello Deli!, ordering from Rupert himself (Rupert often appears on the Late Show). In honor of the visit, here are the

Top Ten Reasons to Support the Thunder John Pushups Blog:


10. If the Dancing Baby can go viral, then every day I'm under 1,000,000 page visits is a slap in the face.

9. Reading this blog will make you feel better about the way you spend YOUR free time (except for the time you spend reading this blog)

8. Have you read that guy with the situps blog? Pathetic!

7. My kids college savings plan relies heavily on you clicking the banner ads.

6. The ten millionth page viewer will win... a brand new car*!

5. Chuck Norris doesn't do pushups. He does Earth-downs. Sorry. Wrong list but I thought it was funny.

4. What, you don't think there's any useful information in this blog, it's all just a bunch of self serving pablum? Well then, here's a tip to prevent body odor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTn_m4oMww
3. I told everybody at work that my blog is really popular. Please don't make me a liar.

2. Thunder John is the 21st century's first true American hero (I'd like to be played by Ryan Reynolds or Andre Agassi in the movie version of this story).

And the #1 reason to support the Thunder John blog is:

1. You need an outlet for the energy you were channeling into freeing the Chilean miners. This blog is your answer.

Peace out,

Thunder John


"Bringin' the thunder, packin' the pain, loaded with pushups, makin' it rain"

* - brand new car promotion has been cancelled

x

Christopher Columbus, Rocky Balboa, Thunder John: The 3-man weave

October 11, 2010
79,375 pushups completed
920,625 pushups to go
1,609 ahead of schedule

It's Columbus Day 2010! Strange holiday if you give it a lot of thought. Christopher Columbus (CC) was an Italian sailing for Spain. CC blundered into the second largest landmass on Earth. Shortly thereafter we caucasians spread disease amongst the natives, devastating the population and their llama-based, wheelless civilization that also had no writing (well, the Mayans did, but they had all but dispersed by the time of CC). Actually, if CC HADN'T discovered America, then writing would never have been used in the Americas. The blog of Thunder John would have to be passed down by word of mouth. I'd have to pay for bards to memorize and recite (with proper inflection) each blog entry, and finance an annuity to pay for their descendants to memorize and recite this blog. In a way, we all have CC and his smallpox ridden blankets to thank for the internet and this blog in its current form.

So I try not to give it a lot of thought.

Any-who, so this was Columbus Day weekend, and I decided to take Monday off. The family unit drove up to Lake Geneva on Sunday and stayed overnight at a waterpark. One of the parks was having a special on a one bedrooom unit - we'd have the kids sleep in the bedroom on the king bed and Molly and I would use the pull out sleeper couch in the main room.

When I was a Junior in High School, my Physics AP teacher was Ed Pettus. He was an eccentric man, at least I remember him that way and it may only be because he had a thick, lustrous beard the hue of a fine raccoon pelt. My goodness, a grape could get lost in that beard and come out a raisin. That beard was a close third to the Amazon river basin and the rain forests of the Congo in terms of habitats for species yet undiscovered by man. My point is this. Mr. Pettus once demonstrated some sort of physics principle by laying down on a bed of nails. He had an actual wooden slab with several hundred nails impaled and pointing heavenward on which he lay prone to show us something about the distribution of weight. I found myself wide awake at 2:30am Sunday night, with a couch support digging into the soft space between my 8th and 9th vertebrae, pining for a mattress as comfortable as that remembered bed of nails. To say again that I was extremely tired Monday would be coals to Newcastle - I think you get the point. To compound my fatigue, of course, the children were up bright and early at 6am, so I arose and did the honorable thing: left for a sunrise 4 mile run before Molly knew I was awake.

Following the kids around a waterpark is a blast but also very tiring. Factor in a lousy night of sleep and a 90 minute car ride back from the hotel, and by 630pm I found myself only 125 pushups into my day. Way behind schedule. Lacking motivation. Tired. All but beaten. But then it's always darkest before the dawn, and providence found it fitting at that EXACT moment to draw me close to her ample bosom and give me, Thunder John, the strength to complete my pushups quota for the day.

You see, I had just gone upstairs to iron a pair of pants for tomorrow's workday, and I turned on the TV to keep me company. As it so happened, the channel just happened to be tuned to AMC, which just happened to be airing the classic movie "Rocky", and it just happened to be at that part of the movie where Rocky fights Apollo Creed for the title! What more inspiration could a mere mortal (and an Italian American on Columbus Day to boot) need? I walked into that room 125 pushups down for the day, and I did not re-emerge until 30 minutes later, having watched that final fight 2 times (thank you DV-R), and by Odin's beard, 350 total Columbus Day pushups completed. Yessir, that is 9 sets of 25 pushups and one pair of crisp, perfectly ironed trousers. It may have been the most productive 30 minutes of my life.

There's a scene in round 14 of the fight. Rocky is getting beaten all to heck, and somehow he fights his way off the ropes and cracks the Champion's ribs. The bell rings, Rocky stumbles back to his corner. Rocky's eyes are engorged and swollen like a baboon's backside. He tells his trainer, "I can't see out there, you gotta cut me, Mick!" So the corner man takes a razor to his eyes and cuts into the swollen ridges of his brow, allowing the swelling to subside so that Rocky can see for the last round of the fight. "If you stop this fight I'll kill you" Rocky tells his trainer. I only hope that if it comes down to brass tacks, I will have the same sort of fortitude and continue on past all obstacles to complete my million pushups.

Peace out,
Thunder John,

"Bringin' thunder, packing the pain, loaded with pushups, makin' it rain"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G40ji3nWHi0&feature=related

ps - Gerard Depardieu portrayed Christopher Columbus in the movie "1492". Could there be worse casting? CC was a suave Italian explorer, Gerard Depardieu is and was a grotesque non-Italian. Why not Consider Sly Stallone for the role? "Youse guys need to, like, discover some new world or something, before, you know, I start punching these sides of beef". It would have been epic.

Donner John bei Oktoberfest

5. Oktober 2010

77,450 Pushups Absgeschlossen
922,550 Pushupsbleiben
1,327 Pushups vorfristig

Ich ging zu einer Oktoberfest partei. Es gab viele Leute, die mit meinien Haubitzen beeindruckt wurden. Jemand sagte, dass ich einen panzer Behalter in meinen Hulsen hatte.

Sie waren korrekt!

GeineBen Sie meine Abblidung mit den lederhosen Mannern unten. Sie benotigten einen Platz, ihre FuBe stillzustehen, wahrend trinkendes Bier und donner John glucklich waren zu verbinden.

Frieden haraus,
Donner John

"Das holen des donners, der die Schmerz verpackt, lud mit den pushups, die es Regen bilden"