A Little Diamond

Scavenger Dash 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:47:00 +0000

AZ Central ran an article about the Scavenger Dash. They interviewed me for it and quoted me like crazy!

Fame points = 10 seconds.
Remaining in my 15 minutes of fame = 13 minutes and 40 seconds

Nice article, huh? Too bad I lied to the reporter. I told her that Christy and I finished finished first in the first Scavenger Dash and that we won that year's costume contest. It would have been a good idea to re-read my blog prior to the interview to remind myself that we actually placed second in the race and second in the costume contest. Oops. I guess my memory thinks very highly of me.

2012 was a repeat of 2010 - second place in the race and second place in the costume contest. But in two years I'll remember us placing first in both!

Let's do costumes first. Our team name this year was Assault With a Deadly Weapon.Get it? Christy is a salt and I am a ninja, and ninjas are known to be deadly weapons! I think that the audience applause-o-meter gave us a tie for first, but I'm probably biased. The prize went to Cowboy and Indian, which was a boy in a cow suit and a girl dressed as an indian. They were cute and clever so no bad feelings here.

The race this year was held in Scottsdale. I don't know Scottsdale all that well so I wasn't putting any high hopes into winning. I meant to spend a day walking around the area prior to the race and taking the buses and trolleys, but I never actually did. Lazy. I wasn't very happy with the maps I'd printed out because my printer ink was running out. I got to the race about 30 minutes early so I decided to walk to the visitor's center to get a real map. I followed the signs to the visitor center, but I never found it. Not a good sign!!

In the pre-race meeting, the race director told us that all of the checkpoints were within a 3 mile radius. Well, that eliminated the need for buses and trolleys. Whew! She then announced that tour clue sheets were to be handed out at the Naked Chocolate stand at the Scottsdale Farmer's Market and everyone started running. We didn't know where that was so our strategy became to follow the crowd since they all looked like they knew where they were going. Luckily, they all did!

We got our clues and I emailed a picture of them to Kiri, our very super-awesome clue solver. She didn't get the email. We tried again. In the meantime we were also solving the easier ones and mapping all our checkpoints. Some clues involved no solving such as "find a license plate on a car from a state that starts with M" and "get a picture of both of you jumping in the air." By the time Kiri got our email, we only needed her to solve a few of the clues.

We took our jumping picture while still at the Farmer's Market. One clue done. I have mad ninja skillz:While Kiri was solving, we ran to the first challenge site, as it was only a block away. There we had to maneuver these furniture dollies through the cones with only a stick to steer and propel us. I went first, which I should never do on challenges. Christy is way better at figuring out the fastest way to do stuff and should always go first so she can give me pointers. I, not surprisingly, took forever to get my dolly there and back. When Christy started out she was weaving in to everyone else's weaving out. Here she is about to crash into the people weaving the other direction:
I told her she'd do much better if she started over and went with traffic so she didn't keep hitting people. So, she brought the cart back and started over. I mapped the rest of the clues that Kiri had solved while Christy quickly finished the challenge. On our way to our next stop she told me that she wouldn't have had to start over as she figured out how to maneuver faster than the other racers so they wouldn't have been in her way after all. I replied that if we lost "by, oh gee, about 13 seconds" then I would take the blame.

We found our car with an M license plate on our way to the next challenge:
We still had one clue left to map, but we headed out to a checkpoint at Scottsdale Stadium, taking the risk that we wouldn't be missing any checkpoints in the area we passed to get there. When we completed our task at Scottsdale Stadium we mapped the last point and our risk paid off. The final spot was the furthest out and was easily added to our plan of attack.

The hardest challenge was next. We had to balance a ping pong ball on a ping pong paddle while walking a short course that included crossing a bridge, going down a hill, going up a hill and weaving though cones. The wind wasn't very strong but it doesn't take much to blow a ping pong ball off a paddle. Brian and Irene had the most trouble with this one. Christy did it in one try. I dropped the ball a few times before I was successful. These are our racing friends and rivals, Johnny and Kelly:Off we ran to hit the rest of our checkpoints. We had to find two people in cowboy boots. We wasted some time taking pictures with single people in boots thinking that maybe we could turn in two separate pictures. We then found this pair and got the picture:
We ran some more. We did some more checkpoints and a challenge that involved sticking your noses in vaseline and transporting cotton balls without your hands. We tried a short-cut through a neighborhood but it was a bunch of dead ends up against a canal. Crap! We knew the "short-cut" was a risk, but neither of us felt like running the half mile back to where we deviated off the map. So we wove through the neighborhood looking for an outlet. We ended up crawling through fences: and jumping over a wall to get back on track. It's not every day you see a salt shaker jump a wall so I had to stop to take pictures:

We finished our clues and ran back to the finish line. We felt we did well, but we weren't thinking that we were fast enough to win.

As we crossed the finish line, we saw one other team. We were told that we got second place. Ok, that's fine. But then they added that we got second place....by 10 seconds. 10 seconds! Remember that bit earlier about how if we lost by all of 13 seconds then I would take the blame. Ouch. I take the blame.

Johnny and Kelly's teams took 5th and 6th, and Brian and Irene got 11th (the ping pong ball challenge did them in).

Brian and Irene:I say it every year, and I'll say it again: Scavenger Dash is super-fun! Great clues, with a nice mix of easy and difficult, the most fun challenges of all the races of this type and always a great atmosphere. If you haven't done one yet - do it! You can find their schedule for the rest of the year here: www.scavengerdash.com

2012 Race Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:32:00 +0000

Just so you know what I've got planned this year (and so my stalkers know where to find me)...

January 15 - Tough Mudder - Done and blogged about. Check.

January 28 - Scavenger Dash and costume contest - with Christy. The first year we came in second. Last year we came in 8th. Second place in costume contest the first year, tied for costume contest win last year.

February 11 - Spartan Race (Super) - another mud/obstacle run. 8+ miles, 15+ obstacles - with Christy, Brian, Irene and Wayne.

February 19 - People Saving Pets Walk empowered by PetSmart Charities and costume contest for the dogs - with Pat and Christy's daughter, Miranda. Last year it rained and was soooo cold. It was sad because so many rescue organizations brought out pets for the adoptathon but no one stayed after the walk. I sincerely hope for better weather this year!

February 25 - Great Urban Race and costume contest - with Christy. Our race history: 3rd, 4th, 1st. We haven't won a costume contest yet, though we were finalists the past two years.

March 10 - CitySolve Urban Race and costume contest - with Christy. Our race history: 2nd and 1st. No costume contest wins.

April 1 - Urban Bike Adventure and costume contest - with Pat. This is a new race and it will be my first one on bikes.

April 7 - Toro Loco - with FRANKIE! And Brian and Irene and their kids. And some girls from work with their dogs. This is a mud run that has two divisions, easy and hard. The easy one allows you to run with your kids and your dogs. Dogs at a mud run? I love it! They are raising funds for Southern Arizona Humane Society. And they let you do both courses for the price of one. I love them already.

April 14 - Firefly Run Illuminated Night 5K and costume contest - with Brian and Emily. This is also a new race. It's just a regular ol' 5K but it's at night and they give you glow sticks. I bought it on a Schwaggle deal, plus with my Active Advantage membership, it was practically free.

April 21 - CityScape Adventures and costume contest - with Pat. Race history: 1st place with Christy the first year, 1st place with Pat the second year, plus a finalist in the costume contest. I should blog about that race, huh?

May 19 - 5K Foam Fest. Another new race. It's an obstacle/mud/foam run. So far, I'm doing this one alone. Come on, people.

July 7 - Extreme Heat Coon Bluff Adventure Race - with Irene. This was my first ever adventure race. Race history 16th, 11th, ?, and last year I missed it because of my family reunion.

August 11 - Extreme Heat Dreamy Draw Adventure Race - with Irene. I don't remember how we did our first year, but last year we got 6th out of 19.

September 22 - Gilmore Adventure Race - with Irene. My favorite race!! This will be our 5th year! Race history: 2nd place for 2-person female team and 17th overall, 1st/7th, 1st/3rd, 1st/6th. While proud of all our great finishes in our division, I have to admit there have never been more than five 2-person female teams and last year there were only two!

October 20 - Extreme Heat Night Adventure Race with Irene. We got 3rd out of 19 last year.

November 3 - CitySolve Nationals (Miami) with Christy. We got 8th, 9th or 10th at the CitySolve Nationals in 2010 (the scoring was a little wonky) and we didn't go this past year.

- or - Scavenger Dash Night Race with Christy or Irene. This is new!
- and November 4 - TGen 5K for Pancreatic Cancer with work. I've done the TGen 5K twice and have gotten in the top 3 in my age division both times. It helps that this race is scheduled on a weekend where all the real runners are doing the New Times 10K or the women's half. :)

November 10 - Great Urban Race Nationals (Las Vegas) with Christy, if we qualify! Race history: 14th, 65th, 38th and one costume contest win. We're all over the place on this one.

November 17 - Rugged Maniac with Karissa. Another mud run. Last year was super-duper fun!

December 9 - 12K's of Christmas and costume contest for people and dogs - with Emily and my pups. Last year we won a prize in the costume contest. We went as gingerbread men and gingerbread dogs. We need a new theme for this year. Suggestions are welcome!

What's missing? The Oyster Race - they aren't coming to Phoenix this year. Boo. The Warrior Dash - done it, don't need to do it again. Urban Dare - we are going to be on vacation. Hybrid Adventure Games - they don't have their schedule posted. They had better hurry as my year is filling up quickly!!

Peanut

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:27:00 +0000

Hello there, reader. Allow me to introduce you to Peanut who is the current star of my foster rotation. This is Peanut: Peanut is a 5 year old pug/chihuahua mix, which I'm sure you could have guessed by looking at him. I don't know how he manages to be squishy-faced like a pug and pointy-faced like a chihuahua all at once, but he does!

Peanut was found as a stray. He had a collar and tag on, but the tag information was a dead end. Boo.

When he was found, he was not putting any weight on his back leg. It turns out that he was suffering from a luxating patella, which is a fancy way of saying "dislocated kneecap". And I bet you assumed from the cast that he was just another dime-a-dozen broken legged foster. Oh, no! Peanut is much too fancy for the ordinary broken leg.

When Peanut arrived at Casa de Pequeno Diamante, he was muy gordo. A little fattie, if you will. I don't allow fat dogs, so his 10 pounds was brought down to a much better 8.7 pounds.
He was on cage rest for the first four weeks, which means that if he wasn't in his crate or x-pen, he was in my lap. When in his ex-pen, he is a huge complainer! Bark, bark, bark! When in my lap, he is content as can be.

"Oooh! Are you about to pick me up?! Yippee!!"
Now that he has been cleared for freedom to roam the house and walk around like a regular dog, I understand why he was so fat. He is a PIG. He wants to eat constantly. He starts demanding his dinner two hours before it's time to eat. He'll scratch at the door that leads to the dog food until I physically have to remove him. When we are in the bedroom, he tries to get my attention and have me follow him out to the kitchen. He wakes up at 6:00 am every day, barking like a fiend. I figured it was because he really had to pee, but I know now that he was saying "GET UP AND FEED ME NOW!" Apparently his original owners allowed themselves to be bossed around by a little peanut. Not me! He will remain svelte for the duration of his stay and his records for his new owner will recommend watching his weight to help keep his knees healthy.

He will occasionally play with toys.But mostly he wants to cuddle or eat.

During his cage-rest period, I would put him on my lap while I worked on the computer. He always tried to get in the way, just like a cat. Finally, I gave up fighting with him and I let him crawl up onto the desk. And he promptly plopped down like the table was the comfiest dog bed ever. This is his favorite spot now.As a matter of fact, he is right there, right now. His head is on my wrist and his butt is tucked up against my other wrist and he is snoring as loudly as a true pug. What a silly little doggie!

He also likes to burrow in the covers. He's kind of lazy about it, so you have to lift the blanket up for him and then he'll crawl in. I make him a fort out of the extra pillows when I take a nap. He'll crawl right in and take his nap. One day he was burrowing in the pillows and he managed to crawl into the pillowcase and he wouldn't come out. I had to turn the pillow upside down and dump him out. He was not very happy by that turn of events!

He will go up for adoption this week. He has lots of good traits (housetrained, crate-trained, wonderful with cats, tolerates dogs, extremely affectionate [i.e. needy], a great cuddler, he doesn't shed, which is odd but true) so hopefully he will go quick. His one bad trait (barking like crazy when he is crated and you are present) may not do him any favors though, as he will be in a kennel with adopters on the other side who may not appreciate him yelling at them. One of my co-workers has a potential home for him, so that would be ideal. The less time in the shelter, the better. This dog likes his companionship!!

Tough Mudder Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:44:00 +0000

Alternate Post Title - I Am a Weak Mudder

Pat, Miranda and Mitchell all went with us to the Tough Mudder on Sunday. Between the 3 of them, they had 4 cameras and took over 700 pictures. That is too many pictures for a full recap on the blog. I created a Picasa album with 160 photos documenting the day with captions. Click the little picture below the big empty space to read/see the whole story.

Tough Mudder - Team Pink

Here is a brief recap, as brief as I can make it. You know I have a tendency to talk a lot!

The facts:
Course length - 12.5 miles
Number of obstacles - 29
Number of obstacles I completed - 26 (skipped two, failed one - I am a Weak Mudder)
Number of obstacles Christy #1 completed - all 29! She is the Toughest Mudder.
Injuries - pulled groin, bruised heel, bruised skull
Teammate injuries - Irene hurt her ankles; Brian had terrible chafing from wearing loose shorts; Brian, Irene, Christy #2 and Wayne all have big bruises; Christy #1 came out whole, just a little sore.
Time to complete course - 5 hours for me, Irene, Brian and Christy #1; 4 hours for Wayne and Christy #2. The four of us walked the last 7.5 miles to accommodate Irene's ankles and my groin pulls.
Strongest teammate - Irene is freakishly strong. Seriously, it was frightening.
Was it tough? YES!
Was it fun? YES!

There were six of us on our team - Christy #2, Wayne, me, Christy #1, Irene and Brian.There were two obstacles that I was most afraid of - the Arctic Enema and Walk the Plank. Arctic Enema is a big ol' dumpster filled with ice and water. You jump in and swim across, going under the barrier in the middle. This scared me for two reasons, 1) I'm really sucky at being cold. It's a very serious issue I have. I moved to Phoenix for this exact reason. 2) My biggest fear is to be deep under water. Granted the barrier was only a couple feet down, but that is still deeper than I am comfortable with. This is Enemy #1: This is me jumping in!And this is me afterward:I tried to swim under the barrier off my initial jump in and I ran smack into the wood barrier with my head. Frick, that hurt! I had to come up, take a breath and try again. I'm an idiot. And I now have a bruise on my skull. But I did it and I didn't die!

Walk the Plank is a 15' high platform that you jump from, into really cold water. This scared me for the same two reasons as the first one. Cold and being under water. Jumping into water is the absolute worst for me. When I go under I get all disoriented, I don't know where up is, I don't know how deep I am. I panic. It's terrible.

This is Enemy #2:This is me jumping in!This is me afterward:Yes, I was crying. And shivering. And terribly unhappy. Everyone agreed that they went way deeper than they were expecting. I think I went about 7900 feet under water! It freaked me out so much that I started crying while I was still under water, which of course made me panic even more. I am an idiot. But I did it and I didn't die!

They say that this is how you overcome your fears. Whatever. I am still just as terrified, probably even more so, of jumping off high things into water. I HATE IT!

My favorite obstacle was this:They bulldozed away sections of the road and you had to jump the trenches. I like to jump things! Of course, this was the obstacle that injured me. I am not very flexible and I pulled both groin muscles in the jumping. And I'm not coordinated enough to jump and land on my leading foot and continue running. I can only do the grade school running long jump style of jumping where you land with both feet. Landing solid like that and not continuing the momentum really screwed up one of my heels. I think I bruised it like I bruised my skull. I am an idiot. But it was sooo fun!

The worst part of the race was not my two hated obstacles, but just plain old being cold. The temperature was in the 50's with no sun at all. Through the course of the race I added on dry gloves, a dry hat and two coats (carried in Pat's backpack) but I was still shivering uncontrollably for the last two hours. I am such a wuss - everyone else made it through with just a long sleeve shirt. They were cold, of course, but no one else was disabled by the cold like I was. At one point I could barely stand up. Miranda and Mitchell had to stand around me for body heat until I was able to go again. But despite being completely miserable, I was having fun!

Why I am a Weak Mudder:
There were two obstacles I didn't even attempt. Both were near the end of the course. My excuse is that I was cold, which is so lame. The first skipped obstacle was Electric Eel:Those are electric wires, some of which are live and shock you. That wasn't what scared me. Brian and Christy said they barely hurt. What prevented me from doing it was that the tarp was covered with water and ice cubes. I was so cold at that point I could not make myself get wet again. I am weak.

The other obstacle was Shock Therapy:There were four sections of these electric wires to run through. I watched grown men get shocked and fall face first into the water. This one was a combination of not being able to make myself submerge in cold water and being scared to get hurt. Christy and Brian said the shocks hurt like hell. I think in the state I was in at that point, the shocks would have killed me. I am a wuss. Weak Mudder.

Some of the other obstacles...
Tunnels:Walls:Carrying heavy shit:Climbing up and down stuff:Balance beams (over freezing cold water, of course):And lots and lots of mud (cold mud, of course):

Tough Mudder is all about camaraderie. Some obstacles, like the walls, you can't do by yourself. People you don't even know jump in to help you. Brian heaved two girls over the walls. A team from Intel helped all of us up the half pipe:It was awesome!

I wanted to hate the Tough Mudder because it's expensive, then on top of that they hit you with a lot of stupid fees and they don't donate any of the registration fees to their charity, Wounded Warrior Project. However, I loved it! It was incredibly well organized, from registration to the best-ever water/food stations on the course to the finish line area. The volunteers were amazing! One lady peeled a banana for me so I wouldn't have to take off my gloves. There was applesauce at two of the water stations and the volunteers even opened them for us. There were port-a-potties on the course, everything was incredibly spectator-friendly, they gave out Under Armor t-shirts. I was a skeptic going in, but I was proven wrong. This was a top-notch event.

At the end, I was a little disappointed in myself for being Weak. If they could just hold one in the summer!! I love heat. I could be Tough in the heat, I just know it!

Tough Mudder Prep

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:39:00 +0000

Tomorrow is the Tough Mudder, my first race of 2012! TM isn't timed so it is technically a "challenge", not a race. It is a 12.5 mile mud run with big obstacles...stuff like your basic wall climbs, mud to slog through and hills to climb. It also has not-so-basic stuff like electric wires to run through, 15 foot high platforms to jump off into really cold water and a 40 foot trash dumpster filled with ice water that you have to swim across.

I think the hardest part of the race for me will be the cold. I'm not good with being cold. And they start you right off with the ice bath so I'm gonna be wet and cold right off the bat! Yikes. To put it in perspective, I was shivering uncontrollably after the Warrior Dash and it was 80' that day and the mud wasn't even cold and I only got halfway wet. I don't know how I'm going to handle being in and out of cold water for 12.5 miles when it's 55' out. YIKES! And you have to fully submerge in the ice bath!

I figured that appropriate gear was my only strategy. And to make sure I had the most appropriate gear, I organized a Tough Mudder prep day. We met at my house dressed and ready to do a mini Tough Mudder with as many obstacles as we could find. It was silly and fun, but also pretty helpful.

Step one - jump into the 50 degree pool.

Yeah, jumping didn't happen. We are wusses and instead we walked slowly down the steps. Frickin' BRRRRRR!
My plan was to swim under, but I couldn't bring myself to go any deeper than this. BRRRRR! This doesn't bode well for ICE water.Next step - walls. We climbed over the block wall to get out of the backyard. We all managed the 6 foot wall. Too bad the walls in the real Tough Mudder are 10 feet! Or maybe 12?
We ran to the park for our next obstacles. There was discussion about how running would be in wet socks and should we not even wear socks? Wet socks were fine. No one got blisters. Irene added an obstacle on the way by pushing her two kids for the run:
By the time we got to the park, our tights and shirts were already nearly dry and we weren't cold at all. Of course, I was wearing a coat too! At the park we practiced crawling on gravel:We learned that gloves would be a really good idea! And maybe knee pads, too. Ouch! Then we practiced tunnels, or the closest we could come to tunnels:
Balance beam:Monkey bars:In the real Tough Mudder, both the balance beam and the monkey bars are over more ice water, so if you fail - you get cold and wet...again.

We decided on gloves for everything except the monkey bars. I decided I would need a camelbak. There are 4 water stations over 12.5 miles. I drank a lot in our 1.5 mile run to the park. I like my water! I also was able to make a shoe decision. I wanted to wear my Tevas but I was worried that since they don't have laces so I wouldn't be able to get them tight enough to prevent losing them in the mud obstacles. I wore them on the prep run, but they didn't seem to drain or dry faster than regular running shoes. I will wear running shoes instead. The gear prep day was fun and very helpful! We also decided that Christy's pink shirt was the warmest and fastest drying (and the cutest) so I bought one for all the willing participants on our team so we would all be cute together. Even Brian! :)

Tomorrow - Tough Mudder!

A Month of Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 05:08:00 +0000

This is for my parents, Irene and Anne. You people should get facebook so I don't have to post this stuff twice. But since I'm nice and because copy/paste is easy, here are my November facebook posts to keep you up to date. If you are my friend on facebook, you can move on...nothing new to see here.

November 2:
Jill is going to Scavenger Dash Phoenix — Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 12:00pm.

November 3:
Coyotes! — with Patrick at Jobing.com Arena.

November 4:
Corky, my latest foster, is now up for adoption at the Arizona Humane Society. If you are looking for a small, peppy friend to play with, go get him!

November 5:
I am so glad it's raining so much tonight! My backyard could use the water!
(This was after I left the hose on all day and overflowed the pool and completely flooded my backyard. Moron.)

November 8:
The mail guy at work just told me that I remind him of a female Willy Wonka.

November 8:
Not to overshadow my really cool news about being likened to Willy Wonka, but something even MORE EXCITING has happened today. My sister has joined facebook! This is truly a good day!

November 16:
My Frankie was "just a dog" at the county pound. A dog who needed a home. I game him a home and he's been loved and safe and happy ever since. Please go adopt a shelter dog this weekend.

November 16:
Amazing Race is accepting applications again. Who wants to apply with me?

November 16:
I never know what to expect from my cleaning lady. One week she's stealing my converse, the next week she's bringing potting soil and pots to re-pot my plants. Today was a re-potted plant kind of day. :)

November 19:
I'm officially out of shape now. Camelback just kicked my butt.

November 23:
December 10th - the 12Ks of Christmas! Running with Frankie and Georgie and dressing up in costume (duh). Proceeds go to Maricopa County Animal Care and Control. Come join me! www.12krun.com

November 23:
At the Coyotes game...first of 3 this weekend!

November 26:
Frankie got 2 Q's at the agility trial today. The boy loves jumpers!

November 27:
Al does not like it when I read the newspaper.

November 30:
Free Wendy's burgers on Central between Jefferson and Washington. Frosties too! Woo hoo! I love free lunch.

We Won the Great Urban Race National Championships!

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:43:00 +0000

Christy and I went to New Orleans for the Great Urban Race National Championships. 119 of the top teams in the nation came to New Orleans to compete and...CHRISTY AND I WON!!

Draggin' Ass:
Okay, so we won the costume contest and not the actual race. But we got those super awesome foam fingers!! So, yeah, pretty much we rock!

In the actual race we placed 38th out of 119, which is much better than last year's 65th place finish (which I didn't blog about because it was so crappy) and much worse than 2009's 14th place finish. It was also much better than we thought we did, so we are guessing a lot of teams received penalties. The clues required that teams bring a lot of stuff back to the finish line so maybe people lost stuff along the way.

If you want a full race recap with clue sheets and all, you can go read the winner's blog here. I've just got a couple stories to share with you.

It was a really fun race! There were challenges or activities at every checkpoint - which is AWESOME! We were doing fairly well until we got to this challenge:You had to unscramble these letters to form the names of 8 local beers. They gave us the first letters of each so we thought it wouldn't be too bad. We were wrong. We looked online and we looked at beers in the fridge behind the bar. We wrote stuff down, crossed out letters, guessed, were told we were wrong, again and again. We debated whether or not to give up but figured we had already spent time so we'd better finish. Dumb. Our big mistake was not leaving right away. We finally gave up and stopped to use the restroom on the way out. While Christy was waiting for me, she overheard a couple teams discussing the correct answers on their way out. I'm not ashamed to admit that we used the answers we heard and then reworked the puzzle to make the other answers fit. After about 45 minutes, we got it right! Seriously. 45 minutes on one clue. Dumb.

At this point we knew we weren't going to even come close to the top 8, so we just had fun the rest of the race. And it was fun!

One of the tic tac toe clues was to take a picture of 10 strangers lined up by height. We saw a big crowd at a cable car stop and asked them to do this with us. As I started directing them to get in the right order, they told me that they had already done this for one other team and that I was a lot bossier than that team. Me? Bossy? :) At the end of the race, we had about 15 minutes left to finish by the cut-off, and we still needed one more tic tac toe clue - a picture of us on a mechanical bull. We had seen a bar with a mechanical bull the night before, but we couldn't remember where. We asked people as we ran and they suggested Bourbon Cowboy. This bar was about 2 minutes from the finish line so we were pretty confident we would finish in time. Until we got there...and it was closed! We did not have time to find another bar. Feeling defeated, I started knocking on the door. And the cleaning lady actually answered my knock. At about this time, another team came up also needing the picture with the bull. I explained to the cleaning lady what we were doing and what we wanted. She agreed to let us in! I couldn't believe it! Woo hoo! Then the other team rudely told the lady that they were coming in too. Ok, whatever. I would have done the same thing (but hopefully less rudely). And it was fine because we agreed that if they took our picture we would take their picture. All good. But then, as I was giving the girl her camera back she elbowed me out of the way to get out of the bull pit first. Literally, with her elbow in my chest! Wtf? Rude! She should have been thanking me for getting us into the bar in the first place, not trying to beat me up. They tried to beat us in a foot race to the finish. You know I wasn't having any of that! I hoped that Christy was prepared to keep up, cuz I was gonna kill myself sprinting if I had to just to beat that bitchy girl. Christy was prepared, we ran like hell and we beat them. Ha.
We finished an hour and a half after the winning team. Ugh. But we did beat the first place team from the Manhattan race, so that was good for our egos. All in all, it was a really fun day and a good trip to New Orleans. Our friends AJ and Olivia from Phoenix were there and it was fun to hang out with them. We got to see our race acquaintances from other cities and that was fun, too. Thanks, GUR, for another fun time!

Oh, and we are taking suggestions for a clever pun-ish costume for 2012! Send me your ideas! Draggin' Ass is going to be hard to beat.

A Busy Day, Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:01:00 +0000

After doing two 5K obstacle runs and driving 125 miles, I took a quick shower and joined my team for the Arizona Treasure Hunt. The Treasure Hunt is for teams of up to 6 people to race around the desert (in a vehicle as this is about brains not athleticism), at night, solving complex clues. Actually, the whole thing is pretty complex. They publish a rookie guide for first timers that is TWELVE pages long! Basically, there are 26 clues to 26 spots and you need to find as many as possible in 5 hours.

A few weeks prior to the hunt they give you a list of hints that may or may not help you solve the clues. On the evening of the hunt they have a bunch of tables set up in a parking lot with more hints that may or may not help you solve the clues. At the start of the hunt, you are given an envelope with a whole bunch of crap in it (which, you guessed it, may or may help you solve the clues), a HUGE map with locations noted by pictures or words that mean nothing until you solve the clue, and your first location.

The clue locations are hidden out in desert areas so there was a bit of running around searching blindly. When you get to the clue location, you find something there to solve. It may be a visual clue, like this one:or a working visual clue that you have to physically manipulate to solve. For example, one working visual clue was a bowling ball return (yes, hidden out in the desert scrub) that you had to put a bowling ball into and when the ball rolled down, it hit some switch that caused the clue to light up. A bowling ball? Yes, we brought a bowling ball on the hunt, along with a big list of other suggested items to bring that may or may not help you solve the clues. I was very sad that we never got to use the 10' pole.

The bowling ball clue was solved with no problem. However, many of the others were a bit too vague for us. The one above? From looking at that you were supposed to get that the fox represented Guy Fawkes, which we got (from a hint about Remember, Remember the 5th of November, which has to do with the Gunpowder Plot in the 1600s in England). But from there you were supposed to figure out that the answer was "1606" which was the year he was killed. That's kind of a big of a leap don't you think?

We got through about 7 clues in the five hour time frame, which was good for 71st out of 78 teams. We didn't get last place!!

Team Everything is Better With Bacon:Ian and Kiri were our top solvers, followed closely by NFBF and Irene. Irene was our best clue location finder, just as she is in our adventure races. Christy was the driver, so she was a very valuable team player. And me? Um...I held the opened clue envelopes. And I brought snacks.

Despite our very poor finish, we are ready to try again next year! We are trying to crack the top 60!

A Busy Day, continued
And then....after two 5K obstacle courses, one 5-hour treasure hunt, a steak dinner at midnight, 180 miles driven and getting home at 1:30 a.m., I got up at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday to host/work a work event. The work event was our firm participating in a 5K, this one without obstacles. I ran it, took 3rd for my age group and got a new PR! Being well-rested to do your best is a myth. :)

Just a note on that age group thing...this 5K was a fundraising race to support pancreatic cancer research. It takes place on the same day as the New Times 10K and the Women's Half Marathon, so all the real runners were participating in real events that day.

A Busy Day, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:28:00 +0000

After the AZ Urban Race, I went back home for a few minutes, then it was off to the Rugged Maniac. Jamie agreed to go with me and take race photos if I bought him ChickFilA. That was a pretty good deal.

The Rugged Maniac is an obstacle/mud run, a lot like the Warrior Dash. It was awesome!

Rugged Maniac vs. Warrior Dash
I think the Rugged Maniac was WAY better than the Warrior Dash. I admit that this may not be a fair comparison as I had a 10:00 am heat in the Warrior Dash with 8 zillion other people and a 1:30 heat in the Rugged Maniac with only 24 other people. Really! My heat had only 25 people! I basically had the entire course and all the obstacles to myself, which was awesome! At the Warrior Dash we had to wait for obstacles and had to try to get over walls without getting kicked, which wasn't so awesome. I thought the Warrior Dash course and obstacles were kind of boring. The Rugged Maniac course was full of hills, some that required ropes to get up, and the obstacles were cooler. The post-race party area of the Warrior Dash location (at a music venue outside of town) was better because it was grass versus a gravel lot at Rugged Maniac (at a motocross venue), but I don't like to hang out and party after a race so that is of no importance to me. Spectators at Rugged Maniac had full access to the course which they did not have at Warrior Dash. I don't know how other cities compare, but in Arizona, my money goes to Rugged Maniac!

Here is the race, in pictures:

Waiting for the start with my very few fellow racers.That guy in the orange tripped over the caution tape when the gun sounded. He didn't even lift his feet to try to get over. He just started running. It was pretty funny.

The first part of the race was mostly running.There were some hills and some rope climbs, too, but mostly running.

The start of the fun stuff with a series of small walls:
Then we had a series of posts to jump and balance on. In the course map online, this was supposed to be surrounded by water so you'd get wet if you fell off. Arizona is too dry for this, I guess. This one was really fun!A jungle of tires:
The first of the mud pits:
I didn't get very muddy on this one. This was a really cold day and I was putting off getting wet as long as possible. Pretty wussy attitude for a mud run, huh?

Then came the best obstacle of all, the big slide. No avoiding getting wet on this one!
That lip on the end of the slide sent me flying in the air. It was awesome! It was enough to make me go completely under water when I landed.

The slide pool finished with this obstacle:As a bonus, I found someone's vampire teeth floating in the mud.

Up a really big hill:

Down a really big hill:
Up another really big hill that required ropes to get up:
Over a cargo net:
From the top of the structure, you had to jump off and land on a high jump mat. The guy standing there catches you if you bounce off, like I did. There was another structure next to this one. There was a girl on the top of it who was scared to jump off. She must have been there a long time because she was in a heat ahead of mine. The guy at the bottom was saying "Ok, ready, 1...2...3!" and she'd say "4". It was pretty funny. I wonder if she ever jumped or if she just climbed back down the way she came up.

Water tunnels:
Muddy and wet:

The BIG wall:I used the edge to climb up:
This was right after the water tunnels so my hands were muddy and wet. On my first attempt to pull myself up, my hands slipped right off the wood. Ouch.

Better prepared the second time, I got up and over:
Final obstacle, the fire jump:Actually, the final obstacle was the really steep hill up to that finish flag!

Woo hoo! I am a Rugged Maniac!
Thank you, Jamie, for taking these awesome pictures! Maybe I would have liked the Warrior Dash more if I had pictures of it.

A Busy Day, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:56:00 +0000

I bought a ticket for the Rugged Maniac with a Groupon. It was only $25 - what a deal! I sent the link to all my friends. I got only one taker! Some people weren't interested, some people were already doing the AZ Urbanathlon that day, and some people just don't like hanging out with me. Then, the one taker canceled his purchase because he remembered he was supposed to do the Urbanathlon. So, no takers. Gr. I guess I was going to be a solo Maniac. Boo.

A few days later, I entered a facebook contest (cuz that's what I do) whose prize was an entry to the Urbanathlon... and I won! I figured I would do that race instead of the Rugged Maniac so I wouldn't have to race alone. By the week of the races, none of the people who were supposed to do this race had signed up. What a bunch of slackers. So, now it looked like I was going to be a solo Urbanathlete. Boo.

Whatever. I am an independent girl. I don't need no stinkin' friends. I decided to do both races by myself! I arranged my heats in the races so that I could do the Urbanathlon at 9:00 am in Scottsdale and the Rugged Maniac in Buckeye at 1:30 pm. For the record, Scottsdale and Buckeye are about 70 miles apart.

The AZ Urbanathlon was a 5K obstacle race put on by Mountainside Fitness. I had very low expectations of them for many reasons. First of all, they put a ton of money into this race. They had commercials, they were partnered with the Diamondbacks and had ads in the stadium. They advertised A LOT. For the money they spent and by being affiliated with a large organization, you would think they would have done a little due diligence with their name, but they didn't. They ended up getting sued by Men's Fitness, who has trademarked the Urbanathlon name. Mountainside Fitness probably has lawyers that could have done a trademark search. Even a quick google search when brainstorming names would have shown that the name was already taken. Stupid. So, they changed the name to AZ Urban Race, and lost $15,000. Second, their website had a whole section about how they were benefitting Make A Wish and how runners could buy pedicab rides to skip the running part of the race and just do the obstacles. . Then, all of a sudden, that section of the website was gone. Huh? Not that I would have done that, but it was unprofessional of them to advertise that part of the event and then take it away with no explanation. Third, the obstacles just looked lame. They were supposed to be things you'd see in a normal urban environment. I'm sure the race's target audience were those people who are too wimpy to take on a Warrior Dash type race, so nothing against them on this one, but for me, it seemed like it would be pretty dull.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the race. It was well organized and the location was great. It was at Salt River Fields where the Diamondbacks play for spring training. I was right that the obstacles weren't very exciting, but we did get to run through the stadium. They used the outfield lawn seating areas as running hills and we got to run up and down the stairs of the stadium. That was pretty cool. This is the only picture I took. Well, it was actually taken by a stranger in the parking lot after the race. We jumped that type of barricade as our first obstacle.

To show you pictures of the other obstacles, I had to steal the following photos from other blogs on the race.

Cable Spools:Sandbag climb in a moving truck. This was kind of fun:
Scaffold/barriers:Wall:
Running in the stadium (this was the coolest part):
Low crawl (this wasn't supposed to be a mud run, but it had rained and it was too cold for the ground to dry, so we got a little muddy anyway):

Stadium Stairs:The last obstacle was to jump over a pair of cabs and then a pair of cop cars. The last two photos are me, taken by the official race photographers. It would cost $18.95 to get one medium sized digital copy without watermarks. No thanks! :)

And that was the AZ Urban Race. I'm glad I did it, but I'm also glad it was free! Even though it was a decent event, I don't think I'd pay full price to do it next year.

Foster Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:22:00 +0000

This is not a happy post about the typical usage of the phrase "foster failure". This is a sad story about how I failed my latest foster.

This was Lola.Lola was a 6 year old dachshund who needed a foster home to fatten her up. She was just skin and bones, all ribs and sticky-out spine. She weighed 8.3 pounds. Her healthy weight would have been around 10 pounds. She also had bad dental issues. She had to have a lot of her teeth pulled. She recovered from that surgery in a different foster home but they could not keep her.

Lola was very scared when I picked her up from the Humane Society. She was shaking like crazy. She calmed down a little bit when I got her home, but she was still nervous. She was very submissive to my dogs and my cat so they accepted her immediately. She seemed happy when sitting in my lap, so we spent the night on the couch watching a movie.

I don't have a very good picture that shows how emaciated she was. This is as good a photo as I have, but trust me that she looked worse in real life:

During the next week Lola got more and more comfortable at my house. At first, her only voluntary interaction with me was if I would sit on the floor, she would very slowly and very deliberately crawl into my lap, as if she was hoping I wouldn't notice and shoo her away. After a few days, she'd just plop down in my lap as if she owned it. Eventually she felt comfortable enough to play. She liked to smell the cat and then run circles around him. She loved squeaky toys. She couldn't get enough of playing fetch, though I always kept the sessions short because she was supposed to be gaining weight not burning it all off.

She was doing okay with the eating, not great...but okay. I was feeding her canned food twice a day and giving her unlimited dry food in her crate during the day. Many times she would ignore her food so I would sit down with her and feed her by hand. Sometimes she would eat the dry food in her crate, sometimes she wouldn't. For a day and a half she was a little tummy-sick and would throw up her dinner. The poor thing was just not able to gain any weight.

It was also hard for her to gain weight because she had lots of nervous energy. If she wasn't playing or cuddling with us, she was running from room to room to room. I was never sure if she was looking for the cat or just checking her perimeters for safety, but I finally took to putting her in an x-pen to keep her from running so much. I think she felt calmer being confined like that, because she would then lay down on the doggie bed and play with her toys. Squeaky-squeaky-squeaky...

She enjoyed snuggling up on the dog beds with the other dogs. She correctly interpreted Mo's warning growls as being false alarms. :) Mo pretending that Lola isn't there:Look at that face! What a sweetie!As I mentioned before, Lola loved squeaky toys. Frankie loves squeaky toys too. Lola did not think that Frankie should be allowed to have the squeaky toys, because they were her toys. Sometimes they ended up playing tug-of-war with a toy, sometimes she would just bite him and take the toy away.

She might not have liked sharing toys with him, but she did like cuddling with him:
Last night, Lola decided a squeaky toy belonged to her and tried to steal it from Frankie. He tugged back, and being 25 pounds bigger than her, he had the leverage and the advantage. She was a little spitfire and didn't give up...and then I heard her scream in pain. I jumped up and saw blood everywhere. Frankie was already riled up from her picking on him, and her cries and screams riled up Georgie and Mo too. It took a few seconds for me to wade through the crowd of dogs to get to her.

Blood was pouring out of her mouth. I thought at first that Frankie must have bit her face. I put her in the sink to wash away the blood and find the wound. Eventually I washed away enough blood to realize it was her gums that were bleeding. I was able to use a towel to put pressure on the area to try to stop the bleeding and determine that a tooth had been partially yanked out. Yikes. I called the Emergency Animal Clinic and I even paged the Humane Society number that is for life-threatening emergencies only. Both techs I talked to said to keep her calm overnight and bring her to the Humane Society first thing in the morning (they don't staff veterinarians overnight). They told me that as long as the bleeding wasn't heavy, she would be okay.

I could tell the pain was pretty bad for her. I felt so terrible.

I put her crate right next to my bed for the night. She didn't cry at all. She didn't move around much, so I think she might have slept some. In the morning, the bed was a bit bloody in places and when I checked, the gums were still bleeding. Poor little Lola. She was scared and in pain. She reverted back to the scared little dog she was when I got her. She would barely crawl into my lap. She was scared of every movement. It was awful. She had been progressing and now she was back at square one, except it was worse because now she was injured too.

I took her to the Humane Society as soon as they opened. She was absolutely terrified, shaking even more than before. I was worried because they would have to anesthetize her to fix her tooth, and with 0% body fat that is a dangerous undertaking. I had weighed her before we left...8.3 pounds, exactly what she was when I got her. I suck. I didn't help her gain weight at all.

And this is where my terrible story of foster failure gets even more terrible. The Humane Society staff called me with an update: In addition to the tooth being pulled out, Frankie had broken her jaw. Her jaw bones were very weak and deteriorated, which was part of her dental problem to begin with. Because her bones were so deteriorated, they did not have the means or the resources to fix the fracture. They decided the best option would be to euthanize her while she was still under the anesthesia. Sadly, I don't have the means or the resources either so I had to agree.

Good night, sweet Lola. I failed you and I am so, so sorry. I miss the pitter-patter of your little paws as you run up and down the hall. I miss your little tail wagging at warp speed. I miss you curled up in a tiny ball on my lap. I miss your super soft fur on your long ears.

I was supposed to provide you with a safe place to get healthy for your second chance at the happy life you deserved. I failed you.

A List of Things I Love

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:38:00 +0000

This is an incomplete list and should be considered a work in progress.

Living in Phoenix
Refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup
When Al purrs
Dogs, especially ones who wiggle their butts when they are happy to see me
Summer
Participating in competitive events
Days off
Coming home after the cleaning lady has cleaned my house
My Element
When the home team wins the big game and all the fans are super-happy
The smell, sound and feel of rain in the summer
Costumes

A List of Things I Hate

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:01:00 +0000

This is an incomplete list and should be considered a work in progress.

Pickles
Loud motorcycles
Costumes for dogs and kids that have a face on the hood. The dog/kid already has a face. Adding another face on top is just dumb.
Menus that include a partial list of ingredients or toppings. If you're going to tell me that the hamburger comes with lettuce, tomato and pickle, please also tell me that it is going to come slathered in both mayonnaise and mustard. I'm not inclined to ask about ingredients if you list them for me. Then when you surprise me with additional ingredients, I don't consider that a pleasant surprise. All or nothing, people!
Noise
The use of an apostrophe s when pluralizing a noun
Slow walkers
Running
The way I feel when I see old people who can't do the things they used to be able to do and the way I feel when I see small businesses that are failing or that have closed
Pickles (they are so bad that they deserve to be listed twice)

Halloween Costumes!

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Pat and I spent all damn day on Saturday creating the most awesome costumes ever! The costume construction involved visits to Michaels, the UPS store, Home Depot and Party City. Then it involved manipulating some very large pieces of styrofoam and moving furniture. Then it involved math. A lot of math! Then there was some heated arguing about math, in which Pat insisted "Math doesn't lie!" Eventually he sheepishly admitted that you need to put the correct numbers into the formula first, and then math won't lie.

After the math, we got out the knives and got on our knees for the serious work. Then we got out the spray paint.Then, after umpteen hours, we were almost finished making the most awesome Halloween costume ever! They just needed the final embellishments. The plan was to wear these really awesome, clever, cool costumes to a pub crawl/costume contest evening in Cave Creek, then over to Nichole's for her annual costume party. We were going to steal the show all night long!

Then we got a call from NFBF reminding us that we had hockey tickets for that night.

Oh.

Dang it. Our pain-painstakingly created super awesome, funny, amazing costumes wouldn't fit in arena seats! Crap.

So the super-awesome, funny, clever, amazing, creative, unbelievably cool, painstakingly made costumes will have to wait until next year. And you'll have to wait until next year to understand what is so awesome, funny, etc about what appears to be just a star. Oh, it is so much more than that, but I don't want to give it away before I get a chance to wear it. :)

With little time left before the game, we had to make due with costumes we had on hand: Robots like hockey:After the Coyotes won the game (woo hoo!), Pat went to his own hockey game and I went to Nichole's party, where I did not steal the show but I had a very nice time anyway.

And some other random Halloween stuff....

We were allowed to wear costumes to work this year. I told the girls in my hallway I would bring the props but they had to wear gray and be good sports. They did and they were. A secretary that sits near me was coerced to be a farmer's wife. She was quite dangerous with that knife!

Book club had a Halloween theme this month. I made graveyard pesto-artichoke dip. Yummy!

October on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:00:00 +0000

October 1:
Yummy! — with Wayne and 2 others at hulasmoderntiki.

October 4:
This is an awesome deal!! The Spartan Race costs $113 + $9 insurance fee to enter right now. It's only $53 with this deal. Buy it!

53% Off Arizona Super Spartan

schwaggle.active.com

Are you Super Spartan tough? Got something to prove, to get over, to get out? This is a great way to get off the couch, out of the gym and return to your primal instincts as you push through our 8+ mile battlefield of insane obstacles and a very technical course that will test your physical strengt...

October 10:
Anyone need to buy a baby gift? This is what you should get!!

Ava & Liam - Personalized Wall Art

Each piece is customized with baby's first, middle and last name, date of birth, time of birth, along with weight and length. Your 8"x8" image is mounted onto a 1/4” MDF board over a ¾” back frame producing a 1” thick finished product, it is protected with an 80% UV protective matte laminate and the beveled edges are finished in a matte white. All pieces are ready to hang and available in three color schemes; pink, sage and blue.

October 11:
I made Graveyard Pesto Artichoke Dip for our Halloween themed book club. Yep, I cooked.

October 15:
Competed in the Hybrid Adventure Games earlier today, now at the Phoenix Coyotes home opener. Best day ever!

October 16:
Facebook, why do I have to click to see 5 new stories? How about you just show them to me?

October 18:
I know that my Mo is an australian shepherd mix. BioPet breed identification test says she is a bulldog/akita mix. Hmmm. Just not seeing it.

October 21:
Grouponing! — with Patrick at India Palace.

October 22:
I completed a hike.
Distance: 10.51mi
Time: 03:23:09
Pace: 19:20min/mi
Speed: 3.10mi/h

Update Facebook

October 24:
It is 8:00 on Monday night. I'm still working. What are you doing?

October 28:
October 29:
Robots like hockey.October 31:
Fun at work!

Bon Voyage, Corky!

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 05:31:00 +0000

After about a zillion weeks in various casts, Corky got to stay with us for three more weeks, first with low exercise and then increasing his freedom until we got to the point where we are now. And what point is that? It's the point where Corky tears around the house like a madman, jumping on and over everything in sight. He gets on the furniture, and I don't just mean the couch. He climbs over the couch and hangs out on the side table. He jumps from the couch onto the coffee table. In Corky's mind, nothing is off-limits. He is an agile daredevil!

He also thinks that all toys belong to him, all beds belong to him and all animals belong to him.

He loves the other dogs and he assumes they love him, too. He will go right up to Frankie and try to take the toy right out of his mouth. He will jump on Georgie and bite her ears. Occasionally they oblige him with a game of tug-of-war or wrestling.

Corky really loves to chew on bones, especially if he can do it as a group activity. He'll grab a bone and crawl right onto a canine-occupied bed. My dogs are surprisingly tolerant of this. Well, Frankie is anyway:
Mo, on the other hand, does NOT like it when Corky tries to share her bed. Perhaps it is because he uses her as a bed:She growls at him but he is oblivious. He just keeps chewing his bone as if he can't hear her.

"Grrrrr..."
Mo: "Why do you let him torment me like this? I hate him."

Corky: "Whee!"

I will be returning Corky to the Humane Society this week. I sure hope he finds a home with other doggies to play with!

Hybrid Adventure Games

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 03:36:00 +0000

Today we competed in the Hybrid Adventure Games, a newcomer on the obstacle/adventure race scene. H.A.G. is different that most obstacle races in that 1) the run is just a run (or as I like to call it, "a hike") and 2) all the fun stuff happens after the run is completed and 3) each of the events is scored separately. Genius idea! I suck at running, but I rock at obstacles... I felt that with the H.A.G. I would finally get credit for my awesome balance beam skills!

The first event is the run, followed by four additional events you could do in any order: 100 yard tire flip, keg toss, obstacle course and archery. They score each event based on the place you finish overall. First place gets 1000 points, second place 995, third 900 etc. Then they add up your totals for all 5 events to determine the winners.

Here is team AZ Swamp Ass.I did not name the team! I couldn't get anyone to dress as donkeys (i.e. asses) so a team costume and the resulting "spirit points" did not happen. But despite my no-fun teammates, I was not going to miss a costume opportunity. I dressed as a cat, which has absolutely no correlation to our team name. A cat was chosen because it is the coolest costume (i.e. cool as in temperature) I own. "Cool" was quite important as it was 100' today. The run and the venue were shade-less and the sun was brutal!We had one fan - Johnny's wife, Kelly.
The first event was a 5.4 mile trail run, which I prefer to call "a hike". I hate running. I like hiking. Since it was "a hike", Christy and I mostly walked it. We did give a little credence to the fact that it was a race, thus we ran the downhills. :) I'm very glad I wore the camelbak for the "hike". I would have died out there. There were water stations on the course, but I require a lot more hydration that water stations can provide me!

Christy and I finished 7th and 8th out of our team of 10 and probably at about half or in the bottom half of the field. Our time was 1:17. I figured it would take 1:30, so we were quite pleased with our time! I took that picture during the first mile. If you click the picture to make it big, you can see that already there are A LOT of people A LOT ahead of us. :) I guess no one told them that this event was "a hike"!

After the run ("hike") we did archery next. Based on my one other previous encounter with a bow and arrow (I kept letting go of my left hand, thus dropping the bow instead of shooting the arrow), I had very low expectations for this event.Perhaps if I stood a little closer to the line, I might have done a little better? However, I did hit the target on one of the three tries and hit the 7 point ring. Woo hoo!! I'm sure I still finished in the bottom half overall, probably even the bottom quarter. Irene rocked the archery - she got the 9 point ring twice and a 2 point ring! Some of the boys on our team did pretty well in this event too. It was definitely fun to do!

Next we went to the keg toss. The most effective way seemed to be to hold the keg in one hand and spin like a discus thrower. Yeah, that would be a horrible idea for me as my coordination issues would make it such that the keg would inevitably go towards the crowd. I saw one girl stand backwards and throw it 2-handed over her head. Doing it this way seemed like the safest option for all involved.The keg went about 5 feet. :( I'm sure I placed in the bottom quarter in this one! Most of team did pretty well. Irene and Christy rocked it for the girls division. Check out how far Irene's keg is flying:
Next we went to the obstacle race. I wanted to do this before the tire flip so that my arms wouldn't be too tired to lift myself over the wall. And I was anxious to show off my balance beam skills that I was so proud of in the Warrior Dash! My heat included Wayne, Christy and me. Here is the video of my run. Olivia was filming and she was running to get it all, so it's a little shaky:

As you probably noticed, I really SUCKED at the balance beam. Oops, I guess that isn't my strong suit after all. I was off balance from the very first step! Wayne, however, had no problems!I was also surprised that I couldn't do the overs in one jump. I had to put my feet on the bar and jump down. Wow, perhaps obstacle courses in general aren't my thing! However, I rocked the barbed wire and I was able to get over the wall in one try. I'm guessing I finished top half in this event. No matter how I finished, I love obstacle courses!

Brian, Irene, Daren, Emily and Johnny ran in the next heat. Out of 5, we lost 2 of our racers in this event. The first aid folks had their hands full today! This video shows Brian spraining his ankle on the first over.

Poor Brian! After checking to make sure Brian wasn't dead, Emily continued her obstacle course, only to be done in by the ramp. The ramp:As you run up it, you can't see that there is no other side to it. Emily expected it to be an a-frame and kept running down the down-ramp that wasn't there. I think it looked like this:Happily, she did not make an Emily-shaped crater on the landing, but she did end up with a badly scraped knee, scraped-up hands and a badly twisted ankle. Poor Emily!And that was the end of Brian and Emily's adventure. Sadly, the event that Emily and Brian most wanted to do at the games was the tire flip. :(

After making sure all our friends were going to survive and were appropriately iced down, those of us who were still ambulatory made our way to our last event, the tire flip. The race was 100 feet and you had to flip a tractor tire there and back. Daren had the best form (he's the guy on the far side):Girls got to use smaller tires if they wanted. The tires were a little bit lighter, but they were also harder to control. They had a tendency to flip sideways on the bounce down so you spent more time corralling them before the next flip. It was definitely a workout!

Tire flipping:
In our heat, Irene and I were neck-and-neck. I beat her by a teeny tiny margin. My scorer told me that my time was 39 seconds and that was one of the best times she'd seen for a girl so far. Yay, an event that I would place in the top half!

After we finished all the events, we found a very small piece of shade in the beer tent. It was soooo very hot!! A lot of people left instead of sticking around for the award ceremony. Wusses. But, seriously, it was hot! But we stayed because we are troupers. I like to see winners and I was pretty sure that Irene was going to win the women's division in archery. I didn't want to miss that!

I was starting to get impatient because the Coyotes home opener started at 4:00 and the arena was over an hour away. I didn't want to miss puck drop! Just as I was about to give in and go, it was announced that the scores were tallied and awards started. Yay! They asked us to leave the beer tent to come over to the podium area. Really? Too sunny. Too hot. We wanted to stay in the shade of the tent. So, we decided to take the tent with us. :) We carried it over to the podium area, then a couple others followed suit with another shade tent. Voila!

They announced the run (aka "hike") winners first. Yeah, no one from our team. I had thought Irene and Christy did well in the keg toss, but Irene's toss of 19 feet was shattered by a girl with 39 feet! WOW! So, no winners on our team. The obstacle course was not won by anyone in our group either. But... Irene DID win the women's archery competition:
A Pabst blue ribbon and a 4-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon!

And...guess who won the tire flip? Um... I DID!! I was so shocked and so happy! I couldn't stop smiling for about an hour!Look at how tall the men's winner is!! He definitely had leverage going for him! His time was 24 seconds. Mine was 39!! Dang!

So excited!!!! Irene and I with our Pabst blue ribbons:Despite our awesome showing, our team did not win the team division. I can't wait to see the results of all of the events to see how we all placed. I think we did pretty well as a team, but we could have used a few more people to bring up our point totals! Next year!!

This event was really awesome! I can't wait to do it again! And you should do it with me! Join my team for the next H.A.G.!!

Then, with no time to take a shower to clean off all the sweat and dust and dirt and sweat, I changed into winter clothes on the drive to Glendale. Ew. At the game I got even more prizes, a free t-shirt and a free taco coupon from the Taco Bell blimp! Woo hoo! Ok, so the t-shirt wasn't really a prize - all fans got one. But I did have to fight for it since my entrance was out of shirts when I got there and then I had to find someone to trade their medium for my extra-large, so I felt like it was a victory nonetheless. AND, the Coyotes won 4-1! Hurray!

What a great day!

Turquoise!

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:34:00 +0000

Corky's most recent cast was turquoise.

Isn't this picture cute? He had been awake all of 60 seconds and he yawned and stretched in the timespace between clicking for a picture and the phone actually taking a picture. The delay is usually annoying but it worked to my advantage this time!

Now Corky's cast has finally been removed. He is restricted to limited use for the next few weeks and then he should be cleared for adoption. That is if we can keep him to moderate use! All he wants to do is play, play and jump up on furniture. He especially loves tug-of-war with Frankie. I feel like the fun police because I always have to put a stop to it. Mo and I could go into business together.

September on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:29:00 +0000

September 2:
Getting yummy lunch! — at Food Truck Friday.

September 3:
Getting in some mountain bike practice for the Gilmore Adventure race....took my bike to the mountain preserve and walked it up and down some hills.

September 5:
Jill was tagged in Christy's photo. "Hiking Shaw Butte with Pat and Jill"September 5:
Jill was tagged in Emily's photo. "Never too old for party hats! Thanks Jill"
September 5:
I really do hate the end of a 3 day weekend. Boo.

September 7:
I finally got off my lazy bum and biked to work!

jill's cycling workout on SportyPal.com

cycling 9.20 mi in 00:44:55

Average speed: 12.30 mph -- Calories: 302

September 7:
Last night at 10:00 pm I saw an Australian vacation deal on Living Social. Tonight at 10:00 pm I had 8 people already paid and ready to go. I love spontaneous friends!

September 9:
Now that's some serious thunder!

September 18:
Just jumped over a rattlesnake on my hike. Yikes!

September 23:
Gilmore Adventure Race tomorrow. I'm so excited!!!!

September 24:
Storming the Castle took first place in the womens division at today's Gilmore! Adventure Race. We also took home lots of scrapes, scratches, prickers and in my case, a pretty bad sunburn...all worth it!
September 27:
Up:Down:September 27:
I'm feeling tough today. Are you?

Tough Mudder Arizona Enlisted Badge

Jill has signed up for Tough Mudder Arizona, a 10+ mile obstacle course through ...

September 28:
80 dogs are on the county shelter's euthanasia list for tomorrow morning. 80! Most are on for URI (just a cold) or "deterioration" which means they've been in the shelter so long that they are getting depressed or going stir-crazy and the shelter is running out of space. These are nice, friendly dogs of all breeds. And this is just ONE day's list. I am so sad.

Corky's Colored Casts

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 03:13:00 +0000

Ridley, the min pin with the broken leg, went back to the shelter a while ago. He was a lot to deal with (so much energy!) so we gave ourselves a foster break for a few weeks. I thought Ridley would get adopted quickly since he was little, cute and young. But he didn't. He sat in the shelter for more than two weeks, breaking my heart every day when I checked the website and saw that he was still listed as available. Poor little playful guy. But, eventually, he got adopted and I'm sure he's driving someone else crazy right now. I hope they are enjoying his goofiness!

After our foster break and our trip to NYC, I called in to get another foster. This one is a chihuahua/boston terrier mix. He's one year old and...big surprise...just like all the fosters lately, he's got a broken leg. Broken legs must be contagious!

He started out with a blue cast.I named him Corky because he's got this really cute corkscrew tail:
Really creative name, I know. I'm running out of foster names so I'm going with the first thing that comes to mind.

After two weeks, Corky went in for a splint change and an x-ray to see how the leg was doing. My past few broken-leg fosters didn't have to get a new splint after their first visit because their little bones healed quickly. No such luck for Corky. His little bone is healing slowly. He got a shiny new yellow cast and was sent back for another two weeks.
Corky loves the dogs. He wants to play with them all the time. He likes to jump on them. Once he successfully landed on Frankie's back. Frankie just stood there and Corky gave me a look of surprise before he fell off. It was pretty funny. I thought about changing his name to Jockey.

He loves to play with toys, too. He'd probably like to play tug-of-war but Georgie is not much for co-play. This little green frog toy is one of Corky's favorites. Georgie enjoys guarding her toys and letting Corky know who's boss. This makes Corky want the toy even more!
He's thinking that if he pretends he doesn't want it, then maybe he can sneak it away from her.
No such luck. Georgie never falls for that trick and wins the battle for the toy every time.And then she goes and buries it.

Corky's yellow cast didn't fit as well as the blue cast and he started biting at it and licking his leg. He gave himself quite a hotspot. It started to get infected and smelly. Ew. I put a cone of shame on him and moved up his hospital appointment so they could treat the owie. The x-ray showed that the broken leg still wasn't healed so he was sent back in a purple (and bigger!) cast for another week. The cone of shame stayed on:
On Thursday, Corky went back to the AHS for another x-ray. And the leg still wassn't healed. He got another splint, white this time. I have not pictures of the white cast because Corky someone managed to get it to slide off his leg on Thursday night. He's back at the shelter now getting yet another splint. I wonder what color it will be?

I Like Contests!

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 05:40:00 +0000

"Oh Jill, you and your dang contests!" said my friend, Lili.

In July, I saw a facebook post that said: "SOYJOY encourages everyone to find small ways to add real adventure to their everyday lives. Go to SOYJOY’s Facebook page and enter the Show Us Your Real Life Adventure Contest by July 25. Submit your short video for the chance to be one of three winners to earn a real-life adventure: an all-expenses-paid weekend in New York City with a buddy and entry to the Great Urban Race – the most intense urban scavenger hunt you’ll ever participate in. And, of the three winners, the team that finishes strongest in the Great Urban Race will get a $2000 cash prize!"

How could I NOT enter that? That is the perfect contest for me. Be adventurous in your everyday life and win a trip to do a Great Urban Race!?! Awesome!!

Throughout the next week, I shot video clips to make a "week of adventures" video. I mostly did crappy self-filming and ended up making a pretty crappy video showing me hiking, doing agility, trying a new restaurant, registering for an adventure race, getting a new foster and playing soccer. The idea was good, but the execution was poor. I submitted the video even though I was not happy with it. The next step was to get votes via their facebook page. The 10 videos with the most votes made it to the finals where the judges would choose their 3 favorites to win the trip to NYC. So I started campaigning on Facebook, despite being embarrassed by how dorky I appeared in my video. Nicole was going to be my travel and race partner if I won so she campaigned pretty hard, too. Our endless Facebook nagging worked and I came in 2nd in votes. Yay! (Thanks, Facebook friends!)

The next step was to wait impatiently to see if the judges picked my video. There were some really good ones in the top 10. I was crossing my fingers that SOYJOY would just pick the top 3 vote-getters. I don't know if that was their deciding factor, but indeed the top 3 vote-getters were the 3 winners. SUPER YAY! I won a trip to NYC for two that included airfare, hotel for 2 nights, $500 spending money and an entry into the Great Urban Race Manhattan! I WON!

Despite trying things from a million angles, Nicole could not make it work to come to NYC with me. Our flight itineraries had to be the same and she was coming from California, plus there was no one to watch her young'uns on the Friday travel day. Boo. I would have loved to introduce her to urban adventure racing! I think she'd like it. Luckily, Christy was willing and able to step in and go with me. Yay! Pat used frequent flier miles to book his own airfare as soon as he found out I won, so don't go thinking I'm a jerk because I didn't take my husband!

I like contests! And I REALLY like winning contests. SOYJOY is the coolest company ever for sponsoring such a fun contest and for picking me to win. Hurray, SOYJOY!

Read on to see how the Great Urban Race went....

I Like Winning!

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:23:00 +0000

With one contest won, it was time to start concentrating on winning the race and $2,000! I started doing my homework, reading up on blogs from prior New York GUR's and finding out more about my competition. One winner was a young kid from Southern California who looked buff and fit in his video. He could definitely beat us in a foot race, but I was positive that our race experience would beat his speed. The other winner was a woman, also from Southern California, who has done quite a few clue-solving races. In fact, just that month she had finished 12th in two different CitySolve races! Presumably one was in her home town and one was not, so this shows that she's pretty smart and good at these races. She might be a match for us in the experience department so we were hoping we'd be able to beat them in a foot race. And, of course, we had secret weapons - Little Tom and Rick from Scavenger Dash as our crack-team of googlers!

We met our SOYJOY rep and the other teams on Saturday morning to walk over to the race venue together. We got to take a bunch of SOYJOY promo pictures. We are kind of famous.Maysoun also met us at the race start. She was in place as another secret weapon in case there was a visual clue that only a New Yorker would know. It was so great to see her! She is 5 months pregnant and cute as can be. She and Pat found a good table, ordered a little lunch and prepared to be our on-site race support.At noon we got our clues. We took pictures, sending the front page to Rick and the back page to Tom.

There was, in fact, a visual clue so we checked that with Maysoun. She sort-of knew the area but didn't know the exact statue, so we marked down the vicinity on my map and took off. As part of my race research, I had mapped the location of the charity partner, West Side Campaign Against Hunger. As expected one clue had us buy food to donate to them. They were located near the start line so we decided to do that clue first while Tom and Rick were solving the other clues. As I was buying food, Christy started solving the word search clue.

Here we are on our way to our first clue, just in front of the boys:
We had no idea the boys were right behind us. We saw them at the food bank and got a little scared. We had expected them to be faster than us, but it was looking like they could be just as smart as us too. Uh oh!

Donating our cans of food:By this time, Rick had given us the answer to clue #6 and it was right near the food bank! A lot nearer than I thought actually, because we overshot it by a block and a half before I realized my mistake. Picture with the bird:
And guess who was at the pet store, too? Yep - the boys! Yikes times two!

There was a subway entrance across the street from the pet store. It was one of those sneaky ones that are hardly noticeable unless you already knew it was there. We hoped the boys didn't see it and hoped they didn't see us as we ran down the steps.

While waiting for the train we plotted a few more of the clues that Tom and Rick had sent. Not all the clues were solved yet, so deciding where to go was tricky. We decided to go to Times Square since there were two clues in the area that we knew of, then we'd continue south again if we needed to. The hardest part about this race was that our only downtime was in the subways, and phones don't work in the subways so we couldn't use that time to communicate with our internet support.

When we popped up at Times Square we headed to the Improv for Kids theater. We had to play the "World's Worst improv training game", which was to tell the guy there a joke and make him laugh. Of course, I told my favorite joke (Why'd the cowboy get a wiener dog? ...Because he wanted to get a long little doggie - drawling out the punchline). Because that joke is hilarious, the guy laughed and gave us a flyer as proof of completion. As we were leaving we overheard the next team start their joke, "Why did the chicken..." The guy didn't even let them finish. He said "NO chicken jokes!" Hee! We were gone before they came up with a different joke to tell.

Nearby, we found the Nederlander Theater:We had to take a break there to finish mapping our clues. Rick and Tom had given us all the info we needed and we had yet to finish plotting the map. The visual clue was still a guess and the area it was in was the furthest point south, so we chose to use that as our skip. We had one clue in Soho, two in the East Village and three in the Upper East Side. We sat on some steps while I mapped the locations and I very nearly lost my camera there. We were only a half block away when I did my usual phone-and-camera-and-map-and-pen check. Oops, no camera! Ran back and luckily it was still sitting on the steps. Whew!

On the way to the subway we got one of our tic tac toe pictures; one teammate in a cowboy hat doing the C in YMCA:The tic tac toe challenge was truly a challenge for us. We ended up getting 6 of the 9 boxes before finally making a line. There just aren't enough rollerbladers in NYC!

We took a subway to Soho. We had to go to the Children's Museum of the Arts and add our hand print and team name to the mural. This would have been a good time to be named something shorter than Storming the Castle!A local on the subway had told us that it would be faster to walk/run up to the East Village than to try to catch another train, so we hoofed it what seemed like a really, really, really, really long way. The guy also told us that we'd pass the Village Voice offices on our way, so we'd probably be able to find a newspaper there for our tic tac toe clue. He was right! And with that we finally made a line!

Our next stop was Edible Arrangements. There we had to look at two fruit arrangements and figure out which fruit was in one arrangement but not the other. It was strawberries. To keep going with the strawberry theme, we had to go to a park nearby to take a picture in a giant fruit costume:Our next stop was the 14th Street Y to the clue sponsored by SOYJOY. Our SOYJOY rep was there taking pictures. First we had to throw rubber chickens across the room into a laundry basket. That was pretty dang fun, and I actually got lucky sooner than I thought I would! Yay! Then we had to tandem jump rope. We weren't exactly together, but we still managed to keep the rope going long enough for it to count:
After that, it was back to the subway to go to the Upper East Side. We'd been out on the course for well over two hours, we still had three checkpoints to hit and we were tired. The Phoenix race took us 1 hour and 45 minutes total. This Manhattan race was LONG! I started to panic a little bit that perhaps we were sucking as bad as we did in Vegas. A quick text to Pat and Maysoun let us know that no one had finished yet so that perked us up a bit.

In the subway we talked to some more locals about the benefit of taking the 4 or 5 train versus the 6, which is the express. The lady was going to our same stop and she was going to take whichever came first. The 4 came first and we decided to get on, instead of waiting for a 6 that might get us there faster. We found out later that no express trains were running that day, so we made a good decision!

I studied my bus map while we were on the train. If we could catch a bus right away, we'd be able to go to our farthest destination first and work our way back. If there were no buses, we'd do the opposite. Lucky, lucky us...as we emerged from the subway, a bus was pulling up right in front of us! Woo hoo! It took us all the way to Asphalt Green, the answer for clue #1. A lot of teams had problems with this one, but not us (because Little Tom is a genius!) We had to go up 7 flights of stairs. It was brutal! When we reached the roof, we had to do a team yoga pose. We headed back down the stairs. We'd gone down two flights when I did my phone-and-camera-and-map-and-pen check. Frick. No map! No pen! Back up two flights. Lucky again, my clipboard was still there!

Back down the seven flights of stairs and off to Luigi's. We had to get a picture of one teammate feeding the other teammate a slice of pizza. The pizza was good but so much running had left me feeling yucky, so I sadly threw the slice away. :(
One more clue to go! Somewhere along the way, Pat texted me that someone had already won. He confirmed it was not a SOYJOY team, so that was good. We hustled (as much as we could) to Brady's bar for the last clue. The finish line was 2 miles away so we waited for a bus. We did not have 2 miles left in us! There was another team at the bus stop waiting. We let them know that some teams had already finished. We confirmed with Pat again that no SOYJOY teams were back yet. Pat also said that there weren't that many teams back, we could still finish in the top 25. While it would be super-cool to finish in the top 25, we already qualified for Nationals so we didn't worry too much about that. We just needed to beat the other SOYJOY teams! I was getting super nervous!

The bus came. Another team joined us. The bus slowly...slowly...slowly crept across town. I was getting sick to my stomach worrying about the other SOYJOY teams. The bus let us off about a block from the finish line bar. We raced the other two teams. One team beat us by A LOT and we beat the other team.

As we crossed the finish line, Pat told us that the other two SOYJOY teams had not finished yet. REALLY?! I kept looking around to make sure. Then we saw our SOYJOY rep and she confirmed that we were the first team back!! WOO HOO!!

We passed the photo check and turned in all our collected items. No penalties! Our final time was 3 hours and 17 minutes. We traveled 17 miles total, 6.25 on foot, 8.15 on the subway and 2.6 on the bus. We came in 30th overall. But we won the SOYJOY contest and $2,000! YAY! YAY! YAY!
The boys were the next team back, but they actually didn't finish the race. They did 5 clues and then took a taxi back. They did it all on foot until the taxi. Poor boys were even more tired than we were. The girls made it back around 5:00, also not quite finishing the race. One of the Great Urban Race girls told me that last year the Manhattan feedback was that the race was too short and too easy so they made it longer this year. It definitely was a lot longer than the Phoenix race!! But it was really, really fun!

Thanks to Great Urban Race and BIG THANKS TO SOYJOY! Also big thanks to Rick and Tom - you boys ROCK! I had such a great weekend that I hardly even minded when our Sunday afternoon flight was delayed 3+ hours and then we spent an additional 2+ hours on the runway before taking off. :)

Home Ec was never my thing

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:14:00 +0000

Text conversation I had with Pat today (he's camping up north, I'm at home):

Me: Where do we keep the iron?
Pat: by the big filing cabinet

Me: Just found it! when did u get this fancy new one?
Pat: About three years ago

Agility in Sedona

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:39:00 +0000

I took Frankie and Mo up to Sedona in June for an agility trial. It was a gorgeous weekend, in a beautiful location, with awesome friends. You don't get a backdrop like this for most trials!Frankie:
It's been so long since we've done any agility. We don't go to class anymore and our trial availability is so sporadic. Sometimes I'm amazed that my dogs even remember how to jump! I was able to take the dogs to practice once at Jim's the week before the trial to refresh their memories. Frankie did great. But, Frankie is always great at practice and always cracked-out at trials...so my expectations were low. Based on those low expectations, I would say Frankie did okay. He Q'd 2 out of 10.

It was me who did terrible. For my last 3 runs on Sunday, I forgot the course. All 3 times. It was humiliating. I usually only do one day of a trial weekend. I guess I don't have the mental stamina for 2 full days of agility. Two of those runs I blew were Frankie's jumpers runs. He always Q's in jumpers. Unless I lead him off course. Twice in a row. Boo. If I wasn't a moron, he would have Q'd 4 out of 10.

One major accomplishment - we Q'd in Beginner Trigility! Woo hoo!! Yep, Frankie is a specialist level dog who never could get out of beginner in Trigility. It took him FIVE YEARS! :) Thanks to my random partners for helping us reach this milestone!

Frankie jumping for joy that he will no longer be mocked by his Specialist level peers:
Mo:
The last time I practiced with Mo, she was awesome, doing all the contacts like a pro and almost looking like she was enjoying herself! It was beautiful...and yet she shut down again at the next trial. This practice was horrible. She flew off the teeter and scared the bejeezus out of herself. She fell off the dog walk (yikes!) and scared the bejeezus out of me. She, luckily, did not get hurt. I had zero expectations for Mo at this trial. She blew my expectations away! We had one AWESOME, PERFECT, WONDERFUL run in jumpers. Of course, she was still Slo-Mo, but she was actually moving fast for her. I had my hopes up for her first-ever Q, and I knew that if this run didn't earn one, then she'd never earn one. Alas, no Q. :( When my Slo-Mo runs her very fastest, even with the extra time allowed for being physically challenged and a veteran, she still goes over time by many, many seconds.

Her other events were disastrous. She had to be coaxed to go in the tunnel. She did the weaves, but then shut down and refused any contacts. The fastest she ever moved was after the run was complete - then she'd hustle speedy-quick to the safety of her crate. Poor Mo.

And so I have conceded the fact that Mo is not an agility dog. She is officially retired. Agility helped her gain confidence, especially with strangers and noisy situations, which was the goal, but it is just not something she enjoys. I don't see any future benefits to be gained for her by continuing to ask her to do it.

She may never have gotten a Q in agility, but she sure is pretty:
If you are looking for Q's, don't look at my dogs...look at Vickie's dogs, Conor and Kaylie. Here they are chilling with Frankie, Sheryl and me:
Let's take a look at how many ribbons Frankie and Mo earned this weekend. Two measly ribbons:

Now let's look at how many ribbons Conor and Kaylie racked up. Show offs.

Want to become the most interesting person a dog has ever met? Never underestimate the power of kibble:Seriously. It is hypnotizing!

Which Jill Are You? - The Competition and Cake Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Diamond Girl) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:57:00 +0000

My 40th birthday party was more than just really awesome costumes. It was also about two of my other favorite C-words....competition and cake!

The JillOlympics was broken up into 5 events; an adventure/agility race, ping-pong, Kinect Dance, Jill Trivia and the costume contest. Each party-goer accumulated points for participating and earned extra points for winning or placing in each event. Bonus points were offered with a Jill skit or dance.

The first event was the adventure/agility race. Here we are all gathered for the rules and clue-sheet distribution. Ready, set, go! The agility course included monkey bars:
and a balance beam:
The other events in the race included puzzles:and a front-yard letter search to find points for a word you were assigned:
We also had to solve clues and run around the neighborhood, which was quite a sight to see in our costumes. The clues were easy for me because they all revolved around me. That doesn't make it cheating that I won that event, right?

Throughout the rest of the night, everyone competed in ping-pong (here I am, beating Leah much to her dismay!)I lost in the next round. Boo. Shouldn't people be letting me win cuz it's my birthday? NFBF eventually won the ping-pong tournament.

I don't have any pictures of the Kinect dancing, but Michelle won the event. NFBF, the world's WORST dancer participated just to earn the participation points. It was quite a sight to see. He was also the only one to perform a Jill Skit, so he got bonus points for that, too. He was in it to win!! I was surprised that no one else had prepared a skit or dance. Irene and I would never let a chance like that go to waste. I thought the majority of my friends were attention seeking extroverts! Lame. (Ok, not so lame...keep reading to the costume blog and you will see how not-lame my friends are.)

The costume contest involved a parade. I have not laughed so hard in a long time. Everyone put their all into it! Here is the winner, Elaine, as Swimming With the Dolphins-Jill. The runners-up were Brian and Steve C. as the sizzling hot Showgirl-Jills and Josh as Swing-Jill.

The All About Jill trivia was won by NFBF and Elaine. If you would like to try the trivia, I have put it into a Survey Monkey (Click here) so you can take it online. :)

At the end of the scoring, the winners of the JillOlympics were NFBF in 1st place, Aimee in 2nd place and Steve C. in 3rd! NFBF would like to remind you to ALWAYS do the bonus!! The world's most excellent party-throwers, Irene and Nicole, made JillOlympics t-shirts for the winners.
What a fun party! Thanks everyone!!! It was a pretty amazing night. The second-most amazing thing of the evening was that Elaine stayed out past 10:00!!
Which, of course, begs the question of what the first-most amazing thing was.

The MOST AMAZING thing of the evening was...this cake:Aimee put in an ungodly number of hours making this uber-personalized cake masterpiece. She included all the things I like to do. See how she made my name in Scrabble letters? The middle cake is a library of books I've read. Hockey and soccer and puzzles, pictures of my dogs and family...
This was only the 6th cake that she has decorated! Craziness. Pretty talented, wouldn't you say?
Simply amazing! If you would like to hire her to make a cake for any upcoming celebration, let me know and I'll get you in contact with her. She is awesome. And the cake was yummy, too!