So, here we are at the end of week number 1. Sort of. I need to clarify for the rest of the readers that I had actually started a diet before Mr. Stover called me to challenge me to this little competition. Because I had started 12 days before Jason, he will get 12 days to continue after I finish in June. So, this being said, let's get started:
I began using HerbalLife about 18 days ago. After watching my partner Jim Hayes here in Thailand drop around 40 pounds using the stuff, I decided I'd give it a try. Then I found out how expensive it is and realized I would have to do more than "try" it because I've got a months supply! Nasty tasting stuff, but hey, it's working. A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch and whatever I want for supper. That's the plan. The problem is that with only two shakes a day, I'm usually "shaking" with hunger by the time supper comes along. Then I eat too much. But hey, it isn't like Jason is going to do any better.
Here's the summary of everything thus far:
*I've been dieting for over two weeks.
*I've exercised three times now since the competition began. Not bad.
*I've not had a coke or sweet tea in 18 days. No Sprite and no diet drinks either. Just water, green tea and Crystal Light.
*I've already dropped a good bit in my pants size. I had to etch a new hole in my belt to keep my pants up.
*I've lost about 8 pounds as of this morning. That's officially .03% of my body weight. Eat that with your little Polish donuts, Mr. Stover
Week 2 Preview -- "Why dieting is poor stewardship."
Friday, March 28, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Missionary Biggest Loser #1
So, here I am watching a nice film in my living room on the 12th floor of my apartment in Bangkok when my phone rings. I debate with myself, "should I answer it or not?" While I'm thinking about it, Courtney picks up the phone and I find that instead of her sister calling, it's Jason Stover. Yes, that's right, THE Jason Stover. The famous Polish missionary.
Mr. Stover and I both were accepted by BWM at roughly the same time (I was technically accepted a day before him-ask him if you need more details). Jason's wife, Ginger, is the daughter of our partners here in Thailand, Jim and Kathi Hayes. So, over the past couple of years, we've enjoyed keeping in touch and getting to know each better while on deputation and even now during our first term on the field.
Jason is a fellow who tends to deal with certain "insecurities" to say the least. Among those, would be the great sense of failure that engrosses his being when he daily meditates on the fact that we raised our support before he did and made it to the field first. He has issued a number of disclaimers, you can check his blog for specifics http://stoversinpoland.blogspot.com/ but I'll generalize the comments for you. He tends to think that we raised less funds than he did and therefore we were able to reach our full support first. However, not only did we raise our support first, but we were slightly over supported at the time we left for the field and therefore, no matter how you look at it, he lost.
Now, as he sits in his ice castle in Poland and I bask in the 95 degree temperatures of March while munching on yellow mangos here in Thailand, he has once again raised the "Banner of Challenge."
Here are the specifics for those of you skimming this post:
Mr. Stover has SWOLLEN up to around 280+ pounds. I on the other hand was a MERE 275 as of Tuesday, March 11. Jason has issues of restraint in the areas of polish donuts and coke and I have found that pretty much all Thai food is incredibly delicious and usually stir-fried in oil or deep fried. Not to mention that there is rice on the table three meals a day. Also, in the hot weather, I can easily consume 4-6 cokes a day even in a country with no Mt. Dew.
So, Jason and I have embarked on yet another quest to determine which of us will be the "biggest loser" come mid-June. That's right, we're on diets. We will determine the person with the greatest "overall percentage of weight loss." We will be updating our blogs on Saturdays with the highs and lows of our week for those interested. Since Mr. Stover has a tendency to "bend the facts" I hope to see a picture of him on the scale in the near future showing that he is indeed 282.
March 22--Aren't Saturday's made for overeating? We went to Disney on Ice this morning and I confess, I ate popcorn AND cotton candy.
It's going to be a long three months.
Mr. Stover and I both were accepted by BWM at roughly the same time (I was technically accepted a day before him-ask him if you need more details). Jason's wife, Ginger, is the daughter of our partners here in Thailand, Jim and Kathi Hayes. So, over the past couple of years, we've enjoyed keeping in touch and getting to know each better while on deputation and even now during our first term on the field.
Jason is a fellow who tends to deal with certain "insecurities" to say the least. Among those, would be the great sense of failure that engrosses his being when he daily meditates on the fact that we raised our support before he did and made it to the field first. He has issued a number of disclaimers, you can check his blog for specifics http://stoversinpoland.blogspot.com/ but I'll generalize the comments for you. He tends to think that we raised less funds than he did and therefore we were able to reach our full support first. However, not only did we raise our support first, but we were slightly over supported at the time we left for the field and therefore, no matter how you look at it, he lost.
Now, as he sits in his ice castle in Poland and I bask in the 95 degree temperatures of March while munching on yellow mangos here in Thailand, he has once again raised the "Banner of Challenge."
Here are the specifics for those of you skimming this post:
Mr. Stover has SWOLLEN up to around 280+ pounds. I on the other hand was a MERE 275 as of Tuesday, March 11. Jason has issues of restraint in the areas of polish donuts and coke and I have found that pretty much all Thai food is incredibly delicious and usually stir-fried in oil or deep fried. Not to mention that there is rice on the table three meals a day. Also, in the hot weather, I can easily consume 4-6 cokes a day even in a country with no Mt. Dew.
So, Jason and I have embarked on yet another quest to determine which of us will be the "biggest loser" come mid-June. That's right, we're on diets. We will determine the person with the greatest "overall percentage of weight loss." We will be updating our blogs on Saturdays with the highs and lows of our week for those interested. Since Mr. Stover has a tendency to "bend the facts" I hope to see a picture of him on the scale in the near future showing that he is indeed 282.
March 22--Aren't Saturday's made for overeating? We went to Disney on Ice this morning and I confess, I ate popcorn AND cotton candy.
It's going to be a long three months.
Monday, March 10, 2008
A Year of Near Misses --Part 3
I've chosen to break these "incidents" into three sections. The first part, which you can find if you scroll down, is a review of the 7 times I've been pulled over by the police in the past year.
Part 2 is a history of traffic accidents and so forth over the past year.
Part 3, the part you're reading now, is about personal injuries.
So, here goes:
One morning Trevor woke up. He does that every morning actually, but this morning was different. This morning he decided to stand up next to Erica's bed and poke her in the eye. Seemed like a fun thing at the time. Erica began complaining shortly thereafter about her eye. She laid around all day and wouldn't even play at the playplace at McDonald's. This was serious. We took her to the hospital and they patched her eye and told us to bring her back the next day and see a specialist. We did and the specialist said "the worst thing you could do for her eye was to put a patch on it, I'm not sure why the doctor did that yesterday." Thanks, doc. So, this doctor was corneal specialist and she determined Erica had a significant "corneal abrasion." In other words, her cornea was scratched enough that he could see the scratch.
He ordered her to sit in a dark room, without TV, without coloring, without looking at books and no physical exercise. WOW! What does a 5 year old do if they can't do those things? They sit and you read books to them. That was a long week.
The scratch healed and as far as we know, there was no lasting damage. Trevor now knows not to touch people's eyes.
#2 I was walking down the street one day. There are vendors EVERYWHERE in Thailand selling fruit and things like that. Many of them have large umbrellas over their carts to provide shade. As I was walking, I was looking down reading a receipt I had just been given when I abruptly came to a halt because my face hurt. I had run squarely into a peg on the large 6 foot umbrella covering a vendor's cart. It hit about 1 inch below my left eye and left a red scrape for a couple days. That was a near miss that I'm glad to have missed. Note to self: don't walk and read in Bangkok.
#3 While visiting Courtney's sister in Cambodia in February, I found a super cute "pile" of little black and white puppies. We were visiting a pastors home and these puppies were in a box out in front of their house. I walked up to the box while Forrest (my brother-in-law) talked to the people. While bending over petting the super cute puppies, I felt what seemed to be something scratching the back of my right leg. I was wearing shorts that day. I turned rather quickly to find that the mother of these super cute puppies wasn't at all happy about me touching them. She again made a lunge at my leg but only scraped the back of my calf with her teeth. Now I was faced with a dilemma. Do I turn and kick the pastors dog over the roof of their little house or do I try to slowly back out of the situation. I decided not to kick the dog and I made my getaway. As I retreated, she continued to try to finish her business of biting me. By this time the pastor's daughter had seen what was going on and ran the dog off.
I can't overemphasize how glad I was that I hadn't been bitten by a mangy, mongrel of a dog in the middle of the middle of the middle of NOWHERE Cambodia where my in-laws live. I haven't messed with any "super cute puppies" since that time.
So that's the story of personal misadventures. If you've got time, read the next couple of entries. Some of them are pretty funny.
Part 2 is a history of traffic accidents and so forth over the past year.
Part 3, the part you're reading now, is about personal injuries.
So, here goes:
One morning Trevor woke up. He does that every morning actually, but this morning was different. This morning he decided to stand up next to Erica's bed and poke her in the eye. Seemed like a fun thing at the time. Erica began complaining shortly thereafter about her eye. She laid around all day and wouldn't even play at the playplace at McDonald's. This was serious. We took her to the hospital and they patched her eye and told us to bring her back the next day and see a specialist. We did and the specialist said "the worst thing you could do for her eye was to put a patch on it, I'm not sure why the doctor did that yesterday." Thanks, doc. So, this doctor was corneal specialist and she determined Erica had a significant "corneal abrasion." In other words, her cornea was scratched enough that he could see the scratch.
He ordered her to sit in a dark room, without TV, without coloring, without looking at books and no physical exercise. WOW! What does a 5 year old do if they can't do those things? They sit and you read books to them. That was a long week.
The scratch healed and as far as we know, there was no lasting damage. Trevor now knows not to touch people's eyes.
#2 I was walking down the street one day. There are vendors EVERYWHERE in Thailand selling fruit and things like that. Many of them have large umbrellas over their carts to provide shade. As I was walking, I was looking down reading a receipt I had just been given when I abruptly came to a halt because my face hurt. I had run squarely into a peg on the large 6 foot umbrella covering a vendor's cart. It hit about 1 inch below my left eye and left a red scrape for a couple days. That was a near miss that I'm glad to have missed. Note to self: don't walk and read in Bangkok.
#3 While visiting Courtney's sister in Cambodia in February, I found a super cute "pile" of little black and white puppies. We were visiting a pastors home and these puppies were in a box out in front of their house. I walked up to the box while Forrest (my brother-in-law) talked to the people. While bending over petting the super cute puppies, I felt what seemed to be something scratching the back of my right leg. I was wearing shorts that day. I turned rather quickly to find that the mother of these super cute puppies wasn't at all happy about me touching them. She again made a lunge at my leg but only scraped the back of my calf with her teeth. Now I was faced with a dilemma. Do I turn and kick the pastors dog over the roof of their little house or do I try to slowly back out of the situation. I decided not to kick the dog and I made my getaway. As I retreated, she continued to try to finish her business of biting me. By this time the pastor's daughter had seen what was going on and ran the dog off.
I can't overemphasize how glad I was that I hadn't been bitten by a mangy, mongrel of a dog in the middle of the middle of the middle of NOWHERE Cambodia where my in-laws live. I haven't messed with any "super cute puppies" since that time.
So that's the story of personal misadventures. If you've got time, read the next couple of entries. Some of them are pretty funny.
A Year of Near Misses --Part 2
So, here's the continuation of my saga of near catastrophes here in Thailand. One thing to remember is that there are roughly 12 million people in Bangkok with probably 4-5 million motorcycles, taxis and tuk-tuk's. That makes for a lot of traffic. While driving, we have witnessed with our own eyes AT LEAST 6-8 motorcycle wrecks/bumps/crashes. They're quite common.
So, here are my stories. I've bumped a couple myself while crawling through traffic. The little "moto's" they drive on are small (125 cc's) and they slide between lanes of traffic all the time like ants cruising around an anthill.
#1The first guy I bumped didn't even turn around to look at me as we crawled slowly through traffic. My fault.
#2 A guy was driving between me and the car next to me and my mirror hit his handle bar. That one was probably his fault.
#3 A guy hit my mirror while driving by. I wasn't even moving. His fault.
#4 I was driving through a very congested part of town one day. Jim Hayes and Dr. Fred Moritz were in Jim's truck right behind me. I was looking for a very small road and I almost passed it so I did a quick signal and turned hard to the left. Remember, we drive on the other side of the road here. A motorcycle was passing me on the left and when I made the quick turn I nailed him pretty good. He stayed on his feet and didn't fall down but he gave me the evil eye. The great thing about Bangkok is that you don't even stop for something like that. I got a dent on my passenger side door but we were otherwise unhurt. I was kind of embarrassed that the Executive Director of Baptist World Mission had observed me hitting a moto driver, but it makes for a good story. Jim and Dr. Moritz laughed.
#5 While driving down a busy road a motorcycle got anxious to pull out. As I passed he hit the throttle too soon and he hit me in the back right tire. His front tire hit my back tire as I was driving about 50 km's per hour. It jerked the wheel out of his hand and almost knocked him over. His fault.
#6 I did get t-boned about a month after I got our car. A guy ran a stop sign and nailed me causing minor damage. I was almost able to jump out of his way but not quite. The Lord took good care of us that day. Trevor and Erica were watching a movie in the back seat. His fault and his insurance paid the bill.
So, here are my stories. I've bumped a couple myself while crawling through traffic. The little "moto's" they drive on are small (125 cc's) and they slide between lanes of traffic all the time like ants cruising around an anthill.
#1The first guy I bumped didn't even turn around to look at me as we crawled slowly through traffic. My fault.
#2 A guy was driving between me and the car next to me and my mirror hit his handle bar. That one was probably his fault.
#3 A guy hit my mirror while driving by. I wasn't even moving. His fault.
#4 I was driving through a very congested part of town one day. Jim Hayes and Dr. Fred Moritz were in Jim's truck right behind me. I was looking for a very small road and I almost passed it so I did a quick signal and turned hard to the left. Remember, we drive on the other side of the road here. A motorcycle was passing me on the left and when I made the quick turn I nailed him pretty good. He stayed on his feet and didn't fall down but he gave me the evil eye. The great thing about Bangkok is that you don't even stop for something like that. I got a dent on my passenger side door but we were otherwise unhurt. I was kind of embarrassed that the Executive Director of Baptist World Mission had observed me hitting a moto driver, but it makes for a good story. Jim and Dr. Moritz laughed.
#5 While driving down a busy road a motorcycle got anxious to pull out. As I passed he hit the throttle too soon and he hit me in the back right tire. His front tire hit my back tire as I was driving about 50 km's per hour. It jerked the wheel out of his hand and almost knocked him over. His fault.
#6 I did get t-boned about a month after I got our car. A guy ran a stop sign and nailed me causing minor damage. I was almost able to jump out of his way but not quite. The Lord took good care of us that day. Trevor and Erica were watching a movie in the back seat. His fault and his insurance paid the bill.
"A Year in Thailand" A Year of Close Calls and Near Misses
First of all I feel it necessary to offer a significant disclaimer for the following information I'm about to share. As I summarized these events for myself a few days ago, I started thinking, "wow, this sounds like you're a pretty bad driver." SO, I must confess that a few of these experiences have come as a direct result of poor judgement on my behalf, but the vast majority have come directly from the environment in which we live. So, with that said. Enjoy.
First of all, when you think of police officers in America, there is generally a feeling of fear and respect, right? Primarily fear. In Thailand when you see a police officer, there is generally a feeling of "oh boy, what's this guy gonna try to get me for now?" The Thai police are a low paid group of guys and there are tons of places where they will set up a roadblock with 5-15 guys and "find" reasons for pulling you over. Especially a white guy. Here are a few of my personal encounters.
#1--Two days after I got our car I was driving through an unfamiliar part of the city. A light turned from green to orange and I didn't stop. Maybe I could have, maybe not. We'll never know. The cop standing in the street on the other side of the red light (previously unseen by me) thought I could have stopped. He literally jumped in front of my car and pulled me over. That's the way they do it here, jump in front of your car. Even on the highway.
SO, with him I just talked really fast in English explaining I couldn't stop in time, etc. He didn't have a clue what I was saying so he just said "Warning, Go!" I left, no ticket.
#2 Driving home from Surin one weekend a guy claimed I was driving 105 in 90 zone. They usually don't have radars here so I don't know how he knew how fast I was going. Again, I used the talk fast in English and smile method. He let me go. No ticket.
#3 While escorting my sending church pastor around town, we were stopped by a police man at a toll booth. My tags were expired but I didn't know because I couldn't read the Thai at that time. Here's the fun part. When you get pulled over in Thailand, you have two options. One: you let them take your license to the local police station and you go get it the next day and pay the full fine or you just barter with the cop over the price. Again, this is universally practiced by all people in Thailand. SO, I fished up what money I had and said "is this okay?" He shoved it in his pocket without looking and said "YES." He returned my license and I left having paid him roughly $6.
#4 This one is a favorite. A couple of "yayhoos" pretending to be stopping people for legitimate reasons were in the middle of nowhere on our way to Surin. I came around a corner and they again jumped in front of my car. They said I was going fast in a "sharp curve." These guys were just after money and I wasn't going fast. All he could say was "sharp curve." I was a little amused so I played the "I don't speak much Thai" game with him until he said "okay, go ahead and leave." No ticket.
#5 We were going to a school for a Christmas program that we were doing when I ran into one of the big groups of about 15 cops stopping everybody. They said something about having to wear a seatbelt in the passenger seat on the expressway. I hadn't been on the expressway but they didn't care. At that point, I didn't either and the cop was really nice. I have him about $5 and let us go.
#6 Yes, #6. Going to the border to visit Courtney's sister we ran into a couple guys who said I had driven too long in the wrong lane. I was supposed to "drive in the other lane." Again, this guy was nice and he didn't buy the "I don't speak much Thai" bit. He got $6 dollars from me.
#7 This one is good too. Probably my personal favorite but it's a sore spot for Courtney.
I have a tradition. For every one of my four children, I have taken them to McDonald's the moment they left the hospital after being born. Lindsey was in Blue Springs, MO, Erica and Trevor in Lawerence, KS and Tyler in Bangkok. The only problem is that there are only a couple McDonald's with drive throughs in Bangkok. So, I just pulled up to the one near our house on a busy street, left Courtney in the front seat with the newborn and ran inside. While I'm in line ordering Courtney called me. She was crying. A police man had pulled up behind me, pecked on her window and told her she can't park there. She was in the midst of post-delivery hormonal psychosis as it was and this sent her over the top. She wasn't very happy with me and she didn't care much for my extremely important tradition.
Here's the good part. The cop is now standing around on this busy sidewalk waiting for me to come and give me a ticket. I walked out of McDonald's and blended into the crowd. He was probably 15 feet behind my car talking to a street vendor. At the last possible second, I jumped out of the crowd, ran around and jumped in my car and drove away.
He didn't follow me. No ticket.
Grand Total Year #1: 7 times pulled over. 3 tickets paid for a combined total of roughly $15.
Not bad for a rookie. There have been probably 6-8 other traffic checks where I wasn't stopped. All in all, you never really get used to a cop jumping in front of your car to make you stop. They don't have patrol cars here so I guess their bodies are the next best thing.
First of all, when you think of police officers in America, there is generally a feeling of fear and respect, right? Primarily fear. In Thailand when you see a police officer, there is generally a feeling of "oh boy, what's this guy gonna try to get me for now?" The Thai police are a low paid group of guys and there are tons of places where they will set up a roadblock with 5-15 guys and "find" reasons for pulling you over. Especially a white guy. Here are a few of my personal encounters.
#1--Two days after I got our car I was driving through an unfamiliar part of the city. A light turned from green to orange and I didn't stop. Maybe I could have, maybe not. We'll never know. The cop standing in the street on the other side of the red light (previously unseen by me) thought I could have stopped. He literally jumped in front of my car and pulled me over. That's the way they do it here, jump in front of your car. Even on the highway.
SO, with him I just talked really fast in English explaining I couldn't stop in time, etc. He didn't have a clue what I was saying so he just said "Warning, Go!" I left, no ticket.
#2 Driving home from Surin one weekend a guy claimed I was driving 105 in 90 zone. They usually don't have radars here so I don't know how he knew how fast I was going. Again, I used the talk fast in English and smile method. He let me go. No ticket.
#3 While escorting my sending church pastor around town, we were stopped by a police man at a toll booth. My tags were expired but I didn't know because I couldn't read the Thai at that time. Here's the fun part. When you get pulled over in Thailand, you have two options. One: you let them take your license to the local police station and you go get it the next day and pay the full fine or you just barter with the cop over the price. Again, this is universally practiced by all people in Thailand. SO, I fished up what money I had and said "is this okay?" He shoved it in his pocket without looking and said "YES." He returned my license and I left having paid him roughly $6.
#4 This one is a favorite. A couple of "yayhoos" pretending to be stopping people for legitimate reasons were in the middle of nowhere on our way to Surin. I came around a corner and they again jumped in front of my car. They said I was going fast in a "sharp curve." These guys were just after money and I wasn't going fast. All he could say was "sharp curve." I was a little amused so I played the "I don't speak much Thai" game with him until he said "okay, go ahead and leave." No ticket.
#5 We were going to a school for a Christmas program that we were doing when I ran into one of the big groups of about 15 cops stopping everybody. They said something about having to wear a seatbelt in the passenger seat on the expressway. I hadn't been on the expressway but they didn't care. At that point, I didn't either and the cop was really nice. I have him about $5 and let us go.
#6 Yes, #6. Going to the border to visit Courtney's sister we ran into a couple guys who said I had driven too long in the wrong lane. I was supposed to "drive in the other lane." Again, this guy was nice and he didn't buy the "I don't speak much Thai" bit. He got $6 dollars from me.
#7 This one is good too. Probably my personal favorite but it's a sore spot for Courtney.
I have a tradition. For every one of my four children, I have taken them to McDonald's the moment they left the hospital after being born. Lindsey was in Blue Springs, MO, Erica and Trevor in Lawerence, KS and Tyler in Bangkok. The only problem is that there are only a couple McDonald's with drive throughs in Bangkok. So, I just pulled up to the one near our house on a busy street, left Courtney in the front seat with the newborn and ran inside. While I'm in line ordering Courtney called me. She was crying. A police man had pulled up behind me, pecked on her window and told her she can't park there. She was in the midst of post-delivery hormonal psychosis as it was and this sent her over the top. She wasn't very happy with me and she didn't care much for my extremely important tradition.
Here's the good part. The cop is now standing around on this busy sidewalk waiting for me to come and give me a ticket. I walked out of McDonald's and blended into the crowd. He was probably 15 feet behind my car talking to a street vendor. At the last possible second, I jumped out of the crowd, ran around and jumped in my car and drove away.
He didn't follow me. No ticket.
Grand Total Year #1: 7 times pulled over. 3 tickets paid for a combined total of roughly $15.
Not bad for a rookie. There have been probably 6-8 other traffic checks where I wasn't stopped. All in all, you never really get used to a cop jumping in front of your car to make you stop. They don't have patrol cars here so I guess their bodies are the next best thing.
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