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April 27, 2013 - 1:33 a.m.
curling: a reality after three years

Hey Journal!!

Well, tonight was an AMAZING night of CURLING! I can't even believe how wild it was! We had a great time... but first, let me start in the beginning of the day.

Work was good today, but there was a full moon last night which means that the members always do weird things, and crazy shit happens.

Among other things, the biggest of these incidents was that one member hit his golf ball without waiting for the member playing before him to get out of the way, causing the ball to whiz past him. He didn't come close to hitting him, but he could have, and doing that would be failing to observe the rules of golf course etiquette.

Now, you would think that when two friends get into a situation like this, they may have a few words, make their point, and move on... but not these two. The one who "almost" got hit, started creating a huge scene, and to make a really long story short, he later demanded that the offending member get suspended for 60 days. Unfortunately, that seems a little excessive. Dan's dad talked to all the people who witnessed the incident, the guy who did it, and people who had been involved. It was clearly an accident, and the guy admitted that he was wrong, just that he wasn't thinking at the time and made a mistake. So, because it had caused such a big uproar, he got suspended for 7 days.

The other member was not happy at all, saying that we only value his life at 60 days. Really? I mean, it's not a reflection on his life, it's a matter of the guy making a mistake, and yes it was dangerous, but thankfully nothing happened, and � HE'S YOUR FRIEND! I don't know.. Weird Weird Weird.

So, that took up most of the day, and for lunch I had grilled cheese.

I left at 4:30 and when I got home, I went to the gym. We had to leave at 7:15 for curling so I had to move fast and get ready!

I did EXCELLENT today at the gym and I completely blew away my last mile record! I believe that my old record was 9:04 and today I came in at 8:27! INSANE!! Now, the only problem with that is that I don't think I can really do better than that... at least not for a while.

Gym Report:
50 Crunches at 50lbs
1 mile on the Treadmill in 8:27! NEW RECORD!!
1 mile on the Treadmill in 19mins
60 Chest Presses at 35lbs
2 miles on the EBike in 8mins

I have one more goal, though... Even though I ran a great mile in 8:24, I still had to stop halfway though to take a short breather and reduced the speed to 3.5mph from 8mph. I want to be able to go for one full mile at one speed without slowing down!

When I got home I took a shower and we got ready for CURLING!! Re arrived at 7:15 and we thought it was going to start at 8:30 but Dan found an e-mail he had missed saying that we would be in the 9:30 session, so we were now very early!

Instead of meeting Linda at the rink, we went to pick her up at her mom's house. She gave us the tour of her new living quarters in the basement! It's a small space, but it's laid out well and it's coming together! They have one big bedroom and the beds are fit in like puzzle pieces!

It is definitely a tight space, but it works and hopefully it won't be for too long!

After that, we headed out for the main event.... and now, the moment we had been waiting for for over 3 years, CURLING!!

We got to the "ice house" and went inside, we had pre-registered and they had our names already printed on nametags! It was really well organized. The signed in and they gave us a waiver to sign and then we paid our $10 and got assigned a group number.

All of the people who were members of the curling club were very friendly and they were all very fun and eager to talk about curling! It was a lot of fun! They also all had nametags with their first and last names on them, so later when we were discussing the evening we kept calling them all by their full names, since that's how we remembered them. It was really funny!

We were checked in by Ruth Loomis and then we waited a little while for our group to be called. We got a little overview of what we were going to do that night! That portion of the evening was conducted by Mike Greene and Mark Topaz! We were all big fans of the name "Topaz!"

Then we went out to the ice and we waited for the first station. At this station, we learned how to push off of the "hack" and the proper stance. The guy running this station was Dino, and Re called him "Dino" like Dinosaur! Linda went first, followed by Re, and then Dan. Re went twice, and then I went, and Dino kept telling me to do it again and again! I wound up going 7 times!!

He was telling me to bed lower after pushing off, and for some reason I couldn't do it, but then I realized that my wallet and camera in my pocket were digging into my leg! Once I got rid of them, it was much easier!!

Next up, we did some sweeping with Matt Shriner! Re and Dan went first, and the first time Matt threw the stone, he threw it so hard that it went right past them and they were running behind it to catch it! The guy who threw it back did it a little slower and I think that was better!

Then we got to practice actually shooting the stones, and sweeping, together at the same station. We took turns doing each thing, and I had a couple of really good shots.

I was told several times throughout the evening that I was "a natural curler" and "very limber" and they kept encouraging me to come back! Re think this could be my claim to fame, and I may be able to go to the Olympics! I always knew I had a calling... I just didn't realize it was curling!

The only downside of the evening was that we were rushed in the end. I guess more people showed up than expected, but we didn't have a lot of time at the last station.

After that, we filled out a survey and had some refreshments (pretzels and popcorn!)

We were all getting really hungry because we hadn't had time for dinner beforehand! We wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse, but they closed at 11, which I feel is very unusual for a Friday night at a chain restaurant!

Instead, we went to the Empress Diner across the street. I got the open faced turkey sandwich which I have always loved but I have been getting so often recently! I was disappointed with the mashed potatoes and broccoli, and I was also a little annoyed that they wanted to charge .35 to get a take-home container. No thanks! I think that's tacky, and I think they should raise the price of each menu item by a couple of cents instead and then that would make up for the people who don't take on, and noone is really going to complain about that... they won't even know!

So, all in all, our curling experience was amazing and we are going to be returning next week for the second session where we will play a few ends of a game! Sounds pretty cool!! I'm excited!

Now we're home and I'm exhausted! Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)