The Few. The Mighty. The Class of 90.

The Few. The Mighty. The Class of 90.

8 Pax (or 16% of my graduating class [or 100% of the honor grads]) came out to see what a full 13-year alum of the finest institution in northern Lancaster County could produce on his home turf. While 2nd grade was the toughest 3 years of my matriculation, I was eager to show what I had learned.

The first test was literacy. I put out the word on all channels last night that a headlamp would be required this morning. Everyone passed except Atlas. Playing the loophole that he HAD one, but it wasn’t charged, left me dim. I had a spare for my fellow Sandlapper-educated student.

More questions from my DiCCS:
Who has a cell phone? Fredo answers “In my car.” Sorry, I was looking for “On my body.” That’s OK, here’s your consolation prize.
Who has both the knowledge & desire to save another man’s life using CPR? Now Fredo comes roaring back with that hand flying high!

No question from the Pax as to why one leg of my gray sweatpants had tons of brown stains. I don’t know how to interpret that. Male Pattern Blindness? Don’t ask questions you don’t really want to know the answer to? Y’all have been around Paper Jam, Rudy, & Transporter too much?

The Warmup
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The Thang
Run to the end of the parking lot to get a head of steam to start jumping over the walls up front. I can’t tell if Atlas is happy or not as he reminisces that he would do this with Pebbles back in the day. Further back in my day, we would call this Elementary School “woods”, because it didn’t exist.
This would be the only time Fuse comes in last for the morning. Front of the class for the rest of the time.

Mosey around the corner to the bus lot. Proving that Warriors have an extra appendage somewhere, we see numbers posted 1 – 12. That tells us how many Mike Tysons to do, run to the end & back. Then move to the next number.

Cross the bus lot safely as a group & mosey to the edge of the abyss. Quick callout that we are about to go down a series of steep hills in the dark. We’re heading to the practice field (or as I used to call it, the VIP section of the stadium gravel parking).
There are 8 tires of various sizes lined up along one side of the field. Most have little to no muddy water in them because I have flipped as much of it as will come out; hence the stains on my pants.
Flip it 5 times, then run to the end of the field & back. Repeat until you & tire are on the other side. Pick a lighter, smaller tire & you can flip easier, but you’ll have more runs; a heavier tire is harder, but you run less. Kirby is in his element here. Talks about how he & his coworkers do this for fun. Periscope had unique form on his flip – reach inside the tire & pull. Soft Pretzel excelling on this as well. Roll it back to where you found it when finished.

Mosey to the fully opened gate leading into the stadium; in my day we called it the stadium, too. #Timeless
We ran the bleachers with Gas Pumpers at the top. Take that Weddington! #ABetterWarrior
We passed by the concession stand where I rarely got anything for fear of messing up my uni.
The far left section is where the coolest of the cool sat – the band!

Head on down to the track. Yep, pitch black with no cameras & no fence to hop. Good thing Damascus doesn’t read BB’s anymore.
4 corners with Rosalita, Heels to Heaven, Dolly’s & Flutters.
Lot of memories here: homecoming court riding down in convertibles while the band has to play “Think of Laura” on a loop for 20 minutes; trying to pole vault in the end zone while not clearing a single height so Santini & I end up just wrasslin’ on the mats; running loops on crushed sand (at the time) trying to process my Mom’s terminal cancer diagnosis & death.

Back up the bleachers to get to the (now) HS parking lot. Pick a partner of opposite ability. I’ve had my eye on SP for quite a while now.
Start at one end of the parking lot. P1 runs to the other end & back. P2 does 1 burpee in the parking space, then bear crawls to the next space for another burpee. Repeat until P1 returns. Good times. SP always made sure to get 1 more burpee in before we swapped. #HIM #MABA

Head back along the back road (that didn’t exist) behind the middle school (that was my high school). Under the overhang we paused for a Mountain Climber Medley:
10 MC
10 Dying Cockroach
10 MC
10 Box Cutters
10 MC

Back on the road again. Pause once more for Plank Jacks. Were it not for Fuse calling for Pax to get out of the road because a car was coming, most of us would likely be dead (or injured [or relieved to catch a quick breather]). #No10Counts

Since the car killed our vibe without killing us, I decided to just mosey on to COT.

Still 2 minutes left? Perfect…
“Y’all ever hear of an exercise named ‘The Motivator’?”
Slack-jawed stares (like me watching the Clemson – Ohio State game last week) 🐯
“Learned it doing a virtual workout with either Princeton or Omaha. It seems to be popular in those parts.”
I know I take too long to describe something new, so I just gave the basic descriptions & said to follow along. This is the only exercise I’ve seen that’s not done in cadence or civilian count, but in UNISON. You wouldn’t know it from this bunch, though. Pretty easy to see who graduated valedictorian in his class today.
Das Boot & I have made a vow not to describe The Motivator in print, but to just have it in our weinkie (he got my hint to use the virtual workouts as extra counts for his Passport win [you didn’t think it was odd that he had more posts than we have AO’s?]). I think it went over well because I saw a couple Pax tap out; not out of boredom but because their calves seized up.

When it was over (to the second), Kirbs called me Jane Fonda. Again, don’t know how to take that.

Moleskine

My wish for you is to have an opportunity to share something precious to you with those you love.

Announcements

• Waxhaw blood drive: https://teamup.com/event/show/id/yXfKGGqXNMRyeebH1oebB1n8NcJn4j
  SOB will have their blood drive the following month
• New AO: Clean Slate in Porter Ridge 630-730. This Saturday has Arsenal Site Q & IL’er (even though he lives in Waxhaw) Passport on Q. Yes, he will be driving close to an hour to Q at an AO because he knows the importance of #GiveItAway. It takes a special man to love brothers he doesn’t even know to give what’s been given to him. If you have read this far, #BeLikePeriscope and let Catfish or me know which Saturday you want to have the final say in naming some FNG’s.
• New AO: Last Call at Marvin Ridge Fridays ⚠600-645. First Q goes to Goodfella.
• New AO: Cowbell at PetSmart in Wesley Chapel Wednesdays 530-615. First Q was Ice9 🤮
• SATURDAY 1/9/2021 at 9am: Paper Jam could use help moving stuff out of his Dad’s apartment in Blakeney (10211 MAHONIA ST UNIT 103 CHARLOTTE, NC 28277) to their new home at 4058 HENSHAW Rd in Waxhaw (Millbridge). Also could use help moving things out of the PODS into the Waxhaw home.
  The fun will begin at 9 am at both sites. Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if you can only lend a hand for an hour or so. Last time it took less than 2 hours.
• Mayhem is putting together a service opportunity for some disaster relief in eastern NC at the end of this month. It’s a great opportunity to help others and it doesn’t cost much. Check out the link for more details: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JTvh4Z-eD5fHmub2AwY9FuBX0QbWZNTBageXqQBCDl4/edit?usp=sharing
• Feed the homeless in uptown Charlotte…they have now added dates through May 5th. Here is the sign-up link. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0d48afa72dabf85-rice
• Christ Closet folding party: https://teamup.com/event/show/id/7UaL4nWTFVJeGW1GNW3CqCByYQqzUw
  Even though it isn’t mentioned, I *think* this will also be the time that several F3 brothers will be loading up the trailer with CC clothes to head down to Cape Fear for the original 10 year for a giveaway in Wilmington…
• Habits > Public Goals > Private Resolutions – Be vulnerable & transparent in what you want to accomplish this year. Just like we mock most guys for trying to hit the gym for the first 3 weeks in January & never go again, you fall into the same trap when you make a private resolution. You increase your chances for success by telling others what your goals are for the year. Chances increase further when you put them on this spreadsheet for your brothers to read: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14kBctLBRG1Ii4SPnLHR4dCs8Zoyn9V–6LTfOhoocT0/edit?usp=sharing
  It covers all the popular topics: Word of the Year, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd F, Concentrica, & Other. Hyperlinks for column headers to explain unfamiliar terms. At the beginning of each month, this sheet gets publicized again to show your progress.
  I didn’t get everything accomplished that I wanted last year, but I got way more than I ever did in years past when I just did it alone. I’ve read “The Power of Habit” & “Atomic Habits”, so I feel even more confident about breaking these goals down into components that have to be done on a daily or weekly basis to hit that accomplishment. I’m already seeing a couple of Pax with similar or exact goals; what are their chances of success if they team up?
• Big thanks to Brexit who’s eager(?) to help Waxhaw get its website (f3waxhaw.com) up & runnin’ with all the fixins!
• Kirby gave a great reminder about joining the Slack #networking channel to help yourself or other brothers in finding a (better) job. Many companies decided to wait until now to start laying people off. It’s going to be bad for a while longer. Be proactive in helping.
  Get on LinkedIn.
  Join the F3 LI group.
  Connect with other F3 men on LinkedIn to digitize your network.
  Kirby said some nice things about me, but we shan’t repeat them here. But thanks, brother!