The Year of 52 Adventures

Updates from January, 2010 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Lauren 3:00 pm on January 6, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  I’ve Always Been an Overachiever 

  …just apparently not when it comes to adventures. Ever since Kim first told me about wanting to start this project, I’ve been trying to come up with adventures of my own. Well, after my “but I just changed my tail light all by myself!” attempt was voted off the adventure island, I came to the conclusion that my list was going to be on the smaller side. This is a bit strange, seeing as I’m a huge planner and list maker, and have always had a number of goals that I’ve pushed myself to meet. Apparently not so much in the adventure department– but that’s okay, I’m coping, and am thinking about joining an adventure-challenged support group 🙂

  But in the meantime, drum roll please…

  1. Successfully complete the culinary school section of my masters degree, with minimal cuts and burns (The class starts in exactly 1 week…eep!)
  2. Run the Hyannis half-marathon in February 2010 (With Miss Kim, of course)
  3. Run the Portland, ME marathon in October 2010 (Also with the lovely Kim)
  4. Start and maintain a food blog, complete with play by play of culinary school (It’s up! Now we’ll see how long it lasts…trialbyfireblog.com)

  …aaaand I’m spent. Thats right, 4 adventures. Take that, former-overachiever-Lauren– you’re a slacker now. (and loving every minute of it.) 🙂

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    Zariel 10:39 am on May 4, 2011 Permalink

    Now we know who the sebsnile one is here. Great post!

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  mjperry1 7:58 pm on January 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: 300 workout, French, poetry ( 3 ), Polar Bear Plunge ( 6 ), tattoo ( 4 )   

  Chose My Own Adventure 

  Okay friends. So adventures usually find me. I’ll get lost someplace and follow where the spirit takes me, meeting people and making plans as I go. So planning adventures in advance is a bit of a new thing for me. As a result, I’m not very good at it. The first 20 that I’ve come up with are below. The rest, dear friends, are up to you.

  I am hereby committing to engaging in any and all suggestions that you offer that are legal, adventurous, feasible, and at least arguably safe. Come friends, we have 32 more adventures to discover.

  1) Polar Bear Plunge – Chicago Illinois – January 1, 2010
  2) [Redacted]
  3) Fire a handgun (non-wimpy)
  4) Appear onstage sober
  5) Learn to cook a French dish
  6) Host a dinner party – and actually cook things, having removed the sweaters from my oven
  7) Redo counters and floor in Kitchen/bathrooms
  8) Find a job
  9) Complete the 300 workout
  10) Finally found my foundation
  a) Develop a way to avoid unnecessary alliteration
  11) Design that second tattoo I’ve been imagining for years.
  12) Get it – from a tattoo artist with a scary name – paid with tips.
  13) Memorize 1 Corinthians: 13
  14) Memorize the last monologue from Jumpers
  15) Build a fire, spend all night tending it and watch the sun rise
  16) Learn to do a standing backflip.
  17) Go on a squad car ride-along.
  18) Take nephew to attend his first play
  19) Snowball fight
  20) Poetry slam

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    mjperry1 7:59 pm on January 3, 2010 Permalink

    Okay, wordpress is a tricky minx. It totally changed my number 8 into an emoticon. You should all just know that I didn’t do that on purpose.

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    Jen 8:16 pm on January 3, 2010 Permalink

    Okay I keep hearing about this 300 workout. What is it?

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    mjperry1 8:26 pm on January 3, 2010 Permalink

    Well, the guys in the movie 300 worked out many hours a day, many days a week, for several months before shooting began (sidenote: they also ate a diet of wild game). The 300 workout was originally conceived as a test for those guys. I think it was something like they had to pass this fitness test in order to actually be on screen. Or something. But it wasn’t an actual workout that they did regularly. The list for the test is:

    25x Pull-up +
    50x Deadlift @ 135# +
    50x Push-up +
    50x Box Jump @ 24” box +
    50x Floor Wiper @ 135# (one-count) +
    50x KB Clean and Press @ 36# (KB must touch floor between reps) +
    25x Pull-up

    you can find more about it at http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge.php?id=35

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    Jackie 10:51 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink

    Ok, I couldn’t figure out how to start my own comment, so I’m replying to yours. But pretend like this is a new comment altogether. (Although I enjoyed reading your list)

    This is what I have so far, not necessarily to be done in this order:

    1) Get accupuncture
    2) Take a “hot” yoga class
    3) Get a Brazillian wax
    4) Take the kids to Medieval Times
    5) Spend a weekend with the kids in Amish country
    6) Volunteer with the St. Bernard Project in New Orleans
    7) Take a pole-dancing class
    8) Let my friend Jon teach me how to knit
    9) Eat only raw food for a week
    10) Milk a cow
    11) Visit an Indian reservation, sleep in a teepee

    Looking forward to completing some of these 🙂

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    mjperry1 12:32 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink

    To create your own posts, you have to (1) register for an account with wordpress, and then (2) email kimberlyhula@gmail.com. She’ll set you up as an author.

    ps – I love that wordpress keeps changing the number 8 to a smiley.

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    yearof52adventures 2:54 am on January 5, 2010 Permalink

    Jackie, let me know if you need me to set you up as an author. We would love to have you. AND, do all the aforementioned adventures! They are wild and awesome. I’m all about the teepee.

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  Berton 8:52 am on January 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Jucy Lucy, Matt's Bar ( 2 ), Minnesota ( 2 )   

  Week 1 – Jucy Lucy 

  For those not sure what a Jucy Lucy is, it is basically a cheeseburger with the cheese cooked on the inside of the hamburguer.  They were created at Matt’s Bar in south Minneapolis.  I have always wanted to original, so tonight, my friends and I set out to have one.

  

  Check out this line.  It extended outside.  Now, to many a line that reaches outside a building may not seem extraordinary.  But in Minnesota, that means something!  The air temperature was -4 degress fahrenheit, -12 with wind chill!  It was that cold, and yet people were waiting outside for the food.

  

  Man, look at that cheese drip.  It was amazing.  One of the best burgers I have ever had.

  For a more detailed post, check out my blog at http://bertons52.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/week-1-the-jucy-lucy

  Until next time, be easy, space cowboy.

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    screeech 1:58 am on January 7, 2010 Permalink

    In San Francisco, there is a vegan juice bar called Juicy Lucy that I used to go to a lot. Maybe it’s the same owner!

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  chardevore 11:13 pm on January 2, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Chicago, Ulysses   

  Hi Everybody!

  I’m ready for an adventureful 2010. So… I only listed 36 adventures. Generally, my eyes are bigger than my stomach when it comes to adventuring, so I tried to walk the line between audacity and reasonableness. I’m planning on filling in the remaining 16 adventures ad hoc, with adventuresome spontaneity. Here they are. I’ve already crossed one off the list by recording an interview with my lovely wife on January 1.

  1. Run the Chicago Marathon.
  2. Spend a week on the beach with Myndi.
  3. Read Ulysses, once and for all, all the way to the end.
  4. Make 50 meals from scratch.
  5. Travel to Ethiopia.
  6. Paint portraits from memory of 10 people I know.
  7. Write letters for birthdays, and whenever else the time seems right. On the typewriter.
  8. Learn a Thelonious Monk song on the organ.
  9. Go to a Bulls game.
  10. Wake up at 5 a.m. every day for a week. Go to the lake to watch the sunrise.
  11. Do the big shoulders 5K swim in Lake Michigan.
  12. Camp through 2 national parks.
  13. Interview Myndi. Make it a tradition
  14. Draw every place I have ever lived, from memory.
  15. Go to a bourbon distillery in Kentucky.
  16. Take one picture per day for a month.
  17. Go to a Blackhawks game.
  18. Write a children’s book, with illustrations, with Myn.
  19. Curate a 5-night living room film festival of my favorite movies.
  20. Go to the horse races.
  21. Kayak in the Chicago river.
  22. Run the entire lake front path, in segments.
  23. Carve something out of wood.
  24. Learn something that’s traditionally taught in calculus class.
  25. Attend a religious service in a language other than English.
  26. Plant seeds of a resilient plant in a public place.
  27. Ice skate.
  28. Win a mustache competition.
  29. Record sounds of my neighborhood. Edit together into a song.
  30. Build something that requires at least 4 tools. And is useful. And doesn’t immediately get wobbly and fall apart.
  31. Pick fruit. Make something tasty with it.
  32. Go a month without drinking alcohol.
  33. Ride the el from my apartment out to the end of the line and back. Write what happens.
  34. Take 4 “progress” photo sets, taken from the same spot showing the life of something.
  35. Get dressed up. Take my lady to the symphony. Drink coffee with pinkies extended.
  36. Write a good short story.

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    yearof52adventures 2:30 am on January 4, 2010 Permalink

    What a great list Charlie! Can you give us an itty bit of transcript from your interview with your wife? I’m sure it was fan-tastic.

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  Kimberly Hula 7:04 am on January 2, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  WEEK ONE: And we’re off! 

  A longer post, doing the deed its due service is forthcoming, but I wanted to report that I, along with the Chicago contingency of Mark, Shawna and Dan participated in the Polar Bear Plunge with a recorded temperature of 11 degrees farenheit and 1 degree with the wind chill (isn’t 1 such a cute little degree?). 

  Pictures will soon be posted, including a video (CELEBRATE!).

  In the interim keep posting your adventures for WEEK 1.  If you need authorship status contact Kimberlyhula@gmail.com and we’ll get you straight up-set up. 

  Happy New Year and good luck in/on/at your enviable adventures.

  You are so good, You!

  42.347618 -71.100288

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    Kristina Bulik-Hocum 2:19 pm on January 2, 2010 Permalink

    Life is adventure. So to appreciate it, part of my adventure to notice and appreciate them as such. Early on January 1, 2010 in the still dark of the night, I went outdoors to observe what was being called the full, blue moon. Stood in the cold of the Colorado night and took in the view of this wonderous moon. Below unlike during day hours the snow smarkled as if interlaced with diamonds. The beauty and wonder of it all started my year of 52 adventures.

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    Kristina Bulik-Hocum 2:57 pm on January 2, 2010 Permalink

    Adventure #2 on 01/01/10:Attended New Year’s Day Party at Lori & Chris’ in Windsor. Colorado. It is always an adventure to get to know people on their home turf. Learned of their dream to open a bed&breakfast. Observed that they are terrific host. They have decorating, preparing the best nibbles. . Lori has a terrific collection of tea pots. She plans to have one for each of her rooms in her bed & breakfast. My favorite of her tea pots was the one that just says Believe. Yes, it is an adventure to Believe. Believe in life and the adventures it brings. If only we believe.

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    Jane Showalter 3:38 pm on January 2, 2010 Permalink

    Good on you! I’m glad it went well and that there was no long-term freezing to be had. Looking forward to that video.

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    Mark Perry 8:03 pm on January 2, 2010 Permalink

    The good news is that I don’t have frostbite on right foot toes #2 & 3. The better news is that my left knee has a 3″-diameter bruise from running into an ice berg.

    Kristina, I love your blue moon adventure. Adventure doesn’t always scream – sometime it causes quiet contemplation. Looking forward to further details.