Two More Swords

Ben placed first in his weight division for the gi competition and also won the men's gi open weight competition. Denver placed 2nd in the no gi competition for his weight class. Nate placed 2nd in gi for his weight class. Bret placed 3rd in gi for his weight class.

Coach Rob Handley and I with my trophies.

I participated in a submission only grappling tournament on November 14th and ended up doing well. I won the women's Middleweight gi and no gi competitions. I get so nervous before these things that I actually give myself an upset stomach. I really don't have any idea why I get that way, I realize that my competing is only for fun. I've never been involved in a sport where only you are responsible for the outcome. I don't deal with it too well. Aack!

I need to really improve myself before the next tournament. Even though I won, I didn't do it to the best of my ability. I know way more that what I displayed that day. Thanks to Coach Rob for the vote of confidence and for always being proud of me regardless of the outcome.

Click over to Chelsea's blog for more on how the whole team did. Thanks Chelsea, for all the support and encouragement!

Throwdown

A big huge congratulations to Cam, Steve and Eduardo for the awesome display of MMA last Friday night. Eduardo Rivera stepped in the cage first and after standing up with his opponent for a couple of minutes, he threw a hard right hook the guy went right out. KO! He lay on the mat for a good 20 to 30 seconds before he came to.
Camrann came out a few fights later and was up against Eddie Pelczynski. Eddie weighed in 4 pounds heavy and Cam still took the fight, of course. I saw a couple good exchanges and then the fight went to the ground. Eddie got a decent hold on a ankle lock but Cam got out of it. As Eddie tried to get off his back, Cam got to his back, rained down some hit and then sunk a wicked read naked choke. Eddie taps and the crowd went wild. Cam wins and loses graciously.
Steve "Razor" was looking to take the Lightweight title from Rad Martinez. He is one of the most entertaining fighters that you will ever see. The fight pretty much went the same as last year when Rad won the title. Rad is just an amazing wrestler and times the takedowns perfectly. His takedowns were just incredible! Probably the best that I've seen locally. It just seems to me that he has amazing control but doesn't know his submissions too well. Or passing the guard. Or transition from side control to mount. Just saying. I thought that Steve did really well on the ground and got out from Rad a number of times, which I would think is an amazing feat considering that Rad is an absolute monster! He's a chiseled statue of the human body. It's quite easy to identify every muscle group. The fight went for five 5 minute rounds. I can't imagine doing that at that level. You really can't even imagine the athleticism that these fighters have! It's mind blowing. Rad ended up winning by unanimous decision.
There was a great fight between Steve Siler and Enoch "The Animal" Wilson for the Featherweight title. It won Fight of the Night. It also went for five 5 minute rounds and ended in a unanimous decision for Siler. I've never seen so many submission attempts and escapes in one fight. The two of the them did such a great job.
Another fight that I really enjoyed was Jordan Smith vs. Bristol Marunde. Jordan usually fights at 205 lbs, but after totally dominating that weightclass he dropped down to the Middleweight division (185 lbs). He won with an awesome triangle choke in the first round. I talked to him a little bit before the show and asked him if he's going to move on to bigger promotions since he's had so much success locally. He said yes, but he couldn't tell me what it is yet and just to pay attention. I sure will.
Josh Burkman and Brandon Melendez faced off as the main event and Burkman won with a round 1 KO. I wanted to see more of this but it was finished early.
Most of the Absolute team sat together and we all had alot of fun cheering our friends on. The dark part of the night came when the crew brought me to my car and we saw that it was gone! I carpooled down to Orem with Miyo and we met by 90th south exit in Sandy. I parked in an empty lot next to a gas station there and apparently it was a private lot and my car was towed. Argh! It was 2 in the morning and we were trying to track down my car. It cost me $206 to get it out of the impound lot. It is so painful to hand over that kind of money for something so stupid as a parking mistake! Ben got the towing guy to do a little dance as I handed over the cash and we all got a good laugh out of that one. It made it better to be around such good friends that sympathized with me and were there to witness the guy tell me that he likes my coat and thinks that I'm pretty. The comments made by the group after that little exchange made me smile all the way home.

Tomorrow Night!

Come watch Camrann Pacheco, Steve Sharp, and Eduardo win their fights. These boys are looking so good. In the cage, that is. Alright, outside of it too.

"Only mediocre people are at their best all of the time."

Email From My Mother

Hello my darling daughter,

I found this quote from posh dating service ad that was in an airline magazine that I recently perused through.

"Undoubtedly however, if you are an attractive, successful, relatively private and selective individual, you have found that the more you have to offer, the more difficult it seems to find the person who is right for you." (You came to mind immediately.)

Yesterday was our 33rd wedding anniversary. Can you believe that? I asked Dad how he managed to stay married to me for that long?!!!!! He had a big embarrassed grin on his face. I gave him a complete set of all the Three Stooges films for a specific time period, and Dad picked up some frozen berries from Trader Joe's for me.

Keep the faith and keep on going. I love you lots. Mom

What I Needed Today...

"By choosing to serve this day you will feel His love and grow to love Him more. You would not want to delay receiving that blessing. And feeling His love will draw you back to His service, wiping away both discouragement and complacency."

Chalk One Up For This Bantamweight

My friend Denver, was supposed to fight in a promotion up in Ogden on Friday night but that show was cancelled due to that fact that none of the other fighters besides Denver and his opponent had their blood tests done. It was disappointing to all of us. I was over at Cam's on Friday night and found out that Denver was offered a fight in the Ultimate Combat Experience. They were going to allow him to use his weigh in results from Thursday night. He won the fight two and a half minutes into the first round by ground and pound. I'm so proud of my pal. This is his start to being at the top of that weight class.
(He's the shorter one in the Sprawl shorts)

I love the takedown at 1:25. We've been working on that a ton in class last week.

FAIL

I know, I know! I'm falling flat on my face with the whole posting every day idea. The weekend was insanely, awesomely busy, but I have some fun posts to share this upcoming week because of it. Thank you for your patience with me and good night.

What Today Was Great For...

Corndogs, Diet Coke, and rhinoceroses (rhinoceroci?).

I left work early because it was WAY too beautiful outside not to, and took my 2 year old nephew to the zoo. I guess the animals were as excited as I was that it was Friday because they were all awake and active and playful. All I ever see them doing is laying on a log with a bored stare. They're all so old and decrepit.

Dear Horse Breasts,

The company that I work for has clients internationally but not enough for us to have full-time translators available. Luckily the group that I work in has Barrett who grew up in China and speaks fluent Chinese. A few weeks ago someone from China called who didn't speak any English. Barrett was called upon to find out what type of testing the client was requesting and to relay that to the group doing the testing. Someone in our Client Services department decided to take initiative and send an email detailing the type of testing we do and trying to procure business from this client. She decided to use an online translating program and trust that the program got it right. She sent the email to the client and then copied Barrett on it. What she sent as translated by Barrett:

Dear Horse Breasts,
A professional ballet dancer told me that you were interested in our tent testing. We test in a tent using murky water.

I can't remember most of it but the whole thing was totally ridiculous. We got a huge laugh out of it while the poor girl who sent it was writing an apology to "Horse Breasts." What was learned from this is that if you need to send an email to a client in China, just send it in English. They'll figure it out. They always do.

• Denver, one of my teammates at Absolute, is fighting at Teazers in Ogden tomorrow night. He's a Bantamweight (135 lbs) and I can't hardly wait to see the beginnings of his domination in that weight class. I saw him at the gym this morning doing the last of his weight cutting and he looked great. He's confident and ready.


(taken from Denver's Facebook page)

• My abs were really sore last night and I was wondering it felt like someone ran over my mid-section with a motorcycle. And then I remembered the 400 push-ups and sit-ups that we did at the end of our conditioning round the other night after Muay Thai. Yep, that would do it.


• I've been doing morning sessions with Rob and Cam on Tuesdays and Thursdays and they have spent alot of time with me. I've been going in to work early and then leaving for a couple hours to train. On Tuesday, Cam rolled with me the whole time and taught me some of his best go-to submissions from the half man guard. Rob went what felt like a billion rounds with me this morning until I felt sufficiently smashed and exhausted. This is so much fun.
  
• The thought "I need more spandex" was recently on my brain. Yes, I wear little booty shorts and a fitted rash guard under my gi or my fight shorts. It hasn't been doing it's job of keeping me covered though. Quite often my shirt ends up around my armpits when I'm rolling and everything is just all hanging out. It's horribly embarrassing. So a wrestling singlet was purchased. It was sent to Absolute and as I was trying it on in the changing room I hear a chorus of shouts from the front desk telling me to come out and show them. Ha! The show is over guys. I'm keeping it all contained now.

The All Star Dog!

I desperately need to go to bed, so I'll just leave you with this image.
(salivating)...I can't wait for baseball season to start up again.

He's Got Some Moves!

I train at Absolute with Donny "Sleavehead" Raines and not only is he a great fighter but he is a great actor and film producer. Check this out.

Serious talent, I know. That was just an small excerpt from his movie I Know Kung Fu. Check out the full version (it's in two parts) here and here. It's a super fun time!
This is another that I enjoyed from Sleavhead's You Tube collection...

And let's not forget about his MMA highlights. His submissions are awesome! He's pretty sneaky with that armbar...catches me with it all the time.

Don't you wish Donny was your friend? Yeah, I'm the lucky one.

Movie Review - Gentlemen Broncos

My PIC, Ashley, got married and moved to Texas last Spring and left her younger sister, Emily, to fill in for her. If I can't have Ashley, Emily is a GREAT replacement. Emily's birthday was last Thursday and she got tickets to a pre-screening of Gentlemen Broncos, the new Jared Hess film. This is the same writer/director that did Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre. Do you remember seeing Napoleon in the theaters for the first time? Were you thinking what the hell was that? I sure did. Then you saw it a second time because some guys down the street rented the movie and since they were cute you decided to go and then realized that it actually is wicked hilarious and not just because the cute guys thought so. This is the potential that Gentlemen Broncos has. Emily and I walked out of the theater thinking this was the dumbest movie ever to be put into production. On the way home we were making fun of it and started to recall some of the more humorous parts. But the time we got back to her house we were laughing like a couple of crazies. The giggles wouldn't cease. This continued the next day through text messaging. So I think that I would recommend seeing this when it comes to theaters but go with low expectations because it does follow the Hess recipe for success - awkward hero and nerdy cast placed into a ridiculous plot. Enjoy.

There is also a great clip of Jemaine Clement (he's the best part of the movie) in character as Dr. Ronald Chevalier.

Partying Like a Rock Star! Sort Of.

Bret had his big 30th birthday last Monday and a pile of us went to The Pie to celebrate. We were seated upstairs at the Draper location and only a few other tables were occupied. I feel bad for those sitting around us because it was relatively quiet except for our party and I remember us (and by us I mean Chelsea) talking scandalously a few times. I'm blushing just thinking about some of the things that came out of her. I adore that woman. Denver stuck around to eat practically an entire family sized pizza and then took off for team training. I'm still wondering if one of the white puke buckets on the side of the ring contained that whole pizza by the end of the night.

Happy Birthday, Bret! Turning 30 is so great! Sort of.

We then decided to go to go back to Bret's house and carve pumpkins. We went to Harmon's to acquire the pumpkins and I made the comment that it felt alot like we were participating in a Family Home Evening activity. This was comical because I am the only practicing Latter-Day Saint in this group. Chelsea turns around and informs me that she is going back to the house and carving her pumpkin in her underwear and drinking a beer. That put a stop to that!

Ben making sure that his pumpkin is perfectly symmetrical.

Chelsea with her large melon.

I usually free-hand carve my pumpkins, but considering that they always turn out looking like they have down-syndrome I opted to use one of the tracer patterns that come with a pumpkin carving book. I chose a pattern that was a scary looking mummy. Well, it's supposed to look intimidating but I veered off the pattern by the time I got to the teeth and my "frightening mummy" ended up with a Billy Bob grin making him look a bit like an idiot. My tally is still at zero.
I hope that everyone had a fun filled Halloween and that your insulin levels are normal.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

I recently went out with some friends and it came up that I haven't been posting lately and they seemed rather disappointed. I guess that sometimes you get tired of blogging or start running out interesting ideas to write about, then your blog starts losing any kind of momentum and your fan base disintegrates and no motivation to blog exists. Well, let's see if I can resurrect this blog. I will post a new entry everyday during this new month. I can't promise that it will be interesting but something will be up on this site daily. And I never allow comments anymore because I haven't been reading or commenting on the blogs that I subscribe to and don't want others to feel obligated to comment on mine. It's not that I'm not enjoying your blogs, it's just that my job description has changed a bit and I'm in front of a computer for work much of the day and the last thing that I want to do when I come home is sit at a desk. I do appreciate those of you that keep your blogs going strong and someday I will catch up on your posts. But that's going to have to wait until I get sick or something tragic like that. So hold on to your hats, you're going to get sick of VTS by the end of November, I can promise you that.

EPIC!

I think everyone needs a friend like Chelsea. On Monday morning she read my previous post and sent me a text message at work saying that she BOUGHT ME TICKETS TO PEARL JAM! I seriously cannot wrap my mind around how generous this woman is. She saw that I wanted to go with co-worker Ben S, who she thought was Ben M (ODB, Ex Boss). She knew of my admiration of Ben M and wanted to facilitate us going out somewhere together. Chelsea is seriously the greatest. Well, it ended up that Ben M couldn't go (which didn't surprise me at all) so I asked Ben S (who totally has a smokin' hot girlfriend and I'm not interested in him at all, but he's a wicked fun friend and totally digs Pearl Jam - almost as much as I do) and it ended up being the best concert that I've ever been to. Thanks so much Chelsea for giving me that fabulous night. What made this really special is that a few days before I was feeling sorry for myself and just wanted someone to take care of me for a change. I'm a fiercely independent woman and I think sometimes people don't think that I need to be taken care of. I'm usually the one taking care of others. There isn't anything that I wouldn't do for my friends or family. But sometimes I just need someone to think of me. And then Chels came and made me feel very loved and important right when I needed it the most.

Ben and I had great seats, in the upper bowl but right to the left of the stage. We were practically on top of Eddie! The view was great and we could see Eddie in all his grunged glory. We could see that instead of having a water bottle to wet his whistle, he had beer. And during one of the jams he went behind a big speaker and lit up. He then gave the butt of the smoke to someone in the crowd to finish off. That person was beyond thrilled to have the remnants of Eddie's cigarette.

He threw the mic stand around a little bit in pure alternative 90's fashion.

Ben Harper opened the show and he was just so great. I only know the Welcome to the Cruel World album very well so I didn't recognize most of his songs. Ben Harper is just so great though. He did a song or two with Pearl Jam later in the show which was incredible. Eddie's voice was sexier than ever. I've always thought that he had the all time sexiest voice out of any singer and hearing him live cemented that fact. They played a few songs off of their newest album, Backspacer, and then went to their older stuff. They played alot of songs off of Vitology and Vs. Elderly Woman Behind the Counter, Satan's Bed, Immortality (awesome live), Even Flow, Alive.... It was so great going with Ben S because he knew all the songs too and was totally rocking.

I was extremely jealous of one woman who got my dream proposal. Her boyfriend wrote a letter to Eddie Vedder prior to the concert and somehow go himself on stage with the band and got to propose to his girlfriend. And then Eddie sang them an awesome love song off of their latest album called Just Breathe. AHHH! That girl was so lucky. Total understatement.

The whole night I kept telling Ben that I really wanted to hear Yellow Ledbetter. It not only is my favorite Pearl Jam song but one of my all time favorite songs. I really never get sick of that song no matter how many times I hear it. I was a little disappointed when the lights came on and Eddie started telling us what a great crowd we've been. I knew that the concert was wrapping up and I didn't get to hear my beloved song. But then I hear that sweet riff and they play it as the finale! My heart was thumping wildly and I got the chills. I can't tell you how happy that made me.

Trying To Get My Pearl Jam On

One of my favorite bands EVER, Pearl Jam, is performing at the E Center this Monday night. One of my co-workers, Ben S, and I really, REALLY want to go. Problem is that tickets are $70 and I really can't justify spending that sort of money for one concert. But if I don't go how will Eddie Vedder catch my gaze and suddenly realize that I'm the love of his life and we end up living in eternal bliss? I know, total problem here. So, a local radio station has been promoting this concert and giving away tickets. I have been listening diligently to 94.9 ZROC for the past month. I have called in whenever I hear any Pearl Jam song regardless of whether or not it was an actual giveaway. I have called no less than 300,000,000,000,000 times. And two times last week while driving to work I was caller number 8 when they were looking for caller number 9. So close, yet so far away. I wanted to cry.

So here is what I am proposing...you guys spend all day tomorrow and Monday glued to the radio and win the tickets and I'll go with you! Seriously, I totally would. I'll even buy you dinner. I'm a great date. I promise. Ask anyone.

GAME ON!

Keepitupkeepitup

Last week during Muay Thai I was drilling with Dave Kamarov and toward the end of the last round, when all of my energy was spent, this is what I heard from him the entire last 30 seconds...
keepitupkeepitupkeepitupkeepitupkeepkeepitupitupkeepitupkeepitupkeepitupkeepitupkeepitupkeepitupyoucandoitepitupkeepitupyoucandoityoucandoityoucandoityoucandoityoucandoityoucandoityoucandoityoucandoityoucandoitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitdon'tquitalmostdonealmostdonealmostdonealmostdonealmostdonealmostdonealmostdonealmostdonealmostdonealmosttherealmosttherealmosttherealmosttherealmosttheredon'tquitonemore. DONE! And now you can go over there and puke.
Thanks, Komi.

Quick Question

Would someone please explain to me why my blog is getting 300 billion hits? Because, to my knowledge, I only have about 6.3 readers that frequent this blog regularly. Why this sudden popularity? Should I be flattered or should I be scared of ridicule and extreme web-mocking?