Friday, March 13, 2015

Good morning crew,

I have a fun, exciting weekend of torturing little kids ahead of me. This Saturday is black belt testing at the taekwondo school and we have a pretty big class of 8 candidates. Well, that's big for our little school.

The day starts at 9 a.m. with what we like to call stamina testing. This involves a hundred or so push-ups, sit-ups, a sadistic little exercise called a squat-thrust (sometimes known as 'burpies'), squatting, jumping, and, of course, a few hundred kicks.

My job as an instructor is to encourage the candidates and keep them on pace. And by encourage I mean yell, scream and occasionally kick (affectionately, of course). That portion of the days lasts 2 or 3 hours.

If the kids haven't learned to hate me over the last 2 and a half years of classes, they will tomorrow.

But usually all is forgiven after the kids move on to the actual martial arts portion of the test and then eventually get their black belts.

Although I have been through a lot of black belt tests. There very well may be a youngster out there who has been harboring a secret hatred for me for years.

You know, that could explain some of the bizarre bad luck I have had. You think there I could have an anonymous, pre-teen arch enemy out there stalking me?

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"On May 2 in Las Vegas Floyd Mayweather will fight Manny Pacquiao. It's the most-anticipated fight in many years. Before their press conference, they held a red carpet event for Floyd and Manny, which to me seems overly glamorous for guys who wear shorts to work." -Jimmy Kimmel

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"Now in Utah if you get the death sentence, they have the firing squad. In Russia, they call that early retirement." -Dave Letterman

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"The new James Bond movie in production features the oldest ever Bond girl. Which explains why he spent a lot of the movie repeating, 'I said BOND. JAMES BOND!'" -Conan O'Brien

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A kindergarten teacher gave her class a "show and tell" assignment. Each student was instructed to bring in an object to share with the class that represented their religion.

The first student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is a Star of David."

The second student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Mary. I'm a Catholic and this is a Rosary."

The third student got in up front of the class and said, "My name is Tommy. I am Methodist, and this is a casserole."


*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
My children have never been thrilled about taking naps, but one day they were putting up more of a fuss than usual. In the middle of the tantrums, a friend called.

"What's all the commotion over there?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," I said. "Just the siesta resistance."