Good morning, campers!  Fifty weeks – can you believe it?  Week forty-nine ended in a draw between Big Skeezy and the scale.  How would Week Fifty play out in the midst of all the gloriously delicious holiday treats?  Would the holiday parties prove to be Skeezy’s undoing?  Let’s break it down, shall we?

After skating to a tie last week I stepped it up some this week, being vigilant with the gym and what I ate.  The week was pretty dull for the most part…until the weekend, of course.

Friday night I attended a volunteer event in Santa Monica.  It was at the airport in a hanger that had been filled with a bunch of 30 pound canvas bags of food which needed to be loaded onto trucks.  Roughly 300 bags went onto each truck so we formed an assembly line and passed them down one by one.  I manned the station next to the truck so it was twist to my left, grab, twist right and lift up to the people inside the truck itself.  Our side did three trucks worth of this and I was a sweaty mess when that was done.

Next we had to fill hundreds of boxes with assorted fruits and vegetables so I carted a ton of boxes around and then took empties out back to be broken down for recycling.  The event was about two hours long and I was dog tired.  Not so tired, however, that I couldn’t make my way to my favorite dive bar for a few beers and some karaoke afterwards.  “Baby Got Back” always kills.  Always.

Saurday was a comedy of errors, really.  I had plans to golf with some friends but the rain had rolled in and we decided not to go.  We then ate some chicken and made our way to the local movie house to see “Mission: Impossible”.  The show was all but sold out and, having no desire to sit on the far right in the front row in an IMAX theatre, we decided to let that go.  We had a Mrs. Fields cookie to soothe our disappointment and relaxed the rest of the afternoon.  That night was spent at the bowling alley have some Strong Islands made by our favorite bartender, Baby Girl.  We bowled a couple of games and took our leave to a friend’s house for the subsequent dance party (as we are apt to do after bowling).

Sunday was football, as always, but it was a dark day at Skeezy’s Heezy.  The boys (Bears fans) were there and they were devastated after watching Seattle run over their Bears.  In order to ease their pain I bought us all some delicious KFC.  We enjoyed that as I watched my broncos get brought back down to earth by the stupid Patriots.

I awoke Monday morning for my ride to the gym and was hit with a sharp, stabbing pain in my right leg.  It honestly felt like someone had taken a Crocodile Dundee knife and shoved it right into my right buttcheek.  I fell back onto the bed and spent the day trying to work the kink out.  I went for a small bike ride yesterday afternoon just to see how it was doing which, fortunately, was better.  I’m still in some pain today but I’m able to power through it.

In any case, I stepped onto the scale this morning to discover I’d dropped two more pounds, bringing me down to 266 with the total on the year sitting at 105.  It doesn’t look promising that I’ll lose another 20 in the next two weeks but any step forward at this point is a good thing.

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone!  I’ll see you again between Christmas and New Year’s.