The day started with a run. I ran with Mike “Mini” Van Meer (Couch 47), and Brett (Couch 48) while Charles Diaz rode his bike while making Tommy run way harder… sprint… push-ups… he ran him really hard. Brett had Staff infection a while back, and his knee is pretty damn swolen, so had to run slower. Tommy’s a fast runner! I ran with him before I went to Couch 49 in Ft. Dodge, and he is hard to keep up with. I weigh 199.6lbs these days, and I have a few pounds to lose. Actually, when I used Nutri-System last year, I dropped 20 lbs, and went down to 175. Anyways- I sprinted at the end, and felt damn good about it.

I played on my laptop a bit more - learning more Joomla, blogging about Couch 49, going through photos, and of course hanging out with the crazy crowd here. At night, we got a ride to the gym. There was a huge mat area, and the guys brought a lot of gear. Boxing gloves, Shin guards, sparring gloves, mouth pieces, punching bags, fight gloves, and of course, lots of tape. It started with stretching, and then it was time to do warm up grappling. This is the point where I realized quickly that I am largely uninformed to many jiu-jitsu/wrestling moves! I got my ass handed to me on a platter, is the straight-forward way to say it. Some of these guys showed me some moves. Brett showed me a lot of stuff, and I’m grateful for that. I kept grappling, but I felt I was wasting these people’s time. I mean, I was sweating, they were sweating, but they could probably get more of a workout with people who know what they are doing. I moved to pushups / crunches, as more fighters showed, and some moved on to Sparring… watching Charles Diaz spar, and watching Minivan pound people was pretty impressive. They are fierce! I would definitely hate to get caught in the cage with them. The thing is that when we were running, we spoke about me training. They said if I train with them for a month, I’d be winning pro fights. I think I’m going to start training with them. The thing is — I’ll post about Thailand in a separate post after this one, but it looks like I’m going to Thailand in September for 3 months. They said if I train there (Muai-Thai kickboxing) I would be pretty badass, and finishing fights up in about 30 seconds. I think that could be another interesting aspect of CouchSurfingOri…. me doing cage fights and such…. the evolution of a new fighter from nothing to ass-kicker in 1-3 months. The pain, the training, etc…

After that, we showered off, and got the neighbor (later to become Couch 50) to give us a ride to the downtown area. This was an amusing scene, as there were 5 of us. Tommy, being the smallest, sat on Charles’ lap. It was pretty slow downtown, and we were hungry, so we got these “Super Dogs” - hotdogs with pineapple, bacon, crushed potato chips, and all these different sauces (Totally Kosher)… I can’t even remember them all. This tall lanky guy came out of a bar, walked towards us, and was looking at me weird. I’m never really concerned… I can take care of myself (though, not with Jiu Jitsu yet), but let me tell you… I’m even less concerned when I have 4 hard-core fighters with me. Tommy broke the ice and spoke to that guy, and the guy quickly left. It had taken us so long to get out to the bars area, so we missed $0.25 mixed drinks at this one bar, “Sips,” so we went to Fuel, got a few shots and drinks (Tank-bomb, and Liquid Cocaine), and then moved on. Tommy tried to apply at that hot dog stand, for some part time work, as he recently moved to Ames (from Fort Dodge) in order to train, so income would be good. He’s a hard worker, that Tommy. His nick name is “To The Top” - the kid’s got a lot of heart… oh yeah!!! And an adorable American Bulldog puppy of 5 months, called Oscar. Oscar is so cute! I took photos of him, of course. Another thing I got photos of is Oscar’s vomit, which had a G-string in it. It had been lodged in his intestines for like a week, and he hasn’t been able to eat in a while. I know the feeling, as that happens to me once in a while (usually steaks, not thongs). So.. after some peroxide, he finally puked it up (and of course, I got the pic). It’s kind of gross.. but funny. My sick humor: “Hey Tommy, give her the thong back! Wrap it up, in a ziplock bag, so it can fester… maybe save it till her birthday… wrap it up all pretty” - Yeah.. that’s pretty f’in gross! Anyways— back to downtown…. so Tommy’s trying to get a gig, and we’re trying to figure out how to get back– we can take a cab. .. $6. However, I said “Brett, hit on some girl, and get us all a ride” It sounds funny… but Brett can talk to anyone, it’s amazing! That’s why he’s a great sidekick — amongst other reasons. Sure enough, he ran into a lot of people he knew, had found this one girl, Bailey who was there with lots of her friends, and apparently they were in some fight… he said if she gives us a ride, she’ll be in the clear. She somehow agreed…. this was really amusing, as she wanted one of her friends to go with her. There’s still 5 of us. This makes 7 people in the car. I got stuck on Charles’ lap this time, and Tommy got put in the trunk! I’m sure he enjoyed it when Bailey drove over a curb! I was going to ride in the trunk.. figured it’d be good for the blog– but then I saw the trunk was completely filled, so Tommy could fit much more easily. Brett was a goof as always, and kept yanking the parking break, and messing with her gears. We made it back, and were going to party a bit with the neighbors.

When we walked into Jess & Sara’s place, there was this girl there visiting them, called Stephanie. Sara poked her in the boob, so I poked her in the other boob, and quickly got a deafening slap to my face. I was amused, as was Sara. Later I was informed that that girl Stephanie thought I was cute. I was not interested, in large part because things have been going so well with Angela, and even while I was over at Couch 50’s, I was texting her. In a strange turn of events, Mike & Stephanie are from the same town, and used to ride the same bus together or something. Shrek 2 was on, I was working on Angela’s website — the Joomla version — and watching Shrek 2, and watching drunken people interact. It was fun. Sara had told me in a MySpace comment that I could come over when ever I wanted for a small pizza… as I had had one over ther ebefore. So… I said to hook it up, and was given a small pizza.. and more shots of Whiskey. By 5:30am, Stephanie decided to leave, Jessica decided to go to sleep, and Sara had put on Blue Collar Comedy tour. I was going to leave, but Sara was complaining how she’s always the last one to go to sleep, so I said I’d stay there, but lay down, just in case I fall asleep. So, we share the couch, and watch Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Sara pointed out that the sun comes up immediately into Couch 48’s place, but not immediately into their place, so….if I’m sick of crashing on couches, I can crash on her bed. I said sure, and we passed out. I am informed that Jessica is convinced that Sara and I had messed around, but we didn’t. Come to think of it, it’s not the 1st couch I shared a bed with and nothing happened.

This morning, the guys didn’t want to go running. I’ve been eating Honey Nut Cheerios, and watching movies (Boondock Saints, Borat).

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