Boiler Strong

First and foremost, Happy Birthday Bugs!  I hope you enjoy your day and that you have this most frigid day off! Also, your Christmas present is still under my tree, but no biggie, I am keeping the tree up year-round.  Side note regarding the frigid temps:  bathroom breaks take even longer at Beering when one has to tuck in ten layers of clothes.  Hi G-7!

Second, I would like to thank ‘R for teaching me yesterday how to work out properly at the health club to achieve my goals. ‘R is a professionally trained fitness machine and explained to me perfectly what to do to achieve whichever goal I wished to achieve. (Btw folks, I quit smoking this past week so I decided I could utilize my health club membership.  I could not justify smoking AND working out. Perhaps I will do a blog entry on the quitting process, since once again, my motivation is probably not what you would expect. I actually ENJOY smoking, I just value other things more.)

I also learned that apparently the health club is much like the men’s room regarding men talking.  The ONLY reason ‘R agreed to meet me there and teach me, was because it was me and I said, “Please? It will only be this one time so that you can show me what to do and explain length of time on each exercise, heart rates, reps, weights, etc., and then I won’t ever ask to work out with you again.”  So, he got the cardio and/or fat-burning section explained to me in as few words as possible, but did elaborate for several minutes on the philosophy of the workout, which I truly appreciated. It helped me understand where he was coming from and gave me a nice starting point on how to view things at the health club. So he hit the free weights and I taught myself the other weight machines and I caught up with him later.  We were discussing a shirt I want him to give me, or rather, I was discussing it and he may or may not have been listening, and then this young guy and his friend walk up and I exclaim, “Dude! I LOVE your shirt!” to which the young guy smiled and agreed it was great.  ‘R looked at me like I had broken some sacred rule about lack of speech in the men’s weight area, so I skedaddled to the bicycles and left him alone. When all was said and done, I sabotaged him with Reese’s cups (yep, took them to the health club!) and we went our separate ways. Thank you ‘R, I know it was difficult, but I appreciate it.

Okay, so speaking of awesome t-shirts, last week after the tragic shooting on campus, someone on campus started a fund-raiser for the victim’s family regarding the sale of t-shirts and an online site. Here is how it worked:  She apparently set up an account with this company and she and the company came up with a design and a goal. The design was great (Boiler Strong) and the goal was 100 t-shirts. T-shirts cost $10.50/each with profits going to the victim’s family.  Cool beans, I thoroughly checked the web site, ordered two shirts, then shared on my Facebook page. By the time I ordered before work, they were already up to around 1200 t-shirts (well past their goal).

Fast-forward to when I got off work 8 or 10 hours later: Somewhere during this time, the order had been canceled, an email from the person who started the campaign had been sent explaining that she had encountered legal problems over this idea, and on the news they explained that people were trying to profit from this tragedy.  Totally agreed on that last point.  I just don’t believe it was the original two that were trying to profit. (as in the gal and the t-shirt company)  I think someone else got wind of how many t-shirts were being sold and threw a freaking hissy-fit because they somehow figured they were getting screwed out of a profit somehow.  Seriously, who the hell is profiting from a t-shirt that costs $10.50?  Use your brains people, it is not these original two parties.

Here is what I did: I emailed both the gal and the the t-shirt company and told them that I did NOT want a refund. I wanted the two shirts (that they had already started printing) and that I would donate to the family directly. Folks, I truly wonder where this paranoid thinking derives from that someone trying to do good is somehow trying to profit over a murder.  Do you realize what a statement it would have made to have thousands of these t-shirts (which is how many were sold in under 24 hours) all around campus and at sporting events that said “Boiler Strong”?  I am not sure of any other better way to SELL this University and community than to have a show of strength like that so quickly after such a tragic event.  So to whomever had such an objection to this noble idea, I think you should review your business plan, because you are definitely operating at a gross loss.