It's been a while.

First off, my apologies to my faithful reader(s) (Thanks Scott!) that I haven't updated the ol' blog in a while. I know I promised to update from Vegas. I know I promised to update after my match. However, I also had my fingers crossed behind my back and according to my representation - who also happens to be my 7 year old daughter - this gets me out of any promise or legally binding agreement.

When I first started this little journey, I figured I would get in to better shape, gain some confidence, and learn a little jiu-jitsu along the way. While I did all that, I learned some other stuff along the way.

Lesson #1: Be prepared.

I showed up to Vegas at 183 pounds, knowing I had 24 hours to get to 177. For the unitinitiated, I cut 7 pounds for the pan-ams so I figured doing it again would be a piece of cake. Never again. If you were in Vegas the weekend of 5-8 and you saw a short Mexican guy running up and down the strip in sweats and a sauna suit, I was that jackass. I swear, that city should have been built on the sun- what kind of place is 80 degrees at 6 in the morning? I ran the strip, went back up to my room and weighed myself again - 179. So with 7 hours to go, I was at 179-which was were I had to be. I wanted a few pounds of leeway, so I hit the pool (heard that chlorine opens up the pores) then came back to my room for 20 minutes of burpees, squats and sprawls. I even ripped all the blankets off my bed, wrapped myself in them and did crunches and pushups. Did I mention I also had the heat turned up all the way? It was EXHAUSTING. But I did manage to keep my smile-like so:



You know what that photo hides? Desperation and frustration. So after wallowing in my own sweat for hours, I weighed in at.......177. I made my desired weight. Apparently, I wasn't the only one that went through the same struggle: Walking into the weigh-ins, I realized I should have bought stock in Pedialyte - everyone was sipping on it like it was the featured drink during Spearmint Rhino's Tuesday afternoon happy hour. I made my weight, came back to my room, and had the greatest dinner I ever had at Blondies in Planet Hollywood.

Lesson #2 Nothing ever runs on time.

I woke up early Saturday morning - eager to get on the mat and and roll. GQ has no set start time, so I showed up at 11am thinking I would get on the mat shortly. NO. I sat around for 2.5 hours before my match. They gave us these BS itineraries which showed the supposed division order. Absolutely NONE of the organizers followed this. The kid divisions, were followed by the women, then more kids, then more women, then midgets, then hobos that were randomly pulled in from outside, then gladiators, more kids, more women, then my division. I warmed up 3 times because they kept teasing my division. Don't get me wrong - I'm no stranger to being teased: I was teased throughout school and girls teased me so I could give them a ride to their boyfriend's house (unbeknownst to me). By the time my match came up, I was ready physically, but mentally, I was exhaused.

Lesson #3: No matter how far ahead you are, there is always disaster around the corner.

I stepped on the mat ready to go- I knew I trained, I knew I trained hard. What I didn't know was:
Lesson #3a-No matter how much weight you cut, someone has always cut more.
I cut my weight and got to the division I was supposed to be 164-177. However, I matched up against a guy that looked like he was pushing 205:



I didn't know what was more intimidating: his physique, or the fact that he had incredible bacne that I could feel through his shirt. I tried to absorb the atmosphere of the arena but the only thing that registered was the utter fear on my girlfriend's face as thoughts of him ripping my head off and defecating down my neck ran through her mind. When Scott and I were gameplanning the night before I told him that if all else failed, I would just shoot for the legs and hoped for the best. Sure enough, we circled and circled, and BAM- I shot:



Holy crap. He was way bigger than me, but in no way was he stronger than me. I shot in on him so strong that I drove both of us to the adjacent mat. They repositioned us again:



and I did it again. We restarted in the middle a 3rd time, I faked the shot and went up and locked in a guillotine. I still can't remember if I had it and gave up to early, or if he pulled out, but somewhere in the scramble he ended up on top of me. I actually was able to briefly sweep him but I left my arm out and got caught in...AN ARMBAR. AGAIN!!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHH!!! I was up 4-0 with a minute to go and I lost!! I went from being a dominating winner to this guy's comeback story.

I think it took me so long to post this because I had to get over it. After everything I went through to be there and be so close, it was incredibly frustrating. I know I will compete again but I know I will always want this one back.

I must say that I still consider myself INCREDIBLY lucky: A few of my friends went out to Vegas to support me. Though obviously inebriated, they were incredibly supportive and I heard everything they yelled-every positive thing, every insult to my opponent, everything.