Websites and Memory Lane

For most of the competitors from last weekend’s show, the work they put into the show was over sometime Saturday evening.

For me, the work ended about ten minutes ago.

I took over the contest website almost a year ago. Initially I changed and updated only the pages related to the upcoming contest and left the rest alone. My plan was that someday, when I had time, I’d get the older pages updated too.

But, as those of you with jobs and kids know, there is no time. So when I went to add the scoresheets for the Fall Show (currently posted on www.ngaidaho.com) I decided I might as well take the time to update the older scoresheet pages as well, so that the pages would be more alike and easier to update in the future.

I took a lot longer than I expected, as most projects do, but looking back at (and in some cases typing) the names of the former competitors brought back a lot of memories of those shows.

It’s interesting to see how many people compete almost every year.  And it’s interesting to see how competitors’ placings change from year to year. Like the figure competitor who had 5^th place one year, 1^st the next, and competed as a Pro the year after that.  There’s a story there.

There are competitors who were last one year and first the next, and vice versa. One of the things I like about these contests is that, while there are winners who have a streak of several years of 1^st places, no one wins every time. The rankings change, sometimes quite significantly from year to year.  There are stories there too.

I remembered the year that Bodybuilder Hubby won his Pro card, read back over the names of the others who competed that day.  That was an amazing night. He won his weight class and then was back on stage for the Overall at the end of the show – 17 minutes on stage, guys dripping sweat under those spotlights, showing off for the judges.  In the video that I took of that time, you can hear me occasionally yelling encouragement and a good friend of mine – who was watching a bodybuilding contest for the first time – yelling too.  Then they announced his name, and all you can hear is us screaming like crazy people, and you can’t see anything because I was waving the camera around, also like a crazy person. Even now when I watch it I get a little choked up and feel so much pride in what Bodybuilder Hubby accomplished.

I was also reminded of the show two years later – Bodybuilder Hubby’s first as a Pro.  We had a baby girl, just six months old, our first.  That spring I was back at work full-time (which was really hard for me – I hated being away from her during the day), and she was going through this spurt when she never slept for more than 3 hours at a time.  I was so exhausted that at one point I dozed off standing in front of a soda machine trying to decide which can of caffeine to buy. I wanted very much to be at the show to support Bodybuilder Hubby, but the Pros went on last. It was such an incredibly long day. Hours of pacing the hallway with the baby, trying to find quiet places where she could nap.  Eventually I ended up sitting in the very back of the auditorium, holding a sleeping baby with her ears covered so the audience screaming wouldn’t wake her up. I even dozed off for a bit myself sitting back there.  Fortunately, I woke up in time to see Bodybuilder Hubby win 3^rd place. Not bad at all for his first Pro show!

There will be new names added next spring, new memories made. The spring competition is tentatively scheduled for April 21, 2012, which – according to the newly updated website countdown – is only 184 days away!

Contest Day! Wives Unite!

The morning judging portion of the contest is already complete.  The judges - at this very moment - are deliberating and calculating scores.  Winners will be announced tonight at the evening show, which starts at 5pm.  (FYI: Tickets are still available and will be sold at the door.)

It was a good contest this morning.  The classes were just the right size, I thought, for the competitors to be able to show themselves off and for the judges to make their choices.  The Men’s Masters class took the longest - six guys, and they all looked great according to me.

My favorite part of the contest is the social aspect. I got to see and chat with one old friend and former coworker who was there supporting a first-time competitor.  It’s always such a nice surprise and lots of fun for me when people I know from outside the bodybuilding world come see what's happening here. I know a few things about the contest; let me tell you all about it! :)

I also got to meet the wife of one of the other pro bodybuilders. The pros didn't compete today, but her husband was one of the judges. At the ticket table with me was the wife of another former competitor. 

So together we decided: there needs to be a club for bodybuilder wives.  We could share stories, commiserate as needed, show off adorable pictures of our young kids practicing their bodybuilding poses like Daddy, and just generally make the contests and even bigger social event.

Also, we think that like NFL or NBA wives, Bodybuilder Wives should have special reserve setting, possibly with free drinks, and with massages and other perks thrown in for good measure.

And hot fudge sundaes. Because one of my favorite bodybuilding contest traditions – after watching dozens of incredibly fit, well-dieted people walk across that stage – is to get a hot fudge sundae to eat in the car on the way home.

Two Days!!!

Our "Fall Show" bodybuilding competition is in two days!  Two days!!!

As I'm typing this, our living room looks like a bodybuilding contest exploded all over it.  Bodybuilder Hubby has been home all day organizing the contest t-shirts (which turned out half-way decent, if I do say so myself), filling competitor goodie bags and fielding phone call after phone call about the show.

In our garage are eleven boxes of trophies, which were, of course, dropped off on our driveway by a not-very-helpful FedEx lady on a weekend when Bodybuilder Hubby was out of town.  I got my workout for that day by lifting and carrying those boxes into the safety of our garage. Because you never know when someone might come by and want to steal a box full of bodybuilding trophies.

We have about 45 people competiting, which I think is great.  More than I expected.  And we've had two people call this week asking to be added to the list.  This is good because we want more people to be involved, but it's mildly annoying because we've already sent the programs to be printed so they won't be in there, and we'll have to add their names to the lists and judges' score sheets that we prepared. Oh, well. The more the merrier, right?

Must be something about spending so much time doing work for a contest that features people who have been dieting for months. I am totally craving a cinnamon roll right now. And I don't even normally like cinnamon rolls.

We'll be ready for Saturday morning when the competitors show up.  I hope that we have a good crowd. The show is so much more fun when there's a lot of people and energy in the room.

If you're not competiting this weekend and you haven't bought your tickets yet, why not?  It's cheaper if you buy them ahead and you'll have more open seats to choose from.  Tickets are on sale now at http://www.idahotickets.com/.  You can also buy the tickets at the door on Saturday from yours truly, but you'll save me a bit of work if you get them ahead of time.  :)

Oh, and somebody please remind me to get a hand stamp!

Top Ten Reasons to Get Tickets to the NW Natural Fall Show on October 15

1. Tickets are on sale now at www.idahotickets.com!

2. Reserved seating – the sooner you buy your tickets the better your seats will be

3. Fewer competitors = more freebies for me – oops, I mean you!

4. A stageful of tight glutes…

5. Considering competing in the spring? Come see what to expect!

6. Tickets are on sale now at Select-a-Seat outlets!

7. Smaller show = shorter. Never seen a show? Come get a taste of what it’s all about!

8. Where else is it completely appropriate to compare one person’s butt to another’s?

9. A stageful of six-pack abs…

10. BSU’s game is away that weekend.

The Fall Show is Coming!!!

The Fall Show is coming.

Soon.

It will be on Saturday, October 15 at Borah High School.  Registration is open on the www.ngaidaho.com website, and tickets are on sale now at www.idahotickets.com and Select-a-Seat outlets.

The Fall Show feels like it has sort of snuck up on us.  This is the first time we’ve done a contest in the fall.  For the Spring show, we spend months getting ready.  But for the fall, everything has come down to these last few weeks.

The biggest reason for the delay was truly out of our hands – We didn’t know where the contest would be held until just a few weeks ago.

At the competition last spring, some of the competitors violated the rules of the school where the contest was held.  Because of that, we lost the use of that school, which is a huge bummer, created a lot of work for Bodybuilder Hubby, and was generally a really stupid thing for those particular competitors to do.

(You may notice some changes to the competitor waiver this time around. That particular "issue" will not happen again.)

But after a series of meetings and a lot of waiting for a decision, we got access to the new auditorium at a different high school for the Fall Show.

Actually, I’m kind of looking forward to poking around that particular high school – both Bodybuilder Hubby and I graduated from that school, though we weren’t there at the same time and didn’t meet until years later.

I wonder if the hallways smell the same?

We will be ready.  Today Bodybuilder Hubby purchased 1000 sets of parts to make the competitor number badges.

1000.

If that doesn’t indicate that we’re in this for the long haul, I don’t know what does.

See you at the show!

Website Updates

So, I've been working on the contest website.


It feels like a bit of a luxury to have time to just get things done at my own pace - no big hurry.  But we have been getting questions about the Fall Show, so I'm motivated to work on it anyway.  The Fall Show is a first for us; we'll be running a bodybuilding, figure and bikini contest in October.  It will most likely be considerably smaller than the spring contest, so it could be a great way for competitors - especially first-timers - to get some practice on stage in a situation that's a little less stressful or overwhelming.


And, as Bodybuilder Hubby says, we now know how to run a bodybuilding contest, so why not do it more often?


There will not be a Pro division in the Fall Show, which is the biggest difference.  I've gone through several of the contest webpages already taking out references to the Pro division and making the information accurate.


I'm also updating the images and colors to reflect that the pages are updated for Fall.  I enjoy the design part of things, so I'd planned to update the website to match the poster for each contest once (now twice) a year.  Give me a little free time, a cup of coffee, a good show on Hulu and a blank screen in Photoshop, and I'm a happy girl.  My plan is that the pages like Contest Results and past contest info will keep their images and colors in a sort of visual archive.  Maybe nobody else will really notice, but I will like it.  :)


The location for the Fall Show hasn't been determined.  We had some issues with competitors violating rules at the last venue, which is affecting whether or not we'll be allowed back.  We'll let you all know as soon as we know later this summer.

Changes for Next Year

This afternoon we’ll be sending out a survey to competitors from this year’s contest, something we do every year.

At the contest this year, I heard lots of positive comments and not very many complaints.

But the survey gives competitors a chance to say what they thought and have it be anonymous, so this will be when we hear the most negatives.

Which is fine.

I look forward to getting the feedback while dreading it at the same time.  I will be disappointed to find out if we messed anything up and maybe a little bit hurt by some of the comments.  But I want to know if there were mistakes made so that I can figure out how to prevent similar mistakes next time.  I want to hear what people didn’t like so that we can plan for what needs to change.   I think the contest gets better every year, but it can always be even better.

I started my “List of Things to Do Differently Next Year” while I was still at the contest, sitting at the ticket table.

Just for the record, these things are just my opinion.  I will change the things I have control over, but things about scheduling, judging, etc., aren’t up to me.

Here’s a few of my ideas:

·         Bikini Check-In should be changed to 9:30 or 10am.  There’s no reason for those girls to be there at 7am on Saturday and then have to sit around for 5 hours before they get on stage.

·         There needs to be a way to measure the height of Figure and Bikini competitors prior to the day of the show.  We had several move from one height class to another after being measured at registration, which just complicates the line-up and judging and everything.  I understand that weight fluctuates, but height?  We need an accurate height for each girl earlier in the registration process.

·         We need to start on time.  Enough said.

·         There should be a time limit for how long a group of competitors stand on stage.  Maybe 30 or 40 minutes?  I don’t know of any reason why the judges couldn’t make their decisions within that amount of time.  Of course, I’ve never been a judge, so maybe I’m missing something.  Actually, I think that the entire system of judging needs to change.  More on that later.

·         I need to make signs to let people know about ticket prices and that we can’t take credit cards before they wait in line and then find out they have to go use the ATM across the street.

Oh, and could somebody please help me remember to buy a hand stamp?  Because this was the third year that I forgot, and I’m done writing on people with a Sharpie.

So, what would you change about the contest if you could?

Well, That was Fun!

From my perspective, Bodybuilder Hubby’s contest this weekend was a huge success.

The competitors looked amazing. I didn’t get to see very many of the classes or routines, since my primary job during the contest is to sell tickets, but the ones I saw impressed me.

In particular there was a 15-year-old bodybuilder whose routine got a standing ovation – he was doing back flips and all sorts of things, and had done a fantastic job of choreographing to fit his music.  It was so much fun to watch.  (Though his dad told me later that the competitor had “thrown together” the routine in the days prior to the contest.)  I was so impressed.  I’ll be posting video on the contest website as soon as I get it.

The audience was a lot bigger than I expected.  I thought that having a two-day event would mean fewer people each night, but that wasn’t the case.  Friday night we sold about 2/3 of the seats.  Saturday we came close to selling out, with the closest seats left over being in row X.  It was amazing.  Having a big crowd is important because the audience provides energy and excitement, which makes a huge difference for those onstage and makes for a better show overall.

There was a lot of overlap – people there both days – so it’s hard to know for sure, but I’d guess that we had somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 people there this weekend.

Amazing.

Generally, people seemed nicer this year, too.  There was a lot less complaining about ticket prices than I’ve heard in years past.  There were fewer rude people.  People were generally happy and smiling, even though for some of them it was a REALLY long day.  For most of us involved it was a really long day.

Bodybuilder Hubby is still asleep.  He got home some time after 2am.  One of the many things he’s responsible for is making sure the facilities are cleaned before he can leave, which includes making sure there are no stains or marks left anywhere from that tanning stuff.  And those of you who compete know how hard it is to clean up that tanning stuff!  I’m sure that most of you are waking up this morning with your skin some mottled shade of orange.

There are definitely things about the contest that I would change or do differently for next year, but for the most part, I’m really happy with how things went.

Congratulations, competitors!  I should have the rankings posted on the contest website later today and the judges score sheets posted by tomorrow.

Pro Men

As I type this (12:30pm on Saturday), the Pro Men’s Bodybuilding class in on stage being judged.

I’m on duty at the ticket table, but I’ve managed to stick my head in the auditorium a couple times.

Those guys look absolutely amazing.

These are the guys Bodybuilder Hubby would normally compete against.  But he’s not onstage today because he’s running the show.  This means he picks the judges, and you can image how it would go over if the guy who picks the judges got on stage…  Gee, I wonder who would win.  (Or how many people would complain if he did win, even if he deserved it…)

But if he were on stage right now, I would be an absolute nervous wreck.  It’s a huge group of guys – 12 Pro Men.   And, looking at that group, I have no idea who will win.  They look amazing.

There’s a guy whose legs look like they are carved out of bronze – just ridiculously good.  But his abs aren’t the best up there.  There’s another guy who has is really ripped, but has sort of smallish calves.  The judges split the group into two, which usually means top half and bottom half, except that one of the guys they put in the group I thought might be bottom half looks really, really good from where I’m standing, so who knows.

There certainly are several who I think could win.  Wow.

Competition - Day 1

I don't know who won yet, but hundreds of other people probably do know by now.

Tonight was the first night of the Bodybuilder Hubby's bodybuilding competition.  Actually there weren't any bodybuilders on stage tonight.  Tonight was all about the Figure girls.

We had five classes for Figure, four based on height and one, the Masters class, for competitors over age 35. 

There were a lot of things that went really well.  The audience turn-out was fantastic, and there was a lot of energy in the room.  The competitors looked amazing!  The judges certainly had their work cut out for them.

There were some glitches that I'm hoping we'll learn from to prevent in the future.  The show started a little late.  I don't know why yet.  I was busy selling tickets and didn't even realize that the show hadn't started on time.  Hopefully whatever the reason for the late start was is something we can plan for and keep from happening next time.

The only other thing that didn't go according to plan was the Figure classes - the groupings based on height.

We spent a lot of time trying to determine how many classes there would be and what the height cut-offs would be.

We looked at all the applicants we had as of last Sunday, five days before the contest.  Ideally, all of the competitors would have registered by then.  Or at least most of them.

We list out everyone by height, and then look for ways to group them so that each class ends up being about the same size.  So the height divisions are different every year depending on how many competitors there are and on their heights.

So this year it made sense to have four groups:
6 people - 5 ft 1 inch and shorter (Class A)
9 people - 5 ft 2 to 5 ft 4 inches (Class B)
8 people - 5 ft 5 inches (Class C)
10 people - 5 ft 6 inches and taller (Class D)

We try not to have more than 10 people in a group because the more people you add, the harder the judging gets and the longer the competitors have to stand on stage.

We thought this would work well, expect then we ended up with several late applicants, most of whom, for some reason, were tall, so Class D got bigger.

Then today at registration, all of the competitors are measured for height, and three of them from Class C were a different height than they had put on their application and had to be moved.  So Class B ended up having twice as many people as Class C, which I'm sure feels really unfair to the competitors, but which we were just sort of stuck with for tonight.

We have, however, already talked about ways to prevent the same thing from happening again at the next contest.

Tomorrow will be a long day: Bodybuilders, Bikini competitors and Pro classes.  74 competitors, I think.  Judging in the morning and awards in the evening.

I left tonight before the awards were announced to take care of some things for tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to hearing how the scores turned out.  

And I'm planning on having the results, including the judges scores, posted on the contest website by Sunday evening.

Good luck, tomorrow's competitors, and Congratulations to today's!

People I "Know"

Only two days until the contest! Anyone else getting excited?   J

The thing I’m looking forward to most is just having the chance to reconnect with people.  Generally, the competitors and others involved are hard-working, dedicated, goal-oriented, competitive-in-a-friendly way kind of people.  I’m looking forward to cheering for many of them.

But this year, as I was going over the list of applicants, there were three names in particular that got my attention.

I was born and raised in this area, so I’ve seen first-hand how much things have grown and changed.  20 years ago, if I went to the grocery store or to see a movie, it was pretty much a guarantee that I’d see people I know. 

This is no longer the case.  So many people have moved here that being a native makes me something of a rarity.  (Bodybuilder Hubby is a native too.  He and I were born in the same hospital where his dad and our kids were also born.  He and I went to the same high school too, though he graduated before I got there so we didn’t meet until years later.)

The town where we live now is practically a suburb of the bigger city.  (I still hesitate to use the word “city,” since it’s never going to be that big, but we are finally getting a Nordstrom’s Rack, which totally counts for something!)

But the area where we live now used to be really rural, surrounded by farmland.  I had a friend in grade school who lived here, and we didn’t like having slumber parties at her house because it was too far out to get a pizza delivered.

Things have changed.

But some things haven’t.

Three of the competitors new this year are people who I’ve either known since they were little or whose families I have some connection with, going back to those more-like-a-small-town days.

#1 – There is a Figure competitor who is married to a guy I’ve known since he was five.  He was in the same frat as my brother in college.  And his older brother, the competitor’s brother-in-law, was my first “boyfriend” when I was 7.  We even held hands one time.

#2 – One of the Bikini competitors comes from a family I’ve known for a long time.  Her dad ran the sound booth at the church for Bodybuilder Hubby's and my wedding.   Her mom is (was?) a teacher I worked with several times.  And her brother was one of my fifth grade students back when I was a 22-year-old, just-starting-out teacher.  Her mom was always really pretty, so it fits that the daughter is now a Bikini competitor.

#3 – There is a new bodybuilder who I have known since he was a toddler.  His brother and my brother were good friends in grade school – in the same class, on the same little league team, if I remember correctly.   Being the mature older sister, I was asked on several occasions to babysit for the now-competitor and his brother.  I remember making a fort in their living room out of blankets. 

He’s the one I think I’m least likely to recognize.  It’s hard enough to recognize someone you only knew as a small child two decades ago.  It’s harder still to recognize anyone when his or her face is covered in Dream Tan.

(On the flip side, there are a bunch of competitors I only know from contests.  If I ever saw them without the fake tan stuff, and wearing normal clothes, I’d probably walk right by and not have a clue who they were!)

But with this competitor, if I do recognize him, I’m pretty sure I’m going to greet him by saying something like, “Hi, you probably don’t remember me, but I used to change your diapers.”

Yup.  This is going to be fun. 

New This Year

Each year, Bodybuilder Hubby adds something to the bodybuilding contest to make it even better.  Last year it was video screens: one out front for the audience to see the competitors more closely, and another in the back so that the competitors could watch the other classes on stage.  It went over really well, and the same company will be setting it up again this year too.

For this year, we have several new things, most noticeably the added “Bikini” division, for which we’ve had 22 competitors register.  (We’re up to 115 competitors total!)

We’ve got a couple other changes that I think the competitors will be happy about:

Competitor Line-Up Now On-Line

We get lots of questions from competitors about what order the classes will compete and about how many people are in each class.  So this morning Bodybuilder Hubby suggested posting the line-up on the contest website.  Which I did.

http://www.ngaidaho.com/Competitor_Line-Up.htm

There’s no reason not to let everyone know.  It’s not like we try to keep it a secret until the last minute.  And it could help competitors mentally prepare for when they’ll be on-stage.

The only problem is that there will possibly be changes, and we don’t want anyone to be upset if the order now on-line isn’t exactly how things turn out.  It will probably change.

The biggest reason will be due to the height and weight measurements taken at registration.  There are usually at least one or two bodybuilders whose weight on the day of contest bumps them to another weight class.

And, on occasion (but for reasons I’d can’t begin to understand), we get Figure competitors who tell us they are one height, but then - when they are measured at registration - are another height.  Seriously, why wouldn’t a person just know what height she is?  Who knows, but a different height might mean being moved to a different height class.  Thus, a change in the line-up.

We hope that the line-up on Saturday will be the same from morning to evening.  It can be really confusing if it changes.  But sometimes the judges might decide that for some reason it would work better a different way, so a change it made.  We’ll do what we can to make sure everyone is aware.

But for now competitors can at least get an idea of how things will go.

Bodybuilding Routines

Another new thing that I’m happy about is that this year EVERY bodybuilding competitor will get to do his or her routine to music at the evening show.

Bodybuilder Hubby competed in a contest earlier this month where he got this idea.

Instead of taking the time to have the competitors in a bodybuilding class all line up on stage together to be introduced and do poses, instead, each competitor will come on stage one at a time, be introduced and get to do their routine. 

Then the top five will come out together for awards.

This way, every bodybuilder gets his or her moment to shine and show off for the family and friends who come to watch.

As a side note, after just under thirty hours of work, the contest programs were sent off to the printer yesterday.  Then one page was resent this morning after I discovered a mistake in the numbering for the Figure Masters class.  (Should be fixed now.  Whew!)

I noticed as I was flipping through the pages that we have one Figure competitor’s body used in five different images in the program.  She should get some special award just for that, I think. I wonder if she’ll recognize herself since four of the pictures don’t include a head.

That sounds unnecessarily creepy, doesn’t it?

Today and tomorrow I’ll be working on judges’ packets and notebooks, labels for goodie bags and other random contest prep.  And trying to catch up a little on the work for my actual job that I got behind on while doing the program.

Oh, and I’ll be putting together the notebook for the MC with all the competitor bios and thank-you’s to be read at the contest.   So, competitors, if there’s someone you forgot to thank, go add it to your application today, because after tomorrow night it will be much harder to make changes.  Though if you say please and bring me a Starbucks grande non-fat latte, I’ll change whatever you want.  J

16 Boxes of Trophies

As I type this, sixteen boxes of trophies are being taken off the UPS truck and stored in our garage.

 Bodybuilder Hubby will have the privilege of sorting and assembling the trophies this weekend.

Ordering the trophies involves a certain amount of gambling.  Trophies are expensive, so we don’t want to end up with a bunch that we don’t need, especially the parts that are engraved with the date, because we can’t use them again.

But the trophies are ordered several weeks before the contest when we don’t yet know how many competitors we’ll have.

(As a side note, as of last night we had 110 competitors registered!  If everyone shows up, this will be our biggest show yet, and – to the best of my knowledge – the biggest natural contest Idaho’s ever had.)

For example, we haven’t yet decided how many Figure classes there will be; it depends on how many competitors sign up.  We want to avoid having classes with 17 competitors like we did last year.  That was way too many in one group, making it really hard for the judges and making for a really, really long time on stage for those girls.  (Sorry!)

So, assuming that we have the same number of competitors this year, we’d need another full set of trophies so we can have four classes instead of three.  But, we’ve added a Bikini division this year too, so maybe some of the competitors who would have done Figure will do Bikini instead, meaning we might end up only having three classes and therefore only needing three sets of trophies.

Who knows?

So Bodybuilder Hubby makes his best guess and the trophies are ordered.  Hopefully we’ll have just the right number of competitors to be able to give away them all without needing to order more.

Actually, the UPS man just told me that he only delivered 14 of the 16 boxes.  He thinks the other two must be on another truck that should be here this afternoon.  Hopefully!

Eaten an Egg Lately?

If you’re preparing for Bodybuilder Hubby’s bodybuilding, figure and bikini competition (which is next week!), then you’ve likely had more than your fair share of eggs this last couple months. 

Eggs seem to be a staple of many competitors’ diets.  Egg whites in particular are a great source of protein.   Eggs are cheap and readily available.  And eggs can be prepared in a bunch of different ways and with all sorts of things added in to create some variety: herbs, veggies, meat, and - Bodybuilder Hubby’s favorite - hot sauce.

I sometimes joke that Bodybuilder Hubby’s contest is held in the spring simply because eggs always go on sale for Easter.  Before we had kids, grocery shopping was something Bodybuilder Hubby and I did together – practically a date night.  When he was prepping for a contest, we’d often buy a pack of five dozen eggs and just as often hear comments from the checkout clerk about how we must have such a big family to need so many eggs.  In reality, there were two of us, and those 60 eggs wouldn’t last five days in our house.

After we had kids, we discovered another major benefit to Bodybuilder Hubby’s excessive egg consumption:  Eggs cartons make the world’s best ever blocks.

Egg cartons can be stacked in all sorts of different ways.  They make towers and walls and mazes and caves and other fun things.  And no matter how many fall on you, you don’t get hurt.  They’re pretty much free, and if one gets destroyed, no problem!  Just toss it in the recycle bin, because Bodybuilder Hubby probably already has three more ready to add to the pile.

At one point in time we had something like 120 cartons in our block pile. 

The spring when our kids were 1 and 2, I’d put together a new egg carton block design while the kids were sleeping and then let them find it the next morning.  I’d always let our daughter in to see it first because as soon as the boy got in there, he’d live up to his nickname: Bulldozer Boy.

For cheap, easy, active fun for young kiddos, egg cartons can’t be beat.

As a side note, earlier today we had our 99^th competitor register for next week’s contest.  Who will be the 100^th?  Register today because late fees kick in tomorrow!

Not competing?  Tickets to see the show are now on sale at idahotickets.com and Select-a-Seat outlets. 

Contest T-Shirts

I just finished the contest t-shirt design for this year!

Well, actually, that’s only sort of true.  I finished two versions, which we are now showing to a handful of friends to get their vote (one I like, one Bodybuilder Hubby likes).  It’s basically the same image, but one has a “distressed” look and the other doesn’t.

I’m happy with the design; it turned out a lot like I’d orignally pictured in my head.  It took me a little more than 10 hours total, so I’d better be happy with it!

I’d post a picture, but even once we pick one of the two images, there still might be changes made when they’re actually printed.  It seems like my t-shirt images always change when they get printed.

Last year the big problem was color.  I had made a design for a white t-shirt, with an image that was black and this turquoisey, aqua blue.

I had been really pleased with last year’s image.  I used a black oval background and the images of Bodybuilder Hubby and one of my sister’s best friends from junior high, who just happened to be a figure competitor and who was gracious enough to let me have some pictures of her to use.

Well, it turns out that in screen-printing, there are a limited number of choices for colors.  They had a jade green and a royal blue, but nothing like the turquoise-aqua I wanted.  I picked the available color I thought was closest, and the final shirts looked pretty good, just a little off how I’d pictured them.

Then on the post-contest survey, one of the competitors, a bodybuilder guy in his early twenties, commented that the t-shirts “weren’t cool enough.”

Ouch.

Really, I’m not surprised that someone would say that.  I would be more surprised if my design aesthetic was anything like a 20-year-old bodybuilder’s.

I like clean lines and simple shapes - modern, elegant, you know.

The best example of how what I like and what the typical bodybuilder likes differ happened with the other shirt I designed last year. 

I was asked to put together a design for a shirt for one of our sponsors.  I made an image that I thought looked great.  Bodybuilder Hubby’s arm over a black circle.   Simple but striking.  A little bit artsy.  I liked it.

I sent the image off to the sponsor to do with what they wanted.

And what they wanted, apparently, was dragon tails.

Dragon tails.

All around my clean, well-designed circle were dragon tails.  Or at least, something that looked like dragon tails.  It’s kind of hard to tell.

Um, okay. 

I’m sure there were competitors who liked it better that way.  And I’m okay with that.

I mean, really, the world would be a really boring place if everyone liked the same thing.

So, for this year, hopefully there will be a lot of people who like what I’ve done.  And hopefully the people who don’t like it won’t complain anywhere where I can hear them.

Now to do the image for the “Staff” shirt.  Oh, and to make the image for the back of the shirt with all the sponsors’ logos.

Okay, so maybe I’m not almost done.  But getting closer!

Three Weeks Out

Three weeks from right now I’ll probably be helping pack things up as Bodybuilder Hubby’s bodybuilding contest comes to a close.  Our first Figure-on-Friday-Night experience will be over.  On Saturday, by 10pm, we’ll be on hour 15 of day 2.  But Saturday night is one of my favorite parts of the whole thing.  By that point, we can pause for a bit, look around at the audience and the competitors and just enjoy the show.  We’ll have gotten to see winners congratulated, hear friends and families cheering and, hopefully, just generally be surrounded by happy people.

At this point, however, three weeks out, I’m in my home office alone, trying not to freak out too much about how much has to be done in the next three weeks.   You ever get to that point when you have so many things to do that you feel almost paralyzed to do any of it?  So you end up writing a blog?  Here I am.

This week I’ll be finishing the design for the t-shirt and putting some updates on the website.  Hopefully I’ll have some new ads to put in the contest program, the thing I know will take up the most of my contest-prep hours.

I had a bunch of ideas that I wanted to try out for the contest this year – things to make it even more of a show for the audience.  Bodybuilder Hubby (who, of course, sees things more from the competitor’s standpoint) didn’t think there was a need to make any big changes.  Why fix what’s not broken?  Well, I’ll push for my ideas next year again anyway because even not-broken things can be made better.  For right now, though, I’m glad to not have those other things to worry about.

The registration is still going really well, a handful of new ones each day.  It’s hard to say how many we’ll end up with total.  Last year we had a total of 106 competitors, and 25 of those waited to register until the weekend before the contest.  Close to half of the registrations came in the last two weeks.

Why people wait, I have no idea.  Maybe they’re waiting to see if they end up in as good of shape as they hoped?  To compete they’d have had to commit to training and diet months before, so who knows.  Maybe it’s just a procrastination thing.

I’ll be most curious to see how many first-time competitors there will be.  Bodybuilder Hubby was already competing when I met him, so I don’t know what that thought process was like for him to decide to get on stage that first time.  I would imagine it’s a nerve-wracking decision for most people.  There’s nothing easy about putting yourself out there for other people to either (or both) pick apart and praise.  I’m a little proud of people who are willing to try it out.

My favorites are the women who come in competing as masters (over age 35) for the first time, and it turns out they’ve only been working out for 6 months, but they feel good enough about their progress – and about themselves – to show off.  Love that.

Good luck to the newbies, and to experienced competitors as well.  I know your next three weeks will be busy too.

Contest Magic

Bodybuilder Hubby is competing in a bodybuilding contest today. 

For a long list of reasons that starts with two preschool-aged kids, I’m not there to cheer him on, though he’s got friends and fellow competitors there who I know will do a good job of yelling his name from the audience.

If there was some way I could magically teleport myself to that auditorium to see Bodybuilder Hubby on stage, I’d do it in a heartbeat.  I want to see how he looks.  And I want to see how the other guys on stage look next to him.

There’s one thing that I’ve learned watching years of contests:  There’s no magic formula for being ready for a competition.  The same routine and diet won’t bring about the same results in two different competitors; it won’t even bring about the same results in the same competitor from one contest to the next.

There are so many other factors that make a difference: stress levels, hormones, all those other little things that are part of daily life make a difference.  New job?  Stress levels are up, and it shows in your body.  Had a bad case of the flu last winter?  Your body reflects that too.  Everything matters.

Over the years, Bodybuilder Hubby has experimented with what works best for him.  But every year the results are just a little different. 

Bodybuilder Hubby gains something like 30 pounds or so during the off-season, though this, like everything else, varies.  There have been years when I swear he drops the weight by doing nothing more than blinking – the fat just seems to fall off of him.

There are years when he ends up doing cardio (such as running on the treadmill) multiple times a week for weeks leading up to the contest.  But there was one year when he did cardio only six times in the months he was getting ready to compete; that year he just didn’t have too do any more than that.

Over and over I’ve seen competitors look absolutely fantastic one year and not so great the next, and vice versa. 

The thing that baffles me the most is how much a competitor’s body can change just on that one day of competition.  I’ve seen over and over again a competitor on stage in the morning looking just fine, but then they came back for the evening show looking absolutely amazing.  Whatever they did – or more likely, whatever they ate – made a huge difference in a matter of hours.

This can be good and bad.  The judging happens in the morning, but the awards are given at the evening show.  So, it seems like every year, a competitor will get on stage in the morning and be placed appropriately in something like 3^rd or 4^th place, but at night, that same competitor suddenly looks better than everyone else on stage so the audience is all shocked and upset when he doesn’t end up in first.

This is why competitors need to encourage friends and family to come to the morning part of the competition.  That’s the part that matters most.

So, for today, I know how great Bodybuilder Hubby looks.  I know how hard he’s worked.  But I don’t know what the other guys on stage look like, so I get a little nervous.  Of course, I want him to do well so that everyone else sees how amazing I already know he is.

Good luck today, Bodybuilder Hubby.  I love you!

One Month Out...

I realized this morning that Bodybuilder Hubby’s contest starts one month from today.

I’ll admit that thought made me panic more than just a little bit.

Really, we’re in pretty good shape as far as being ready.  I did as much as I could think to do ahead of time, like the competitor buttons, but there are always tasks that can’t really be done until the last minute.

Tickets have been on sale for a few weeks now.  I have no idea how many have sold, though I know Bodybuilder Hubby has been keeping track.  I’ll be selling the remaining tickets at the door the days of the contest, so the more that sell in advance, the better.  But for now, I don’t have to worry about it.

The on-line registration has been open for several weeks also.  That has turned out to be the best thing ever.  We’ve gotten lots of compliments on how easy it is to use and how professional it looks.  I haven’t heard a single complaint.   But the best part is that it is SO much easier for Bodybuilder Hubby and me too!  Win-win for everybody!  Yeah!  I don’t have the foggiest clue how many applicants we currently have because I don’t have to know right now!  Yeah!  In a couple weeks, I’ll have to get the list to put the names in the contest program and make stickers for the goodie bags, etc., but for now I’m just going to relish knowing that the registration program (which I totally take credit for finding and setting up) is working beautifully.  Yeah.

The contest program is the thing most freaking me out at this point.  Our contest programs are a sight to behold, if I do say so myself.  It’s seven pieces of paper, folded in half and stapled to make a 28-page booklet.  Most of the pages have ads from our sponsors; sponsors can choose between a half-page or full-page ad.    In last year’s program, about 2/3 of the sponsors’ ads required some graphic design work on my part.  Either the ad they sent us didn’t fit the space, or, in several cases, they didn’t send us an ad at all, just a logo and some information they wanted included, so I could put it together in a whatever way I thought would work. 

I think I’ve said before that I enjoy that kind of design work; it’s fun to create different things, to try out ideas.  But it’s not so much fun under a time crunch.  And so far, we’ve only received ads from a handful of sponsors, so I’m a little nervous about how much work I’ll be doing on the others because there’s no way for me to know right now what to expect.

The other thing that’s freaking me out a bit is the contest t-shirts.  I’ve designed the shirts for the last two years, and I’ve started a couple different designs for this year.  My first idea didn’t go over well with Bodybuilder Hubby, and the other ideas I’ve tried didn’t go over so well with me, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  I’d be very content to just play around with ideas if I had the time…

But time is in short supply right now.  Last week I started a new job of my own (completely unrelated to all things bodybuilding) and our preschool-aged kids started spending full days in school for the first time.  (They’ve been home with me for the last three years.)  So we’ve had our fair share of trauma and tears getting used to the new schedule, and I’m more than a bit overwhelmed getting my head around the responsibilities of my new job. 

It feels really strange that the contest is the one thing that we’ve got mostly well under control.   I’ll mentally keep my fingers crossed that the tickets keep selling and that the registrations keep coming in, while being very grateful that I don’t have to pay much attention to either.

And, just for the record, any potential competitors who read this:  Please, please, please don’t wait until two days before the contest to start your registration!  Start it now, even if you have to finish it later.  I will like you a whole lot better than way.  J

Here We Go!

Well, the on-line application went live about three minutes ago.   Bodybuilder Hubby's contest is officially open for competitors.

I'll admit that for some reason I'm feeling a little nervous.  I've spent the morning feeling frantic, alternately trying to go over the last-minute checklist for the application and updating the contest website with the new info and links while also trying to keep my kids well enough entertained that they'd give me more than two minutes at a time to concentrate on what I was doing.  Thank goodness for Netflix Instant Streaming and endless episodes of "Go, Diego, Go!"

But now the application is live.  We'll have a pretty good idea soon if all the work we've put in will pay off.  And, really, there's no doubt in my mind that it will. 

This year's contest will be the best one yet.  Hopefully it will also have a record number of competitors.  We're ready. 

Time to start working on t-shirt designs...

On-line Application

Bodybuilder Hubby's bodybuilding contest has had an on-line application for the last couple of years.  Through a form on the website, the competitor's information was e-mailed to us, but the information wasn't saved in a database or anything like that.  So we'd copy and paste from the e-mail into Excel so we could sort and organize and make the forms and labels we needed.

But there were lots of problems.  If a competitor skipped a question, a line would be missing from his/her data, which threw off the rows in Excel.  A minor thing, but a major pain.  The most commonly skipped question was "T-shirt Size" which is why this year's competitors will discover that the new application for this year won't even allow them to submit the application without answering that question.

We're trying something new with this year's application that gives us nice options like required answers.  It will save Bodybuilder Hubby and me approximately thirty kajillion hours of copying, pasting, sorting and error-correcting.  It should also cut down on mistakes; with the new application, the only way a competitor's name will end up spelled incorrectly on the program is if the competitor spells his or her own name wrong on the application.  Which I have seen happen, actually.

The new on-line application will have lots of advantages for the competitors, too.  It will allow them to create a password so that they can come back and make changes to their application anytime before the contest.  For example, if a bodybuilder wants to change weight classes, he or she can re-open his/her application and make the change.  I expect the most changes will be made to the Competitor Bios, the information that the MC will read at the evening show as each competitor is introduced.  In past years Bodybuilder Hubby would get lots of e-mails right before the contest because a competitor would realize he/she forgot to include a "thank you" in the bio to a trainer or a spouse or something like that.  Now the competitors can change the bios themselves as often as they want right up until a day or two before the contest, when I'll be printing everything out for the MC to read.

I think it will really be a good thing for everybody, easier for everybody.

Now we just need to get it live, which could happen as early as this week!  Bodybuilder Hubby's been getting lots of questions about when the application will be available.  I think the background work on it will be done today.  I'm looking forward to seeing how many competitors we'll have this year.  Last year's total was 106.  Think we'll get more this year?

Whistle While I Work...

For the last two weeks I've been working on a reorganization of the website for Bodybuilder Hubby's bodybuilding contest (http://www.ngaidaho.com/).  There's a new division being added ("Bikini" - more on that later) and a few other changes that I wanted to have finished before the on-line application goes live.  Which should happen the middle of next week.  Hopefully.

A friend suggested that I start keeping track of the hours that I spend working on various stuff for Bodybuilder Hubby's contest and small business.  I'm the webmaster, copy writer, copy editor, graphic designer, social media manager, and random task completer for both.

I often think I should make up some business cards with that listed as my job title.

Since I started keeping track 11 days ago, I've put in 26 hours on the contest website (and 7 more on the contest itself).  I don't know if that sounds like much, but consider that the vast majority of that time has been at night after our kids are asleep. 

Last night I got to see snow falling outside my office window at 1am, because I happened to still be working there at the time.

Also last night, and for reasons I cannot explain (I blame sleep deprivation), I ended up picking "High School Musical" to listen to on Netflix Instant Streaming to help me stay awake while I worked.  I haven't been able to get those songs out of my head all day.  It's making me a little crazy.

But now it's done.  The updated website is live, and I've corrected all of the errors that I found.  I'm sure there will be other things - a misspelled word here or a funky graphic there, but hopefully not.  It just looks so unprofessional to see spelling and grammar errors on a business website.  According to me, a former classroom teacher.

I'm hoping to get some feedback, but really what I think will happen is that no one will notice.  People will get on the site, they'll quickly and easily find what they need, and they won't think any more of it.  I think that's good web design, when it just works and makes sense to most people.  (There are always those few...)

But I'm pleased with it, and already planning the next revision...

Chicken, Again?

So, sometimes I think I’m kinda brilliant.

It just sometimes takes me a while to get there.

I’ve mentioned before that Bodybuilder Hubby eats a lot of chicken breast meat.  A LOT of chicken breast meat.

Our normal pattern is to cook 10 pounds at a time which we then keep in the fridge and live off of for a few days.

Before we had kids, this worked just fine.  There were times when I’d force myself to eat yet another piece of chicken simply because it was there.  Other days I’d have a frozen meal or bowl of cereal and call it good.  Bodybuilder Hubby takes care of his own meals, so what I ate was up to me.

This worked fairly well until a couple years ago.   We now have two kids.  Drama Girl is 4, and Bulldozer Boy is 2.

So now, at this point in our lives, these things are true:

·         Bodybuilder Hubby still prepares his own meals and rarely eats the same thing as the rest of us, so meal planning is pretty much entirely up to me.

·         Drama Girl refuses to eat foods that are mixed together, ie. soups, casseroles, anything with a sauce, etc.  I try to accommodate her preferences most meals while also occasionally throwing in something I like because I’m sure that eventually she will agree that my homemade chicken soup is pretty fantastic.

·         I HATE handling raw meat.  I was a vegetarian for a few years, until I realized I wasn’t actually eating healthier any more than I just had an excuse to have Cocoa Puffs for dinner.  But truly, I don’t want raw meat in my kitchen any more than it has to be.  It makes me a little crazy until I get everything sanitized once the food is in the oven.  A while ago I read in an article about food poisoning that raw meat should be treated as if it were toxic waste.  That’s pretty much how I think of it.  Bleh.

·         Leftovers don’t taste good.  A meal fresh from the oven is yummy, but nothing – with the possible exception of popcorn – tastes any good once it’s been microwaved. 

So here’s the brilliant idea that I had (also something of a “Duh!” moment):  I shouldn’t cook any more than we can eat in one meal. 

I still cook 5 pounds of chicken plain for Bodybuilder Hubby, but the rest of it I divide up into these small, glass containers that I bought.  Each container holds 6 cups of food – actually enough for two meals for the three of us, so I don’t fill them completely up.  They have rubber/plastic lids that seal really well.  So I put enough chicken in each container for one meal, put on the lids and put them in the freezer.  Then all I have to do is put one in the fridge at night so it can defrost in time to be tomorrow’s dinner.

The best part is that I can make each batch taste a little different by sprinkling different seasonings on top: lemon pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic and thyme (my favorite).  I also figured out that I can sprinkle bread crumbs and seasonings over the chicken, bake it, and it tastes exactly like my usual breaded baked chicken – but without the disgusting and time-consuming roll-every-piece-of-chicken-in-bread-crumbs part.  Brilliant!

I bought more of the glass containers to do the same thing with pretty much everything else I make.  One batch of my favorite chicken enchilada recipe becomes dinner tonight and two meals in the freezer for the future.  More healthy dinners, less work.  Brilliant.

Another benefit is that if I try a new recipe with the smaller portions and it turns out gross, less food gets wasted.  Also brilliant.

I’m doing the same thing now with batches of muffins and cookies and my favorite homemade bread.  Everything tastes better right from the oven, so why not serve it that way every time?

Once summer comes around, and it’s too hot to bake, I’ll have to make some adjustments, but for now, I’m quite excited about the sweet-n-sour chicken and veggies we’re having tonight – and even more excited that I won’t forcing down the leftovers tomorrow.