I’m really trying. I swear.

I wanted to be able to do all of my New Year’s resolutions to the best of my ability this year, but it’s not totally happening. Sure, I have mostly done one, and kinda done two others, but it’s just not that easy.

Why, you ask? Well, let me share with you my main resolutions for 2011:

  1. Eat fewer jalapenos.
  2. Workout at least four times a week.
  3. Quit yelling, “Fuckingpieceofshitsonofabitchgoddamnmutherruckingcocksuckingjagoff” so much while driving.
  4. Post at least one blog per week.
  5. Wear more corduroy.

Now, you’d think that the first one would be simple, right? So did I. That’s why I put it on here. I wanted to have at least one resolution that happened and why not make it something that can help in another way. See, I have a weight-loss competition going on with a few buddies and by cutting back on jalapenos, I figured it’d help me there. Less jalapenos equals less drinks and less follow-up food after the liquids wear off in the stomach and round and round. That’s my thinking.

The contest is simple. We each set a goal for what weight we want to be on March 8, which is one of the guys’ birthday. The fuck turns 40 that day and wanted a new goal. He’s been good about making goals since he started dropped a ton of weight during the past 18 months. We’re pretty proud of him for it actually. I can’t speak for everyone else although I think they’d agree that because we love him (no homo) and were worried about him before, we were glad he has put in the work and kicked ass.

Since he started, dude’s dropped about two Honda Accords off his waistline and now wants a little extra push before he gets another few days closer to going ass down in the dirt. Good for him. We’re in. Always have been, always will be. So we’ve got a competition. Truth be told, notasfat fuck may be inspiring us now, so we needed the goal too.

That’s why No. 2 was on the list in the first place. I have to lose about 16 pounds before March 8. The other four guys have their weights to hit too. If we don’t, then there is a consequence.

And it may not be pretty.

We’re all signed up to do a Warrior Dash in September in southern Wisconsin. So we’ll all go up there and do this.

Yup. That’s right. We’ll look like fools, hauling our fat asses around a 3.1-mile course with barbed wire obstacles, mud pits and fire lines that we  have to run, crawl, swim and jump through. And then go drink beer.

That’s on purpose and the fun part. Now, back to the consequence.

Whoever doesn’t reach their weight goal on March 8 has to do something, um, special for this race. And that would be — each of the ones who fails to meet his obligation has to wear a dress for the duration of the race. Heels optional.

So, yeah. I had no more jalapenos and working out more on my resolutions to help with this larger goal.

To date it’s been a mixed bag.

On the jalapeno front, I’ve done for shit. I spent four nights in Texas for the FCS national championship game we had to staff the first week of January and I had about 1/3 of my total jalapeno intake of all of 2010. You can’t go to Texas and not eat them. Especially because we were at Rudy’s and if you know what that is, then you know I had some great fucking barbecue and needed to top it with some jalapenos.

And it hasn’t ended. Hell, we bought jalapenos just today and made homemade poppers in the oven as a sidedish for chicken fajitas. I’m pretty sure I am on pace to eat approximately 25 pounds of jalapenos this year.

Resolution fail.

For the workouts, I’ve been good. I have done four per week so far, and this week bumped it up to do about 20 miles on the treadmill total. So I’m at least more than partially on track for that one. I’m not going to concede my chances there yet as, after my initial six-pound gain from the holidays, I’m now down that total plus two more pounds and back on pace.

For No. 3, well, yeah, that went to shit last weekend.

Anyone who hasn’t seen it, Atlanta has been decimated with a winter storm. It’s about the equivalent of having 68 inches of snow in Nebraska on Monday and then adding in an ice storm with 13 inches of ice.

I mean, it’s serious shit down here. They’ve shut down schools for a whole week. Buses and the commuter trains were non-functional and businesses closed. Hell, I worked at home Monday and Tuesday because they told us not to come in if it wasn’t safe and I didn’t feel like going out because I was trying to keep No. 3 intact.

That went to the wayside on Wednesday when I got so tired of being at home that I actually went to work. Until Noon, there was, to my knowledge, two other people in cubes no where near me but on my floor. There’s normally probably 100 or more people on the floor.

To get to my building downtown, it takes me about 30 minutes. It’s the equivalent distance between O’Hare and Wrigley. This week, it took more like 40-45 minutes to get there, and I about murdered 143 people along the way the first day. Not because the roads were impassable. Hardly. They weren’t great but good enough. It was the fucking terrible drivers.

I guess this was like a once every 25 years snow, so they can’t deal with it. There are like 58 snow plows in the city of Atlanta, including the 37 they rent from private companies/individuals. They ran out of salt mix for the streets. They don’t know how to drive in it at all, and it got to the point that when I saw a woman stop–completely parked–in the one lane that was cleared to cross a bridge and hold up traffic (at least 15 cars to my count) because she couldn’t deal with driving across the bridge with snow and some ice, at that point I gave up and couldn’t even make fun of them anymore. It was pretty sad.

Anyway, to say the least, my resolution of having more patience while driving lasted all of nine days into 2011 before that failed in flying colors.

Oh, and the snow storm? We got 4.5 inches.

For No. 4, I’ve already missed a week of blogging, so I guess I’m a bit off on that one too but I’ll try to make up for it. I have some things I kept just try to get myself going again a couple times a week.

And I’m good on the fifth one. Like I said, controlling expectations is the key.