Attempt #1: The Ohio Deli’s Dagwood Sandwich – a 2.5 pound  sandwich with a pound of fries that must be downed in 30 minutes.  If you do it, you get a t-shirt and your picture on the “Wall of Fame”.  This was  big fat “F” for me.. I didn’t even get close to finishing the sandwich within the time limit.  Near the end, my mouth got really dry and I was having trouble swallowing the the food.  And the lunchmeat was kinda grody.

Attempt #2: Thurman Cafe’s “The Thurmanator” – two 3/4 pound beef patties, covered with half a pound of ham, a bunch of hamburger toppings, plus a side of fries.  No timelimit. Prize is bragging rights.  This was another “F” for me.  It was yummy.  I just couldn’t do it – two much beef.

This past Thursday was….

Attempt #3: Acme Hot Dog & Sausage Co’s Double Dog Dare- A sandwich consisting of two quarter-pound hot dogs, two chicken fingers, four mozerella sticks, BBQ sauce, area 51 sauce, lettuce, tomato and onions, plus a side of fries, which has to be downed in 3o minutes.  The prize is your picture on their “Wall of Fame”… and it was a “W” for me (and Funnel too!)  I’m crediting my tiger blood!

I’m now officially going into retirement from my competitive eating career.  Now I need to conquer something else on my list.  Running a marathon?  Writing a book?  I guess we’ll see!

{ The Olympics }  Funnel & I have been glued to the TV.  I am generally not a big tv-watcher, but I think the olympics are one of the only times it is acceptable (and should be encouraged) to be a couch potato.  I’m not even going to watch LOST tonight. 

{ Europe }  We are less than three months away from our trip and judging from how my life has been lately, I think it’s going to come up really quickly.   So far, we’ve sent away for our passports (mine’s already been rejected once due to the crappy washed-out picture I got taken at Walgreens), we’ve booked a really great photographer to do a shoot of us in Paris, and found a travel agent to help us book hotels and our rail passes.   Someone asked in an earlier post where we are going… our tentative itinerary is: Paris, Nice / Monaco, Venice, somewhere in Tuscany (trying to work that one out with the travel agent) and Rome.  

{ Lifetime To-Do List }  When I was younger, I decided to make a lifetime to-do list.  When I started it, I decided it would have 100 things on it, and it did.    But the problem was that I was too concerned with coming up with 100 things, and not concerned enough with making goals that were meaningful to me.   In fact, I can’t even tell you anything that was on that list.  So I am starting over, and only adding things when something really strikes me.  So far, I have two things on my list.  The first is to go to the olympics.  Every olympics that I can remember, I’ve always thought, one day I want to go and see this live.  I remember knowing people who went to the Salt Lake City olympics and I was so jealous.   This is an expensive goal, but I think we can swing it someday.  Especially the next time the games are held in the states.  My second goal is to win a food challenge.  I know that sounds rediculous and not serious enough to be on a lifetime-to-do list, but I don’t care.  Funnel & I have started watching this show called “Man vs. Food” and the host, Adam, goes all over the country visiting the best restaurants in each city, and each show ends with some kind of food challenge.  The food challenge he does for the Columbus episode is at a little place called The Ohio Deli.  There’s a sandwich there called “The Dagwood” and it is the size of my head.  Funnel and I have split it a couple of times.  For my birthday, I think, I am going to attempt to eat the whole thing myself.  If I do, I get my picture on their wall of fame.  

{ Sad & Happy } I have felt so conflicted this week.  One of my best friends from college got engaged to a guy who is absolutely perfect for her.  Happy.  A good friend of the Frederick family passed away after a fight with breast cancer, leaving her husband and son.  Sad.  Our friends from church met their precious three-year-old son for the first time yesterday in Ethipoia and will be bringing him home soon.  Happy.  This family, that I’ve been following through my mother-in-law, are having so many roadblocks to their being re-united, on top of their child dying of cancer.  Sad.  And so much more that I can’t write about on here.  What a crazy world we live in, where one person can be having the best day of their life and at the exact same time, another’s world has been torn apart. 

{ This } “We’ll never be as young as we are tonight.”