We all should be giving more

Christmas time is about giving, right? But why? Its as if dying for the sins of man really only entitles you to a month (maybe two tops) of behavior in your honor.

Why dont I give the rest of the year as much as I do at Christmas? Many will point to the economy in answering this question and say something along the lines of not being able to afford it. These are the same people who would point to something else, even if the economy was raging and they had just receieved a Christmas bonus. Maybe for me, its just easier to give at christmas, because well, everyone else is doing it. (Disclaimer: although I often try to convince others to follow me by stating "everyone else is doing it," I dont generlly subscribe to that reasoning myself).

Make no mistake about it. I am rich. If you own a car, or have ever even driven a car, you are rich. I own a BIG car. If you are reading this, most likely on a computer, you are rich (if you are reading this printed in a newspaper, let me know....because that would be really cool). I own a computer, have access to 100s more at school, and am still considering getting a new one. I also own a cell phone, which is basically a computer also, and its a pretty low end phone. Even aside from the car and computer examples, if you have never really struggled for housing or food, you are richer than most of the rest of the world. Every night I sleep in a warm bed and eat until I am full. I am rich.

As a rich person, I think I should be giving more. So, I have decided, that whenever anyone not as rich as me asks me for money (or help), I will give it to them. There are obviously some details that need to be established (how rich am I? how rich are they? Whats the maximum amount I will give?), but for now, I can see where I need to be involved. Whenever Bojangles asks me to give to Toy for Tots, I give. Whenever the Salvation Army rings their bell and I have cash, I give. Whenever one of my friends asks me to volunteer with them, I am there.

It remains to be seen whether or not this will cause me to descend into poverty or rise to greatness.

Part 3

Part 3

Jerrod told us that we were going to run down Camden until

its dead end brought us to Tryon. It looked like a small street with no traffic on it, so we figured it would be a short sprint. The short sprint turned into about a mile sprint before I called Jerrod back to find out how close we were. Part of me really wanted to know where the end was while the other part of me wanted to talk on the phone and give me an excuse not to be running. Pretty much as he picked up, we arrived. Inside Dharma lounge we found a bar behind which sat a giant gold Buddha with headphones on. As we entered, we saw some people doing Yoga, and we were invited to join. At this point, we had run a significant amount, so as the instructor gave us poses to assume, I realized that sweat was falling off of me. Also, the cooler floor combined with my warmer body made for a nice condensation spot where I had been. After about 5 minutes of Yoga and stretching, he gave us a secret word, and onward we ran.

Our next stop was a set of 18 ft tall statues that depicted the creatures who used to pull Dionysis’ Chariot in Greek Mythology. The only giant statues of creatures I knew of in Charlotte had to be the Panthers outside the stadium (Jerrod confirmed). So, we hopped back on the light rail. Actually, we hopped on an old school trolley that happened to be driving on the light rail’s system. The old timey guy “driving” even asked us for tickets. We showed him our old ones and that seemed to be good enough for him. Once on the trolley

we realized that it was a sort of special tour trolley and the other 4 people aboard were tourists from out of town. They saw our race numbers and our exhaustion and asked what we were doing. They thought we were running some kind of race, but couldn’t figure out why we were on the train. We explained the whole situation, much to their enjoyment. Then we asked to be let off right when we were back in uptown, for another good 1 km sprint to the stadium. Once at the stadium, we had to count the number of named on the pedestals below the panthers. The names represented people who has donated money. X number of columns of names times Y number of names per column times 2 pedestals equaled 2096 names. Two places left to run to!

The clue talked about “canned” beer. So we ran to Cans, a bar in uptown. Once there we learned of our challenge. Lets back up to the day before. AJ and I were trying to figure out what to expect by looking at what we were told to bring to the race. The list of supplies was fairly simple: 1) water 2) a $1 dollar bill 3) snacks. Once we went inside Cans, we found out what it was that this dollar was for. We gave the guy our dollar and he put it in “The Mike Tyson Challenge”…a punching bag attached to some flashing lights and a hydraulic. We had to get a certain score to be able to move on. The bartender assured us the score wasn’t hard to get, but that we just had to hit it solidly. At this point I am laughing internally. It wasn’t coincidence enough that the cross-fit place mimicked mine and AJs training in jiu-jitsu. It wasn’t further coincidence either that I spent a lot of time at school doing Yoga. Now, I was being asked to punch a bag, something I routinely do for 6-7 hours per week, minimum. To make things weirder, I had been thinking about these

games the week before, wondering if they were accurate and if it was worth the money. So, I was excited to do it! Without any real warm up, I stepped back, raised both of my hands in front of my face (in case the bag decided to hit back), and hit the bag with a right cross. It took a little while to count up to my score. I slowly grinned larger and larger as the number climbed past the minimum we had to achieve. I almost set the record for the machine. (I still grin, imagining if I had tried some exotic punch like a spinning backfist or a switch cross, which generate much more power but are harder to land on a moving target).