Sergeant Tony's Blog

I spend as much time answering questions during a normal week as I do leading the workouts! Here are a few of the questions I’ve been asked in the past week, in no particular order.

1) Tony, what do you think about the paleo diet?

2) Tony, what do you think about one of your fellow Marines having to hold an umbrella over that douchebag, Obama?

3) Tony, do you recommend that I come to boot camp all five days?

4) Tony, how much weight is in the back of your truck?

5) Tony, I’ve got a pain here in my hip-flexor, what do you think caused it and what should I do about it?

6) Tony, when should I buy new running shoes?

7) Tony, I’m thinking about buying some lighter wheels for my bicycle, what do you think?

Tony, what did you think about “Star Trek?”

9) Tony, did you really go to the donut shop with some boot campers after the 6:45 class on Tuesday? And if so, what kind of donut did you get and how many?

10) Tony, why are you reading Dostoevsky?

11) Tony, what do you mean by “free range hot dogs?”

12) Tony, what do you think about CrossFit?

13) Tony, do you prefer Chobani or Oikos Greek yogurt?

14) Tony, did you really get sent to the principal’s office on your first day of first grade?

15) Tony, won’t lifting heavier dumbbells bulk me up? I’m a girl and I don’t want to look like a boy?

16) Tony, what do you eat before the 5:30am workout?

17) Tony, how does Ashley put up with you?

18) Tony, did you really climb the real Mt. Fuji?

19) Tony, how many bicycles do you own?

20) Tony, what is the schedule on Monday, Memorial Day?

Those are just a few of the questions, real questions – almost verbatim — I’ve been asked in the past week. On any given day, I get asked about 15 or 20 questions after class and another dozen or so by email.

Obviously, many of those questions are part of the consulting I do as a part of my job. It’s one of the perks of being a member of USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP! You get ME!!!

I’m always happy to answer these kinds of questions and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find out. As you know, I defer many of the nutrition questions to Ashley Hofeditz. As a Registered Dietitian, Ashley’s formal education and experience in the area of sports related nutrition and adult weight management are head and shoulders above mine and I’m thankful that she’s made her consultation available to the members of USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP! (She was the guest speaker at the Memphis Hightailers meeting last night! The Hightailers, founded in 1962, is the oldest bicycle club in Memphis.)

Here are the answers to the above questions, mixed up for your confusion.
Yes.
Are you kidding?
Please.
No.
About 300 pounds.
If you’re a football player, it’s a good preseason workout.

OK, I’m just messing. I’ll give you the answers in order.

1) Costly and unnecessary, if not just silly. As a historian, let me give you this news flash: our Stone Age ancestors life expectancy was only about 30 years, at best.

2) Are you kidding? Seriously, what’s your problem?

3) Uh … yeah!

4) I’m guessing about 300 pounds or so.

5) Probably too much hill training or stair running. Don’t do those things for a few weeks.

6) If you run regularly (three or more times a week), I’d say 3 to 4 months. If your knees are starting to ache, buy new ones pronto! Also, if it’s raining. Or if it’s a nice day. Buy new running shoes!

7) Sure! Or, you could do what my buddy told me once, “you could just lose 10 pounds and train harder.”

I was disappointed that there were no Jedi knights, Hobbits, or vampires.

9) Yes. A chocolate covered one. One only.

10) Because I’m all out of Tolstoy.

11) It’s meaningless. It’s just something silly. Like “free range” everything is.

12) If you’re a football player, it’s good. It’s essentially what we did in preseason strength and conditioning. If you’re not a football player, it’s high risk, misguided, and for reasons I can’t understand, seems to breed a form of superciliousness that’s odd in the fitness industry.

13) Oikos. No question. Stamos is right about this one!

14) Yes. It was over a little blonde haired girl named Carolyn Orr.

15) Not unless you start using steroids and lifting super heavy weights at low reps.

16) Nothing. I have half a cup of coffee.

17) The patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, and the luck of a lottery winner!

18) I sure did. Even helped deliver a baby while doing it.

19) That’s Classified. It’s more than 4 and less than 10.

20) We’ll have one workout at 6:30 and then I’d like to encourage you to run the Memorial Day 3 Miler at Overton Park. http://www.racesonline.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.race_detail&race_id=13408

Q&A is a part of every day for me, like many of your days too. So feel free to ask whatever is on your mind. No question, as you can see, is too far off the chart! And although there really ARE stupid questions, I seldom get asked too many of those!

I’ve been doing USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP for almost 14 years. In addition to being the Fleet Marine Physical Training Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge in my last battalion, my first certification for group exercise was through the MCI (Marine Corps Institute) in 1978. I’ve been a student of exercise and athletic performance ever since and have gotten all sorts of interesting certifications and endorsements since. Plus, I’ve run more 5Ks and 10Ks than I can remember, more than 30 half marathons, more than 10 full marathons, and more than 120 triathlons. In September I’ll lead my 20th half marathon training session! To date, I’ve trained over 400 people to run their first half marathon!

All that to say this, I’ve been a serious student of exercise and a serious participant in sports for a very long time. Answering questions about weight training and running, exercise and fitness, nutrition and performance is a part of what I do as the commanding officer of USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP and I’m happy to help. Don’t hesitate to let me help you too!

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MEMORIAL DAY: ONE WORKOUT AT 6:30AM!

FAVOR: May I ask you to go to the USMC Fitness Boot Camp website and just click on the Sgt. Tony’s Blog banner. You don’t even need to read it. Just going to the website and clicking on the banner will do the trick! According to the Google gurus, doing that will help to ensure that our website comes up on the first page of a Google search! Thank you!

www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com

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$40,000.
Forty Thousand Dollars.
Actually more than that.
More than $40,000 is the amount of money that USMC Fitness Boot Camp and its members have donated to various causes and charities. We have given to everything from St. Jude and the American Red Cross, to Wounded Warriors and Japan Tsunami Relief. The list includes over 30 different charities and causes!

Soon you will be supporting boot campers running as Heroes for St. Jude, one of our most beloved and endeared charities. And I hope that you will!

In addition to this, we will be making an aggressive effort to support and give to Multiple Sclerosis, specifically through the MS 150 Bike Tour, a 150 mile fund-raising bike ride. Our own Andrew Forsdick (a boot camper since 2004) has been riding in this event for several years because he believes in the work of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. But this year it has become personal. Just a few weeks ago, Andrew himself was diagnosed with MS.

So this year, I’m riding the MS 150 in honor of our friend! I’m inviting you to join in the ride and/or to make a donation! More about that later. But here’s a link that will give you more information! Andrew’s team name is “F MS.”

Thanks everyone!

http://biketns.nationalmssociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=BIKE_TNS_homepage&JServSessionIdr004=36p93wgkw2.app330b

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“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

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TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK
by Sergeant Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN,

Structure Function Foolishness!

“Many food companies make claims about their food products. Claims such as “improve immunity,” “low in fat,” and “helps kids developing brains.” In the US alone, it’s more than a $31 billion dollar business, with designer yogurts generating over $4 billion in revenue.

Unfortunately, most of these claims are completely unsubstantiated. Here is the low-down on the three categories of claims permitted on US food labels.

Health claims: These claims describe a relationship between a food or food ingredient and reducing the risk of disease or health condition. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must preapprove them and are the only kind that requires evidence to back them up and prove these claims.

To date, only 12 health claims have been approved.

Example of a health claim on a food label: ‘Regular exercise and a healthy diet with enough calcium helps teens and young adult white and Asian women maintain good bone health and may reduce the risk of osteoporosis later in life.’

Nutrient content claims: These claims look at the amount of different ingredients in the product, such as sugar and fat. To make these claims, the food must meet the criteria of the word. For example, ‘low fat’ means that the food contains less than 3 grams of fat per serving and no more than 30% of the total calories are from fat. If you see these types of claims, you know that the food had to meet the required definition.

Examples of a nutrient content claims on food labels: Low fat, low sugar, high fiber. But beware, food companies know a trick. They can say certain words that don’t have an exact definition. A term like ‘lightly sweetened’ doesn’t mean anything and has no requirement.

Structure/function claims: These claims describe how the food has an effect on the structure of function of the body. Unlike health claims, structure/function claims do not deal with the reduction of disease and do not have to be preapproved or authorized by the FDA. The food company is responsible in making sure the claims are truthful and not misleading. But NO evidence is required up front! These are the types of claims we see the most.

Examples of structure/function claims on food labels: ‘improves immunity,’ ‘protects muscle,’ ‘promotes good health,’ ‘builds strength.’

As you can see, claims can be very misleading. If you are interested in using certain foods to improve your health, be sure to check with a Registered Dietitian, the food and nutrition expert, who can help you determine what foods are right for you.

A Latin phrase that I love is ‘caveat emptor,’ or ‘let the buyer beware!’

That’s great stuff, Ashley! Thank you very much!

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Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

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FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

WE HAVE OVER 2700 LIKES ON FACEBOOK!

Invite your friends to “like” our USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP Facebook page. This may be the first seed to sow in helping a friend get back into exercise and fitness! They can get exposed to what goes on, they’ll be more likely to make a change and maybe even join you on The Quarterdeck!

Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2800 likes by the end of June! But even more awesome, it might motivate your friends and family to take charge of their lives!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

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DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST MARCH, APRIL, or MAY 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

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MAKE A $&(#&@^#!*% FACE!!!!
INCREASE YOUR WEIGHTS!
YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

YOU DETERMINE WHETHER YOUR WORKOUT IS KICKASS OR NOT!

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

MAKING A FACE (THE GRIMACE) IS THE POOR MAN’S (OR WOMAN’S) FACELIFT!

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EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

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SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

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VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Alan Compton 4/2012
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

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ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

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NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

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USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

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BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

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FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

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CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

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Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.
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What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145

If you want to please everyone, do these five things:
1) Do nothing.
2) Say nothing.
3) Write nothing.
4) Stand for nothing.
5) Be nothing.

You might, and I mean might, be able to get away without disappointing or displeasing someone if you do these things.

Age ain’t nuthin’ but a number, you know? And as far as I’m concerned, I’m looking at the back nine of life. Well, that’s my optimistic view, anyway. And there are some things I’ve learned along the way: age is relative and the quality of your life is, for the most part, self-determined. If you live like crap, you’ll have a pretty crappy quality of life. If you act old, you’ll be old. If you live an “old” life, you’ll be old for sure. And that can happen at 25 or 35 or 45 or 55 or 65 … Another thing I wish that I’d fully known and embraced when I was in my late teens or early twenties is: “trying to please, and/or impress, everyone is a colossal waste of time, energy, and money.” WASTE. OF. TIME.

And on top of that, it retards your ascension to your true and authentic self.

There are some people who will love you and others who won’t. There are people who’ll be drawn to you, and others who won’t. There will be people who’ll “get you” and others who never will. Trying to appeal to those people on the wrong side of that equation is pointless.

I had a buddy, Mark, who was crazy in love with a young lady, we’ll call Jill. Unfortunately, Jill wasn’t interested in Mark. Attraction, I told him, wasn’t really a choice. If it were, we’d always be attracted to people who were the very best of what we needed and wanted in a partner. That didn’t matter to my friend. Mark tried and tried and tried to make Jill like him, all for naught. He was forever assigned to the dreaded “friend-zone.” Poor Mark.

No matter what you do, someone somewhere is going to hate it, be critical of it, think you’re wrong, judge you, malign you, and condemn you.

Every successful person in history has had his or her critics. If you assembled a list of “Great American Presidents,” you’d find a list of their critics. If you put together a list of great authors, you’d also find their critics. Sometimes the great authors condemned other great authors. Here are a few for fun.

1. Ernest Hemingway, according to Vladimir Nabokov (1972)
As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early ‘forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it.

2. John Keats, according to Lord Byron (1820)
Here are Johnny Keats’s p@# a-bed poetry…There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables, that I am ashamed to look at them.

3. Edgar Allan Poe, according to Henry James (1876)
An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.

4. John Updike, according to Gore Vidal (2008)
I can’t stand him. Nobody will think to ask because I’m supposedly jealous; but I out-sell him. I’m more popular than he is, and I don’t take him very seriously…oh, he comes on like the worker’s son, like a modern-day D.H. Lawrence, but he’s just another boring little middle-class boy hustling his way to the top if he can do it.

5. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, according to Samuel Pepys (1662)
…we saw ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.

6. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, according to Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
Bulwer nauseates me; he is the very pimple of the age’s humbug. There is no hope of the public, so long as he retains an admirer, a reader, or a publisher.

7. Charles Dickens, according to Arnold Bennett (1898)
About a year ago, from idle curiosity, I picked up ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, and of all the rotten vulgar un-literary writing…! Worse than George Eliot’s. If a novelist can’t write where is the beggar.

8. J.K. Rowling, according to Harold Bloom (2000)
How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone’? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.

9. Oscar Wilde, according to Noel Coward (1946)
Am reading more of Oscar Wilde. What a tiresome, affected sod.

10. Fyodor Dostoevsky, according to Vladimir Nabokov
Dostoevky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity — all this is difficult to admire.

11. John Milton’s Paradise Lost, according to Samuel Johnson
‘Paradise Lost’ is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.

12. Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, according to Mark Twain (1897)
Also, to be fair, there is another word of praise due to this ship’s library: it contains no copy of ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’, that strange menagerie of complacent hypocrites and idiots, of theatrical cheap-john heroes and heroines, who are always showing off, of bad people who are not interesting, and good people who are fatiguing.

13. Ezra Pound, according to Conrad Aiken (1918)
For in point of style, or manner, or whatever, it is difficult to imagine anything much worse than the prose of Mr. Pound. It is ugliness and awkwardness incarnate. Did he always write so badly?

14. James Joyce’s Ulysses, according to George Bernard Shaw (1921)
I have read several fragments of ‘Ulysses’ in its serial form. It is a revolting record of a disgusting phase of civilisation; but it is a truthful one; and I should like to put a cordon around Dublin; round up every male person in it between the ages of 15 and 30; force them to read it; and ask them whether on reflection they could see anything amusing in all that foul mouthed, foul minded derision and obscenity.

15. Jane Austen, according to Charlotte Bronte (1848)
Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would rather have written ‘Pride and Prejudice’…than any of the Waverly novels? I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.

16. Goethe, according to Samuel Butler (1874)
I have been reading a translation of Goethe’s ‘Wilhelm Meister.’ Is it good? To me it seems perhaps the very worst book I ever read. No Englishman could have written such a book. I cannot remember a single good page or idea….Is it all a practical joke? If it really is Goethe’s ‘Wilhelm Meister’ that I have been reading, I am glad I have never taken the trouble to learn German.

17. John Steinbeck, according to James Gould Cozzens (1957)
I can’t read ten pages of Steinbeck without throwing up. I couldn’t read the proletariat crap that came out in the ’30s.

18. Herman Melville, according to D.H. Lawrence (1923)
Nobody can be more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste, than Herman Melville, even in a great book like ‘Moby Dick’….One wearies of the grand serieux. There’s something false about it. And that’s Melville. Oh dear, when the solemn ass brays! brays! brays!

19. Jonathan Swift, according to Samuel Johnson (1791)
Swift has a higher reputation than he deserves…I doubt whether ‘The Tale of a Tub’ to be his; for he never owned it, and it is much above his usual manner.

20. J.D.Salinger, according to Mary McCarthy (1962)
I don’t like Salinger, not at all. That last thing isn’t a novel anyway, whatever it is. I don’t like it. Not at all. It suffers from this terrible sort of metropolitan sentimentality and it’s so narcissistic. And to me, also, it seemed so false, so calculated. Combining the plain man with an absolutely megalomaniac egotism. I simply can’t stand it.

21. Mark Twain, according to William Faulkner (1922)
A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.

22. William Faulkner, according to Ernest Hemingway
Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes — and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one.

23. Voltaire, according to Charles Baudelaire (1864)
I grow bored in France — and the main reason is that everybody here resembles Voltaire…the king of nincompoops, the prince of the superficial, the anti-artist, the spokesman of janitresses, the Father Gigone of the editors of Siecle.

24. Charles Dickens, according to George Meredith
Not much of Dickens will live, because it has so little correspondence to life…If his novels are read at all in the future, people will wonder what we saw in them, save some possible element of fun meaningless to them.

25. Jane Austen, according to Mark Twain (1898)
I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

26. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, according to Gore Vidal (1980)
He is a bad novelist and a fool. The combination usually makes for great popularity in the US.

27. Ernest Hemingway, according to Tom Wolfe
Take Hemingway. People always think that the reason he’s easy to read is that he is concise. He isn’t. I hate conciseness — it’s too difficult. The reason Hemingway is easy to read is that he repeats himself all the time, using ‘and’ for padding.

28. James Joyce’s Ulysses, according to Virginia Woolf (1922)
I dislike ‘Ulysses’ more and more — that is I think it more and more unimportant; and don’t even trouble conscientiously to make out its meanings. Thank God, I need not write about it.

29. Jane Austen, according to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1861)
I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world.

And because F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” has been made into yet another movie, you will be at no loss to Google critics of both the novel and this most recent movie. I read several articles critical of the novel. But I couldn’t find any written by anyone you’d know or anyone whose own book had been made into even one movie, much less five!

The take away?

Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Art isn’t like math and science where answers aren’t very debatable. Spend an afternoon in an art museum and you’ll see plenty of art that you’d be hard-pressed to call art. But there it is. Someone somewhere said it was art and someone else will be willing to pay thousands of dollars to own it.

The moral of the story is that you should do what makes you happy. Write what makes you happy. Read what makes you happy. Enjoy your life and let your critics bark at the moon. Unless your critic is me, and in that case, pay attention!

And the next time someone implies that you’re not good enough or not smart enough or not whatever enough … or they tell you that you can’t … tell them to go to hell. You may quote me!

– 30 —

———————————-

$40,000.
Forty Thousand Dollars.
Actually more than that.
More than $40,000 is the amount of money that USMC Fitness Boot Camp and its members have donated to various causes and charities. We have given to everything from St. Jude and the American Red Cross, to Wounded Warriors and Japan Tsunami Relief. The list includes over 30 different charities and causes!

Soon you will be supporting boot campers running as Heroes for St. Jude, one of our most beloved and endeared charities. And I hope that you will!

In addition to this, we will be making an aggressive effort to support and give to Multiple Sclerosis, specifically through the MS 150 Bike Tour, a 150 mile fund-raising bike ride. Our own Andrew Forsdick (a boot camper since 2004) has been riding in this event for several years because he believes in the work of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. But this year it has become personal. Just a few weeks ago, Andrew himself was diagnosed with MS.

So this year, I’m riding the MS 150 in honor of our friend! I’m inviting you to join in the ride and/or to make a donation! More about that later. But here’s a link that will give you more information! Andrew’s team name is “F MS.”

Thanks everyone!

http://biketns.nationalmssociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=BIKE_TNS_homepage&JServSessionIdr004=36p93wgkw2.app330b

———————————————-

“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

———————————————-

TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK
by Sergeant Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN,

“Do You Need to Take Supplements?

Dietary supplements have been around for a long time. They offer to help you recover more quickly from a hard workout, or provide fuel and fluid needed during long endurance events. While supplements can help some people meet their nutrition needs, eating a wide variety of nutrient-rich foods is the best way for most people to obtain the nutrients they need to be healthy.

Things you should know:
• Dietary supplements are not well standardized—what the package says and what the product actually contains can be very different.
• Dietary supplements are not well regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
• Supplements can go to market without any proof that they work or are safe.
• “Natural” does not equal safe. They still can contain banned substances.
• It is important to learn to be a critical consumer of advertisements for supplements and to read supplement labels. Ask a sports dietitian to help you determine whether a supplement will help your performance.

Supplements That May Work for You:
Energy Bars and Gels
• Energy bars and gels can provide additional calories for busy athletes with high energy demands.
• Choose an energy bar that provides more carbohydrate than protein or fat.
• Gels can give athletes extra carbohydrate for endurance events like cross country skiing, triathlons, marathons, and road cycling.
• Gels are concentrated carbohydrate sources and should be consumed with water to avoid stomach upset.

Sport Drinks
• Sport drinks that contain between 6% and 8% carbohydrate (14 and 19 grams of carbs in 8 ounces) can provide fluid, carbohydrates, and electrolytes lost in sweat.
• Use sport drinks for endurance events, for events in hot, humid conditions, and for stop-and-go sports that require quick bursts of activity.

Creatine
• Creatine is a substance found in meat and fish in small amounts. It is stored in muscle as creatine phosphate (also called “phosphocreatine”) and helps your body to regenerate the fuel known as adenosenine triphosphate (ATP).
• Creatine supplements can increase lean body mass, and they may help athletes in high-intensity, short-duration (less than 30 second) activities. It may also help you to recover from weight training sessions, which could help you train harder.
• Creatine monohydrate powder is a common creatine supplement. A typical dose is 3 to 5 grams per day. More than 3 to 5 grams a day does not give extra benefits.
• Creatine is not recommended for endurance athletes. It can cause weight gain, and that could hurt an endurance athlete’s performance. It is not recommended for athletes younger than 18 years old.

Caffeine
• Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system. It may make exercise seem less difficult.
• You probably need 2.3 to 2.7 milligrams of caffeine per pound of body weight (5-6 mg/kg) to get the effect you want. For a 150-pound athlete, that equals 340 to 400 milligrams of caffeine. You can get that much caffeine from coffee, caffeinated soft drinks, or caffeine-containing pills.
• Read the label before using caffeine pills. Pills are a concentrated form of caffeine and may contain banned stimulants (such as guarana, synephrine, or ephedra).
• The side effects of caffeine, especially if you are not a regular user, include increased heart rate, anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, and even stomach problems.

Unproven Supplements
The following supplements have not been proven to be effective for athletes:
• Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
• Chromium
• Pyruvate
• Ribose
• Vanadyl sulfate

Supplements With Potential Benefits
The following supplements may be effective for some athletes:
• Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) to help boost immune function in endurance athletes
• Glucosamine/chondroitin sulfate for relieving joint pain and increasing your range of motion
• Glutamine to reduce exercise-induced stress in endurance athletes
• Vitamin E to reduce soreness that can occur in endurance events

These supplements may prove to be beneficial, but need more research:
• Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) to improve body composition through weight or fat loss or increased muscle mass and strength
• S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) for arthritis
• Antioxidants (beta-carotene, vitamins E and C, selenium) for endurance athletes to reduce oxidative stress of exercise.”

Thank you, Ashley!

———————————————-

Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

———————————————-

FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

Currently we have over 2600 “Likes” on Facebook and over 6,300 check ins!!!!! That’s amazing!

Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2700 likes by the end of May!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

——————————————–

DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST MARCH, APRIL, or MAY 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

————————————–

MAKE A $&(#&@^#!*% FACE!!!!
INCREASE YOUR WEIGHTS!
YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

YOU DETERMINE WHETHER YOUR WORKOUT IS KICKASS OR NOT!

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

MAKING A FACE (THE GRIMACE) IS THE POOR MAN’S (OR WOMAN’S) FACELIFT!

——————————————-

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

————————————

SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

———————————————-

VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Alan Compton 4/2012
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

—————————————

ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

———————————–

NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

—————————————

USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

————————————-

BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

————————————-

FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

——————————————-

CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

—————————————————

Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.
—————————————–

What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145

It was the restraining grace of God, the hand of Providence, the work of the Almighty, and the threat of prison that kept me from wrapping my hands around his neck and squeezing until he quit talking. Yes, yes that’s it. It was the fear of going to prison that insured his safety and his liberty of speech.

The guy never shuts up. When he enters a conversation he immediately interrupts whoever is talking and takes over. He’s usually loud, but always obnoxious and annoying. He thinks himself to be a good conversationalist because he talks nonstop. But he doesn’t have conversations, he gives lectures, sermons, and campaign speeches. Incessantly. He never asks questions, nor does he take an interest in anyone else. He just drones on and on about himself. He’s the negligent neighbor’s barking dog. He’s the car alarm down the street blaring in the middle of the night.

You know this guy. Or this woman. Sometimes these people are females. It’s not just a guy thing.

His or her name is different in your life than in mine and they look different than the guy I’m talking about. But you know who I’m talking about. This guy talks “shift” constantly. He is often found in sales type jobs, but not exclusively so. He back-slaps and glad-hands everyone. He calls guys “chief,” or “buddy,” or “sport” or something impersonal and sleazy like that. He has no idea what your name is, though you’ve met many times.

I haven’t worked in a corporate setting, or within any kind of organizational institution, in over 10 years. I’d forgotten what that environment was like, but I’ve recently gotten a reminder.

In my last essay I shared the acronym “B.S. Neti” as a way to remember concepts from Dale Carnegie’s bestseller, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Here it is again if you missed it.

B.S. Neti

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile. Frowners are downers.
3. Remember that a person’s Name is all important to them.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel Important.

These are time-tested concepts that lead to good relationship building and are the bricks and mortar of good friendship skills. If you didn’t repost this on Facebook last week for all of your friends and acquaintances to read, then you should. A reminder for those who’re good at these things is never a bad idea, and for the garrulous blow-hards in your life, they might — they just might — see themselves in the following and make a change. What have you got to lose, except your mind and your sanity while listening to them.

After my recent reminder of what so many of you must deal with at work, in the office, in the company you work for, at church, or the professional associations you must maintain, I thought I would give you – for amusement and propagation — the 6 steps of “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.”

1. Being interested in others is a colossal waste of time. After all, you are the most interesting person in the room. No one else is as interesting as you and your life is way more important. Waaaay more.

2. Smiling is okay, so long as others are smiling at you. But smiling is usually for weak people. Frown more. Frowning keeps others off balance and on their guard. Others will think you’re in a bad mood and will either avoid you or try to find ways to make you feel better. Either way, it’s all about you anyway.

3. It isn’t necessary to learn the other person’s name while you’re lecturing, moralizing, and pontificating. You know your own name and that’s the only name you, and everyone else, needs to know. Those other people are just happy to know YOUR name!

4. Encourage others to listen to every word you say by completely monopolizing every conversation. Remember, others only want to hear you talk.

5. Talk in terms of what your interests and experiences are. Feel completely free to talk ad infinitum ad nauseum about you, your experiences, your life, your kids, your vacations, your likes and dislikes, your favorite restaurants, movies, music and all the minutiae about YOU, YOU, WONDERFUL YOU!

6. You are the center of the universe! Make sure that others know how important you are. Do this by making sure they know things about you that will put them in their place. Make sure they know that you’re more important than they are. If you need to talk about your money, your car, your house(s), your trips, your achievements, etc., in order to make them feel inferior to you, then feel free to do that! And feel free to talk loudly too. Show your benevolence and generosity by giving others a chance to hear you talk and marvel at your deeds.

This might help, if your self-absorbed acquaintances read this with an open mind.

But then again, those who are described above seldom see themselves, even if you hold a mirror in front of them. They’re a little like King David, in the Old Testament. The prophet Nathan told King David a story about a rich man and a poor man and how the rich man, who owned many flocks and herds, took the poor man’s one and only lamb, slaughtered it, cooked it, and fed it to his house guest. King David was enraged when he heard the story, but failed to recognize that the rich man in the story was the King himself, and that Bathsheba and her husband Uriah were the poor man and his one and only little ewe lamb. So, it may be that those guilty of those 6 infractions might not ever see themselves in the description. But they might.

When I’m in a large group of people, like at a big party for example, I like to eavesdrop on small groups to see who the blowhards are, and who I should try to avoid. The blowhards all have similar traits, they all sound the same, and they seldom ask any questions. But if they do, they only ask questions designed to help them pigeonhole the others. And if you do manage to get a chance to get in a word edgewise, they don’t listen. They’re only thinking about what they’re going to say next. And something is always making them “nibble at the edge of stale ideas.”

You’ve got two ears and one mouth. It’s simple math. If you’re talking, you’re not learning.

– 30 –

———————————————-

“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

———————————————-

TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK
by Sergeant Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN,

“Do You Need to Take Supplements?

Dietary supplements have been around for a long time. They offer to help you recover more quickly from a hard workout, or provide fuel and fluid needed during long endurance events. While supplements can help some people meet their nutrition needs, eating a wide variety of nutrient-rich foods is the best way for most people to obtain the nutrients they need to be healthy.

Things you should know:
• Dietary supplements are not well standardized—what the package says and what the product actually contains can be very different.
• Dietary supplements are not well regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
• Supplements can go to market without any proof that they work or are safe.
• “Natural” does not equal safe. They still can contain banned substances.
• It is important to learn to be a critical consumer of advertisements for supplements and to read supplement labels. Ask a sports dietitian to help you determine whether a supplement will help your performance.

Supplements That May Work for You:
Energy Bars and Gels
• Energy bars and gels can provide additional calories for busy athletes with high energy demands.
• Choose an energy bar that provides more carbohydrate than protein or fat.
• Gels can give athletes extra carbohydrate for endurance events like cross country skiing, triathlons, marathons, and road cycling.
• Gels are concentrated carbohydrate sources and should be consumed with water to avoid stomach upset.

Sport Drinks
• Sport drinks that contain between 6% and 8% carbohydrate (14 and 19 grams of carbs in 8 ounces) can provide fluid, carbohydrates, and electrolytes lost in sweat.
• Use sport drinks for endurance events, for events in hot, humid conditions, and for stop-and-go sports that require quick bursts of activity.

Creatine
• Creatine is a substance found in meat and fish in small amounts. It is stored in muscle as creatine phosphate (also called “phosphocreatine”) and helps your body to regenerate the fuel known as adenosenine triphosphate (ATP).
• Creatine supplements can increase lean body mass, and they may help athletes in high-intensity, short-duration (less than 30 second) activities. It may also help you to recover from weight training sessions, which could help you train harder.
• Creatine monohydrate powder is a common creatine supplement. A typical dose is 3 to 5 grams per day. More than 3 to 5 grams a day does not give extra benefits.
• Creatine is not recommended for endurance athletes. It can cause weight gain, and that could hurt an endurance athlete’s performance. It is not recommended for athletes younger than 18 years old.

Caffeine
• Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system. It may make exercise seem less difficult.
• You probably need 2.3 to 2.7 milligrams of caffeine per pound of body weight (5-6 mg/kg) to get the effect you want. For a 150-pound athlete, that equals 340 to 400 milligrams of caffeine. You can get that much caffeine from coffee, caffeinated soft drinks, or caffeine-containing pills.
• Read the label before using caffeine pills. Pills are a concentrated form of caffeine and may contain banned stimulants (such as guarana, synephrine, or ephedra).
• The side effects of caffeine, especially if you are not a regular user, include increased heart rate, anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, and even stomach problems.

Unproven Supplements
The following supplements have not been proven to be effective for athletes:
• Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
• Chromium
• Pyruvate
• Ribose
• Vanadyl sulfate

Supplements With Potential Benefits
The following supplements may be effective for some athletes:
• Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) to help boost immune function in endurance athletes
• Glucosamine/chondroitin sulfate for relieving joint pain and increasing your range of motion
• Glutamine to reduce exercise-induced stress in endurance athletes
• Vitamin E to reduce soreness that can occur in endurance events

These supplements may prove to be beneficial, but need more research:
• Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) to improve body composition through weight or fat loss or increased muscle mass and strength
• S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) for arthritis
• Antioxidants (beta-carotene, vitamins E and C, selenium) for endurance athletes to reduce oxidative stress of exercise.”

Thank you, Ashley!

———————————————-

Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

———————————————-

FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

Currently we have over 2600 “Likes” on Facebook and over 6,300 check ins!!!!! That’s amazing!

Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2700 likes by the end of May!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

——————————————–

DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST MARCH, APRIL, or MAY 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

————————————–

MAKE A $&(#&@^#!*% FACE!!!!
INCREASE YOUR WEIGHTS!
YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

YOU DETERMINE WHETHER YOUR WORKOUT IS KICKASS OR NOT!

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

MAKING A FACE (THE GRIMACE) IS THE POOR MAN’S (OR WOMAN’S) FACELIFT!

——————————————-

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

————————————

SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

———————————————-

VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Alan Compton 4/2012
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

—————————————

ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

———————————–

NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

—————————————

USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

————————————-

BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

————————————-

FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

——————————————-

CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

—————————————————

Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.
—————————————–

What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145

You see, I been through the desert on a horse with no name …

“Tony, how do you remember everyone’s name?”

I get this question quite a bit. The truth is, I don’t really know. I just try to remember. Most of the time it works.

Years ago, Dale Carnegie said, “a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

When my children were growing up I taught them some guidelines for developing social skills and relationships with others. We were living in Japan at the time and were planning a trip back to the US. I wanted them to be able to make friends here and to feel comfortable in their home country, though America was mostly foreign to them.

So I consulted Dale Carnegie again and made an acronym of some of his precepts to teach to my kids before we got on the plane to bring us back to Tennessee.

We all need to be reminded of the things that make for good people skills. Human Resource managers say that the number one reason for employee termination is “failure to get along with others.” Most of us live in a professional environment, an environment that involves other people. And those other people have names and lives that are important to them. Knowing those things and caring about those things set people apart.

The acronym that I came up with was a made-up “name” of a man I called “B.S. Neti” It’s kind of silly, but it helped my kids (Matthew, my oldest, just repeated this to me the other day!) and it may help you too. I know that some of you are shocked that “Sergeant Tony” has any knowledge of “good people skills,” given my mean, rotten and nasty reputation and disposition. But I think I can at least TELL you how to do it, even if I don’t actually DO it myself!!

B.S. Neti

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile. Frowners are downers.
3. Remember that a person’s Name is all important to them.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel Important.

If you want to know what the opposite of this is, get on YouTube and watch the Saturday Night Live skits about the “one upper chick,” played by Kristen Wiig.

The former SNL cast member played a character named Penelope Morris. She chimes into other people’s conversations, or interrupts their conversations, only to brag about something that obliquely has to do with the topic, all the while constantly fidgeting with her hair. If one of the other characters in the skit were to say “I went to the store,” Penelope would reply with “Oh, yeah. I went to the store, to the hardware store, I went to all the stores, I own all the stores.”

No matter who you are, or what you do for a living, remembering the names of the people in your life, the major players and the minor roles, will pay huge dividends in your personal relationships.

How do I remember people’s names? I just make it a priority. You can do it too! Good luck, who ever you are!

– 30 –

———————————————-

“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

———————————————-

TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK
by Sergeant Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN,

“Bob Harper, of the Biggest Loser fame, has a new book out, The Skinny Rules. Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly truth about the book.

THE GOOD: The book does provide some sound advice such as, pay attention to food labels, watch your portion sizes, and drink plenty of water. But all diet books tell you that! Nothing new there.

THE BAD: You can only eat complex carbs at the first meal of the day, no eating after a certain time of the day, and the calorie level is VERY VERY low … 800 a day for women, and 1200 calories a day for men.

THE UGLY: This diet is a combination of a “starvation diet” and a low carb diet. The combination of the two allows you to lose a lot of water weight in just a few short weeks. Because every gram of carbohydrate you store in your body carries with it about 3 grams of water. And once you get rid of the carbs, the water weight goes away as well.

With so few calories, you are bound to have a lot of difficulty sticking to such a low calorie level and you are bound to be grumpy and moody, and no one around you wants that!! And once you begin eating carbohydrates again, the water weight comes back on. This diet gets a low rating in my book. Also, Bob does not have a degree in Nutrition, nor is he a Registered Dietitian!

The bottom line: Eat less and exercise more! And if you need help losing weight, ask a Registered Dietitian for help!”

Thank you, Ashley!

———————————————-

Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

———————————————-

FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

Currently we have over 2500 “Likes” on Facebook and over 6,300 check ins!!!!! That’s amazing!

Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2600 likes by the end of April!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

—————————————–

BUFFALO RUNNERS, YOUR HALF MARATHON IS UPON YOU! CONGRATULATIONS!

The following trained with me this spring, our 19th half marathon training session of the Buffalo Runners of USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP! Most will be running their half marathon this weekend!

How cool is that?!!!

Good luck, everyone!

Dawn Stambaugh, first half marathon!
Felicia Peay, first half marathon!
Tom Morris, first half marathon!
Rachel Phillips, first half marathon!
Ashley Old, first half marathon!
Tara Ingram, first half marathon!
Orli Weisser-Pike, first half marathon!
Lindsey Stanfill, first half marathon!
Andrea Dixon, first half marathon!
Jolie Jeter
Tara Barnes
Ashley Hofeditz
Jeff Old
Megan Warr
Pat McGhee
Chris McGhee
Malayna Rose
Michelle Moss
Emily Melonas
Kay Ryan
Mary Bauer
Lee Chase
Alan Compton
Paul Tronsor
Ashley Summers
Ben Summers
Jenny Levi

Please let me know if I’ve failed to list someone.

——————————————–

NO MT. FUJI WORKOUT NEXT TUESDAY, APRIL 30! AND NO M-16 WORKOUT ON TUESDAY, MAY 7. Regular workouts at CUMC on those days.

——————————————-

DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST MARCH, APRIL, or MAY 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

————————————–

MAKE A $&(#&@^#!*% FACE!!!!
INCREASE YOUR WEIGHTS!
YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

YOU DETERMINE WHETHER YOUR WORKOUT IS KICKASS OR NOT!

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

MAKING A FACE (THE GRIMACE) IS THE POOR MAN’S (OR WOMAN’S) FACELIFT!

——————————————-

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

————————————

SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

———————————————-

VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Alan Compton 4/2012
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

—————————————

ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

———————————–

NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

—————————————

USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

————————————-

BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

————————————-

FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

——————————————-

CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

—————————————————

Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.

—————————————–

What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145

Now hear this, now hear this! BOTH classes this morning are inside due to the WIND advisory! GET SOME!

This should be shocking.

But, I don’t think or believe the same things today that I did when I was 10 years old. Or 20 years old. Or 30. Or even 40.

Why should I?

Why should any of us?

We learn new things, our life experiences increase, our understanding and knowledge expands and changes, and we change along the way. Or should. And with that new understanding and knowledge, comes a change in our understanding of the world around us, our belief systems adapt, our experiences alter our prejudices, and a deepening sense of what it means to be human, to be mortal, moves us to new places in our thinking.

Monday’s bombing in Boston comes only five months after the massacre of the children at Newtown, CT.

I’ve run hundreds and hundreds of races and I’ve always felt safe while on the race course. When I was a little boy going to elementary school, I always felt safe in my classroom. But none of those assumptions are true anymore.

What we are capable of doing to ensure the safety of others, we must do. We must! It’s common sense. Enhanced security measures, increased background checks, curtailing the ability of someone to commit rapid-fire mass murder, are only parts of the growing need to provide for the public safety.

I don’t live in fear or hate. I’m no doomsday prepper. I don’t believe that “I need to take my country back.” I’ve never thought that. No matter who sat in the Oval Office, no matter how incompetent I thought them to be. I’m not living in panic that my government is going to goose-step down my street and confiscate my guns, or yours. I’m not stockpiling food or ammunition in preparation for the coming apocalypse, some eschatological rapture, or the certain collapse of my country due to our Kenyan, socialist, Fascist, Muslim, gay-loving, gun-hating, ain’t-got-no-basketball-skills, Communist, black President — who was also responsible for the terrorist attack on Monday. (Did no one pass 8th grade Civics? Did no one pass US Government in college?)

I will admit to being prejudiced, but not racist. I have little use for hate, stupidity, exclusion, and superstition, no matter what the color or creed of the person who espouses those failed and false ideologies. I’ll echo what Dr. King said and agree that I judge others by the content of their character, and not the color of their skin. (Truth be told, I probably judge people more on if they’re a runner or not, or if they use proper grammar!)

I don’t mind long security checks at the airport if it ensures that my plane won’t be blown to bits or deliberately crashed into a building. I don’t mind metal detectors and bag checks at Disney World, or the NBA game, or the Pink Floyd concert. I don’t mind not being able to purchase every imaginable firearm and high capacity magazine known to man.

I’m not an alarmist. I’m not paranoid. I’m not uneducated. I’m not blind. I’m not ignorant. I’m a veteran with a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and work toward a PhD. I’ve taught philosophy, theology, history, and physical education. I lived for 10 years in a foreign country as a civilian, subject to, and living under the control of, the Japanese government. I’m not the same man that I was when I graduated from high school and left my hometown in Sebastian County Arkansas. There are things I should understand better today than I did when I graduated from high school. If I don’t, then I’ve wasted a colossal amount of time and money. A colossal amount.

I’m not a “gun enthusiast,” no more so than I’m a “hammer enthusiast,” or “shovel enthusiast,” or “Phillips screwdriver enthusiast.” My gun is just a tool. It’s a glorified slingshot. It sends a projectile downrange. Period. I grew up with guns … and slingshots, for that matter. I got my first pocketknife when I was 6, a BB gun when I was 8, a 22 when I was 10, and a shotgun when I was 12. In fact, I used that shotgun to scare away a home intruder when I was 13. (His face was mere inches from the end of my shotgun barrel when his enthusiasm to rob us suddenly vanished. The shotgun was sufficient. I didn’t need an AR-15 and a 30 round clip.) At 17, I owned three handguns, three rifles, a shotgun, and more knives than I can remember. By the time I joined the Marines, I’d killed my share of game. When I was 18, the Marine Corps trained me to be an Expert with an M-16 and a Sharpshooter with a 45. When I was 20, the Corps sent me to sniper school. I’m a pretty good shot. (That’s my attempt at humility. I’m a damn good shot.) I’m also damn good with a floor buffer.

And if I had to, I could fashion a decent bomb out of household cleaning products kept under your sink with hardware I could pick up at Wal-Mart. And I wouldn’t have to consult the Internet to know how to do it.

But I would gladly comply with any law that limits my ability to buy those items. And I don’t need a 30 round magazine for my AR-15. I actually only need one round. Two, if it’s a windy day. (I actually don’t “need” an AR-15. And neither do you.) And if I were shooting on the range, I wouldn’t mind having to reload more often if I couldn’t purchase a high capacity banana clip.

But I understand that there are plenty of gun enthusiasts out there who would happily buy a tank if they could and who just can’t seem to acquire enough ammunition or firearms. God bless ‘em. Oddly, the majority of the gun enthusiasts I know never spent a single day in uniform. This has always amused me. You’d think someone who loved guns and shooting that much would just naturally join the Marines or even the Army. In fact, one of the euphemistic definitions of USMC is Uncle Sam’s Machine-gun Club. I mean, if I really liked using my hammer, I’d go to work as a carpenter. Equally interesting, most Marines don’t shoot on the weekends or even own that many guns.

On a side note, the mass appeal of mud related running events also amuses me. I’ve told some of my “mud enthusiast” friends that they could enlist and the Marine Corps would give them lots and lots of opportunities to crawl through mud under barbed-wire, and run up muddy hills, and climb over barricades, and slide across cables suspended 50 feet above a swamp that may or may not have alligators in it, all while sleep deprived. It’ll be fun, I said. But so far, not one of them has enlisted!

My gun enthusiast friends and my mud enthusiast friends could BOTH get what they want in the Corps!

I jest. Slightly. Some of this is hyperbole. Some of this is tongue in cheek.

But my feelings about public safety are gravely serious. And my feelings about what happened in Boston on Monday and in Newtown in December are in absolute earnest. I am deeply moved by these events.

We live in a dangerous world. But the good far outweighs the bad. As Patton Oswald said, “We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.”

That said, we must do whatever is in our power to ensure the safety of all from the evil of the few, those twisted and depraved members of our society. That means both ensuring our Second Amendment rights, AND limiting the availability of certain armaments. It also means freedom of movement AND the restriction and limitation of that movement when it is in the interest of the greater good, the safety of our neighbors, the welfare of our fellow citizens.

This isn’t about gun control or incendiary substance restriction. This is about the resilience of the American Spirit and our great commonness.

More binds us, one to another, than separates us. That should be, that must be, celebrated and shouted from the mountain-tops! THAT must be echoed from one shore to the other. That is the signal fire that must cross the land like the signal fires of Minas Tirith. That message should dominate the airwaves and the pulpits. Not the messages of division and hate. We are more alike than we are different. We are all Bostonians. We are all the parents of Newtown. We must close ranks. We must stand together. And we must quit listening to the millionaire rabble rousers who profit from fear mongering and sowing dissension among us like old gossips unable to bear peace among neighbors, like extremist imams whipping up the ignorant with fiery and inflammatory jihadist rhetoric.

We must remember what Abraham Lincoln said, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory will swell when again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature.”

The tragedy in Boston has touched the better angels of our nature.

And how will this affect the Boston Marathon? How will this assault affect all marathons?

The Boston Marathon is iconic. But it will become even more so. It will become more relevant and more important. It is becoming, and will continue to become, a rallying point of running inspiration, even more relevant now than it has been in its 117 year history! You will see the interest and participation in this race grow and grow! Runners who’ve never thought about running the Boston Marathon will put it on their list!

If the evil behind this heinous act of cowardice and cruelty had the intention of causing us to cower in fear, to lose heart, to bow down in distress, they will find that they have done just the opposite. They have awakened our resolve as Americans — and as runners — to rise up and stand united, defiant, and strong.

As one person said, “If you were trying to defeat the human spirit, marathoners were the wrong group to target.”

Amen.

Run free, my friends! Free and brave.

– 30 –

One last thing, Bill Iffrig, the 78 year old gentleman running the Boston Maraton — seen falling down in the explosion video — got up, and finished the Boston Marathon in 4hrs 3min. In other words, 9’18″ per mile pace for 26.2 miles!

Mr. Iffrig, you, sir, are a badass!

———————————————-

“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

———————————————-

TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK
by Sergeant Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN,

“Are you thinking about losing weight?

Which diet should you try this time?

The diet industry would like for you to think that the reason that you are overweight is because you are not eating right for your blood type, the foods you eat are too high in gluten, or because you are not eating like our Paleolithic ancestors, or because you eat after six o’clock in the evening.

Wrong!! For the majority of us, the reason we are overweight is plain and simple. We eat too much!!

If you eat MORE calories than your body needs, you WILL gain weight!

Luckily, the opposite is also true. If you eat LESS calories than your body needs, you will LOSE weight!

That’s it!

It is all about the calories!!

So you don’t need to eat right for your blood type, or eat special packaged foods, get “cleansed”, or drink special shakes.

You just need to eat less. Period!

For good health, your diet should be full of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean meat and dairy. But for weight loss, as long as you eat less calories than you need (even if some of the calories are from Twinkies, Taco Bell, and ice cream) you WILL lose weight!!

It really is that simple!!”

Thank you, Ashley!

———————————————-

Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

———————————————-

FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

Currently we have over 2500 “Likes” on Facebook and over 6,300 check ins!!!!! That’s amazing!

Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2600 likes by the end of April!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

—————————————–

BUFFALO RUNNERS, YOUR TRAINING IS COMPLETE! CONGRATULATIONS!

The following trained with me this spring, our 19th half marathon training session of the Buffalo Runners of USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP!

Well done, everyone!

Dawn Stambaugh, first half marathon!
Felicia Peay, first half marathon!
Tom Morris, first half marathon!
Rachel Phillips, first half marathon!
Ashley Old, first half marathon!
Tara Ingram, first half marathon!
Orli Weisser-Pike, first half marathon!
Lindsey Stanfill, first half marathon!
Andrea Dixon, first half marathon!
Jolie Jeter
Tara Barnes
Ashley Hofeditz
Jeff Old
Megan Warr
Pat McGhee
Chris McGhee
Malayna Rose
Michelle Moss
Emily Melonas
Kay Ryan
Mary Bauer
Lee Chase
Alan Compton
Paul Tronsor
Ashley Summers
Ben Summers
Jenny Levi

Please let me know if I’ve failed to list someone.

——————————————–

MT. FUJI WORKOUT NEXT TUESDAY, APRIL 16!

——————————————-

DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST FEBRUARY, MARCH, OR APRIL 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

————————————–

YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

——————————————-

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

————————————

SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

———————————————-

VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Alan Compton 4/2012
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

—————————————

ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

———————————–

NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

—————————————

USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

————————————-

BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

————————————-

FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

——————————————-

CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

—————————————————

Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.
—————————————–

What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145

Recently, a friend posted on Facebook a collage of pictures of the Harry Potter characters. Next to each character was a description of traits and values associated with that character. Harry demonstrated that “you never lose sight of the future that you want, that anything can happen.” And Ron showed us that “a true friend stays with you to the end.” And on it went with each of the major characters.

I was wondering what movie a grown man could reference as instructive. Marines can’t really use a movie about a boy wizard and still have some Quarterdeck cred, you know? Though it could give me some Quidditch cred. (That’s a good nerd joke for you muggles.)

Anyway, I’ve decided on the 1986 classic, “Top Gun.”

What do we learn from the characters of Top Gun?

Well, first of all, we learn that you shouldn’t join the Navy. Join the Marine Corps. That should have been clear from the beginning when “Cougar” wussed out. Besides, Marines look great in uniform. No one, not even Tom Cruise, can make those polyester khaki on polyester khaki uniforms look like anything but a delusional dead North Korean dictator’s outfit.

Cougar taught us that if you ever become a fighter pilot, you probably shouldn’t have a picture of your wife and kid on your instrument panel if you go into combat. In other words, don’t lose your focus in a crisis situation. Focus on the task at hand.

What does the bar scene and the singing of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” teach? First of all, don’t wear aviator glasses – or sunglasses of any kind – in a bar, or at night. (Sorry bout it, Corey Hart.) As far as “target-rich environments” are concerned, bars aren’t. However, if your targets are “shallow, stupid, vapid, head-case, party-girls” then you’ve got bogies galore in most bars. But there aren’t too many quality hot women with PhDs in Astrophysics hanging out at the Flying Saucer, Silky O’ Sullivan’s, or any other honky tonk, juke joint, or similar dive. Momma said you’re not likely to find a diamond in a dumpster.

Also, a ladies room is never an appropriate place for romance, Maverick.

What does “Maverick” teach us? If your ego writes checks your body can’t cash, you’ll probably get sent to a super cool fighter pilot school and meet a super hot (in 1986) Kelly McGillis and have odd sex with her. OK, that’s mostly crap. That doesn’t happen. But, if you take a chance and do something really outstanding, something that gets you out of your comfortable little box, something that scares you a bit, and react with courage and confidence, you might just get rewarded for it. At the least you’ll have some cool stories.

“Goose” teaches us that loyalty, despite all other things, is paramount and praiseworthy. Loyalty can’t be understated. You never leave your wingman. And if your wingman is even slightly worthy, you never ever leave him. Ever. Loyalty is a virtue second to none. Goose and Ron are the same sort of character. The Marine Corps has 14 Leadership Traits that all Marines are required to memorize, understand, and practice. Loyalty is on that list of 14. And I’d put it first on the list. And loyalty lost is hardly ever recovered. “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle,” so says Proverbs 18:19.

“Iceman” teaches us that you can follow the rules and still be outstanding. He also teaches us that if you’re trying to be sincere and deliver a condolence speech after a fellow flyer dies in a flat spin crash at sea, you shouldn’t breathe in and out heavily through your nostrils as if you have allergies or some sort of respiratory problem. In other words, be appropriately sympathetic and sincere.

“Viper” teaches us that mentors must push their protégées without breaking them. Mentors must strike a balance between encouraging their charges and challenging them to do greater things. Viper is the best example of leadership and professionalism in a movie with plenty of strong personalities and super-charged testosterone fueled ego maniacs. He demonstrates the difference between cocky and confident.

“Jester” teaches us that you shouldn’t get pissy if someone beats you. The hard-deck my ass! Be a gracious loser, man. And also, quit smoking.

“Air Boss Johnson,” who can’t help but spill coffee on himself when “Maverick” buzzes the tower, teaches us that if someone does something spectacular, the pattern should not be full. Let him do a fly-by! In other words, celebrate victories, large and small, and don’t be such a putz! And don’t insist on “wanting butts” either! That just sounds so weak. Sometimes you just gotta cuss. And a real man ought to know how to do it properly, Air Boss Johnson.

“Charlie” (Kelly McGillis) teaches us that if you’re a hot woman with a great brain — who used to be Amish — you shouldn’t be led astray by some cocky guy on a motorcycle wearing a leather jacket. In other words, flashy guys with a suspicious story about MIG sightings might be for real or they might be full of crap. Look for character and integrity over flash and arrogance.

But maybe the best demonstration of endurance and determination in the movie is seen in “Volleyball Spectator.”

“And who is Volleyball Spectator?” you ask. She’s played by actress Wendy Wells-Gunkel. She’s not one of the people sitting in the bleachers watching the volleyball match between Maverick/Goose and Iceman/Slider. All of those spectators are guys, by the way. (Did I mention that this was a “Navy” movie?) Wendy has a very very brief walk-by during the volleyball match, not even stopping to watch. If you blink, you’ll miss her.

So why do I even mention her?

Since 1979, Wendy has been a working actress, slaving away year in and year out, in over 60 roles in movies and television shows pursuing her dream. Her roles, mostly uncredited, have names like “bar patron,” “party girl,” “cheering student,” “saloon girl #1,” “diner guest,” and most recently she played “art gallery attendee” in a 2011 movie. Wendy may never become a star. She may never have any lines to memorize. But she’s been out there for over 30 years, off and on, pursuing her dream despite the fact that she’s yet to “break out.” She also managed to serve two different tours in the Navy and was actually on active duty when she was in “Top Gun.” She, more than any of the other actors, actually WAS in the Navy! And since 2011, Wendy has been the official Sandra Bullock stand-in.

We should all have Wendy’s kind of persistence and determination!

“We grow great by our dreams.”
~ Woodrow Wilson

– 30 –

———————————————-

“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

———————————————-

TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK
by Sergeant Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN,

“Healthy Muscle, Healthy You!

Muscle mass is vital for life. Unfortunately, the amount of muscle mass you have declines with age.

Your peak muscle mass is around age 30.

By age 40, you lose about 8% of your muscle every ten years and around 70 years of age, this loss accelerates to approximately a 15% loss of muscle every ten years!

The reason we all lose muscle as we age is due to decreases in protein synthesis (the process in which cells build proteins.) The more muscle mass you lose, the worse it is.

Losing muscle leads to an increased risk of falls and fractures, a weakened immune system, decreased quality of life, and a loss of independence. To slow the loss of age related muscle loss, you should eat some source of protein at each meal. Eggs, lean meat, and yogurt are a few examples.

The other thing you need to do is weight bearing exercises, such as those done at USMC Fitness Boot Camp. Strength training exercises and nutrition play a key roll in building and maintaining muscle. Strong healthy muscles equals a healthier you!”

Thank you, Ashley!

———————————————-

Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

———————————————-

FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

Currently we have over 2500 “Likes” on Facebook and over 6,300 check ins!!!!! That’s amazing!

Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2600 likes by the end of April!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

—————————————–

BUFFALO RUNNERS WE’RE PROBABLY RUNNING ON SUNDAY!

HALF MARATHON TRAINING CONCLUDES THIS SUNDAY AT 7AM!

We’ll meet at 7:00am on Sunday, April 14, in front of the Visitor’s Center at Shelby Farms. We’ll be going 2hrs 30min.

This is our last long run before the half marathon!! How awesome is THAT?!!!

——————————————–

MT. FUJI WORKOUT NEXT TUESDAY, APRIL 16!

——————————————-

DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST FEBRUARY, MARCH, OR APRIL 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

————————————–

YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

——————————————-

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

————————————

SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

———————————————-

VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Alan Compton 4/2012
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

—————————————

ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

———————————–

NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

—————————————

USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

————————————-

BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

————————————-

FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

——————————————-

CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

—————————————————

Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.
—————————————–

What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145

Sometimes popular opinion isn’t very bright. Mob mentality. The herd of lemmings falling off the cliff. How else can you explain that Beiber girl’s popularity?

Facebook and other social media don’t help. Those things can create, or increase, the acceptance of things that aren’t accurate or are simply untrue. Social media is a double-edged sword. It was responsible for Arab Spring, but it’s also responsible for our insatiable need to see pictures of what our friends are eating. It can inform our sensibilities, but it’s also responsible for our need to see more and more pictures of cats.

Social media helps promote things that are true and redemptive, as well as stuff that just isn’t. Things that, when considered alone and without the sound of the masses cheering for it, “liking” it, or sharing it, would be dismissed as untrue, silly, or unfounded.

Our culture is full of such platitudes and clever sounding catch phrases that hold truth like water held in a colander. The stuff of bumper-stickers and inspirational Facebook memes.

When a phrase or idea or platitude gets repeated often in conversation or shared often on social media, those things start to take on the semblance of undeniable truth, without question, because it makes someone feel good, or it sounds good, or it offers false comfort. So much of the time it only addresses a self-centered middle class American sense of “need.”

These catch phrases and clichés are all around us and they get repeated so often, and imagined to be true by so many, that to challenge the truthfulness of something that a majority of people have accepted as truthful, or factual, puts the challenger at odds with the many who believe it to be true.

One such phrase, taken from a popular writer of books on spirituality, is this: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

Balderdash!

I’m certain that the author means well, most do, and that she endeavors to be helpful and that she believes what she writes. But every first year philosophy student knows that our deepest fears are none of those things. A freshman psychology student knows: 1) we’re afraid of the dark, 2) we’re afraid of one another, 3) we’re afraid of pain, 4) we’re afraid of the unknown, and 5) we’re afraid to die.

We don’t fear some sort of inner “power” that is beyond measure. Far from it.

We actually DO fear being inadequate. We’re insecure. We fear the intentions of others. We don’t know what to do with our lives. We hardly know what to do with our hands in embarrassing social situations. We fear loss. We fear being hurt when we make ourselves vulnerable to others. We fear having our picture taken at the DMV. The list goes on, but it never contains any sort of inner power beyond measure that frightens us and threatens to overwhelm us.

Remarkably, many religions and philosophies are, at their root, attempts to address those major fears.

We may discover an inner power in the process of our lives, but it seldom frightens us. We fear our lack of physical strength. We fear the weakness of our moral resolve. We fear our fickle fidelity. We fear our competency as parents. We fear a weak integrity. We fear being alone. We fear that we don’t know enough. We fear that we may disappoint the ones we love. We fear a loss of control. Our fears are countless. Our powers, limited.

Therapists and counselors don’t report that their clients are regularly tormented by their own powerful adequacy. Quite the opposite.

Even still, catchy catch phrases, spiritual mumbo-jumbo, and pop culture clichés, fished out of bestselling books, or proof texted out of scripture, or lifted from Facebook walls — repeated and shared over and over — go unchecked and gain mass acceptance.

What are we to do, besides not checking our brains at the door?

We are to live intentionally and with purpose and with a commitment to improving ourselves, without playing the victim nor the egocentric narcissist with powers that are without measure.

We are to live confidently and without the fear of our fears.

We fix our course on points ahead and make way for those points with confidence and assurance. We make conscious decisions the night before that the next day will be lived positively and in pursuit of the best of ourselves.

A long time ago, during my first few months in Japan, I started doing something that helped put things in perspective for me. Before going to bed every night, I’d write down on an index card all of the things I needed to do for the next day. A simple “to do” list. But I’d also include some kind of “pep talk” or phrase or reminder about myself that would help remind me of my own worth.

At the time, I was illiterate, unable to speak, and unable to understand what was said to me. What seemed novel at first (being in a foreign country and being unable to speak, read, or write the language) soon became a daily source of irritation, frustration, aggravation, and anger. When you spend your days in ignorance, you soon forget that you aren’t really ignorant. Japanese people treated me like I was an uneducated moron. And for all they knew, I was. I spoke in halting caveman Japanese and only understood the simplest phrases and words. So the things I wrote on the index card were intended to remind me that I wasn’t some uneducated moron. I had to remind myself that I had worth.

We make ourselves an asset by improving ourselves through study and discipline. We make good use of our own personal history, our own narrative, to remind us of the accomplishments of our lives. The inspiration from a single act can be the impetus to the next one. Those things become the power and the inspiration to move forward in the direction of our dreams. Those things remind us of our own value.

Furthermore, we can’t invite people into our inner circle who want us to forget those things, who want us to shrink or to become less of who we are.

People who put you down, people who marginalize you, people who disrespect you, and people who wrong you or insult you must be shown the door. Users and abusers have no place in our lives.

Our goal is to do better. We compete against the person we were yesterday. We dismiss those things, and those people, from our lives who obstruct us from self-improvement, who slow us or impede us toward the better parts of our nature, who use negativity or fear or guilt or anything else to handicap our progress and hold us back. We must constantly identify the people and situations in our lives to determine if they serve our greater good. We have to ask, “does this person inspire me to be a better version of me, or do they drain me of my psychic energy and pull me down?”

Our greatest fear isn’t that we’re powerful beyond measure, our greatest fear is that we’ll forget our own worth.

– 30 –

———————————————-

“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

———————————————-

TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK

Sergeant Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN, has been talking about the ten common food and nutrition mistakes and myths. Today we conclude with numbers 9 & 10.

“# 9 Eating certain types of foods will help boost your metabolism. The whole idea of metabolism boosting foods is generally a myth perpetuated by hype and the marketing of different diet products and services. Your metabolic rate is determined by your gender, height, weight, body composition, and age. While there are a few foods that may very temporarily increase your calorie burn such as hot peppers and cold water, these effects are so very small that they should be secondary weight loss strategies, not primary.

#10 Some foods are “free foods” and can be eaten with out risk of gaining weight. No foods are calorie free and calories do add up! Some foods have little calories (such as most vegetables), therefore, you can eat a lot of broccoli before the calories start adding up. But if you eat more calories than you body needs, no matter if it is from broccoli, or carrots, or celery … you WILL gain weight!”

Thank you, Ashley!

———————————————-

Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

———————————————-

ATTENTION EVENING CREW MEMBERS

The evening class has returned to the 5:45pm start time for Monday – Thursday, and 5:30pm on Friday.

————————————————

FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

Currently we have over 2400 “Likes” on Facebook and over 6,000 check ins!!!!! That’s amazing! Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2500 likes by the end of April!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

—————————————–

BUFFALO RUNNERS WE’RE PROBABLY RUNNING ON SUNDAY!

HALF MARATHON TRAINING CONTINUES THIS SUNDAY AT 7AM!

We’ll meet at 7:00am on Sunday, April 7, in front of the Visitor’s Center at Shelby Farms. We’ll be going 1hrs 30min.

——————————————–

M-16 WORKOUT NEXT TUESDAY, APRIL 9!

——————————————-

DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST FEBRUARY, MARCH, OR APRIL 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

————————————–

COLD WEATHER POLICY

Anytime the “Feels like” temperature on The Weather Channel – I’ll be using the TWC app for iPhone — drops to 30 or below, we’ll go inside. The 0530 and 0645 classes use the “blue gym” on those days. During basketball season, the evening class will use the exercise room off the main gym.

If the Memphis City Schools close for ice or snow, we will also stand down. If they start, but then dismiss classes early, the evening class will stand down.

————————————

YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

——————————————-

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

————————————

SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

———————————————-

VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

—————————————

ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

———————————–

NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

—————————————

USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

————————————-

BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

————————————-

FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

——————————————-

CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

—————————————————

Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.
—————————————–

What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145

Buffalo Runners!

The weather is effy for the whole weekend, so we’re gonna shoot for Saturday morning at 7. In the event that it’s raining cats and dogs, we’ll postpone for Sunday morning at 7.

See you in the morning!

I was in Tuscan for a friend’s wedding in early April 2007 when I got some bad news.

A couple of days before I left Memphis, I called my CPA, Tom Farrar, to set up a meeting to do my taxes. I hate doing my taxes. Being self-employed means that I’m taxed at a rate of about 36%. (I should get Mitt Romney’s money guy. Mitt pays half of what I pay! Those millionaires sure are smart.) But being stupid, I get to pay more than 1/3 of what I make to Uncle Sam. Since I don’t get a refund, but instead get to pay, I usually wait until the last minute to get with my CPA. It’s drudgery. It’s tedious. It’s terribly boring. And I hate writing those checks. But I rationalize it by imagining that I’m paying the salaries of Marines in harm’s way.

And to those of you who do taxes for a living, God bless you.

Anyway, I got Tom’s voice mail and left a message, asking him to call me so that we could set up an appointment. By the next day, I still hadn’t heard from Tom, so I called him again. And again, I got his voice mail. I called three or four more times and never heard anything.

When I was at the airport in Phoenix, I called Tom again and again got no answer. This was not like him at all.

Tom was a former Air Force guy and a numbers genius. But he was also an overweight, hyper-type-A personality that concerned me from the time day I met him. He was conscientious, a stickler for details, and usually returned his calls within an hour.

“Tom, you need to come to Boot Camp … I promise you’ll like it and it’ll make you feel better,” I used to tell him. But he would always laugh it off and promise me that he’d come “one of these days.” He’d usually remind me that HE had joined the Air Force on purpose and NOT the Marine Corps. He wasn’t interested in exercise and such.

I had worried that Tom was a walking time bomb … a heart attack just waiting to happen. I badgered him, sweetly invited him, tried to shame him, and attempted to humiliate him over the years in an effort to get him to take care of himself and get in shape. I tried everything.

“All of that gung-ho exercise and running around getting shot at is for you Jarheads,” Tom had joked.

While waiting for my return flight home, I called one of our mutual friends to check on Tom.

“Cathy, I’ve called Tom several times and left him a voicemail every time, but I’ve not head back from him. Do you have any idea what’s up?” I asked.

“Oh, Tony you’ve not heard?”

“Heard what, Cathy? What’s up?”

“Tony, Tom is dead.”

“WHAT?? What do you mean he’s dead??” I said.

She explained that Tom had walked outside to get his newspaper, bent over to pick it up, and dropped dead in his front yard of a massive heart attack.

Tom had run out of days.
Unnecessarily.
Completely preventable.

Tom never came to Boot Camp. He never let me help him.

In honor of my friend Tom, the month of April became our “Bring a Friend to Boot Camp Month!”

You can bring a friend to Boot Camp during April for a FREE DAY or two! No strings attached.

What’s in it for you?

The Boot Camper who brings the most friends and has the most points — beginning tomorrow — will get $100!! US Legal Tender. Not 100 Dollars in Boot Camp Bucks! The campaign ends on Friday, April 19th.

Here are the rules:

1. Your visiting friends need to be prospects for membership, so no out of town visitors will count toward your total number of friends for the contest. You’ll get 1 point for each new visitor.

2. Repeat visitors don’t count beyond their first visit – so you can’t bring your friend Bob 15 times during April and count it as 15 friends!

3. If your visitor joins the program, you get an additional 3 points, for a grand total of 4 points.

Whoever has the most points by the end of business on Friday, 19 April, wins $100.00!

We live in the fattest, most unhealthy, city in the country. That practically makes us the fattest city in the world. NOT the kind of statistic that we can be proud of. When our community is at risk, when it’s unhealthy and unfit, we all pay the price in higher health insurance and higher health care costs. We pay more for medical care and medication. We say goodbye to our loved ones too soon.

We all have family and friends who are at risk, who need to lose weight, who need to start exercising. Our friends and family aren’t getting better with age, overeating, and leading a sedentary lifestyle. They’re falling apart. Things get ugly. People get weak. Our loved ones get frail. Quality of life suffers and degenerates to nothing interesting or exciting. Sickness prevails.

Ask them to come with you to Boot Camp. It may be the greatest act of love that you can show them. And if they won’t come with you, encourage them to start doing something.

I wish I’d been more persistent in inviting Tom.

– 30 –

———————————————-

“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.” ~ Thucydides

———————————————-

TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK

Corporal Ashley Hofeditz, RD LDN, has been talking about the ten common food and nutrition mistakes and myths. Today we cover numbers 7 & 8.

“#7: Thinking that lean ground meat means low fat. According to the USDA, lean ground meat is defined as containing no more than 10% fat, which means that it is 90% lean, right? Yes, but there is a catch: the percentage refers to product WEIGHT, not the percentage of calories from fat. Four ounces of lean ground beef contains 199 calories and 11 grams of fat. But since each fat gram is 9 calories, this means that 99 of the 199 calories are from fat, or in other words, this ground beef is 50% fat! So if you are looking to reduce your fat intake, think even leaner, go for extra lean ground beef which is only about 33% fat.

#8 Thinking that all organic foods are healthy. Organic cookies and ice cream are still cookies and ice cream. An organic food (or its ingredients) is grown without pesticides, antibiotics, or growth hormones. That may be admirable, but it doesn’t automatically make it a health food or lower in calories or higher in nutrients. Read your labels!”

Thank you, Ashley!

———————————————-

Today’s new friend is tomorrow’s family.

———————————————-

ATTENTION EVENING CREW MEMBERS

The evening class has returned to the 5:45pm start time for Monday – Thursday, and 5:30pm on Friday.

————————————————

FACEBOOK RESULTS!!!!!!!

Currently we have over 2400 “Likes” on Facebook and over 6,000 check ins!!!!! That’s amazing! Encourage your friends and family to “Like” the page! It would be awesome to have 2500 likes by the end of April!

Keep on checking in! Keep on tagging your friends!
Thanks, everyone!

—————————————–

BUFFALO RUNNERS WE’RE PROBABLY RUNNING ON SUNDAY!

HALF MARATHON TRAINING CONTINUES THIS SUNDAY AT 7AM!

The weather forecast for the weekend is a little iffy. But as of now, we’ll be running on Sunday.

We’ll meet at 7:00am on Sunday, March 31, in front of the Visitor’s Center at Shelby Farms. We’ll be going 2hrs 20min.

——————————————–

M-16 WORKOUT NEXT TUESDAY, APRIL 2 AT 0530 AT CUMC!

——————————————-

DID YOU START USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP LAST FEBRUARY, MARCH, OR APRIL 2012? Let me know, ASAP!! I want to get your rank t-shirt made ASAP!

————————————–

COLD WEATHER POLICY

Anytime the “Feels like” temperature on The Weather Channel – I’ll be using the TWC app for iPhone — drops to 30 or below, we’ll go inside. The 0530 and 0645 classes use the “blue gym” on those days. During basketball season, the evening class will use the exercise room off the main gym.

If the Memphis City Schools close for ice or snow, we will also stand down. If they start, but then dismiss classes early, the evening class will stand down.

————————————

YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN!

What you get out of the workouts is determined by you.

How much do you work? How much effort you put into trying to do all of the repetitions with proper form and how much weight you’re using will determine what you get out of each workout.

It’s time for you to go up in weights … that’s what I’m thinking!

——————————————-

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY IS T-SHIRT DAY!

WEAR YOUR RANK INSIGNIA SHIRT, SUB 7 SHIRT, OR OTHER USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP SHIRT!

————————————

SUB SEVEN CLUB!

Members of the Sub-7 Club are Boot Campers who’ve run the mile in under 7 minutes under my observation and timing.

Congratulations to the following members of the Sub Seven Club:

Lance Corporal Lee Chase,
Lance Corporal Chris McLelland,
Staff Sergeant Patrick Moore,
Staff Sergeant Rob Johnston,
Staff Sergeant Andrew Stolnicki,
Gunnery Sergeant Bart Thomas,
Staff Sergeant Dory Sellers,
Gunnery Sergeant Henry Kenworthy,
Master Sergeant John Winford,
First Sergeant Matt Green,
And Sergeant Major Andrew Forsdick.

———————————————-

VETERAN BOOT CAMPERS!

Your rank insignia t-shirts look AWESOME on you! (Don’t forget to wear yours EVERY WEDNESDAY AND/OR THURSDAY, T-SHIRT DAY!

And please go to

http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/76952967a424079603b362

And enter your boot camp anniversary date. If that information is already there and correct, you’re good to go.

Every Wednesday is our Official BOOT CAMP T-SHIRT DAY! You can wear your rank insignia shirt anytime you‘d like, of course, but always every Wednesday!

The Rank Structure of the Quarterdeck:

Under 6 months is a Private
Six months to 1 year is a Private First Class.

Over 1 year is a Lance Corporal
- Rachel Phillips 2/2012
- Amber Jackson 4/2011
- Sherri Thompson 4/2011
- Carrie Schule 5/2011
- Mary Bauer 6/2011
- Randal Rhea 4/2011
- Cindy King 4/2011
- Bevan Lee 5/2011
- Melissa Thompson 5/2011
- Wayne Henderson 1/2011 *
- Michelle Moss 5/2011
- Lee Chase 7/2011
- JD Dombroski 8/2011
- Lindsey Stanfill 9/2011
- ShaWanda Upshaw 10/2011
- Tara Ingram 11/2011
- Pam Torres – meritoriously promoted 12/2012
- Tait Keller 12/2012
- Kitty Keller 12/2012

Over 2 years is a Corporal
- Robin Scott 3/2011
- Chris McLelland 3/2011
- Courtney Phillips 2/2011
- Emily Melonas 6/2010
- Beth Mills 5/2010
- Ashley Hofeditz 4/2010
- Anne Marie Wyatt 4/2010
- Jenni Harris 8/2010
- Tim Romanow 8/2010
- Ashley McClure 8/2010
- Wendy Shea 4/2008*
- Jeremy Harris 1/2009*
- Falana Scott 7/2010
- Paul Bauer 11/2010

Over 3 years is a Sergeant
- Cecelia DeLacy 2/2010
- Teresa Faulk 6/2009
- Meg Cannon 3/2009
- Cameron Mosley 11/2009
- Karen Massey 11/2009
- Paul Tronsor 3/2009
- Jonathan Phillips 10/2008
- Sarah Vickers 8/2009
- Shena Clemons 10/2008
- Robert Hunt 8/2009
- Albo Carruthers 8/2008
- Kim Wamble 8/2008*
- Scott Plunkett 10/2008

Over 4 years is a Staff Sergeant
- Jessie Flanders 1/2009
- Andrew Stolnicki 1/2009
- Ben Killerlain 1/2009
- Buddy Daves 5/2008
- Dory Sellers 6/2006*
- Patrick Moore 9/2008
- Anne Kenworthy 8/2008
- Alan Schaeffer 4/2008
- Rob Johnston 4/2008
- Patty Dougherty 3/2008
- Oscar Adams 3/2008

Over 5 years is a Gunnery Sergeant
- Mike Ryan 5/2006*
- Leslie Garey 6/2007
- Henry Kenworthy 5/2007
- Michelle Dunn 3/2007
- Frank Jemison /2007
- Bart Thomas /2007
- Matt Prince /2007
- Beth Rehrig 7/2007
- George Rose /2007

Over 6 years is a Master Sergeant
- Anne Mead 2/2005*
- Kay Ryan 10/2006
- Megan Warr 8/2006
- Leesa Jensen 5/2006
- Rob Norcross 8/2006
- Mike Barta 6/2005*
- Anne Emmerth 6/2005*
- Jeff Lee 1/2006
- Ralph Braden 9/2006

Over 7 years is a First Sergeant
- John Winford 2/2006
- Kay Shelton 1/2006
- Louis Glazer 3/2005
- Matt Green 5/2005
- Gary Thompson 10/2005
- Scot Bearup 10/2005

Over 8 years is a Sergeant Major
- Melissa Moore 2/2005
- Hank Brown 3/2004
- Teri Trotter 4/2004
- Andrew Forsdick 9/2004

Over 9 years is a Warrant Officer 1
- David Townsend 1/2004
- Peter Pettit 5/2003
- Buddy Flinn 7/2003
- Amy Singer 9/2003

Over 10 years is a Chief Warrant Officer 2
- Pat McGhee 1/2003
- John Whittemore 1/2003

Battalion Executive Officer
Major Richard Bourland

* broken time

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ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?

We should be!

HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?

You should totally do that!

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NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT

If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!

(This is not an automatic bank draft that I set up with a voided check. This an automatic payment that you yourself set up.)

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USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES – NEW STUFF!

0530 Monday through Friday
(First and second Tuesday of the month are M-16 Workouts at CUMC. Third and fourth Tuesdays are Mt. Fuji Workouts at the U of M)

0645 M-F

5:45 PM: Monday through Thursday, 5:30 on Friday.

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BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!

First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)

Here’s how the discount works!

It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!

For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, (there are fake boot camps out there) you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!

You can take up to $20 off for any given month!

Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.

BE SURE TO TAG ME!

You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.

So log on and start getting your discounts now!

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FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!

Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!

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CALENDAR

A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.

http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html

For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.

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Q. How can I get up in the morning on a consistent basis?
A. Contrary to what many think, I am NOT a morning person. I have to be “dynamited” out of the bed! Here are some tips to help you get going in the morning:
1. Use two alarm clocks. I have a snooze alarm that starts going off several minutes before I intend to get up. Then I have a “Last Call” alarm clock that is located across the room. This alarm clock is set to go off when I MUST get up.
2. Once the last call alarm goes off, the bed become OFF LIMITS! Get moving!
3. Get out of bed, turn off the alarm clock, and start turning on lights all through the house. Turn on the TV.
4. Lay out your clothes the night before. Don’t go wandering around the house in the morning trying to find your left shoe and your favorite shorts. So, have things ready the night before.
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What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?

To your optimum health and fitness!

SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!

Tony

Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow

USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145