I'm an Olympiad and I Have the Pin to Prove it!

"I should have been a bobsledder!" he says as he points to the sky.

Every few years the winter Olympics comes around and the entire family is subjected to a tirade of mysterious expertise on bobsledding, luge, and skeleton from Gordon.  So when the big five-OH came around and he begged and pleaded for that birthday fishing trip, we did what any good family member would have done.  We took him bobsledding.

It would be hard to describe the shock-and-awe you get when you stand on a bridge, five feet above the bobsled track as the four-man fiberglass coffin goes raging past at 70 miles an hour.  Suffice it to say, the TV does absolutely no justice to the 007-style danger that bobsledders live for. The back end of the sled is literally fish-tailing down the track. And, according to our newly-pinned Olympiad, everything starts out smooth enough, but about 20 seconds in, the sled starts shaking, and by the time you get up to full speed you feel like your entire body will be rattled apart. It was 47 seconds of sheer terror that's over as fast as it began. And, later when we stopped for that gold medal bottle of recovery whiskey, the liquor store man told us, "That's the fastest time he's ever heard of from a tourist!"

How to Name Your Ragnar (or Tough Mudder) Team

The Tough Mudder was a blast last year, but in hindsight, the one thing I wished I'd done differently was to get a really comical theme for our team and some funny costumes.  So this year, as I'm training for the Ragnar Relay - our team officially adopted the name "Bow Tie Beer Mafia". It's easy to imagine the black costumes, AK-47 squirt guns, and van antics that will take place! If you need help naming your Ragnar or Mudder team - here are some concepts to get you started...

Concept: Executive by day, beer drinker (or partier, or tough guy, or dog lover, or international spy) by night

• Work hard, play hard _______(bandits, beer guzzlers, gurus, squad...)
• The "Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult" team
• Blood Sweat n BEERS
• Beer Pressure
• I beer, therefore I am

Concept: Proof that beer is a better way of life (or bacon)

• The Black and Tans - Possible outfit is spray tans!
• The Brewski-nators
• The Baconators
• The Beer and Baconators
• The Bacon Brewinators
  
  

Concept: My bad ___ is badder than your sad ___  (i.e. smack talkin' ego mongers)

• My ____ is bigger than your _______ (leg, peeps, dogs, vans, shoes)
• Eat #%&* and Run

Concept: True Grit hard core (i.e. I wish I had a Harley, and yes...I love black leather)

• Dirtbag Hardcore
• The Down and Dirty _________ (motorheads, bulldogs…)
• (or irony) The Down and Dirty _________ (pink faeries, sunflowers, pansies…)
• The Mother Truckin’ Raginators

Concept: Gross is really funny

• Scum sucking bottom dwellers - just think, what would the costumes be?
• Mud Eaters

Concept: We’re cute but we’ll still mow you down

• Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy (as in “Ragnar Run, I barely noticed that...I feel like running 100 miles today by myself…”)
• Goody Gumdrops - Take that!
• Pink Pansey Pickers
• The Fabulous Frolicking Fairy Flappers (Tuu tuus required)
• The Marvelous Merry Mafia Mongers (Tuu Tuus with big guns)

Concept: Get a crazy theme  (i.e. who is going to organize costumes????)

• The Hula Girls (grass skirts, preferrably short, with coconut bras - it might chaff though!)
• The Parrot Heads (buffet flower shirts)
• The Palm Pirates ( Hawaiin garb with eye patches - which of course, conveniently double for sweat headbands.)
• The Pirate Rat Bastards (Black pirate gear, all the way - AAARRRRGH!)
• The Flapper Girls (20’s sequins, boys in dresses….)

Concept: Something with Dozen - for those 12 member teams

• Dirty Dozen
• Dozen in the Oven (What rhymes with dozen?)

Once you've named your team, you might need T-shirts printed. If you build your T-shirts through www.digitalwish.org - you can sell them at cost and the Digital Wish charity automatically gets a donation to support schools.  If you sell them at a profit, you get to pick your favorite school to receive the proceeds. 

Watch this video to get started.