Saturday, February 01, 2014

It's WEEKEND PUSHUP MARATHON! (And a chance to win some free stuff!)

If you comment on this post, you get a free book!

OUCH. 5:30 a.m. Sunday: Mr F got up early, so I am up early, so I tried to do some push-ups and I got to four more, but my arms are really sore from yesterday so THAT IS IT for the push-up marathon for the weekend. I'll go back to my regular schedule of push-ups tomorrow.  But I think I proved my point. (If someone figures out what my point was, please tell me.)

So my total for the year is

9 p.m. Saturday:  I wasn't able to post before this because first, we were at the zoo, which was surprisingly great for a February day: only about 10 people there, overall, and actually a great many animals were outside, too, animals like tigers:



Mr Bunches wanted to go look at the tigers. I hadn't thought they would be outside, but they were.

Anyway, I got in 2 o'clock today (10 pushups), then missed 3 and 4 because we were at the zoo, but bback home, I took a break from making tacos for dinner and did pushups at 5 (9 of them) and 6 o'clock (8 of them), then decided to go every two hours because MAN MY ARMS ARE GETTING SORE. So at 8 o'clock I did another 8, bringing my total for the day to 96, and my total overall to



1:00 Saturday: 13 more! Here is a picture of me trying to take a picture of myself doing push-ups.



I didn't get the timer right, I guess.
Total for the day: 61
Total for the year:




12:00 noon! Or roughly-ish. I am going to put these updates at the top of the post rather than the bottom so that if you're checking back you know right away whether there's something new.

I missed 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock because at 10 I was standing in Madison Computer Works, where we take our computers to get fixed. This time it was Sweetie's needing a new keyboard after Mr F spilled on it, something you know happened if you saw my interchange with Best Buy on Twitter about what a complete ripoff "Geek Squad" is.

At 11, we were sledding at Elver Park, which is where we sled, and it was less than successful: the new snow made the sledding too slow for Mr Bunches' taste, and too snowy for Mr F's taste (as it blows up into your face as you sled, especially if you have to put down your feet to steer away from people who for some reason WALK STRAIGHT UP THE MIDDLE OF THE #*#$%&# SLEDDING HILL INSTEAD OF ON THE SIDE.

Those people SUCK and their kids will grow up to be horrible people who join frats and date rape girls.  I'm not afraid to say it: if you are so antisocial that you cannot walk to the side of the sledding hill and out of people's way, if you must through your laziness destroy other people's sled rides, you are an awful parent and your kid will probably deserve to go to jail.

Anyway, it's noon(ish) now and I am back on track, doing another 11 pushups to bring my total for the day to 48, and my overall total for the YEAR to

Here's something you probably didn't know about the number 162: Section 162 of the Internal Revenue Code (specifically, 26 USC 162) is the part that lets you deduct business expenses from your income for tax purposes, including travel away from home for business purposes.  But for those who think Congress unfairly distributes benefits to itself, the law caps deductions for such expenses at $3,000 for members of Congress.

Hey, I didn't say it was something interesting about the number 162. For interesting I'll give you this: 162 is an untouchable number:


An untouchable number is a positive integer that cannot be expressed as the sum of all the proper divisors of any positive integer (including the untouchable number itself).

Got that? Here's an example:

the number 4 is not untouchable as it is equal to the sum of the proper divisors of 9: 1 + 3 = 4. The number 5 is untouchable as it is not the sum of the proper divisors of any positive integer: 5 = 1 + 4 is the only way to write 5 as the sum of distinct positive integers including 1, but if 4 divides a number, 2 does also, so 1 + 4 cannot be the sum of all of any number's proper divisors (since the list of factors would have to contain both 4 and 2).
"Untouchable numbers" aren't the same as "weird numbers", which is, amazingly, an actual math thing:

In number theory, a weird number is a natural number that is abundant but not semiperfect.[1][2] In other words, the sum of the proper divisors (divisors including 1 but not itself) of the number is greater than the number, but no subset of those divisors sums to the number itself.

This may help:

The smallest weird number is 70. Its proper divisors are 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, and 35; these sum to 74, but no subset of these sums to 70. The number 12, for example, is abundant but not weird, because the proper divisors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, which sum to 16; but 2+4+6 = 12.


UPDATED at 8:00 a.m. 9 AM! Page to the end!

This year, Rusty Carl and Andrew Leon and I have been engaged in an epic battle of push-ups that can best be compared to the epic Battle of Hastings. Or Star Wars. I'm sure it could also be compared to Star Wars.

Anyway, the race is to 2,014 push-ups, a number chosen completely randomly and bearing no relation to any other number, and as of last night, despite my doubling the number of push-ups I was doing every other day (to 27)(Okay, not quite doubling because I wasn't doing a half-pushup)(whatever), I was still trailing badly, the score being:

Andrew: 647
Rusty: 200 
Me: 113.

But, as I said to Sweetie this morning, this is a contest, and as I added mentally to myself lest it seem like bragging, I don't lose contests.

Not without a fight, anyway, and so I am unveiling WEEKEND PUSHUP MARATHON, during which I will do push-ups every hour on the hour (or as close to it as I can)(when I am awake)(can you tell I am a lawyer with all those disclaimers?)(disclaimers not binding in Alaska, Nebraska, and IfIhavetaaskya)

Little lawyer humor there.

So so far, starting at 7 a.m., when I did 13, my total has now risen to:


I'll keep a running total throughout the weekend, peppered with

the song I do push-ups to:


and more!  (Probably less).

Also to keep it interesting, if you comment on this post, I will give you a free copy of any one of my books, provided you are not Andrew Leon or Rusty Carl, because, guys, this is a battle to the death!


I don't know how that would work in a push-up duel, but it's TRUE of me.

8:00 AM SATURDAY: ANOTHER 13, for



ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA, 139 is

-- the 34th prime number.
-- A twin prime with 137, which means it has a 'prime gap,' or gap between it and another prime, of two.
-- a prime that is the sum of five consecutive prime numbers (19+23+29+31+37)

139 is also "strictly nonpalindromic," which means that no matter what base system you use to write it, it cannot be written as a palindrome. TAKE THAT, 232! HA.

Here is an action shot of me in that last set of push-ups:

Photo by Mr Bunches
Pajama pants by Spider-Man
Body by ALL ME BABY!
I believe I am experiencing a surge of adrenaline.
Catch you at 9!

9 AM Saturday:

As of right now I have:

-- played cars with Mr Bunches
-- done "Animal Alphabet" with Mr Bunches where he writes the letters on our chalkboard and I draw the animals. (I can draw a 'quokka')(kind of!)
-- gotten Mr F and Mr Bunches dressed and almost ready to go about our day, which has some errands and a stop by the office and sledding and probably McDonald's
-- DONE 12 MORE PUSHUPS JUST NOW YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHH!

Total so far:

This:




Is a quokka.

I will probably start posting every 2 or 3 hours; this is getting long.  BUT I WILL STILL DO THEM HOURLY YO.

Sorry about that. Adrenaline again.

Don't forget: commenters get a free book!

6 comments:

Robin said...

This is getting serious.

Briane said...

Yes, it IS.

*Narrows eyes, looks off into the distance, tries desperately to think of something clever to say like David Caruso would*

*fails at that.*

*sighs*

Andrew Leon said...

Math is just weird. No wonder I got tired of it.

Don't break -your- arms off. Or, you know, have them turn into limp noodles for the next two days.

Liz A. said...

Sorry, the math stuff made my eyes gloss over. And I'm a math person.

Good luck. I think. (Don't know if I should encourage this.)

Rusty Carl said...

Congrats on the push-up-athon today. I did 80 yesterday, which is ridiculous. I'm a wee bit sore today though. Won't try any. But I love the idea of doing them on the hour. I have my own secret method which I think will make me blow everyone away when I use it to complete 1000 push ups in a single day.

Which could happen.

Briane said...

Crap. You did EIGHTY? Here I thought I was ahead of you again.

Liz: I pretty much should NEVER be encouraged to try ANYTHING that crosses my head.

Andrew: They already were limp noodles. Now they are SORE limp noodles.

But I may try this every weekend? We'll see.