Tag: Pothole

What Lacks in Creativity…

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Call it “coincidental”, impeccable luck, dumb luck, divine appointment, proper Site-Q planning or option “F”, None of the Above but I was fortunate to have the Q at the Swamp today; the morning of our region’s Invergence. If the PAX were grumpy this evening due to not having a decent workout to start their day, that would be on my shoulders. I was really hoping to not let that happen.

So when 19 other men rolled in for an even 20, I had to take note of who might need the extra push. Once the mental note was made (and it shall remain mental), I recognized we’d have to get some distance in before jumping right in and even try to gas people a little here and there.

Disclaimer was uttered and again, my request was made: “All of you are carrying something with you this morning. My request is that you be present for the next 45mins, engage, push and be present with us, here.”

We then…moseyed. Made our way the long way (as if there’s a short way) over to the Kohl’s parking lot mixing in Butt Kickers, High Knees, Toy Soldiers and a few rounds of Sprints (yes, on a warm up mosey).

Circle Up for 7 reps in cadence of each of the following:

Wide-Arm Merkins

Regular Merkins

Diamond Merkins

Mountain Climbers

Peter Parkers

Parker Peters

Then 5 Burpees

2 Lines for an Indian Run around the entire Kohl’s/Kirklands/Ulta, etc building coming back to the Ulta parking lot (can’t believe a beauty supply store just made its way into the BB…TWICE).

Then our typical warm up: Slow Wind Mills, Slow Squats

Catch Me If You Can with a partner and incorporating 10 Carolina Dry Docks and 10 Monkey Humpers when your partner catches you. Make the parking lot lap 3 times. Word to the wise, if you’re partnered with B.O.T., mandate that he jogs or shoot, walks…#speedy.

Circle Up for 7 more reps in cadence of each of the following:

Wide-Arm Merkins

Regular Merkins

Diamond Merkins

Mountain Climbers

Peter Parkers

Parker Peters

Then, mosey to the Old Navy parking lot and line up on a white line

Crab Walk 20 yards, 20 dips, crab walk back, 20 Dips

Repeat

Mosey to the Best Buy parking lot

3 reps each:

Wide-Arm Merkins

Regular Merkins

Diamond Merkins

Burpees

COT

See you at the Invergence tonight and the 1st Convergence tomorrow (Sat) followed by Q-Source.

Honored.

Maximus

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6

Early Risers at the Swamp

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When I pulled into the parking lot near Best Buy, there were several cars already parked near the AO.  Based on the mumble chatter on social media, several of the PAX were getting in some early training for upcoming events.  There were 23 men at the work out, 13 for ruck, 8 for BC, and 2 runners.

After the disclaimer, we jogged to the front of Best Buy.  We started with a few warm up exercises (Butt Kickers, Toy Solders) before we moseyed over to the back of Just Fresh.

COP

SSH  x 20

Imperial Walker x 20

Windmill x 10

Plank Stretches

 

Next, we moseyed to the front of Home Depot for a round of Dora 1-2-3

100 Lat Pull-ups on the bicycle rack

200 Squats

300 LBCs

Next, we moseyed back to Just Fresh near the staircase for a round of Arod 3-2-1 (reverse Dora). Instead of running around the parking lot, we ran up and down the stairs.

300 Calf Raises

200 Lunges

100 Jump Squats

Next, we headed back to COT for one last exercise, the Merkin Gauntlet.  The Pax lined up in a plank position.  Each person performed 4 merkins in front of each person.

COT

Special prayers for Twister as he recovers from his eye surgery

 

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Burning Down The Colosseum

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Gladly accepted the Q request from Jekyll a month ago for an AO i had never posted to.  He told me the Qs really bring the pain. Visited the week prior to get the lay of the land and he was not joking. With that I couldn’t slack off. 26 PAX 3 FNG got after it in the Gloom this morning. Really dig these MONSTER number  Workouts.

Here’s how it went down.

Mosey up to second Left turn to Parking spaces.

Bone the Fish.

3 Shuffle Right 3 Shuffle Left 3 Karaoke 1-1-1–Really crazy to do this with these numbers.

Warmup

SSHx15 MNCx15  Hillbilly Walkers x 15

Imperial Walkersx15 Dips x 15

The Thang

9 exercise stations 20 reps per. Except #1. Thanks Pothole! Mode of travel listed at each station for return to middle. All returns to middle do 5 burpees- Mosey to next station

Station 1- Abs 30 American Hammers Ct 1 side- Sprint to light pole/cone 5 Low Slow Sprint to next station

Station 2- Legs 20 Block Squats – Bear Crawl to Center

Station 3- Arms 20 Wide Arm Merkins– Bear Crawl to Center

Station 4- Abs 20 10 Peter Parkers/ 10 Parker Peters- Bear Crawl to Center

Station 5-Combo Al Gore w/bricks  10 Lateral Raise 10 Lateral Row = 20 reps Sprint to cone – 5 merkins Sprint to next station

Station 6- Arms 20 GTOs Ground to Overhead- Crawl Bear to center—–Really how does a Pax break a cinderblock in half????

Station 7-Abs 20 War Hammers combo WWII sit-up 1x American hammer- Crawl Bear to Center

Station 8- Legs 20 Monkey Humpers  Wheel Barrow to center and switch after burpees to station 9

Station 9- Pass the Ruck- Stand Back to back and pass back and forth in circular motion 20x  Mosey to center.

Rinse and Repeat

All PAX completed roughly 1.5 rounds. From the mumble chatter throughout the #Beatdown it appeared to be successful.

Return to COT to name the FNGs and hand off the Shovel flag.

Thanks Again for the Opportunity to lead.

Good Luck Hardwood and Great work Jekyll. Will see me more regularly at the Colosseum.

Duck Out!

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Mile High Special at Quagmire

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This was a Q I was looking forward to.  It marked my 1 year anniversary with F3 and it was at the A/O that I started at.  Not only was it my 1 year anniversary but some #HIM by the name of Jedi offered me to be the site Q.  This is an offer I could not turn down as this is one of the hardest A/O’s in the region and is in the middle of The Fort and Lake Wylie.

My F3 journey so far has been one of the best journey’s of my life.  I dropped a ton of weight (I am below 200 LBS for the first time in 20 years), I am in MUCH better shape than I was a year ago and I can kinda sorta hang with all the beasts in our region.  My life is far from perfect nor will it ever be but F3 has introduced me to a plethora of men that I am happy to call brothers and friends.

THE THANG

I pulled up into the parking lot with Lutefisk only to notice there were 20 men there ready to go! If you have Q’d a workout before you know all about the Qdrenaline and that kicked in right away for me.  After saying the disclaimer we were off.

Mosey from Chick Fil A to behind Home depot (0.4 – 0.5 miles).  Circle up.

  • 5 Burpees OYO
  • 10 Merkins in cadence
  • 5 Burpees OYO
  • 10 Merkins in Cadence

Mosey to the alley

  • 5 Burpees OYO
  • Balls to the wall 60 seconds

Mosey over to the parking lot by the stairs.  There I instructed the PAX to partner up.

The next set was inspired from a Cha Ching BB.  We were going to do 11’s but the one we usually do is both exercises have to add up to 11’s, in this case we did one rep of each exercise and climbed up to 11.

The exercises were Burpees & Merkins.  Method of transportation was bear crawls there and crab walk back. 

Round 1

  • Start with 1 Burpee
  • Bear Crawl to the end of the parking lot
  • 1 Merkin
  • Crab Walk back to starting point

Round 2

  • 2 Burpees
  • Bear Crawl to the end of the parking lot
  • 2 Merkins
  • Crab Walk back to starting point

You get the gist…. all the way up to 11.  Rounds 8, 9, 10 & 11 is where the partners came into play and the method of transportation changes from bear crawls and crab walks to wheelbarrows.  By about round 6 or 7 I never imagined 23 men could be that quiet in a workout.  The plan was working.  A few groups finished early so we did a few laps around the parking lot and then some squats.  With about 3 minutes left and all groups finishing the thang we moseyed back to COT.  

Router lead us of with a 40 or 50 count of American Hammers and I finished it off with a 20 count of Flutters all in cadence.

We named our FNG – Mighty Mouse.

Jedi handed off the shovel flag and I thanked him for the opportunity and his leadership at Quagmire for the last 14 months.

Went through announcements, prayers, praises and I asked Jedi to take us out with a prayer.

Needless to say, everyone got their money’s worth and went home better men.

 

 

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4

Four Corner Rooney

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A last-minute-at-a-social-gathering Q request from the site Q FINALLY got me out of my doldrums of fartsacking and moping around for the past 3-4 weeks. I put on almost 4 pounds from my DSM weight, not watching what I ate, not working out. I needed this. Thanks Router.

Funny thing. I showed up early, around 5am, to site. NOBODY there. No lights in the parking lot. Pretty dark. I see some dude with a flashlight walking around. No other cars, just a dude in a hoodie (not racial profiling – I saw the person was white). Did not have my glasses on so I had no idea who it was. Then it seemed the dude started walking towards where I parked. I locked my doors and wondered if I should leave. I’ve been in these situations before and had someone try to carjack me once when I lived in Norfolk VA, also when I lived in Los Angeles, and also when I was in Miami visiting friends. I’m done with that stuff. My spidey senses were tingling!! My heart rate was elevating so I started backing out, then I saw a familiar face. I asked and it was Pothole. WHEW!! Man that was messed up.

After my BP lowered I got out and PAX started rolling in. No new FNGs. Light but solid group of PAX, some of whom I’ve spent ALOT of quality battle buddy time with under a ruck. Awesome to see them. Since the custom GORUCK DSM event the numbers at ruck AOs have significantly dropped. Not surprised. Anyhoo, disclaimer was disclaimed and off we went.

Light jog w ruck on around the parking lot, about 1/3 mile or so. Then COP. 20 or so each of the following:

  • SSH
  • Windmills
  • Imperial Walker
  • Hillbilly Walker
  • Moroccan night club

Then off to the field. Electric candles marked the 4 corners of a rough football field size area. A typical 4 corners workout setup. Start at one, exercise, transition to next, exercise, transition, and so on. I used the GORUCK Rooney WOD s my guide. I’ve done it at 2 GORUCK events and it sucks. But time made me trim down the number of rounds, and I modified it (mod-up) a little. Google it if you want to know what the real one is. But here’s mine for today:

Cone / Exercise / Transition Mode (ALL with ruck):

  1. 75 Mountain climber (double count), then bear crawl to next
  2. 75 LSS then Lt Dan to next
  3. 75 Flutter (double count) w ruck overhead, then bear crawl to next
  4. Plank w 75 ruck drag side to side (double count), then Lt Dan back to start

Note to self: Make each one 100 instead of 75. This alone took about 25 minutes to complete. I had about 10 minutes left. 100 of each would have put me with a few minutes left to COT. I am not much into talking anymore so we grabbed a 60 out of Routers truck and put in about a mile rucking around the school, then to COT.

COT / Announcements / P&P
* Read the newsletter – QSource convergence, Invergence, etc
* Router’s M going into surgery. Prayers for safe surgery and quick recovery
* Kids, parents, teachers – school is LESS THAN 3 WEEKS AWAY!! What happened to summer??
* My M – she’s been having headaches off and on for several months now. Got an MRI last week, then recently found the MRI found something. Waiting to see a neurologist next.

I have not been talking much at my Qs lately. I may divulge why some other time. No change today. Just lay out the work and get it done. Everyone did great. We had some great conversations when we could. It was great to be back out with the homies. Get the hear rate up, sweat, feel some pain, chatter a little, goof off a little. See a GREAT sunrise with a waning crescent moon. God is GREAT. I needed that. We needed that. We are blessed more than we know sometimes. Thanks for the opportunity to lead.

God bless,
– NASA

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2

Reminisce about the “Pain”theon

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I haven’t been to one of my old favorite AOs in WAY to long.  We start to get spoiled with so many great  F3 options that it gets easy to stay close to home. I love Funhouse’s idea of Ass Kickin’ April and getting out to 30 different AOs during the month.  I challenge each of you to answer the call and post to a different AO and meet some new PAX once every few weeks!

So when I was asked to Q again at the Pantheon I answered the call.  I started DMing some of the Lake Wylie guys to see if they wanted to come with me and we had several show up this morning too!  I was quite surprised to see 24 PAX there at 5:15…. two were FNGs EH’d by Bones and two were 2.0s that Uber brought with him.  The FNGs were named “Grout” and “Safe Word”, respectively.  ALL of them did great on a challenging workout today.  Sorry to the 6 men that were cut out of the video Namorama.  I recalled 3 from my terrible memory, but 3 have been left off the tags…comment below and I’ll add you.

The Thang

Long disclaimer with new FNGs

Dynamic Warmup Lap

COP with SSHs – Imperial Walkers – CDDs – LS Squats – Merkins – Windmills – Mountain Climbers

I pulled some of my old favorite Weinkes from the Pantheon and put them together.

Evolution #1

Took two lanterns with me and we moseyed to the graded hill on the NE corner. Love that hill area and we did “8s” (because 7s is too hard of math for me it seems..)

Bottom of Hill 1 Bomb Jack

Top 7 Merkins

up and down the hill switching until you hit 7 Bomb jacks and 1 merkin

Evolution #2

I celebrated my one year anniversary back in 2016 at the Pantheon as Q.  I pulled out this terrible idea and we did it again.

Burpee Celebration

I counted in year 1 that I went to 147 workouts that year.  We would do the following.

17 burpees to start

Complete a lap in the parking lot

10 burpees at the start until we completed 13 laps. (10 x 13 = 130) + 17 = 147 burpees

With only 25 minutes of time that was a little ambitious.  Many finished 9 laps.  Some +/- 1 lap…

6am back to COT

Got to name our FNGs, Todd and Jason…both did great today.  Todd went first, said something about having a safe word after a pineapples reference that came from living in Hawaii…that was it for him…

Jason does sales somehow related to tile splash or tiles…Grout stuck!

Announcements – Prayers and time to go!

Thanks Bear Grylls and Fish Sticks for having me come out and share.  I really enjoyed being a part of the Pillars of Pantheon series as well!  Great idea and addition.

An Honor to Lead,

Royale

 

 

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3

Sweating it out at Golden Corral

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15 #HIM met on this muggy morning at the Golden Corral for a good old fashioned beatdown.  Lutefisk had to substiQ for me last Friday and by coincidence he didn’t have a Q lined up today so lucky me and lucky PAX I stepped up to bring the pain at one of my favorite A/O’s.

Started with the disclaimer and we were off.

 

Warm Up

  • Mosey to the back of Harris Teeter
    • I intentionally asked the PAX to circle up pretty close to the dumpsters.  If you are on #SLACK and you read the fabulous piece Crab Cakes wrote last week then you would know why
  • SSH X 20
  • Imperial Walker X 15
  • Merkins X 15
  • Mountain Climbers X 10
  • Recover and mosey to the tire shop

Activity 1

  • 30 Durkins
    • Lap around the tire shop
  • 30 Dips
    • Lap around the tire shop
  • 20 Box Jumps
    • Lap around the tire shop
  • Elbow plank and wait for the 6
  • Mosey from the tire shop to the parking lot in front of Baker’s Buzzin

Activity 2 (11’s)

  • I instructed the PAX to partner up and size did matter
  • This activity was 11’s and consisted of burpees and merkins (hopefully all of you know what 11’s are and if not it pretty much means the exercises have to sum to 11.  Example 10 burpees and 1 merkin, 9 burpees and 2 merkins, 8 burpees and 3 merkins etc….)
  • There are a total of 10 rounds.  The method of transportation was different for each round.
  • Round 1 was 10 burpees at the beginning then wheelbarrow to the end of the parking lot (it’s a long way away) and then complete the 1 merkin.  The partner that was holding partner #2’s legs had to carry that partner back to the start.
  • Round 2 9 burpees then the second partner had to wheel barrow to the end.
  • We did the wheel barrows and partner carries for rounds 1-4
  • Rounds 5 – 7 were bear crawls and run back
  • Rounds 8 – 10 were crab walks and run back

Surprisingly enough I looked at my watch and it was 5:59.  Time to mosey back to COT.  As you can imagine there was a ton of moaning and groaning, that translates to #WINNING.  The PAX got their money’s worth

At COT we had an #FNG Sam and his handle is Mach3.  Went through the announcements, prayers and praises and Funhouse took us out with a prayer.  Couldn’t have asked for a better start to the day!

 

Mile High Out

 

 

 

 

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2

Big B, little b, what begins with B?

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Buddies, Burpees, Bearcrawls, Bodybuilders, Booyah! Merkins and B.O.M.B.S. all start with that letter B, that’s what.

18 attended the Swamp today, half rucked, the other have joined YHC for a little schooling on the letter B.

I decided a couple weeks ago that I was going to work my way through the Exicon one letter at a time.  This was my 2nd Q since making that decision so the 8 unlucky PAX that got stuck with me and B today were thoroughly beat-down.

I gave the quick usual disclaimer an off we went.  I immediately heard grumbling about the speed so I slowed it down a bit and we did some karaoke’s and toy soldiers before circling up for a quick warm-up, which consisted of 9 Windmills and 15 Merkins (IC) followed by a couple 10 counts holding a 6″ plank.  A quick stretch and off to the 1st routine.

Routine 1:

Burpee, Bearcrawl, Booyah! Merkin…Chase

Buddy up and partner 1 does 5 burpees and then chases down his partner who is bearcrawling around the 2 roundabouts (about .25 miles).  Tags his partner and then they each do 5 Booyah! Merkins and switch/repeat until getting back to the starting point.  A real shoulder burner!

Routine 2:

For routine 2 we moseyed to the parking lot next to the fountain and did some B.O.M.B.S.  This is basically a DORA with more exercises and the suggestion to pick an exercise that matches each letter in BOMBS.

  • 50 Bodybuilders
  • 100 Overhead presses (with cinderblocks)
  • 150 Monkey Humpers
  • 200 Big-Boy sit-ups
  • 250 Smurf Jacks (suuuuuucked)

In typical DORA fashion, 1 partner does the exercise while the other (in this case) sprints to the 2nd island, bear crawls around the island, and then sprints back and picks up where his partner left off while his partner does the sprinting.

I think only  Cha-Ching, Duck Dynasty, and I finished, but that was probably because we were the odd group and we took the higher of the 2 reps.  I’m not sure if we would have made it otherwise since it came down to the last few seconds before heading back to CoP.

Everyone did awesome and pushed for the entire 45 minutes.

We made it back to CoP at exactly 6:00AM with the Ruckers about a minute behind.

Maximus announced a couple of new AO’s coming to Fort Mill, including a “Bruisers” workout for injured PAX, what a great idea.  As well as a bootcamp AO with a mandatory pre-run, sounds harsh!  In any case, not a lot of PAX spoke up with Prayers except for Maximus again so we prayed for family and everything that was on our hearts.

Thank you for the Q Cha-Ching it was a pleasure to lead these men today.  Nice work everyone!

Until next time,

-FLUX-

 

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0

Warriors, Come Out to Play

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7 warriors came out to Pantheon this morning to battle the heat, humidity, and an awful Q.  A clown car came from Lake Ridge filled with smiling faces.  Some complaining about their shoulder pains from Mile High’s Q at Golden Corral. After the disclaimer, we moseyed to the front of the school for some warm up exercises.

COP

SSH x 20

Imperial Walker x 10

Windmill x10

Plank and shoulder stretches

 

Next, we walked over to the pillars.  There were 10 exercises written on the pavement.  It appeared they were written by an impaired person since they were not aligned properly (It was dark when I wrote them).  The workout started with the first exercise, once complete, we ran a big lap around the sports field.  Next, we would perform the first and second exercise, once complete, we ran a lap around the parking lot.  Rinse and repeat the pattern until all of the exercises were done.

Exercises:

  • 25 Merkins
  • 25 Flutters
  • 25 SSHs
  • 25 Squats
  • 10 Burpees
  • 25 Mountain Climbers
  • 25 Dips
  • 25 Carolina Dry Docks
  • 25 Plank Punches
  • 50 LBCs

We got through most of the exercises and covered 2 – 2.5 miles running.  At the end, we looked like we jumped in the lake since we were covered with sweat.  My message this morning was about accountability.  I mentioned my 2.0 Sharkbait.  He recently qualified for the Junior Olympics this past weekend.  As a father, I a very proud of him not only about this accomplishment, but his journey to this point.  Earlier this spring, he was struggling with running in Middle School.  When we talked about the struggles, he would point to external things that were preventing him from doing better.  We talked a lot about being accountable for things that are in your control.  In addition, knowing in your mind that you can accomplish the your goals.  After our conversation, he began to take ownership of his training plan and I saw his confidence grow.  Sometimes we all need that little kick to get us started in the right direction.

 

Prayers

Families moving

Auto repairs

Families traveling

 

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2

Climbing Ladders at the Golden Corral

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Golden Corral – The AO that has been revived in recent months thanks to the leadership of Lutefisk.

13 men met at the Harris Teeter parking lot in the gloom on this cloudy morning.

Started with the disclaimer and we were off.

Warm Up

  • Mosey to HT doors
  • 50 YD Bear Crawl
  • Wind Mill X 10
  • Imperial Walker X 10
  • SSH X 15
  • Merkins X 10
  • Mountain Climber X 10
  • Recover and mosey behind red bowl

Once we got behind red bowl I instructed the PAX to partner up.  Size doesn’t matter but what matters is accountability and camaraderie.  Those two things have been a huge part of my success ever since I started F3.

Activity 1

  • Partner 1 50 YD Wheelbarrow
  • 10 Merkins
  • Partner 2 50 YD Wheelbarrow
  • Run back to the beginning (Elbow plank waiting on the 6)
  • Partner 1 50  YD Wheelbarrow
  • 20 Merkins
  • Partner 2 50 YD Wheelbarrow
  • Run back to the beginning (Elbow plank waiting on the 6)

Mosey from Red Bowl to Bakers Buzzin

 

Activity 2

CLIMBING LADDERS

7 stations.  Start at number 1 then move to number 2 and then start over.  Keep climbing the ladder.  You get the gist.

  • 1st cone 10 Burpees (run to 2nd cone)
  • 2nd cone 20 Hand Slap Merkins (Bear Crawl to 3rd cone)
  • 3rd cone 30 Carolina Dry Docks  (Crab Walk to 4th cone)
  • 4th cone 40 Squats (run to 5th cone)
  • 5th cone 50 Flutters SC (Bear Crawl to 6th cone)
  • 6th cone 60 LBCS (Crab Walk to the 7th cone)
  • 7th cone 70 Shoulder taps (Run backwards to the 1st cone)

All the Pax completed 5 out of 6 rounds and one group was halfway done with the final round before we had to mosey back to COT (Fishsticks was waiting for us).  We got in just under 3 miles and around 600 calories burnt.  Excellent push by the PAX.  There was very little mumble chatter towards the end coupled with some moaning and groaning.  Big win for the QIC.

FINAL NUMBERS (Including warm ups)

  • 50 Burpees
  • 140 Merkins
  • 120 CDDS
  • 120 Squats
  • 100 Flutters
  • 60 LBC’s
  • Several Miles
  • The last group can add 10 burpees, 20 Merkins and 30 CDDs to their total

Announcements were covered.

Prayers were said for Change Order’s mother, Pothole’s truck and safe travels for Fishsticks   and his family.

Thanks for the opportunity to lead Lutefisk!

Mile High out

 

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