The second edition of the Tube Steak Challenge is well under way. Our trip to Lac La Biche last weekend saw my second annual Challenge go from zero to eight in a matter of days. At this rate I will destroy my previous years record, but I know the winter months will see a drought of snouts and entrails so I will enjoy this gluttony for now.
There is little to report, but like a presentation being better with PowerPoint, I decided to dress up this entry with some images to assist in my story.
Extreme Prize
I completed an online survery for Value Drug Mart and was quite intruiged by the prize they were offering me if my entry was selected.
I guess this could be an interesting prize.
Tube Steak Challenge
Canada Day marked our nations 142nd birthday, but it was the official end to my innagural Tube Steak Challenge. We celebrated this years holiday at work but enjoyed a BBQ for our troubles of working July 1. It was here that hot dog number 54 was consumed.
Of course when the Coney Island hot dog eating contest from July 4th has a record breaking 68 hot dogs eaten in ten minutes it puts my ’1.03846′ hot dogs a week to shame.
Still, I am proud of it all the same.
Months of Waiting
In March I lost everything to 1and1.com. In addition to losing blog posts and photos my domain was held for ransom by 1and1. I had to wait for my registration of the domain to expire, then wait the month for the redemption period to run out. Following that I entered an auction to purchase the domain.
After winning the auction I had to wait 60 days to move the domain over to GoDaddy, and now seagurs.com is rightfully mine.
Because of the 1and1 incident from March all of my previous blog entries from the last four years were lost, including the one which announced the start of my Tube Steak Challenge, but that won’t prevent me from declaring that the challenge has come to an end.
The challenge started when Jenna showed me a video of a medical show. The doctor being interviewed was given a coupon for a hot dog in the cafeteria and said something to the extent that he is only given one coupon a week.
I wondered if 52 hot dogs, one a week, was a lot or not. Jenna asked how many I ate in a year, and without having a good answer I decided to start counting. The challenge was announced in August but I included my July hot dog count since it was fresh in my memory, and so began my journey.
A majority of my hot dogs were on the BBQ, there was an unhealthy amount cooked over an open fire and even some from Mexico. I am proud to say that I never consumed a microwaved hot dog during the last twelve months.
There you have it, hot dog number fifty one and fifty two. Not pictured was the fifty third hot dog, which means I will continue to count my hot dog consumption until July 1 and then begin counting for another year.
Can I repeat my efforts in the last twelve months again in 2010?
May Long weekend is the reason you eat hot dogs. Come rain or shine, and in the instance of this weekend, snow, hot dogs are consumed. Jenna and I were only camping for a single day, and had we stayed longer I may have completed my tube steak challenge. Instead I hit a very important milestone by reaching fifty.
At the end of last month I encountered some very unpleasant hot dogs with dried buns and burnt wieners.
I will have to do right by them and make sure the next hot dogs have fresh buns from the bakery and complete with all of the fixings.
The five on Saturday may not have had bakery fresh buns, fried onions or gourmet relish but there was a simple condiment arsenal of ketchup, mustard and relish and best of all, an open fire. I may save the bakery fresh buns for when I complete my challenge.
The Vancouver Canucks live to see another round. It may have been over in four games but it was anything but a lopsided series. St. Louis fought extremely hard and played an aggressive series. Had it not been for Luongo’s goal tending performance and the lackluster Power Play from the Blues this could have easily been a seven games series.
Which leads me to an interesting fact about the Canucks series victory. In addition to being their first series sweep in franchise history, it is also the first time the Canucks have won a series in under seven games since 1994. And the memories of 1994 are still very real to me. I am not one to get wrapped up in stats or history, but if this playoff run is going to be different from ones before it then it certainly is off to a good start.
The advancement to the second round also means by playoff beard will be around for another week or two. However the results have been less than impressive but it amuses everyone who sees it. I can only hope that if Vancouver goes deep into the playoffs that my beard doesn’t become the source of great shame while I support my team.
Tube Steak Challenge
What may have troubled me the most since losing my data to 1and1 last week is the status of my Tube Steak Challenge. The posts documenting my adventure may eventually return but I had such a wonderful source image to keep track of my progress that after a few minutes of searching on Google Images, Flickr and iStockPhoto I have been unable to find it.
Going through the depths of Google Images I did find a few seagurs references to my Tube Steak Challenge, and one of them says I was at 38. I don’t know what date that was or how many I have had since then, so until I get that sorted out I shall keep track of the number of dogs since the purge: x + 3
Where x is the number of hot dogs I consumed prior to the purge for my Tube Steak Challenge.
