Fellow HOBOs, this is your Giant speaking, here to welcome any and all hobos and FOH's to the Motor City to witness the final four in all it's glory. There are plenty of dumpsters to fall into and take a nap at a moments notice, it's a very hospitable place for HOBOs. Mi casa es Su casa! I already have confirmation that 3 HOBOs/FOHs besides myself that will be in attendance, but I would like that number to be closer to 27, give or take 2.5. Maybe that wandering garbage can of a man will surprise us all and be there, or maybe Big T.O. will be putting holes in domes, or Shows being stopped.

I hope to see everyone here!

YourGi

Dear HOBOs,

I love you. Not just because you grow mustaches or that you really, really know how to have fun over the 4th. Not because you are my brothers and sisters. But because you don't let distance stop you. You say to hell with the fact that we may live hundreds of miles apart 350 days out of the year. You say I am going to include my HOBO brethren in all my good times, even if they can't be there. You say it's time to dial when the mood is right.

I have received many stellar phone calls in the middle of the night from all sorts of HOBOs, short and tall, Italian and Finnish, built like a garbage can and thin like Mike. But there was a call...there was a call. A call that defines all calls, where all HOBOs present took part and wailed for their friend who was their in his heart. A call that lifts your spirit and makes you smile. So without further adieu, here is the call of calls:

THE bomb

Here are a couple of past winners:

Calling all HOBOs, I have a question, and idea really. I think we could use our whacky ideas and our fun times for a good cause. I think we should/could start a charitable organization! Yes, you hear the Giant right, we could play a role in helping our fellow brethren.
I am not sure how everyone is going to take to this idea, HOBOS doing good? Yes. Right now I am in the idea stage and I have a lot of ideas. I will attempt to list a couple of my ideas by category, as follows:
Why?
Because we can.
How to begin?
It's simple, we could link up with other local organizations/government and either:
a)just give them all proceeds raised, or
b)start our own organization and spend the money in a charitable fashion how we see fit (as long is it is for good purposes)
For What Purpose?
Here are a few ideas, obviously this is open for more ideas and discussion:

• Help fund homeless shelter (for HOBOS) - I don't know how many homeless people there are in Bessemer or Goegebic County
• Adopt families over Christmas so kids get presents
• Assist in the beautification of the city
• Provide additional support to lower income families through grocery store gift certificates
• Do something for the environment - maybe help start recycling if not present
• I am sure there are probably better ideas out there since you guys would know the local economy/needs better than me

Fundraising

• NOTE - if we form an 501(c)(3) - all donations given by people are tax deductible for the doner
• Have a Formal Night at a local bar, maybe the Hatch or Pit Stop upstairs, with a cover where all proceeds go to foundation - Maybe the bars will even match the cover.
• Donate all Poker Run winnings to foundation
• Put a donation box out when we give away hotdogs
• Auction off bodyparts for shaving, such as JJ's left leg, or Ron Mexico's mullett (each HOBO has two legs, two arms with pits, an ass, and a head)
• Have a charity golf outing (with some prizes)
• Chicken wing breakfast/social
• Are there any local bands that might want to have a battle or something? Maybe this could be a mini summerblast
• Video game competition
• Coordinate with the City and markup the 3on3 tournament, with the extra money going to the org
• Sponsorship could be had for all sorts of events, like the turkey trot, or the HOBO Hurley Walk
• How much do one of those dunk tanks cost to rent? I am sure that Coach Carl could fetch quite a price to be dunked.

Coordination

• All of the aforementioned could be coordinated with the City
• Identify any local organizations that support our cause and work together
• Depending on what our cause is and how we go about this, we would have to come up with an objective legal way of determining who gets assistance - maybe we could have the State or Local Government help. (I haven't gone too far into my research of this but I am sure that I can dip up something on how to administer this)
• Local bars could host events

Possible Names
Well this is probably going to depend on what the organization is trying to accomplish, but here are a few

• HOBOs for Humanity
• HOBOs helping the Homeless (kinda silly though)
• I really like the idea of using HOBO as the acronym of the organization, such as Helping Other Brothers Out, or brethern

Again, we could just forgo all of the 501(c)(3) stuff and just find a good local organization that we believe in and give all the money to them. This may be easier, but maybe not as much fun.
Well, that's it. Let me know what you all think. Maybe I am going overboard here, but I thought I had a stroke of genius this afternoon when I thought of it.

Let me preface this by saying that most people probably won't find this usefully, but if you are as big of a nerd as I am, which is hard nowadays considering I am nearing 300 lbs, you may find it to your liking.

Basically I have created a spreadsheet in MS Excel that will allow someone to track there progress towards their fitness goals. I have a scale that measures your body fat % and your water %, so I am able to track my ultimate goal of losing fat. I really don't care about losing weight, it's more about losing fat. You enter the date of the measurement, your weight, and bf %. I have setup formulas that will calculate your incremental progress (since your last measurement) and also your cumulative progress (since your first measurement), for both your weight and bf%. Also calculated is your percent change of in these categories.

For example, I have included a few measurement in the spreadsheet already which show that on the first day I weighed 272lbs, and had 30.3% bf. On my second (hypothetical) meaurement I weighed 270lbs, and had 29% bf. The spreadsheet calculates taht I have lost 2lbs, and 1.3% bf. But it also calulates those changes as a percent of the previous measurement, so 2lbs is drop in weight of .74%, and 1.3% bf is a decrease of 4.3%.

Anyway, maybe nobody finds this helpful, maybe somebody does, I am going to use it regardless, it gives me motivation.

giant

Show -

I am not pestering, I am just curious what the ETA is on some of those videos. I am dying to see the field events. Any idea?

It was Thursday night, the time was 9:40 PM EST, and I was feelin' great! I was in a cozy Hamtramck Bar, the Atlas (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendi...), drinking a Schlitz, which was on special for $1 US, and I decided to start calling HOBOs.

My first call was to Gregas, who unfortunately was not available so I had to leave a voice bomb. The second call was to a HOBO who will remain nameless. This HOBO did infact take the call but rebuffed me so that he could eat his macaroni and cheese. That is right, there is a HOBO amongst us who did not fullfill his or her duties as a HOBO, a HOBO who values his mac and cheese more than helping a fellow HOBO out. Now I know that mac and cheese is tough competition, there is no doubt about that, but eat and talk at the same time, I don't think HOBOs are above this.

I must say, I was disappointed. In an effort to enhance my buzz I called this man hoping he could provide some witty banter, but instead he decided to watch Grey's Anatomy and eat his mac and cheese. I will not publicly reveal this HOBO, as I don't want to tarnish his reputation, he knows who he is. But I do however want this HOBO to humor the next HOBO that drunk dials him and be courteous by trying his hardest to help enhance the other HOBO's buzz.

I will say though, not all was lost Thursday night. Gregas came through. Gregas called back shortly after I got off the phone with the nameless HOBO, and came through like a champ, humoring me in my babble. I am sure we had an interesting discussion, fortunately I was a wee bit too drunk to remember all of it, I do however remember promising to start a blog on this subject. Thank you Gregas!

Anyway, sorry to bother everyone with my complaint, I just thought something should be said so that this doesn't happen to any of you.

Don't change HOBOs (except the nameless one),
Giant