So we’re going to try “that’s Never been done before”; a choose your own adventure blog.  

I will give you choices and YOU get to tell the story this time!

Before we get too far into the story, I have a confession to make. Do you guys remember the ongoing coronavirus 19 pandemic? It was my fault. All of it. I did that. Now while I did not bite the head off a bat or create anything in a lab, I did something foolish, and God punished me for it. In February 2020, my two besties and I went on an infamous trip to the Mall of America to visit Minnesota Sea Life Aquarium. While walking around the mall, we found our way into one of the many Footlockers. While our intent was to look at regularly priced shoes, a pair of on-sale Nike Giannis Greek Freak 2 caught my eye. Now I had grown out of my college wannabe sneakerhead phase some time ago, but there was something about these shoes. I convinced myself I would wear these bad boys (pistons) to the gym, and I would start playing Saturday morning basketball again. My friends, I had not hooped on a Saturday morning since 2016. God said, “Your plans are not my plans,” and sent the coronavirus to punish me. So that’s on me guys. (double taps chest) My bad. 

I knew if I wanted to defeat the ongoing Joe Biden coronavirus pandemic I would have to start working out again in those shoes that I had purchased from the Mall of America. I wanted to restore order in the universe, but I didn’t have a plan. Luckily, my friend Kristen had presented me with an opportunity.  She had started going to a new Gym. But it wasn’t a regular gym. It was a new cool gym, Burn Boot Camp.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Do you guys remember when I graduated college and didn’t have a job or direction in my life and was very depressed? Not great, right? Wrong! I worked out an hour a day and ran like 2-3 miles, weighed 205 and was in the best shape of my life. It was awesome!  Sadly, I got a job, stopped being depressed, and with that came not weighing 205 pounds and my life would never be the same…

I’ve been chasing that high of being skinny (relatively) for 8 years. I had tried everything (except working hard and being persistent) when my friend Kristen presented me with an opportunity. She had started going to a new Gym, but it wasn’t a regular gym. It was a new cool gym. Burn Boot Camp.

Choose your own adventure

This is the end of your journey, please go back to the beginning and try again.

Preface: What is Burn Boot Camp? I had a negative perception of it when I first learned of it. I thought that all workout places that are not a traditional gym are a cult and a scam.  Burn is more than a workout. It’s a lifestyle. But for real, it is a workout class; 45 minutes long, circuit training, with weightlifting, body weight training, and speed and agility exercises. 

My friend Kristen had convinced me and Louise (you guys know Louise from volleyball) to join her, and together (at 4:30 in the morning) for the next month we tried out Burn Boot Camp. We knew the experience would suck, but at least it wouldn’t suck alone, and then we could complain in our group chat (The Burn Babez) afterwards.

Day 1- After I gathered the strength and courage to work out, and after the five minute warm up, I was ready to quit, so I had to pump myself up. “Eric, you are very fat and in terrible shape, but you can’t quit after the warm up. You were an (academic) all-state football player. You are better than that!” I kept fighting for another 20 minutes, but it wasn’t pretty. After 25 minutes I was no longer fighting to stay in shape, the new goal was fighting to not puke. After a successful (in the fact that I had survived) workout, I’m packing up to leave with a defeated look on my face when the trainer comments, “Eric you don’t look too happy.”

“Yeah, no shit, Lizzie. Did you not see me dying out there?”

Day 2- Already seeing improvements, I made it 35 minutes before the goal had switched from getting into shape to “don’t puke!” A ten minute improvement. This working out thing is easy.

Day 3-It’s a good thing that I am such a feminist because most, if not all, of these women are way stronger than me and could probably beat the crap out of me. (I forgot to mention, the 4:30 am class is almost all women, and occasionally Eric, and even more occasionally another man.) 

Day 4- Since I’m wearing my basketball shoes every day, do you think that the world will restore its natural order?

Day 5- It was on the fifth day that I had my terrible realization. This is just a different branded CrossFit! I’m just out here doing goofy exercises and basically in a cult. Now if you know me,  you know I hate 2 things: Things that are cults but are designed to not look like cults (MLMs, Taylor Swift Fandom, essential oils, crypto bros, NDSU Bison fans, Tesla owners, and crossfitters to name a few), and hypocrites. This is a cult. I might as well start selling Plexus. I’m such a hypocritical sellout. 

Day 7- Went and did my workout. Thought everything was going well. I get home, cool down, and go to take a lil nap in the chair before work. I’m sitting there for 90 seconds when my tumtum says “Hey buddy, I know I’ve been teasing you for a couple days, but it’s time.” I rushed to the bathroom and puked like I was in college, home for the weekend and had just drank a single Bud Light. (Violently, is what this useless 13 word metaphor is trying to say. Like most of my writing, it is a joke for one person.)

Day 20ish- You guys aren’t going to believe this, but after working out 5 times a week for a month, it makes you feel great. Not only physically, but mentally too. I was as strong as I’d been since the Obama administration and was starting to get this weird feeling where I was enjoying life. I haven’t been this happy since I quit my last job! 

I was now at a crossroads.  My one month trial has come to an end. I have a choice to make. Do I sign up full time or go back to being a fat piece of shit who also isn’t happy. I chose the former.  

Day 60ish- We were having our friend group Christmas party. The topic of Burn came up, and there was some trash talking that followed. I got offended. I started defending Burn Boot Camp like it was a loved one who committed a crime but was justified for their actions. After defeating my opponent in a verbal argument, I went to take a victory sip from my beer…To my shock, I had been drinking Kool-aid the whole time (great joke Eric!)

Day 90ish: I got kicked off the best residential crew at American Electric. My new crew (the bteam, if you will) starts at 6:00 am. So I’m not trying to workout at 4:30, get done and go back home at 5:30, only to turn around and get right back in the Subaru and head to work. So I’m going to have to leave the Burn Babez and start working out by myself in the evening. I started going at 5:30 pm. This is the last class of the day, and when the class is finished we can leave, but they always ask to clean up for today and get the gym ready for tomorrow. We have no incentive to stay, we aren’t getting paid, and yet everyone usually helps so our instructor doesn’t have to do it all by themself. Now you can call it a cult, I call it dedicated people working together. 

Rapid Fire 

Some reasons why it’s not a cult:

– None of the instructors have tried to take advantage of me sexually. 

– Just a group of like minded individuals working towards a common goal. 

Some reasons why it is a cult:

– The gift after completing my trial period was a coupon for someone else to join. 

– High fives. They make us high five all the time. After everything. I understand it’s to build positivity and community, but have they ever considered I don’t like either of those things. 

– I can’t understand my leaders really at all and blindly follow the instructor. While we are warming up, my leaders go through all the exercises that we do in the workout. I don’t know if this is a ‘me’ problem or what, but I can’t understand a thing they say during this time. It’s just mangled gibberish followed by “Make sense? Say yes.” and a uniform “Yes.” from the campers that would make Stalin proud.

– It’s expensive as hell, and they want to take all my money and control my life (probably).

Last tangent I do have to justify that this isn’t cross fit. (Not that there’s anything wrong with crossfit, well there is, and if you do crossfit, you should feel bad.) Burn is just circuit training. All out lifts are real lifts, not made up stuff that’s not designed to hurt you. And most importantly, all our pull ups are actual pull ups, not just throwing your bodyweight around a bar. 

In conclusion: I think there are three main reasons I enjoy Burn Boot Camp. First, as someone who enjoys working out but does not enjoy planning anything, especially not a workout, it’s good to just be told what to do, do it and go home. Second, the community aspect is very nice. It’s good to know there are twenty other people hating the same workout that you are hating, wondering why it feels like you are doing a middle school basketball warmup. Lastly, it’s good to have a group chat dedicated to working out. Working out itself is fine, but it doesn’t feel near as good as telling someone you just worked out.

Give me two claps, on two.

One 

Two

(Clap, clap)

Hello my dear friends and welcome to the year of our Lord 2024. As you know my first blog of the 2023 season was giving my goals and resolutions, and I’m not creative enough to come up with something new, so we’re just gonna do that again. However, before we do, we have to grade our last year.

How did I do last year?

1. Shave my head every week for a year

For the majority of the year I would say I went every other week. I look best on about Day 6-7 hair-wise, so I think I’m going to try that in the new year. I’m going to plan all of my events seven days after a haircut. 

Grade: B

2. Mustache for a year

The mustache was like a mood ring for my mental health. If you saw me with the ‘stache, you knew I was good. Full beard, sad little Eric. For Halloween I had to abandon all hair (facial and head) and kind of went no-hair for the last two months of the year. I think for 2024 we’re going to try to replicate that Jason Statham, permanent five o’clock shadow look at all times.

Grade: B

3. Lose 35 pounds

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember what I weighed in January of 2023, but I know what I was at my fattest during the year. And I also know that in December I weighed 15 pounds less than that. We can’t give me an A grade because I didn’t accomplish the goal, but we are taking the proper steps in the right direction.

Grade: B

4. Be a worse person

I don’t know about worse, but I was equally bad for most of the year, and I even became somewhat better of a person towards the end. (puke emoji)

Grade: D

5. Drink more water

I got really good at this toward the end of the year; I’ve pretty much eliminated all liquids from the diet that aren’t water, coffee, or the occasional Coors Light with a pickle.

Grade: A

6. Drink more coffee

I bet there were only, like, ten days that I didn’t drink coffee this year. Good job, Eric. You set a goal, and you accomplished it.

Grade: A

7. One blog a month 

By my count, we’re at 6 blogs, 12 months: the math isn’t math-ing. However, a Christmas card counts as a blog, so that brings us up to 7. Also, I started writing one but figured it would go better in the New Year. So really we’re up to 8. And I started writing a short story that I want to make into a Hallmark movie — basically 9. 9/12 is 75%. If we’re talking shooting percentage, I’m the greatest basketball player of all time. 

Grade: C

8. Stop giving to nonprofits 

Out of the three nonprofits I (used to) support, I think I only got bullied into giving to one nonprofit!

Grade: C

Overall Grade:  3.0 

Thanks to weighted averages, you get to keep your scholarship for next year, Ric.  However, we’re onto a new year.  As you know, I’m a little slut for New Years’ resolutions so here they are my new goals for our new year! (A month late)

New Goals:

1. Get into wine

I had an identity crisis last year. I’ve kind of fallen into the stereotypical construction worker routine. And don’t get me wrong, I love being blue collar; however, I want to be a cultured blue collar man. I want to be a jack of all trades, and so far I only have three trades:  two are blue collar and one is cultured, so we need to add more culture. What is more cultured than wine? I’m gonna drink wine once a month, 12 different kinds, and find what I like and don’t like. 

2. Gallon of water a day

I don’t have to drink a gallon every day, but I have to try. Mainly, I want to drink at least a half a liter before every meal. 

3. Do one thing a week

I don’t do enough. I need to get out there, try new things, and hang out with my friends. So we’re doing one thing a week, getting out of our comfort zone, and being a more well-rounded person. If you want to help me out and need a person to go to an event or try the newest downtown Sioux Falls night club, hit me up. One thing a week!

4. 250

Mystery number item for the next blog

5. Run a mile a day every day that it’s over 45 degrees outside

Former NBA All-Star Rip Hamilton would always run a mile after practice and was, like, the most in shape NBA player. So if I want to be the most in-shape electrician, I have to be like Rip. (Future Eric here: thanks to global warming it’s already 45 outside, and I haven’t run yet. So we’re gonna modify this and have it be 45 outside and no snow on the ground.)

6. Read one book a month

And uncomfortably force the fact that I read a book into every conversation.

Hopefully we keep up that 3.0 and our scholarship. We have some big things planned for bteamballer.com and hope you stay with us along the journey!

It’s the end of August folks, where we are confronted with the hardest task of a year, getting 10 grown men to sync up their schedules for a fantasy football draft. Now I’m not the best fantasy player ever (2 championships and 2 last place finishes in 7 years) but I’ve done it enough to notice some patterns. Here are my rules, tips, tricks, and hypothetical questions for surviving and winning this fantasy football season. As a bonus I’ll throw in my list of top 300 players (PPR).

WARNING: If you are in one of my fantasy leagues PLEASE STOP READING, it is against the law to steal my draft strategy.

1. Rule number 1: Nobody cares about your fantasy football team. Did you have a great draft? Did you get absolutely robbed by your kicker on Monday Night Football? Nobody cares, keep that shit to yourself. (that means you too Bill Simmons)

2. Fantasy football isn’t even cool anymore, you want to do something cool, gamble like a real man. (now that gambling is legal maybe it’s not cool anyone either)

3. Ask yourself the question “Does our friend group need a fantasy football league?” Like a Mike Greenberg radio tease the answer may surprise you. You do not. My high school friend group doesn’t have a FFL and guess what we’re doing fine. We don’t need fantasy football, if we want to talk about football we just talk about football, we don’t have to force it. (I say we, but really it’s just me keeping this friend group alive.)

4. Hypothetically let’s say you have a work league fantasy football championship. If you have to get a retired employee, one of your suppliers, an employee who quit right before the busy season, and an employee who quit right before the busy season’s father to play so that you can play fantasy football. Maybe you should just let the league die. Again totally hypothetical, a situation I made up in my head.

5. Have the draft in person. Ninety percent of the fun of fantasy football is drinking a beer and saying “great pick” or “you dog I was just gonna take him” or “Jay, Who did you just take? He wasn’t even on my list, you are the biggest idiot I know.” You know, fun little things to say to my friends.

6. Play in a PPR league (preferably not on espn). You score more points in PPR and scoring points is fun. I don’t like espn because they separate you into divisions. Why? What’s the point? Real Sports have divisions because up until the 1970’s they traveled by train so you would play the local teams more often to reduce travel. Fantasy football is played over the internet so you don’t even travel at all! GET RID OF THE DIVISIONS ESPN! (please read that in a yelling voice, it angers me)

7. Come up with a cool name: Now that you have a league come up with a cool name that has a pun. One of my names is “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Team” . My father’s team “Big Al’s Punters.” One that i just googled one  “Stroudy with a Chance of Meatballs” (play on CJ Stroud)

8. Make sure there are steaks (stakes) (I prefer T-bone). They don’t have to be high, even if it’s one dollar it’s something. Don’t want to gamble money because you have superior morals? First off the bible doesn’t say that gambling is a sin, second you can wager on an activity with your friends. Example: one time I lost and had to do hot yoga, which I wrote about here: https://bteamballer.com/2021/10/24/downward-dog-downward-spiral/ Second example, one time I won and my friend had to acknowledge the fact that she went to Johns Hopkins on facebook.

9. Let the draft come to you. The best available is the best available player. Don’t reach. “The Reach” is a Stephen King short story about an old woman who lives her whole life on an Island without ever going to the mainland, not a description of your next pick.

10. I don’t care what the experts say, having a quarterback who balls out is fun, so go ahead and take Lamar first overall. 

11. David Montgomery is going to get you 8 points. (Just looked it up, David Montgomery is only 26 years old, I’d swear this man is 32 and has been in the league for ten years.)

12. You want the best player? (Eric you need to stop with the hypotheticals) Draft Nick Chubb plain and simple. He’s the best coolest player in the NFL, if I was in 3rd grade I’d bully my parents into buying me his jersey.

13. Get a new defense every week. The Cardinals are going to be terrible this year, so just pick up whoever is playing the Cardinals. 

14. Once you have the starters filled, go ahead and take Justin Tucker before everyone else. I know I said don’t reach, but tell me who you’d rather have, the NFL’s leading points getter, or Jarvis Landry’s 3 yard outs? I rest my case. 

15. I normally am against drafting rookies but Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the second best player I’ve ever seen play in real life.(Ndamukong Suh is still number one) I saw him absolutely light it up against the greatest 3 win team in college football history and knew he was going to be special. I’ve been talking about drafting him since he was a true freshman at Ohio State. If I was in third grade I’d bully my aunt into buying me his jersey. (he plays for Seattle and my aunt lives in Seattle for the context of this joke)

16. Let the winners back in! One time during covid I was a good friend and filled in for The Harrisburg High School Former Wrestlers Class of 2000  Fantasy Draft (you guys know my boys Tim and Nick) I destroyed this league, only lost like one game and won the championship. Next year I ask if I’m back in, nope gave away my spot. I WON IT’S NOW MY LEAGUE YOU CAN’T JUST NOT LET ME PLAY AGAIN! (actually a win(-)win, I don’t have to play fantasy football and get to complain about being wronged, Best of both worlds Hannah Montana) 

17. Just Have Fun. I complain every fall to my best friend (on paper) Adam that I don’t want to do fantasy football again, but you know what, if you put 5 minutes a week of effort and one trash talk text, it’s fun. And I never pass up a chance to take Mike Lynde’s money. 

Good luck to everyone this year, and make sure to text everyone in your contacts on a weekly basis how the squad is doing.