The “long” part of the long month (closer to six weeks) has been the massive workload I have experienced while completing my new book, The Every Other Day Diet. The book comes out this week and is already making some serious waves in the fitness and dieting community. The title alone is provocative enough. The concepts and plans are downright stellar.

I’m tooting my own horn again, eh? Hey, my blog, my horn.

In all seriousness, I have my co-author Janis Hauser CPT to thank for a lot of the stellarness. (Quick…is that a word? What do I know…I’m only a writer…) Between the two of us, and a lot of help from her husband Peter, son Gunner, and our marketing whiz Mike Hill, The Every Other Day Diet phenomenon is ready for takeoff.

You can read more below — plus sign up for the pre-release e-book being offered this week:

Read more about The Every Other Day Diet

Meanwhile, our story continues…

Saturday was almost a perfect day. Close enough, really. Here’s the scoop:

After the aforementioned (more grammar nonsense for ya) “six weeks in hell” — 16 hour days, zero days off, with edits, creative meetings, software program creation, more edits, training, more training, dieting, more dieting, and so-on, Jan and I needed a break big-time.

We found that break on a all-day journey to Mount St. Helens.

Most of you were very much alive when St. Helens erupted in 1980, leaving a wake of 100-foot trees snapped like a twig and bellowing a plume 15 miles high with ash landing in Denver. St. Helens was far more powerful than the eruption that leveled Pompeii, for all of you who dig history nuggets. The entire top of St. Helens is now scattered around a fill-in-the-blank-mile radius around the sleeping pseudo-giant.

Around St. Helens rests (operative word we hope) three other and much larger stratovolcanos: Mount Rainier, which we can see from Lake Washington most of the time at over 14,000 feet, Mount Hood, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier has geologist genuinely concerned. If Rainier decides to follow in the footsteps of St. Helens, it’s bye-bye Seattle. It would be as if we dumped 100 Nagasaki bombs on the place. Mmmm…cozy…

Not good for tourism, as if the “rains all the time” rumor isn’t bad enough.

So, other than the threat of annihilation from a sleeping volcano…or two…or four…I’m telling ya, it’s just perfect up here.

Seriously though, I’ll take my chances. My options are…what?…Concreteville (Dallas) at 100 degrees, about two dozen trees, and a landscape resembling the top of a new Marine’s head? No thanks. I love the good people in Dallas, but I’ll pass on the lack of beauty. Send me to Active Volcano Land, thank YOU.

Where the hell was I? Oh, right…

A nearly perfect day.

Let me clarify: driving with your best friend in a vintage 8 Series BMW on long, winding mountain roads, listening to the roar of the engine as well as Audioslave, The Dandy Warhols, NIN, Snow Patrol, and other choice music is damn hard to beat. Add to that flawless weather (sans one pesky cloud that blocked the tip of St. Helens) and Jon is a happy, happy camper.

Perfection was lost, sort-of, ONLY by the fact that Jon Boy forgot to purchase the ‘tickets’ to the Dandy Warhols show Jan so kindly drove him to Portland for that night to see. Golly, that was a horrid sentence, but I’m still in mourning which is affecting my writing.

We literally drove right up to the small club (The Wonder Room) as if we’d been there a dozen times prior. This, after almost four hours of grueling hiking (more on that in a sec) and a full day of driving madness. For the record: we never exceeded the speed limit. No…really. Ever. No, like, I’m really totally 100% serious. I mean, it’s not like I used to race cars or anything like that…oh, wait…I did…but…STILL…115% under speed we were. Yep. Never got much over 2000 RPMs either, even on those windy roads, hairpins, and…

…are you buying this? You should. I’m serious!

So, there we were. Fifteen feet from seeing one of my favorite bands in their hometown, in a small venue, and with the very cool people of Portland, Oregon. We literally drove up with 10 minutes to spare.

No tickets…and they were sold out. I was, for five minutes, NOT a happy camper. Then I got over it because…well, hey…I was in paradise with my best buddy. I had one of the best days of my life doing many things I love to do all at the same time. Who am I to complain? I’m not actually.

(But the Dandys would have been killer… : )

So, what all did we do? As they say, a picture is worth any thousand words Jon Benson may ever write…

After dessert and a game of Jenga (I won…beginner’s luck) it was back to Seattle. Jan was a trooper and drove the entire way back. My eyes were tired, my legs spent, and my senses fulfilled. It was…perfect.

[jB]