There are few things about chess that I can claim to be better at than Magnus Carlson. While speed chess isn’t exactly one of them, setting up a chessboard quickly may be.

I’m a fan of chess and learned how to play in second grade. I made the Maple Grove Chess club in 5th grade. I then became the highest-rated player in Maple Grove Chess club history and held that title until it ended nearly 2 decades later. (I probably wasn’t the best player ever, but later in the club, they didn’t have as many players or as many tournaments so getting a higher rating was harder for later players).

In high school, I placed a few times at the state chess championships and I was going to say this was my crowing chess achievement, but I probably worked harder to place 5th in the state at speed chess in 2002 than I did to break this record.

I have had this application open for a couple of years and practiced it for quite a while a year and a half ago. The problem was I didn’t get fast enough. I kept dropping pieces, knocking them over, or misplacing them (they have to be fully within their square). I top of that I didn’t go fast enough. I recently watched the popular Netflix series, The Queen’s Gambit, and it got me thinking about chess again. It was time to go after this record. I practiced time after time after time.

I finally got a run of 30.31 seconds knocking over a second off the previous record of 31.55 seconds.

My wife and I also broke the 2-person version of this record.

The Dream Team has gotten back together. Becky, Mike, David, Chris, and Dusty reemerge from a 1+ year hiatus to reclaim the first Guinness World Record’s title.

When we first broke the record for the fastest 20m flying disc relay for a team of 5, it stood at 8.74s seconds. We were able to pass it don’t the line of 5 and back in only 6.83 seconds knocking nearly 2 seconds off the record. In the past year, a team out of Japan surpassed our mark by less than a quarter second with a 6.6 second run. We had to work a bit harder this time, but we finished with a 5.47 second time shaving another full second off the record.

We almost didn’t do quite that well but on one of our record-breaking runs, the timer forgot to start the video the stopwatch was on (and with COVID rules, the stopwatch has to be on camera). We broke the record, celebrated, and were gathering the supplemental evidence showing the distance between each thrower when I noticed the camera wasn’t on.

In the news:

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/03/24/Guinness-World-Records-flying-disc-relay-David-Rush/4371616599945/

Josh felt pretty bad about not starting the camera, but the good news is it spurred us on to give it a few more tries. We improved our time even more for the one that counted.

The only real drawback is that the final throw from Mike to Becky (husband/wife) was a laser shot and it was all Becky could do to corral the throw. She pinned it between her hand and arm keeping the attempt valid but it totally bruised her upper arm. That right there sums up the perils of breaking a Guinness World Record with your significant other.

Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon and I broke a somewhat technical record this time. The issue was the attempt was completely overshadowed by my 2-year-old’s antics during the attempt.

The record was for the most candy-coated popcorn to be caught in the mouth in one minute. The previous record was 53. Jonathan is the ambidextrous tosser and I’m the experienced juggler catcher (this time in my mouth).

We put together an impressive stream and broke the record handily with 67 caught in the mouth in one minute and both of us were pleased with the result.

I didn’t realize until after how much my 2-year-old son had completely overshadowed the event and stole the show. He wandered in with his sword and ball just a few seconds into the event and saw all this popcorn falling on the floor (that I was spitting out of my mouth!). He decided to get to work and clean it up. He was picking it up right at my feet and said he was cleaning it up, then he laughed when it hit him on the head, then he said ouch. He eventually dropped his ball and sword and he was not keeping up with the caramel corn coming down.

The next step was to take the sticky popcorn and put it back on the tray that Jonathan was picking from to throw. I’m not sure if I caught any of those again, but it’s certainly possible. My son then decided he wanted to throw one to me and grabbed one and held it up to throw. He called out “Dad!” to get my attention, but I was focused on an official attempt. He eventually gave up and just at the caramel corn. That wasn’t the last piece he stole based on the evidence.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/466391-most-candy-coated-popcorn-thrown-and-then-caught-with-the-mouth-in-one-minute

My wife wanted the giant beach ball out of our house. Apparently, it gets in the way of everything. Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon wasn’t available. His wife wanted to go tile shopping for the bathroom. I’m a problem solver, so this problem I solved. I found a more than capable neighbor replacement in catty-corner neighbor Seth Lemmons (who had previously fed me the ice cream in most ice cream flavors identified in 1 minute while blindfolded, video links below).

I set up 2 lines of cones 2 meters apart and we waited for the rain to subside before getting in a little practice. We thought we were good to go but we struggled way too much for our 6 minute practice run before dropping the ball.

After a consultation and discussion on strategy and technique, we went after it again. It was mostly cloudy and we fought some wind as well as some rain that made the ball a little slick and just a touch cold. We couldn’t drop the ball, step over the line, or hold the ball for more than 2 seconds before passing it again.

We kept going after this record long enough that by the time we dropped the ball 4,169 catches later, Hollywood had returned from his shopping trip to hurl insults at me and compliments at Seth who successfully broke his very first Guinness World Record’s title! Congratulations Seth! We broke the previous record (minimum set by Guinness for someone who never broke it?) of 1,300 passes about

It also appears Hollywood’s kids love to make faces for the camera so I left some of those in at the beginning and the end.

215 dice caught in 30 seconds while blindfold. Just wait until you see the video to really understand how impossible this one was.

I had to catch 215 dice while blindfolded. My technique was almost as good as Jonathan’s getting the dice off the table. Watch the video to learn all the secrets.

We had to beat the previous record of 45 and were only able to beat it by about 470% despite our best efforts.

Stay tuned to find out what we have planned next.

This is the second time Jennifer and I have gone after this record. The record for the most t-shirts put on in one minute (team of 2) has stood at 31. We got 32 this summer but there was an unclarified rule that resulted in a disqualification. Each shirt must be pulled to the waist. The unwritten part is that each shirt had to be pulled to the waist for the full circumference of the waist. We had a couple that didn’t meet that final qualification over the summer so we decided we had to do it again to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

https://youtu.be/RosxpIGnRC0

This time I got more uniform shirts and we pulled on 35 shirts in one minute. I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind a little help from my wife when getting dressed. This one is is actually so difficult towards the end that Guinness doesn’t have a single person one minute version of this record, only a 30 second version (which I currently hold). The arms get so restricted and have so much force pushing against them that it’s virtually impossible to get the last 10 or so shirts on without the second person helping.

Our 2 year old was cheering us on the whole time. He wanted to put on the shirts, then he wanted to hit the stopwatch, and then finally he said “go daddy go!” and at the end he ran out for the celebratory hug and let out his own “Come on! Yes!” I wonder if I should tell his this is how kids are made?

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I teamed up with my wife on Valentine’s Day 2021 to break a Guinness World Record’s title or the Guinness Valentine’s Day special video. We broke a couple of records and this week I’m featuring the Fastest time to arrange a chess set (team of two).

The previous record of 36.70 seconds doesn’t seem all that fast for two people using 4 hands setting up a board simultaneously. And it wouldn’t be. But the Guinness rules require each person to set up their own color alone, one piece at a time, with one hand only, from over 12 inches away, and the person setting up black can’t start until the person setting up white is done. In addition, if a single piece isn’t in the correct square or is on the line of any box, the entire attempt is disqualified. When we pulled off a time of 34.09 seconds, we were pretty happy.

When it comes to chess, Beth Harmon has nothing on my wife in terms of setting the board up or beating me. We also played the fastest possible game of chess that clocked in at an unofficial time of 1.73 seconds from start to finish. It’s called fool’s mate and I walked through our variation which was the fastest, the two variations that the pawns can move one more square forward, and fool’s mate in which black is mated which takes one more inconsequential move by white.

Breaking the record took weeks of deliberate practice, a growth mindset, and plenty of grit. We wanted to give up several times since we often didn’t seem to be making any progress. But with deliberate practice: timing every run for each of us, getting immediate feedback on if the strategy worked, and trying again with micro-adjustments, we were able to pull it off.

Tom Brady throws a pigskin into Gronks hands, I throw CDs into a bucket. What’s the difference? (besides 100 million viewers give or take).

https://youtu.be/OGWNrW-7oA4

This is the second time I’ve gone after “the most CDs/DVDs throw into a target in one minute”. The first time was two years ago at the Boise State University STEM day. I thought I got 42 but upon video review one ricocheted off the camera and bounced in so 41 was the total.

Jay Rawlings beat by the record with 46. This isn’t the first time Jay and I have gone head to head on a Guinness World Record. He went on Britain’s Got Talent and balanced 11 chairs on his chin. I went on the Huckabee show and got 15 (a record I still hold). We were both successful on our “Got Talent” appearances, me with 29 t-shirts worn and torn in 1 minute (a competition I went head-to-head with against Terry Crews).

This time I lined up and got 50 CDs thrown into the 12 inch target in one minute to reclaim my record.

Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon strikes again. This time we got 54 in a minute with popcorn thrown from 2 meters away.

https://youtu.be/0Hl0oYuaftU

The hard part about this record is that popcorn without all the goodies on it is light. It doesn’t follow a typical parabolic trajectory of a flying object since wind resistance acts on it more than heavier objects. Any stickiness also makes it not want to leave the hands which resulted in a few errant throws.

Hollywood used his ambidextrous skills once again to get as many over to me as possible and I was able to nab 54 of them with my mouth before quickly spitting them out to catch the next crushing the previous record of 37.