The Olympic Games are fewer than 100 days away. That’s quite the accomplishment, considering what they went through to make it to 2012.

According to lore, the ancient Olympic Games were founded by Heracles (or Hercules, in Latin). Though most think that they had been occurring regularly for years before, the first games recorded in the annals of history took place in 776 BC, and had one event – the 200 (or so) yard dash. The games continued to grow for another 1,200 years until 393 AD when the Roman emperor Theodosius I ended them because of their pagan roots.

About 1,500 years later, in the summer of 1896, the Olympics were resurrected, with the first modern edition taking place in Athens, Greece. This is where the story gets personal for me. In 2007 I lived in Athens for six months. My apartment was literally a stone’s throw from the very stadium that housed those 1896 games. It’s an open-air stadium made entirely of white marble, which is why it’s called Kallimarmaro, or “beautifully marbled,” in Greek.

Kallimarmaro Stadium in 1896. Photo credit: http://www.stadia.gr/panathinaiko

Every day on the way to class, a restaurant or coffee shop, I would walk by the stadium and think how incredible it was that the modern Olympic Games started there. I won’t try to make the obligatory “Olympics to gladiatorial games” connection, but I will say this: there’s something to be said for the satisfaction of realizing one’s goal. You’ll see it on the faces of those Olympians who’ve just realized that all of their hard work has paid off, and you’ll see it in the mirror after a good, hard day of work on the yard or in the garage.

I, for one, can’t wait. Here’s to the athletes who inspire us to go out and get it done. Go, Team USA!

Mothers. They sense potential. They mold our future. And I have no idea how they do it — especially the one that raised me. I’m sure it was more than just a challenge. Where most people saw crayon on a freshly painted wall, Mom saw art. When the neighbors heard banging on a pot with a ladle, Mom’s finely tuned ears heard a musician that just needed some lessons. That’s why we celebrate moms. They have an uncanny way of bringing out the best in us.

When we’re kids, our moms are the center of our world. Then we grow up, start forming our own success, and naturally, our worlds get bigger. But, it’s important to remember how we got to where we are today, and thank moms for all that they’ve done to get us there. So spend some real quality time with Mom this Mother’s Day, and do something you can enjoy together.

Traditions may vary, but there is one ubiquitous theme for Mother’s Day — flowers. In fact, the holiday is quite the floral celebration. Just visit a nursery around Mother’s Day and you’ll see it filled with moms and their husbands and kids shopping together. So get Mom a gift card and take her out on shopping spree. It’s the perfect way for a mom to spend the big day.

But, there’s more you can do than just going shopping with Mom. If flowers and plants are her thing, why not help her out in garden department? When I was a kid, you couldn’t even get me to water the plants. But this year, I want to share in the floral traditions of Mothers Day. I’ll be getting my hands dirty this year by helping her plant. And while adopting this new tradition, I think I’ll take it a step further.

Since gardening requires tools, pots and other supplies as much as it requires having a green thumb, it’s essential to have all that gear organized and ready to go for gardening season —which coincidentally starts right around, well, Mother’s Day! In addition to helping my mom plant, I’ll be helping her get organized for gardening season. Help your mom, too.

Get Mom some new supplies (there’s nothing better than new gardening gloves) and help her organize pots, plants, bulbs and dirt to cultivate a garden center. Also, check out Gladiator® GarageWorks premium organization products. They’ve got everything from shelves and cabinets to hanging wall systems and accessories. Right now, it’s all 15% off!

Whatever you decide to do for Mother’s Day this year, make it special. And if you have any special traditions or thoughtful ideas straight from the heart, share them here. We’d love to see how everyone is celebrating their mothers.

Blase Mnich is a copywriter with an affinity for Gladiator® GarageWorks. Writing for the brand has inspired him to reorganize the way he looks at the world around him.

This year’s dreaded Tax Day has quickly come and gone. The day on which individual income tax returns were due to Uncle Sam. Hopefully you made the deadline this year, and can soon reap the benefits of a plentiful refund.

This year, the Internal Revenue Service reports that tax refunds are averaging about $3,000. That’s a good chunk of change! Knowing that this windfall is en route to your mailbox or already in your hands, the next step is the best part — what to do with all that money?

The options are limitless, really – some might choose to save, donate it to charity or take part in a guilty pleasure shopping spree. But, for me, it’s going to be all about home organization this year. By giving back to my home, I’m also giving back to me, and investing in making areas in my home more serene by creating organized space – something that’s often an afterthought throughout most of the year. Plus, spring is the time to prepare for all of the awesome things we all do in the summer. Think BBQs, beaches and baseball.

If you’re unsure what home organization items to dedicate your tax refund to or at a loss on what might work well in your home – here are a just few ideas to help keep you organized throughout all areas in your home:

• Storage Bench – Designed for flexibility, the Storage Bench is the perfect place to sit and take your shoes off in the mudroom or makes a stylish entertainment center in the living room. The dual bypass doors slide open to reveal plenty of space to store shoes or a variety of household items inside.

• Rack Shelving – Store large, bulky items from your garage or household items found around your home. The Rack Shelving tread plate accent complements all styles and is ideal for your laundry room, basement, kitchen pantry and more – holding up to 2,000 lbs per shelf, the Rack Shelving is durable enough to take on any clutter in your home.

• 24” Mesh Baskets – To help keep items up off the floor and on the wall, mesh baskets are a great solution. The heavy-duty welded steel mesh baskets support up to 35 lbs and can hold various items such as sports equipment, cleaning supplies or can even be useful to help sort your dirty laundry.

In life, and on the golf course, victory can be an amazing thing. Just ask Gerry “Bubba” Watson, the extraordinary winner of the Masters Tournament, the first of the major four golf championships this year. And what a win it was. Playing his brand of coined Bubba golf, 33-year-old Watson went for the green jacket by going for broke at his first Masters appearance.

As big of a feat as Bubba’s victory was, it was not one to make him less humble — proving the winner to be deserving of the green jacket. During the beginning of his post-tournament conference, he concentrated more on his family’s victory in the four-year battle to adopt a child than his dramatic Masters win. Congratulations on both achievements, Bubba.

This years Masters showed that victory takes many forms, none of which are ever typical. Whether Watson’s win inspires you to strive for great golfing achievements of your own, or just to get out on the driving range to smack the paint off of some golf balls, one thing is certain — golf season is here. So grab your bag and clubs off the Golf Caddy, throw on your favorite sweater vest, and head for the green because it’s go time!

(Gladiator® Golf Caddy with room for two oversized golf bags, balls and shoes)

What’s your opinion of Bubba’s Masters win? Did you root for the underdog or were you hoping someone else would take the green jacket home? Give us your thoughts below and let us know if you have any of your own victories to look forward to.

Blase Mnich is a copywriter with an affinity for Gladiator® GarageWorks. Writing for the brand has inspired him to reorganize the way he looks at the world around him.

High stakes, big money, expensive cars, and fast-talking — the Barrett-Jackson Auction is pulling into Palm Beach, Florida this weekend. Featuring classics, customs and rare finds, the World’s Greatest Collector Car Auction returns to Palm Beach to celebrate its 10th anniversary at the South Florida Fairgrounds and I’m excited to see all the cars I’ll never be able to afford.

With hundreds of amazing rides up for auction, car collectors and aficionados alike have a lot to marvel at this weekend. From vintage finds like the National Corvette Museum exhibited ’57 Vette Convertible, to the chrome custom RENNtech Mercedes-Benz SL600 auctioned off for charity for $155,000, the Barrett-Jackson Auction will definitely pique the interest of most motor mavens, whether they have the bank account to participate or not.

Owning a crazy custom or classic may not be a realistic goal for all auto-enthusiasts out there. But, just because you don’t own a Barrett-Jackson car doesn’t mean you can’t have a garage worthy of one.

Whether you need a mechanic’s pit to tinker on your restored hot rod, or just an organized garage for your grocery-getter, Gladiator® GarageWorks turns your garage into the perfect home for any car. Its garage storage systems can be customized to fit your needs, whatever they may be.

Will you be attending the auction and watching any lots at the South Florida Fairgrounds? Anything interesting catch your attention online? Let us know what your thoughts and bid predictions are for the auction action in Palm Springs this weekend.

Blase Mnich is a copywriter with an affinity for Gladiator® GarageWorks. Writing for the brand has inspired him to reorganize the way he looks at the world around him.

As you might expect, there are many similarities between spring training and spring cleaning. With both, it takes a little while to get warmed up, and there can be a couple of hitches along the way. But once you get going, things start to fall into place.

When starting spring training, the trick is to get everybody and everything working together smoothly. Pitchers and catchers head to spring training earlier than most because we need to warm up, work on timing and find out who’s going to be cleaning up the rotation. Many players have second houses near spring training facilities, so spring training literally means spring cleaning. However, if you’re looking to fine tune your game, it can be essential to work with throwing and swing coaches to make some adjustments. Then your game starts to make sense when it matters.

Just as a team is looking for a guy who can clean up the rotation, you’ve got to be the one cleaning out your home. Getting started is most of the battle. Once you identify the few things that are missing, it’s easier to get everything organized and sitting pretty. Take my garage, for example: It was only when I got in there and started to remove the clutter that I realized there was something missing. That’s why I picked up some Gladiator® GarageWorks products to really clean out the space: Premier Modular Gearboxes, some new Tool Chests and a 5-Drawer Roll-Away. Like adding a particularly wicked slider to an already stacked lineup of pitches, these products gave me versatility. Now there’s more room to store my stuff, and I can get everything out of sight while still keeping it easily accessible.

Spring training and spring cleaning are only the beginning—as the year stretches on, things can get messy, both on the field and in your garage. But getting a strong start at this time of year is essential to your success in keeping everything looking good all year long. And if my game this year is as smooth and efficient as I have my garage looking now, the people of Cincinnati will be pretty happy.

Before

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About the Author:

Mike Leake is a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds and one of the young pitching stars in baseball. Last season, he led the team with a 12-9 record and 118 strikeouts. This followed a rookie campaign in 2010 when he went 8-4 with a 4.23 ERA as the Reds won the National League Central Division Championship. After being drafted in 2009 as the eighth overall pick, Mike became the first player since 2000 to play in the majors without playing in the minor leagues (and 21st player overall since the draft began in 1965).

Mike won back-to-back Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year awards in 2008 and 2009 at Arizona State University, where he was a business management major.

April is National Garage Organization Month, or, as we in the biz call it, NGOM. It’s a month when, either by necessity or spirited ambition, people everywhere get down to business to tackle clutter in the garage. However, in this the seventh annual NGOM, there’s been an ironic twist of fate: Gladiator® GarageWorks has just introduced a product that helps people get organized in areas of the home other than the garage.

I’m speaking, of course, about Gladiator brand’s new Storage Bench. Now don’t get me wrong – the Storage Bench shines in the garage, but it’s on the inside of the home where it can give you the wow factor. With a solid bamboo top and sturdy steel frame, it’s perfect for sitting on to remove shoes in the entryway or as a sleek entertainment center for the TV, not to mention for stuffing annoying little items underneath.

To provide a little extra nudge to get organized this NGOM, Gladiator brand is giving fans a chance to win the new Storage Bench by entering our Bench the Clutter sweepstakes on Facebook.com/GladiatorGW. The sweeps will run for the duration of the April.

If you need even more inspiration to begin your own spontaneous bout of spring organization, or just want to make it a little easier, check out the following tips:

• Rethink your space. Can your home office be moved to the garage? Is your bike beautiful enough to hang on your living room wall? Try new arrangements and explore different possibilities. You may discover you have more space than you originally thought.

• Use your own organizational approach. We’re not all TV celebrity designers or professional organizers. If your approach doesn’t involve a 24-hour organizational makeover marathon, don’t lose hope. The important thing is to keep at it.

• Call in the troops. And by troops we mean friends and family. You don’t have to tackle that spring cleaning alone. In fact, we’d be willing to bet you can find a handful of helpers happy to lend a hand for some pizza and cool beverages.

From all of us at Gladiator® GarageWorks, have a great National Garage Organization Month, and good luck.

March weather is a wildcard. Although this month marks the start of spring, depending on where you live, it’s not uncommon to experience a full year’s worth of seasons in the span of a weekend. It might be a flip-flop day, or you just may need to bust out the galoshes.

After being cooped up inside all winter, spring is about getting out and enjoying the great outdoors, even if means enduring Mother Nature’s wrath. If you’re like me, you’re willing to weather a little storm to fight your cabin fever. But, you really have to be ready for anything.

That’s why the launch of the new Gladiator® Storage Bench couldn’t be more timely. It has plenty of room for 18 pairs of sandals, boots and everything in between for the crazy climate changes. By combining durability with design, its stylish bold look fits seamlessly in the home’s entryway as well as the garage—so you can store just about anything. It makes a perfect garden center for items such as sod, soil, grass seed and other yard care items. Or fill it up with chamois, wax, clay bars and other auto care products if cars are more of your thing.

What would you keep in the Storage Bench? Share your thoughts on the latest big thing from Gladiator® GarageWorks and tell us about your wildest run-ins with spring weather. Has a sporadic hailstorm ever caught you at wrong place at the wrong time? Did you greet a warm summer morning only to be tucked in by a blizzard? Let us know below.

Blase Mnich is a copywriter with an affinity for Gladiator® GarageWorks. Writing for the brand has inspired him to reorganize the way he looks at the world around him.

It’s March, the most maddening time of the year for basketball fans. With Selection Sunday behind us and the bracket all set for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships, it’s almost time to let the chaos commence. So grab a pen, start making your picks, and cross your fingers because March is nothing short of crazy.

This year the insanity began before the tourney even kicked off. Three of the four #1 regional seeds came into the tournament on the heels of a loss in the regular season. But any NCAA fan (and the Selection Committee) knows that anything can happen in March. And that doesn’t just apply to the tournament.

March isn’t just madness on the basketball court. With the start of spring sport season, spring-cleaning and organization put a full-court press on clutter.

That’s why Gladiator® GarageWorks is celebrating with its very own March Savings Madness Event. Choose from four picks of savings—each one a winner in its own way. Now through March 25th, orders over $99 get $10 off, orders over $299 get $45 off, and orders over $499 get $100 off. Plus, spend over $299 and your order ships free! Just enter promo code GDRHAP during check out.

How do think the Championships will pan out this year? Which high-ranking seed do you think will be eliminated first: Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina or Michigan State University? Will a low-seeded Cinderella team rise up through the ranks and blow everybody away? Share your predictions here.

Blase Mnich is a copywriter with an affinity for Gladiator® GarageWorks. Writing for the brand has inspired him to reorganize the way he looks at the world around him.

When spring fever hits, there’s no stopping it. You’ll want to jump in and do it all. After being cooped up inside all winter, who can blame you? But before you seize the longer and warmer days, you might want to take a day or two to get your spring gear nice and organized before you leap in to your hobbies.

A little extra time getting reorganized now could save you a lot of time looking for your gear. So pick a weekend for organization and start by pulling all of your stuff out of the garage. Donate or throw out everything you don’t want or need. You’ll be surprised how much room you’ll gain.

Next you’ll want to gather your stuff in piles based on categories so you can organize by hobbies and interest. Once that’s done, you’re ready to organize. Below are some tips for getting your spring sports stuff, tools, and gardening gear set for spring go time.

 Swing into Spring Sport Mode

Before you jump on that bike path or go out to smack the paint off some golf balls, set up a sports zone for your spring sports gear. The Claw Advanced Bike Storage 3.0, Golf Caddy, Ball Caddy, and other Wall Accessories all keep your gear ready for greatness at a moments notice.

Dig Deep and Organize

Gardening is about unearthing your yard’s potential, not digging out your gardening tools. Cultivate a gardening center inside your garage using Hooks and Accessories for your tools and gardening gear like the Deep Hook for your garden hose, GearLoft™ Shelf for heavier pots, and Cabinets for just about anything.

Overhaul Your Garage

Overhaul your garage to make room to work on your ride now, so you can take your baby out as soon as cruising weather hits. Tool Storage Chests hooks like the J & L Hooks keep wrenches, sockets, and the trusty breaker bar handy. Cabinets are great for storing auto fluids, while Flooring keeps your floor free from oil and makes working on your car a little more comfortable.

It may sound like work, but these tips go a long way. Make the most of your spring and summer by taking a little time getting organized now. How do all of you green thumbs, motor mavens, and weekend warrior athletes prep for spring?

Blase Mnich is a copywriter with an affinity for Gladiator® GarageWorks. Writing for the brand has inspired him to reorganize the way he looks at the world around him.