The Emperor's New Shoes

OK, so I’m not really an emperor (king, prince, or knight for that matter – maybe squire…) but the new shoes sure make me feel different. But so did my purchasing experience…

I have had a pair of Nike’s for about 5 years and they have seen me through many a mile. They say running shoes should be replaced at roughly 500 miles, I think I exceeded that a bit. They were with me when I started my dissention from 275 down to my current 206. I have some emotion tied into them. But after a run that included a good bit of dirt path, I came to the conclusion that my shoes indeed had worn too thin. Every pebble could be felt in the ball of my foot. I don’t know how Shaka Zulu ever convinced his warriors to live and fight completely shoeless… Maybe he was a bit better emperor than me…?

Anyway, with the amount of running I am doing now I decided it was time to get new (and better) running shoes. Nothing against my Nike’s but they were the absolute bottom end of the running shoes - purchased on sale for about $35 bucks if I remember correctly. They were also not designed for my stride or foot mechanics. These are issues that really don’t matter to the fat guy just jogging to get in shape but really do matter to the runner wanting to improve his personal bests or extending his runs from 3 miles up to 6, 10, or more miles.

A friend of mine recommended a runner’s store, Fleet Feet, as a good resource for getting a proper shoe. I had been reading about shoe types, reviews of various shoes, and had a basic knowledge of what to consider. However, I will definitely say that the sales force of this store were far more knowledgeable than your average shoe salesperson (and me) when it comes to running shoes as they were all experienced runners as well. They took a seated foot size then a standing foot size, from this they determined that I have a fairly stiff arch that doesn’t collapse very far with each stride. While this is biomechanically a bit more efficient, it tends to place more shock and stress on the knees and requires more cushion in the foot. Typically people’s arches collapse a bit more and act as natural shock absorbers for the stride. They then had me run on a treadmill with a video camera on my feet to show the amount of pronation (foot rotation related to the collapsing arch) in my stride. There are different shoes for various levels of pronation. Once the saleswoman had my foot particulars she brought out 7, yes 7, pairs of shoes. As a guy, I have never gone beyond 2-3 pairs before saying "good enough for me". She had me try on and run a short distance in each pair of shoes (lacing and tying 14 shoes) with a smile the whole time. Eventually I selected the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 7 which set me back more than I would like to admit (certainly more than I have ever paid for a pair of shoes) but with absolutely no buyer’s remorse.

I know you think this whole entry was about my new "toys" but what really prompted me to write this entry was my shoe buying experience. Whether out of necessity, complacency, or ignorance, I think we as consumers have, as a culture, allowed ourselves to value price over ALL else. When was the last time you went to a specialty shop and paid a little more for what you really wanted instead of just grabbing what was available during your last run to Wal-Mart? I’m not one of those people that think that Wal-Mart is the evil empire as I have NOTHING against Wal-Mart and we do probably 80% of all of our weekly shopping there. But would I have been as satisfied or gotten what I really needed if I bowed to convenience? I believe customer service is undervalued in the retail world today. I genuinely think that my saleswoman wanted me to have a more enjoyable running experience. The subject of price or price range never even came up. I didn’t even know what they were going to cost until I got to the register but I knew that the selected shoe was the most appropriate shoe for me and so I didn’t flinch, wince, or bat an eye when the price rang up. I’m realistic enough to know that this was also due to the financial stability that the Lord has blessed me with but that same exact shoe WOULD NOT have come with the same peace without the confidence provided by my experience in the store. I think buyer’s remorse is the result of poor customer service and not convincing the shopper that they truly have made the right choice.

Have any of you recently made a purchase that was a particularly good (or bad) experience?

Blog Addition - If you care...

I just wanted to point out one small addition to my blog you may not notice if I didn't point it out. If you look to your right, under my picture and profile you will see a quick running summary. I have been filling out a running log on the Runner's World website. Each time I run I fill out a quick form about length, time, type of run, course, etc. and it will keep a log/graphs/personal records for me. I have linked my list of personal records (only those reached in official races since I started running again) and a record of my last 5 runs. If you click on one of the runs it will take you to my training log if you are interested. Here is an example graph of my log since my Stonemill 5k race when I started the log.

I know that VERY few are interested, particularly to this level of detail, but really, this is for me. If I know that my closest friends and family can go and see that I haven't run in two weeks, I will be highly motivated to get on the treadmill at least for a little bit. (We all know I would NEVER make up a fake log entry, right? My wife would turn me in if I did anyway...) If this actuall has the effect of guilting a few of you into going for a run as well... happy happy joy joy.

Stonemill Results and my Saturday Run

I knew if I just waited a few more days they would post the race results from my 5k last weekend but here they are for you to see. Key notes:

• 28th place overall
• 5th in my group - 30-39M as I stated earlier
• I was 15 seconds out of 3rd for my group and the ever coveted trophy
• I was the fastest citizen of Roswell - it helps when there are only 3 of us in the race
• Only 4 women were faster than me and all were in their 20's and 30's (no triumvirate of 12 year old girls this time...)
• The field was slightly smaller than I thought, 204 not the roughly 300 I posted earlier

As for my run this morning - I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew but I think it was a good experience. I ran on the Alpharetta Greenway which starts about a mile from my house and runs 10k (6.2 miles) along Big Creek. I decided that I would start at the Mansell Rd end, run an hour, turn around and run back an hour. At the one hour mark I was just passing the 5.5 mile mark. At this point I should have turned around but the draw of actually claiming I ran it from end to end to end (20k/12.4miles) was too inviting. That extra 1.4 miles made a big difference in the end... I should have turned around.

I completed the first 10k at 1:06:40. I noticed a slower pace after I turned around but I was still feeling pretty good at that point. By the 10 mile mark, somewhere around 1:50:00 I was starting to wilt pretty bad. My shirt now weighed probably 5-10 lbs and did not have a dry spot on it. My jog had slowed into the 12-13 minutes per mile range from the 11 minute per mile range I ran the first 10k in. I started to feel twinges in my calves and my hips started to ache as well. At the ll.5 mile mark I was doing not much more than a shuffle and finally decided to walk the rest of the way in. Funny how the body communicates that it has given all that it has to give. I actually arrived back at the end of the trail at 2:27:32.

Interesting things I learned about trying to run this length of run:

• I actually was running slow enough on the return run that I wasn't even winded - my problems were in my hydration and energy
• When I try to run that far again I will take and energy bar and Gatorade
• I need to get a running shirt that evaporates or sheds perspiration quickly
• Don't run that far less than a week after donating blood (huge type O and AB shortage here in Atlanta right now so I gave last week after my race)
• Don't let my ego define my goals - inside I knew 2 hours and 10-11 miles was as much as I wanted to chew off today.
• 4 ibuprofen work wonders when your hips feel like they want to fall off (kind of like when my wife was in that last month of pregnancy)
• And lastly, even fully 100% dehydrated I am still not under 200 lbs (200.8 at runs end) - oh well.

Now excuse me while I go and sleep the rest of the day until that BYU-UofA game this afternoon...

Josh Josh and Liesie Lu

This was a couple weeks back but I'm finally posting them so forgive me. Here is my 4 year old with his magna doodle. He pulled me aside to show me that he had written his name for the VERY FIRST TIME without any help. The A didn't fit so he had to put it on the next line down...

Of course, his sister saw the camera action and wanted in on it...

Stonemill 5k

I half debated holding off until the official results were posted on the race website but, not knowing how long that might take, I decided to let you all know how my race went last weekend. As I indicated in a previous post, I ran in the Stonemill 5k (previously known as the Sugarloaf 5k). It is a relatively small race that is sponsored by a local church as part of their summer festival. The relatively small field (~300 people I would guess) gave me hope of doing respectable in the final standings.

For reference, on Memorial Day I ran a 25:21 5k, which was my best to date following my 29:47 last September. My goal for the race on the 25th was sub 25 minute. Maybe I should have had a lower goal with my last improvement in mind but keep in mind that step changes get smaller as you approach the peak, anyway…

The night before the race was a bit odd. I had severe leg cramps in my left leg. My wife can attest that on occasion I wake up with terrible leg cramps. Historically these have always been in my calf muscles, rub my arch, give me a banana and they go away. The last two times (Friday night included) the cramps have been in a muscle along the outer shin of each leg. Can’t explain it, but I didn’t know how to make them go away either. I was awoken 3 times during the night, each time for roughly 5-10 minutes with this cramp in my left leg and started to wonder if I was even going to be able to run. When my alarm went off at 5:30, the leg felt fine, so I proceeded as planned.

The morning was perfect. Considering the fact that Atlanta has been in the midst of a record setting heat wave I was afraid the morning was going to be unbearable. The night before the race a series of storms rolled through and dropped the temperatures significantly. The clouds even stuck around for the morning. The daily high ended up being almost 10 degrees lower than the previous day.

The course was along an industrial park road but the organizers were thrown a curveball when the city water department decided it was time to install a new sewer line less than a week before the race date. The organizers did a good job of routing us over and around the construction well however and the only people that complained were the two old men who planned on running the race barefoot as there were a few spots with more gravel than one would hope for.

With the small field I decided to be optimistic and lined up about 8-10 feet from the front of the pack and seemed to judge it about right. I passed a few and a few passed me but for the most part I started where I should in the field. The race started with the first quarter mile all uphill with the steepest incline we would face in the entire run. This had the wonderful effect of stretching out the field quickly and making the rest of the run seem, for the most part, downhill.

At the 1 mile mark they yelled out 7:38. This was faster than I had planned and considering the long uphill at the start was actually a really good opening mile for me. By that mile mark I had settled into a group of three guys and we started passing a few of those greenies that really go out fast and then just die! We had a good rhythm but perhaps ran a little slower than we should. At the two mile mark they said 15:33. If you do the math that comes out to a 7:55 second mile. Still sub 8 minutes, which was my goal to meet my 25-minute mark but, in hindsight, a bit slower than it should have been for this relatively flatter portion of the course. At that point I abandoned this group and started pushing myself the last third.

As I crossed the 3 mile mark I kicked into an all out sprint with everything I had left for the last tenth of a mile. My semi-official time (until the results are released) was 23:51. Here is the math for you. That means my last 1.1 miles was in 8:18 which on a minutes per mile pace is roughly 7:33 minutes per mile. I don’t know my overall place yet but my place amonst the 30 year old males was 5th, just an agonizing 18 seconds out of 3rd which would have netted me a trophy. Mind you, in a big race I wouldn’t have even been in the ballpark of the word trophy but it would have been nice. Hindsight tells me my slower second mile cost me that trophy, but, oh well. I killed my sub 25-minute goal, I didn’t puke like I did in May, and I am more motivated than ever to kick it up a knotch… 10k race… Half-MARATHON??? Stay tuned for the updates.

And if you are wondering… I’m at 205. I’m hoping to be sub 200 by Thanksgiving (part of that whole Half-Marathon plan…)

Mind Bender

This is Caleb and me at Six Flags over Georgia riding the Mind Bender roller coaster. The ride has two loops in it but was the only true roller coaster that Caleb was tall enough to ride. Mischa went on it once as well but I couldn't get her to go again. This video was taken on the last run of the day before the park closed. We had just been in the front car and I filmed the forward direction but the battery in the camera died halfway through the ride. I switched batteries but had to move from the front row but since there was no-one else in line we were allowed to move to the third row where I decided to turn the camera around.

August Updater

Just a short post to quiet some of my "why haven’t you posted?" critics and to hopefully break the logjam and get me back in the habit here.

Things I have been doing or have happened in my life for the last month and a half that I’m not planning additional posts about include:

1. Going on vacation to Arizona, New Mexico, Arizona again, Nevada, and Utah, which my wife is doing a much better job blogging about so I won’t rehash those items.
2. Caleb and Mischa went back to school for their respective 3rd and 2nd grade years. Their teachers seemed nice enough at the meet and greet "Sneak Peak" the school arranged. We’ll give them a few weeks to see how they handle our kids. Is it just me or does every Parent think that their children present some unique hurdles for their teachers?
3. Re-reached that 207 weight that I posted earlier (slight setback due to vacation). Actually, that first 207 was based on really being 210 on a day to day basis but having just completed a 10k run, I stepped on the scale and got the "dehydration assisted" 207 pictured previously. The 207 this morning was the first "daily weigh-in" 207 so is far more significant. Actually, on a post run, "dehydration assisted" basis I have had a 206 weigh in (last week) but I try not to fool myself into including those weights in my overall progress as they set unrealistic benchmarks at times…
4. Preparing for my next 5k event, the Stonemill 5k (previously known as the Sugarloaf 5k), this weekend. Hopefully that 25-minute mark will be obtained this time around but who knows? I’ll post results ASAP.
5. The mass air flow sensor went out on my car and we had to drop several hundred bucks into replacing that. Funny how when you get a raise, emergencies seem to arise to claim the new money. In the three months since taking my new job (with raise) we have had dangerously leaning trees, family vacation, and now my car. Each of which ate up any and all additional funds from my job for each of the last three months. But as my wise wife pointed out, at least we had the raise to pay for it and perhaps a loving Heavenly Father was holding back the tide until I had the levee repaired…
6. I have adopted my wife’s 6 tomato plants that she was doing her best to kill off. To be fair, the heat wave and lack of measurable rain in the last month have done their fair share of the killing. The plants are just now starting to bear fruit, some worth keeping, some not. Maybe I will post pictures later, but lets just say we will not be visiting the state fair any time soon.
7. Oh and of course, I read Harry Potter 7. Good book, I could comment, praise, and rant but really my thoughts and opinions are really not all that original for those of you who read the book and care about the topic. The neatest thing to me was to watch my little Mischa catch the Harry Potter bug while Jamie and I were reading the last book. She read books 1-4 in the space of two weeks! (She turned 7 in April if you don’t know her.) Talk about scary and exciting, I have been bragging to EVERYONE that even remotely brings up the topic of reading, books, or Harry Potter.

Well, that should do it for now. Everything else that has happened I have planned a post in my head. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe I will actually write about them later.

Results - Celebrate America 5k - Alpharetta, GA

Well I went back to the web and found the RESULTS for the race I ran on Memorial Day. So lets see how I did with a brief analysis of the data:

Overall: 101st place out of 384 - not quite in the top quarter

Fastest time: 16:32 - Wow! - I had about a mile to go at that point

Slowest time: 49:17 - One of about 10 that actually lost to the top finishing 10k runners who made two loops of the course.

My time: 25:21 this was actually faster than the 25:33 I reported earlier - why the discrepancy between what I thought at the time and the posted results, I don't know but the 12 seconds faster translated into 6 places overall and 1 place in my group.

My group (30-39 M): 11th out of 23 - I'll take that considering that without the "pinched butt" (see previous post), I think I could have cut the 16 seconds off that would have given me 8th place in the group

Youngest contestant: 6 yr old Davis Eddleman who ran it in 37:57 - I couldn't pay my kids to run that far!

Oldest contestant: 83 yr old George Abercrombie who ran it in 45:40 - I hope I can still do this at that age.

Catagories they didn't have that I would like to think I would have won (or come at least a lot closer) Why don't they expand their classes to help people feel better about themselves?:

1. Runners who previously weighed 275 lbs
2. Runners that had lost a minimum of 40 lbs in the previous 8 months
3. Runners who have a graduate degree from Western New Mexico University
4. Runners who's favorite work out music is Everclean - Spiritchal as Me

On the blow to the ego side:

1. If I was a teenage girl I would have come in 12th for the group!
2. I lost to a trio of 12 year old girls!

Oh well, I guess I have room for improvement! Guess I'll have to keep on running!

Amazing Brit - Paul Potts

I'm sure many of you have seen this guy, but if you haven't, you have to watch! We are talking about an Average Joe who is really the next great tenor... I've never cried to a song that I don't know the words to or doesn't come with a video... until this. All my descriptions won't match up to what this guy can do so I won't write any more, just watch!

Tale Repackaged

Charles looked down at his watch and ran through the calculations in his head once again. Fifteen minutes had passed since he had sprinted out his front door, settled into a redundant stride, and prayed he had set the right pace. The rhythmic beating of shoes hitting pavement served as a hypnotic calming force as the turmoil of the situation played out in his mind over and over. Already the sweat beaded and rolled off his face as the Georgia humidity was paying him no favors. The sequence of events leading up to his run played out in his mind over and over, only heightening his sense of urgency.

Charles worked as an engineer for a marble mining company. As he collected a water sample from one of the mine dewatering sumps that morning he could not of imagined how that day would play out. The cool, constant, 58 degrees that the underground environment of the mine offered sounded so inviting to him now as he struggled to maintain his focus, now just 20 minutes into his run.

It was roughly a half an hour ago, just as he kicked his boots off and plopped onto the couch, that the phone had rang. The brief conversation now played over in his head.

"Hello, this is Chuck."

"Honey… it’s me." The faint crack of a whimper divided the phrase.

Sensing the stress in her voice he perked to attention like a private as his commanding officer enters the room. "Sweetie, what’s wrong? I thought you would be here when I got home… where.."

She cut him off, "Honey, I don’t have much time. This cell phone is beeping like the battery is low, I don’t know how much longer I can talk. I am at the church house, we were setting up for tonight when a stranger came in and demanded $1000 dollars. Don’t call the police because he says he will start shooting if they show up. Honey, he has given us until 7 to come up with the money or I don’t know what he is going to do… plea" beep, beep, beep, the tell tale signal of a lost cell call never came with more horror!

He frantically called her back but was met by her voicemail on the first ring, confirming that it was her battery that had given out. All the "network" in the world couldn’t help now. Digging through a kitchen drawer he found the number to the church house but repeated calls only produced an answering machine.

What his wife was not aware of was the fact that on his way home from work that day his serpentine belt had failed and he had hitchhiked his way home. Months of ignoring the squeal from the belt had finally caught up with him, producing a 1 ton paperweight alongside Georgia 400.

Having made that drive many times he knew the church house was 6.2 miles from home, 10,000 meters now separated him from where he needed to be. As his options played out in his mind, the adrenaline had altered his decision making ability and the only conclusion he had been able to produce was to make a run for it. He strapped on his running shoes, grabbed his wallet and bolted from the door.

As he ran out he had glanced at his watch and noted that he had 65 minutes to get there including, he estimated, 2 minutes at the ATM. Although he had run many 5k events, averaging roughly 25 minutes for the distance, the concept of twice the distance in just over an hour felt very daunting, as he had never even tried it before. He knew it would be a matter of setting the right pace and holding it.

As he approached the ATM, he struggled to regain his breath as he punched in his PIN, having to repeat it due to his jittery fingers. Now 30 minutes into his run, he knew he was roughly halfway. As he typed in his request for $1000 dollars from his checking account, the machine denied his request. Knowing he had the available balance he repeated the request with the same result. Halfway through his third request he suddenly remembered that his account had a daily maximum of $500 built in, as a security feature. Resigned to that reality, he took the reduced amount and prayed that the "stranger" would accept that explanation.

As he left the ATM he realized he had burned precious time with the delays. Instead of 2 minutes, it had taken him 5. With his watch now reading 6:30 he knew he had to complete the second 5k in the same time as the first, except his lungs and muscles were already straining at the endeavor.

The panic struck him that perhaps he had made the wrong choice. Couldn’t he had asked a neighbor? Shouldn’t he had called the police despite the warning? With the cliché of hindsight is 20/20 playing in his head the anger at himself provided the motivation that the adrenaline had provided earlier. As he trudged on he began to feel like one of Hanibal’s elephants in a forced march over the Alps, driven on by the cracking of a handler’s whip.

As the time and miles passed by, Charles tried anything and everything to take his mind off of his wife and focus on the run. Surely this man wouldn’t hurt her if he got the money, right? His pace was now sporadic, waning as his thoughts drifted followed by periods of sprinting as he regained focus. Precious seconds ticked by and he started to wonder if he would make the deadline. With one final hill he noted he only had 3 minutes remaining. Angry as the reality of his pending failure sunk in, he took solace that the 47 lbs he had lost that year made even getting close a reality. His 207-lb frame was doing something his 255-lb frame of a year ago could never had done, let alone the 275-lb frame of years past.

As he crested the hill and the church came into view, the sinking feeling that he had failed came over him. Now just a few hundred yards from the church his watch read 7:00. He listened for the sounds of gunfire, praying that the man had extended the deadline or perhaps the church clock was running slow.

He burst through the church door at 7:01 and 51 seconds, screaming for his wife and her unknown captor. Frantically he searched as he waved the $500 ransom over his head. As he heard a noise in the gym he whipped around and tore down the hall in that direction. Jerking open the door his brain could not believe what his eyes absorbed. Standing before him were all of his best friends, co-workers, and fellow churchgoers, celebrating… No sign of his wife or the stranger she had alerted him to.

As he cleared the sweat now pouring into his eyes he started to leave the gym to continue his search of the building, the reality of the situation still not clicking in his head. As he turned to leave someone finally noticed his entrance and yelled out, "he’s here!"

Thinking they were speaking of the stranger, Charles turned in the direction of the voice. Catching a view of his wife, apparently okay, he stepped toward her, surveying the area for the gunman. To his utter astonishment the entire gym screamed out, "Surprise, Happy Birthday!" His wife’s smile turned to bewilderment as she noted his perspiration, panting, and stagger.

But Charles would have his revenge. Finally grasping the situation, he made his way to his wife, wrapped his now sweat-soaked body around hers and gave her the biggest, wettest kiss he ever had, something Hanibal’s elephants would have done too, if given the chance, I imagine.




Of course, the only two elements of this story that are true...

A Month and a Half of Happenings

OK, once again I have fallen pray to the "I'll get to it tomorrow" bug so often afflicting my blogging. Of course, it has been quite the month for me in terms of life changes... So, here it is, a recap of the last month and a half highlights.

First of all, I have started my new job. I am working for Imerys. It is a French performance minerals mining company. I am working in north Georgia for their marble mining facilities. So far, so good. That is all the direct details I will give on the company as I have promised myself not to discuss work matters on this blog. I haven't had to travel since early April (at my old job) and I am really enjoying that aspect of this change. The 50min to 1hr drive each way is tiresome but not the end of the world. Sure glad I'm driving a 4 cylinder rice burner but even with that I am averaging about $40-50/week for gas.

Next, I won, I mean Caleb won, the cub scout rocket race. Hey he chose the design and colors... OK, I'm a bad father having to do it myself so he won't "mess it up" but if you know my competitive side, hopefully you understand. The directions said that 3 rubber bands is ideal, so that is what I used. I was shocked that every other contestant was competing with two and sometimes only 1 rubber band. I'm sure this had a major roll in CALEB's victory. The other element of the directions that I followed and others didn't was to lubricate the rubber bands. Many of the other dads, I mean kids, didn't put anything on their rubber bands and most of them ended up dropping out of the competition due to running out of rubber bands. At least one father tried to lubricate his with WD-40 which is actually a solvent, not a lubricant, so it ended up eating through his rubber bands before the first turn of the propeller. Now for the G rated nature of this blog I will not list the exact lubricant I used on my rubber bands but suffice it to say my ASTRO rocket GLIDEed beautifully! Hey, it worked didn't it? I am SO DEAD when Jamie reads this!!!

And the third event of the last month worth discussing is of course, my running. I ran another 5k road race on Memorial Day. It was my first official event since the race I ran last September that I blogged about. My goal was 25 minutes but unfortunatlly I didn't make it. My official time was 25:33. I guess I can't complain as I did cut about 4:20 off of my time last September. I think I would have came close if the urge to use the restroom hadn't hit me at about the 2 mile mark but I will not use that as an excuse. My first mile was ~7:30, the second ~8:00, that meant that my last 1.1 miles was around 10:00 which is way slow for me even with pinched buns. I do think it is the hardest I have run to date. My earlier blog about a sub 25 minute 5k was, I'm sure, treadmill assisted.

As for my weight, slow and steady progress. My lowest weigh-in to date was 209.8 but I'm sure that was dehydration assissted as it was right after a morning run. My weigh in this morning was I think a little more representative, 213. With any luck I will reach that 210 mark by the time I come out west in July to see many of you who read this blog. That is my goal.

I look forward to seeing everyone in July. Hopefully my blog about that trip won't be my next post...

Times, They Are A Chang'n

Today presented a rare moment in my life. It is the type of day I hope to have very few of in what remains of my 30 some-odd years of scheduled employment. When I started this blog I made a personal commitment to never write specifically about my job or my coworkers. I have written about the joys of travel but never the work itself. Today I will discuss another element of work that I feel remains true to that pledge but touches on the periphery. Today, I quit my job!

For some of you this is not a surprise as I have told you about my situation and the opportunity that presented itself to work elsewhere. For others of you may be a bit shocked. I, of course, am not going to name either my current or future employer but I will say that it is a return to the mining industry I left 2.5 years ago. At the same time, I don’t have to move as the site is roughly 40 miles (50 min drive) from my current home. I may move a bit closer in the next year or so but there won’t be the mad scramble or months of separation that sometimes accompanies a job change. The new job will be less than 10% travel, at the mine site (can you say "blue jeans and no more corporate politics!?") comes with a nice kick in pay, and a killer bonus package. Suffice it to say, I think I will be happy.

The hardest part about leaving a job for me is actually breaking the news to my boss. This morning was no exception. If you know me, you know that outside my twin brother, I will avoid confrontation AT ALL COSTS! I will watch scary, gorey, or tense scenes in movies and on TV without batting an eye but you put someone in an uncomfortable or embarrassing situation that he has to deal with… I will change the channel so fast it would make even my channel happy father’s head spin. Luckily, I don’t think I caught my boss completely by surprise based on some recent changes in our department. So, although he was disappointed, I think he was somewhat mentally prepared and I was able to avoid the actual “confrontation” I feared.

As I explained to too many people today, although I see myself as a very loyal individual, I first and foremost need to be loyal to my family. I have traveled enough over the past few years and I am sure my wife is excited about me being home more often. We have been praying quite a bit about this decision and I think this is the right path for us. Since making the decision to move forward I have had a comforting peace in my heart and the path has been smooth.

For those of you who want the juicy details, I guess you will have to either give me a call or wait for July when we fly out that way for Mom and Dad’s 50th…

Disappointed

I have to admit I am somewhat disappointed. I was really kind of proud of my celebrity challenge post but for some reason, not a single person even tried to identify these people... I know I barred my wife from playing, maybe that was a mistake. Maybe then I would have had someone play... I know people are coming to the site based on the Cluster Map I have on my site. Shucks, even the guy in China didn't make a guess! I realize you all have better things to do than look up celebrities but if you guys don't play along, I may just have to write more of my treadmill exploits, and I'm sure none of you want that, right?

Tag I'm It? Stinky Doo Doo Head!

I guess I got "tagged" by my wonderful brother over on his blog. I've never heard of being tagged but really it is nothing more than the blog equivalent of spam email that ends with something like "if you don't forward this to 4 of your friends including the person that sent it to you, you are a stupid doo doo head and your house will fall down in exactly 3 hours, trust me, it happened to my friend!!!!!" But I guess I can play along if for no other reason than this way I won't have to come up with a subject of my own today.

4 jobs I have held you may not know about:

1. Boy Scout Camp Counselor (Summers 88-89)
2. Medical Records Clerk (6 months 93-94)
3. Mining Claim Surveyor/Marker (3 weeks Jan 97)
4. Environmental Consultant (1.5 years 97-99)

4 movies I have watched over and over:

1. Cool Runnings (someday they won't crash at the end)
2. Midway
3. Search for the Holy Grail (of course)
4. Any movie on TV at the time (usually it is Overboard just because TBS plays that so much)

4 places I've lived before now:

1. Tucson, AZ (college years)
2. Phoenix, AZ (6 months after college looking for a job)
3. Playas, NM (5 months after being hired 2 months before finding out the plant was closing down)
4. South Africa (Cape Town, Paarl, Uitenhage, George, & Kwa Magxaki as a missionary)

4 TV shows I love to watch (but don't always get to):

1. Lost
2. Scrubs
3. My Name is Earl
4. Monk

4 Favorite Foods:

1. Creamed Eggs on Toast
2. Hungarian Roasted Pork with pickled Paprika peppers (yes there is a story behind that one - best meal I have ever eaten!)
3. Curry
4. Carnitas

Who am I going to tag? There is only one person, not yet tagged, that has a blog, that frequently posts comments on my blog, my dear wife whom I love very much and since her house is my house, hopefully she responds so our house doesn't fall down in 3 hours...

1. stop the insanity

Weekends for the Traveller, Blood Sweat & Tears

After being on the road for 6 of the last 8 weeks our weekends are to say the least, crazy. With both Jamie and I trying to catch up with our chores when I am home for the weekend our Saturdays are often quite full. Jamie tries to run the errands that can't be done easily with a crew of kids, I try to make our yard halfway presentable, and when you throw in birthday parties, it can be maddening.

Today was no exception to that rule. Our neighborhood had its annual beautify the neighborhood entrance cleanup. I ran off to do that from 9-12 while Jamie stayed with the kids. Soon after I got home Jamie ran off with one of the kids to a birthday party and to do the weekly grocery shopping. I started the yard work here at home. That is one downside to the south. In New Mexico I could mow the lawn every two weeks and maybe mess with the hedges 1-2 times per year and the yard looked great. Here, everything grows so fast it seems like I am constantly cutting something back. My brother would never run short of compost material out here!

To be fair to my wife, she did tell me that she would be home at 2 to pick up the kids so I could get to my 2:15 blood donation. The fact that this didn't translate in my head to "please have the kids dressed and ready at 2 so I can take them to finish my shopping with me after I pick up Mischa" I blame on the male mind. She was rightfully not too happy when she pulled up at 2, me in the yard working, and three kids running around still in their jammies. Mischa's party was over at 2:15 as well so we packed up the jammied kids and I got the assignment of finishing the shopping after my blood donation.

One more rotation of me coming home, Jamie doing some more shopping, while I did yet more yard work and you get us to the present. This is the first break longer than 10 minutes I have had today and I choose to use it typing on this thing, what am I thinking...? Whoever thinks weekends are for resting from a hard week on the job is delusional (or just doesn't travel for work). I will catch up, eventually...

Pushing It

I know this is my third post in three days after a month with nothing so I probably will have several people that end up reading all three at the same time but hey, if I was more consistent it just wouldn't be me.

Yet again I am going to bore you with my workout stories... Sorry. Tonight on my run I had completed the first mile at a slow 9:53 minute jog but had decided shortly before the end of that mile that I would have a little fun with the second mile. I decided to turn the treadmill up to 9mph and see if I could handle the pace for the entire second mile. Much to my surprise, I held the pace for the entire second mile and clocked in the second mile in 6:47. My last sub 7 minute mile was most definitely back in High School. I'm still roughly 1:20-1:30 off my high school times but I actually surprised myself with that time quite a bit.

I just read my post so far and I hope people don't take my posts the wrong way. They are not supposed to be bragging, just sharing my workouts. Knowledge that I can share these stories actually drives me to work harder in these workouts. I also draw strength that really 99% of my readers know me personally and care about my health, success, and happiness.

To that end though, have any of you surprised yourself lately? Did something you didn't think you could do? Let me help you celebrate those small victories by sharing them with me. By celebrating the small victories, we reach the big ones.

Celebrity Sightings

I have been traveling for work for over two and a half years now. In all of those flights I always thought it was funny that I didn't see more celebrities at the airports I visited. In all that time I saw a grand total of 3 faces that I recognized. Then, in the last month I have seen another 3 in rapid succession including 2 within minutes of each other at the Newark airport and another on Tuesday as I was flying out from Atlanta. Not that I am a celebrity hound but I do get a bit of a kick out of it. The bane of my existence is that although I NEVER forget a face, I RARELY can put a name to it. So here is my challenge to you, I will give you a picture and a very simple clue, can you name the celebrity? Some are pretty easy some are a bit more obscure. Here they are in the order that I have seen them in my journeys. (BTW, Jamie, since we have discussed these sightings, you get to sit this one out...)

Sports Commentator

Football

Space Portal

Mock the Foam, Fear the Foam

TV Fuzz

Penny Pincher

So Who is Who?

Who Knows Why...

I think I have made it clear that I enjoy running. When I run I typically have a TV or an MP3 going to distract me from the discomfort and the desire to check the treadmill display every 10 seconds that seems to slow the passage of time. When I get the rare occasion to run on the road I typically need the same distractions to keep me from checking my watch. When I travel I am familiar with the different hotels I stay at and which ones have treadmills and TVs. I knew the Hampton Inn I was staying in tonight has such a set up. I was so confident that I left my MP3 player at home knowing I would have a TV to watch. Only when I went for a run this evening did I discover that they have move their gym and have not yet installed the new TV they are planning for the room. It is the VERY rare occasion that I have run on a treadmill with no music or distraction. Maybe I should try it more often.

This evening I ran my 5 kilometers (according to the treadmill) in 24:15. 24:15!!!! And that was with the treadmill taking a good minute to come up to speed. 24:15!!! Let me put that in context for ya. Since I started running last August and loosing the weight, I slowly dropped my 5k time from 32 minutes, to 29:50 in the Corporate Challenge in September, and slowly down to just over 26 minutes on my best days on the most favorable treadmills. It was my long term goal to reach 25 minutes but thought I wouldn't get there until I weighed in under 200. Throw that limit out the window!

There are three possible "explanations for the 1:45+ reduction in my time but it is probably a combination of all three. First, this particular treadmill has been "kind" to me in the past. I have routinely run ~30 seconds faster than on the treadmill at home but I don't know if it is smoother, miss calibrated, the home one is miss calibrated, or if I just run harder when away from home. Second, with no TV or MP3 to distract me I focused on form and breathing the entire time. I recently watched the movie "Without Limits" about the life of Steve Prefontaine, a distance runner in the early 70's (probably the greatest American distance runner ever before he died in a car accident at age 24). One scene with his college coach caught my attention. His coach told him to run with his hips thrust forward, (BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP - That was the sound of me removing the metaphor used in the movie to describe this position that was originally in my post but deemed a bit to racy (no pun intended) and "ruining" how a certain reader of mine looks at all runners) and showed him how much easier it was to drive his knees forward and up. I don't know if it made all the difference but with no music or TV I focused on that technique and other good form lessons I remember from my high school days. It did feel easier and I felt like my strides were longer with no increase in effort. Even with no distractions I found myself getting lazy at times and had to correct myself periodically throughout the run. Third and perhaps most importantly, I spoke to my twin brother today. He informed me that he has begun daily recumbent bike rides in his effort to catch me. To imagine that I am 15 lbs lighter than my twin is unimaginable to the "fat one" for our entire childhoods and the motivation to retain that status is a POWERFUL driving force. Competition with my Twin has always driven me to some of my best efforts in life.

When I finished I walked out and told the hotel desk they really need to put a TV in there so I don't try and pull that crap again! It was the first time since the 29:50 road race that I actually felt sick at the end of a run. Different treadmill or not, I am confident that I didn't leave anything left in the tank when I finished and that is the most important thing to me when I choose to run for time.

Catching Up

I realized I hadn't posted on my weight loss efforts for quite some time. I think a few posts back I promised to post these pictures. You can see the date of 1-13-07 on the weight photo. That was to mark the day I weighed in under 220 for the first time since 3 months into my marriage. Our scale also calculates the BMI and as you can see, that weight also brought my BMI under 30. I am officially no longer "obese", only "overweight". Not that I give that much credence to the BMI measure as I really think my body type doesn't fit into the model, but it is nice to reach that benchmark none the less.

I'm not breaking weight loss speed records but I'd like to think that slow and steady wins the race and hopefully is more sustainable. I am now weighing in at 215 with a BMI of 29.0. Even dreaming of a weight starting with a "1" is beyond comprehension so I won't even go there. In a perfect world I would be under 200 by the time we go to Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah in July but with only 4 months to go and my diminishing rate of weight loss, I probably won't get there.

The other part of the effort has been my running. My goal started with a 30 minute 5k. I met that goal in September and since that time I have been striving for a 25 minute 5k. I am currently running a 26 minute 5k but I think 25 minutes should be reachable with about 10 more lbs of weight loss. I have also branched out to some longer distances on a few occasions and have run 2 sub-50 minute 5 miles, and 1 sub-hour 10k. The other new exercise I have been doing when the temperature has allowed is some bike rides. Jamie and I got bikes for Christmas from Jamie's mom. Along with those we got a pull behind cart that carries two kids. With our hilly terrain in our neighborhood, towing two kids provides quite the workout for a whole new set of muscles. Church basketball season is over now as well and I managed to survive without injury this year. I think Jamie would have shot me if I tore another calf muscle like last year.

Thanks for the words of support that many of you have expressed. I hope each of you are reaching the goals you have set for yourself. I challenge you with today's date... March Forth.

Voice from my Past

Recently my Sister-in-Law posted a link to a blog written by a certain person, no names, for convenience sake we will call her "AD". AD was my wife's roommate our Freshman year in college. As I read her posts, posted comments on both blogs, and reflected on old times I came to the realization that I needed to devote a little more blog space to her. I can honestly say that there is no one outside my family that has had a more profound impact on my life. In some ways I'm sure she is aware of it, others perhaps not.

To set the stage for ya, as I said we were in our Freshman year at the University of Arizona. We both lived in the Arizona-Sonora Dorm, a Co-ed building, me on the 8th floor, her (and my future wife) on the 9th. We saw each other at church, were friendly, and occasionally walked to the institute together if coincidence arose. I think I was her home teacher from the start of the year but it doesn't matter when that assignment was made, it was never completed. Little did I realize that she would impact my life so much... maybe I would have done my home teaching sooner.

It was the Fall of 1990 and I was away from home and the support of my Twin Brother for the first time. With that freedom what did I do? With my new found friends I started playing on a flag football team... on Sundays. The second Sunday in the league I was waiting with half a dozen other guys for the elevator to take the ride down. When the door opened there was already one passenger in the elevator. She was dressed in her Sunday best, carrying her scriptures, going where she was supposed to be. AD didn't say a word to me on that elevator, she didn't need to. I'd like to say I went back upstairs, changed, and went to church, but I didn't. I did however quit that day and didn't miss another week of church until probably after my mission some time. Who knows if that would have actually lead to inactivity but in my time of weakness, her silent example spoke volumes...

Little did I know she was also introducing her roommate to the Book of Mormon. Her faith, testimony, and willingness to open her mouth to her roommate altered my life forever. When I finally got up the courage to ask her roommate out I think AD was relieved. I'm pretty sure she knew I liked Jamie before probably even myself. She was there helping me and Jamie's fledgling romance take root on many the double date. (Picking out each other's outfits in the mall, peeing on fires on Mt. Lemmon, all night study sessions to name some of the highlights) When I left on my mission she was the one I asked to look out for Jamie. Okay, so allowing Jamie to go sledding and then introducing her to her boyfriend's best friend were both near disasters for me but other than that, she did fine. Ultimately it was seeing her happy marriage that even played a roll in convincing us to move up our wedding date by 6 months to a date only 6 weeks in the future.

Finally, at our wedding, AD supported Jamie where not even I could. Escorting Jamie through the temple as her only "family" meant so much to me. I had so many people around me as the youngest of 8 children. My full support cast was in place but it was AD that helped my wife through that day while Jamie's mom and dad waited for us outside. I can't imagine how hard that must have been and although we haven't discussed it much, I'm sure the familiar face and support of an old roommate provided much comfort.

"AD" I hope you know how thankful I am for the many ways you have touched my life. I apologize that I wasn't a better home teacher (I'm still pretty bad at that). Your courage, faith, and love have altered my life to the better, forever.

Simple Pleasures

How rarely do we stop to enjoy the simple pleasures in life? Even less frequently, how often do we share that emotion, joy, and experience with others? The sharing of an experience can sometimes be as enjoyable as the experience itself. This is actually the entire model that the bloggosphere is based on, is it not? Living life through the shared experiences and emotions of others?

Last night I experienced a rare moment when someone else’s joy, and how they expressed it, made me experience as much if not more joy for completely different reasons.

During the day my wife had made a cheesecake as a gift for her father’s birthday. Although she declared it a “failure” and promptly started looking for a new recipe, we were not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I opened a can of blueberry pie filling so we could enjoy the “spoils” of the day. I looked around to see if anyone was watching and took one big lick off the lid, but Mischa caught me and demanded a lick for herself. I obliged and she took a health lick from the lid as well.

After some pause, her eyes grew wide, her smile beamed, she put her hand to her mouth as if she had just been told a shocking secret, and proclaimed “It tastes like paradise in my mouth!”

I couldn’t stop from letting out a laugh, not at her, but rather because she verbalized the emotion we all feel with a particularly sweet indulgence. It certainly was the exact feeling I was having at the time savoring the great taste that only blueberry pie filling can provide!

So here’s to the simple pleasures of life, “ruined” desserts, and a daughter that I wouldn’t trade for the world!

Do It....Right?

The best of intentions can often be used for the worst of justifications. Here I haven’t blogged for weeks and the only reason is that I haven’t found the time to download the pictures from my camera and have them available to me as I write. Well, I finally downloaded the pictures from the camera but then failed to write anything over the weekend.

The pictures cover everything from Joshua’s birthday in November, Thanksgiving in South Carolina with loads of 1st and 2nd cousins, Christmas of course, pictures of the scale with me at 219 lbs and a BMI under 30 officially marking the day I was no longer “obese”, and close up pictures at Caleb’s first Pine Wood Derby car (ok I helped a little). I will eventually post and blog about some of those pictures but for now I am contemplating my inaction based on my intentions.

I find myself often justifying not doing anything in the name of “wanting to do it right”. Be it not having the right tool, part, ingredient, “feeling up to it”, enough time, or, most commonly, enough desire for the subsequent consequence, mankind is notorious for finding reasons NOT to do things instead of reasons to “Just Do It”. Yet in life we celebrate those that just flat out find a way to make things happen. Did MacGyver EVER have the right tool? The guy could do more with a paperclip, a gum wrapper, and a watch battery than most men can do with Home Depot, Radio Shack, and Wal-Mart at their disposal. The point was not HOW it got done but rather, THAT it got done. (One caveat here is to apply this to taking action, not on household wiring. I am not advocating cheating, shortcuts, or otherwise undercutting one’s integrity, just getting off of your butt instead of resigning yourself to “failure.”)

I once had a coach that told me, “If you try, and fall flat on your face, at least you moved forward 6 feet.” There are many clichés of this subject that we have all heard, “If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward”, “When they say sink or swim there is a reason they say sink first”, or “That will go over like a pregnant pole-vaulter”. (ok, so that last one is a bit of a stretch but it was the most common phrase I think I heard growing up so it has to apply to just about anything, right?)

I can look back in my life and some of the most fulfilling "projects" I have undertaken were only undertaken after much self delay (i.e. building the shed in Silver City, tape and texturing my home there as well, or getting my Master’s Degree). I look back and say, “Why did I put off doing this in the first place?”

The point of my diatribe here was just to get you thinking about the projects you have been putting off for whatever “reason” and help you get off square one. (One could argue I was just dealing with writers block but we won’t go there.)

So, what are you going to tackle today? (<--Unabashed comment whoring here!)

The Mind of a Child

At first glance you may wonder what these two pictures have in common. To the common eye water is the only similarity. But in the eyes of a four year old, that is more than enough.

The first image is a screenshot from Joshua’s video game, Alphabet Park Adventure, on his V-smile gaming console. The point of this particular game is to steer your inflatable rubber duck (partially concealed by the large letter H) across the screen matching your duck's letter with the picture that starts with the same letter. Not much of a challenge. However, when I entered the room, my 4 year old appeared engrossed in the game and was frantically guiding his duck all over the screen obviously having added an additional element to the game.

We now come to the second picture above. It is a screenshot from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest in which the Kraken, unleashed by Davy Jones, is attacking a ship. We recently rented the movie which Joshua enjoyed thoroughly and he renamed it Jack Sparrow. (Can you tell who his hero in the movie was?)

Back to the scene I walked in on, Joshua then turned to his 20 month old sister sitting beside him and warned her in his lowest, scariest, and most dramatic voice, “BEWARE THE KRAKEN!” He then proceeded to float around the screen letting out a constant stream of “whoaaaaaa”s as if a monster could pop up at any second and bring his alphabetically inclined “vessel” into the briny deep!

Of course, me and my bad puns, I returned the warning telling him that what he really needed to watch out for was the Quacken! But hey, he passed the level so if my son wants to motivate himself to learn with the help of a giant mythical creature, who am I to argue?

Milestone in my weight history

I know that few of you really care about how much I weigh (stop reading now if weight does not interest you) but as someone that has faced this challenge for many years, a significant milestone has been reached and another one is close at hand. I write this not only to celebrate my successes but also to inspire others who brave the weight loss game. But first, a history, to gain perspective...

After years of high school football I was roughly 200-205 lbs with a semester of school left. After a coaching change made my baseball situation tenuous I decided to try shot-put and discuss on the Track and Field Team. It was then that I first learned how much I enjoyed running. A track coach somehow saw potential in a chubby lineman and helped me loose 30 lbs that spring and made me marginally competitive in the 1/2 mile to 2 mile distance races. At 170 lbs my mom actually asked me if I was battling anorexia!?!

Three years and a mission later I had drifted up to 220 lbs but was able to drop that back down to 195 over the next year before my wedding day. That is when it fell apart. I gained 45 lbs the first year and steadily climbed to 275 lbs sometime around 1999-2000. With the babysitting of a friend's daughter I was inspired to work out on a regular basis for the first time since before my marriage and the pounds dropped. I soon found myself at 228 when disaster struck, my babysitter moved! Then started the oscillations, 265-->235-->260-->240-->260-->235-->255 alll in the span of 5.5 years. But I was never able to get back down to the 228 of that first cycle.

That is until now. I am currently at 223. Still not as low as I would like to be but finally broken through a barrier that had been quite significant before. What has been different this time? No one thing I would say. Seeing loved ones fighting the health effects associated with excess weight, having the potential of being lighter than my twin for the first time since childbirth, reintroducing the competitive element with the running of a road race in Atlanta, and many other reasons. I draw strength from whatever moves me that day! Most days it is just a desire to be better for my wife and children.

From here? Nothing is certain. At 220, only 3 lbs away, my BMI will drop below 30 and I will officially no longer carry the title of "obese" but will still be "overweight". I'll take that with pride. 6 months ago 220 had been my goal, now as I start a new year I find myself setting a new one. Any number starting with the number 1 seems unfathomable so I will probably draw the line at 200 and reassess if and when I get close. With any luck (and a bit of hard work) I will be close to that when we journey west for our vacation in July. Only time (and the scale) will tell.

Family Pictures

As you can see, we have updated our family picture this month. It is actually the first one we have had with little Liesie in it as we missed last year's picture. This is also the first time that we had to have kids standing behind us and the first time we had to go landscape to fit us all in. As we feared the worst with a baby posing we were surprised to discover that she was the best behaved. Just about everyone else had at least one picture that was tossed on their behalf. Not Liesie Lu as she had a perfect smile in every picture (even if her hair was a mess).

I think this is only the second picture since our wedding pictures that is professionally done and is just Jamie and me. She says I look young in this picture but she has been saying that a lot since I shaved. (The verdict is still out on that, I seem to be running roughly 50/50 in my goatee feedback with one vote from my sister in law for a chin beard) In fairness to her you need to understand that the bluish tint to these pictures make her highlights a lot more silver than they are in person...

And here are the kids, rotten as ever. Caleb 8, Michaela 6, Joshua 4, and Anneliese 1 & a half. Once again you can see that Liesie was the best poser (I mean that in a good way).

Hope you enjoy the pictures...

Hair or no Hair, that is the question...

Okay, this weekend I did something I haven't done in over 7 years, I shaved my entire face. As I have been loosing weight I have been teasing my wife that I no longer needed the goatee to elongate my face. She has been telling me no. On Sunday I called her bluff (not advisable btw). She says that she is "still getting used to it" when I pushed for an opinion but followed that up with "I prefer you with a goatee".

To that end I decided what better way to solicit comments than to ask for a vote. Here are two recent pictures, one before and one from this morning. The shaved one is a bit out of focus but if you read two blogs down you will understand why I couldn't hold the camera steady at an arms length...

So tell me, with or without?

Funny things kids do

If you haven't noticed, I'm on vacation and finally have some free time to type. I just thought I would share something silly each of my kids has done in recent weeks that made me laugh. Maybe I shouldn't have laughed at some of them, but I did none the less.

Caleb was asked to sing a Solo in church as part of the primary program. We had practiced it quite a bit with him and knew that if he came in on beat and pitch he would nail it. Then a funny thing happened that was not his fault. The fill in pianist (the original got sick on performance day) started to play the wrong song! Brave little Caleb tried to fit "I Know my Father Lives" into the notes that pianist was playing, but it just wasn't working, it was bad. I didn't know if I should laugh, cry, run to his rescue, or just hide my head. The primary president caught the mistake and corrected the pianist. By this point however, Caleb was so flustered that he didn't know where he was. It wasn't until about halfway through the first verse that the two found a common timing and it was early in the second verse when Caleb finally found the right key. I was so proud of his stick to it attitude. By the end he was belting it out perfectly and everyone there commended him for his patience and lovely singing. I wasn't laughing at the time but I can laugh about it now!

The kids Grandmother sent them some books recently. Michaela found the 300 page Book of Amazing Facts and proceeded to read the entire thing over a 2 day period. The next morning as I awoke her from her sleep she rolled over, rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes, and before so much as a yawn or a "good morning dad" she blurted out quite matter of factly, "Did you know that when the dinosaurs were on the earth there were only two continents?" I don't want to know what her dream had been about!

This morning I found my youngest in the hall holding a butterfly net. She was hitting the floor where about half a dozen ants had stumbled across a frosted flake. The best part though was that while she was merrily whacking away, she was singing along "Da Da Da Daaaaa Daaaaaaaa, Da Da Da Daaaaaaaaaa Daaa, Da Da Da Daaaaaaaaaaaa Daaa, Da Da Da Daaaaaaaa..." For the untrained hummer, that is the Star Wars theme. I don't know if ants are part of the Rebel Alliance or the Empire but they were suffering a little light saber justice!

The funniest moment of all came last night from my little Josh Josh. Around 10pm we heard him crying upstairs. From experience we knew that that generally meant he has to go potty and is having problems. I ran upstairs unprepared for what I found. He had indeed woken up needing to use the restroom but some other factors had conspired against him. He was wearing a pair of jammies for the first time that snapped at the waist and had not figured out how to unsnap them. But worst of all, his left foot was asleep and he couldn't walk on it. In his groggy state this was too much for him to process simultaneously. I found him in the middle of his dark room, eyes closed, one hand pinching off the flow, the other hand pulling on his pajama bottoms, and hopping in circles on his one good foot. Unfortunately my laughter was not very consoling and he was mad at me despite the fact that I rescued him and carried him to the toilet...

The Price of Stupidity and Pride

I have not hid the fact that I find joy in running and it is my preferred exercise in my efforts to loose weight. While traveling I try to work out (go for a run) each night I am on the road. It is a luxury that I cannot afford here at home due to the many other duties, responsibilities, and distractions I have here. Now given the choice I would have those "distractions" over travel any day!

I have been running well of late and last week in Louisiana I actually ran a 27:10 5K, cutting 2:35 off of my race time I blogged about previously. Following that run I was feeling particularly strong, superhuman, and generally just proud of myself. It is funny how fast those humbling moments come after you have allowed yourself to let the pride in...

A co-worker wanted to stay at the gym a little longer and asked if I wanted to lift some weights with him. With a thump of the chest I eagerly dove right in. Now that I explained my mind set, let me also set the picture. My co-worker is 6 years my Sr., 100 lbs my Jr., but he also lifts almost daily. I have also not lifted weights on a regular basis in over 15 years. Seeing as our legs had been exercised with the run, we decided to work out our upper bodies.

Note to self, aerobic success does not directly translate to anaerobic strength. Note to anyone reading this just because your lifting buddy can do 3 reps of 8 on every weight machine in the place does not mean you should do the same PARTICULARLY if you are unwilling to move the pin because you think you will loose face to an older, smaller individual!

5 days have passed since that stupidity. I am probably 80% recovered. The pain is gone but the tight and worthless arms remain. For days I could not raise my hands to my neckline without letting out a blood curdling cry. I almost asked my wife to shampoo my hair, putting on my tie for church was torture, and holding up the music to sing with our ward choir truly required divine intervention!

From now on, I will stick to what I enjoy. Who cares if the fat is gone off of my legs while my gut and arms still suffer from Jello syndrome, in time that will rectify itself. Get your laughs in now, because you know, in person, I can catch you, even if my arms are too weak to do anything about it when I do!

It was Involuntary Pigslaughter your Honor

First thing first, as you read this post, do not think me cold hearted to make light of the events of last night. This is the only way I know to share my guilt.

As I put my daughters to bed last night I decided to check on our pet Guinea Pig, Foddy. (If you wonder about the odd name, lets just say that 4 year olds come up with some odd names if the power is left solely to them.) My daughter has done a very good job feeding and checking her water for the last two and a half years since Foddy joined our family. My role has always been to change her cage and just to double check that she has water. As I approached her cage my mind noted, as it had the previous night, that it was odd that her cage hadn't started to stink as much as normal. I had cleaned it early last week and normally it would be starting to smell by now.

As I lifted the lid I saw her laying on her side. My first reaction was, "wow, I've never seen her sleep before" but even before that thought was completed my epiphny struck and I let out an "Uh-oh". As soon as it came out of my mouth, I tried to pull it back. From my daughter's bed I heard, "what's uh-oh dad, is something wrong with Foddy?" Not knowing what to do I grabbed the cage and told her to go to sleep.

Upon investigating it became clear she was not just sick and had in fact been dead for quite some time. There was very little "waste" in the bedding, only a little of the food was gone and it didn't look like she had drank anything... She was cold and stiff. Rather than put off the inevitable, we wrapped her in a towel and took her back to my daughter to tell her. Our first attempt to explain went amiss when we just said that Foddy had "gotten sick". My little girl replied with "What can we do to help her? Take her to the animal doctor?" When we tried to regroup and delayed in our answer, she was perseptive enough to ask "Is she dead?"

We then told our sons what had happened. They took consolation in knowing that Foddy would now be able to play with Twinkle Toes, our pet ferret that died in the spring. Then I was taken quite off guard as both of my older two wanted to know what pet we would get next and started to explain to us what we needed for a fish tank. To see a six year old, with read eyes, still gulping air recovering after crying, explain that you need "a glass tank, some pretty rocks, or sand, and some fake plants, and water, and ..." I didn't know to laugh or cry!

We put them to bed and went back downstairs to the cage. Then I made the discovery that ripped my heart in two. The ball in her water bottle was jammed up the tube and wouldn't dispense any water! With one squeeze I freed it and water dripped into the corner of the cage. She had dug almost every scrap of bedding out of that corner of the cage and her head was laying under the water bottle when I found her. Indeed, when I cleaned her cage, and refilled her water bottle, I sealed her fate. Both my wife and I had checked on the water bottle throughout the week but both of us assumed the other had topped it off for her, not questioning why it was staying full. To add to the guilt, one of my first thoughts had been "great! no more cages to clean".

To echo a theme from the McBlunder post a few back, please don't tell my daughter what I did to her Foddy. With all this parental guilt she is going to make out just fine, she can have a whole school of fish if she plays her cards right!

Random Photo's of Great Kids

Liesie Lu - Craft Casualty?

Crew Atop Stone Mountain

Easter Morning in the Front Yard

Dangers of Vacation in Florida

McBlunder

I have been on the road for 5 straight weeks; Kansas, Spain, Kansas, West Virginia, then Louisiana. No, that is not a common occurrence but I seem to have at least one “Travel Season” each year. Yes, it does wear on me and it is very difficult to spend that much time away from my wife and children. Often I try to find ways to reconnect with my family in those short weekends I have at home.

During the corresponding 5 week period, McDonalds has been running their Monopoly promotion that they do, it seems, at least once a year. If you are not familiar with the game, you get 2 monopoly property cards (or instant wins of fries/drink/etc) with the purchase of your drink, fries, certain sandwiches, and hash browns. The little cards also have a 10 digit number on them that you can take to www.playatmcd.com, type in, and see if you win a lesser prize in their online version.

While on the road I typically avoid McDonalds like the plague because of my affinity for vanilla shakes and their non-alignment with my current weight loss efforts. But, always one for a good game, I decided that I would eat primarily McD’s during the promotion. And as to my willpower, I have not ordered a single shake and have ordered my chicken sandwiches sans mayo 90% of the time as well.

At the end of the first trip I discovered a way to share my travels with my daughter. She would jump on my lap and read off the codes to me to type in. You can only do 10 codes a day so this has become a bit of a ritual for us on my weekends of late. Could I have done it faster and not mistake a Q for a 6 every single time? Yes, but the time with her quickly became my greatest motivation to keep playing. When you do the math 4 weeks of meals (one of the five weeks was in Spain, no McD’s to eat there), 5-7 meals per week, and 4-8 game pieces per visit, I quickly accumulated roughly 150 game pieces.

I have a smattering of free fries and breakfast sandwiches, about 15 Best Buy bucks accumulated, and now have every property except the “winning property” for every monopoly for both the paper and online versions of the game. Over the weekend I finally hit pay dirt, not once, but twice online. I won two free cell phone ringtone downloads! Both times, rather than print out the certificates I just told myself I would redeem them from the emails McDonalds said they would send me.

This morning at work I checked my Yahoo email folder and deleted the classmates.com, walmart.com, and the plea from the RNC to send in last minute election donations. Normally I ignore the Bulk email folder and let Yahoo delete those files after they have been in there for 2 weeks. (It averages between 700 and 2000 spam emails for any given two week period) For some unexplainable reason this morning I clicked the “Empty” button next to the Bulk folder! It was 30 minutes later when the implications of that decision hit me… Yahoo had filed my ringtones in the Bulk folder and… poof… I had killed them.

Was it the $5 million dollar grand prize? No. Was it even the $100 minimum online prize for the Baltic/Mediterranean combination? No. Does my cell phone even let me download ringtones? NO! What I deleted was the symbol of the time together with my daughter, a reminder of a high five from my princess after entering over 100 codes and finally winning, and it was a smile, kiss, and a hug when we won the very next night on the first code. All of that was bought and paid for with a patient wife and lonely nights in a hotel room growing ever more convinced that Bill Maher is the most conceited, disillusioned, and spiteful man on the planet. OK, technically it was my Corporate American Express Card but have you ever forced yourself to watch “Real Time”?

Ultimately my reward was that reconnection during the short precious days I had with my family over the weekends. Hopefully the last 20 codes will have a winner or two in them as well. But if you are reading of my blunder, I ask only one favor, don’t tell Michaela what her dumb old dad did…

Baptism of my Eldest

For eight years I felt that this day would and should never come. We have passed many milestones in the last eight years, a first step, a first word, a first book, his first day of school, and countless pride filled and embarrassing moments. This was a boy that has seemed to take a different road from day one. Born almost 9 lbs he was challenged with numerous allergies, milk, egg, and most challenging, peanuts. Two bouts of RSV as an infant landing him in the hospital a couple nights and leading to weakened lungs. Behind those challenges (not to mention small genes on his mother's side) his growth slowed to the point where we debated if we could ever turn his car seat around.

Small but bright, reading at four, very analytical, tender heart, but be careful if he looses his temper! Pretty good big brother, typical eldest child, a bit bossy. He has a hard time taking turns because he knows he can do it better. I think that is true at both home and school. There are countless stories of his individuality but 8 years was not enough time to prepare me for his baptism last Saturday.

I baptized many people on my mission, I baptized my nephew before I left, I baptized a 300 lb high school buddy. None of those events prepared me for taking my little guy into the font last weekend. The ward found the smallest jumpsuit they make and we still had to roll the pant legs up 4-5 rolls. As he came into the font, the water reached his armpits. I said the prayer and put him under the water and then realized I was putting him so deep into the water that if I brought him up too fast he might get the bends. Of course, knowing some of the things that boy is done, I just knew he had to be down there for a while.

But it didn't really hit me until we were in the changing room, he was dripping and shivering. I was drying his head off and he stopped me, looked up at me, smiled from ear to ear, and said, "Daddy, that was GRRREAT!" Now it may have been a delayed reaction to the frosting his Uncle Dave fed him during his baptism talk but I think he was feeling the warming glow of the Holy Ghost. The realization that my son had recognized the spirit for the first time was overwhelming! That moment surpassed any other for the last eight years. I know there will be more powerful ones in the future, but for now, that moment, just me and my son, was the most special I have had.

A week in Spain - but not as fun as it sounds...

First of all, if you visited recently and noticed by blog was offline, I am sorry, your guess is as good as mine as to what was happening. I clicked the "republish" button and everything seems to be back up and functioning.

For the last several years we have participated with our parent company's annual Environmental Coordinator's conference in Phoenix. Due to the distance, we held a smaller conference for our European coordinators last year in Hungary that I was able to attend. This year my company has been spun off as a stand alone company under new ownership. As such, we were able to hold our first global Safety Health and Environmental Coordinators Conference. We hold these in close proximity to one of our 12 plants spread throughout the world. This year we were in Santander, Spain, on the northern coast.

The building in the middle was the hotel we were in for a week. The beach was a nice place to visit in the evenings (I didn't visit during the day due to the "more liberal European culture"). They did have a nice sidewalk that ran the length of the town along the beach and was a great running path.

A few things were hard to get used to. The Spanish culture doesn't eat dinner until late in the evening. Most restaurants don't even open until 9pm. Then, it usually takes between 2-3.5 hours to eat dinner. All week long I returned to my room sometime between midnight and one, called Jamie, and went to bed. Sleeping on a full stomach was fun...

Most of my tourism came during my evening runs. I would carry my camera and run along the beach to the various sites I could run to in under 30 minutes. I visited the Marina, a lighthouse, a small free zoo, a boat display of three boats they built in the 70's to recreate Columbian era Atlantic Crossings, and probably the most impressive site was the Castle of Magdellena. The castle was built in the 1700's as a gift from the town to the Spanish King as a place to stay whenever he visited Santander.

While at the castle taking pictures a young couple came up to me and said, "CAN... YOU... TAKE... OUR... PICTURE...?" with all the volume and hand gestures you can put with that question. They were a young couple from Iowa on their honeymoon and were quite excited when I answered in English that I would be glad too. From the way they talked they hadn't encountered another English speaking person for a week.

Ultimately, other than my hour long runs each evening, I spent the daylight hours of the entire week in either a conference room, a restaurant, or touring our plant nearby. Not exactly vacation but certainly a place I would recommend to visit if I had more time.

We also planned the next two conference locations. 2007 will be the Canadian side of Niagara Falls close to our Hamilton, Ontario facility and then in 2008 we will find a location close to our Trecate, Italy plant. My wife is already talking about ways to accompany me to that one. I'm sure I have more than one brother that will offer to come along and serve as tour guides / interpreters for that one as well...

5 Kilometers with a Fat Man

About two months ago my company announced its annual participation in an even called the "Corporate Challenge". It is a 5k(3.1 miles for the metric challenged folks) run/walk through downtown Atlanta. With over 17,000 participants it is I believe the second largest race in Georgia behind the Peachtree Roadrace which draws roughly 55,000 and is in a class by itself here in Georgia. Anyway, for some stupid reason I decided that I needed to run this thing.

About one month ago I realized I needed to start training or I was really going to be hating life. Running on my treadmill 2-3 times a week over that span I had reached a point where I could set that thing on 5mph (12 minute miles) and not get tired. I didn't try to push it too much but knew in actual race conditions I could do better. My training culminated while in Kansas this week where I ran a 5k in 31 minutes on Monday and 2 miles in 18:30 on Tuesday. With those times turned in, I set a personal goal of 30 minutes for the event held last night (Thursday).

Race day came and I felt ready. I got to work and found my team T-shirt on my desk. Bright Yellow? I know they wanted us to stick out but post-it note yellow? Oh well, I wasn't going to let that dampen the run. I staged with the runners (there was a walkers group as well) about halfway back in the crowd. Once the race started it took me a minute to pass under the actual start banner where I started my stopwatch.

The first half-mile was a chaotic mess! I had obviously started a little further back in the field than I should have because I found myself jogging very slowly and trying to weave through the unthinned pack. Teams and buddies that had started together were running 5-6 people abreast causing those of us that wanted to move forward to really work for it. I quickly discovered that the sidewalk was clear and although it had a few more tripping hazards it was far easier to catch up with the group that was running close to my speed. Finally clear of the mess I pushed it the second half mile to make up time.

They had told us that there was water stations at the mile 1 and mile 2 checkpoints. So to my great surprise I found myself passing the first water station 7:30 into my run. I thought to myself "Perry, you are the man, you are blowing away your goal, hope you can keep this pace..." You can imagine my disappointment when two minutes later I was passing a big banner that read "1 mile". What a mean trick! Oh well at 9:30 for the first mile, I was right on pace for my 30 minute goal and I was feeling good.

The second mile went well. I started passing a few people who had outstretched themselves in the first mile and were now walking. Interestingly, seeing their failed resolve only strengthened mine. I decided then and there that no matter what, I would not stop and walk. I started to hurt somewhere in that second mile but stayed focused on my pace and pushed every time I felt myself slowing. As I passed the second water stand and the 2 mile mark (accurately co-located this time) my watch read 19:00. Somehow I had kept the exact same pace for the second mile as the first.

What I hadn't fully accounted for was the profile of the course. The first mile is mostly downhill, the second is a series of ups and downs, and then the third mile is almost all uphill. As I stared up that long hill I felt the early stages of a side cramp and started to debate whether my earlier promise to myself was premature. Just then, motivation arrived. Two coworkers that had been talking a good game before the race appeared in bright yellow 20 yards ahead. It is amazing what bragging rights can do for the spirit. I pushed past them and told myself not to look back and that they must be on my heals. I felt that psychological push the rest of the way in.

My other commitment to myself had been that no matter what happened, I would sprint to the end. So with about 200 yards to go I picked up the pace. Flying past others who had resigned themselves to the same pace to the finish line I felt like a champion. The harder I sprinted and the more people I passed the more energy I felt. As I crossed the finish line I stopped my watch but couldn't look down. I knew that hill had taken it out of me and I feared I had missed my goal. After a few moments gasping for air and convincing myself I was not suffering either a heart attack or a collapsed lung I looked down... 29:44! WOW! I had done it! Yeah, I had come in probably 500th place but I had met my personal goal despite the slopes of the course. Me, Mr. 236 lb, obese BMI of 32, had done it.

For those of you who know me (and if you are reading this there is a 99.99% chance you fall into that category) you know that this kind of competition is my greatest motivation. I had been running occasionally when I had the time but only when a "race" came on the horizon did I really start "trying". There is a lot to be said for personal goals and striving to be the best you can be.

I did have one other motivation in the last month. As I travel a lot, I can't always squeeze a run in. I flew into Pittsburgh late one night and was on the road to Wheeling, WV with no intention of running that night. Then my wife gave me a call. One of my older brothers had suffered a heart attack and was in surgery. This particular brother struggles with weight issues like myself and has actually developed Adult Onset Type II diabetes. I got to the hotel at 10:20 that night, changed, and ran for almost an hour on their treadmill. My brother is fine, single bypass and some stints, but I know I have the power within me to avoid that fate (or at least decrease the likelihood).

I know this was a long post, but hey it was a long race. My prayer for all those around me is to find your motivation, be it competition, be it health, be it a fitted outfit you have your eyes on, be it a spouse or children, or be it anything, and be the best you can be. Now I am far, far, FAR from perfect and each person has to define what the "best" is for themselves but it is important to know what that is and find a way to get there. This is not just for health of body but for health of spirit and relationships as well. The keys to meeting my goal were preparation (put in the time needed to do things right), consistency (9:30 miles no matter the grade of the path ahead), and plenty of perspiration (keep in mind you may stink for a while but you can always take a shower).

You can now see how spiritual my running is to me, I went all preachy and that was not my intent, sorry guys...

The flight attendant that couldn't keep her mouth shut...

On Sunday night I found myself on a little regional jet from Atlanta to Wichita. You know the little 50 seaters that have far too little leg room or head room for a grown man but they cram us in there anyway!?! As I boarded I noticed the somewhat unconventional flight attendant. She was probably late 50's early 60's, silver hair, slightly overweight. Not the standard picture of a "stewardess" even though I know that image is changing. During her pre-flight I picked up on her attention to detail as she told probably told half a dozen passengers that their bags were too big to stored under the seat in front of them and would have to be moved into the overhead. Then she made her way through the cabin and handed out 4 seat belt extension devises (basically to every passenger with a BMI over 35). In two and a half years of flying I have only seen these devises used twice... Then she made her way back to me and told me that my MP3 player had to be stored away until we reached 10,000 Ft. I showed her it was in the off position but she didn't care, it couldn't even be out of its case until we were in the air...

OK, by that point I knew she was different but it was not until her announcements that I started to get concerned. She started with the standard air masks blah blah blah and flotation devises blah blah blah but then proceeded to tell us why she had the first three rows of seats empty. "Ladies and Gentlement, I know that some of you in full rows are eying these prime seats at the front of the aircraft but this plane is what we call a tail-light aircraft. We need to have more of you sit in the rear of the aircraft to distribute the weight more properly over the wing to counterbalance the electronics and equipment in the front of the plane..." OK, that may all be true, but does she really need to announce it to the entire aircraft? Why didn't she just say "Ladies and Gentlemen, you all know what happened in Kentucky last month, it is only by the grace of God that we get this hunk of metal off the ground in the first place..."

The next incident occurred just after we cleared 10,000 feet and the seat belt light went off. All of a sudden we had 5 seconds of turbulence, not horrific, but a good shake that I'm sure would have had my wife's knuckles white were she on the plane. My mind said "wow, that was a nice thick cloud" but no, I was soon set straight as the informative flight attendant let everyone on the plane know, "Ladies and Gentlemen, sorry about that, we just passed through the wake of another jet." Now I have seen Top Gun, visions of us entering a flat spin and Goose dying upon ejection from the aircraft shoot through my head... Why on EARTH would she feel the need to tell us that?

Later, as we were making our final approach into Wichita, the landing gear deployed with the loudest clank I have heard in 2.5 years of frequent flying. One of those moments when you hold your hands out like you are Jeff Bridges as Flynn in the movie Tron. You know you are a user and if you just concentrate hard enough you can pull the broken up Recognizer back into one piece. (If you understood that example with the same clarity I gave it, all doubt of your geekdom has been erased!) The lady then comes over the intercom and it is not what she said but her timing and the way she said it, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the landing gear IS... DOWN... please prepare yourself for landing, its been a pleasure flying with you." If I didn't know better I would have thought she was saying, "Listen folks, our wheels just fell off, this is going to get rough, its been nice knowing you..."

As a frequent flyer, I think I can laugh this one off. If this had been your first flight or you are someone that is afraid of flying, this lady would have scarred you for life... Flight Attendents, even though NONE of you will EVER read this please take the following to heart, ignorance IS bliss, knowledge is not always power, and most importantly, just because it is true, doesn't make it right to communicate. The same series of incidents would have had no lasting impact without the "insightful" comments of a crazy old flight attendant.