Christmas Survived

For the most part. Two full days of eating horrible amounts of sweets, chocolate, and anything else I could get my hands on. Even today, I'm still on the tail end despite attempts to get back on the wagon. I got 20 miles of running in over the last 2 days so that at least helps, but it doesn't quite balance out the amount of food intake. I'll recover starting Monday with a 3-fer (3 days in a row of running) Tue/Wed/Thur leading up to New Years Eve.

Thursday we braved the weather and made it up to north Minneapolis in one piece. On the way home, I hit an exit ramp a little too fast and almost slid off the road. Friday everything was melting due to the high temps, and we made it over to my Mom's house easy. By Saturday, with everything frozen and after 2 days of travelling and food and everything else, we just weren't up to another whole day of travel down to New Ulm (sorry!). We'll be heading down there next Saturday anyway. Here are just a few pics and a video from Christmas.

Oh that chocolate fountain was evil. Someone even tried chocolate dipped cheese. No one was ambitious enough to try chocolate dipped meatball.



Casey getting into her first present opening.



Megan got a lovely new dress. She loves wearing a bunch of different costume dresses we have, but some are getting too small or too ragged.



And finally, although I got a lot of video footage from Christmas, this one is my favorite.

Grand Poobah

I was describing a work situation to Andrea last night and used the term "Grand Poobah", only to immediately have Megan ask, "Whats a Poobah?" That was fun. Not so fun was when I later said "Fubar" and of course, got the same question.

It's 2pm on this lovely Wed afternoon. I just got back from an 11 mile run, Andrea is off seeing 2012, and both girls are napping. This is probably the absolute calmest moment I'll have for the next few days. I'll take it! I always have mixed feelings about time off around the holidays. Sure, I have a 5 day weekend, but it will feel like much less.

Today at least, is mostly laid back. I might head out here before the big snow storm comes and buy a few last minute groceries to get through the weekend. Then comes tomorrow and the "play it by ear". We are slated to visit family in North Mpls, which isn't that far. But depending on the state of the roads, it will feel worse.

Christmas day should be easy however, as it's just spending all day at my Mom's across town here. The big thing this year is that my Mom is going to setup her Chocolate Fountain she got a few years ago, for the very first time. It should be interesting, I think I'm going to get pictures.

Then Saturday, following Christmas, we are scheduled to head down to New Ulm and visit with Andrea's parents for the day. Again, that trip will hinge somewhat on the weather. I'll brave a certain amount, but we'll just have to see how things are looking that morning.

Too all the workers plowing streets over the next 72 hours, my hats off to you. Thanks for making the roads safer for all the holiday travellers and for giving up your time during the holidays.

Christmas Cometh

My obsessive side wouldn't stop thinking about the filming that happened this week. I kept going over in my head what I wish I would have said, how I wish I would have prepared, and trying to remember what in the world I even did end up saying. I think the worst part is that I feel like I gave video games a bad rap, blaming them for my weight gain. They were a factor to be sure, but they were more my main excuse. At the time, it felt "better" to just lose myself in video games then to face the realities of my bad decisions.

Anyway, long story short, I finally got over myself yesterday and came to a realization. It's just something I did - I'm glad I did it, period. Whatever comes of it, and however it turns out, it is what it is. The bad news is, the actual commercial might not even be put on the interwebs for many months. They are releasing them a few at a time over the next few months. By the time it gets posted, I'll have completely forgot about it. One last thing - they let me take all the pictures I wanted. So here is a behind the scenes shot of where I was.



In other news, Casey offically started crawling this week! Very exiciting stuff. If it wasn't for the bad colds that both Megan and Casey have, this week would have been pretty awesome. Both girls are having hard time breathing at night, and with our luck, Andrea and I will catch it just before Christmas. I'm just hoping they are both a little more healthy in a week.

We also recently went to the eye doctor for Megan, and found that her vision is not improving as much as it needs to. I have a lot of worries about her long term vision, and it's hard to think of the possible negative outcomes. I told the doctor to give me some worst case scenarios last time, because I needed to hear it. Andrea had a GREAT idea recently, to switch to cloth patches instead of the adhesive kind. It's making a huge difference. Megan doesn't mind them, can put them on herself, and will wear them without any fight. We have high hopes these will help over the next year.



Lastly, just a great picture that we took this afternoon while playing around. Andrea's parents came up to visit today, and that was great. We'll be heading down to visit them the next couple weekends as well.

15 Minutes

Where to start? I need to brain dump some of my thoughts about today, before I forget. I survived the day of filming, and that's the important part. I'm glad I did it, and to have had the experience, but I'm surprised at how hard it was. For someone who talks about himself all the time, you'd think it would have been easier. But being on the spot, trying to consolidate 2+ years of hard work, and how it was that I managed to do a complete 180 on my life wasn't easy at all.

Oddly enough, part of what made it so hard was just how long ago it all really happened. I mean, it's hard to think that I've actually stopped worrying about losing weight for nearly 3 years now. That's a lot of time to forget who and what I was all about when I was overweight. Maybe I should have gone back through some old blog posts and refreshed my memory!

Everyone said I did a great job, but I gotta be honest and say I didn't feel the same way. I was all over the place with what I was saying and overall, let my nervousness get the better of me. Almost like I was trying too hard instead of just letting my thoughts come freely. My only hope is the magical world of editing can mix things up and put it back together into a cohesive, positive message.

Because really, the message I DID want to get across was simple. If you feel like you want to change, don't wait. Change isn't going to be easy, because nothing worth doing ever is. But if you work hard, you can change, and in the end, it's all worth it. Thank you to everyone out there that helped inspire ME to change.

"Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well."
        -- Theodore Roosevelt

Unexpected Events

I left off with a teaser for this weekend, mentioning an "interview". Let me start with bursting the bubble that it is not work related at all. Now that I've got that out of the way, on to the real "story".

A few months ago, on the way into work I heard a radio advertisement about the "Do Groove" campaign being put on by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The ad said they were looking for people who had successfully managed to lose weight. They wanted people to log on to their web site and submit their story, how they did it, why they did it, etc. I figured, what the hell, I got a good story. Most anyone reading this blog already knows more details than I could submit in a few paragraphs, so as you can imagine throwing together some of the bigger aspects about my journey wasn't that difficult.

Fast forward about two months, I had almost forgot about the thing, and I get a phone call from someone with the campaign. They wanted to do a phone interview with me to hear more about what I wrote. I said sure, and a few days later had a 20-30 minute conversation with someone. I was then called back a few days later after that and told they wanted to have me come in for a casting session to potentially be part of their on-line commercial campaign! Once again, I figured, sure what the hell! That sounds both fun and interesting.

So last week Wed, the day of the nasty snow storm, I had a casting interview session that evening, at 3:30pm. I thought I was totally nervous, which I was, and that there was probably no way they would pick me. I can tend to ramble on and figured my incoherent thought processes wouldn't be what they would choose. But Friday night rolls around, and I get the phone call - they would like me to come in and shoot a commercial!

Now, to be clear, these are webisode type commercials. I have no illusions that I would end up on TV (but I'll keep everyone posted!). It is still cool to feel like... I don't know, maybe my experiences have something worth sharing, in a way that might help someone else. That's a good feeling, and yeah, maybe even a little ego stroking too.

Never in a million years when I started making changes in my life did I think it would culminate into something like this. I'm trying not to make it out to be more than it is, I mean, any yahoo with a digital camera can make a video to post on the internet (i.e. videos I post), but it's still cool to be singled out in this way.

The video shoot is Tuesday next week, with some kind of wardrobe session on Monday. Once things get posted up to the web site, I'll let everyone know so you can go read my story and see how my interview turns out. Here's hoping I don't end up too nervous.

Lucky SOB

That's me. A week or so back I had planned on taking Wed off this week, for an ear appointment and to be home so Andrea could goto the dentist. Lo and behold, I get to stay home, using sick time, on the day of the horrible snow storm! I also was able to schedule an interesting interview later in the day... but more on that this weekend (teaser!).

Winter is offically here, and it offically sucks. I forgot how quickly traffic becomes an absolute nightmare. This morning I woke up late (6am) and wasn't on the road until 6:30am. It added a solid 10-15 minutes to my commute. Ugh! More motivation to get out and on the road even earlier these days...

The worst part about winter, is that when the commute becomes longer, something has to give time wise. That means less time running or worse, more "skip" days. After being in the car for a solid hour, the last thing I want to do is get on the treadmill for another hour.

Enough whining for now. In other news, Casey is growing up fast. She is trying so hard to crawl these days, just not quite sure how it works. Her upper two teeth are coming in already and she is trying lots of new baby foods all the time. Megan is still... Megan. Might be time to take the advice I've been given and read a few more parenting books.

Back to the Blog

With Monday off work, this week went by pretty fast. For whatever reason, December always seems to be the "fastest" month of the year. Maybe it's Christmas, maybe it's time off work, who knows. All I know is I'm gonna blink and it's going to be 2010. Twenty Ten. It's weird when you stop to say it outloud. For the last 9 years, we've all been saying "Two thousand and...". But prior to that, we never said "One thousand nineteen hundred and...". Everything was "Nineteen Eighty." Or "Nineteen Ninety Five".

Now, we will enter a transition period. Some people will linger with the current way and say "Two Thousand and Ten". While others will go back to saying "Twenty Ten". Which will you be?

Of course the pending New Year has me thinking about my goals for 2010. I have some good ones, but so far they are all personal goals. I need to do what I did last year and start thinking about goals I want to make for other people. That doesn't quite come off right, because I'm not talking about making goals that I think other people should do. What I mean is, coming up with goals for myself that help other people.

In otherwords, coming up with the things I can do in the next year that help make me a better father, husband, son (& son in-law), brother (& brother in-law), and friend.

I do know that I have a lot of positive thoughts about the future right now, which is very unlike me. It's doubly weird considering all that we are going through right now and some of the family challenges we face on a day to day basis. I mean, it's a monumental task just to get Megan dressed these days. We have fights almost every night once I get home from work, usually revolving around her phyiscal side. Hitting, kicking, biting clothes. I won't even start about bed times and overnights.

Yet somehow, I know it is all going to pass. Megan will grow up, and yeah, it might take a year. Or even two, or hell, even three or more before she gets out of this phase. And during that time I might need to learn how to better deal with her outbursts. But we'll get through it together. I have faith.

Late Videos

I promised 3 days in a row of videos, but the rest of the weekend just got away from me. Sunday we did an awesome amount of family stuff, Casey's first ever swimming trip to the YMCA, Vikings game, and dinner with the family. Made for a fun but long day, with no time for blogging. I even had Monday off work but still had other things going on.

Here is the last video in my video series of blog posts. It was from Saturday this weekend while Andrea and Megan were setting up the Christmas tree. I didn't realize the clip was so long (2:34) when I uploaded it. Hopefully it's not too long as to cause boredom!



Does that video seem familiar? Because it should. Almost exactly three years ago, we saw a similar event. Granted Megan was a little older than Casey is now...

Fall down go boom

There is always a first time for everything right? I have logged quite a few miles on treadmills, but today I had a new first. I got flung off. It was my own fault, but damn was it funny. See, at the YMCA they have these over head flat screens right in front of the treadmills. I got sucked into watching an episode of "Monk" which I hardly ever watch. So I'm staring up and to the left and not noticing I'm slowly getting off center... I go to stop for a moment, only my feet don't land where I expect them to land (on the edges), BAM, next thing I know, I'm flung completely off the end of the treadmill.

Now, being as tall as I am, and 180+ pounds means the crash and landing sounded much worse then it was. People around thought I could have been seriously injured. I did scrape my leg up in one spot pretty good and got a nice rash burn on my arm but was otherwise fine. I kept running after my spill. The best part was when a few women behind me said, "Don't worry that's happened to me too."

Okay, on to the promised movies for today. These are from Thanksgiving day. This first one doesn't have anything special in it. Just a random 2 minute clip from my Thanksgiving day. Notice all the cheating going on in this game of "Cootie".



This next clip is of Megan playing the tuba. She has never been given specific directions on how to blow, to make your lips do that vibrating thing they need to do for brass instruments. She just sorta does it, and very well. I honestly don't think I could do that if I tried. Papa B says we should definitely consider wind instruments in her future.

Video & Picture Series

I'm currently in the process of uploading another 500 megs worth of movies to youtube. Only a few minutes worth of clips, but dang do I love my new camera.

For that reason, I'm going to do a 3-day series of just movie clips and pictures from the last few days. Fun stuff from before, during, and after Thanksgiving. This year was a nice mellow Thanksgiving, and for the first time since I can remember, we only did one Thanksgiving destination this year. That made things even less stressful and also made it easier to not over eat!

To kick things off, here are a couple videos taken the night before Thanksgiving. I was just going to snap a few pictures when the camera was accidentally on video mode, so I just ran with it. Megan just loves performing for the camera, what can I say!



And more of Casey as well!

2 days to weekend

Gotta love the short weeks. Today just dragged on after 2pm, because I didn't feel like starting anything ambitious that late in the day. The next two days will probably be more of the same, unless I start working on some side projects. You know, that one side project of mine to re-architect a 10 year old software product from the ground up. Hey, I might win the lottery too.

I had a ton of free time this weekend for various reasons, but I didn't get a chance to blog because I was too busying playing a new video game, Dragon Age: Origins. I'm a huge fan of Bioware games and this one is shaping up to be one of their best, if not THE best. It has one minor flaw in my opinion, and I already have a workaround via a user created mod. Gotta love the PC gamer community.

I got about 8 hours of gaming in over the 3 days of this past weekend, which is a lot for me. The progress tracking aspects of the game say I've explored about 10% of the world/game. That's decent if that is the case. I'm not rushing through it or anything, trying to explore everything/do all side quests. If that gives me 80 hours of gaming, I'd be very happy. I think Wolfenstein gave me a whole 15 hours, if that.

Thanksgiving is going to be a lot less stress this year, as we will only have one destination. Less travelling, less rushing around. Should make for a pleasant visit. And more importantly, I only have to worry about over eating once instead of twice! Yes!

Future Generation

At least half the time I take Megan to McDonalds, I see something rather disturbing. Usually my follow up thought is "Man, I should post about that." Anything from worlds most angry parents to the absolute rudest teenage workers, swearing up a storm behind the counter, ignoring people waiting to order.

Usually I end up forgetting or not having the motivation by the time I get home. But tonight was disturbing enough to post. There was an elderly black man working the counter. Clearly he was new and had trouble taking orders. A young boy came up and said they forgot the honey with his order. The man didn't quite understanding him and didn't know where the honey was. Finally a younger white worker came over and showed him where it was. As I ordered, I did my best to patiently order and help the guy out. I even jokingly said, "I'll take 2 of those honeys also, now that you know where they are." He chuckled a little. I watched as the next person ordered in absolute disgust that the guy couldn't take her order in under 10 seconds. Getting verbally frustrated that she had to repeat herself twice that she wanted the MIGHTY kids meal, not the normal kids meal. (I didn't even know there was such a thing). I got sick to my stomach as I listened to the exchange get worse, and had to walk away.

Later, when I took Megan to the bathroom, the younger worker that was helping train the older new guy was talking with another worker. The exchange went something like this:

Guy 1: "Why do they have me training that guy?"
Guy 2: "Cause I'm not gonna do it."
Guy 1: "I'm not even black, why don't they get one of the black guys to do it."

Now, I'm not going to pretend McDonalds is a bastion of good morals, or that they hire the most quality people, but seriously wtf? I've seen some crappy things there but this one takes the cake. I felt like saying something, anything, about having a little more respect. I didn't because it obviously wouldn't matter. But is this attitude of the next generation? Is this the type of prejudice my kids will grow up around? Is today's youth full of smart ass kids who think they deserve whatever they want? Does asking these questions make me a crotchety old man?

I like to think I'm accepting of different types of people. I might not be 100% comfortable in every situation I could think of, but I can imagine at least trying. Is respecting people and being tolerant of differences something that is taught by parents? I don't recall my parents teaching me anything in particular about that topic. (sorry Mom!) So how did I come to this conclusion that basic respect of other humans is a standard way of living? Who knows... but I do know two things. One, I will never ever let my kids work at a fast food restaurant. (no offense Keara!) Two, I don't know if I want to just "hope" my kids end up with those basic qualities I deem essential to being a "good" person.

Church anyone?

Tuesday going on Friday

Oddly enough, this time last year turned out to be almost exactly the same. Great weather all weekend in the first weekend of Nov, 2008 lead to 3 days and 24 miles. This weekend was no different. Only difference this year was 3 days and 30 miles.

Last night I took Megan to get an H1N1 shot. She was a champ, totally brave. For being so good about the whole thing, we grabbed a couple chocolate dipped cones from Dairy Queen afterwards. Today she said she wanted to be a Doctor when she grows up, like the lady that gave her the shot.

Casey is also doing well, finally over the whole series of colds that came through the house a few weeks ago. Seems to be sleeping well but I know Andrea is still longing for the days where she can sleep straight from 9pm to 7am. The funny part is how I've completely forgotten when that occurs. And if it wasn't for this blog, I'd probably never remember.

It looks like Megan had some long sleeps around the end of July 2006. That would put her at just under 2 years. And then we transitioned Megan to the bed when she was just over 2 years old. Despite the fact that time seems to be flying by lately, Casey being almost 2 years old seems very far off.

Tonight I'm alone with the girls and decided not drag them around to go watch V. Casey has been going to bed around 7pm a lot recently, so I figured I don't need to push it and make her stay awake until past 8pm. I suppose I should actually go, you know, do actual Fatherly type things instead of blog about it.

Gift from Above

Not that I actually believe in that sort of thing... but today was certainly amazing. Considering we were within 5 degrees of the record high for this time of year. I left work at 3pm and immediately got outside for a nice 10 mile run. The even better news is I have another one planned for tomorrow afternoon. Awesome way to start out the weekend in my opinion.

Tuesday this week, we decided to put TV at the top of the priority list. We headed over to Grandma Gayle's to steal my TV for an hour and watch the first episode of the new V series. I remember the original so vividly from my youth, I was just drawn to watch the remake. The fact that I was only 7 or 8 years old when the original came out is even more interesting. It was a television mini series, so it couldn't have been THAT bad, but who can forget the famous gerbil eating scene? That's something that stuck with me all these years. Will they bring that scene back? Oh, I can only hope.

Wed night we got to babysit baby Elizabeth for a few hours. My Mom had bought some T-Wolves tickets for my brother and his wife a while back. Elizabeth is only 2 weeks old, so she is still just in that sleep/eat/poop mode. The babysitting was pretty easy, as she was mildly awake for an hour or so after being dropped off, but then slept the rest of the time.

Not much else going on this weekend. On Sunday, Andrea has plans to spend some time with her Mom and hopefully get a small break and some time to herself. I'll be home with the girls all day, but Grandma Gayle will be helping out, taking Megan swimming at the Y, etc.

Halloween Pics

Good weekend, I'm too tired to post more. Spent the last 20 mins trying to come up with something fun/interesting/thought provoking to talk about, but I'm mentally spent. Everything in my life right now seems to have the volume turned up, and it's becoming hard to concentrate. So in the meantime, just some pictures up for Grandma Gayle.

Spoke too Soon

I should be in bed. I have a bad cold and haven't been sleeping very well. Actually, last night I got a decent nights sleep because I went to bed with Megan in her bed at like 8pm. Andrea woke me up a little after 9pm and I just went back to bed right away.

I spoke too soon about the weather apparently. Tuesday night it was so sunny and semi-nice out, that despite the fact that I didn't pack for an outside run, I went for it anyway. It was a TAD cold in standard shorts and t-shirt, but after the first few miles it was great running weather. With some sunny days in the upper 40s yet to come... Who knows. After doing a full 2 hours on the treadmill last Sunday, I'm dying for more outside running.

Work is getting interesting. Interesting meaning, I can't hardly talk about it anymore, because it's gotten that bad. Thankfully, at this point, it's mostly just bitching and moaning, and not anything real. As far as the bottom line is concerned, the company as a whole seems to still be making money despite some serious attempts to fail at that. Not like what my Mom is going through, who just found out her entire COMPANY is being "sold off". And what is even worse, is my sister-in-law got a job there too, so that's two people in the "who knows if we will have a job tomorrow" camp. I'm gonna take a wild guess that is more stressful than what I'm dealing with.

It's times like these, where I start to think again about how nice it would be not to have to be a part of a system that puts no value in the individual. In other words, finding a way to work for myself and not for some abstract "company" that puts zero value in me. Sure, my manager might shower me in praise, and my co-workers might depend on me day to day. But when push comes to shove, none of that matters. Anyone I work with would stab me in the back to keep their jobs. Restructuring, lay-offs, down-sizing, whatever form it might come in. It's all just a stupid game, with everyone jocking for position to appear the most important so when that day comes, they aren't the one that's out of a job.

Maybe... just maybe, I need to start giving some serious long term thought to what it might take to become self-employed. After all, studies show that business owners have the highest overall Well-Being Index.

Quiet Evening

Due to a series of events, I find myself with more free time this weekend than I have had in quite some time. My Mom earlier in the week volunteered to have Megan over night tonight, which worked for us. Tomorrow morning, Andrea is taking the girls down to New Ulm and I'll have the day to myself.

What will I do with all this new found free time! Not much really... relax in what little ways I can. Exercise, clean, and if there is a little time left over, play some video games.

Speaking of video games, I'm sorta not happy about my Dell purchase. The damn thing keeps locking up on me, 5 minutes into any game. And it's a hard lock, meaning I have to force reboot my computer. After the reboot, I can then play for whatever length of time and it seems to be fine. I've done some research and found that this particular product line of Dell (XPS 630i) is particularly plagued with hardware problems. Question is: do I feel like figuring it out myself, or do I deal with the Dell red tape and send it back under warranty, with the generic "It locks up on me occasionally, fix it and send it back."

As the continuing rain threatens to turn to snow any day now, I'm wondering if I might not get any more outdoor runs this year. Can you believe November is right around the corner? And Casey is already 5 months old tomorrow! Zang.

Right On Time

We had marked down Valerie's due date as October 21st on our calendar. It was the day I originally remembered being told. And lo and behold, what do we find? Baby Elizabeth born on October 21st, in the early morning hours right before 4am. We stopped by the hospital tonight to get a peek at the newest Anderson on the block.

I'm so excited for my brother, and so nervous right along with him. I know what he is going through in some ways, and not at all in others. Our lives are on such different tracks, that it isn't always easy to relate. I do know he is going to be a great Dad even if he doesn't know it yet. It took me time to figure that out as well. And Scott, if you are reading this, I recommend going back to the start of our Adventure and reading up. Maybe you can find some words of wisdom in my ramblings from those first few weeks Megan entered our lives.







Congrats, I love you bro!

When things go as planned

As I pulled into my standard break stop to down my first gu-gel and some water, the sign on the bank said 58 degrees. Perfect running weather! I'm still hoping for one more outdoor run, even if it ends up being in colder weather. But today was perfect and exactly what the doctor ordered. 17 miles where the last mile felt good instead of wishing I was done. There is absolutely no way I could run 17 miles on a treadmill. In fact, I don't even think it would be good for my legs / feet if I could.



The rest of this weekend was pretty low key. With my Mom out of town, and just coming off Megan's birthday last weekend, we didn't have much to do or in the way of visitors. Andrea and I took the opportunity to have a little "YMCA" date, where we dropped the kids off at Kid's Stuff and just spent some time in the pool/whirlpool/sauna. After that, we grabbed 2 Disney movies from Redbox and watched them over at my Mom's place.

This morning, before my run, I took Megan to the Zoo. It's our default activity when nothing else is going on and we just need to get out of the house. It turned out to be a great time and the weather was nice enough that Megan was able to enjoy the outside stuff (new playground and the bears). We also got to see something we had never seen before, they were training the new dolphins! It was pretty cool to see a dolphin know the difference between a blue triangle and a red star shape. And then we had a nice Zoo employee sitting next to us as we watched (there was only a handfull of people there). She was very engaging with Megan, telling her about what they were doing with the dolphins. And Megan kept asking various "Why?" questions and she just kept on answering them.

Megan got up close and personal before I realized we weren't supposed to.



Dolphin learning to pick out a specific shape/color.



Megan and the bears.



The leopard was out - very rare for early morning. This is only the second time Megan and I have seen this elusive guy. The last time we saw him was at 5pm right before zoo closing time.

Crazy Tongue Action

Figured I might as well do a few days in a row with some pictures. Having lots of fun with the new camera. With an 8gig memory stick, I can take all sorts of pictures and video for a long time. I think at maximum quality, I can take over a full hour of video footage. That's awesome!

I'm hoping that I can get outside this weekend for a decent long run on Sunday. They are promising 60 and sunny. I would kill for that, hell I'd be happy with 50 and sunny. The whole treadmill thing is getting old fast and I've only done it for 2 weeks now. I've even tried hill programs and random settings to try and keep it interesting. That helps, but it is still just not the same. Honestly, I'm also starting to think that subtle differences in muscle usage occurs when on the mill. Enough such that I am sore in weird places that I've never felt when running outdoors.

I honestly can't believe October is already half over. Where does the time go? Within a week or two, my brother is gonna be a Dad for the first time. I can't believe that is happening already! Next thing you know, our kids will be crawling around and playing together. Expect lots of footage of that coming up here by the end of the month.

For Sarah, the picture that Megan took:


Megan's first snowman of this winter:


Casey doing funny faces:


This one is priceless:


Megan holding Casey:


And finally, more fun video footage:

Return of the Pic

If you haven't noticed by now, it's been a huge dry spell in the picture / movie department on the ol' blog. Last time I posted a picture was back on August 9th, and those images were just horrible in quality. A combination of age and letting Megan play with my camera whenever she wanted lead to it finally breaking enough to warrant a new one.

So after much prodding, I had my brother give me a recommendation for a new one. Something reasonably priced, but still good quality. Since my brother has spent more on camera based products than I probably ever will in my life time, and has done way more research than me, I figured he would have good advice. It was basically an upgrade to my current Canon, the A1100 IS. Definitely more compact, just as easy to use, and very decent button press to picture taken response time. It's also kind of weird upgrading a camera from 512meg capacity to 8gb capacity. About the only thing I regret is that I wanted the new camera so bad, I just went and bought it from a physical store. Damn immediate gratification just cost me $20 bucks. Grrrrr...

The Sun Rules

After all this rain, and 4 treadmill runs, today was an awesome change of pace. A breezy but comfortable temp for an outdoor run. Probably won't be too many left this year, sometime in October always spells the end for me. I just won't run in the snow, period. I can handle 40 degrees, but not snow.

I decided I will NOT be doing a $65 dollar half marathon race at the end of this month. The price tag is just too high for the quality of that run. Too much potential for it to be way too cold or wet or both. Last year, the only reason I did the run was because it was free (paid for by work). So technically speaking, I did not run any half marathon races this year. Only two 10k's, the 25k, and that silly 1 miler. The highlight for this year was my second 10k, which was a HUGE PR of 6:50 pace. I never dreamed I could run 6.2 miles straight at under 7 minute miles. Even saying it now sounds crazy.

So the end of the year running will just wind down with whatever outdoor runs I can manage and then it's the long harsh treadmill winter. I'll survive, but I think it's going to be the hardest winter yet, based on the level and types of running I got to this year. I have really come to look forward to my long weekend runs (13-16 miles, with a few 18-20). It's a solid 2+ hour block where it's just me and the road. A lot of tough things have sorted themselves out in those chunks of time, and trust me, you just can't run on a treadmill for 13+ miles. It's damn near impossible.

Translation? It would be great if I had no big stressors over the winter. Given a few of the big things that went on this year, that I have not, and cannot share on the blog, let's hope there aren't many more

Ground Zero

Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
- Tyler Durden

Confession time. Work effects my mood. No matter how hard I try not to let it, or how many times I try to tell myself it doesn't matter, it does. Why? That's the more important question. I had to think long and hard about that, and I finally figured it out: My ego.

I remember well getting ready to leave my first job. I was convinced they'd be screwed without me. And when I told my close co-workers of my impending exit, they were down right frightenened because they depended on me so much. I had created an artifical sense of importance in order to feed my own ego. After I left, no earth shattering things occured. The machine kept on chugging as long as it could, with or without my help. Eventually all those people I worked with and that entire division was moved off-shore and they all lost there jobs.

So here we are today, and I've come to recognize the same thing. I have a self inflated sense of my own worth at "work". That things would just fall apart if I wasn't there. But they wouldn't. The machine will roll on, with or without my help. I might make minor contributions here and there, but by and large, the success of a company is way beyond what I do. If the current company I works for starts losing money, my contributions count for exactly dick. I'm just another line item in a budget. I've lived through lay-offs before, and to hell if I'm going to lose sleep over it.

The real lesson I should take away from my first job is this: I'm smart enough to see the end of the tracks. I knew Micron wasn't doing so well, and I could see the division I worked in was not doing so well. And although I survived a first round of lay-offs there, I was smart enough to see that sticking around longer was a gigantic waste of time, since no amount of contribution from ANYTHING would have changed the fact that the entire division was cut and everyone was out of a job.

So instead of letting work effect my mood, I'm simply going to do my best, ignore the rest, and remain unstressed. Nice little rhyme, eh? I'm so clever.

Just Another Monday

I was able to enjoy what was most likely the last good weather this past weekend. I did a quick 6 miler on Saturday evening and a 14 miler on Sunday late morning. The Sunday run was windy as hell and drizzled a little bit, but nothing too bad.

It's crazy to think there are only 3 months left in this year, with Casey already hitting the 4 month mark. Maybe it felt different with Megan because she was born in October and we had the long winter together. Or maybe I've just been too busy with work, running, or Megan. Whatever it might be, it feels like Casey is growing up dang fast. In Megan related news, she is totally excited to turn 4. For various reasons, she has it in her head that once she turns 4, she can go outside all by herself. She is always talking about things she will be able to do when she is bigger. It's fun to hear her get so excited for the future.

I've been thinking a lot lately about that very topic. The future. About goals and aspirations. About home life, personal life, family life, work life. The pieces of the puzzle are constantly in flux, and just when I start to solidify a picture, something will come along to jumble it all up again. But one question has been rising to the top of "Shawn's bag of questions" more often recently. What kind of Father do I want to be?

So far, I've been surviving on the default approach. Love, caring, and support. They are pretty safe bets, and if you do nothing else, you're probably doing okay if you stick to those basic needs. And when you're almost 4 year old looks up and you and tells you for the first time, "You are the best Daddy ever." you have to assume you are doing SOMETHING right.

But love, caring, and support only go so far. Kids need teachers. They also need limits and boundaries. Things I absolutely suck at. Megan's asleep on the couch next to me, because it's easier than dealing with forcing her back in her room. Is it not that big of a deal, or will it come back to haunt me when she is 13 and trying to walk all over me?

Regularly Scheduled

Been a pretty good week. Nothing spectacular, but nothing overly stressful either. Probably the most stressful thing right now is that Casey has a bad cold which Megan also just got. This has made for some rough sleeping nights and grumpy day time. I'm just waiting for it to turn into ear infections...

Although I haven't been worried about work much this week, I have been thinking about it. Thinking about my place in the machine and all that. I have grandiose ideas, but I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never do anything with them. For various reasons, not the least of which is, I'm more or less convinced I wouldn't get the recognition (and compensation) I would deserve. But earlier this week, I had a crazy work dream. I dreamt I was in a meeting that was so pointless, I just had to say "This is stupid" and walk out of the meeting. That exact meeting, with all the players from the dream, took place today. Weird huh? Only difference is I didn't walk out, I suffered through it.

I'm still not looking forward to being forced indoors, so I'm going to try and enjoy as many runs these last few weeks as I can handle. Last night I wussed out due to being tired (I went to bed at 8:30pm I was so tired!!). But I've been pushing out some hard miles. I'd say there's a greater than 50% chance I'm going to do the half marathon race on Halloween.

End of Summer

With the crappy race and my general mood of last week, I didn't have much hopes for the weekend. In fact, Friday night I went for a "run" that could hardly qualify as such. I was just so mentally beat that I even stopped to walk a few times, and only managed few miles. Ugh, bleh, and general blah.

Saturday rolls around and we do some basic stuff. Megan at dance class followed up by a quick (and hot) afternoon birthday party with visit to grandmas as well. We were sorta all over. But Saturday evening I was able to sneak away and spend some time with a good friend and catch a movie.

That evening with my friend basically flipped my entire weekend around, for a few reasons. You see, my friend is going through some incredibly tough shit. Stuff that, in my humble opinion, would just destroy someone. And in a way, that's exactly what happened. I had been getting glimpses of what was going on over the last year, but it wasn't until this weekend that I got the whole picture.

Part of me was just so completely saddened to hear all the ways that life was essentially kicking his ass. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, life found ways to kick him while he was down. Another part of me was disappointed in myself as a friend. Shouldn't I have seen this? Wouldn't a better friend have made time to realize what was going on? Is this another side effect of being too wrapped up in my own life?

One last part of me also started to realize how good life HAS been to me, and how quickly it can all change. Maybe I'm just insanely lucky. Maybe my "plan for the worst" approach has some merit. I might be overly pessimistic, but in this day, can you afford not to be?

Sunday morning I took all that jumble of stuff and ran it out. No more complaining, no more whining, no more blahs. If life is going to continue to beat up on my family, my friends, and everyone I love and care about, then the last thing I'm going to do is let it beat up on me too. If you dig deep, and push hard enough, sometimes you can surprise yourself and find just a little more.

Dark Moods

With October right around the corner, my self diagnosed minor case of Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to be kicking in. Funny thing is, it hit me in April too, I just had too much stuff going on to realize it at the time. I like to think that it has a lot to do with being trapped inside for a few months with no running, but who knows. Maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep.

I was watching Megan and our neighbors kids jumping on the trampoline tonight, and my neighbor comes over and asks, "Is everything okay?". I assumed he was referring to the kids, and of course, everything was fine. But perhaps he just happened to notice me in one of my brooding states (and if he reads this, maybe he'll let me know which it was ☺).

We also had another conversation, which for various reasons, included him asking me what I thought the purpose of life was. At first I was taken a little off guard. It's not too often someone goes there. In fact, I honestly can't recall the last time someone just straight up asked me that. I tried to articulate an answer, but that's tough to do in 60 seconds, and his youngest was crying for Daddy to come inside. Fast food philosophy, deep thoughts in a minute or less or you're next question is free! Oh the challenges of parenting.

It did get me thinking though, about how much I missed discussing/thinking about deeper things, and how nice it would be to just have long talks about those things in life that you don't talk about much. Am I alone in my peers, not having a defined purpose? Am I weird for thinking the "search for purpose" is something that should never stop until the day you die? Do all 30 somethings around me have it all figured out, with a clearly defined since of purpose, that somehow I passed up because of my life choices and life views?

I was also reminded that at one point, I had high hopes that my blog would be an outlet for deep thought. I've attempted to from time to time, but it always either comes out wrong, negative, or as rants. There has got to be a middle ground where I can still "vent" about things that piss me off, but also share other things I think about from time to time. Maybe I'll work on that for October...

Monday Already?

After a few 3 day weekends, the whole 2 day weekend just doesn't seem like enough. I wanna say there was something blog worthy last week, but time just snuck away from me. Of course, the new computer doesn't help matters. Squeezing in the time for video games has got to take time from something. I bought a new game on Friday - I've installed it, but not even started it once yet.

On the work front, I'm predicting that the next 4-5 months will be "interesting". And when I say "interesting" I mean, even if a bunch of things that are currently in motion go "well", there is still a large chance of fail. The thing that will be interesting, is to see how that fail plays itself out. Who will point fingers? Where will the blame fall? Will there be a shake-up or will we just move on?

As for running, I just had my last race of the year today. The long cold winter and loss of motivation is going to set in soon enough, but I should be able to get in at least a few more weeks of outdoor running. Last year, my last race ended on a high note. This year ended on a flop.

I set out with a goal pace of under 7:30, and I achieved that. Offical time has me at 7:27 pace, my watch was 7:22 pace. But overall, it was just a bad race. There were a few possbile contributing factors. I maybe didn't eat/fuel correctly yesterday. Maybe the humidity/heat got to me in the later half of the race. Perhaps I started too fast for a 25k race. Whatever it was, although I achieved my goal, mentally I did not. My per-mile pace tells the story:



I essentially ran two races. The first half of the race where I was feeling good, going strong with a 7 minute pace. I wasn't worried about keeping up the 7 minute pace the entire time, I figured maybe midway I'd slow it down to 7:15s (which I did). However, shortly after mile 9, things just fell apart. I just had no energy, I had nothing to dig into, and I wanted to quit more than any race I've ever done. Mentally I had basically given up. Every time someone passed me, instead of trying to keep pace, I just fell farther behind. It took every ounce of will power just to maintain sub 8s.

I'm honestly not sure I can end this year with this race. I might have to cough up some dough and end on the same race I ended with last year: the Monster Dash Half Marathon . $65 dollars is a lot to pay just for my bruised ego.

Labor... dang

Over already... that was fast. The weekend was weird, but good. Saturday Andrea and the girls went to visit her parents. I stayed home simply because my new computer was slated to arrive on Saturday and someone had to be here to sign for it. I spent all day doing house work (laundry, dishes, grocery shopping) and getting the computer desks ready. This mainly consisted of finding a place for a 19" inch CRT monitor and buying some new screws to reattach a busted keyboard tray that Megan broke off a few months ago.

The computer finally arrived at 4:45pm, and I immediately got a 7.5 mile run in. Got back home at 6pm, showered and started setting things up. I got about 30-45 minutes of "What is this Windows Vista crap?" before everyone got home. Didn't have much time to get anything set up.

Sunday I squeezed in a little more time and got the one game I bought setup - Mass Effect. It's a kick ass game and I'm going to have fun playing through it multiple times (at least twice for sure) in preperation for Mass Effect 2, due out Q1 2010.

Monday I shifted gears and made sure I kept running a priority with a solid 18 mile run. The funny part was that I was passed while running by my friend Steve on his bike. Although we follow each other on our blogs, it was nice to catch up in person. He stayed with me for a few miles, prompting me to run a little harder so he didn't have to go so slow on his bike. Can you tell what part of the run he was with me? :-)



Grandma Gayle took Megan swimming Monday morning and was gracious enough to extend her time with Megan into the afternoon. This gave me a little more time to play on the new computer and I got a few misc applications setup, more system tweaks and learning how crazy Windows Vista is. I'm not gonna bother learning much more about Vista, since I'll be getting the free Windows 7 upgrade when it is released, which I think is as early as late October?

Sorry for the rambling, somewhat tech related post. Just not much else to update on!

Order has shipped!

I got an email yesterday that my new Dell PC was going to be delayed by a week, putting the delivery 2 weeks out. I was a little dissapointed... But that is nothing compared to when I bought my Alienware. I put the purchase in for my Alienware in on June 6th, 2004 and it didn't ship until July 23rd, almost 2 full months later.

Then I got another email today saying the computer has shipped and will be here Saturday! Isn't it funny how much BETTER news is when it contradicts previously bad news?

Yes, that is the big news - I bought a new PC. My current PC is now offically past it's prime, being over 5 years old. Not a bad run, and honestly, it can still run some of the mildly older games decently (2007ish). It just falls short on all the new games due to Shader Model 3.0. I paid more for my Alienware then I had ever paid for any computer previous. However, it did include a DOPE purple paint job, matching purple keyboard and mouse, a HUGE 21" inch CRT monitor, and a 5.1 speaker set.

When I told Andrea earlier this year I had my sights set on the possibility of upgrading this year, she wasn't all that supportive. With too many unknown factors, costs associated with Casey and our other financial goals, I understood. So we agreed that I could put it off until next year.

Well, part of that whole decision was an assumption Andrea had that a new PC meant another Alienware type investment. Out of the blue the other day, she asked me how much a new PC would cost me, and when I told her what it would be (a third of the cost of my Alienware), it didn't seem all that big of a deal. So she gave the green light, and I went for it!

I think I got a decent deal, my brother tells me it's a hell of a lot of computer for the price. It even comes with an SLI video card setup, 2gig total video memory. And they were also running a 40% off all monitors sale, so I picked up a 24" inch flat panel for $200 bucks. Not too shabby.

I've already made list of 19 different games I want to purchase, only 3 of which are available now. The rest are all future releases. The sad part is, the total cost of all the games I want is almost equivalent to the entire PC purchase.

The only question now is, can I handle this new machine and keep a good balance between family, running, work, and gaming?

10 years and 2 days

Andrea and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last Friday. After coming home from a horrible grocery shopping trip today, and now listening to Casey wail up a storm... you have to remind yourself, it's all worth it right?

Of course it is, but things aren't always peaches and cream. No day is without it's challenges. Andrea and I are under a lot of stress, perhaps more than we've ever dealt with and there are only minor signs of improvement as we survive the first 3 months with Casey. I say survive in the most literal of terms. If you asked me right now if I was up, down, happy, depressed, or anything in between, I'd respond with a blank stare. Those questions have no meaning when you are in survival mode. Interesting (or ironic?) how that works, isn't it?

Friday we dropped the girls off at Grandma Gayle's, who with some assistance, was nice enough to watch them for the majority of the day. Andrea and I enjoyed lunch at Houlihan's, and then a movie, District 9, which we both enjoyed a lot. After that, we hung out at Grandma's house to veg out for the rest of the evening and a Chinese food dinner. I've been trying to recover from all that overeating the rest of the weekend (approx. 25 miles running in 2 days).

As I previously mentioned, Saturday was the baby shower over at our place. Everything went great, and Andrea is happy it was so successful. The funny thing that happened was at the end. As guests were leaving, someone found a baby kitten hiding in our drive way. I didn't want the first thing to do with it, and my cousin walked it around the houses near us but couldn't find an owner. It had a collar with a bell on it, so it definitely belonged to someone.

Long story short, Megan found the cat again after we went outside. It looked so helpless, I decided to take it in with the hopes of finding the owners. If I couldn't, the cat was going to the humane society by 11am today. Plus, it gave Megan and I something to do yesterday afternoon, as we walked house to house asking if anyone had lost a cat (I brought a picture of the cat along). Turned out to belong to a nearby neighbor, they just weren't home yesterday. They stopped by this morning and took the cat home. Whewww, one less problem to deal with.



In other news, I was given a green light to buy a new computer, in part, as something to help me deal with my stress. The computer won't even arrive here for another week, and I've already bought a new game, with another one in my sights. More on that as it unfolds...

Minor Mistakes

Survived the short week. It wasn't so bad, although I did end up working from home a few hours each night, for a total of something like 38 hours in 4 days. I still stick by what I said before. I've decided I'm going to put my ideas out there, and make an honest effort to push something, anything, that might be considered an innovating idea. It's one of those situations where, what's the worse that could happen? Everyone laughs and says no, go back to your cube and fall in line like the good drone you are. And then I'll still have the last laugh, when it all comes to an end and I get to yell, "Told you so!". Oops!

In other news, I had been mentally prepping all week for a 25k (15.5 mile) race this Saturday, only to come to the realization that... It isn't this Saturday. It's 3 weekends from now, and isn't even ON a Saturday. Boy do I feel stupid. The funny part is that Saturday is my sister-in-laws baby shower, and I was sort of in the dog house all this month due to having scheduled a race on the same day. Everyone is happy now to find out I was wrong, but now I'm out a free excuse to get a long run in. Oops!

Tonight I picked up Megan from daycare, and mentioned to the teacher how I thought today was her last day. I thought our plan was to do it only for August. I even said as much, in a previous post, where I said "We will probably only do it for this month...". Turns out we are going through the month of Sept. So Megan was giving hugs out to her teacher and classmates like she'd never see them again. Yeah, I'll feel sorta silly when I pick her up next Tuesday. Oops!

Still, nothing made my day like what happened tonight. Megan, Andrea and I were reading/talking about the prayer that they say at school before meals and snacks. It's a simple 4 line prayer that Megan has mostly memorized, and it ends with "Thank you, God, for everything!". Interesting I thought, but no big deal. Then Andrea asks , "Megan, do you know God is?"

Megan: "I'm God!"

Priceless, I just about spit the pudding I was eating all over the place I laughed so hard. Funniest thing that happened all week!

Is it over yet?

Horribly long week. Right now, all the girls in the house, even Andrea are all taking an afternoon nap. I just got finished with a 5 mile bike ride / 5 mile run combo. Have a few minutes to myself, so figured it was about that time.

Why was this week so long you ask? Work mostly. This may sound arrogant, but I'm no dummy. I don't go through my day blissfully unaware of my surroundings. I pride myself on my attention to detail. This means that when push comes to shove, I know what needs to be done and I know what has to change in order for things to work. And I do that, ignoring consequences, ignoring what others might think, I get things done.

There is a flip side to being so in tune with what is going on around you. It means I'm also typically aware of impending shit storms. It seems so painfully obvious to me why things are going south at work, and also what it would really take to fix them. Sadly, it's also clear that nothing is ever going to change. The machine must roll on. Innovation is a dirty word. The idea of rewriting 10 year old software from the ground up in order to stay competitive, just isn't viewed as a sound investment. I'm gonna go ahead and say "bad idea" and in a few years, I'll look back and say "Told you so." The hard part will be convincing myself to stick with my long term plan, when I know things are just going to get worse before they get better.

On a totally different subject, my brother of all people, finally motivated me to do something I've been thinking I should do for quite some time. Ever since I removed the TV from my house, I've been wondering what the hell I'm going to do with my massive 230+ DVD collection. Well, I've decided. I'm selling the whole lot, minus a select few. Interested in buying a few movies? Here's the full list:

200+ DVD movies, most $2-$4

The funny part about putting this list of movies together, was the discovery that I actually had two completely unopened movies. I never even realized that. A friend of mine at work already has an order going, he said he was going to buy 20-30. I told him he could have first dibs, and the same would go for anyone else. (i.e. first come, first serve). And the special deal for family/friends is $1 dollar off every 2 movies you buy. Interested? Drop me an email or phone call.

Even my Dreams have Dreams

Last night I offered to do the overnight feedings. It was in part, my attempt to make up for a mix up earlier in the weekend where I got a little angry around 5am when I shouldn't have. And also to try and let Andrea get a good nights sleep, as she would have Megan home with her for the first time in two weeks.

The funny thing is, when my brain wakes up every 2 hours, I have the most insane dreams, because I am basically being woke up during REM periods. From what I remember, REM dreams are often much more intense, emotionally charged, and vivid then NREM (Non-REM).

In short, REM dreams come from a totally different part of the brain then NREM dreams: the limbic system. The limbic system is also referred to as the "center of emotions". As a result, REM dreams have certain characteristics that set them apart. In the past, I've had dreams of such emotional intensity that I will actually wake myself up crying.

Last night was no exception. The dreams I had were intensely emotional and to be honest, nothing that I could share with anyone except maybe a shrink. And since I'll never have one of those... Anyway, the crazy part was at one point in my dream, I "woke up" and thought, oh man, I have to write this stuff down, I could make a movie out of this (I used to keep a dream journal to assist in dream recall). So I'm going through the "dream" I just had in my head, trying to write down the strongest emotional details, which were quickly fading as dreams often do upon waking. Only then I realized, I was still dreaming. At that point things went from intense, to insane, as I slipped right back into the dream I was previously having, only now, I was fully lucid. (I know, try stay with me... but visit the Wiki links to understand the depths of my dreaming rabbit hole)

By morning, I had gone through such a roller coaster that I was in a weird place. The rational part of my brain tried to remind me that dreams are just super charged emotions played out in picture form. Your brain picks an emotion, juices it up, then picks a memory of something that you associate with that emotion. The two together combine in a way that cause people look for "meaning" in their dreams, where there is none to be found.

But on the other hand... for the first time in a long time, I started to wonder. How many emotions have I suppressed, repressed, or otherwise bottled up? Is it going to bite me in the end, or will be in control over the long haul? Strong emotions do strange things.

Did I mention that dreams fascinate me? Also, in case you didn't already know, Stephen Laberge is one of my hereos.

20 mile run that never was

This morning was interesting. Between Casey keeping me awake from midnight to 2am, and Megan coming up to our bedroom at 4:30am, when my alarm started going off at 5:20am, I actually stopped for a second to ask, "Why am I doing this again?"

Wait, let me go back. I haven't posted all this week because we had a semi emergency with Casey. On Wed night, she developed a really bad fever, 100.3 and above. Andi scheduled an appt. for the next afternoon, but ended up taking her to urgent care the next morning instead. Fever was up above 102, and it wasn't the standard ear infection. So they had to do a battery of tests to rule out all the serious things. They found nothing, so they gave her a standard shot of catch all antibiotics. She is doing better today, but her mood and night times are definitely not back to normal yet.

The second half of this week has been a bit rough, but we've survived. Meanwhile, I made plans to go out this morning and do new distance record: 20 miles. We got started by 6am and it was clear the humidity was going to be a factor, but overall, it was an enjoyable run. We did mostly 9:00s for the entire morning, which for me is a comfortable pace. The last 5 weeks, my long weekend runs in the 11-16 mile range have all been around 8:00-8:15 pace. The difference between 8s and 9s is significant. But even so, with the humidity this morning, 9s were plenty hard.

The funny part of the run, is that I paused my run at one water stop, only to forget to start it up again. The end result? My watch didn't even get to record my 20 mile run!! Check out this map:



Unless I suddenly sprouted wings or gained the ability to walk on water, I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that little straight line directly over the lake. That is where I paused and then restarted later. Oops... Oh well, just means I have to do it again sometime I guess!

Total distance: 20.43 miles (I think), total time: 3:07:44

Posting with a Purpose

One of the biggest roadblocks in posting on a more regular basis (aside from the time factor) is that often times I have nothing interesting to say, mention, or report on. What then, is the point? Let's be honest, I live a pretty routine life. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact, I like routine.

If I wanted, I could blab on and on about work. The politics, the stupid games people play, and even my own dumb approaches to things. Even I find myself being quick to judge someone harshly or place blame incorrectly for why something might be broken, or why we so often find ourselves in situations where shit isn't done when it's supposed to be. Then I sit back and see, I'm just as much a part of the stupid game as everyone else. That realization itself frustrates the shit out of me. I want to be better. I want to make a difference. I want to have an idea that makes everyone go "oh shit, we need to pay that guy more." Is that wrong?

Yes, I'm somewhat coming full circle again. Not so much because I hate my job, or because I dislike what I do. No, not this time. I actually do enjoy, on some level, what I do. More importantly, there are a few fun people that I work with, and that's a huge plus. This time, it's more about the fact that I do wish I could have a million dollar idea (that isn't a lottery ticket) Hell, I'd settle for a $100k idea. Just to be able to say, hey, I had this idea, and it was worth something. The closest I've ever come, was my first job. Long story short, I came up with an idea that changed a part of the manufacturing process (via software I wrote), that resulted in less wasted product. At the time, I saw it as fixing a minor area where we were in essence, "throwing away good parts". Turns out, after one of the equipment engineers ran the numbers, I ended up creating a savings of around $30k every two weeks. I think my entire 5+ year career there was paid for in a few months with that idea. Too bad I couldn't just pocket that instead.

I don't know where I was going with this post, and so maybe it's best to just end on a random note. When I sat down to post tonight, I started with a totally different blog title and a totally different purpose. But now it's past 10pm, and I want to start running again in 7 hours, so I had better get some sleep. Maybe I'll post my thoughts on "moral flexibility" tomorrow...

You're Mom Dude!

Megan's latest catch phrase is quite amusing (blog title). Not quite sure why she put it together, but it makes me laugh. This weekend ended up being crazy full of everything. I'll sum up:

Friday night: Neighbors over for some of my apparently awesome homemade pizza.
Saturday: In-laws visit at noon, with Megan's two cousins. Andrea and I snuck away to see G.I. Joe (and it rocked).
Sunday: Drive down to Rochester to visit an old college roommate in town for a week, who also just had his first daughter 2 weeks before Casey was born. Drive all the way home to Grandma Gayle's house to celebrate her birthday with pizza and ice cream cake!

I even snuck in two runs, Friday night before company (on the mill) and Sunday morning. It was a tad humid this morning, but I got a solid 13.5 miles in. Next weekend might be the new distance record, more on that later. Just wanted to get some pics up from the weekend. And yes, my camera is dying slowly so some of these pictures suck hard.

The visitors on Saturday:


Just the family:


Casey checking out her uncle sporting a new beard:


Megan playing too:

Second thoughts

As I picked up Megan for the second time tonight, they handed me a slew of art projects she did today. This was one of them:



Ahhh, wait a second, what's that say?



Not quite sure what to think about that. Starting to wonder if we are getting our money's worth...

New Month

Had one of those, "Oh, it's August?" moments this weekend. Sorta snuck up on me. Casey is 10 weeks old today and so far, has got into a semi normal routine. She is usually sleeping by 8pm, with two over night feedings. One around 2-3am, and a second before dawn, at 5-6am. I think her daytime routine still varies a bit.

The weekend was fun, a mix of relaxing and busy. Saturday was just chilling for the most part, about all I did was an early morning bike ride with my neighbor. Sunday was go go go, as I did a 16 miler in the morning. A zoo visit with Megan after that. And then an afternoon date day with Andrea, as we saw the movie Funny People and did a real fast early dinner at Red Lobster.

This month also marks the start of something else new for us. We've signed Megan up for a week long school program. As Fancy Nancy would say, "full time school" is a fancy way of saying "daycare". Today was her first day, and she seemed to handle it just fine. We went with a brand new Primrose School location that just got built this summer. It's right on the way to-from work, and only a few miles from home. Having just been built, everything in it is brand spanking new, giving it even more of that "cool for the kids" factor. They even have computers in the preschool rooms. We will probably only do it for this month, for a few reasons. The main thing is that she will start up some other programs and ECFE classes again in the fall.

I uploaded 72 pictures from my camera today. The majority of that is because Megan now knows how to operate the camera. She will often run around with it when I don't realize it and just take random pictures all day. Or videos of me playing video games. Anyway, thought I'd get a few new ones up, as I haven't posted any pics in awhile.