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I went outside and ran around our block today. I kept a solid uninterrupted pace the entire way, which was good. But since our block is only 0.5 miles, I now need to work my up from 1 lap to a little over 6! Sweeeeeet. Almost as sweet as the 6-layer chocolate cake and raspberry sauce I just gobbled up to forget about my feet hurting and my lungs exploding. So, yeah training has officially begun.

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I am not sure how it happened, but Erin talked me into running a 5k with her. It is in like 2 weeks and I am not ready to run 3.1 miles – at least not all at once.

Now, I am not totally out of shape, but I sit at a computer for a living and I work long hours. So my playing basketball once a week and playing with the kids is not necessarily preparing me to run a 5k anytime soon. Eating 5 Guys three times in the last week is not helping either.

Erin on the other hand has been doing the “Couch to 5k” plan for her second time, she did it years ago and still gives me grief for not being at the finish line to greet her (to my defense I worked a 16 hour day the night before and got off at like 3am, just a few hours before her race started). But I still felt really bad about missing it, I knew it was a big accomplishment for her -sorry babe. It is probably that guilt that let me get talked into the River City Rat Race 5K on October 24th.

Anybody got some NipGuards I can use so I don’t end up like Andy during the “Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run For The Cure”

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Filed under: Fatherhood, Photos | Comments Off on Like mother, like daughter

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary. So we have now been married for as long as we dated before getting hitched (I can feel Erin rolling her eyes at that – see how well we know each other?)

Back in 2004, we had a beautiful wedding weekend at Casa Cody Inn, Palm Springs. It was a fantastic weekend, and it’s been a wonderful 6 years since. In that time, we have moved back to the Midwest, I changed careers as I left Journalism completely to focus on being a Web Ninja, we sold our first home and bought our second, we survived purgatory living in Coldwater, and most importantly we had not one but two lovely daughters.

While those were all big changes in our lives, what didn’t change is the day-to-day friendship Erin and I have. We may drive each other crazy at times, but we know we can count on each other to always be there. We still enjoy spending time with each other and now with our kids.

Thanks Erin, it’s been great. I hope my second wife will be as fun as you. (Just kidding sweetie, you’re stuck with me.)

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Mohandas Gandhi is one of history’s greatest men. As the political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement he not only gained freedom for his own nation but also inspired non-violent civil rights movements around the world.

As a practitioner of Ahimsa, the non-violent lifestyle that believes harming any living thing has karmic consequences, Gandhi swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same. He lived simply and modestly. He wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven from yarn that he had spun by hand himself. He ate simple vegetarian food and undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest. But this simple man of peace was still a political powerhouse.

After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, increase economic self-reliance, expand women’s rights, build religious and ethnic amity, end India’s social caste system of untouchability.

Among Gandhi’s honors was the name Mahatma or “Great Soul”, a perfectly fitting description.

Today is the national holiday in India celebrating his birth October 2, 1869 and also worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Here are some of my favorite Gandhi words of wisdom:

• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
• A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
• A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
• A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.
• A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
• Action expresses priorities.
• Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are all in harmony.
• An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
• An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
• Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
• Faith… must be enforced by reason… when faith becomes blind it dies.
• First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
• As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.
• I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
• I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.
• I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
• I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
• Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress. Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
• In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
• And my favorite:
  Be the change that you want to see in the world.

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Ella has started using our laptops to type words and play online games. I have a feeling this scene is going to be familiar for the next dozen years.

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I absolutely love the Coen brothers, so I get excited about every movie they do, but how can you not be excited about True Grit? Allegedly, this is a much closer adaptation of the Charles Portis novel, then that of the 1969 John Wayne movie. The question you now have to ask: Is Jeff Bridges > John Wayne? While I really enjoy John Wayne like any red-blooded American, I am going to say yes, Bridges will be a better Rooster Cogburn, the drunken sheriff that helps a young girl hunt down her father’s killer to exact some Old West justice.

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I have been working crazy long hours for a while now and its starting to take its toll on me physically and mentally. I need a break. Just a couple days away and unplugged would do me a world of good.

Luckily, that is the plan this weekend – relaxation here I come. I can’t wait! We’ll see if the unplugged part really happens though. I am also hoping the rain can stay away long enough for me to make my escape.

(Click the photo to see the full-size image of this one-of-a-kind hideaway and enjoy your moment of zen)

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That’s you, drops of water. And you’re on top of the mountain. A success. But one day you start sliding down the mountain and you think, “Wait a minute. I’m a mountain top water drop. I don’t belong down in this valley, in this river, in this low dark ocean with all these drops of water.” Then one day it gets hot. And you slowly evaporate into air, way up, higher than any mountain top – all the way to the heavens. Then you understand that it was at your lowest that you were closest to God. Life’s a journey that goes round and round; and the end is closest to the beginning. So it’s change you need. Relish the journey.

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