When Inspiration Goes to Seed

I was sitting at my desk, playing with a grapefruit (hey, my office, my play things), minding my own business, when he walked by. This is an old coworker. At one point, I reported to him via "dotted line" in the org chart (as a liaison to the European business users), though I've only had very infrequent dealings with him. I work for corporate, he works for one of our divisions, but we always got along.

When I first met him (while on a IT Governance summit in London), he surprised me - he was a big person. I mean, I'm big, and have been quite large, but he was bigger. A lesser person would feel good about the fact that there was somebody so obviously larger.

This person works in the UK, and while any dealings with him were quite infrequent, face-to-face meetings were just plain scarce. In my first three years with the company, I saw him twice. So, it was a bit surprising when I saw in a corporate bulletin that a few of my company's employees had completed the London marathon in 2008 - and the employee with the best time was this employee. Upon seeing the bulletin, I was quick with an email of congratulations, and we went back & forth about weight loss, and running (he started by saying "yeah, I lost so & so many stone so I got into running") and biking (by this time, I was biking into work pretty frequently -- he stated that there was an American employee who worked in his division that was a "Category 2" cyclist at one point, which is no small feat).

Since then, work interactions between this person and myself have been limited (his role continues to be division-centric while my role remains at the corporate office), but the fact that he ran a marathon is a big part of what got me off my ass to start training for one myself (and you better believe that I'm running the Harrisburg marathon in November). "Person X did it, so can I" has been running in my head.

Whenever speaking to this person about work-related stuff, cycling was always near the top of our conversations. I was going to pull the "nobody saw this coming", run the Harrisburg marathon, then tell this person that his running the London marathon was part of what got me to consider training.

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All of that leads to today. There's a bit of an IT Summit going on in the corporate office this week. Since Monday, there's been a steady stream of people into & out of my personal office to say "hi" (I'm one of the people that just about every user in my company, and most especially every IT user, has to deal with at some point). For some people, this is the first I've seen them. For others, they're familiar faces. I was curious if this weight-losing marathon runner was going to be part of the summit, though I never asked around.

I just saw & heard him walk past my office door. There's no mistaking the gray, disheveled hair or the grating cockney accent. That weight he lost? Well, he's found it. And I think that maybe any fat he had lost got busy, had babies, & when he found those original lost pounds, whole families of fat moved back in.

I'm being unfair, but this is really hard to take. Working for my company is downright stressful at times -- there's constant talk of reorganization, they opened an offshore office to hire talent at a fraction of the cost of American/European talent, "going lean" is the mantra (which, no matter how it gets stated, means that you do more work with less people), it's not uncommon for entire projects to be scrapped at the 23rd hour. Heck, I'd be surprised if he kept in the tip-top shape he once was in. This, however, is far from what I had expected.

In the grand scheme of things, this is but a mere speedbump. I'm not changing my approach (try to eat right, train for endurance events to the point where I'm able to just go out & run a marathon or bike a century as if it's not a great big thing), The only thing that'll be different is that there will either not be a "thanks" email, or if I choose to write said email, it will be carefully worded.

I suddenly feel like John Larroquette's character in the one episode of the John Larroquette Show that I watched. Larroquette was at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting when they were doing roll-call. When asked for new members, David Crosby, Larroquette's sponsor, stood up. Apparently, Crosby had been the stalwart for Larroquette's recovery from addiction, and here he was, admitting he had fallen off the wagon.

Person X's influence on my life was much, much less than this, but I'm still taking it as a blow. I'm moving on, I'm not changing, I'm getting healthy (if I'm not there already) . . . but I was really looking forward to writing that email the first work day after the marathon.

Vacation: eating poorly, sleeping oddly, drinking lots, and bloody nipples

Well, hello my trusty followers (yes the hardy half-dozen of you). I've been on vacation . . . from work, from twitter, from the blog, from most everything. I spent last week at Chincoteague Island, VA with the family, and extended family, and their friends and family. All in all there were twenty-two of us (7 of whom were less than 4 years old), so as you might imagine it was a grand old time.

The near-accident

Driving to the shore in the dead-middle of the night leaves one thing, near guaranteed that you won't have any traffic. We made it through Route 15 with barely a car around. Then around Baltimore without having to slow. Over the Bay Bridge with nary anybody around. It was great.

Well, I was cruising around in the right-hand lane sometime between 1:30 and 2 in the morning when something funny happened. Suddenly, I didn't see any lights ahead of me. This is a semi-commercial area, and there were cars on the road; I should have been able to see something. And, if I looked in the left-hand lane, I saw plenty of lights. So, I stepped on the brakes and stopped about 50 feet in front of a vehicle on its side.

Slowly, I inched around the car in the left-hand land & pulled over to the side of the road. Running to the car (a Ford Explorer, I believe), I saw the driver's side door open (though the driver's side door was straight up in the air) and an arm reach out of it. Another driver who had stopped to help came by and we provided an anchor for the driver of the vehicle to get himself out. While part of me thought the safest thing for him might be to keep him still, the thought that somebody would plow into the vehicle at high speed was enough to want to get him out of the car (fortunately, right around now, another oncoming driver realized what was going on and parked to the side of the road but focused his headlights to the overturned vehicle, illuminating it).

With the driver out of the car, we were able to figure out what happened - he fell asleep, went off the road, then back on, and overturned. He appeared completely unscathed, though we were able to talk him into being evaluated by the paramedics on their way (fortunately, many people out driving at this time at night are medical professionals, which certainly made for a better experience). He was more pissed off than anything else.

As soon as it was obvious that the situation was in better hands than I could provide, with assurances that medical and road cleanup crews were on their way, we got going again.

Check-in at the house was on Saturday, though we didn't arrive until very, very early in the morning on Sunday - see, I had a gig with my band, Landslide that took us until 10PM. It was a 5 hour drive to the beach, and we went through the night. Since this allowed the kids to maintain their regular sleep schedule, however, it was probably not all that bad an idea (though the near accident...sidebar... was something I would have liked to do without).

After getting to the house & setting up the bare necessities (CJ slept in the bed with Duffy & myself, Leila in her pack and play), off to bed (though I was so pumped full of caffeine that I barely slept), we woke up to the kids rumblings around 7 and prepared for the day. Alas, my dreams of napping the day away on the beach were dashed as soon as we got there (I had biked, Duffy had driven). There was a driving rain and a steady wind . . . it was cold and near miserable. After trying to brave the conditions for awhile, the skies truly opened up & we called it a day -- there was to be plenty of napping on the beach throughout the rest of the week, however.

As I was on vacation, my dietary rules were quite relaxed -- no non-seafood meat, try to eat something for breakfast, be "good" for lunch (typically a peanut butter & honey sandwich), snack casually, be reasonable at dinner, and don't go overboard on the drink. For the most part, diet-wise, I did well . . . I'd have done much, much better if Martin's potato chips qualified as low-calorie. Of course, every night I had copious amounts of booze - whether it be wine or beer . . . I did limit my margarita intake, though -- lots of sugar included there (whatever I can do to convince myself that I'm healthy, right?)

Workout-wise, I did much better. I went to the beach on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday -- each time I went, I biked both there and back (yes, even through the driving rain on Monday). It's the better part of four miles to the beach, so these were hardly "taxing" bike rides, but they were low-pressure, relaxed ways for me to get in a bit of extra exercise.

I was very, very happy with the amount I was able to run, though. I managed only two runs (Monday and Thursday), but they felt good, and I'm near-certain that I managed at least a half-marathon each time.

The Monday Run

• From the house to the Wildlife Loop at Assateague Island is approximately 2.5 miles (source, Google Maps)
• The Wildlife Loop is 3.2 miles (source, posted signs)
• Approximately 2/3 of the way around the loop is a .5 mile trail to beach access (source, posted signs)
• Along the beach, I ran for half an hour in one direction, took a quick swim, and then half an hour back in the other direction (somewhere between 1.5 and 4 miles each way)
• Back to the beach access trail (another .5 miles)
• Complete the Wildlife Loop
• Back to the house (another 2.5 miles)

All told, this is somewhere between 12.2 and 17.2 miles

The Thursday Run

• House to Wildlife loop (2.5 miles)
• Wildlife Loop (3.2 miles)
• Beach Access Trail (.5 miles)
• Run along the beach to the parking area (2.5 miles - source, Google Maps)
• From the beach to Wildlife Drive (1.8 miles - source, Google Maps)
• From Wildlife Drive to the Wildlife Loop (.5 miles - source, Google Maps)
• Complete the Wildlife Loop (-.5 miles as there was a section that I skipped - source, Google Maps)
• Wildlife Loop to house (2.5 miles)

This was approximately a 13 mile run

The first run was just a fun "let's go out & stretch my legs". The weather was about near perfect and I was in a "it's my first day of vacation" mood. Along the way I saw an otter (too slow with my iPhone to get the shot), several wild ponies (too distant to make an iPhone shot worth it), beautiful shorelines, a horseshoe crab (by the way, that thing on the back of it, it's not a stinger -- a woman who was around me was damn near terrified of the thing when I ran past), some funky shells, and I found that if you run for far enough, you run to a point where there simply is nobody around you (this allowed me to take a swim with some privacy -- as I wasn't looking forward to wearing overly soaked clothing while running, it worked out well).

The second run was a more "let's get it over with" run, and I didn't dally (there was napping on the beach to get through). However, during this run I encountered a few firsts. The first was passing somebody in a run-down . . . she was running ahead of me, going her own pace. I was running my own pace, which was just slightly faster than her's. She looked back constantly. I passed her. Then, near immediately after that, I looked behind me to see another female runner gaining on me quickly. Now, those of you who know me know that I really don't care about my speed - and I certainly don't care if a woman runs faster than me. I was just curious if I could hold off any runner who was "running me down" (when I run most any event, I start toward the back and work my way up throughout the run, passing lots of people and barely getting passed myself -- though normally, when I'm passing people here, it's because they started out too quickly and simply couldn't keep up their pace). Well, I picked up my pace, and she ran past me like I was standing still. So, I had both sides of the experience in the span of about 10 minutes.

After getting back home, Duffy looked at me & horror was apparent on her face. I figured that, since I had neglected to put on sunscreen prior to an early morning jog, I was horribly sunburnt and I simply wasn't feeling it. "Your shirt!" she exclaimed & I looked down.

You know those tales that runners have "nipple issues" when they run? Well, I found that I'm far from the exception there. Bloody nipples that didn't really hurt until the next day (and are still horribly sore now). I'm claiming "badge of honor" on the shirt (though I did manage to get the blood out). But? Ewww.

Upcoming Events

I'll be posting in just a little bit about the last two runs I had - the corporate mile & Alyssa's 5k (I enjoyed the latter MUCH more, and will actually have pictures to share). But, in the meantime, I thought I'd post my upcoming schedule from Active.com (a horrible event-finding search engine, but a great resource for training and registering for specific events).

• Friday, September 10: The Great Prostate Cancer Challenge in Harrisburg, PA (City Island). My grandfather was a prostate cancer survivor and this is the first time that I'll be running with my sister (who is totally going to kick my ass).
• Sunday, September 19: Three Creek Century in Carlisle, PA. Hosted by the Harrisburg Bike Club with proceeds benefiting a local battered-women's shelter - just a pretty ride in a beautiful time of year.
• Saturday, October 2: Fall Down on the Trail 5k in Newville, PA. The Rails-To-Trails Conservancy is my all-time favorite charity (though I fully acknowledge that there are charities that do much more for the greater good).
• Sunday, November 14: Harrisburg Marathon in Harrisburg, PA. I figure, if I'm registered for it, I might actually follow through.

The great thing is that I have some sort of musical entanglement later in the day after each of these (whether it be a wedding to play, a gig with Landslide, or a solo effort). I'll be obnoxious about the music stuff on Twitter leading up to each (assuming the events are open to the public) and I'll try to post my results as soon as I can.

My plans for a "Kindness of Strangers" tour

There are lots of weird thoughts that run through my head. "How can I complete the Transporter as shown in Star Trek?", "Can I write a series of books that will catch fire with 13-15 year old boys like Stephanie Meyer did?", "Why haven't I written my first symphony?", "It's great when I realize just how many people who I know only online are awesome", "I'd really like to see every baseball stadium", "Ooh, shiny!".

When I start organizing my thoughts, though, things fall into two main categories:

1. stuff that makes me tired (running, biking, hiking, etc)
2. stuff that could make me rich if I could ever follow through (inventions, creative endeavors)

Despite how silly I think it sounds, I can't shake one idea (warning, tangent approaching).

I've always told myself that, if I were independently wealthy with no great obligations, I'd hike the Appalachian Trail, solo. I'd simply tell those important to me that I'd be heading out to Maine one summer day (because I'd totally do it north-to-south) and that I'd keep in touch as much as I could over the next 6 months. Along the way, I'd rig up some sort of crank power charger & take copious notes on a lightweight but rugged laptop. I think I'm a talented enough writer that people would want to read about it - and if I got enough to read, maybe I could sell some advertising on the site & actually make a few bucks. Maybe somebody would be interested in "dead-tree" publishing & I'd make a few more bucks. The more I think about it, though, the more distracted I get by it - the more I want to do it. Obviously, though, I'm not in a position where I can do it right now.

However, it's been done before - there are great books about hiking the Appalachian Trail, and while I'm sure it'd be beautiful, my interactions with others would be limited. In other words, I'm sure I'd enjoy thru-hiking the AT, but I think I could do better.

Then I start thinking about my interactions with people on Twitter/Facebook, how I really want to see every baseball stadium, and Three Men in a Boat.

Start in Miami at the beginning of the season with a bike loaded with gear & go. Tweet/blog as I go about. If a friendly follower happens to ping me, stop by. If they offer food/beer/lodging, take them up on it. If they offer tickets to a game (major or minor league), REALLY take them up on it. If nobody is around, pitch a tent (hehehe) someplace safe, cook myself some dinner, & call it a night. Bike around, take pictures, write about it, get to see the country, get to know some people - this is right up my alley.

Now, will this happen? I don't know (but the fact that I'm writing about it makes it more real than just a "think I'm thinking about"). This isn't something that would happen anytime in the near future -- kids need to be more grown up and I'd need a LOT more money in the bank to be able to pull this off. Maybe a few years from now, maybe I'll convince one or both of my kids to take a year between high school & college to do this with me. Maybe this will be a "got both kids through college" present to myself (but, geez, I'm looking WAY ahead -- if I were planning this 18 years ago, the concept of "tweeting to find a place to stay" would have had me scratching my head -- let's suffice to say that I'll intend to use whatever the media-norm is to post my progress whenever I move ahead with this harebrained plan).

What say you, commentariat? Something feasible? If work/obligations weren't stopping you, what "big thing" would you do?

Garlic-Parmesan Black Bean Burgers / Sangria Smoothie

Garlic-Parmesan Black Bean Burgers

Anytime I post what I'm making from scratch, I'm flooded with recipe requests. So, here goes.

Ingredients

• 2 cans black beans
• garlic (I use a big package of minced garlic & throw in a tablespoon)
• 1 heaping teaspoon of Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 large red onion, finely chopped
• 1 large carrot, peeled & shredded
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs

Preparation

Mash black beans with garlic. Add rest of the ingredients. Mix well. Grill on low heat for 25-30 minutes, turning every ten. Serve on buns with cheddar cheese.

Sangria Smoothie

I really like good wine, but I hate paying for it. Usually, I end up buying "middle of the road" wine, usually in boxes (cheaper that way). However, my local wine shop started selling "Bully Hill Banty Red", which I had to buy because it was like $9.99 for a 3 liter box. Well, the wine sucks. But, the old adage "sucky wine, great sangria" holds true.

Ingredients

• Large glass of shitty red wine
• Frozen berries (I buy them in bulk from the grocery store)
• Banana (just to make it seem more like a smoothie & less like an alcoholic's wet dream)

Preparation

Blend in blender until smooth.

Vanity / Self Image

Yesterday was #boobiewednesday on Twitter. Those of you who know me in real life probably don't know of my Twitter addiction. See, as I work at a computer all day, it's very easy for me to be a "Social Media junkie". Facebook is great, but it's blocked at work and is relatively slow-paced. Pictures of your kids/friends/vacations? It's the perfect venue - but for discussions of the designated hitter, or the new bar that's opening, or strip-club etiquette, or who needs what plastic surgery where? Facebook isn't the best forum.

Well, Twitter is, dare I say it, perfect for the "barely there" attention span. Don't want to participate in a given discussion? Wait a second & another one will come up. You can hop-in, hop-out of anything at any given time. Something shiny come across your line of sight? Post about it & distract a world. It's kind of cool.

Well, one of the Twitter memes is #BoobieWednesday, where women post (G-PG13 rated) pictures of their knockers to raise awareness for Breast Cancer research. It's a cute thing more than it is a perverted thing -- lots of cute bras, some creative shots, and every time you see somebody's avatar it's easy to think about how important it is to destroy the disease that is breast cancer. My step-mother is a survivor. One of my favorite Tweeters is like my hero (she's a breast cancer survivor and single mother all before 30). And, well, I'm all about boobs.

So, what does this have to do with vanity? Well, I was dared to post my own #BoobieWednesday avatar on Twitter (since I have man-boobs, or moobs instead of boobs: #MoobieWednesday). I'm horrible at saying "no" to a dare, so I did. My first go had mixed opinions. Taken in my office, a purple dress shirt unbuttoned to my belly, it clearly showed my bare chest & a nipple. Some people enjoyed it, some did not - but it got a laugh & I got use it as an excuse to say "men get breast cancer too", and since men are so much more unlikely to check themselves or report something, it's generally "too late" by the time a doctor gets involved in the case of male breast cancer.

Following that semi-successful post, I took a #MoobieWednesday week off, as I had a very cute picture of my daughter napping on my chest as I napped myself (pictured, right) as my avatar, and I had little desire to change that. I mean, Leila is a doll, right?

Well, that week, a few of my followers asked why I wasn't playing with #MoobieWednesday. I simply said that more people wanted to see my "awww" picture than something silly, and left it at that. However, between the time I posted before heading to work and arriving at work yesterday, I had six "why hasn't your avatar picture changed" tweets directed at me. So, I unbuttoned my dress-shirt & decided to take a "no nipple picture". It actually turned out ok (below).

Much to my surprise, I didn't have any negative feedback - I mean, it's an ok shot by my standards, but it seems everybody really liked it. So, it got me thinking about my own body (which, as I've stated before, I rank somewhere between "average" and "kind of handsome", though my impression is always much closer to the "average" side of that scale). At what point do you start thinking that you actually "look good" as opposed to "look better" or are "not actively made fun of for being a walrus"?

This is hard to admit, but I really have a hard time accepting compliments about my appearance. Part of me thinks the complimenter is:

• Misinformed, has poor eyesight, and/or just plain wrong
• Being sarcastic
• Has an ulterior motive

I simply cannot easily take them at face value. To me, I'm always pudgy, despite the fact that I have shorts that I can't wear because they fall right off me or that I need to buy new belts because I have them as tight as they go. I always see myself as a weakling, despite the fact that I'm taller than most everybody I know and I'm working my way toward one-hundred pushups. I'm see myself as always pimply faced, despite the fact that I'm nowhere close to being a teenager anymore (though, when stressed, I do tend to break out -- have I mentioned that I have a stressful job and am the father of two?).

So, to any/all who enjoyed the #MoobieWednesday pic, thank you -- I promise to try to accept your compliments more easily in the future.

I Know I'm Going to Break a Rule

There are a few rules that I abide by when I work out - probably first & foremost is that I do everything for me, I simply don't care about others. If I pass somebody as I'm running? Great. If I get passed by a million cyclists & their grandmothers & a kid on training wheels? Great. I'm out there for me - I'm pushing myself. I may be fast. I may be slow. It's about me and, really, who cares about what anybody else is doing.

But, one week from today, I'm going to abandon that rule. A few weeks ago, I was working on a project with the head of Accounts Payable at my office. I do a fairly good job of avoiding any/all "everybody in the corporate office" messages during the course of the day (I read them off hours). Typically, any "opt-in" event that doesn't involve pizza in a conference room is something that gets ignored - it's not that I don't absolutely just love my job, but unless I'm heading out for drinks with a few coworkers that I know/like, I'm not a big "hang out while not working and not getting paid" kind of guy.

However, I was working with the head of Accounts Payable when she sent one of these "all corporate office" emails, and rather than leave it for later, I opened it. It was a request to get runners for a run. It's just a mile, some corporate challenge. Local corporations will enter teams of 5, and there might be some sort of prize for the corporation that has best 5-person time. I signed up.

My act of signing up started a ball rolling. First, we went from 8 to 15 people because I was simply talking about the run in a break room, and I'm loud, and a few other people (who had successfully ignored the email) signed up. The next was that I told my coworkers that I'm training for the Harrisburg marathon. The final item was a talk of the timing.

While I don't really care about timing, I do time myself every now & then. Part of it's a curiosity thing - "hmmm, I wonder how fast I'm running", and part of it is logistical -- most marathons ask you to not "compete" (using that word loosely) if you can't complete the marathon in 6 hours or so. So, I run between an 8:30 and a 9:30 mile if I'm just running. However, if I actually push myself, I've gotten the final mile of a 5k (3.1 mile) run down to 7:14.

Well, as we were talking about timing, it seems that I have the best mile time. So, now I need to win. I certainly don't need to win the race against all others. But against my coworkers? I do. During my morning runs, I'm pushing myself, HARD, for the last mile. I feel odd actually caring about a result (other than "finish" and "did not complete"), but, there you have it. Funny that a competitive moment came about.

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After a long time of near-drought, it was pouring this morning. No walking the dogs, and I slept in. I refuse to feel bad about the decision. I'll do my "conference call pushups", and I'll be back into cardio stuff tomorrow. Today, I'll let the legs rest.