It's the final countdown....

The countdown has begun. In exactly one from today, I will be running a marathon. Actually, by this time, I should be all done, and probably laying in the hotel room, after showering, trying to motivate myself to get back to the finish line to cheer on Jen as she finishes walking. Since we're doing the race with Team in Training, part of the money we raised goes to our hotel room, a dinner the night before, and a post race party Sunday night. The funny thing is that at that party, they are planning on having a DJ and dancing. Normally, that makes for good times, but after running 26.2 miles, I'm not sure about how many people will be physically able to dance. But, we'll see. Maybe if they play a slow song, Jen and I can just stand still on the dance floor and nobody will notice that we're not actually moving. Or to bring back a fond memory of my high school grad nite, a fine session of chair dancing might be in order.

Here's me, and my newest niece... in one of the few 4-week-old moments of non-crying from hunger. The guy in the back, well, right after we took the picture, he walked over, and asked if I wanted to try a sip of his delicious beverage. I declined, which made him quite sad. Actually, he was asking me where the elevator was... who can figure it out?

Dub

I did it... I ran 20 miles. That's 35200 yards, 105600 feet, 1,267,200 inches, 32,186,880mm. I ran across 300 football fields. I ran the equivalent of the track of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland 39 1/2 times. And today, I hurt.
I hurt all over (from the waist down). I hurt in ways I haven't hurt yet in my training. Muscles are tight, I've got knots pretty much everywhere, the joints don't want to move. It feels awesome.
And when I do the race, in three weeks, I have to do the same thing, and add 6.2 more miles. And then go to work the next morning.
LOL

So this past weekend, my improv group had planned to do a few shows over 2 days. The first day was down at Mariner's Church in Irvine (I hadn't been there before, and I enjoyed it. Reminded me of Saddleback as far as size, but the architecture was more of what I would call University style.... which is probably a horrible description). That day, we were actually scheduled to do three shows, of about 15-20 minutes each, or about 2-3 games. These shows were for foster kids, and their foster families, or other people close to them. The second day, was at a home in Chino for kids who had to be removed from their homes by the state because of abuse or neglect by their parents/caregivers. Needless to say, we were somewhat apprehensive for both days. For one, doing Improv for kids is tough, because unlike adults, who are pretty afraid of yelling things out, kids love to yell all the time, and it can be pretty easy to lose the audience. But more importantly than that, our job was going to bring laughter to kids that so far in their lives, they've experienced loss, and pain, beyond what most of us have experienced as adults. Don't misunderstand me, I wasn't scared of the thought of not getting laughs (because my jokes create silences a lot) for my own benefit, I was scared that we wouldn't be successful at creating smiles. Now, one of the games, which we call Uncle Jim's Storytime, involves 3 of us going outside, while the fourth staying in, and getting characters, a setting, and other details about the story. Then we come in, and as he tells each part, we assume the characters, and create the story. This will come in handy in a moment....
Well, we did the shows, and we got laughs, we had people thank us, and it was good.
Then today, I get an email from one of the other guys in the group. He was eating lunch at Chik-fil-a, and a little boy runs up to him at histable, and just stared at him for a few seconds. Then, the boy says, “Thanks for the story.” My friend says “excuse me?” the boy says again, “thanks for the story…. I saw you at camp and you told a funny story with a funny guy playing Frosty. That was the best day… thanks…”…. And then he runs off….

So, lets just say that I feel pretty good about the whole thing.
And no, I wasn't Frosty, we had frosty twice, and I was either Soldier Boy, or Barney, depending on the show he saw.

World of Lame

So, I was at the gym the other day, and while listening to my random music selections saved on my phone, there was a news story on cnn, or msnbc, or one of those, about Second Life. If you don't know about second life, it's an online world, where you can create a character, and.... well..... be there. It's pretty dumb, to be honest. Which was somewhat of a disappointment to me, since I tend to like most things computer. But this just wasn't interesting. There was no objective, nothing to gain. If I wanted a house, or a piece of land, I had to pay the in-game money for it... which I have to buy with real money. Fine, a game that costs money, I already have that with WoW, but at least in that world (of warcraft) there are objectives, there are things to do, and it's interesting. All I learned in my hour of trying out second life is that people don't actually want to chat, and that flying isn't actually cool, since it's a pain to control properly.
So, if anyone had wanted to check it all out, save your time... honest.
Go buy WoW, and play with me!

Yay!

Ok, so the yay part isn't till the end of this 2 subject post.

Subject #1 : running against strong Santa Ana headwinds for the final 9 miles of an 18 mile run sucks. I was so mad at stupid running and even stupider wind. My mentor was running 20, and is fast, so when he passed me, I entertained him by answering his question of "how are you doing?" with "I'm pissed off at wind". It took me 4 hours to do it, way slower than it should have, but I was without any motivation, running alone, and recovering from running fast at the Dana Point Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day and eating full blown Thanksgiving dinners both Thursday and Friday. Yikes! 2 days later, I hurt, but not nearly as much, and I think I'll be happy to run again this Saturday.

Subject #2 : New Baby!!

No, not mine, but my baby brother is now head of a 4 female household. Madison Catherine Murphree was born on Friday, and I must admit that she's cute. Most newborns look the same, and don't actually look unique to me until a couple months have passed, but this one is a good one. So, the main thing we're thankful for is that little one. Oh, and the website of the hospital has a little page with pics, and it also tells what the name means of the baby, and we found out that Madison means "daughter of Matthew" which my brother and I both thought was pretty funny, me more than him. heh.

Subject #3 : I lied

Ok, so there were supposed to be 2, but I thought of another one! Thanksgiving of last year, Jen's brother Jeff came to stay with us. While he was here, one of the days we went down to the beach and watched the sunset. We were photographed by some guy taking pictures down there. Thought nothing of it again until flash to this year. Jeff is visiting again (he's an awesome houseguest, btw), and we decide to go back down to the beach. I think we all had forgotten we did the same thing last year. While there, the same guy is there, taking the same pictures. He doesn't even live down here, and didn't realize it was us until we walked back to the sand from the water. Weird! This time, I gave him my email, and we were able to get one of the pics. Good stuff.

The three dots are Jen, me, then Jeff, left to right.

OC? Really?

Just found out that the Angels have traded Orlando Cabrera for some White Sox pitcher. Really? So a team that has great pitching, has decided to add another pitcher? Really? And what did they decide to give up for him? A shortstop. But not just any shortstop, a shortstop who wins Gold Gloves. Wins Gold Gloves and is a consistent hitter. Oh, and he's also already won one World Series. That's a good idea? Are you sure?

No recent posts, I'm a bad bad person.
Ran 16 miles yesterday. No, I didn't make it the whole way, but the vast majority of it. By the end, I was running until the fire in my calves and hamstrings and the ache in my knees were too much and I would start walking. I did that for as long as I could, until the pain in my hips got too intense, and back to running. Basically, I got to the point where everything hurt so bad that all I wanted to do was lay down on the ground, extend my legs as straight as I could, and not move. Even my jaw was tired by the end... and I have no idea how. The thing I found most interesting was that when I would switch from running to walking, somehow I was able to limp on both legs at the same time. I can't explain it, because limping means putting less weight on one leg, so technically it shouldn't be possible, but I did it. I really feel like I've accomplished a major milestone in human history.
Now that I've ran for 16 miles, I've realized something.
Going to 10.2 more than that in January.... is probably going to suck.
Luckily, we have a bottle of Ibuprofen from Costco, that has 500 tablets in it. We should be fine!

I think I'll...... think.

Went for 10 miles on Saturday, did about 4 today. It's very interesting to run that far. The first 2-3 miles (it's crazy to think that 2-3 is the beginning part and not the whole run) are fairly painful. It's cold, the muscles are arguing with me about not wanting to work so hard, the 'not' shin splints hurt, and I get this weird thing where my calf muscles on the front on my right leg pretty much just stop working, and my toes slap into the ground with each step. Then, I usually do a little stretching, run some more, and before I know it, I'm fine. From then on, it's just a mind game, to see if I can keep my thoughts distracted enough and busy enough to not realize that I'm still running. Then, at about mile 8ish, when I figure I should walk for a bit, I find out that walking actually hurts more than running, so my choices are to completely stop and lay down on the pavement (which sounds like a fantastic idea at the time), or just keep running till I can sit down. Did the 10 miles in about 2 hours. My rough goal is to finish in under 5 hours, but that's not nailed down at all, it's my first one, and I want to enjoy it, to see if this is something I'd like to do more often. Not sure if I'm up to the training involved to try and qualify for Boston or something like that, but running is pretty fun. There's no thoughts of needing a more expensive bike to be better at cycling, or a faster car for racing.... I go as fast as I can go. That's it. If I want to go faster or further, more expensive shoes aren't going to help, fancy pants that add support around the legs would only add a little, at best. Speed in running requires that I go faster. It's fun to think about, and trust me, 2 hours pretty much alone, with only the thoughts in my head to listen to, there's a lot of thinking going on.
Fundraising, well, not nearly as successful as the training. I've gotten lots of money from unexpected places, and very little from the ones I figured would be first to donate. If you're visiting my site, the links on this page take you to the websites for our fundraising... even 5 bucks helps!

Double digits

Saturday was a big day for me, I ran 10 miles. It's the longest distance I've ever ran, and it was a loooong ways. Had a rough time for the first few miles though, both calves cramped up and it was quite painful. After some stretching and walking it mostly went away and I was able to make it. After the big runs, I like to tell myself how many more of those I have to do... Like back when we did 3 miles, I knew that we had to do 9 of those. And now, I just have to do about 2 1/2 times what I did on Saturday. Whoa. We got some more donations over the weekend, which helps a lot. I just hope we get close enough so that in a couple weeks we can realistically commit to doing the Phoenix one instead of the OC one, since that's the one we want to do. We're working on a few other fund raising ideas, we'll see what happens with those too.

the sights of my town

While running my 5 miles last night, I saw quite a few interesting parts to my town. I saw a 3 person family make eye contact with me, then proceed to not move out of the way on the sidewalk as if they didn't see me. I saw 3 little girls, one crying, one consoling the cryer while yelling at the third, and the third picking up her bike to leave. Wish I could have seen what had happened to lead up to it. I passed a homeless man wandering around the Jack in the Box, then about a minute later, a can of soup that looked like it had been accidentally dropped and spilled out.. was it his? I passed a guy in all green, smoking and yelling at the traffic, and as I passed he yelled "you're nothin marine, you're nothin!" Not sure if he was yelling at me, but I'm pretty sure he was. There was the other running guy, going the opposite direction, that I passed twice. The really rough part is passing the pizza place, because it smells so good, and it's near the end of the run, and it's before dinner. Altogether, a good run.
Recommitment is in a few weeks for the marathon. Basically, that's when we decide whether or not we can still continue, depending on how much money we have raised. Jen has nearly half, I do not. I don't want to do the OC marathon instead, but we have to raise a lot less so it's easier, since however much we're short, we have to pay ourselves. I guess we'll see in the next few weeks!

Hmmmm

So, I'm not going to try and pretend to be an expert or anything, but since my wonderful Jen is much more knowledgable and much more associated with learning disabilities and that type of thing, I have more of an interest in this than most, which gives me a reason to vent for a minute about Autism. For some reason, it's becoming the new 'thing' with Hollywood. That's all fine and dandy, as long as they're trying to help something, I guess that's all we can ask. The problem is that they're trying to cure Autism. It's not a disease people! You can try to find out why it's increasing in occurrence, which is probably because they now have a better idea of what it is, and people who used to be diagnosed with something else in the past are now labeled as autistic.... and because there is more of it. Find the cause, sure... or find new ways to help autistic people function in society, great, but don't try to 'cure' it, as if there is something wrong with that person. Like Rick says, there can be accidental parents, but no accidental children, you can just as easily say that there are no accidental autistic babies. God made those kids with autism, just like he made me to not be built for professional sports. There's a reason, maybe we won't know what it is in this lifetime, but there's still a reason. It just makes me angry that people treat it as a horrible affliction, like it's something to feel sorry for. I'll tell you what, in my limited exposure to that population, I've seen that people with autism are not looking for us to feel sorry for them, or try to cure them. Sometimes they need our help, sometimes they seek it, which actually doesn't show weakness. Picture this, you, as a "normal" person are having difficulty doing something that 99% of people around you are able to do with ease. You think it would be easy for you to ask one of those people for help? One could actually make a point that people with disabilities are stonger people than the rest of us. If we have kids with learning disabilities, which is somewhat likely since the occurence of it in Southern California is higher than anywhere else in the country, it will be challenging, frustrating, angering, it will make us cry, it will make us want to give up at times, it will make us fight, it will cost us money, it will change our lives more than we can imagine, but it won't make us want to cure them, of fix them.

Now, if they don't have disabilities, I expect them to be professional baseball players, and when they are 2 and 3 years old, and they cry when I drop them off at Sunday school, we'll be ok... we won't have to be in every class they're in, to make ourselves feel better..
but that's for another post.

still running

Well, last Saturday went 7 miles. Actually, I think I went a little over it. Don't really know for sure, since myself and the person I was running with at the time somehow missed the turn we were supposed to make, and after running a while past the 6 mile turn around point, we figured we had gone too far. Still doing good, I get frustrated when I have to walk, because it's not from muscle fatigue, but from stabbing pains in my shins. I call them shin splints, which everyone else would call them, except that the physical therapy doctor didn't see it that way.
Me: I got these shin splints, ice, ibuprofen and raising them, right?
Doctor: Who diagnosed it as shin splints?
Me: Me, I have had them before, cross country and track in high school.
Doctor: Probably not shin splints then.
And that was it. Thanks Doc! So, I ice, and ibuprofen, and raise them up.
Still trying to raise money, and still quite a ways away. We don't want to have to spend it ourselves, but if it comes down to it, we will, but $6200 total for the two of us is a lot.
If you are new, and feel like donating, we'll gladly accept, the links are on the right!

Runnin on empty

Well, today, as we inch closer to the marathon, training went 6 miles. It seems pretty far when running it, until I remind myself that I'll have to do just over 4 times that in January. Actually, running the distance is nothing compared to trying to raise the money. There's still time, so I'm not going to harass people yet, but as it gets closer, you can bet that I'll get a little bit more pushy about it. It is fun to be able to run that far... I'm not the fastest, at all, but like Jen says, it's not so much a race. But actually, it is, it's a marathon. I just don't want to be last, since there's no way I can be first. Pretty fun!

Oh bee-utiful

Well, after 33 years of success, I have failed..... I have been stung by a bee.
Was down at the beach, just walking and hanging out in the sand. I found a little bee wiggling in the sand, probably in the last stages of life. For some reason, I have found many bees in the sand dying or dead, it's like that's where they to to die or something. So, to help this little bee out, I dropped a rock on him. I felt very little-boy-ish, but also very humane, like putting down a horse with a broken leg, all at the same time. About 10 minutes later, I felt a sharp pain on the bottom of my foot, yup, the bottom, so I turned my foot over to see what it was, and there was a little bee, stinger planted in my foot. Now, I don't know if it was the same bee or not, and really, it doesn't matter, the irony of the whole thing is quite funny to me, but the sting, and moreso the end of my streak of bee sting freedom, well those are not quite as funny.
Lame.

A teen-cy bit scared....

Jen and I were talking the other day, about our petrified feelings about someday having teenagers, and the possibility of them turning away from our beliefs. I had the thought that when kids are brought up going to church, and it's all they believe and have learned to believe, that once they get into teenage years and college years, and get exposed to other thoughts and beliefs, do they have more of a tendency to turn away than someone who wasn't brought up in the church? And what makes the difference between someone who grew up believing, and never stopped believing, but in the middle part kinda turned to their own ways for a little while, like she and I did, and someone who grew up believing, and then at some point decides not to believe? And how many people just decide to ignore their deep down beliefs because being a "church person" seems too scary because of what kind of a person they think they need to be? I guess basically it makes me sad to think that there are people who don't actually investigate and make an educated decision about their beliefs, that they just believe what they believe by what they've seen other people do, or how they act. I mean, either there is a heaven and hell, or there isn't. If there isn't, my life will be spent trying to better myself and better the lives of people around me, and trying not to only think of myself. If there is, than all I do is for something that is so much bigger than me, that I'll be rewarded for later.
Thoughts disorganized? That's me!

So, a bit of a delay since we got back from vacaion in the Dominican Republic. This is the beach at our resort, Sunscape the Beach. If anyone has ever been curious about the all-inclusive idea, I highly recommend it. It's pricey up front, but never having to spend once you're there, is so much better than having to carry around cash to pay for stuff. We did bring money, it's a very poor country, and the dollar is worth a lot, so we were very good tippers, but by no means was it expected by anyone.

This is a shopping area in the capital city of Santo Domingo. We took a tour to the city (3 1/2 drive there and back but well worth it) saw a bunch of old buildings from Columbus' time, ate at a Hard Rock Cafe (kind of a let down, but we figured they do it for the not so adventurous people on the tour) looked in shops, and did a good bit of sweating.

This is the reason we went there... one of Jen's college friends got married there, and this is the wedding area before the ceremony. Everyone working at our resort was great. Every member of the staff greeted every person with a genuine "Hola" when they passed by and were always happy, and helpful. Very hard workers too, there were numerous times that we would see someone working in the morning at breakfast, and see them working that night in a different restaurant. The entertainment staff hangs out by the pool and the beach all day, running games, teaching songs and dances, giving spanish lessons, and then at night do a show in their open air theater, and after that, at about 10:00 go to the disco and have a great time there. I never saw a single person with a look on their face like they wished they weren't there, a great break from what we usually see from employees here.

Here we are just after the ceremony, isn't Jen hot? I'm so grateful that we were able to afford to go, time-wise and money-wise, and enjoy a relaxing vacation that also benefitted us with a view of part of the world that most people wouldn't go to. It was also a great look into the lives of people that couldn't care less about whether or not they had a brand new gas-guzzling SUV (gas was $5 a gallon), the latest tv, the biggest house, or any of that. They were happy to have a 75cc motorcycle that cost them at least 6 months of work to buy as their only transportation, a roof over their heads, and a job. They all worked hard, and the attitude wasn't "feel sorry for us because we're so poor", it was "we're poor, but we work hard, and it will get better".
If you ever have the opportunity to go, do it... your spanish is better than you think it is, believe me!

magically delicious

Went to the angels game last night. Started off with one of the giant hot dogs from the place behind center field.... huge. Then enjoyed a fantastic game, topped off with us winning by a walk-off hit by the rookie, 7-6 over the Yankees. Lead changed places a few times, so it was a really good game. It's always fun to go to a game, but more so when it includes a little baseball magic. What is baseball magic? It's when you're team is down by 3, in the bottom of the ninth. your team gets 3 men on base to load them up, but also gets 2 outs. Then, your biggest hitter steps up, and proceeds to get into a full count. Then, he fouls off about 4 or 5 balls to add to the tension, before belting it out of the park. Things like that are baseball magic. Last night, Ryan Budde (pronounced like buddy) hit a double right in between Melky Cabrera and Bobby Abreu, which knocked in a run... the place went nuts. That's baseball magic. It's also somewhat magical to see a girl get arrested right behind us, and while she was being forcefully escorted away by a couple police officers, she decided it would be a good idea to attempt to kick one of them in the hoo-haw place. Great idea.... especially if you really like the taste of concrete immediately afterwards. What an idiot. Good part was that she was a Yankees fan, so that entertained a lot of the crowd.
Good times.

here we go!

Mere hours left until departure. We're pretty excited about the whole thing, that's for sure.
Served with the 3 year olds last night instead of tonight, since we were leaving, and then had our show. It went really well, had a good crowd (except for the constantly yelling kids, and the random man who was talking throughout, as though he was talking to a tv), got good laughs, got some good footage for the website... all in all, very good.
We went to Saddleback San Clemente this morning, and really enjoyed it. Kinda bummed that their service is ours a week later, so we heard one we already heard, but it was a good one, so it's ok. It is nice to only have to drive about 5 minutes to get to church, instead of 30, but since we're with the 3s up there, we're there anyway.
Had our first meeting for Team in Training, and it was fun. No running, that starts next week, when we're out of town, but it was more about meeting our mentors and coaches and all those people. It's vacation first, then it's down to the runnin! Although, I'm not nearly as intimidated by running 26 miles as I am about raising 3100... each.

countdown on

Well, the day is finally here. This is the last day of work before vacation. I know I'm going to have to be there late, to write down everything that's going on with all my cars, but hopefully not much more than an hour or so. So, if you hear someone going down the freeway accompanied with a "yah-hoo!" at about 645 or so, that was just me. We've still got a lot of packing to do, and trying to remember to bring everything we want to bring, but we'll finish that up tomorrow or Sunday before we leave. Tomorrow morning we've got our first Team in Training meeting, which should be fun, then working with the 3 year olds at the 430 service, then food, then my show. So, it's not like free time starts tonight. But I will be playing a little WoW, just because I can.