Tag: family

The Fit

I started playing soccer when I was six years old. I wasn’t particularly good, but I happened to be on a really good team that year. We made it all the way to the league championship game. And lost.

I threw a fit, the likes of which you wouldn’t believe. I was so upset I refused to take part in the team picture after the game. My dad tried to pick me up off the ground and place me in with the rest of the team for the team photo and I wanted no part of it. This photo of my fit has become a family classic.

The Missing Christmas Gift

For Christmas at my grandparents’ house we often do a gift exchange where each person in the exchange gives a gift to one specific person rather than every other person. The idea is to make things simpler. To decide who gives gifts to whom* we draw names from a hat.

This past Christmas there was a mistake somewhere (we still don’t really know what happened), but at Christmas one person ended up with two gifts and another ended up with none (sorry Dad). Either somebody bought a gift for the wrong person, or the same name appeared twice in the hat.

Anyway, while cleaning out my office today (I have the day off work for the Memorial day weekend) I came across the two name tags Melissa & I drew from the hat: Marcia & Barb. I apparently kept these for some reason, perhaps to use as evidence in the eventual trial…

These were the two people for whom* Melissa & I bought gifts. So it wasn’t either of us who screwed up :)

(*) According to John Gutzmer, the word “whom” is the formal version of “who.”

The Race for the Cure

Okay, so this is a little late. The weekend before last Melissa and I travelled to Peoria for Mother’s Day weekend and while we were there we both ran in the Race for the Cure. We missed this race last year while we were in Nicaragua, and we were somewhere else the year before. Prior to that Melissa has run this race most every year.

This Peoria Race for the Cure used to be women-only, so I could go and watch but I couldn’t participate. A couple years ago they changed that and allowed men to run and walk at the event. I think this was a good change. For the actual race they still started the women first, so a woman will be the first person to cross the finish line. This is great. Unfortunately, they only left a 10 minute gap between the women’s start & the men’s start. That means that men running 18 minute 5k times will be finishing at the same time as women running 28 minute 5k times and finishing ahead of women running slower than that. Out of a field of 433 women, this turns out to be quite a few (around 250 according to the results).

The race itself went as well as I could have hoped. I ran 18:23, which is only 11 seconds slower than my last 5k and this one had more hills. I ran more even splits this time (5:53, 6:01, 5:53) than the last race, so I’m pleased with that. I finished in 6th place overall (out of 145) and 2nd 1st in my age group.

The only real problem, as I alluded to a moment ago, was that I had to dodge 250 women as I was running. We passed a couple of stragglers in the first mile. As soon as we hit the first mile marker we caught up with the back of the pack. Over the second mile there were people spread out maybe five wide across the road, which wasn’t that bad. There was usually a clear path along one side or the other. By the time we reached the third mile the runners were spread out more like eight or ten wide and there wasn’t always a clear path down one side or the other. So for the third mile we had to do some fancy footwork to weave in and out of the runners.

To put it simply, the 10 minute gap was not ideal. I like the idea of having the women start first in this event which is primarily aimed at women, but in that case the gap needs to be longer to give more women a chance to finish and clear the course a little better for the next wave of runners. Even waiting an extra five minutes would make a big difference. Waiting an extra 10 minutes (20 minute gap) would have cleared nearly all the runners off the course.

Despite my complaining, it wasn’t that bad. I was happy just to be able to run my first Race for the Cure. As Melissa mentioned we couldn’t track down any of the little cards to write down the names of people close to you who have been affected by breast cancer, but we certainly had them in our thoughts. My aunt Sharon passed away two years ago after a nine year battle with breast cancer. Despite her deteriorating health she was one of the most cheerful people I’ve ever known. She set great example how to live life to the fullest and I miss her dearly.

The Moose

Every year when I was growing up my grandpa (Grampy) would call me up on the morning of April 1st. Each year the story was the same. He would say there was a moose in my back yard and that I should run out there to see it. As a young child I fell for this–probably multiple times, as April 1st doesn’t come all that often. Eventually I recognized the pattern and refused to be made a fool, but that didn’t prevent him from calling anyway, and we all still had a good laugh.

A couple years ago I got him back. Good.

I copied the exact layout of a news item on CNN’s website and replaced the text and images with my own news story about a Bismarck, IL resident (Grampy) who found a moose in his back yard. I emailed a link to my fabricated story (click here to view) to several family members. Everyone had a good chuckle.

I wasn’t expecting this, but everyone who received the link to the story thought it was so funny they started to forward it to their friends and extended relatives, nearly all of whom were unfamiliar with the running joke. I’d say a good 95% of those people believed it, and Grampy started getting phone calls and emails from people who saw his story on CNN. He was left with some explaining to do.

The Natal Coat

As I was headed to Danville today to have Easter lunch with my family, Melissa made a special request. She asked if I could bring back from my parents’ house a photo of myself when I was a small blond haired child. She wanted to include the photo in one of her upcoming lectures when she will be discussing the concept of a natal coat. Apparently, many primate species have lighter colored hair/fur when they are young than when they are adults. She can probably tell you more about it. Anyway, here’s my natal coat.

The Steamy Novel

I received an unexpected gift for Christmas in 2003. My brother Andy got me a steamy novel. Now, this wasn’t the type of steamy novel you get at a grocery store. For, you see, this novel had been personalized. Medieval Passion starred Melissa & Rob.

He had found Romance by You, a site which prints these personalized novels after entering a little bit of personal information. In the story Rob is a knight. Melissa of the house of Raguet is his love interest and has brown eyes. Jolyne is Melissa’s maidservant. Romeo is her pet.

After receiving the book, a conversation I had with Andy several weeks prior suddenly made sense. He had called me up and started asking questions about Melissa’s friends, pets, eye color, etc… but he wouldn’t tell me why he needed to know these things.

I actually read the book and it was fairly entertaining. It includes such passages as:

Rob remained speechless, caught up in the sight of his Lady spread forth upon his bed draped in nothing more than rose petals… just as he had imagined her a hundred times before.

Just like real life.

Mom & Dad receivied Pirates of Desire (I think, perhaps one of them can confirm or deny this). Travis & Blake received Tropical Treasure. Good stuff.

The Throb

I don’t get headaches. Well, maybe once every 3 or 4 months I will have a mild headache. Yesterday, completely out of the blue, I had the worst headache I’ve had in years.

Yesterday while eating lunch with Melissa, my parents, aunt, uncle, and cousin it just hit me. I felt perfectly fine before going into the restaurant. As soon as I sat down at the table I started seeing spots. I just assumed it was the bright windows contrasting with the dark restaurant, so I didn’t think too much of it. Be the time we finished eating I was no longer seeing spots but my head was absolutely throbbing. I went to the bathroom and saw in the mirror the veins in my forehead were bulging out. I had never experienced anything like this before.

After returning home I took some ibuprofin and went to bed. I ended up sleeping for 4 hours. I was pretty disoriented when I woke up around 7 p.m. thinking it was the middle of the night. But the good news was the throbbing headache was gone. I felt tired and weak, but this uncomfortable feeling was nothing compared to what I was feeling before the nap.

So in short, I felt terrible yesterday, but I’m much better now. No need for worries.