Why I'm Putting On A Pink Bra...

Why I'm Putting On My Pink Bra and Making Strides

Okay, I am not really going to wear a Pink Bra. You know that, right?  Pink's not my color, really.  But the opener did get your attention, didn't it?  Glad it did.  This program that I am inovled in is important.  It needs the attention of anyone who loves a woman.  You love your mom, right?  Your daughter, niece, wife, aunt, nana, sister, favorite stripper?  Yeah, them; all of them.

The women of our lives have a 1 in 8 chance of being invaded by breast cancer.  The only other thing that kills more women each year is lung cancer (more on that later).  And it's not their fault or their families' fault; meaning it ain't in the genes.  Only about 5%-10% of the diagnosed cases each year have anything to do with genetic predisposition--which means 95% OF THE TIME YOU DON'T SEE IT COMING. 

By contrast, there are 13000 murders in the US each year.  Your odds of being murdered? ONE in TWENTY THREE THOUSAND.  Kinda makes you wonder what sort of REAL good we could achieve if we  diverted the passion and resources spent on gun control towards a more noble effort like, oh, I dunno,  SAVING THE TA-TAs.  

1 in 8 vs. 1 in 23000.  Where's the real threat? Just sayin'...

So, I got involved in this program, The American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer.  I am going to Walk the Walk with the Woman and the Women I truly love  to at least show my support for them (they need me to carry the cooler.  It's a FUN walk) and for those we know who have or have had breast cancer (you do not Walk alone ladies), and to highlight the need for the preservation and conservation of a most wonderful natural resource.  See?  We can contribute to TWO causes here--breast cancer awareness AND resource conservation!  Damn, we're good. 

Are we collecting donations?  Yes, please, through this site we are.  Do you NEED to donate?  No, it is not compulsory.  In this fiscal / economic environment, any diversion of discretionary funds is difficult, I get it.   Despite the fund raising goal for me on this site ($250, of which I have already donated 33%--ahem), my true goals here are 1) To get me involved in a cause in which I have a significant vested interest---SAVING THE TA-TAs and 2) to get you think about an important issue without being all sappy and heart-stringy about it.   

If I made you think, cool.  If I made you smile and think, mission accomplished.  If you do decide to donate, you have my sincerest thanks because I know the effort and the money will make a difference.  To do so, please visit my Making Strides Page:
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?fr_id=47352&pg=personal&px=6055126

 Thanks for reading.  Think Pink!

Walking the Smiling Dog On the Slippery Rocks

“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”
--Richard Dawkins (scientist, author)

"My sense of God is my sense of wonder about the universe."

--Albert Einstein (scientist, author)  

"In the places I go there are things that I see that I never could spell if I stopped with the Z. 

I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.  My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!  So, on beyond Z!  It's high time you were shown that you really don't know all there is to be known."  --Dr. Seuss (scientist, author)

NOTE:  I have no idea why I wrote this except that of all the threads and potential posts running through my head these days, this thread has been screaming the loudest "Me!  Write Me!" So, without meaning to offend anyone or even spur debate on the subject, I bring this to the Chronicles.   When you're done you might find yourself asking "Jeez, what's next?  Politics and Sex?" I promise, neither of those is even the inkling of a thread for me here. Enjoy.  Or not.

You might remember a while back when I told of the man here in Key West who would stand on highly trafficked street corners and wave a sign about that read "God Hates..." And then sometime later how I had occasion on one of my lunchtime runs to stare down one of his colleagues carrying a similar sign--an Evil who thought he was powerful enough to stand in my path. I looked in his eyes and found him wanting. The God that I believe exists does not hate. He's not even fearsome (except in the enormity of His presence and my corresponding inconsequentiality) or vengeful or wrathful. He just is and that's all I will say about it except that I think She might have a sense of humor (examine my life's details to find out why I believe this) in hopes that you remember this at the end of this post that will spend some time on the notion of "God or not".
The quotes above are notable for me. Big minds spent on big thoughts came up with these ideas, and I will admit that I favor Einstein's notion and Seuss' admonition over Dr. Dawkins' perspective. More on that later.
To believe or not to believe, that is the question. I have friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues whose beliefs in the divine cover the full range of the faith and religion spectrum. I love and respect each and every one of them even when I cannot fathom the source of their assuredness. Don’t get me wrong: if you start handling a pit viper and mumbling ancient curses and verses, or you try to tell me that the universe is only 2000 years old despite the best scientific evidence to the contrary, or if you ridicule my family or friends for their devout practice of their religion, we will, at a minimum, engage in healthy debate.

I find myself in the role of "wonderer"; my perspective falls between the two ends of the spectrum, and what's interesting to me is that I see it as not so much a linear spectrum from faithful to atheist as I do a set of crossed axes--trust me, the imagery I just set out here of the cross was not intended but perhaps a Freudian call back to my Catholic indoctrination. I mean nothing more by it than a set of Cartesian axes, X and Y. In the X axis is faith, or belief in God, from a zero level, abject atheist, to full-on devoted believer in a Supreme Being that takes an active part in one's life. In the Y axis is religion.  The zero on this axis is the adamant non-practitioner of any religious practice of any kind.  The high end of the Y-axis is the devoutly dogmatic adherent to whatever practice to which he or she may subscribe.  Having described it this way, I think most people I know live somewhere on  the “45” between these two axes (I keep company with very few priests, pastors or mullahs--not for lack of want-to, we just don't move in the same circles).  I consider my own beliefs to be high on the X-axis and very near zero on the Y-axis.  I believe in a Supremacy—something bigger; much, much bigger--the presence of Whom actually leads me to questions about, well, everything, and the concept of Whom provides me a sense of "direction" as I wonder.  But I have almost no use for Man’s religions.  Many folks I know, atheist and believer alike, have a hard time severing faith and religion.  There is the thought from faithful folks that you cannot believe in God and not go to church and practice the rites and ceremonies that God demands.   And there is the atheist’s idea that both God and religion are inseparable because they are man-made myths and crutches for limited intellect.  I disagree with both notions as absolutes.  I will respectfully point out that there are a slew of different sets of rites and ceremonies and doctrines which describe a great many different religions, cults and practices, and you can find a different interpretation for most of them by simply going to the next city.  I am sincerely challenged to believe that God whispered separately in the ears of the likes of Jesus, Abraham, the Buddha, and Mohammed (or anyone else; I don't mean to exclude here), and gave them each completely different sets of instructions and then left them to "work it out among yourselves."  It's a recipe for chaos...seen the news lately? I will also point out that some of the greatest acts of care and kindness are more regularly dispensed as an act of one's faith than they are as a result of reason and rational thought.

Some of my friends might read this and say, “Yeah, that.  Exactly.”  Some will just shake their heads and sigh, “There he goes again.”  Yes, I did, didn’t I (you should know that I enjoy this type of discussion)?  Some will stop reading at the subject line and walk away (sorry.  Okay, not really).  And some from both sides of the debate will actually have issue with this.  The faithful will use doctrine and dogma to highlight my errant ways.  The atheists will try “logic” and “reason” and the “expertise” of celebrated others of their kind to highlight the flaws of my thought processes.  Believe me, I’ve easily spent half of my life considering this position. And what I’ve come up with in answer to both of you is simply “We do not and we cannot possibly know.”

The faithful by definition do not know if there is a God or whether their religious practices “work”.   But they believe, and that provides them comfort and fulfillment (something a ton of folks could use from day to day). That’s the nature of faith—the leap you take when your capacity to know falls short of your ability to understand.  In my mind, it is a beautifully uniquely human trait. 

Likewise, the atheist cannot possibly KNOW that there is NOT a God.  Sorry, smart as you are, rational and reasoned as you are, you aren't enough of either to discern your belief as FACT any more than the believers can discern theirs.  And so yours, too, is a matter of faith, which I respect no less than that of the believer.  But from my conversations with my atheist friends (and they are interestingly more numerous these days) I get the the distinct impression that their specific quarrel is not so much with God's existence but with the religion(s) used to acknowledge it.  Don't misunderstand, the atheist does not believe in God. But I know few of them who will get so worked up about that issue as they will about the practice of religion.  Dr. Dawkins' quote above is illustrative of this position.  I can site examples that make his statement ring true.  But as a credo for atheism, it falls short because it is far too absolute a statement. There are a great many scientists, philosophers, reasonable and rational people who are also people of devout faith in God and who adhere to one or the other of the world's religions.  In many cases, it their faith that drives them to be curious and to use their minds to the  maximum extent possible to answer the nagging questions we all have about life, the universe, and everything else. And though I am not one of these luminaries in thought and science (by a considerable margin), I do understand this perspective best of all because it best describes my experience.  

Neither side of this debate will ever be won. There will forever be the axes of faith and religion, and those who live their lives somewhere between them.  For my part, this is as much "witnessing" as you will ever get from me.  It is also no further persuasion than you will receive to the contrary.  I stand as he who is comfortable in the simultaneous presence of “that than which nothing greater can be thought”, the omnipresent and all-powerful wonder of “how it all works”, and without need for rite, ceremony, ruffle of flourish, to bring it all together. I believe, I wonder, I search and I think.  I can do it with complete cool rational thought processes as well as with the occasional suspension of disbelief in recognition of the fact that, for the time being, what I experience is beyond my ken.  And that for me is enough.  If at the End of Days I am wrong in this; if I truly did need a set of rites and ceremonies, then perhaps as I am brought to judgment (if Judgment there be) the acts of waking and drawing my first breath in thanks (for ALL of it), and walking outside and looking into the stars at dawn and wondering at (and respecting) the immenseness of it all, and smiling back at my dog who ALWAYS has a smile for me, will be seen as practice enough to render the honor due.

Warm Water, Percocet, And a Story Worth Sticking To...

Uncharacteristic of my life these days,  I found myself in a difficult situation yesterday. I was in a bar fight...with a toxic spike wielding ankle molester. 
It was a strange bar--the kind where there's a sign that says "WE don't serve OUR kind here..." I read the sign twice, did a quick inventory of myself and shrugged.  I needed to come in out of the salt and the heat, and since it was neither salty nor hot in the bar I felt relatively sure I would get served.   I ordered a Molotov with a twist--on the rocks, in the dirtiest glass they had. 
My would-be foe, the ankle molester, seethed in the corner, murmuring.  To get my attention he hissed at me, "Apparently SOME people cannot read the sign," he prolonged the "s's" and rolled the "r's" like some Irish snake that I just knew no longer existed.  He never made eye contact,  rocking slowly to and fro with his attention on the table in front of him.  I grinned, downed the last of my cocktail and chewed the "twist" clearing pulp from rind.  I tied the rind in a knot with my tongue (a trick I was taught by a Finnish postal clerk turned Asháninka shaman in the dark alleys of the fourth world where the haircuts come with a happier ending than American Idol with Steve Tyler as "talent" judge) and flicked it across the room towards Seether, the molester.  The rind nicked the corner of his table, which was waste high for me and required a bar stool for it to be neck high for him, and the ricochet angled the knotted rind slightly upward to bounce again off the molester's forehead and into his potato-leek soup causing it to slosh a bit onto the wooden table where he'd been carving his manifesto with the business end of his toxic spike.  "My mistake, mate," I offered, "I was aiming for the waste bin just there behind and above your left ear.  Certainly didn't mean to dampen your doodling. Say, that's quite a spike you've got."
Oddly, that was more than he could stand.  He turned a crimson I have only seen one other time in my life--the paint my wife chose for the color of the walls of our kitchen.  Alas, another place and time and too far away to matter.
In my momentary recollection of that kitchen my attention on the short-tempered ankle molester faltered.  In that brief moment he apparently disappeared!  Ahh, but the noise like that of a scampering rodent gave him away.  Not vanished, just operating below the threshold of normal eye contact.  He'd leaped from his bar stool and slipped beneath his table and was charging headlong at me slashing the air with his spike.  In the forty or so steps it took for him to cover the 12 feet between us he continued to sputter something about launching me like a kite.  Not understanding what he was meaning, and finding myself very much wanting to find out, I was left in the unfortunate position of having my guard down and reflexes slowed.  It didn't help that I had washed away the salt and the heat with a rather powerful cocktail.
The dwarfish ankle mauler closed the gap and thrust his spike upward at me.  Though it came close to finding its mark and rendering me a eunuch and lead falsetto of the choir, I was able to turn and follow his thrust upward to catch his energy sending the spike and the seethingly maniacal ankle demon into the overhead of the bar.  It was a strange bar; the ceilings were covered in memory foam that had imprints of body parts--a hand, a face and a fist with a hole in it--randomly scattered as a set across its surface.  Seether impacted the foam, first with the spike, by now dripping with a bluish iridescent toxin that smelled like Incheon harbor in late August, and then with his face.  He hung there for only a moment, dazed as he pulled his face, still kitchen wall red, out of the foam and looked down around the bar area for me.  Blinking twice, he used his free hand to push himself off the ceiling and free fall back to earth and the flagstone floor of the bar.  It was a graceful fall and I must compliment him on his acrobatic skills.  As he seemingly floated the 10 feet back to terra firma he oriented himself for another attack.  I'd had enough fun and was ready to return to the salt and the heat.  I didn't want to spend any more time with my new found diminutive friend.  So I looked for a solution to the problem that would occupy him for a time long enough for me to pay my tab and return to my day's activities.  The waste bin.  Perfect.
I stepped back to avoid the falling foot slayer, and let him pass by waist height on his way to the level of my knee.  I reared back and just as he lighted to earth, I let fly with a volley shot on goal relying on my experiences at playing football for Her Majesty's Club in West Hempheadshire.  Seether-come-Soccer ball caromed off my boot and into the waste bin.  When the dust settled and motion stopped I could see him peering out of the bin, grinning at me, pointing at my left ankle with the stubby fingers that once held the spike.  Right then stars exploded in my eyes, and a searing ribbon of pain writhed its way from my foot up to my brain causing every muscle to seize and every nerve ending to sing an excruciatingly painfully off key chorus of I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys.  Unbearable, and I was losing touch with my reality.  All my extremities tingled and I could feel my breath shorten and vision fade.  My last act was a growling yell at the severity of the pain, as if by yelling at it I could scare the pain and its toxic boy band out of my system.
I awoke some time later to an urgent need to use the restroom.  My foot was soaking in a bath of warm water and I was surrounded by angels--my wife and a couple of ER nurses who I will call Brandi and Destinee (I had a an odd dream just before I woke up, I guess.  Pity I never remember the details of those dreams).  The pain was gone and I was hungry.  Expertly bandaged and tutted over by Destinee, I was discharged in time for dinner.
Today I have a bruised and swollen foot.  The story I am telling everyone is that I got spiked by a sting ray while preparing to go kite boarding, that it was the most painful experience of my life, and that warm water is the single most effective treatment for the pain.  Really, the Percocet didn't affect me at all...

Goofy Thoughts and The Enchantment of a Child's Perspective on Disney

A few weekends ago, my wife and I traveled to Walt Disney World, in Orlando.  The purpose of the trip was for me to run in the Run Disney Half Marathon, but we used it as an excuse to make a weekend of it and have some fun.  And we did!  In addition to being a huge fan of Disney World, Jen is also a Disney Pin Trader.  You've seen these people, they walk around the park with their eyes at chest level looking for the lanyards of other traders to see if there are the collectible Disney pins there that might be traded to complete a set or just add to the overall collection.  Disney cast members have them as well, and the nice thing about their lanyards is that ANY pin on them is eligible for a trade.  If you ask them to trade, they cannot say no (they can always return to the Source to replace a pin lost in trade).  My wife is both addict and enabler of this practice.  She brings her trading set of pins to the park every time and spends a good portion of the day ogling the lanyards of park employees.  If I didn't know better, I think I'd be a tad jealous.  She also has an uncanny knack for getting other folks hooked on it, too.  She can get anyone aged 4 to 80 going on pin collecting.  It really is amusing to watch, and if it gives her the opportunity to be a kid in a place that brings out the child in everyone, then I am heartily supportive of the endeavor.

Oh, the run was fun, too.  The weather was a brisk 55 degrees and clear.  My goal was to beat my "split" time of my marathon from Thanksgiving weekend.  The marathon was the only other endurance race in my past, so I had to use the split as a gauge.  Because I am a "new" race runner, I had no "speed credentials" to offer Disney when I signed up for the race.  This meant that I would not be allowed to start in the first wave.  In fact it meant I would start in the eighth.  Wave 8 is no place from which to start if you want to compete against anyone, including yourself.  I tried nonetheless. By the end of the run I was passing folks who started in Wave 3.  It was a good run for me even though I only managed to tie my marathon split.  It was as fun a "training run" as I have ever had; to the point that I am seriously contemplating running the "Goofy" next year.  The Goofy Challenge is running both the Half and Full marathon (The Donald and The Mickey) across Saturday & Sunday.  Disney was  all-out on the course for photo opportunities and to highlight that the park really is one of the happiest places on the planet.

I am sincere in that sentiment.  You really have to work at not smiling and at being sour if, after an hour or two in any Disney park, you are not at least a little lighter of heart.  And if you still find this difficult then perhaps your perspective on the matter is skewed.

I am the first to admit that I do not smile near enough and that I look at things a tad more cynically than many of my contemporaries.  I'm a pre-geriatric curmudgeon in many respects.  But when I walk into a Disney Park--specifically Disney; not Kings Dominion or Six Flags, and not Universal--I can't help but grin and get caught up in...the lightness of it all. The adult in  me recognizes that Disney, the cast and staff members, all of them, do a great deal of very hard work to create an environment that makes it easy to be happier than you were the moment before you walked in to one of their parks (the kid in me simply thinks, "Cool! Disney!"). And for most of us that feeling lasts for the duration of our time in the park.  For a fortunate fraction of us, the "hangover" effect from that feeling lasts a bit longer than our stay.


Of course there are those for whom none of this applies.  Oh, they'll come into the park on an energetic high and they will no doubt "get" the momentary feeling of lightness, but they come to the park to conquer it, not enjoy it.  You know these folks, too.  They are the ones who must ride every ride, see every show.  One hundred percent of the park must be conquered in a single day or the day has no meaning and the "mission", a failure.  And if you missed identifying these folks as they came in the park with you, you'll know them before the day's end.  They are the zombies, the slack-faced-thousand-yard-stare-reverting-back-to-adult-reality (I submit that this reversion is inappropriate within the perimeter of any Disney venue) park wanderers who sense the futility of their mission and are wondering why they came to the park to begin with.  If your daily life patterns include supplication to a deity, then you should pray for these people, these lost souls.  Hope that they clearly see the tactical error of their ways and will one day return to a Disney park to enjoy it for its own sake. Otherwise avoid them.  Total buzz-kill....Luckily we had in our little group the ultimate defense against such people invading our day--a child.

So, after the race, I returned to the hotel to clean up and roust Jen for her day of pin trading.  Actually, we were set to meet with a dear friend from my squadron days. We've not seen each other in nearly a decade and she'd married and had a child in that time.  I was anxious to see her again and to meet her 4 year-old daughter (her husband and I met in Korea during an exercise there--"Small World", he thinks, as he writes in a Disney theme).

We met in the Epcot park just shy of mid-day.  It was a fine reunion.  My friend has found a life that is bringing her peace and joy in ample quantities to share (her attitude is infectious), and my heart was instantly stolen by her daughter.  Jen and I had been to Epcot before, and since little Chloe had not, it was decided that we all would simply let her drive the events of the day (with her parents' guidance, of course).  What a great day it was!  Disney was meant to be experienced through the eyes of a child.  And through that lens, you can only smile, feel the lightness of life and enjoy the ride.  We had a wonderful time together and, yes, "Miss Jenni" properly introduced Chloe to the world of pin trading.  At one point, 4 year-old Chloe was actively scouting cast member lanyards for a specific pin because she knew Miss Jenni wanted one more to complete a set.  Did I mention, this is a very savvy child?

From my arrival in the park to run the race at 0500, it was a 14 hour day to include a character dinner in "Norway".  We ate with all the Disney Princesses and got our group picture taken with "Belle".  Chloe was in heaven, the feeling contagious. We parted ways as night drew covers over the park.  Bedtime for Chloe meant the end of a terrific day; one to be remembered.

We slept in the next day, Jen and I.  Okay, I slept in.  Jen was up EARLY with me.  We went to breakfast at our hotel.  It was an unplanned character breakfast with Chip, Dale, Goofy, and Pluto.  Over eggs, bacon and coffee I found myself thankful that the effects of the 4 year-old's perspective had not yet worn off.  Time enough for that later.  We checked out and hit the road for home.  Happy.  I couldn't have wiped the smile off my face if I had wanted to.  And as I proofread and edit this post I am given pause to smile and imagine looking up at the face of my parents when I first stepped foot in Disney World.  That was 1975.  Right now, it's time for dinner.  I guess I should wipe this grin off my face....

Resolving the New Year....

It is said that what you do to end the year is what you will do the most of in the next.  Today, I went SCUBA diving with a friend on the reef out east of American Shoal.  The sky and the sea were equals trying to best each other in a contest to determine which was more beautiful; both equally clear and and of nearly equal hue.  Both exactly the same 75 degrees and the only indication that there was a contest between them to see which was closer to perfect was the choppy, ever moving boundary between them.  We bagged 11 lobster and a nice black grouper.  Truly a "Chamber of Commerce" day for the last day of 2011.  And if this was any indication, I'd say 2012 will be just fine.
But it is not my intent to take that for granted. I need to draw the picture; how do I want my new year turn out? Hmmmm....maybe that's what resolutions are for: to help resolve the details of what the new year should look like. 
Ah, but what is a Blog without some mention of resolutions for the New Year; those cobbles of good intent that are legendary for paving the Road to Perdition?  I really don't believe that notion about good intent, by the way.  Good acts and sustained positive results are not possible without first there being a good intent...someplace.....  Intent is necessary.  Yes, there are a great many "good intentions" that either began as lip service and so died a vacant death, or for whatever reason began well but one excuse or another caused them to fall to the roadbed and Time marched them into well worn ruts. But the Road to Hell was, is and always will be laid down by the wicked and paved with acts of omission and volition at the foundation of which are bad intent, not good.  It's a theory, anyway.
So, to my resolutions.  They are reflective of elements of my life I've been watching for a while now and which could use a tweak or two to help me bring a little more focus to the picture and make a go of 2012.   There's nothing dramatic here; I have no new leaves to turn over or horses to climb back upon.  This is just maintenance and I hope that putting them to black and white will help me to  be the better "artist".  My written Intent, if you will.  I so resolve:

1) To write more.  I am enjoying the process whereby I choose my Blog subjects.  It makes me more observant of my life.  I am interested in seeing more.

2) To close my eyes and listen (just not while I'm driving...).  A friend and fellow Aikidoka recommended this to me.  Close your eyes (and your mouth) for just a few moments and listen to your surroundings.  What do you hear?  He's done this many times in public places in the US and abroad (he loves traveling to Europe).  He says this exercise is why The Netherlands is his favorite place on Earth.  He's never heard sadness or anger there.  While I don't think the practice will make me a devout Oranje-phile (truly, I have the fondest sentiments for my few Dutch friends),  the few times I have tried it have yielded interesting results--results worth studying and maybe writing about later.

3) To make the principles of Aikido more a part of everyday life outside the dojo.  Aikido is the martial art I chose to practice when I was stationed in Korea.  Six years later I am still at it.  I guess you can say I am dedicated to the practice of the art, but that practice tends to stop at the door of the dojo.  Aikido is an art of Peace.  By contrast, I am a quick-to-anger-and-decision hot-head.  I can do better.  There are principles in the practice of my Aikido that apply well outside the school house:
     A) Aikido is to be practiced in a vigorous and joyful manner.  Apparently life should be, too.  I'm doing okay with this one.
     B) When pulled, enter.  When pushed, turn.  Think about this in terms of anger management and conflict resolution.
     C) Always forward (the power of presence).  You can be "present" in retreat just as if you are moving forward.  BUT living in or dwelling on the past is not Aiki.
     D) True victory is self-victory.  A little thoughtfulness and control before we speak and act is a good thing.
     E) Make breathing part of the technique.  Breathe, wiggle your toes.  You'll be fine.  Learned this one flying formation through a thunderstorm in flight school, long before I found Aikido.  No kidding, it works.

4) To work on my vocabulary.  In the movie A Christmas Story, young Ralph describes his father as working "in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay; it was his true medium."  Yeah, I do that, too.  I am given to the use of all manner of expletive.  I feel diminished after I resort to it.  I tend to believe that over use of obscenity is a sign of a limited imagination.  That said, there is merit to the use of the well placed tactically considered F-bomb. But such words or their synonyms and dramatic cousins should not be subject, object, verb and adjective all in the same utterance.  Consider your words as you do your actions.  They are the tint of the lens through which you are viewed.

5) To continue with my fitness efforts.  Easy one. Softball, for sure.  The running, work outs, prepping for my first triathlon; all of it so far is a ton of fun and I continue to find myself in the company of the most wonderful people.

Finally,what's not listed here:  such resolutions as "feed the hungry", "adopt a sheltered pet", "help the poor", "shelter the abused" (though I am more prone to favor "bring brutal accountability to the abuser") or other related noble intentions are not listed here.  I already have a cause, and I am fortunate enough that acting on that cause is part of my job day in and day out.   I thank God everyday that I am allowed to be a part of that, and that it demands so very much of me. 
It's not that I don't believe these others to be worthy as causes or as resolutions.  More likely it's that I don't think myself worthy enough to carry them out.  There are far stronger folks than I who make these intentions into everyday acts of their own, and so I resolve that I will support them in their acts when I am able. 
Six Resolutions written above.  Just words, or are they the good intent paving a way to follow into a good new year? I'm being pulled that way and I will enter...so.

Kites, Pirates and The Very Special Theory of Santa-tivity

In the news there is word that scientists at CERN, in Switzerland, using the 17 mile long Large Hadron Collider (LHC), found evidence of conditions that will lead them to discover the presence of the Higgs Boson.  The sub-subatomic Higgs Boson is a fundamental building block of matter and is believed to be, by the Higgs field it creates, the thing that gives all matter its mass.  This is another step in the truly important work going on at CERN's LHC. Recently they captured and held antimatter in a magnetic field and now they have found the fundamental stuff of the universe.  Very cool and very important.  Why?  Well, two reasons actually. The first is that we are one step closer to developing a [more] thorough understanding of the universe and its origins and physical laws that govern it. Confirming the existence of the Higgs particle, it is said, will very neatly tie together the all the parts of the Standard Model of the Universe.
The second reason is that we may finally be able to put settled science behind the theory for how Santa Claus actually manages to make it to all those houses in the space of a single night.  That theory is already in development in the minds of some young boys I know here in the Keys...

It was another “any December Sunday in the Keys”.  It was warm, nearly 80 degrees, but not hot.  It was a little humid, but that didn’t matter since we were already waste deep in seawater when the sun came up. The water was a brisk 68 degrees.  We wore wetsuits, the southernmost answer to the “winter layer”.

And it was windy.  Most folks in the Keys hope for the days when the wind is not part of the recipe.  For me a perfect Sunday starts with 20 knots out of the east. Sapphire skies and tourmaline waters just make the whole thing better than going to church.  Spirit is everywhere.  Religion is where you put yourself to best connect to it.

Sunday was “down-winder” day.  We launched our kites from a friend’s beach in Niles’ Channel, a few miles from my house.  Our mission was to kite surf roughly 20 miles downwind to a remote beach in the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge, the “Back Country”, to be part of another friend’s retirement celebration.  We figured it would be a good visual to arrive “under kite”.  With  a few minor complications at the launch site we all got underway with our largest kites and boards to ride the lighter than forecast winds.  Along with us was our friend and fellow kiter, Dan, in his boat.  Dan was the “safety” for the day.  His wife had to work so he had his young son, not yet a kiter, along.  Also in the boat with Dan and his son were the young sons of our unofficial group leader, Wade.  I should mention that Dan is a great father, valued colleague and good friend.  He has the patience of a saint and one of the most easygoing demeanors I have ever met.  He has a wonderfully mischievous sense of humor.

In order to get downwind to our objective we first had to travel several miles upwind.  Making the kite and board combination carry you upwind is final major hurdle in anyone’s basic training to be a kite boarder.  Once you learn it becomes fairly easy as long as you have the right kite / board combination for the wind and as long as the wind and current aren’t pitted against you in unison.  For the day’s run I chose the exactly correct kite and board combo for running downwind.  It was not the right match up at all for the initial upwind leg.  Rookie move, Hudgins.  I spent a good chunk of my morning in tacking drills trying to get northward out of  Niles Channel past Toptree Hammock and into the open Back Country where I could run downwind past Tarpon Belly then Johnston Key toward our first waypoint, the tidal bar on the south side of Marvin’s Key.  It was hard going; my only recourse beyond continuing with the upwind slog was to admit defeat and get in the safe boat with Dan and the kids.  Not even maybe…

I eventually emerged into open water and made up time.  I joined the rest of the group at Marvin’s Key.  We rested a bit and rehydrated, and then lit out for our final destination, a place called Waltz Beach.  This is another tidal bar, deposited by Hurricane Wilma, I think, back in 2005.  At low tide it presents a perfectly white sand beach with a channel running through it.  There are a few such stunningly beautiful beaches throughout the Back Country.  If you are lucky and know a local with a boat, you can get there.  No boat, no beach.  Unless you can ride a kite.

As we left Marvin’s Key, my three compatriots decided a northerly start was again the good call.  But with open water to my south and west and knowing that upwind was not my strong direction that day, I stayed south as I left Marvin’s Key.  It was a good call.  Staying in the lee of the Marvin Keys, and by keeping my kite high in the drive window, I was blessed to travel over glassy calm, clear water no more than two feet deep.  Bait fish, skates, crabs, and coral heads were on display in the noon sun.  I chose well and my path put me well out ahead of my mates.  Unlike during the initial upwind run, Dan and his safety boat would not be monitoring my slow progress.  Instead he followed my mates who were already getting beat up on the north side of the Back Country.

My tack from the start put me on course for the near beach side of Snipe’s Point and the north beach of Snipe’s Key.  With 15 knots of wind out of the northeast, and with the tide coming in, the passage under a kite by the north side of the sandy shallows and rocky outcrops of Snipe’s Key is akin to a sailing vessel passing Cape Hateras or Cape Horn in a winter gale.  It’s rough; the swells and breaking waves propagate at seemingly random intervals adjusted by the unforgiving bottom terrain over which they roll.  It takes a good deal of concentration to take a kite through there without crashing.  As I transitioned from the calm waters east of Snipe’s Point my focus went entirely to keeping the kite driving and keeping the leading edge of my board out of the water.  It was a tough run, but it was fun.  I hopped over breakers and skipped from one wave top to the next.  When I finally cleared what we call Hatcher Point, a pile of rocks named for our friend and kiting instructor because they foil his best efforts to pass Snipe’s Key without incident, I jibed south into calmer waters and made my way down Mud Key Channel and into the Outer Narrows.  From there it was a short upwind leg to our objective:  A gathering of the Backwater Pirates to honor a friend as he retired from federal service and to welcome some new Pirates to the fold.   I could see the pirate flags on their boats from a mile off, and apparently the Pirates knew it was me in black neoprene and dark shades under a black kite.  Their story?  “Hell, Seth, we knew it was you.  There isn’t another kite surfer we know who’s got a head that shines like yours on a sunny day!”  Good one.  

With our kites landed and stowed and our respects paid to the Pirates, the only thing left to do in the day was load up Dan’s boat with ourselves and our gear and head home.

You remember Dan, right?  Good friend, great sense of humor, spent his day following us as the safety boat?  Dan had just spent the morning and part of the afternoon on his boat, alone except for the very energetic and inquisitive minds of three elementary school aged boys.  They peppered him with every sort of query from “Why don’t you have the same outboard engine as my dad?” to “How is Santa Claus able to stop at EVERY house on Christmas eve?”

On Monday morning, as I sat at my desk starting my work for the day, Dan walked in and informed the other parents in the room that they had to start teaching theoretical physics to their children (these boys are 8 and 9 years old).  It was the very first thing he said at 0645.  Not even a “good morning” or the usual “What’s going on, bitches?”  He was clearly agitated and not a little panicky.  “You guys have to teach your boys theoretical physics.” 

I have no children but I am a bit of a nerd (see the opening paragraphs to this post), so I stopped my work and turned to listen to Dan tell his tale of his Sunday with the kids in his boat:

“Man, they asked me every question under the sun.  But when they asked me how Santa was able to hit every house on the planet in one night, I started to get nervous.  How do I answer that?” he asked.  “I told them he has shortcuts.  That shut them up for no more than 10 seconds before the questions began again.”

“What shortcuts?  How does he find them? Where are they?”

Dan is also well educated.  He went to Georgetown.  Georgetown College in Kentucky.  He did the best he could.  “Well, you know how you draw a line between 2 points on a piece of paper?  That line is a certain distance if you walk along it.  But if you fold that paper so that the two points are right next to each other, the distance is much, much shorter.  Santa uses that to make his shortcuts”  Dan was using the folding of the fabric of space to show how Santa traveled.  I was intrigued, to say the least.

“Well, how does he DO that?” the boys asked.

“Man, I don’t know. It took some brains to figure that part out.  Do you guys know who Albert Einstein is?”

The oldest boy, wanting to seem read in to Dan’s explanation said “Yeah, I think we read about him at school.”

“Well,” said Dan, “he figured all this out for Santa.  The science, the math, the reindeer, size of the sleigh.  Everything.  Smart, smart guy.  I don’t understand it all, but I know it works.”

The in-unison “Ohhhhhhh…” from all three boys indicated that they understood, if not the physics, then certainly that Santa really did possess an ability that was beyond their ken.  

Dan let us know that the boys instantly started talking among themselves about folding the paper and then the earth and sky to “make it shorter”.  “My explanation got me off the hook, but you guys better brush up on your physics.”  We laughed at that; a couple of us more nervously than the others...

And so was born the Theory of  Santa-tivity; the relativistic theory of how The Patron Saint of children and sailors makes his rounds on Christmas Eve.  Dan, very much a child in his playful manner and ever his son’s father planted a seed in the fertile ground of the imaginations of three young boys, and they've set out perhaps to continue the work Einstein started to help The Kringle travel.

Einstein is noted to have said, “My sense of God is my sense of wonder about the universe.”

Think about it.  Surely if you can believe (and be excited) in the notion that Man can see into the depths of the universe to understand its intricate workings; if you can have faith (and be humbled) that a boy-king was born to save an entire people; then certainly there is room (and a smile) for the idea of a jolly old man on a reindeer drawn sleigh whose only purpose in the universe is to bring child-like joy to the world.  That he manipulates space-time to make his job a touch easier should just be nothing but fun to imagine.  If you find yourself “theorizing” how he might do that, well, congratulations.  Part of you still remembers what it is to be a child.  And only a child's wonder can imagine that broadest universe of possibility.  Merry Christmas.

A Marathon...Really?

It was a big day  for me. On 27 November, I ran in the Space Coast Marathon, Florida's oldest running race. It was the 40th anniversary, too. It was my first Marathon.

Yup, I did the thing that for the longest time, when mentioned in my presence, elicited the response "Man, I don't want to do anything that feels good for that long!"
And it was pretty cool...I mean, it's not a big deal in the broad universe of things to consider (I didn’t set out to win it or even come close to doing so); but it's not so small a thing either. Some effort went into getting to point where I could finish let alone do so in under 4 hours--my own effort and that of a handful of wonderful people.

I did not get there on my own. Even though I ran ALL of my long training runs alone long before the sun came up on many Saturdays (before most of you were awake--I'm twisted that way), I was buoyed along and cheered on by friends and family. THAT is the fuel that keeps you going.  And I have a ton of folks to thank for their love, support and encouragement.  Jen Hudgins, thanks for the love and for understanding, if not the running, then the need to do it and all the other whacky things I do. Thank you for being the Home Team cheering section. Ultara, HardCore, Rock Star (Tara Tosta, Kim Austin, Sheri Golden), my Marathon Muses and Mentors throughout the last year of workups and training. You kept my brain filled with the right mix of science, lore, and expertise to help me think like and be a Runner. Your encouragement lighted the way to what I consider a success and a great experience. Thanks for training me and training with me.

Cupcakes! Mistress Hay-Hay, "Big" Jess, and Melissa (Halley Haack, Jessica Sheffield, Melissa Impallomeni). You made the training tolerable because you made it FUN. Your positive energy could run a small city. It is infectious and it motivates me. You three put me back in my running shoes. Thank you.

Jen McKay, Mike Hester; you believed. Thanks for training with me. I am faster and stronger for it.
To all the rest of you, my friends and family, for your words of encouragement, your love, for the imagery of golf carts and Blue Moon beer on race day, for setting the example and providing the level to which I need to aspire. Thanks.

With thanks put appropriately first and now out of the way, this post will be about some observations and lessons learned from my training and from the Marathon itself.

1)      Believe and Do.  If you have any inkling at all that you want to try to run an endurance race (half marathon or longer), I strongly recommend that you do it.  It was a great experience and I am pleased beyond words that I did it.  If you want a challenge beyond the grind of your daily routine, if you want a truly human community experience that allows you to pit yourself against, well, yourself, and then against and alongside elite athletes from all over the planet, then a Marathon (or other such endurance event) is for you.  Of course, this is a recommendation based on a lesson learned after the fact.  Why did I originally commit to a Marathon?  Man, I don’t know.  One morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  I spent the next three days cranky and restless.  Me, restless, is not good.  The mind thinks unsavory thoughts, plans devilish acts.  When the body finds itself with excess energy, it must DO SOMETHING to expend it.  Push-ups weren’t enough, so I started running.  I ran a 5K with friends, the result of which was *yawn* mediocre.   Aha!  A challenge.  “Do better or quit,” I told myself.  I did not quit.  A ran another 5K.  And another, and then a Warrior Dash (Google it.  It’s a blast.)  I improved at the 5K level (won a few medals), but I needed a bigger challenge.  And so I committed to a Marathon and started training.

2)      Set a goal for yourself and find the training expertise to help you achieve it.  When I finally let the cat out of the bag, that I would be running my first Marathon, I got a ton of enthusiasm and some very specific advice from my running friends.  One of the most important bits of help was my training schedule.  I decided that, once started, not finishing a Marathon was not an option.  I needed a training plan that when followed would get me across the line running (walking was also a non starter idea).  Under the heading of “your eyes may be bigger than your stomach”, or “you might be writing checks your body cannot cash”, I set a loftier secondary goal to finish my first marathon in under 4 hours’ time.   NOW I needed a training plan that would condition my brain and body to push faster than it was originally prepared to go.  One of my muses/mentors above had such a plan and had used it to good effect on four other marathons.  So I took a copy for myself and for the four months of training, this was my road map to success.  A copy hanged at my desk and was on my desktop on my computer at home.  Every time I looked up, there it was—what I “owed” to the Training Plan everyday for 16 weeks from August to Thanksgiving 2011.    It was a reminder of my commitment, and every time I looked at it I could hear the question, “Are you committed enough to do this instead of something fun?”  Goal number three:  Say yes to that question every time.

3)      Prep the body?  That’s the easy part.  What about the mind?  The Training Plans get your heart, lungs, legs, and core ready to run for a longer time than you normally do anything that feels REALLY good.  Don’t get me wrong:  This all feels good now.  And most of the training runs felt good when I did them, but none of them were competitive and none were run in the same environment as the one on race day.  On race day the body is ready whether you poured everything into training or you skimped on the harder stuff.  You’ll finish, I promise, if your body has that sole vote.  But it doesn't, and if your brain isn’t prepped, if it doesn’t buy into your body’s level of readiness, you won’t make it past “the Wall”.   Your training plan will have a handful of long runs on it.  My longest training run was 24 miles.  Until I embarked on this plan and the path to a Marathon, 9 miles was my longest run EVER.  Why do we do the long runs?  My experience says that this is where your brain gets trained.  This is where your body demonstrates its readiness to your psyche so that it will choose correctly when sides are picked for the battle at the Wall.  You need your mind at that point. After mile 20, your brain is a that last bit of muscle you need to keep your legs moving.  If you did any training at all, your lungs will be fine, your heart will actually be beating normally for a good workout, but what will be screaming at you to stop will be your legs.  Your brain will reason with them to keep you moving.  It will put its considerable power behind you and PUSH you to finish.  Do the long training runs.  They train your mind.  It’s the difference between running across the line smiling in triumph and walking across the line and wondering if you could have done better.

4)      As the training plan goes, so go your race results.  This is my lesson.  I finished my first Marathon exactly as my training performance indicated I would.  Oh, there were a handful of my supportive friends and family who were CONVINCED that I would finish faster, do better than what the training was telling me.  They were persuasive and for a few moments I thought maybe I would indeed qualify for the Boston Marathon on my first try.  To qualify for Boston in my age group I needed to finish in under 3 hours 30 minutes.  That’s an 8:12 pace per mile.  None of my training runs longer than 10 miles were anywhere near that pace.  My time for the Space Coast Marathon was 3 hours 53 minutes.  That’s an 8:55 pace which is what my pace was for my 23 and 24 mile training runs.    Believe the training.  If you want faster, train that way.

5)      Run in a pace group!  Really!  The Race sponsored volunteers to act as “rabbits”, or pacers.  These are experienced marathoners who know their pace and can maintain it through the finish.  They run a steady or slightly negative split which is great.  On advice of another of my mentors I chose to follow this path.  I picked the 8:35/mile pace group thinking that if it was too fast I could opt out and run a slower comfortable pace.  If it was too slow (umm, yeah, uh-huh, right) I could always speed up later—you know, as I qualified for Boston…
So, I chose this group, checked in and met my fellow pace-groupers.  Nice folks.  This was a great idea.  The first half of the race, in fact all the way to mile 17, went by in a blur.  I was feeling GREAT except for two minor setbacks. I will discuss the first of these in the next paragraph.  The second setback happened at mile 18.  Our pacer, a very nice man named Chris, kept us on a very steady pace from the start.  He had a great sense of humor and we talked the entire time.  No kidding, I could have kept  with him just for the fun of it without batting an eye.  And for his help I am very grateful—thanks, Chris!  But he cramped up and fell out of the race at mile 18 leaving the Wall and a 10K left for us to negotiate on our own.  Sigh….Please see the lesson above on preparing your mind for the race.  For me, this is where that training mattered most.  But all in all the lesson here is when you run your first marathon, use the pacer.  It’ll give you a great gage of your performance and you can run with people just like you.  It made the challenge more fun and not lonely.

6)      If you stop to pee, do not sprint to catch back up.   “Stomach issues” plagued me on my long training runs.  I learned to carry emergency toilet paper and I was lucky that I did those runs well before the sane world was awake (so were they…).  I managed, but it was enough to keep me concerned right up through race day.  A couple of lessons here. First, eat an early dinner and watch what you eat the night before.  Spaghetti with red sauce was pre-race dinner for me.  Cannoli for dessert.  Carb loading has its merit.  Worked for me, I am sure, because I felt great the next morning.  I ate early and then hydrated until bedtime.  Not a lot of water, but enough that I wasn’t thirsty through the night.  Next morning (I woke up three hours before the race), in anticipation of stomach issues, I had a half cup of black coffee right when I woke up.  The idea was to “get it all out of my system” before the race.  Bang.  It worked! With the exception of electrolyte pills and a little Hammer Gel, my stomach was empty.  That’s how I run.  Might not work for you.  I know folks who eat a full breakfast before they go race.  Not me.  Not even maybe.
So I had an empty stomach, but not an empty bladder.  It is interesting the psychological effect the starter’s pistol has on a racer’s bodily functions.  Gun went off,  my bladder filled right the heck up.  Nice timing.  Thanks.  11 miles later, I could no longer hold it and I knew that if I tried I would be ground to a halt with stomach cramps at mile 20.  So I left the pace group by sprinting ahead to the next porta-john and gave some salt water back to the US Navy.  When done, I exited the “facility” at a sprint to catch my pace group.  I believe that sprint to have been a tactical error.  If I had simply increased my pace only slightly I would have regained the group and not have burned off energy and strength that I would need later in the race.  Instead I sprinted.  Hard.  And  I caught them in 100 yards instead in a mile or so.  I felt that at miles 19 through 21.  The Wall was higher and harder as a result.  If you must stop, recognize that you abdicate your position.  Deal with it by incremental increases or not at all.  Run your race.

7)      Water and nutrition.  Yes, please!  When I do this again, I will not wear my Camelbak.  The water stations are plentiful and the race staff are more than willing to keep you hydrated with a smile.  I am signed up to run the Disney Half Marathon in January 2012.  I will rely on The Mouse for water.  But I will bring my own running food.  Your training will allow you to find the nutrition your body will want to use.  Experiment early on if you must, but by race time, unless you have a cast iron gut, you will need to have settled on nutrition for the long haul.  Electrolytes and energy.  You MUST have BOTH.  I can’t drink Gatorade or Powerade when I run (HUGE “stomach issues”).  Water is as strong as I go.  I found Hammer Nutrition’s Enduralytes capsules to be the perfect fit.  For my weight (178 pounds) I took three 30 minutes before the race and then 3 every hour during the race.  No cramps ever.  Perfect. Electrolyte problem solved, now I needed sustaining energy after about mile 7.  Sports Beans by Jelly Belly (yup, you read that right) was my snack of choice for the early parts of the race.  After about two packs (7 miles and then again at 12), I got tired of the taste.  I ate one more pack at 16 miles in anticipation of the Wall.  Key point here:  As you approach the wall, added calories helps.     Do not over do it.  A pack of Beans is only 100 calories and is all my body really wanted to take in.  Trust me.  You’ll know if you’ve taken in too much.  Pray you learn that lesson early in training.  DO NOT think that you can take in what you are burning off as you run.  The body regulates itself magnificently and you are just in care taker mode at this point.
At 18 miles, I shifted to caffeine.  Hammer Gel Espresso is my choice.  Mocha flavored, caffeinated nutrition (carbs, protein, some e-lytes) was a WONDERFULLY TASTY change from the high citrus Sports Beans as I hit the late stage of the race.  A couple hits of the Espresso Gel and the mind cleared and the body felt a little less burdened.  On retrospect, I firmly believe that using this nutrition, the race’s water sources (vice my own on my back), and had I not sprinted to catch my group after the pee stop, I would have improved my overall time in the race.  This lesson falls under the heading of Tactics, Techniques and Procedures.  Now I have some!  A corollary lesson here: Find a variety of nutrition sources that you like.  At some point your body will revolt against eating and you will just not want to put a thing in your mouth.  Fight that by making what you eat interesting to your palate.  Shifting from fruit flavors to chocolate/coffee flavors did it for me.

8)    Cross the line running.  No matter what you do all race long, you cross that finish line at a run.  You did a hell of a lot of work to get thru the last 26.2 miles.  You owe it to yourself to look good for the cameras.  Smile, dammit.  You just ran a Marathon.