Shallow Thinker

Note - This first part of this post was written two weeks ago, The latter was edited today. Maybe it took up until now for my words to make sense to me. They probably won’t make sense to you at all.

—-Two weeks ago—-
I got a call this weekend that my grandfather has been diagnosed with lung cancer.  Apparently, the prostate cancer has spread and the doctors gave him a time frame of 3-6 months.  Of course, you never know where they get those numbers from, but when they start doing calculations, it’s not a good sign.  My dad and his brothers are working through trying to get both of my grandparents into an assisted living facility.  A difficult transition, to say the least.

On Sunday, Butterfly was pretty sick and we ended up having to get blood tests done on Monday.  Though she is fine-and-dandy now, the doctors think that a colonoscopy will be best to rule out major complications based on some recurring problems that we’ve noticed.  It’s a “minor” procedure for the medical community, but it’s a huge weight on the shoulders of this over-protective father and her always caring mother.

In the past month, two couple friends have experienced the loss of their unborn children through miscarriages.  Another couple that we know experienced the delivery of a still born child on Christmas morning. A friend from high school is waiting anxiously for word regarding two children that she is trying to adopt from a foreign country.

Sickness. Death. Pain. Worry. Grief. Heartache. Tears. My mind is unable to comprehend the source, cause, or reason for such suffering.  What I can understand is the fact that there are a lot of people carrying around burdens and worries that intrude into their every action. Sometimes, I wonder how many people around me are using all the energy they have just to put a smile on and get through the day while their inside cries out for rest and peace.

—-Today—-
I have been amazed at the response that we have received from friends and family regarding Butterfly’s procedure. It is truly comforting to know that our daughter is loved so deeply by so many people. Her procedure was yesterday and she has recovered well enough to fight with her sister.

I am still troubled a bit, though. A mom was in the hospital with her son having a scope done, but she was by herself. After some complications with the IV, the mom needed a minute to compose herself. After three hours in the car to get there and waiting through the procedure, she was turning around to drive another three hours back home. Carrying this burden alone. I saw a few other single parents at the hospital. While these aren’t necessarily broken homes, it was difficult to see one parent struggle alone during this time while I knew that I was supported by so many.

There is no moral to this post or any ending tagline that I can conceive to make things better. This is just something that I’ve noticed recently. People are hurting. Families are broken. Burdens are heavy.

Is there a practical way to offer relief? I shall contemplate some more.

All you need is a whiffle bat and a yard full of sweetgum balls. I could swat these thing for hours. So, either it’s a great stress reliever or I’m easily amused.

Probably both.

I have not written in a while because…um….because…I’m very important.  No, no one will buy that.  Because I’ve been very busy!  Well, you probably know better than that as well.  Well, I have been a bit busy, but I suppose that I’m mostly lazy.  So there, you know the truth.  Let’s get on with it, shall we?

I haven’t posted a health update in a while (all previous ones located here), so you are probably wondering if I’ve become a muscle-bound hero, a ball of dough, or a spaghetti noodle of a man.  Sadly, none of these have come to fruition.  I have managed to pad my stats a bit, so here’s the lowdown.

One year ago:
Weight -168
Body Fat % - 17%
# of Pull ups during one workout  - 8
Typical Run Distance - 3 miles
Calories per day - What? Who in the heck keeps up with that?

Today:
Weight -194
Body Fat % - 22%
# of Pull ups during one workout  - 83
Typical Run Distance - 4 miles
Calories per day - More!

I am still doing the P90X workouts and have probably seen more increase in weight and reps this time around.  I’ve also started doing more than just three of the workouts, so maybe that helps, too.

Back in June of last year, I took a picture so that I can have something to compare against.  Maybe in June of this year I’ll have enough courage to post them, but I’d have to warn you that there is a lot of pale chest area showing.  I think the FCC might shut this place down.

At any rate, there are my results for your interpretation.  I think that the numbers speak for themselves.  Of course, no one knows what they’re saying, but they still feel inclined to talk.

As life would have it, I am often the booming voice of discipline around our house.  Kelley does a wonderful job with the girls, but by the end of the day, they are all tired of each other and limits are being tested for everyone.  This is usually about the time that I come in the door from work.  Most times, I am able to quell the storms with calm assertiveness, but on occasion, I will raise my voice.  (The good thing about having two little girls is that the loud, deep voice usually does the trick.)

We’ve been having some trouble with our little Ladybug during the nights.  Her cough is finally starting to dissipate, but she is now in the habit of waking up during the middle of the night.  For the most part, she is able to go back to sleep, but around 5:00, she thinks that she is ready to face the day.

On Sunday morning, she came running into our room and made a bee-line for Kelley’s side of the bed.  Kelley picked her up, took her back to her room, put her in the bed, said sweet, motherly things to her, and then left her room.  I used my super-human sleeping skills to ignore the whole event.

At 5:15, I woke-up to see our bedroom door being pushed open by the little munchkin.  This time, she came over to me.  My mind was already trying to figure out just the right words to say and how to get her to stay in her bed for another couple of hours.  Should I go with the “mean daddy” routine or “comforting daddy”?  Do I promise her a wonderful tomorrow for being such a big girl, or do I make empty threats that I’ll never follow-up on?  But she spoke first:

“Daddy?  Will you cuddle with me?”

My daughter is almost 3, but she is far wiser than her father who sits happily at 30.  For the next hour and a half, I slept folded in her bed with her little body snuggled up as close as she could get to me.  I exercised neither firmness or discipline. I’m quite sure the rest of our lives will allow plenty of opportunities to practice those skills.  But in the wee hours of Sunday morning, my daughter appreciated me being there in silence.

My girls are young (Ladybug is almost 3 and Butterfly is 5.5).  They are also very truthful.  On Saturday morning, I was sitting in Butterfly’s room watching her and Ladybug play.  (Actually, I was refereeing their day-long fight, but that doesn’t sound as sweet.)  Then the refreshing honesty swept through the room.  Ladybug came over to me, and laid across my lap.  With the sweetest little eyes, she looked up an me and said:

“Daddy, you need a bath.”
“What?  Why do I need a bath?”
“Because you stink.  Blech.”

It was funny, but probably very true.  When I eventually bathed and got out of the shower, she proudly let me know that her opinion of me was unshaken.

“Go take another bath.  You stink some more.”

Long, long ago, I used my deep, intellectual skills to reflect upon a walk along the beach that I had with my oldest daughter.  Since then, she and I have walked numerous paths and had many adventures.  Back in November, Kelley and I took the girls back to Dauset Trails, one of their favorite hiking spots.  For the fun of it, I carried along my GPS to see how far we traveled.  As my brain tends to do, I forgot all about doing this.  Until today.

I plugged my watch into my computer to see where I have run recently and to analyze the statistics of my runs.  As I was going through the data, I came across the map of the Dauset Trails adventure.  It took me 15 minutes to figure out what in the world was going on.  I should have known by the shape of it that it involved me following a couple of Little Misses around.  It almost looks like one of those old cartoons from Family Circus.

Last Year

Three weeks have passed and I am just now getting around to updating on my resolutions past and my resolutions forward.  First, let’s take a peak at last year and see what I said.  (CLICK HERE)  Well, it looks like I only had one resolution.  And I didn’t get it.  But not to worry.  I have an explanation!

Photo from Photobucket. Found by google. Completely stolen from the internet.

While I did not weigh 172 in July, I did hit the target weight in March.  I combined better and leaner eating habits with a lot of cardio and dropped down to around 168 at my lowest point.  While I weighed less and was in better shape, I wasn’t very comfortable.  Every time the wind blew, I had to grab onto something to keep from blowing away.  So in March or April, I started to do more strength training.  I started a modified version of P90X where I did my own cardio and disregarded his insane nutritional guide.  I’m not going to work-out AND eat healthy.  That’s just silly!

So, the results?  I’m up to 192 right now.  A 24 pound swing!  From what I can tell, I’m putting on about the same percentage of fat and muscle as I had before the climb.  So while I am getting heavier, I’m putting on some muscle weight.  Also, I kicked the Mountain Dew habit early last year.  Unfortunately, I started drinking Coke at the end of this year.  But, I’ve already kicked that habit, too.  (I’m thinking about doing some heavy drugs just so I can say that I stopped doing them.)

So for a final rating on last year against my resolution, I give myself four smiley faces and a thumbs-up.  (Note: Grading scale is arbitrary and pointless.  Just like my resolutions.)

This Year

So, what are my goals for this year?  Glad you asked.  I decided to take my own advice and set one goal that is achievable and one that is nearly impossible.  You can match them to the correct category.

• Finish my masters degree.  I am currently taking classes #8 and #9 with #10 on tap for the summer.  This has me crossing the finish line in August.  hopefully.
• Become Massive.  Like the incredible hulk.  I want to have muscles on top of my muscles.  But I don’t want to work too hard for it.  Actually, I don’t want to work at all.  Maybe I need to get my hands on some good steroids. Do you know any suppliers?

So that’s the review and the projection.  Should I have included anything else?

At this moment I’m supposed to be editing a document that feeds into a final report.  But I’m not.  Why?  Excellent question.  Here’s one of the sentences that the author put into the document:

To provide a basis for system analysis, a hierarchal decomposition of functionality has been prepared to use as a straw-man design against which each of the individual functions can be addressed across the full range of available new and emerging technologies, assessing performance risk, compatibility with operating environment, other on-board system technology applications, and availability for production.

WHAT?!

No, stop.  Don’t reread it.  It won’t help you at all.  You still won’t make any sense of it.  But I have to wade through another 36 pages of run on sentences, misapplied big words, extraneous adjectives, and vague generalities.  I thought I went into engineering to avoid having to read stuff.

Maybe this will all make sense if I read the report upside down…

I believe that I may have mentioned my affection for Wipeout and American Gladiators before.  I think that the draw is that I am naive enough to believe that I could actually compete in events like these.  I’ve even been on the look-out for tryouts in my area, but thus far, California remains definitively not in my area.  It’s unfortunate, really.

But what if I had a chance to do something like this.  Would I actually do it or would I shy away?  Let’s say that someone made a running course that was 3.22 miles.  And suppose it had some obstacles.  Like jumping over fire.  And climbing a cargo net.  And rappelling down a wall.  Maybe even crawling through mud.  Stupid, right? How much would someone have to pay you to do things like this?

As it turns out, you only have to pay $45 to subject yourself to such torture.  You actually have to pay them?!  Yeah, that’s right.  Who in their right mind would be stupid enough to do something so dangerous and actually pay for the opportunity to do it?

I’m in the 2:00 wave for the Southeastern round.  May 22.
www.warriordash.com

You do get a free warrior helmet.

I’ll be the first to admit that every school system has their problems.  I’ll also be in line to discuss how our local school system seems to have a much larger pile of problems than the rest.  Horrible decisions are made almost every day and top administration officials seem concerned only with protecting themselves and promoting their friends.

So, like any dysfunctional group, the local school board isn’t the best at planning ahead.  For about a week, the local weather services had been predicting a chance of snow for last night.  But yesterday turned out to be one of the warmest days of the week.  It reached 50 degrees.  Not sunbathing weather, but certainly nothing to cry about.

In the late afternoon yesterday, with the temperature hovering in the mid-40’s and the precipitation definitely not falling, the local school board made the decision to close schools.  And because my daughters’ preschool follows their lead, it shut down as well.  At the time, I thought it was preposterous to make such a decision at that time.  Wouldn’t the wait-and-see approach be more appropriate?

It just goes to show what little I know.  I took a couple of picture of the great blizzard that hit our area last night.  Here’s a shot of our front yard looking across the street over to our neighbor’s house:

How did I survive out there?!  And you want to know something even crazier than all that snow?  I actually tried to drive to work in that mess!  Our parking lot was beautiful under such a thick blanket of snow.

So if you’ll pardon me, I’m off to build a snowman.  I’ll probably make just as much progress on the snowman as I’m going to make on this report that I’m working on.

Yes, I know that I haven’t blogged in a bit.  It’s not from a lack of ideas, it’s from a lack of time.  And because I’m a slacker.  Either way, I have a few things in the works.  Here are the teasers for when I have time:

• A check to see where I am vs. my resolution(s) from last year.  If you want a challenge, you can guess how much I actually weigh now.
• A look forward to this year.  What do I want to achieve?  How many jobs do I expect to get fired from?  Again, feel free to use the comments section for suggestions.
• A review of how much I get to play with baby dolls and barbies now that I have two girls.  At least they let me keep a little train set and some legos.
• I’m sure that once classes start back on the 14th, I’ll have the need to write a bunch of posts about how much school stinks.
• I’ll also write about how I should probably go and get a PhD.  (And this is where I expect Kelley to hurl something at her computer.)
• My friend, Lance, killed somebody on New Year’s Eve, but I was too busy trying to be a rock star to care.

So, there’s my list.  If you have any requests, like a funny story about meat consumption, feel free to let me know!

My parents got the newspaper every Sunday when I was growing up.  After church, I would read the comics, then look through all of the sales papers, and if complete boredom still reigned, I would skim through the headlines of the paper.  I always skipped the sports and the fashion sections.  World news got a brief glance, but most of my attention would be devoted to the “Living” section.  I don’t know why it was called this, but it was a hodge-podge of random articles that didn’t fit anywhere else.

One Sunday, I think I was in ninth grade, things must have been really slow because I started actually reading some of the articles.  I read for a while and then hit one that was amazing.  The writing style was perfect.  The humor was amazing.  After I finished, I showed it to my dad and he said “Oh, that’s Dave Barry.  He has an article every Sunday.”  I was hooked.  I even tried writing a few reports in the same style.  (Looking back, I realize that it wasn’t a good idea.  The grade I received helped me reach that conclusion.)

For the rest of my high school days, I read Barry’s columns.  In college, I was fortunate to find his column printed on-line through the Miami Herald.  At my first job, my Monday morning ritual included reading the column from the day before.  (See, my ability to not work has been with me for a long time.) But, all good things must come to an end and Dave decided to leave my Mondays dry and bare.  He now returns with an article that recaps the happenings of each year.  That’s it….just once a year.  And now is that time.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.  Or at a minimum, maybe your company’s internet filter lets it through like mine does.

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/story/1397654.html