Summer So Far

I want to start by saying happy birthday to The Queen. She is my best friend and a great mother to our children.

We went camping at Dinkey Creek this past weekend. I always going to this area and wonder why I don't more often. It is great to be in the mountains with creeks, rivers and a lake all nearby. It was also a refreshing change from the hot temperatures in the valley.

My only problem with camping with The Queen's family is that everything revolves around food, and lots of it. We had to take so much stuff with us, and most of it had to come back with us. We just take way too much stuff. Most of it never gets used or eaten, so we have to pack it back up when we leave.

I slept horribly for the two nights we were there, but it was still better than being home. I would gladly trade my good sleep for bad sleep if I could live in that area full time.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Seattle. I have been there twice before and really liked it the second time I visited. I can't wait to get there and show the girls all that the city has to offer. I have put together a pretty nice itinerary that takes all over the city, to the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park and on a ferry to one of the islands to hopefully see some whales.

I can't wait until tomorrow!

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My Year of Forty

This is the year that I turn forty. I never thought I would be this old, but alas it has happened. I don't feel old, but I guess I am by most people's accounts.

I decided a few years ago that I wanted to go out of my thirties with a bang. I fantasized about going to Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Tulum or even Europe. I wanted to do something big for my fortieth birthday. Well, I have come to the realization that I need to take it down a notch.

My company has had a rough twelve to eighteen months. My bonus last year was negligible and I most likely won't get on this year. That was the money I was hoping to use for my big adventure. This just means that I need to get more creative with what I am going to do.

We decided at the beginning of this week that we were going to go to Yosemite this weekend. Park admission is free and I have always wanted to go in the winter, so the timing is perfect. I have been doing some research to find out what I want to photograph in the park. I have read that everything is different when there is snow on the ground and I can't wait to find out.

We will drive up on Friday after school and stay the night at the Tenaya Lodge. Actually we will be staying in the cottages. That is where we stayed the night I proposed to The Queen way back when it was call Apple Tree Inn. Tenaya raised the prices substantially, but they say that they remodeled everything. I can't wait to find out if they are right. It was pretty nice before.

Next month The Queen and I are going to New York to see American Idiot on Broadway. Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of Green Day if you didn't know, will be playing the part of St. Jimmy. The Queen has been a big Green Day fan for as long as I have known her. We even went to see them in concert at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco for the American Idiot tour. It was perhaps the best concert I have been to.

In June we have a few trips planned. I want to go to Yosemite again around my birthday and hike Half Dome. I think that is something that I will remember for a long time. It is not Machu Picchu, but it will do just fine. At the end of the month we are going camping at Dinkey Creek. We did that last September and it was a lot of fun so we decided to do it again this year.

That is all we have planned at this point, but I may try to lobby to go to the biggest trade show in my industry this year in Dusseldorf, Germany in May. I will just have to wait and see how the company is doing as the show gets closer. It only happens every three years, so it is a big deal.

It would be great to go to Mexico again, but the drug wars that are currently going on are enough to keep me away this year. I love visiting, but I am not about to risk my life and the lives of my family. I with they would just get the situations under control.

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Taking the Plunge

I was watching some videos on Monday that inspired me once again. I read "The 4-Hour Workweek" back in February and have been thinking about starting my own business ever since. Actually, I started thinking about my own business a long time ago but I really started to get more serious after reading that book. Ever since I saw the movie "Father of the Bride" I have wanted to own a small manufacturing company. I don't know why that movie inspired me, but it did.

I feel like I need to create something tangible. I love technology and know that is the future...and present...but I just need to create something that I can put my hands on. At least I feel like that is my ultimate goal. I have flip flopped a little bit though after what I saw on Monday. I feel like I just need to create a revenue stream as soon as possible. I am not going to take the complete plunge and quite my job. I will just get my toes wet and start a new source of income until I am ready to take the plunge.

I love the idea of reducing my things, but it is just not in the cards right now. The Queen and the girls are not ready to give up there things, even if it means that we can travel the world. They are so entrenched in American culture that they believe that they need things. Don't get me wrong, I have my things as well and am not completely ready to give them up. I think I am closer to that than they are though.

Besides leading a simpler life and not having bills to worry about and upkeep of cars and a home. It is more in line with the greener lifestyle I desire. It would be great to get our from under the weight of the world and just do whatever I want to do. If I want to go to Mexico for six months or a year, so be it. If I want to travel farther South from there and end up at the tip of South America I could do that to.

I could start the non-profit that I have been thinking about since reading the book. I could show my kids the world and not worry about anything else. That would be a great life, but we are not yet ready for that. I just need to take the first step and getting a second income coming in first. That is my three month goal. Even if it is just an extra five-hundred dollars a month. Every little bit helps.

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Teotihuacan

As long as I have been coming to Mexico there have been two places I have wanted to visit, Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza. I can now cross Teotihuacan off my list. As I posted yesterday, I took a seven hour tour to Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan was the largest pre-Columbian city with a population of more than two-hundred thousand people. All of the records of the city were destroyed by the Spaniards when they conquered the area, so nobody knows exactly who the people were who inhabited the city.

Our tour started at the Citadel. Our tour giude gave us a brief introduction to the site and then set us free to explore for two hours. I made my way to Templo de Quetzalcotl, or the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. It was only thirty-nine steps to the top, but at more than seven-thousand feet above sea level I was breathing hard when I reached the top. Archeologists were working around the temple, which was very interesting.

From there, I started my 1.6KM journey down the Avenue of the Dead to the Pyramid of the Moon. After going up and down many steps, I was approached by at least one hundred people trying to seel me something. I finally gave in and purchased obsidian carved figures of the sun and of the moon from the man who claimed to have carved them. They are carved out of the same local obsidian that I wrote about yesterday. It is not pure black, but has a goldish tone to it.

I walked up and down many more steps before I reached the Pyramid of the Sun. I was taking many photos along the way. At the Pyramid of the Sun there is a ramp at the base and then two-hundred and forty-five steps to get to the top. Actually, you do not reach the top until you walk up a mound that is about five feet in height. At that point I tried to take a picture of the view and found out that my camera battery was dead. I switched to my iPhone at that point. I was very dissappointed that after all of that hard work I could not even get any photos. I guess that means I will have to go back.

I walked back down all the steps and headed back down the Avenue of the Dead. The structures along the avenue were much more intact between the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. It was a great experience walking down the avenue. Our tour guide told us that we would not be able to walk to the top of the Pyramid of the Moon because archeologists are excavating inside of it. I still had to walk up as high as I could, which turned out to be forty-eight steps. I could not even get to the halfway point of the pyramid.

Archeologists are excavating inside the pyramid to see if they can find anything that will give them clues as to who built Teotihuacan. They have also left the lower fourth of the Pyramid of the Sun on the north side covered in grass the way it was found. It is interesting to get a glimpse of what the site looked like before it was excavated.

I really enjoyed my trip to Teotihuacan and would recommend it to anyone. I really made me want to visit Chichen Itza though.

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My Story

I awoke this morning too late to exercise. I guess I am still feeling the affects of my sinus infection.

I laid in bed and my mind started going crazy. I remembered a dream that I had last night. In my dream I ran into my college room mate whom I have not seen for almost ten years. We were talking about life and our careers and he told me that he was thinking about going back to school to become a doctor. He started out as Pre-Med in college and then changed his major to business after taking Organic Chemistry.

In my dream we continued to talk about our lives and future opportunities. He kept talking about medical school. I told him that I would love to go back to school, but that I cannot afford it. I asked him how he would support his family if he did go back to school. He told me that it would not be that difficult for him since he would get a scholarship to attend. I told him that was great for him, but that I am still paying my student loans and am starting to pay my wife's student loans as well. He asked me if there was anyone who I could lean on for support and I told him that there was not. That is when I woke up.

I laid in bed for fifteen more minutes thinking about my life and how I got to the point I am at today. My life has been a struggle. Not in the traditional sense of struggling to stay alive or out of jail, but in a much different way. I have struggled my whole life to do what I am supposed to do. To do what other people think that I should do. I think about this almost every day. I am a very private person for this very reason. I only share the parts of my life that I feel are appropriate for my station in life. The things that I am expected to be experiencing.

I would absolutely love to go back to school. I want to be able to make a difference in the world. I want to make life better for people who are less fortunate. I would like to travel to Africa and help build a school for a village. I would like to travel to Mexico and teach life lessons to kids in a remote village. I would like to travel the world and learn from people of different cultures. I just cannot afford to do this. I don't have the time or the money.

I told The Queen this morning that I am thinking about writing my autobiography. I told her that my life has not been exciting, but that there are things that I have kept to myself my entire life that I feel like I am ready to share. She questioned me about those things and I told her that I did not want to burden her. She kept asking so I told her that I do not share my true feelings about how much things affect me. In particular, our financial situation weighs on me every single day. By American standards, we are in great shape financially. I am just not happy with where we are.

So Maybe I will start writing my autobiography today. Or maybe I won't. Who knows.

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Live Big

I really enjoyed a TV show named Boston Legal. James Spader played a very cynical lawyer with a very unique view of life. William Shatner played an aging ace lawyer who was a partner in the firm. Those two characters had great interaction in the show. I remmeber a line from one of the episodes in which James Spader's character said, "live big." That phrase hit a nerve with me and I think about it from time to time. I don't know if I really know what he was talking about, but I would like to try to live those words. I don't think I have done the phrase much justice up to this point.

I had not really thought about the phrase for some time and I had even forgotten about it. For some reason, I really began thinking about it on my vacation earlier this week. I can't remember what made it pop into my mind, but I was thinking about it the entire time. I think I might have been waiting in line for a roller coaster when it just popped into my mind. It sure is strange how the mind works.

Live big to me means to live your life in a way that you will not regret. It means that you should do all of the things in life that you want to do. I have a book named 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. In my mind, that book is the epitome of living big. Make a list of the things you want to accomplish and then tackle that list. Live without boundries.

This phrase really ties in well with a book I read a few months ago. The book was called The 4-Hour Workweek. See my blog posts about the book here and here. Here is a quote from the book that I think really ties in well with the phrase live big, "The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals. If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think."

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From The 4-Hour Workweek to What the Dog Saw

I am still on track with my goal of reading 12 books this year. I finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek yesterday on the last day of the month of February. The book was not an easy read for me because some of the information is presented in a get rich quick type of voice. I don't particularly like reading this type of material, so whenever it started sounding like it was heading in that direction I started to lose interest.

Overall, there is a lot of good information in this book. There are a lot of things that I can put into place that will help me achieve my goals. I have started dream lining in my head and have also started to think about a muse. My dream line includes being free to travel the world within the next five years. In order to achieve this goal, I need to find a muse quickly.

Until I find my muse, I can start putting some of the other ideas in the book to use in my current job. I am really thinking hard about trying to reduce the number of times per day I check my email. It is going to be really difficult for me to change this aspect of my day. I really pride myself in getting back to people as soon as I possibly can. I need to realize that it is not always necessary and I need to train people to expect a delayed response from me.

I also need to start developing check lists that I can pass off to other people so that they can do some of my daily tasks. I am not in a position to outsource my work to a virtual assistant in another country such as India, but I can start passing tasks off to other people in my company. This could potentially free up a lot of my time for more important tasks.

Although I have finished reading the book, I know that I will continue to reference portions of the book as I move forward on the task to meeting my goals. I will start to use the book as a guidebook on my path to dream line realization.

I started my next book at lunch today. I am reading What the Dog Sawby Malcolm Gladwell. I have really enjoyed reading his other books, so I am looking forward to this one. I am practicing the speed reading technique that Tim Ferriss wrote about in The 4-Hour Workweekand am already reading faster. I will give some mini reviews of What the Dog Sawas I get through it.

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Is a 4-Hour Workweek Realistic

I am currently reading The 4-Hour Workweek and I have to say that so far I am finding the book interesting. But, I don't know if it is realistic. Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur who no longer needs to work a forty hour week to guarantee his income. He has automated his income by starting a company that he does not need to be involved with on a daily basis, which frees him up to lead the life he wants to lead.

I am a full-time employee, not an owner or a telecommuter. I am in the office every day. I cannot just work for an hour a day and leave. I am also in a position where several people rely on me to make decisions on a daily basis. How can I possibly apply all of the teachings in this book to my situation? At this point I cannot.

I have to admit that I am just over one hundred pages into the book and I have already read about some things I can start using. For instance, Tim suggests that you only check email, voicemail and return calls twice a day. I really could start doing this without too many problems. I just need to train people to accept this. I guess at this point I am being to helpful to people and need to make them a little more independent.

I can see how making this one change could really make me a lot more productive. It would allow me to focus on the more important items for the day without interruption. That alone would increase the quality of my work. The problem is that most people in my company do not have two or three really important tasks to complete every day. Instead, we spend our days putting out fires and accomplishing a few important tasks every week. I have seen for some time that this needs to change, so maybe this book will get me started.

He also recommends that you get rid of the busy work. I currently have a lot of busy work, as do most of my coworkers. This is work that I could very easily pass off to someone else. The only problem is that I work for a small company and we do not have the money in our budget for me to hire someone to do these things. The people who are already working for my company do not have the time to take on additional tasks, so I am left to do them. Maybe if I work with them to get rid of their busy work I can pass mine on to them.

As I am reading the book, I notice that my boss is accidentally doing a lot of the things that Tim suggests. He has not read the book, but he has embraced many of the practices and incorporated them into his work life. He is really pretty hands off on most aspects of the company. The only problem is that he is very reactive rather than being proactive. This means that he is hands off until something goes wrong, then he has to get involved in a hurry. He does not have the systems in place to automate the work like Tim suggests. I just don't think he has the mind for that.

At this moment a four hour workweek is not realistic for me. I hope to be able to achieve this within the next five years. I would like to go back to school and start another career in that time. I have always thought that I want to start my own business, so maybe this book will encourage me to get up and do that.

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If You Dig Deep Enough, You May Just Find What You Are Looking For

I am sure that most people have head the term that you can make data say whatever you want it to say. When given the same data, two different people use that data to support totally opposite conclusions. All you have to do is leave out the data that does not support your idea and solely focus on the data that does. I think this applies to life in general.

This applies to every subject you have a discussion, or argument about. You can make valid arguements for both sides. It is usually the person who is better at the arguing who ends up winning the discussion. It is really hard to go into something without bias. That bias can end up skewing your results, thus making your findings questionable.

The same thing goes for history. You can look back at a person like Rosa Parks who I wrote about last week. If you really want to find something wrong with her story, then you can. If you really want to believe something about her story, they you will be easily convinced. That doesn't mean that it is the truth. It just means that you believe it to be true.

What brought this to my mind was the look of Google today. When I first opened the page this morning I noticed that they had updated their logo for the special occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. At first I did not even know what it was representing. I wondered why it was in black and white. I hovered my mouse over the logo and saw that it was for MLK Jr.'s birthday. My first thought after learning its purpose was, "why is it in black and white?"

If you wanted to dig into this or look for a deeper, hidden meaning you could. You could associate the black and white to Martin Luther King, Jr. being black. You might even be able to accuse Google of being racist or some other nonsense. Maybe it is just in black and white because of the era he lived in. Who knows what influenced their design, but I do not think it is racism.

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Was Rosa Parks' Protest Staged

QTRHT and I were in the kitchen cooking dinner tonight and she was talking about her day at school. Out of nowhere she told me that some of the teachers at her school told her that Rosa Parks' protest on the city bus was staged by the NAACP. One teacher said that her husband told her that and even showed her the proof. Another teacher agreed that she was not the first to refuse to give up her seat to a white passenger.

I told QTRHT that I knew that Rosa Parks was not the first to refuse to give up her seat, but that I had never heard that her protest was staged by the NAACP. I told her I would have to do some research. She knew that I would and told me that was why she told me.

I did some research and have not found anything to support the idea that her protest was staged. Here is a summary of what I did find.

Rosa Parks was a seamstress and also worked as a volunteer secretary at the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. She worked directly with kids as an advisor to the NAACP Youth Council. On March 2, 1955 Claudette Colvin, a 15-year old girl was arrested for not giving up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. Colvin was a member of the NAACP Youth Council. Rosa Parks began raising money for her defense. Colvin was not the first to refuse to give up her seat, but the NAACP was looking for someone to be the face of their fight and her timing was right.

Soon after Colvin was arrested, she began a relationship with a married man and became pregnant. E.D. Nixon, the president of the Montgomery NAACP, decided that Colvin would not be the right person to be the face of the civil rights battle. He later explained that he had to be sure that he had somebody he could win with, and Colvin was not that person. Her pregnancy and relationship with a much older, married man would give the opposition reason to argue.

In 1943 Rosa entered a bus through the front door and sat down. The bus driver told her to exit the bus and enter again through the back door. She started to exit the bus and dropped her purse. She sat down in a seat for a white passenger momentarily to pick up her purse. The bus driver was angry and as soon as she got off the bus he sped away, leaving her standing in the rain.

On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks was on a bus in downtown Montgomery. She sat in the "colored" section. She noticed that the bus driver was the same one who had left her in the rain in 1943. The white passenger seats on the bus filled up and a few more white passengers got on the bus. The driver, James Blake, walked back to the "colored" section and moved the sign marking the section back behind the row of seats Rosa and three other black passengers were sitting in. He told them to get out of their seats. The three other passengers complied, but Rosa moved to the window seat instead of moving back to the new "colored" section. The police were called and she was arrested.

E.D. Nixon now had the face of the fight. Rosa Parks was a morally clean, reliable person that did not have anything in her background that would taint her story. The NAACP had to pick its battles and Rosa Parks was deemed to be worthy of the fight.

None of my research supports the ideas that were expressed to QTRHT today at school. I don't know why anyone would want to portray Parks' protest as a staged event. It seems like they are trying to taint her actions and legacy. The way we treated black people at this time was wrong. I don't fault the NAACP for waiting for the right person to come along before taking up their fight. That is just smart.

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New Year, New Resolutions?

I don't normally make new year's resolutions. For about the past three years I have vowed to improve my life, both mentally and physically. I believe that I have done an OK job of accomplishing these two items. I have started to read books regularly and I exercise at least five days per week. I still need to work harder.

I began thinking this week about whether I would make a resolution or vow for 2010. I don't know if I will or not. I have read some other blog posts that have intrigued me. One mentioned that your resolutions should be smaller and more focused. For instance, I will drive to the gym every day at 5:00. The reasoning here is that if you drive to the gym, you will most likely go inside and work out. A drive is much easier to get motivated for than a workout.

Another blog post recalled his plan for the decade that ends tonight. He suggests that maybe ten years is too long a a period to plan for and that we should plan for seven years. His big question is, "Seven years from now, what will you have to show for what you're doing right now?" If your answer to this question is not what you expected, you should create a new plan that will help you achieve the results you are looking for. Or at the very least be a more fun way to waste seven years.

I think that I would like to be a better person next year. A person who does things for other people. I am working on that with getting involved with Families First as a foster/adoptive parent. This will help the child(ren) that we bring into our home as well as our own family. Beyond that, I want to volunteer for some charities. I have considered Habitat for Humanity for many years, so maybe 2010 will be the year I finally get involved.

I also want to get into better shape. I have worked hard for the past few years in getting healthier, but I need to work even harder for the next twelve months. I had no issues that were flagged during my physical, but I want to feel healthier and that will take more exercise and better eating habits.

My seven year plan is still a little fuzzy at this point. I know that I want to change careers in the next five years. I would like to have a career that involved helping people. I need to feel like my job is doing something positive to help society in general. I can't justify working in the Marketing field any longer. My only problem is that I don't want to sacrifice my quality of life. This is the real reason that my seven or ten year plan is still fuzzy.

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The Colors of Mexico

When you visit another country, you realize how boring we are in the United States. Even a poor country such as Mexico has a lot more color than we have back home. I have not visited other parts of Latin America, buy from what I have seen they are just like Mexico in this regard.

I spent a lot of time on the road today travelling from Mexico City to Puebla on business. I had a lot of time to observe my surroundings. On the road to Puebla there we passed hundreds, if not thousands, of people walking or riding biks on the pilgrimage for the festivities of Our Lady of Guadalupe. My friend from Mexico City told me that as many as 5 million people from all over Mexico make the pilgrimage for the festivities that take place December 12. He said that some of the pilgrims actually walk much of the distance on their knees and arrive at the Basílica of Guadalupe with blood dripping. Are these people crazy or are they just devout Catholics?

Read more about the festivities of Our Lady of Guadalupe here.

The other thing I noticed, which I have seen on all my visits to Mexico, are the colors. There are colorful signs painted on buildings, colorful cars and trucks, people wearing colorful clothing and colorful houses. These things are not just colorful, but they are pairings of colors that you just don't see very often in the United States. It makes for very interesting sights to see.

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What is My Perfect Career?

I have always wanted to be in a creative field. I thought I wanted to be an advertising executive or an architect. I still find architecture very interesting. I just realized that perhaps I am not creative enough to be a good architect. As for an advertising executive, I reasoned that I am not creative enough to be the person who comes up with the ideas, but I am a good editor of bad ideas. I still believe this, but advertising does not really interest me anymore. I guess ten to fifteen years of sales and marketing experience have shown me the bad side of the industry.

I think I can create, but I just do not come up with many great, original concepts. I can take someone else's concept and expand on it and make it perfect though. So given these truths, what is my perfect job? Maybe a civil engineer? Maybe a pharmacist? Maybe something I haven't even considered up to this point.

I find people interesting. Not to talk to, but to observe. I like to find out what makes them tick. What motivates them. I have considered being a psychologist in a prison. I would love to find out why someone committed their crime(s), how they got caught and if they truly feel like they are reformed.

So, what is my perfect career? I don't really have any hobbies that I could turn into a rewarding job. I don't have any interests that could become my career. So how do I find out what I should be doing?

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I Am An Introvert!

It is official. I am an introvert. I can hear everyone who knows me saying, "duh" right about now. I have always known that I have been shy and like to keep to myself. I have even had conversations with my wife about me potentially being able to live all alone somewhere. She cannot understand this, but I really don't need people as much as she does. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife and kids. I get a lot of joy watching my kids do things like play sports and sing in school performances. I even find myself enjoying watching them do things like enjoying a good book or laughing at a funny tv show.

I think that I can be an introvert and enjoy certain people. I have always been interested in people, but mostly from afar. I am a bit of a voyeur. I like to people watch. I like to think about what is going through people's minds. I even like to criticize the way they do things and question their reasoning. People amaze me, but I don't want to talk to them a lot of the time.

So now that I know that I am an introvert, have I missed my calling? Is there a certain job that I could really be successful at and enjoy much more than any other? I am starting a journey to find out if there is such a career. I have some ideas that will get me started. I will see where it goes from there.

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Race Against Hunger

We started our Thanksgiving pretty early. We had to be downtown by 7:00 to check in for the 5K Race Against Hunger. This was the 5th annual race held by Visalia Emergency Aid Council. The turnout was supposed to surpass last year, and I believe it did.

It was a cold morning, so it was tough to be there an hour before the race was set to start. We had to be there early because my company broke the record for the most participants in the 5K run and 2 mile walk and VEAC wanted a photo of all of our participants. So, I guess we were there for a good reason, but it was very cold.

As the race was about to start, Meg and I began to do some stretches and warm up. She seemed to be doing pretty good in the cold weather. We moved into position and ended up starting toward the back of the pack. As the horn sounded, we began to weave our way slowly through the crowd to get to some open space so that we could run at our pace. Looking back now, that strategy could have been wrong for Meg. Maybe we should have started at the front of the pack.

Meg was struggling from the beginning of the race. She had to go to the bathroom and was also having problems running on the street. I kept trying to take her mind off of all that by talking to her, but it was not helping. About 1/2 mile into the race she finally started to feel OK, but it was still not as good as she felt in our last 3 mile training run. We hit the 1 mile mark and she was still doing OK, but she wanted to slow down a lot.

I continued to encourage her and we were able to keep a pretty good pace. She started to feel a little bit better and for about 1/4 mile we picked up the pace and began to pass a lot of people. She was still doing OK as we hit the 2 mile mark. Then, she hit a wall at about the 2 1/2 mile mark. She was really struggling to continue at our pace. I kept telling her to ignore her problems and breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth. This relaxed her some, but it was still a struggle for her.

As we got close to the 3 mile mark, she tried as hard as she could. We started to pass a few people and she had a really good finish as she saw all of the people lined up at the end of the race. We ended up finishing with an official time of 29:08. Our actual time according to my Garmin Forerunner was closer to 28:53. Either way, it was a great time for Meg's first ever 5K run. I was, and still am very proud of her. I kept telling her she did great.

I didn't see any of my coworkers during the race. They all started in front of us. In the end, there was only one of them that finished in front of us and his time was in the 20 minute range so there was no way we could compete with him. I told this to Meg and again told her that I was really proud of her and that this was a great accomplishment for her.

She already told me that she does not want to run in the race next year. We will see if she changes her mind as time goes on.

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I Am Thankful For...

Today is Thanksgiving. I do not usually get cought up in thinking about what I am thankful for, however Tina's grandma likes to go around the table and ask what everyone is thankful for. I hate this exercise, but it is based upon something that is very good.

We all need to think about the things that we are thankful for from time to time. I think this keeps you humble and makes you appreciate the things you have much more. We all tend to take things for granted, so this exercise is a good one. So, what am I thankful for?

I am thankful for a lot of things, but most importantly my family. I am not really an emotional person. I do not show, or even think about, my feelings. I just go through life like a robot, doing what I am supposed to do. I don't think about enjoying life or what brings me enjoyment. My family puts up with all of this and is always there for me, no matter how I have been treating them lately. This is really important to me.

I am thankful for my health. I have been working on improving my health and it has paid off. I feel much better than I ever have. I feel healthy, vigorous and ready for the world. I can't say that I have always felt this way the past 10 or so years. I have focused on becoming healthy, both physically and mentally, for the last 3 years. I am just thankful that it has not all been in vain.

I am thankful for my job. In this economy, it is great to have any job, especially one that I enjoy most of the time. My job is very flexible, which allows me to be at all of the girls' sporting and school events. I can really be a part of their lives unlike most fathers. I am very thankful for this.

I am thankful that I live in a country that allows me to make my own choices. A country that does have the best interest of it's citizens in mind. One that gives every person any opportunity they choose to pursue. I don't agree with everything the government does and I don't agree with a lot of the people who live here, but there are a lot of worse places I could live right now.

So what are you thankful for?

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Jumping Through Hoops

We are in the middle of all of our paperwork for our background check. I went in for my physical yesterday and everything is great. I had to go to the lab this morning to have them draw blood for a cholesterol screening and get a TB test. The results of the TB test will be read on Friday. I will pick up all of the paperwork from my Doctor on Monday or Tuesday.

I feel pretty good about the process. It has not really been that much work. The big item we have left is to get first aid/cpr certified. We can do it at the Red Cross, but that is an all day class. QTRHT is trying to get an alternative from her school nurse. We will see how that works out.

The Queen and the girls still need to go for their physicals. She and Chachi are trying to go today and I have Cheeseball scheduled for next week. After that, we can send in our paperwork and schedule the first home visit.

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New Family Addition

So the cat is out of the bag. We have been discussing adopting a child for some time now. It really did not get serious until about 2 months ago. The Queen had a child in her class who was placed with a foster family. She noticed a big change in the girl's confidence and appearance. As one of Chachi's high school classes, she is an aid at an elementary school in town. She has a child in that class who is also living with a foster family.

Both Chachi and The Queen really like the children in the classes who are living with foster families. They seem to be really nice, adjusted kids. They started talking about them a few months ago and we decided that it was time to seriously look into adoption. I did some research online and we decided to give FamiliesFirst a try.

I contacted them to get some more information. QTRHT and I read through it and decided to take the next step. We called for an orientation appointment. We met with them on November 11. Everything sounded great, so we started the process. It is a lot of paperwork and we all must have physicals.

We are all very excited to get our new addition. We even asked FamiliesFirst if it was possible to have a child by Christmas and they said it could be a possibility. Cheeseball really wants a little brother or sister, so we are looking for a child that is in first or second grade. So far this has been a pretty painless process. I guess we will see if that continues.

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Easy Ways to Give

Who ever said that there is no free lunch was wrong. There are several easy, free ways that we can all give this holiday season. I have tried these and recommend that you do as well.

1. Give blood. With increased travel during the holidays, there will be increased need for donated blood.
2. Free Rice. Play some games and rice will be donated for each question you answer correctly.
3. The Animal Rescue Site. All you have to do is click on a link.
4. The Breast Cancer Site. Again, all you have to do is click on a link.
5. The Hunger Site. Just click on a link again.
6. Welch’s Harvest of Help. Click on the link and Welch's will donate juice through Feeding America. Their goal is 1 million glasses of juice.
7. Leapfish & Make-A-Wish. Tweet the provided message and Leapfish will make a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
8. Kraft Foods. Send a FREE holiday e-card and Kraft will donate 10 meals to Feeding America.
9. Land O’Lakes – Click where it says “You click, we donate” in the upper right corner of their website and they will donate to fight local hunger.
10. Box Tops. Found on hundreds of products like Cheerios, Chex Mix, Cottonelle, and Kleenex. Clip the Box Top symbol from the package and give it to your child’s school, or a teacher you know. Each Box Top is worth 10¢ for your school. Clipping the Box Top takes just a second and doesn’t cost you anything.

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New Message from My Gnome

I got another message from my gnome last night. Here is the message:

"I just want you to know that i am fine. I was tired of being in your yard with nobody paying attention to me so i will be gone for a while longer. Don't worry i will be back soon. I think that i want to travel a little and i am thinking of going to Tulare tomorrow.

Homie Gnomie.

P.S. I have changed my name for my new adventure."

It was accompanied by the photo above. It is troubling, buy I think my suspicions are confirmed by looking at the photo. I hope to get our gnome back soon.

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