Well, since my parents just sold their house in Jensen beach it was exciting for me to see them buy their next house in Miami.  Now I was hoping for a more glorious house, because they deserve it for working so hard these last 29 years, but regardless my parents bought their new house cash which alone is very inspiring.  It was definitely a huge fixer upper, but a great investment in a great area.  It’s been fun to hear their stories about seeing the house transform into a great livable space.  The house they bought was a foreclosure short sale dump that everything was ripped out of the house and stopped being taken care of.  I couldn’t believe how easy the transformation was and how great my parents handled it all.  I unfortunately don’t have any photos but hope to take some real soon.  I also hope they get to start really enjoying the retired life they deserve.  In addition to eating right and staying as healthy as possible.  I hope one day they get to see some grand kids, even if it is seeing Taylor some more.

I’ve had this post written, but not edited till recently.  Sorry for the delay?

This year we went to Vegas for New Years 2009, I might sound like we go somewhere every year for New Years, but that’s not the case….anymore. We might start a tradition to go some place every New Years.

New Years Eve in Vegas was not what we expected and hoped.  Staying at Planet Hollywood(PH) formerly the Aladdin the road between PH and Paris was being setup for Robbie Maddison’s Jump on to and off the Arc de Triumph.  We never actually saw this happen, but instead went to a nice dinner at Bally’s (2 hotels down) at around 8pm.  Walking to Bally’s was difficult because the jump was set to go off at 9pm, but of course didn’t go off till just after 10:30pm.  The streets were pretty crowded at this point and walking to Bally’s was a bitch!  You can see the jump below.

After dinner  around 11:30pm we went back towards our hotel.  The crowd was even more insane and getting through it got pretty dangerous with my 70+ year old parents.  I was pretty concerned but remained calm and assertive.   We were all locked holding hands and my poor 5′ 2″ mother holding Mandy’s hand through the crowd was pretty nerve wrecking.  Once we got to a ‘safe’ less crowded area we waited for midnight to hit, to watch all the amazing fireworks from the strip.  Little did we know that the fireworks were not shot off the roofs of hotels because of fire hazards and now shot off parking garages, and because of Vegas’ beautiful tall building we didn’t see shit for fireworks!  We were all extremely disappointed and should have done better research or gone to the Palms and paid a lot of money to watch the fireworks from one of their clubs at the top of the hotel.  We decided after our disappointment to go back to our hotel room and drink it off.  That was a much better idea and much more fun.  Walking back to our room got even more dangerous because people were ready to leave the crowd and go wherever.  People started pushing and I never expected to get squished like I did to some stranger.  It was absolutely insane how nasty people got.  Maybe since I’m older I expected more respect, but people’s drunkenness made for some dangerous situations.  I remember going to Mardi Gras and we did the hold everyone’s hand and don’t let go, and I know why we did that here.  I also remember Critchet going to NYC for New Year’s Eve and telling me the same thing.  Going to one of those big cities for New Years Eve can get dangerous fast.  Especially with alcohol involved.    It was a night to remember and never forget.  Next year we’re gonna be on some private beach where no one’s around, obnoxiously drunk (except us) and being disrespectful.  I should have expected this, but we definitely had a different mind set.

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Well for the past 6 months Mandy has been waking up between 4:30am and 6:30am to run from 3-22 miles, a training schedule she was provided by the Burnam Institute.   This is the group that she raised over $2,500 which is dedicated to revealing the fundamental molecular causes of disease and devising the innovative therapies of tomorrow.   Total they raised over $125,000 for medical research and awareness!!

Over the course of 6 months, I have watched and supported her run the Nona 5k, OUC Half, Jacksonville Half and now the Disney Marathon.  I have a whole new respect for the running culture and the dedication involved.  Luckily she had an amazing and dedicated running partner Jennifer Thompson.  Jennifer motivated Mandy and Mandy motivated her, they are a strong team and both first time marathon runners!

So, this weekend was the Disney Marathon and I wanted to tell you a little about my side of this Sunday’s experience.  I’ve already told you about details from other races.   Sunday was the big race, and Mandy had been staying with Team Burnam since Friday over in the Disney Area.  I had the house to myself to prepare for whatever came, with Saturday cleaning the house top to bottom; bathrooms, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the kitchen, unloading dishwasher, cleaning dog slobber from windows AND washing the dogs, vacuuming and washing two cars by hand, taking down Christmas decorations, grocery shopping, and buying lots of flowers for Mandy’s homecoming!  It was a hell of a day with little sleep the night before.  That Saturday I also went to the Office Max to buy some poster boards for funny signs for the race.  I didn’t want Mandy to come home to a messy house not that she would have cared because of how tired she was.

Race day came and I was up by 5:15am.   Not as early as Gavin and Dawn whom watched the runners take off, which I’m sure is really awe inspiring.  I picked up David (Jennifer’s husband) at his house and we were on Disney property by 6:20am.  We were fairly prepared packed with our signs, towels and water for the girls, Publix chicken wings as a snack, cameras, and a map.

The shotgun was at 5:50am and they left in three large groups.   There were over 21,000 runners and first place was Brazilian Adriano Bastos finishing in 2:20:38.  Mandy and Jenn were in the third group and were quite frustrated at the slow place of the start.  I was told most people were walking because it was so congested.  They first entered into Epcot and looped around back out of the park to mile 4.  Dave and I were shooting to meet them at mile 4 but were concerned when we had to park at the Transportation and Ticket Center and take the monorail to Epcot.  After arriving at Epcot and seeing the mobs of people we decided to skip mile 4 and wait for the girls at mile 9 back at Transportation and Ticket Center.  We still debate if we could have seen them at mile 4, but the number of people was overwhelming and we wanted to be sure we saw them at mile 9.  Ironically Jenn had her cell phone on her and as we were driving up she was on the phone with Dave (this was where she was walking at the beginning).  We were able to communicate easily with her via text messages and that made things so much better!!  We were also tracking the girls based on what they have run in the past, and via a text messaging service Disney was providing that was tracked via their ChampionChip (although the text was delayed about 10-20 minutes, but it helped us judge mile average.

Our first text was directly form Jenn saying she was passing mile 6.  We patiently waited at mile 9, setup camp on the less crowded side and started holding our signs, supporting all the other runners passing by and getting lots of laughs and comments.  Here we saw the first pace setter setting a 5 hour pace, then the 5:30 pace (this will be important later).  So Dave’s first sign is the one pictured below, we got a few comments like, “Aww that’s not nice,” and “Can I buy the medal off you?”

Dave’s first sign

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Mandy after a 21.2mile run taking an ice bath

I never understood the desire of running a marathon (maybe for health reasons?).  I just thought you would train for a few months, then get to the marathon and pace yourself and keep pushing yourself and that’s it.  It’s much more than that…

Mandy’s been training for her January 11th Disney Marthon since around the end of July.  The time training, ice baths, the money spent on shoes; equipment, clothes,  and power packs for her long runs has been fascinating.  She first started to run 2-5 mile runs a couple times a week and once a week she would have a long run.  Her first long run was 8 miles, second was 10, third was 16, and now she’s up to 21.2.  These runs occur anywhere between 5am-7am in the morning (the longer the run the earlier the start).  I watched her first official 5k, which is a short but still hard 3.1 miles.

Saturday she ran her first official Half-Marathon at the OUC Half.  I never imagined it was that hard till you see your wife, her friend and many others struggle to stay on pace.  I have a whole new respect and understanding of how hard you push your body to it’s absolute limits.

Friday night before the OUC Half we watched Spirit of the Marathon.  A documentary recommended to us that follows 5 marathoners from first timers to Olympic Champion runners.  You’re moved at why these people do it, be it just to finish, or to finish and beat your last time at the age of 65.  It’s unbelievable the struggle you go through to accomplish such a challenging goal.  That really pumped me up for supporting Mandy at the OUC Half.

Mandy and Jen on their first 21.2 mile long run.

At the race, I wanted to cheer Mandy on at least 4 places.  I was able to do so, and the last few places I saw her pass I ran from one place in the course to another via shortcuts (that was hard in itself and I was thinking how can these people run this long!?!?)!  As some of you know I can be pretty loud, and I wasn’t just cheering on the wife, I was cheering on everyone that passed.  I’ve never gotten so many thank you’s before and I was glad to be their cheerleader too.

Marathons are fucking hard!  Pushing your body to the ultimate extreme looks like a humbling experience.  I would do it once to experience such a satisfying life long learning experience.  I would also do it to build up such an incredible endurance!

Now I know this Christmas season everyone is asking for money, so I won’t push it but if you could donate a few bucks to Mandy’s cause that would be very honerable of you.  And Team Mandy could use all your support for the race on Sunday, January 11th, at Disney!

From New York

Mandy and I lived in my cousin’s apartment right in the middle of one of the greatest cities!  We were there 4 days, and had more than our handful of walking a dog, walking around, and shopping.  It was quite an adventure being in a small apartment with over sized furniture and a 6 month old puppy.  It was fun, but definitely a lot of hard work and walking. We had a great time and I really appreciate my cousin letting us stay at his place. It’s an awesome place and he’s got a great dog. It was super fun to be able to walk everywhere and have some really good local food…and pizza! We really had a good time and didn’t do too much site seeing other than go to the famous Apple store and I bought Mandy a Tiffany’s Dragon Fly Pendant.  Also Critchet and his fabulous girlfriend Gina drove up from the D.C. area to hang out and visit with us!  We had one hell of night on the town Thursday Night.

What an incredible show!  I couldn’t have asked for a more fun show!  Finally not only did I see some ‘Some Devil’ songs, but I saw 2 cover songs that were incredible to watch, aside from All Along the Watch Tower.    Mandy couldn’t have asked for a more fun show, she finally got to see Satelite, great cover songs, and Julia Roberts introduce the band,  which was another one of my highlights too.  I didn’t know Julia was going to introduce the band, but it was truly special because I know she’s already close friends to the band and a huge fan.  She was so sweet with some incredibly touching words and it really pumped us all up for an amazing show!  The energy at this place was off the charts!  I really love seeing the band in NY, this is definitely one of my top shows at close tie with Central Park.  Enjoy the videos, thanks YouTube!  I just finished downloading the show and add a link to download it later.

Julia Roberts Intro

Burnin Down the House!

Sledgehammer!

So Damn Lucky!