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!

An American Creed

I Do Not Choose to Be a Common Man

It is my right to be uncommon—if I can.

I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.”

By Dean Alfange

There’s no real easy way to gain experience, and I always hated the notion that companies wanted someone ‘experienced’, but I now understand what experience really is.  Since making a lateral move to another program, there was a short interview process in which we talked about my ‘experience’ and what this new task entailed.  Everything ‘clicked’ during the interview, those engineering and program terms I wasn’t very familiar with long ago, were common words, phrases, and acronyms that I’ve had lots of exposure to.  It felt really good to hear those words that I was extremely familiar with.

My career has lead me to an interesting place, and I can finally define what I want out of my accomplishments working for a company.  It’s easy..and it’s my new ‘resume objective‘:  “To apply my systems and software knowledge and experience, to work on a product that is powerful, reliable, robust, and intuitive, while helping people and profiting for a company.” You like?   Having worked with defense companies for 7 years now with 3 different companies, I’m starting to understand what these companies are looking for, and I believe my resume sums it up well.

I really enjoy putting experiences into words and now this post and my resume describe that.  I always had a software engineering title and knew that was wrong, but was afraid to put systems engineer on my resume.  Now, I know it’s right and everything I’ve been doing falls under systems engineering, but more specifically integration and test.  I’ve really enjoyed the work I do, because it’s so dynamic.  The biggest benefit is training people, and customer support related tasks.  It’s such a multi-functional role, and being relied on for so many different things feels good.

Keeping my resume up to date lately has been great, aside from being easy.  However it’s been more important to finally keep my resume and experiences written down and up to date.

In all, I still hate when a company wants someone ‘experienced’ and I understand why, but I would hope they give those with powerful degrees and a great attitude an opportunity, because in the end you always have to get spun up, adjust to the environment, do in-formal training and learn the system.  It just takes people with experience less time and people without a little more.  Also going from job to job is less frightening.  Hang in there, buy your time, but don’t limit yourself to just one thing or one job, anything you do can be considered experience…

Recently some of my favorite and inspiring ‘celebrities’ passed away for one reason or another.

First George Carlin, a pinnacle comedian of his life time and to this day.  I did get to see him live back in Melbourne.  Still extremely funny and innovative.  You couldn’t have asked for someone so smart and engaging.  Kevin Smith said it best in his blog post.

Bernie Mac, another hilarious comedian, and super nice guy.  From everything I read about him online, from people meeting him, they only said good things.  He was a hard working man, and deserved all the fame and success he had.

LeRoi Moore saxaphonist from the Dave Matthews Band.  Another super nice guy that deserved everything he had.  One with extreme talent, and the heart of gold.  Mandy and I donated to some of his favorite charities in Virginia.  We’ll be very sad when we see the Maddison Square Garden Show Stand Up for a Cure, it won’t be the same, but we’ll have a great time for the man above!

My new hobby is to be the Salsa Stripper King (SSK for short)!  {Just for Mandypants of course}.  So, on my new year’s resolution list (I know you’re tired of hearing about it).  I have been wanting to take dance lessons ever since Mandy and I did our lessons for our wedding dance.  I finally started, and I’m taking these dance classes twice a week here in Perth.  It’s been really fun to not think about work, and work on my motor skills and get my dance skillz up to a much better place.  It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while now, but now as an adult I have the confidence to do it and my give a shit meter is really low.  When I do something challenging like this I want to get really good.  In addition it’s a skill I should be already good at, but mostly it’s fun to have, especially for weddings!   Anyways, the classes are great and my biggest challenge is learning how to lead.  I have a wife that is the queen of dance, and she won’t follow me, but she will with some practice.  I’m really glad I’m doing this and it’s helping pass the time.

While on this aggressive travel schedule, I’ve been making the most of this time spent alone knocking off things I wanted to do this year, most were with Mandy, but well you know…

Let’s see what I have on the list:

Go hiking, back packing, camping..Go camping with Mandy and the Dogs
Go horseback riding
Go indoor rock climbing
Go watch and bet on Jai Alai
Go to the circus
Go to the fair
Go indoor sky diving.
Go on an Airboat ride.
Get Salsa Dance Lessons with Mandy (The Mandy part will hopefully happen when I’m home, but my lessons start Wednesday!)
Went on a diet to eat less and loose fat
Went Snowboarding (Never planned but still counting it)
Have a Garage Sale  (We’ll do this when we get back, we need to get rid of unused items)
Learn CPR  (Having more and more kids in the family, this is just a good thing to learn and know, maybe I’ll do this while I’m out here).
Date Night, Helicopter ride over Orlando  (When I get back)
Date Night, Actually fly a small plane over Orlando  (This might not get done this year, but maybe)
Volunteer with Habitat for Humanity  (I’ve enjoyed doing this previously and now I’m gonna do it again…when I get back!)

There’s still quite a bit to do, but I’ll get it done!!