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!

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

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…

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!

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!!

Well, that’s my mentality.  I’m living here in Perth, Australia till September on a TDY (temporary duty) for work.  I’ve moved into an apartment close to the base and near enough other things.  I’m still settling in and working on buying some groceries and other basic necessities.  I hope to explore some this weekend on things to do and keep me busy (maybe some horse back riding, or fishing charters).  Mandy is coming out here at the end of July for a few weeks to ‘live’ here too.  It’s a real sacrifice to be away from the family, but it’ll be worth it in the long run.  I hope to convince anyone else that wants to visit out here to come.  I’m staying in a spacious 3 bed 2 bath apartment in a gated community on a golf course with a community pool and jacuzzi (tempting?!?!  anyone? anyone?!?!).

Before I left Mandy and I threw a party so that I could see some people before I left, it was fun and I really appreciate the people that could make it so last minute!  I’ll try to keep you posted with what’s going on here and what not.  I let Mandy keep the camera to take pictures of things back home for me, so you may not see so many pictures from me, but I have the webcam on the laptop that I might use.

This being away from home reminds me of when I was a young lad. Sleep-overs always sounded cool and fun, but I could never follow through because I would become very home sick. So much that sometimes my parents would have to pick me up. Fortunately I grew out of it. This trip reminds me how much I love being home, with the wife, the dogs, tv, the macbook pro and people that speak English. Of course before I left I was excited to see Germany and I’ve seen some (but not as much as I’d like or have time for).

Flying over here to Germany (on an 8 + hour flight), you could easily recognize who was there for business and it made me wonder. When you don’t have much to get home to, might it be easier to deal traveling for long periods at a time? – I get home sick after visiting my parents after just 2 days (or just tired of them..love you mom!)  So for me when traveling for more than 3 weeks without my Mandypants is not so fun.

Mandy brought up a very good point to me, I can’t complain too much because her bestfriend is pregnant with a second child, and her husband is being shipped to Iraq for 8 months starting in March (God Bless you Mere & Jay).  Things could always be worse, so to everyone back home I miss you all, and hope to see you very soon for a fun evening out….before I leave again!