Boy Does Homework

The boy made us very proud today. It was unfortunate that he had to severely disappoint us first. He is learning long division and he had a 6 problem worksheet to do. It was not a good time. We kept trying to explain that it you just do the same steps over ad over again until you run out of numbers. He wasn't getting it. I tried. I could see the look on his face and none of the information or methodology was getting anywhere near his brain. I did example problems, walked him through a few and every time I'd leave him alone for one second he just went blank. Very frustrating. Ale tried. She did great as she maintained her patience a little longer than me but after 3 hours together it eventually ran out too. Nothing was registering with him and he wasn't absorbing anything so we sent him to his room. He had to be in there for 2 hours or so but when I eventually stuck my head in I was surprised to see he had all his papers strewn out on his bed and he was trying to do problems. This was a positive sign. So I sat in with him and asked him what problem he was on now. We went over the method again and something amazing happened. I could see the gears turning in the boy's head. I swear I actually heard something click. He was getting it!!! We all persevered through this day of long division hell and he boy was getting it! Wow was that amazing and totally worth it. The best part of it is the way I could see that he knew he was getting. He understood that at first he didn't know what he was doing. He understood the pain of the effort of working on problems over and over all day. Now he was understanding that he got it. I made sure he also recognized that progression. It was wonderful to watch and I was proud of him. He was proud of himself. I think that was even more important.

So I'm a Marathon Runner now

I ran a marathon.

If someone would have told me a year ago that I would run a marathon I'd have laughed at that person.

Maybe if it's not 26.2 miles then its not a real marathon but whatever. It was pretty long from my point of view.

I guess it started when I decided I to walk 10K steps every day. I've been doing that for close to 5 years now. I suppose its helping me be healthier. Moreso than your average schlum who doesn't walk at least. I got an email from Mario Lemiuex (or at least someone from his foundation) notifying me that there was going to be a Pittsburgh Penguins 6.6K Run and Family Walk. I guess it would be a good bucket list item to say that I ran a marathon in my life. If you figure 6.6K is about 4.1 miles and since I walk so much that should be doable. I can walk a mile in 16 minutes or so. As long as they give me enough time I could probably do that even just walking. I told Ale about it and she said she would do it too. I guess our first plan was to just walk it together. As we got closer I started to feel like I should do my best and that I should be able to run a good percentage of it without much training. On the way back to the parking lot from work I figured I could try to run. It's a mile. So I did for a week or two. I still couldn't make it the whole way without stopping but I know I was getting better. I don't think Ale did much training. It hurt her lower extremities.

On 2013/10/06 we woke up early and went to the arena parking lot. I didn't know what to expect exactly. We found tents set up to let them know we were there and we got a T-shirt and a chip we were to put in our shoe. They said there were about 4000 people there. After a while we were told to line up and Mario fired the starting gun.

I stayed with Ale for only a short time before she down shifted to walking. I continued to run. I wasn't going at a break neck speed but I was passing people. Soon I passed the first mile mark. I was still running that was amazing. I figured I could slow down now but then I argued with myself that I should go as far as I could so I tried. At the first water station at 1.5 miles I did finally have to slow up and catch my breath. After 2 miles from my ankles down went totally numb but I kept going. I tried to keep going and also grab a few pictures. I varied from walking to running for the last part of the race but eventually I ended up back at the arena and crossed the finish line.

Race Results

I was sweating like crazy and I got a horrible blister in the last mile but I made it. I grabbed another water and tried to find a place to wait to watch Ale finish. We got cool medals for our effort. Now I even started looking for other marathons. Crazy.

Satisfaction

I still don't understand my internal set of values and things that allow me to feel satisfaction. I think accomplishing certain things should make me feel good and sometimes they don't. Sometimes I do things that I feel are unimportant or insignificant and feel great satisfaction after completing them. It's strange.

I was super impressed with the help the boy provided this weekend. I had a huge list of chores that needed done, from cleaning, to phone calls, to errands run and everyone was extremely helpful in getting them done. The boy himself personally oversaw the cleaning of the bathroom and vacuuming. I again was very thankful and I've conveyed to him several times now how much that meant to me. I hope he gets my feeling and it helps him build on it and grow into a better person. I do wonder why most of my satisfaction comes from chore related tasks. I think I have my mother to thank for that.

Also I don't really like barking commands to be followed out to my wife. I like to bring them up in regular conversation at earlier points and be like 'Hey we're going to need to do this soon. I'll need you to do this.' Sometimes we reach the point where I can't continue until she comes through though so sometimes I do have to say to her 'Hey, get up, let's go with this'. What is absolutely wonderful about her is even if she not in the mood she is smart enough to realize the advantages of taking a few minutes of her day and getting up and getting things done. It's not like I'm trying to inconvenience anyone or that I'm asking some back-breaking, effort-intensive activity that benefits no one and I'm asking simply to irritate her. If you put a halt to what I'm doing here I may become cranky and who knows when I'll work up the gumption to get on this kind of a roll again. She realizes that helping me out really helps our whole family out and damn, after what I've been through in the past this is indescribably beautiful to me. I love that woman so much again I don't know if whenever I feel these waves of emotional thankfulness and I try to convey that to her if I could ever possibly come across in a way that she can understand. I love talking to my wife. She is my best friend. Most of the time I get the feeling that she listens to me and cares what I say and think. That is a good feeling. She shares my concerns. We are in this together. Sure some times I talk about stupid stuff that doesn't matter but even then she still half-listens. I can't really remember connecting like this with someone in the past.

I guess I'm just trying to say I love my wife, I love my son, I love my family and I am super lucky to have them. I am trying my best to be the best for them. Doing so makes me feel good. 

Giant Eagle would not make our cake

Our one co-worker in our group at work ended up interviewing for a position in another group within our same company and got the position. We were sad to see him go as we were all close to him and he was a good friend. The usual protocol in this situation is to use our regular weekly meeting time the last week he will be with us to have a nice party with a cake and tell him we'll miss him, etc. You know that kind of thing. Well it just so happens I was surfing the internet or something and somehow this picture popped up to me which just happened to relate to me and the current situation.

I thought it was funny so I sent it around to the group in an emailing saying something like 'Ha ha this is hilarious, we should get dude this kind of cake for his going-away thing'. I wasn't entirely serious. I just wanted to share the joke with everyone. I did not expect that almost everyone responded with an overwhelming 'YES, GET THAT CAKE!' Somehow I guess this made me in charge of acquiring the cake so I stopped into Giant Eagle after work that day to order it to make sure it was going to be done in time. I told the lady exactly what I wanted, a 1/4 sheet cake chocolate with white icing, put a rainbow and a unicorn on it and the phrase 'You're dead to us now, we hope you fail'. The lady thought it was funny but didn't object so I thought we were good to good.

Until Monday morning at 7:30 am when my phone started ringing. Who the hell would be calling me at this hour? I never answer my phone so I waited until it went to voice mail. It was Giant Eagle and they wanted me to call them. I did and I guess a different lady told me they would not write those words on the cake. Why not? There is no foul language or anything and I am paying you money. Her reason was they just wouldn't do it. It was offensive to them. They would make the cake, put the graphics on that we wanted but the only thing they could do was give us a frosting tube with it to write what we wanted ourselves. I was seriously offended. I'll tell you right now that I will not be buying a cake from Giant Eagle ever again and I will discourage anyone I hear thinking of going there to follow my lead. Yeah maybe this is a small thing but to me a serious one. When I am paying you money to do a job I expect you to do what I require and request. Since when can (note my sarcasm here) a 'cake artist' at the friggin Giant Eagle pick and choose what jobs they are going to do? Really?

Man did my brain go off with some ideas to start flooding them with calls for cakes that I knew they would get upset about just to mess with them to ease my annoyance. Congrats To My Teenage Daughter On Her First Period! was a good one. Let your mind flow I bet you can picture that. I let it go though. It wasn't worth it but I did feel a needed to document this affair and warn the world.

First Super Productive Day of the Year

Ton of productivity going on up in here this weekend. 

Bathroom; clean, 
new shower head; installed, 
boys room; clean, old toys and clothes; dropped off at goodwill, 
new household supplies; purchased at target,
Legos; put away,
clothes; washed,
floors; vacuumed,
burn barrel; cleaned out,
kitchen; swept and mopped

satisfaction; felt