Fox Journalist Released

Just wanted to let people into a blog that I read. It's called Unholyland news and it is a guy named Mal who is a camera man for Fox News. He is a runner and that's what led me to his blog, but he has some great insight to what is going on in Gaza. Today his post is about the two Fox journalists that were kidnapped and released. Give it a read!

Sunday!

Tell me if I'm wrong here, but was Sunday night at church awesome? Kevin really rocked the place out and I loved the way he led worship. Where has this guy been hiding his talents? To quote my wife "It was like Kevin was singing to God with passion and we got to join him"

Scared.

I just finished reading Margie's blog about being scared and I don't want to take anything away from her post, but it got me to do some thinking. This past weekend we went to visit my mom in Bancroft. It was a good visit and we all enjoyed ourselves, but I was left with a feeling like something was wrong when I got home. I'm not sure if you have ever had that feeling like something is wrong and you just don't know what it is. Well after awhile it hit me. My mother is getting old. She turned 60 this year and I know that for some 60 is not old, but my mother looks and is acting much older than she is. She showed me her hands and how she is having trouble with arthritis. All I saw when I looked at them were an old person's hands where the skin just hangs. She no longer does house work, she has a cleaner now. She has also started smoking again after being warned by doctors that she must quit. I guess this wouldn't be as big of a deal, but my mother kept on showing me pictures of aunts and uncles who had passed away in the past year or two. On the last night we were there she told me that while in Ireland this spring she heard that my grandmother on my father's side has passed. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm not surprised that my mom did not know this since the two of them had not spoke in years, I just wish someone would have called. I guess, I'm just beginning to realize that some day, with my father already dead and all my relatives in Ireland, it will only be my brother and me left and that has me really scared. Thanks for your post Margie.

My Favourite Race!

If you did not already know, I am a runner. I love to run. For me it is the most relaxing thing I do. We'll this past weekend I got to mix two of my favourite things: running and my family.
On Sunday, the annual Cactus Festival 5k and 2k races were held. The 2k race was first and Nyles and Laura lined up for this one at 9:30. Nyles got off to a blistering start, took the lead and never looked back. Two laps around Dundas driving park and Nyles came in first place at a time of 11:31. Guess who the proudest dad was in the park at that moment. Not to far behind Laura completed her first race. It really made me feel good that there was my wife on a race course, seriously racing, I can feel the adrenalin pumping right now.
A few minutes later Emily and I were about take on our first, hopefully not our last, 5k together. There I was, dad/coach giving my daughter/athlete her pre-race pep talk. "Don't go out too quickly" "Pace yourself" "This is your first, so it's a benchmark to improve on" "You can do it". Emily decided that she would shoot for 30 minutes as her goal time. For someone who never trained for a 5k, or ever ran more than 3k before, this was pretty adventurous time. Finally the count down started ten..nine..eight..seven..(I was starting to get nervous)..four..three..two..and off went the air horn and we were off and running. At the first corner Emily told me "Dad you're not pacing yourself, you are going out to fast" Who's the coach here? She was right and we slowed up a bit. One lap around the park and out we went into dundas. At the 2k mark, our time was (believe it or not) 11:31, the same time as Nyles 2k time. At this point Emily started to get pain in her shoulder. So we walked for a few seconds. Still with pain we held up until the 2.5k mark where the only water station was and we walked through it. All downhill from this point, it looked we were going to breeze into a sub 30min time, but the shoulder pain would not let up. I kept on telling her "you can do it","you are going to run this thing under 30" "I know you can do it". Some short walks up until the 4k mark and we were back into the park. At this point Emily's pride must have kicked in and she was determined not to let anyone see her walk. As we rounded the last corner Emily caught sight of the finish line and she took off. She would later tell me that her legs were numb and she was just along for the ride. Her finish time was a very impressive 30:16 (second in her category, the first went to 14 yr old) with her dad just right behind her. After few free burgers, bananas and water, the award ceremony began and to our surprise Nyles, Laura and Emily would receive medals for their accomplishments. My award for the day was having my family run a race.

Community

Wow what a weekend! For those of you who didn't know, it was just the FRWY camping weekend and it was a blast. To those who planned it and organized it all (including all the yummy food), thanks, it was a great time for building community. I loved hanging out with everyone and I was able to make connections with people I usually just say hi to at church. To all the Mafia players, I know you are Mafia. To Pernell and Nathan, it was a blast killing everyone with you. Jolleen, I still can't believe you jumped off my shoulders. Amber, I didn't really know you before the trip, but I would definitely call you a friend now and you're one cool chick. To all those I didn't mention, I'm just too tired from the weekend and I can't remember you all, but I won't forget the memories.

Frustrated

Forgive me for a moment, but I have to vent. If you don't already know I have a real passion for running and gadgets, so when Laura bought me a Garmin Forerunner 201 last year I was like a kid at christmas. Let me explain: my garmin is a GPS that wears like a watch and measures the distance I have ran, my pace that I am running at, my elevation, the grade, well lets just say the list is endless and all of it can be uploaded to my PC for hours of over analysing. So that brings me to today. The garmin has a black spot on the display screen and when you upload a run it sounds like a baseball card in the spokes of your bike when you were a kid. I started out going to the Garmin website and contacting them by email. I was sent an automessage back telling me it would be 5-6 days before I would get a response, after all it is their busy season. Six days later I recieve an elaborate email about how to down the latest software for my unit. Ok I waited six days to get info I don't even need, so off with another email. Two days later I get an email telling me to call there support number. Excited that my problem maybe solved and that I get to talk to a real person I called first thing today. Of course I was put on hold for ten minutes, but thats ok because they are going to fix my unit. Finally I get to speak to someone to tell them about the problems and they start asking me all kinds of questions about the unit. YES someone who cares. After minutes of me pouring out my heart about how I must have unit back ASAP, as I can't run without it, I'm training for a marathon, the nice lady on the other end starts to take my personal info only to tell me that I am canadian and she can't help me. Can you believe it I can't be hepled because I am canadian? The funny thing is she apoligezed saying "You didn't sound canadian". What do canadian's sound like? It's not all bad though, she gives me a number for a company in canada. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but the other company is in quebec and I just got of the phone with them and the only thing I could understand was their web address. So here I am with my broken garmin and web address and I am no further today than I was when sent my first email to garmin. Thanks for letting me vent!