That said, I had a blast and would definitely do it again.  Especially when I get emails from other parents like this one:

Matthew/Ross – you guys have done a FANTASTIC job with this group of kids.  We have been amazed at how well this team has come together and all that they have learned, both about playing and sportsmanship.  It is a big sacrifice to give your time to something like this and we want you guys to know how much we and Caroline have appreciated your efforts.

Yes, the kids have all improved considerably, and I take pride in the fact that I’ve helped them achieve some measure of skill and success in the game, but it really makes me feel that all my hard work and efforts were worthwhile when I hear this kind of feedback from the other kids’ parents.

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13 years ago, I was a walk-on to the UVA Cross Country team, qualifying with a 5 mile time of 25:25.  I had taken my running to the next level, racking up between 60-80 miles a week with the rest of the squad. I competed in a couple of invitationals but was sidelined with an injury during the winter and part of the spring – long enough to red-shirt my freshman year and leave me considering whether I wanted to continue with such a grueling training schedule in light of all the other college activities I was participating in.

10 years ago, after graduating college and beginning work in New York state, I occasionally ran on evenings/weekends, but I don’t recall it being according to any regular schedule or set training plan. I explained the “RossRuns” username to people as “Well, it’s a whole lot easier to remember than RossUsedToRun.”

8 years ago, I joined many of my coworkers in the “Corporate Challenge”, a 3.5 mile road race in NY.  I collapsed somewhere near/on/past the finish line (I don’t remember the finish to this race to this day).  Any notions of getting back into shape through regular running left me for a good while, after that.

3 years ago, while in India, I ran on the treadmill in the gym every morning before going to the factory, for 5 weeks straight.  I returned home and promptly failed to follow up with any running, whatsoever.

2 years ago, after “training” for a few months, I joined my wife in the Harrisburg NC YMCA 5K and finished 28th overall and 1st in my age group, with a 23:28 finish. My commitment to keep running ended just about the time it started to be 90 degrees and 90% humidity outdoors the following month.

Last year (Feb 2010), I ruptured my Achilles tendon and after surgery to stitch it back together, was banned from running until November 2010.  This restriction finally gave me the kick in the pants I needed to realize how much I was taking my own fitness and health for granted. I tentatively got back into training (as much as my poor leg would allow me) and started building up my endurance and strength again.

This past Saturday, I ran 5 miles (continuous) for probably the first time since my undergrad days 13 years ago.  Not only that, I ran it as part of a regular training schedule, on (or ahead of) pace and I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT.

Looking back on my running history above, it shocks me to see that the time I took off from running was over twice as long as the period where I had seriously considered myself a runner, prior to that (since Cross Country and Track in 8th grade).  I never realized the excuses and the inconsistency in my running history until I seriously sat down and charted my on-again, off-again habits.

I want to turn that statistic around, and proudly use the ID “RossRuns” because it is an indication that I’ve been running longer than I haven’t.  Sure, I’ll have little hurdles to overcome along the way, but I feel like I’ve revitalized my running spirit and my drive to stick with it. Only time will tell, of course, but already I’ve seen incredible benefits in my own life – everything from significantly reduced cholesterol levels to mental balance and acuity to increased energy and happiness – that make it well worth my while to try to maintain this lifestyle even if I’m feeling the running shtick on a particular afternoon.

I’m a Runner. I prove it by running. That’s all there is to it, and all I need to keep in mind.  And in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, and further into the future, I hope I can look back and do another of these posts, and be inordinately proud of what I’ve achieved and what I’ve done in my running life.

“If you run, you are a runner. It doesn’t matter how fast or how far. It doesn’t matter if today is your first day or if you’ve been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run.”
-John Bingham

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Hey!  You!  Do you even test these things out before you manufacture them?

I’m talking, of course, to the designers of yogurt containers.  Almost every single one of them has something wrong with the design that makes eating a container of yogurt more difficult than it should be.

1) The original Yoplait “inverted” container.  Great for stacking, TERRIBLE for eating out of.  The inverted shape means the top is just wider than the bowl of your spoon, while the base is almost 1.5 times as big.  You end up getting yogurt all around the stem of the spoon while trying to scoop out the contents.  And when you get to the bottom of the cup and are trying to scrape the remains onto your spoon, there’s only about two angles you can get the spoon to that will actually pick up yogurt.  I end up running the spoon around and around the inside for some ridiculous amount of time to pick up the tiniest amount of remaining yogurt.

2) Yoplait’s Greek yogurt.  Although this one has the right standard-cup-type-shape, it has a nice little notch on the inside where the cup flares out at the top.  You end up getting all kinds of yogurt stuck around on this rim, and you can’t take your spoon and scoop straight from the bottom to top without having the spoon “jump” from one edge of the cup to the edge where the rim is – if you’re not careful, you can lose a spoonful this way.

3) Dannon yogurt.  Same as #2 above, but not quite as pronounced.  However, if I recall, the bottom isn’t completely flat so it makes it difficult to scoop across the container when you’re nearing the end of the cup.

4) Activia. Seriously, have you ever tried to open one of these?  As soon as you peel one of the corners back enough to let air in, it rushes in and yogurt comes flying out and usually lands right on the crotch of your pants.  And when you try to clean up yogurt from the crotch of your pants, there’s only one thing in the world the resulting stain/mark looks like.  It’s pretty damn embarrassing.  Other than this, though, the container is perfect and you can get out all the yogurt without hassle.  My advice? Point it away from you (preferably towards someone else’s crotch) and open away, and then enjoy the obvious winner of the yogurt cup design competition.

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Not much to report today – Dee was diagnosed with strep throat this past Thursday, so I took off work on Friday to take care of the Color Princess and the Tenacious Bean and try to let the wife rest as much as possible while the antibiotics did their thing.  Luckily she’s feeling better in time to begin the work week without me around the house, so now we’ll just keep our fingers crossed that no one else in Casa de Bedlam catches a case of the dreaded strep. 

The CP had her penultimate soccer game of the season on Saturday, and played her best yet – I attribute it to a combination of my practicing with her during the week and talks Dee and I have had with her about being a good sport, trying hard, and  also trying to have fun.  If you compare her behavior to that of earlier in the season when she threw a pout-tantrum on the field when someone didn’t kick the ball her way, she’s improved so far beyond where she was it’s like a different little 5 year old out there.  Next up for the CP is the Daisies (i.e. youngest branch of the Brownies/Girl Scouts).  She seems excited after 1 troop meeting, and her cousin is in the same troop with her, so it sounds promising.

Yesterday, after taking the CP to Sunday School (and wandering around the mall for an hour with the Bean while waiting to pick her back up), we went over to that same cousin’s house for her Halloween-themed birthday party.  It was a really cute idea – all the kids got to dress up in their Halloween costumes a few weeks early, and get some extra use out of them.  Even the adults got in on the action; I picked up something cheap from Wal-Mart for myself, and it turns out that Wal-Mart’s default pirate costume is actually a gay pirate costume – I am getting up the courage to post one of the pictures here so you guys can laugh as hard and as long as all the rest of the adults did at the party on Sunday.  Trust me, Johnny Depp’s got nothing on me in this getup.  (Wait, let me rephrase that – Captain Jack Sparrow appears to be a drunk, TASTEFUL gay pirate. I, on the other hand, was a drunk, cheap tart of a gay pirate.  But you can call me Captain Tightpants.)

So today I’m desperately trying to stay awake while I play catch-up on the stuff I should have finished on Friday.  It’s going to be a busy day, I think, but being back home full-time means ANY workday feels like a little bit of a holiday, knowing that I get to go home and see my wife and kids at the end of the day.  Guess I’ll not take that for granted again!

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And I know it’s a repost, but I find this comic just as funny every time I see it – hopefully you will too!

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You’ll be hearing from me again soon – I’ve got a few more things to wrap up for work and then I’ll be back at the computer again and posting regularly.  See you soon!

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I’ve been out of the office pretty much since last July, so it was only this morning I noticed something interesting – instead of showing the year 2010 as ’10, my trusty little clock has rolled over to ’90.  Yes, I get to live the 90s all over again!

From what I can tell, the clock (made in China) uses some sort of cheap computer circuit board that was programmed with the minimum function set required to provide the features advertised on clock.  Rather than expand the memory/processing power of the clock to handle dates outside the range of 1990-2009, the designers decided to just let the clock roll over and never show the correct date after the functionality-imposed “end-of-life” of the clock.  Probably they expected that the hardware itself would only have a lifespan of a few years, anyway, so those folks like myself who got the clock in 2003 would never have it last long enough to see this bug “feature” in the design.

But my clock survived (against all odds?) and is a great of example of what I like to call the “Just Enough” syndrome.

“Just Enough” can apply to any number of aspects of your life, whether it be you doing just enough work in your job to get the task at hand completed, paying just enough on your credit card debt to stay off the “finance charge” list, cleaning just enough of your house/car/workspace to keep it from looking like a total dump, or studying just enough to get by on your test/presentation/speech.  The results of “Just Enough” work can be described by a single word – mediocre.  Mediocre can also describe the quality of life you might have if you employ the “just enough” attitude regularly.

However, attempting to go “Above and Beyond” on everything you do creates a different peril; spending so much time and effort on a single task could mean you end up not having enough time/resources to finish everything else, and have to sacrifice something to make up for it.  This is what I personally tend to struggle against, both at work and at home.

The solution, or course, like so many other things in life, is moderation.  The “Just Enough” attitude is perfect for throwaway work that you don’t need to deal with ever again, or things that would suck up your time without providing you with enough return on your time investment.  You can still go above and beyond on things that are important to you, whether it’s playing with your children, putting together that big report for work, cooking a fantastic meal, working to get out of debt, doing something creative, or participating in a hobby.  The key is thinking about what you’re doing, and really consciously deciding up-front how important the activity is and how much you want/need to invest in it.  Waiting until you’re halfway done (or sometimes, even after you’ve been done for hours/days!) won’t work – you’ve missed your chance to repurpose your time for more important things, and all you’ve got left now is a lesson to learn from for next time.

I hope my poor little clock continues to run.  I’d like to keep it here on my desk to remind me to evaluate whether what I’m working on deserves more than a “Just Enough” solution.  And because that isn’t always the right answer, I’ve paired it with my Staples Easy Button to remind me that I often take things well beyond what is needed, and need to scale back my effort and time investment accordingly.  If I can keep my behavior somewhere in the middle, I’ll have a few new single-word handles to hang on my quality of life – Happy, Contented, Fortunate, and Worthwhile.

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Today is the Color Princess' 5th birthday.  I can't believe she's 5 years old already! (Of course, from her demeanor, you'd sometimes think she was 11 or 12, but that's the subject for a whole different post.)

For her birthday today, CP gets an afternoon of Mom and Dad all to herself – Dee's sister is coming to babysit the Tenacious Bean so we can take CP to her first movie-theater movie (How to Train Your Dragon), followed by a trip to Chick-Fil-A for a special treat of chicken nuggets, waffle-fries, and a milkshake.  She's going to be so excited!

This wasn't all of the birthday celebration the CP got this year, though.  We had a surprise party for her earlier this week when all the family could get together – it was an absolute blast:

When the Color Princess walked in the door, she was blown away by the streamers and decorations my wife had put up while she was over at her cousin's house.  Here's the CP and her cousin posing in front of the fireplace decorations:

Posing in front of the decorations

She loved her birthday cards (this one lit up when you pushed a button) and her summer-themed presents (two swimsuits, a play sprinkler, and a giant wading-pool).

Showing off her sparkly, light-up card

Showing off her presents

She adored her cake (princess-themed, of course), and even her sister got into the festivities a bit.  Everyone had a great time, and the CP can't stop talking about how much she loved her birthday.  I think it was a hit, don't you?

The cake (princess-themed, of course)

The Bean gets into the decorations

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Not only are the spammers coming after you in blog comments as well as through your email, but now they're telling jokes!

I was cleaning out the spam comments on my blog when I came across one that I actually enjoyed – unlike the linkfarm/gobbledygook/viagra ads of most blog comment spam, this one contained a joke that was not half bad:

Moishe had been single for a long time. One day, he excitedly tells his mother that he’s fallen in love at last and he is going to get married. She is obviously overjoyed.

Moishe then tells his mother, “Just for fun, Mum, I’m going to bring over 3 women and you try and guess which one I’m going to marry.”

His mother agrees.

The next day, Moishe brings 3 beautiful women into the house and sits them down on the couch and they all chat for a while. Then Moishe turns to his mother and says, “Okay, Mum. Guess which one I’m going to marry?”

She immediately replies, “The redhead in the middle.”

“That’s amazing, Mum. You’re right. How did you know?”

“I don’t like her.”

Obviously these kind of comments still aren't going to make it onto my blog, but if the spammers can keep me laughing while I delete their comments, so much the better!

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Plethora of Netflix

This past Sunday, I bit the bullet and joined Netflix.  I'd been considering it for a while now, but between Mariser's recent post about Netflix coming to the Nintendo Wii and my own restlessness about being laid up on the couch with nothing but crappy movies available on the television, I decided now was the time to join up.  So I subscribed, set up an initial queue of about 50 movies I've been looking forward to seeing, and got There Will Be Blood in the mail on Tuesday.  Dee and I finished it last night and I packaged it up and mailed it back today.  Can't wait for the next movie to wing its way into my DVD player!

There Will Be a Damned Good Film

However, the part that really sold me on Netflix (over Redbox, which works out to just about the same price with no subscription commitment) is the Instant Viewing capability.  Any computer with a broadband connection can be set up to stream a subset of the Netflix movies for viewing with absolutely no wait.  This is where the service really shines – there are more than enough movies, miniseries, and television shows available for instant viewing that I've always wanted to see but never got around to watching when they came out.  Currently, I'm watching a half-hour episode of the British miniseries of Gaiman's Neverwhere at lunch every day.

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

My wife isn't quite as excited about the service as I am, but I think once I have the capability to play Netflix movies from a Wii across to our TV, she'll become a convert – if for no other reason than it'll allow her to find novel new shows/movies for the kids to watch when she needs a break, and she won't be subjected to the same episode of Imagination Movers or Phineas and Ferb that's she's already seen about a billion-and-two times before.

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