The Christmas Picture you Won't Get

Jodi and I decided to have a little fun with our Christmas picture this year. While we sent the boring one, this is the picture I wanted to send. Somehow when it came down to a vote the cats were included and the outcome was 3-1.
Jodi and I survived both of our Christmas parties this weekend and today we are off to the Colli's for an early Christmas since they will be on a cruise.

Finding the Time

I don't know what it is lately but it's hard to find the time to get everything in lately, including writing. This weekend Jodi and I watched the Kona Ironman on TV. You may find this hard to believe but it is by far my favorite thing to watch all year. It has everything, courage, drama, inspiration, failure, and heartbreak. What is the Kona Ironman? The Kona Ironman is the world championship of ironmans. it consists of a 2.4 mile swim 112 mile bike, followed by a 26.2 mile marathon. Any one of these in itself is a huge challenge, let alone doing one after another. To give you an example of what these people go through the winner finished with a total time of 8 hours 12 minutes. 54 minutes swimming, 4 hours 18 minutes on the bike, and 2 hours 55 minutes on the run. This means after 5 hours of biking and swimming he still ran a marathon in under 7 minute miles. To compare, Lance Armstrong had a slightly longer time in the NYC city marathon that he ran last month. In contrast the person who finished last had a total time just under 17 hours. She was a 79 year old nun, who was doing this for the 21st time. She is the oldest person to complete an Ironman.

On a totally unrelated note I thought I would throw in some pictures. Last weekend we got our Christmas tree from a farm in Half Moon Bay. On Sunday we went to Mike and Kari's joint baby shower. Here is a picture of Mike realizing that he didn't just get a new oil drip pan. Actually he knew this was a baby bath but it sure was fun to watch. He's pretty calm and collected. I don't know how I'm going to wipe the "holly $^% a baby is coming" look from my face when it happens. There are no plans in the mix if that was your next question. I want to hear Mike say "it's not that bad."

29 Years in the making

I'm not quite sure what one is suppose to do on their birthday but one thing I did already was take the day off with one of my floating holidays. Granted I am working a little today, but at least it is from the comfort of the home office. One thing I thought I would do is pontificate (Ooooooh big word for Todd) a bit on what I know so far.

• Exercise is the key. Exercise is critical not only for physical health but mental health as well. I have recently fallen off the exercise wagon and boy can I feel it. This week was my attempt to get back into it and I can feel a world of difference already. If you want to be at the top of your game, work, school, relationships, etc; you cannot get there without some physical activity in your life.
• 100% consensus is impossible. If you put a measure up for vote that stated "You shall receive $100 dollars tax free, no consequences, no gimmicks." you would not get 100% of people voting for it. You might initially disagree, but you know, YOU KNOW there would be some hippy dirt, tree hugging, petulie oil, hairy armpit group that would protest the measure claiming that it threatens the breading rights of the yellow bellied Castro lawn ant. These types of people need to check themselves into a clinic.....Not everything is a conspiracy people!
• Farts are funny. Even if you are one of those people that thinks farts are disgusting and immature, you too think they are funny occasionally. I don't think I ever laughed as hard as I did when I lived with Mike. Every morning was like a piccolo circus. Here is a good one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaDYr284SUk
• The rich get richer. This comment excludes people that win the lottery or are gifted wealth, studies show those people typically don't retain it. But in general the rich get richer. To make your money work for you you need to take risk. People that have money are more willing to take risk because they have money to fall back on. I know there is more to it than this but don't have the patience to drill down more.
• Life's not Fair. Everyone knows this.
  

I'm sure there are a lot more that I could write about but these are the first that come to mind. On a completely random note enjoy the picture below from Tucson. This is out the front door of my parents house.