Saturday's race

With all the talk of swine flu and other sicknesses floating around, I've been super paranoid about getting sick just a few days before my big race. The race for me is going to be the culmination of a LOT of exercise hours over the last four or five months. I'm very excited, and quite nervous.

It's the Napa Valley Vintage 1/2 Ironman Triathlon. All triathlons are basically the same, in that you swim, then you bike, then you run. What differs is the distances of each leg. The shortest distance (other than your neighborhood kids n' mom's triathlon) is a Sprint distance, and the longest is an Ironman. The 1/2 Ironman is the second longest distance, and it consists of a 1.2 mile swim, followed by a 56 mile bike, and then a 13.1 mile run (half marathon...). While I feel very confident in my ability to do any of those activities in and of themselves, I'm significantly less confident in my ability to put them all together back to back. So my two goals for the race: Finish, and try not to finish dead last. That's it.

The forecast is for rain on race day, which will present some interesting challenges, particularly on the bike. It's never fun to ride a bike in the rain as it's cold, the road gets slick, it's hard to see, and you get really grimy from all the dirt and grease flicked up from the wet road. But honestly, I'm going to be hurting anyway, so at this point I don't really care what the weather does.

Angela's coming up with me, and we'll leave the kids at our friends' for the night and that day. It'll be fun to have her there supporting me - even though it might be a long wet day for her too.

So I'll let you know next week how it goes. And by the way, happy birthday to Dave today - wish I could be there to give you a big wet birthday kiss!

Mooooondaaaaay

I was actually looking forward to getting to work today. There's a lot happening this week, and I was just excited to hit the ground running, get on with it, and see how it goes. A large portion of my mind and thoughts are focused on this Saturday's triathlon (excitement, fear, etc.), but there's enough happening on many other levels that I'm busy and engaged elsewhere.

Micah was great in her school play over the weekend. The play itself was not exactly the best I've ever seen, but she was wonderful. If you're interested, I've posted a video of her singing a song in the play on my Facebook video page.

Other good weekend activities were: bike ride to the park and playground (Brig rode his new bike and was in heaven!), I went with Micah to the Tech Challenge she was part of (sponsored by the San Jose Tech Museum - like 200 teams were given a challenge they had to solve using technology - pretty cool), normal church stuff, and I purposely avoided work and email for the whole weekend.

Micah's Play

Micah's in her school's production of Bye Bye Birdie tonight and tomorrow. She's the lead female role, and I'll be completely honest - I absolutely cannot wait to see her sing. I LOVE hearing her sing on stage, and just watching the audience (particularly the school parents) gape at how amazing she is. I sort of feel like the proud Dads on American Idol who get all choked up when their kid does a great job. I wish you all could see her so you'd realize I'm not just a proud parent blinded by his kid's "talent" - she really is that good. OK, enough bragging.

Another beautiful weekend ahead of us - 70 degrees and sunny. I already can't wait for my bike ride in the morning of 25-30 moderate/easy miles - I really love being out there. More details next week, but a week from tomorrow is my big race!!!

I was going to share with you some snippets of a conversation I had with my brother, Nate, a medical resident in Philadelphia, about his latest rotation in Colo-Rectal surgery, but after further consideration I think it's probably inappropriate. So Nate, just you and I will have to share that wonderful little sensory description you blessed me with - thanks a lot.

Bottom line, I have a very cool family - on all levels (including in-laws). Hope everyone has a great weekend!

The View From My Window

I sit on the fourth floor in my building and have a large bank of windows in my office, which provides me a great view. I was just sitting looking out at the world and thought I'd tell you what I see.

My favorite site is the small mountain range running parallel to the coast (yes, the mountains I went over and back over on last week's coast bike ride). They're a deep green because of the complete tree coverage, and I love mornings when the coast is fogged in because the fog stops at the mountain summit but crests over the top like a big cornice of snow. It's very beautiful.

I just watched a hawk go hunting in the open space preserve next to the building, and it was fun to watch him (or her, I guess) soar up and down on the air currents.

Today happens to be Bring your Child to Word Day at Google (no, I didn't bring my children to work - they're much too busy with school things to take a day off right now), so the grassy quad and lunch patios between the three other Google buildings clustered by mine is covered with screaming kids and photo-snapping parents (I estimate about 75% of them are Asian). I'm also seeing bubbles drift up past my window, which is a direct result of the big old bubble machine keeping the kids happy.

To the south is Moffett Airfield and NASA facility. I can see these massive hangars, buildings and contraptions, housing who-knows-what classified goodies. Behind us, although not strictly in my window view, is the San Francisco Bay and surrounding marshlands.

All in all, not a bad place to be on a nice day - assuming you have to be looking out a window in the first place.

It's about time for some PHOTOS!

Brig on the merry go round

Kennan's headgear and braces

The kids with their Easter Bunny loot

The kids ready to go hunt for eggs on Easter morning

Two buddies on Brig's birthday

Brig was VERY happy with his new bike!

"I'm this old"

Nothing lights up a little boy's eyes like a big flame (reference Scouts and Lighter Fluid)

This will be a good bribe photo in later years

Happy birthday buddy!

Kennan was an Indian in her school play, Peter Pan

Morgan was Wilbur in her school play, Charlotte's Web (another bribe photo maybe?)

Kennan's birthday apple pie a couple months ago

My favorite kids

Kennan's birthday dinner

9 year old Kennan

Wind and the Race

After 60 mph winds on Tuesday, it has seemed pretty calm around here today, even though it's still a little breezy and chilly. It was crazy with all that wind though, in fact, we were at a park (for an event described below), and a big tree actually got uprooted and blown over. Very lucky no kids were near the tree! I was kind of wishing it landed on my car - I want a new car and could have used the insurance money.

Some friends in the neighboring ward put together an Amazing Race, FHE Edition. There were maybe 7 families, and we had to do a series of tasks and challenges, which were all really fun. The problem of course was the wind, which put a small damper on the activities, but in the end, it was a great time. It was a fun activity for the whole family that took a lot of planning, so we're grateful to Chris and Wendy for taking it on and inviting us.

Google announced earnings again today and thanks to reduced expectations by Wall Street, managed to do ok. It's been nice to watch the stock creep up for the last little while, although we've got a long way to go until we sell anything substantial.

That's it, I'm going home.

Some Brig-isms

Brig has said a couple of pretty funny things lately.

My personal favorite: the Easter Bunny brought the kids a box of Peeps - you know, those lovely little pink marshmallow chicks that all taste as if they were manufactured in 1979. Brig checked them out, and then moved on without saying anything about it. Then later in the day, he came up to us and said, "when are we gonna eat the Poops?" It took us a minute to realize he meant the Peeps - common and easy mistake...

Last night Brig was sitting at the dinner table and he started clutching his stomach as if it hurt. We asked him if his tummy hurt and he said, "there's just a lot of junk in there." Not sure where he got that, but it was pretty funny.

Lately he's had a small bladder infection (we think) and has been going to the bathroom a lot. We can tell because he starts clutching and grabbing, but when we ask him if he needs to pee, he says something like, "no, i'm just holding my toy there", or "I'm just putting my hand there".

Weekend Report

We had a good weekend, and a great Easter yesterday. We watched Bolt as a family Friday night, which was always fun. Brig sat on my stomach while I laid on the couch, and he half covered his eyes in certain spots because he was nervous Bolt was in trouble. I had been planning a big triathlon training event Saturday morning, and I had everything all packed up and in the car, I got up at 5, showered, and jumped in the car headed up for a 2 1/2 hour drive to Fairfield, CA and beyond, and then I got a text from my buddy that his wife was sick, so no go... I was seriously bummed. And then I went out on my own bike ride and got two flats on the same time, which usually means there's a problem with your wheel ... great, just great.

Angela and I pretty much cleaned the entire weekend that we weren't doing other important things. We had a bunch of friends coming over for Easter and of course the house was a "disaster", as Angela likes to lament (it really wasn't of course, but you know...). I did get to take the girls to the Stanford vs. BYU men's volleyball game Saturday evening and received a pleasant surprise when we got there and the game was free - I was expecting to pay. It was fun, as we got great seats on the 3rd row and were amazed at how big the guys are, and how hard they hit the ball.

On Easter, the kids woke up to some Easter Bunny treats - they don't know that we kept it pretty small this year - and they were happy. Church was good as usual, and then the afternoon was spent preparing a feast extraordinaire. We had the Baughs over for Easter dinner - a great spiral ham marinated in mustard/brown sugar, Brad's scalloped potatoes, salad, bacon-wrapped asparagus, and Amy's rolls. For dessert we were joined by the Bodines, the Healeys, and the Atherley's, and we had a great time eating sweets and chatting. The kids also did another egg hunt (hidden by Micah) with the friends, and we had a fun evening.

Last night we started catching up on some of the conference talks we haven't heard yet, and I was humbled by Elder Hales' Saturday morning discourse on Provident Living. It's hard in this day and age, and probably in the area where we live, to not think about making money, and living a certain lifestyle. Need to be better...

Feeling Awesome Today

Not much has changed since yesterday. It's still cloudy and gray outside; there are still problems at work; I'm still falling short in some of my goals; etc. BUT, I had a major epiphany this morning. I flat out decided that I was DONE STRESSING OVER THINGS I CAN'T CONTROL! And the amazing thing is, I actually got to the point where I really don't care about some of the things any more that have been weighing me down, and I feel like a massive cloud has lifted from around me. I feel like my self is back, and that I can joke around and enjoy life again - very good feeling!

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. A friend and I are going to do a dry run of our big triathlon that is now only three weeks away. I'm driving 2 1/2 hours up to the lake, where we'll swim, then ride the bike course, then we'll run about half the actual course. I'm seriously excited about doing it. Not only will it be fun tomorrow, but it will be huge on race day that I will have actually done most of the course arleady. And a huge thanks to Angela for letting me be gone most of the day on a Saturday for this. I normally try very hard to not do stuff for myself during the prime hours of weekends, but because this is a bit different, she's being very supportive. Thanks babe!

A few random thoughts:

.....I'm really digging listening to Pandora.com on my computer as I work (try setting up a radio station with the core band as Angels & Airwaves and you'll get some awesome bands/songs);

.....On cool days I am a huge fan of the heated toilet seats at Google;

.....Micah somehow hurt her leg mysteriously this week and has been limping severely for days now - maybe it's time to go to the Dr;

.....Brig is testing the limits of getting what he wants with tantrums and crying - very annoying;

.....Our good friends the Lyons announced they're pregnant with their 3rd - congrats JD & Kathy!

.....We're having some friends over for Easter dinner, which should be really fun; I hope the weather is nice so we can enjoy the patio (forecast for sunny & 68).

.....Got to teach another discussion with the missionaries this week to my longtime friends - I love the spirit in those meetings, and I think we're making some good progress!

.....Kennan is talking much better now that she's used to all the hardware in her mouth;

.....Good Friday attendance at my work = roughly 50% of workforce out of office by my estimation;

.....I'm addicted to Facebook

Have a great weekend!

Dad

A few of you already know this, but on Saturday afternoon's session of conference, we were surprised to hear Pres. Uchtdorf say my Dad's name as a new member of the 2nd Quorum of Seventy. As we talked to Dad later, there were signs that might have indicated to some family members what was up, but we didn't pick up on them, and so didn't see it coming. We're very happy for him, although we have mixed feelings about what it will mean for us. Selfishly, we feel like we still need our Grandpa and Grandma for the kids, to be around when we go there, etc. Fortunately, we found out today that they'll stay near church headquarters (i.e. home!) for the first year and a few months, and then they'll receive a 4-5 year foreign assignment (probably Spanish speaking). Also fortunately, they'll be back during each July as it's sort of the church's time for everyone to take a little time off, and they'll also come to general conferences in Utah. So with some small adjustments to our normal travel plans, Christmas is really the only time we'd be in Utah without having them around.

I'm proud of Dad. Not proud in a bad way, just proud that he's my dad, and I'm his son. He's an awesome man, and while I said it was surprising earlier, it really wasn't because we've sort of been expecting it for a while now. I want to be like my dad - NOT because of this calling, or any other calling he's had - but in the way in which his kids love him, the grandkids love him, and he treats everyone so well. He's the best! So we'll definitely support them wherever they end up going, and thank goodness for Skype.

My Buddy Brig

Three years ago on this day, my little dude, Brig, was born into our family. It's so strange to me that it was only three years - it seems like much longer than that. I remember Ang waking me up in the middle of the night, in serious pain, which was strange for her pregnancies. She assured me she was ok and wanted to take a shower, so being the dutiful husband that I am, I went back to sleep while she showered. A little while later, as she was moaning because she could barely get out of the shower from the pain, things got kick started in a hurry. She still wanted to do her hair, but I said we were leaving right then. Luckily, Ang's sister Christine had come out and was already staying with us, because we would not have had time to wait for someone to come. We drove very fast to the hospital, finally got admitted, and 25 minutes later we had our little boy. It was an amazing night. I was just looking at some pictures today of when he was a baby and he's always been such a cute kid.

He had a great day today. He woke up to a kitchen filled with balloons, and his favorite thing of all time - cinnamon rolls - for his birthday breakfast. Angela took he and his two buddies bowling for his birthday morning, and then the two of them met me at Google for a fun lunch. This evening was our family celebration as we all gave him fun presents: he got a lot of Playmobile Knights and Pirates, some more Cars things, and his own little bike, which he really, really loved. During our pizza dinner, he kept leaning over to Angela and saying, "I like my bike Mom!" I asked him what the best thing of his birthday was and he said "closing my eyes and getting my bike" (we had him close his eyes ... with a lot of help to keep those anxious little boy eyes from peeking ... and then I rolled in the bike). He was very happy with all his presents. He got some nice phone calls, and a couple of fun visits, and he was a happy boy when I put him to bed.

Please don't misunderstand that my talking so much about Brig means I love him more than the girls. I love them all so much. It's just fun for me to have a little boy around who loves things that I love, and wants to be like his dad in many ways. I am SO happy to have him in our family! I love him very much!

Let's just forget this week ever happened

This has been kind of a lame week. I woke up Monday morning with the flu, and while I generally feel better now, I've been left with this lingering fatigue that has prevented me from fulfilling all my exercise goals this week other than a couple of feeble attempts to run and bike. Work has also been tough, particularly the last couple of days. There have been some problems with one of our big projects, which look like our fault to people not too familiar with the situation (i.e. the bosses a few levels up...), but that are not really our fault. However, of course we can't give a long detailed explanation about why we aren't to blame, because that just makes it sound worse... oh well, we'll just take our lumps and move on. I was up until 2am last night on the phone with Europe trying to resolve the mess though - not fun.

On the bright side though, Kennan and Morgan started their school play, Peter Pan, last night. I was not able to attend that performance, but will see tonight's and tomorrow's - I heard they did great. We've been having a bit of a hard time with the kids getting along this week. It seems like they're either really good, or really grumpy. They're probably a bit over-tired and stressed with all the activities - final play practices, piano lessons, tons of homework, doctor appts, and Ang has had a million school things as well.

Got a laugh this morning on my drive in to work. Was listening to this station that prides itself in being local and "organic" and community and somewhat hippy (which none of those describe me, but they play some good music sometimes...). They had on the SF Chronicle food critic who was coming on to talk about his newly released Top 100 restaurants in SF. It was so funny to me how large this guy's ego was, how important he thought he was, and how pretentious his weak attempts at false humility came off. Think Anton Ego in Ratatouille, but without the French accent. Anyway, thought it was ridiculous...

Enjoy the snow in Utah, the sunshine in Texas, the cheesesteaks in Philly, the Steelers in Pittsburgh, and the pretentious food critics in California.

April Fools Reminiscences

I'm typically not a big fan of April Fool's jokes, but every year on this day, I remember the best joke I've ever seen. There were these two brothers that used to walk to elementary school the same time we would, and we'd generally see them along the way. The older brother was mercilessly unkind to the younger brother, who was quite a bit smaller and really had no choice but to take the abuse. I didn't like the older boy, who was my age, but I didn't know him very well either. So this April 1st, they were running down the hill to school, and we happened to come out of our street about the time they ran past. The next thing I know, the little brother goes flying off the road and winds up in a heap on the grass patch by the sidewalk. He's moaning and looking seriously hurt, and I could see that the older brother was very concerned - probably that he'd finally gone too far. Just as the older boy started to really worry and show concern, the younger kid jumped up, yelled "APRIL FOOLS!" and took off like a shot. The stunned older brother hesitated for a second, and then took off after the kid, I'm sure exacting his revenge later. But it was classic how the younger brother used April Fools to get his older brother completely frustrated. Not sure why that always sticks out to me, but that's what I think of when I think of April Fools jokes.

Oh yeah, we're pregnant again!