Cultural Differences Between Florida and Wisconsin

We just came back from a week in Bradenton. Some of the differences I noticed from our homeland:

1) Scott and I brought the median age down.

2) I could get in and out of women's public toilets while Scott was still standing in line for the men's.

3) There wasn't a single report of stolen snow removal equipment.

Follow Up

Today I interviewed an applicant who wrapped up by asking if it would help my hiring decision if his former boss, a poobah in The Universe as We Know It, called my boss.

Yes, it would. Just not in the direction he would hope.

Playing God is No Damned Fun

I will soon be interviewing and hiring for an available position in our department. One of the applicants is someone I have worked with and like and respect, but I won't know until the end of the process if he's the best person for the job. Hiring one person and turning down others always gives me the uncomfortable sense of influencing destinies. Knowing that in this job market my decision can have a particularly serious impact on the lives of job candidates and their families is a heavier weight than I like to have on my shoulders.

I can't hire based on who needs the job the most, which I consider fortunate. It's challenging enough to make a business decision based on the work I think each person can do and how I think he or she will interact with the team for the ultimate good of our department.

The other side of the Be a Manager/Play God coin is ending someone's job. Tomorrow one of my colleagues will be releasing an employee for non-performance among other issues. We have had several conversations about it, and I will be very surprised if he sleeps well tonight. It seems to be a good decision and based on sound business principles—but hard as hell to carry out.

I wonder if when I pray, God determines how to answer based on if it's good business. And if when making such celestial decisions, it makes Him itch when He has to say, "Sorry. Thanks for being on the show."

Medals 4 Mettle

A few weeks ago an email hit my inbox via the Fleet Feet listserv from Heidi Duss. I don't know her, but on behalf of the organization Medals 4 Mettle (M4M), she was requesting the donation of finishers' medals for marathons, half-marathons, and triathlons. M4M facilitates the gifting of these medals from event participants to children and adults dealing with chronic or debilitating illnesses who have demonstrated similar mettle—or courage—in bravely facing these challenges.

Gulp.

Some little kid inside me was jumping up and down protesting, "Mine, mine, mine! I EARNED those. I was a couch potato who couldn't run a mile, and those medals say that I ran 26.2 consecutive miles on five occasions and finished a half-Ironman distance triathlon plus others."

Yeah, so? A conversation came to mind I'd had with Scott shortly after we started dating. Prominently displayed in his office was a plaque awarded for community service in 1991 to him and his ex-wife, with both their names emblazoned on it.

Q: Why would you keep that on your wall?

A: It's work I'm proud of.

Q: Don't you know what you've done to be proud of without having to show off a plaque about it?

A: It's important to me.

Q: Isn't that kind of old news? So what have you done lately to be proud of?

A: Bitch... [He's too nice to say that but probably rightfully thought it.]

As I've quoted here before, I love Ralph Blum's statement, "We are not doers, we are deciders. Once we decide, the doing is easy." My self argument was blessedly brief. After running the Austin marathon last month to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital and its bald-headed kids, as well as Scott's daily work with pediatric leukemia drugs and his stories of both heartbreak and triumph of patients and their families—it wasn't much of a stretch to envision one of those medals coming out its cigar box in the closet and finding a much better and deserving home around the neck of one of those kids.

A couple hours ago I went to Fleet Feet and handed everything I had that qualified for this program—5 marathon medals and 2 triathlon medals—across the counter to Jessica. Sending those medals to their higher good and relieving myself of that weight made me feel lighter than air, like I could fly through those events now. I don't need medals to remind me of what I achieved. My legs know. My head knows. My heart most definitely knows. And besides, those events are past. Done. Finished. May the mementos from those personal milestones go to bless someone else and inspire them further, and spur me to focus on what I have yet to accomplish.

What have I done lately?
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If you'd like to learn more about this program, read on. Have your Kleenex box handy.

Runners World story about how it originated: http://www.medals4mettle.org/pr_articles/M4M_Runners_World_9-08.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEkk2_X__k0

Official website: http://www.medals4mettle.org/

My Bloody Valentine 3D

On February 20, I received the following email from my favorite movie reviewer, Teddy Durgin:

At long last, non-locals, here is a giveaway contest for those who do not live in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., metro area and cannot make the various preview screenings that I help to co-sponsor. Since this weekend is the Academy Awards, I decided to ask you a few Oscar-related questions. To qualify for the prizes, you must answer all three correctly. For best possible consideration, please e-mail me your answers along with your prize preferences to my personal e-mail address at **@***. Good luck!

First, the prizes:
1) "The International" poster

2) An XL-sized "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" T-shirt (it's more like a Large, so if you weigh more than 150 lbs., you may wanna go with one of the other prizes)

3) A set of "Monsters Vs. Aliens" coasters.

Now, the questions:
1) For the 1988 Oscars (held in March '89), three of the five Best Actor nominees' last names began with the letter "H." Who were they?

2) Who was the only actor to ever be nominated for his acting in a "Star Wars" movie?

3) True or false? Sylvester Stallone has never been nominated for Best Actor.

I don't even like t-shirts. But there is something about even the idea of a My Bloody Valentine 3D t-shirt that is so deliciously perverse, not to mention the whole realm of psychology around WINNING anything that made this irresistible.

The keyboard was almost smoking as I dashed out the following:

1) Dustin Hoffman (winner with Rain Man), Gene Hackman (former roommate to Hoffman), and Tom Hanks

2) Alec Guinness (best supporting)

3) False. Nominated for Rocky.

If it's still available, could I get the t-shirt? If not--thanks for the fun (and any other available prize if they're not gone).

I am now the proud owner of an XL, My Bloody Valentine 3D t-shirt. I don't care how incredibly unflattering it is—I will be wearing my winnings & struttin' 'em down the aisles of the Wisconsin Film Festival cinema venues next month. Way bad fashion, but as movie kitsch goes—unsurpassable.

The Transformation of The Biggest Loser

Despite my last post pivoting around a documentary viewed on the Smithsonian Channel, we're not big on watching television. It's not a matter of some high-minded Kill Your Television mindset. Quite the contrary. We have five boob tubes scattered about the house, including the ginormous plasma thing, plus the small ancient example of mid-20th Century technology in Scott's workshop. It seems, though, that we get busy and don't really think about tuning in on any regular basis. When Nielsen contacted us to do one of their weekly reports, we tried to tell the person who called that we weren't very good candidates; but she said that was fine, just so we reported whatever we watched. Okay. At the end of the week, our tally showed that I had watched one 30-minute segment of The Daily Show; and Scott had briefly tuned in to This Old House. One week. Six TVs. Less than one collective hour of viewing. How can we even call ourselves Americans?

That was before I became a The Biggest Loser junkie. I don't know how I happened to wander into the Season 6 finale, but I was captivated. Once Season 7 started, I made sure every episode was recorded so I wouldn't miss anything. But that's mostly unnecessary because typically at 7-9 pm every Tuesday, I am tuned in, turned on, torqued up. There is no way I could sit on the sofa and watch these people sweat, swear, and swelter. While I watch their almost super-human efforts, I run on the treadmill, do bike intervals on the trainer, and/or do resistance training. I've come to think of them as my homies, and they truly are inspiring.

What is it about this show that has me in its grip? Sure, there's this 10-20 pounds that I have struggled with for over four decades, five marathons, several triathlons, and too many diets to count—without any lasting success, I might add. But I think the greatest appeal of TBL is the age-old theme of transformation. Why do we watch Ebeneezer Scrooge every Christmas and never fail to shed a tear at the predictable ending? How can we watch Rocky for the 18th time and still cheer as loudly as the first time we saw it on the big screen? Why do we love X-Men? Transformation. We all delight in it. We all long for it.

TBL offers me 18 weeks over which I can watch the gradual uncocooning of human butterflies right in my living room—and via treadmill, bike trainer, and free weights, I can even participate. Shape shifters. Literally. Interwoven with every pound lost, the contestants also change the shapes of their characters, their self-beliefs, and their emotional landscapes. And in watching the unfoldment of each personal and very public pilgrimage, I share a little of that transformation.

Will they be able to sustain it? Will I? Stay tuned.

A Culture That Preserves Hair and Teeth

Yesterday Scott had just finished working out on his stationary bike when I got to the home gym (read: basement) to pound out a few intervals on the treadmill. He asked if I wanted him to turn off the TV since I was listening to my iPod. Oh no. All manner of distraction is welcome.

The HDTV Smithsonian Channel was showing the National Geographic documentary Light At The Edge Of The World: Himalayas, in which Wade Davis goes on an anthropological and spiritual journey into the Himalayas of Nepal to experience and explore Buddhist practice. It was only a few minutes before I was so drawn in, I could no longer bear the distraction of the iPod and tossed it onto the sofa.

As I watched this gentle, joyous, and powerful unfoldment, the synopsis came in the statement, "Western science and efficiency have made a major contribution to minor needs. We spend much of our time in the West trying to ensure that people live to be 100 without losing their hair or their teeth. The Buddhists spend their time giving meaning to existence. The Buddhists spend their time getting ready for a moment that we pretend does not exist, and that is the moment of death."

Could I hang on to my hair and teeth and still find meaning? They're probably not mutually exclusive, but it is reflective of focus and priority. I meditate regularly—but there are days that I get busy and miss it. I never miss a day of brushing my teeth or doing all I can to make it a good hair day. After Wade Davis' stark statement of contrast and perusing my life values based on where I prioritize my time, it truly gives me pause.