"It used to hurt til Tuesday. Now it hurts til Friday."

Eventually, I will write a "Why I Run ( Part 2 )" followup up to my "Why I Run ( Part 1 )" blog entry, but for now, you can consider this short post to kinda be a "Why I Run ( Part 1.5 )".

Sometime in the late 1980's there was a television commercial for Sports Illustrated which featured aging future-Hall-of-Fame wide receiver Steve Largent.  The commercial shows a worn-down Largent going through a tough practice.  In a voice-over, we hear Largent say ...

"It used to hurt til Tuesday.  Now it hurts til Friday"

While I though this was a pretty cool commercial as a teenager ( Note for non-football fans: The NFL plays its games once a week on Sundays.  Largent was talking about how long it took his body to recover from the pounding he would take in the game each Sunday. ), it resonates even more with me now that I'm far older than Largent was when he shot that ad.

Now, I'm certainly not being hit by 240 pound linebackers and 220 pound safeties each Sunday, but I did have a rather intense run on the treadmill on Sunday, and I find that I'm still a bit sore today.  Thankfully, I'm nowhere near as sore as I was on Monday morning, when I experienced a good deal of pain in the underside of my right heal when I took my first first few steps of the morning ( which basically means I've got a bit of plantar fasciitis in my right foot. ).  Things have gotten a little better each day, and I should be just about recovered for my next intense run on Thursday night.

Still, as much as I'd like to be able to deny it, I'm forced to admit that Father Time is catching up with me.  There are a lot of reason why I run, but the biggest reason why I run these days is probably DENIAL.

If I can run miles at a time far faster than I possibly could as a 21-year-old ( which I can ), I can fool myself into believing that I'm in better shape now at 41 than I was at 21.  However, that's just a big lie I like to tell myself to stave off my fear of the reaper.  Sure, I'm in much better cardio-vascular shape now than I was as an asthma-afflicted younger man, but if my heart and lungs had allowed me to run several miles at a rapid clip back when I was 21, I'm sure I would have woken up the next morning without any muscle pain at all.  Heck, when I first started running on a treadmill at 31, I never felt any pain after a run.  As much as my brain might like to deny it, my muscles don't lie - I'm getting old.

However, I guess that's not the worst thing in the world.  Age has brought me a wonderful wife and two wonderful kids, and I certainly wouldn't trade them for a chance to be 21 again.  I guess we all get old, but even if your whole body is sore, every day you get to spend with your loved ones on this earth is a gift.  I might complain a bit, but I'm certainly appreciate that gift every day.

Rich

4th of July

I miss the good old days.

And by "good old days", I mean the good old days of 4th of July celebrations.  Sure, I guess it's a good thing that most places have cracked down on illegal fireworks.  Sure, it's certainly a good thing that people aren't blowing off their fingers anymore.

... but still ....

I can't help but miss what Independence Days were like back when I was growing up on 96th Place in the Ozone Park neighborhood of New York City.  That scene had to be seen ( and smelt and heard ) to be believed.  Of course, I've never been on an 18th Century battlefield, but I've got to image that those battlefields sounded and smelt a lot like the way 96th Place smelt and sounded every July 4th in the 1970's.

All day long from about 11 AM to 1 AM you'd hear a plethora of illegal fireworks blowing up.  Smoke would hang in the air like a thick fog, and there was a distinct smell of sulfur in the air.  Most people on the block didn't travel on that day, because they were afraid they might come home to find their house burnt down due to an errant firework.  So, because we were all going to be home all day anyway, it didn't make much sense to sit around and gripe about the sound and the smoke.  Instead, we all joined in on the fun.

It seemed like every Dad on the block ( including mine ) got his hands on every kind of illegal firework imaginable.  They would set them off all day in the street as the kids watched, and there's really nothing that makes a young boy happier than watching stuff blow up.  I still remember the year my dad got his hands on some blockbusters (a blockbuster is a quarter stick of dynamite ).  He lit one and placed it under a 3-foot tall steel garbage can, and I swear that the garbage can must have launched about 20 feet into the air.  As stupid as this may sound, I still consider that moment to be one of the highlights of my childhood.

Now, my parents were wise enough to keep fireworks out of my hands, but plenty of  parents on the block were more than willing to let their kids join in on the "fun".  I don't remember any kids handling the big stuff, but kids can still do a lot of damage with fire-crackers and bottle rockets.  Especially those kids who thought it was fun to throw lit firecrackers.  Especially those kids who thought it was a blast ( pun intended ) to shoot bottle rockets horizontally along the ground.  I was never unlucky enough to be hit by one of these low-flying missiles, but I distinctly remember a few whizzing right past my feet ( The same kids who though it was fun to launch those things horizontally thought it was hilarious to aim them at people. ).

As crazy as all that was, I think it all pales in comparison to the insanity of what people did with roman candles.  A roman candle is basically a small mortar you can hold in your hand.  Now, it's not really a good ideal to hold a lit firework with enough explosive power to launch 10 fireballs into the air, but people certainly did.  My Dad used to hold a roman candle up in the air like he was the Statue of Liberty.  I still remember those green and red fiireballs launching out of that roman candle in his hand.

Certainly not wise ....

Certainly not safe ...

... but it was freakin' cool!

Yeah, not wise, not safe, but COOL!

Happy July 4th folks!  I have no choice but to live the safe and secure life of a suburban Dad these days, but if you have an opportunity to, please blow something up for me today!

Rich

A different kind of happiness

And so it begins ...

We finally broke down and got our kids a Wii on Monday.  They've played with it all night for the past three nights.  We'll still not sure if we've made the right decisions.

( Note I wrote most of this post on June 15th ( a few days after Peter's birthday on June 12th), so "Monday" in the paragraph above refers to June 13th.   However, I've been too busy to work on this post since then, so this entry is being posted about 2 weeks after that. )

Considering all the time I spent playing video games as a kid, I'm probably the last person who should claim to have the moral authority to forbid his kids from playing videos games.  I barely have a leg to stand on with the "playing video games will lead to bad grades" argument.  After all, I did fine in school despite all the video games.  However, I also happened to be blessed ( cursed? ) with a natural self-discipline which led me to do things like rip up pictures I drew for kindergarten homework when I thought I hadn't done a good enough job.

My kids don't quite have the same level of focus on their schoolwork.  Sure, Michael is blessed with a brain that has made school really easy for him, and Peter has a natural curiosity that will serve him very well  ( He asks questions that his older brother would never think to ask. ).  However, they both get distracted very easily, and they still have a lot of trouble doing their homework unless you sit with them and make sure they stay at the table.

So, I'm worried that this Wii will be a big distraction, but ...

1) Summer vacation is about to start ( June 15 was the last day of school before vacation ).

2) I've rationalized that we can use the Wii as a motivating tool ( "You've can't play with the Wii until you finish your homework"; "You can't play with the Wii until you practice Piano ( they start lessons this week )"; "You can't play with the Wii until you read for a while"; etc. )

3) It was Peter's birthday, and Peter asked for the Wii in the sweetest way.

Peter turned 6 on June 12th.  He had a really happy day, but at the end of the day he asked if we could get him the game "Just Dance 2".  "Just Dance 2" is a Wii game, and for the last few months, Peter has been dancing to "Just Dance 2" videos on YouTube.  A few months ago, we was introduced to the game when he spent the evening at a "Parent's night out" event at his day-care center ( Peter was in half-day kindergarten this year ( Because our big prick of a Governor Chris Christie cut public education funding so much ( while giving big tax breaks to rich folks ) that public schools had to lay-off lots of teachers. ( Michael had full day kindergarten last year before a bunch of brain-dead New Jersey swing voters elected a right wing Republican governor in a state that usually elects Democrats ( Christie's approval rating is now polling at under 50% percent, because apparently a lot of the bozos who voted for him are now shocked and dismayed that a right-wing Republican governor is actually implement right-wing Republican policies in the state. ).).  So, because there was no full-day kindergarten, Peter had to go to a day care center  for half the school-day. About 3 times a year, the day care center has a "Parent's Night Out" promotion, when they'll take care of the kids so the parents can actually go out on a date. ).  As you may already know, Peter loves to dance, and from that point on, all he's wanted to do is play "Just Dance 2".  However, I still wasn't sure if we should get the kids a non-educational video game system ( They've had a few educational systems, but they've kinda outgrown those ), and for the last few months he's seemed content enough to dance along to YouTube videos.

However, on the night of his birthday, he asked the following question is a very sweet and gentle way.

"Could I play "Just Dance 2" for real someday?".  When I asked him if he could "play" "Just Dance 2" on YouTube, he got a really sad look on his face, and asked again if he could play it "for real".  He didn't pout, he didn't scream, he didn't make demands of us - he just kinda sat there on the couch in silence looking rather sad.  My wife and I huddled up for a moment, and decided the time has come to get our kids a Wii.

OK, I now what some of you folks are thinking ....

"Man, Peter played you guys like a fiddle.  He must have known you guys couldn't resist his little sad face on his birthday."

I know I'm obviously biased about this, but you've got to believe me that it wasn't like that as all.  I know things will inevitably change when they get older, but right now I don't think my kids have a devious bone in their bodies.  Peter was genuinely sad on what to that point has been a really happy day.  I don't think I'd every seen Peter as happy as he'd been at his Chuck E' Cheese birthday party that day ( see photo below ) , and it filled me with as much joy as I'd ever felt.

( Click to enlarge to see full-screen happiness )

And that brings us to the title of this blog post.  The joy a parent gets from his kid's happiness is truly "a different kind of happiness."

Now, I'm going to try my best not to annoy of you folks out there who don't have kids.  I'm sure you've all gotten sick to your stomach at times when you've heard gushing parents says things like "Until you've had kids, you'll never understand what love is" and "There's nothing like the love a parent feels for a child".  I really  don't want to sound like one of *those* parents who are so full of themselves and the parenting experience, but ...

... there really is something different about the happiness you feel as a parent when your child is happy.  I'm not even going to try to explain it, because words just can't describe it.  It's just different - wonderful and different.

  In addition to that "different" kind of happiness, most parents are lucky enough to also experience feelings of pride on occasion.  I was really proud of Michael recently, but perhaps not for a reason you might have guessed.  Sure, parents always feels some pride when their kids accomplish something great, but the pride I felt can best be understood by reading the paragraphs below from this fine article:

"

Here’s the thing. I want my kids to be successful, sure. But more than anything I want them to be soulful and moral. Yes, I would like to see them prosper, afford nice things, and earn the admiration of their peers. But damn it, if money and status become more important to them than being ethical, altruistic, and giving then I have utterly failed as a parent.

My friend Dennis Prager, the radio host and author, tells a story of a woman who bragged to him that her children were top doctors and lawyers. He asked her, “Are they good people?” “Why of course,” she responded. And then his clincher. “Then why didn’t you tell me that first?”

I am proud when my kids show me a good report card. But I receive real joy when people who have met them tell me how respectful and warm they are.

"

For the first 6 years of his life, Peter slept in the same room as his Mom.  He was too scared too sleep alone, , and he's been sleeping right next to his Mom for years.  Of course, as sweet as it was that Peter wanted to sleep next to his Mommy each night ( it always warmed my heart to see him cuddled up next to her ), we knew this couldn't last forever.  Ruth and I convinced him that he should try sleeping in his own room "like a big boy" when he turned 6 years old. We knew it might be hard for him, but we let him know about a month ahead of time that June 12th would be his first night sleeping in his room by himself.

Well, the big night came, and when we took Peter to his room, we found that two of Michael's favorite stuffed animals were in Peter's room.   Michael told us that the stuffed animals had "retired" from his room and that Peter could now have them for his room.  He also told Peter that he could rename the stuffed animals if he'd like.

Michael's done some pretty amazing thing so far when it comes to math and science, but I don't think I was ever as proud of Michael as I was on that night.

They make me proud and they make me happy.  I feel so blessed to be a father.  There's really nothing else like that "different kind of happiness".

Rich

Michael's Mother's Day Essay

The boys had lots of gifts for Mom today, including the following essay Michael wrote in school:

My Mom
by Michael


My Mom's name is Ruth.  She is special because she loves me.  She has pretty eyes.  I like when my Mom tells me jokes.  I think she's the best at reading.  My Mom is super smart!  She even knows how to bake.  I love when my Mom and I read.  I'd like to tell my Mom that I want her to start allowance.


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Oh really, Ralph?

In an article titled "Why Obama Gets Four More Years in White House", Ralph Nader wrote the following:

"Nor does a third party or independent candidacy pose a threat, given the winner-take-all, two-party system."


Oh really, Ralph?


So, you're telling me that it was just my imagination when a certain liberal icon ran for President as a third party candidate in 2000, cost Al Gore Florida, and gave us 8 years of George W. Bush?


So, you're telling me that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were just my imagination?


I guess I was just imagining things when George W. Bush's completely irresponsible tax cuts and his wars created so much government debt that my great grandkids will still be paying it off.


I guess I was just imagining things when the anti-regulation policies of Bush led to the the United States greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.


I guess I was just imagining things when the huge national debt created by the George W. Bush's policies gave the Republican right-wing the idea to create the anti-debt Tea Party movement ( which has somehow convinced half the nation that the national debt is the fault of the Democrats ).


I guess I was just imagining things when Tea Party endorsed politicians responded to the debt by cutting social programs that liberals spent their lives fighting for ( While refusing the raise taxes or our cut Defense spending, despite that fact that the low taxes and Defense spending led to most of the national debt ) and  stripping public unions of their collective bargaining rights.


I guess I was just imagining imagine things when New Jersey governor ( and Tea Party favorite ) Chris Christie used the anti-debt issue as an excuse to cut public school funding so much ( while giving tax breaks to millionaires ) that my youngest son Peter was denied full-day Kindergarten.


I guess I was just imagining things when George W. Bush added John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court - a pair of relatively young ultra-conservatives who will influence the Court for at least the next 30 years.


I guess I just imagined the Roberts and Alito were part of the majority in  the 5-4 "Citizens United v Federal Election Commission" decision, which gave corporations the power spend as much money as they wanted to influence elections.


I guess I was just imagining the large number of 5-4 pro-business decisions made by the Supreme Court over the last few years ( There was another 5-4 decision of this sort today. ).  I guess was just imagining that these Supreme Courts decisions are destroying all the consumer protections you've fought so hard for over the years.


I guess I was just imagining how the Bush Deficits led to budgets cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, undermining lots of the environmental protections you've spent your career fighting for.


I guess I was just imagining how a certain liberal icon tarnished his legacy so much that the Simpsons made fun of him ( Wish I could find the clip ) by having him attend a meeting of the Springfield Republicans ( When this liberal icon offer a suggestion to help the Republicans, Mr. Burns tell him "Haven't you done enough already?" ).


I guess I was just imagining that a certain liberal icon screwed the country for the next 50 years by running for President as a third party candidate in 2000, and then had the balls to suggest 11 years later that third party candidates have no impact on Presidential elections.


Oh really, Ralph?!?


Rich


P.S. Yes, I'm still a little bit bitter.

Obama must be jizzing in his pants

Obama must be jizzing in his pants about Donald Trump.

( If you've been living under a rock, or are not from the USA, or are reading this years later when Obama will be remembered as the 44th President of the United States and Trump won't be remembered at all, let me give a brief summary of what is going on: Billionaire and shameless self-promoter Donald Trump has decided that he wants to run for President in 2012 ( or least wants to make people think he's running for President in order to get more attention for his TV show ).  In order to attract Republican voters, he is now publicly taking positions that are 180 degrees removed from positions he publicly took just a few years ago.  In the past he'd voiced his support for gay rights, abortion rights, and advocated a 14.25% wealth tax on all Americans with a net worth of more than 10 million dollars.  He now claims to be against raising any taxes, against gay rights, against abortion rights, and most significantly, has taken up the widely discredited "birther" cause which maintains that President Obama was not born in the United States.  As crazy as this all might sound, this strategy has been working for Trump.  He is now leading all other potential Republican candidates in polls of likely Republican voters. )

Even before Trump emerged on the scene, things were looking pretty good for Obama in 2012.  Sure, the economy is still rather stagnant ( Though it is doing MUCH better than it was when Obama took over in January of 2009.  Back then, the US economy was in a deep recession and on the brink of a depression.  Now the economy is on a streak of 13 months of positive growth. ) and the Republicans gave the Democrats a "shellacking" ( as Obama called it ) in the 2010 midterm elections, but the 2012 Republican Presidential field was full of candidates who stood no chance of winning a national election.  The Tea Party movement was forcing otherwise semi-reasonable Republicans ( None of the Republicans seem reasonable to me, but at least some of them could seem reasonable to most Americans ) to take positions so far to the right that they were all ruining their chances to gain the support of the moderate "swing voters" that often decide Presidential elections.  To make matters worse, the only well-known semi-moderate Republican ( Mitt Romney ) has zero chance of winning the Republican primaries, because he signed a health care bill as governor of Massachusetts that could virtually be the twin brother of the Obama health care bill that all Republican primary voters hate.

Yeah, so things were looking pretty good for Obama, but Donald Trumps takes things to a whole other level.

For as long as I can remember, Republican Presidential candidates have had to play a game in which they speak in a kind of code in order placate the far-Right base of Republican voters ( in other words, the voters they would have to win over to win the Republican primaries ), while not offending moderate voters ( The voters needed to win the general election for President ).  For example, when asked in a 2004 Presidential debate about what kind of Supreme Court Justice he would pick, George W. Bush said he wouldn't pick a justice who would agree with decision in the Dred Scott case.  This baffled many people ( including me ), because the Dred Scott case was an 1857 decision which affirmed that slaves remained the property of their owners, even if they were taken to places where slavery was illegal.  Most people couldn't imagine how a potential justice's  view of an 1857 pro-slavery Supreme Court decision ( Obviously, any justice today would be against the decision ) would have any relevance today.  However, I later found out that in Christian Right circles, "Dred Scott" is code for "Roe vs. Wade" ( the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in the USA ).  So, Bush was using the "Dred Scott" code word to make it clear to the Christian Right that he would appoint a Supreme Court justice that was strongly anti-abortion ( which he did twice during his second term ), while trying not offend pro-abortion moderates.

These Republican secret codes have become even more prevalent during the Obama administration.  Republican politicians are acutely aware that a significant percentage of white Repblican voters have racist views about President Obama.  Republicans candidates want to motivate these racists voters to go out and vote for them, but they clearly need to be very careful about how they appeal to these voters.  Not only do they have to be careful not to offend moderates, but they also have to be careful not to offend the racist voters themselves.  Let's face it, most people don't want to think of themselves as being racist, so most people with racially motivated negative views about President Obama have found ways to rationalize that their negative views are not racially motivated.  For example, I know somebody ( We'll call him "Joe" ), who voted for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole in 1996, but voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008.  Anyone who understand politics at all ( and Joe does ) can see that John McCain has basically the same political philosophy as Bob Dole ( Both are Center Right, though I would say that John McCain campaigned far further to the right than Bob Dole.  Bob Dole never called the progressive tax system "socialist" as John McCain did during the 2008 campaign  ), and Barack Obama has basically the same political philosophy as Bill Clinton ( Center Left.  I think both their campaigns were equally positioned to the Left, and as a frustrated liberal I can state definitively that Bill Clinton governed further to the Left than Barack Obama has so far. ).  So, with all that in mind, you would expect a supporter of Bill Clinton in 1996 to be a supporter of Barack Obama in 2008.  Instead, Joe voted for McCain, and now trashes President Obama every chance he gets.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that every white person who opposes President Obama does so for racial reasons, but there are a lot of "Joes" out there, and Republican politicians know this.

So, because even the most right-wing Republicans can't get away with saying they don't like President Obama because he's black, they find other ways to imply that he's not a Real American ( in other words, not a white Christian ).  This is where we get all this "birther" ( The claim that Obama was actually born in Kenya, and back in 1961, his mother, the State of Hawaii ( Which has the official documents that prove he was born in Hawaii ) two different Hawaii newspapers ( which printed birth announcements of Obama's birth back in 1961 ) conspired to fake that he was born in the USA so that he could one day become President. ) and "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense from.  However, most mainstream Republican can't even get away with talking about the birther stuff or the Muslim stuff directly.  Instead, they need to speak in code again.  When asked if they believe if Obama was born in the USA or if he is a Muslim, just about all the potential Republican Presidential candidates say stuff like "I take President's Obama's word for it that he was born in the USA" or "I take Presidents Obama's word for it that he's a Christian".  In other words, they are telling the far-Right base of the Republican party "Look, for the sake of keeping the liberal mainstream media from tearing me apart, I've got to pretend I believe that President Obama is a Christian who was born in the USA - but you and I both know that he's really a foreign Muslim socialist who wants to turn the good old USA into a Muslim caliphate.".

Trump however, isn't playing that secret code game.  He's come right out and said he doesn't believe the Obama was born in the USA.  He's even claimed that his investigators in Hawaii have uncovered evidence ( none of which he's released to the public ) that Obama wasn't born there.  Instead of hiding the crazy aspects of the Republican party that could scare away moderate voters, he's letting it all hang out.  Sorry to use a second crude analogy in this post, but the emergence of Trump really does makes it seem like the Republicans are walking around with their dick hanging out.

,,, and Obama has got to be loving this.

What's worse for Republicans is that because Trump's now leading in the polls, lots of the other Republican candidates might decide to follow Trumps lead.  It things keep going the way they're going, it will eventually get to the point that where the Republican's will nominate a Presidential candidate who is completely unelectable in the general election.

Of course, I don't think the Republican's will really nominate Trump.  In fact, fact I don't even think Trump really intends to run for President.  I think this is all just a big publicity stunt to feed his ego and put more money in his pocket.

However, a guy can dream, can't he?

Rich

Frosty the Snowman is Jesus.

Maybe I'm being a wee bit sacrilegious, and I'm probably not the first person to notice this, but I've come to the conclusion that the story of Frosty the Snowman is basically the story of Jesus Christ.  How so?  Well, consider the following parallels between the biblical account of Jesus Christ, and the story of Frosty the Snowman from the song and the classic TV special.

Jesus: Was born on Christmas.

Frosty: Was made with "Christmas snow" ( snow that fell on Christmas Day - so Frosty was also essentially born on Christmas. ).

Jesus: Sacrificed himself to pay for man's sins by letting the his enemies capture him in a garden ( Gethsemane ).  His enemies ultimately condemned him to death and killed him.

Frosty: Selflessly put his own life in danger by carrying a freezing little girl into a warm indoor garden ( a greenhouse ).  His enemy ( the magician ) was able to trap him in the greenhouse and Frosty died via melting.

Jesus: Was raised from the dead by God, who is a powerful, fatherly ( "God the Father ), eternal, omniscient figure, who judges people on whether they've been bad or good.

Frosty: Was raised from the dead by Santa,who is a powerful, fatherly ( "Father Christmas" ), eternal ( never seems to age ), omniscient ( "He sees you when you're sleeping.  He knows when you're awake" ), and judges people on whether they've been bad or good ( "He's making a list and checking it twice - gonna find out who's naughty or nice."; "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake" ).

Jesus: Shortly after rising from the dead, he ascended up into Heaven ( where the powerful, omniscient figure ( God ) lives ). 

Frosty: Shortly after being raised from the dead, he headed back "up" to the North Pole ( where the powerful, omniscient figure ( Santa ) lives).

Jesus: Predicted he would come again someday ( The Second Coming ).

Frosty: "He waved goodbye saying 'Don't you cry.  I'll be back again someday'."

Well, it looks like I've set my personal record for "Most Random Post Ever".

Rich