Seriously, yes, I got rid of the family van. We didn’t need anymore now that we have the pilot. For me, it was either a Jeep or an Xterra. Uncle Mike has the Jeep so I opted for the Xterra (Off Road version of couse). Now I need to get it lifted with F’in big ass steel bumpers, a winch with an air compressor, and gas cans…then I’ll feel cool and 10 years younger again. Oh, and don’t forget the huge ass tires and wheels…and the noisy muffler. It already comes with kick ass Rockford Fosgate sound system. Anyway, here are some shots after cruising Alki…

Nice front sunset shot on Alki Point.  Gotta love the off road lights on the roof.

Lookin good in the sun.

Profile shot!

Yeah, they could be beefier, but better than the standard Xterra.

Now we’re talkin…this is what it’s all about.

Yeah, I got the covers on…but these will be really COOL!

Basic inside.  The Off Road is based on the Xterra S (not SE) so it doesn’t have leather or heated seats or any of that crap.

It was also an incredibly beautiful day in Seattle.

Here are my results with split times.

For me it was amazing I was going to even finish this year.  Last Sunday, I aggravated my achilles tendonitis in my left leg on my usual 5 mile run.  All week I’ve been caring for it but these things take time.  I did a short, flat run on Wednesday and things seemed fine except for a pain in my heel – presumably related to the tendonitis.

So my strategy this morning was to go slow from the start, don’t push up hills or accelerate going down.  This worked well as I mostly avoided all pain my left achilles tendon.  Ironically, I actually had more soreness in my right – possibly to overcompensate for the late.

As for the details…here it goes.

I got up just before 3am…very apprehensive – I had basically resigned myself to not finishing and having to walk off the course at some juncture.  So I wasn’t overly hyped up.  I did the usual ritual – eat and drink something, shower, wipe body glide all over, and get dressed.  Off I went to the Safeco Garage to catch the 4am shuttle (a school bus).  I got on the first shuttle just like last year and we were definitely the first people there.  I grabbed a banana and a bagel and found a spot to sit.

Beyond eating and drinking, I played word mole on my blackberry.  I spent most of the time going to the toilet or people-watching.  Even though I had 2.5 hours until the start of the marathon, it went by very fast.  As like last year I was in the bathroom line when the race started.  In fact, the very slow line almost caused me to miss the start with my corral – fortunately I caught up with the group at the starting line and off I went.

I decided that my pace would be no quicker than 11 min/mile and I’d slow down on up and down hills so as not to aggravate my leg.  As you can tell above, I did a good job with the pace and slowly tapered my speed as the distance went on.  The weather was cloudy and mild – perfect run conditions.  I figured if I made it to mile 5 or 6 with no pain, I would make it…I forced my way to finish last year with a strained calf starting at mile 6 (the source of my tendonitis).  At these points things felt good.  Any pain I felt was gone quickly so I was pretty happy.

The music along the run was good – lots of bands and DJs.  This definitely helps push you through the race.  At the halfway point I definitely felt stronger and better than I did at that point last year.  I remember really hurting at that distance last year.  Next we wound our way through downtown Seattle and onto the Viaduct.  This is where the race gets tough physically and mentally.

Your body is getting sore, there are a lot less people keeping you going and it’s full of long straight stretches, and most importantly – it’s hilly.  During mile 16, I refilled my hydration pack and around mile 17 I took a wiz – in a honey bucket of course.  But those two things along caused a decent delay.  BTW, one strategy I used was to rely on the sport drink – so during each water stop I took a cup of sports drink, slowed to a walk, and drank.

The long trek up Aurora Avenue and back over the viaduct seems like eternity, but I definitely felt less sore and stronger this year.  I wasn’t worried about cramps and tendons seemed fine.

Now for the finish…Steph was on the off-ramp jumping up and down, making a ton of noise, and taking pictures – this is the best part of the whole race.  She was able to high 5 me from two spots before I crossed the finished line.

After I crossed I picked up some ice for my tendon – I knew I’d need it (and I did).  I then picked up some food – oranges, bananas, granola bar, water.  Steph and I picked up my gear bag and headed to Fuel to meet up with Jim/Jayme and watch the end of the USA soccer game.  We left at the end of regulation so I could get home and soak my feet in ice water.

Anyway, now my legs are elevated and I’m trying to get some rest.

In Steph’s words…

We went to Traverse City, Michigan over the Memorial Day weekend.  We left early on Saturday morning.  The boys were very excited to visit Grandma and Great Grandma.  My mom was already in Michigan visiting her mother.  My Grandma (the boys Great Grandma) had only seen Zach when he was 8 months old, and had never met Nate.  Needless to say, she was excited.

Caught a flight out of Seattle to Chicago on United.  We boarded the plane between first class and coach.  The flight attendants immediately asked if the boys wanted to see the cockpit.  Paul immediately yelled, “YES!”  Both Nate and Zach got a chance to sit up in the cockpit and I got their pictures.  Paul wished we could have spent more time in the cockpit.  As we left, we walked through first class and Zach said, “I want to sit here.”  Me too, kiddo.  Me too.  They boys got their “wings” on the flight.  Zach insisted on wearing his wings on every outfit for the rest of the trip.  I had to convince him that he could not wear them on his jammies.

Zach sat with me on the plane and Nate with Paul.  I had got them both backpacks prior to the trip and they enjoyed carrying them through the airport and getting their toys and books in and out of them.  Zach was easy on the plane, once we were cleared to watch movies.  I guess Nate slept some and mainly played with his headphones.  We had an hour layover in Chicago.  They were tired, but hung on.  During the hour short flight from Chicago to Traverse City, they both mainly just looked out the window.  Zach and I also spent a lot of time looking at his “I Spy” book.

The time spent in Michigan was a lot of fun.  Fortunately, we had WONDERFUL weather.  80 degrees and great beach weather.  My Aunt Betsy and Uncle Bob came out for a visit at Grandma’s.  Uncle Bob brought Central Michigan hats for the boys (”Go Chippawas!”).  Grandma and Great Grandma had some hula hoops and other toys ready for them.  Fortunately, we could play outside a lot in the nice weather instead of destroying the house.

We spent time at the beach.  It was beautiful being able to sit in a chair with our toes in the water and bask in the sun.  The boys loved playing in the water and the sand – getting wet and dirty.  We also spent a lot of time in the indoor hotel pool.  Zach wasn’t into the pool at the start, but then loved it.  He is so tall, he could walk half the distance of the pool before it got too deep.  Other highlights included riding the Carousel at the Grand Traverse Mall.  I guess my mom has been trying to find an excuse to ride that thing for years, and finally had a reason with the boys visiting.  The boys got great farmer tans on the trip.  They both look more blond than when we left.

Overall, it was a really fun trip.  Kids were good on the planes on the way back.  It was almost a disaster since our first flight was an hour late – such that we would have missed our connection.  But that plane was late too!  Never been happier to have a delayed flight.  Great Grandma got to have fun watching the boys play with bubbles and balls and other toys.  She watched them eat a ton of food – especially fruit.  And also now knows why it is never quiet in my house when she calls.

Next trip is Summer Camp at Lake Chelan.  Cannot wait.  I like vacations!

Now for some photos.

Nate playing with bubbles.

Zach having a grand time playing outside.

They even take breaks.

The four generation shot.

Another 4 generation shot including Aunt Betsy.

Loving the beach.  I sat on an Adirondack chair with my feet in the water…very calming.

Nate loved running in the yard.

Zach wondering how to get more time in the pool back at the hotel.

Steph and her grandma.

Almost all happy kids…Nate was tired.

Definitely a wonderful place to relax, enjoy the sun, and play in the water…hope to be back soon.

My thoughts on Beijing…

Lots of Traffic.  Lots of History.  Big disparity in prices.  Lots of Traffic.

First, the traffic.  Let me start by saying they limit the cars on the road depending on the last two numbers on your license.  Roughly 20% of the cars each day are not on the road in Beijing.  Yet, there were times when it took us 45 minutes to go 2 miles.  The only time traffic seemed to flow well was in the weee hours of the morning (like around 4 or 5 am).

As for driving ability…the people of Beijing are the most talented drivers I’ve ever seen.  Seriously, there is no way I could drive in this city.  Lane markers are only there as a suggestion.  Cars seem to always straddle the line as they jockey to move forward.  Bikes, mopeds, and scooters are constantly shooting against traffic without regard for their life.  I saw single left turn lanes become 4 cars wide in the intersection…everywhere cars would head against on coming traffic to move ahead of the car in front them.  The shoulders were passing lanes.  The beauty of this chaos was how things seem to flow – people just make it work.  Lots of honking but no road rage (absolutely none).

As for crossing the street, that can be adventurous.  My only close call came with a bus that wasn’t going to stop (even though I had the green walk sign).  So you always need to pay attention.

I took the safe road on food.  Nothing too outrageous.  Lots of Peking Duck – which is very good.  A fish that is carved up to look like an Outback Steakhouse Bloomin Onion (see photo of fish here).  I also had hot pot (like shabu shabu in Japan).  Hot pot has a spice in it that tastes like soap and numbs/tingles your tongue/lips.  I believe it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_Pepper.  I even drank corn juice (think – pureed cream of corn).  I ate lots of dumplings (ie Dim Sum) and I even tried McDonalds.

SightSeeing.  Not as much as I wanted to do but I did take a tour to the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall, and the Summer Olympic Park.  I also drove by Tianamen Square.  There is plenty more in Beijing that I missed and would like to someday check out.

I stayed at the Hilton Beijing – I highly recommend it for the business traveler.  And if offered, take the upgrade to the executive tower which provides free breakfast, free water/soda/coffee all day, and free happy hour.  The rooms in this executive portion are large, comfortable, and very modern.

Photos to come later.

I watched ‘Crazy Heart’ with Jeff Bridges…not my kind of movie but when you have 11 hrs to kill, you need to pick something.  I read some and I played lots of yahtzee (like 2 hours worth) on my ipod touch.  The flight went up the Canadian coastline and flew directly over Anchorage…since it was clear I got to see a ton of mountains and glaciers.  I also pretty confident (based on my current research) that I saw Mt McKinley off in the distance – even though it’s over 100 miles from Anchorage – it is 20k ft tall – hard to miss on a clear day.

The flight crossed from Alaska over the southern Bering Sea and into Siberia – it really did look cold down there.  Lots of sea ice!  Along the way there were really cool views of mountains, glaciers, icebergs, and sea ice – at least until it got cloudy.  From about 90 minutes, it started getting pretty bumpy.  There are some thunderstorms moving through so the plane was bouncing around a bit.  About 20 minutes before landing they announced that they were going to spray disinfectant in the cabin since it was international flight.  Basically they shot something through the air system (you could smell)…I have no idea what I got exposed to…oh well.

Once on the ground, customs was easy…not much different from the US really but less of a line.  I carried my luggage so I didn’t have to wait for it.  Everything at the airport is in English (and Chinese obviously) so it was easy to get around.  I stopped at the currency exchange to pick up my RMB (Chinese money) – you can’t pick this up outside of China as it is a closed currency.  Next was the taxi.  They have a taxi line so I hopped in one and handed the driver the address…in English.  Crap!  He doesn’t understand “Hilton Beijing” in english…nor do the 3 other Taxi helpers standing around the car.  I pulled out a Google map (which was partially in Chinese) – I think that got him going but he still wasn’t sure.  Fortunately there was a phone number on the map – so he called it and got directions.

The Hilton is nice…I flashed my hilton honors number, paid a fee to add breakfast and got an upgraded room which also includes complimentary happy hour.  That’s where I’m at now.  The room is nice.  They say you don’t want to drink the water…I saw why in my room…it had a pale brown color to it in the sink.  At least there is bottled water everywhere.

Well, that brings you up to speed.

At least he looked good.

That is the ski run along the bottom.

This last week I returned from my work trip to Luxembourg and Ireland.  I was able to get some site-seeing done in Luxembourg and Galway as well.  Here are some photos:

Homes and businesses along the river.

Nice view of the river.

Inside the Galway Cathredral.

Thirsty!

Popular Galway waterfront.

The Cliffs of Moher.  Not common to have such a sunny day – we got lucky.

Token picture of me.

Looking north along the Cliffs of Moher.

Ancient tomb in the Burren.

The Burren…kind of like the moon.  It is covered in limestone eroded away by rain and wind.

Ruins next to an abbey.

The walls of the abbey.

More photos can be had in my image gallery.

Now, for this week.  Our yard partial yard renovation begins this week.  We have contracted with Andy at Ecoyards.  In a nutshell, we are having our front yard re-landscaped with new plants, lawn and borders along the driveway.  Basically, a real good cleanup.  For the backyard, we are replacing our brick patio with a paver patio, enlarging it a bit, adding steps to our lawn, removing some lawn, and adding in some gravel pathways.  The back half of the backyard will not be changed.  We are definitely excited.

So, from the beginning, we left Seattle at 7am on Thursday for the 7 hour drive.  All was good except our navi took us the long way…we ended up putting on an extra hour in the end.  Anyway, the kids were awesome and the drive was beautiful, except for some extremely dense fog (the likes of which I’ve never seen) on Pennask Pass.  We arrived at our condo just before 4pm.  We stayed at Stonebridge which was literally a 3 to 4 minute walk (on snow) to the village center.  Very cool.  The condo was a 2 bedroom (one master suite and the other with 2 queens) with a kitchen and 2 baths – excellent place.  Oh, and a hot tub on the deck.  For the first night, we had dinner at one of the restaurants and went tubing afterwards.  We also met another family with 3 kids who we ended up skiing and tubing with for the next 4 days.

On the first day, we got the kids checked into daycare and off we went.  The weather was cloudy and foggy…traditional Big White (Out).  We cruised around some of the mountain for a few hours before taking a break.  I was thrilled that my running was paying off in the skiing department as well.  For the remainder of the day we skiid with Gary and Denise (friends we met the night before).  They are veterans to Big White – so they showed us around.  Steph stopped just before noon but I made it from 9 to 2:30 before finally finishing up (this would be my shortest day).  That night we had pizza and enjoyed the Olympics…LIVE!  Yes, it was cool…we didn’t have to depend on that shitty NBC network like in the states.

The second day started off similar to the first day…a few hours of skiing then we met up with our friends.  Steph made it past noon on this day.  I ended up skiing until past 4pm.  Probably the longest day I’ve done since college.  But the sun came out and I couldn’t just stop at that point.  As for our kids, Zach’s lesson’s were not going well so we decided Steph would go with him the next day.

The weather was perfect on the third day.  I started off on some double black diamond runs and cruised around a good portion of the mountain before meeting up with Steph.  With the sun out, it was a perfect day for picking up bumps and things.  Definitely a great day to be on the mountain.  I stopped at 1pm and then attended a 2 hour lesson with Zach and an instructor.  Zach does well at skiing straight but he doesn’t know how to slow down or stop.  Anyway, we had fun and I was very tired.  That night we went tubing again and the runs were ICY!  We were flying down the runs…much quicker than Friday night.  The runs were actually too fast…they ultimately closed our favorite run on Monday night since it was too fast and because a young woman broke a few bones on Sunday night on the run.

Now for the vomit part.  Sometime during the night I awoke to a door shutting.  I found Zach in the bathroom looking a little dazed.  After some investigation in his room, I quickly realized he had blown chucks all over his pillow, the floor and Nate’s comforter.  Yuck.  Steph and I spent the next half hour cleaning and getting him settled on the couch – where he vomitted again into Steph’s hands.  Fortunately that was the end of Zach’s sickness…mostly.  He did have some issues out the other end at daycare the next day.

As for skiing on Monday – fabulous.  Sunny to partly cloudy, warm, and excellent conditions.  I spent the day skiing with Gary and Denise.  We cruised over the whole mountain and I even took the t-bar (yes, I have minor phobia over t-bars).  We finished the night with another 90 minutes of tubing.  Zach ended the evening by going down by himself (rather than connecting his tube to mine)…that was a big step for him.

This morning we got an early start out…we pulled away from Big White at 7:30.  At around 8am as we were pulling into Kelowna, Nate was getting real fussy.  After a few minutes of begging him to be quiet, he threw up in his lap.  This is now becoming the vomit trip.  We pulled into a Starbucks and got him cleaned up.  Steph gave me a bag of dirty rags and I hucked into a garbage can outside of Starbucks.  I went in and picked up some coffeed and donuts.  Nate was begging for a donut believe it or not.  About a half mile down the road, I asked Steph what was in the bag – his clothes and blanket!  Screeeech!  His blanket I asked?  U-turn.  We drive back to Starbucks and I proceed to fish this bag of vomit covered clothes out of the garbage in front of about 10 people enjoying their morning coffee outside.  At this point, Steph and I proceed to get into an argument since she couldn’t figure out how to unlock the car door.  To make a long story short, I threatened to leave her in Kelowna.

After that the drive was relatively quick (now that I followed the better route) and uneventful.  The kids were definitely pushing buttons but we made it home.  Now Nate is definitely sick as he’s tossed his cookies about 5 times but is now sleeping.

As for Big White, I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.  It missed on the dinner accommodations for families.  It lacks variety in family restaurants – it is definitely better for non-kid crowds.  Otherwise, an excellent place and I’m sure we will be heading back.

Anyway, I had a blast of course.  For those who don’t know – I took flying lessons for about 6 months in 2002 but stopped after we moved back to the Bay Area and took on a bigger mortgage.  The experience this morning brought back several fun memories as well as some joy in knowing that I haven’t lost all of that training I got many years.

As for the plane, it was a Piper Archer II.  Sweet little plane for training…much easier (for me at least) than the Cessna 172 I trainer in before.  I recall always fighting to keep the 172 trim during flight whereas the Archer was much easier to stabilize.

Here is a photo of Mt Baker taken from over Whidbey Island:

The Backstory

Starting Tuesday evening Zach was had a mild fever and congestion.  We kept Zach home on Wednesday and Thursday, and only Nate went to school.  Nate seemed to be holding up strong although he did have some congestion.

Tonight at around 8pm I heard Nate coughing and crying in our bed.  I walked in there and he was curled up crying.  I, of course, thought Zach kicked him.  That was not the case.  He was throwing up in our bed and he was pretty red.  I got a towel and thermometer.  Our crappy thermometer gave readings from 102 to 104…when I stick it in my ear it says 96…so I was pretty sure Nate’s temp was at least 104.  Yikes!

Steph and I quickly got our stuff together and drove over to Swedish.  We only had to wait about 5 minutes (good thing as a young woman was violently – and I do mean violently – vomitting in the bathroom around the corner.  Yes we could here it loud and clear).  Once in the room the nurses went to work on him – checking pulse, oxygen level, and temperature.  He came in at 104.0.  They gave him a ton of motrin and tylenol (way more than we would ever do).  1 hour later he was happy Nate with a temp of 100.7.

So what is it?  Just a virus.  There is some congestion but everything looks good.  The doctor did say that he’s in the early stages so we need to watch out for the other common things like ear infection or high fever lasting until Saturday.  The doctor told us they haven’t seen any flu cases in a few weeks and he didn’t appear to have croup (although still too early to tell).

Anyway, he’s back to his chatty self and watching a movie before he falls asleep.