The Sillage of a Man

This is a repost from my Facebook account in remembrance of my father-in-law who passed away a year ago Saturday

There is a word, often used to describe the smell perfume or cologne can leave in the air, called sillage. It is a noun. Another way of defining "sillage" could be to say the impression made in space after someone or something has passed through.

Yesterday we remembered my father-in-law and the life he lived to the fullest.

My wife,, bravely endured a little bit of physical pain so that when the emotional pain becomes a bit much, she can always look over her shoulder at her father and smile.

I watched my sons dance and spread love and joy at a memorial service in remembrance of a great man. And we all smiled at them as we remembered the man who spread love and joy through a sometimes dark world, many times with a silly dance to an oldie song.

Today I decided to read through my old journals and found that I had written the definition for "sillage" down because it was such an odd and archaic word for something I had experienced but wasn't aware had been defined.

And I realized that my father-in-law left one hell of a "sillage" in his wake. The impression that he left in my life, and in the lives of everyone he touched, is so great that it will never fade. And while it makes me sad that this sillage is what is left, it makes me smile that he lived a life to leave such a great one.

This is the tattoo my wife got on Saturday in memory of her father. They both loved ducks. When flying in a V-formation, the duck in the lead with fall back to rest and fly at the back of the formation. The duck at rest (top right) represents her daddy. 

What a weekend!

Had a great time this past weekend. Ran in the Beach 2 Bay Relay Marathon. For those of you unaware, the Beach 2 Bay is the largest Relay Marathon in the world and is an annual rite of passage for those living in South Texas. 

This was my second time running it. This time I ran the third leg which goes over the causeway from Padre Island and ends up right outside the Naval Air Station here. 

It was a beautiful view from the top of the JFK causeway looking out over the Laguna Madre as the sun rose behind me, though it was overcast and muggy as all hell. And I was woefully under prepared for the run. 

Last year, I swore that I would do a better job of staying in shape so that when B2B came around I would not be in as much pain as I was last year. I did alright keeping that promise and was in pretty decent running shape up until about three weeks ago. 

Three weeks ago I was playing with R.J. and J.T. and somehow twisted wrong and did something with my rib. I don't know if I tweaked a rib muscle or popped it out of socket a bit, but it hurt something fierce. So bad that I even made a trip to the ER clinic in town. 

Long story short, that put a hiatus on most any type of exercise for the next three weeks. So I went into Beach 2 Bay as cold as you can get. 

I knew I was in trouble when I got about halfway up the bridge and my calves were already burning from the climb and I was desperately checking my phone to see how much distance I had left. 

The worst part came however when I hit about the two mile mark. At about this point, my right foot went completely numb. This had never happened to me before and it was a bit disturbing. Not too mention that it made running that much more difficult. It was hard to tell how my foot was hitting the ground because I couldn't feel it. 

I would ease up my pace and walk a bit and the feeling would return but as soon as I began to run again BOOM! my foot would go back numb. 

So my final 2 miles was more of a start/stop than a run and I  am sure that those passing me though I must've been crazy as I walked around shaking my foot around. 

In the end though I finished, and just like last year, the finishing is the best part. There really is nothing like going to the finish line celebration and cheering on the last leg, plus hanging out with literally thousands of people who have just gone through the same thing you have. 

Still, Monday morning was a sore morning and I limped my way through work the rest of the day. Hopefully this year I really will be able to stay in shape and maybe even improve to the point where I can begin approaching runs like Beach 2 Bay with a competitive bent rather than just as a fun activity to do once a year. 

I do know though that no matter what kind of shape I am in, I will run again next year. 

Blog Challenge

To say that I update this blog infrequently would probably be the understatement of the century. And despite many of my best intentions, it would seem that I always have serious trouble making posts of any kind on this blog. I think that is for a variety of reasons, but at the top of that list of reasons is the fear that I don't have anything of worth to say.

So in order to slide my away around that fear and doubt, I have decided that I am going to challenge myself to update this blog at least five times a week. The reason I am challenging myself in this way is that it will force me to post updates without worrying over whether I have anything of value to say.

I just hope that I will be able to stick to this deceleration as I usually tend to quickly forget about resolutions I make. But who knows, maybe making it public in this manner will force me to stick closely to my goal.

I'm not sure how long I am going to keep this up either. Hopefully until blogging on a regular basis becomes a habit.

You Reap What You Sow

Super Saturday is upon us and CNN will begin covering the results in just a few hours. Super Tuesday has come and gone, and though the playing field has narrowed to just four the conversation still centers around Donald Trump as it has throughout this entire primary season.

The GOP establishment is in a panic and news networks are trying to explain the seemingly inexorable force that is The Donald. Despite comments and a campaign strategy that would doom any other campaign to a very public death (I'm looking at you Howard Dean), The Donald continues to ride roughshod over the Republican primaries. It is almost as though his hair is actually made of a carbon fiber/Teflon weave rather than of left over straw from Scarecrow's costume from the Wizard of Oz.

But really his rise to power (and ability to go the distance) shouldn't be that surprising. The GOP is just reaping what they have sown. For the past eight years the GOP has railed against Washington and the establishment. Ted Cruz's rise to power was on the same wave the Trump has now commandeered. In fact next to Trump, Cruz screams "Washington Insider".

No, The Donald's rise to power is a direct result of all the hard work that the GOP has put into bringing down President Obama and the Democrats. Only now they have lost control of it. If you have seen any of the Jurassic Park movies, you're familiar with the overall plot points.

And to further complicate the issue, the other three candidates have yet to step down and unify behind one candidate. Were this to happen, they might just have a chance to stop Trump. But in effect, Rubio, Cruz and Kasich have become third party candidates within their own party who do nothing except fracture the vote so that Trump emerges victorious again and again. And it is only going to become worse if Rubio wins Florida and Kasich wins Ohio. They will only use that as a further proof that they should remain in the race, and more than likely Trump will continue to pick up delegates from everywhere else.

Even if after this weekend they do finally unify like some political Voltron, it may be too late to stop Trump. Had there only been three candidates at the beginning of the primary it is likely that Trump would have already been defeated, but he was able to win again and again because of his strong base, a base that was created by the GOP establishment.

The question now is where does the GOP go from here? In all honesty, it may not have a choice in the end to either support Donald Trump. Either that or disown him. But what will that do to the GOP? Could we be witnessing the death of a party? Or the creation of a new one?

Avoiding Bad Calls

My favorite professional football team is the Dallas Cowboys. And last they played one of the most important games they have had for several seasons. For what seemed years, we had be mired in an amazingly average 8-8 season. Not good. Not bad. Right down the middle.

But not this year. Not this season. At first, analysts said we'd be lucky to get there. Then they began to talk post-season and Superbowl. With good reason. With the new O-Line, Dallas looked good. Maybe not a favorite for being the Champs, but not totally out of the conversation either.

The previous week, the Cowboys beat the Lions in a wild card playoff game. During the course of the game there was a controversial call that gave the Cowboys a slight advantage and, according to Detroit fans, and some analysts, clinched a playoff berth for the Cowboys.

Cowboys fans, however, took a different tact, saying that it was the multiple fumbles by Detroit, and the Cowboy offense that won the game.  With which I agree.

However, in the game versus the Green Bay Packers, the tables turned on the Cowboys and they were on the other side of a controversial overturned call that went Green Bay's way. Dez Bryant made a phenomenal play,  and had it been ruled a catch, could have solidified the Cowboys victory, or at least taken the wind from Green Bay's sails. However, it was ruled incomplete, and Green Bay received the ball soon to win the game.

My Facebook  and Twitter feeds exploded with comments from Cowboy's fans, claiming that the game was stolen from them due to a overturned call, that the refs were blind. That the replay booth was wrong. Etc. Etc.

Personally, I thought it was one of those calls that could have gone either way. I can see the refs and Green Bays point, but as a Cowboy fan I can see it as a catch as well. Honestly, letter of the law, I think it was incomplete, spirit of the law though says it was a catch.

However, whether it was, or wasn't, a catch, isn't the point of my blog today. My point is: I do not think the Cowboys won the game against Detroit because of a call, and I don't think Dallas lost the game against Green Bay because of a call.

Do I think the calls helped Dallas and Green Bay. Absolutely. Dallas a little and Green Bay in a HUGE way,  but they weren't the be all, end all to the game.

Rather calls in a football game are simply unexpected events. They can help and they can hurt, but there isn't any real way to plan for them, other than they WILL happen, and I don't think they are the single cause of the outcome to a game.

Weather and injuries fall into this same category. For example, I may have a kicker who is going to kick a 30 yard field goal in the final seconds of the game to win, when a sudden gust of wind knocks the ball off course and they lose the game.

That field goal kick did not lose the game for Team 1 any more than it won the game for Team 2. The outcome of that particular game was based on luck, good or ill depending on which side of the win column you are on.

Or the star quarterback goes down on a particularly nasty sack and the mediocre second stringer comes in, who is woefully unprepared to play at the level that is required.

Truly elite teams are able to rise above random events like this to win the game. Teams that are able to slough off random, potentially devastating random events, and move forward.

Had the game not been so close, Dez's incomplete pass might not have been so devastating. Green Bay could have gotten the ball back, but they might not have been able to immediately go into victory formation, meaning there would be a chance for a turn over by Dallas' defense. Or the choice could have been made to run the ball rather than throw it. It is a lot of "what ifs" but it is those decisions and moments that lost the game for Dallas not an overturned call.

This analogy translates very well to life. In the course of our day to day operations, we make mistakes that either increase our propensity to risk, or decrease our propensity.

Successful people, like successful sports teams or organizations, are the ones who make sure that when the unexpected happens, they aren't in a position that wins or loses the game for them.

That doesn't mean don't take risks. The throw Tony Romo made to Dez Bryant was VERY risky. 4th down and two, no timeouts. And had it been ruled a catch we would be sitting here today talking about how amazing of a comeback it was, Instead, it went the other way, and all us Cowboy fans have to wait till next season.

In your own life, learn from that. Learn when it is OK to take the risk of a deep pass, and when it is smarter to play it safe and run the ball. Make sure that when you take risk, the price of failure isn't everything you've worked for.

Bad things are going to happen. The best you can do is make yourself flexible enough that you can ride out the storm.

Success is not dependent upon unpredictable factors, but that also means that neither is failure.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Blessed New Year

I hope everyone has had a great holiday season so far. I know my Christmas was amazing, and the break is still going strong.

Thankfully, I was able to spend some time with my grandparents and aunt. They actually all came into town for R.J.'s birth, but missed out on J.T.'s birth, so it was my aunt's first time meeting him, and he charmed her as he does everyone.

It's also been nice to have two weeks to spend time with the boys and my wife. Teaching may have it's downsides, but the amount of time I get to spend with my family just can't be beat.

The boys were over-blessed with toys from all the grandparents. Seriously, my Jeep looked like Santa's sleigh and every bump we went over made every single noise making toy go off in a cacophony of catchy tunes and animal noises.

The new year is quickly approaching and I'm am doing something I've never done before: New Years Resolutions. Or goals, really. In any case, I've been spending the past couple of weeks, looking at what I would like to accomplish in 2015. I won't share the whole list here, though I may a brief overview, in a New Year's post; but I will say the whole process is invigorating.

I scoffed at the idea of New Year's Resolutions. I could never wrap my head around writing down these lofty statements, that wouldn't last a week. The running joke was: "My New Years Resolution is to have no resolutions." But I think my point of view on this changed when I began to consider goal orienting my life.

My family has often accused me of having a jellyfish mentality. And I do in a sense. Now, this can be a gift, setback don't upset me as much as they do other people, and it can also be a curse, I have little drive, no clear "goal".

So I decided I would work on that inherent weakness, I would set goals, manageable goals, and do my best in 2015 to accomplish them.

I thought this would be an incredibly boring task, and one that would "constrain" my creativity. I was proved pleasantly wrong.

I found it to be invigorating, and it actually sparked my creativity. Writing down the goal "Get Published" began to get the brain storm going on how I could make that happen: Short story? Article for an education publication? Self-publish?  

What I've found is that goal setting gives my creativity a path. It focuses it so that I can best utilize that energy. It's comparable to what happens to light when it is focused in a laser beam. Without the focus it is just ambient lighting, put the right lens on it, however, and it can really start a fire.

Now, I just need to do whatever it takes to accomplish those goals.

Value of a Dollar

Sorry that it has been a while since I last blogged. Life has been a little crazy around here lately now that the holiday season is in full swing, and the end of the first semester at school is winding down. I was also crazy busy with NaNoWriMo last month, and as such, wasn't really able to sit down and write a blog post.

I did manage to win. It came down to the wire due to my procrastination during Thanksgiving break (SO MUCH PIE), but I finished at around 10:30pm on Sunday, November 30th. That being said, I have not finished the actual book, and so I am now trying to stay disciplined enough to actually finish the durn thing, despite the fact I can see plot holes big enough to swallow the Spruce Goose.

But this blog post is not about writing today. Instead, I am going to write about a much more mundane, though necessary topic: money. Specifically, personal finance. YAY!

To start this off allow me to give a bit of a disclaimer. My father has his doctorate in marketing and finance. He is a businessman through and through. And he did his best to teach me about money and finances. He really did.

I, however, am a notorious creature of comfort. If there is an easier, softer way, I am going to take it. Every time. And so the notion of saving, and living below your means are all concepts I understand and agree with on paper, but when it comes to implementing them, I just couldn't hang.

During my college years, and early twenties, I managed to do some serious damage to my credit and to get my self in a bit of debt. Now, I am not in as much debt as some of my friends, but I really shouldn't be in any debt, since I had no student loans.

I've been forced to take a hard look at some of the issues I've cause with my financial irresponsibility these past couple of weeks. My wife and I began to look at some homes to buy, seeing as our rent is quite a bit more than what the mortgage and taxes and fees would be for a modestly priced home. However, because of my financial irresponsibility buying a house right now is just not feasable because of my credit score.

So, I've begun a budget and a way to pay back all of the debt I owe and to raise my credit score enough that we can move into a home and to begin saving for the future.

I know understand all the lessons my father tried to teach me in regards to money, and I wish I could go back in time and slap my younger self upside the head and tell him to listen to his father and not be so damn irresponsible, but I can't.

So I have just have to learn the lessons I was taught by life and move forward from here. I will be posting updates in my financial journey here, just as a way to keep myself accountable and to keep a record of what I've done, but perhaps someone who is a similar financial situation as I am will come along and it will help them in their financial journey as well.