Thunderbolt

Short day at work. It's Halloween!! Sophie is SOOO excited that it just runs over and everyone gets excited, too. Did not run today. Not sure about tomorrow. I feel like I'd like to take a couple extra days off just to let my body overcome some of the burnout I've been feeling. And then I can start again fresh on Monday. Sophie's going as "Jasmine" from Aladdin tonight, and she looks soooo cute. I wish I could post pictures. That's all for today. Aloha.

The fires are dying down up by our house. This is a huge relief. Hopefully by the weekend the firefighters will have extinguished all remaining flare-ups in the Santa Clarita area. As for the San Bernardino Mountains and San Diego, that's another story altogether. As far as I can tell, Tony and Cindy’s house hasn't been lost yet. All news I've been following makes no mention of the area near their home that I am familiar with. I can only hope and pray. Tony and his daughter, Brianna, stopped by Klasky this morning and I gave them a tour of the animation studio. I think it was more a distraction than anything else. I'm sure their whole family is getting stir crazy staying at their cousin's house for so long. I know I would. With the air quality as terrible as it is, our 18-mile run has been cancelled for this weekend. That means that next weekend is supposed to be the 18-miler. Guess I'll have to figure a way to do it on my own in Bowling Green. I ran o...

It's Wednesday. I've caught up. Came into work and everything seemed fine by our house. A couple hours into the day, though, and all hell broke loose. Part of Interstate 5 (which I must take to get home) was close off by our house and there were major flare-ups around Six Flags Magic Mountain, a popular amusement park by our house. Julie is freaking out just a little. And with good reason. I'm going to leave work early to fight traffic and try and get there to be with my family. I feel terrible for my friend Tony. Today was the first day he said he felt like he had no confidence that their home would be spared. The fires in Lake Arrowhead are literally a hell on earth and there is no way they'll be able to stop those fires because there are just TOO many dead or dying trees up there. On top of that, the smoke has become too thick for planes to fly overhead and drop water/retardant. This is a tragedy. I've sent out word to Robert (my running coach) to get hi...

This is for Tuesday. I ran in the morning and it felt pretty good. You could see the air getting darker. Had a lot of things on my mind and it was hard to concentrate on the run. Decided on a new story (or an old one) to pursue) and that gave me some new confidence. And hope. This is an idea I've been meaning to write for a long time and just deciding to go forward with it has given me renewed excitement in writing. Of course, it isn't commercial and wouldn't be an “easy" sell, buy it's something that I feel like I WANT to write, and that is more important at this juncture. Got to work and spent the day worrying about the fires up by our house. Those worries proved to be justified when Karyn and the boys came over to our house to spend the night. Parts of Stevenson Ranch were voluntarily evacuated. I came home early, a little worried and stressed. You can see ash floating around in the air, covering cars and just about everything else. My sister Beth and ...

Monday. Did not run but got up and did some Yoga while Jules went to her gym to work out at 6:15. The kids, of course, woke up too. I think they're a little off because of Daylight Savings time (which was on Sunday). Anyway, while Sophie and Jacob watched the Wiggles, I did a little Yoga. Not as much as I'd like, but it turned out to be enough to ease my soreness from Saturday. Went to work with a little confidence. The network has picked up 10 new episodes of our one show. There should be a little job security, right? As the day went on, it became evident that the fires are not going out any time soon. I spoke with Tony, briefly, on my way to work and he said he is going back and forth between being bummed and having an attitude of there's nothing you can do... it's in Mother Nature's hands. I'll tell you, I don’t know what to say to him. I can't imagine being faced with the possibility of losing your home. They have a beautiful place that they'...

Just viewed when my last posting occurred. Yikes, it's been a week. Anyway, as I said, the fires in San Bernardino had begun burning uncontrollably. On Sunday, after Church (Julie's first day singing in the choir), we went to a Halloween party at Budd and Karyn's. Every year Karyn throws a party for the neighborhood kids on her street, plus our kids and Vill and Heather's kids. My legs were a little sore from the 10-mile run, but all together, I felt pretty good. The party was great, but a black cloud literally hung over our heads all day. A fire in Simi Valley could be seen in the hills. You could see the glow from the flames and it made the presence of danger felt, at least, I felt it. What if those flames come our way? What will the air quality be like? What should we do with Jake? Things like this may never occur to parents with regular kids, but when your child has a lung condition... The Gardners were spending the night at Karyn's sister's house (...

It's been a crazy couple of days so I'll do my best to update everything in order.... On Saturday we ran 10 miles and it was a little tough for me. My legs were kind of stiff and I think that because I didn't begin with a 4/1 and jumped right into a 5/2, my legs have a little rough time getting set. Plus, I forgot my Advil, so when the achiness set in, I didn't, have anything to help ease the pain. Still, I finished with a better time than I did our last 10-mile recovery, so maybe we did something right after all. The rest of the day was spent cleaning up the house for dinner with our neighbors and watching Bowling Green defeat Northern Illinois in an important Mid American Conference football game. The game was televised on ESPN from BG, so it was really neat to see the old football stadium on TV. Later, our neighbors, Steve and Missy Miller came over with their twin daughters, Sophie and Hannah for lasagna dinner and we had a real nice time. It was really nice to...

Ran again this morning. I switched my days so that Jules can go check out this workout facility tomorrow morning. The run was okay, but I kept psyching myself out worrying about getting home in time to see Sophie off to school. I believe that this has been one of the things tripping me up all of these weeks. I just didn't realize it until today. Still, I managed to run the Decoro hill and get home in 55 minutes. Next week I'll combine the Decoro hill with the last 3/4 of my usual morning 4 miles, just to give my legs a little more push before the 18 mile run. What a great birthday that will be. We are completing the final sound mix this evening and I am so excited that it'll all be over soon. Peter is amazing with the sound edit and has transformed some of these scenes back to how they originally were intended. We should have no problem having this new version done for the Bowling Green screening. Seann is really kicking butt and may be able to get my ticket reimburs...

Ran this morning and it felt great for the first time in weeks. I mean, it felt like I remembered it feeling like all those months ago. I ran a 4/1 for the first half then switched to a 5/1 for the last part of my run. With Springsteen blaring in my ears (man, is it ever time to switch out the tunes on that MP3 player) I cruised home. Like I said, it felt great. After I got home, well, that's a different story. Sophie had a dentist appointment and she WAS NOT happy about that. Poor Julie had to take Soph with Jake en tow. However, they all lived through it. I, on the other hand, had to suffer through some of the crappiest traffic in memory to get to work. I had randomly picked three albums for the ride this morning and made it 90% of the way through Bob Dylan Unplugged before Zimmerman's haggled voice drove me to the brink of smashing into the car in front of me. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but close. Work today was fine. Sent off a nice big picture of Jake and some ...

I did yoga this morning. I had previously written (about 5 minutes ago) an entire rant about the sadistic nature of yoga instructors, but I somehow lost the whole thing. Seems my karma was watching out for me. Whatever. Like I said I did yoga this morning and it has made my legs feel great. I look forward to it on Wednesday and figuring out new breathing techniques to help shift the focus of my pain during the marathon. We walked Sophie to class today. She made a card for one of the boys in her class. She was so cute when she went to give it to him. She was nervous, but smiling. I don't think he quite understood that she might have a little crush on him. She always talks about this boy and wonders why he won't play with her. Soph hasn't quite grasped the whole separation of boys and girls at that age, yet. Why would she? She's grown up playing with Max and Zach and Jake. There weren’t any other girls around. God, when she was going up to give him that card,...

Just tasted the most digusting candy ever... From the makers of my favorites, "Hot Tamales", comes Mike and Ike's Buttered Popcorn flavored chewy candies. Don't know what I was thinking. I may be ill...

Sorry I didn't write over the weekend. Our computer is now in the shop so I'm writing from work. Saturday was the 16-mile day. I was pretty jacked up to go and run this one. The intimidation I felt before the 14 mile run wasn't there at all. In fact, I was ready to go out the gate and felt like I was running a really strong run up until, like, mile 10. At that point, my legs started to feel fatigued, but I managed to finish. For this run, I teamed up with, essentially, four other people: Sebastian, Irene and Tony, who are all running for City of Hope. I had run with Tony about five weeks ago. He's a great guy who is training to climb Mt. Everest. Sebastian runs a 5/2 pace so I decided it was better to run with a group for 16 miles at their pace than to run 16 by myself (that would no have gone well). In the end, I believe we completed the 16 miles in a time that was close to my time for the 14-mile run. I have to check into that, though. I think that breakthr...

While running yesterday, I had a breakthrough. I feel like this wall I've been challenging started to build when I went down to the 3/1. Before then, I was up to a 5/1 and felt great about my running. Since then, I can feel myself looking at the watch, hoping that my time is almost up and I can walk again. I hope this is the breakthrough I've been looking for. I believe that this fact and reducing my runs to 2 a week are going to help a lot. There are still so many mental hurdles to overcome. But at the end of my run yesterday morning, I felt strong and confident, something I haven't felt in weeks. In fact, when I got up this morning to ride my bike, I wasn't thinking, "Oh God, I wish I could go back to bed." Instead, I was looking forward to it. I'm a little anxious about tomorrow and the 16-mile run. After what I went through on the 14-mile trek, I hope I am better prepared. Advil and almonds will be on hand, as well as an ample supply of water...

So I'm still in shock over last night's Cubs game. Having grown up watching Cleveland teams choke in the last minute, I feel for the people of Chicago. I have switched my running schedule. The morning runs have grown longer and I don't have enough time to run 6 miles and get into work on time. Plus, I really want to help Jules out with the kids on the mornings Sophie has school. They have to leave by 7:45 and if I don't get back from a run until 7:30, well, it places all of the responsibility on Julie and that's just not fair. I checked in with Robert and he said that 2 days, at 40-50 minutes each will be fine and, of course, the long runs on Saturdays. This is a great relief. I have hit another wall. I hit a similar wall back in late June. I get to a point in which I don't even want to be running and I feel like it's just a labor and no longer a labor of love. I hate having that feeling. The mental aspect is bogging me down, even though I can run 5...

I have really fallen behind. I spent the rest of last week recovering from that cold. I didn't run again until Saturday morning. We worked on the movie again last Thursday and it's almost done (again). Hopefully we can meet tonight and finish up. The run on Saturday was fine. I didn't go all out and could really feel that I hadn't run all week. I ran with a woman, Lucy, whom I never ran with before. When I got to the training site that morning I was hoping to run alone. I'm glad I didn't. Even with a running companion it took over 2 hours. The rest of the weekend was spent straightening up the house in preparation for Julie and the kids returning home. On Saturday night, I drove up to Lake Arrowhead and spent the night with the Gardners. Tony and I drove around the town and he showed me the devastation from the bark beetles and how all of the pines are quickly dying and being cut down. It gave me some great material for a new story idea. We watched ...

Good Lord, I am whipped. Monday night's sound mix went until 3:00 am and I didn't get to be until 3:30. I was dog tired yesterday and with my immune system weakened, a cold saw its opportunity and pounced. Ugh. I did manage to get up at 6:30 and run the Decoro hill this morning. It wasn't physically hard, but it was difficult fighting back all of the cold related crap in my head. But, I am glad I ran. I was this close to sleeping for another hour. Probably should have. Jules and the kids sound like they're having a great time back in Ohio. Sophie appears to have come out of her shell and is going up to Grandma and Grandpa and just playing with them. Her "shyness" seems to be fading. Maybe it's because she's so popular in her preschool class. I don't mean to say that like I'm Joe Bragging Guy (you can tell I'm sick when all I can come up with is that LAME name), but she's always getting requests from other moms to have play dat...

CD's from last week: Springsteen, 8/17/03 Dodger Stadium- Dude, I was right about this one, even though the bootleg is poor quality (sounds like they're under water sometimes---where does that guy come up with his rating system?) the show was awesome. The band was T-I-G-H-T and Max had a killer night. Can't wait to see Budd's face when I give him his copy. Kinks "Ultimate Collection" - Don't you just love "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" Shawn Colvin "A Few Small Repairs" - Forgot how moody and sad this album. Colvin wrote most of these tracks when she separated from her then husband. I once heard her say in an interview that she wanted to write songs like Springsteen's "Tunnel of Love" (another breakup masterpiece). I guess she got her chance. Eva Cassidy "Songbird" - The only version of "Over the Rainbow" and "Fragile" I will ever listen to again. Men at Work - "Essential Collectio...

Monday. I didn't run this morning because I drove Jules and the kids to the airport. They�re en route to Cleveland for a week and I already miss them. I didn't realize how much I was going to be aching until I heard "When You need Me" by Springsteen in the car on the way to LAX. My eyes are a little misty right now. You know, before I started this whole journey to complete the marathon, I would have been a little excited to have a week to myself and just go see movies and act like a bachelor, knowing that they were coming home. But going through everything and making the effort to write about it has changed me. I miss them terribly. During the last trip they took I finally figured out how to get to sleep at night. I just crowd all of the pillows in the bed against my back and sleep on the edge of the bed. Amazingly, I sleep like a baby (just like I do when I have Soph's knees in my back every night). It's going to be a quiet week. After doing a little ...

Ran again this morning, but didn't complete the 4 miles I was trying to run. These new insoles were bugging the heck out of my feet. So, I bought new ones... again. I wore my running shoes to work to try and break in the insoles. They feel a lot better (should have went with Dr. Scholl's in the first places). I was pleasantly surprised to find an email from another of my college buddies, Brad, this morning. I haven't spoken with him since Bob's wedding last year. He said he's going to come to the Bowling Green Screening in November. Have I told you? That’s on. I have my plane ticket and Seann has everything in place. I sent out word to some of my Ohio relatives and friends and I predict that there will be more advertising in the next couple of weeks. I need to work all of that out. I'm pretty excited about the trip. Hopefully we can sell out the theater and raise over $1000 for CF. That would be fantastic. I'm on my way out the door. More tomorr...

The results of Tuesday's late night had a direct effect on me Wednesday. I woke up at 5:00 on the dot, but forced myself to go back to sleep (oh, that was real tough, honest). Got up at 6:00 and went running by 6:30. I did 4 solid miles (instead of the scheduled 6) and it felt good. The rest of the day I was spent, though. Couldn't much get my brain to work, although that could have been caused by the fuel line leak in my car. Talked with Tony a little more and I'm going to spend the night up at their place in Lake Arrowhead next week. I'm sure we’ll discuss the job opportunity a little more. Got home and Jake was sounding barky like he has the croup again. Perfect, just in time for their trip back to Cleveland. Haven't done any reading or writing in awhile. Have to get back into the swing. Kind of occupied with KH, though.

Sorry I haven't written all week. It's been a little hectic (mostly mentally). Monday was a strong run. Felt great. Tuesday I didn't run (day off). Tuesday night I was in a sound mix for "King's Highway" until midnight-ish. I didn't get home until 1:00 am. The remixing is coming along great and I'm very excited about the improvements. This man I'm working with, Peter Carlstadt, is so awesome that I'm so thankful when we get together because he's doing this all out of the kindness of his heart. Tuesday was also a mentally crazy afternoon. The layoffs continue here at the animation factory and I really feel that my days are numbered; despite the assurances I have received. With that thought weighing heavily on everything, I've started sending out my resume. I also had an enthusiastic conversation with my friend, Tony Gardner, whom I worked for before coming to Klasky Csupo. He has a big job on the horizon and the timing seemed ...