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Our battle with breast cancer

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

Finding Inspiration

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Mountains are the means, the man is the end.  The goal is not to reach the tops of the mountains, but to improve the man.

– Walter Bonatti, Italian mounaineer

I’m one of those people who is always taken by inspirational movies, especially if they are true.  They really help me dream and look for solutions in life.  Having been in the online retail business though, I am not tainted by the fact that I know many movies take their liberties  with the truth, whether they are “The Blind Side” or “Rudy” or “61”.  Like most, I am one of those people who usually tells you to read the book first.  The books are always better, right?  Movies always leave out the details and don’t capture the true emotion.  Not the emotion of the writer, but the emotion you feel from interpreting the words as your eyes meet them.

In this modern day where social media allows us access to more of these stories, I find myself these days inspired by the stories of two fellow alums of Carnegie Mellon.  I was lucky enough as an undergraduate to have met Randy Pausch when he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon and shared a carpool over Thanksgiving from Pittsburgh to Baltimore.  His well documented You Tube video, called the Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams became a hit and inspired many who faced death with a sense of calm, respect and fortitude to keep on teaching and giving back.  He also gave inspiration to living life to the fullest.  In fact there was no need for a movie as the video captured the leacture and was all that was needed.

More recently, I picked up the book, 127 Hours: Between A Rock and A Hard Place.  It is actually a little hard to imagine this scenario if you’ve never been there.  I saw the original documentary many years ago on Dateline with Tom Brokaw which I recommend you all watch before seeing the movie or reading the book.  It will help you with the perspective.  I’ve inserted Part 1 here.

The amazing parts are the actual video re-count that he captures where he makes comments and last testaments in expectation that he will not be able to live to tell us family and friends that he loves them. 

I’m about one third of the way through the book and I thought I’d review the Dateline interview again this morning.  I’m always looking to inspire my son who at age 11 still is learning to dream and think big.  For the first time I saw him riveted and inspired not by the crazy outrageous voyage that led the main character to his predicament, but by his will to succeed, to remain calm and cool under extreme pressure and to show a strong will to find one’s passion. 

I’m ready to go out today and succeed.  In the book, Aron Ralston talks about his richness in life that he appreciates.  I intend to go out there and do that today and look forward to finding tomorrow’s inspiration

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

The Graston Technique – Breast Cancer Rehabilitation

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Graston Instruments

We often think about the recovery from breast cancer and most often hear about surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.  My wife is now 2 years past her surgery.  It is easy to look at the rehabilitation and the treatment as trivial but it is a battle.  The scars still exist and are a reminder of the trying time we went through.  The piles of pills and the monthly shots will continue.  The pills will continue for another 3 years and the black and blue bruising elephant shot will go for one more year.

Part of the surgical process most breast cancer victims have involves the use of alloderm which helps regenerate tissue in the recovery process.  The result is an intact acellular matrix of natural biological components that promotes rapid revascularization, white cell migration and cell repopulation.  The problem with most women is that this results in what is known as rippling caused by the scar tissue.  Many women are taught to massage their breasts after the surgery, but this has met with mixed results.  Recently the Graston Technique has been introduced.  It uses medieval looking tools which vibrate against the skin as it runs over the rippling area. 

Please see the attached story and video:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=7879903

The story features both my wife’s therapist, Julie Wong, and my wife’s cancer surgeon Dr. Shelley Hwang.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, San Francisco - Leaving your heart

Thanksgiving – Remembering to be Thankful

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“When you’re down on your luck, you gotta do it,” –
Andrew W.K.’s feel-good song Got to Do It
 
After my wife found she had cancer a couple years ago, Thanksgiving took a different meaning for me.  I felt guilty that it took her illness for me to appreciate the holiday for what it is, but I do now take the time to remind myself and my kids about how thankful we should be at this time of year for what we have rather than next month when people start wishing for what they don’t have.  Tonight I sat on my brother’s couch after dinner, half napping as the tryptophan kicked in.  Fighting the lure of a nap, I picked up the recent Sports Illustrated and started to read an article about Jill Costello, a local girl from San Francisco with a big heart who graduated from the University of California at Berkeley this past Spring and as the coxswain for the women’s rowing team, led them to second place in the National Championships.
Jill Costello - former Cal rowing star

I had read briefly about Jill back in May in the local newspaper after I heard about her through the UCSF Medical Cancer newsletter that my wife gets. Jill had been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer although she did not smoke.

Although I hadn’t kept up with her story, as I read through the article I felt myself tearing up.  I knew what was coming.  I looked over at my wife smiling and laughing with my family and felt truly blessed.

Thanksgiving is truly THE family holiday of the year.  It isn’t long enough for most people to travel far  away.  It isn’t about presents or religion.  It is about celebrating your place and those around you and being thankful  for what you have.  Sometimes hearing stories about the loss of others who really are special people reminds me of this.

I want to give a special thanks to my friend Donald Wilhelm who we lost this year.  A good guy who inspired many and left us too soon.  In the article in Sports Illustrated: The Courage of Jill Costello, we read a great story about another inspiring person who can teach us to appreciate what we have today.  Although the article did not mention it, Jill lost her battle after graduation, but her strength inspired many to give more than you receive.

As her coach so succinctly put it at Jill’s funeral, “There are givers and there are takers, and you want to be more giver than taker. She never complained. She gave far more than she ever took. She was an inspiration to all of us. I hope when we face something as daunting as this, we can show some of the courage that she showed.”

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Remember or Move On?

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This Time's A Charm

It has been a while since I posted here.  It doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about what to post.  I’ve been thinking, but I’ve also been living.  Right after my last post, my friend Donald passed after losing his battle with cancer.  What do you say when the best fighter loses their fight?  I told him once I felt guilty that since my wife was feeling okay that I felt like maybe it was time to move on.  I respected people like him, Lance Armstrong and others who continue to raise awareness and also inspire others in such a public way.  He told me there is no guilt and no shame. 

I’ve always been taught not to forget your past.  Don’t forget where you’ve come from.  Remember the journey and all the people that helped you along the way.  The cancer that my wife had and all the people who helped us won’t be forgotten.  They are special people,  but when the memory is an unplesant one, it is nice to not have to think about it.  As it was my wife’s illness, I think I take her lead.  She is moving on and I can tell would rather not talk about it if she can.

The problem is the disease still won’t go away.  You can’t escape it.  As I mentioned, right after my last post Donald, Wilhelm died, then my wife’s good friend found out she has breast cancer and two more relatives admitted that they have it as well. 

So maybe we can’t move on.  You can live, but you have to live with those memories and help inspire others.  We don’t have to inspire others by helping them directly with their fight.  You can help by showing them how to keep moving, keep breathing, keep smiling. 

And as a message to Amy, the wife of Donald, you will find your way to move on.  Do not feel as though you need to prolong his message.  It will always be there……”don’t ever give up.”

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

2 Year Cancerversary

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Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy – bronze inscription above the tunnel entrance to Disneyland

The Happiest Place on Earth
The Happiest Place on Earth

Today my wife and I had a brief celebration.  We quickly acknowledged the mark of the 2nd anniversary of her cancer surgery.  We smiled, shared a kiss and went off to work and taking the kids to school.  When she was first diagnosed I would see posts about cancerversaries.  I asked what that meant.  Was it the date from diagnosis?  Then I was told it was the date from when you had your surgery.  For the most part, most people are looking forward to their 5th cancerversary.  It is when they are considered in full remission as there have been no sign of additional tumors.  In a way it seems like a 5 year purgatory.

Two years might not seem like a long time ago but it does feel that way.  We have somehow been able to mentally put cancer behind us as best we can.  There are the daily pills, the monthly shots, the side effects, etc., but it all seems to be like raising a baby.  You have some memories, but it seems so long ago and you have new challenges and some of the old memories get thrown out the door.  Those sleepless nights, the mental anguish the weeks and days leading up to the visit to the hospital, and all the help and visits from friends the days after seem distant and mostly it is in our minds.  That said, we are surrounded by reminders every day during our  journey back to normalcy of where we have been and how fortunate we are.

We just got back from a family trip to Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth.  In reality it isn’t always that way.  The crying babies, the tantrums, the frustration of negotiating large crowds and the L.A. traffic are just some of the smoggiest problems that Los Angeles and the Magic Kingdom have to offer.  In the end, it might not be the Happiest Place for All, but it is still magical.

My children noticed the large amounts of wheel chairs and ill children at Disneyland.  The Make a Wish Foundation seemed to have a large presence this past week.  Then it happened.  As we rode on the the Grizzly Rapids ride at the California Adventure Park, we struck a conversation with a dad and his 3 sons who were riding in the same raft. The dad confided in me that the family had lost their mom to breast cancer at the beginning of the summer.  This trip was a small way to distract his sons before the school year got started.  The Happiest Place on Earth was suddenly transformed into a place of hope and faith.  When I told them that my wife was a cancer survivor as well, he asked how long and did the quick math.  I realized there that it had only been two years since my wife’s original surgery which took place 9/9/08.

After the ride was over, my 8-year old daughter was in a giddy mood.  She laughed that both moms in both families were too scared to go on the ride (my wife chose to stay dry).  It was my 10 year old son who nudged his sister and told her to be quiet.  He had realized what was going on and was attempting to be considerate.  My daughter suddenly realized the weight of the situation and actually teared up a little as the other family walked away.    What really hit me wasn’t the heaviness of the encounter in such a beautiful setting but not only did my usually unaware children grasp the meaning, but their show of compassion for such a young age.

I tried to get a read from my kids later on in the day, but they seemed to move on.  They had a great time running around and laughing at Disneyland, and I didn’t want to interrupt them.  In their own way, they had moved on from cancer as well.  Cancer had affected them , but in a good way. Having witnessed their grandfather’s death and their own mother’s struggle with cancer in their young lives has only given them a greater apreciation for living life to the fullest and taught them to put the past behind them while recognizing how precious their own lives may be.

We have three more years of purgatory, but I think in our minds, cancer is almost already behind us.  We are learning to live with cancer with an enlightened point of view.  Well 2 years down and the rest of our lives to go!

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

Reflections and Listening to the Voices in Your Head

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“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” ~ Winston Churchill

The other night I was driving home when my mother gave me a call.  She was lonely and wanted to have dinner.  This might sound trivial to some, but since my father passed,my mother has been a non-stop whirlwind of energy.  A breast cancer survivor, she has traveled the world (South Africa, Egypt, Germany, China (2x), Japan, India, Hungary, South America, Morocco, Russia, Yugoslavia, Kenya, Maldives, Seychelles, etc.).  We joke in my family that we need to put a tracer on my mother as you never know where she is and although I live within a mile of her home, getting her to find a date to babysit is not an easy task.  Playing Mah-Jong with her friends, seeing the latest movies, morning tai-chi, and such I have always afraid my mother never really stopped to mourn my father’s death.

When I picked her up she wasn’t her cheery self.  Her other two children were on vacation and my own family was on the East Coast visiting my in-laws.  We always hear about Fathers and sons, Fathers and daughters, and Mothers and daughters, but “Momma’s boys” has always had a bad connotation. I wouldn’t call myself a Momma’s boy.  We’ve always butted heads and being the eldest we graduated to a peer-to-peer relationship pretty quickly.  It was like having 3 adults in the house and my 2 younger siblings were the kids. 

Tonight was different.  My mom seemed lonely and tired.  She admitted that the cancer had given her the desire to do and see everything.  She admitted that she missed her family.  Most of all, she admitted that she was really missing my dad.  I realized that she just wanted to talk and I let her (by all means, not a normal interaction for me and my mom) She talked all through dinner about what she missed. I just listened and teared up.  Finally as we ate our fortune cookies, she apologized for talking all during dinner and asked me if I still missed my dad.

I had seen the above Nike commercial the day before.  It reminded me of my nightly running and how I process thoughts and ideas each night to clear my head.  According to the agency it is meant to reflect the community of survivors and people who follow Lance Armstong and encourage him on a daily basis through his trials and tribulations.  When I processed my mother’s question, I told her that amazingly, I think that while I will always miss my dad, that I am finished mourning him.  That said, I don’t think I ever have a run at night where some thought of my dad doesn’t enter and pass through my thoughts.

The question made me think about some of the thoughts rattling through my brain. I got to do so much with my dad, but there are so many things I didn’t do.  So my mom and I came up with a plan of 5 experiences I’d like to have with my children that my dad and I had done separately but never together:

1. Go to China & Tibet (visit Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall)

2. Hike to and visit Machu Picchu

3. Visit and play the Old Course at St. Andrews (walk across the Swilcan Bridge)

4. Spend a month in France and Italy driving the countrysides and eating great food. We’ll throw in a few museums and major cities along the way.

5. Watch a game from the bleachers at Wrigley Field and have a beer afterwards 

After coming up with the list, my mother was so excited.  The list combined some things that I wished I had done with my father and I learned from my mom about some things my dad had said he would have wanted to share with his children.  It was quite surprising to hear some of his thoughts that I had never heard before.  This is not a crazy list and there are many things on the list that are much more grand, but they are personal to me and personal to my dad.  My mom loved it and by the end she was so happy that she wants to come along!

I definitely need to listen to the voices in my head more often.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Running for my Wife

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Bronze medalist Joannie Rochette

For all of the plans we’ve made,
There isn’t a flag I’d wave,
Don’t care if we bend,
I’d sink us to swim,
We’re marching on,

 – Marching On by One Republic

As I watched Olympic skater carry the Canadian flag  tonight the words to the One Republic song, Marching On, came to my mind.  The courage of the young lady from Canada who performed her best just days after her mother died captured the heart of the whole world.    Marching on…..  People ask how she did it.  When asked, she replied that she was able to get into a zone and for those few minutes on the ice her focus was on competition and not on her own personal grief.  For Joannie, it was her 3 minutes of outer body experience.  The focus and determination needed to compete consumed her.  The same was for Lindsay Vonn suffereing days earlier from a shin injury.  As soon as her run was completed, she collapsed.  These stories repeated themselves over and over again.  There was the story of the cross-country skier who pulled herself out of the hospital to compete and get a bronze medal only to collapse at the finish line and be taken back to the hospital.

With these stories, you  can very much understand where Joannie  is coming from.  Finding that place to escape has been what has helped my wife and I move on past her cancer.  Escaping the day to day worries and immersing ourselves in other tasks has driven us for the last 18 months.  Yes there still are the monthly shots, the black and blue marks, the pills, etc. which remind you every day.  Monthly I catch a glance at her abdomen which is bandaged from her monthly shot and am reminded of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come.

Tonight it hit me when I logged in and saw that I had reached 2500 miles.  That is 2500 miles I’ve run since my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I’m not sure why, but I decided early on that this was going to be my own cause and I was going to use our pain and will to survive to drive my exercise.  I remember being so grateful to her doctors that I vowed to personally contribute $.50 for every mile I ran to the hospital’s foundation.  I didn’t want to be part of a large walkathon or other event for a national plan, but I needed to make this my own personal journey, my own run for my health and for my wife.   This battle with my wife’s cancer was personal although I valued the community of survivors who gave words of encouragement and wisdom.

I can’t remember half those miles run.  I was running numb and hiding from my pain and my fears.  I remember some of those nights right after her surgery when I would put her to sleep and then just go for a run fighting back the tears at first and then those fears turned into energy fueled by my passion to not feel sorry and to start wanting to make a difference.  I understand where Joannie Rochette was mentally when she skated this past week.  Her inner strength and will to do her best under such extreme scrutiny and pressure in the face of such heartache was fueled by her passion and her will.

When we finished a recent vacation with our kids to our favorite resort, the hotel staff told us how they missed us.  We missed them too.  We had gone almost every year until we were given my wife’s diagnosis.  Why hadn’t we returned earlier?  I guess we just weren’t ready to truly resume our lives in a care free manner.  It has taken us that long to feel like we can celebrate our opportunity to move on in life.  We almost wondered if we had waited too long.  We sat out on our lanai as our children slept at night and felt the sea breezes on our faces and asked that question.  It didn’t matter.  We were just happy to enjoy our wonderful spot again together.  It was good to be in our happy place.

Cancer sites can be a very great resource for community therapy.  In fact we have made so many friends and are especially grateful to a friend in Hawaii who showers us with gifts and has really truly helped my wife as a personal confidante on many recovery issues.  Other than that, though, there has been a separate private struggle to return to normalcy.  The struggle is to keep busy, do the things you love and get on with the things you always wanted to do, yet find the balance to give back and show your gratitude to those who helped along the way.  My personal donation of running for my own charity and benefit for my wife’s cancer is  not a poke against the Susan G. Komen walk or the Avon walk.  For me, my wife’s battle with cancer was a personal matter and I wanted to give it back  on my own time and my own terms and for my own personal battle with the pavement.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Business - Affiliate Marketing

Internet Marketing from the Real Experts

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Internet Marketing My Shawn Collins and Missy Ward
Internet Marketing My Shawn Collins and Missy Ward

 At our recent Affiliate Summit, the organizers, Shawn Collins and Missy Ward unveiled their new book Internet Marketing From the Real Experts, a compilation of lessons from many of our colleagues in the internet marketing world.

The book has quickly risen into the top 1200 list on Amazon with very little marketing….or should I say traditional marketing.  The beauty of a book written about internet marketing is that it will likely be marketed well by those who wrote it.  In fact, the Gang of 88, as the contributing writers are called, are all marketing the book in their own way in blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter, etc.  Shawn and Missy also gave an incentive by giving all people who wrote a review online a silver pass to their next Affiliate Summit in New York in August.

The book is a quick read and for those of us in the business many of the “3 minute anecdotes” might seem trivial but for someone just entering the game and wanting some quick reference points will find this book to be a good useful starting point.  While I  found myself shaking my head at some passages I also found myself nodding my head at others.  There are probably sections I might never read, but that is why the book was written this way.

The book is written so that you can skip around and find the parts relevant to you.  Want thoughts on Twitter and Social Media?  There is a chapter.  Want to know about SEO and SEM?  Video?  There are sections dedicated to those topics as well.  The articles are based upon the writings from the first 7 issues of the of their magazine Feed Front.  Some might look at the title and say, “experts”?  Well maybe the writers aren’t experts, but they are real people in the industry who do the dayd to day work.  Thay aren’t professors or pontificators, but really the people on the affiliate line on a daily basis. 

I could go on and on, but I don’t want to reveal too much about the book because I think those interested should purchase the book themselves.  Still not sure if this book is for you and perhaps would like a reason to purchase a marketing book? At $14.93 on Amazon the book is a bargain, but not just for the knowledge gained, but because all proceeds from the sale of the book go to benefit and help the Fight Against Breast Cancer, a cause near and dear to the hearts of the authors and those in the industry.

What Should I write?

 While at the Summit I kiddingly asked Shawn to sign the copy included in my bag.  He laughed and I told him I wasn’t kidding.  Admittedly he was more distracted by the football game on the screen in front of him as his beloved Jets were playing in the playoffs.

I didn’t read what he wrote until returned home.  Hmmmmm, looks like I might have to write something for Feed Front to be included in the next edition.  Perhaps the ongoing struggle of running affiliate programs within larger corporations.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

The New Decade: Looking Forward and Barely Over our Shoulder

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The slower we move the faster we die.   Make no mistake, moving is living.

– George Clooney, Up in the Air

It’s irnoic that line is the one that will be remembered most from the first big movie in 2010 or in this decade.  Maybe that is why I’m running so much these days.

The new decade is here and what a decade the last one was.  It is easy to look just back at 2009, but that would be a short-sighted and very depressing one.  Wrought with health issues and a world economic crisis, even looking back 2 years might not even be what we need to be able to look back on the past decade with perspective.  As I ran down 2009 through a series of runs through the Streets of San Francisco I tried to reflect a little on the past year, but kept pulling more memories out .  As I looked farther back, I began to realize that I didn’t just need resolutions for the coming year (don’t like resolutions anyway).  I needed to look ahead to the whole next decade!   I haven’t written in a bit just because I wasn’t sure as to what to say as the thoughts kept flooding in.  “Just put it to paper and let the rhythm flow without thinking” (to paraphrase the words of the lead character in Finding Forrester).  So as I put my running shoes and headphones on and listened to my new favorite song, Good Life by One Republic, what I saw was a past that is shaping our future in new ways and some that we could never have imagined.

There’s so much to think about when looking back and trying to eliminate the macro-factors of societal changes and focus on only the things you really can control.  For me it was about family, health, work, and friends.  How can I proactively move towards making sure I better control these issues in the new decade.

In order to look ahead at the next decade and what it should look like for me, I found myself back in time in 1999 as we were selling our house and i was getting back into the venture business.  Yeah, remember the Y2K craze and how much were were going to have to evolve when the computers came crashing down?  It was a whole cottage industry for a doom and gloom that never came.  We’re still here though.  I think I had 3 jobs this past decade and hopefully won’t do that much switching in the next decade.  I would never have expected in 1999 that I would end up doing what I do today, but my current job is one I’ve been at longer than any before.  Is this my legacy?

Personally in 1999 I was a new dad in San Francisco wondering how I could move to a bigger place in the suburbs.  Well we did do that, but we moved back to San Francisco.  Not before we became ice cream moguls leaving a mark with a franchise in Marin County as well as purchasing another one in San Francisco.  Anyway, now I’m a seasoned dad with a 10 year old and a 7 year old.  So what does that mean?  At the end of this decade I will just about be an empty nester as my two kids will hopefully be off to college.  It doesn’t leave much time for  me to think about how to afford their education and prepare for how I will prepare for my retirement if something like that would ever exist for me.  If I thought my children dominated my life this past decade it will surely be a decade of building what will be a lifelong relationship.  Maybe I shouldn’t even mention retirement as it won’t happen until after 2020 for sure.

The past decade also came with health issues as well.  Losing a parent (which I could have predicted as my dad was already in poor health) was hard to take but reminded me of how important a parent-child relationship is and how fortunate I was to have my children meet their grandfather and develop a deep relationship with my own mother.  Emotional preparation for the potential loss of another grandparent in this decade would be  something I could easily see in my future.  Cancer was something I never would have expected to be part of the last decade.  In fact it was a large part with my mother and then followed by my wife and friends.  Bad Health is never something you really plan or prepare for.  I don’t know how much the next decade will be interrupted by health issues but age will not come without some aches and pains for sure.  I have already started preparing myself.  The last two years of training have built my stamina to a high level.  I maybe not as strong or fast as I used to be, but if not getting sick at all for the past 18 months is any indication, I’ve definitely been fortunate in keeping healthy and maybe if I just keep moving…..

I don’t need to write much about friends and extended family and my expectations there given some recent posts, but this past decade has been about revitalizing past relationships.  I only expect that to continue.  It seems to be a natural processs as you get older and start to reminisce about times gone by.  These are the people who will remind you about your past someday so its probably good to keep them close so that they remember it accurately.  For sure their memories are already declining, not to mention their deteriorating eye sight.  It just makes me wondering as the baby boomers will be moving into their 50s and 60s, will those people still be wanting to deal with small screens on their cell phones and buttons that don’t work well with arthritic fingers?  Remember that this decade started with us using PDAs with a stylus.  Now we just push things around with our thumbs.  Will everything be voice-activated over the next decade?  Will we see the first wave of brain cancer resulting from overuse of cell phones?

We now have a black President.  Will the next decade bring a female President?  An Asian President?  A Hispanic President? A Gay one?  Maybe 2 of those.  We talk about national security as getting tighter given the terrorism that has started in the US.  Is it possible this could get worse?  Will the idea of being “green” work.  What would people have thought if you used that term back in 1999?  They would have thought you wanted to be a vegetarian and were giving up meat.  For me all of this just heightens the urgency to show my kids parts of the world that they might never ever get the chance to see or at least the way they could see it today.  The world is changing rapidly.  How fast?  The eco-system even in the SF Bay area was so drastic that one minute the sea lions that inhabit our piers had peaked at over 2 thousand last November yet today there are about 6.  The plankton and the water temperatures have caused them all to move to areas up North where they can find more herring.  A migration that grew over a 20 year period just disappeared in a matter of months.  Will Alaska still be cold in 2020?  Will there still be arctic glaciers?

As I continue my running regimen I’m not running from the past but running toward the future.  It isn’t necessarily a bright one or even a better decade than the past.  It will have its own challenges and we can only prepare ourselves for what will be more of the same yet with more intensity.  Of course, we have a chance to shape our own path by planning it before the future comes and dictates our actions.

Perhaps while this decade might not mark the beginning of a new millenium that it might end up being much more important than the past decade  This may be the decade where we take control of our destiny and start to dictate what history will be.  Maybe Live Strong won’t be an attitude for fighting cancer, but to beat Father Time and prevent him from catching us.

For me the answer is to not prepare for the end, but prepare for the future.  Don’t look back too far, but just remember to keep looking forward so that what you left behind stays there and what you want to take with you in the future moves with you.  For me that is simple. 10 years from now I want to be standing there proudly with my wife at my side as we watch our son thrive in college as he prepares for the real world and a career of his choosing and our daughter moves off to college strongly independent such that her parents will know that she is prepared for that next stage of her life.  Me? I’ll be cleaning out their bedrooms figuring out how I can convert their rooms into my own 3D home theater and 24 hr. fitness club.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

A Warm San Francisco Holiday To All

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Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays Everyone,

Before everyone takes off on their vacations from their virtual world, I just thought I’d wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwaanza, etc.  Please be safe if you are traveling this season!

As I pushed through the chilling temperatures and blustery winds of San Francisco during my run last night I kept reminding myself of those cold December nights I’ve spent in New York City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh.  Nothing will ever compare to those cold bitter nights when I wore long underwear under my wool suits and wondered why I left my “City by the Bay”. I do remember telling myself that I would remember those days so I would appreciate San Francisco that much more when I would eventually return.   Although cold, my run was dry and I ran down the festively lit shopping areas of Sacramento St, Fillmore St., California, and Clement St. distracting myself with the observations of the decorations people had in their windows.

While the glittery lights were dazzling and the quietness of the air still reminded me of how our economy is not quite back up to speed, the most warming images of my run were of the people. 

First, there was the elderly couple walking together with their arms around each other as they left their party at Spruce Restaurant (http://www.sprucesf.com). They stopped and kissed saying “I love you” and touching their foreheads together in the middle of the sidewalk as I dodged them.  It was a split second of our paths crossing but it was a beautiful image.

Second, there were the two inebriated young ladies in their short cocktail dresses stumbling out of the Elite Cafe (http://www.theelitecafe.com/) before crashing to the ground.  I say crashing because they fell backwards into me as I ran behind them.  Fortunately I caught one before she hit her head on one of the tables outside. They were inebriated because as the cabbie and I helped them to their feet, neither of them could pronounce their destination.  I laughed when she said they were going to New York.  A great guy, the cabbie, a little Frenchman in his beret and scruffy clothes had me and one of the waiters watch him as he helped one girl open her purse to find her address. She kissed his scruffy face as he pushed her back into the cab.  “Welcome to Christmas on the Barbary Coast”, he said as he tipped his cap to us while mentioning one of the many long-gone nicknames of San Francisco.  I think I ran a whole another mile before the whole incident washed behind me, turning towards home.  The cab driver reminded me of the kindness of people at this time of year.

As I passed by San Francisco’s only 24 hour Starbucks in Laurel Village (yes I love running by it at night just so that I can get a whiff of the caffeine aroma) a bunch of Fire Engine’s raced by me.  Looking for an alternate route, I followed their sirens.  A Portable Potty had been set ablaze nearby.  This has been the work of arsons as dozens have been set on fire over the last year.

Not wanting to end my run on a negative note, I continued on and started  to notice a pattern that is so familiar this time of year.  I had been seeing it over the a past week as cars and taxis pull up in front of homes and the dwellers come out to greet and hug a family member returning home.  The tears of joy and happiness really signify what this season is about and while the images weren’t exactly Norman Rockwell-esque, they told the story.  The story of family and friends coming together.  I even saw a soldier returning home a couple weeks ago in full gear as his mother screamed when she opened the door (adorned with a yellow ribbon).

All of these images (including the fiery portable toilet) told the story of 2009.  Maybe they weren’t my story, but they were nice ones.

2009 will be just that for me.  “A Nice One”.  I’ll definitely take that after 2008.  I needn’t look much further than 2008 to remember what was happening last year as my wife was recovering from her second surgery in 3 months and we scheduled ourselves for a very low key Christmas with only enough fanfare to keep our kid’s spirits high.  Just 365 days ago I sat by her bedside making sure she’d be okay just to get up and deal with Christmas.  While 2009 was no picnic, and we did deal with two more minor surgeries, life today compared to last year couldn’t be much better healthwise.

The holiday is often on its long tail as we’ve already had two family gatherings, a work party and a large bash at a friend’s home yet we are still 3 days shy of Christmas.  We still have two more family gatherings to go to.  Such is the life of the fragmented world and family.  As I sit here in my den, I know of local friends spending the holiday in Hawaii, Argentina, Spain, France, England, Italy & Brazil just to name those places not on this continent.  They all sound enticing…. the Champs Elysees on Christmas?  How magical does that sound!?

Well San Francisco is where we remain and where we will keep our hearts this Christmas!  No snow and no sand!  The image above is from  Sara Showalter, (www.sarashowalter.com) or @gidget on Twitter.  A great local artist, the image was used for our holiday card this year. If you are looking for an artist or photographer, I highly recommend her.  And the best thing about her?  She is a diehard San Francisco Giants fan!