In this crazy world of social media and digital technology, I’m sometimes lucky to get caught with a camera available when I run into someone who has had their 15 minutes of fame. Some more relevant than others.
One of my favorite shows is the reality TV show Survivor. I like it for the human dynamics involved. There is teamwork, strategy, ethics, and lots of luck. Much like there is in life. Many times I wonder how I’d do on a show like that. When I first watched the show, I became mortified by the decisions people made and the people that won. Finally on Survivor, they had a guy I could relate to. It wasn’t that Yul Kwon was Asian like me (or just as good looking – Note he was once one of People Magazine’s Most eligible Bachelors), but the way he played the game was great. He was also reaised in Northern California, had an advanced professional degree and spent time in consulting.
Yul is now entering the entrepreneurial space of frozen dessert with the company Red Mango. As I own several Ben & Jerry franchises, he and his partners came to me with a few questions and I had a business proposition to discuss as well. Below is a photo of my wife, Yul and me (I took that photo 15 pounds ago) at his store in Palo Alto on University. Yep, a millionaire served me some yogurt.
The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!” ~ Charles N. Barnard, American author, travel writer.
I just got back from my 2nd run of the year. Thanks to the reader who said they’d help remind me to get out there and “Just do It”. (Note to self – next time you write down your resolutions, tear them up and burn em). It definitely was the weekend to start throwing out the Christmas Tree. I counted 118 trees on the sidewalk during my run. We could have left it up but the weekends are getting booked up already with travel, basketball games, holidays and parties!
No Christmas tree counting is not what i do when I run, but it sure helped to make tonight’s run a little different than the more than 300 other runs I will have this year.
We had a pretty active weekend. Since I won’t be able to attend my son’s Little League Skills Assessment this year, we went out and played catch and hit a few balls. I love sports, but I am not one of those crazy parents (I hope I’m not) who people can’t stand at the games. My son is so focused anyway that sometimes you can scream at him and he doesn’t flinch. Last year he ran through my stop sign at third base when I was the third base coach. I had a good laugh with the other parents afterward and got a lot of ribbing about having more discipline at home and wondering if he would have stopped if mom had been there instead of me. Seriously though I have a son who has decent capability to play any sport although I’m not sure where he got the talent from. I have no visions of grandeur though as he definitely got his small stature from his parents!
We also got out as a family to spend time at the park and get some fresh air and exercise. My daughter called it her highlight of the weekend which made me feel good. My wife is still limited with her stitches so she and my daughter went for a little hike to a lookout point near our home overlooking the San Francisco Bay. In fact, one of the stitches seemed to maybe have come out too soon and she might have to go back in early this week to have it fixed. After our family meeting at dinner tonight where we talked about our schedules and highlights for the week, my wife and I had some alone time to talk about how we are doing. She laughed at me. She was the one in college who was going to be a bio major and I’m the one who runs at the sight of blood. She was quite amazed at how I was able to deal with all the tubes and procedures she had to go through when she was ill. I told her I sucked it up, and kiddingly told her to promise to never make me go through it again. Well this little stitch is causing some fluid to run out. Oh my…..medic!
She did thank me for being her rock. I had to do a lot of research for her as she was overwhelmed and frankly quite scared to read everything online and also had selective hearing when it came to what the doctors were telling her. Depending upon her mood, she’d only hear the good things sometimes and other times only the bad things. She’s better now and is able to even go online and meet some of the people I met online who gave me lots of advice. I think it is great that she is now able to converse with some of these people and join the sisterhood of survivors.
Back to normal life? Well maybe it is with the regular TV season coming back on. We’ll be able to have our banter about Desperate Housewives, Lost and everyone’s favorite, American Idol…
“New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” ~Mark Twain
Okay, I’ve been a bit delayed in putting my resolutions down. Quite frankly I’ve been adding and subtracting them over the last few days. Tonight I had my first run on the year so it gave me a chance to really reflect and let them come out. I also had a chance today to watch my favorite movie “Field of Dreams”. My friends who have been in the video business dock me for life as a film critic for enjoying any movie with Kevin Costner, but the movie hits me personally on so many levels that it helped me. It is a movie about faith, believing, and following your passions. Seeing it again helped me finish my list of resolutions. During the movie they play a couple of Doobie Brother’s songs. They don’t play the one below, but it is a favorite and I thought would set a tone for me this year.
So here go my resolutions which of course fall into some neat piles of Health, Happiness and Wealth (they are the most common according to all the news I watched this year):
Health:
1. Get more sleep! I’ve been averaging 6 hours or less and just need to get more this year!
2. Continue to improve my cardiovascular and running. This year I ran 1126 miles and reduced my avg. miles from the pedestrian 10 minute pace down to 6 and half minutes per mile. I was really inspired by Dara Torres the Olympic swimmer who in her 40s was able to perform at a level she did in her teens.
3. Investigate the small personal health concerns that I have and make sure that I get the answers.
Happiness:
4. Spend more time with the children. I think the health issues this year were a small strain on them as well. For my daughter I want to find an activity that she and I can call our own. For my son, I want to spend more time on his social development. This is a hard one given that both teachers told us that we need to keep doing what we are doing, but I want our children to just know that their parents love them.
5. Rebuild my one to one relationship with my wife. With her cancer having consumed the second half of 2008, our 50-50 relationship really became a 90-10 relationship. It exhausted me and it changed my view of my wife as more of a patient than a partner in life. I want to make sure that we get some one on one time and rebuild the bonds that made our relationship special even before cancer moved into our lives.
6. Continue and expand on my parenting thoughts here in this blog. I don’t want this to seem like a “how you should do it piece” or a “what are the best tips for raising a kid” piece. I want this to be an insight for my children to someday see the dilemmas and decisions I made as they relate to them.
7. Start blogging about my other passions like photography, sports, etc.
8. Take more time for myself. Take those vacations!
Wealth:
9. Secure our future plans. Develop a more secure will and documentation of our assets.
10. Tighten up random unnecessary expenses – Magazine subscriptions, luxury items, extra coffee, etc.
11. Analyze and reconfigure personal debt as needed (Refinance, close accounts, etc.). Save $5-$10 per day.
Well that is it. Quite a bit and I must say, I’d be very very happy to accomplish all eleven. Writing it down does put it out there and hopefully it something I will look back to.
“This is my most special place in all the world. Once a place touches you like this, the wind nevers blows so cold again. You feel for it, like it was your child. “
– Moonlight Graham
Last night I was continuing with my cleanup. I came across some old stuff in my dad’s roll-top drawer desk. It has zillions of drawers and after almost 3 years I still am barely throwing away some things. I came across some old Savings Bonds that he had bought for me (I had found these once before but they hadn’t matured yet and I remember giving the others to my siblings). I could hear my dad saying, “Money’s tight, don’t spend it all on one girl”. My dad was always funny like that. I remember calling home from college one day to ask for help and his first words were, “Did you get a girl pregnant?”. Fortunately I hadn’t, but my dad always had a comment to lighten the load.
Coming across the savings bonds seemed like he was still here. In college, I remember he used to slip a $100 bill in between some clippings from my favorite columnist, Herb Caen, the Pulitzer Prize columnist who wrote so eloquently about the Beautiful Baghdad by the Bay known as San Francisco. If ever a city belonged to someone, San Francisco belonged to Mr. Caen. Herb Caen wrote about my dad on many occasions. Many heard about the dentist who had a wife who owned candy stores (very true) and also about how my dad and our dog would retrieve golf balls stolen from the Presidio Golf Course Driving range by young “hooligans” and rolled down Arguello Blvd and hit them back onto the course at night. My dad never told me about those incidences in our house. I had to read them in Herb Caen’s columns after finding out from friends.
The columns were treasures themselves, but for me they were more than that. They were a conversation between me and my dad. How much he loved San Francisco. How much he enjoyed raising a family here. How much he wanted us to have more than he had to start with.
I’ve mentioned that I worked for a luminary on the aging of America named, Ken Dychtwald. Ken has nightmares of those growing old, dying, and leaving theirfollowing generations with debt and no base to grow on. My dad did not do such a thing. As I watch movies like “P.S. – I love you” or the “Bucket List” or even the book called “My Life With Laura”, I see examples of people who give richness, instruction and other items to others even while in their last days or even after they are gone.
So finding those Savings Bonds was in a way a chance for my dad to pass something on to me this holiday season and he seemed to know I needed it. I also found all the baby teeth (remember my dad was a dentist) that he saved from my brother and sister. I put them in my dad’s old business envelopes and gave them to them as stocking stuffers. I also found my dad’s golf shoes which fit my brother. I told him he had large (size 7.5 actually) shoes to fill. My dad had 4 holes-in-one in his lifetime.
One of my questions to Chad Moutray, author of My Life with Laura, was as to why he felt the need to publish his memoirs. At first I felt it was more for his own sanity, then maybe for him to move on. He kept saying it was for his daughter. I now feel that if I were him, I’d have to put all those feelings in a place where they can be read by his daughter and he can leave them there. She can then see the wish that the love of her parents wanted for her and her mother can be there for her forever.
Anything is possible, but you have to believe and you have to fight.
– Lance Armstrong
Before I make today’s entry I have to add one more thought about yesterday’s entry on listening and that is to remember to listen to yourself. Listen to your body and more importantly listen to your soul. More often than not, listening to those two will keep you out of trouble and more importantly keep you happy.
As I go out to run tonight and for my last runs of the year, I feel my internal fortitude and my stamina growing with each run. Someone once said that running really begins when you forget that you are running. Each night I seem to just get lost in my thoughts and run to forget the day and remember what I want to do. Last night I checked out my brand new Nike Plus Sport pack and I felt like I ran like the wind. Before I knew it I had run over 5 miles and I hadn’t even really started pushing myself. It felt so good and I felt energized. The Nike Plus Sports kits really help making those long runs seem short.
Why am I talking about running? I guess I just feel like finishing this year on a high note and running seems to be one of those things that has kept me going this year. It has always been there as a sport my whole life, but now it is there once again as a resource, an outlet, for letting me get in touch with myself and to help me listen -help me listen to myself and others. It takes me away to another world away from my troubles. They talk about runner’s high and that is what I get. What do I listen to? Here is a link to the kind of music I listen to. Imagine me running the quiet shopping neighborhoods and streets of San Francisco as I run. Let me take you with me:
The words and the rhythm inspire me: …You’re close enough to see that.. you’re the other side of the world to me…”
Yep, running makes me feel stronger. Feel stronger in my love for my wife, my love, my family and my conviction to move mountains to get through the trouble that we encounter. 2008 has been a tough year for us. Maybe it was not as tough as for other people in this world, but it was tough enough and the only way I know how to get through it is to get tougher, get stronger and find the inner strength to move on. Maybe this is my New Year’s resolution. But I don’t need any. I just want to move on to 2009.
“The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” — Woodrow Wilson
I was recently asked if some of my earlier posts could be used on the site www.Fightpink.org. Quite frankly I was surprised as I never intended for these postings to be used elsewhere. The intent of this blog becomes clearer every day as it is more for me than anyone else. My memory isn’t what it used to be, but more importantly I’ve always documented my thoughts and someday I’d like my children to know why I did what I did or know what I thought about particular incidents in our lives.
Reading those old posts was haunting. I guess I’d forgotten already how I was feeling at that time. That is pretty funny given that many say I have a photographic memory. I laugh at that as I pretty much find myself to be so scattered in life that I just document my life meticulously so I won’t forget. I listen and listen hard. I listen to learn and listen to comfort others. I sometimes am asked why I don’t speak up on some conversations. I guess that I’ve always believed that sometimes silence is golden. And sometimes silence, pictures and images speak a thousand words.
Right now it’s all about listening to my wife’s questions. I can see and hear her concerns about her surgical scars. She doesn’t complain but tells me about the research and conversations she is having. The skin-sparing matectomy has several kinds of scars, but the ones my wife had (over 18 only please) can be depicted through the attached photo links:
The areolar was used for the original expander, but the crease was used to help reconfigure my wife so as to allow my wife to have a bit of a reduction. Right now the ster-strips still cover the scars. The black and blue are gone and now the healing once again becomes both physical and emotional. While many would think this sounds more physical, I’m listening to my wife and her voice. She wants to look normal. Normal for me and for her.Pictures speak a thousand words for her. Seeing things look almost normal will have an emotional healing that things are still the same for her. Hearing her husband honestly telling her that he thinks she looks great is one thing, but she is going to have to believe it herself. Any married couple knows that.
Tomorrow I think I’ll talk more about my own expectations and observations for 2009.
A road of solitude is a road many have traveled before you – by Route 53
This morning’s commute, the day after Christmas on a Friday was as quiet and uneventful as one could imagine. I got up and out of the house even before the garbage man could come by and pick up our garbage can full of Christmas Recyclables. It is beautiful clear mornings such as this which make grand cities such as San Francisco seem so small. I’ve had mornings like this in Paris, New York and Chicago as well where you feel like the city belongs only to you.
Those already escaping to the mountains for skiing had already thrown their trees to the curb (there goes the holiday spirit). I took a different route to work. I drove straight through downtown and San Francisco’s Union Square where my dad once had his dental office. The stores were dark except for people putting up sale signs and hoping that post Christmas traffic would help bolster a lackluster retail season.
My office across from San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center has a bit of a circular story for me. My office looks out at both the W Hotel (where people sometimes don’t close their blinds and I often get an early morning peep show) and more importantly the Convention Center. San Francisco’s Convention Center sits on a bit of land with a lot of history for me. It is where my dad would park his car when I was younger so as not to have to pay for parking. It used to be an area of burnt out buildings and homeless bonfires. Even more so in the 30s-60s it was where my family first got it’s real start in America.
My grandfather sold meat scraps for an old Italian (some say he was Greek) immigrant who eventually gave the business to the hard working “chinaman”. It was this business which changed the life of my family. Eventually my grandfather would be approached by the city’s attorney in charge of the redevelopment agency, Joe Alioto, to sell the building and land to San Francisco. My grandfather, not wanting to easily give up the business that fed his family, struck a hard bargain that eventually enabled my grandfather to be one of the first Asians to move into Menlo Park, an area that now has many Asians. Joe Alioto would later go on to become a famous mayor for San Francisco and his grandson, the original Joe Alioto, Jr. would be a class mate of mines in grammar school.
So today I look over this land from my office. A rich property that my grandfather sold to get our family a head start in San Francisco. I park my car in a garage that sits about 20 yards from where my dad would park the beat up VW that he drove for 25 years. Life has many ironies. Sometimes we don’t even know they are there even though we see them.
Maybe I’m not a workaholic. Showing up at work this morning was probably a way for me to be with two generations of men that I owe much to. Maybe it’s a way for me to be close to them. Wow, really maybe it is a comfort zone for me. It’s interesting how these things just never come to realization until you put them to words.
I’m not sure how this entry ends. I guess I never really think about what I’m going to write about, but maybe this entry is my road less traveled. I’m sure others have their road of solitude as well. Many are in parallel and other paths I may cross. 2008 may be coming to an end, but at least I’ve found my path.
PS – I just watched this movie called “PS-I Love You”. Inspirational? Yes. hell yes.. If you ever love someone or feel passionate about something, follow your dream and follow theirs. The video below is the the last song from the movie. It just seemed to fit my mood today.
“All I want for Christmas is for you to be a good boy” – My Father
I used to hate when I’d ask my dad what I could get him for Christmas. He’d always say he didn’t need anything. Then when I pushed him, he’d say that he wanted me to work hard, get good grades, love my mother, brother and sister, and just be a good boy.
Funny how we pick up on these kinds of things from our parents and they don’t become relevant or remembered until we started saying or doing the same things ourselves. Yesterday I was driving by his old high school on my way to work . his high school is now a run down government building of some sort that looks half abandoned. I kind of like driving by it every day. It is nearly the same route my dad used to drive in the 70’s when he would go to work. Two days before Christmas I was noting how light the commute traffic was when bam, a car got hit going through the intersection in front of the school and ran into the fire hyrdant causing a geyser a hundred feet into the air.
Car hits fire hydrant
A flood (no pun intended..well maybe a little) of memories of my dad raced through my head. My dad would wear a Santa’s hat the day before Christmas and drop gifts off to his clinic co-workers and lab technicians. He always had that smile on his face. One of the funny things about my dad is that he had this office which overlooked San Francisco’s Union Square. The office located at 291 Geary was his for over 30 years. A small space for one dental chair. It was his sanctuary. For 30 years my dad would take his holiday cards that he received and gently place the cards in the slats of his Venetian blinds. There those cards would sit until the day I closed his office after he was forced to retire. Everyone joked about the Christmas cards that thry’d have to be forced to stare at in the middle of June with their mouths wide open as he asked them about where they were going for the summer break. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, well I just started doing this myself. I don’t think I’ll be at this current job or office for 30 years, but it is a bit of an homage to my dad on this Christmas Eve.
So I am here at work on Christmas Eve. I’m trying to meet some stretch goals for my company. My dad used to work 6 days a week and golf on the 7th. Some might have wondered if he was a good dad. I probably would question someone who does that today, but I do think my brother and sister today would say that their dad was with them and is still with them in spirit. There is a bit of our father in all of us and today I am working while most people are at home, because I am making sure to put that bread on the table as they say.
Maybe I’m a bit nostalgic, but I’m sure there are others out there who find themselves on this day doing something to remind them of someone who is no longer with them.
Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart. – Washington Irving
Tonight’s run was a cold and painful one. Each run is like every day in life. One day you might feel good but the next day you might feel like you are running a marathon without shoes. One day is different from the next. It’s like life. Many of us are given the same set of circumstances, but some make more or less of it than others.
I’m reading a book by Chad Moutray, another man who had a wife with breast cancer only his story ended tragically. Why would I read it? Why do I care? I often wonder if I am alone in this world. In fact I think we all wonder if our life is unique or normal. Do others deal with similar issues? Are all my peers being hit with the recession the same way?
Chad, while raised differently, has many similar qualities to me. I’m finding the book entertaining at times and hard to read at others. It hits hard and close. I’ll write more about the book at a later date once I am finished.
Today my wife went back to the clinic and the nurse practitioner supplied her with new and cleaner steri-strips to cover her scars. Her breast surgeon came by to say hello. This would be the last visit with her for another 6 months. She gave my wife a hug and then said some complimentary words about me. We had become more cordial with each other over time and recently discussed my blog. I was hesitant at first to tell her about this blog , but gave her the adress. She told my wife that she loved my honesty. Whew! I was not ready to go back and edit anything here. While this blog is more of a channel for me to express the feelings which I can’t describe with words, I find it to be more of a release for me and hopefully a memoir for my children
I am encouraged by my wife though. Her energy levels are high and her desires to enjoy herself and get back to a regular exercise regimen. She is worried about the scar and I’ve told her that I’ll help her to get used to her new self and promise to be honest and open about my feelings with her. It’s hard to argue with her when I want to be positive, but I have to pick my points. Sometimes she deserves the ability to just be down.
We are getting ready for the holidays this year with a full house of family. While everything might be the same as years past, just like running, it might be a bit more of a struggle than in the past
When you are down, look to your children and your children’s children for hope and happiness – Fortune Cookie
I looked at my fortune tonight as my son and daughter read it over my shoulder. My daughter asked me what it meant and my son gave me a wry smile as if I had been rooked by the fortune cookie gods. It is so true to have not just children but to have faimly around you who give you that unconditional love and respect. That ear that will listen or that smile that brightens a gloomy day. You don’t have to have that kind of felling with all your children or relatives because it just takes one.
These past five months have had me running, literally, to keep my sanity and energy. Our children while never less important in our lives have not always been given the attention we’d like to have given them. As a parent you shield them from life’s problems so that they can approach life without barriers and without bias while tryig to provide them with the tools that will help them to survive barriers and bias. one of my more favorite movies in the past 10 years is The Pursuit of Happyness. It is a true story about a single father who did all he could to raise his child in a world that was unkind to him. Ironically it is a story that took place right here in San Francisco and at the time of the real stroy I was a struggling young college intern right across the street.
I’m not homeless, but the emotional adversity has been rougher on me than I thought it would be. Finally after 5 months, my wife’s parents are here to help. The relief in my body is a bit of a shock. I don’t have to worry about my wife every second of the day and the ability to focus more on my children and reconnect with them on more than just a “bedtime story” level is something I really want and need.
This weekend we found an hour between the raindrops to toss a baseball around. It felt good to feel that ball pop in my glove and sting my hand. After an hour, my hand was burning from my 9 year old’s pitches. It felt so good for it to hurt like that. I also took my daughter to go to see the Nutcracker with my mother. For her to get all dressed up and have a day out on the town with her grandmother made her feel special and the smile on her face was all I needed.
So back to that crazy fortune cookie at San Tung Restaurant. It was the most honest and truthful fortune cookie for me. To those who wonder about such things. I am superstitious. I take the cookie that is pointing to me and I never read the fortune until I have full swallowed the cookie. At least that is the rule my cousins always told me to obey.
I explained to my daughter about what it meant and I told them how the game of catch and the Nutcracker were perfect examples of all that I needed to make my life better this holiday season. I know they don’t get it and they’ll still want the latest electronic games and gadgets for the holidays under the Christmas tree, but should they get my good fortune someday when they are my age, I’m sure they’ll at least understand what I was feeling tonight.
