Full disclosure: My wife is doing the same 30 day challenge with her blog and I stole the idea from her...so if you follow both of us (and I hope you do), our entries will be similar for a while.
As a writer, I find it interesting that the one subject closest to my heart--my wife--is the subject I have the hardest time writing about. I made an attempt several years ago, which you can read here and had similar thoughts back then. All these years later, I don't think it's any easier but I suppose that's why they call this a challenge, right?
I met Marci in 1997, a few months before high school would mercifully come to an end. As she wrote in her blog, we met online at a time when that type of thing was still considered weird. She lived 3000 miles away. In my head, it seems like things between us accelerated quickly but it really did take a long time for our relationship to develop. It started with infrequent chat room conversations, which led to her reading my bad poetry. That led to longer chatroom conversations which led to short phone calls...and then longer talks....you get the idea.
Before I knew it, our nightly talks and her friendship became as much a part of my life as any friendship I had. Somewhere along the line, that friendship developed into something more...and she became someone I didn't want to be without. Eventually I knew I would do whatever I had to do, including move halfway across the country, to make sure I didn't have to be.
Occasionally, someone will ask me how I knew she was "the one." The best answer I can give is one that ESPN's Bill Simmons once wrote about his own wife: She tries hard not to ask me to do things I don't want to do. It's really that simple. No bolt of lightning. No butterflies. She just accepted me for who I was. She was the first person in my life to do that and she did it without question and without any motive other than to see me happy.
We got married in 2005 after seven years together and have steadily been disproving all those who say that marriage is when all the fun stops.
We have a great life these days. It's not glamorous but it's exactly what we have worked hard to make it...it's us. We enjoy every moment of it together. We laugh and smile a lot. We like having dinner with friends and going to movies or sporting events. We spend a lot of time in the same room saying nothing but enjoying the comfort of having the other person there. When celebrate our victories and face our challenges together. She's the best teammate I've ever had and the only person in my life with whom I don't feel at least a little bit out of place.
Every guy should be so lucky.
Until next time.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Quick Take on Lance Armstrong
It's happened to me over and over throughout my life. One day, I realized Hulk Hogan was larger than life--partly because he was filled with steroids and not just because he ate his vitamins and said his prayers the way he implored me to do as a child. One day, long before the steroids saga, I realized that Jose Canseco was an egotistical, self-entitled jerk. Decades later, I finally had to come to terms with the truth that Mark McGwire was a liar and a cheater.
Clearly, I did a bad job choosing my heroes and such is the case with Lance Armstrong.
By now, we all know the story. If you don't, here it is. I'd like to be able to say that it's easy for me to separate Armstrong the cyclist from Armstrong the activist, that I didn't really watch or care about cycling so his use of steroids to cheat his sport doesn't matter to me like McGwire's did. To a certain extent that's true. I don't follow cycling, but I'll admit to watching parts of the Tour de France just to root for Armstrong. The truth is that without his connection to sports, I would probably never have known--or cared--about him any more than countless other cancer-surviving activists.
It was the sports connection that hooked me. The man came back from the brink of death, reached the top of his sport and dominated it for nearly a decade. On top of that, he created the Livestrong Foundation, which has helped tens if not hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who are battling cancer.
That’s why whenever he was accused of doping, I supported him. He had never produced a positive test, after all. He was just the target of a witchhunt because the Europeans couldn’t stand the fact that an American was kicking their ass at their sport without using drugs.
Then the heat started getting turned up. But Armstrong still denied it. He went on any talk show, talked to any newspaper he could to proclaim his innocence…and he sued the hell out of anyone who dared say otherwise.
Then suddenly, just over a year ago, he announced that he would no longer fight any charges, effectively giving up the fight.
Last week speculation began that he will finally admit to doping tonight in a TV interview.
Since that time, I have been wrestling with the same question that so many other Armstrong supporters have been wrestling with: How do I reconcile Lance the cheater and the liar with the Lance whose foundation helped so many people? People like my friend Nate.
If you've followed my on again-off again writing since the Myspace days, you may remember this blog about Nate. Not surprisingly, Armstrong and the Livestrong Foundation were a major part of it. A week from today, it'll be five years since Nate died. As much as I want to disavow my love for Armstrong and pretend he's just another self-centered athlete, I find myself wondering if Nate would care very much about any of this.
Would he care that the money Armstrong used to create the foundation that immeasurably helped him cope with and prepare for his final days was gained by cheating? Would he care that the guy behind the foundation is in all likelihood a terrible person, even though that terrible person gave him hope and inspired him to fight for every extra day he could get to be with his family?
My guess is he wouldn't.
Some people do, and I get that. If you do, I'm not about to try to get you off that point. I'm not even sure I can disagree with you. But I know that I will still wear my Livestrong gear and I will continue to support the foundation as I always have. I support its message and its mission regardless of what becomes of its creator. I'm sure on some level that makes me a hypocrite. I'm sure that means on some level I condone what the guy did.
Maybe.
Maybe I just think that sometimes when we say some things are bigger than sports, we should actually mean it.
Clearly, I did a bad job choosing my heroes and such is the case with Lance Armstrong.
By now, we all know the story. If you don't, here it is. I'd like to be able to say that it's easy for me to separate Armstrong the cyclist from Armstrong the activist, that I didn't really watch or care about cycling so his use of steroids to cheat his sport doesn't matter to me like McGwire's did. To a certain extent that's true. I don't follow cycling, but I'll admit to watching parts of the Tour de France just to root for Armstrong. The truth is that without his connection to sports, I would probably never have known--or cared--about him any more than countless other cancer-surviving activists.
It was the sports connection that hooked me. The man came back from the brink of death, reached the top of his sport and dominated it for nearly a decade. On top of that, he created the Livestrong Foundation, which has helped tens if not hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who are battling cancer.
That’s why whenever he was accused of doping, I supported him. He had never produced a positive test, after all. He was just the target of a witchhunt because the Europeans couldn’t stand the fact that an American was kicking their ass at their sport without using drugs.
Then the heat started getting turned up. But Armstrong still denied it. He went on any talk show, talked to any newspaper he could to proclaim his innocence…and he sued the hell out of anyone who dared say otherwise.
Then suddenly, just over a year ago, he announced that he would no longer fight any charges, effectively giving up the fight.
Last week speculation began that he will finally admit to doping tonight in a TV interview.
Since that time, I have been wrestling with the same question that so many other Armstrong supporters have been wrestling with: How do I reconcile Lance the cheater and the liar with the Lance whose foundation helped so many people? People like my friend Nate.
If you've followed my on again-off again writing since the Myspace days, you may remember this blog about Nate. Not surprisingly, Armstrong and the Livestrong Foundation were a major part of it. A week from today, it'll be five years since Nate died. As much as I want to disavow my love for Armstrong and pretend he's just another self-centered athlete, I find myself wondering if Nate would care very much about any of this.
Would he care that the money Armstrong used to create the foundation that immeasurably helped him cope with and prepare for his final days was gained by cheating? Would he care that the guy behind the foundation is in all likelihood a terrible person, even though that terrible person gave him hope and inspired him to fight for every extra day he could get to be with his family?
My guess is he wouldn't.
Some people do, and I get that. If you do, I'm not about to try to get you off that point. I'm not even sure I can disagree with you. But I know that I will still wear my Livestrong gear and I will continue to support the foundation as I always have. I support its message and its mission regardless of what becomes of its creator. I'm sure on some level that makes me a hypocrite. I'm sure that means on some level I condone what the guy did.
Maybe.
Maybe I just think that sometimes when we say some things are bigger than sports, we should actually mean it.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Perspectives From YouTube
One of my favorite ways to waste an evening is to surf YouTube. Sometimes I watch stand-up comedy videos, sometimes I watch music videos, sometimes I watch how-to videos. If you don't do this, you should. It's an excellent way to pass time and be entertained. Be warned though, it's addictive! A minute there can easily turn into an hour and an hour into an evening.
A couple of months ago during one of these YouTube binges, I stumbled onto this channel. If you skipped the link, or didn't stick around very long once you clicked it, the Prank vs. Prank channel is run by a young couple from New Jersey, Jesse and Jeana, who have gained a following in the YouTube community by filming themselves--you guessed it--playing pranks on each other.
The pranks range in severity from him rigging a snow blower to blow toilet paper at the victim when she walks through the front door to her making him believe she's pregnant for an entire month. The pranks aren't important and are really only entertaining to a point--a sentiment that should assure my wife that there's no need to worry about me copy-catting them.
What really caught my attention about the Prank vs. Prank couple was their secondary channel, called BFvsGF. This channel has little to do with pranking (though some of it will leak in from time to time) and has everything to do with the couple's every day lives. Granted, their lives are a bit more interesting than most others. There are many videos documenting trips to Los Angeles for movie premieres or Google functions, and the regular attendance at Philadelphia 76ers games. But there are also plenty of videos showing their trips to the grocery store or their evenings spent having dinner with friends.
At this point, you're well within your rights to wonder why anyone would waste their time watching other people live their lives. I can think of a couple of reasons--our "reality TV" culture and the general rise of people watching as a hobby being among them.
The real question is, why would anyone want to live their lives so publicly? The answer, I realized after watching nearly every one of Jesse and Jeana's 600 videos, is documentation.
We all do it, or at least we all try to do it as much as possible. Ten years ago, we took pictures and put them in photo albums. We shot home movies and let them gather dust in a closet somewhere. We might save ticket stubs or collect other souvenirs to commemorate a moment in our lives.
These two, and so many others like them, have just taken that practice into the 21st century. Instead of photo albums and home movies, they use Facebook and YouTube to do what we have always done: Preserve the memories of things we never want to forget, or may one day want to recall.
Whether I knew it or not, I was inspired by these two on New Year's Eve when I took my Flip camera along as I particpated in a 5K walk with my wife. Some of you may have already seen this video, but if not, here it is:
It's no LA movie premiere, but it was damn fun. I don't know how much more video documentation I'll do in the future, but I can see it being a fair amount. My wife and I attend numerous sporting events in the area, travel a bit, and I think we've both kind of decided to try to do new and different things that allow us to get out of our normal routine in the coming year. I can see this blog and my YouTube channel being the perfect place to document it all so we have a place to look back and remember it.
Watch this space. You never know what you might see.
Until next time...
A couple of months ago during one of these YouTube binges, I stumbled onto this channel. If you skipped the link, or didn't stick around very long once you clicked it, the Prank vs. Prank channel is run by a young couple from New Jersey, Jesse and Jeana, who have gained a following in the YouTube community by filming themselves--you guessed it--playing pranks on each other.
The pranks range in severity from him rigging a snow blower to blow toilet paper at the victim when she walks through the front door to her making him believe she's pregnant for an entire month. The pranks aren't important and are really only entertaining to a point--a sentiment that should assure my wife that there's no need to worry about me copy-catting them.
What really caught my attention about the Prank vs. Prank couple was their secondary channel, called BFvsGF. This channel has little to do with pranking (though some of it will leak in from time to time) and has everything to do with the couple's every day lives. Granted, their lives are a bit more interesting than most others. There are many videos documenting trips to Los Angeles for movie premieres or Google functions, and the regular attendance at Philadelphia 76ers games. But there are also plenty of videos showing their trips to the grocery store or their evenings spent having dinner with friends.
At this point, you're well within your rights to wonder why anyone would waste their time watching other people live their lives. I can think of a couple of reasons--our "reality TV" culture and the general rise of people watching as a hobby being among them.
The real question is, why would anyone want to live their lives so publicly? The answer, I realized after watching nearly every one of Jesse and Jeana's 600 videos, is documentation.
We all do it, or at least we all try to do it as much as possible. Ten years ago, we took pictures and put them in photo albums. We shot home movies and let them gather dust in a closet somewhere. We might save ticket stubs or collect other souvenirs to commemorate a moment in our lives.
These two, and so many others like them, have just taken that practice into the 21st century. Instead of photo albums and home movies, they use Facebook and YouTube to do what we have always done: Preserve the memories of things we never want to forget, or may one day want to recall.
Whether I knew it or not, I was inspired by these two on New Year's Eve when I took my Flip camera along as I particpated in a 5K walk with my wife. Some of you may have already seen this video, but if not, here it is:
It's no LA movie premiere, but it was damn fun. I don't know how much more video documentation I'll do in the future, but I can see it being a fair amount. My wife and I attend numerous sporting events in the area, travel a bit, and I think we've both kind of decided to try to do new and different things that allow us to get out of our normal routine in the coming year. I can see this blog and my YouTube channel being the perfect place to document it all so we have a place to look back and remember it.
Watch this space. You never know what you might see.
Until next time...
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
This is NOT a New Year's Resolution
Your eyes do not deceive you. I have, in fact, started a blog. First a bit of back story: Most of you know I've loved writing all my life. It's always been a part of me, as cliche as that sounds, and I can honestly say it's the one thing in life I'm better than just "ok" at. After college though, I rarely found a reason or a desire to do it. There are many reasons for this, too numerous to get into here, but maybe the subject for another blog. Occasionally over the years, I've gotten the itch and as a result I have lost count of the number of times I have started blogs in the past and then just stopped for one reason or another. The entire time though, I've always had the idea of writing more regularly in the back of my mind.
Fast forward to roughly one week ago. After watching how much fun my wife has been having with her blog for a few months, I began to seriously think about getting back to writing. Then I had a casual conversation with a co-worker who is near retirement. I asked him what he was most looking forward to and he said he was simply looking forward to doing the stuff he enjoys doing without having to worry about having time.
I came to the conclusion that I enjoy writing and luckily for me, my lifestyle affords me plenty of time to do it...so there's no reason I should wait 'til I retire to pick it back up. The thing is, I really am quite boring, so the challenge becomes what do I write about that is entertaining enough to read on a regular basis?
Most people who know me would probably say I should focus on sports. While I certainly have a passion for sports and love talking about them, I hesitate to make this a sports blog for the simple fact that if you're into sports, then you probably get your fill in any number of other places. I doubt seriously that I could provide a unique enough point of view to make my sports takes much different than the dozens of sports takes you already get every day.
So, I guess the answer is I don't know what this blog will be about. Forced to guess, I'd say it'll feature whatever happens to catch my attention at a given time. It'll probably have some sports in it, but I hope it will have a lot of other things in it too.
That's where you come in.
I really want this to be an interactive thing. I'd like you to help drive the content. If there's something you want to read, let me know and I'll do my best to make it happen. Also, let me know you're reading, either here or on Facebook, and let me know what you think.
I promise that what you read here will be completely authentic and unfiltered, as if you would expect anything else from me. I don't know where this will go, but if you're reading this, it's because I think you are someone who can appreciate this type of undertaking. Whereever it leads, I look forward to getting there together.
Until next time...
Fast forward to roughly one week ago. After watching how much fun my wife has been having with her blog for a few months, I began to seriously think about getting back to writing. Then I had a casual conversation with a co-worker who is near retirement. I asked him what he was most looking forward to and he said he was simply looking forward to doing the stuff he enjoys doing without having to worry about having time.
I came to the conclusion that I enjoy writing and luckily for me, my lifestyle affords me plenty of time to do it...so there's no reason I should wait 'til I retire to pick it back up. The thing is, I really am quite boring, so the challenge becomes what do I write about that is entertaining enough to read on a regular basis?
Most people who know me would probably say I should focus on sports. While I certainly have a passion for sports and love talking about them, I hesitate to make this a sports blog for the simple fact that if you're into sports, then you probably get your fill in any number of other places. I doubt seriously that I could provide a unique enough point of view to make my sports takes much different than the dozens of sports takes you already get every day.
So, I guess the answer is I don't know what this blog will be about. Forced to guess, I'd say it'll feature whatever happens to catch my attention at a given time. It'll probably have some sports in it, but I hope it will have a lot of other things in it too.
That's where you come in.
I really want this to be an interactive thing. I'd like you to help drive the content. If there's something you want to read, let me know and I'll do my best to make it happen. Also, let me know you're reading, either here or on Facebook, and let me know what you think.
I promise that what you read here will be completely authentic and unfiltered, as if you would expect anything else from me. I don't know where this will go, but if you're reading this, it's because I think you are someone who can appreciate this type of undertaking. Whereever it leads, I look forward to getting there together.
Until next time...
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