Happy Hanukkah

Sunday evening the phone rang and it was my nephews calling to thank me for their Hanukkah gifts. It was very nice to hear that they had already started celebrating and that everything arrived in time for the holidays.

The girls are all excited about Christmas of course. They are off from school for 2 weeks and are spending time with their friends and getting everything ready for Thursday. We will be doing a Christmas Eve lunch which will be a nice new tradition.

I am also looking forward to the holidays. We decorated the Christmas tree Sunday, Sam finished wrapping some gifts and we did some baking. We also cracked into Mom's fruit cake - delicious as usual. Now all we need is a bit of snow to make it look more like Christmas.

Before I go I want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season. Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah or something else I hope it is happy and safe for everyone.

---- cu

Good Things .....

It has been a great few weeks - lots of things happening - all VERY positive and all keeping me smiling. One of those is Tika's success in her art. She is getting ready to compete for a spot in a summer college program, the next judging is in January, and she has been preparing for it. She sent me this pic the other day - I think it is a great drawing and I think she has lots of potential as she keeps getting better and better.

For me I had a great day at work. I had a call from one of our PR people today and they wanted me to speak to Renay San Miguel, a former CNN Anchor who now writes freelance. He was writing a story on a report that was being released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I spent about 30 minutes talking with him and his article came out online this evening. Of course he did not use everything but the highlights were pretty good. Here is the link CyberSecurity Article. Hopefully the customers I work with will appreciate the comments.

Have a great week - only 16 days to Christmas :-)

---- cu

Race update ....

The official results were posted and my official chip time was 2:03:20 which is 6:10 faster than the clock time. This was due to the corral start that was used and I had placed myself in the second corral with an estimated time of 2 hours. The 2:03 time meant a pace of 9:25 which I felt was pretty good considering the couple of months without running. Also the course was a fun one which was a bit hillier than I was used to. So now I begin planning for 2009 and trying to see what I want to accomplish for the year.

The rest of the Atlanta trip was fun. We did our Thanksgiving dinner - chicken (turkey was a bit much for two), a nice rice pilaf, sauteed broccoli and a nice wine. Not a traditional Thanksgiving meal but for two after a Marathon it seemed like a good fit.

Friday we headed out to do some site seeing. We walked from the place we were staying in Midtown down to Centennial park to hopefully get to the Aquarium and Coca-Cola World. Turns out the lines at the Aquarium were a bit crazy so we went to Coke World first. It was very interesting and if you ever get a chance to taste one of the Italian Coke products called Beverly I would encourage you to. It is an experience. After we left Coke World we headed over to Centennial Park to walk through it - caught a small water show and then grabbed some lunch before heading back to the apartment to get our act together and head out to do some shopping before dinner.

Saturday we packed up, cleaned up and started to drive back to Virginia. It was a fairly uneventful drive - fun but nothing to cause any pain like the drive to Atlanta. With stops it took about 10.5 hours so sharing the driving did help. Overall it was a great few days - a good race, good company but very nice to get home. Now looking forward to having teh same kind of fun in 2009 with a few races :-)

--- cu

First Half Marathon ....

some other personal firsts and personal records.

First of all HAPPY THANKSGIVING - my first American Thanksgiving as an American.

Of course it turns out I am not doing the "traditional" American thing as today was The Weather Channel Atlanta Marathon/Half-Marathon. This was my first half-marathon and as such a new personal record for distance run. I finished the 13.1 miles in 2:09:30 - a good bit slower than my normal pace but not having run for 8 weeks because of my ankle I will not complain. My running friend Blanche did the full Marathon and set her own personal record running the 26.2 miles in just around 4:24. Of course she was very excited about that.

It has been a pretty great trip so far. We drove from Virginia to Greensboro, NC on Tuesday and stayed with some friends of Blanche. A nice dinner and hung out at Harry's place for the night. He has a great dog, Mel, who is just a bundle of fun. She is a terrier mix, I think Airedale and Jack Russell. We left Wednesday AM to complete the drive to Atlanta, The traffic was HORRIBLE and we were in fact worried that we would not make it to Atlanta in time to pick up our race registration. We did make it - obviously.

So the rest of today will be relaxing and then making a pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner (chicken, rice and veggies). Tomorrow we plan to sight-see a bit before heading home Saturday. Hopefully our legs will hold up for walking :-)

Have a GREAT holiday

---- cu

Next Big Race .....

So this week will be an interesting one - not only is it Thanksgiving week which means a couple of days off - but I am heading to Atlanta to run a half-marathon. This will be my longest race to date.

The motivation for the race is a good friend of mine, Blanche, who is a frequent marathoner (is that a word? I guess so as I did not get a spell check error), wanted to run it and she figured it was a drive down and asked if I wanted to run the marathon as well. I acquiesced to the half as it seemed the next logical step for me in racing. So we are driving down to Atlanta Tuesday afternoon so we can get ready for the race on Thursday morning. I am a little bit anxious as it has been a few weeks since I have run after my adventures on Old Rag but I am feeling great so I think the half will be a perfect race.

I will make sure to post an update from Atlanta - it may be short as I may post it from my cell - depending on if I can get regular internet access.

Have a GREAT week ---- cu

Grades ....

It is that time of year ..... the weather has cooled off a bit ... ok more than a bit ... and the first semester is over for the girls.

The girls received their report cards the end of last week and they all did FANTASTIC. Sam brought home 2 A+'s, 4 A's and 2 B+'s (in Honors Science and Honors History). I do not remember grading when I was in elementary school but these days those grades are all 90 and above. Kris had all A+'s except for an A in Algebra 2. What a way to start off her first year in High School. Tika continues to amaze as well - 2 A+'s, 2 A's, a B+ and one C in English. She only had a couple of grading elements in English for the semester and she already has bumped up that grade - but again - a C is above 77. I know she wants to bring that up to at least a B though. Of course I was very proud of them all especially since they all are doing advanced classes for their grades - Sam has 3 honors courses and pre-Algebra; Kris has one honors course, pre-AP History and Algebra 2 and Tika has AP History along with Computer Math.

Keep up the good work girls :-)

---- cu

November Karate Tournament

The girls were having a great time yesterday at the local karate tournament. It was not a big tournament but the girls all had good competition in their divisions. As usual the tournament was held at Broad Run High School. All the girls competed in all events - which was great as Kris had been reluctant to compete in Kumite since her Nationals in Miami when she took a couple of nasty punches. We were all very proud to see her get back into the ring to spar.

Tika did have a small issue that I was worried would throw her off a bit. As you all know Tika is well "decorated" with ear piercings. Honestly I have lost count but she is always responsible with them. Well yesterday two of her piercings could not be removed. The rules of the tournament say no earrings so even though no one would have said anything, because of the circumstance, she was pretty distraught about it. She eventually decided to leave them in and compete. I was a bit worried that the situation was throwing her off when she missed a piece of her weapons kata - but the trooper she is she recovered well and because she kept composed she did win the event.

The end results - Sam brought home Bronze medals in Kobudo and Kata and a Silver in Kumite. Kris brought home 3 Silver medals and Tika swept her division with 3 Golds. Of course I am extremely proud of all of them - Sam for her tenacity, Kris for getting back into the ring and Tika for refocusing herself and overcoming. As soon as I get some pics I will post them.

Have a great week ---- cu