2009 ....

It is a couple of weeks into 2009, well I guess technically 3, and I just thought about the fact that I have not posted anything on want I want to do in '09.

The year is already shaping up to be an interesting one:

• Martika is busy training for her trip to Italy in mid February to compete and she is also working on her art to do everything she can to make it into the residential Governor's School
• Kris is doing great in her first year in High School and is now in the midst of her first High School midterm exams.
• Sam is now 13, going on 20, and thinking about a possible trip to Las Vegas to compete over Spring Break.
• I have already signed up for two races, both running events: The Cherry Blossom Ten Miler and the LAWS Half Marathon in Leesburg. Now it just needs to get warm enough for me to get out and run.

I missed sign up for a couple of triathlons that I would have liked to do so I will jump into some local sprints and maybe an olympic distance if I get more comfortable with my swimming. In the meantime some road races and maybe a duathlon.

Work looks like it has the potential to be a lot of fun with interest from a few groups to look at how I can help advise them on securing parts of the US National Infrastructure - more on this as it becomes more solid.

I expect 2009 will also be an interesting year for my personal life. I have been seeing someone for the last 3 months and things have been going well. So well in fact that Kris joined myself and Laura for coffee. Well Kris actually had a Chai Tea Latte - I had coffee.

So it is looking like in a year of a new President and a changing world environment things may also be very full for myself and my girls. I am looking forward to all teh positive things that 2009 will bring.

I hope to see you all in '09

.... cu

Governor's School Update

Last weekend Tika had her interview/adjudication for the 2008/2009 Virginia Governor's School for Humanities. The program is a 4 week residential program at Christopher Newport University. You can find out all about the program at their website. On Saturday she brought some of her portfolio, including sketches, paintings and sculptures to have them looked at by the people running the program. It was an early morning, she had to be in Winchester by 7:30 for her 8:00 AM appointment.

She was a bit nervous, well actually very nervous, but she handled herself very well. The process involves a timed session where they sketch for 15 minutes. Then they have the adjudicators review that sketch and the rest of their work that they brought. Her work is very good, as you can see in this sketch of Edgar Alan Poe that she did. She will not find out the results for quite a few weeks yet, mid-April, so she will be anxious about it for some time. Having spoken with the people involved in the program it turns out that about 1 in 4 people that make it through their county selection get into the program that Tika is working towards.

We will be keeping our fingers crossed that they see the potential and talent in her that we do.

.... cu

YIKES - Happy Birthday Sam!

The "YIKES" is not that this is a day behind her birthday - but is for the fact that now I truly do have 3 teenage daughters. Sam's 13th birthday was yesterday. Tuesday her and Kris were over for some homework and supper and I surprised her with her gifts and a cake. She loved all of it. She took the left over cake to Karate class and shared it with everyone there. Saturday is her "real" party with all of her friends. She is looking forward to that of course.

So this is also my first posting since before Christmas - so a Happy New Year to all! It was a great holiday season - not too busy but busy enough. A couple of get-togethers at work and then celebrating with close friends and with the girls of course. Myself and all the girls had a great Christmas Eve lunch and then opened presents at the house on Christmas day. I spent the rest of Christmas Day with friends, having a nice turkey breast dinner. New Years was pretty much the same - except for the GREAT bottle of Champagne that was opened at midnight and a wonderful chateau briand roast for New Year's dinner. It truly was a great holiday season with family, good friends and a special someone.

I hope your year has also started out wonderfully and continues to be a great one.

---- cu

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