JMo Edition

Feeling Dangerous

2011-08-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

All summer, I have taken a relaxed approach to running. I really haven't done a lot of it, specifically because my plantar faciatis has been flairing up since the Colfax Marathon. When I went to Costa Rica for 3 weeks in May, I didn't run at all until the last day I was there. While walking around in airports all day on my way back to Denver, I hobbled around taking the carpet rides, trying desparately to act tough.

When I got back, I kept running some, biking some, and swimming tons. My swimming is decent, my biking is getting better, but my running was suffering. I didn't run and tried to rest the foot. When I did the Boulder 70.3, I could tell I was okay, but not great on the run. I felt great the first 7 miles, but exploded for the last 6.

But over the last week, and especially today, I feel good, real good. I have been really trying to push it on the bike by exploding and then laying off, then doing the same for a good hour, hour and half. I did a nice 25 miler today after work, then ran about 4, and felt like I smoked the 4 miles. Last weekend, I hike 15 miles Saturday, on a 6,000 foot gain to Mt. Blanca. Then Sunday ran 7 miles at an 8 mile clip, and then did some weight training at home.

I sound like a douche, but I'm feeling good, and dangerously good. I'm pushing when I can, and taking it easy when I should. I'm going to do well at the Harvest Moon in September.

12 months of Training

2011-08-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

This starts 12 months of training. The big event is the CDA Iron Man, taking place June 24th, 2012. The entire Moser family is going to be there, including my sisters new husband Thom, and probably his parents, since they live nearby.

The purpose of this blog is to try and capture the ups and downs of training, the struggles, the pain, the suffering, the highs, the lows, and generally to show what a badass I am.

I became obsessed with running a few years ago, and really made huge strides once I became single again. After my wife and I split, I had a huge amount of energy and free time it seemed. I went from a 3:31 marathon time to 3:11 at the toughest road course in the country (Big Sur) to now down in the 3:10's (I hate you Boston, so much).

TRI's were something that I half halfheartedly got into through my ex. I did one in Hawaii when I served there in the Army, and then a few more. Now that I work in Boulder, and have really started enjoying learning the new aspects of swimming and riding, I feel like I'm now pushing in 3 directions. This is a great way for me to appease my ADD! My plan is to next year to a bunch of the Xterra series off road Tris, and also the big event of the year, CDA Ironman.

SO, thus the attempt begins to cronicile my trials.

Two important things I want to say regarding why I have done so many events, and why I focus to break through my limits by focusing on new races in the future.

1- I have to put my energy into something. A few years ago, a lot of energy went into making money and a career, and into relationships. I put some energy into working out and doing the things that I love, but it always seemed over shadowed by everything else.

Now that I'm single, I can completely devote myself to my hobbies, to improving my fitness, and to pushing my limits.

2- In the past, I have dedicated races to our good friend who killed himself. Although at the time, this seemed appropriate, it can also lead to extreme disappointment. I remember running the Denver Marathon hoping for divine intervention to carry me to the finish and have me qualify for Boston. I thought somehow I would be able to run faster than I was capable. I learned that just because I want to run 6:30 a mile for 26 miles, I have to train at that level, I can't just think dedication to a friend will carry me through. Although the course ended up being too long, and my time was damn close, I didn't qualify.

Every time I do a race, I think of B, but I never dedicate a race to him. He would agree with me, this is the best course of action. I do know that every time I find extreme happiness in races, when I push, I will raise up my arm and point to the clouds, to say "What UP!" to my buddy that I always wish was with me.

Lover's Point

2008-11-29T12:09:00.000-08:00

Lover’s Point

There are about 20 or 30 linguist soldiers who are in my group. I am starting to get to know some of them; I am making friends.

When we arrive in San Francisco from basic training, my entire group is wearing Class A uniforms. I have my “Dairy Queen” hat on, wool pants, shiny shoes. Our crowd stands out in the crowd.

There is a chartered bus that drives us down to Monterey, where we will begin the next phase of our military careers. We enter base through the gates, which seem to be in the middle of a neighborhood. The bus is driving up the hill to Bravo Company, and I can tell I am already starting to like the institute.

Defense Language Institute, D.L.I. As some soldiers come to know it, the Defense Love Institute. Every 18-22 year old here seems to find someone they truly care about, then marry them within six months. The Army gives the new couple a sweet house to live in out at Fort Ord, near the institute. When the army couple finishes language training a year or two later, they usually go to different bases in different states. The wife will go to Germany while the husband will go to Georgia. The Sergeants recommend that no one get married, but they can only control so much.

The point of the school is to train military personnel to learn foreign languages. The military must learn languages for various reasons: diplomatic missions, attaché duty and the like; but the overall point of it is to create soldiers, seaman, airmen and marines who can all speak a language in order to fill a billet at a base somewhere in the real military. These service men and women many never use the language again after they leave their language training, but the point of the school is to teach language as fast as the brain can soak up the words.

The entire base is on a hill, with forests intertwined with barracks and buildings. As I walk out of the bus for the first time onto D.L.I., the time is 2:30 AM, and the temperature is around 60 degrees.

A few of the soldiers at Bravo Company sit us down in a meeting room and hand out keys to our rooms. PFC Fisher tells us what life is like at D.L.I.

“You are paid for your brains, not your skills with a weapon. We don’t go shooting, ever.”

The next morning I take a short walk through the forest to get some supplies at the “Post Exchange.” There are deer in the forest on base, and a sports field with a track on the top of the hill that I am walking up.

I go to chow with my friends and there are civilians working in the Dining Facility that take our orders for special made omelets. There are cappuccino machines, ice cream coolers, rotating cases with cakes and pies, taco bars and pasta bars. I am oddly reassured that the Army is the place for me.

My clan and I arrive on the 4th of July weekend; since we are new, we are not allowed to wear anything besides military uniforms. Our first day we go to a meeting with one of the drill sergeants. His name is Drill Sergeant Fisher. He does not yell at all. He simply lets us know how life at the Defense Language Institute will be.

My roommate is a guy named Eick from New Jersey. He seems friendly enough, although neither one of us can understand what worlds we come from. Across the hall is Mcphee and Benevides; both East Coasters, Benevides from New York City and Mcphee again from New Jersey.

My rooming with Eick is short lived. I am only there two or three weeks. Eick does not socialize much, and I come to learn the fraternity and college world that I come from is quite foreign to this New Jersey boy.
Eick goes to the PX to bar a large package of soap bars.

I walk into the room after pulling duty and Eick is hunched over his desk carving figurines with a knife.

“I’m making a chess set,” Eick says.

Another day I go to the PX after we finish with PT and Eick is with me. I am picking up some reading materials to make up for 3 months in isolation at Basic Training, so far away from the music and sports that used to take up so much of my time. Eick picks a few copies of Archie comic books that he brings back to our rooms. I have never seen anyone more easily amused than Eick. The drill sergeants at basic used to call him “Ick!.”

As we read, shine boots, and iron uniforms at the barracks that night, Eick is kicking back with his new comics.

“Oh Jughead, when will you ever learn!” Eick says. He continues reading.

I am unsure if Eick is doing this to amuse me or if he is doing this to amuse himself. Maybe it’s a game and he is amusing himself by making me amused. Eick is totally unaware of himself, I am fully pleased by my roommate.

The next day while on casual duty I am bull shitting with Mueller and Leonard, my new best friends. I share with them the Jughead comments from Eick’s reading the night before. By the end of the day, Muller, Leonard and I have our own inside joke.

“Oh, Jughead, when will you learn!” We exclaim whenever appropriate. We do this all day long. We are giggling little school children.

Monterey is a place where I find new parts of myself that were never there before. Both on base and in town I am finding new things to explore on every turn. My favorite part of the day is when we do our runs on “Lovers Point.” I am finding that I am a strong runner.

The very first day of PT, Drill Sergeant Wiggins (get wiggy wit’ it) pairs me with a guy named Hafen. I will later learn he can run 2 miles in under 11 minutes. I do not keep up with Hafen on that first run we do on Lovers, but I learn that I have new limits that I did not know about. I am not a talented runner, but I can endure pain and am physically fit.

The runs we do every day in Bravo Company strike my curiosity about the civilian world around me and the Army world I live in. There is a huge group of men and women in Army t-shirts and shorts running in groups of twos and fours. We are running along tourists in four seat bikes, past bed and breakfasts full of future Google creators in town for the weekend, and the old haunts of John Steinbeck.

The Lovers Point run starts out at the bottom of the hill, the big hill that is the Defense Language Institute.

When we would start out on the run, we run through a parking garage, dodging cars and each other, then crossing a foot bridge over the main road of Monterey. We then scamper down stairs and run left along the trail that parallels the ocean. First we pass sea lions, and then past the Monterey Aquarium, the fancy bars and restaurants that adorn Cannery Row. Being one of the faster runners, the goal was always to make it to the restaurant at the actual point, the namesake of Lover’s Point. The restaurant, named the Bath House, is exquisite, another dichotomy of my soldier life.

I move away from Bravo Company to a different part of base, I do not return and do the Lover’s Point run as much as I should. No one can do the Lover’s Point run enough in their lifetime.

"Beat Your Face Biscuit!"

2008-10-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

The cafeteria is crowded, full of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Whites, and Asians. I wear a blue collared shirt from J. Crew and jeans. My friend Leonard is wearing trendy hipster glasses, and a RockStar Video Games t-shirt. We hurry and eat our cafeteria-style food: pizza, sandwiches, burgers and fries. The entire room is filled with soldiers wearing some version of military uniform. People put food in their mouths quickly and do not talk, their supervising sergeants yell to hurry their troops through the meal.

All eyes are on my table; we are the only people wearing civilian clothes in the dining facility.
Everyone at my table stands up. We shuffle outside and march back to our barracks.

“That was the most uncomfortable meal I have ever eaten in my life,” Leonard says.
This was the first of many things Leonard would say to me over the years I never forget.

As we make our way back to Charlie Compound, I take in what is going on all around me. There are other compounds, the Alpha Barracks to my right, and Bravo to my left. The buildings are a muted grey color, one hundred percent concrete. The air is hot and muggy, all of the ground is sandy. It is April in South Carolina.

Back at Charlie Compound I am trying to wash clothes.

“Get off that washing machine you!” One of the soldiers yells at me.

“Yes sergeant,” I say, startled to my feet.

“I’m a private, not a sergeant, I am the same rank as you.”

Into this cold and harsh world I have voluntarily thrust myself into. At this point I am unsure of my decision.

First night on the military base, I lay on my bunk in a long and narrow room. The only lights are fluorescent, the harsh light only magnifies the haggard look of the men . It is almost time for lights out, and people are making small talk about where they came from, why they joined the Army. Everyone came here by choice, to Reception Battalion, Ft. Jackson, South Carolina.

I am full of my own reasons.

My first night at Charlie Company, I cannot sleep. There is a hallway adjacent to my bunk bed, the door is open and a light is on. Somewhere in the in wee hours before our 4:30 wake up call, I doze. When I wake, I have my first migraine headache. No pain medication was allowed in the barracks.

The days wear on. I stay at Reception Battalion a full week. I receive all of the uniforms I will need. I accustom to asking permission to do anything. I spend hours sitting on hard concrete ground waiting for orders from this or that sergeant letting my group of 30 or 40 know where we need to go next.

The numbing monotony we all face makes all the recruits irritable. I get to know some fellow linguists, and we talk about where we will attend training in Monterey, California.

“I think when we get to Monterey for training, it will be full of disillusioned college grads, like us,” Leonard says to me. Leonard is an English graduate, I graduated in journalism.

There is not much to do except paper work and eat. We do a fitness test, and I enjoy the running. The group is in very high spirits. Everyone is able to pass. The next day we leave for basic training.

I stand in a very long line of recruits, in front of me is a mean looking son of a bitch wearing a Smokey the Bear hat. I look around, everyone has dog tags on, tucked under their shirts. I notice the person in front of me has his dog chains wrapped in a plastic tube, so the chain around his neck will not pull his chest hair.

I have two huge bags, one black bag full of the clothes I used to wear, weighed down by the life I used to lead. The other bag a green government issue duffle, full of the life I am now destined to.

I stand in front of the Drill Sergeant.

“Do you you feel healthy?”

Yes.

“Do your boots fit right?”

Yes.

“Are you ready to attend basic training, soldier?”

Yes.

“Get on the cattle truck.”

The truck is a standard army truck, the back lined with 2 rows of seats and covered by black canvas. There are no windows and we cannot see out. Out of all the things my photographic memory allows me to remember in life, I cannot recall one thing about the drive to our basic training compound. It may have been five minutes or 30. I may have passed out.

We pull up to the 228th Battalion compound, the “Black Lions” as it is known on base. The drill sergeants are lined up outside our truck, waiting to make us all little boys again.
Out of the trucks we go, hurling our bags on the ground as Drill Sergeants yell in our faces.

“Beat your face! Get down and do it!”

We start doing push ups.

“Grab your bags, get up there now! You’re already too slow.”

Basic Training has begun.

29 and sneaking sips

2008-09-14T16:10:00.001-07:00

Ever feel like you take two steps forward and one step back? Look folks, at 29 years old, I have made more than enough mistakes for my life time. Every time I make a large life bumble, I think to myself, "Good learning experience, never do that again."
Turns out is easy to say, harder to live by.
I lived in a nice little house I called my own. I then moved to Utah in order to take a job, perhaps be a little closer to family, and get out of a town I was not too fond of. My wife and I moved into a little apartment on a very busy street, with many strange people walking by at all hours of the day. Oh yeah, right on front of a bus stop, like I said, creepy crusty people slithering by at all hours of the day.
Our land lady was a victim of the 60's Kool Aid Acid Tests, with some sort of personality disorder- in which she did not hear people when they talked- not due to hearing, but due to stubborness.

My wife and I had our struggles in what they call the 9th and 9th area here in Salt Lake City.
Well, we decided to move up to the school where my wife goes to college in order to get away from the Acid Lady known as Blakely, as well as get a little peace and quiet. We are now tucked right next to the foothills of Salt Lake, in a beautiful area literally a few hundred feet from great hiking and biking trails.

Only drawback, there's a no booze rule on campus, and therefore no booze allowed in our apartment. I'm freaking 29 dude! I'm not allowed to have a beer at night with my chips and salsa? I do not usually like to go on and on about the invasiveness of the Utah alcohol laws. If you are not aware of them just know they are lame and extremely inconvenient for socially responsible drinkers. If you are wino, you might as well just move, because you are either going to be broke paying for real beer from the liquor store, or 300 pounds because you have to drink 24 cans of Bud to catch a buzz.

In any case, as we speak, I am having flash backs to when I was an 18 year old freshman at the University of Wyoming, explaining to a cop why my dorm room reeks of beer, only this time I am well of legal age.

See, everyone on campus drinks, they just have to be secretive about it. I have no doubt that 50 percent of the people who reside on this campus consume illegally in their dorm rooms. I love it up here, it is quiet, clean, well kept, it's just that if I want to have a beer, I either have to sneak it in a paper sack, or rip off my shirt, wrap my six pack in it, and walk into my building shirt less, cradling a toddler like baby of beers wrapped in my shirt. Might look a bit funny in a blizzard, but better than getting booted out of my new apartment building.

We are going to be staying until we move from Utah, and I will be enjoying my '86 Pinot Noir from the bathroom of my apartment, locked tightly inside, to insure that no one catches me enjoying a little post work day relaxation. For all you suburbanites out there enduring the post home loan debaucle and looking at a looming mortgage payment that could increase while your property decreases, take heart and pop a cold one, go walk around your front lawn and tip a lil' out for me, for you know freedom of alcohol consumption. Enjoy it, for you could be sneaking that beer into your living quarters, living in fear of the Drink Police!

"Cutting Costs"

2008-05-09T17:52:00.000-07:00

All day, every day, I am surrounded by people who make poor financial decisions. There are a million ways to "cut" costs in your life. Commodities, gas, everything is so damn expensive and people aren't making any more money. What to do what to do? If so many people are willing to shell out dollars for those Rich Dad books, or Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover," I suggest ya'll save your dollars and buy a trimmer.

That's right, the easiest, most convienent way to save money is to be your own barber. I cannot say that I will never pay for a barber again, but what I will tell you is that for the past six years, I have owned a clipper of some sort and figured that I have saved anywhere in the neighborhood of 500-1,000 dollars.

Cancel your cable: maybe, carpool to work: sure if you can; but that 15-30 bucks you spend on your hair every 3 weeks can be spent on groceries. I spent 5 years in the military, where you pretty much need a cut every 3 weeks or more. I wish I would have cut my own hair every time I needed it, but I can say that about half the time I was in the Army I cut my own hair. That is, every other haircut was done by yours truly. Averaged out say 52 weeks a year, say you need a cut every 3 weeks, thats 52 divided by about 17 hair trimmings needed. So about 17 times 15 bucks is 260, and say $260 times 6 years, shit that's $1560 buckaroos!

Damn, next time you think you need to cut costs somewhere, think about cutting them on top of your head.

Career Nomads

2008-04-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

Look people, what it boils down to is this: are you a searcher or are you someone who will quietly enjoy their life never wondering “if.”

“If.”

I myself am a career nomad. Yes, it is true I have wandered from job to job aimlessly following my own impetuous haste, searching for my one true calling.

Your true calling? What does that mean any ways. Does anyone really know what they want to be when they are 18? When those great forums of scholarly thought start reigning down on us asking, “What are you going to be for the rest of your life?” I was going to school to get a degree, and after that I’d figure it out.

My friend Chris always knew what he wanted to be, and now look at him the pathetic sap, he’s a cardiologist, married to a cardiologist, doing exactly what he planned to do. He was the first friend to question my thought of being an English major in college, when I told him my major he started laughing.

After freshmen year at the University of Wyoming, I returned home for the summer, and Chris questioned how my studies were coming along.

“I have decided to major in Geography,” I declared triumphantly. Again, Chris started laughing.

Life just is not easy on us searchers. Years later, not much has changed for me; still considering changing my major in the University of Life. Although I finished college and have had great jobs, I am constantly yearning to know if there is something out there better.

My career started out in the infantile stages of online publications. My first job was at the Idahostatesmen.com, editing during the wee hours of the morning. I enjoyed the work, but the paper could not squeeze me in full time, so I went on to greener pastures in television.

KTVB Newschannel 7 is Idaho’s most popular newschannel, full of yuppies itching to crack the big time, big egos and low pay, all just to be on T.V. I passed on the CNN type lifestyle and decided to join the Army.

It came down the winter of Justin’s discontent, as I contemplated what my next move would be: Do I move to Sun Valley and sell ski boots? Should I move to Seattle with a trunk of belongings and try and make it in the world being a “something or other,” do I move back to Wyoming for Grad School?

I remember so vividly when I made my decision, it was snowing outside, a cold and dreary overcast February day in Idaho; I happened upon the Army’s website because I was looking to do something “new” and “adventurous.” After two hours spent thinking about my future, I then wrote in my journal: I AM GOING TO JOIN THE ARMY. Nuff said, and I did it, Hoah!

There was a war going on, I already had a college degree, I was from an upper middle class family, uh, I didn’t really like to be yelled at! Until this point, I hadn’t really even considered the army as a career choice before. Man, I’m a glutton for experience.

So I joined up, shipped off, and five years later; there I was, not a clue where to go with all my work experience. You with me so far: Newspaper, T.V., U.S. Army.

The entire time I was in the Army, I made a very decent living and loved serving. Ironically, I was absolutely obsessed with making sure I knew what I wanted to do when I left the military. Luckily, I had managed to do two very important things over the course of those five years: 1) obtain a security clearance which cost the government thousands 2) earn a graduate degree in Economics free of charge.

One might think with these prestigious bullet points to put on my resume, I would be a shoe in for any job. The problem was this: my security clearance only got me so far because my actual work within the “cleared world,” think CIA, was some what lacking in substance. So why not fall back on this wonderful master’s degree in economics? Turns out a master’s degree is not much of an eye opener either.

The crossroads of my life again presented me with options as I excited the Army. A contractor from Washington, D.C., called and told me I had the job as a Counter Terrorism Agent, working in Crystal City, VA, making a little more than 50K a year. A couple days later, a major investment firm gave me a job making significantly less in Salt Lake City, UT.

What do you want from life? My decision came down to this: take the new career path or go back east for more of the same.

Originally I told my wife we were going to move to D.C., then had a change of heart brought on by the fear of working in windowless buildings for the rest of my life. So I took the investment job, hoping to learn a new skill and break into an industry that I had been interested in for so long.

Fast forward one year later: Did I make the right decision? I wonder sometimes. How do we know what we want to be when we’re 20? How about 30? How about beyond? Do humans ever really become complacent.

“Yes, right now today, I am doing exactly what I want to, making exactley how much money I want and living in the exact city I want to.” More or less, is life ever perfect? Doubtely so...

We as humans have a keen sense for wanting more, for the next “what’s next.” Basketball players want to be rappers, rappers want to be actors, and actors want to be some other kind of actor, or they don’t want to be actors, they just want to “be.”

Everyone should be a searcher in my opinion. Everyone should have the yearning to know “If.” Not everyone has to switch career paths, but take a year and learn a foreign language, join the volunteer fire department, hell join the Army Reserves!
 Have I found my one true calling now, in the financial industry. I'll give it 100 percent when I am there, learn as much as I can, and have a positive attitude and be a leader.
When life presents me with another crossroads, at that time I’ll reassess my “if.” Yearn on my searching friends.

The $96 Vacation

2008-04-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

As I drew a $20 dollar bill from the ATM at the SLC Marathon Expo, something didn't feel quite right. Minutes before, my wife, Jenny, and I were meandering through the various booths after picking up our race packets for the marathon. A small voice called out to us: “Hey, do you guys like to travel?” The little voice hooked my wife in and I was there cynically thinking what this scam involved.

The tiny blonde swept us in with promises of a $96 vacation for a week, if only we agree to a 90 minute consultation and to pay 20 dollars up front today! There is nothing in the world that I did not want more than to pay 20 bucks at that expo to some company I felt was surely scamming the rather healthy crowd we were among.
I was ready to bag it, but Jenny convinced me to avoid my negative proclivity for these types of things and venture out a bit. Okay I said, I’ll do it.

Global Network Associates is located in a respectable building just south of downtown Salt Lake City in the town of Murray. I was happy to see we had plenty of company as we made our way to the waiting room on this Saturday afternoon. Turns out we were the youngest among all the chumps coming to claim their 96 dollar vacations that day.

We filled out some paper work and listened to the Beach Boys sing Cocomo 75 times while waiting in the tropical-infused waiting area for our consultation. There was a creepy guy walking about asking if anyone wanted drinks and a lady with a Kiwi accent yelling into her cell phone, trying to make it clear she’s much more important than the rest of us. This isn't so bad I thought, the place looks somewhat credible (at least it’s not in a trailer park).

The travel consultant my wife and I were blessed to receive offered his name as "Mud,” then asked if he could call my wife Sherri since yesterday he had met with a “Justin and Sherri.”

Jenny told him “No,” and our fellow chumps in the waiting area all stared, wondering if this Mud guy was for real.

As Mud guided us out of the waiting area, his “braided rat tail” led us to our consultation table, with his horrifying "coff-arrette" breath and brownish grey teeth seeping into every orifice of my body, he let us know that, for real, his name was Jack.

Okay, Jack, let's get going so we can tell you "No, we are not interested, please give us our 96 dollar trip."

The consultation started out as any sales pitch usually does: "Where do you work, what do you do?"

“I am a water aerobics instructor,” Jenny said.

"So how do you get the water molecules to move around for you? Is it hard to motivate them?" Jack asked my wife.

Honestly, I could not make this stuff up. After an uncomfortable 20 seconds or so, she told him that was a "C" joke and had to break out "A" material for this consultation.

I told Jack I worked for a major corporation, and after prodding me for more information which I wouldn’t give him, we moved on.

The next 45 minutes or so went like this: "Where do you guys want to travel, you can go anywhere with our agency?"
Being that my wife is Chinese, the first thing we blurted out was China.

“Well, we don’t necessarily have resorts in China, after all it is still a developing nation, and their economy has not produced resorts like in some other more developed nations” Jack said.

Great, so the first place we list is not an option, this is going great. Oh, and by the way, thank you for the economics lesson Jack, I am sure you are more an astute expert on the developing travel industry in China than Dr. K., my economics professor in college.

Without a place to hone in on, Jack was scrambling, we were tough customers who were not giving up our Saturday afternoon without a fight. Jack’s delivery was long winded, off topic, and I probably could have shown him how to use his company's website better than he could show my wife and I.

After 45 minutes of this guy showing us pictures of luxurious accommodations throughout the world, we grew restless, and I kept waiting for the "catch."

Yes, the company allows you to stay in condo's through out the world for 96 bucks a week, of course there's a catch. My wife finally asked the guy, “What are the fees?”

“We’re going to get to that.” Of course you are Mud, of course you are.

Here's the rub: for a lifetime membership using their services, and only a $300 maintenance fee per year, we can join for $19,980. We knew this number meant nothing and would only come down by leaps and bounds when we were instructed to go into a manager's office.

After a very awkward moment of Jack sitting in the manager Marc's chair; "Hey, why the hell are you in my chair? I'll just leave and you can do everything, I've only been here 20 years! Now my leather chair is all warm and shit, thanks a lot Mud, erh Jack I mean."

"Wow, that was awkward,” I said aloud. Unbelievable, the Marc guy was the same creepy guy who in the waiting room was asking people if they wanted drinks. This is management?

"Okay, so what would you pay to join as lifetime member to stay for 96 bucks in beautiful condo's anywhere in the world?"

"Five dollars," my wife said. Chuckles abounded.

"How about one week a year for $3000.00 one time fee, that's only 85 a month, and it's a lifetime membership?"

"How about 2 weeks a year for the same price," my wife asked.

Man, now she's bartering with the guy? That means she really is considering biting the hook, maybe not that close to biting, but still at least considering it.

"Look man, I appreciate your business and I do think it is a good deal, but there is no way I am joining today, I promise you," I assured Mud and Marc.

So on and on we went, back and forth with this Marc guy, in this boiler room of a sales office, no different than any other intense sales negotiation, where they refuse to let you leave without a fight.

“Look, I’m not going out that door feeling like I got sold today, and if I purchase anything from you Marc, then that’s the way I’ll feel. So there is no way I’m buying anything from you today,” while my wife nodded assuredly. This only provided more fodder for Marc, who then again went on for some time on how if we were ever going to spent $3000 on one vacation in our lives, why not do it once for 20 vacations?

After I asked why there were no clocks anywhere, and discovering we had been there almost two hours, my wife and I finally escaped the sonic death grip of the boiler room in Marc’s office. He told us we would get our one week stay, as promised, for only 96 bucks, just for coming in, and he’d throw in some gift certificates at a local restaurant.

Jenny and I left feeling like the winners of a 12-round bout with a welter weight (not quite a heavy weight) and we had our $96 vacation. Jack looked dejected and morose while seeing us to the door, and was somewhat creepier than he had been all afternoon, as he seemed to be keeping an eye on us until we actually made it to our car, as if we were going to change our minds at any second.

Our first experience of this kind, and we won the battle. We may not win the war as travel becomes ever more expensive, but I didn’t let than ruin my victory march back home that afternoon.

Rock Chalk Your Head off!

2008-04-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

I am a bastard. Not the kind you might think, my parents raised me well and I am still great friends with my father. I am a bastard child of sports teams; raised without a team to call my own. I greatly enjoyed my childhood of fishing, skiing, backpacking and mountain biking in Boise, ID. But this ain't really a sports town, no matter how hard it trys, and people from cities like Boise all over the country have the same problem as me.

My inability to live in the same town for more than 2 years also played a part in my sports bastardization. My family and I moved to Kentucky for my last few years of highschool, where I could not make myself become a UK fan, and I abruptly moved to Wyoming after highschool. Since graduating from the University of Wyoming, I have moved about 10 times, to 10 different states, all with sports teams that I have flirted with dating but never had the courage to ask out.

Sure I've got my Chicago Bears, who I claim by birth since I was actually born in Cook County, IL. But my one mainstay, the team I've always been there for and has always been there for me is the Kansas Jayhawks. It started by birth, both Mom and Dad went to KU, and I grew up following KU basketball in sleepy little Boise.

When you are raised in Idaho, spend your 20's rallying around from the next coolest city to the next even cooler city, it becomes hard to remember your allegiances.
When the Jayhawks won the NCAA Championship on April 7th, I shed a tear or two. It was the greatest game I had ever seen for the final game of the tournament. Maybe it is because after so many years of heartbreak, I felt Dad deserved this one more than anyone else. Or maybe it was because no matter where you are, where you live or went to school, you can be a fan.
There are no rules in being a fan, you don't have to play the sport, don't have to pay an Alumni Association fee, or drive around with those ridiculous flags put up in your car windows on game days. You just have to believe in victory and accept defeat. I said I shed a tear for Dad that day, but maybe it was for myself, and all KU fans like me across the nation.

This article, for those kind enough to read, is for all those kids in small towns or less populated states across America. Kids growing up without a father, or hometown team. It's so easy to be from New York City or Chicago. No, I don't mean people living there don't have problems like you and I, what I mean is there's no mistaking who you should root for.

SLC Marathon

2008-04-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

The SLC Marathon is a decent (pun) course that winds through Utah County's wide streets and allows runners to see much of the city of Salt Lake. It starts at some bridge Utah built for the Olympics and ends at some mall Utah built for the Olympics. My wife and I decided to run this race because it gave us a goal to shoot for rather; than just running circles on an indoor track all winter to keep off the beer fat.

The day started out well, with temps in the high 50's. A gospel choir sent off the runners. A touch odd, not quite as motivating as say a cool bar band or even an burned out metal ban. We were off with a "Go!" from the Mayor of SLC (whose name is already forgotten by me). The course was all downhill for the 1/2 marathon, which gave me the life I needed to clock in my best half time ever and left me a little guilty feeling. Wifey beat her old time by 15 minutes as well. Still, 13.1 miles is never a joke, and of course 26.2 is not even a snicker of one. I have a great sense of humor therefore I nixed the idea of the full marathon last October.

The first mile was cake, all down hill, and I clocked it around 6:50. Same thing with the second. The third was mildly uphill and then we went down again! After mile 3, I remember the people behind me stating that they wanted to stop at the McDonald's near Sugar House Park, and then kept coming up with menu items like McGriddles-extra bacon, and a milk shake. "Oh, by the way, can you get a milkshake this time of the morning?" Yes folks, this really happened. I let this go as Mormon Humor, because it was somewhat funny but lasted longer than it should have. I had to stop at the Port-A-Johns near mile 4, which "pissed" me off, I could have used that 30 seconds on my finishing time.

Around mile 7, I knew my training was not where it was supposed to be, and a large mass of runners bound for the holy land started passing me by. When you get passed by people in races, sometimes you think they deserve to pass you, and sometimes you wonder how a guy in a cotton t-shirt (seriously, who doesn't know about wick-away?) and a beer gut could pass you by after all that training. People kept passing me until about mile 12, when some how I gained a second wind -no thanks to the Cliff shot blocks I left in my drop bag.

Since I actually work in the GateWay Mall, aka the finishing line, I found it surreal to be running up the same path I usually take to grab a burrito for lunch. My watch said 1:42 when I finished, and I was pleased.

The crowd at the finish was almost as tough as the course, as I tried to find my way to the drop bags that had our precious camera in it. After waiting in line for 10 minutes, I had to return only to fight with the other 15,000 runners who had their drop bags there too. This scene was utterly out of control and I have no doubt there were some irate people there that must have had bags either stolen or mistakenly taken (hopefully the latter for Karma's sake). I then bumped into my sister (again in the mall I work in), and we tried to find my wife in the crowd of finishers. Turns out we were a dollar short and a day late when we started watching for her, as she had already finished around the 1:55 mark, and we didn't start looking until the 2:05 mark. Hey, at least I got to see the Kenyans come across at a 2:35 marathon clip).

After a tenacious search, I found my wife, who by this time was tired-pissed off from not finding me-cold- and sick from the hot dogs(?) and chocolate milk they were handing out at the finish line, we took 2 pictures and went home.

There's not a race I regret doing, and I am glad to have done the SLC 1/2. Although this race was just a bit hard to swallow, kind of like hot dogs at 9am.