Random Thoughts from This Weekend

Sixty-eight degrees and partly cloudy is the perfect running weather. Unfortunately in July it's nearly impossible to find cool running weather. Saturday, Marathon Girl and I took the kids for a run at eight in the morning and it was already over eighty degrees.

There's nothing like breaking in a new pair of running shoes.

My big toe has been in pain every time I run for the last two months. When asked my Marathon Girl why I won't see a doctor about it, I tell her I'm worried the doctor telling me I have to take a break from running.

This month marks six years since I started running regularly. Considering the mileage I've put on over the years I should consider myself lucky that a painful big toe is the only injury I've suffered during that time. (Yes, I'm seeing a doctor about it later in the week.)

Marathon Girl is still the most impressive runner on the planet. She never lets anything stop her from running including a surprise pregnancy. Now I'm really glad we bought a minivan.

My favorite part of church is teaching Sunday school to 16- and 17-year olds. For the most part they pay more attention, ask more questions, and participate in the lesson more than the adult classes I occasionally teach.

I've finally worked out a schedule where I'm reading regularly again. In the last two weeks I've read Lost Light and Anansi Boys and I hightly ecommend both of them. Up next: The Closers, I Know This Much is True, Conquests and Cultures, and a biography.

Despite all that's going on in my life I'm still finding time to write books. Right now I'm splitting my time on a self-help book about dating a widower I'm co-authoring with another person and a work of fiction. My goal is to have them both completed by the end of the year.

It's nice to know there's one other person who didn't like Superman Returns. Maybe by next week I'll find another person who agrees with me that the movie was a major disappointment on so many levels.

The Detroit Tigers head into the All-Star break with 59 wins. That's quite impressive considering just a few years ago they struggled to win that many games in an entire season.

The Principles of Life

For those who listen regularly to my radio show and have emailed questions about the show, guests, and topics discussed fear not: my show will have it's own website up soon. For those who have wanted a copy of the principles of life, here they are as follows: The Principles of Life

  1. You are responsible for your own happiness
  2. You cannot control the thoughts or actions of others, but you must control your own
  3. You always have a choice, no one can force you to do anything without your permission
  4. How you react to life's events defines who you are
  5. Every challenge that you overcome makes you stronger
  6. When you are going through tough times, look at the big picture
  7. Life is a gift. Be a good steward and work better your own life and the lives of others

And for those who are new and want to listen, the show is broadcast from 11 a.m.-noon MST and can be heard on KSRR 1400 AM in Utah and outside of broadcast range you can stream the show online here.

Marathon Girl's Birthday and Superman Returns

It was Marathon Girl's birthday this weekend and as one of her birthday presents I found a babysitter and took her out for dinner and a movie. Since it was her birthday, Marathon Girl picked the movie. Her choice? Superman Returns. Did I mention I have the best wife in the world? Does she want to see a chick flick or some other silly movie? Nope. She picks a comic book/action movie. How many women would do that when there are at lest two or three chick flicks playing at the same time. Not many. That's why Marathon Girl rocks.

Anyway, I was excited to see the Superman Returns. Hollywood has done a great job with movies based on comic books as of late (e.g., Spiderman 1 & 2, X-Men 1 & 2 (haven't 'see the third one yet), Batman Returns) so I was looking forward to seeing this one too. However, I was extremely disappointed.

*** WARNING: I'm going to discuss Superman Returns and possibly reveal some plot details. If you'd rather not read about it before you see it, stop now! ***

I was never a fan of the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeve. I thought they were cheesy, poorly written, and fairly cheesy. I also thought Lex Luthor was the biggest idiot in the entire world. I was never able to care about him or hate him as a character and he really never seemed very evil in the movies. I was hoping Superman Returns would divorce itself from the original movies and start over a la Batman Begins especially once I learned the director (Bryan Singer) and writers (Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris) who brought us the first two X-Men movies were in charge.

Instead Superman Returns wants to overtly pay tribute to the first movies. (And I have to wonder how much of a tribute people would want to play of the first one if Christopher Reeve hadn't become such an icon.) I still didn't care one bit about Lex Luthor and wondered how someone so incredibly smart could surround himself with the dumbest people in the world. The cheese factor from the first movies was just as heavy. And would it hurt to round out a couple of characters such as Jimmy Olsen so they wouldn't be so cliche and annoying.

And talk about inconstancies involving Superman's powers revolving around kryptonite. One minute he's near the stuff and he's as week as a kitten. But when he's trying to save the world and big shards of the stuff are inches from his face, it doesn't seem to affect him? Hello. Please don't insult our intelligence.

Yes, there are some improvements and some great scenes in the movie. Superman saving the airplane was great and stopping a bank robber was well done and adding the love triangle with Lois, her love and Superman created some great tension and a nice human element to the film. The best, most emotional scene in the entire movie is when Superman and Lois Lane meet on top of the Daily Planet building and he flies her above Gotham.

If the writers and director of Superman Returns would have been willing to take a more original approach with the movie, I think it could have been great. Instead, Superman Returns is a reminder how disappointing the original Superman movies are and left much to be desired.

(And if anyone wants to know, Marathon Girl really liked Superman Returns. But she liked the original Superman movies too. So if you're a fan of the original movies, you'll probably like this one. If not, you'll probably hate it.)

Superman Returns: **1/2 stars (out of 4)

Protecting Children From Childhood

It's been said that youth is wasted on the young. Nowadays I'm not so sure. It seems youth is being wasted by adults who put safety and feelings over normal childhood activities.

According to an article in USA Today, educators are banning such games as soccer and touch football because they worry about "kids running into one another" and getting hurt. Tag, a playground favorite of mine, has been banned in some schools because it "progresses easily into slapping and hitting and pushing instead of just touching."

Imagine that. Kids running into each other while playing sports or letting playground games escalate into fights. One wonders how any of us made it to adulthood.

Somewhere along the line we've become overly concerned with children's safety. It's progressed beyond the point where we make sure children have a reasonably safe environment to play in, to banning sports to avoid potential injuries at all costs.

I remember my friends and I riding bikes up and down our street on hot summer days. No one wore a helmet. In fact if someone had worn one, I'm quite sure we would have teased them mercilessly. We wrecked our bikes countless times jumping off dirt hills. Somehow we survived.

My favorite playground equipment was the merry-go-round. I remember taking turns with my friends spinning it as fast as we could to see how long we could hold on before flying off or becoming too dizzy that we begged the person spinning it to stop. I also remember playing on seesaws, jungle gyms, and tall metal slides which, at the time, seemed to reach all the way to the sky. Now it's hard to find a park with any of those toys. They've all been replaced by safer but more boring equipment.

With life comes risks and sometimes children's injuries go beyond the bruised elbow or scraped knee. No one I grew up with was ever seriously hurt doing the normal things children do: playing tag, riding bikes, or riding seesaws. However, I'm sure there were children somewhere who were seriously injured or killed doing routine childhood activities. In life there are no guarantees of complete safety, no matter how young or old one is.

Perhaps these "educators" that frown on tag should think about the message they are sending children: avoid confrontation. Don't take chances because you might get hurt. Play it safe.

In part, thank the lawsuit happy society in which we live. Accidents are no longer accidents but always the fault of the company who made the equipment, the school, or parents. Someone must take the blame -- especially when there's easy money to be made.

It is naive to think we can prevent every childhood injury. In the process of trying we are sucking the fun out of being a kid. Maybe next time we start complaining about children sitting in front of the TV or playing video games for hours on end, we should ask ourselves what alternatives are we giving them? When they're being told that just about everything they want to do is unsafe, perhaps sitting and doing nothing is the safe alternative.

As I age, there are times I wish I could be young again. However, if that means growing up in a world where kids aren't allowed to play games such as tag or other normal childhood activites, I'll settle for being an adult.

Those New Voting Machines

Aidan accompanied me to vote in Utah's primary election yesterday. He seemed to enjoy it but his favorite part was receiving an "I VOTED" sticker from one of the poll workers. All the way home he said "I voted" (but it sounded like 'I Boated') over and over again. When we got home he was so proud that he voted, he took off his voting sticker to give it to Steven but instead of putting it on his clothes, he stuck it in Steven's hair. (Steven didn't seem to mind until I tried to remove it.) The most interesting part of voting for me was trying those touch screen voting machines. They were as easy as pie to use and I didn't have a problem using them. I've heard a lot about them as far as security concerns but, at least with the machines at my polling location, I didn't see a problem with them. They log a paper receipt of every vote cast and I'm hard pressed to see how anyone could fix them anymore than they could game a traditional punch card or paper ballot.

It's hump day. Life is good.

Summer Solstice

Marathon Girl and I took a walk with our kids last night through our neighborhood. It seemed as if everyone was outside enjoying the sunshine. Families were barbequing or playing in their yard. Teenagers rode their skateboards or scooters down the street. Younger children were playing in sprinklers. Everyone, it seemed, waved or stopped and chatted with us for a minute. After the walk we sat on the porch and drank tall glasses of ice-cold lemonade and talked while Aidan and Steven played and communicated in their own little language. I love long, summer days like this. I love the heat and the sun and sitting on the porch with Marathon Girl talking about everything and anything -- whatever happens to come into our minds. I love being with my family, chatting with neighbors and listening to the delightful cries of kids and adults in the park across the street.

I wish every day could be like this: warm with a cloudless blue sky, us sitting the porch sipping lemonade, and a sun that doesn't set until 10 p.m.

Rainy Day People or A Shameless Plug for My Brother

My brother, who is amazingly talented when it comes to writing music, musicals, and plays, graduated from NYU in May. He is the first in his class to have one of his musicals produced. So if you're in New York City next month and want to check it out, Rainy Day People will be preformed July 21 & 22 at the NYU Dance D epartment (111 2nd Ave (between 6th and 7th Streets, Manhattan). If interested in tickets, email rainydaytickets@yahoo.com.

Hauling Rocks

Last month Marathon Girl and I tore down a large dog run the previous owners had built. Tearing down the fence was the easy. The hard part was figuring out what to do with the gravel that filled the run. The dog run was large -- about 10 feet by 10 feet -- and the half inch sized gravel was about a foot deep. Since we tore down the fence, we've been telling our neighbors that they're welcome to have as much gravel as they want. Neighbors have come and hauled away about quarter of what was there but there was still a lot of gravel remaining. Fortunately one of our neighbors, an older couple, asked if they could have some to line part of their yard. We were thrilled to give them most of what was left. So Saturday I spent several hours hauling gravel from our yard to theirs.

It felt good to do hard, physical labor in the sun. It felt good to sweat and use my muscles to load the wheelbarrow one shovelful of gravel at a time. There's something about manual labor I find refreshing and invigorating. I love putting in a hard day's work and being physically tired at the end of the day. The aches and pains that accompany it, make make me feel like I've really accomplished something.

Aidan enjoyed helping his Dad. He followed me as I pushed the wheelbarrow from our yard to the neighbors and helped me load the wheelbarrow one handful of rocks at a time. Sunday morning he woke up and asked if we could "move rocks" again. I tossed his hair and told him once someone wanted the rest of the rocks, he could help me move them.

I love that kid so much. I am still amazed at times how much I love him and his brother. I can't imagine life without them. And I can't imagine hauling gravel without my tow-headed son following me from yard to yard, doing his best to help. Life feels so complete with my kids. I feel so blessed to have them.

An Open Letter to Jim Leyland

Dear Jim Leyland, I have a problem.

It's the middle of June and I find myself still interested in baseball. The Tigers have the best record in the American League! It's like its 1984 all over again. (I was nine at the time so you'll have to forgive me I don't remember much about that year other than people had big hair.)

Your winning ways puts me in a bit of a pickle. Tiger fans aren't used to rooting for a winning team. For us baseball season ends about mid-May when the Tigers find themselves about 20 games back of every other team in baseball. This allows us to enjoy the rest of our summer without checking the sports page every day to see who the Tigers beat up last night or talking in our sleep about how great those Tigers are.

Have you considered the millions of hours or productivity that are being lost as Tiger fans gather around the water cooler to talk about their latest victory. (Well, maybe not millions of hours. Last time I checked there were only about 150 Tiger fans though I hear another 10 are jumping on the bandwagon just to be popular.)

For people like me, this whole winning thing is really stressful. I was hoping that you could put my fears to rest by telling me how fast the team will collapse around, say, mid-August. That way I can go back to my lazy summers where baseball and the Detroit Tigers possibly reaching the playoffs are the last things on my mind.

Help!

The only Tiger fan in Utah,

Abel