I couldn’t think of anything to write about today, so I just came up with 10 random things to talk about, ranging from baseball to Chutes and Ladders.

1. I went for a run this morning and saw a dude driving a convertible with top down. It was 42 degrees outside and the sun was just starting to rise. In Minnesota in January, that might be top-down weather. But this is California. And it’s baseball season. I don’t know if he thought people would think he was cool, but he was wrong. I thought he was an idiot.

2. Speaking of baseball season, it’s baseball season! Albert Pujols’ two home runs were pretty sweet and Jason Heyward’s home run in his first major-league at bat was an amazing moment. Talk about living up to the hype with your first swing! I think we saw the play of the year, though. Every team still has 161 games to go, but I can’t imagine we’ll see anything more incredible than this:

3. I think I get the loser dad award for using the wrong words with my 4-year-old daughter. We played Chutes & Ladders last night. She’s pretty competitive, which is good, because you can’t teach that. But she was cheating, and I caught her several times. I don’t care if I win the game, but I do care if she cheats. I won’t put up with that. So, I told her I wasn’t going to play games with her any more if she cheated like that. Well, she’s 4, and she basically heard me say that her daddy wasn’t going to play with her any more. She was hysterically upset like I’ve never seen before. Nice job, Sam. Everything’s better, though.

4. I’m going to the Angels game tonight. They’re going to give everybody blankets and set a “world record” for the most people covering up with a blanket in one place at one time. That world record and $6.47 will get me lunch at In-N-Out. I think it might be the most ridiculous cheap attempt at a world record ever. But then I remembered Benjamin is really into world records. And he loves baseball. So we’re going. Should be a good time.

5. My father-in-law saw that I put my sister-in-law in my blog yesterday and jokingly asked when I was going to put him in. Well, I guess this covers one of my 10 random things. Random fact about my father-in-law: He’s 5 inches shorter than me!

6. That basketball game last night was amazing. I’m not a big basketball fan, but I loved that game. I was pulling for Butler, and if that last-second shot would have went, it would have been replayed for 100 years. Regardless, it was an amazing game. I can’t stand Duke, probably because they win so much. But Coach K is the kind of guy I want coaching my kids.

7. My ice cream streak is alive and well at 65 days now. I know my wife reads this blog, so Tiff, can you please pick up some more from the store? We’re just about out. We also need toothpaste and deodorant. Thanks! Love you!

8. One of my best friends, Kevin, turned 39 on Sunday. I told him that I keep thinking I’m catching up to him in age, but he keeps getting older! I can’t wait until next year, when I can give him a truckload of grief on his 40th birthday. But then I realized … one of my best friends is 40. Does that make me old just for associating with him? Yikes!

9. Jack likes spring break. There’s no rush in the morning and he gets to chill and eat breakfast at his own pace. He gets to sleep in and chill and have lazy mornings. Good for him — he deserves a little bit of a slowdown!

10. I guess I’ll use this 10th item to do a plug for something I’m trying to do this month. It’s a simple fundraising push, one that requires barely anything. I’m not using this 10th item to ask you to do anything other than take a look at the April Operation Jack update I sent out to everybody if you haven’t already seen it.

That’s all for today … have a great Tuesday everybody!

Well, it took three months, but I have my first major airlines crisis. I got an email from JetBlue this morning telling me they’re canceling my flight back from Boston due to some kind of scheduling issue. I’m getting a refund, but that one-way was only $149. I looked for acceptable alternatives this morning, but there’s nothing less than $627 right now that gets me back that night. Part of me thinks it’s irresponsible to spend that much. But I also have a race in Virginia two days before. Do I miss that one, too?

I think I’m going to keep my eyes open and hope I catch a break. I’m definitely going to be on the phone with JetBlue today, trying to see what they can do to help me. I didn’t have time to call this morning and that email wasn’t too apologetic.

I guess I’m pretty mad about this. Not so much at JetBlue. I’m really mad at myself. I mean, I knew April 1 was coming, and this was the best April Fools I could come up with? Weak. Very weak. I’m going to Boston. I have no flight problems.

Autism Awareness Day Is Friday!
April 2 (Friday) is Autism Awareness Day. I know a lot of you are here for all sorts of different reasons. Some of you are in the autism community, some of you are runners and some of you heard about what I’m doing and are curious. Whatever your reason for following along, I know you believe in the cause and support what I’m aiming for.

So, I’m hoping that you’ll help with Autism Awareness Day. If you’re on Facebook, go to the World Autism Awareness Day page and become a fan. They have an image for you to use as a profile picture for a day. Do that and make a post on your wall or change your status to explain what you’re doing. If you’re on Twitter, send out a tweet or two letting people know. You can also wear blue and tell people why you are.

Heck, I don’t know. I’m no expert in all of this. But you can do what I mentioned with Facebook and Twitter, wear blue, and poke around the World Autism Awareness Day website for ideas. If you weren’t going to do anything, but you are now to support what I’m doing, I really appreciate it. PLEASE let me know!

Guess My Time!
I have a weekly contest now where you can win an Operation Jack t-shirt, tech shirt or sweatshirt. To enter, guess the time you think I’m going to run in the form of a small donation. For instance, if you think I’m going to run a 3:10, donate $3.10 as your entry. To make a donation, click here or click on the “DONATE NOW!” link on any page on this site. The person coming the closest without going under is the winner. If I choke and go too slow and everybody bids under, it’ll go to the person who comes closest.

Last week, the winner was Katey Williamson. It was one of those choke weeks, where I thought I’d go 3:13 or so and I went 3:20. But she got herself a prize for $3.17!

To help you guys, I write up an analysis of my race to let you know how I’m feeling and what I expect to run. Wow, what a smooth transition. Give me a Pulitzer.

Race Preview: Train 4 Autism Marathon Series, Race 1
This weekend, I get to stay home! I’ll be running the first of the three races I’m putting on with local race director Charlie Alewine as part of the Train 4 Autism Marathon Series. It’s a fairly flat course in Huntington Beach, 10 laps of a 2.62-mile course. It sounds kind of boring, but I’m pretty excited about it, because quite a few folks are coming out and participating to support the cause.

I ran a marathon on this course last November and went 3:29:05. But I was totally out of shape, fighting my back from a five-week layoff last summer due to a sprained ankle. I felt good for the first eight or so miles, but I ran out of gas. I’m expecting this to be completely different, though. I’m in shape, and I’m really determined to get a good run in. With back-to-back 3:20s, I’m in dire need of a confidence boost and I’m going to do my best to combine conservative and aggressive like I did in Tampa earlier this year.

This course is flat enough to be considered flat. There’s a small incline at one point, but it’s maybe a 10-foot climb? It’s really nothing, and you get it back coming down, because it’s a loop. The course is primarily on road and sidewalk, but there’s a small portion that’s on dirt. That dirt is packed hard enough that it won’t slow me down at all, unless there’s rain this week that makes it muddy. I’m still not particularly worried.

On tough part about this race is that I’ll run the bulk of it on my own, since it’s such a small field. When you do that, it’s tough to stay motivated. But that clock will be my motivator. I really, really want to go sub-3:10 and get back on track mentally. I have seven races in April and I want to attack them with confidence.

So, I’m going to go out and try to hold pace between 7:10 and 7:15. I should be able to get into a rhythm and hold my stride. I always think I can run faster than I really can. And I think I can go 3:10 on this course. I’d like to go sub-3:16 and BQ. I’ve surprised myself a few times this year, especially with my success in Carlsbad and my struggles in Napa.

If I’m betting on myself, I’m going safe with 3:16, because I’ve run poorly lately and my legs were heavy on my run this morning. But I’m gunning for sub-3:10. Take that for what it’s worth.

That’s All I Have For Today
Have a GREAT weekend, everybody! I’ll post a race report at some point on Saturday. Please, please, please, support Operation Jack and try to guess my time!

I jinxed myself on Saturday night. I’m a graduate of Kansas State University, so when Kansas lost to Northern Iowa (yeah!), I told some folks I was with at a pasta dinner that if K-State won to make it to the Sweet 16, I could run a terrible race on Sunday and it would still be a great weekend. Well, Kansas State beat BYU to make it to the Sweet 16 and I ran a terrible race on Sunday. And it was a GREAT weekend! How ’bout them Wildcats!

I’m proud of my alma mater. After big wins, we always say, “It’s a great day to be a Wildcat!” Well, it’s a great day to be a Kansas State Wildcat! Of course, every day, win or lose, is a great day to be a Wildcat. Oh, and I’m not sorry about your brackets if you picked KU. I never would have told you to do that.

OK, on to the rest of my weekend.

First Things First: The Race
I had an epic bonk in my marathon. You can read about it here and experience the misery without actually feeling the pain I got to feel! Also, there was a brief article in the Virginia Pilot about what I’m doing today.

Take United Off My List Of Preferred Airlines
My weekend got off to a rocky start with my flight out to Virginia. My flight out of Los Angeles was delayed an hour, which was a bummer for two reasons. First, I could have spent more time at home. I left at 7:30 p.m., but I could have stayed and put the kids to bed. On top of that, though, my window to switch planes in Philadelphia dropped from 1:11 to 11 minutes. So, I pretty much knew I’d be close, but wouldn’t make it.

Delayed flights happen and there’s no way I was going to make it through a year without something like that happening. But it was what happened right before my flight that really got me steamed. They were making announcements that people in Zone 4 (the last boarding zone, which I was in) would probably need to check their carry-on suitcases because the flight was full.

I was in line, and I was the first person in Zone 4 through. When they let us through, they stopped me and told me I’d have to check my bag. On Delta last month, they made me check it right before I got onto the plane, but the overheads were truly full. Here, they were clearly doing this to me because I was in Zone 4.

I could tell that they had no clue what was really going on in the plane, because there was still a line to get on. They were guessing it might be full and I was getting a bum deal. When I asked them if it was full, they said it was going to be. But the man with the two bags scooted right by when I was asking talking to the lady.

I was pretty mad, and I yelled, “You’re letting HIM on with two bags and you won’t let me take one?” So they stopped him and checked his ticket. He was in Zone 4 and they made him check one. He got pretty angry and took his bag and slammed it on the ground and started yelling. They told him they weren’t going to let him on the plane since he was irate. He eventually calmed down and checked a bag. Meanwhile, dozens of people with other bags for the overhead in Zone 4 were cruising right by. Apparently, duffel bags are OK, but a bag the same size with little tiny wheels is not.

I was concerned about checking my bag, because they had no clue what flight I would be on since I was staring at a very real possibility of a missed flight. I was actually the very last person on the plane because I was sorting things out and much to my surprise, I counted six different spots in the overheads where my bag would have fit. I asked the flight attendant why they made me check my bag, and he just gave me a shrug with a dopey smile and said, “I don’t know. I’m sorry!”

I got to Philadelphia and wanted to make sure my bag was going to make it to Virginia. I missed my flight that would have gotten me to Norfolk at 8:35 a.m. and instead got on one that got me there at 10:40 a.m., which is what I had talked about with the woman in LA. But she scheduled it on a flight to Norfolk that arrived at 12:30 p.m. and put me on a flight to Washington D.C. through Chicago. Fortunately, I got my ticket and my bag fixed.

So, thanks, United. Thanks for nothing.

Scary Sight
I was asleep on my first flight, and I heard a lady saying “Sir! Sir!” So I wake up, look in the aisle, and there’s a man in the aisle on his knees looking woozy and he’s about two feet from my face. Waking up to this was extremely bizarre, to say the least. I’ve never been trained in how to react when there’s a woozy man on his knees in the aisle of an airplane staring at you as you wake up on a red-eye flight, so I didn’t know what to do.

All of a sudden, he tipped over sideways. I caught him from my seat, and then two male flight attendants rushed over to help. So he stands up, kind of wobbly, and then passes out and falls to the ground. I asked the flight attendants if there was anything I could do to help and I got no response. They asked him if he wanted oxygen or something to drink and he said no. So they got him to sit in his seat, which apparently was the seat in front of mine. Then he went to sleep.

I sat there for a couple of minutes observing, because I’m always a little suspicious on a plane. But everything seemed OK, so I went back to sleep. Weird.

I Really Exist!
I got to meet a nice man named Dwight Kane on Saturday at the expo. He’s been following along since last summer and we’ve communicated quite a bit. It’s kind of cool traveling around the country and meeting everybody. Dwight really exists! And so do I!

Thank You, Peterson Family!
I stayed with an old college friend and her family over the weekend. She has two adorable little girls and a really nice husband and we did some young-family things, like playing with the kids, going to a park for a walk with the dog, etc. Of course, we also watched our Kansas State Wildcats advance to the Sweet 16, something Kansas couldn’t do!

Here’s a picture from the park. You just don’t see stuff like this where I live.

I was going to take a picture of a turtle I saw pop out of the water, but by the time I got my camera out, it was gone. Yeah, I was too slow for a turtle. I should have taken that as a sign about my race on Sunday.

On Sunday, Jill told me her dog Boomer really wanted to be in my blog, so here he is:

They got him when her husband, an officer in the Air Force (thank you for your service, Cory!) was stationed in Oklahoma. Boomer is named after “Boomer Sooner,” the University of Oklahoma’s fight song. As a K-State grad, that’s unacceptable and I was going to out her in here. BUT, they rescued him and that was already his name. So, that’s acceptable. He’s a pretty cool dog.

Thank You, Ryan Conrad!
A runner named Ryan Conrad put together a pasta dinner on Saturday night and I got to meet quite a few runners who were interested in Operation Jack. I do so much from my computer and interact with a lot of people, but it’s nice to meet people and talk to people. I spent about 2 1/2 hours there Saturday night and willingly sacrificed watching the first half of the Kansas State Wildcats’ win over BYU to advance to the Sweet 16, so that’s a pretty good indication that it was a nice time.

Ryan gave me a really nice card that really made my weekend. It’s pretty cool to be on my side of things. It’s tough and exhausting, but it’s certainly pretty rewarding at times. I’m still looking forward to 2011 big-time, though!

Oh, and of course, I was an idiot and left my camera in the car and forgot to take pictures. So you’ll just have to believe the dinner really happened.

My Daughter Is Bad Luck!
I recorded this literally on my way out the door to the airport on Friday night. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

I Feel So Disloyal!
I TOTALLY cheated on In-N-Out yesterday, eating Five Guys. And I’m not gonna lie. It was good. Good, good, good. Here’s how good it was: It was re-heated and probably an hour or so old when I ate it, and it was good, good, good.

I’m having Five Guys again next Sunday (fresh this time) in Knoxville, and I think I’m going to have In-N-Out later that night when I get home to California. I’ll definitely report back to y’all on that one.

OK, That’s Enough For Today
Sorry about the blog overload today. I wonder how many of you actually made it to the bottom. If you did, then you can see that I said thank you for making it to the bottom, and have a great Monday!

I was prepared to write about keeping focused during the ups and downs of a long, difficult mission, and I had a perfect example to talk about. But Jack’s struggling right now, and I’m too distracted to write about anything other than him. Poor little dude is having a really rough go right now.

First a real quick introduction in case you’re not aware of who me and Jack are and what we’re doing. Jack is my 6 1/2 year old son and he’s severely autistic. I’m a runner and I’m planning on running 60 marathons this year to help raise money and awareness for Train 4 Autism, a wonderful charity I’m a part of and that I believe in.

That being said, for the past couple of weeks, Jack’s been in a lot of pain. It seems like it’s been his stomach, but it’s tough to tell, because his verbal communication is very, very limited. On top of that, when he gets frustrated or upset, he punches himself in the head, which leads to headaches. It’s a vicious cycle, which has led to long days filled with meltdowns, plus long nights in which he’s been waking up crying.

For the past couple of years, we’ve suspected that Jack has various internal/digestive problems. We’ve gone to several specialists to try to get an answer, but we haven’t gotten reasonable conclusions from anybody. In the midst of these problems recently, we went to his pediatrician to try to find answers and she sent us for some x-rays of his body. That procedure was Friday morning.

On Friday night, while Tiff and I were eating dinner in Catalina, we got a call from the pediatrician, who let us know why he was in so much pain. He’s very badly constipated (like VERY badly), which is causing the pain. We have about week’s worth of things to do to help him through this, and it’s going to be a very difficult, trying process. Tiff was pretty upset, but it was pretty easy for me to see the positive side to this. First, at least we knew what was causing the pain. And even better, we knew it was nothing permanent. He’ll be through this in a week.

We started with the milk of magnesia and some laxatives, plus some adjustments to his diet, and he’s getting better, but he was laying on the ground crying tremendous pain last night. It was so upsetting to see him like that. As I watched Benjamin and Ava playing together and having fun, I was just thinking, “What did Jack do to deserve this existence?” He doesn’t get to play much, he’s in school and/or therapy seven days a week, he gets upset because he can’t fully communicate, and he’s frequently in pain. What kind of life is my little guy living? How truly happy or upset is he?

I was looking at him as he was struggling last night. He’s not the only disabled child I know and I feel so bad for kids who don’t get a fair shake. It made me start thinking about next year. I’m not doing this 60-marathon thing again. But if I have enough people rallying together to make a difference, I’m kind of starting to wonder what I want to do, because I know I’ll want to keep the momentum rolling. I want to do something and help somebody if I can. Maybe it’ll be a pretty heavy effort (just not every weekend away) to continue to help Train 4 Autism grow.

Or maybe Train 4 Autism will be fulling rolling the way I hope and I can also help towards another great cause. There are plenty of bad things in this world and I know I’ll be fighting something.

Anyways, that’s what was on my mind last night when I started to write. I had something in mind that I was going to write, but I really couldn’t focus because I was too upset about Jack. And as I looked at him, and saw a sweet, innocent little boy suffer, it made me realize how happy I am now that I’m using my running to help kids who need help. I’ve thought about next year and talked a tiny bit about next year in very broad, vague terms to some people, but I guess I’ll just throw it out there in writing that I’m going to continue to try to capitalize on whatever I can build this year to help out next year.

So, that’s all I have for today. Sometimes the purpose of this blog is for you to live vicariously through the ding-dong who’s running 60 marathons. Well, that’s what’s on my mind today. And my quads still hurt from Saturday. I took a rest day again today.

Have a great Tuesday everybody! Wear your green tomorrow!

I might lose my Man Card for admitting this, but I started watching Chelsea Lately on E! a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was funny. I didn’t watch it every night, but I saw it a couple of times and I really liked it. I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again, though.

The show is kind of a cross between a gossip show and a late-night talk show. The host is Chelsea Handler, a comedienne I’d never heard of before. I’m kind of clueless on a lot of pop culture things, so maybe she’s pretty famous. I don’t know. But she’s really funny, at least to me. She has a very dry, sarcastic sense of humor. She’s pretty witty and I could watch her every night. I could care less about the stuff she talks about, but I like her jokes.

I don’t know much about the show, but it seems she has a few sidekicks on the show and they’re OK, but together, they complement each other pretty well and it’s a good show. I won’t tune in again, though, until a legitimate apology is issued through the media for their discussion on “pajama jeans” last Wednesday.

They joke about all sorts of things, and since each person on the show has a different sense of humor, the approach on the same issue is a little different and it’s funny to hear them go back and forth. They were talking about “pajama jeans,” which apparently is a pair of pajama pants that’s designed to look like denim. It’s an idea made for one of those “Not sold in stores!” commercials on cable television that probably won’t be successful.

My memory of the show is a little foggy, but the lazy, vulgar woman at the roundtable thought they’d be cool, because she doesn’t care what people think of her and they seemed easy. The guy wouldn’t be caught dead in them. I can’t write it to come across funny, but they did a good job with their jokes on the show.

But then there was the woman sitting next to Chelsea Handler, who tried to be sharp and witty, but wasn’t too funny. She went way too far, in my book. She started saying she wouldn’t wear them, because they’re something a special-needs kid would wear. And she went on and on for a good minute or so. I was sitting there watching with my wife, and we were both shocked at what she was saying.

If you say that one time, it’s a big screw-up. But she was just ripping into special-needs kids for way too long. I’m biased, obviously, because I have a special-needs kid, but that kind of humor went out of style with parachute pants in the 80s. We just sat there with our jaws dropped, totally stunned.

After a minute or so, Tiff told me she didn’t think it was a very funny show. I totally agreed and changed the channel. I sent a pretty long email to the show the next day. I thought I might actually get some kind of response, but I didn’t. I know not every letter writer is going to get feedback, but I know that somebody there read what I wrote and I am actually surprised they didn’t get back to me. I’ve been checking online to see if there was any flack from it, and there wasn’t. It kind of annoys me that something like this would happen and nobody spoke up on it.

I don’t care if nobody with the media’s ear picked up on it, though. I did, and I think it was terrible. I did a little bit of reading on Chelsea Handler, because I don’t know much about her. Apparently, she’s pretty close friends with Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy. As most of you probably know, they’re very actively involved in the autism community because McCarthy’s son has autism. In my letter to the show, I mentioned that if those two were on the show that night, they probably wouldn’t have laughed at the special-needs jokes.

Chelsea didn’t look like she was laughing all that much during those jokes, but she was smiling a little bit. I told Tiff that maybe she was just kind of shocked and didn’t know how to react. Whatever the case, I haven’t heard a thing about it, and until I do, I’m not watching the show. I hope there’s a lot of people out there like me doing the same thing.