Operation Jack

Fighting autism, one mile at a time.

My 20-year high school reunion: Glad I went

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Over the weekend, I went to my high school reunion. 20 years since the El Toro High School class of 1992 parted ways. Man, two decades seems like a long time. I remember at my 10-year reunion I saw a 20-year reunion at the same hotel and thought those guys looked old. When I was in high school, they had a family day for my mom’s 20-year reunion and I thought her and her classmates were all a bunch of old grownups.

Well, now I guess I’m that old grownup. I had a great time, though. I was just another fish in the sea in high school, and I’m still just another fish in the sea now. I was pretty quiet and shy and didn’t do anything — good or bad. Didn’t make grades, only played sports for one semester (was a terrible football player freshman year and was academically ineligible the rest of the way), didn’t date much, didn’t drink or do drugs. When I say I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything.

Well, I guess I went to football games looking like a dork.

I also didn’t make any enemies. I got along with everybody and knew just about everybody, but I didn’t know many people all that well. Still, these were the people I grew up with, so I figured why not go back for the reunion? I figured the risk of not enjoying it was worse than seeing after the fact that everybody had a great time and I missed it. So I went. And man am I glad I did. [Read more…]

Tuesday Randomness: Best Kid Carwash Picture Ever, Two Great Charity Races

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I went back to California for my 20th high school reunion over the weekend and I have some stuff I wanted to post about that, but I’m in the middle of carb depletion for a marathon this weekend, plus I haven’t been sleeping much the past week, so I haven’t had time to write it. I do have some randomness I want to share, though.

– Best burger combo you’ve never thought of

2/3 pound burger with bacon crushed into the beef, topped with bacon and peanut butter and jelly. Sounds weird, but the server swore on it and it was pretty darn good.

This was ridiculously good.

– Best Kid Carwash Picture Ever

My kids on Sunday. Benjamin is actually working, which is good. He should be. He’s 11. Ava is having fun stepping in a bucket, which is good. She’s 6. Jack is Jack. He’s having a blast. He should be — that doesn’t happen often enough. I saw this from California when Tiff posted it on Facebook and tagged me and I loved it!

I love this picture!

[Read more…]

Three Things Thursday: Autism's Trickle-Down Effect

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Three Things Thursday. I won’t waste your time with some intro paragraph. That would be two minutes of my life wasted writing it and 15 seconds of your life wasted reading it. So, here we go, time to count to three.

1. My wife took my dog to get groomed yesterday and he got some kind of ridiculous shaving/hair cut. I think. Either that or she bathed him in paint thinner. Here he was last night:

Poor little guy. Not only was he born a Pomeranian, but he has this hair cut to deal with now. FWIW, he’s not a puppy. He’s 13 1/2.

2. I’m going to California tomorrow. For the weekend. 20-year high school reunion — I think it’s gonna be fun. There’s a group on Facebook and the activity has picked up lately. Sure does seem like it’s gonna be a good time. And if not, at least I’m going to In-N-Out tomorrow for lunch!

3. I’ll probably go into a little more detail next week, but we’ve been fighting really hard for Jack (if you don’t know who Jack is, click here and see why I even have this site) over the past few weeks. It’s heavy-duty, highly-emotional work to get your child with autism in the right school with the right program and the right plan. We’d fight to the death for him. We’re cautiously optimistic with how things are going right now, but we’re pretty happy with the direction things have gone over the past 10 days. Still, we’re exhausted. It’s consumed me and Tiff (Tiff 1,000x more than me, though). And while on the surface, this quick little paragraph seems like good news, autism is an ugly thing that ruins kids as well as those closest to them.

Me and Tiff are going out on a date tonight — I think bowling — and it’s going to be the first time we’ve smiled together in a while. Autism sucks. It has a trickle-down effect. And the worst thing is that it’s preventable.

I like this link. I’m kind of supposed to stay neutral on autism theories, but if I can one day save one kid through everything I ever do trying to help, then it’s worth it. So click it.

OK, that’s all … y’all have a great weekend!

Three Things Wednesday: I Kind Of Saw A Bank Robbery!

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I normally do Three Things Thursday, copying the lead of several other running bloggers out there, but over the weekend, I saw this on Facebook from Operation Jack supporter AJ Reese:

I like AJ. I talked with him periodically on Twitter, and then last year, we ran together just by chance for several miles during the Operation Jack Marathon. It was kind of cool to meet him — I love putting faces with (screen) names. I think he’s running the Long Beach Marathon with Train 4 Autism in October, aiming for his first Boston Qualifier.

Anyways, just for the heck of it, I’m doing a bonus of edition of Three Things for AJ. So here’s Three Things Wednesday.

1. I saw a bank robbery at work yesterday! Sort of. I look out the window from my desk at a building that has a bank. Right to the right of the building, there’s a grassy area that has a little hill and ends up wrapping around behind our building. A little after noon, I saw some dude running down the hill and then out of side. It looked kind of odd, although I didn’t really think much of it.

A little bit later, we saw four or five police cars and there was definitely something going on. We weren’t sure what — there wasn’t a swat team or anything exciting like police officers crouching behind their car doors with guns drawn — but they were definitely up to something. Then they used yellow tape to block access to the building. We knew something was up, but weren’t sure what. A canine unit came out and started sniffing around. Then a woman I work with said she read online in the local paper that there had been a robbery and they had a description of the suspect.

“Short guy wearing green?” I asked. Yep, sure enough. That was him. That was the robber I had seen running away 30 minutes earlier! I went outside to tell the police the direction I saw him go, but it looked like they knew. I talked to a man who worked with the bank. He asked for my info and what I saw, then gave that info to the police. I went back to work. I doubt I’ll ever get contacted, but it was definitely an usual experience!

Here’s the article if you’re bored. It wasn’t me!

2. I took this picture last Wednesday from a park less than 500 feet from my front door. Zero cropping, zero Photoshopping. Just point and click with my iPhone.

Colorado, for the win.

3. Here’s a video of Jack the other night. Really, there are no words for this.

OK, that’s three! Have a great Wednesday!

I Killed A Treadmill

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I done did it up yesterday. I killed a treadmill. And it felt GOOD! I needed a mental boost and that did it.

I have a race coming up on September 1, the Pocatello Marathon. 11 days, not that I’m counting. I need a Boston Qualifier, which for me is a sub-3:10. I’ve run Boston the past five years and I want to make it six in a row. I love running that race. But Pocatello is my only shot at getting back next year. Registration opens in September and I won’t get another shot at a marathon before it closes.

I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me after I only went 3:19 on June 9 in the Utah Valley Marathon. It was my now-or-never time. After I spent the better part of a week letting a strained hamstring recover from that race, I averaged about 100 miles a week over the next seven weeks. I had something like 10 20+ mile runs, three or four runs between 26.2 and 30 miles, about another dozen or so days where I ran at least 20 miles total by running twice, plus a high-mileage week of 130 miles. [Read more…]