Operation Jack

Fighting autism, one mile at a time.

United: Not The Friendly Skies

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I’m going to give you fair warning: If you like United Airlines, you’re not going to want to read this blog. They’re terrible, and they did a number on me this weekend. I’m stuck with who I travel with, so I can’t say I won’t fly them again, but I will never fly them again unless I absolutely have to.

Let me start with a quick preface. I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic and to try to make a difference in his honor, I’m trying to run 60 full marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a great charity called Train 4 Autism. So far, everything is going fairly well.

On Sunday, I ran my 25th marathon of 2010 in Cleveland (you can read my recap here — it was a GREAT day!). Through all those races, I’ve flown a lot. I’ve flown nine times on Delta, seven on Southwest, four on Continental, four on United, three on US Airways, three on American, one on Frontier and one on Jet Blue. I’ve experienced a lot since January 1 and I know the differences between the airlines.

If you don’t fly a lot nowadays, it’s really become a pain with all the airlines charging for checked luggage. Everybody tries to carry on as much as possible and the overheads get full. There’s borderline pushing and shoving at boarding time. I carry on because I need to keep my running gear in my possession. I can’t run the risk of losing my gear. I made that mistake when I flew out to the Kansas City Marathon in 2008. If you’re ever traveling to a race, don’t check your running gear if you’re flying the day before a race.

Anyways, I absolutely dread flying United. They really, really did me wrong this time. I’m going to explain in just a minute, but first, I want to give you some background. They have a terrible rule with their carry-ons. They board by zone, and if you’re in boarding zone 4 and the flight is anywhere near full, they won’t let you carry on a rolling suitcase. A lot of duffel bags are actually bigger, but it’s those little wheels that must make all the difference. They’re afraid that the overheads will fill. Well, they need to take a lesson from Delta. On Delta, they don’t force anybody to check a bag until the overheads are actually full. What a concept!

My first two times flying United, they took my bag as part of their zone 4 policy. Both times, there was plenty of room in the overheads when the plane was closed. The first time, they lost my bag and I had to be the guy to figure out how to track it down. They were also late on their flight and I missed my connecting flight, so the agent re-routed me from Philadelphia to Dulles through Chicago instead of straight to Norfolk. Yeah, that makes sense.

The second time, they did the zone 4 thing and took my bag. I asked the woman who forced me to check it if I could be the very last person on the plane and stick it in the overhead if there was space. She told me no and put a tag on it. I brought it down and waited to be the last person on the plane anyways. Sure enough, there was plenty of space, and the flight attendants said I could bring it on. But the guy who sent my bag down the stairs wouldn’t walk down and get it for me. So they checked it, and I got to wait at the baggage claim for my mistreated bag (it’s a little torn up now) instead of going straight home to see my family.

I book as close to the back of the plane as possible on United so I don’t get stuck in zone 4. My third trip, home from Grand Junction last weekend, was uneventful. But this weekend took the cake.

I was in zone 2 on Friday night. I flew Continental, but in one of those co-op deals they do, my first flight, to San Francisco, was on United. My carry-on bag is built to the specifications that the airlines or the FAA has set. It fits perfectly inside those little cages. It doesn’t pass the eyeball test about 1/3 of the time, but I drop it in the cage without worry every time. Once, on Frontier, it didn’t fit, but the cage was bent, so that wasn’t really the bag’s fault.

Anyways, the woman taking my ticket on Friday told me my bag was too big and needed to be checked. I told her I get that every time, but it fits in the overheads and fits in the cage and I wanted to show her that. United doesn’t actually have a cage — they just have a plastic board with a template defining the allowable space. It was two feet from her, but she wouldn’t let me show her. We went back-and-forth a couple of times, but she refused to even consider it. I was pretty angry as she checked my bag to Cleveland.


Here’s my suitcase in the cage. I put it in upside down and it’s resting on the handle and it looks like it’s sticking out maybe half an inch. The other way, it’s probably on the money. Either way, it’s much thinner than a lot of other rolling suitcases and duffel bags that absolutely wouldn’t fit in that cage. You can see that this bag is clearly made to carry-on specifications. If they want to challenge this, I’d love to see them enforce about 75 percent of the bags that get carried on nowadays that would absolutely not fit in this cage.


That’s my bag on the right on the way back on Sunday. I didn’t even have to turn it sideways like a lot of people do. Of the two bags here, mine is obviously smaller. I challenge anybody to tell me my bag doesn’t fit.

When I got down to the plane, I asked the flight attendants if they could watch me put my bag in the overhead. It fits. Just like I know my name is Sam, I know my bag fits. But they said no, that once the decision is made at the gate, there’s nothing they can do about it. That’s funny — the crew when I was coming back from Dallas was going to let me bring it on. This time, the rules were different. The woman who was going to take the luggage down to get loaded on the plane said that once it’s tagged in the system, they can’t do anything about it because it affects the weights and measures of the plane.

OK, this is where I call B.S. I asked her if she was kidding. Seriously, a 25-pound bag? What if I still weighed 261 pounds instead of 200? What if it was a duffel bag and they had no record of me carrying it on? They had no clue what that bag weighed and if that bag affected the measures of the plane, I’m not sure I’m comfortable flying.

We got to San Francisco and had a three-hour layover. Yes, three hours. And when I got to Cleveland, sure enough, my bag wasn’t there. I wasn’t happy, to say the least. But now, it was a Continental problem, because that flight was on Continental.

Continental couldn’t track the bag in the database. They had no clue if it was in Orange County, San Francisco or Cleveland. But they told me that if they didn’t deliver it within 24 hours, I’d be eligible for an allowance for replacement clothing. The problem, of course, is that my race was in 23 hours. I’m on a pretty tight budget with five mouths to feed from one income in California. I didn’t really want to go on a shopping spree.

About an hour later, I called back and asked for status. They still didn’t know where the bag was. I explained to them my situation. I’m trying to raise $100,000 for charity this year under the pretense of running at least one marathon every weekend. I was wearing sandals, layup pants and a tech shirt. Not exactly marathon wear. I didn’t have 24 hours and I needed them to track my bag. I said that if they were going to stick to their 24-hour rule, I wanted somebody who understood that it wasn’t my swimsuit I was waiting for to confirm that decision.

The man from Continental (and they did a very good job with handling United’s mess for me) told me that if they didn’t have a solid indicator of when I’d get the bag by 3 p.m. Saturday, I’d have a green-light to shop. In hindsight, I probably should have just bought stuff anyways. But I was a zombie after taking a red-eye and I didn’t. At 3 p.m., they told me they absolutely had the bag in San Francisco and that it was going to be on a flight getting into Cleveland at 9:15. They knew the urgency of the situation and they were going to deliver the bag to my hotel.

So I took a nap, woke up and got some dinner. I was jogging on the sidewalk in my sandals, imagining running a marathon in them. I was thinking about running barefoot if that’s what it came down to, but I figured that would probably break bones in my feet, because I’m not trained for that. My backup plan became finding a 24-hour Wal-Mart, getting whatever shoes and clothing I could find and running the race in that.

I was super tired, so I talked to my wife and gave her the information and asked her to stay on top of it with Continental to make sure the bag made its way to my hotel. I saw on the computer that it was in Cleveland at 9:52, so I hopped into bed, set my alarm for 2:30 a.m. just in case I didn’t have my bag by then, and trusting my wife would get it squared away.

At 10:12, she called me and told me she had good news and bad news. They definitely had my bag in Cleveland. But I had to go to the airport to pick it up. They couldn’t guarantee it would be there by 8 a.m., which wasn’t good considering the race was at 7. So I ran to the subway (nothing quite like riding the subway in Cleveland on a Saturday night) and went to the airport. I ran through the terminal to get my bag and I was thrilled to have it in my possession!

I took the subway back and 40 minutes after I left my hotel, I was back. I was too wired to fall asleep, so sometime after 11:45, I finally fell asleep (I woke up for the race at 4:30 a.m.).

All of this could have been avoided if the woman would have let me measure my bag. But for whatever reason, she got a kick out of telling me no. I’ve never had her job, but if I was in her position and somebody told me their bag really did fit and they were adamant about it, I’m sure I’d let the person measure it right in front of my eyes to end it and move on to the next person. Maybe she’s the type who can’t let go of an argument and admit she’s wrong?

Whatever the case, she really did a number wrecking my trip. And of all the problems I’ve had traveling this year, United is the common denominator. Three times now.

But I’m not done. I’m going to do everything I can to make this right. The airlines, in general, don’t do a whole lot when it comes to service. You have no options and they know it and they treat you accordingly. But I’m still going to push. They need to do something to make this right. I really feel like they owe me for what they did.

What I really want to know more than anything is what happened to my bag. One of two things happened. Either it never made it on my plane or something happened and they couldn’t get it to the right spot (even with three hours) in San Francisco. That’s possible, since it had to go from United to Continental. If that’s the case, I want to know what I can do to help the situation in the future — who I can call when I’m switching planes or whatever. I’m not going to have this happen again.

But if didn’t make it on the plane out of Orange County? Then I’ll know the woman who took my bag on the jetway sabotaged me. There’s no other possible explanation for that one.

So, I’ll wait and see. You can be absolutely certain that I won’t fly United unless I absolutely have to. You can do what you want, but don’t say you weren’t warned.

Race Report: Cleveland Marathon

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I went into Sunday’s Cleveland Marathon really wanting to run a good race. Beyond the fact that I’ve put together some decent efforts lately, this was the home course for a couple of loyal Operation Jack supporters and I really wanted to turn in a solid effort. I felt I owed it to them.

The loyal supporters are Erin Fortin, a grad student at the University of Colorado, and Jamie and Jenn Fellrath of Columbus, Ohio. Erin grew up in the Cleveland area and Columbus is relatively close to Cleveland. Erin flew back to visit her family and run the marathon, only her second. Jenn was going to run the half marathon, but she got injured and couldn’t. The Fellraths still came down to support me though. I was pretty excited about this race all week, and really wanted to run well. Like I said, I felt like I owed that to them.

Unfortunately, I had some issues with my luggage. Long story short, I didn’t have my running shoes until 10:45 p.m. the night before the race (no, I don’t check luggage when I travel). And between the time I woke up on Friday and the time I ran the race on Sunday, I had 3 hours sleep on a plane, a 2 1/2 hour nap in my hotel, and 4 1/2 hours of sleep at night in my hotel. In addition, go-time was 7 a.m. Eastern, so I was up at 4:30 a.m., which was 1:30 a.m. body time. I had a few things working against me. But that didn’t take away from the fact that I still owed them a good race!

A little before the start, Erin told me she thought I was going to run a 3:08. Since she was running with her phone, I told her to text me at the three-hour mark. Her one prior marathon was in the five-hour range, and while it was a trail marathon at elevation, she didn’t have a ton of confidence and she planned on starting between the 4:00 and 4:20 pacers. She was also having knee problems and got a cortisone shot last week. She had no idea if she was going to be closer to four hours or five hours, and if it was the latter, with my flight schedule, I needed to head back to my hotel to shower and pack and then get back to the finish.

Anyways, we parted ways before the start and got rolling. I started between the 3:00 and 3:10 pace groups and tucked in a little bit behind the 3:00 group pretty quickly. To keep it under control, I stayed a touch back the first couple of miles and then went by heart rate, keeping it between 170 and 173 or so. I felt pretty good early and was turning quite a few miles in the 6:40-6:50 range. I had some early burning in my shins and calves, which always happens when I’m running quick. And, like always, it went away by mile 6 and I get into a zone.

I ran my own race, but fluctuated between 15 and 30 seconds behind the 3:00 group for the first 10 or so miles. I started to feel the pain I’ve been having in my right hip and glute at about mile 8, but it didn’t really slow me down. At mile 10, though, we started facing a pretty stiff headwind. That slowed me down. My 6:50s turned into 7:20s in a hurry. I saw the Fellraths and their two children at about mile 12 and they knew I was pretty close to the 3:00 group, but they didn’t know I knew I could feel the struggle coming on.

I went through the half at 1:31:42 on my Garmin, which I was pretty happy with. I figured I had a good shot at sub-3:05, and a very good shot at sub-3:10. However, the headwinds didn’t let up and my pace started to slip. I was struggling a little bit to find power in my stride and the sub-3:10 was starting to look a little questionable.

I think the wind went away after mile 17 or 18, but I wasn’t moving too well, registering miles up close to 7:45 or so. At about 21, I caught a second wind and started to move, dropping about 30 seconds a mile off my pace and locking into a groove. I wasn’t really kicking, but I was moving pretty well. Starting with about 5 miles to go, I started doing the math in my head each mile to calculate how fast I needed to average to get at least a 3:09. It started at about 7:30/mile I would need, but as I started ticking off 7:00 miles, that got better and better and I started thinking about that 3:08 Erin predicted.

That seemed like a longshot with three to go, but I powered through the 24th and 25th miles and all of a sudden, all I needed was about a 7:30 or so for the last mile. Barring a total collapse, it that was easy. A 3:09 was a given. But I still put the hammer down as well as I could with about a 6:45 and finished in 3:08:32. I was pretty happy. I ran well, did a fairly good job of fighting through, and I made it happen when I needed to. It was my fourth-fastest run of the year, my 11th-fastest ever. I was pretty happy, especially considering how tired I was heading into the race.

The course was pretty decent. I was expecting it to be pretty ugly, because Cleveland has a stereotype of being kind of blah. But it was actually a pretty good course. We ran through their downtown area, which was one of the nicer downtowns I’ve seen in a big city, plus we went by the NFL stadium, through several neighborhoods that seemed decent, along Lake Erie for quite a while, through a nice park, and then back into the city to finish it up with downtown as the backdrop. Course support was very good and the volunteers did a great job.

But what I’ll really remember from this race was what happened after I finished. I went to get my phone to see if Erin texted me. I needed to know if she was going to be closer to 4:00 or 5:00.

You better be done by now 🙂 ipm ahead of the 340 group!!

Yeah, she had a typo with that apostrophe, but I’m just telling the story as accurately as possible. No big deal, right? Anyways, I was crazy excited to see that. I was with the Fellraths and I was jumping up and down (figuratively, not literally — my hip hurt like I had just run a marathon or something). We scooted back over to the finish area and there was 3:32 on the clock. We started watching and I was looking for her. She was wearing all black.

But every time somebody in all black came by, it wasn’t her. I was really hoping she’d hit 3:40:59 or better and qualify for Boston. That would have been amazing. But then I saw the 3:40 pace leader go through. And I kept looking for her, and looking for her. And I didn’t see her. I was totally bummed. At about 3:45, I texted her and asked her if she was OK.

She texted me back that she was at the end of the finishers chute! Silly me, she was wearing green! She went 3:40:29 and qualified for Boston. I was so excited for her. I’ve seen people do better than they expect to do, but never like this. For the life of me, I don’t know how anybody starts out aiming for a 4:15 or so and ends up with a 3:40. That’s more than a minute per mile quicker than she set out to do, and at that speed, that’s not easy. I was amazed, excited, happy for her … it was awesome and it made my weekend. That will probably be my memory of the race.

So, 25 down, 35 to go. And next year, when I run Boston, I’ll see Erin!


The Fellraths, me, Erin and her brother Will. Cleveland was Will’s first marathon and he went 3:29 … not bad!

Weekend Preview: Race #25, Cleveland Marathon

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It’s already Thursday, which is great for several reasons. First, I don’t have to write a blog tonight. Also, I start carb-loading again today, although really, I’m not very excited about that. I get to go out to lunch with my wife and daughter today since it’s Thursday (except I really won’t, because she’s been busy this week with a lot of things and can’t make it). But most important, I get to offer up my weekend preview blog, and while that might not truly be what’s most important, it’s a lead-in to the rest of my blog.

Just in case this is your first time here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I wanted to do something to try to make sense and a purpose out of what he’s going through, so I came of with the idea of trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. I call it my stupid human trick.

So far, I’m on target. This is the 20th weekend of 2010 coming up and Sunday’s Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon will be my 25th full marathon of the year.

Weekly Contest
Every week, I have a contest where you try to guess my time in my upcoming race. Now, since this is all for charity, it costs money to participate in the contest. But since I’m a really nice guy, it doesn’t cost a whole lot of money. Basically, if you think my time is going to be 3:12, you donate $3.12. If you think it’s going to be 4:00, I don’t like you either, but I thank you for the $4. To enter, you can click here or on the “Donate Now!” link on the top of any page.

The person who wins the contest is the person who comes the closest without bidding under and in the event of a tie, I’ll draw between the participants who tied. The winner gets their choice of an Operation Jack t-shirt, tech shirt or sweatshirt. The sweatshirts are getting pretty good reviews, although I’m not getting complaints about anything.

Last week’s winner was Katey Williamson. She should just write my blog and tell what she expects me to do, because I think this is the third time she’s won. She said she wanted to keep playing until she won one of each item. I told her I hoped she started losing so I could keep getting her $3. Oh well, I was just joking and I’m happy with whoever wins, because they played, which I appreciate.

To help you play the contest, I write a little bit of a preview of the race and I forecast how I think I’m going to do. It’s a crapshoot — anything can happen during the course of a race — but I usually know when I’m going to run well and when I’m not going to run well. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Tweet Of The Day
Ok, so if you don’t follow me on Twitter, you found this blog other than from when I tweeted it. And you missed my Tweet of the Day yesterday, as voted on by me.

“Tom Brady has sons named Benjamin & Jack & a hot wife, just like me. But I have 52 marathon medals & he only has 3 Super Bowl rings.” Yep, that’s true. If you follow me on Twitter (@operationjack) you’ll get pearls of wisdom like that.

Jack Story Of The Day
Jack had a great morning yesterday. He struggled getting out of bed, but he was in a great mood when I got him to school, which was the exact opposite of Tuesday. I picked him up from Tiff after work because we had a session at Advanced Hyperbarics last night.

It’s so weird, because I meet up with Tiff at a gas station right off the highway to get Jack. Any outsider watching would probably think we’re having a custody exchange. I learned to stop really caring about what other people think a while ago, because with Jack I’ve learned to focus on him, not strangers.

Anyways, the session was great for the first 2/3 or so, and I started writing this blog (on a pad of paper with a pencil) while he watched a Curious George movie. But out of nowhere, he started having a meltdown and I struggled to calm him down. I felt bad watching him sit there getting so upset. I have no clue what the problem is, and I hate looking at the little guy knowing he has to sit through his sessions in there because of something he was born with. A lot of kids are much worse off, but it’s still sad to look at your own kid and know he’s not living a typical childhood.

At least on the ride home he was pretty calm and then he went to sleep without much issue. Poor little dude.

Race Preview
OK, this week’s race is the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon. I took a quick look at the course profile yesterday. It’s got some rollers and a couple of decent climbs, but it doesn’t look ridiculous. I wouldn’t call it a PR course, but it looks like a course I could reasonably expect to go fast on if I have a good day.

The more I race, the more I realize I don’t race too well heading up longer hills, but I do fairly well on rollers. You use different muscles going uphill than you do downhill, so I mix it up and my body seems to respond pretty well to that. They don’t faze me like they used to. I just wish I didn’t fade so bad heading up hills.

A big part of it all is mental, and mentally, I’m fired up to run. I have some very good supporters running in this race, and the way I see it, I owe them a good run on their course. I felt the same way when I ran Tampa with Jen Morgan, and I feel the same way this weekend. I started doing a training plan with speedwork again last week, so I’m just getting going with that.

Physically, I’m feeling decent, aside from some sporadic throbbing in my right leg. Mentally, though, I have some confidence with two sub-3:10s in the past month, plus the addition of speedwork to my regimen. And of course, I’m pretty excited to run. I probably won’t be too well rested, but I won’t be excessively tired.

I want this one bad and I really think I can go get it. So, as optimistic as this sounds, I’m setting my over/under at 3:08.

Please, please, please … I know you have $3! Hook me up with the pat on the back I’m craving and participate in the contest! Just click on the “Donate Now!” link on the top of this page!

EDIT: I wrote this blog Wednesday night, but on my run Thursday morning, my right hip/glute really started stinging me at about 5 miles in. I’m working on this and am optimistic about Sunday. If this flares up, though, it could be another one of those days in the 3:20 range. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Follow-Up To My Tweet Of The Day
So I went with this: “My wife found Dreyer’s Root Beer Float flavored ice cream with only 100 calories per 1/2 cup. Let’s see Tom Brady’s wfe buy that!” That’s what I had last night to stretch the streak to 102 days. Eight more to tie my record, nine to make history.


You want this. Believe me, you want this.

That’s All For Today, Folks
Have a great weekend! I’ll post a race recap at some point on Sunday.

What's Up With OJ Wednesday

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Another week is flying by and it’s Wednesday already. That means it’s time for my weekly “What’s Up With OJ Wednesday” blog, a rundown of what’s going on. Today, I’ve got an update on Jack, information about shirts and sweatshirts, plus a story about the father of an autistic boy named Jack (not me!) who’s running a marathon pretty soon. Oh, and there’s a bonus picture today of me from my, uh, bigger days.

Just in case this is your first time here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I decided (well, my wife Tiffany and I decided) that we’d try to make a difference in the world this year. I’m attempting to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism.

So far, so good. I’m through 24 of the 60 marathons, with No. 25 coming up this Sunday in Cleveland.

Look At Jack’s Dad!
Thanks to Twitter, I came across a guy named Lonnie Butler up in Minnesota. Like me, Lonnie has a son named Jack. And like me, Lonnie’s son Jack has autism. We’ve chatted a fair amount since I first came into contact with him in January and I’ll get to meet him in a couple of weeks when I run the Med-City Marathon in Rochester, Minn. on May 30.

I had a different race scheduled for that day, but I switched it up so that I could go up there and meet him. It should be a good time — Med-City will be his first marathon and I always love seeing people finish their first marathon. I’m probably going to run it quicker than him, so If the course allows, I’ll probably run back out and run him in when I’m done.

After we’re done, we’re going to have a pancake-eating contest. He knows how I ate 11 at IHOP after I ran the Country Music Marathon in Nashville on April 24, and he thinks he can take me down. He might well be able to. Like me, he’s a recovering big boy. I’m at 202 pounds, down from a peak of 261 about 5 1/2 years ago. But Lonnie … Lonnie’s at about 212, down from … 300 pounds!

So we’re going to make a bet and that’s probably what the contest of the week will revolve around. I’m not worrying about that yet — I still need to find a hotel room for this weekend in Cleveland. But I just wanted to talk real briefly about Lonnie. And while I’m talking about him, I need to point out that he’s in Quebec now, representin’ OJ internationally! This picture was taken yesterday:


I guess this is proof that the package arrived! He’s wearing the shirt!

Speaking Of Shirts, …
We have them and I’d love to put you in them. I keep directing y’all to the Sponsors page, but Laura Sullivan, a good friend of Operation Jack, told me this past week that the page is crazy confusing to comprehend. So, I’ll just spell it out here.

We give out Operation Jack t-shirts, tech shirts and sweatshirts at certain donation levels. We’ll also list you on the site at those donation levels. So, for $26.20 ($1 per mile in a marathon) we list you and send you a t-shirt, for $60 ($1 per Operation Jack race), we list you and send you a t-shirt and tech shirt, and for $100 (Jack gives 100 percent every day, so $100), we list you as a sponsor and send you a t-shirt, tech shirt and sweatshirt.

But for a little bit less, we’ll sell you the gear. We won’t list you as a sponsor, but we’ll get you the stuff. T-shirts are $15, tech shirts are $25, sweatshirts are $30. If you want the combo platter, a t-shirt and a tech shirt runs $35, and one of each is $60. If you’re buying without hitting the donation level, you need to tack on $5 for shipping. Now, if you’re wanting clothing but can’t afford the prices, send me an e-mail and we’ll work something out. If you want to wear it, I want to get it to you.

So that being said, the t-shirts are gender specific. The men’s t-shirts are a tan color, kind of like the background of this site. The women’s shirts are women’s fitted tees. Everybody seems to really like them. We’re kind of slipping out of sweatshirt weather, but fall is still coming, and everybody who has a sweatshirt loves it. If you’re reading this and you have one, post a comment and tell people what you think.

To order something, click here or click on the “Donate Now!” link at the top of any page on this site. Let me know if you have any questions!

Quick Jack Update
We’ve been struggling with Jack a little bit lately. We’re having to deal with some things that you would never figure to be a major problem, but when your child struggles mightily to communicate, you face unexpected challenges.

Case in point, Jack is just four months away from turning 7. At this age, your baby teeth start to fall out and your adult teeth come in. Well, he’s getting his first grown-up tooth and it’s causing pain. When Benjamin started losing teeth, we explained what was going on and he got excited about it. No such luck for Jack.

For the past month or so, he’s been waking up screaming in pain in the middle of the night, struggling to go back to sleep. It’s like having a newborn all over again. He hates the pain, but doesn’t know how to express himself and out of frustration, he’ll hit himself in the head. That leads to a vicious cycle of headaches. It’s a really sad thing to see.

He’s starting to make some nice strides with his communication, though. Last night at dinner, he was able to verbalize things such as “corn”, “popcorn” and “I want chicken.” Yesterday, Tiff and Ava showed up at his school to surprise him with a hot meal from Rubio’s, complete with his favorite Spanish rice and chicken taquitos. He was starry-eyed to see them and really enjoyed it.

After about 10 minutes, Tiff and Ava were going to leave. Tiff told Jack, “OK Jackie, we’re going to go now.” We think he understands us when we say that. Well, he grabbed her arm and said, “stop!” So Tiff told him again, and he gave her a headlock/hug and said “stop!” again. Jack had to ask twice, but not three times!

They stayed a little while longer and Jack was a happy little guy.

We have our struggles right now with him, primarily with this up-all-night thing. But he’s definitely showing signs of progress. Thank you all for your prayers. He’s really come a long ways since you all found out about him last year.

Bonus Picture
A friend of mine sent this to me last night. I LOVE my fat pictures. It makes me realize how far I’ve come. For the record, this picture was taken in 2003 when I probably weighed around 250. I didn’t even start jogging for close to two years from this point and I qualified for Boston fewer than five years later. So don’t tell me you can’t do it. Because if this guy in the white shirt can, you can, too.


Yeah, I looked at myself in the mirror that morning and thought, “I look good.”

That’s All For Today
I didn’t even know what I was going to write about for this blog, but it got pretty long in a hurry. Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow!

Ten Random Things For Tuesday

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It’s the day after Monday, which means it’s time for 10 random things for Tuesday. You know what’s even better than having something in here about Jack and something in here about eating ice cream? Having something in here about Jack eating ice cream!

1. You’re going to want to pick up the August edition of Runner’s World.

2. I went to open house last night at Ava’s preschool. I can’t believe she’ll be in kindergarten next year. Am I getting so old that all of my kids will be at the elementary school? I guess I am.


Me and Ava at open house last night. Apparently, I had the camera on the wrong setting. That’s why the picture is so grainy.

3. I don’t think there could have been any more amazing timing for a perfect game than Dallas Braden on Sunday. He goes out and rips the guy who’s No. 8 all-time in home runs and says that he doesn’t care what kind of career A-Rod has had — he (Braden) is in the major leagues and has earned the right to compete just like anybody else. I liked the competitive fire in that statement last Wednesday, and then he goes out and throws the 19th perfect game in MLB history in his next start. Awesome. Period.

4. Kids say the darndest things: Last night at the grocery store, Ava was whining for me to get her some mints in the check-out line. The answer was no, but she seemed like she was going to be fussy, so I just told her to ask Mommy the next time they were there. But she whined and said, “But you’re in charge, Daddy!” So I said, “OK, then the answer is no.” And she was totally content with that.

5. On Sunday, about an hour before dinner time, Jack walked over to the freezer and used his PECS cards and verbally attempted to ask for ice cream. I’m not one to give my kid a dessert that soon before dinner, but considering a) it was Jack and b) he asked for it correctly and c) it was ice cream, he got the ice cream. For the record, he’s on a dairy-free diet, so it’s a special kind of ice cream. But he liked it. And nothing beats a happy Jack!

6. When I was in the fifth grade, we had a substitute teacher who taught us a song to remember the 40 presidents in order (this was in 1985). I learned them in a day, and a quarter-century later, I still have them down (along with Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama). I’m think they’re in my memory for good.

7. Last night at about 7:30, I was waiting to pull out of the parking lot at the grocery store. There were two cars in front of me, a white Mercedes and a black BMW. A little girl fell off her bike in front of the Mercedes and the man in that car got out and helped her and her dad get to safety. It probably delayed me about two minutes. It also delayed the BMW, and the driver of that car got angry with the man from the Mercedes for taking too long to help. There was some gesturing going on from inside that BMW, which angered the man who was helping the little girl, but everybody eventually went on their merry way. And that, in a nutshell, is why I don’t like California.

8. If you want an ice cream recipe, you go to the king. And that’s me. So here’s my suggestion: Mint chocolate chip ice cream with Magic Shell. That’s pretty much heaven in a bowl. A close runner-up is peanut butter ice cream with Magic Shell. Definitely a winner.

9. I’m a decent writer. I have a journalism degree, I won all sorts of state and national awards when I was in college and in a previous life (well, in a previous decade) I worked for the AP. But once, I paid somebody to write a comp paper for me in college. I was more in the mood to part with $30 than I was to write the paper.

10. This is what I look like when I write my blog. Fascinating stuff.


Me at the kitchen table. Sometimes, though, I’m on the couch. And sometimes, I’m on a plane.

OK, that’s 10 random things for today. See you tomorrow!