Author: Scott (Page 79 of 80)

Family Friendly Online Bookstore

June 27, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

The other day I happened to run into Gavin Baker of Abunga.com at an informal entrepreneur’s meetup. Abunga is a family friendly online media store that actually uses the input of its community to decide what they should sell. Abunga isn’t Amazon, and they aren’t trying to be either. They are built around the idea of not only providing family friendly products at great prices, but they also have a program that donates money back to worthy causes.

Gavin and I had a really good conversation about the directions they’d like to go with Abunga and new services they have in the works to enhance the experience of their user community. We talked part technology, part marketing, and part “you know what would be cool”. I don’t want to give away any of their plans for the future, but those guys are working feverishly to add more and more to Abunga.

Check them out if you have a chance. We’re constantly looking for cool things like this in the community (especially our local community) that are good resources for parents and kids!

175th Carnival of Education

June 12, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

This week’s Carnival of Education (game show edition) is being hosted at Learn Me Good 2. Good luck to MisterTeacher on his upcoming game show appearance!

COH Issue For June 10

June 10, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up–thanks to The Common Room for hosting! Just a few of the interesting posts that caught our eye here at RCO:

Hands on ABC Order — some activities you can do with your child to exercise their alphabetizing skills.

First Grade Curriculum Review — great insight from a first year homeschooler on several subjects (not just reading)

There’s More to Education Than Smarts — an interesting post about the social responsibilities that come with an education.

And take a look at the test Phil gave his 4th grader.

There are several other great posts in the carnival for homeschoolers–check it out!

Passing a Cyclist

May 21, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

Patrick Beeson has a nice article with some tips for drivers. It’s a good, quick list of pointers, but I’m assuming this will be of interest only to the drivers who don’t make a habit of yelling “Git off da roa-ohd!” or throwing stuff at cyclists.

I was riding a lot on the roads a couple of years ago when I was training for longer triathlons. I decided it just wasn’t worth the risk of getting hit by some a-hole after a guy was killed on one of the routes I rode often. I started riding on Cherokee Boulevard exclusively–plenty of space, and people are aware and considerate of cyclists there for the most part. That kind of sucks for longer rides, but the monotony built up my mental fitness and it paid off in races.

Sure, a cyclist has just as much right to be on the road as a motorist, but I’m still not comfortable putting my life in the hands of someone who doesn’t know or care about that fact. Drivers should actually be happy that more people will be on bikes. The decreased demand for gasoline will have prices falling in no time.

Readers and Golfers

May 18, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

I love to play golf, but I’m not a golfer…yet. That raises the obvious question–what are the differences between a golfer and someone who plays golf? Well, they’re basically the same differences between someone who can read and a reader.

Golfers have spent countless hours practicing chip shots and bunker shots. They’ve hit thousands of buckets of balls with their drivers and irons. They’ve spent time and effort tweaking small nuances in their swings in their basements. They are prepared for every situation the course, which they’ve played dozens of times and know intimately, can throw at them. As a result, they score well on the weekends when they play.

Guys who play golf (like me) usually go out once a week or less to play 18 holes. Maybe we hit a bucket of balls before we play to warm up. We get a little stressed when put in the situation of having to chip downhill onto green because we don’t really have that shot. We lay up instead of going for greens because we can’t hit our 2 iron well every time and can’t rely on it. We basically play every hole shot to shot, reacting to the latest situation we’ve created for ourselves instead of setting ourselves up and executing a strategy.

So what does this have to do with reading? Maybe you can see where I’m headed with this…
Continue reading

Previously On…

May 10, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

I admit it. I’m a TV junkie. I like to think I watch in moderation, but I probably watch too much. I know that fact may seem to contradict what we’re advocating here, but I can’t help it. And I actually noticed something helpful about television a few weeks ago when Ana was explaining a reading strategy to me. The strategy we were discussing is summarizing. I’m not the reading expert, so I’ll let her take you through the specifics of summarizing, why it’s important, and how to employ it, but I quickly realized that it is a strategy used in television all the time.

Most of my favorite shows are running series like Lost that develop characters and stories over weeks and years. One thing every episode of these shows has in common is that they all begin with a “Previously on…” segment that summarizes what has happened so far. As Ana points out in her article on summarizing, there’s a very good reason for this–it gives us a chance to get caught up very quickly so we can pay attention and absorb the new material.

Again, I’ll leave the coaching of this strategy to Ana, but I thought I’d point out a way that this strategy is commonly used in another medium. I’ve always appreciated the “Previously on…” segments of television shows. Besides reminding me of what has happened in previous episodes, they’re also effective in setting the mood for what I’m about to watch. Whenever I pick up a book I’m working on, especially if it’s fiction, I almost always skim a few paragraphs I covered in my last reading session just to give myself a quick reminder of where I was and to get my mind back into story.

Damn You Scrubs

May 8, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

I tried it once, just a taste, a few years ago. I got just enough of it to know that it was something I should stay away from. I could feel those inner voids that had been present in the years since Seinfeld went off the air being filled just a little, and I knew I’d be in real trouble if I allowed myself to partake. There was no way I’d let myself get tangled up in its evil web.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave in to my weakness. Gave in may not be the right phrase. It’s more like I got overconfident in my ability to fight off my demons. It had been years since I’d bothered watching a sitcom. They all suck, right? And I’ve outgrown them. I’m mature. I can handle my TV now. It wouldn’t do any harm to watch just one episode. Besides, it would be a nice thing to do for the missus. She seems to enjoy it, and she’s confined to that big comfy chair made for two feeding the baby. It’s family time.

It’s just one episode, right?

Wrong. I hadn’t counted on the fact that she was mixing up a dangerous concoction of Scrubs with Tivo. Cooked up with 2.5 hours of syndication every weekday, they form the speedball of television sitcoms. It didn’t take long for my tolerance to build up. Within a few days I was there with her watching 2 episodes a night. We should have known things were getting out of hand when we accidently missed The Soup that first Friday night.

I know. It’s pathetic. We weren’t trying to be neglectful, Joel McHale. Honest. It just sort of happened. We’ll never let it happen again. One more promise we can’t keep.

Now, a few weeks later, here we are at rock bottom. I’ve even caught myself calling my male coworkers “Bambi” and thinking up places to hide saltines even though I have no competitors. At home, we’re making excuses to watch more and more, and our justifications are just lame:

“We can’t watch just one episode…they air in pairs.”
“It’s Tivo’d, so it actually takes us three episodes to watch an hour of TV.”
“We have to watch some of these or we’ll run out of recording space.”
“We should watch all of these now. We’re going to be gone for a couple of days and will be way behind.”

It’s easy to rationalize it, but deep down I know it’s wrong. The worst part is that she can’t help me. Her problem is just as bad as mine, and I’m not sure if she sees it herself. Maybe if I get it out of my system I can help her get straight too.

Maybe I can get in touch with the producers of Intervention on A&E. We used to watch that show too before all of this started. Maybe they could help us.

But it wouldn’t hurt to hear just one more snide comment from Dr. Cox would it? They come in really handy at work.

Want to watch some with me? Come one…just some clips, not a whole episode or anything like that. A little bit won’t hurt you.

Nine Months Old and Learning to Read!

May 2, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

Ok, I’m sure you don’t believe me, but it’s true…just let me explain.

Our nine month old is learning to read already. She can’t read yet, and she probably won’t be able to read for years, but she’s already learning how. She’s learning because we started building her reading foundation months ago by doing a few simple things. At our house, we call it “reading with a purpose.”

Like most kids, Chick Pea has a favorite book. For her, that book is Marcos Counts. We read this book to her at least six or seven times a day. At times it’s the only way I can get her to calm down while Mom cooks or writes. We’re very fortunate that she shows an interest and loves everything about books, whether it’s listening to us read, looking at the pictures, or eating them. But every time we read this book with her, we read with purpose. Just a few simple things make all the difference (we hope) in helping her catch on to the idea of reading long before she has the ability to really read. Here are a few techniques you can use with babies and toddlers:

Repeated Readings
If you’re like us, you don’t have much of a choice in this one. Small children love repetition and pretty much force you to read the same book over and over. But these repeated readings help them build vocabulary and fluency early on.

Tracking the words in the book
Even though you’ve memorized the text from repeated readings, tracking the words with your finger as you go along helps them make the connection that the scribbles you are pointing at with your finger (text) have some meaning and are related to what you are saying. Resist the urge to recite the words and turn the pages on queue.

Let your child turn the pages
With repeated readings, you child will learn pretty quickly when the page needs to be turned, and they’ll be anxious to do it to get to next part of the story. Along with tracking, which will be paused while waiting for the page to turn, kids quickly figure out that the story needs the next page to continue. In our case, she’s figured out that pages need to be turned, but her timing’s a little off. That’s ok too–it’s good practice.

Look at the book while you read
Again, this may be tough to remember to do because you’ll have the story memorized pretty quickly, but directing your attention to the pages and text gives your child a visual cue that the information is coming from the book, not from you. You can expand this using tracking by pointing at the pictures in the book and talking about them. For instance, Marcos Counts objects, but the book never mentions what those objects are in the text. We always point out what Marcos is counting on each page (ducks, cars, crayons, etc.) to help her learn to identify these objects.

HAVE FUN!!!
This is the main purpose of our reading sessions. The single most important thing you can do to instill a love of reading in your child is to make it fun. Don’t force a reading time on your small child, and don’t chase them around insisting that they listen to the story. Even though it’s her absolute favorite book, Chick Pea often crawls away 3 pages in to Marcos Counts to go inspect a wooden block or chase a cat out of the room, and that’s ok. I usually just sit quietly and read silently to myself to find out what happens at the end of the story. 🙂

8 Shows That Would Be Better Than Rock of Love

April 11, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

I’ll never be able to forgive myself for watching both seasons of Rock of Love in their entirety. The only thing I can do that would possibly atone for my actions is recommend a few shows to VH1 that may allow me to gain some of my self respect back. In no particular order, here are eight shows that would be more interesting and more entertaining than Rock of Love.

The Purity is Right With Nikki Sixx

Contestants shoot heroin with the Motley Crue bassist and try to guess it’s purity. The contestant closest to the actual purity level without going over gets to spin the big wheel, which contains various rehab packages. The grand prize includes detox and a spot on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. All contestants receive a complimentary double dose at the methadone clinic good for one visit only.

Survivor DLR

Contestants are stranded on a deserted island with David Lee Roth. Instead of being voted off of the island, contestants remove themselves voluntarily. The contestant who can stand DLR the longest is the winner. The game gets harder as more contestants leave and survivors are forced to spend more and more time with Diamond Dave.

The Ultimate Fighter with Kid Rock

The concept is pretty simple–we follow Kid Rock as he tours the country’s Waffle House’s and nightly challenges drunks in pugilistic competition. A game show? Not really, although I guess you could consider anyone who doesn’t get Kid Rock’s bodily fluids on them a winner.

What’s My Line with Ozzy Osbourne

Unlike the original “What’s My Line”, contestants on this show simply listen to Ozzy and translate. Contestants accrue points based on the number of words in each sentence they are able to correctly identify. The winner gets to avoid ever having to know anything about Ozzy’s annoying offspring for the rest of their lives.

Name Buy That Tune with Lars Ulrich

Lars hosts this new version of the old classic, but with a catch. When a contestant successfully names a tune they are immediately swarmed by lawyers and retired concert security guys with RIAA t-shirts (sleeves rolled up of course). If the contestant is not able to produce proof that they actually purchased the song they’ve just heard, they must choose between being sued by Metallica’s attorneys or having the security guys bludgeon them with those big flashlights (after which you will be sued anyway).

The Roadie with Axl Rose

This one is sort of like The Apprentice. Each night, Axl Rose will either cancel an appearance, no-show the event, or storm off stage pissed off. Axl will then decide which contestant was responsible for the mishap and fire one. The winner of The Roadie earns the right to be blamed at the next concert for Axl’s behavior, and subsequently fired.

Celebrity Arm Wrestling with The Drummer From Def Leppard

No commentary necessary. On second thought, why did I even post this?

The Biggest Loser

This one is special because it actually pits celebrities people who used to be in bands against one another to see who truly is the biggest loser, literally. It should probably feature the members of bands like Faster Pussycat, Enuff Znuff, Britny Fox, and Vixen

Why I Give Full Articles in My Feed

March 31, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

With apologies to those who come here only for the ranting…

I have a plan to do a whole series of articles on search engine optimization (SEO) for bloggers. While the topic of full vs. partial feeds may not be directly related to SEO at first glance, I feel that it is in a round about way. After all, the goal of SEO and is to get more visitors to your site, and that is probably one of the goals you’d like to accomplish with your feed as well. I’m by no means saying that partial feeds are bad, and I think they definitely have their place. But for me (and probably most other bloggers) I believe full feeds are a more effective way to drive traffic. While much of what I’m about to say is based on experience, I believe I can back it up with logic and human blogger nature.

So first off, what’s the argument for partial feeds? It’s actually not a bad argument, and I used to subscribe to it myself. When I first set up my feed, I was sure that partial feeds were the way to go. I thought I had to do everything I could to force entice people to visit my site. There was no way I was going to give away all my content through the feed. Only after they loaded up the entire site, ads and all, would I give away my content.

But then it hit me–I’m giving it away no matter what. It didn’t take me long to realize that full posts in my feed were better than partial feeds, not only for my subscribers, but ultimately for me as well.

Good For My Subscribers

Anyone who uses an RSS reader is probably addicted to it. One of the first things we do after we read an article we like on a new site (especially a blog) is to look for the feed subscription button. And as a blogger, one of the first things I check every day is my FeedBurner stats, mostly out of vanity, because I’m truly flattered that people care enough about what I have to say to choose to subscribe to my feed. I feel like the least I can do for the folks who’ve paid me such a big compliment is to say “thanks” by making my site as easy as possible for them to read in the way they choose, and that means no ads in the feed as well.

But that means subscribers aren’t going to see any of the ads on my site in their reader, so they won’t ever click on these ads, right? Well…I don’t believe that’s necessarily true.

Good For Me

Think about it…the people who are subscribed to my feed are people who already may be interested in what I have to say. They are also likely to engage me in conversation by leaving comments on my blog. By giving them full posts in the feed, I increase the chances they will read everything I wrote. That increases the chances that they’ll want to comment on something I wrote, and that means they will visit my site. By contrast, a partial feed means that I have three or four sentences to entice them into visiting the site. Frankly, I don’t have enough faith in myself as a writer to accomplish that with every post.

An even more compelling reason–I think it’s pretty safe to assume that many of the people reading my feed are other bloggers. And while comments are great and encouraged, an even bigger compliment from another blogger is a link back from their blog. In fact, I’d much rather have a single link than ten comments. Again, providing the full feed increases the chances that someone will read something they’d like to write about on their own blog.

How do links back to my blog help me so much? Obviously, exposure to the the other blogger’s readers has a lot of value, but there’s another reason, and this is where the SEO part comes in. Search engines (especially Google) see a link as a “vote” for a site. So a link increases my “clout” with search engines, which means that I can greatly increase search engine rankings, which greatly increases my traffic. And I have to believe that the random visitor from a search engine is less familiar with my site layout and less likely to be wise to blog ad placement in general. This means that they are more likely to click on an ad than a regular subscriber who visits my site every day (because I don’t provide full posts in my feed) would be. More search engine traffic also increases the chances that I’ll get even more subscribers–rinse and repeat.

It’s win, win, win.

Full feeds reward loyal subscribers with the ability to read your site with ease. In my case, this includes keeping the feed ad free.

Full feeds reward you directly by increasing the chances your subscribers will visit your site and leave comments. One way conversations are fine, but I have those in my head all day, and sometimes I get tired of hearing only myself.

Full feeds increase your chances of getting back links, which increase your search engine rankings, and ultimately your traffic. Back links increase your exposure to other bloggers’ readers, and search engines are an excellent source of readers who would never find you otherwise.

I hope this helps those of you are trying to decide whether to use full or partial links, and I really hope I’ve convinced those of you who to whom I subscribe and are currently using partial feeds to give me the whole thing in my reader!

5 Reasons Bret Michaels is the Lamest “Rock Star” Ever

March 23, 2008 / Scott / 2 Comments

I remember when Poison was really popular and I thought they were stupid. Mostly it was because I was a music snob back then, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that they just sucked.

Now we have Rock Of Love, and honestly, I can think of 5 people I know right now who are happily married with kids and regular ol’ jobs who act more like rock stars than Bret Michaels. I had Easter dinner with one of them (and our wives and kids) today, after he got out of church of course. I think we drank enough beer between the two of us–it had to have been 2/3 of a six pack–to put Bret Michaels under the table.

I wouldn’t let this guy be a roadie for a boy band–that’s how NOT Rock Star he is. I submit these five facts for your consideration.

1. He has no game. None.

You would think that after having girls throw themselves at him for a few years in the 80s, he would at least have a little bit of game. This guy couldn’t close the deal with a drunk hooker if he had crapped crack and pissed liquid gold. Want to see a rock star with game? Give me (of course) David Lee Roth.

2. No famous chicks want to date him

Bret Michaels is was actually attractive and famous. And he has to go on TV to get a date? Yeah he dated Pam Anderson (briefly) a long time ago. But my guess is she quickly figured out how lame he is (see reason #1). Even the girl he picked in the first season of Rock of Love didn’t want to date him, presumably because she was already too famous for him. Let me have Rick Ocasek, Billie Joel, Adam Clayton, Kid Rock or instead of this Z-list supporter.

3. He took the girls’ exes to Dave and Busters.

Not a trip into and out of Vegas for a weekend on a private jet. Not a run to Tijuana to get tats and piercings. Not even a strip club. Dave and Freaking Busters. Give me a break. Nothing says ROCK STAR like sipping on a Zima and playing a few rounds of skee-ball and wak-a-mole, huh? Instead, I’d like to see Lemmy from Motorhead. Yeah, he’s not going to go anywhere uber-cool either, but he’ll show up with a cooler full of beer and keep you up all night telling funny stories and burning you with cigarettes when he catches you nodding off. That’s cool.

4. He’s never fought a member of Motley Crue

As far as I know, he hasn’t fought anybody. Not that I’m surprised by that–I’m sure he’d get his ass kicked. But he’s never even shown that he has a temper. I’ve never heard stories of dressing rooms being trashed. I’ve never heard of him being thrown out of a club for breaking a beer bottle across someone’s face. Nothing. I’d so much rather watch this show with Tommy Lee, who I bet has fought EVERY member of Motley Crue at one time or another.

5. He’s never been to rehab

That’s actually admirable for people like me and you. But this is America. We like our rock stars either troubled, violent, or toxic–preferably all three. He’s never even been drunk on his own “party like a rock star” TV show. I have a feeling that “Bret’s Brew” is actually 30% lemonade, 30% fruit punch, 30% Sprite and 10% soda water. Give me Bret’s old guitar player, C.C. DeVille in his place. At least there’s a chance he’ll go on a coke binge and freak out right in front of our eyes.

How Big Bird Creates Critical Thinkers

March 5, 2008 / Scott / 0 Comments

Earlier today I was reading a book to my friend’s little boy. In the book, Big Bird was asking the kids to pick objects that fell into certain categories. For instance, he would ask the child to pick out something that we eat from a page full of blue objects, and the child would pick the bowl of blueberries. A page of green objects may contain a coat, and Big Bird would ask the kids to choose the thing that we wear. We expanded this game a little by talking about the other objects on the page as well, not just doing what was in the book, but going further than Big Bird asked us to.

We both had a blast reading the book, and I was telling Ana all about it on our way home. She told me that what we were doing was called “categorizing and classifying”. I had no idea while we were reading we were actually working on developing this little boy’s critical thinking skills. I was giving him categories and he was classifying the objects into those categories. We were building up his classify and categorize foundation that will allow him as an adult to read op-eds in the newspaper (if those still exist by then) and determine the author’s political leanings and motivations as he is considering the points the author is making. Pretty cool, huh?

Now I’m thinking of other activities we could do with the same book. One of the ideas I had was to close the book and ask him to find an orange animal. This would exercise his mind by asking him to classify an object into two categories instead of just one. As a computer nerd, I’d be interested to see how he’d approach that problem. Would he take the most efficient search approach and flip through the book to find the orange page, then look for an animal? Or would he look at each page identifying all the animals and then classifying them by colors? My guess is that kids of different ages may take different approaches.

Miss Milwaukee 1959

November 27, 2007 / Scott / 0 Comments

First of all, thanks to those of you who continue to vote in my idiotic polls. They usually start off as stupid ideas that pop into my head. They later graduate to stupid ideas that show up on my blog. I then spend a week or more trying to figure out if there are any real conclusions I can draw about my readers from the answers. For this past poll, I think I was pretty successful in doing just that.

When asked the question “which one?” of the women from Happy Days, 33% of respondents chose Jenny Piccolo, which was one of two correct answers. Why Jenny Piccolo? She was a minor character, right? She didn’t contribute much to the show until long after Fonzie jumped the shark and Marcy’s second husband (Married With Children reference) showed up, right?

Good point. But savvy male viewers, even in their early childhood, could infer quite a bit about Jenny Piccolo. One thing was certainly implied by every reference to her–she was bad. Not crackwhore bad. Naughty bad. Bad influence on Joanie bad. Break curfew bad. Willing to kiss on the first date bad. I guess in the 50s you’d take whatever you could get as far as naughty goes. Either way, guys knew that Jenny Piccolo was down. Not only that, but she was the hottest of the available choices. Jenny Piccolo is the only acceptable choice for the type of guy who’d be looking to hook up while on vacation for a week in Milwaukee.

The only other acceptable answer was Lori Beth, but only 17% of respondents chose her. How does she qualify as an acceptable answer? Well, Ritchie Cunningham picked her didn’t he? Lori Beth was a nice girl, at least on the surface. She was the anti-Jenny Piccolo. She had Ritchie p-whipped (the “p” stand for “prude” of course). Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham loved her, The Fonz respected her, and Potsy and Ralph were on a never ending quest to find a girl just like her. I have a theory that Lori Beth and Potsy actually hooked up in the bathroom at Arnold’s one night after getting all hopped up on root beer floats. I also suspect that Rick Ocasek wrote “My Best Friend’s Girl” about Lori Beth from Potsy’s perspective. But that’s here nor there.

Lori Beth is the long term girl. She’s the type of girl you want to date for years. If you play your cards right, you can build up her hopes that you’ll one day marry her and have a couple of kids in your middle class house. She’ll stay home and bake cookies while you get up every morning and head off to your dad’s hardware store. Of course, you have no intention of ever following through, but still. Her hopes will finally be dashed one steamy night at Inspiration Point when you accidentally call her…

Leather Tuscadero? Someone actually chose Leather Tuscadero? Uh, not sure if you were aware, but Leather Tuscadero doesn’t even like dudes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t like dudes either–at least not in that way. Is that the attraction to her? Some kind of psychological thing that makes you want what you can’t have? Are you that much of a masochist? Oh wait, maybe the “leather” part of the name ties in there somewhere. If that weren’t enough, she looks like Joan Jett on a 12 day meth binge. She was only included on the list as a trick answer, and you fell for it. I’d never even have considered her if I hadn’t been thinking about…

Pinky Tuscadero. Those of you who chose her, I get it. Sort of. I was just as worried as you were when the Malachi brothers gave her the Malachi crunch in the demolition derby. But please, let’s think this through. She’s a carny–a sideshow act. She’s just one step above the usual crowd of groupies that follow Fonzie around. She’s always leaving to go out on the road and jump her motorcycle through a hoop of fire or something. I half expected her to turn up on an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard playing a middle aged woman who comes back and reveals to Bo and Luke that they are actually her sons whom she left with her brother Jesse in order to keep them from finding out that Roscoe was their real father. That would explain where they got their daredevil genes wouldn’t it?

The obvious wrong choice out of this list, Joanie, was chosen by 25% of respondents. Who picked Joanie? Identify yourselves! How can you do that to your boy Chachi? And that’s nothing compared to the fact that she’s Ritchie’s sister! His little baby sister! Is nothing sacred anymore? I’m more disappointed in those of you who selected Joanie than I am in those who selected Leather.

I’ve learned a lot about my readers from this poll. Now how can I top it?

This Thanksgiving Post Trumps Them All

November 20, 2007 / Scott / 0 Comments

Earlier today I started on a post about Thanksgiving, how it is my favorite holiday, a truly American holiday, etc. Then my aunt forwarded this little excerpt about Thanksgiving that my grandfather wrote a few years before he died. Boy did my post look stupid.

I’ll stop writing now. His words are much better than mine.

In 1944 as a soldier in the U.S. Army, we left San Francisco, California in February headed for somewhere in the Pacific Islands to do our bit as Air Borne Engineers to rid the islands of invading Japanese.

It was a sad sight as we stood on deck looking back toward the U.S. to see the Golden Gate Bridge sink slowly out of sight as the Pacific Ocean water raised in the horizon. I think our thoughts were unanimous that we may never see The Golden Gate again.

After 22 months of service in New Guinea and the Philippine Island, we had finally liberated the islands and the Japanese had surrendered and the Army began demobilizing.

On November 5th, I boarded the USS General Collins in Manila Bay to start the long journey home. We took the Northern route which according to the curvature of the earth was the shortest route. Somewhere around the Aleutian Islands, we hit a typhoon. Reports were that waves of 50 foot engulfed the ship and we were hold bound for a long period of time. This was the longest period of scare that I went through. Most scares were short lived. Here I was headed home but can we make it? Thank God, we did. It took us 16 days to get back to the United States.

The last day of our 16 day journey we were in the chow line for our Thanksgiving Day dinner with turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, a regular Thanksgiving meal feast. It was Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 22, 1945. A call came down from the watchman in the crows nest that the Golden Gate was coming into view. The chow line disappeared. Remembering the time involved watching it sink, I knew I had time to eat so I went straight to the serving counter and had my choice fill.

I went out on deck after I had lunch and the Golden Gate was slowly rising out of the water. The closer we got to it, the higher it rose from the water. As I watched and my heart beat became faster and I became happier. It dawned on me that the majestic portals under the canopy of heaven which we must pass through was the reward of peace that we had victoriously won as victors of the “War to End all Wars, WWII.”

Dinah Shore was on the deck of the tug boat which met us to help with the docking. She sang and welcomed us back to the state side. We debarked on to a ferry which carried us to Pittsburgh, Ca. There, we were picked up by trucks and carried to Camp Stoneman.

For the dinner that night, we had steak fried to order with all the trimmings and all the fresh milk we could drink and all the ice cream we could eat. Quit a treat after 22 months in the tropics.

Thanksgiving has a lot of special meanings to me. A lot to be thankful for. I love to be with friends and family. I love to eat, hunt, relax and be selfish when I boast that Thanksgiving means more to me than any one else in the world!

This time of year is a very sentimental time for me. November 5th leaving Manila headed home, November 11, Veterans Day, November 22nd, landing in the USA. Every Thanksgiving is November 22nd for me. December 5th, I was discharged from the Army, December 7th reached home. Remember Pearl Harbor.

I really should post more of what he wrote in the future. This one little piece says a lot about him.

Remembering the time involved watching it sink, I knew I had time to eat so I went straight to the serving counter and had my choice fill.

If I’m lucky I’ll one day develop the patience and common sense that he had.

Chicago Marathon 2003 Race Report

October 26, 2003 / Scott / 0 Comments

This is a post-dated race report, but it’s all I’ve got. Funny that back when I wrote this I was so focused on the miles themselves and not the actual event. I didn’t even think at the time to make notes about the huge expo, crowds, and all the great support I got. 😉

Finish time was 3:57:22. Very happy with this for a first marathon effort. Four hours was the goal, and I hit it. Having used the Hal Higdon beginner training program, it comes highly recommended!!! The furthest I’d ever run before I began training for this race was a 10k.

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Here’s the breakdown of what happened mile by mile:

Mile 1–9:24, Sort of what I expected at the start, made a mental note to NOT try to make all that time up early
Mile 2–9:00, About what I wanted to run for the first few miles, so I was really happy and comfortable
Mile 3–9:09, Some bottleneck slowed us down, but still no problem. Chris was nursing a hamstring injury. On this mile he tripped, got up and said, “Not my day” and stepped off the course. I felt really bad for him.
Mile 4–9:10, Same as above, but starting to worry a little about the pace–Inexperience.
Mile 5–8:29, Probably pressing too soon to make up time…I know that now anyway.
Mile 6–9:41, Jon stopped to use the restroom. I decided to take as much fluid as I could and wait on him. Hurt timewise, but I figured the extra fluid would pay off. If I’d only known!
Mile 7–8:20, Stupidly evened out the last mile to 9:00. Starting to worry a little because my splits are all over the place. I need to settle into a comfortable pace.
Mile 8–8:30, Didn’t slow down as much as I’d have liked, but at least I slowed down
Mile 9–8:42, THIS is the pace I want
Mile 10–8:22, What happened here? I don’t remember, but I think we spent a big part of this mile jumping ahead to try to find space to run.
Mile 11–8:45, Got it back.
Mile 12–8:56, Long water stop, so that was okay.
Mile 13–8:32, Settle down!!!
Halfway–1:56, On pace for 3:50, can run a couple of minutes faster on the 2nd half and make it perfectly.
Mile 14–8:35, Don’t pick it all up at once! Turned around to look for Jon. He was about 10 yards back, and when we caught eyes he pointed for me to go forward without him. Realized that I’d been the one doing all the talking or the last few miles. I felt bad leaving him, but we’d decided before the race to meet at the beer if we got seperated…he had all my stuff in his car.
Mile 15–8:33, Okay, this is faster than I wanted to go, but I feel fine, right? Take your time with water at the next stop and keep it up!
Mile 16–8:59, No idea what was going on!
Mile 17–8:44, Settle down, you are going to RACE the last 10k.
Mile 18–8:59, Race starts in 2 miles. Eat a Gu, settle down.
Mile 19–8:57, Am I just resting for the final 10k, or am I slowing down? I can’t even tell.
Mile 20–9:10, Uh…I AM slowing down. Change of plans…I’ll race the last 5k instead of the last 10k.
Mile 21–9:22, Losing 10 seconds a mile. It’s going to hurt tomorrow whether you go or not, so GO, GO, GO!!!
Mile 22–9:10, See, you can do this!
Mile 23–9:30, Uh-oh…change of plans again…that’s okay, just race the last 1.2m instead of the last 5K.
Mile 24–10:08, Right calf wants to cramp really bad. I know I can go faster than this, but every time I speed up it gets right to the verge of cramp and I have to slow back down. Got lots of fluid and bananas and try to get this fixed, but knew I didn’t have much time to go. Just then I saw a guy collapse and smack his head on the pavement. Don’t panic!
Mile 25–10:18, Bonified cramp…that’s what I get for pushing harder than I needed to. Ended up costing me more time because I had to stop and rub it out. Change of plans again–race the last .2 instead of the last 1.2…oh well.
Mile 26.2–11:47, I DID race the last .2m, and I’ve never hurt and felt so good at the same time in my life.

Made my way through the finisher area through the food and to the started circling around the beer looking for Jon/Sandra/Collin/Shawn. Saw Jon about 5 beers later as he finished about 30 minutes behind me. He grabbed a beer, and we had to leave immediately so he could meet his family and give me my stuff since they were having lunch.