Let’s go… Slaho!

OK so maybe this isn’t really about the first six legs. You see since I was in van 2 I was not going to be a witness to these legs… At least not most of them. So I guess I’ll be writing about what we were doing while van 1 was running.

Soon after Erica took off we headed over to our cars. Van 1 runners went off to their car to support and cheer Erica on. Pep, Crissy, and I decided to join them in doing so before heading off to find our remaining teammates. We decided to go look for her at the same spot where just one year earlier we cheered on Javi during his first leg. Upon arriving we were graced by the presence of our former teammates as they waited there to cheer their own comrade. Now I must state here that I, personally don’t have a problem with these dudes but I fully understand why my current veteran teammates do. You’d have a problem too if one of the guys started one of your legs because you were stuck in traffic, or if they ran in at the end of the race without you, OR if they took the champagne you bought for the post race celebration and chugged it without sharing. I get it. And now we’d have to be racing them. And we’d have to share space at the cheer zones. Yay.

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Race time was quickly approaching.  It was sometime around 6:45 am when we found our van 1 teammates. They were in the safety seminar finding out why one should wear the headlight and the reflector jacket at night.  They were also being informed of the necessity to cross the street, when not running, with the orange Ragnar stuff.  Thrilling stuff really… After finishing the seminar we went to go pick up said flags, along with van 1′s bibs, their goody bag, and the whole team’s tees.  But most importantly we were given the baton – the slap band baton, to be specific.  Immediately Roly, the designated van 1 captain, and Ragnar veteran, took the baton and did the pre-race ceremonial slap on the wrist on our first runner, Erica.  Ready to go!

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Wednesday night out-of towners started arriving.  Roly and Cory came in from D.C. to stay at Roly’s mom’s house.  They took advantage and went to the Orange Bowl where they got to witness history with the highest scoring bowl game in history.. though I’m not sure it was an entirely watchable game… I do enjoy seeing defense being played from time to time myself.  Crissy also came in to stay with her aunt (from her mother’s side; we’re related from her father’s side) Wednesday night to get herself ready for Thursday’s team meeting.  Javier and Erica were going to be coming in Thursday and driving straight to dinner.  It was this very Thursday around 5 pm that I get the text from Javier telling me that he’s looking forward to seeing me “tomorrow” for dinner.  Tomorrow?  I knew that Javier was a kidder, but I was in the middle of tutoring a student and didn’t have time to play along… so I gently reminded him that he BETTER BE no more than two hours away. “Isn’t the dinner tomorrow, and the race on Saturday?” Look, I’ve lost enough hair dealing with four kids and 150 students on a daily basis.  I was just NOT up for this.  I gently reminded Javier that I needed no more stress, and he was nice enough to send me a picture text of Erica chucking it up in the car at my expense.  HAHA, Jav! You won that round.  In a couple of hours we were all going to be gathering as a team for the first time. It was going to be interesting. Continue reading →

New Year’s Day, and as usual I am arriving late to mass.  It is a terrible habit, not made any easier by having children who fight getting dressed for mass, and in particular a daughter who waits until the last possible second to start getting ready… Procrastination City, folks! Still, I figured that I’d find a good parking spot because after all mass was at 12:30pm, and the Dolphins were playing at home against the hated Jets at 1pm for the season ending game, and the retirement game for Jason Taylor.  Everybody would somehow or another be tuning into this game, right? (Insert Family Feud Buzzer sound here with a giant X in a rectangle) The mass was packed, which meant that I had to park on the street on 102 Avenue, by the school.  It was in doing so that I encountered something I would have otherwise missed… a mint condition 1970′s Dodge.

Now, don’t ask me what kind of Dodge it was… it didn’t say.  It only said Dodge in back and on the hood.  But it was totally classic… and original. No updates visible anywhere on the car.  Trust me I looked.  And I made my children look.  There was no side view mirror on the passenger side.  There were no bucket seats… just a single seat that went ALL the way across the front.  No seatbelts in back, nor in the middle in front. The radio was strictly AM.  And it had those push buttons that would move a little red vertical bar from one location to another to find the preset stations… no scan button, just a tuner that would leave you very close to the frequency you were looking for.  It had no power locks or power windows.  You had to physically reach over if you were driving alone to open the passenger window with those rolly things. And unlocking the door meant you had to pull up on that push pin thingy. And the material of the seats? It was that vinyl synthetic material… you know the one.  The one that on hot days when you were wearing shorts would leave blistering red marks on the back of your legs if you didn’t sit carefully.  Remember that? The car was AWESOME – if for no other reason than the fact that it brought back memories of my childhood.  I had a car very similar in many ways to this one for the first 10 years of my like (except mine was a Buick Skylark).

After admiring it for a while, I pried myself away from it because after all I was going to mass.  When I was about to enter the church I thought to myself, “Man, I should have taken a picture of that beaut!” I figured I could hurry out afterwards though and take a picture of it with my phone.  It was during the mass, that shortly after I entered the priest started his homily (yes, I was THAT late).  And within the homily he talked about starting fresh and starting anew in the New Year.  We had to look forward.  We had to find the promise and all that is good coming ahead of us.  It was time to stop dwelling in the past and make a move into the New Year, full of hope.  It was a very nice homily.  It didn’t fully kick in though until I got back to my car only to see it sitting alone.  The Dodge was gone.  Much as last year was gone.  I got a glimpse of something wonderful, something old.  I relived some old memories with something from my past.  But now the past was gone, and though I had nothing at the moment to enjoy the way I did that car for all of 5 minutes, there was now a promise of many more intriguing things to find, if only I stopped and started looking for them.

I am still hoping to run  into the car again sometime soon. Next time the camera will be ready.  But I am not going to dwell on searching for it.  I enjoyed the moment.  Now I have to look ahead and find many more little moments that will bring smiles to my face as well as big moments that will help define 2012 for me and for my family.  This year is definitely full of promise.  Many great things happened last year (along with some not so great things).  It’s time to grow with the good and let go the bad, and make 2012 another memorable year, so that when I look back on it for however brief a moment I can thoroughly enjoy the year much the same way I enjoyed encountering that Dodge.

I just got the iPhone 4S. This thing is pretty cool. You see I don’t have to type in this blog I’m actually dictating it. Now it’s not like I’m going to make a habit of this, but seeing as I haven’t blogged in about
oh, six months this might be a good way to get me going again. I’ve never gone this long without posting before. And I have to find a way to make sure this doesn’t happen again. So this can be my little kick in the butt. And now that I’m posting I can get a fresh start and begin blogging regularly. So here I am lying in bed talking to Siri on my phone making sure she writes down everything I say. This is not how I envisioned getting back into this, but hey I guess this is better than nothing, right?
So, tomorrow will be a new day and I will make it a point to start blogging regularly again. I didn’t think that many people read my blog but today like the 10th person in the last few months told me that they miss reading it. My response was the same as usual… I know, I know, I have to start writing again. So here I am doing the next best thing to writing and that’s dictating to somebody who will write it for me. So who cares if that “someone” is actually a “something” that came with my phone.
Chances are I’m not going to be doing it this way very often. But I guess I can say that I had my personal secretary doing my work for me today. Thanks Siri!
As for me, expect another blog from me tomorrow. I promise. I hope you guys got a little kick out of my return to blogging!

It was the concert that seemingly would never arrive.  I had gotten the tickets to this concert in November of 2009.  I thought I would be seeing them July 9, 2010.  Then Bono hurt his back and the concert was postponed.  The new date was set for June 29, 2011, almost a full year after the initial concert date. Talk about anticipation! Everyone who had a ticket had to wait.  And wait, and wait.  And wait.  After waiting so long, expectations were high.  They better be worth the wait. And it is my pleasure to say that they did not disappoint.  U2 gave an incredible performance with an extremely energetic, well played concert.  And all I can say is thank God I had the opportunity to go, because I’m not sure that I could have gone under different circumstances.  Let me explain myself. (BTW, following is the story of how I wound up at the concert… if you want my take on the concert itself skip to about half-way down this blog to where it says, “Fortunately for me…” This is a long blog.  You have been warned)

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So here’s Part II of my Weird Al picks.  Few people know that more than half of the songs on his ALbums (that’s what he calls them… get it/ AL-bums… whatever) are original songs.  Though he’s famous for his parodies they are not his only focus.  he has come up with some great original pieces, and I’m going to take advantage here to inform you of my favorite 6.  Now, I’ll be honest, there are probably some original Weird Al songs better than the ones I’m listing, but like most people I’m more familiar with his parodies.  In particular I have not had a chance to listen to his last few ALbums in their entirety, so this list is solely based on what I know.

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This past week Weird Al Yankovic released his latest CD.  The guy has now been recording for over 30 years.  And he’s still at it, and he’s as funny, clever, and ingenious as ever.  Nobody has ever done parody better than he has in any area.  Most people write him off as a novelty act, but the truth is that half of his recordings are original songs.  He’s just famous for the parodies because let’s face it, things are funnier when compared to an original, especially if they are done well.  And nobody has ever done it better than he.  So I’ve decided that I am going to do TWO Weird Al Top 6 lists.  The first will be, as the title suggests, my favorite Al parodies.  Then, the next one I make will be my 6 favorite originals (most of which many of you have never heard, unless you’re name is Javier Unzueta, whom I must thank for introducing me to his other lesser known work).  So here is my Weird Al Parody list.

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