#18 - The First Installment

As I watched the nurse pull the needle out of my arm, I was pleased to know that I had met my goal of 5 units of blood in this 1001 day period I set for myself. But it humbles me to think that this has been but a small drop in the bucket compared to the need that is out there.  Sometimes a person will need a unit or two to get through a rough patch.  Sometimes they'll need 80 or more units, as did my sister-in-law when her liver failed to make clotting factors after metastatic breast cancer took it over.  This 5 units is but the first installment on a debt that I may never be able to repay.  The Red Cross has had to put so many restrictions on who can give blood donations to keep the blood supply safe, that those of us that are still eligible should help when we can.  If you would like to see if you are eligible and find out where you can donate, go to http://www.givelife.org/.

#20 - Going The Extra Mile (and a Half)

This year my entire family joined me on the Race for the Cure.  This is my 3rd 5K during this 101/1001 cycle and I had expected it to be my 4th.  I was not in shape for the Metroparks 5K that I had done for the last 2 years this summer and I skipped it.  This means I need to run 3 next year if I'm going to meet my goal.  We'll see.  I'm going to have to keep my training up through the winter so I can be ready when the weather breaks in the spring.  This was my problem this year. 

I ran most of the 5K, but my feet really started going numb and I had to walk for 5 minutes near the end to get the circulation back in them.  I was able to finish running.  This year the race course looped on itself in such a way that I could go quickly from the finish line to the halfway mark and catch up with my wife and 3 kids who were walking the entire course.  I was able to finish their leg with them (and carry my 4 year old on my shoulders for part of it) which was a real treat.

In my age group I finished 93rd out of 93 racers (1942nd overall) with an official time of 45:02.75, much slower than last year's pace.  The race attracted over 18,000 racers officially and was very inspirational.  Next year I'll be better.

#50 - There When He Needs You

Kids don't come with manuals. It's a cliche, but it's true.  Many authors have attempted to fill in this gap however.  I recently read a book by Dr. Neil Bernstein that I thought was particularly good.  In There When He Needs You, Dr. Bernstein speaks primarily to fathers about raising their sons.  He describes the father-son dynamic as a distinct relationship that is influenced greatly by the previous generation.  In other words, we are influenced by the way we were raised by our fathers when we try to parent our sons.  While his focus is on this dynamic, I imagine this holds true for the mother-daughter relationship too, as well as influences father-daughter and mother-son dynamics.  He is a psychologist who recounts stories of men and their sons and how he helped them, and sometimes couldn't helpthem, work through their issues. 

His top 10 Tips for Dads include:
1) Strike a comfortable balance between career and family.
2) Make peace with your own father.
4) Be "all there" when you're with your son.
8) Acknowledge your own shortcomings and encourage your son to do the same.

The other 6 tips are good too and he fleshes them out well in the chapters.  There is even a chapter that advises mothers in ways to help their husbands become better fathers.  If any of this advice might apply to you, check out this book.

#33 - Infinity. It'll blow your mind.

I thought it would be fun to design a t-shirt.  I'm not much of an artist, so I thought I would come up with some sort of cute saying or deep "bumper sticker" insight.  My wife and I have been enjoying The Big Bang Theory on CBS and the geeky protagonists wear geeky t-shirts.  Being accused of geekiness (or dorkiness?) myself, I decided to try my hand.  I have enjoyed messing with boys about the concept of infinity.  Some of the confusion around the concept is that the symbol (8 on its side) is used to represent the concept, but it is not actually a number.  If you use it in equations like a number, you math comes out all wrong.  I illustrate one example on the shirt.  I may try my hand at a few other.  I'm hosting my shirt at Zazzle.com.  Check it out at Infinity T-shirt.

Status Report at Halftime

About 500 of my 1001 days have gone by and I've been doing some math.  Out of the original 101 items, I have completed 17 of them and partially completed another 11.  Looking at the list with fresh eyes, I know I won't complete all of them by next Christmas.  I'll be satisfied if I get over 50 done and thrilled if I get over 75.  Some of the remainder might make the next list, some of them will be discarded to make way for new goals in my life.  Even since making the list, some new priorities have emerged that have taken some of my time and focus away from completing more of the list, which is OK.  This list was to be a series of guideposts - a place to enumerate some of my goals and some of my dreams.  I have completed all of the travel goals, but I haven't touched the creativity, home, computer, or financial goals - and many of these are important that I get done, like setting up an emergency cash fund and decluttering my house.  Time to get to work.

#49 - Wilderness Medicine Conference

Today I completed a 5-day Conference on Wilderness Medicine.  I have been wanting to attend this conference for years.  Needless to say, wilderness medicine is not covered as a discipline in medical school in St. Louis.  My oldest son is involved in Cub Scouts and I realized that I would eventually be on a remote campout with his pack or troop.  If someone got injured, they'd look at me to provide medical care.  Beyond first aid, my medical skills all center around working in an office or hospital environment, and I felt that I wanted to expand those skills.  This course taught me ways to improvise medical equipment, to decide whether to treat something in the field or evacuate the patient, to prepare for an expedition, and to spend the unexpected night out with simple supplies to provide shelter, water, warmth, and food if necessary.  I learned about many of the hazards that the wilderness exposes us to (hypothermia, overheating, animal attacks, weather, avalanche, etc.) and how to prevent problems or treat the consequences if necessary.  I'm not an expert now, but I have a foundation that I will continue to expand in the future.

#64 - Yellowstone National Park

I had been to several state parks, but I had never been to a national park, until today.  We drove down from our cabin in Big Sky, Montana and made it to the West Gate in about an hour.  We then drove around the central loop, hitting the Paint Pots, Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, Hayden Valley, and the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River.  We got to see lots of wildlife, especially the 4 bison that chose to walk in the road in front of us. 

8/8/08 - We couldn't get enough so we came back and attended a ranger program, saw several more water falls and drove above the clouds in the mountains of Yellowstone.  Our last view of the day was of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone capped by the Lower Falls at Artist Point.  We made it there at dusk and saw the moon over the falls. 

Next trip we'll try to plan time to make it down to Grand Teton National Park south of Yellowstone.  It would have been a 6 hour round trip from where we were staying (it doesn't look that far on the map).

#61 - Lone Peak

 I was born in Colorado Springs, at the foot of Pike's Peak.  When I was a kid, we took several family vacations to Colorado and even camped (in a camper) in the Rockies.  Ever since then I have wanted to return.  We have driven through (literally through) the Appalachian Mountains in the past few years, but it isn't the same. I even spent a long weekend indoors in Salt Lake City, seeing the mountains from a distance when I stepped outside. Today we landed in Bozeman, Montana and the pilot had to reassure us that we were landing safely, even though it looked like the mountains were right outside our window.  We rented a car and drove south to Big Sky, through the Gallatin Mountain Range and then up the mountain range to get to our cabin at the foot of Lone Peak, elev. 11,253 feet.  
Standing among the lodgepole pines with mountains above my head and streams running by my feet - there's nothing like it for me.  I need to start planning my next trip.

#77 - Pearson Metropark - a.k.a. Mosquito Central

My youngest wanted to go on a hike today, so I looked at the list of Metroparks and found that Pearson Park had an intriguing Black Swamp Trail to hike on.  We packed up some snacks and supplies and headed out.   On the trail we were swarmed by  thousands of mosquitoes and walked through as quickly as possible.  I had the adult strength bug spray and got 4 bites, but the kids had the safer, but less concentrated, stuff and got dozens of bites each.  It was not fun, but we felt closer afterwards, as if we'd been through war together.  We enjoyed the indoors, air-conditioned Window on Nature building where we ate our snacks and watched critters enjoying theirs at feeders and a pond outside the windows.  There was a nearby playground that the boys played on for a little while before we headed back.  Maybe we'll be back in the winter to check out the sledding hill, but for now, we've had enough of Mosquito Pearson MetroPark

#3 - Letter to Mark

My brother lost his wife last year to breast cancer at only 31 years old.  While she was his wife and the mother of his 3 kids, she was my sister-in-law and my friend.  Losing her took a big toll on my life and I feel like my family and I are still recovering from it.  Mark is having some changes in his life that are private, but that prompted me to write him.  I've done lots of talking about Melinda's death to my wife, my other family, my friends, my colleagues, my patients - I even started a blog about it to share some of the joy that Melinda brought to all of us that knew her.  Who I hadn't talked to, was Mark.  Because of how busy work had gotten, we hadn't seen him since the funeral.  We had talked on the phone about the kids and how he was holding up and things we had done recently and upcoming plans, but we hadn't talked about my feelings about Melinda.  I figured he had his own cross to bear in this regard, so why should I burden him with mine.  After breaking down during a radio program about cancer victims, I decided I needed to write him.  I'm so glad that I did. We both got a new perspective on where we were, and I believe we grew even closer.  Now it will be important to keep that communication up.

#99 - Hearing Amy Sing

Tonight, to celebrate my wife's birthday, we found a sitter for the kids and drove over an hour to Tiffin, OH.  There we were treated to the most intimate, and ultimately most enjoyable Amy Grant concert we've ever attended.  This was my fourth and Becky's fifth concert, but this little theater made her feel so close.  She sang a few of her newer songs and a lot of her classics.  She invited the audience to call out their favorites and she played many of them, accompanied by a small band while she stood in front of a microphone with her guitar at stage front and center.  We've promised each other that we would try to get to any of Amy's concerts that are close enough to be feasible.  She's touring less than she used to, but this is our second concert while living in Toledo - the last one was at the Fox Theater in Detroit several years ago. We'll be ready if she comes this way again.

#77 - Sidecut Metropark

My wife read an article in the local paper that there was a fishing lake at Sidecut Metropark. My oldest son needed to go fishing to complete a Cub Scout elective. I had put together some fishing gear for camping, so my wife picked up some nightcrawlers at Wal-mart and we headed out for Sidecut. Silver Lake turned out to be little more than a pond, but we had a good time catching fish anyway. Ok, only one fish was caught, but Becky did feed several with the nightcrawlers right off of her hook.

#10 - Wolf Scout

I mentioned in a previous post about my motivations for helping Alex go as far as he wants to in Scouts. We squeaked out his Tiger Cub badge requirements at the last possible moment. As we finished the last requirement, we found out that his aunt - my brother's wife - was dying of the breast cancer that we thought she had beat. Within hours, we were on a plane to help bury her and the boys missed their first day of school in the process. On the first day of second grade Alex had to stop working on Tiger Cub acheivements and start on his Wolf badge, so we couldn't have cut it any closer. As of today, Alex completed his last requirement for his Wolf badge. He has really thrived there, as I suspected he might, and he will likely be receiving several other awards at the end of the year Blue & Gold Banquet next month, in addition to the formal ceremony for his Wolf Badge. I am very proud of all of the hard work that he has put in. When I made this one of my goals, I didn't picture how involved his mother would be also. She made this possible by volunteering her time as his Den Leader. She's going to take it a step further next year by being both his Bear Den Leader, but also the Cubmaster for all of Pack 90. As long as he is interested, it is something we plan to encourage and support.

#63 - Walt Disney World Magic

My wife and I went to Walt Disney World in Florida for our honeymoon, and we had been back twice since, but neither of us had been in 10 years. Our kids, 4 and 8 yrs old, had never been. Some of their classmates had been and they were aware vaguely that it was somewhere they wanted to go. Our oldest even described it as his "dream" to go to Walt Disney World. Becky's parents announced to us last fall that they would like to take all of us and we decided to plan for this year's Spring Break. We told the kids at Chrsitmas and they've been counting down the days on the calendar. Disney World did not disappoint.

We stayed in the Polynesian Resort which gave us great transportation options to every location on the resort property, including riding the Monorail to Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, and even shuttling around by boat (both much more enjoyable than the Disney buses). The Polynesian had a pool with a steaming volcano rising out of one side of it that the kids enjoyed. We hit all of the major parks - first Epcot, then Animal Kingdom, the Magic Kingdom, and the newly renamed Disney Hollywood Studios. We took a day off in the middle and had a leisurely brunch at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and midday fishing excursion for the guys while the ladies were shopping, and a performance that evening of La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil in their own dedicated theater in Downtown Disney. Becky and I even got a night to ourselves while the grandparents watched the boys where we dined at the top-tier California Grill and partied (gently) at Pleasure Island (mostly taking in a few comedy shows).

The parks were the highlights of course and were universally loved by all of us. They had fun mixes of thrill rides, educational experiences, shows and playscapes that the kids could burn off steam on. The weather was fairly reasonable - warm most days but not sweltering with a couple of annoying rain showers that are typical for this time of year. We were disappointed in having to leave, but we vowed to go back again someday.

#70 - Dining at the Top of Walt Disney World

When I envisioned this meal for the List, I never thought it would be at Walt Disney World. Becky and I left the boys with their grandparents while we went to the California Grill atop the Contemporary Resort on the Seven Seas Lagoon overlooking the Magic Kingdom.  The setting was gorgeous with an open-air kitchen and large windows looking out over Walt Disney World.  It is one of several five-star restaurants located on the property.

For our apppetizer, we shared the Triple Cheese, Pecorino, Asiago, Provolone Flatbread with sun-dried tomatoes and basil pesto which was a delicious start.  Then I had the Seared Jumbo Day Boat Scallops with farro risotto, roasted wild mushrooms, and banyuls reduction for my entree while Becky had the Oak-fired Filet of Beef with cheese orecchiette pasta gratin, sauteed asparagus, and teriyaki BBQ sauce.  We each took about half of our respective dishes and traded so we could both have some of everything.  I preferred the scallops which were perfectly seared, but the filet was excellent also. While I loved my risotto, I could have eaten a whole bowl of Becky's cheese orecchiette pasta gratin, which was effectively the best macaroni and cheese I've ever had. For dessert we did the same divide and conquer routine to share a Warm Chocolate Cake with molten center with blood orange sorbet and raspberry reduction and the Inspired by "The Year of a Million Dreams" Honey Crunch Cake with chantilly cream, oven-roasted golden pineapple and crunch candy crumble.

Afterwards we took a walk on a railed section of the roof accessible from the restaurant and took in the sunset over the lagoon and let our meal settle before enjoying the rest of our evening.  It was a wonderful meal and one we'd love to repeat.  We'd like to also thank Becky's parents for the opportunity to be at Walt Disney World and their significant contibution to the cost of the meal through the Disney Dining Plan.

# 3 - Letter to Aunt Joyce

I have been woefully behind in my correspondence though I do keep up with some friends and family over the phone and with email. However, I believe that there is still something tangible and special about writing and reading a letter you get on paper. I am so used to composing my thoughts in a text editor and then editing the writing before anyone else reads it, that it is hard for me to write letters like this by hand. So when my father's oldest sister, Aunt Joyce, wrote us a nice card talking about some of the things going on in her life, I took that opportunity to type her a reply and mailing it to her. I know Dad keeps her updated when he talks to her, but I know she doesn't read our family blog, so I took this chance to tell her about Becky and the boys and all the things going on in our life now. My goal of writing these letters is to get me into the pattern of writing letters to family and friends, so I plan to send her more in the future.

# 69 - Chicken Tangine

I got a new cookbook the other day that I love, by the people who produce America's Test Kitchen on PBS and edit Cook's Illustrated magazine - The Best 30-minute Recipe. As you can imagine from the title, they've selected a variety of their favorite recipes and tested ways to cook them in 30 minutes or less. I've found that my actual time is greater because of my cooking skill and prep time, but the methods have still resulted in making some tasty meals. The other thing I like about this book is that they've come up with several recipes from different styles of cooking and different cultures. Several of their Indian recipes use a spice blend called garam masala that I assembled from cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ground cloves, and coriander. Today I made Chicken Tangine which included garbanzo beans and dried apricots. It was quite tasty. I may make it again someday, but I want to explore some more Indian recipes before I come back to this.

#18 - Almost Got to Keep This Unit

When I donate blood, I am still struggling to find the right balance between not enough pre-hydration, which in the past meant my veins would be too flat to puncture, and too much pre-hydration, which has meant that I had to pee really bad. This time I was almost too close to flat veins, but they found one they could work with at the last minute. One more to go.

#50 - The Terror

When I planned to read books on things I didn't know about, I assumed that this would mean non-fiction books. One of my patients was reading "The Terror" by Dan Simmons and encouraged me to do the same. One one hand it is a novel about a group of 19th-century British explorers who are trying to find the fabled Northwest Passage over Canada who face an overwhelming combination of weather, poisonous rations, mechanical failures, incompetent leadership, and, oh yeah, a 10-foot Yeti-like creature stalks them through the frozen landscape. On the other hand it is a well-researched compendium of the state of Arctic exploration in the 1800's, from the politics of launching a mission to the day-to-day details of running an icebreaker. While the narrative was intensely engaging, I left the book with a level of knowledge about that world that I never expected. The HMS Terror was a real ship from that era that was lost during an attempt to find the Northwest Passage, so Dan Simmons took what was known about the ship and its crew and spun this detailed narrative that I was very satisfied to explore.

#98 - Exploring Old HBO Shows

I've been enjoying watching old shows that I own on DVD from the beginning - X-Files, Star Trek, Buffy, Lost, the new Battlestar Galactica among others. I watch them while I exercise on a treadmill in the basement. I'll watch one disc from one show, then start the next disc from another show, until I cycle back around. I realized I could employ the same method to test out TV shows available on DVD that I've never seen. I subscribe to Blockbuster Online Rentals which sends us 3 discs at a time through the mail, including individual discs from TV shows. I keep them as long as I want, then trade them in at the Blockbuster store down the road for another free rental. They mail them back for me and then send me the next mail order disc on my list. Using this method, I am working my way through the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and Deadwood - all award winning shows that I've heard about, but never seen because they aired on HBO. I really enjoy what I've seen so far and I look forward to trying this with other shows too - The West Wing, The 4400. Plus, it keeps me going back to the treadmill.

#7 - Christmas Letter in January

I added writing a yearly Christmas letter to my list because I have a bad habit of procrastinating this to the point of skipping it, and I've been averaging about every other year. I wrote our letter this year before Christmas, but life caught up to me and I got too busy to send it before Christmas. They all went out today, edited as more of a "Happy New Year" letter. Next year, I'll try to get it out in December.

#90 - Consolidating the Office

I've been in my current job for over 7 years and I have accumulated a lot of clutter in my office. Because of some rearranging in our suite, I had to move my office to a smaller one down the hall. This gave me the perfect excuse to get rid of a lot of the stuff I had not touched in years. I still need to clean out some files - it is very easy to file papers into obscurity. I know that 2/3 of my file drawer could be shredded and never missed. My goal now is to actively work to prevent recluttering of my more efficient workspace.

#38 - My Disaster Kit blog

I began preparing for disasters in preparation for the Y2K scare. The 9/11 attack, anthrax scare, Indonesian tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina devastation just reinforced my desire to prepare for unexpected disasters. I've put together small kits for short-term personal use, "bug-out" bags designed to keep us going for 72 hours outside the home, car kits to provide basic needs if we got stuck in the vehicles with help late in coming, shelter-in-place gear in case we get stuck in our house for a few weeks, and enough camping gear bundled up in one spot that I could grab if we needed to get way out of town for a little while. At least in theory I have. I have done lots of research and made lots of lists about what I want and need in these kits. They are not all complete though. I wonder if they'll ever be complete enough.

The problem with preparing for the unexpected future is that you are always trying to estimate the odds of certain scenarios (stuck in the house during a blizzard vs. stuck in the car during a multi-car pileup vs. terrorist attack) and your mind can quickly come up with worse scenarios that you aren't prepared for. This almost got the best of me during the Y2K scare. I almost quit an internship (that would have been devastating for my career) to move into a farm and prepare to raise our own food off the grid. Thankfully, that was too difficult to contemplate, so we stockpiled some food and water, found an alternate heat source that we never needed and hoped for the best. I panicked last year when I was trying to figure out how to seal off a room in our house per the Dept. of Homeland Security's Shelter-in-Place instructions in case of a chemical or airborne biological terrorist attack. I added this item to my 101 list to give myself another reason to complete these preparations to an acceptable level.

My brother and his 3 kids had to leave their home when an ice storm knocked out their power this winter. They were fine, but I sent him a few of the links to resources I had used for my preparations. I realized that a blog might help me organize my thoughts (like it has for this 101 in 1001 list) and get me motivated to complete my kits. I started posting to My Disaster Kit (http://mydisasterkit.blogspot.com/) recently and I plan to keep up with it to raise awareness about disaster preparedness and to help me get my own act together. Please check it out and comment on the posts I've got so far. I'd rather have a conversation than preach.