it’s hard for any W&L grad, any person who has called lexington, va home, to return to said bucolic town and not immediately want to argue with the adage, “you can’t go home again”. my home — for more than the traditional four years of undergrad — never ceases to amaze me and i’ve often wondered how it’s possible that despite so much time passing lexington welcomes me in, with open arms, with blue skies, with friendly faces.
we made the journey down and through the shenandoah valley for my old boss and great friend’s wedding. it was delightful, a truly joyous and overwhelmingly happy time. smiles were present at all times, but we were just too busy cavorting in old and new water holes (including the maury river) to capture them on film. i hope that my more diligent friends can fill in the gaps.
i bought two W&L bumper stickers so that i can fill in the gap here in minnesota, so that i can bring a piece of that six-horse town with me to the twin cities. so that despite the fact that soon, i will minnesota license plates, that i park in front of a minneapolis house, that i have adopted midwestern way of pronouncing my vowels — despite all of these things — i will still have a piece of virginia proudly displayed.
i won’t likely be back to virginia until december, but now that kate has now seen my homes, in northern and southerwestern virginia, i can turn to her, when i need to remember the places where i’ve been, and say, tell me what you loved about virginia. and i know she’ll say:
your family. your friends. the lake. the river. everything.
how it became the middle of june alr
eady is beyond me. i am stunned when i think that the lifetime fitness triathlon is just 22 days away. i am even more stunned when i think that the door county half ironman is just 31 days away.
it’s times like this, when i feel just a *tad* overwhelmed, that i am reminded why i am doing this in the first place. it may seem trite, but i train and race for something much bigger than myself. i train and race for my family, my friends, my coworkers, and classmates. i train and race for an end to blood cancer. i train and race in HONOR and in MEMORY of hundreds, thousands. i train and race with names on my sleeves and in my heart.
i train and race because i get to. i don’t have to. it’s an honor to represent the leukemia & lymphoma’s society team in training program.
thank you to all of you who have already contributed to my campaign. i am just $330 dollars shy of my $2,000 goal, so if you have yet to make a donation, i hope you will consider it.
you can do so, safely and securely, right here:
http://z.umn.edu/lifetri10
NB: i realize now that, after sending this update out to over 100 people, that this is not REALLY a training update. so, a quick work on training – my knee is doing great, my butt is sore, and am constantly nervous about the muskies in lake nokomis.
i am not sure how to begin to introduce this video, other than this is the product that ensued from an interview i did a few weeks ago for Driven to Discover: The Research Series.
while it is very shameless to self-publish this video, i think the subject matter is important enough that the ego-gods will give me a pass.
not only is this line of research important, it’s very, very vital for everyone to note just how bad my minnesotan accent is getting.
