When I was in high school I was obsessed with oddball things like numerology and astronomy. Ten itself is a very lucky number according to numerologists.

I'm going to take a step back in time to our days in Ann Arbor. I was still busy working at my internship site in Novi, MI where I met a great friend/coworker named Cristina Noble. Cristina is pretty much who I want to be when I "grow up" in the sense of athletic capability and dedication. She's married with two active twins, works part time at Botsford, takes a karate class with her kids and does a crazy amount of other activities all while training for triathlons throughout the year.

It would be an understatement to say she's good at triathlons. She recently won a triathlon in Tawas, MI for the 4th  year in a row and last week actually qualified for Team USA, where I believe she will represent (US) over in Australia next year.

Knowing my interest in running and triathlons, Cristina told me about a sponsorship contest that she had just won with the makers of Snickers candy bars. Snickers has recently released a product aimed towards endurance athletes called Snickers Marathon Bars; a high protein/carbohydrate bar with a variety of vitamins for athletes who participate in any type of endurance event. In order to promote their bars, Snickers formed a marketing wing called Team Marathon, made up of amateur athletes who are given a mini sponsorship to help promote the bars. Any amateur athlete who wanted to participate had to fill out a few forms and submit them on the sponsor website. 200 winners from all across the US were selected for the sponsorship based on these answers and awarded a sponsorship package consisting of, a triathlon racing top, running tech t-shirt, cycling jersey, jacket, hat, running shorts, triathlon shorts and 200 Marathon bars to use and give away at events. There is no obligation to do any promotion of their product, but to have priority for next years sponsorships they give a list of requirements including, submitting race pictures in their gear, passing out bars at events, etc.

I submitted my info on the site and was notified last week that I was one of the lucky 200. A picture of the free swag I won to the left. All this sportswear is definitely not cheap, an inexpensive pair of tri-shorts or cycling shorts can easily go for 50 bones. They sent me roughly $300 worth of stuff. Can never have too many cycling Jerseys, running shorts or bike shorts. I'm hoping to meet all of the requirements so that I can continue a sponsorship with them next year. I'm not really a big fan of candy bars but I do really like the Marathon Bars.

Linsey and I ran our first race of the fall season today. Linsey hasn't been running very much in the past month so she definitely had a good workout today. I had to use some of my trainer skills to stretch her out after the race. Not a bad opener for me; I took fifth place in a crowd of roughly 150 people with a 6:20 min/mile pace. Nowhere near my prime but I thought it was a great baseline to start working from. I've been conditioning myself over the past month to get back into competitive racing shape, which I have not been in since the Grand Rapids Marathon back at the end of (2008?) I'm planning to do a half marathon sometime in January and then a full marathon a few months later to qualify for Boston. Probably do quite a few smaller road-races and triathlons in between time. Here are a few pictures that Linsey took at the race.

Passing out Marathon bars at the Ace of Hearts 5k race.

2nd place in age group, 5th overall in my new Team Marathon shorts!

Long day at work today, so to celebrate its end and the end of my first full time week on the job, I'm drinking our last Magic Hat #9. Down the hatch! Decent beer is extremely hard to find here. Local grocery stores only stock "name brand" beer, that is Busch, Budweiser, Michelob, bleck, bleck, bleck. Trust me, I check the beer isle in every grocery store that we've been to.

I may have mentioned this before but Florida makes it extremely hard for small breweries to distribute their beer, which in my snobish opinion is usually far better than the swill that takes up the majority of space in the beer isle of the average grocery store. I think this, almost more than anything makes me miss Michigan. Magic Hat is distributed in Vermont but it reminds me of all the small breweries that are so easy to come by in Michigan. You could throw a dart at a map of the mitten and almost always land within 40 miles of a small brewery. So as I roll my head back and allow the last remnants of the almost pale ale to travel across my taste buds; I give a salute to all the microbreweries out there. Thanks for being so delicious!

The new job has been very interesting and very stressful at times. I'm working in a house with four TBI residents. Between myself and the two other life skills specialists, we usually have our hands full. The residents are all great people, but its quite a chore keeping things flowing smoothly in the house. Some of them don't get along with each other, new medications are being tried, poor decisions made and craziness ensues. I feel like Mad Eye Moody from Harry Potter, "Constant Vigilance!" I've only been working there a week and I could already write a book about all the crazy experiences that I have had. Its an experience that I will definitely remember in the future.

I was talking to one of my coworkers towards the end of the shift tonight and compared working at Communicare to having a second life. I leave my perfect little world with Linsey and Neville in our perfect little apartment with hardwood floors, a comfy bed and healthy food in our fridge and enter a new world each day with the staff and residents of Country Side. I've already become quite attached to the residents and their quirky ways. Its a whole new life for these people and being the one responsible for finding their strengths/talents/weaknesses and helping them overcome and use these to their best ability is an enormous task. I commend anyone who does this kind of work and regards it as more than just a paycheck at the end of the week.

The past couple of weeks have been a blur of events, so to summarize a bit, I'm posting a letter I wrote to the employees at the Washtenaw County Health Department as an update on James and I (by the way, the title is in reference to a role-play situation I was in during our training at Communicare--I was a disgruntled client complaining about a roommate's cat that was "shitting on my shit"--sound familiar??):

Earlier this year, I had been pestering James about adding a kitty to our family, despite his reservations about the responsibilities that having a cat would include. I was not very good with the fish we had (James ended up being the only one that remembered to feed them daily and clean the fish tank) so you can understand why he was reluctant to move on to a newer beast. I reassured him that cats can cuddle with you, remind you they need to be fed, etc. So he made a deal with me--when we get jobs we can get a kitty.

Our fervent job searching may finally be over. Linsey had a premonition last weekend that the week ahead would be a fruitful one, and it definitely was. Linsey managed to land some freelance graphic design work at a few of the local screen printing shops and has been commuting to St. Petersburg for the past two weeks to fill in at a small design shop. We were also both called in for an interview at a place called Communicare, a group home type setting for rehabilitating people with acquired brain injuries. Our jobs would be to assist a group of residents with relearning life skills, such as cooking, making their beds, socializing, etc. We interviewed last week and have a second interview lined up for tomorrow afternoon.

I also had two interviews at Best Buy here in Clearwater this past week. They both went very well and I was  expecting to find out if I got the job some time this week, but haven't heard from them yet. I would be working in the home theater department. Not exactly the kind of job I'm looking for with my fresh bachelors degree, but a job is a job when the student loans start to dry up.

Last Saturday was a little sunnier than it has been the past week. We've been getting quite a few rain storms, which are refreshing, but make traveling about outside slightly difficult since you never know when the sky is going to open up. We used the break in the rain to go for a bike ride on Pinellas Trail that runs pretty much the entire length of Pinellas County. It was a great leisure ride, quite a few cross roads but not much traffic.

On the return leg of the trip, Linsey found a giant locust sitting out in the middle of the pathway. It resembled a grasshopper that had made its way into some sort of radioactive substance that caused it to grow to almost four inches long. The bugs are definitely bigger down here.

I've been doing a lot of biking lately. usually get in anywhere between 20-25 miles at least every other day. I've found that heading over the causeway to the islands on the other side is one of the best places to ride. Most of the roadways heading north or south have bike lanes on the side or the speed limit is only 20-25mph so it makes it pretty safe. I just started getting back into running yesterday. The biking has been a lot easier on my foot, which I believe may have a stress fracture from upping my running mileage a little too much a month ago. It still bothers me but not as bad as a few weeks ago, so I think a slow start back into running will be best. 

I went out for a run yesterday morning for the first time in more than two weeks. It was 10:00am and 82 degrees. For some reason, the sun seems extra strong here in the morning. You start to sweat almost as soon as you leave the house. I only did 2.5 miles and was completely soaked. When I go out for a run, I'll usually set my gps out on the sidewalk in the front yard to zero in on the satellites while I sit down on the steps to put my shoes on. The little lizards are always out there every morning and scamper into the shrubbery when I approach. I think it's usually the same lizards I see out there everyday. There's usually a big one that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 inches including its tail and a baby one that is only about 3 inches long that usually likes to stay close to the stairway to our apartment. They are extremely fast runners, almost seem like little darts being shot out of an invisible gun every time I see one fly by. I'm always scared I'm going to step on one or run one over when I'm biking.