I have time to blog, but not sure what to say

I actually have time to sit here and write right now, however, not sure what to say.  I am actually sad.  I bought a book the happiness website recommended but it has me really down.  It is called "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl and well I am just part way thru the first part and I forgot how much this stuff could depress me.  I can't even begin to comment on the book, because well, I am not qualified to speak about something, I have just started, but I do know that it has brought me down.  I mean we (Earthlings) can be so awful to each other.  I forgot.  However, I think what also concerns me is the sick fascination I have with it.  Like I want to hear more about it. I want to go research WWII again.  Then you sit there and think what the hell is wrong with me.  Which, I know nothing is, we all have a fascination with morbid.  Why else would horror movies and fright fests be all the rage. I don't know.

It actually is a sad reminder to me of one of my worst days on this planet. It was 1997 and IU was on spring break, I remember that because my good buddy Chip came to visit in Maastricht, where I was studying the 2nd semester my junior year.  We ended up in Munich for the weekend, we were supposed to go to Prague but we took the wrong train and ended up where we ended up with a bunch of crazy futball fans singing and keeping us up all night.  We did the German tours, the beer gardens, all that jazz.  Then we went to Dachau towards the end of our time there.  It might be the most miserable place on the planet.  If there are hell's on this Earth these places are definitely them.  The place sickened me and saddened me.  Little did I know at the time I was slipping into deep depression that would dominate and rule my life for a time, but this journey made it all the worse.  I see Dachau as the beginning of the end of the joy I had on my European journey.  I have no pictures from Dachau, i have none because I took none.  Just like I took no pictures at the house of Anne Frank.  I just felt like it wasn't a tourist attraction, and it certainly wasn't a place I wanted to remember.  I remember seeing people taking pictures and I wanted to scream and yell at them, because I thought they were disrespecting the dead. I said nothing.  I walked around somberly looking at the somber sites, and hating what I saw.  There was no morbid fascination that day.  There was only empathy, and hate for the disease of the human condition, that would lead men being so cruel and ugly to other men. For me Dachau was everything a dreamer never wants to endure.  It is a visual representation of how awful we can be.  It left me with no hope.  I remember standing there just hopeless.  From the train ride out to the middle of no where, to the tiny barracks they shoved people in, to the ovens or whatever the hell I saw, it was pure misery.  For a man who wants to believe in happy endings, and that good will ultimately defeat evil, this was living proof it doesn't.  Listening to Frankl's account, I  am reminded of my time in hell. I have no right to speak of these things, I know so little of, and can't imagine how a survivor might feel or someone who had family there.

However, I find myself cautiously optimistic.  For I feel there has to be a reason I was pointed to this book. I want to find that meaning, i want to know it.  I want to find the happiness on the other side.  Maybe this is the first step.  Maybe, I can find some redemption in this misery.  I think I am halfway thru it, and will get to the other side. 

The days in have missed:

10/5 - Focus on a positive change you want to see in society

- I don’t even know how to begin with this one.  I know I will be talking from my head without doing research, so forgive my ignorance if I say something out of line.  Did I think about it yes, yes I did.  How do you change society?  How do you even start to focus on that?  I think there is too much hate in the world and I don’t understand it.  I don’t understand why people hate people based on race, religion, or sexual orientation.  I see one common denominator between all people on this planet and it is either we are all Earthlings.  We aren’t black or white, gay or straight, liberal or conservative, or Jewish, Christian, or Muslim.  We are just Earthlings.  We are men and women of this planet.  You wouldn’t know that if you watched Fox News, or CNN.  When I was a kid the violence on TV was all drug and gang related, with the Cold War looming in the back of all our minds.  Now it is terrorism, an ever growing divide in our politics, and the many threats that are perceived around the world.  There is just too much hate and happiness in the world today.  I can’t stand to watch the news.  I can’t stand to log into Facebook.  I have friends on both sides of the political divide and man; you can’t go two posts without a political comment.  Agree or disagree I just scroll on.  I don’t think posting on Facebook is going to help change the world, or spread your beliefs.  I think most people are like me and just scroll on.  I can’t stop any of this.  Can’t fix the political divide; end the hate, the killing or any of that.  Hell, I can barely take care of two dogs at once.  It’s that I want to do nothing, it’s not like I don’t care, but I do want to make the world a better place.  I want to push the happiness agenda. 

So what can I do?  I can change my environment.  I can really work on the action for happiness plan.  I can commit to being happy.  I can impact those around me in a positive way.  I can focus on my health.  I can continue to bring balance into my life.  Make three meals a day a priority.  I can work on my life’s purpose and start working towards my dream.  I can make my world and my community a better more positive place to be.  I will start that this week by doing my pledge for happiness and continuing to follow the AFH calendar. 

10/6 - Take the first step towards a goal that really matters to you

- I took this step. I came up with a title for my personal movement. I’m not ready to share it at this moment in time. It is in process and I’m trying to determine my next action items. I will tell you it has making a commitment to happiness in it. It also has living life and not sitting around waiting on that aha moment to start.

AFH: Day 3 and Day 4

Day 3: Think of three things that give you hope for the future:

- My swimming, being activity, I think exercise will help me lead a happy and healthy life.
- Working with Kaitlin and Jill on finding balance in my life and health
- Working hard towards my happiness


Day 4: Set a goal that links to your sense of purpose in life:

Start a new blog that focuses on my health and happiness with a upbeat and fresh out look on life.  It links into my self of life purpose because I feel like I should be helping people. I think this new blog could be a step in the right direction.  

18.5 weeks and counting....

Who would have thunk it... I was down with an ear infection.  I was in the worst pain I can remember.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't work.  However, I stuck it out and I closed the the three rings on my watch and I was proud.  It became an obsession.  Something I had to make sure I got in every day. 

Rings, wtf, is this dude talking about?  I forget sometimes that not everyone in the world wears and Apple watch.  I om of the open that maybe we should or at least something similar.  To me it is motivation on my wrist and I dig it.  There are three rings on an apple watch:  Move, Exercise, Stand.  There is one goal: Close them all. 

Stand Ring is easy.  It is simply stand up for at least one minute for 12 hours a day.  Most people who get out of bed in the morning can do this one without even trying.

Exercise Ring - this shows how many minutes a day you do a brisk activity.  While I have some issues with Apple's definition of brisk, they don't consider a 500 pounder like me walking for four blocks activity, I have learned to work with it.   My exercise goal is 30 minutes a day.


Move Ring - the watch tracks your active calories burned.  So cleaning, taking out the trash, showering, etc.. gets picked up here.  This is different from what your body actually burns at rest.  I Set my to 1390 calories a day. 

For the last 18.5 weeks I have done this.  I have exercised in some form or fashion.  Moved actively for 1390 calories, and stood for 1 minute in 12 different hours a day and you now what I feel really really good about it. 

Going to the pool 5 or 6 times a week isn't something I have to plan for.  It isn't a burden that has to be done.  It is just what I do.  I go, I walk or swim, I kick ass and conquer.  Do I always want to go, no, but do I go yes, yes I do.  I love the water.  I need the water for my head space.  To clear it and refresh it. 

The other days I play Bocce Ball for at-least  45 minutes, usually more than that.  Bocce is an hour or so a day I spend on my feet (which aint easy at my size) and walking back and forth on the course. I rarely sit down, and I am usually shuffling my feet or stepping up on the side of the course, just to get real movement in.

Other times it being on my feet working with my dog.  Or doing yard stuff or whatever it is the is moving the body.  I firmly believe at 500 pounds exercise is any movement of the body.  If people don't agree, do you want to accept a challenge?  Put on a fat suit to weigh what I way, come walk in my shows, lets see how you do.  Not happy or bragging but just saying when it is hard to stand up, anything you do is a positive.  If you don't like it, the door is over there. 

I am kicking ass and taking names with my movement.  I am doing good. I am proud.  And sure I am plugging the shit out of the Apple watch in the mean time, but who cares, I love it.  so... there you have it.  I love the apple watch and I love the feeling of getting all the rings closed, it helps me =)

October....

Action Calendar - Optimistic October 2018

10/1/18 - Write down your most important goals for this month...

• Get 8 hours of sleep each night
• Go to the pool 5 days a week. (3 swims and two walks)
• Continue to close my rings
• Read Action for Happiness Website

AFH: September 29 - Take your time. Find Space to just breathe and be still

I am not good at these weekend ones at all... One of my biggest things ever has been to be able to just sit down, stop, and smell the roses.  I struggle with taking time out.  I fill my weekends with mindless tasks, laundry, packing dog food, cooking, swimming, cleaning this thing or that, it is rare that I find time to just sit down.

Well yesterday I got a little time to do just that.  After my 1200 yard swim, I just sat in the pool and took it all in.  I smelled the chlorine (which for most people is an awful smell but for this swimmer it smells like success and hard work), I looked at the pillars and plants around the pool, and I felt the cool and refreshing water against my skin.  I love the pool.  It is my true home. I could stay in there all day. The time to sit an breathe was short lived. 

The rest of the day was spend cleaning and getting things ready for guests, researching meals to make, shopping, and playing with Kona Beast.

Shiner gets here in a few hours.  We will see how Kona does with another dog in the house for a while.  We get to have a dry run of getting her a brother by having Ms. Shiner here for a while.  I am excited but worried at the same time.  Kona is great when dogs come to play.  However, she has he spaces in the house that she doesn't even like me to mess with.  I am sure all will be well.  Shiner was here when Kona first got here, and last time she visited a little over a year ago, they were BFF's.  However, Kona is on strict training these days and I must be careful to make sure I don't let her regress. 

Well I am going to get some last minutes of peace in before the double dog agenda starts and the NFL red zone gets turned on. 

A Game for the Ages & then there were 2

It was a hot day in Dublin, CA and quarter end close was settling in on all of them.  Five finance professionals out on the hallowed grounds of the CCFO BBL Court.  The threesome of Pallina Gretzky the 12 seed who had pulled one upset after another in the tourney after a 1 – 3 season stared at the score board that read 6 – 1 in dismay wondering what had happened to the stroke of luck that had carried them to the final four. Number 1 seeded Buca di Bocce and their MVP Favorite Tristan Vincent and his long time team mate and Bocce Ball Partner were circling the over Gretzky’s like Sharks around a wounded seal.  It appeared to all be over but the crying.  League Commissioner and Gretzky team Member Billy “Side Ball” Burkle had come unglued.  In the last round he had been more than clutch but today he couldn’t have hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.   His teammates had shown up but he hadn’t.  Standing at the south in the court he looked north.  The MVP had the ball and his team was in a spot to get a few points.  Side Ball knew and epic Vincent smash was coming and come it did.  However, in a un-Tristan type fashion he knocked Pallina right back into the game by putting them in with two points.  It was 6 – 3 and it was a new ball game. 

You have heard all the references before on any of your favorite sporting events:  David v. Goliath, 1 v. 16, Foreman v. Ali, Patriots v. Eagles, 2009 Mav and Warriors if you will, it is the great underdog story.  September 27, 2018 gave us another one (1) Buca di Bocce v. (12) Pallina Gretzky.  Gretzky played well in the friendly’s but slumped into the regular season never able to make the clutch shot.  

Buca di Bocce bull dozed their way to a number 1 seed.  They were rarely challenged.  The mind meld between Vincent and Li is one of legends, name a great combo and these two belong up there with them.  They outscored appoints 48:16.  The only time they were challenged was against Gretzky in Week 4, that time an epic come back would fall short and Buca would win 12:10. 

New Ball Game or not Buca di Bocce was un-phased by their JR moment.  Vincent and Li had more ice water in their veins than blood.  They came back strong and were steady in their scoring.  Before they could celebrate the JR points the score board was pushed back up to 8 – 3 and that sense of the run was over starting to sink in once again. 

Every shot that Gretzky would make, Buca made one better.  Kin Ming Li whose approach to the game seems to be carefree but in reality is a deadeye assassin kept hitting shot after shot.  Vincent was getting back on his game as well.  It seem the game was well in hand at 8 -3. 

 Side Ball was throwing the ball everywhere but near the pallina.  However, his teammates Devang Patel and Susanne Graf, the true heroes of this story, and as Side Ball would say in the postgame interviews, the best teammates a guy could have,  made up for his poor play time and time again.  They were steady.  They were focused and like all season long they were kicking ass and taking points.  Devang remind his team they played well when they were having fun.  So fun they did have.  They rolled up their sleeves, gritted their teeth, and started to play for the love of the game.

Slowly but surely, point after point, Graf and Patel strong together great through after great through.  This lead to the score board starting to balance itself out and next thing we the teams knew there was a dead lock at 8 to 8. 

The feel of the game took on a different tone.  It was no longer David v. Goliath.  It was a slugfest.  Each team giving and taking one blow after another blow as balls were rolled from end to end, which left both teams heading back to the south end of the course in a 9 all tie.

Side Ball sitting on the concreate barrier at the side ball turned to Vincent and admitted, I was having fun, but now I am feeling a lot of pressure coming on.  Both teams knew this was end game now.  At 9 in Bocce ball anything can happen.  Three good roles are the difference between playing in the next game for the championship, and playing for third place. 

There has to be kudos given to Steven Kropp and John Tupasi.  These gentlemen not only came out to cheer on the each team but also ended up referring the match.  Each one did a great job.  They owned the measurement.  Took on the tough calls about which ball was closer and who should go first.  They are gentlemen, scholars and damned skilled officials.  They called a good clean match and I would ask them to be the referees for the 3rd place match and the finals as well. 

    

9 to 9 was the score.  Then Side Ball being the elder statesmen on the course rattled off one of his favorites quotes “Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

Ok, ok, Side Ball isn’t that cool and though he knows most of that legendary quote by heart, all he said was “Nine for the men who were doomed to die!” because it was what he always says when he hears the number nine.  Much to his dismay no one on the course knew what he was talking about.  The men who took rings from Sauron the Deceiver and would become his Nazgul, Ringwraiths, neither living nor dead,  come on people I am talking about Lord of the Rings here, this is classic literature.  In the words of the Great Dr. Duan “COME ON!”

Although no men died at 9 – 9 one teams’ hopes of going to play for the championship did.   It was at this point Side Ball finally stepped up and starting helping his team a little bit.  At 9 – 9 Gretzky had a chance to put the game away.  There was a casino opportunity on the course. It would have won the game.  Buca was out, like way out.  However, unsteady hands couldn’t close the deal and the door was left open.  The score was now 10-9 Gretzky heading to the north end of the court where side ball has struggled all season. 

Any door you leave open for Vincent and Li is dangerous.  They are two good of players to do that.  They communicate on another level than any other team.  It is like the other one always knows what the other is thinking.  When you are playing them sometimes it is scary and at other times it is downright frustrating. 

The balls were rolled and it is all over now.  It is a blur and it wasn’t that long ago.  At the time of writing we are probably less than 3 hours post game.   I remember Gretzky being in.  I remember Side Ball coming up with the game on the line.  If he put the balls in, the biggest upset in CCFO BBL history would happen.  He had been up and down all year.  He turned to the opponent and actually asked if I through this to hard is it possible I put you guys in.  The answer was yes.  Patel just said let it roll.  So he rolled and his ball, was in. 

Gretzky did it.  They won the game 12-9 and earned a place in the in the Championship. 

It was a game for the ages!  An upset like this is unlikely.  Vincent and Li are champions.  They were the regular season champs.  They represent on the Bocce Court and should be praised.  They are a formable opponent and two great guys. I would be happy to roll with either of them and am very glad to call them friends. 

Suzie Graf and Devang Patel are heroes.  They made this upset happen.  They both were calm and composed the whole time.  They never got too high or too low.  They played like the champions they are.  Well, well deserved.

For old Side Ball, he still feels like he is living in a dream.  He couldn’t stop gushing over his teammates and how much respect he had for the other team.  Whatever happens in the finals will happen.  Getting there is an amazing journey and he is happy to be along for the ride with such wonderful teammates.

There are two team left vying for the title of Championship and either team is a worthy champion because they got this far.  There are also two more games left.  The 3 v 4 game is still a trophy game.  The 3^rd play team walks away with hardware.  The 4^th place team gets nothing and likes it.

The Fighting Mongooses and Pallina Gretzky have met before.  It was a 12:7 win by the Geese.  Gretzky can’t remember if there were a lot of birds out there that day or if I that was just Chris Louie chirping.  No Chris L, nothing but love for you man.  I do love the Mongooses’ name, as a matter of fact the first suggestion for Gretzky name was the Sasquatch, yes the fighting Sasquatch, to be exact, because much like Patrick, I to love Futurama too… Anyway it will be a really fun match.   It has been a great Bocce Ball season, thanks everyone for being a part of it.      

Good luck to all parties still in the Tourney!  Thanks everyone for a Great Season!