Category: Fall 2011

I got an email today with a link to a website containing a couple of professional photos taken of me on Sunday during the half marathon. Truth be told, I snagged this one from that site, of me crossing the finish line. But I’m not too interested in paying what they’re asking for nice copies.

In reviewing the results, as I mentioned on Sunday I came in 751st place. I also learned that a friend and neighbor of ours, the father of one of Ella’s friends, came in 18th. He’s faster than me. He also is a curator at the EMP Museum and once gave an after hours tour of the museum to Elvis Costello and Diana Krall. That makes him much cooler than me, too. So I’m okay with him beating me.

But I also got beat, and by nearly 8 minutes, mind you, by another acquaintance of mine, a man a year older than me who attended the same high school I attended. His name? Rob McKenna. You Washingtonians may have heard of him. He’s the state’s Attorney General and has a good shot at being the next Governor.

Rob, I’ve got my marathon sights set on you and your time.

Today Melinda and I received a wonderful email from Laurent in Nantes. It came under the subject line “Repas Français” (French Meal). The message is so wonderful, I present it here in its entirety:

Hi Andy and Melinda,

We send you three pictures from last weekend during the Saturday dinner where we invited friends. It was just before your half marathon! It was the 26 November about 21h00 at Nantes and 11h00 at Seattle (Not a good meal before run). We eated your favorite french plate Andy! Cuisses de canard confit… And to disgest we drank a little glass of Liqueur de Poire William … Your bottle Andy! It was just to your health to wish you a good race.

More soon.
Sorry for my english!
Laurent

If such a thing is possible, this message makes my heart smile. And I suppose that Laurent might be a little embarrassed that I’ve quoted his entire message, but I hope not. His support and sentiment is unmistakable.

Today’s photo is one of the three photos attached to the email. Indeed, that’s Laurent, drinking to my health the night before my half marathon from the bottle I gave him just before we left France.

Salut, Laurent!

Our refrigerator doubles as a chalkboard. Pretty old school, don’t you think? I mean, just where do you see chalk any more? I’m even a teacher and I haven’t used chalk in several years. I, um, chalk it up to progress.

Chalk it up. That’s priceless.

Anyway, Melinda and I got home yesterday morning from the marathon and found this chalk-written message on our frig. Pretty nice, a thank you note from Andrea and Anna, Chloe’s two friends who spent the Thanksgiving holiday with us.

Truth be told, both girls were exceptionally nice, ideal house guests. Andrea, as I mentioned, is from Bolivia. Her mother even called FROM BOLIVIA to thank us for hosting her daughter. That’s classy.

There I am, at about the 7 or 8 mile mark of the half marathon in today’s Seattle Marathon. The conditions of the race were pretty bad. If this was a horse race, the track would have been labelled sloppy. But I ran my race, finishing in an unofficial chip time of 1h51m13s, a tad faster than my projection. Considering the wind, the sideways rain, and a large blister I developed on the bottom of my right foot because my feet were soaked, and I’m very pleased.

Checking the results, of the nearly 2800 men who participated in the half, I finished in 751st place, meaning I outran over 2000 men! I was 60th out of 293 in my age bracket, something for which I’ll take some pride, especially since this was my first half marathon.

A couple more things to note. First, kudos to Melinda for finding me to take this picture. The blurriness is kind of fun. No doubt, it has to do with my speed. I heard her call my name and looked up and tried to smile just as she snapped it. Second, what a crazy mess the start of the race was, thousands of people trying to get started in a tight spot. Because of that, the first mile was my slowest. 9 minutes! Lastly, you can learn more about the weather and the race by reading this article.

As I ran I was thinking of Laurent, especially the comment he made to me after he had finished the Nantes Marathon in April. As we celebrated his run with a festive meal that afternoon, he explained how a beer was good for your legs after a marathon.

That’s right. I’m about to have half a beer right now.

In exactly 12 hours I’ll be about 60 minutes in to the Seattle Marathon, the half marathon to be precise. The starting gate is set to spring open at 7:30am and I hope to have completed the 13.1 miles in a little less than 2 hours. I’ve estimated my time to be 1 hour and 53 minutes. Averaging an 8 minute mile would have me coming in just under 1 hour and 45 minutes so I’m buying myself a little more time, even though I averaged less than 8 minutes per mile in the 10k I ran in October. I’m just not sure what to expect tomorrow.

Yesterday I picked up my participants’ packet at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle. An entire floor of the Westin is dedicated to the marathon. One room is just for people to pick up their packets. In another room I picked up my shirt (that’s it in today’s photo). Vendors literally were stacked wall to wall in another spot. Then there’s the place to buy more gear, including a “finisher’s shirt.” Goodness.

Laurent, I’m thinking of you and will be keeping you in the front of my mind as I run. If you see this in time, start thinking of me at about 16:30 in Nantes and keep thinking until about 18:30. That’s when I’ll be running.

What could be nicer for Melinda and me than a showcase photo like this? Here they are, our daughters, Chloe & Ella. The picture is from last night’s Thanksgiving dinner, just before the food was served. Looking at it carefully, I am quick to note how grown up the girls are. Well, I guess at 18 Chloe is considered a grown-up. But Ella is just 14. Ah, what the heck. They’re both just my girls.

I’ve had a little “alone time” with each girl today. Ella and I watched a couple of episodes of the TV show “Modern Family.” I hadn’t really watched it before but had heard good things about it. I found it quite funny, especially the episode in which a couple decided to go on a juice fast. Given Melinda and I did just that a few weeks back, it was especially timely and funny.

After going shopping with Andrea and Anna this afternoon, Chloe wanted to get some Indian food. Doing this was on her wish list of things to do over the holiday weekend. We ordered a couple of dishes from her favorite Indian food restaurant, Bengal Tiger, and together, she and I went to pick them up to bring home. It was nice having time alone with her in the car.

As the girls have gotten older, I’ve looked forward to having more of these adult interactions with them.

To Chloe’s right (left side of the photo) is Andrea. And on Chloe’s left is Anna. Please meet two of her best friends from college, both of whom are spending the Thanksgiving holiday with us. I took this photo using Anna’s incredible camera just before dinner, wanting a shot of the three young women for today’s entry.

Andrea, I’ve mentioned before. She’s Chloe’s roommate and you may recall that she is from Bolivia. Anna is from Singapore. Both girls have become part of Chloe’s circle of best girlfriends. Watching them interact, I’m reminded of all the stories one hears about the lifetime connections with college friends. Clearly, these three care about each other.

They arrived last night at about 10:45, a little more than two hours later than Chloe had hoped. A big reason for the tardy arrival had to do with getting stopped at the Canada-US border. Apparently, both Andrea and Anna had to explain why they were entering the US, where they were staying, stuff like that. This necessitated a trip inside the immigration office at the border. One part of their border crossing story made me chuckle, though. A good-natured immigration officer apparently told the two that it is a US tradition for Thanksgiving dinner guests to clean the rugs of their host’s home.

As you might expect, I keep asking when they plan to get this job done.

Here’s a photo I took at last Saturday night’s Cystic Fibrosis 2011 Breath of Life Gala in Denver, Colorado. This is the event that Melinda and I attended, present to show our love, support and respect for Bill and Teresa Elder, longtime friends of the Smallman family. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Bill & Teresa’s son Bill, Jr (Billy) has cystic fibrosis. Born in 1987, Billy was diagnosed, I believe, in the early 1990’s. Since then, Bill and Teresa have worked tirelessly in support of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. On Saturday night they were being honored for their years of service.

At age 24, Billy’s health is very good and thanks in no small part to his parents’ efforts. On Saturday night he was called on stage to make a speech to the several hundred of us who had gathered for the event. He talked about a new drug that has been tested to be very effective in the treatment of CF, one that looks likely headed for FDA approval. This is exciting news.

I snapped this picture as Billy was talking, doing my best to include Bill, his proud father, in the foreground. Truth be told, it was a proud moment for all of us connected to the Elder family.

Three years ago today, Melinda organized it so that all of my parents’ grandchildren came over to our house for a photo shoot in our neighborhood park. The occasion? My parents’ 50th anniversary. That’s right, three years ago today was my parent’s 50th anniversary, meaning today is their 53rd. Happy anniversary!

So, yes, we took all 7 grandkids into the park and started snapping pictures, 140 of them by the time we were done. Toward the end of the picture-snapping, we got a really good one of everyone standing on piece of playground equipment. Melinda and I hustled over to a photo shop and had an enlargement of the picture made, framed it, and gave it to them on behalf of the family. My parents were very pleased and that photo holds a prominent space on a wall in their living room.

To honor the anniversary today, I’ve chosen another of the photos from that day. In the lower row from L-R are Olivia, Ella and Stephanie. Behind them from L-R are Jessica, Nick, Tammy and Chloe.

I’m going in back in time for tonight’s post. You see, I’ve got PSCS on my mind as the school has been keeping me very busy over the last couple of weeks. Frankly, it’s never NOT busy at PSCS, but the last couple of weeks have been busier than usual. For instance, today was the first day of what we call Reflection Week, three days of community building, group reflecting, and program evaluation. I’m in charge of it and it keeps me on my toes.

With PSCS occupying much of my attention, I found myself looking through the school’s photo archive and came across this picture. It’s from 1997 and is of a very young Ella, less than a year old.

As an infant, Ella spent a lot of time at the PSCS office since Melinda was there every day. This raised an interesting question on the first day of school this year. One of the teachers challenged the students to line up in the order of the amount of time they had attended PSCS. In one interpretation of the exercise, Ella, who became a PSCS student three years ago, would be near the “longer” side but not at the end. But if you take into account she was at PSCS in 1997 (in fact, Melinda went into labor with Ella while at work in 1996), Ella has quite a bit of seniority on everyone.