Small Worlds and Facebook Friends

Gee....two blog entries in two days!!

During my first stint on Facebook I came across something I found interesting.  Facebook will suggest friends for you; people you may know based on the fact that they are friends with people you are also friends with.  I found it interesting when these suggested friends would be friends with people who I knew through completely different circumstances.  What I mean is, usually the mutual friends you have with this suggested person are all part of the same group.  Five mutual friends, all of whom you went to high school with, usually means you also went to high school with this suggested friend.  Three of your friends from work know this person, then it's probably someone they knew through work.

Every once in a while though, people will have mutual friends who you happen to know through completely different circumstances.  For example, the first time I was on Facebook I was friends with an individual I had been stationed with when I was in the Army.  We were stationed together in Germany and he lives no where close to me here in the States.  That person, Jason Becker, was facebook friends with an individual named Mike Banks.  Mike was someone I knew from his job in public safety communications in Wadsworth, OH.  My paths with these two individuals had crossed years apart and in two very different ways, yet somehow they knew each other and both knew me.

Today something very similar happened.  As I was looking through people that facebook was saying I might know, I came across the name Melissa Albert.  I don't know Melissa, but it said that three of my friends did know her.  I checked out who those three people were, expecting them to maybe be a cousin, his wife and his kid.  However, it was not.  Two of the friends, my sister and her son, made sense that they would both know Melissa, but the third was a co-worker of mine, Justin Chappelear.  To the best of my knowledge Justin has never crossed paths with my sister or her son, but somehow they both know and are friends with the same person.  Small world, nice coincidence, but hardly earth shattering.

But check this one out.  Another friend suggestion was a girl named Laurie Johnston.  Laurie is friends with two people who are Facebook friends of mine.  One, Steven Daniel, is my second cousin who lives in Chicago.  Steven's mother and my grandmother were sisters, but not raised together for a variety of reasons, some which are still unknown to the family.  The other mutual friend is Brian Evak, someone I went to high school with in Pickerington.  I don't know of any situation when Brian and Steve would have had any reason to cross paths, yet somehow they both crossed paths with Laurie Johnston and have crossed paths with me in very different ways.

Again, none of this is earth shattering, but it is, at least to me, very interesting.  It shows that the world is indeed small and that we are all connected much more closely than we may realize.

Been A While

Well, it has been a while since I last added to my blog, so I thought I'd "check-in".

I started off May by running the Cap City Half Marathon.  My fitness level, which dropped after running the Columbus Marathon last fall, does not seem to have fully recovered.  I'm not real discouraged by that though.  I was able to run the entire Half Marathon without walking, and with a respectable time.  I've still got a full marathon training schedule planned for the summer in preparation for the Virginia Beach Half Marathon at the end of August, the Nationwide Children's Hospital Half Marathon in October and the Big Sur and Space Coast Half Marathons in November.  Along the way I've got a few more out of state races that I'm scheduled to do and am looking forward to the traveling that will come with them.

This past weekend the Burkhardt Family had their annual reunion/cookout.  As always, it was a good time.  A time to see family that we usually only see once or twice a year, and catch up.  One thing you can be sure of at ANY gathering of Burkhardt's is that the food will be plentiful and it will be good.  This year was no exception.

I remember as a kid, the highlight of every summer was the family reunion.  We would head to the location early and secure the shelter house.  There were a lot more family and extended family there then, but the Burkhardt's always knew out to put out a spread.  The cookout now is an extension of one of those traditions that you hate to ever see go away.

This week at work is one that we tend to look forward to coming and look forward to ending both at the same time.  It's Memorial Tournament week in Dublin, Ohio.  The Memorial is an event on the PGA tour.  It's interesting how each year we tend to get complaints from residents about the traffic and parking in the area.  Even long-time residents seem to complain, as if this hasn't been going on for over 30 years.  But overall the week usually goes smoothly and we get through it unscathed.  It's almost down to a science now.  Early in the week, it's still pretty tame.  It'll be later this week, when play actually begins, that our activity level will pick up.  We'll get the inevitable loud noise complaints, parking complaints and dealing with those who overestimate the amount of alcohol their bodies can handle.  

Then in a couple of weeks I'll spend a week at my second job teaching a class at the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy in London, OH.  The following weekend is a trip up to Minnesota and Wisconsin for a couple 5K runs, visit some family, attend a German-American festival and do some quick site seeing around the area.  Those two runs will move me up to 16 states completed in my quest to run a race in every state.  In July I'll add #17 with a 4th of July race in Bloomington, IL.  In August I'll tack on #18 when I head to Virginia Beach and #19 will come in November when I head to California for the Big Sur Half Marathon (which, interestingly, is not run in Big Sur).

Runcation and Warranties

Well, for the most part, April ended pretty well.  I got my second runcation in for the year.  I headed down to Nashville for the Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Half Marathon.  I'm not sure if this course had more hills than any other course I've run, or if the hills on this course were steeper than any other course I've run, or if it just happened to be the most recent hilly course and therefore I perceived it to be hillier and steeper.  Whatever the case, the first 9 miles of the course was a rough course when it came to the hills.  There was pretty good crowd support however, and I have to say that the Competitor Group, who owns the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series, put on yet another great event.

While in Nashville I made it a point to look around the area, take a couple tours, catch a couple shows.  My first day there I took a tour of the Ryman Auditorium and toured the Johnny Cash Museum.  Later that evening I went back to the Ryman for the Opry Country Classics show where they were doing a tribute to George Jones as it neared the one year anniversary of his death.

After the run on Saturday I got some dinner, then went to the Grand Ole Opry for their Saturday evening show.  After the show I stuck around for the back stage tour.

Because of some storms that were supposed to blow through the are Sunday night in to Monday, I decided to leave a day early and head home Sunday.

On Monday I found a leak in my water heater.  Getting that fixed has turned out to be more of an adventure than my trip to Nashville.  After finding the leak, I pulled out my paperwork for the heater.  Knowing that the water heater was not that old I thought it may be possible that it was still under warranty, so I checked the paperwork and, as luck would have it, the paperwork showed that I spent a little extra on an extended warranty to cover the tank until 2017.  GREAT!  So I called the phone number on the contract to set up a service appointment and was told that the contract expired in 2012.  Now my paperwork clearly said 2017, but they refused to send a tech out unless I sent them the paperwork.  In the mean time they suggested I shut off the water to my hot water heater.  So I was supposed to go without hot water until I proved to them that they made a mistake.  They also informed me that it would take 3 business days to look at the contract and determine if it was a mistake.  Why it would take 3 days to look at a contract that says "Expiration Date 7/12/2017" was beyond me, and the company couldn't seem to be able to explain it to me either.
The next day I went to Home Depot and spoke to a manager there.  I showed her my contract, she made a couple of phone calls and put me on the line with someone in Atlanta.  Phillip assured me that if I could email a copy of the contract to him, he would be sure to accelerate this issue and get resolved with the company who sells the extended warranties.  Sure enough, the next morning I got a phone call from Assurant telling me that they had gotten the information from Home Depot that I did have a good warranty and they would be sending out a tech that day.
Well, the tech came out and, at first, it appeared to be a simple fix.  Replace the valve.  So, after getting approval by the warranty company he replaced the valve...however the leak didn't go away.  It turned out not to be a leak in the valve, but a crack in the tank at the base of the valve.
So another phone call to the warranty company who now told the tech that he had to call the manufacturer and get approval first.  Of course, the manufacturer's warranty was expired (the purpose of buying an "extended" warranty).  After another 30-45 minutes of phone calls, with yet another customer service rep telling me that my extended warranty was expired, and refusing to listen to me, I was finally able to get ahold of someone who understood English enough to understand what was going on and get the work approved.
That is now supposed to happen this morning after I get home from work.  Fortunately I'm going in to my weekend.  This SHOULD all be resolved this morning.

It's my firm belief that when this company sells someone an extended warranty that they make it so difficult and time consuming for the customer to make a claim on the warranty that most just give up and pay for the repairs out of pocket.  Overall I'm happy with the way Home Depot responded to my issues.  But I'm not happy with their affiliation with Assurant to cover the extended warranties that are sold in the name of Home Depot.  In most cases customer service is poor because we as consumers allow it to be.  Mistakes are going to be made, but customer service as horrendous as what I've dealt with the last few days is inexcusable and should be responded to that way.

On a better note, I'll also be heading downtown today or tomorrow to pick up my race packet for this weekend's Cap City Half Marathon.  This is the fourth time I will run this particular race.  It is enjoyable and I'm interested to see how my legs hold up, as this will be the first time I've ever run two half marathons on back to back weekends.  Usually I've had at least 4-5 weeks between Half's.

My race in Nashville was the 14th State that I've run a race in.  In June I will be doing two out of state races.  The Lederhosenlauf 5K in St. Paul, MN, and the Run for the Stars 5K the next morning in La Crosse, WI.  

A Time To Play That Shot and A Time to Leave It In The Bag

In between naps yesterday I was watching a movie on the Golf Channel.  The Legend of Bagger Vance starring Will Smith and Matt Damon.  Although many would consider this a movie about golf, it is much deeper than that.  Bagger Vance is a movie about God and a man's relationship to him.

For those who haven't seen the movie, I'll try to sum up the basic premise.  Rannulph Junuh is a promising young golfer, poised to become one of the best to play the game.  When WWI starts, Junuh enlists and, while at war, sees the horrific things that soldiers see in war.  He comes back a broken man.  As the Great Depression sweeps the country Junuh is put in a position to play in a golf tournament with two other great golfers in an effort to save the country club left to his former fiancee when her father succumbs to the effects of the depression and takes his own life.

Junuh hasn't picked up a club in years, but while practicing his drives one night, out of the darkness emerges a caddy, Bagger Vance.  Junuh is reluctant to accept the help from Bagger, but slowly starts to see the advantage of following the caddy's advice.  As the movie goes on, Junuh becomes more and more confident in his abilities, but in doing so feels less and less reliant on Bagger Vance.  Then, instead of laying up on a hole, decides he's going to "go for the win".  Bagger tries to tell Junuh that, "There's a time to play that shot, and a time to leave it in the bag."

I know I've been guilty of that myself, probably more often than I care to admit.  When I should be "leaving it in the bag" and trusting in God to show me the right direction, I "play the shot".  I don't mean to say that I take unnecessary risks, as most who know me would probably not think of me as one who takes too many risks.  What I mean though is that I don't do what is right for me or best for me at that moment in my life.  I want what I want and when I want it.  I get impatient so, instead of laying up on the shot, I end up hitting the shot in to the bunker.

I guess the hard part for me is knowing when it's time to play the shot, and when it's time to leave it in the bag.  When do we take our stance and just knock the living crap out of the ball and when do we lay up?  We've got to trust God to let us know when what we want may not be what is best for us.  We've got to be ok with the answer we get to be "no".

I'll keep striving to achieve that balance.  I'll keep listening for God to let me know when it's time to hit the shot, and when it's time to leave it in the bag.

It's Routine

I haven't been quite as good about keeping up with my blog as I used to be.  Or maybe I "keep up" just fine, there's just not a lot I have to say.

On the running front, I'm preparing for two back-to-back half marathons.  This will be the first time I've attempted to run half marathons on consecutive weekends.  It seems that my running workouts have gotten to be little more difficult.  But after looking back at my running logs, they seem to be right on track with where they've been in the past, so maybe it's just all in my head.  I can definitely say that I haven't really improved any.  I knew that I would hit that point eventually where I would plateau.  I am hoping that I will get better as the year goes on, but if this is where I'm meant to be, then that's ok too.

Working third shift has been a little bit of an adjustment.  I've adjusted fairly well to the hours, and have yet to find myself struggling to stay awake during the shift.  But this is where I struggle a little with running.  I have, on a couple of occasions, considered going out for a run after getting off work in the morning, but have been a little tired and decided to wait until the evening.  The difficult part there is that, even though I get plenty of sleep during the day, it is normally sporadic.  I'll sleep a few hours when I get home, then be up for an hour or two, then sleep a few more hours.  Because of that, it makes it a little more difficult for me to motivate myself to get out of bed a couple of hours early to go run before work, when normally I'd be settling in for that last little bit of sleep.

Or maybe all of that is just an excuse.  On day shift I developed a routine.  My sleep wasn't so broken though, so I could just go to bed a little early, wake up a little early and I was fine.  I've only got a couple of weeks before I run the Country Music Half Marathon and the Cap City Half Marathon.  After that I've got my summer training session, and if I haven't developed my routine before then, I should be able to get in the swing of things over the summer.  This will hopefully make it so that my training is more efficient, and I start to see some improvements again in my running.

Things at the Northwest Regional Emergency Communications Center are going well.  We're still short staffed, and I imagine it will be that way for a little while longer.  We did just bring two new dispatchers on board, but they will be in training for at least 5-6 months before they are able to contribute to staffing.  It's still not what I would consider to be a "critical" staffing shortage.  There is a lot of overtime being posted, but overall I'm still going to maintain my opinion that it has been worse than it is right now.  I still haven't worked an 80 hour week and everyone still has their sanity (well, as much as they had before we started this venture anyway).

Which brings me to my April Fool's joke.  On April 1 I posted my status on Facebook saying "Things are moving ALOT faster than expected. Don't want to make things more difficult on anyone than they already are, but got to do what's best for me."  Now to be honest, I expected that I might draw in one of the Communications Supervisors, and I did.  However, there were a couple of bonuses in my little joke.  See, when the center is short staffed and one infers from a Facebook posting of a current employee at that center that said Facebook posting means he has found another job and may be causing even more of a staffing issue...well...that's when the fun begins.  Honestly, it didn't last very long, but long enough.  The best part, for me anyway, was that I didn't have to lie or make up a story.  I just had to throw out a few general comments and let people's imaginations take it from there.  So, to those who were taken in... "April Fools" :-)

That is something that, in the past, has been a source of irritation for me though.  I have said something, or blogged something, and someone or some, have read in to what said.  That was a big reason why I left Facebook a few years back, and even when I told people exactly why I had left Facebook, there were those who speculated as to the "real reasons" or the "real meaning".  So I will take this opportunity to say again, what I have said before.  Don't try to read my mind, you're not very good at it.
I was saddened to hear of the death of comedian John Pinette, as well as actor Mickey Rooney.  Mickey Rooney is someone I'll remember most as the voice of Santa Claus in those Rankin & Bass Christmas specials.  John Pinette was the funniest comedian I had ever seen or listened too. It's sad to see anyone pass who can bring so much joy and laughter to so many people.

Everything Has Changed....Or Has It?

It's nearly Spring and it appears we might have possibly started to get a break in the weather that will last more than a day or two.  Today I went out for my first run since completing the Phoenix Half Marathon on March 1st.  That's the longest break I've taken from running in a couple of years.  A little bit too long I think.  As much as I love running, the toughest part for me, and for others I've talked to, is to get back out there after taking a break.  It's not continuing to run that's difficult, it's starting, or re-starting that can prove difficult.  So today, after nearly 3 weeks off, I made myself get back out there.  I struggled a little, but was happy that I pushed through the struggle and finished what I needed to do.

If you've been reading my blog you know that over the last few months we've taken on some additional work, dispatching for a couple new agencies.  That's resulted in some changes here.  Minimum staffing levels have increased, call volume has increased, and it has been interesting to get used to working with the different agencies and the kinds of calls we're getting now.  Some are a lot of the same types of things, some are much different than I've been used to dealing with on a regular basis.  For the most part though, the skills needed are the same, so things aren't really all that different.

I've moved from day shift back to the third shift crew.  I thought it might take me a while to get used to working nights again and adjust my sleeping pattern, but it didn't.  I was able to adjust pretty quickly.  While the workload on third shift is a little busier than the last time I worked third's, it's still not as busy as first shift was.  I've been assured by the new police department that this will change once the weather warms up on a regular basis and more people are out and about at night.  But even though things are busier on thirds than I've been used to on that shift, they've slowed down compared to what I was used to day shift.  So...it changed...but not really.

With the increase in staffing levels came a need for an additional supervisor in our center.  So now, in addition to working a different shift, I also have a newly promoted supervisor.  She has her own way of doing things, but there are pretty clear cut policies and procedures at our center, so while things have changed, really they haven't.

The spring running season is upon us.  For me, I don't slow down a whole lot during the winter anyway, but the number of local races does decrease during the winter months.  I dropped my plans to run the half marathon I had planned for Nebraska.  Scheduling just didn't work out real well for it this year.  But, since I already had the time off, I was able to find a different out of state race that would be easier to work around.  It's not the half marathon I originally planned.  This will be a 5K, but it's run in the city where one of my nephew's lives with his wife and two daughters.  It's also run in conjunction with a German-American festival that's going on that weekend, so it should make for a fun getaway, and put state #15 in the books for me.

By the end of 2014 I expect to have run a race in at least 17 different states.  State #14 will be Tennessee.  I'll be running the Rock 'n' Roll Nashville Half Marathon next month.  I've got some activities already bought and paid for, including taking in the Grand Ole Opry and one other show.  The race also has a concert associated with it that I'll have the opportunity to watch, so this little Run-cation to Nashville should be fun.

After Nashville, my next out of state race will be the Lederhosenlauf in St. Paul, MN in June.  Then Rock 'n' Roll Virginia Beach, followed by the Big Sur Half Marathon in Monterey, CA.  Running is giving me an opportunity to really see a lot of the country and see some places I might not have thought about otherwise.  I've already started looking at possibilities for 2015 and making mental notes of runs I'd like to do in other states as the years go by.

Success in Failing

Back to my first day back to work after my trip to Phoenix and feeling pretty good.  I'll start off saying that I failed to meet any of the three goals I had set for the Phoenix Half Marathon, but surprisingly, I was not upset by that at all.

I finished the Half with an official time of 2:06:08, which was about two minutes slower than I was hoping for.  The course itself was mainly flat, and for only the third year for Phoenix/Mesa to be running this event, it was very well organized.  The marathon and half-marathon are run simultaneously, but start in different places.  From what I was told by a lady who sat next to me on the shuttle bus Saturday morning, the first half of the marathon is run through some very scenic areas.  If I had any criticism at all, it would be for them to go with a corral start.  Corral starts spread the field out a little more and let people start with others who are running a similar pace.  This allows for everyone to settle in to their own pace instead of constantly speeding up and slowing down while trying to dodge other runners/walkers.  The other would be for the pacers to be more accurate in their pacing.  I had decided to try and run with the 2:00 pace leader for the race.  I felt like I was going a little fast, so after about three miles I finally decided to check my own timer.  I found that the two hour pace leader, who should have been maintaining a 9:10/mile pace, was running an 8:55/mile pace, or faster, through at least the first four miles.  Once again, I made the mistake of not slowing down when my body told me I was running too fast to maintain my pace through 13 miles.

The weather was supposed to be very wet, but it turned out not to be too bad.  It did rain some throughout the race, but not enough to cause any problems, and the winds that were kicking up pretty heavy early that morning, were pretty much non-existent throughout the race.

While I was in Arizona, I did have the opportunity to do some site-seeing.  Prior to race day I drove down to the Tuscon area to see the Air and Space Museum and the Airplane "Boneyard".

This plane was on loan to the museum, it served at Air Force One from 1961-1965, a true piece of history.

Planes that are no longer being used, torn up for scrap, or just being stored while not in use, are kept here.  This location was selected for several reasons.  First, the US government owned several thousand acres of land, giving them the space to store these planes.  Secondly, the dry desert air helped to keep the planes and their parts from corroding.  Finally, the soil in the desert here is very solid, meaning the planes could be stored without the cost of building huge concrete or asphalt pads.

The white that you see on the propellers of this plane and over the windows is spray latex, another layer of protection against the elements.  It is sprayed on then solidifies in to a rubber material that can be peeled off rather easily when it's time to either put the plane in to service, or tear it up for parts.

Planes for as far as the eye could see.

Another fun part of this trip was that many of the pilots who travel around doing air shows were in the area this day, doing practice flights, so we had sort of a mini air show going on this day.  I wanted to try and film the planes as they flew and did their stunts, but by the time I heard them coming, they were already past.

I had originally planned to head further south to Tombstone, AZ and visit the place where the famous "gunfight at the OK corral" took place.  However, while having lunch with my cousin and her fiancee who live in Phoenix, they suggested that I head north to Sedona and the red rock area instead.  Even though I love history, and would have enjoyed seeing Tombstone, I am glad that I took my cousin's advice and went north instead.

On the way north I stopped at a roadside rest with a scenic overlook about half way between Phoenix and Sedona.  Beautiful view, even though the clouds were a little low at that altitude.

Then, just south of Sedona I stopped at Montezuma's Castle National Park.

European settlers originally thought they had found Aztec homes built in to the sides of cliffs.  In reality, these were built by native Americans hundreds of years earlier.  This was apparently very common as far back as the 1300's.

Even more amazing to me though, were the red rock cliffs as I drove in to Sedona.  This entire area was just amazingly beautiful and unlike anything I'd ever seen.

Hiking trails allow you to get right up to the base of these cliffs.

If I had realized that the trail I was on would take me all the way around Courthouse Butte, I would have brought something to drink with me.  Instead I turned around and went back up the trail the way I'd come in.

 In spite of the fact that I'd run a half marathon the day before, I still put in a lot of miles walking this day.

I really did enjoy my trip and the opportunity it provided for me to get some relaxation and see first hand the beauty that only God can create.  I've got a few more trips planned throughout the rest of the year and hope that they all provide, in their own ways, the same enjoyment and wonder.