Bad Wizards

Bottled water is a scam  http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/ I use a reusable sports bottle and drink tap. Pretty much sums it up about corporations too.

My mailbox is piled high with junk everyday, so I went to http://www.catalogchoice.org and did something about it.

The BCS series is corrupt 

http://www.rockchalktalk.com/2010/11/11/1807701/sports-illustrated-talks-bcs-playoff-and-why-we-continue-to-spin-our

I don't watch college football. Instead I support my Div I daughters running and rowing! and my son who won a NY State Championship in Nordic skiing.  Pro Football and Baseball players are up there too in my book, Hey Michael Vick was a detested criminal now he throws a couple of passes and hes a hero again! and Jeter, dont get me started, the definition of cheating is, Intent to deceive by lying to your opponent ! Could you imagine if I did this at work, Hey FDA that blood test is safe, yeh really it is.


My cable TV brings me commercials and insulting news like FOX and Mad Money. So I turned it off. Instead I installed a HD antenna in my attic and get 11 crisp clear HD channels over the air for free!
Dont really have time to watch em much but if I'm watching commercials I better not be paying for the service as well.

My newspaper tells me all the awful corrupt things done by Hedge Fund managers, politicians, professional sports players, Corporate CEO's, CFO's and directors. Throw in the bad behavior of entertainment celebrities (When you hit a thin shot in golf its called a Calista Flockhart, When you hit a fat one its a queen Latifa, when you hit it in a group of trees and cant get out its a Lindsay Lohan because your in jail). So I canceled my newspaper.

 Richest man in the world, poorest product in the universe. I have a 10 year old mac that outperforms my brand new windows PC.

 Bill was interviewed on 60 minutes. He was saying he was trying to figure out what to do with all his money and he said you could have 1000 people fanning you. Bill clearly is not thinking creatively enough!






Life is a lot like the new Harry Potter movie, there are a lot of bad wizards out there. I know who the good ones are but I cant always recognize the bad ones. I do like to watch 60 minutes, available on free over the air HD by the way. They are really good at identifying the bad wizards. And once your identified, look out, I have a wand made of elder!

The 12 days of cycling (Cycling is better than christmas)

My wife is out of town so instead of throwing a kegger or having the guys over for beer, cigars and poker. I thought I would bike every day instead of taking a car and blog about it. Check back every day for an update to this entry. My little ploy to get you coming back for more.
 
 I thought I would put the new ones upfront so y'all dont have to do so much scrolling. Hard work that it is.

 On the Twelfth day of Biking: Back to work. Some screw up with the Disability paper work and I was sent home at 11 am. Now I did call them last Friday is everything OK, "Yes you are all set", Now I cant get a hold of anyone at the disability company to tell me what the problem is. Also my internet connection did not work and it has so far taken me 4 phone calls/ talks with the admin to get someone to fix it and it still is not fixed after a day and a half. Much has led me to infinite frustration, which I took out on a 3 hour bike ride.

So here is the song: You know how it goes, last verse same as the first, you get the idea

On the twelfth day of biking my true love gave to me:

12 corporate cock ups
11 road rashes
10 days of resting
9 mountain bike meditations
8 Disability reps a calling
7 Cross bikes a blowin
6 Bubble persons bubbling
5 Ports a flushing
4 Pacers pushing
3 skin tight ski suits
2 much knee pain
And a pharmacist commenting on my bike shorts, ole!

 On the eleventh day of Biking: Mission accomplished! First race back since being diagnosed with cancer! It wasn't without incident, I crashed on the first lap. Going down a hill into turn onto a gravel section I washed out and hit the gravel.

As I lay on the ground in pain I had a choice, Quit (which I almost did) or continue. I decided if I could come this far I should finish what I started, if I nothing was broken. Nope nothing broken. I almost cried, but continued and passed a bunch of people before finishing. I crashed two more times trying to un-clip a sticky pedal but by that point it did not matter. Once your ego gets bruised and your emotions are shot it really does not matter what happens you just keep going.  Lots of people cheered for my super hero costume although they will never know the full story like you my readers do.

On the tenth day of Biking: I took a rest day to gear up for tomorrows Cyclo Race. You get to wear a costume since its near Halloween. I am going as Portman, I think I look like the character pretty well. Except for actual Portmans, round shape, I have a rather muscular psyche, I digress. It will be quite Muddy during the race so the costume may be quite sullied, so I thought I would show it to you in ts immaculate from.

On the ninth day of Biking: I am not mountain biking, but if I did, I would stay off the hard trails. If I was mountain biking I would notice how connected I feel to the bike through the pedals and the handle bar how mountain biking is a whole body exercise. You don't just sit and pedal, you balance, pull up on the bars, lean, look where you are going down the trail. It would be quite involved, if I was mountain biking of course. Mountain biking is like meditating. If meditation is supposed the keep all that mental chatter from going on in your head, then this (if I was doing it) will do that right now. Nothing like going down a trail, braking and trying to negotiate a tight turn to take everything off your mind except trying to keep your wheels upright. Go down a steep and you will be meditating like a zen master. It is like an adrenaline rush combined with the most calm feeling you ever experienced. Add in endorphins and exercise and you have the perfect activity, if I was doing it of course. 

On the eighth day of Biking: 33:05 would have placed me 5th in the overall bike times. Not bad for a guy 3 months out of chemo! Didn't beat Mr Skin suit he got 30:00. Got a call from my disability insurance company while riding at 175 beats per minute, guy must have wondered why I was panting so hard (gee this guy is worse than we thought he sounds really out of breath, and he wants to go back to work) Not kidding, he was calling about my long term disability, I almost hit a tree taking his call (kidding). I stopped to take the call and then almost hit the tree.


On the seventh day of biking: Quick ride home from B's school after dropping off the car. Wind was at my back and it felt fast fast fast and the cyclocross bike ridden be E in the summer. She lets me borrow it for races you see! I promise a legitimate run of the Black diamond course on the cyclocross bike tomorrow. See if I can come close to Mr skin suits time!

On the sixth day of biking: There is no biking on the sixth day of biking because (after reading this blog) my mom told me to take it easy and my daughter told me not to mountain bike. Dr says yes, wife says yes, daughter says no, because Portmantm might pop the port the Dr put in. My daughter created the Portmantm bubble person character ,

who will be making an appearance at the Halloween Cyclocross race on the 12th day of biking, my first race in over a year, stay tuned.
(Portmantm and the Portmantm  character are trademarks of annemariedenton.com, all rights are reserved, all patents legitimate, all reasons known to all persons who know it and believe in the bubble person heir-achy their heirs are apparent and thus insoluble and undeliverable to no one)










On the fifth day of biking: 32 miles round trip to the Oncologist to get my port flushed.I am exhausted and can hardly type due to my  neurapathy so this is the entire post.

On the fourth day of biking: Two of my friends came by for a 20 mile road ride. One friend said he had not been on his bike in 2 weeks and had been over eating and drinking so he would not be very fast. He buried me and my other friend up the first hill and never let up. I was hammering in a high gear and my friend was standing up mashing away at the pedals trying to keep up with this guy and he looked like he was just soft pedaling along coasting occasionally. How does he do it? He said it was carbo loading, I think he had secretly been at the gym on the trainer.

On the third day of biking: I rode about 8 miles, one way, to watch a run and bike race. Kind of wished I was competing but I cant run yet so I can wait. The competitors all looked like they were in a lot of pain. I thought this was fun? 

On the second day of biking: I got the clearance from my doctor and my wife to go Mountain biking. When I asked the doctor if it was dangerous for me to go mountain biking with my port(commonly known by my kids as as popping my port), He said its dangerous you can kill yourself mountain biking. I certainly know that. But no more dangerous with my port. So I went. Hit my knee cap on the handlebars and it hurt like hell. I really enjoy the endorphin rush when I am wreathing in pain :( I am not really sure if I like mountain biking now.

One the first day of biking: I went to the pharmacy to pick up a 30 day supply of my neurapathy medicine. It was raining, so it was a bit cold and wet, but I managed. The lady behind the counter asked me if I had seen some TV show on last night which featured an overweight man wearing bike shorts for the entire episode. I wondered what she meant by that, but she said I looked good in mine. Brings back memories of the line in caddy shack when Ted Knight is trying on an ugly hat and Rodney Dangerfeld says "But it looks good on you".

A Pant Load

Beware: The following is a graphic (and very funny) description of the events that happened on the 4th of this month. Hearty souls, read on. Other, you have been warned.

Getting your rectum rebuilt (Yes I was ripped a new one) is pretty disturbing to your bowel habits. Re-establishing healthy, satisfying, everything is right with the world poos (Credit to CS for this one) has been challenging. But I have just about done it. Except for one minor issue, that I have readily come to find is very important when adding any medicines or vitamins to your regimen.

I have had this problem where a shall we say, "Never Trust a Fart" pretty much describes it..or have your ever heard of a 'shart"....well you get the idea. The other day I am riding my bike in the pouring rain..pedaling along and I stand up on the pedals because I have this pressure which feels like I need to relieve and uh oh that was stupid I shouldn't have done that, I think I just gave myself a racing stripe in my bike shorts. I sit back down on the seat and yes confirmed major pant load in there. So I am soaked, 10 miles from home, its cold and I have shi.. myself.  Time for a major re-eavaluation of why this is happening.

After some research I have figured it out. I have been taking 250mg of magnesium for a nerve issue. This was part of a supplement regimen prescribed by my doctors. Turns out magnesium causes diarrhea. I guess they failed to mention it might make me poop my pants, but hey, you cant be expected to be warned of everything.

Why I make the face?

I almost forgot why this blog is titled make the face. Its because when I am racing (ski, bike run etc) my face contorts into all sorts of funny expressions as I strain to exert all my energy and concentration to go as fast as I possibly can.  Someone once pointed out, why race? your not getting paid for it. Although I won a bottle on wine once.  Why do this? To stay physically fit of course. But you can stay fit by just exercising with a group or by yourself. Why pay the entry fee, train your butt off and put yourself through all the agony and pain that comes when the gun goes off and your ego tells you that you need to get one step ahead of that son-of-a-b in front of you.

Why? To learn about yourself. To experience the physical discomfort that you would never ever get yourself into when exercising. Once you start to push yourself past what you thought were your limits you realize your limits are far above what you thought they were. Your pain threshold increases, you learn how to forget about the pain and redirect it elsewhere. A very important skill when dealing with the physical agony I just went through. You learn how to overcome obstacles. Things that once were hard are now possible. Hills dont look as steep, roads not as long and mountains not so high. You become mentally tougher, able to get through bad situations with more ease.

I have not entered a race in a year. Will I enter one again? You bet the funny expression on my face I will. Just not for a while, I need to heal some more. Then look out I have a new threshold and resolve to race with. My face will get contorted again!

Tattoo You

Surviving cancer makes you do some interesting things. Whims become reality, life experiences are sought out, things you have thought about doing get done, little annoyances become unimportant, inhibitions become non existant and I got a tattoo. Its the Chinease characters which you would read to pronounce my wifes name. I vetted this with a friend of mine from China. I didnt want to end up like the poor guy who got "This is an ugly boy" tattooed on him. Although I saw a photo of the guy and you know what, It kind of suits him.

I got the tattoo at the same place my sister in law got most of her body tattooed, so I knew the work would be good, Not all artists or parlors do this type of quality work, Look at it its fibrant color and crisp outline. Not those fuzzy green things many people have. If your going to get one get a quality artist at a high end place, its worth it.

Did it hurt? "Yes it hurts" its a tattoo. Feels like intense bee stings, 5 seconds at time until the artists stops and mercifully wipes it, then 5 seconds of pain. But hey, lets face it, after what I have been through in the last 8 months, my pain tolerance is up a bit.

Why did I get it? Its a life experience I wanted to have. Its an omage to my wife of 23 years who is my soul mate and who is part of me. It in a place where it won't show most ofthe time but I will see it every day. Me and my friends at the gym who will see it in the shower, "Not that I look at the guys at the gym in the shower"... I digress.

Stranger Than Fiction

Today I walked in on my wife mounting another guy, fortunately she flipped him over and put him into an arm bar as shown above. No, she was not cheating on me just taking her Jujitsu class. This is full contact Mixed martial arts fighting. What the hell! I have been watching the World Extreme Cage fighting on Versus for about a year now and I am fascinated by all the moves these guys can do. If you read back a blog post or two you can see I want to do some martial arts and now my wife has beat me to it. Damn. Unfortunately I cant participate myself since I have a device implanted inside me which cant come out for a few more months. But when it does I am hitting the mat and learning this stuff so I can at least defend myself if my wife decides to go wacko and try to break my arm or choke me. Provides a strong contrast to playing golf too.

Imagine a tiny 5 ft 4 in redhead fighting with these young ripped guys. Its even funnier when she turns absolutely beat red while trying to defend being choked. Impressive stuff. You go girl!

Free Bike!

I got this bike for free. My generous local cycle shop owner gave it to me after he fixed it up a bit. I spent $60 on parts and added some old parts I already had. A friend of mine built two $8000 bikes when I was building this. He spent more on water bottle cages than I spent on this bike.  Its got a bit of character, a coke can shim to keep the seat post from slipping, a huge setback seat post from an old stunt bike, and salmon colored bar tape picked out by AM to match the lettering on the frame. There's nothing like having a professional artist/designer on staff! Oh and let me tell you about the private golf instructor on my staff. His name is Michael Breed (Read a few posts back). This is another thing I get for free. Every week I get a 1 hour private golf lesson from a guy who teaches the pros and was once an assistant at Augusta National. Its all about counting your blessings now isn't it. Back to free bike. Free bike made me understand you don't need to spend $8000 to have a fun time or build your fitness. This bike has done more for my pedaling technique and quad strength than I could have imagined. When aboard my carbon race bike I find myself spinning more and doing more with less energy.

This bike is fast. It has cyclocross tires and rolls over everything from grass to dirt to gravel. It is perfect for the rails to trails path we have here. The other thing about free bike is it blew my perception of what a single speed is. You can go up steep hills quite easily and it spins very freely and is quick on flat terrain.  What did I need all those gears for anyway. Anyone in my family can ride it and ride it anywhere.  So thanks to AM (Bar tape selection) and CS (Everything else). Live hard and ride free! 
BTW: Free bike has a free water bottle cage.

No one should fight alone!

My friends and family have come through in a huge way in helping me with my fight. My friend MS, above, had a shirt made with my name on it for the Keuka triathlon. This is no easy race, I have done it myself 3 times. Since I couldn't be there this year MS did it in my honor! What a huge inspiration for me that he fought the cold water and waves and the rain and the pain and agony of a 6.2 mile run to finish the triathlon in fantastic style. Great job and thanks my friend.

My wife rode in a virtual bike race with friends cheering her on through the internet. The above bike stickers are on all our families bikes. Team Radio Shack has the same stickers on their bikes during the Tour deFrance. They support cancer survivors with this effort. DD came in 39th place in the virtual tour with 100's of our friends giving cheers through the internet!

I cant even mention all the support I have been given from my immediate and extended families and friends. Thank you all for your help and support. I could not do this without you.

My lifetime ambitions Mission accomplished (sort of)

From a very young age I have had the same list of lifetime ambitions. The first is to marry a beautiful girl. Well as you can see from the above photo, mission accomplished and then some (My wife is the one of the left). Thing is about beautiful girls they make even more beautiful girls (My daughter on the right). My other daughter is equally as beautiful but I really liked this photo so I will feature her in another post.

Ambition number 2 was to win something big (Wimbledon, The Masters etc). Well thats me on the right after winning the 1994 Indy 500. Al took a swig of milk then handed it to me. I kind of fell into this one but I am going to count it as complete.

Next up, become a highly skilled golfer. I played the course and as you can see from the sign, it must be true. Seriously I hit the ball pretty good, I spent 5 years and thousands upon thousands of range balls learning to hit a draw (99% of golfers slice, almost all pros play a draw). I have shot 18 holes in 1 under par and can drive the ball 280 yards and can work the ball at will. My putting sucks but what the hell you cant have it all.

Number 4, become an extremely fit, ripped athlete. This is me on the right at the muscleman half iron man in 2008. A very nice and talented fitness instructor at my work is responsible for the abs. 20 hours of riding running and lifting a week is responsible for the 10% body fat. It is impossible to maintain this fitness and raise and family and hold down a full time job, so don't ask me to show you the abs now (There under there somewhere I promise).

Now for the incomplete ambitions
Play guitar - I tried. Developed carpal tunnel. Tried again and at the moment I am a bit stalled in my playing ability. I need lessons bad. That and I found out I have absolutely zero musical ability, have really poor hand eye coordination and motor skills for this and have very poor rhythm. Other than that it is going really well. NOT.

Learn a foreign language - My French is awful. Nes Pas. I need to learn Italian with my beautiful wife before my brain cant do it any more.

Become a martial artist -  I took some kickboxing classes at work. I sometimes work out with a Mixed Martial Arts guy at work. He brought in this 6 inch think pad which you hold as a target, he held it for me and I kicked it, I held it for him and he nearly broke my arm.

I should note that all these accomplishments pale in comparison to the joy I get from my beautiful family. I love you guys. Your success is what drives me. Love Dad.

Half Way

I am now half way through my chemo treatment cycles. Only 12 weeks to go.
Picture of me finished with Treatment #6

 Heres a highlight of my cancer related activities
1) I put a Livestrong band on my wrist before my first chemo treatment. It has not come off.and will not come off until I am cured. I gave bands to all my family members.

2) I get tons of support from my family and friends. This has really been a huge source of help for me. I really appreciate all the things and work my supporters are doing for me.

3) My hair has not fallen out, it has gotten softer though.

4) I gave up caffeine and coffee and meat. I told my Vegan and card carrying PETA member daughter EJ I was going Veggie, then started back on the meat, but I am planning to cut back again. Someone over at together cooking keeps making delicious pot roast and it irresistable.

5) I make homemade sushi every Sunday. The pickled ginger helps with the stomach and nausea. Other favorites include lemonade, lemon water and chicken noodle soup. The rice is pretty good and bland. No raw fish here just veggies and cooked crab.

6) My wife, kids and friends take me on bike rides. I love this, they love it too. I feel much better with exercise.We do a cancer survivor ride every other Monday at 6pm. I cant ride fast but I just go until I cant go anymore.

7) I thought I had this already, but I have really come to understand the value of my family and all the joy they bring to me. I love you guys. Keep up your great attitudes, hard work and dedication to the things you enjoy. I don't care if EJ wins a Marathon (She will)  or B wins the Masters (This ones a stretch, but hey, who would have thought I would win the Indy 500,  if you think it and believe it, it will happen) or DD becomes the most sought after psychologist in western NY (she will) or AM becomes a famous Chef on the Food Network (Iron Chef AM ala cuisine!), In my mind you are all there already. Love DAD.

Innovation

Definition: Great ideas you come up with that are mocked by the status quo, you are then persecuted, your idea is stolen and some else takes credit for it.

So here's an example. I have been following the NHL playoffs. I heard about this player who got hit in the mouth with a stick. He lost 9 teeth, and he was quoted as saying "It was good that I only missed one shift". I started looking at the players. They have a lot of missing teeth,

There is of course a very simple solution to prevent the loss of teeth.

Bring that up at an NHL players meeting. First you will be mocked. "Sissy" I hear them yelling . "How do you expect us to fight?" Well that was my next presentation "No more fighting allowed in the NHL" but since you called me sissy, I am forced to drop my gloves and challenge you to a game of Parcheesi.  Next thing you know your not the NHL player safety advisor anymore (Persecution). Then 5 years down the road, someone sitting in that same room the day you showed your power point on no more broken teeth, brings out the new NHL safety guidelines (Face guards mandatory) (Stealing). Of course change happens slowly. At one time, NHL players, including goalies wore no helmets at all. Of course there were some really bad innovative ideas that actually made it into play (see wikipedia under Cooperalls). But I am pretty sure adding full face guards is a good one and will some day be de rigour. Plus the no fighting thing. What am I a friggin psychic? We know these things will eventually happen, we just need time for the status quo agents to adapt to it and for someone to come along and steal the idea.

There you have it. This has actually happened to me more times than I want to remember. Being the first out of the box with an idea, and then trying to change the status quo is almost certainly a path into ruin. Being a status quo jockey or an idea stealer is almost certainly more financially beneficial, you just don't get to sleep at night.

Time for a change

I have been taking my car to the dealer I bought it from for 5 years. Every time I go there they try to sell me some repair I don't need and ignore my comments of how the car is running. I told them the engine light came on one morning and the car stalled out and they told me I needed a $200 fuel injector cleaning without even diagnosing the car. So I decided to take the car to a different dealer. What a difference. Not only did they listen to me and find the problem I had been having for 50,000 miles and fix it (under warranty). They found another problem and fixed that under warranty. They did an excellent job and were friendly and courteous and it was a great experience. So what a difference a simple change makes. 

I had the same experience when I changed cancer centers. Better service, listened to me and reacted to my needs and I am much happier. 

So, I have been pushing myself to keep working (as in my day job designing clinical diagnostic analyzers)  through this chemotherapy and finally decided it was too much. Fortunately I have great insurance and can take time off work at full pay. So I have decided to take time off work while I undergo the chemo and really relax and let myself heal. As I left work yesterday I felt like I was leaving a piece of me behind, but I realized this change was badly needed and will be a great thing in the long run.

Why Bother

I once went to this cafe where they served a decaf latte made with non-fat milk. The cafe named all their drinks and this one was called the "Why Bother". Similarly I have a bunch of stuff for sale on e-bay right now. Anyone unfamiliar with how the bidding goes on e-bay, Even though the listing lasts 6 days,  most people will do their bidding in the final day or even final hours. Most items sell for about half the price of a new one or you can look at other similar items and see what they sold for to get an idea of how much you should bid. So with 3 days to go in the bidding for my items people are penny bidding. Someone bids 1 cent then gets trumped by someone bidding 2 cents or some bids $1 then some else bids $1.10. Seriously, do they think that by bidding in penny increments they are actually going to win an item. These are items will sell for hundreds of dollars.

Some people are so focused on saving pennies today. When its hundred of thousands perhaps millions of dollars in the future we want to focus on.

Both people are doing what I call ass holing it. Definition: If your an ass hole you believe that your penny manipulations actually have an effect on the final outcome, when in the end your really just bidding to see your self bid or drinking a Latte that has no flavor! Neither is productive or enjoyable.

Together Making Sushi

Well were crossin' over here at the blog-a-sphere. I know the Together Cooking folks are out Mountain Biking, on my bikes by the way. So if they can do my thing, I can do theirs, Truth be told I cant do my thing now so I thought I would russle up some Sushi. I saw this great throw down with Bobby Flay and he was crap at making sushi and I thought I can do better than that. So I took the tips from Marimoto and the crazy Korean Sushi guy who took it to the flay and, well, filleted him. I made the best Veggie (Yes EJ will love it) Sushi Ever. Shown is a carrot, cuke, sesame roll with cilantro and wasabi.  Garnished with Soy Sauce Wasabi and sriracha (Spelled right by the way). Great with shaved pickled Ginger which is also good for nausea. And speaking of nausea, I tell you if Medical Marijuana was legal in New York... I bet if those state senators were going through chemo they would be like hey emergency session right now,  legalize the stuff, immediately!!!!