23 February, 2008
We ride. Again.
Last May, I rode in my first ever Sam's Club MS 150 (Frisco/Ft. Worth). Along with the rest of my team, I rode a little over 150 miles over two days. Thanks in large part to the support of the blogging community, I was able to raise $500 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Well, I'm back for more, and I hope to do even better this year.
On May 3-4, I'll be riding with The Wheeler Dealers, an MS 150 team founded in 2005 by my friend Bob. I'm pleased to be riding with them again this year, not just because they have so much fun and because a couple of my recumbent buddies have joined the team, but because I've seen firsthand the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis. You see, Bob's wife, Gerry, has secondary progressive MS and has been confined to a wheelchair for the past eleven years.
Turtle and I first met Bob and Gerry in 2002, and each year we've seen Gerry lose a little bit more of her mobility and strength to the effects of MS. She's a lively, outgoing woman who handles her disease with grace and courage, but it's tragic to see her increasingly become a prisoner of her own body.
Then there are our friends Barb and Joe, another couple who both suffer from MS. Joe was diagnosed first, and was already using a motorized wheelchair to get around, by the time we met him. Barb is able to walk using a cane, but has an entirely different set of symptoms than Joe's.
MS is a wasting disease that presents itself differently in each of those afflicted with it, and it takes away dignity and mobility. If I can do a little something to help by just riding my bike—because I can ride my bike—then I'm in.
But I need your help. If you feel, as I do, that finding a cure for MS is a worthy cause, I hope you'll help me to meet my fundraising goal by sponsoring me in this year's MS 150. It's easy to make your donation online, and it's tax deductible. It doesn't even have to be a lot of money. $10? $5? Every little bit helps. And if you know others who might be interested in helping out, please refer them to this posting or to my official MS 150 donation page.
Thanks, and God bless you.
No blog for the weary. Or wicked. Whatever.
Hi gang! Remember me? I'm the guy who used to post here with annoying regularity* in those halcyon days before my employer got bought out, I got assigned to a different development group, and I was issued a laptop computer as a perk** of my new position.
It's not that I don't think of you guys. I do. Weird and snark-worthy things are happening to me on a regular basis, but by the time I get to a computer out of sight of the surveillance cameras I'm either too tired to post or the memory cells that held the anecdote have been trod beneath the hobnailed boots of some XML transformation or the eleventy-seventh fruitless e-mail exchange between yours truly and a QA tester to whom I'm unable to convey even the simplest of technical concepts. It's not the first time I've wished I had taken Hindi in high school – or kept a better polish on my Spanish, at least.
Turtle and I are doing okay. She's still looking for a job and trying to keep me de-stressed. I'm trying to take advantage of the occasionally unseasonably warm day to sneak out for a training ride on my bike. The trips to the cardiologist were a bit discouraging, but he's not prepared to crack me open just yet. I'm to continue doing what I've been doing, though it has been suggested that I do what I've been doing at a somewhat reduced level of intensity. Riding for a couple hours at 90% of my maximum heart rate is not a great idea, apparently.
Things at work are pretty good, too. Sure, the hours are longer, the cubicles smaller and completely exposed, and the folks holding the purse strings are so tight that I have to make a show of sneezing all over my stuff to keep it from disappearing; but the work I'm doing now is interesting and even kind of fun. My new teammates are good guys and we have some laughs. One of the guys looks like Kevin James' XL (as opposed to XXXL) brother and has a phone with a Banana Phone ring tone. When he gets a call, we all jump up and dance around. Okay... I get up and dance around while the other guys look at me like I've forgotten my meds. Sometimes, I fire up the Banana Phone video*** through my laptop speakers and watch while Kevin James XL scrambles to figure out where he's left his phone. It's a hoot.
Last week, I had a weird dream that was going to share with you guys, but I didn't get to it in time. Now all I can remember about it was that someone I knew (I don't know who, only that I knew her) showed up at my work wearing a Hilary Clinton mask and wanting to discuss her “sweater puppies”. Probably just as well that it's slipped my mind. I've had about all I can stomach of The Hilmeister and all the rest of those gasbags vying for the office of Commander in Chief.
* But that's another topic entirely. Frankly, I'd rather discuss politics. Or have a root canal.
** Read, “Now that you can take your development environment with you, we'd like you to soldier on after you've completed your 9½-12 hours at the office. Yeaah... that'd be great.”
*** A retooled knock-off of the most excellent Badger Song.
It's not that I don't think of you guys. I do. Weird and snark-worthy things are happening to me on a regular basis, but by the time I get to a computer out of sight of the surveillance cameras I'm either too tired to post or the memory cells that held the anecdote have been trod beneath the hobnailed boots of some XML transformation or the eleventy-seventh fruitless e-mail exchange between yours truly and a QA tester to whom I'm unable to convey even the simplest of technical concepts. It's not the first time I've wished I had taken Hindi in high school – or kept a better polish on my Spanish, at least.
Turtle and I are doing okay. She's still looking for a job and trying to keep me de-stressed. I'm trying to take advantage of the occasionally unseasonably warm day to sneak out for a training ride on my bike. The trips to the cardiologist were a bit discouraging, but he's not prepared to crack me open just yet. I'm to continue doing what I've been doing, though it has been suggested that I do what I've been doing at a somewhat reduced level of intensity. Riding for a couple hours at 90% of my maximum heart rate is not a great idea, apparently.
Things at work are pretty good, too. Sure, the hours are longer, the cubicles smaller and completely exposed, and the folks holding the purse strings are so tight that I have to make a show of sneezing all over my stuff to keep it from disappearing; but the work I'm doing now is interesting and even kind of fun. My new teammates are good guys and we have some laughs. One of the guys looks like Kevin James' XL (as opposed to XXXL) brother and has a phone with a Banana Phone ring tone. When he gets a call, we all jump up and dance around. Okay... I get up and dance around while the other guys look at me like I've forgotten my meds. Sometimes, I fire up the Banana Phone video*** through my laptop speakers and watch while Kevin James XL scrambles to figure out where he's left his phone. It's a hoot.
Last week, I had a weird dream that was going to share with you guys, but I didn't get to it in time. Now all I can remember about it was that someone I knew (I don't know who, only that I knew her) showed up at my work wearing a Hilary Clinton mask and wanting to discuss her “sweater puppies”. Probably just as well that it's slipped my mind. I've had about all I can stomach of The Hilmeister and all the rest of those gasbags vying for the office of Commander in Chief.
* But that's another topic entirely. Frankly, I'd rather discuss politics. Or have a root canal.
** Read, “Now that you can take your development environment with you, we'd like you to soldier on after you've completed your 9½-12 hours at the office. Yeaah... that'd be great.”
*** A retooled knock-off of the most excellent Badger Song.
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