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The Husband here, (and now Dad )

Well, I just got back from my first legit barefoot run. I figured I would type up a bit of info about the run and my background and then some various bits of info regarding how I decided to start running barefoot and why. Then I’ll tell how it went.

I was in the Army Reserve for 6 years (including a 15-month tour in Iraq), but I never developed and affinity for running because it was always such a regulated chore. I like running alone at my own pace, but Army style running was unfun for me. Furthermore, my Army time led to back problems which are not uncommon for servicemembers. This further steered me away from running. I have, for the last few years, struggled with staying fit because my lower back gives me so many problems. Running/jogging has become a rather painful process for me; the jarring of my foot’s impact on the road causes discomfort during, and serious soreness after, each run.

In any case, I was reading a Men’s Health mag one day and ran across an article on barefoot running. It’s really long (6 pages), but it is a great read for runners:

The Men Who Live Forever: Men’s Health circa 2003

I have further researched barefooting and found a strong internet following. I am sure it has been discussed at length here as well. Several articles and anecdotes I have read suggest that barefooting is easier on your back because it eliminates the up-and-down “jogging and jarring” motion in running. That is the main reason I have taken on this training.

Here are a few good links I collected while checking out the subject:

runningbarefoot.org
keith-in-training.com
barefootrunner.org

I have committed myself to training to run a barefoot marathon – hopefully the Country Music Marathon in Nashville next April – as a goal to drive and motivate me. I might just go for the half this coming year, though, depending on how things go, but I intend on running a couple 5k and 10k races in the mean time. I will chronicle my training as I go. I may drop a link later for those that may want to follow it.

My first real barefoot run was today. I ran about 2.5 miles and walked another 2.5 – about half of each was barefoot; the other half was wearing Vibram Fivefingers Sprints. I had a few blisters come up on my soles between my biggest toe and second biggest and another on the instep of each ball. My first significant barefoot walk was about five days ago during which I got blisters in the same locations but on my second (actually my longest) toes on each foot. From what I have read, this is just part of it. I am willing to endure the blisters if it means that I can return to running pain-free despite my bad back. Pics of said blisters will be forthcoming.

Thank God for weekends because teaching would certainly be unbearable without them. My chosen profession requires a lot of – how does one say it – patience? Somehow that just does not sum it up. I am simply amazed by how sheerly stupid, (and I do mean stupid), adolescent human beings can be. In any case, I can describe my experience with certain idiotic teens at a later time.

Happier subject: Fatherhood grows ever closer for me. My joy is compounded by knowing that little Asher’s arrival can only serve to grow my wife and I closer in our relationship. Our little trio is going to be so much fun. I am not one of those blind optimists, however. I do know an infant is tons of work, but it will be more than worth it. In the weeks ahead, wifey and I will be preparing our home for the little guy and all his curiosity. Lots of little projects to be tackled: the work before the work. It is great fun though. Home improvement always gives me a great sense of accomplishment and I rarely take on a job around the house that does not have a practical benefit for myself or the rest of the family.

Great times await, but for now I will enjoy my well-deserved weekend away from my little hormone-drunk hoodlums.

Remember the 80′s? I do. How about the 90′s? Those were the times… the times where I cruised through school with nary a care in the world. I loved school, every minute of it. Every minute, of course, until I started high school. For the three years that followed, I hated life. School was dangerous ground for an under-grown, drug-free pastor’s kid with a big mouth. Never did I suspect that my destiny would be to return to the halls of some rural high school and stand at the front of the class rather than sit in the back like I did for 7 years.

I am officially a high school teacher. If it blows your mind, then that makes at least two of us. Any one of my high school teachers would likely be aghast to hear that I am in charge of a group of teens. But that is now my job. I mold young minds. And the residents of rural middle Tennessee are just going to have to get used to that.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t take my responsibility to educate lightly. In fact, I have already been working pretty hard to prepare for the rigors of teaching on a daily basis. Luckily the education bug runs in my family: my wife, sister and mother all have education degrees. I mooch off them whenever possible for tips and lesson plans.

Thursday will be my first full day of actual instruction, and I will be doing everything in my power to strike the fear of God into those kids. I don’t intend on making them afraid of me, just what the class will entail. I want them to be ready to work and have the expectation that I will stick it to them with heavy reading and writing assignments. That way, if I do lighten up as the year goes by, the students will view it as a privilege, and I will still be able to get the level of performance out of them that I need so they can move on and make the necessary grade. This is all in theory, of course.

Anyhow, I can’t wait until Thursday; however, I am sure my next post will be a screaming rant and have something to do with how stressed out I am. – just something for readers to look forward to.

- The Husband

Well, I graduated from college. That means I now have to get a job. After all, that is what I went to college for, right? – to be able to get a decent career that didn’t entail manual labor?

I already interviewed for a teaching position at Houston County High School: my wife’s former position as 9th grade English teacher. Even though the school is nearly an hour’s drive away from our home I would still be ecstatic to land the job. Of course, it would be wonderful to teach at the school less than two miles down the street, but that school is roughly four times the size of HCHS. In addition, I already know the HC administration and faculty pretty well and love them. It really is a great school; it reminds me of the rural Kentucky school in which I grew up.

In anticipation of such a commute, I have begun trying to get my wrecked sedan back into working order. My hatchback is running wonderfully (although it is due for a new battery), but the sedan has air conditioning. It would be a huge frustration making the hour-long drive home every day at 3:00 p.m. with the sun blaring and no A/C. I have also been investigating the possibility of adding a factory A/C system to the hatchback; it looks as though I could accomplish it with very low expense but a lot of elbow grease. My hatchback also was the recent recipient of a new CD player to which I can directly connect my Ipod and control from the deck – best graduation present ever (from my beloved wife, of course).

Plan B, if I don’t get the HCHS job, is to go visit the different principals at the local high schools so they can have a face to associate with the ridiculously long application they will be looking at. Always helps.

Yes, this is my first post in forever. I just wanted talk a bit about how our hose is coming along; drywall finishers are working on it as we speak. I will be marathoning over the next two weeks to finish all my finals, complete the house, graduate and move all our stuff into the house…not necessarily in that order.

Anyhow, here is a really cool video commentary on the cultural impact of Islam in the UK. You might find it thought provoking. Warning: he does use a couple words of profanity, but it is worth it.

Edit: I can’t get it to embed, so here’s a link.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=418_1176494781&p=1

I have to take two of the three Praxis tests tomorrow that are required before I can get my teaching license. I am not looking forward to it. The reason: I feel very unprepared. Instead of preparing for these tests over the past few days/weeks, I have been too busy knocking out observation hours, knocking out walls and doing inconsequential and/or impractical school work. I am not saying some of those things are not more important, (I can retake the test, but we have to have a finished home to move into in May), but going into a high-pressure situation unprepared is among my least favorite things to do in the world.

In any case, I did get a helping hand today working on the house; Joe Green, former roommate and close friend, came to blast down some sheetrock and clean up with me. I need to recruit “the guys” more often. We accomplished a lot and had some good talk time too.

Well, as some of us are painfully aware, I am in the Army Reserve. The 372nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment is very small as military units go – only 18-20 soldiers at full strength. We currently have about 12 actively participating in Battle Assemblies. Nearly everyone in the unit right now was in Iraq together for that long, painful year.

Enough setup; My six-year, “ETS” mark is coming up soon, and I joined around the same time as several of the other fellas in my unit. I decided to write about this because this past weekend was the last “Drill” for one of my best friends in the world, Staff Sgt. Mark Rickert. Mark and I were in Iraq together and endured tons of BS at the hands of “the man,” (some inside the unit, but mostly from outside forces). Our entire unit is very tight, I believe, due to the immense ammount of crap we went through together. For veryone who was in Iraq with the 372nd, I feel inextricably linked, which is wierd considering our backgrounds and personalities. Mark is an outspoken, yet introspective guy who is currently pursuing his Master’s of English at MTSU. He is a bit of a jock, and likely not a guy I would have become friends with had we not been looking death and/or serious injury in the eye on a daily basis. Mark and I have engaged in hundreds of great conversations through the past several years, and I feel like he is family – the kind of relationship where you know that no matter what you do to offend each-other, you will still work it out. Having Mark there makes even the most boring drill weekend bearable.

Sgt. Brian Sharkey is one of the most, if not the most talented broadcast journalist in the U.S. Army. This guy was a complete surprise in Iraq; everyone voted Sharkey as “most likely to freak out and frag someone in the heat of battle.” He proved everyone wrong by producing several very professional products – garnering him kudos from lots of high brass, including several Generals. He was the rock of the unit, especially whe the pressure was on and deadlines were hovering. We spent tons and tons of time together just shooting the breeze and solving the world’s problems. The dude is a true friend. He may not fit the military profile of what a soldier should look like, (He’s about 30 pounds overweight), but I would pick him as the first member of my team if the mission included anything with video or broadcast production. I will definitely miss him.

Sgt. Ryan Smith, a hardcore, sarcastic, sceptical, hard-drinking, death-metal-loving, historian and literature critic, is another guy who I feel very close to and will likely never see again after his final drill next month. He is yet another guy who I would likely never have hung out with had we not been stranded in the desert together. I had the distinct pleasure of pulling this guy out from under his overturned Humvee on Route Irish in Baghdad. Everyone at the scene was sure he was going to die, but he is a stubborn bastard. I held his kneck (which I thought was broken) stable (thank you, YMCA lifeguard and First Aid classes) while a Special Forces medic worked on him. Dude came out of it with only a concussion, cracked pelvis, and punctured lung. This guy single handedly disproved the power of positive thinking for me – recovering quickly and completely while I left Iraq with a messed up back. Smitty is one of the most negative people I know, but somehow that is an endearing trait. He is also a very talented writer. In many ways, we are like foils – I am the Tigger to his Eore. The unit wouldn’t be the same without him.

Todd, aka Sgt. Pruden, is the skinniest fat man I know. (Don’t ask.) Todd has also become a great friend despite his pessimistic tendencies and the fact that he is an alcoholic Catholic (I like to rib him about both, though neither is likely 100% true). Todd is not the life of the party, but you somehow know that it could never happen without him.

Staff Sgt. Patrick Compton is likely the most knowledgeable member of the 372nd, but you wouldn’t know it because he can most often be found “supervising,” if he can be found at all. He gets away with a lot, and has taught me much about getting out of work in the Army. Most anything fun that happens outside our unit with unit members, at home or abroad, is the result of Patrick’s prompting. In that way, especially, he is a leader.

I could go on and on; guys like Risner, Ebel, Sullivan – though all great guys, were not with us in Iraq. Larrew is here in Clarksville, part of APSU ROTC and involved with the campus Navigators ministry – I see him all the time. The higher ranking members (1st Sgt. Peeden, Maj. Meeker, Sgt. Yarber) are special for completely different reasons. Of course, there is Capt. Beck – but I will save him for another time.

Doggone it, it will feel so good to be done with the Army. It is easy to see, though, that my departure will be bitterweet. The friendships that have been forged in the fury of war are impossible to replace. Despite our vast and numerous differences, the members of the 372nd have formed “a bond that can’t be explained,” as Bill Guarnere said in that most famous of WWII stories. I can’t really compare us to some of the bravest, most hard-core military warriors in U.S. history; maybe we are more like a “Band of Cousins.” We do not see each other so often, but whenever we are together it is easy to see that we are family. Mark, Brian, Ryan, Todd, Patrick, Jason…. and everyone else – I am going to miss you.

My EK Sedan has begun its Phoenix, “rise-from-the-ashes” comback to daily-driver wonderdom!!!

Here is a Pixor of Lafawnduh, the Honda, in my new garage (or GAY-rojjsh – as they say in England). It feels so nice to have a place, protected from the elements, in which I can work on whatever automotive project I so desire and store any greasy mechanical tool or part I wish without fear of destroying my living space. Hooray for Garages.

Oh yeah… I put the Mark III Jetta Lip on my hatchback, too. It didn’t fit too well, so I had to do some modification. I also ran it through the new $3 car wash down the street. It has a free vaccum too! Can’t beat that.

That is my new moniker. If I could sew, I would embroider a doggone huge “D” on my sweater. That’s right, I busted out all the sheetrock on the outside walls of our house (the inside of the outside wall, er… you get the point.). It is quite a dusty job, but definitely a satisfying one. It moves quickly and you can definitely tell immediate progress as you move through the room. This is a clear contrast with most manual labor I have performed in the past, namely mechanical work on the myriad Hondas I have owned. I was able to clean up the whole room after “deconstructing” it in just a couple hours and with just a hammer, ladder and my gloved hands as tools.

At this point, we will finally start seeing some real progress toward our final vision for the house. That’s right, we have decided to contract out part of the work on the house. Namely, the drywall (it’s heavy and there are just the two of us). I have to hang some insulation in some areas, obviously, but drywall will be going up within the next couple weeks. We are redoing most of the walls in fresh new sheetrock, but some of the ceilings as well. The electrician will be in to do his thing in the morning, and a plumber is on his way by the end of the week.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. It just might take a little hammer work from “The De-constructor” to have that light shine bright.