Before the long holiday I emailed the folks over at the Trollinger marathon in Germany. Last week they held the 9th annual Heilbronner-Trollinger marathon, but I hadn't seen a date for 2010 yet.

When I returned to work today, I had my response. Of course I already saw the date on the web site over the weekend - so they updated it since my email. In their reply they said they would love for me to come to Germany and run in their race. As my last name is the same as their race, they said "your name is good for a story in our local media" - that means I really need to train and for once, be serious about it. I have run 13.1 miles 4 times (none of them very well) - if you would have seen me after the 1st one especially and perhaps the last one you would have thought it would kill me - now I am going to try 26.2? I wrote back and said if I don't get to training the local media will be writing about an unfortunate incident. Probably "stupid American collapses, dies in Trollinger Marathon". I can't have that. Plus I could become an international celebrity. Look out ladies of Germany - Vanilla Heat is headed your way in 364 days...

Another cool thing is that Heilbronn is where the race begins. The oldest known Trollinger that my family has traced ourselves too (actually Drollinger) was Bernhardt Drollinger born in 1524 in Dietlingen, Karlsruhe, Baden Germany - what's sweet about that is it is just down the road from Heilbronn. Hell the race might even go through there for all I know - I haven't really looked at the course map yet. I do know its close...

So hopefully I will update this page and start training over the next year. I have a bad habit of poor follow through - let's see where this goes. At least for today I did pretty well. I managed to hit the gym for the first time in over a quarter. I figured I would just start light with a small introduction and mostly walking. A quick two miles and that would be good for the first day. I started off walking for the first 1/2 mile, then brought it up to 5 mph. After another 1/2 mile, I brought it back to a walk for 1/4 mile. Then back to 5 mph and up to 5.5 mph for 1/4 mile. Moving up to 6.0 for a 1/4 mile, 6.5 for 1/4 mile and back to 5.5 for the last 1/4 mile before cooling down with a 2 minute walk. Surprisingly it felt pretty good. I barely breathed through my mouth, which is good considering I think my nasal passages don't work right. I ought to see an ear, nose & throat person because it always feels stuffy, but I am not sick. When I was regularly running local events, I used to smear a little Vicks under my nostrils to keep them open. So I could use a look in there I am sure.

A good day today...let's see what tomorrow brings...

In March I went to England, Scotland and Wales. It was a good trip. The negatives were that I didn’t call ahead of time, so the credit card companies kept declining everything and my cell phone didn’t work, so I couldn’t call in and tell them it was me. I rented a car and took out insurance because of driving on the right side of the car and left side of the road, I wanted to be sure it was okay. I was feeling pretty confident after 3 days, but that’s when I hit someone in the round about. Not too bad though – 100 pounds deductible and I was set. The rental car company told me to be careful of the speed cameras – they didn’t tell me London has a congestion charge. Basically, if you drive in the city from 7 am – 6 pm Monday – Friday, you get a ticket. If you pay it that day, it is only 8 pounds. I didn’t know anything about it and was surprised to get 2 charges in the mail. First, Budget charged me $82 just to send my information to the cops, then the cops sent me two violations for a total of $360. That sucked – but otherwise, I loved it. I drove over 1300 miles and 3 countries in 6 days, saw rain (which is exciting when you live in the desert) and lots of history. I would go back any time (maybe I wouldn’t drive this time).

As for school, I am back enrolled in a program. In February I signed up the Ph.D./Higher Education Administration. The first class was 3 weeks and you had to score 85 or higher to be accepted in the program. I didn’t want to get too interested just in case I didn’t make it in. I ended up with 93 and was accepted. From there it was a 2 week orientation and now I am halfway through my first 8 week course. This class is over in mid June, at which time I have to go to Atlanta for a week to complete my year 1 residency. I have heard from those recently completing the same residency this month that it is very intense, 5 solid days from 8 am – 5 pm including Saturday & Sunday and it includes 5 oral presentations plus papers. Yuck! I am supposed to be writing a paper now, but I am bored and not into it tonight. It is due tomorrow and I still need about 1500 words to complete. It won’t be that bad (hopefully) to wrap up tomorrow. So far, the class is going well and I have 100% through 4 weeks.

Hopefully I will get back into running soon. I have been a real slacker about that. I have nothing on the upcoming calendar. I love the Big Man Run that is in September in Somerville, MA; but the bar went bankrupt and they moved the race. The new location is Worchester, MA, which is fine by me. The bad part for this year is that instead of early September, it is mid July. I can’t take time off for that because I will have to use my last week of vacation for the residency. Maybe I can do it next year, but I am still planning on spending probably 2 weeks in Europe. The Heilbronner Trollinger marathon appears to be set for May 16, 2010. I hope to be there. I might have to sign up with a group to prepare – I saw that I can do 6 months with 1^st Marathon for $250. That might be my best bet…

Only a month away until the new President takes over. That's fine for me. I don't buy into all of the hope that people seem to throw at Obama. That is too much to put on one guy. I hope he does well, but I think some people are expecting miracles. Someone passed me the Kool-Aide and I took a drink. Looking at his plans for bioenergy, stem cells and infrastructure, I made some pick ups in the stock market that hopefully will pay off. I am not too concerned about him.

What I don't like is the same thing I didn't like before - the choice of VP. As I mentioned before, Biden has been charged with plagiarism throughout his career - which as a university instructor telling students not to cheat on papers it makes it a challenge when they see you can still get a good job. He failed classes due to plagiarism, cheated in law school and afterward while running for President in 1988, plagiarized a portion of his speech. So much so that eventual Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis ran an advertisement about his plagiarism. Plagiarists lie and cheat to get what they want.

Here are some things that I think bear watching. "Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy" (ClintonDemocrats, 2008).

He went on to say: "Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right" (ClintonDemocrats, 2008).

What is he preparing us for? Yes, I am sure someone internationally will try something, but I don't think it will be anything serious. Any time a new leader is in place, others will see how far they can get – especially a new guy with limited experience. But maybe there is more?

Today on CNN Biden discusses what he was promised if he accepted the VP gig – "When Obama talked to him about the vice-presidential slot, Biden recalled, "I said, 'I don't want to be picked unless you're picking me for my judgment. I don't want to be the guy that goes out and has a specific assignment. ... I want a commitment from you that in every important decision you'll make, every critical decision, economic and political, as well as foreign policy, I'll get to be in the room." (Hornick & Levs, 2008)...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Being informed of decisions is one thing, but keep in mind he is the number 2 guy. He does not need to be in the same room as the President. For one thing, it isn't good for national security for them to be together. Now what happens? Someone tries to take out Obama and can get two for one? Then we have President Nancy Pelosi? Yikes! It sounds like he wants to be involved, in the same room and a part of the decision process for his own reasons and to maybe feel powerful. CNN also reports "Vice president-elect says he helped pick Hillary Clinton for top State post" (Hornick & Levs, 2008). So now he is picking staff and helping set up an administration that he has influence in? Sounds suspicious to me.

He has tried twice to become President and can't get above 1% of the vote. Now he can step into the VP role and talk about people testing the President. The country is still racist – international threats are not the only thing we have to worry about. It could be someone domestic attempts to put the country to the test. I still think that President Johnson had some influence or hand at President Kennedy's death.

He has history as a cheater, he found a way to complete his degree. He tried and failed twice to become President. If you can't get in the right way, maybe there is cheating. He talks a lot about Kennedy. And he always looks like an angry, man leering in the shadows. It seems like he is trying to get too involved too quickly in decisions and areas of power. Why is that?

References:

ClintonDemocrats. (October 20, 2008). Biden: Obama will be tested. Retrieved December 22, 2008 from http://clintondems.com/2008/10/biden-obama-will-be-tested/.

Hornick, E. & Levs, J. (December 22, 2008). What Obama promised Biden", CNN. Retrieved December 22, 2008 from http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/21/transition.wrap/index.html.