Random Leaves Floating in the Stream of Life

Erica Strange Wins the Game

2012-01-23T19:29:00.000-05:00

Every person has one of those moments when they meet or see somebodyand think, “they have the perfectlife or they seem so successful”. Envious, we examine our own lives and ponderwhich decisions of our past might have prevented us from having that life. Itis in these moments that a bright light shines upon our inner souls, revealing theflaws of our past that cast the shadows of discontent upon our self-identify.Then a voice deep inside asks us, “Why do we never seem to win the game?”

Four years ago, we met somebody struggling with that question. Hername was Erica Strange of the CBC show Being Erica. Her character was a 32 yearold rising star that made a series of bad decisions and ended up as a flameout,working in a dead end job, living with her cat and wondering how she ended upin this place. She meets a time-travelling therapist known as Dr. Tom who givesuses time travel therapy to resolve the regrets and help her to “win the game”.

I have to admit that I was drawn to Being Erica because it was a timetravel show. I was looking forward to her saving the world from the past, experiencingsignificant historical events and meeting famous historical figures. Basically,I was expecting a remake of Quantum Leap with a psychotherapy twist. While someepisodes of Being Erica had those story elements and time travel was a storyvehicle, it wasn’t really a time travel show. It was really the story of awoman’s quest to eliminate the discontent of her present and obtain the futureshe wanted by resolving the events of her past.

Erica’s quest has been the subject of much dissection by the show’sfans. It has been documented in multiple formats, critiqued from a variety ofperspectives and alternative storylines debated all over the internet. In caseyou’ve missed all the excitement, one of the best show recaps/critiques canbe found on TVAngie’s website. All ofthe episodes can also be seen on youtube. However, it wasn’t the technicaldebates that I found most fascinating. It was the bond fans were forming withthe show and understanding why it was happening.

During that first season, fans began to emotionally connect with Erica’scharacter. They started posting online how the show “spoke” to them and howthey were using Erica’s lessons to resolve problems in their own lives. Theshow was becoming something much more than evening entertainment. It was beingincorporated into people’s daily lives. I think that connection had somethingto do with Erica being an onscreen personification of that voice deep inside ustrying to cope with the discontent in our lives. Our inner challenges werereflected in Erica’s struggles with the feelings of inadequateness, love, longing,death, friendship, being disappointed and meeting society’s expectations. Herinward exploration and outward transformations became ours as we applied the lessons from her past to our futures.

In the “Erica Interrupted” episode in Season 3, Erica is strugglingwith the fact that all her work to change her life for the better had been adream. In the next to last scene, a vision of Erica’s brother (Leo) meets her ona bridge. Erica tells Leo, “Even if everything I’ve experienced wasn’treal, I’ve been changed by it, and that’s real.” Then Leo disappears and Dr. Tom, acting as asurrogate for her inner voice, informs Erica that she had passed the test.Erica had finally realized that “winning the game” had nothing to do with theoutward things we possess or accomplish but rather had everything to do with findinghappiness through the inward changes that lead us to contentment.

In the age of reality showsand formula vampire, legal, medical and crime scene investigation dramas, itjust doesn’t seem like there is room on television for shows about the philosophical exploration of our lives. The fact that a show like this was even given a chanceon network television was truly remarkable. It refutes the corporate mindsetthat television has to be theater for the mindless to be successful. GoodbyeErica, your fans are going to miss you!

Guide to Running the Athens Classic Marathon

2011-11-19T16:50:00.001-05:00

Someone once said, "Few things in life match the thrill of finishing amarathon." And even fewer things matchthe thrill of finishing a marathon in the place where it all started. In 490 BC, the Athenians had just defeatedthe Persians in the Battle of Marathon and a messenger named Pheidippides wassent to Athens to bring news of the victory. Legend states Pheidippidesfollowed the route of the present day Athens Classic Marathon and ended up inspiringthe race we know today. For marathonrunners everywhere, the Athens Classic Marathon is not just another race. It isa pilgrimage to experience the most epic run in our sport’s history and touchthe place where the marathon was born.

When I was considering running the Athens Marathon, I had many questions about it but found little advice online. So, I thought I’d take some time to detail myexperience with the 2011 Athens Classic Marathon including how I approached training for this race, discusswhat it was like to use a marathon tour company, provide some background on race organization and detail the course and hopefullyprovide some useful advice for others who are considering running the AthensClassic Marathon.

Howshould I train for the Athens Classic Marathon Route?
The Athens Classic Marathon route has a reputation for being one ofthe most difficult of the major marathons, so training for it is a must. If you are lucky enough to live in a mountainous area, training on a long, slow, upward grade will prepare your legs for this course. Because there really is nothing like that in Florida totrain on, I had to develop a "plan b". To prepare, I hit the gym for leg strengthening work during the early parts of my training plan. To build endurance, I did weekly 5 mile runs on an inclined treadmill. My personal feeling is that most of the actual uphill during the marathon felt like an incline setting of 4-5 on my treadmill. However, there are some short segments that felt like an 8 setting. Overall, I think my training approach worked because I came in under my target pace and the course didn’t seem near as tough as its reputation made it.

Using aTour Company to Handle Marathon Logistics

Running a marathon abroad poses several difficulties. First there isthe logistics of getting there and navigating in a large, unfamiliar,metropolitan city. Another is the language barrier and inthe case of Greece, reading an entirely different alphabet. I had concernsabout running in a place with all these issues and looked for somebody tohandle the marathon logistics for me. I discovered there were a number of tour companies on the internet offering generic marathontravel packages. Then I found Apostolos Greek Tours after typing “Athens Marathon”on a google search. Apostolos is one of a few companies specializing in complete runner support travel packages for the Athens ClassicMarathon. I have to admit, I wasvery reluctant to use a tour company. I had never used a tour group for avacation and I usually travel alone. I was also terrified about being hit with hidden fees andgetting stuck in a crappy hotel. However, the scarce online reviews I could find about Apostolos were very positive. Jeff Galloway was also associatedwith them and since I had always had positive experiences with his programs, Idecided to take the plunge. Because there are many others out there withsimilar concerns about using marathon tour companies, I would like to take amoment to describe my experience with Apostolos.

Even though Apostolos was more expensive than other tour companies advertisingsimilar services on the internet, they really delivered on their promise to provide me with a greatmarathon experience.

Tour Group at the Parthenon

Everything was as described on the internet and there wereno hidden expenses. The cost included meals (all breakfasts, pre- andpost-marathon dinners), the hotel, race entry fees (with guaranteed entry), tour bus and guide expenses. I was promptly met at the airport upon arrival, a pre-paid cab was waiting to take me toa nice host hotel on the coast. Jeff Galloway was there throughout our stay and provided the group with a running workshop and was available for any running questions we had. The buses were new/comfortable and we wereprovided with a knowledgeable guide for our tours to archaeological sites aroundAthens. They registered us for the marathon and our packets were waiting when we arrived in Greece (though we received them at the marathon expo).

For the marathon itself, their tour buses drove us from the hotel to thestart line in Marathon (it was a nice touch to watch a documentary on theBattle of Marathon while driving over). At the halfway point, a car and staffperson was waiting for us with water/food. It also doubled as a SAG vehicle forthose who needed to drop out of the race. At the finish line, they had astation set up with food/water which made a huge difference when I was cold andneeded sugar fast. A bus was waiting to take me back to the hotel when itwas all over. Apostolos did a great job taking care of everything and all I literally had to do was run the marathon.

After the event,they provided a nice celebration dinner at the hotel with Greek dancers and anawards ceremony. When it was time to return home, they provided a cab to get meback to the airport. Best and most surprising of all, I made a lot of newrunning friends by joining the tour group. I’d highly recommend Apostolos to anyonewanting guided support for this race and would strongly recommend them toanybody running Athens as their first marathon.

And while I am on the topic of tour companies, what about the issue of sightseeingbefore the marathon? I have read some conflicting discussion on the internet asto whether touring the sites of Athens will impact your marathon performance. Iguess if I was an elite runner, I’m sure it would have some kind of impact.But, I’m not such a runner. I walked several miles up and down hillsseeing the sites for two days before the marathon and was quite tired eachnight. However, I didn’t notice anyresidual fatigue when it came time to run the marathon. I guess I would saythat it would be silly not to see the unique, world-class archaeological sites around Athens just for the sake of finishing a marathon a few minutes faster, but listen to your own body and act accordingly.

TheMarathon Expo Experience


Marathon Expo Hall (photo courtesy of Athan Arvanitis)

Typical View of the Expo

The marathon expo was held at the Zappeion Conferenceand Exhibition Center. This building, which was completed in 1888, hosted thefencing events at the first modern Olympics. Despite its age, the buildinglooked brand new. The expo was well organized and most of the majorsportswear providers were there. The design of the building forced theexhibitors into narrow, long halls making it very crowded and difficult attimes to move around and see exhibitors. Some of the interesting things (to me)about the expo included the cacophony of many different languages, seeing gear/fuelused by European runners and being accosted by people hawking overpriced olivepicking tours. I thought it was novel experience, but its no big deal if you miss it.

Guide tothe Athens Classic Marathon Route

Some Race Specifics
Because of its history and its significance, it should be emphasizedthat most people run this marathon for the experience rather than setting a PR.Runners can be seen taking photos, chatting with family members, running withstrollers, taking their time to soak up the surroundings and basically nottreating their finish times very seriously.

The marathon follows a wide, pavedroad to its finish. There is no traffic in either direction of the road and itis well controlled/policed. Crowdsupport can be seen along the entire route, though most people are concentratedin the various towns. They clap and shout “Bravo” as the runnerspass by. While timing chips are read at the 10K, 13.1 M, and 30K and 37.5Kpoints, there are no clocks along the route to show the time, so I’d recommendwearing something to keep track of your splits. The program given out with the “kit bag" has a table init describing what will be available at each 2.5K station. I’d recommend youstudy it to determine what will be available at each station of your race.During my race, I found the aid stations to be well stocked, staffed and easyto access. Each station had a couple portapotties. It is strongly recommended you bring your own toilet tissue.

Then there is the issue of kilometers vs. miles. Everything on the courseis marked and spaced on kilometers and there are no mile marker signs. Otherthan the half-way mark, nothing is where you would typically encounter it in aUS marathon (e.g., water stations every 1.6 rather than every 2 miles). I personallyfound it hard to convert kilometers to miles while out on the course, so havingthe Garmin to keep track of distances/location/splits in miles was a huge plus.

This marathon has a reputation for slowing runners down, however I foundcalculating an overall target pace for this event was pretty straight forward.Studying past elite runner times, I noticed they were consistently around 10-20minutes slower than their runs on flat courses. I took the average of my slowermarathon finish times over the past couple years, added 20 minutes to it andthen calculated the pace. I found this estimation worked quite well for settingan overall marathon target pace and I was easily able to maintain it.


EMTs

The 35K Water Station (notice the coca cola!)

The Start Area
Most people get to the start area using event buses that leave fromvarious locations within downtown Athens. It takes approximately 45 minutes toget to Marathon. Because my tour company provided their own buses, I can’t reallycomment on how well the race transportation worked.

The race begins at a sports complex within the City of Marathon. Thestart area is an active place with buses constantly dropping off riders and peoplemoving everywhere. The first thing you will notice after getting off the busare loudspeakers conveying instructions, a row of trucks taking gear bags onone side of the entrance sidewalk and “Portapottieville” on the other. For myrace, I felt there were ample, clean portapotties at the start. However, they are a verylong walk from the starting corrals, so don’t plan to use them at the lastsecond before the race. The trucks were organized by bib number. After droppingyour stuff off, a kind volunteer will offer you a plastic bag to keep warmuntil the start. From the entrance, runners walk northeast into the track andfield area. It was an incredible sight to watch thousands of runners moving inunison around the track to warm up.

Runners were organized into seven starting corrals (called blocks inGreece) based upon their anticipated finish time. Those who have never run amarathon were placed in the last corral. The corrals are located to the east ofthe track and are closely guarded by volunteers. By the last corral, you willnotice the Marathon Flame. It conveys the historical significance of the event andis lit the day before in a ceremony at the Marathon Tomb. Thankfully, allannouncements and signs were made in Greek and English, so I was able to knowwhere I needed to be when. Just before the start, the Greek National Anthem isplayed while the natives hold their fist up into the air. Being my firstinternational marathon, it seemed strange not to see the American flag or hearthe star spangled banner before the start. The course organizers started therace in seven separate waves, with each corral starting approximately 7 minutesapart and the “gun” time corresponding to the corral start time. However, thechip time is recorded as you pass over the starting line, so don’t worry aboutthe wave starts penalizing your finish time.

Gear Bag Trucks at Entrance to Start Area (Photo Courtesy of Athan Arvanitis)

Portapottieville

Runners Warming Up on the Track

View of Starting Corral Area (notice volunteers in blue jackets guarding barriers between corrals)

A View of the Marathon Flame from the Last Corral

A View from the Starting Line (Photo Courtesy of Athan Arvanitis)

Route Description

The Athens Classic Marathon follows the same route Pheidippides ran in490 BC to tell the people of Athens that the Persians had been defeated. The coursebegins by the sea (though you can’t see it from the course) in Marathon nearthe ancient battleground site that inspired the name of the race. Upon exitingthe start line, a fading blue line can be seen on the road. It was placed thereduring the 2004 Olympics to show the athletes the shortest possible path to thefinish. The route takes one detour, which is a loop around the Marathon Tomb atthe 5K point. The Tomb looks a lot like an old Indian mound and holds thebodies of 192 Athenians who died during the battle. The best pictures of it canbe taken just before the end of the loop. Very faded Olympic rings can also still be seen on the road just as you exit the tomb loop. After the Tomb, there are not any otherlandmarks to see other than some statues and the US embassy. The routebasically passes through urban sprawl with strings of houses and businesseslining both sides of the road until reaching the outskirts of Athens at the passbetween Mt. Penteli and Immitos approximately at mile 19.5. There is one briefbreak in the sprawl. This break occurs roughly between 17-20k (approximately mile 11.5) where the Plainsof Marathon reveal the mountains and surrounding olive groves in their full glory.If you want a nice landscape picture with wide vistas, this is theplace to do it. After mile 19.5, the buildings close in on you as they get much taller and denser as the runner enters into Athens forfinish.

An Aerial Video of the Route

Runners Passing the Marathon Tomb

One of the Runner Statues Along the Route

The Race Segments

While Irealize most marathons have flat, uphill and downhill segments, they areusually short and intermittent thereby giving your legs some variety throughoutthe route. This marathon is different. As you will see on the elevation profilechart below, it has three distinct segments, (1) the flat part first, (2) the uphillmiddle and (3) the downhill end. Because of course's difficulty, I had nointention of trying for a PR on this course. The description below details my strategy for tackling the three segments.

The first6 miles (10K) is flat. It’s really tempting to run this part of the course fast,and many runners in my start corral flew by me, but I followed Jeff Galloway’sadvice (he has run this course numerous times) and run-walked this segment at avery conservative pace to conserve energy….and I stopped to take a lot ofpictures. The course is also very crowded through the 5K mark, so I had to hangclose to a sidewalk and move off the road for the walk segments.

The next sixmiles starts the uphill segment. Its a slight uphill and to be honest, I didn’t really notice it. TheNext seven miles (20-32K) is where the course reveals its difficulty in full glory.....well, at least that itsreputation. There is an elevation gain of about 800 ft over this seven miles and to behonest, the up was so gradual that I didn’t visually notice it (with a few verynotable exceptions). However, my body did. My pace instantly slowed 20seconds/mile, I could feel the quads tighten up and I started to welcome thewalk breaks. I noticed that runners were no longer passing me, they werestarting to string along the course and people were starting to stop at the aidstations for help. By the time I neared the end of the climb, many people looked wiped out, were stopping at aid stations with cramping problemsand walking significant distances. Personally, the conservative pace I had keptand walk/run technique paid huge dividends as I felt very strong going into the downhill segment.

Thefinal 6 miles are downhill. It's a slow downhill, so my muscles welcomed therelief. After doing a small cheer at the high point of the course, I picked upthe pace dramatically and ran this segment hard to the finish line. Accordingto my Garmin, I ran this segment almost 2 minutes/mile faster than the previous ones. I was passing people as if they were stopped all the way to thefinish line. I felt great at the finish line and was able to dance that night and walk aroundAthens the next day. In the end, I believe my conservative run-walk approach workedwell for not only getting me through the uphill part, but also for saving enough energy to enjoy the course while staying within my overall target pace.

View at 10K "Flat Segment"

Typical View from the "Up" Segment

"Down" Segment View going into Athens (Photo Courtesy of Athan Arvanitis)

The Finish Area

The marathon finishes in Panathenaikon Stadium. It is a white-marble stadium built for the first modern Olympics in 1896. It is locatedon the same spot where the original Olympic Games were held in ancient Greece. Finishingthe race within it and on the track where the first modern Olympians ran is anindescribable feeling. It embodies what the marathon experience is all aboutand made every penny I spent getting here worth it. However, I found finishing in it to be a bitconfusing. Coming into the stadium, runners will encounter several timing zones.The one that marks the actual finish line is at the inner stadium bend. Unlike othermarathons in which I have participated, medals are not given out and chips arenot collected at the finish line. You must continue walking around the trackand almost back out of the stadium to get the medal. Timing chips are collected outsidethe stadium, past the finish feed zone and its really easy to miss. I thought the finish process was rather confusing, butI found English-speaking volunteers to point me in the right direction. The finish line food was located under alarge white tent at the exit from the stadium. At my race, the volunteers handedme a bag containing a banana, a box of orange juice, and a mystery energy bar(it was labeled in Greek). The trucks with the gear bags were on the streetaround the corner from the stadium. There are lots of barricades near theentrance to the stadium and people reuniting with their friends/families jam upthe area. So while you can easily see the gear trucks from the stadium, gettingto them can be a bit difficult. Have some patience and you will eventually getthere. If you have the energy, take sometime to sit in the stadium (it’s the only time people are allowed to do this), watchothers finish and try to soak up the sights and sounds of the moment. There isnothing else in this world like it.

The View Entering Panathenaikon Stadium (Photo Courtesy of Athan Arvanitis)

SummaryAdvice for Those Who Want to Run this Event

Someone once said, "A marathon is a string of moments, mixtures of events and emotions that we sample as we move along." Travelling to Greece and running along the course where it all began was all that and more for me. If you run marathons for the PR time, medal, T-shirt or the beauty of the course, the Athens Classic Marathon is not your best choice. But, if you want to know what Pheidippides felt like running that first marathon, if you want to experience the same emotional high of finishing a race in the same stadium as the first modern Olympians, or if you want to be a part of a uniquely Greek event, then this is a marathon you must do before your running career ends.

Contagion, A Health Inspector Movie Review

2011-10-10T19:12:00.000-04:00

Do you ever wonder what would happen if a virus emergedsomewhere that had the ability to kill most of the people onearth? Writer Scott Burns and director Steven Soderbergh attempt to answer thatquestion in the movie Contagion.

Contagion is not one of those typical killer diseaseoutbreak horror flicks where someone contracts a blood oozing-like virus andthe army comes in to quarantine the entire community and kill everyone beforeit can spread. Instead, wesee an almost documentary-like account of what an epidemic looks like throughthe eyes of public health professionals and how our government and the publicwould likely respond to a killer virus invasion.

What most people who watched the movie (and reviews I haveread) do not realize is that the writer Scott Burns and director StevenSoderbergh basically took the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’sPandemic Influenza Plan and brought it to life. Ireally didn’t think it was possible to make that plan entertaining (it’sexcruciatingly dry reading). The other thing this movie does with realistic precision iscapturing the challenges a public health professional faces implementing the plan during an outbreak.For example, a central element of the storyline involves Center for DiseaseControl and Prevention (CDC) officials competing with the purveyors ofpseudoscience to communicate their message in a 24-hour news cycle/twitter/internet blogger world. We see the CDCofficials meeting with stakeholders (e.g., local governments, schools) and we experience the obstacles officials face establishing quarantines and vaccinepriorities on a population that has been brainwashed to hate/mistrust thegovernment.

Contagion is also an epidemiological mystery. The storyline starts with Beth (GwenythPaltrow) catching a typical cold that untypically kills her. Her death drawsthe attention of the CDC, others victims are discovered and the outbreakinvestigation is on. However, its how Contagion weaves the systematic steps of an epidemiological investigation, including the hypothesis development, intothe storyline that is most interesting. Title cards are used to frame each dayof the outbreak’s development and give the audience context for subtle visualclues as to what caused the outbreak. The movie ends by taking the viewer backto day 1 of the outbreak and if you were paying attention, all those visualclues come together to reveal the origin of the virus. They are thesame kind of clues a health inspector would use during a real outbreak.

As a health inspector, I think about “the bigone” every morning when I go to work because every year a virus like the oneshown in Contagion emerges somewhere in the world. The barriers that have kept the “big one” fromkilling us all are slowly being dismantled. Development moves into the far reachesof former wilderness, exposing us to strange new microbial life. Ouroverpopulated cities and rapid transportation systems allow for easier andfaster transmission of the disease. Meanwhile, the budgets of public healthagencies are being decimated worldwide. Surveillance is being cut back,scientists and inspectors are being laid off and inspections are being decreasedor halted. The scenario shown in Contagion will happen at some point in thefuture. I only hope that there is something left in our public health arsenalwhen it happens.

I Have a Public Health Dream

2011-04-18T20:40:00.002-04:00

Eight score years ago, our society lived under the shadow of death. For every person who died of old age, contagious diseases struck eight others down in the prime of their lives. Under this dark shadow of death, a public health system was born that became a beacon of light and hope to people everywhere.

But one hundred and sixty years later, our public health system finds itself at a crossroad. One hundred sixty years later, our public health system has crumbled from neglect in the midst of a vast land of material prosperity. One hundred and sixty years later, our great public health system finds itself threatened by organizational inefficiencies, jurisdictional irrationalities, chronic underfunding and social and cultural discounting. And so I come to you today to dramatize this shameful condition.

When the architects of our public health system began, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all people would be guaranteed the unalienable right to a life free from the fear of epidemic diseases. It is obvious today that we have defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as public health is concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, public health and its faithful servants have been denied the credit they justly deserve, the credit for eradicating diseases and improving the health of our fellow citizens.

But our society refuses to believe that our public health system is in default. Our society refuses to believe that there are insufficient funds in our public health system accounts. And so we have come to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to rest on the laurels of our past or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to restore the real promises of public health.

But there is something that I must say to our public health professionals. Two thousand and eleven does not have to be the day of reckoning for public health. Rather, this ending of public health as we know it could really be the coming together of a new beginning, a beginning that belongs to those who continue to believe in the dream. A beginning that could eventually unite our programs and make them stronger and more effective.

My fellow public health professionals, we must not allow ideological shifts and downward economic cycles to deflect us from our responsibility to the health of our communities. We must not wallow in the trials and tribulations of the moment. I say to you today my fellow public health professionals, believe in the dream, rediscover the spirit of urgency and purpose that was present at the creation of public health and harness its energy to change this situation.

So to all who care about public health, continue your work with the faith and energy that initially attracted you to this profession. For it is through your work that the deposits of your efforts and the dividends of your dedication will be redeemed.

I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day the public health profession will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. A dream that public health and the people who serve within it will one day receive the recognition and respect they deserve. A dream that no matter where a person lives or the socioeconomic bracket they may be in, they can one day enjoy a land free from the fear of epidemic disease. For if America is to continue to be a great nation, this dream must become true.

If the above speech sounds familiar, it was inspired while I was listening to

Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. Thanks to Dr. King for the inspiration.

The Cancer High Jump

2011-03-20T19:55:00.000-04:00

It is said that life is a series of obstacles that give our life meaning, make us examine the path we have taken and ponder what our future holds. As I sat staring at my father’s coffin last week after he had lost his battle with cancer, I found myself thinking about those obstacles and their meaning….and the high jump track and field event.

My thoughts drifted to a story I had read about Emily Mathason. She was a champion high jumper at a Pennsylvania high school until Hodgkin’s lymphoma sapped her strength and kept her from clearing a critical bar height during a championship event. Thinking about Emily's story, I was struck by how the high jump event was a great metaphor for the challenges we face in life. When we are young, the “bar” is set low (though it seems high to us at the time). Getting over those low bar heights is fairly straight forward……run and jump. As the competition continues, the height of the bar continually rises making the jumps increasingly difficult. The athlete must change their approach to the bar height. So the high jumpers change their leap technique, use certain shoes, practice on different surfaces and run make precise run approaches. Like the high jumper, we must somehow learn to clear the “high bar” obstacles in our life through the process of trial, error and experience. And then something like cancer comes along and sets the bar so high that we don’t know how or if we can even clear it. But clearing the bar is not an option. If we don’t, we are out of the event.

Perhaps that is why I was thinking about Emily’s high jump story that day. She was able to use cancer to leap over her obstacles. For her, cancer was the beginning of a path that would bring her closer to friends and family and lead to a future of many new and exciting things. For my father, cancer was a spotlight exposing who and what were really important in his life before it ended. For both, fighting cancer was the reminder of how precious life is.

We should relish every day we have and not waste the time we have left. To both of them, I am grateful for their stories and the reminder that I should not wait for cancer to do the same thing for me.

The Scoop on Corgi Poop

2011-01-30T16:51:00.003-05:00

Health inspectors spend a lot of time studying what is in poop, how to treat it and what to do with it after it’s treated. You could say we have a crap job, but somebody has to do it if public health is to be protected. And if we are not studying it, we are talking about it. Get a group of health inspectors together at lunch and I guarantee that the poop topic will come out at some point (pun intended).

Poop was on my mind today as I took advantage of a beautifully warm, sunny, winter day in Florida to do some yard work. One project was filling in the holes the Running Corgis had dug over the past week. They love to dig holes, especially if they didn’t get their run or were not given a “job” that day. They also take a lot of pride in re-digging the holes after I fill them. The re-digging of holes is becoming a problem for me because after two or three times, I never have enough dirt to put back into them (where does it go??). So that means I have to find something other than dirt to fill the holes.

I discussed the problem with my vet. According to her, dogs find their poop repulsive, so she suggested I use their poop to fill the holes. From a health inspector perspective, that advice made a lot of sense. Compared to humans, dogs can have almost twice as much bacteria in their poop. Dog poop also stinks; it attracts flies into the yard and serves as a breeding ground for disease. Using the poop as hole filler is the kind of solution to a number of problems that even a health inspector cold love.

According to a study by Mary Wright, a dog the size of a corgi will generate approximate 32 grams of poop per day. I have two corgis, so that means they can produce around 64 grams of poop-fill each day. Based upon the size of the holes I filled using one month's worth of corgi waste, that translates to a very conservative approximation of 8 cubic inches (4 in³per dog) of dried corgi poop produced each day.

So far, the solution has been working well. After filling the holes, the dogs start digging in the same place but they stop just before reaching the poop and do not dig there again. And, the corgis are still making plenty of poop for future holes. I can’t wait to tell everyone about it over lunch!

How NOT to Become a Health Inspector

2010-12-03T22:46:00.009-05:00

NOTE TO READERS: This article is part one of what I hope to eventually be a series of articles about what it takes to be a health inspector.

Almost every day, somebody asks me how to become a health inspector. If you tried to look this information up on the internet, you get a number of websites that do a very poor job of telling you how to do it. One of the worst I have seen (and also the first hit you get on Google is eHow.com's page). It was so bad, I felt the need to write a rebuttal on my page. eHow's advice is italicized. My comments are in purple.

(1) Search online for training programs for health inspection in your area or through the web. Check the program for accreditation services and how long the program takes to advance.

Clearly whoever wrote this has no clue how to be a health inspector. In most areas of the country, health inspectors (commonly called “environmental health specialists”) require a bachelor’s degree in a science….preferably but not necessarily in environmental health. Most training happens on the job.

(2) Decide if you want to receive a certification in health inspection or if you'd like to receive a degree in health inspection and administration. A bachelor's degree in areas like environmental health, public health and safety, and health administration are becoming common requirements for inspection jobs.

To my knowledge, there are no certifications in “health inspection”. Most health inspectors strive to become Registered Sanitarians or Registered Environmental Health Professionals. These certifications imply that you have a basic, core knowledge of the environmental health sciences required. They show others in the profession that you have the knowledge to make an informed decision about the risk posed by a situation you observe during an inspection.

(3) Enroll in a program that fits your time and financial needs best. Be prepared to dedicate anywhere from one to six years, depending on the level of education you want to achieve.

Plan to get a bachelors degree….which means 4 years….many inspectors have masters degrees in public health….which means 6 years.

(4) Graduate from your desired program, preferably with high honors. Apply to intern at your local public health department for resume experience and practical knowledge of the field.

When I have interviewed and hired inspectors, I really didn’t care about their grades. Well ok, I clearly didn’t want a flunkee, but I’ve seen C-average graduates work circles around top-of-the-class graduates. Good inspectors have a combination of well rounded environmental health knowledge, lots of common sense and most importantly….good people skills. Regardless of the applicant’s grades or knowledge, if he/she didn’t have good people skills I wouldn’t hire them. I do agree that internships are critical…especially for gaining practical knowledge of the job. I have also seen many interns realize this is not the job for them after doing an internship.

(5) Check and thoroughly review accreditation organizations, such as the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) and the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH), among others. Make an appointment to take the accreditation test to receive your certificate.

NO!!! These are NOT the organizations that accredit environmental health programs. The National Environmental Health Science and Protection Accreditation Council accredits most health inspection (environmental health) programs. Click HERE for a list of accredited schools. There is no accreditation test.

I wish the environmental health profession did more to promote itself but we do not do a very good job of it compared to other professions. The end result is people (or in this case web sites) who know nothing about environmental health end up speaking for our profession. That lack of voice was one of the reasons I started this blog......to help people understand what it is really like to be a health inspector.

What Did You Say?

2010-11-24T19:31:00.005-05:00

The other day I was at an assisted living facility doing an inspection and the place had several serious violations. I was trying to communicate to the people working there what the problem was, why it was a problem and what they needed to do to fix it. I wasn't able to get my points across because they didn't speak English very well. Being the dedicated inspector I am, I thought, "Well I just need to learn this language so I can do my job better!"

And that problem starting my mind rolling. How many languages would I need to know to communicate with everyone I encounter during a month of routine inspections? Here is the list off the top of my head:

Spanish
Mandarin Chinese
Cantonese Chinese
Hindi
Punjabi
Arabic
Russian
Vietnamese
Tagalog
Polish
Italian
Thai
Ukranian
Persian
Haitian Creole
Hebrew

Sometimes the hardest thing about being a health inspector is not what you have to know, but how to say what you know.

Can Running Marathons Make You Sick?

2010-08-10T18:49:00.009-04:00

Can running a marathon make you sick? As a health inspector, it’s something I think about every time I run an event. I think about the types of germs I’ll interact with during the event, how those germs will move in that environment and whether it all will pose a health risk to me. Here is a story of how it could happen at a marathon and what you can do to keep yourself safe.

Our story begins at the All American Marathon. Following her pre-race ritual, Runner X arrives at the starting corral about 30 minutes before the start. Her stomach has been cramping for the past few hours. Could it be pre-race jitters or the pasta dinner the night before? What she doesn’t realize at the time is that she is experiencing the first symptoms of a norovirus infection (aka “stomach flu”). But, she had been training for this event for months and she wasn’t going to let an upset stomach keep her from running this marathon.

She keeps the body under control until about mile 10, when the stomach cramps get intense. The course map indicated that there would be porta potties at the mile 13 water station, so if she decides to pick up the pace to get there before the worst happens. She gets lucky, the bladder holds till she arrives at the porta pottie and there is no line. It’s a bad bout of diarrhea. Mixed with lots of gas, it explodes unto the toilet seat and all over her butt. She does her best to clean herself up, but some poop manages to make it on her hand. She doesn’t notice it, unlatches the lock and moves the door handle with her virus-contaminated, poopy hand. Before leaving the area, she notices a bowl of pretzels. They might settle her stomach so she decides to take some. While attempting to grab a couple, she spreads her virus-contaminated poop unto the pretzels remaining in the bowl. She then continues on down the road.

Nature calls for Volunteer Y, who happens to be working the mile thirteen water station. He grabs the latch and locks the door before doing his business. Some microscopic drops of Runner X’s virus-contaminated poop make it onto his hands. Unfortunately, there was no way to get a handwash sink out here, so he goes back to the station and uses some hand sanitizer. The problem is the hand sanitizer neither removes nor kills the norovirus. A large blob of runners are coming into the station, so Volunteer Y grabs some drink cups and stations himself for distribution. He holds cups from their tops between his fingers. In fact, his fingers almost touch the liquid inside. That way, he can hold lots of cups and the runners can easily grab them as they pass through the station. What he doesn’t know is that he has just contaminated the drinks and now the runners will be drinking the virus. By the end of the day, Volunteer X gives out several hundred drink cups to runners. A hundred more runners will touch the handle on the porta-pottie and then get the poop onto their drinks or fuel with their contaminated hands. A few dozen more eat the contaminated pretzels. All end up exposed to Runner X’s virus. Within 72 hours, several hundred people have developed severe diarrhea symptoms.

Given that this story could happen at any marathon, what can a runner do to keep themselves from getting sick?

First of all and most importantly, if you have any illness with diarrhea or vomit symptoms, DON’T RUN THE EVENT OR VOLUNTEER TO WORK. Stay home. Yes, your poop or vomit (even microscopic drops of it) could literally make hundreds of people sick. Do you want the responsibility for all their vomit/diarrhea on your hands?

Water stations should have a handwash station. Here is an easy way to make one. Get a cooler that has the type of nozzle that allows water to flow without you touching it. Clearly mark it for “Handwashing Only” and keep it in an area separate from the liquids for the race cups. Keep pump liquid soap, paper towels and a trash can handy. You don’t want your volunteers touching any of the hand wash station after their hands are clean.

Consider using gloves to handle the cups and snacks. Consider using a gloved hand to give the snack to runners so they don’t contaminate your snack supply. I was pleasantly surprised to see volunteers using gloves at all the water/snack stations during the 2010 Oklahoma City Marathon. (You didn’t have to wear the moon suits however…thanks for putting my safety first).

Handle cups from the bottom and encourage runners to take them off a table to minimize person-to-person contact. If you have to hold the cup for the runner, avoid putting your fingers (even gloved ones) inside the cup or on the cup lip.

There is no way to be 100% safe, but take a health inspector's advice. Just following these few simple guidelines will go a long ways toward keeping the germs from making you or others sick.

First They Voted

2010-05-20T09:53:00.005-04:00

FIRST THEY VOTED to eliminate child care inspections
And I didn't speak up because I didn't have children

THEN THEY VOTED to stop inspecting food service establishments
And I didn't speak up because another agency did those inspections

THEN THEY VOTED to get rid of nursing home and hospital inspectors
And I didn't speak up because I worked in the OSTDS program

THEN THEY VOTED to abolish Environmental Health
And there was no one left to speak up

Environmental Health needs a voice. Are you willing to be part of it?

(thanks to Martin Niemoller for the inspiration)

Why Are Miserable Runners Happy?

2010-04-17T15:43:00.008-04:00

Whenever I’m out doing inspections, I often tell people about marathons I have run and the difference this sport has made in my life. My observations bring out the typical responses, such as “I’m too out-of-shape to run a block”, “are you crazy” or “I can’t run, I have a bad knee”, and so forth. However, during a recent inspection the discussion elicited a response that put my perspective into an entirely new light. The person told me, “I’ve never seen anybody who looked happy while they are running. In fact, they usually look quite miserable”.

I found myself pondering the marathon-miserable-happiness conundrum while traveling to run the 4th Annual Michelob Ultra El Paso Marathon. During a layover at the Atlanta Airport, I stumbled upon Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. Her book explores the essence of “happiness”, how each person can use a “happiness project” to discover the inner secrets of their personal happiness. The book also discusses running a marathon (in the context of exercise) as a path to happiness. Perhaps this book could solve the miserable-happy marathon conundrum? Health inspector minds want to know! I purchased and began reading it on the Atlanta to El Paso segment of the flight.

According to the book, the person must first identify what brings them joy, satisfaction and engagement, and also what brings you guilt, anger, boredom and remorse. Then you identify a series of concrete actions that will boost your happiness and make resolutions to do them. The secret to your personal happiness is revealed as you try to keep the resolutions.

In her book, Gretchen Rubin states, “it isn’t the goal attainment but rather the process of striving after a goal-that is growth-that brings happiness”. She identifies running a marathon as a “goal” rather than a process so the happy feelings that come with crossing the finish line fades with time. Therefore running a marathon itself does not ultimately lead to happiness. While her hypothesis may be true for “one-timers”, I don’t believe it’s true for those who run multiple marathons year-after-year. However, I do believe Mrs. Rubin may have solved the marathon-miserable-happiness conundrum without realizing it.

Committing to multiple marathons requires a number of resolutions to be kept. They include eating better, getting proper rest, being in tune with your body and committing to a healthier lifestyle. The marathons are the intrinsic motivators to keep the resolutions. Keeping the resolutions and running the marathons are symbols we have taken control of our lives. Therein lies the solution to the conundrum. Running marathons may be a physically and mentally miserable experience, but being able to do them means we are in control of our lives. As the Happiness Project explains, that control is a major happiness booster. Perhaps that is why miserable runners are happy.

Running Corgi Update

2010-04-04T00:07:00.006-04:00

I thought I'd give everyone an update on the running corgi (Jasper) and his sidekick Merlin.

Its been an exceptionally cold winter here in the Tragic Kingdom. That meant the corgis were able to do more training with me than in a typical year. We finished up the year (its getting too hot for them to run now) with both Merlin and Jasper making it up to 7 miles before they tire out. My former dog training instructor told me corgis can't handle running more than a few hundred yards at a time and making them run any further distance would be cruel and cause arthritis and other injuries later in life. I have to wonder about that advice. These guys get so excited about doing these runs. and they don't want to stop until I do (I would never force my corgis to run further than they want to). Plus, other than some post-run stiffness, they don't exhibit any ill effects.

As you can see from the photo, the trail I primarily train on is asphalt. This surface has caused some unexpected issues. The asphalt seems to rub the corgi's foot pads raw and ground their nails down to the quick. In fact, the asphalt grinds the nails so well that I haven't had to have either of their nails trimmed since marathon season started. I know this must sound painful for the dogs, but they never slow down, limp or show any signs of pain. Still, its not a good situation and I'm trying to find some booties or other alternative for protecting their feet. I know running on dirt or grass would be better, but I haven't found any good alternatives locations yet (see reasons below) Reader suggestions are welcome!

Last year, Jasper was a strong runner. In fact, he could actually outrun me for the first mile. This year, he seems to be slowing down a bit and getting into the groove. However, Merlin is turning into a little speed demon. I also started shifting my training from run-walk to straight runs. The corgis have had some trouble adjusting to straight runs. They can make it a couple miles on a strait run but then need the walk breaks after that. The optimal run-walk ratio for them seems to be a 1-1 or 2-1. We will see what happens as they build up their endurance.

Another thing I tried this season was letting them run with me off leash. They actually ran much better off than on leash. Both kept to my side or slightly behind me and they ran further before shifting to run-walk. When I run with them together on leash, Merlin always tries to be the "sled dog leader" and pulls quite hard. I would love to do more off leash runs with them, but the park I train in gets lots of bicycle traffic and the riders get pretty angry when they see unleashed dogs. We do have some other natural areas around here with trails and old logging roads, but they are all overrun with hunters during the dry, cool, non-buggy times of year.

So things are winding down this running season. I'm thinking of entering one or both corgis in a dog-friendly 5K next year. I want to learn more about running with corgis and sharing that knowledge with others. Who knows, I might even start a "running corgi" blog

Jasper (left) and Merlin (right) get a bath

Are the Glasses in this Story Half-full or Half-empty?

2010-02-16T09:19:00.007-05:00

People often try to label us as an optimist or pessimist by using the glass half-full or empty analogy. You know how it goes, see a half-filled glass as full and you’re an optimist and if it’s empty you’re a pessimist. So let’s suppose for moment you are sitting in a restaurant. The waitress brings you a half-filled glass of wine. Now imagine she brings you another and yet another glass filled with the same amount of liquid. How many half-filled glasses would it take before they start appearing half-empty? That was my dilemma leading up to the First Light Marathon in Mobile, Alabama when a string of horrible events happened.

I had been training for this marathon for months. Training was going well and a potential new personal record was in the cards. That’s when the proverbial first half-filled glass appeared. The forecast for race start was a cold 35°F. Glass half-full, I thought. I didn’t train for this temperature, but decided to adjust by wearing the long training pants and long-sleeve tech shirt. Then the weather service dropped the forecasted temperature each time I checked it. It went from 35 to 25 and finally landed at 10°F. If that wasn’t tough enough, the forecasted 20+ mile winds would produce below-zero wind chills. So rather than just being uncomfortable, the running weather had become dangerous….especially for those without the correct gear for such intense cold.

With only a couple days until the event, I went to our local running store to find cold weather gear since I had none of my own. However, such items are as rare as snow in Florida and what little there was had already been picked cleaned by locals running the coldest Disney Marathon in its history. So I started on “Plan B” which involved modifying some hiking gear for running. I tested it at Beresford Park on an unusually cold (23°F) morning the day before we were supposed to leave for Alabama. But the gear didn’t wick sweat off my body very well, which could be a deadly problem in sub-zero wind chills.

The gear test completed, I went back home, opened the front door and was greeted by oily smoke filling the living room. Something was on fire in the house. After a frantic search, I discovered the fan on my air handler had stopped working due to an exploded capacitor causing the heating elements to catch the surrounding insulation on fire. Had I returned even 30 minutes later, the house likely would have burned to the ground. I shut the power to off to the unit, put the fire out and called the AC guy. If the AC guy could get the unit repaired before 2 pm, I could still make the race. As luck would have it, the AC guy came right out and I had heat again by noon.

I called my wife to give her the good news about the house and the bad news about the gear test. While we debated the pros and cons of extreme cold running, our conversation was abruptly interrupted by her screams of terror and the sound of crunching metal in the background. She had been in a car accident. But I didn’t know where she was or if she was even still alive. What does someone do in a moment like this? Paralyzed by fear, uncertainty and shock, I clutched my head with my hands realizing my life as I knew it was likely over. Snapping out of it, I went into rescue mode making my best guess where she might be and sending someone to that location while I tried calling her cell phone over and over. After about 30 minutes, she answered her phone. She was “ok” (meaning injured but not dead or in the hospital), the other people were being loaded into ambulances and both cars were totaled. But at least she was still alive.

Despite our marathon plans being in ruins, the half-filled glasses kept coming. The next day, a virus wiped out my computer. The day after that our main television died. A few days later I lost my flash drive containing a collection of articles that were being delivered for publication.

Having read this story, do you believe these proverbial glasses that kept coming were half-full or half-empty? My race plans were ruined, the house almost burned down, my car was destroyed, the computer was hacked, I had no TV and I spent days re-editing lost articles. But I have heat, the house didn’t burn down, the computer was debugged and I’m still employed in a job that pays enough to buy a new TV. My insurance company gave me a fair price for my totaled car, which allowed me to buy a new replacement. And best of all, my wife is still alive to race another day.

Considering all the facts in context with the bigger picture, I can only conclude that those glasses were actually half-full after all.

You Just Can't Leave Here Without Finding Something Wrong!

2010-01-17T18:16:00.005-05:00

It was a filthy kitchen. Rotted food was piled on the counters. Grease from a thousand fried meals coated all the “clean dishes”. Roach poop looked like cake sprinkles on the pots and pans. Disgusted by the scene, I begin to write the observations on my inspection form. And that is when it happened. A condescending voice from behind bellowed, “You just can’t leave here without finding something wrong”.

It’s one of the most common things I hear during inspections and it irritates me every time. When I hear it, I know the person is not taking the inspection seriously and probably will not permanently correct the problem. Unfortunately, health inspections are too often ignored, viewed as an intrusion of big government into a busy day and part of a negative process designed to nitpick and humiliate the people working in the facility. The places where I hear this statement are also too often where diseases of environmental origin are born and thrive.

As an inspector, I can document a violation, fine or even close a facility temporarily. However, it is the people working in them who truly hold the power to prevent foodborne illness. But how can they do that if they don’t care? I think the solution to this dilemma requires an effort on all parts and rests with changing the perception of the health inspection. I offer the following suggestions to fellow health inspectors, the inspected facility and public regarding on how we can all work together to use the health inspection process to promote environmental health:

To My Fellow Health Inspectors
Remember your primary responsibility is stopping potential health problems in a facility before somebody gets sick. Don’t be a “checklist inspector”. Be an educator. Inspectors should not just cite the code violation. They need to explain the public health science behind the code requirement, describe how germs move through the environment and how the code requirements create barriers to that movement. They must also show the business owner/staff the real cost (e.g., lawsuits, business reputation, business closures) of the disease that the facility’s violation could potentially cause.

To The Business/Facility Owner
Don’t look at your inspection as just some government intrusion. You needed a permit to run your business. That permit entitles you to an independent evaluation of your business sanitation practices. It also entitles access to an environmental health professional for advice on how to resolve that problem and prevent others. Don’t waste that opportunity for outside feedback. When the health inspector gives you the inspection form, read it and ask "why". Discuss your business practices and policies, how they could be contributing to the problem and ask for advice on how to permanently resolve issues. Build a partnership with your inspector. This open line of communication will be critical if your business is ever implicated as the source of a disease.

To The Public
Every time you eat in a restaurant, drop your kid off at daycare or place a loved one in a nursing facility, you are endorsing their sanitation practices. Don't unknowingly endorse bad sanitation practices. Ask for the facility's inspection report and inform yourself about the potential risks a their sanitation practices may pose. However, be advised that any place can have a bad inspection day, so don’t judge a place based upon one report. However, it’s been my professional experience that facilities either learn from their violations and permanently correct them or they flat don’t care. Make it known that good sanitation is important to you by frequenting those establishments that prioritize and implement good sanitation and food safety practices and ignoring those who don't.

How Santa Tizer (aka "The Health Inspector") Saved Christmas

2009-12-20T17:16:00.006-05:00

Santa Claus won't be delivering toys to all the good little boys and girls of Florida this season over fears of spreading the H1N1 flu.

Santa usually visits our area every Christmas Eve. This year, however, Mr. Claus developed flu-like symptoms just before his scheduled trip and health officials became increasingly concerned about his travel plans.

“It's a cross-contamination issue,” said Bergermeister Meisterberger, spokesperson for the North Pole Health Department. “We just couldn't have a sick Santa going from house to house spreading good cheer and swine flu.” That’s why we asked him to cancel this year’s trip.

Fearing children everywhere would be devastated, Mr. Claus began fervently working with his local health department to find a way to get the toys to the children and ultimately save Christmas. The answer was closer than anyone realized.

The recent economic downturn had not been kind to the North Pole Health Department. Their flu outreach budget was slashed and the health inspectors furloughed. To make ends meet, many inspectors have taken on second jobs. One of those inspectors, Mr. Santa Tizer (and distant cousin of Santa Claus) had been in training at the North Pole Academy to be a mall Santa.

When they heard about Mr. Claus’ dilemma, the Department immediately put him in touch with Mr. Tizer. Inspector Tizer was honored to make the trek for the jolly man in red. “I’ve been training for months to be Mr. Claus' stand-in, I’ve received the H1N1 vaccination”, and I’m ready for this responsibility”, Mr. Tizer noted.

In return for delivering the toys, Mr. Claus agreed to have the elves work overtime to make H1N1 flu information brochures for the health department. Inspector Tizer will be leaving those brochures in the parent’s and children’s stockings when he delivers the toys Christmas Eve.

“It’s a win-win situation for everyone” health department officials said. We needed a cost-effective way to get our message out to every boy and girl and Santa Claus needed someone to deliver the toys. “All I can say is Ho Ho Ho” Mr. Claus responded when asked about the Health Department’s proposal.

The North Pole Health Department’s brochures will be offering the following tips for keeping germs at bay this holiday season:

Hand sanitizer is no substitute for handwashing. Always wash your hands when a handwash sink is available.
Consider using hand sanitizer at times such as: before preparing or eating food; after going to the bathroom; before and after tending to someone who is sick; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
When using alcohol-based sanitizers, apply product to the palm of one hand, rub hands together and be sure to rub the product over all surfaces of hands and fingers until hands are dry.
Before you entertain, sanitize handled hard surfaces such as doorknobs, remote controls, appliance handles, light switches, phones, etc
Make hand sanitizer part of your holiday décor as a helpful reminder for guests to use it.

About the Running Corgi

2009-10-10T13:42:00.006-04:00

If you arrived to this blog from the Runner’s World Forum or one of my social networking sites, you are probably wondering about the dog I use for my profile picture. This blog tells the story of The Running Corgi.

Jasper is the name of the dog in my picture. He is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and my marathon training partner. We first met at the local animal shelter. He was in one of the kennels waiting for somebody to adopt him. According to shelter officials, his owner grew tired of him and was dumped off at the facility a few days before Christmas. Like many shelter dogs, Jasper arrived at my house with some issues. He had been kept in a kennel most of his life, so his world was devoid of mental stimulation. He was kept indoors, not socialized as a puppy and was afraid of everything in the outdoor world. Like most of the herding breeds, he also had an immense amount of energy. The pent up energy combined with boredom manifested itself as a variety of behavior problems. Jasper would, for example, become violently aggressive whenever another dog entered his field of view. The sound of the wind whistling through the trees would frighten him so much that he would not leave the back porch. I took him to obedience training but his fears and aggression forced me to keep him separated from the class. It was not a promising situation.

If you have ever seen an episode of The Dog Whisperer, then you know that the show’s star, Cesar Millan, deals with dogs like Jasper on every episode. I thought he could provide me with more insight into Jasper’s problems so I read his book, Be the Pack Leader: Use Cesar’s Way to Transform Your Dog….and Your Life. In it, he explains the origins of dog psychological issues. He also spoke about the behavioral problems unique to certain breeds. When he got to the herding breeds (which include corgis), he noted that they must release their energy through a job that is mentally stimulating and physically demanding. If we don’t provide this breed with an appropriate job each morning, he noted that they will find one, such as digging holes or chewing furniture while we are away at work. He also noted the frustration of being “un- or underemployed” would result in the development of antisocial, aggressive or other unwanted behaviors. Jasper was having all those problems. Clearly he was ready for a job.

The instructor at my dog obedience class said I needed to drain Jasper’s energy if there would be any hope of training him. No problem, I thought. I was training for the Space Coast Marathon and taking him out on some runs would be a great opportunity for us to bond while draining his energy. I was using the Galloway’s Run-Walk Method at the time. To mark the walk-run transitions, I had this watch that would beep at regular intervals. It would beep five times for each of the last five seconds of the interval. After a few days of tagging along with me, I noticed that Jasper would hear the first beep and start walking and then start running at the end of the interval when he heard the beeping again. He did this without me giving him any clue. That’s how he became one of the first “Galloway Dogs”.

This story has a happy ending. Because Jasper is now my running partner, he goes all over. Sometimes he even trains with my running group. He makes sure I’m maintaining pace (by pulling the leash harder when I’m going too slow or slowing down when I go too fast). He keeps track of whether we are in a walk or run cycle. Best of all, he loves his new job as my running partner. His aggression is gone and all of the unwanted behaviors have disappeared. It has given him a purpose. That is how he became The Running Corgi.

Advice for Fake Hand Washers

2009-09-03T16:36:00.028-04:00

A recent Barf Blog article brought my attention to the phenomenon of “fake hand washing”. Apparently, there are a large number of people out there who dislike washing their hands, but are concerned about the social impact of their hygienic preference. They have therefore banded together via the internet to support their fellow fake hand washers and offer tips to trick others into thinking their hands have been washed. For example, on the ironically titled, “I am neurotic” blog, the author offers the following tips:

“After I flush, I turn on the faucet and let the water run for people to hear. I want it to be believable though, so I mime washing my hands to make sure I let the water run for exactly how long it would take me to really do it."

As if the advice wasn’t remarkable enough, I was astonished that over 945 people (at the time this was written) voted “me-too” in support of the author’s suggestions. But the most amazing thing (to me) about the fake hand washers arguments is how they were focused upon themselves and how oblivious they were to the health impacts their choices have on people around them.

So fake hand washers, I'd like to jump on the internet bandwagon and offer you all some advice from the perspective of a health inspector!

Not washing your hands provides a great opportunity to put your fecal mark on any place you touch. Human poop contains over a trillion cells of disease causing bacteria per dry gram weight of feces. Some poop and the bacteria in it are bound to get on your hands and under your fingernails when you wipe your anus. Best of all, that feces can become seasoning in your family’s dinner tonight when you use your unwashed hands to make their meal.

Fake hand washing is an intimate way to connect with strangers in the restroom. According to a recent study, the typical bathroom contains 3.2 million bacteria per square inch in the toilet bowl, 295 bacteria per square inch on the toilet seat, 83 bacteria per square inch on the toilet handle, 452 bacteria per square inch on the countertop, 6267 bacteria per square inch on the faucet handle, and 121 bacteria per square inch on the inside door handle. By touching anything in a bathroom, you can pick up a stranger’s germs, and (by infecting yourself) experience their diarrhea and vomiting misery. When you are done, you can continue the fun by passing your germs onto some other unsuspecting fake hand washer who comes into the bathroom after you.

You can impact the lives of people around you! The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 76 million Americans are sickened (20% of them will be someone’s innocent child), 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die each year from food-borne illnesses at an estimated cost of 6.9 billion dollars. The CDC says inadequate hand hygiene is a significant contributor to those numbers. Talk about an impact!

Rather than fake it, why not just keep walking past the hand wash sink. Fake hand washing implies that you know better and are choosing to infect others….and that is a pretty low thing to do to your friends, family and innocent bystanders. If you just don’t fake it at all, you could at least fool people into thinking you are just a clueless clod.

Use your fake hand washing to save the environment. If you don’t care about how many people your fecal-contaminated hands will sicken, why waste all that water, soap and paper?

The best advice I can offer the fake hand washer is to reconsider your hygiene practice and take the 20 seconds to really wash your hands. This simple act could keep some innocent child or stranger from getting sick and may even save someone else’s life.

2009-07-22T21:49:00.008-04:00

“Pi” (or π) has been 3.141 for over 4000 years, but I recently discovered a different form of it on the Georgia Tech campus during a recent stay in the dorms. At Georgia Tech, pi also happens to be a running trail. If you are a runner that will be visiting campus, it is a “must do” for your running trail list. There are three primary reasons to run this trail. First, it happens to be the only trail that I know of that is the exact distance of π, so you can impress your mathematically-inclined friends. Secondly, it winds through a former Olympic site. A third reason to run it is because of all the interesting landmarks you will pass along its course.

Officially known as the Tyler Brown Pi Mile, it was named in honor of a former Tech student who campaigned for a safe running trail on campus during his term as SGA president. However, Tyler never ran on his trail. Before the trail could be finished, he was ambushed and killed by insurgents while serving in Iraq. The trail doesn’t really have an official beginning or end. It follows a circuitous 3.14 mile route around the edge of the Georgia Tech campus that will eventually take you back to where you started. The trail is designed to run clockwise. Every quarter mile and on most corners you will find a bronze-like plaque (see above picture) embedded in the sidewalk. Just follow the direction of the arrow (or opposite if running counterclockwise). Even though plaques mark the route, it is strongly recommended you study the route map or even take a copy of it with you. Things could quickly get real scary if you accidently wander off campus in the wrong place. Another problem you may encounter is finding parking. It is not recommended you park off campus due to (at the time this was written) robberies in the area. There is some metered parking around the student center and a couple other areas on campus, but you must arrive early to get it. I’d recommend checking the campus map prior to arrival. I prefer the student center parking lot best because there are numerous bathrooms and post-run food and drinks are available at food kiosks inside. And speaking of bathrooms, you should be able to find them in any administrative or classroom building along the way.

The description below describes the trail in visually-common segments from a clockwise direction (I thought the trail was easier to run clockwise) starting on McMillan St. Don’t let my tongue-in-cheek comments and crime warnings deter you, the trail is generally safe (both from crime and cars), relatively scenic and relaxing. Just take the usual precautions and be aware of your surroundings. Oh, and one last thing for the litigious; run at your own risk and don’t believe a word I have written here.

McMillan Street to Hemphill
Located in the heart of the former 1996 Olympic athletic village, the trail rises slowly through a valley of red-brick dorms and apartments that housed the athletes. The buildings were made to look like some turn-of-the-century English manor but the entire place has a modern feel to it. Some of the practice facilities and clubs established during the Olympics are still evident if you look close enough. The sidewalks are lined with young oak trees, so expect shade most of the time. Passing the Woodruff Dining hall, the trail turns onto 8th Street and steeply dips into a valley of parking lots.

State Street to 10th Street to Fowler
Evidence of the city prior to the existence of Georgia Tech begins to appear as you turn north on State Street, via the remnant s of 1920’s-1940’s housing along State Street. They are now student ghetto housing. Turning onto 10th street, the urban inhumanity that modern Atlanta has become slaps you in the face. Type-A personalities honk and rev their engines as bumper-to-bumper traffic plows down 10th Street. Run this part at rush hour and your lungs will burn from a thousand spewing exhaust pipes while you run uphill toward an ugly interstate on-ramp. One bright spot to this otherwise miserable part of the trail is being able to tell your friends and family you ran past the nerve center of the Cartoon Network.

Fowler Street to Fowler-and-6th Street
The 10th Street slapdown doesn’t last long as you turn south onto Fowler Street. Here, you leave behind the noise and pass through rows of non-descript administrative buildings on the east side and athletic facilities on the west. The runner is also rewarded with a nice view of the Georgia Tech track, though it’s through a 6-foot high, barbed wire fence. I’m not sure if the barbed-wire fence is an attempt to keep their track team from escaping to the University of Georgia or to keep out overzealous amateur runners.

Fowler Street (at 6th Street) to Bobby Dodd
Here is where you run through Greek Row. The buildings that look like every other Greek section of every other college campus on which I have been. Despite running past here in July, beer bottles and other assorted trash was piled high around the housing and they appeared to be in various stages of disrepair. Running by them, I imagine the ghost of John Belushi standing in front of one asking me, “What the f**k happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh?” You might not want to run this part on a Saturday night or after finals…unless you like to party or watching urban wildlife.

Bobby Dodd to Cherry Street
Here is where the trail gets tricky. Many street corners are not marked with plaques and some of the sidewalk was torn up when I ran it. I went long stretches without seeing any markers. It’s very easy to get off the trail if you are not familiar with it. This portion is also where I began to see homeless people encroaching campus and boarded up buildings (across North Ave). This segment probably wouldn’t be a good place to run alone at night. I’m not telling you this to scare you off the trail; I’m just saying you need to be keenly aware of your surroundings while passing through here and to pay attention to road signs. The highlight of this trail section is circling around the Georgia Tech football stadium and running in front of the Coca Cola building. I’m not a fan of either, so it didn’t do anything for me, but if visiting stadiums are your thing, it’s an opportunity for a great souvenir picture and another reason you should run this trail.

Cherry St. to Ferst
This part goes through the oldest sections of campus. Its shaded, quiet, the buildings have interesting, Victorian-style architecture anchors the campus. It feels like a traditional campus and is the kind of place you would want to come back to after running to open a book and hang out. Most of the campus has a very modern feel, so the contrast between old and new really highlights the beauty of this section. It is a must-do portion of the trail. However, I didn’t see any trail markers in this section, so either memorize the trail route or prepare to place yourself at the mercy of a kind Georgia Tech student to help you find it again. Luckily, they are not hard to find.

Ferst to 6th Ave. to McMillan
Leaving Cherry Street, you are reminded of how much expansion occurred after the 1996 Olympics. It seems to go on to the west forever in widely spaced rows of modern, “tech-ish” buildings and residence halls. However, it’s really not that big of a deal because the real highlight of this trail section is how the trees give way to open sky and incredible views of the midtown Atlanta skyline and beyond. It is an especially beautiful view on a clear night. Another highlight is passing the Student Athletic Center, which was the site of the Olympic Aquatic Center. If available, I’d recommend skipping a run one morning, paying the visitor fee and swimming some laps in the Olympic pool so you brag about it to your friends and family.

You’ve Been “Hand Pimped!” Advice for Recognizing and Avoiding Hand Pimping Diseases

2009-06-27T10:30:00.012-04:00

As if there aren’t enough things to worry about in environmental health, I experienced a little discussed, but surprisingly common practice that could spread disease throughout our communities. It’s called “Hand Pimping”.

My first known exposure to hand pimping occurred recently during a visit to a rental car kiosk at the Atlanta Airport. Before I could even get to the booth, I was intercepted by a tall man in a clean, crisp suit. “Welcome to Our Company” he told me, asking what my name was, where I was from and why I was in town. Then as I told him, it happened. He sticks his hand out for a handshake. NO! I don’t want to touch it! I don’t know where that hand’s been, if it’s been washed or how many other hands it’s touched! Then, it….it all happened so fast. One minute we were talking and then the next our hands were shaking. I was then whisked away to another person who would assist me with a rental. I shake his hand…..oh God, two hands in one trip….I felt so dirty. It didn’t end there. Before I could make it to the rental car, I would eventually shake four stranger’s hands….. And I didn’t even get a dinner, drink or a call the next morning. That’s when I realized what had happened. I had been “hand pimped”.

Hand pimping is a practice used by salespeople to create the illusion of welcome and friendship. During hand pimping, an unsuspecting customer is forced to shake numerous hands in rapid succession in order to keep them submissive and maximize profits. The practice is surprisingly common in corporate America, so I shouldn’t have been taken aback by my rental car experience. In fact, one rental car company takes much pride in building their customer relationships one handshake at a time. They have rigid requirements for how customers are to be greeted and treated, which includes greeting the customer with an enthusiastic handshake. But are their handwashing requirements as rigid? I doubt it. That’s the tragedy of hand pimping….in the pursuit of good customer service, a number of diseases including norovirus and the flu could unknowingly be spread.

As environmental health professionals, we must end the scourge of hand pimping. Here are some tips on approaching the topic of safe hand pimping with your sales professional:

Talk calmly and honestly about safe hand pimping practices. If you are uncomfortable discussing this subject, consider practicing with other public health professionals before approaching your salesperson.
Listen to your salesperson and answer his/her hand pimping questions honestly.
Dispel common myths. Hand washing is commonly thought to protect against Hand Pimping Transmitted Diseases (HPTDs). While it is true that handwashing is useful for preventing disease transmission, it may not offer full protection.
Encourage safe hand pimping practices. Every time your salesperson has contact with another person, encourage them to wash hands before, between partners and after hand pimping. If you are unsure of a partner’s handwashing practices, don’t shake it or consider using a barrier such as a glove.
Abstaining from hand pimping is common, normal and practiced by many people in numerous cultures. Encourage your salesperson to consider alternative forms of customer greetings.
For more information about the diseases of hand pimping and how to prevent them, visit this link at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

Would You Run With Erica Strange?

2009-05-20T15:10:00.006-04:00

I have been absolutely obsessed with the CBC show “Being Erica”, created by Jana Sinyor. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s the story of Erica Strange, played by Erin Karpluk, whose life has become a mess. Her problems are rooted in decisions made her past that hinder her present and future. She visits a therapist who has the ability to send her back in time and give her another chance at those decisions. I started watching the show because I thought the time travel/therapy storyline twist was interesting.

I wasn't expecting to make it past the first episode because I didn’t think it was possible to do this storyline without coming off as being “campy” or “preachy”. I am so glad I gave it a chance because it is a well written, produced and acted show. The strongest element of this show is how it focuses on Erica learning and growing from reliving her past instead of just correcting something that went wrong. Her ultimate life challenge is faced in the season finale where she faces the difficult task of letting go of the past so she can move on in the present. It is a universal theme that everyone faces at some point in their life.

While out on a long run at sunrise lately, I find myself wondering about the challenges Erica faces on the show and the lessons she has learned. In a way, running at sunrise is my form of time travel therapy. A few miles into a run, my mind will drift back to significant events/decisions of my past as I work through them over and over, wondering what I would have changed and what my life would be like had I done things differently. Each time I do this, I think, like Erica, I too grow and learn from past events. Then, the sun comes up over the horizon and I realize it’s a new day, and like Erica, I can use what I have learned from my past to be a better person today.

Thanks Ms. Sinyor, I'd make you a latte anytime!

The Health Inspector

2009-04-21T10:44:00.007-04:00

I found the following poem on the Michigan Environmental Health Association's web page. I think it says it all...especially the poverty part.

There are times when I get weary of this day-in day-out grind.
There are times when I’m disgusted and think I’ll lose my mind.
Then there are times when money’s scarce, and these times become more frequent.
My account’s overdrawn, my savings shrunk, and my bills are all delinquent

I have a little girl named Sue. She’s about the age of eight.
She has a lot of playmates, and in my yard they congregate.
The other day I overheard some lengthy conversations,
About the merits of different people's occupations.

Then silence fell as Sue began, “I'm the world's biggest health inspector fan”
The other girls grew open eyed and silent as a cat.
Then Sandra asked the question for all, “Just what in the world is that?”

You couldn’t drink a glass of milk, or eat a piece of pie,
‘Cause if you did you might get sick, and maybe even die.
You couldn't swim in a pool, because the water would be cloudy
And every time your toilet flushed, the ground would be wet and cruddy
The streets and alleys would be full of garbage everywhere,
And everyone would be real mad if my daddy wasn’t there.”

Of Course I might be exaggerating. Things might not really be that bad,
But certainly these things could happen if it weren’t for people like my dad.
There’s are lots of other things the healh inspector has to do.
But it takes too long to tell them all, so I’ve only named these few.”

Then I looked down at my shirt cuffs. They were frayed just like my collar.
I looked at all my furniture. It was worthless as a dollar.
Our car out in the driveway – it’s completely second-hand.
But I have my badge of honor. My daughter thinks I'm grand.

For if our kids live longer in a world we all safeguard,
That’s worth more than the money and will be enough reward.
So now I stand up straighter, my shoulders squared away.
My eyes are bright as sunrise, as I go to face the day.
And if you really care to, please thank your health inspector
Because we all are here, to be a health protector.

Original Author unknown, gender-specific references edited out by Corey to reflect all who are health inspectors

A Jury Pool, Rocky (the movie) and The Last Lecture

2009-04-21T10:31:00.010-04:00

As I was trapped in the jury pool room for 8 straight hours yesterday at the courthouse, I managed to read Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture from start to finish. It was a great book, albeit slightly depressing since he is dying as he writes it. There was one passage I thought was quite relevant to why I run.

Randy Pausch writes about the use of sports analogies to inspire his students to overcome the brick walls in their lives and specifically references Rocky (only the first movie). He also notes how he finds the theme to Rocky (Gonna Fly Now) inspiring. That passage made me think why so many runners listen to this boxing song while running. Each time Rocky ran through the streets of Philadelphia, you hear the Gonna Fly Now song. The lyrics boom, "trying hard now, its so hard now, getting strong now, won't be long now." The song never says, "Gonna win now". Have you also noticed that the song doesn't finish until Rocky finally makes it up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum?

I am going to bet that most runners reading this blog used running at one time to overcome a personal "brick wall". At first you did not believe you could ever run a mile, much less a marathon. But for some strange reason, you decided to run anyways. At first, you likely ran because you believed it would lead you to a healthier place. Then you ran a little further in the belief that one day you could run a mile. Then you ran a mile because one day you thought you could finish a 5K. Then you ran a longer distance because you thought that one day you could run a 1/2 or full marathon. What went through your mind while training to do something you once thought was impossible? I'm going to guess it was something like, "If I can just make it this far today, then I can make it a little further tomorrow and if I can do that, I just might make it over this brick wall."

In the first movie, Rocky's goal was not to win, but to make it to the end of the fight without being knocked out. The "Gonna Fly Now" song is a musical affirmation that Rocky could overcome his self-imposed limitations to accomplish what is considered impossible by others. When you crossed that finish line for the first time, what was going through your mind? Why do you keep entering races that you knew you would never win?

As Gonna Fly Now reminds us, our real victory is not the finish time but how crossing the finish line reaffirms to us and others that the impossible is possible if we just keep trying. That is why I run.

Discovering Life While Running Through a Flood of Memories

2009-04-21T10:17:00.007-04:00

When I walked out of the Little Rock airport, my body was in shock. I had left Florida at 80 degrees and now it was in the low 20s, snowing and sleeting and wasn’t suppose to get much warmer. That’s not unusual for Arkansas this time of year, but not normal either. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I was here to run the Little Rock Marathon and had never done an event in this cold of weather. I wondered what it would be like to run a marathon in sleet.

The expo on Saturday was not well attended by exhibitors or racers. I attribute it to a bad economy rather than event organizers. They were all pros. Low attendance was good for me because I got to spend some time chatting with Bart Yasso after buying his most recent book, My Life on the Run. He asked which event I was doing and I told him the ½ marathon because my marathon times weren’t good enough (in my opinion) to put myself through that torture. I told him I was not running for time, I was doing the ½ and I just wanted to have fun. He told me running for fun was the best way to do a ½ or full marathon and that was the best attitude to have. In my book, he wrote, “Never Limit Where Running Can Take You” (maybe he writes this in all the books?).

The Arkansas Democrat is one of the sponsors of the marathon and so they had an extensive write-up in the paper to promote the event. Apparently, when the event first started there was much opposition to it from area churches. They were concerned about their congregation not being able to get to church and about how God wanted to keep the Sabbath holy and a bunch of people running wasn’t exactly “sabbathy”. I always wondered about that perspective as I have often felt closest to God during the times when running clears the clutter of life out of my head and I become most receptive to his/her/it’s message. Anyways, the churches have come around and now the congregations come out and greet the runners as they pass by.

The weather improved dramatically for the race. It was 47 degrees, overcast and pretty much stayed that way the entire race. The runners in the starting corral were different from any other race I attended. Most of the people were clad in cotton, which I thought wasn’t very smart on a cold morning. Many of the guys had the trademark “born again” smiles on their faces and “televangelist”, oil-slickened hair. The women wore conservative running outfits and most had thick pancake makeup on their faces. How makeup can survive 26 miles of sweating is something I will never understand. Then there were the many “In Christ Everything is Possible” shirts. I always see those shirts at running events but not as many as were here. I always wonder if that slogan is true as the exercise asthma slowly strangles as I cross the finish line and I think I am going to die. I believe there must be something to it, I am still running!

The half marathon winds around downtown Little Rock and the scenery is constantly changing. You start out in front of President Clinton’s Library, which reminds me of a 70’s mobile home perched out over the river. Then you wind back into the heart of downtown past the 1900-era refurbished warehouses, crosses over the Arkansas River into North Little Rock, and take a quick jaunt into what was once the black part of town. This area of town was poverty stricken and most of the buildings have been demolished or boarded up. However, the local churches still have a presence and their mass choirs were out at the roadside singing gospel tunes as runners pass by. Young kids from their congregations lined the street in their matching brown suits and closely-cropped hair holding their hands out for a runner to slap them. I make their day by slapping the entire row of hands. Poverty gives way to prosperity as the road elevation rises (not much of this route is flat) from the Arkansas River. The boarded up houses and businesses slowly turn into antebellum mansions culminating in a pass in front of the governor’s mansion and Douglas McArthur’s home. I try to get Donna Summer’s “McArthur Park” to play on my mp3 play as I round this corner, but I can’t get it to queue.

As we crest the race’s highest elevation, time starts to move forward as every so many blocks reveals a newer decade of buildings. The entire route is lined with people cheering us on. Having used the Galloway run-walk technique all season, I was looking forward to joining a group. There were no Galloway groups on this run. In fact, I didn’t see anybody using the Galloway method. Instead, the crowd I started with just kept flowing like the river we had just crossed and I decided to flow with them and run the whole route myself.

I got really excited when at mile 12 I caught the 4:00 marathon pacer and the remaining 1.1 mile was downhill. A sub-2 hour half marathon was within my grasp!!!!! I felt strong, so I put it into high gear. And that’s when my old “friend” Mr. Cramps reminded me he was along for the race as both calf muscles seize up. I’m still feeling great, but I can’t run as fast as I want to because I have to work the cramps out. I end up finishing the ½ at a PR time of 2:05:10 and finish 830/2563. As I crossed the finish line, my eyes become fixated on the marathon medals hanging nearby. The marathon medals are about the size of five Disney marathon medals combined and are the biggest things I have ever seen.

On the flight back to Florida, I read Bart Yasso’s book. In Chapter 2, he talks about doing the Great Smokey Mountain Marathon. He chose this race for the scenery not because he wanted to post a great time. He wanted to appreciate running for what it was, an affirmation of life. He ends up setting a PR at the age of 43 and winning the event. Ironic isn’t it? For the first time in my running life, I ran an event to revive some old memories from my college days living in Little Rock, to enjoy the scenery and the people as it unfolded around me, to notice all those little things that I had crowded out of my life for so many years and during that moment of letting go I somehow set a PR. Bart was right. The reward of running is the time we spend living the lifestyle and embracing the journey rather than the time to the finish line.

Who is the Glad Bag Erica?

2009-03-24T00:12:00.006-04:00

I swear I've seen the woman who plays Erica in the Glad bag commercials somewhere before. Its bugges me so much, I've been obsessed with finding out who the actress is. So I wrote to the company that makes the Glad Bags. A very nice person wrote me back and said her identity is a corporate secret.

If anybody out there knows who she is, please reveal her true identity so I can move on to more productive endeavors.

UPDATE

I was sad to learn that Clorox (Glad Bag's parent company) has parted ways with Erica. According to their spokeswoman Vicki Haber, Erica is gone and will likely not be coming back. Oh Erica, sealing my leftovers will never feel the same. How sad....how very sad.

Biggest Loser Marathon Scandal

2009-02-27T21:54:00.003-05:00

I am just so mad at Biggest Loser and Dane Patterson right now. I had been venting my anger on other people's blogs, now its time to do one on my own. Anyone who has ever trained for a marathon knows what a toll it takes on your body, time and family life. The reward for the sacrafice is the medal and the time at the end of the race. Its not much, but it keeps most of us going (that and getting to eat ice cream afterwards).

Well now the Biggest Loser's producers have admitted they fabricated this marathon finish. The full story can be found on the LA Times blog site.
Highlights from the producers includes:

After seeing on various online blogs that this information may be inaccurate we investigated the claim and found that Dane had not indeed completed the marathon unaided. From our internal investigation we learned that Dane ran the first 17 miles before receiving a ride from the field producer for 3 miles before rejoining the race at the 20 mile mark whereupon he completed the race. (come on producers, how could you not know this...its YOUR show YOU SCRIPT ALL THIS STUFF!!!)

Here is what Dane supposedly said according to the LA Times:
The source also said Dane was so upset that he accepted the ride and didn't run the full distance that he went back later in the day — with his cousin Blaine, who was also with him on the show — and ran the missing miles so that he could say he did indeed run 26.2 miles. (I would have refused the ride!!!)

Here is what I say:
Dane and Reville Producers: Once you make the decision to get in the car and ride, your race is OVER. You can't rest up a few hours, go back later in the day, run the missing segment and say you ran a marathon. YOU RAN A 17 MILE, 6 MILE AND THEN 3 MILE SPLIT TRAINING SESSION.....NOT A MARATHON!!!!!! I hope one day you train for a marathon for real, take the 6+ hours you need to finish it without riding in a car or taking the afternoon off. When you do this, you will discover why so many people are so mad (and disappointed) at you and understand why this issue is such a big deal.

What do cockroaches and rats have in common with our current financial mess?

2008-12-03T10:32:00.004-05:00

When I teach our health department's food class, I always end the presentation with the "Taco Bell Rat Video" (google this term on You-Tube for the non-squeamish). For those who don't know about it or haven't seen it, a Taco Bell in NYC was absolutely infested with roof rats to the point where it became a media circus and the place was shut down. Prior to it getting to this point, the facility had been cited for rodents by the health inspector for more than a year. They had ample opportunity to solve it before it threatened their business. The inspector was ignored, the problem grew out of control placing the business and possibly the brand at peril. After shocking everyone with this video and getting their attention, I explain that the goal of a health inspection is not to find things wrong, it is to keep something like this from happening to their business. I explain that only the people who work in the business, not the health inspector, can keep something like this from happening again.

I was thinking about this video last week during an inspection. I was doing some training and had another inspector with me. As I was talking to the owner, the other inspector comes out of the pantry with a hand full of mouse droppings in her hand. "Looks like you got a rodent problem" she tells him. He responds back with, "I've never seen any mice in here!" Which I promptly respond with, "Well then AFTER you clean your pantry, you have nothing to worry about on the reinspection."

As I continued to talk to the owner about other problems (all the food was spoiling in his 50+ degree refrigerator also), the other inspector continues to look around the kitchen. Upon opening the dishwasher, a german cockroach scurries out of it and away from her hand. She announces her find to the room, I write it on the inspection report and tell the owner he needs to work on this problem also. He responds to me, "What roaches, there are no roaches in my establishment!" So the other inspector tells him she just saw it. He demands she open the dishwasher and show him. She does, and of course the roach has long scurried away. The owner becomes very angry and informs us there can only be roaches in his kitchen if HE sees them. So, the other inspector points out all of the roach poop that had accumulated in the cabinets. It doesn't work. Unless HE can see the roaches, they simply do not exist.

So what do rats and invisible roaches have to do with our country's current financial mess? Our financial world has become "infested" with bad loans and now our global financial markets are in peril. Economists had been warning us for almost a decade about the signs of the infestation. These signs included housing prices that had no connection with people's incomes, people using their equity as an ATM, mortgage loan terms that were based upon the ability of someone to sell the house for a profit before the note came due and our investment institutions using the bad loans to fuel their ponzi schemes.

The signs of what has now come were there the entire time. But because nobody could actually see the "rat or roach" (until now), we refused to believe there was a problem in our financial kitchen. So the government has put out "roach and rat traps" hoping to catch all the bad debt and the International Monetary Fund will help us "clean out our pantry" and try to remove any visible sign of the infestation.

There is something you need to know about what roaches and rats have in common with this financial mess. Traps, poisons and cleaning are fixes that will temporarily remove the visible signs of the infestations. Rodents and rats will always reinsfest a kitchen if the underlying condition that attracted them there in the first place is not resolved. The same is true with our current financial mess. This problem will come back unless we as a society deal with the root cause of this mess.......using credit to live well beyond our means.

The $100 Dilemma

2008-10-12T15:08:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, I found myself standing in a slow return line at the Sacramento REI. I was four people back and the clerk was dawdling while his customer became argumentative. To stay the boredom, I went into "health inspector mode" and began scanning the floors and walls for cleanliness. As my eyes explored the area of the return counter floor, I discovered a folded, green piece of paper about two feet from the angry customer. I studied the paper more closely and realized it's a $100 bill! I pondered the appropriate response to this situation. Should I just take it? Do I bring it to the attention of the nearest customer or the return clerk? Should I wait until I'm sure its lost money? Can I pick it up at all? It was the $100 dilemma.

I decide to wait the situation out. If it belonged to a customer, I'm sure they would notice it missing from their wallet, start looking and then I'd point it out and be the hero. But what if the person who lost it had left the store? I doubt any of the customers in line would deny it belonged to them and then I would just be giving the $100 away. I also doubted the clerk would look for the rightful owner if I left it with him. Five minutes pass, the suspect customer leaves and the next one in line walks to the counter. Nobody notices the bill and I decide its now unclaimed money. What was the most appropriate way to retrieve the lost $100 bill? Should I rush the counter and grab it before anybody notices then dash back into line? That would appear rude, the person at the counter might claim they dropped it and an argument might ensue. I concluded the best thing to do was to wait until it was my turn at return desk and then pick up the $100 bill as I approach the counter. Then people would either not notice me pick it up or think I had dropped it. It was a difficult plan to implement. There were still two people in front of me, a couple more were now behind me, people were sauntering in the area and the line was still moving agonizingly slow. My plan's success would depend upon patience and the continued obliviousness of the line. I do my best to not to stare at the bill in case somebody notices.

Ten minutes pass. The next person leaves, the woman in front of me is now at the counter and still nobody has noticed the $100 bill. My patience appears to be paying off and I begin anticipating all the cool hiking gear I could buy with the $100. Then I feel guilty and think about how my favorite charity could use $100. As I think about these things, I worry about how much longer that money will remain unnoticed. An adrenaline rush hits me as I start to panic. "I must be decisive!" I think to myself and plan my approach for "Operation Rush and Grab." I look down at the bill a final time before the assault. OH CRAP! Part of Ben's face was being smothered by the Birkenstocks of the woman at the counter. The only way to get it now was to tackle her or wait for her foot to move. After a couple minutes, the foot moves about 6 inches, Ben and I breathe a sigh of relief, but she was still so close to the bill that it was under the shadow of her dress. "I can't grab it now", I think, "I'd look like a pervert trying to look up her dress if I tried to pick it up and then I'd probably get arrested." Mission aborted. I settle back down and again wait for my turn at the counter.

Twenty minutes had passed, nobody was picking up this stupid $100 bill and I was starting to believe finding this money was my destiny, my reward for "doing the right thing". After all, I had been patient, I had been polite, I had seen it first when……………the woman standing in front of me finishes her return and as she put the credit slip back into her purse to leave, happened to glance down and notice the bill. She looked both ways rapidly, then rapidly dips to pick it up and gently slips Ben into her purse and turns to leave the store…all in a seemingly fluid motion. "NOOOOOOOO!!!" I scream in my mind, "That was my $100 bill!!!!" It was all over in a matter of seconds. Shocked by this turn of events, I could not speak. I wait for someone else in line to react for me, to argue they had lost it or tell her to give it to the clerk in case the owner came looking for it. There was only the voice of clerk thanking the woman for shopping at REI and wishing her a good day.

It's finally my turn to approach the counter and return my unused climbing gear. I berate myself for not being more decisive, for not recognizing an opportunity when I had it. My refund happens to be just over $100. As I look at the amount on the refund slip, I realize the $100 dilemma was really not about the money. It was, in essence, whether or not to take control of the events in our lives and shaping them to our advantage or just accepting the outcomes as they happen because the universe tends to unfold as it should.

What if every day was exactly the same?

2007-12-02T13:19:00.003-05:00

Imagine if you just completed a big project only to find you when you went to work the next day you had to start all over again. Would you feel demoralized, frustrated, like you were Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day? That's what it often feels like to be a health inspector. We work hard to get our list of inspections completed by some arbitrary deadline only to have to do them all over again when the new inspection quarter starts….and the cycle never ends. Toward the end of movie, Bill Murray's character "Phil Conners" comes to the realization that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same places, seeing the same people and doing the same thing every day. I have seen a version of this movie play out in many government offices. Thinking they cannot escape their version of Groundhog Day, I have seen people become increasingly dissatisfied, bored and lethargic in the repeating, rutted cycles of their jobs.

Groundhog Day has a deeper storyline. As Phil Conners comes to terms with the utter agony of waking up in the same day, he learns to be pure with his intentions, focus outward and develop new knowledge/skills that can be used to make meaningful differences in the people and world around him. It is this transformation that eventually allows him to move past Groundhog Day.

I have seen this transformation happen in my health department. Last spring, I had the joy being on a team of creative and energetic people working on a drowning prevention effort. I was invited on the team because of my puppetry skills. The team wanted parents and kids to leave our booth with more than a few educational brochures. So, the team created a game called "Save the Duck." In this game, a life ring puppet called "Larry the Lifesaver" (see picture in profile) is a carnival huckster who entices kids to our booth to save a duck and win a prize. In order to win a ring toss, they first they have to answer a drowning prevention question. The kids actively seek more drowning prevention facts to earn more ring tosses. In the process of saving the ducks, they also learn about life saving devices and how to use them (or not use them as toys). At times, we have had over 30 kids lined up at our booth waiting to play the game. Some kids even went through the line multiple times to save a duck. While they watch their kids play, it gives us time to talk to the parents about drowning prevention.

Arriving to work the day after our most recent drowning prevention outreach effort, my list of 400+ inspections was stacked neatly upon my desk just as it was the previous morning. However, this morning was slightly different. Everyone in the office was buzzing about "Save the Duck". I had received an e-mail from another inspector. He wanted to know when I was taking the puppets on the road again and if he could participate in the next outreach event. Our outreach effort was going to be on TV and had been featured in the newspaper that weekend. People were excited because they felt part of something that was making a difference in our community. I stared back down at the list, took a deep breath and exhaled in relief. It was no longer Groundhog Day.

Laugh it Forward

2007-12-02T13:16:00.002-05:00

Every January 1, I am confronted with an endless barrage of commercials and news stories trying to convince me there is something wrong with my body or life. If I would only change, they imply, I will become right in the eyes of the people around me. This year, I decided to tune out those messages and focus outward rather than inward. My New Year's resolution is to "Laugh it Forward". I am going to try to make every person I meet during the day smile and hopefully laugh. When I succeed, I'll ask them to laugh it forward.

The inspiration for my resolution came from Catherine Ryan Hyde's story "Pay it Forward". In the story, a young boy's teacher challenges him to do something that will make the world a better place. He decides to pay a good deed forward (rather than back) in hopes that the person will do the same for three other people, who then help 9, then 27….81…etc. The idea being if enough people did this deed, good things would start to happen to the people around him. Her story has also inspired a movement. You can find out more information about it by going to
http://www.payitforwardmovement.org

If my blog makes you smile, laugh or your day go a little better, please do me a favor and laugh it forward. See how it makes you feel. See what happens to the people around you. You never know, your smile might be the little difference that changes the world.

Inspecting the Shadow of Death

2007-10-23T14:18:00.002-04:00

Funny isn't it how as young adults we have career fantasies. We imagine what the job will be like, our accomplishments, the money we will make and the societal status we will gain. It is only after spending some time in a career that we discover what we find most rewarding often has nothing to do with those fantasies.

As a health inspector, I knew I would never make much money. However, I did imagine myself chasing mutated microbes, guarding the safety of our water, food and air supplies and protecting those who cannot protect themselves. These were the rewards I imagined enjoying most in a public health career. The fantasy, however, doesn't always match reality. For the past year, I have spent most of my time inspecting places like nursing homes, hospitals, chemotherapy clinics, hospice care and dialysis centers. I have also inspected the human remains businesses of mortuaries and crematories. The shadow of death was a central theme in these places and inspecting it on a daily basis has been a very uncomfortable challenge. The images I saw during the inspection haunted me for days. Images of morticians draining blood from rows of pale human bodies on cold stainless steel tables, hallways littered with drooling and demented people hunched in their wheelchairs waiting for their life's last big event (death) or hospice nurses attending to cancer patients taking their last breath as families cry by the bedside looped endlessly in my mind.

The business of helping those waiting for death to come or preparing the dead for final disposition seems so dark and so sad. Inspecting death depresses me. Given a choice, I'd rather inspect a restaurant than a nursing home any day but I can't. Navigating through these places is a part of my daily work life now. To cope, I reached out to the people working in these places. I asked them how they dealt with death. Surprisingly, they didn't see death in their workplaces as being sad or dark. In fact, most of the employees report their workplaces as being "happy" and providing them with a strong sense of purpose. For many, it was the first time they ever had a job that made a real and visible difference in another human being's life. Others discovered the real meaning of friendship, love and compassion through sharing one of life's most intimate and reflective times with a (formerly) total stranger. Some described the religious affirmation found when one is a part of the death process. For all, the death experience was the well from which the reward was drawn.

Why could I not see the positive in the shadow of death? I believe it had something to do with me being uncomfortable around people who were dying. I was so busy all my life running away from them and pretending they didn't exist that I could not see the value of their experience. I could only see the ending. However, things are changing with each inspection. When I inspect these places now, I don't "see" death. I instead see compassion, care, love and understanding. I notice how my efforts make a difference in the lives of the people who pass through these facilities. I am beginning to see the light of life in places where before I only noticed the shadow of death. I am also beginning to see the irony of what people think will be rewarding in their career, such as money, power and status has little or nothing to do with what they will ultimately find rewarding such as seeing life's experiences through someone else's eyes and personal growth from on-the-job experiences.

If you think about it, being around the dead and dying on a daily basis are not things that people would place on their list of career fantasies. Yet I am struck by how many people have found personal enrichment from careers that place them in these situations. It is just one of many examples of how life's best rewards are often hidden in the least obvious and expected locations…..including shadows.

If You Don't Like What You Are Looking At, Change the Way You Are Looking At It!

2007-09-23T13:02:00.003-04:00

Orlando Sentinel, August 21, 2006- "The Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida reported 78,510 shelter-nights were provied for women and their children during FY 2005-06"

The call came into the office last Monday. One person about to die from flesh eating bacteria and another person was saved by a last minute round of antibiotics. The only thing the two people had in common was they both stayed at the local homeless shelter. My job....go to shelter and conduct an inspection, find out if there are other, undiscovered victims, figure out if the shelter is or is not the reservoir of the deadly bacteria and figure out how to stop its spread.

This was not my first trip to a homeless shelter. I had spent many evenings working at them as a volunteer. I always found the work rewarding and I enjoyed listening to the colorful stories of the (primarily) men who fill them. But, I find shelters to be exceptionally depressing places, essentially holding tanks for society's unwanted; people who loved drugs and alcohol more than themselves..people who have been ravaged by mental illness....people who had no one waiting for them at the end of the day....people who had long been discarded as "worthless" by an indifferent society.

I begin the inspection. Shredded mattresses, missing windows, slime-covered shower stalls, trash on the floors, lockers vandalized so many times that they are used old table tops for doors. The building is over 50 years old and in need of serious maintenance. I angrily direct the shelter manager to clean the place up and repair the building. He tells me a generous benefactor offered to build a new facility last year if they could find some land, but nobody wanted a homeless shelter in their neighborhood. "So what the hell are we suppose to do?", he asks me. "We get by on donations only, and they barely cover the food and electric bill." I don't respond because he's right. My only other option is to close the shelter...surely a poorly maintained shelter is better than sleeping in a garbage bin I ask myself. It is a situation only a flesh-eating bacteria could love.

This shelter also had a wing for people who had also been arrested for drug possession/intoxication and were given the option of going to rehab instead of prison. It was the "rehab of last resort" for those who could not pay. We move on to the men's section of the rehab wing. It is a barren, white-washed, concrete block building containing surrounded by chain-link fence and controlled access doors. It essentially is a minimum-security prison devoid of anything to stimulate the mind. The men's wing contains a double row of bunk beds, each one neatly made with donated blankets and a plastic garbage bag hanging from a corner. The bag contains the remainder of someone's "life". I stare at the bags, wondering how much crystal meth it takes to reduce one's life down to a garbage bag.

We go down to the women's wing and open the door, and enter. I am surprised by what I see. It has been decorated to make it look like home. The dorm is brightly lit and the walls have posters and are painted with a fresh coat of baby blue paint. Pictures of children, parents, boyfriends, husbands and happier times cover the lockers. Some residents have calendars over their beds counting down the days until they can leave. I see a well-worn picture of a child on one of the resident's bed. Clearly she holds it to her chest each night as she falls asleep. I try to imagine enduring the pain of having my child forcibly taken away by the state and shuttled off to strangers. I wonder how much cocaine it takes to not care about your children anymore.

The shelter manager directs me to the opposite wall. There I see three pieces of cardboard covered with a reflective foil. He explains that the residents use these as mirrors (they can't use glass due to suicide risks). I notice something is written on one of the mirrors. It says, "If You Don't Like What You Are Looking At, Change the Way You Are Looking At It!"
We leave the dorm and walk back to the manager's office to develop a plan for disinfecting the facility. As I am walking back, I look around at the building one last time. It looks different somehow. I think about the writing on the mirror and the work the people at the shelter are trying to do. Then, I remember why there are homeless shelters and "last-resort" rehab centers and why we need to support them. They are not places where people are discarded. They are places where people begin journeys, touches can show we care, hopes raise spirits. Most importantly, they can be places that remind us if we can change the way we look at some things, we too can make a difference in a world surrounded by indifference.

Have You Ever Looked Up to a Redwood Tree?

2007-09-23T12:59:00.005-04:00

This blog is dedicated to Laura Mahan and Julia Butterfly Hill whose collective courage and inspiration has allowed me to experience the mystery of an ancient redwood tree.

Who do you look up to? I doubt many people would answer with a serious face, "A Redwood Tree"…especially if you had never seen one. However, I was different from most people (so my friends tell me!). Throughout my childhood, I had seen pictures of the mighty redwood forests of California. I had heard stories about them being 30+ stories tall, wide enough to drive a car through and how one tree could yield 480,000 board feet of lumber. However, it wasn't these facts that most inspired me. It was how these trees had somehow figured out the secret of near-eternal life by living in harmony with the land for more than 2000 years and in their death, remaining a critical part of their ecological community for centuries more by supporting the new life growing upon their remains. It was their uniqueness that sparked a curiosity about the natural world around me that eventually led me into the sciences.

I took four decades, but I finally had my chance to meet a redwood in person a few weeks ago in Redwood National Park. The forest instantly welcomed me into their refuge from the trappings of civilization. The trees became increasingly large and tall as I strained to see their tops. About half way down the trail, my progress was blocked by a massive redwood. Trail volunteers had cut a path through it. As I walked through the cut, I found myself drawn to the tree rings. I stopped and tried counting them, but there were just too many. I estimated this tree to be somewhere between 2000-3000 years old. I thought about how this tree had been here before the first European stepped foot in California, before the rise of Europe, even before Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth. My hand reached out to touch the rings. As my finger passed each ripple in time, I felt this connection to the people, places and events that took place during the life of this tree. I was as if this tree was, in its own strange way, passing its witness of history on to me.

As my finger reached the outermost ring, my hand dropped back to my side. I felt a deep sense of loss as I realized this living connection with the past had died. I looked back at the tree now lying helpless on the ground. It was being illuminated by the golden touch of sunlight penetrating through a hole the falling tree left in the canopy. The wildflowers soaking up the sunlight signaled to the other plants that this tree was moving on, beginning its next phase as a doting mother to the life that would eventually replace it. Not far from the spot where I had touched history, the ancient forest had been clear-cut only 30 years ago. I was later discouraged to learn that 97% of old growth forest that took God thousands of years to create and been annihilated by man in slightly over a century. I couldn't understand how anyone could, in good conscious, kill a 3000 year old living creature!

Back home in Florida, I found myself again looking up to the redwoods as I read Jon Meacham's book American Gospel. In it, he writes, "To fail to consult the past consigns us to the tyranny of the present. If we know, however, how those who came before us found the ways and means to surmount the difficulties of their age, we stand a far better chance of acting in the moment with perspective and measured judgment." Perhaps it was the "tyranny of the present" that led us to destroy these beautiful monuments to time. We chopped almost all of them down before we had to chance to consult their past and learn how they surmounted the difficulties of time. Perhaps if we had looked up to a redwood tree instead of cutting it down, maybe we could have found a way to surmount the difficulties of our current age and gained the perspective and measured judgment that only 2000+ years of living could provide.

There's Something Here from Somewhere Else

2007-01-12T14:27:00.002-05:00

Warning: If your religious belief system requires rigid adherence to a narrow set of text in a book without consideration of any alternative viewpoints, this blog will likely offend you.

St. Augustine, Florida is famous for many things, including the numerous ghosts that inhabit the old city. During my annual pilgrimage there every fall, I had known about the tours but always thought they were a bit too tacky for me. I also had mixed feelings about the existence of ghosts. I didn't know whether ghosts were truly human spirits, images created by our own mind or just phenomena we don't yet understand. Whatever ghosts were, I was certain they were not like zoo animals waiting around for a tour group to see them.

At the prodding of friends determined to see the ghost of a Spanish soldier, I finally decided to shell out $15 dollars and go on a tour during my last trip. It began in historic downtown at 10 pm. According to our guide, ghost sightings occured on a bell-curve with peak observation periods occurring around 2-4 am (which also happens to be when the bars close). Ghosts frequently materialized when we least expected it, appearing as ordinary people (hence the need for a guide I guess). Sometimes, ghosts were invisible to the naked eye, only being visible on film. In light of these facts, the guide gave us advice about the ghosts most frequently seen on tours and tips on how to look, listen and position our cameras for optimal viewing and photography.

As we wandered the streets and in between nasty jeers from the unbelievers in passing cars, we learned that ghosts prefer certain locations in town. They really like old houses, execution/murder sites, funeral homes, cemeteries and places where strong emotions were experienced. As we stood in front of an old funeral home, I wondered why any spirit would want to haunt a place where they burn you, drain your blood and pickle you with formaldehyde. Other than haunting the occasional tourist, what else is there for a ghost to do in a cemetery? As for murder/execution sites, I think a spirit would want to be as far away from that place as possible. AI could see how a spirit would like to hang out in an old house, but I would definately see problems ahead when the new residents started remodeling it. As the tour came to an end, I did not see any ghosts. In fact, I didn't even feel anything remotely spiritual on the tour. If these spirits were hanging around town, where were they, why were they here and why did they not make their presence known to me?

This question of spiritual sense of place weighed on my mind during a recent hike in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma. The mountains are located in the center of an area where my family history goes back at least 130 years. Within these mountains, there is a certain trail that is very special to me. Every time I hike it, I feel a strong sense of connection; a connection with my past, family, culture and root values. Yet it is only a place of rocks, wind, grass and a few scattered trees and buffalo. So on that blustery, cloudy day, I climbed to the top of the mountain and sat on a large boulder. Staring out to the gray horizon, I pondered the distance of time that separated me from the people who were once part of this land and considered if their spirits had remained behind. Then I wondered if my spirit could have come from this place and if the sense of connection I was feeling was my spirit longing to return.

These thoughts swirled in my mind as I struggled to protect myself against a cold north wind stinging my face. As the wind intensified, it carried with it the sound of numerous, faint voices. I struggled to make sense of these voices over the roaring wind. I lowered the hood on my coat and the voices suddenly became clear. Each of them told a story about the people and events of my past. The voices weaved the seemingly discordant storylines together into an explanation of how I had become the person I am today. Through their stories, I felt a strong sense of belonging, of being a part of something much greater than my individual essence. As this sense of belonging peaked, a cluster of oak leaves were suddenly blown from a nearby tree into the sky above me. They floated and tumbled effortlessly above my head for a few moments before the cold wind carried them off onto the horizon. As suddenly as it began, the cacophony of voices began to fade back into the vastness of time as the wind started to calm. As the last leaf vanished onto the horizon, a final voice whispered "Welcome Home" into my ear before returning back to the place from which it came.

It was at that moment that I decided our spirits can have a sense of place and that we can unconsciously be connected to that place. I think that I also learned that if we really do have a spiritual essence, it can live on to touch the lives of others long after we are gone.

I didn't honk

2007-01-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

It was the night before the Iraq War started and I was sitting in Spanish II class. The impending war was weighing on our professor's mind as she made an uncharacteristic diversion from teaching to politicizing. She told us truth and freedom were always the first victims of war and how violence had never solved anything. As she discussed the part about how destabilizing Iraq might set a horrible chain of events in motion, the previously quiet and shy woman sitting next to me jumped up and screamed, "Saddam Hussein is an evil man and needs to be killed!!!!" and then sat quietly back down. An uncomfortable quiet smothered the classroom as the discussion came to an abrupt end.

As I left class that night, I thought about how it seemed that everyone in our country was so pro-war and how anybody who even asked, "Did you think about this?" were immediately labeled anti-American. I wondered how our country went from not caring about Iraq to it being our most pressing issue. After all, Bush Sr. made these same arguments for the invasion of Iraq in 1990 and everybody laughed at him. The difference this time was President Bush had the ultimate weapon….the Karl Rove propaganda machine. Wrapping the war in a blanket of religious crusade, patriotism and imminent collapse of the American way of life, the machine was able to poison the minds of peaceful, average citizens with hatred and turn them into rabid warmongers who were willing to exchange their freedom and lives in pursuit of the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz manifesto. I had decided to remain silent during that time believing more rational minds would eventually prevail and this war would not happen. I believed I was only one voice that could not be heard. I believed that others would rise up and speak out for me. As time would show, my beliefs were proven wrong.

A fellow Quaker recently asked me to stand with him downtown and hold a sign that said "War is Not the Answer". I refused. The sign wouldn't change anything and this protest was not worth negative opinions from people in my social circle, I rationalized. Last week, I drove through town on my way home from work. I saw that person holding his sign along with 10 other people. They were trying to get people to honk in agreement with them. As I drove by them, I didn't honk. You see, the Karl Rove propaganda machine knew that the typical American wants to fit in rather than stand out; that if the majority believed something to be true, then it must be; and that it was more important to feel right than be right. I had wanted and believed all those things and decided not to honk. I had realized at that moment that I was guilty, I was war, I was part of the machine and I was now riding in the back seat and no longer at control of the wheel.

A Celestial Christmas Wish

2007-01-12T14:05:00.000-05:00

Have you ever been inspired by the night sky? Ever wonder how one bright star could have inspired three wise men to begin a journey that would allow them to witness the creation of a new religion and the arrival of a person who would change the world? Many years ago, I found myself staring up at the night sky on a cold December night trying to understand who and where I was in this universe. Unlike the three wise men, my answer was not found in a bright star. The answer was instead revealed within a celestial portrait created by a million twinkling points of light working harmoniously together. This celestial portrait had inspired generations of philosophers, poets, musicians, and scientists before me to dream, write, compose and discover and it was now showing me my place in the universe. It showed me a place of hope and peace, a place urging me to begin a journey of self discovery, learning and sharing. A journey that would eventually allow me to connect with the people, places and opportunities that are making our world a better place to live.

The inspiration I felt so long ago has unfortunately waned this holiday season and I think it has something to do with the increasing light of fear. The media, our politicians and religious extremists are all scaring us as never before for personal gain, trying to convince us that the antiquated notion of peace and hope through contribution to society, cooperation and tolerance has been replaced by a quasi religious/state-created security forged from intolerance, violence and subjugation. This fear has had a toll on my community. My neighbors have installed brighter porch lights, the city more street lamps and the merchants more parking lights all in an effort to create a heightened sense of safety through a virtual fortress of light. I have paid a high price to live in this virtual fortress. My nightly celestial inspiration is now obscured by the bright, sunset-like glow of light pollution. As I stand in the fortress lamenting the loss yet another connection with nature, I wonder what would have happened if the three wise men had lived in my community today. Would the nightly television news have scared them out of making the journey to Bethlehem? Would their minds have been open to learning about a new religion? Could they have received God's message of the arrival of Jesus if they couldn't see the star?

My Christmas wish to anyone reading this is that you take a moment to tune out the media, politicians and religious zealots, leave the virtual light fortress and journey to a dark sky location to experience the night as the three wise men did so long ago. It is my hope that if you do this, you too will discover the night sky in its full glory and find the inspiration that only an intimate relationship with a million tiny flickers of light could create.

When Garbage Isn't Garbage

2006-11-10T18:14:00.002-05:00

This morning at 4:30 am, I let my dog out into the front yard for a bathroom break. I don't normally do this, but he was going in for surgery this morning and I had to make sure he didn't get into anything. After a few minutes, I noticed a bicycle propped up against my fence and what appeared to be some bags next to it. I shrugged figuring that somebody must have dumped some stolen stuff in my yard. I grumbled about whoever had left that stuff there and went back inside.

After thinking about it a few minutes, I went back outside and checked the piles out further with my flashight. As the beam of light hit the piles, I realized it was not several bags but one large duffle-like bag. Then, I saw the faint outline of two hands and feet. It was a body!!! I immediately called 911 and they dispatched an ambulance. The paramedics were able to revive the badly disoriented and most likely drugged woman and took her to the hospital.

I hope she wasn't raped and if she had been a drug or alcohol addict, I hope she gets some help. I don't know what happened after they took her. I'm just glad there are places out there to help people in these types of situations

Are You a Tombstone?

2006-10-30T10:49:00.004-05:00

As I stood at my grandmother's graveside funeral service this past Monday, I found myself staring around at the hundreds of tombstones surrounding her coffin. The tombstones, like most others in the U.S., were uniform in appearance and marked with a name, birth and death date and some with a wedding date and children's names. That was it. It was literally and figuratively these people's "last words." But do these tombstones really capture the essence of these people? I wondered, "What if all the people interred here could somehow come back to life and tell me a story. What would they say, what would I learn from them and how would these stories impact my life?"

As she became older, I asked my grandmother to tell me the stories about her younger life. She thought the events of her life were unremarkable and rarely talked about them despite my prodding. I knew that her father was one of the original homesteaders who came into Oklahoma during the Land Run of 1889. She spent her younger days as a pioneer on that homestead. She later married my grandfather and lived as a sharecropper in dustbowl-era Oklahoma and that they gave up everything to find a better life in California. Along the way, she became one of the first "Rosie the Riveters" by installing brakes on planes in the Douglas Aircraft's Long Beach plant during World War II. She also worked as a mechanic in the 50's and 60's and spent her later years back in agriculture working as a farm fieldworker supervisor and in a vegetable processing plant in Oregon.

My grandmother died leaving me with just the basic facts of her life. I never heard how it felt to have her mother die at 12 years old and be thrown out of the house with her siblings to fend for themselves when her father remarried, as a newlywed to lose everything to a natural disaster and forced into refugee-status, be an American citizen yet be discriminated against because she was one of a thousand Okies with no money their pockets entering California during the Depression or the emotional challenges of being one of the first women to work in a historically-male profession. These events had a huge impact on her life and how she viewed it. Yet, those impacts were never recorded. All I am left with are the words on her tombstone and some now fading memories.

Everyone has a story that must be told and preserved! The next time you write a blog about something in your life, don't stop with the facts, record the story in your heart. Don't be like the tombstones in that cemetary. Don't let the real story of your life be lost to time.

What does the Middle East and Furniture have in Common?

2006-10-30T10:47:00.000-05:00

When I was a child and through my teenage years, I always had problems with bumping my head on an open drawer or smashing my toe into a chair leg. I would respond to this unexpected pain by forming a fist and smacking the offending furnture very hard. If it was the third or fourth time, I would even knock the dresser or chair over in retaliation.

Every time I hit the furniture, I would think, "taught that piece of furniture a lesson." Funny thing is that no matter how many times I slapped the furniture, I kept bumping my head/smashing my toes. And even though slapping the furniture made me feel emotionally better, the furniture refused to get out of my way. Eventually, I decided that I needed to do something else because I knew it was only a matter of time before I broke a body part. I decided that I needed better lighting, the furniture needed to be repositioned away from paths of movement and I just needed to be more aware of my surroundings.

As I hear about the recurring problems in the middle east, I am curious to know if all the people so full of hatred for one another have problems bumping into their furniture. I wonder if it was all the bumps on their heads/toes and the associated pain, rather than their political differences, that cause them to always seek violent solutions to their differences. I wonder if they ever thought about working with the floorplans, lighting and themselves rather than furniture slapping to solve their problems. After all, we all share this house we call earth.

No One Plans to Drown When They Go to the Beach (Part One of the Quito Immersion Experience)

2006-09-11T16:29:00.001-04:00

If you have ever wondered what a language immersion expereience is like, here you go! The stories chronicle my immersion experience in Quito, Ecuador in 2004. Today is part one of the series.

I never learned to swim until I was an adult. Despite that fault, I often went to the pool, lake or beach (when I lived near one). Each time I went to a water body, I would survey the situation to make sure everything was safe, tip toe into the water and then just stand there. As time passed and I learned how to swim, I eventually became more comfortable, I would go deeper and deeper into the water until eventually getting up to my chest in water. However, to this day, I have yet to dive into a pool or swim more than 50 feet from a shallow place.

I guess these past couple of years; I've approached learning spanish in this way. Dipping my linguistic "toes" into the water, getting a little deeper but never getting to the point where I "swam" with it. So on this day when I left for Ecuador, the "rip current" finally pulled me out. I realized I was being pulled out when I stepped off the tram in the Orlando Airport to go to the gate. As I walked to the gate, this horrible violin music was playing, the kinda music you hear when someone is dying in movie. With much surprise as I approached the gate, no one was speaking English...not even the American Airlines attendants. So there I was, trying to remember the Spanish word for "seat" and trying to follow the announcements in Spanish. I made it to the plane and next to my seat were an older married couple. I asked the wife if she wanted the window seat instead of me. Thats when it happened, I got the "Oh My God, Youre Jack the Ripper" blank stare and no response. I looked around embarrassed. Nobody on this plane spoke English! Oh My God!! I was immersed!

Too panicked to talk, I sat there staring down the aisle wondering what to do next (or say for that matter). Then I realized, God speaks English!! So I sat there and quietly spoke to Him (as to not cause alarm). I asked God if I was crazy and why anyone who can't swim well would ever want to go on anything with the word "immersion" in it and asked him to please send me some English speakers. Well, God didn't answer me; I guess He was disappointed I didn't speak spanish to him.

When I got on the Quito-bound leg of the flight in Miami, I discovered I was wrong about God. He let me know he really was listening. Some well-dressed Quitenos got on first. Then, came this 100+ wave of redneck Kentucky people with "Bikers for Jesus" and "Mission Accomplished" T-shirts. God even threw in a few Mormons just to let me know he really cared! So, this leg of the flight was filled with loud, southern-drawl, obnoxious deep-South English. They talked the whole way to Quito about being on a mission but no one ever said what that mission was. I am sure, however, that their mission was very different from mine.

I got the "luck" of the draw and had two Quitenos sit next to me who spoke no English. Figuring the situation was hopeless at this point, we struck up a small conversation until he shouted ¡Buscando Nemo!, put his headphones on and watched the movie. So, I made it to Quito, finally at 12:30 in the morning (Sunday). Quito is beautiful in the dark.

Lifeguards say when you are pulled out by a rip-tide, don't try to fight it, just swim parallel to the shore until the current releases you. Eventually, you'll be able to return. I realize now I have only been immersed, it may have scared the crap out of me, but I'm OK, I know how to tread water. So tomorrow, I'll start swimming and get back to shore, because I didn't plan to drown when I went to the beach.

Un Lugar Celestial (Part 4 of the Quito Language Immersion Experience)

2006-09-11T16:15:00.002-04:00

This story was partially inspired by the Jacqui Valezquez song, "Un lugar Celestial" from the CD "Llegar a Ti"

If 100 people were asked to describe heaven and hell, I would suspect that you would get 90 different answers and 10 who say that it doesn't exist. The same applies to how someone would describe a place or event. For example, one could be "in a living hell", a "personal hell" or a "heavenly place". After a week being immersed in the pollution, concrete and humanity that is Quito, I wouldn't say that I was in hell, but I denfinately needed a place that fell more on the "heavenly" side. I decided to spend the weekend at the Reserva Bella Vista, which is a tropical cloud forest on the western Andean Mountain slopes. In case you were wondering, tropical cloud forests are formed when high elevation (6000-7000 feet) valleys trap warm, moist, pacific air causing it to condense and form clouds (or fog, depending on your perspective). These forests are relatively unexplored and like heaven, little is known about what exists in them. I left Quito at 8:00 am on a Saturday morning to visit the forest. Like most Ecuatorians I have met, he wanted to know all about life in the United States. I discovered during our conversation that Fabian had lived his entire life in the cloud forest and knew everything about it. We struck up a quick friendship and went to his house in Nanegalito where I was introduced to his family. Then we got back in the truck and started exploring all these biologically unique places off the tourist path. Clearly he was much more knowledgable about the local ecology than any of the guides the outfitter had told me about. I asked him why he was just a driver instead of a guide. He told me his life's desire was to be a guide but no one would hire him because he couldn't speak English. Isn't it funny how being unable to speak someone's language can keep us from realizing our full potential and obscure our true value to others.

Eventually, we were back on the road and started up the long, rocky trail to Reserva Bella Vista. We arrived at the "pearly gates" (in this case they were made out of bamboo) about 30 minutes after leaving Nanegalito. I was met at the gate by my guide. I quickly dropped my stuff off and within 15 minutes were were heading into the forests. If I could describe to you what my version of heaven would be, it would be this place. There was a rolling, angellic-like mist rolling through the forest. The trails were draped by giant fern trees (cyatheaceae), cecropia trees (they look like giant guava trees) and prehistoric sized, unidentified, magnolia-like trees. The moss covered branches and leaves gently dripped water down on the the forest floor giving life to literally hundreds of different orchids, ferns, heliconias, begonias, salvias and asters. Sentries of ferns, anthurium and philodrendum stood guard along the sides of the trail. The forest was also filled with a cacophony of sound made by the thousands of mysterious birds hidden in the dense foilage of the forest. As I struggled to see the birds, two bright blue toucans flew by me. They were, of course, following their noses.

The guided trip was over in about an hour, but I just couldn't leave this beautiful place. I walked the same trails numerous times. Each time I would look closer at the life around me and each glance would reveal new universes of life. There were so many forms of life everywhere, I just couldn't possibly comprehend it all in one trip. There is a down side to heaven. It can be "pricey" to get in. Imagine if the entrance into Yosimite cost you a day's pay. You probably wouldn't visit. Unfortunately, that's the situation in Ecuador. The government allows the preservation of the forests because they attract wealthy (i.e., "American and European") tourists who pay big dollars for the experience; But they are financially off-limits to the natives (a definate downside to ecotourism). It made me sad to think preservation of something so unique and beautiful meant the exclusion of those who lived there.

I don't think anyone would want to leave heaven once they were there, but I had no choice (didn't lead a good enough life I guess). It was 4:00 pm and Fabian was waiting on me for the return trip back to Quito. The trip was a success. I was totally relaxed, the homesickness had waned, the lomotil was working and I was ready to study Spanish again. As the Jacqui Velasquez song says, "a heavenly place was what I needed to be happy!"

Random Thoughts in a Drawer

2006-09-09T16:41:00.000-04:00

I keep my thoughts about the special people in my life in my dresser drawers. Usually, I just cover them up with some clothes and rediscover them when I haven't done the laundry for weeks. Sometimes, I pick them up, examine them and wonder how long they have been in there. Other times, it seems like they are in the wrong drawer, yet I can't decide in which one I should keep them. And then there are some that have been taking up so much drawer space for so long that I wonder if I would be better off giving them to Goodwill. But once in awhile, one of them catches my eye, slows me down and brings a smile to my face as I'm rushing to find something else in the drawer. Then I remember why I keep those thoughts in the drawer.

Goodbye Flagstaff

2006-08-21T10:04:00.000-04:00

Flagstaff, you are a great place. Ever since I was a child, I have come to your mountain hideaway. I have played in the forest that surrounds you, I sought out and discovered your natural world, I experienced some of my favorite memories in your town.

But alas Flagstaff, your seduction is too great. Your cool summer air, quirky little town center, quaking aspen trees and majestic peaks call to the valley below. And so they came. They bought your homes so nobody else could afford them. They developed your meadows with shopping centers so I could no longer see your beautiful flowers. They obstructed the view of your peaks with ugly townhouses so I could no longer be inspired from my bedroom window. They clogged your streets with automobiles so I could no longer drive.

Flagstaff, you are a great place. Thanks for showing me your heart and soul. Thanks for allowing me to meet so many quirky and friendly people. Thanks for introducing me to some new, great friends. I wish I could have stayed. But alas, I have come too late to behold your splendor. I now must go home to Florida, where others did the same to her years ago. Flagstaff, I will miss you greatly.

What Did You Think/Do Just Before Driving into the Tunnel?

2006-08-21T10:01:00.000-04:00

Recent news of the death in Bostons Big Dig and the subsequent discovery of widespread structural problems made me think about tunnels and the roles they play in our daily lives. Tunnels are an essential part of our day. They allow us to avoid the obstacles in our lives (like a mountain, waterbody or a city). But there is one catch to using them; you typically must enter through a large, black, unknown hole. Usually, we would never go plunging 60 mph into a dark unknown. We would want assurance that nothing dangerous lurks in the darkness before entering it. We would want to know the details about what we will encounter while in the darkness and be given a promise that the journey through it will be worth the hassle.

But people don't give tunnels a second thought. We trust some anonymous engineer did his math correctly, the construction workers were skilled, quality materials were used and assume the transportation department would warn us about any road hazards in it. Then, we turn our headlights on and follow those who have gone in before us like lemmings diving off a cliff into the darkness below. We essentially take this leap for granted ...until someone is randomly killed by a falling piece of concrete.

Traveling down the road of life, we encounter many tunnels as we journey between our major stops. But as the accident in the Big Dig has shown us, we never know when a seemingly innocuous tunnel may actually be the last stop on our journey. So before you drive into a tunnel today, remember that every moment counts. Before you go into a tunnel next time, turn off your cell phone and radio and look at the world around you. Notice its colors, sounds and sights. Think a pleasant thought about someone you love. Shout a thank-you out the window to someone who made a difference in your life. But most of all, don't take anything in your life, including tunnels, for granted.

The Value of Weight

2006-08-21T09:51:00.000-04:00

If you think about it, the value of many things in our world is based upon and defined by weight. For example, a 1 carat diamond, an ounce of gold, a pound of coffee. And it seems that the more something weighs, the more value it has. Being able to precisely and accurately measure weight is so important that places like grocery stores must have their scales inspected.

When you think of a human being's worth, does weight come to your mind? On first pass, you might say, "No". Weight ultimately has nothing to do with our true self-value or value to others you say? So then ladies, why is it that our society tries to make us believe that our value is directly connected to our weight. Or better yet, why are we led to believe that our value is inversely proportional to our weight?

A thought to ponder on your next trip into the woods.