OH my feet!

Turns out working 9 hours on your feet 2 days after doing Ironman is painful, who knew!?

I feel great though. Life is surely interesting. I was thinking today that it is all a test. Every day is identical in only one aspect: It is a test of your physical and mental strength; where are you at now? There is no pass or fail in the grand scheme of things, but, there is a pass or fail for how you perform compared to how you could/should perform at this stage of your life. What's your potential? How understanding/patient/organized/loving/couragious/decisive/etc... can you be in your life and how did you measure up to that today?

At work today there were a thousand things that were wrong and should have been done better, the test for me was accepting that situation, not experiencing any stress and working to improve the situation. It's not easy, all of our jobs are hard, but the point is I had the opportunity to succeed in a relative sense on a scale from 1 to 100. I probably got an 80. Still have a ways to go.

But the point is, everything is a test and it's fun. Don't view the 'test' as a pain in your ass but an opportunity to recognize the subtle good in life and work to improve yourself on all of the different levels.

Next thing: Life is truly short. My God, some lives are cut extremely short. And to stress out over almost anything in life is foolish. The only truly, TRULY, important aspects of life are your health, your family and their health, and your friends and their health. Yes there are many, countless aspects of our lives which we can, and often do, pretend are vastly important. But, the truth is all that counts is your health and happiness, the rest is bullshit. So take it for what you will and focus all your energy on what you choose, but don't forget that.

Allright, next important subject? The MDot Tattoo. Do I get it or not? My friend and I just completed an incredible journey, the Ironman, but...the MDot tattoo supposedly represents the 'Ironman Corporation' which sponsors certain races, and so getting that tattoo supposedly represents that you did a sponsored race. Problem is, there is no other tattoo that sufficiently represents the accomplishments in such a simple, non-extravagant symbol.

I don't pictures of a stick figure swimming biking and running on my calf, and even 140.6, which some people think makes sense doesn't really work for me (after all, we actually did a longer bike and run than we were supposed to because of course changes due to a forest fire), and having the word Ironman tattooed on my calf seems too obvious. There is something attractive, alluring, and mysterious about the MDot, but should I give a shit that somebody else might think I shouldn't have it because my race wasn't offically sponsored by that corporation? I just don't know. Me thinks not. I spoke with Rodey today and we agreed that the MDot is the way to go, to hell with what anyone thinks, it symbolized doing the distance, that anything is possible, and it only really makes sense to people who know what it is.

So I think yes, I'm getting the MDot.

Last thought: I believe there is a bet going on between the big honchos of the music lables to see who can get the most retarded, irritating song on the radio and have people approve of it. It's kind of a college-buddy kind of bet, you know, 'hah! check this one out, loser!: I got this retarded song on the air, and the idiots love it! Hardy har har!'

Mike