A lot of people over the years have helped me shape my life and achieve my goals. This story is about one person that helped put it back on track when I thought the world was working against me.
During high school nothing mattered more to me than running track and going to college. My family didn’t have a lot of money so I knew the only way I was going to go to college was if my legs took me there. Towards the end of my senior year and my senior track season I was goofing off with friends and we stole a realtors sign. The realtor found out it was me and hoping to keep me out of trouble with my parents, she came to the school and asked for her sign back. The plan backfired my parents were not upset but the school decided to make an example of me. They suspended me from my last track meet which was subsequently the state qualifier meet. In turn ending my high school track career and ultimately lead to my scholarship being revoked.
Everything I had been working for was gone, over, finished all because one stupid choice. As far as I knew my life was over I stopped caring about school. I debated on dropping out of school but ultimately made the decision that I wasn’t going to walk at my high school graduation. Until one afternoon, Mr. Pelletier a teacher who I only had for one semester of sociology called me into his classroom and closed the door. We talked for 30 minutes and in those 30 minutes he said a few things that really reached me. The first words that came out of his mouth were that “the school was overreacting, the crime didn’t fit the punishment I was being cheated”. Those comments blew me away, I felt the world was working against me and an adult, a teacher, someone who was supposed to be the enemy agreed with me. He then went on to tell me not to give up on my dream of going to college, stayed focused and do not let one bad choice dictate the rest of my life. If I stayed focused my dream would find a way to work itself out.
I’m sure his goal that day was to try and make me feel better, let me know that my life wasn’t over, the world wasn’t working against me, and to convince me to walk at graduation. His words resonated with me then and they still do today. I walked at my high school graduation and 2 years later I ran track again, for Florida State University. I’ve always wanted to go back and thank him for those 30 minutes but have never gotten the chance.
This morning I heard that Greg Pelletier had passed away from a year long battle with cancer, he was 39 years old. He leaves behind a wife and a young son. I’m sure that he has shaped and changed the lives of so many people. We can all only hope to do a little of the same. So in honor of Greg Pelletier I am dedicated #39 on the list to him.
#39 Give a Motivation Speech, I can’t plan for this list item but I hope in the next 7 1/2 years I will get the opportunity to cross this one off the list.
Thank you Mr. Pelletier you will be missed!
Cross another item off the list. Last Saturday I completed #4 and jumped into ice cold water for the Special Olympics. In total 40thingsby40 raised $580.00. Thank you to everyone that donated. Below is a short video of my swim. Take note of two things while watching the video. First the lady who jumped in the water before me is wearing clothes that have hundreds of smiley faces on them which by itself is not so weird. What is weird is that her car matched her apparel! Second, and feel free to make fun of me, at at the 10 second mark I make a less than manly sound. In my defense the cold water took my breath away. Enjoy the video and keep and eye out for list item #5 which I will be announcing soon.
I am only 4 days, 2 hours, and 17 minutes away from completing #4 from the list. So on Saturday at 1:30 when your cozied up on your couch watching TV, think of me jumping into that ice cold lake. Then wrap yourself in your snuggy and have a laugh at what an idiot I am. The water will be cold but not as cold as I anticipated. The weather here in Minnesota has been really warm. I’m happy that our winter has been mild but I am worried that because it has been so warm it might not make for a great “polar bear swim”. Most of the lakes here are not frozen over and I was really looking forward to walking out on the ice and jumping into a hole in the middle of the lake.
I want to thank everyone that donated we raised $280.00 and I matched all the donations to bring the total to $560.00. There is still time to donate if you would like to: http://www.plungemn.org/plunger/mr40thingsby40
I will be sure to upload pics if/when they become available.
Happy Friday. I hope everyone is keeping up with their New Years resolutions. Only two more weeks to go to beat the national average quit time of 6 weeks. My resolutions are going well. Running on a treadmill is super boring and I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so I can start to run outside. Plus with this blog entry it means I am keeping up with my promise to write at least once a week. So let’s get into 3 Things.
1. For #3 on the list I proclaimed that I was going to ”Learn to Dance”. Finding a dance instructor has not been so easy so I am going to eliminate the old #3 and put a different list item in its place. Since I quit on #3 I would like some suggestions from you on what I should replace it with. So please send me your suggestions on twitter to @40thingsby40. #4 Complete a Polar Bear Plunge is coming up on February 11th. If you would like to donate to the Special Olympics to help the 40thingsby40 team please do so at this link: http://bit.ly/rsEd6F. Please please donate, its for a great cause!!! I am also starting to work on #5 for the list. I will officially announce it in late February 2012 but if you follow me on twitter you may have seen some of the clues.
2. I opened today’s post with Happy Friday and every Friday I see people celebrate the fact that it is Friday. I get it, it is the last day of the work week. I’m sure this dates back to the when people used to get paid every Friday. But nowadays maybe we celebrate because it is casual day in the office, you get to wear jeans to work and its the last day of the work week. But what I don’t understand is why don’t we celebrate Saturdays more? You don’t have to work at all, college football is on, and pants are completely optional. Until employers start pantless Fridays I am going to celebrate Saturdays!
3. In Minneapolis right now there are a ton of discussions occurring about whether the city of Minneapolis should chip in $350 million dollars for a new Vikings stadium. I’ve never understood why a city or state would chip in any money for a new stadium. Last time I checked the Minnesota Vikings are a for profit company. A company that generated $250 million dollars in revenue in 2011. I own a business in Minneapolis will the city build me a new office complex or donate 40% to my new building? If the city donates this money to the Vikings it will most likely hurt the downtown businesses. The city of Minneapolis will increase their sales tax to justify the $350 million dollar donation to the Vikings. Vendors will have to charge more for goods and the customers will begin to shop outside of the city to save the extra 1-2%. It will force Minneapolis based business to the suburbs so they can compete with their competition who can charge less for goods sold. In the long hurting the city. I love football but I do not think a city or state should be held hostage by a professional FOR PROFIT football team because they want new facilities. Facilities that will allow them to charge more for their product. A new stadium with more seating (more expensive seating) really only benefits the owner of the franchise and the NFL. The National Football League did over 9 billion dollars in revenue in 2011. As a country I think each state should unite, and tell the the league and the teams to start to pay for their own stadiums. If they don’t those terms they can move all their teams to Europe and South America and we will watch the games on DirectTV.
Thanks for checking in this week. Please tell all your friends about us. Check out our twitter page (@40thingsby40) and please like our facebook page 40thingsb40. Please send me your suggestions for the new #3! See you next week!
I hope that everyone is sticking with their New Years resolutions. Only five weeks and one day left to beat the average length of a new years resolution of six weeks. Good luck and keep on trucking, now lets get into 3 Things.
1. I was reading an article about the cruise ship Costa Concordia the other day and it mentioned that the victims in this disaster would only be able to sue for a maximum of $80,000. Which seems absurd to me that the people who lost their loved ones could only be compensated so little for such an epic mistake. I hear conversations all the time in my office that people are too “sue happy”. People will sue for anything from spilling coffee on themselves to someone calling them a bad name. Most countries outside of the US feel the same way. However, if you take the concept of suing someone when things go wrong and apply it to some everyday decisions it might stop you from doing something stupid. Take for example all the emails you get in your junk folder about cheap Viagra. I know you the brilliant, gorgeous, charming reader of 40thingsby40 would never buy Viagra from a stranger on the internet, but everyday someone who doesn’t read 40thingsby40 tries. Apply the ”sue” rule to this. If I don’t get my Viagra who can I sue? If I get my Viagra in the mail but the seller accidentally shipped me premium meth who am I going to sue? But if you got your Viagra at the Target pharmacy and they accidently gave youe ambien you know your protected. You can apply this principal to emails you get from your long lost uncle who you have never heard of who has millions of dollars in an African bank and only needs $1,000 to get it released. You can apply it to the guy who tries to scalp you fake tickets outside the Superbowl. You can even apply it to the Costa Concordia accident. A company who states on their tickets that they will only be held responsible for $80,000 worth of damages or death is basically saying to you we will give you a little bit of money to make you go away but don’t try and sue us because we will not take full responsibility of our actions.
2. I”ll keep this short. Kim Kardashian getting married and then divorced 2 months later was supposed to be good for me. My wife would stop making me watch hours and hours of their mind numbing shows with her because she values the meaning of marriage. Well that lasted only a couple weeks. Now she claims to watch the show not for Kim but because she like Courtney and Mason…. I can’t win… The only way my wife would totally stop watching this show would be if one of them married Michael Vick.
3. Speaking of Michael Vick his polar opposite Tim Tebow is all over the TV right now. He is probably the only person on TV right now that is more loved and more hated than the Kardashians. For those of you that follow me on twitter you know that I am a die hard Florida State Seminole fan. So Tim Tebow is my natural enemy he played for the Gators and he beat us every time he played us. But I will admit the guy is starting to grow on me. As a parent of two young boys he is the perfect role model which makes it hard not to like the guy. If your child grows up to be as polite, respectful, and as devoted to their faith as much as Tim Tebow you would be pretty darn proud and if you have a daughter I’m pretty sure you would want them to date or marry a man with his morals. I love my Noles but its hard not to like Tim Tebow.
New post coming next week. Also I am closing in on the #4 Swim in Frozen Waters- Polar Bear Swim to help the Special Olympics. If you have a couple extra dollars sitting around please donate at this link http://bit.ly/rsEd6F to help the Special Olympics.
Happy belated new years! I decided to start the new year with the ever popular 3 Things Post. I know its been months and months without a 3 Things post and I will talk about that a little later but here is your first taste for 2012. This 3 Things post is not going to be about my wife’s Kardashian addiction (FYI she is angry at Kim for the whole divorce thing) this is going to be about resolutions for 2012. So many of us create new years resolutions for most it includes going to the gym, eating healthier, and quiting bad habits. The Wall Street journal says that the average time a person sticks to one of their resolutions is 6 weeks. I decided to take a different approach for my new years resolutions. I would create 3 resolutions and then just maybe I could stick to them for 18 weeks?…
So here they are:
1. Run everyday (For Me)
2. Contribute to the blog more (For You)
3. Try and help more people (For Everyone Else)
So the easy step of coming up with the resolutions is done. The hardest step, the step that lasts an average of 6 weeks if following through with them. So here is how I plan on following through on each one:
1. Running Everyday: This is going to be the hardest to keep. If you follow me on twitter you might have noticed that I have been tweeting every morning after I get done running. I’ve come to realize that if I wait until the end of the day I won’t have the motivation to run so I have to do it at the start of my day. I will continue to tweet after each one of my runs to show you that I am following through on number one.
2. Contribute to the Blog More: I have felt guilty towards the end 2011 because I did not contribute as much as I should have (or at all) and please accept my apologies for slacking. It won’t happen again! This year I promise to add at least one entry a week and I will not fail you! If push comes to shove I will describe my lunch to you in 1500 words. Imagine trying to articulate 1500 words on a Natures Valley granola bar.
3. Try and Help More People: This sort of ties back into contributing to the blog more. This blog has the potential to do a lot of good and help a ton of people. The more I contribute and add content to the blog the more people I have the potential to reach. I’ve spoken with people who follow me on twitter and read the blog and they told me that in 2011 they donated more of their time, money, or food to causes that they said they would not have done before because they liked the initiative we were taking. So in 2012 I am going to try and help more people which I hope motivates you to help more people. Plus I promise I am going to try and do it in the most creative ways possible.
If I fail to do any of the above mentioned resolutions and you call me out on them via twitter (@40thingsby40) or facebook (40thingsby40) I will agree to some sort of punishment or embarrasing act and I will shoot a video of it and post it on twitter. (Certain limits apply)
I’m curious what are your new years resolutions? Do you have a bad habit you want to break? Do you want to run your first marathon? Let me know!
Sidenote: I am quickly approaching the Polar Bear Swim to help the Special Olympics. If I can mange to raise $3,000 I will be forced to swim in the lake once every hour on the hour for 24 hours. Olympic softball legend Cat Osterman and former US Bobsledder Jacob Miller have already donated. Please help out and make a donation even if it is only 50 cents. You can donate at this link: bit.ly/rsEd6F Thanks for the help!
I took some time away from the list over the summer. But now that the weather is beginning to change its a good time to start to work on some new items.
#4 Swim in Frozen Waters, Feb 11th, I will be participating in the Polar Bear Plunge to benefit the Special Olympics. For those of you that are not familiar with a Polar Bear Plunge it is when completely insane people decide to swim in Minnesota lakes during the winter. I have a goal of raising $3,000 and I am asking for your help to reach this goal. If we raise $3,000 two things will happen. First I will be invited to participate with the “Super Plungers” which means I will have to subject my body to 24 plunges in the freezing water in 24 hours. 2. If we raise $3,000 I will finally reveal my secret identity. I will post pictures and videos online after the event. So as all of you start to get into your winter routines and enjoy all the food over the holidays I will be working on my beach body for my Feb 11th swim.
In addition if you donate to the cause I will mention your donation on the website, on twitter, and on Facebook.
If you would like to make a donation to the Special Olympics in the name of 40thingsby40 please visit this link below. Have you started your list yet? We would love to have you become part of team 40thingsby40 and participate with us on this list item. Please feel free to join our team online and send us an email at info@40thingsby40.com if you have any questions.
Donations can be made at: http://www.plungemn.org/plunger/mr40thingsby40
Thanks in advance I sure hope we can raise a ton of money for this great cause!
For the time being #3 Learn to Dance has been postponed until I find someone who knows how to dance and has the time to teach. We will come back to this one!
When it comes to dancing I am just like every average white guy. I have zero rhythm and no dancing ability but when I do attempt to dance I think I am the best dancer in the room. My wife has made it abundantly clear to me on several occasions that when I dance I look like I am having a seizure mixed with intermittent convulsions. She even told me one time that if I took her out dancing on our first date there may not have been a second date!
So one night when I was brainstorming list items I was scanning Facebook and one of the athletes I coach (Josh)posted a video on Facebook of him dancing in is dorm room. (see video below) I watched it a couple times amazed at how he moves without looking like he is having a seizure and decided we needed to add this to the list. So starting next week Josh is going to begin working with me to teach me how to dance. Depending on how much I want to embarrass myself I may post videos along the way as Josh begins to teach me. I will however, post a final video to show what Josh did teach me. Maybe if I am lucky we can get my embarrassing video to go viral!
Now to the giving back part. Josh and I are going to go into downtown Minneapolis, maybe before a Twins baseball game and dance in public for tips. Sounds silly but if you have been to NYC, LA, or even Key West you probably have watched a street performance. I promised when I started 40thingsby40 that I would do things to take me out of my comfort zone and this will do exactly that. Now with all the tips we earn we are going to donate them to someone that wants to take a dance class from professional instructor that may not be able to afford to. Maybe a parent who wants to enroll their son/daughter in some dance instruction but financially can’t swing it right now. For this part I will need your help. If you know someone that has a financial need and wants to put their child into some dance instruction get them in touch with us. info@40thingsby40.com Once we set the date for the street performance I will let you know and you can come and check it out. If you don’t live in Minnesota don’t worry we will be posting video of it on our site.
Thanks to everyone for following us on twitter and liking our Facebook page. Please continue to spread the word about what we are doing and tell people to follow us on twitter and Facebook. Check the video out below and keep in mind this is not me but one of my track athletes, Josh who will be teaching me how to dance.
Check out this video, we are exploding. Keep up all the great work!