Today marks 13 years that my wife Gloria and I have been married.  Like any marriage, we have had our shares of up and downs but we have never stopped loving each other and taking joy in the small things in life like holding hands in public, or an afternoon walk around the block or curling up on the couch with a RedBox movie and some popcorn. 

This year however is different.  This year I am not home for our anniversary. Instead I am 2000 miles away at my company’s annual Developer Conference in Las Vegas. ...

During the month of February I joined the FitFeb program in an effort to improve my overall fitness.  My goal was to get down to 200 lbs by the end of the month.  I fell short of my goal, but still made good progress.  Overall, I ended the month at 210 lbs – down 9 lbs over the course of the month.  That is a significant accomplishment given that I had significant travel time during the month which makes it difficult to stay on track.  This also means that since New Years day I have lost 17 lbs, which...

Today starts the Fit in February Develop Challenge and I have decided to go ahead and participate.  2 years ago after seeing my 3 older brothers for the first time in many years I noticed that we had all put on excessive weight.  I was embarrassed to sit there realizing how much weight I had gained since leaving the Navy in 1995 and determined to take it all back off.  I knew how important it is to stay fit as I lost my Step-father to heart attack a little over 12 years ago.  He was only 55 at the time.  Over the next 6 months I lost almost 60 lbs and was back down below my final weight when I left the navy.  I was pretty happy with my accomplishment and feeling much better.

Early tomorrow morning I am flying out Seattle to see my Mom.  About 6 days ago she called to deliver some bad news – the cancer was back. 

Over the past 3 years my Mom has battled a couple of different forms of cancer.  First there was the Breast Cancer.  Fortunately the doctors caught it early.  They operated quickly, performing a lumpectomy and lymph node removal at the same time.  Following radiation treatment everything seemed to be good.  No further cancer was found in the lymph nodes and my mom seemed to have recovered fairly quickly.  [more] 

6 months later I...