Jeff Blogs

For as long as I can remember I have had asthma. My parents and I chose at a very early age to not let this be an inhibitor to leading a normal life. I was much too active to try and relinquish that freedom and I refused to allow the ability to breathe stand in my way of having fun. This plan of action does have risks and inherent danger especially if you choose to be active in sports. My parents always made sure that my medications were fairly regulated and that I had an inhaler with me at all times in case something should arise during a game. I never quite know what is going to affect my asthma so therefore I just need to be flexible and prepared for the unexpected. The problem is that sometimes I am not real good at noticing the early warning signs of an asthma attack. I can get much too involved in a game to let my body dictate when it has had enough. This has led to some very close calls. I remember in high school while playing basketball I began to feel a shortness of breath coupled with a slight wheezing. Rather than calling time-out during a crucial sequence I chose to wait until a break in the action. Unfortunately that break did not occur before the game ended and by that time I was in dire straits (and I don’t mean the band). My inhaler would not work in that sense and instead my mother rushed me to the hospital for an emergency treatment. It was a costly mistake on many levels.

(continue reading…)

“Bleep, bleep, bleep” Almost on reflex you reach over and smack the alarm clock hoping that this time it will be the death blow that will put it out of its misery. Every morning it is the same thing; a perfectly good dream is interrupted by that alarm clock. You think to yourself, “one of these days I am not going to have to listen to that thing. One of these days I am going to have a day all to myself without anyone telling me what to do.” It’s funny; you’ve been saying that since you were a teenager. Back then the alarm clock was beckoning you to get up and get ready for school. Ah, those were the days. As if on cue the alarm is silenced and instead music begins emanating from the speaker. You lay there being serenaded by Gloria Gaynor as she sings, “I Will Survive”. That somehow seems appropriate this morning and you wonder if that song was meant for you or for the alarm clock that you nearly destroyed again. Maybe today won’t be so bad after all. Even before you could complete that thought the disc jockey ruined the moment when he said, “well there’s an oldie goldie we haven’t heard in a few decades.” Great that is just what you need; another ‘punk kid’ reminding you that you’re not getting any younger.

(continue reading…)

Social networking has gotten a lot of press recently. As the Internet continues to mature people try to understand what it can be used for and how it might add value to their lives. One niche that began with the younger crowd but soon reached mainstream was the blog. Blog which is short for weblog began as a way for someone to maintain a log of information on the web. It was just a few short years ago that if you interviewed the typical person on the street they would have no idea what a blog was let alone tell you that they had one. People were still getting their feet wet on the Internet and having a web site made up of a few static pages was seen as a luxury for the rich and technically advanced. I remember when I first built Now Hitting. It was primarily a series of static pages that I hand coded with individual styles. I had what would probably be classified as a precursor to a blog that I called “Diary of a Diehard”. This was again hand coded but allowed me an area where I could write small entries about baseball and specifically the Arizona Diamondbacks. This was one of the more popular aspects of Now Hitting and drew by far the most visitors to the site. It was also one of the more painful areas to maintain as I had to create a new page per entry and I was coding each of them by hand. Not really the most efficient use of my time but I could definitely see value in it.

(continue reading…)

I thought I would start with a continuation of yesterday’s entry and give you an update on how it went at the Grand Canyon State Games. Both Trina and Tiffany had registered for events in Track and Field. The track meet was located at Mesa Community College in Mesa (it works out better to put the college in the city it is located otherwise people get really confused). Events were to start at 5:30 PM and check-in was to begin at 5:00 PM. After spending the morning at the Sports Authority watching as Trina tried on various shirts and shorts, I was definitely ready for something a little more exciting. Trina was especially nervous since she had not jumped competitively in over a quart of a century. She loves it when I put it in terms like that. Add to this the fact that she had not trained at all for this event and her anxiety levels were extremely high. Tiffany on the other hand was the poster child for coolness. Competing at a high level has become old hat to her and she was just enjoying the idea of being able to high jump with her mom.

(continue reading…)

Late last evening we received a call from our oldest daughter Ashley. Last year she decided that she was going to get back in shape and lose the weight that she had gained since going to college. She has been diligently working on that and is now probably in the best shape of her life. She looks great and feels even better. During her high school years Ashley was a pretty good athlete. She was a triple jumper on the track team and to this day holds the freshman record in that event at the high school. With all the success that Tiffany has had during her high school track career; Ashley had once again gotten the competitive bug and wanted to compete. Living in Utah she found a state competition that among the events featured track and field. She entered the meet and competed in the long jump and the triple jump. She called to tell us that she won both events. We were very proud of her and were excited to share in her news.

(continue reading…)