*edited* I wrote the original version of this when I was very raw. I redacted a bunch of stuff that derailed from the point of it all, which is not me, but Buddy.

For the better part of my childhood, lets just call it, Chapter 1 – we lived either with, or very close to (in one case across the street from) my mom’s parents. My maternal grandmother had six children. Her youngest child, Buddy, was the same age or younger than her eldest grandchildren and was only a few yrs age different from some of them, including me.

And since we lived together and were around the same age (my oldest brother is my irish twin), we were like siblings. When we were living in my grandparents basement, my mother’s 2nd sister passed away.
Grama adopted her youngest son, David. I was about 5 or 6 at the time. David was only a couple yrs younger than me. Now I had another little brother. We all lived together.

Talk about a blended family 😉

Now my mom is working all the time. She has at least two jobs most of the time during this chapter. So, I am with my grandparents (and uncle and cousin aka ‘other brothers’) basically always. My Grampa, Buddy’s dad, was a father to us all.

Adam and David and Jon and I were all the pesky little siblings to Buddy who was other than us, the baby of 9 kids if you combine everyone. When he was in high school I was a cheerleader on his football team. He taught us all to play stratego and to love the Beatles. He was our big brother. In a way, he later becomes everyone’s big Brother.

He turns into the matriarch of the family after his dad passes. He literally takes care of everyone as needed. He is the youngest you may recall, and yet he is often the one that everyone depends on. He does right by all. He does the right thing always. He has an admirable career as a partner at Ernst and Young where he worked for over 30 years.

Then one day, a short while ago, I hear he has been battling brain cancer, the same disease that stole his dad from us, wickedly and rapidly. But he refuses to let it beat him and says that he will watch his youngest son graduate college. He already saw his oldest, his namesake, Harrison the 4th, graduate. And I knew he would do this. I knew he was a fighter and had made up his mind.

I told myself I would wait to hear when he would be comfortable seeing visitors, but that I wanted to catch a Red Sox game or Pats game with him soon. Baseball season came and went and I never made arrangements to see him — but I did write him a letter. I don’t know if he saw it or read it. Im thankful though that I wrote down my feelings to him.

And then, for some reason – and this is just going to probably mean something to me and be weird to everyone else, I hung up and old picture I am not terribly fond of that I haven’t looked at in a long time. Its from my wedding. It was that picture you put out that everyone signs. I stared at the signatures and read them, probably for the first time in 16 years. I noticed that 5 of the people who wrote a note, have passed. It struck me in my gut. I mentioned it to Steve and Justin, last night… And then, the next day, today, Halloween, it is 6 not 5. He is gone.

God bless you Vicki and Harrison and Conor. Your husband and father was a treasure. A beacon. May he rest in peace.

Thank you Buddy for taking Grama to my wedding. Thank you for your generosity always and to everyone. Thank you for your wisdom and your love. Youre with Grama and Grampa now and I know they are happy to be with their baby boy of whom they were to justifiably proud. Im sorry the white sweater hand rainbow stripes on the sleeves. I know you liked things to be correct. Sorry about the grilled cheese incident at that Cape – we were little brats, just like Grampa said. And Im sorry I knocked down the dominoes. I know I was annoying and I hogged Grampa’s attention.

Please don’t wake me up too late.
Tomorrow comes and I will not be late.
Late today when it becomes
Tomorrow I will leave and go away.
Goodbye. goodbye.
Goodbye. goodbye.
Goodbye. goodbye.
My love, goodbye.

Someone asked me that at work this week.

Not sure if he saw it on my Twitter or LinkedIn or what but he asked.

“Yes, I do”

I didn’t ask why he asked. I don’t know if pretending to know such a thing, is a thing, or whatever, but that’s fine.

Here is the evolution, of how one might have gone from, what we called programming back when I did it, to what I do now.

Its early 90s. I have my first ‘real’ job at 19. I was at the reception desk for a federal contractor, while taking classes at community college.
Over a short period I turned answering the phones into posting job ads (we faxed them to the paper ;)) into naturally taking on more and more recruiting & HR responsibilities (I managed open enrollments etc).

The positions were primarily programming, some dbase, QA and support. I was curious about programming and eager to learn about it whenever anyone would take the time to explain it to me.

My commute was 75 miles one way. That is not a typo. I had lots of time on my hands during the commute (van pool). So, I read books about programming ((later I’ll tell the how I got into infosec story and the books I read on the plane ride to my first DEFCON)).
Anyways, one of the PMs, his name was William (I wonder how he is doing) seemed to appreciate my interest and gave me an assignment.

I wrote a remote profile maintenance program, on my own, in Visual Basic, for the USPS. Well, a piece of it. I was so proud of myself. Its really the only program I ever wrote. That was in 1993.

The commute got to me after a few yrs and I moved into an HR role for a local municipality. I could not shake my love for technology though, and when the whispers of bringing PCs into the fold started (yes we used typewriters and card files – though we did have a nifty AS400 system and dummy terminals) I jumped all over it and helped establish and build the helpdesk and deployment of units and training. Next thing you know Im a help desk manager.

When I relocated out of that small town, I moved to an ecommerce firm in the midst of the dot com boom (late 90s) managing their support desk – and yet I missed HR…

There’s a bunch of chapters missing here but suffice to say, I heard about a contract recruiting position and a) the pay was nice b) it seemed to be a good mix for HR and IT and c) was closer to home than the position at the ecomm firm in DC.

And here we are 18 yrs later – running a team of tech recruiters for a Big Data Analytics and Infosec company.

I could recruit for healthcare or transportation or construction, but I recruit in technology because, its what I love, and anymore, it touches everything.

That is all for now.

Be well,
<3 ~K~

Today was my 11th ultra (8th 50k) in 6 years. I went into it having run so few times in the last year I can count it on one hand. I told myself I’d do 5 loops. And I did. I wanted to do each loop in 2 or less hours and finish sub 10 (I did).

*edit* And technically I ran/meandered 37 miles, but who’s counting? 😉

“Its all in your head” I told myself, and “Just run when you can”
‘When you can’ for me, today, meant, when its not a steep climb or ridiculous terrain. Tired wasn’t supposed to be the reason.

For reference, my 50k PR (North Face) is 7 hrs and this took 9. Not my best showing of course, but I did what I set out to do and didn’t get hurt. I’ll take it.

Sometimes when people hear me describe all the ultras I do as ‘endurance’ or ‘adventure’ races, they say, ‘Oh are there obstacles?’ Well, not manmade ones. Not like the races where you leap over campfires and climb rock walls with ropes, or scoot under barbed wire.
But there are significant hills, and rocks and mud and rivers and roots, and sometimes mountains – so plenty of obstacles. Theyre tough, no joke. Here’s an example of today’s track.

This is going to be a shorter blog post than usual.

One thought that kept popping in my head though was how folks always ask WHY? Now Ive mentioned this before, how my dad said that no one who would understand my answer would ask, but here’s my answer.

BECAUSE I CAN.

Ive heard “I don’t run unless Im being chased” so many times, all I can say to it is “Ive never heard that one before” – But why do people do that? When someone shares something with me that is a part of their life, I don’t make them feel weird about it. If you belly-dance, or do cosplay, or collect thimbles, maybe you do mixed-martial arts, or eat sushi…..I don’t feel the need to proclaim that I not only don’t do anything of those things, I wouldn’t possible do them unless I was forced to. Whats the point of that? Is it to make the person feel abnormal for not being like you? Anyways – enough about that.

*Oh and I came home to pizza, wine, chocolate and coffee (he knows me so well)…

The 24 Hour is in April….maybe I’ll actually train for that one – maybe not 😉

Be well

<3 ~K~

Today’s short 1.5 mile run brought to you by comments neighbors make:

*Picture me, meandering by two teenagers running in the opposite direction*

**note** Im new to the neighborhood

“What does that tattoo mean?”

“Google it”

*Keeps running*

Along comes another runner towards me, “Oh, you dont have a shirt on” ((wtf Im in a sports bra and shorts on a hot ass July day early in the am))

(ref pic)

“Uhm, nope”

Then I just wish I had head phones on and zone out.

FWD to the end of my short hot saunter.

30 mins of core with a tiny bit of strength (210 crunches and 60 squats)
Then 10 mins on the spin bike in cool down mode binging Louie.

Thats it. An hour. Then maybe a swim and some chores, a little bit of work-work and errands.

Day 3 of the longest period of time Ive taken off in over a yr!!

Oh and, If you’d like to participate in July Crunch Bunch challenge, benefiting Semper Fi (inspired by June’s Give a Squat where I did over 7k squats and we collectively raised over $1,500 – register below, its costs you nothing and is for a good cause and is a good motivator…

July Crunch Bunch Challenge – for SemperFi

Woohoo.

Be Well <3 ~K