Completion of a long term goal

Did you know that only 0.1 of 1% of the world’s population has completed a marathon? I am one of those 0.1 of 1%. Seven months ago, I created a goal for myself --- to run the LA Marathon. While I am young and healthy, I had no previous running experience or professional training. I created this challenge to show myself how I am limitless and unstoppable. I designed a training and eating program for myself and worked on it daily for 210 days. On March 4, 2007 I ran 26.2 miles and successfully completed the Los Angeles Marathon in six hours.

I am very proud and excited about this accomplishment. It was one of the hardest days of my life (during the run) and one of the most pleasurable (finishing the run.) I realized how fortunate I am to be able to run, to accomplish a goal, and to have such amazing support from friends and family.

I am now a marathoner! Woo hoo!

Goofy pics for labor day weekend...

With labor day weekend coming up, I imagine a lot of people are going to be heading away for the weekend or partying it up with friends. In both cases, there will probably be quite a bit of picture snapping to remember the weekend. As a result, I was fiddling around on the internet and found out about a type of pics called Jowlers. They are pretty funny and simple to do. Here is an animal pic of a jowler. The best human pics of jowlers that I was able to find are here. So this weekend I plan on taking some cool jowler pics, and I'll see if I can post them here. Let me know if you manage to take any particularily goofy ones too. :)

Getting to the gadgets and gizmos...

I have been in a state of introspection as of late, which I think stems largely from the fact that I have a lot of free time on my hands as I am just chilling applying for jobs and waiting for my back to heal completely. It is getting better and yesterday I was able to do a pretty great swim at Pepperdine's pool. I think that thinking about stuff is great, and sometimes one actually values things more once they have been given a deep scrutinizing and questioning.

However, beyond introspection, I have also been fiddling around on the computer and continue to find more cool stuff. In this posting, I'll start with some of what I consider "the basics" that I use almost on a daily basis.

• LEISURE: One cool site is this online free book exchange for used books called Book Mooch. I have been going to the library to get books but will start to use this too.
• LANGUAGE: I still write a lot in Spanish and I like a little reference/dictionary for words now and then and I tend to use this translation site.
• HEALTH: I have spent much time looking for a good website that has nutritional info for all kinds of food and I think the best one I may have found is NutritionData.
• WORK: I use tons of job search engines, but I still think Indeed is the best as it searches all the websites including Craigslist and monster.
• WEB BASICS: I know I am WAY far behind on this one but I only recently started using Mozilla and it just makes Internet Explorer seem pathetic. So two thumbs up for Mozilla. Anyone still searching for a job should totally use it as you can have multiple tabs open rather than windows.
• INTERNATIONAL CALLS: I used to use just Skype for my long distance calls, but if you have a bad internet connection it is not that great. So then I switched to Call2 which seems to work really well as it actually calls your landline/cell phone. And before I make the call, I now check with the World Clock as I used to call England at all the wrong times, as I know some can attest to!

Do you have any sites that you use on a daily basis for specific stuff that just rock it?

Please share as I know how late I was to jump on the Mozilla boat, but no one ever really told me to what extent it was so much better.

:)

When life gives you lemons, remember, they're just lemons...

Today I had a day of introspection and learnt a lot, especially with the help of my friends.

One of the many things that I got today is that life is just life and lemons are sure to come as part of the natural cycle, so the only real choice I have is what to do with them. Which brings me to the introspection part....how do we ever really know what to do with what's thrown at us?

With so many choices, we often refer to our answers in terms of preferences, but really that's not so either. I like cookies and cream ice cream because it tastes good, and so now when I go shopping for ice cream, I choose it because I know I will like it and it is my favorite. So I choose it based on my preference, right? Wrong. Because at some point I had to choose that flavor and then choose to like it. So it is still a choice. And me continuing to buy it is really another choice I'm making. And who knows if I will always like it or not, that's just part of trying stuff out and seeing how it goes.

So I got how sometimes you just have to try stuff out, see if it works, and if not, let it go. Sometimes it's scary because it is so unknown, but it could be incredible too if it works out. And in the end, the choice is still mine. Because regardless of what I choose, I have the choice, and I am complete and whole regardless of whatever the outcome.

By the way, here is my fav cookies and cream brand! I used to live 10 mins from where they made this stuff in Oakland, yummy! And let me tell you, I took full advantage of it with my roomie in college. (No freshman 15 comments please.)

Lemon quotes

Some quotes I found about my blog title...

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade. - Dale Carnegie

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons. -Alfred Newman

Life gave me a lemon and I got squirted in the eye. -Anonymous

At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote. - Emo Philips

Life gave me a lemon, but I didn't have any sugar for lemonade. -Anonymous

“If life deals you lemons, make lemonade; if it deals you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys.”
-Unknown

Do you have any more? Here is a definition of lemonade, because as I found out living in England, lemonade has different definitions depending on where you are living...

Gotta start somewhere

It is late at night and I can't sleep. I start to search the internet, read random blogs, read friends' blogs, and I realize, blogs are pretty cool. In just a matter of moments, I know what my buddies are up to and I feel connected to them because they are speaking in their own words to their friends, including me.

So it SPARKS something inside of me. And suddenly, I want my own blog too.

I have been receiving alot of lemons lately, and if you want to journey with me as I throw away the rotten lemons and try to make lemonade with whats left, then you are reading the right blog. I also will share anything that interests me here, including gadgets, gizmos, links, photos, and more.

I welcome your comments, laughter, honesty, knowledge, advice and everything in between.