World's Strongest Dad - Hoyt Team

If you haven't seen this yet, read the following story, get some kleenexes and press play!! You are going to love it!!

~Strongest Dad in the World~
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to payfor their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain damaged and unable to control his limbs. "He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution.'' But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room.

When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way,'' Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate.

First words? "Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that.'' Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.'' That day changed Rick's life. "Dad,'' he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. "No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year. Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think? Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time - Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time. "No question about it,'' Rick types. "My dad is the Father of theCentury.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. "The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

Steve Jobs - CEO Apple Computers/Pixar Animation

I saw this one on Orrin Woodward's blog. I loved it. It has so many practical thoughts to apply to our everyday lives and how we can really make the most of our lives. If you haven't seen it yet, get out a notebook. You will want to take notes. He has a lot of great nuggets of wisdom from the life experience he shares. Enjoy!!

Dr. Randy Pausch - Last Lecture

This is a great video. I am sure you will love it too!!

Deep Thoughts...

When I wrote my first post and organized my blog I was trying to think of a name for it. I didn't want it to just be my name. So, one of the first things that came to mind was Saturday Night Live used to have Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. I didn't watch Saturday Night Live very much back then, but when I did, I always liked the Jacky Handey quotes. My favorite one that I have remembered since I heard it on the show was...

"You drive off a cliff, but, you're still slamming on those breaks."

I thought that was so funny!! Then, today I was reading In a Pit with a Lion on a Snow Day by Mark Batterson. And, he is telling the story in Samuel about the guy who lost an ax head in a river. And he says, "It reminds me of one of Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts: If you drop your keys in a river of molten lava, let'em go man, 'cause they're gone!!"

Here are some others I found online you might enjoy:

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean ? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.

When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.

We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.

Probably the earliest flyswatters were nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick.

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver. and since he is so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him real quick and give it to him.

If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid looking in a mirror, because I bet that will really throw you into a panic.

So, anyway, I hope you enjoyed these because I sure had a good time finding them!!

Great Quotes and Scriptures

Hello No One,

I say that because I haven't sent this blog address to anyone. So, I am writing to a future reader, I guess. I have never gotten into blogging. I never thought I had enough time for it. But, I did find a good quote and a scripture that I wanted to share with whomever might read this blog!!

First one, it seems that in church lately we have really been talking about learning line upon line and precept upon precept. So, I have been giving that a lot of thought over the last two months. What does that really mean?? It makes me think about Chris and Orrin telling us on the system that you are NEVER holding still. You are either going forward or backward. And, I have always thought to myself that maybe that wasn't really the case. Maybe you could just go into maintenance mode and keep what you have learned and keep your growth. When I read this scripture the truth of their words became truth for me too!! We must keep learning, but more importantly, we must apply the things that we have learned on this "line" or "precept" to receive the next.

For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts and lend an ear unto to my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have. 2 Ne. 28:30

This reinforced my desire to keep learning daily through the Team system's many books and cd's. I love them and recommend that anyone looking to improve add them to their the system of learning they already have through church, schooling or any other self-directed education.

Then, on a lighter note, a gal at my new job has a quote at her desk that I thought was awesome.

If you don't like something, change it.
If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.

I hope you enjoyed my first official blog!! Thanks to my friend Clancy, who is a blogging genius, for your inspiration!! I am sure my blog will never be as interesting as hers!! But, hopefully you'll find something useful in my occasional posts!!