Trey Tucker.

I started off my second day in the wonderful city of Phoenix, Arizona with a quick, morning run. It was only about three miles, yet because of several, deliberating factors (the heat, my fitness, etc), the run seemed much longer. After that, I met up with my family for some breakfast, continental of course. Breakfast ended at around nine thirty and because we did not have to leave for part two of commencement till noon, I was able to fit in some relaxing time at the pool.

When we (my brother, sister, mom and I) arrived, there were only two other people in the area: two older women who were doing their early-morning gossip. I put my stuff on the nearby table and proceeded to head into the hot tub. Although I was only in there for five minutes, it felt soothing on my muscles after my "easy" run. A few minutes later a family consisting of: four daughters, a wife, and a husband, entered the pool area. I can only hope and pray that I do NOT have four children, let alone four daughters. Those parents will have fun during their pubescent years. Just saying.

Shortly after that family arrived, more little kids made their way into the pool area; two little boys equipped with water-wings and life vests. It was pretty interesting to see the interaction between the older boy, Trey (who was five), and the young girls (the eldest was nine years old). They acted as if they were brother and sister, playing around in the water as if they had been friends for years. At this point in time I was laying on a lawn chair trying to get a tan. The suns rays hadn't hit the pool, which meant that the temperature of the pool was "frigid." Nonetheless, I ventured into the pool and soon found myself a pool time buddy.

Trey, one of the little boys with the water-wings, was "swimming" with his mom towards the shallow end of the pool. His little brother, Ethan, was also in the pool, yet quickly left because he was scared. Therefore, Trey was left in the pool, yet still being supervised by his mother. He began swimming towards my sister, who was relaxing on the side of the pool, because she was trying to help him learn how to swim. If one did not know my sister's future career as a teacher, one could easily spot her motherly-instinctiveness towards little kids. I was watching him learn to swim and when he got to me, I gave him some additional pointers.

Trey then proceeded to give me "races" where I would have to swim down to different lengths of the pool. My rewards for those challenges ranged from a few splashes, to a kick or two (mind you, he is five). After doing this for about thirty minutes, I got out of the pool and went to dry myself off. As I sat down, Trey walked over to his area, grabbed a chair, put his right across from me. We then proceeded to play air tic-tac-toe (I won), thumb wars (I won), and the alphabet game. I am shocked at how well developed his vocabulary was. For a five year old, who hasn't even started kindergarten, he was pretty smart. I learned that he was from Chicago, great city.

What made the whole mid-morning fun was how I was interacting with Trey. Its crazy that the most fun I have had over the past few days, has been with this five year old. It's time like those where I missed working with little kids, either elementary or even younger because they always have a simple outlook on the world. They don't worry about the War on Terror, or the terrible economic status that our country is in, their biggest worry is what's going to happen when their shoes become untied because they haven't learned how to tie them yet. It's time like those where being an Elementary teacher would be a great career for me, and while my mind is set on high school, I wouldn't mind giving another stab at the youngsters. Trey's final words to me were, "Bye, see ya later." Will I ever see him again? Probably not. Will I remember him? Absolutely.

Phoenix.

My mom has been acquiring her Master's degree, in Nursing Education, for the past eighteen months and today, as well as tomorrow, will be the conclusion of her journey. She has compiled hundreds of work hours, whether it is doing papers or making presentations. She has been getting her degree online through Grand Canyon University, which is in Phoenix, Arizona. So as I am typing this blog, I am sitting in my hotel room in the midst of Phoenix.

My mom and my stepdad left for Phoenix on Sunday morning, while my brother and I flew out this morning. Today has been an incredibly long day. It started at 4am. Yes, I said four in the morning. After getting myself upright and taking a shower, my brother and I left his Seattle home at around five. We arrived at the airport at around 5:30. Security was annoying as usual, but our plane did not leave until 7:20 and we were in no rush. After we got through security, we both grabbed some food. Who would have thought that Qdoba would have delicious breakfast burritos? I kept mine simple with scrambled eggs, potatoes, some chicken, and some queso cheese sauce. DELICIOUS!. As we headed up to the gate, I saw two of my teammates standing in front of me. Turns out, they were heading down to San Diego.

The plane ride was essentially smooth, considering that I slept through the majority of it. I didn't mind. We arrived in Phoenix just shy of nine and were immediately reunited with my mom and sister (she flew down from Pullman on Wednesday morning). We then drove to the hotel, where we dropped off our luggage, and then drove right to the church where the ceremony was being held.

The church was not only beautiful on the outside, it was massive on the inside as well. It looked like a church that one would find on early-morning televised church services. Anyways, we got there at around 11:40 and the ceremony did not start till one, so my sister and I decided to take a walk around the church, letting our bodies radiate in the 95+ degree temperatures. The ceremony was similar to any commencement ceremony: the deans gave speeches, the graduates were presented with their "degrees" and everyone was tearing up. I will be the first to admit that my eyes were tearing up throughout the WHOLE ceremony. I don't know why, but I was very emotional. It could be because I have seen my Mom work so hard for the past year and a half, that I was genuinely proud of her. It was moments like those where I am glad to be her son. I just hope that one day, she is the one saying that about me.

304.368 Days

It's astonishing yet amazing that I have found this one person, this one girl, that always makes me smile. I have only known this girl since the end of my junior year of high school, yet I feel like I have been her friend since elementary school. There are a lot of things one can do in 304.368 days: Learn a new language through Rosetta Stone, train for a sport, have a baby haha. While I am not thinking about having a baby at this point in time, in the future, distant future, I think it'll be a possibility.

There are so many different characteristics that I like about this girl. She always makes me smile, no matter if I am upset, or if I already happy. She always has this upbeat, sort of spunky, personality, that while is spontaneous, can be a little "cray cray." Her hair is kind of........CRAZY!!!! Its blonde and curly, which makes it really fun to play with, even though she gets annoyed with it sometimes.

I hope that I get to spend another 304.368 days with this lovely, beautiful, exquisite, pretty much perfect girl who has changed me for the better. I wonder if she realizes how of an impact that she has made on my life. Hopefully, I have made the same impact on her.

881 The Burg.

So 88.1 the Burg is our school's (Central Washington University) radio station. Over the past few months, I have been doing "training" and yesterday I completed my final audition. As a result, I get to have a radio show!!! I actually get the chance to work with another guy; its his show, I am his new co-host. I think i'll be really fun. I am not sure how he will take a new person in the studio, but I hope that it'll be fun. Doing Video Productions during high school made me appreciate mass media/broadcasting. We had always had a radio station, yet we had never used it. This'll give me a new opportunity to try something new in my life, and who knows, I could eventually get a full-time job. So if your in the area, hit up 88.1 FM Monday Nights @ 6pm!!!

High School Drama.

Its amazing how drama in college is so similar to drama found in high school. Granted in high school, we are restricted to acting upon it after school hours, or during lunch. Yet in college, one could act upon it twenty-four hours a day. It's stupid and pointless. Drama is stupid and pointless. People who enjoy causing/hearing about drama are stupid and pointless.

Bad Case of the Mondays.

For the first time in two and a half weeks, I actually went to Track practice today. I have been failing to attend, not because I have been overloaded with homework, but because I have become severely unmotivated. Why should I train six (sometimes seven) days of the week when I am not competing? I don't understand how people have that self-motivation; that internal drive that I so badly wish I could have.

I went to practice, getting there at our usual meeting time, and listened to Coach talk about the previous meet and discuss how successful everyone was. He listed off the names of everyone who PR'd and as a team, we congratulate them. The aspect of the team meeting that made it more significant was the fact that after every name was called, the whole team clapped and cheered for each other. It made me feel that we are a legitimate team, not just a bunch of athletes.

The workout for the mid-distance guys was a three mile easy run, followed by a short interval workout consisting of (200-300-200-100) at faster than 800m pace. Knowing my current fitness level, I decided that I would do the three mile run, but then instead of the intervals, I would do an easy field loop (3/4 of a mile) plus a lap (1/4 mile) so that my total for the day would be four miles. With about a 1/2 mile left to go in the three mile run, my legs were beginning to feel a little heavy. Pretty pathetic considering I am suppose to be in decent shape, yet a three mile run is feeling worse than 400m repeats do. Nonetheless, I cruised through it, breathing more heavily than I would have liked, and proceeded to do my additional mile on the grass. I chose to do it barefoot because my shoes had been bugging me during my run. They seem to be getting really loose, not sure why though. Afterwords, I went and iced my shins for a brief amount of time, changed, and headed out the door.

Unattached.

It is like snow, accumulating on the side of a mountain, yet in an instant it can come crashing down like an avalanche. For the past two weeks, my motivation for Track has been declining. Our team's roster, for the men, is full and therefore every other guy who wants to run in meets would have to compete unattached. I had mentioned in my previous blog entry the "benefits" of competing unattached. It is at this point in time where I find myself lost in a never-ending vortex of laziness. I haven't been motivated to go to practice because even if I do practice, I won't be running for the team; I'll just be the "Unattached" runner.

The Gift.

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift" --- Steve Prefontaine.

That quote has been plastered on sweatshirts, t-shirts, pretty much any running apparel that one could imagine. If you don't know who Pre is, open a new window in your internet browser and do a quick Google search, or rent the movie "Without Limits." Back on track (no pun intended), there are a variety of things that "the gift" could be. One would have to bring back Pre from the dead to get the exact definition, but for the rest of us mortals, we are left to ponder and speculate.

The first time I ever started Track was in fifth grade. Everyone knows those years when the 800m was the shortest "distance" race because they did not want to make kids run the mile. Ironically during my elementary years, I was focused on sprint type events. I competed in both the long jump and was part of the 4x1 relay. Guess back then I was fast. I did Track in seventh grade, but by that time I was more heavy set, meaning I was not fast enough to do any of the events I actually wanted to do. Therefore I was placed doing the 800m and 1600m. My pr's that year were 3:35 and 7:40. Those are extremely slow, and looking back, I feel pretty embarrassed that I ever ran that slow for those distances. I was always in next-to-last place. I was the kid that people cheered for at the end of a race because he was bringing up the rear. I was the kid who got lapped during the mile and I was the kid who would always sprint the last fifty meters, just make sure the guy behind me wouldn't pass me. After that year I decided that Track wasn't my thing. I was out of shape, fat, and frankly sucked. I stopped running and didn't start again till the summer before my sophomore year of high school.

Towards the end of my freshman year, I was noticebly leaner. I grew five inches and lost about twenty pounds. That year one of my friends, Aaron, ran cross-country at one of the high school's (eventually my rival high school). He told me that he loved it because of the high school team atmosphere. Plus he got to wear a high school sport's sweatshirt, which made him seem like a better athlete than everyone else. He would always tell me stories about his races and how it was racing against high school kids. I was interested his stories, but at the same time I didn't believe that I could do the same. At the time another one of my friends Carly, currently a senior in high school, had run cross-country at the junior high level for the past three year and told me how she loved to run (weird... who runs for fun?). Their stories, as well as their influences, convinced me to try-out for the high school cross country team. At the time I didn't know that their races were 3.1 miles long, if I had I probably wouldn't have joined the team. Maybe Aaron should have told me that little detail.

At the end of my senior year, with three years of high school track and cross-country under my belt, I thought that maybe I would try and compete at the collegiate level. I contacted the coach, talking about cross-country, and about a week later he had replied with an e-mail saying, in short, "Your too slow." I know I am no state qualifier or national champion, but I didn't even get a chance to prove myself. I took that as a chance to try improve my fitness and decided to work with the 400m runners, starting in october and ending in early february. Working with those guys made me realize that I was a distance runner. Whenever we did longer intervals (500m or greater), I recovered the quickest, yet when we did sprinting type repetitions (300m or less), I lacked the fast-twitch muscles to keep up with Scott or Kyle (two of our best 400m runners). From time to time, I would see the distance runners doing their typical base-building runs, easy, aerobic runs of five to seven miles. Later would I realize how important a solid base is when training with the mid-distance runners.

Often called the toughest runners in track and field, mid-distance runners are very similar to hybrid cars. They utilize different types of energy in order to produce a quality product. Mid-distance runners require a solid, aerobic base in combination with sprinting speed, which make become a deadly threat over a variety of distances, not just limiting to their standard 800m or 1500m distances. I started training with them from about mid February till mid April. Their aerobic base, which they probably started at the conclusion of their cross-country season, was demonstrated during the workouts that we would do. A typical tuesday workout would be (300-500-400-300) at 1500m pace, followed by 400m at 800m pace, then (4 x 200) at 800m pace. The 1500m set wasn't challenging, but when it came to the second half of the workout, any of the 800m paced intervals, that was where myself and the other mid-distance runners would separate. I would often be in the back of the pack, sometimes 5-10m behind the guys, who would be running in a tight group.

When meets would come around, coach had informed me that I would have to compete "Unattached" because all of the roster spots were already full. The benefits of competing on the team include: a free ride to the venue, free food, free food money, see the pattern here? When one competes unattached they have to provide their own transportation, their own food, they can't eat the "team's" food, etc. After two indoor meets of competing unattached, having to have my girlfriend drive me to Pullman, WA and Seattle, WA, I felt bad that I am not good enough to compete on the actual team. We'll see how the rest of the season goes, but at this moment, it's looking like my hybrid car is running out of gas.

Wheel of Fortune.

I was hanging out with my girlfriend (Amanda) last night, around 9:00pm, and our friend Ariel came in and asked us if we wanted to join her and some of her friends on a trip to the casino. I had never been to a casino, let alone been presented the chance to gamble, so I immediately accepted the invitation. So myself, Amanda, Ariel, and three other friends (Spencer, Lucas, and Jacob) departed from Ellensburg and drove through Yakima, through Wapato (which is the smallest town I have ever driven through), and eventually wound up in Toppenish (another random town). The drive was a little sketchy because we were driving on a variety of backroads, one of which was called "N. Track Rd." Jacob and I are determined to "borrow" one of the road signs sometime before we graduate. On the way to the casino we drove past a drug deal in-action, which was interesting and ironic because the road where it went down was the same road that Spencer lives on. Spencer is from Yakima, so he was familiar with the area, so we just followed him during the drive.

The drive took about 50 min, not horrible. Once we got to the casino, it was pretty surreal. There were no parking spots except for this section that was covered in loose gravel, but we took what we could get and parked there. Walking into the casino, my nose was immediately attacked by the smells of cigarette smoke. It was tolerable, but not pleasant to say the least. I started with eleven dollars, the only cash I had in my wallet, and thought that it wasn't going to last me very long. I quickly went through my first five dollars in a matter of minutes and surely thought that I was going to make the drive back to Ellensburg with an empty wallet. There were some instances where I would win, nothing more than two dollars, but it was enough to keep my "gambling spirit" alive.

As the night progressed and my cash supply slowly dwindling down, I became more cautious. My strategy was to only play one cent slots, but play with a large amount of lines to increase my payout if I had won anything. Towards the back corner of the casino I noticed a "Wheel of Fortune" section, a game-show that I am very familiar with considering I would watch it with my mom on tv almost every night. I decided to press my luck and by that time I only had about four dollars left. I put it all in the machine and prayed that I would win something because I was betting forty cents per spin. After my fifth spin, I saw my machine light up (I had gotten the Bonus game). I was trying to listen to what the game was telling me, but I later found out that the machine was muted. The bonus game was fairly simple, you picked letters which corresponded with the puzzles shown and the more letters you found, the greater multiplier you received. After the puzzles were "solved", a large wheel on top of the machine would spin. On it were a variety of multipliers, ranging from 10x to 500x. Just like on the show, whatever the wheel lands on is the amount you get. The game decided to be very generous to me and decided to land on the 500x multiplier. I ended up turning my four dollars into nineteen after that one round. After cashing out, I proceeded to take five of those dollars and continued playing, ending up winning an additional twenty-six dollars.

I entered the casino with eleven dollars and left with forty. For my first time gambling, I thought that I did quite well. Ariel left the casino with twenty-five dollars (she was the only other person who won any money that night). Jacob, Spencer, and Lucas all lost money (Spencer and Lucas each losing thirty dollars, with Jacob losing forty). Amanda didn't gamble, but enjoyed watching Ariel and I win, as well as watching everyone else lose. On the drive back home (about 2am) we stopped at Miner's in Yakima. I celebrated my win with a large curly fry and then we all drove back to quaint, little Ellensburg.