Beating the Brutality of Boston's Blizzard

Alright, so it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty brutal when I checked the weather for the day of the Boston Marathon at 10 am. The Boston local broadcastors were saying that there were 50 mile an hour wind gusts, and heavy rain at times. It wasn't looking too promising for the 111th Boston Marathon runners. According to one runner, "It was amazing. God was there! The rain stopped, the wind died down, and it was 16 degrees(celsius) out. Perfect running conditions". That runner was my dad.

My dad is a 44 year old father of two children(my younger sister, Felicia, and I) and is married to Teresa. He has been running for approximately 8 years now and last year he was finally able to achieve his goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. What you have to understand here is that the Boston Marathon is one of the 'big kahuna' Marathons in North America. In order to run this marathon, one must qualify for it.

I would like to say my congrats(and show him off) for his long awaited accomplishment. This years Boston Marathon hosted just over 20,600 runners. They were split up into 2 waves, the first wave which included the elite athletes and the fastest runners to make up the first 10,000 runners. The second wave included the second 10,000+ runners. My dad was blessed to be a part of the first wave of runners as his time qualified him to be in it. He started off really good at the beginning of the race but due to an aggitated knee, he slowed his pace down a bit but still finished the 42.2km race in 3:28:50. No matter what, it's still a great time to finish with.

Here's the rest of the stats to help show you how well he did. Overall, he finished the race in 5229th place. For his gender and then his age bracket(40-44yrs old) he finished in 4479 and 1640 respectively. His placing does two things for him. First, he can say that he finished in the top 25% or 1/4(which ever way you want to look at of all who ran the race. Secondly, because he enters a new age bracket for next year, he's already qualified for the 2008 race. So my kudo's goes out to you dad and a job well done on all that hard work that you have put into this. I'm proud of you and your great accomplishment!

New Style to Help Save the World

Well, it's about time! Yes folks, it's true, Linkin Park is finally coming out with their newest album May 15. As some would know, I am a huge LP fan for some time now and I've been waiting in anticipation for this album to come out. Now, I knew that this album was supposed to be a new style for them but I never expected to hear what I did. I did figure that it wasn't going to be as 'loud' as their previous albums. I am really shocked(and not necessarily in a bad way)that their debut song is about the world and almost one of those 'what can we do to help save it' types. Honestly, I never really saw this coming from them of all groups. It is apparent in their video that the message getting across here is that we need to fix our mistakes of the past to make a better future. I am now really interested to hear what the rest of their album is going to sound like.
So if you haven't heard it yet then without further adue, here is their video and I've posted the lyrics underneath it for your pleasure. Let me know what you think(P.S. No smart comments there, eh anonymous!).



Linkin Park - "What I've done"

In this farewell
there's no blood
there's no alibi

coz I've drawn regret
from the truth
of thousand lies

So let mercy come
and wash away

[chorus]
What I've done
I face myself
to cross-out what I've become
erase myself
and let go of what I've done

Put to rest
what you've thought of me

Well I clean this slate
with the hands of uncertainty

So let mercy come
and wash away

[chorus]
What I've done
I face myself
to cross-out what I've become
erase myself
and let go of what I've done

For what I've done
I start again
and whatever pain may come
today this ends
Im forgiving what I've done
I face myself
to cross-out what I've become
erase myself
and let go of what I've done

What I've done

What I've done

Forgiving what I've done