Happy new year year to everyone, let’s hope and pray its a healthy and prosperous year for all.

2012 has closed it’s books, and with it my quest for Town Lake mileage. In a perfect example of just how ungovernable life is, a year in which I significantly improved my overall health and fitness ended with me getting the flu and missing four perfect days to add to my mileage total.

I had long since come to the realization that 1,000 miles was going to be tough, and would include at least a few days where I’d have to increase my daily 4 miles if I were to make it. As the weeks peeled off near the end, I started to get ready for a sub-1000 total, and kept reminding myself that my original goal was 500 miles. That seems comically low now, but one year ago it was a significant milestone I wasn’t sure I would attain.

The final total for 2012 was 972 miles – I would have had to run seven more times, but even if I had not gotten sick it would have been tough. By early December I started having some ankle issues which I powered through, but were still worrisome and made me question whether I could really run the extra mileage I’d need to make 1000.

But no regrets here – I’m amazed at the mileage total I did attain, and that’s only the miles at Town Lake. Over the course of the year I also ran in our neighborhood and elsewhere, but didn’t count those miles as “official”. The larger point of all this is that I run at all.

Over the course of our lives together, Veek has always been an inspiration in terms of health and fitness. Her routine for years includes early morning long power walks with the dogs, and several times a week also doing something else. She’ll run the lake, or take kick boxing or yoga classes. Even with all my hard work in 2012, my fitness regimen still pales in comparison, and that’s a good thing. She makes me want to try and keep up, and that helps keep us both active and healthy.

I ended up losing about 30 pounds, avoided any serious injuries, and really transformed my mindset about running. I can’t imagine not running most days – in fact, I’m just waiting for Veek to be ready so we can start 2013 with our first run at the lake this morning. We’re living the simple rule Veek so thoughtfully articulates: “Just Move”

I was at breakfast the other morning with our daughter Aly and her friend Marissa, who are on holiday break from school in Boston, and Aly pointed out that I’m getting very close to being able to order from the last page of the menu. You know, the Senior Citizen section, for those 55 and older.

A somewhat jarring realization for me, but if Veek and I just “keep moving”, here’s hoping I can order cheaper eggs and toast for a long time to come.

Happy New Year to all.

The number sits in front of me, and I stare at it. 302 miles.

A half-smile on my face reveals the combination of satisfaction and unease I feel. On one hand, I am proud that I’ve logged over 300 miles since January 1 – a combination of power walking and slow jogging a 4.2 mile loop around Town Lake in downtown Austin. The fact that I’ve been able to physically take the pounding that a roughly 53 minute session averaging about 5 times a week is a pleasant surprise. I’ve logged more miles already this year than all of last year, probably all of the past three years combined.

I started 2012 with a mission – try to log 500 miles at Town Lake. That would mean 125 trips around my normal loop. Over the course of the past 18 years in Austin, I probably went and looped the trail about 25 – 30 times a year, max. So 125 seemed like a significant challenge at the time.

Now, not so much. Between my work travel slowing down and my motivation to get to the trail every day, I’ve progressed to the point where I need to move my goal out a bit.

At my current pace, I’ll hit 500 miles in a month or so. So now I’m thinking 1,000 miles. It’s hard to fathom. How the heck can I possible do 1,000 miles?!

Earlier I mentioned that the sight of 302 miles logged also carried with it some unease. The fact is, most days I do the loop, I am in pain. My legs mostly – my shins, my calves, my quads and my hammies – every day something hurts. I’ve tried combinations of shoes and socks, varied my walking/running style, and only realized temporary success if at all.

I have no doubt I can continue to power on through the pain, I just worry about injury. If I’m not gaining endurance to the point where my legs stop hurting doing the same loop so many times, I think it may be sign that I’m over-taxing my body’s ability to heal itself every day.

I recently found out I was vitamin D3 deficient, my doctor advised me to start taking supplements daily. When I did a bit of research on the issue, I found that D3 deficiency is linked to a whole range of issues large and small. Chronic pain? Yep. Inflammation? Yep. I’m holding out hope that my relatively new regime of supplements (really just D3 and baby aspirin each morning) will yield some relief for my aching knees, ankles and leg muscles.

So I’m uneasy about hurting myself, blowing out a knee or something, and then not being able to walk much at all.

Another point of worry is work travel. It comes and goes in fits and spurts – sometimes I seem to be constantly at the airport, then I’ll go months without a trip. One reason I’ve logged so many trail miles this year is that I’ve only had three business trips so far. When I’m home, I force myself to take the time to get up from the chair and go do the loop. When I’m on the road, for a variety of reasons, I usually don’t get to work out. You work all day at the office, then go to dinner with colleagues, and then collapse in bed late to get ready to do it all again the next day. I don’t pig out or otherwise do things which are inherently unhealthy when on trips, but I also don’t work out. I figure its a wash.

The travel concern is more about whether I can get my trail mileage in. If I’m gone, I can’t log miles, and I won’t get to 1,000. So we’ll see on that one.

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good about myself this year so far in terms of exercise. Veek continues to drive us towards more healthy eating, and a healthier lifestyle in general, and combined with my uptick in exercise, I’m hoping to realize some personal goals in terms of my health.

We’re off to a pretty good start.

Throughout my life, I’ve been blessed with good friends. Guys like Tim in Rhode Island, whom I met when I was 12 and am still close to today. On my annual pilgrimage home to see the Pats, I spend quality time with Fin, Mirz, Tim, Charp and others with whom I’ve had 30 years or more of friendship.

That being said, there’s something awry with my current stable of close friends here in Austin. While they are – to a man – upstanding, intelligent, funny and supportive people, it doesn’t take long to reveal character flaws in each which bring me to pause.

Let’s begin with Baze. A more kind, generous and passionate person you will not find. Putting aside the obvious impact he has had on our family in the wake of the devastation of 12/25/09, Baze is a great guy with whom I share an interest in beer and music. Last month we drove 210 miles each way to go see Thievery Corporation and Massive Attack in Dallas – on a worknight! We met when I walked up to him at an old Tivoli beer bash. I had tickets to go see REM (opening acts were Radiohead and Natalie Merchant – a killer lineup), and my planned companion bailed on me at the last minute. I saw Baze standing there in a Grateful Dead t shirt, and figured we’d get along, so I asked him if he wanted to go with me. That began over a decade of going to see live music together, including several great shows by Patti Smith.

So what’s his character flaw you may be wondering? Despite all my upbringing in the cradle of Red Sox Nation, somehow I ended up having a dear friend who is an unabashed Yankee fan, replete with “in your face” comparisons of the 27 World Series titles to the pitiable 7 for the Sox. He’s fairly gracious in defeat, however he’s quite unbearable in victory. Thank god he’s also a Patriots fan, so we can sit and root for at least one team together.

And then there’s Tim. A wonderfully funny and very smart man, Tim is married to Cyn and actually hails from Pawtucket, my home town. I have no idea of the odds of finding someone from Pawtucket, Rhode Island living in Austin at the same time, much less becoming good friends, but we did it. We have shared countless hours laughing about our humble upbringings in the concrete jungle, cooked Rhode Island-themed dinners together, and spent most holidays together since our friendship began almost 10 years ago. But poor Tim revealed early on that while he does indeed root for the Red Sox – quite passionately actually – his preferred professional football is the NY Jets. The New York Friggin Jets?! I could hardly believe it when I heard.

It’s not such a leap – after all Rhode Island is not far from New York, and both Tim and I grew up around the time Joe Namath rose to superstardom leading the upstart Jets to victory over the Baltimore Colts in 1969. But come one, Tim! I hate the damn Jets now. As the Jets and Pats prepare for another epic battle in this season’s playoffs, the sports world is aflame with comments from Rex Ryan, Antonio Cromartie, and “king whiner” Ladanian Tomlinson, all Jets players talking trash about the Pats. More than anything I want the Pats to just obliterate the Jets this coming Sunday evening, to further the pain of the Jets faithful who have seen little sustained success since 1969, all the while watching their erstwhile coach Bill Belichik lead the Pats to league dominance. It pains me that Tim and I cannot share the Pats, I would give my left arm to have Baze on one side, Tim on the other, all cheering for the Pats to win a fourth Super Bowl and cement Tom Brady as residing in the firmament for NFL quarterbacks.

But alas, it cannot be. This Sunday evening Tim and I will be at separate locations, with short courteous text messages to be sent from the slain to the victorious. So sad.

Mark, someone with whom I’ve spent countless hours golfing and sharing beers and laughs, has so many character flaws that I would end up writing an entire book instead of a long blog post. But Mark’s character flaws have nothing to do with sports. His preferred NFL team is the Raiders, a long-suffering franchise which almost demands that its fans be low key unless living in the heart of Oakland. The fact that Mark hasn’t once mentioned the “tuck rule” to me shows his grace.

Mark is a dear friend, who recently scared the crap out of us all with a health scare. I’ve heard that he’s back playing golf, being productive at work, and generally becoming himself again, for which I am thankful.

At least Ronnie isn’t an issue. While sharing the traits of kindness, intelligence and humor with the others, unfortunately (for him) he’s a Cowboys and Rangers fan.

He cheerily (or not, depending on your perspective) accepts my rabid Boston fandom – including standing by me as I screamed at a television in B.D. Riley’s Irish Pub one evening, “Hit the f*cking ball, Manny! You get paid like $3500 per pitch!”

I’m sure somewhere down deep Ronnie has a major flaw, as of yet undiscovered. For now, however, he remains untainted.

This fall our daughter Aly began college at Northeastern University in Boston, one of our favorite cities. Both Veek and I have lived in Boston at various times in our lives, and I grew up about 45 miles south of the city. I used to work right downtown in Copley Square, riding the T every day to my office for 2 years.

But cities are strange, wonderful things. They’re not static, they change and ebb and flow. With Aly now encamped off of Huntington Avenue for the next five years, we are having a wonderful opportunity to rediscover Boston.

Parent’s Weekend was a great example. Veek and I are both going through some stressful times at our jobs – incredibly busy, seemingly never having enough time to get our required work done, at least not done well. There’s nothing particularly unique about that, I suppose, lots of people are in the same boat in their jobs these days. But for us, the added challenges of continuing our post-fire journey, having our daughter move 1800 miles away for school, and the resident financial challenges of a child in a very expensive private school all add to our need for quality downtime when it occurs.

We showed up in Boston during late October for Parent’s Weekend, and Aly promptly told us that she didn’t want us to do “anything they had planned at the school.” She just wanted to hang out with us. We weren’t particularly enthralled with that approach, but then again, when Howie Mandel is the featured entertainment for the weekend, it made it more palatable. (Note: If I ever am forced to hear Howie Mandel do that little boy voice schtick again, just feel free to kill me right then and there.)

So instead of following some predefined syllabus for the weekend, we just went with the flow, dictated by Aly’s schedule, including classes and work study. That left Veek and I ample time to just do things together, which turned out wonderfully.

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency in the Financial District, adjacent to the Paramount Theater and Chinatown, and quite close to the T. That allowed us to have a nice balance of walking and getting to mass transit for longer trips. We made our requisite pilgrimage to The Black Rose to meet old friends, but other than that we got to experience some places we had never been to despite having lived in the city so many years ago.

Walking around Chinatown one brilliant sunny crisp Autumn afternoon was maybe the highlight for me. The streets were bustling with people, sidewalk vendors hawked cheap souvenirs and fresh fruits, the storefront windows alternated between delicious looking pastries and strange, exotic meats and fishes. We had found a small Vietnamese restaurant on Yelp.com which we wanted to try, and ended up having a great lunch there. Nothing fancy, just good food, and most importantly, a nice “date’ afternoon with each other.

Another area I had spent little time in previously is the North End, the haven of all things Italian in Boston. Aly, however, has adopted the North End as her special place, so she planned a large group dinner one evening for us and many of her friends and their families. We had a great time meeting all her friends and talking with their parents – not surprisingly most of us were feeling the same emotions. Sadness about the kids moving away, relief that they seemed to be thriving, happiness that they’ve made such friends to help them through the tough times transition often brings.

Between Aly being up there and my company’s office in Cambridge, I’ve now eaten at various restaurants in the North End quite a few times in the past six months. Suddenly I feel as if I know it a little bit, I’ve planted my flag.

Over the course of the long weekend, we ended up going to see the Bruins’ opening night, which was a blast; taking some of Aly’s friends to lunch at a cool little place on Newbury Street; watching a musical talent show put on by students from Northeastern; and spending a lot of quality time both with each other and with Aly.

A perfect weekend in my estimation, and a harbinger of some future rediscovery I hope.

This morning my wife got a phone call from work. It’s Saturday, so that’s fairly unusual, and when she saw that it was her boss, she figured something urgent had come up related to her job.

Actually, the call was about a fellow employee of her company, who’s home had been obliterated along with several others in the terrible explosion and fire in San Bruno, California this past week. The company wanted to know – “from someone who had gone through a similar situation” – what things they should be doing to try and provide a measure of relief. As Veek got the full story from the HR representative on the phone, it quickly became clear that our two situations were hardly alike. This poor man was out with one of his children when the gas line exploded, but his wife and youngest child were missing – presumed at home at the time, there is little hope they survived.

Veek tried to provide cogent information while at the same time processing the thoughts about how it must feel to not only lose your home but also your wife and child. She began to cry as she counted off the immediate needs she felt were most pressing – get him shelter, clothing and money. Reassure him that his job will be safe and he should just focus on his family. Fairly obvious probably, but they were the things we needed in the immediate aftermath of our devastating fire.

We’ve talked a lot since our fire about how lucky we were to all get out unharmed, how different the process of emerging from the devastation would be if we had suffered the ultimate fate that cold night. When we are brought into situations like today’s phone call, memories of last Christmas flood back, the confusion, the realization that we were witnessing our lives being shattered. It’s hard not to imagine what may have happened if we were five or ten minutes later and not been able to get out the front doors as we did.

At some point along this journey, we’ve become the ‘fire people‘. No less than three times since our fire have we been contacted because of a home fire. People call us to ask what they should do to help the affected families, or ask us to give the families advice. It’s an odd feeling to be thought of as a source of good information about such things.

I will say this – I don’t think we’re any more qualified than most to be giving advice about post-fire needs. We were quite literally rescued by our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues and members of the Austin community. Even in the darkest days after our fire we never felt alone, never felt unsupported. I’m not sure we could have handled things as elegantly as some folks think we have without the overwhelming blanket of support we’ve received. To this day, some 8 months later, Veek and I continue to be humbled and amazed at the level of support and love which has been directed at our family.

We were in Boston last week to take our daughter to college, and met one of Veek’s longest-standing friends for dinner one evening. I always want us to at least take a moment to thank those who came to our aid, and Veek’s friend Ann and her children had done just that. Trying to spit out a simple ‘thank you’ brought me to the brink of emotion, so completely are we affected by people’s kindness. It’s unsettling to know that I still don’t have control over my emotions related to the fire, but I realize it’s probably a natural reaction.

I suppose it’s not a bad thing to be the ‘fire people‘, certainly it seems like it will stick with us for a long while. It’s true that when I see scenes of fire devastation on the news or in movies I’m affected as never before. Sitting around a fire during a lifetime of camping used to bring me great joy, but now I can’t really feel comfortable around open fires. It will be interesting to me if that changes over time.

So I guess we’ll continue to get the calls, and frankly I think we should be thankful for it. The rest of our lives will be spent trying to pay back the kindness we’ve received, and if we can give any constructive advice to help others it’s something we need to embrace.