44 Days to Go

44 days, 8 hours, 43 minutes before the starting gun for the OBX Marathon.

Training is coming along, I suppose. I’ve been able to squeeze in some shorter runs during the work week to supplement my long runs on the weekends. I missed my long run during last weekend’s rafting adventure. I’ll pay for it this weekend, as my training calendar tells me I have 15 on tap.

Any advice/inspiration out there from anyone who was once 6 weeks away from their first marathon and came out the other side?

Gauley Postscript – Could vs. Should

We had big waves, and we had a safe return.

It was a great trip.  This was the sixth year that I’ve been organizing these rafting trips, and we had our biggest contingent yet with 13 rafters.  Several are repeats who have come to look at this trip as an annual rite of early autumn, but every year we add a few more to the list.  Everyone was gracious with their thanks to me for organizing the trip, and my response was always the same – I’m happy to do it.  Organizing a rafting weekend every year guarantees that I will be able to go rafting every year.  And, I do get a lot of pleasure out of making the experience available to others.  This year’s trip, however, left me wondering whether there is a way for rafting to play a more prominent role in my life.

In a blog post written while we were getting ready to set out on the Lower Gauley run, my wife showed how well she knows me:

They’ll come home thumping their chests dreaming of jobs that allow for this kind of fun every weekend and on the days in between! Monday morning will come quickly and will hit hard. Such reality is never pretty! Soon the fantasies of the dream job on the river will fade and they’ll begin making plans for next fall’s river trip.

Guilty as charged.  With 15 notches in my whitewater rafting belt, a dozen of them on either the Upper or Lower Gauley, I have to admit that the thought of leading trips instead of paying for them has crossed my mind.  This is nothing new, as I’ve always returned from my rafting adventures euphoric and full of grand ideas.  However, as I’ve gotten to know some of the guides on more of a personal level, I’ve come to realize that joining their ranks really is within the realm of possibility.

After all, not all river guides are pony-tailed 20-somethings who alternate between guiding in the summer and teaching snowboarding in the winter, living out of their car all the while.  There are Gauley guides who spend Monday-Friday behind a desk, or in a classroom, or even a courtroom.  While some Gauley guides are transients and others are West Virginia locals, there are many more who live up to several hours away.  They clock out of their “real” jobs on Friday afternoon, then head to W.Va for the weekend.  In fact, our guide this weekend has a longer commute from his home in Ohio than I would have from Charlottesville.     

So what would it take to become a guide?  I’m physically capable, and have a reasonable whitewater experience base upon which to build.  I would need to go through guide training, which takes place on successive weekends throughout the spring.  Once trained, guides can start leading trips on the New throughout the summer and fall, then the Lower Gauley, and finally the Upper Gauley. 

And that, of course, is why I can’t be a river guide.  The fact that I could spend my weekends as a river guide doesn’t mean that I should spend my weekends as a river guide.  There are guides who are married, and there are guides who have children.  However, I think it’s a safe bet that there are few if any guides who live three hours away from the river and have four children.  If there are, they certainly aren’t involved with their families’ lives in the way that I need to be with mine.

It’s taken me a few days to come to grips with this reality, as my wife predicted.  Now I feel rather silly and selfish for even having considered it.  But, it was an important exercise for me to work through.  Self-awareness and all that, you know. 

If my life situation was different, I believe that I would be guiding, regardless of whatever I was doing Monday-Friday.  I really do feel that strong a connection to it – the river, the adventure, the whitewater fraternity.  But, my life is not different, and I thank God that it is not.   

Crossing Off The List

I keep a mental list of outdoor adventures that I want to undertake before I am too old to do so.  Some of the things on my lifetime adventure to-do list will probably, once checked off, fall into the “been there, done that, got the t-shirt, don’t need to do it again” category. 

Skydiving, for instance.  I really want to jump out of an airplane.  But, once I do, I somehow doubt that I will feel compelled to repeat the experience.  Perhaps I will – I had a housemate in law school who had hundreds of jumps in his log, had his own gear, and would have done it every weekend if time and finances allowed.  Maybe I too will become similarly hooked.  But, I don’t think so.  I want to skydive for the experience of doing it – I don’t see myself wanting to spend my weekends refining my technique. 

Caving is another example.  My underground experience up to this point is limited to Luray Caverns.  I would like to go down deep where they don’t give tours and charge admission, to get muddy and probably a little scared exploring the world underneath our feet.  I have an uncle who was an avid caver college, and spent a lot of his free time exploring and even camping in the caverns of western North Carolina.  My uncle and I are alike in many ways, but I think our paths diverge here.  I have a touch of claustrophobia and I just don’t see myself making a habit of squeezing through tight underground passages.  I would like to do it once, however.

One thing that is not in the “been there, done that” category is paddling world class whitewater.  Year after year I find myself organizing trips to raft the Gauley River in West Virginia.  I have rafted the Gauley – the “Beast of the East” – 5 times.  I can recite the Class V rapids on the Upper Gauley by heart:  Insignificant, Pillow Rock, Iron Ring, Lost Paddle, Sweet’s Falls.  I can picture them all in my mind’s eye, even sitting here in front of my computer.  It’s not like the rapids change all that much from year to year, after all.   

So why is whitewater rafting not on my “been there, done that” list?  I think it’s because the night before every Gauley trip, I get butterflies in my stomach.  I have rafted those rapids before, and I know what to expect, but if I push the bravado aside, what’s left is a healthy case of good old-fashioned nervousness.  But, if the pattern holds, that nervousness will soon give way to exhiliration, and then I will return home wondering only half-jokingly if there is any way that I could support a family of 6 while working as a river guide.  That is why whitewater remains on my lifetime list, to be crossed off again and again and again.

We head up to West Virginia tomorrow morning.  Wish us big waves and a safe return.    

             

Easy For Me To Say

This photo gave me pause the first time I saw it. 

Taken at one of Morgan’s recent cross country meets, it shows me (and another coach/dad in the foreground) urging the runnners up a hill. “Shorten your stride!” “Use your arms!” “You can do it!”

Easy for me to say.

Cross country is a unique sport in that, depending on the course layout, spectators may be able to see and cheer on their runner(s) at several points during the race. There are no bleachers or designated seats, and anyone so inclined can run back and forth between various locations along the course to check on/cheer/encourage their runner.

I’ve really enjoyed being able to do this at Morgan’s meets, and so far my efforts have been well-received by the girls. I’m a little unsettled by how I appear in this photo, however. While everything that I was saying was positive, this photo is a good reminder to beware of the line between enthusiastic spectator and obnoxious parent.

After all, it’s the girls who are running the race, not me.

Sacramento Reflections

I am, in fact, back from my trip to Sacramento.  Not that you could tell from my blogging output, or lack thereof.

I usually manage to get a post or three done while I am on the road.  Something about being alone in a hotel room with my laptop, a high speed connection, and no distractions.  But, for a variety of reasons, I was nearly post-less last week, and haven’t done any better since I’ve been home.  I’ve missed it, and will do better.  

A few Sacramento reflections:

The highlight of my week was a side trip to Oakland that I took on Thursday night.  Oakland, you say?  Of all of the places that I could have visited in California, why Oakland?  The answer is that is where my brother Brian lives. 

While I would not have forgiven myself if I had spent a week within 100 miles of Brian and had not made an effort to see him, I honestly did not feel like making the trip. Thursday had been a long day near the end of a long week, and what I really wanted to do was go for a run, get some dinner, and crash. Instead, I gassed up the rental car, chugged some caffeine, and headed southwest to Oakland.

After surviving an 80-mile journey that featured my introduction to Bay area rush hour traffic (including the idiotic California custom known as motorcycle lane splitting and a uniquely California traffic report that warned motorists of a guy who had stopped his car on the freeway, taken off his shirt, and was running wildly through traffic), I finally made it to Brian’s place.  He and his girlfriend are living in an industrial part of town (I assume that there are non-industrial parts of Oakland, although I didn’t see any) in a warehouse building that is being converted into funky apartments.  Lots of space for him to rehearse, which he enjoys.  

We had a good visit.  We went down to Berkley (and now I have a better idea why they call it “Beserkley”) and had sushi for supper.  After I managed to put all thoughts of hook-baiting out of my mind, it was actually quite good.  I brought Brian up to speed on the latest goings-on of his East Coast Fan Club (his nieces and nephew), and was able to get a better sense of what he’s up to than I’ve had for a while.  We have chosen different paths in life, but I’ve come to realize that it’s OK.  Brian is happy, does no harm, and spreads goodwill wherever he can.  That’s more than most can say. 

As I said, my visit with Brian was the highlight of my week.  I had a couple of 6-mile runs along the American River Parkway that were good workouts, but not the scenic jaunts that I had hoped for. Things were looking good as I veered off of the asphalt walkway onto one of the many inviting singletrack trails leading off into the woods, but after running into one homeless person’s campsite after another, I concluded that the trails weren’t exactly runner-friendly. I have a soft spot in my heart for homeless people as a result of my involvement with the PACEM ministry, but I wasn’t comfortable getting up close and personal with these guys in the woods. It’s one thing hosting homeless men as guests in your church, and quite another to run through their living room without an invitation – even if their living room is a hidden clearing in a public park. So, it was back to the asphalt paths for me.

What else? Oh yes, work – the reason I was there in the first place. Apart from one missed meeting where my customer had sent me an Outlook appointment that saved as 3 hours later on my calendar due to the time zone differential (so she was expecting me at 11:00 a.m. while my calendar told me it was a 2:00 p.m. meeting), my appointments went well, on the whole. People are people, even if they don’t share your accent.

So there it is. A rather disjointed post, but at least I’m back in the saddle. More to follow.  

On the Road (Yet) Again

I’m in Sacramento for a week-long business trip.  I had originally scheduled the trip for a couple of weeks ago, but we had a variety of unrelated household emergencies erupt on the eve of my departure (I’ll spare you the details but the net result was no water + no air conditioning + standing water in the basement), so I rescheduled.

A couple of weeks and several thousand dollars later, we have water, we have A/C, and the basement is (temporarily, at least) dry.  I can now travel in good conscience.

Sort of.

My job has always had a rather significant travel component, but it has been, on the whole, manageable.  (This is the cue for my wife to say “easy for you to say”).  However, travel is becoming an increasingly defining aspect of my work, and it’s wearing thin. 

For most of my colleagues, travel doesn’t seem to be much of a problem.  Over the past few years we have hired a number of hard-charging young 20-somethings with no kids, no spouse, and lots of ambition.  Business travel is still an adventure for them, and is simply a fact of life as they work their way up the ladder. 

The situation is a bit different for those of us who have been around longer.  Most of my peers do leave a spouse at home while they rack up the frequent flier miles, just as I do.  While absence may make the heart grow fonder, I doubt that many relish the separation.  However, no one has ever had to worry about their spouse growing up while they are on the road. 

Not so with kids….

Print is Not Dead, But….

Working in the publishing industry, I am attuned to the claim that “print is dying.”  As Mark Twain said of reports of his own demise, this is an exaggeration. E-books arrived with much hoopla a few years back, but we’re still cutting down trees. There’s just something about holding a book in your hands, feeling and turning the printed page, that a computer screen can’t replace.

That said, I do want to pass along a neat site that I recently came across. Readprint.com is a free online library that provides instant access to thousands of classic works. It’s hard to imagine sitting down and scrolling and clicking your way through Moby Dick or The Aeneid, but you could if you wanted to. More realistically, maybe this site and others like it will pique the reader’s interest enough to head down to the library or bookstore and check out the real thing.

While I’m at it, let me take this opportunity to plug the bookstore of a friend and former colleague – check it out!

First Meet

See the small blond girl running up the hill?

She’s starting to pull away from the pack.

Turning on the jets for her final kick.

That’s our girl in her first high school cross country meet.

Reminds me of her mother.

Law Practice Part III – A Foot in the Door

All I needed was a foot in the door. 

I sent a cover letter and resume to every law firm in town that maintained a litigation practice, and came up empty.  Even before it started winning its spate of #1 City/Best Place to Live awards*, Charlottesville was a very popular place to be.  That fact, together with the presence of U.Va’s law school, has long made Charlottesville a buyers’ market for law firms looking to hire associates.  For a certain would-be young associate who had not gone to U.Va, and whose law school GPA reflected the fact that he had spent more time courting his future wife than he had studying in the library, prospects were starting to look a bit bleak.

So, for the first of what would turn out to be many times during the course of my legal career, I called on a family friend from church, who also happened to be one of the most highly respected attorneys in the state.  I was not asking him for a job; I knew from prior discussions that his firm was not hiring.  What I sought was a sympathetic and knowledgable ear, and that is what I received.  He took me to lunch on the downtown mall, and after I had finished laying out my plight, he asked, “Have you tried Mr. ____’s office?”

I told him that I had not, but that I remembered the firm’s profile in the attorney directory that I had virtually memorized.  Tax.  Estate Planning.  Real Estate.  Bankruptcy.  Sorry, not interested – I wanted to be a trial lawyer.

“It’s probably not going to be the place where you want to spend your career, but his firm is sort of an institution in town, and a lot of folks start out there.  It’d give you a foot in the door, at least.” 

A foot in the door.  What was that old saying about beggars and choosers?  I got a cover letter and resume in the mail that afternoon.

I arrived for my interview with Mr. ____ on a Saturday afternoon a week or so later, not knowing what to expect.  If I had known, I’m not sure I would have gone.  The firm’s office, as with many in Charlottesville’s Court Square area, was in a 19th-century building that had originally been a house.  Unlike most of the neighboring offices, this building had not had much in the way of upkeep since it was first built.  There were spots where mortar was falling out from between crumbling bricks, and the white trim on the windows was peeling.  This turn-of-the-century building didn’t look historic – it just looked old.

I went inside, and there was Mr. ____**, sitting at one of the secretaries’ desks.  His white hair and lined face made me wonder if he had been around for as long as the building itself.  With some effort, he stood up to greet me.  Despite his age and apparent weariness, I noted a twinkle in his eye as we shook hands, and I followed him down the hallway to his office. 

Every horizontal surface – desk, filing cabinets, credenza, tables, floor, and several chairs – was covered in stacks of paper, some measuring a foot high.  Some papers were client files in manila folders, but others appeared to be loose, random documents.  It appeared to be chaos, but I would soon learn that Mr. ____ knew where everything was.***    

Our meeting was more a conversation than an interview.  He never actually offered me a job, but it was clear from the outset that I had one if I wanted it.  A few days later, I called to confirm that I would like to join his office, and gave him a suggested start date.  “That would be satisfactory,” he replied, and with that I was once again employed.

I was one of nine associates in the firm – Mr. ____ had no partners.  Two others were, like me, only a year or so out of law school.  A few more had a bit more experience, and the others seemed to have settled into life at Mr. ____’s office as a career.  I was the only putative litigator in the bunch.  The rest were focused on the firm’s specialty areas of bankruptcy, tax, estate planning, and real estate.  Given the dearth of litigation work in the office, and my year of experience working for a bankruptcy trustee in North Carolina, I quickly gravitated toward bankruptcy work.  While not the trial practice to which I aspired, bankruptcy work did at least have a courtroom aspect.  And, as I reminded myself on a frequent if not daily basis, it was a foot in the door.

Truthfully, my time with Mr. ____ was a good experience, despite his idiosyncrasies, the decrepit building, and the low pay.  Mr. _____’s idiosyncrasies were mitigated by his remarkable intelligence and his giving nature.  Even at his advanced age, he reveled in matching wits with his opponent, be it the government in a tax matter, or opposing counsel in a bankruptcy case.  He was a mild-mannered man, but he did not like to lose. 

Mr. ____’s giving nature was apparent in the legion of Charlottesville attorneys who had passed through his offices.  His informal attorney alumni association, doubtless numbering a hundred or more after 50+ years of practice, boasted judges, politicians, and many of the most high-powered lawyers in town.  He prided himself in having fostered this talent.  I, like most of the rest, was and remain grateful for the opportunity that he provided. 

The decrepit building did take some getting used to.  I remember suggesting during a firm meeting one morning that we might organize a painting day to put a fresh coat on the scuffed and dirty interior walls.  Note that I wasn’t suggesting that he hire a painter to do the job, I was suggesting that we do it ourselves.  I couldn’t tell whether he was amused or annoyed at the prospect, but the idea died on the vine.  After a while I came to realize that most of Mr. ______’s client base fell into one of two categories.  Many of them were wealthy clients who had been with him for so long that they had become inured to the shabby surroundings, while many of the rest were bankruptcy clients on the brink of financial collapse, in which case the state of their lawyer’s office was not high on their worry list. 

The low pay was the most difficult aspect of my time with Mr. ____.   I believe that he found billing clients to be the most distasteful aspect of practice.  As a result, he did not do so on a regular basis, and when he did, the rates and hours reflected on the bills were considerably lower than they should have been.  That’s all well and good, but in order for the accounts payable part of any business to function, things need to be working on the accounts receivable end.  If you don’t bill clients, then you don’t have money to pay your staff.  So, my fellow associates and I would find ourselves comparing notes on the 1st and 15th of every month – “did you get paid today?”  Often the answer was “no”, or “only a partial”.  More than once on the 2nd, 3rd, 16th or 17th day of the month, I found myself in the rather surreal position of standing in the threshhold of Mr. ____’s office door, clearing my throat, and asking when I could expect my check.  I would typically couch the request in terms of my rent or a student loan payment being due, and it would inevitably prompt an embarrassed apology and a check being cut before the day was out.          

So why did I stay?  Again, it was a foot in the door.  I was living out my goal of practicing law in Charlottesville, albeit not exactly in the way that I had envisioned.  And, I was getting significant experience.  I think Mr. _____ got a kick out of my youthful enthusiasm, and he gave me a tremendous amount of latitude and responsibility.  He made it clear from our first conversation that he was not interested in establishing a litigation practice, but he also made sure that any bankruptcy or other matter that had a hint or prospect of litigation was funneled to me.   

So, I kept slogging along.  All the while, though, I was looking for my way out, and into a litigation (and regularly paying) firm.  I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel when a litigator in another firm sponsored me for membership in the local Inn of Court, a professional organization devoted to the trial bar.  As I met and networked with local litigators I was unapologetic about my association with Mr. ____’s firm, as I had come to appreciate his talents as a lawyer, and I realized as well how many local attorneys had paid their dues with a stint in his office.  Still, I made no bones about my desire to be a trial lawyer.  And, almost a year to the day after starting with Mr. ____, I was to get that chance.                     

Be careful what you wish for.

Previous: Part II

Stay tuned for Part IV.

*One of the worst things that can happen to a city, but that’s a topic for a future post.

**To this day, I have never heard anyone other than his wife refer to Mr. _____ by his first name.

***One of the many stories about Mr. ____ recounts the time when a well-meaning young associate took advantage of one of his rare absences to clean and organize his office.  When Mr. ____ got back into town and saw that his teetering piles of paper had been culled through, systematized, and filed away, he was livid.  He couldn’t find anything.