Reflections at a Kielbasa festival. While tipping back home-brewed hops on a rainy night staring across the bar at a man in his 50s wearing a suit, tightening his straight black tie reminsicient of all those ill-fated diamond robbers in Reservoir Dogs, and stroking his Elvis coiffure anticipating and fantasizing with sad futility about a night of unrestrained passion with insecure, divorced women, I conjured up the idea to bollocks the whole bar scene and come back to my caveman pied-a-terre and shed my self-absorbed skin. In other words, I decided to get the hell out of dodge and do something worth my fucking time. I made a beeline to the door, got in my truck and drove home. In about 364 days of ME, I'm dedicating one post to YOU. This one goes out to all my blog friends. I love ya man. No cliche' on this one. You guys have carried me through all sorts of finish lines across the country. You guys make me crank that extra mile and hit the dreadmill to one extra .01 mph. I know that you are watching, reading, and tracking. I hope that in some f-cked up way, we are both motivating each other to go kick some ass in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of life's funny little races and hurdles be they running or non-running-related. So here goes. Cheers to you. All glasses raised. Down the hatch mates. - Mom and Dad. What else can be said to the two best parents in the world? My parents were the ones that would leave work early to watch me run. They would drive me to countless start lines and be the only ones to cheer me at the end of countless literal and figurative finish lines. They mailed me countless letters, care packages, and left innumerable messages of love and support along all my trails of misery. All made expecting nothing in return. 100% love. They helped me lift the wooden, crossed burdens that we all have, where they could. A foolish paragraph in a self-absorbed blog cannot do 45+ years of teaching and committed love, justice. -My family. Brady Bunch incarnate. I love you all. Ian, give me kudos for pimping your website that you sponsored and still have to update (ahem, check me and my ex-associations out please). Seriously, I know you all check in on me. -Personal friends I am aware that check in on my self-absorption quite regularly. Ron and family, Rob H., Tom, Dave W., Chris A., Ryan M., Mark W., Justin, Bill, Ken (check the non-converted, indoor 3000 best record-holder at this fine school for the wonderful man that got me to rediscover running while egging me on a hill I couldn't run up in 2001) - Fellow runners, hopefully-regular readers, and the meat of running inspiration for me in many ways. Jon,Paul, Scott D, Alison, Marc, Mark, Andrew, 'Zeke', Drew, Chelle, DGC (you inspire ALL of us with your passion), Kevin Beck (no link presently but still there in Ben Kenobi-esque spirit), Mike, Bob, Mike Dotson, Westchester track boyz and girlz. You guys rock. I love checking in on you like some sort of sad, pathetic voyeur on the hunt to existentially live a life of sated happiness somewhere else in some Elysian field be it in Santa Barbara, Maine, the mid-part of our country from Michigan to Missouri, Texas, or the rest of the East Coast. If I missed anyone, my sincere apologies. I intend to do this regularly so I'll catch up. You see, anyone that registers his name as a domain name needs to do penance like this. Vanity = Evil.