Ioana Patringenaru | January 19, 2010

Ryan Kloos and his sister, Erin.
(Photo/Courtesy of the Kloos family)

Related Story: Members of UCSD Community Open Hearts, Pocketbooks for Haiti OutreachUC San Diego alumnus Ryan Kloos had flown to Haiti to visit his sister and help her care for orphaned and disabled children. Last week, his drive to help others and his young life were cut short when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Caribbean nation. http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/thisweek/2010/01/19_haiti.asp

Ryan’s body was found Jan. 13 in the ruins of a residence for volunteers, which doubled as a school for disabled children. He was 24 years old. That same day, rescuers found his sister, Erin, amid the rubble. She had been badly injured but was still alive. She is currently in stable condition at a south Florida hospital, according to Friends of the Orphans, the organization for which she volunteered.

Ryan was a dedicated swimmer, who majored in biochemistry and cell biology and planned to attend medical school, said his former coach, Scott McGihon. He routinely put in 20 hours a week in the pool during practice and was so dedicated to his sport that he was reluctant to slow down after a knee injury. Coach McGihon said he sometimes had to send Ryan home to make sure he didn’t work too hard. In his senior year, the young athlete just missed qualifying for a national championship competition. His specialty was breaststroke.

Ryan was on the UCSD squad for four years and was very well liked on the team. He cared deeply about other athletes’ success, McGihon also said. He would always trust staff members to lead the team in the right direction and his positive attitude rubbed off on younger swimmers, who looked up to him, the coach said.

“Ryan was a real special guy,” McGihon said.

After graduating in 2008, Ryan went back home to Phoenix, Ariz, said the coach. He planned to study for the MCAT and pursue a medical career. McGihon learned of his former student’s death from one of his team mates. The news brought a sense of shock and disbelief, he said. The coach had known the young man for seven years.

Ryan’s death also brought home the reality of the devastation in Haiti, McGihon said. As a result, many athletes have been donating to relief funds. The coach said he is not sure how his team plans to remember Ryan. He wants to get in touch with the alumnus’ parents first, he said. The university wants to respect their wishes, he added.

Last McGihon heard, Ryan’s parents were in Florida, caring for his sister Erin, who is still hospitalized. A University of Washington graduate, she had been serving at Nostro Pequeños Hermanos/Nos Petits Frères et Soeurs, French and Spanish for “Our Little Brothers and Sisters,” in Haiti. She helped in the lab at the hospital, translated for visiting doctors and assisted visitors and volunteers, according to Friends of the Orphans.

She also spent weekends and evenings caring for orphaned children and those with special needs. She and Ryan were at the Father Wasson Center, a residence that also served as a school for disabled children, in the town of Petionville, a suburb of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, when the quake hit.

Ioana Patringenaru | June 15, 2009

Jones trains with the UCSD Masters Swimming program every weekday.

Michelle Jones is just 22 but she has already climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and earned a dive master certification, logging more than 200 dives. She also swims two miles a day, every day—all while maintaining a near-perfect grade-point average. This alone would make her a standout among the 5,000 UC San Diego undergraduates who received their bachelor’s degrees this weekend. But there is more to Jones’ story: the determined athlete has been battling a chronic, inherited illness since birth that threatens to cut her life short.

Jones, 22, has cystic fibrosis, a disease that attacks the lungs and the digestive tract. During her time at UCSD, she has been hospitalized twice. She was recently diagnosed with diabetes, a common complication among cystic fibrosis patients. Roughly once a year, she has to stay home, hooked to an IV line pumping antibiotics into her lungs.

Asked how she copes, Jones said she believes disease and disability don’t trump happiness. “The best way to thank the people who saved my life is to live my life and show them what I can do,” she said.

Commencements

Jones graduated with 900 fellow Muir students at 1 p.m. Saturday on RIMAC Field. “I love UCSD,” she said. “I’m really sad to graduate.” Also this weekend, 911 students graduated from Thurgood Marshall College, 700 from Sixth College, 1050 from Warren College, 640 from Eleanor Roosevelt College and 840 from Revelle College. In addition, 824 students received master’s and doctorate degrees, 58 received MBAs from the Rady School of Management and 110 received graduate degrees from the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

Graduates listen to Muir student speaker Nasrin Aboulhosn.This year’s graduation speakers included retired four-star admiral William J. Fallon, who served as commander of the U.S. Central Command, Stan Glasgow, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics Inc., San Diego, and UCSD professors Vilayanur Ramanathan, of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Michael Schudson, of the communication department. In addition, more than 1,200 members of the UCSD community turned out to hear filmmaker and UCSD alumnus Mike Judge speak at the All Campus Graduation Celebration Friday evening.

Saturday, Jones and her Muir classmates listened as Chancellor Marye Anne Fox told them they had already made a positive difference on campus and encouraged them to do the same in the world.

“It’s our hope that you will follow the example of John Muir and commit yourself to a lifetime of blazing your own trails and making a positive difference in the world,” Fox told graduates.

Chancellor Marye Anne Fox urged Muir graduates to make a positive difference in the world. She went on to quote President Barack Obama, who said that this generation has come of age at a crucial moment, when it will have to remake the world. It’s a privilege and responsibility afforded to few generations, Fox said. “It’s not only rights, it’s also responsibilities that you accept when you become a graduate of UCSD,” she said.

But Saturday, most graduates seemed bent on celebrating. They threw beach balls during the ceremony and applauded heartily as Muir student speaker Nasrin Aboulhosn predicted each one of them would succeed beyond their expectations. Parents were equally exuberant, cheering loudly, blowing bubbles and using noisemakers as their children walked onto the stage. After the ceremony, graduates reunited with parents and relatives, hugging, collecting bouquets and clusters of balloons.

Jones stood patiently as her parents, Mary and Burton Jones, made their way through the crowd. Her older sister Kristine had a wedding to plan and couldn’t make it. The family planned to have dinner at the Marine Room that evening. Jones explained she always wanted to eat at the restaurant, in front of which she had dove so many times. “It’s good,” she said when asked how she felt after graduating. “I never thought I wouldn’t make it. But it’s fun.”

Medical challenges

Jones during one of her diving expeditions. She is a master diver.

In fact, Jones’ first year at UCSD didn’t start well. A few weeks after the beginning of the fall quarter, she landed in the emergency room at Thornton Hospital. She was out of breath just going from her bed to the door of her dorm room. It was the first time cystic fibrosis had triggered a serious episode for her, she said. The disease causes mucus to build up inside the body and impairs the function of vital organs, including the lungs and the pancreas.

Jones during one of her diving expeditions. She is a master diver. She flew to the San Francisco Bay Area to be treated at Stanford University, where her parents’ health insurance would cover her. Jones wasn’t reacting to some of the treatments the doctors tried. When they told her so, she lost her optimistic outlook for the first time in her life, she recalled. “I fell apart,” she said.

But her condition improved quickly. UCSD staff members, and particularly the campus’ Office for Students with Disabilities, were extremely helpful during that time, Jones said. Staff members from the housing department also were key. They took her parents to her dorm room, so they could clean up. They sent her flowers in the hospital. Her suitemates from the Muir dorms decorated her hospital room with Halloween stickers.

Jones was able to return in winter quarter and her health stabilized—until her junior year. Cystic fibrosis is characterized by a cycle of slow declines, she explained. That year, she just knew she was going to land in the hospital, she said.

This time, her stay began right before finals week. Jones didn’t let that stop her. She worked the phones and asked her professors to allow her to take her finals at the hospital, with her doctor as her proctor. She then faxed them in. Faculty members were very understanding—and a little puzzled. “They all thought I was crazy,” she said. “But I just wanted to get it done.”

Pushing yourself

Michelle Jones, 22, holds a bouquet after walking at the Muir graduation Saturday.

Indeed, stopping Jones doesn’t seem to be an easy task. Every day, she wakes up around 4:30 a.m. and undergoes one to two hours of respiratory therapy. That entails wearing a special device that looks a little like a life vest and inflates and deflates at high speed, compressing and releasing her lung walls. The vest allows for better airflow and breaks up the mucus trapped in the lungs. Jones also has a range of different medications, which she inhales via a nebulizer, a device that delivers drugs as mist.

When asked where she finds the motivation to keep going in spite of her disease, Jones points to her upbringing. Her parents always treated her the same way they treated her sister, who is two years older than her and doesn’t have the disease, she said. “Illness is not synonymous with irresponsibility,” she said. “And it’s not an excuse.” So, she goes out of her way to do what everyone else does, she said. She often ends up doing more.

Swimming

Jones swims in the UCSD Masters Swimming program every weekday from 6 to 7:30 a.m. On average, she will put in about two miles daily, alternating between short and long swims and between strokes. “She comes in and she’s a trooper,” said Ronald Marcikic, director and head coach of the UCSD Masters Sports program. “She has even done some rough water events that I wouldn’t do. We’re going to miss her. It’s not fair that she’s leaving.”

One of Jones’ favorite memories of her time on campus is a three-mile swim that Marcikic organizes in La Jolla. Swimming helps keep her healthy, she said. Her passion for the water also led her to SCUBA diving. “It helps me keep in touch with the ocean, and the real world,” she said. She was the president of the UCSD SCUBA club for three years.

Diving

Jones at Canyonview Pool, where she logs two miles every weekday.

Jones at Canyonview Pool, where she logs two miles every weekday. She took over the job at a low point, when membership had dwindled to about a dozen, recalls Neal Atkinson, a club member who also is the manager of continuity services on campus. He and Jones are frequent dive buddies. After taking over the club’s reins, Jones spent a good deal of time reaching out to students and offering to dive with them. She organized several diving trips to Catalina Island and as far south as La Bufadora, in Mexico’s Baja California. As interest in the club increased, dive masters and organizations from on and off campus started working with the group. It now has about 50 dues-paying members and many more volunteers.

“She’s thankful that she’s here and able to do these things,” Atkinson said. “That shows in her leadership.”

The future

Another of Jones’ favorite memories is a trip she took with club members to the Baja lagoons where whales give birth to their calves. She even got to pet some of the giant sea mammals, she said. Diving also helps her focus on what’s next for her: studying in a fisheries biology graduate program at Humboldt State University. She said she would like to come back to San Diego to work as a post-doc researcher at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

She does sometimes get overwhelmed when thinking about the future, she said. She will be off her parents’ health insurance in just three years and student health plans would barely begin to cover her medical expenses. Medications alone run $5,000 to $6,000 a year. “As you get older, you get sicker and you need more things,” she said. In spite of these challenges, Jones said she firmly believes she’s not out of the ordinary.

“Everyone has problems,” she said.

Written by Helen Zegerman Schwimmer

http://www.thejewishpress.com/pageroute.do/37658

Lilly Friedman doesn’t remember the last name of the woman who designed and sewed the wedding gown she wore when she walked down the aisle over 60 years ago. But the grandmother of seven does recall that when she first told her fiancé Ludwig that she had always dreamed of being married in a white gown he realized he had his work cut out for him.

For the tall, lanky 21-year-old who had survived hunger, disease and torture this was a different kind of challenge. How was he ever going to find such a dress in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Person’s camp where they felt grateful for the clothes on their backs?

Fate would intervene in the guise of a former German pilot who walked into the food distribution center where Ludwig worked, eager to make a trade for his worthless parachute. In exchange for two pounds of coffee beans and a couple of packs of cigarettes Lilly would have her wedding gown.

For two weeks Miriam the seamstress worked under the curious eyes of her fellow DPs, carefully fashioning the six parachute panels into a simple, long sleeved gown with a rolled collar and a fitted waist that tied in the back with a bow. When the dress was completed she sewed the leftover material into a matching shirt for the groom.

A white wedding gown may have seemed like a frivolous request in the surreal environment of the camps, but for Lilly the dress symbolized the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world descended into madness. Lilly and her siblings were raised in a Torah observant home in the small town of Zarica, Czechoslovakia where her father was a me lamed, respected and well liked by the young yeshiva students he taught in nearby Irsheva.

He and his two sons were marked for extermination immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. For Lilly and her sisters it was only their first stop on their long journey of persecution, which included Plashof, Neustadt, Gross Rosen and finally Bergen Belsen .

Lilly Friedman and her parachute dress on display in the Bergen Belsen Museum

Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of Celle on January 27, 1946 to attend Lilly and Ludwig’s wedding. The town synagogue, damaged and desecrated, had been lovingly renovated by the DPs with the meager materials available to them. When a Sefer Torah arrived from England they converted an old kitchen cabinet into a makeshift Aron Kodesh.
“My sisters and I lost everything – our parents, our two brothers, our homes. The most important thing was to build a new home.” Six months later, Lilly’s sister Ilona wore the dress when she married Max Traeger. After that came Cousin Rosie. How many brides wore Lilly’s dress? “I stopped counting after 17.” With the camps experiencing the highest marriage rate in the world, Lilly’s gown was in great demand.

In 1948 when President Harry Truman finally permitted the 100,000 Jews who had been languishing in DP camps since the end of the war to emigrate, the gown accompanied Lilly across the ocean to America . Unable to part with her dress, it lay at the bottom of her bedroom closet for the next 50 years, “not even good enough for a garage sale. I was happy when it found such a good home.”
Home was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington , D.C. When Lily’s niece, a volunteer, told museum officials about her aunt’s dress, they immediately recognized its historical significance and displayed the gown in a specially designed showcase, guaranteed to preserve it for 500 years.

But Lilly Friedman’s dress had one more journey to make. Bergen Belsen , the museum, opened its doors on October 28, 2007. The German government invited Lilly and her sisters to be their guests for the grand opening. They initially declined, but finally traveled to Hanover the following year with their children, their grandchildren and extended families to view the extraordinary exhibit created for the wedding dress made from a parachute.

Lilly’s family, who were all familiar with the stories about the wedding in Celle , were eager to visit the synagogue. They found the building had been completely renovated and modernized. But when they pulled aside the handsome curtain they were astounded to find that the Aron Kodesh, made from a kitchen cabinet, had remained untouched as a testament to the profound faith of the survivors. As Lilly stood on the bimah once again she beckoned to her granddaughter, Jackie, to stand beside her where she was once a kallah. “It was an emotional trip. We cried a lot.”

Two weeks later, the woman who had once stood trembling before the selective eyes of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele returned home and witnessed the marriage of her granddaughter.

The three Lax sisters – Lilly, Ilona and Eva, who together survived Auschwitz, a forced labor camp, a death march and Bergen Belsen – have remained close and today live within walking distance of each other in Brooklyn. As mere teenagers, they managed to outwit and outlive a monstrous killing machine, then went on to marry, have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and were ultimately honored by the country that had earmarked them for extinction.

As young brides, they had stood underneath the chuppah and recited the blessings that their ancestors had been saying for thousands of years. In doing so, they chose to honor the legacy of those who had perished by choosing life.

Hinda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In MEMORIAM – 63 YEARS LATER

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iraq, Iran, and others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth,’ it’s imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

It was a bright and sunny day. The reflection on the water from the rising sun made it feel ten times brighter. We gathered on the top grass section to talk about the swim. While we lathered ourselves in Vasoline and sunscreen, I remember hearing the comments from other swimmers just finishing their swim. “Man, the water today is really great…reminds me of Hawaii”.

‘Yeah sure’, I say to myself. Sometimes when the water is really cold, I’ll talk like that when I’m done, just to fake out the next batch of swimmers getting ready to go out. I always get a little smile on my face when I do that….yeah, that’s not nice to do, is it (HA!). Anyway, today I know it’s perfect. A light breeze is settling in from the West, and the swell is almost non-existent…good day to swim, no surf in sight (darn)…love the glass when I swim.

Today’s swim will be short and sweet…out to the ECO buoy and back. Maybe a quick back float to watch the clouds or the gulls in the sky, maybe not. I don’t have much time today cuz I spent too long looking for a place to park. On the way back to shore, I almost get into two head on collisions with swimmers coming out. Icebreakers in California shouldn’t be allowed in the water this close to shore! Nobody’s looking…everyone just wants to swim.

As I get to the shallows, I stop to watch the kelp sway from side to side, underwater. The fish were hanging in the current like a kite in the sky…ahhh, when the ocean warms up, the swimmers come out.

WILL SURF FOR BAILOUT

Meet my cousin, Bob Friedman and the crazy method of surfing he has practiced for many years. It is called “tandem surfing”, and just when you thought surfing was hard enough, a new sport has to evolve! Bob has always been a natural athlete, excelling in everything he attempts (yes, even for the first time!) and he actually started out as a young, acrobatic skateboarder….and look what it lead to!

Like anything else in life, those that excel seem to be “driven” to their calling. As a young boy, conventional skateboarding was not challenging enough for Bob, so he began doing one-arm handstands while jumping off the curb, when he was very young. I can recall drivers stopping their cars in amazement and rolling down their windows to exclaim, “Hey kid….DO THAT AGAIN!”

Then handstands weren’t enough so Bob began jumping things, like trashcans at first, and the finale….a Fiat sportscar! He was featured in SKATEBOARD magazing a few times, and was also sent as a special envoy to France to promote Skateboarding. He appeared on French television and they even wrote a little ditty for his appearance….If some don’t rank. No one ever wrote me a jingle…

Bob is not tall, which has probably contributed to his natural acrobatic skills. He can do a back flip without any running start. It is pretty comical to see him standing in front of his long board which is almost twice as long as he is tall!

Anyway, “MORAL OF THE STORY” is if you have a passion, GO FOR IT! It can not only take you places you might never get the invitation to visit, but can last you a lifetime! Bob is now 45 and still “surfin strong” on the big island of Hawaii.

All pau for now!

Motivating Ocean Music to Swim Faster By….. SORRY, but I’m technically challenged. You must open a new window to both view the blog and hear the music at the same time! I’ll WORK ON THE AMBIANCE….

by audiko.net — ringtones.

MARCH 17, 2009 – St. Patrick’s Day!

Since my mom is from Lisburn, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, I grew up hearing endless “Paddy the Irishman” jokes from my granda, who loved to make me laugh. Here is one I heard recently, so that you may share in the day’s celebration. As my granda also said, “There are two types of people….those who are Irish and those who wish they were….”

History of Communication Devices in the UK

After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after, headlines in the UK newspapers read: “English archaeologists have found traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the Scots.”

One week later, “The Kerryman,” a south west Irish newsletter, reported the following: “After digging as deep as 30 meters in peat bog near Tralee, Paddy O’Droll, a self taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Paddy has therefore concluded that 300 years ago Ireland had already gone wireless.”

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

“wee” Mcpatti Mcclurg

Student-designed Device Provides New Way To Track Calorie Burning

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Counting calories that burn through activity is a constant quandary

One can only run on a treadmill so long, watching intently as the pedometer reads out the number of calories melted during a session of exercise. Not to mention the question of how many calories are burned through basic daily movements and even during sleep “It’s a completely converged device,” said Garrett Langley, 21, a senior in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) who spearheaded the project. But technology – and youthful ambition – is presenting a round-the-clock solution for those consumed with this calculation.

“It’s a single unit that provides complete fitness monitoring and management.” A group of Georgia Tech students has crafted a device that allows individuals to constantly compute the amount of calories they burn – even as they sleep. Dubbed Happy HR, the instrument is a personal monitor that allows users to measure and compare day-to-day physical and caloric activity. The name is a reference to the euphoric feeling that follows an intense round of exercise – the “happy hour.”

The small, rectangular-shaped instrument straps to the wrist or ankle, gathering data related to heart rate and exercise. The information is then transferred via Bluetooth to a PC, where the statistics can be analyzed through Web-based software.

Although the device focuses on calorie counting, Langley envisions more thorough health applications including respiratory and glucose monitoring. This tool began as a senior design project for Langley, who viewed a marketplace that was lacking such technology coupled with a results-hungry populace eager for more health information. An aspiring entrepreneur, he also found that it provided an organic way for him to develop a business.

An avid runner, Langley himself was frustrated at the challenge of quantifying fitness results. “I saw that there was a huge gap in the market,” he said. “There are simple $30 pedometers, and there’s nothing in between that and $400 health monitors.” Comparatively, Happy HR should carry a $100 price tag if it becomes commercially available.

Shortly after conceiving the idea, the development process became an interdisciplinary endeavor incorporating several colleges at Georgia Tech. Fellow electrical engineering student John Hamilton, biomedical engineering students Stephen Mann and Nathan Kumar and industrial design student Stuart Lawder all contributed their expertise to actualizing Langley’s concept. The result: a deft and subtle device that resembles a compact MP3 player more than fitness monitoring technology.

The project, and the fortitude behind it, has impressed Steve Chaddick, Tech alumnus and chairman of the ECE Advisory Board. Chaddick has served as a mentor to Langley and his team, lending his advice to both the design and business plan process.

“It’s a terrific opportunity to promote what I believe in engineering education,” Chaddick said. “We should be teaching the ‘why’ before the ‘what,’ so to speak. It’s been very satisfying for me personally.” Langley is finalizing the Happy HR prototype and beginning discussions with manufacturers. His goal is to make Happy HR commercially available some time this fall.

“Ideally, this could change the way America stays in shape,” Langley said. “ Stay fit and be happy’ is the slogan. This is going to motivate people to exercise more and be happier.”

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http://www.swimacrossamerica.org/Page.aspx?pid=604

AUBURN –The Auburn men’s and women’s head swimming and diving coach Richard Quick http://auburntigers.cstv.com/sports/c-swim/mtt/quick_richard00.html has been diagnosed with an inoperable cancerous brain tumor. One of the most recognizable names in the swimming and diving community, Quick is a six-time United States Olympic coach who has directed 12 teams to NCAA titles.

“We’re currently in the process of looking for the best care possible to fight this,” Quick said. “I want to thank the countless individuals that have passed along their well wishes, thoughts and prayers.” Quick, who served as Auburn’s head coach from 1978-82, took over the Tiger program for a second time in 2007. He is in his second season and sixth overall at Auburn.

“Richard is such an energetic person, has an incredibly positive attitude, and is bound by his faith,” Auburn Athletics Director Jay Jacobs said. “I know that he’s going to meet this challenge head on, just as he has done with every endeavor he’s encountered. We ask the Auburn Family to keep Richard and his family in their thoughts and prayers.”

While the head coach of both the men’s and women’s programs at Auburn from 1978-82, Quick built the foundation for where the program is today, leading both programs to a combined four top-10 finishes on the national level. Quick captured seven NCAA titles at Stanford and five at Texas, which is tied for the most in the history of Division I coaching.

Internationally, Quick was the head coach of the United States team at the 1988, 1996, and 2000 Olympic Games and also served as an assistant at the 1984, `92, and 2004 Olympics. Quick, 65, served as the head women’s swimming and diving coach at Stanford for 17 seasons from 1988-2005. Prior to his arrival at Stanford, Quick led the Texas women to a then-unprecedented five straight NCAA titles (1984-88), a string he extended to six in a row in his first season at Stanford.

On February 14th, the swimmers of America will team up to fight the malignant tumor in Richard’s brain as it will be fighting to grow. Thousands of people across the country will be swimming, joining together in a collective effort to stop it. America will unite for “Swim Quick,” created by Swim Across America, to show Richard Quick how much he is loved.

Sign up with Swim Across America (http://www.swimacrossamerica.org/Page.aspx?pid=604) , come into the workout on February 14th, and donate to the Richard Quick Endowment (all information and registration/donation form is on the website) . On Valentines Day, Richard will know that family, friends, and athletes are swimming for him, across America. This is our chance to stand with Richard and his family while they fight this battle.

“Swim Quick” is a program dedicated to raising money for the Swim Across America Richard Quick Endowment (which will support cancer research at some of the world’s most distinguished hospitals), and to honoring the coach and mentor who has dedicated his life to teaching others. You can help find a cure by making a “Quick” gift to the endowment and contributing to SAA’s continuing battle against cancer.

Now, Richard Quick and other cancer patients need our help. Scientists and doctors make advances every year, without exception. The battle has been long, but we are “Quick.” Get involved and help fund a cure for cancer in our time. LIVESTRONG is one way to support the research, and now here is a SWIMMER’S WAY to support cancer research. As if we needed a way to support cancer research, .but it doesn’t hurt to fight for a good cause.

Thank you for your support of a great cause and a great swimming coach.

http://www.swimacrossamerica.org/Page.aspx?pid=604

by audiko.net — ringtones.

JUST HANGIN AROUND WITH FRIENDS

After fracturing my foot and having to cut back on activities for 8 weeks, I realized that there is something quite therapeutic about not doing so much!  While it is wonderful to be back in the pool, I’m even taking that a bit slower, and enjoying it thoroughly.  We’re focusing on stroke refinement, and our test sets have been building gradually.  So my times are slower than before!  At least I feel good, and I’m not sucking too much water!

I guess sometimes it’s good to be forced to cut back.  It shows you what your true priorities are, so you can arrange the hierarchy better when you start to resume the grind.  I also injured my elbow from my clumsy stumble, which aggravated a pre-existing “swimmer’s elbow” ache that had been nagging at me.  A few interruptions to sound sleep and I ended up in some occupational therapy.  Like the fracture, it’s not so appealing to drive a half hour to have a steroid patched slapped on in five mintues twice a week.  Okay they did make me some creative neoprene bands for my forearm and triceps to stabilize them from any MORE bad stroke habits during swim workouts, and I’m starting to feel almost like new!  I probably would have continued to live with that nagging elbow, only making it worse over time.  It will be great when both of my arms are equally as strong….so I can a FINALLY swim a straight lap of back stroke, instead of doing 40m across a 25m lane!

So the moral of this blabber?  Sometimes it’s good to slow down and even just hang around a little.  It helps you to weed out the clutter in your life and spend more quality time doing the things you love, like swimming at the crack of dawn!

So have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING and enjoy just HANGIN AROUND with friends and family….after that NAP.

Triptophan; Nectar of the gods

Take on new Heights SLOWLY for a Change

Go Ahead! Break out of the BOX!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Just Don't Eat TOO Much!