As a recent trans­plant to Seat­tle, I feel like there might be some knowl­edge I can drop on future transplants.

Look­ing back, I don’t think I really got fat until I was in col­lege, but I def­i­nitely began get­ting fat in high school. Up to my Junior year I played high school foot­ball and I was on the row­ing team, these activ­i­ties cov­ered much of the school year and allowed me to stay in okay shape despite my never really push­ing myself phys­i­cally. Man did that exer­cise and sports boost my metabolism.

I can recall vividly after a foot­ball game I was starv­ing and I was in the car with my par­ents as we drove home. I requested we drive through and get me some food. We stopped at a Wendy’s and I ordered not one, not two, but three chicken sand­wiches. And fries. And a soda. Oof. High school metab­o­lism why hast thou for­saken me!?

It was my Junior year when sports stopped being fun and I began to really dis­cover how much I liked hang­ing out with friends or bet­ter yet, work­ing and earn­ing money. So I quit. But as far as I can remem­ber, I still ate like I was an athlete.

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As it turns out, the west coast cel­e­brates Christ­mas just like the rest of the United States. I wasn’t cer­tain, but am glad to see it’s true. After buy­ing a tree ear­lier last week, Katie and I waited until Christ­mas Eve to actu­ally dec­o­rate it. We had to go through the still packed boxes in our garage before find­ing the right ones. We unpacked our dec­o­ra­tions and enjoyed a won­der­ful tree by our fireplace.

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“It’s a dan­ger­ous busi­ness, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no know­ing where you might be swept off to.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Five years ago, when I launched Man­a­Na­tion, I had naivë dreams of untold riches as I cap­tured a niche mar­ket and gained throngs of fol­low­ers. Lit­tle did I know how dif­fi­cult grow­ing a Magic web­site would prove to be. It became a mon­u­men­tal task to con­tinue to expand, inno­vate and find new ideas for the site. Then two years ago fate decided that it was time to take it to the next level and the site exploded and I was dropped into pos­si­bly the per­fect job for me.

It’s been quite a jour­ney. One that I admit I had no clue where it was tak­ing me. And one that has swept me off my feet.

Today I get to announce a new leg of the jour­ney. One that is a sur­pris­ing and delight­ful turn: Start­ing next month, on Dec. 12th, I will work for Wiz­ards of the Coast as their Con­tent Spe­cial­ist over­see­ing DailyMTG.com.

So in a few short weeks, with a hol­i­day and a major Magic tour­na­ment (World Cham­pi­onships) in the weeks in the mid­dle, Katie and I will be mov­ing to Seat­tle with an epic 6 day cross coun­try road trip. And like every good war-time com­man­der, I’m ready to throw plans out the win­dow at a moment’s notice.

Leav­ing Cool­StuffInc was a tough deci­sion, my bosses and every­one there have been fan­tas­tic — in many ways it’s been my dream job. They gave me almost carte blanche to pur­sue ideas and explore my entre­pre­neur­ial spirit to find new ways to make the com­pany money. I was a one man mad-scientist R&D, the “res­i­dent dreamer” and it has been awesome.

The truth is that Wiz­ards is just about the only com­pany who could pull me away from here. Talk­ing to my bosses and telling them the news is prob­a­bly one of the hard­est things I’ve had to do pro­fes­sion­ally. But, I’m excited at what’s com­ing down the road.

I wrote an arti­cle about this news for GatheringMagic.com, and in it I use a quote from Conan O’Brien: “Work hard, be kind and amaz­ing things will hap­pen.” I can 100% con­firm this is true.

It’s been nearly three months since my last blog post. I feel like a lover spurn­ing an old flame, but the trap I con­tin­ued to fall into for the past months is that — my life hasn’t been overly inter­est­ing. I haven’t felt dri­ven to chase my muse across the key­board, though I’ve watched her flit about to and fro.

I’ve con­sid­ered sto­ries, like one I have work­ing titled “RIOT­Ball” which explores a world where sports and police forces inter­min­gle almost indis­tin­guish­ably. It sounds zanier than it actu­ally is, but it’s a con­cept still — nascent and unready to be brought forth.

I’ve done some travel and I could talk about the places I’ve gone and the things I’ve done, but not yet — there is a story there, but as above… it’s time hasn’t come yet.

My wife and I just cel­e­brated our first year of mar­riage, a muted but inti­mate affair. We’re over­joyed that we sur­vived the first year and have agreed to carry on for at least 79 more years.

I have opin­ions on the cur­rent state of pol­i­tics, the cur­rent finan­cial cri­sis, and the whole #Occu­py­Wall­Street move­ment but again, none of these are wholly formed and ready to be put down on paper.

There is wis­dom all around us. Spun out in bands like radio waves from a tower, if only we are pay­ing atten­tion to see them. The wis­dom which res­onates in the world comes from the news of Steve Jobs’ pass­ing, and it’s a quote that is now six years old. I remem­ber read­ing it when the tran­script of his com­mence­ment speech was posted — but it never res­onated with me until he died.

Remem­ber­ing that I’ll be dead soon is the most impor­tant tool I’ve ever encoun­tered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost every­thing — all exter­nal expec­ta­tions, all pride, all fear of embar­rass­ment or fail­ure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leav­ing only what is truly impor­tant. Remem­ber­ing that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of think­ing you have some­thing to lose. You are already naked. There is no rea­son not to fol­low your heart.

To me, that’s three months of wis­dom. Gained at the cost of three months, to be spent friv­o­lously over the rest of my life.

Dean Karzes, image cour­tesy of UltraMarathonMan.com

Some­where along the line we seem to have con­fused com­fort with hap­pi­ness. — Dean Karnazes

If you’ve never heard of Dean Kar­nazes, you shouldn’t feel too bad. He’s not a bas­ket­ball player. He’s not an olympian. He’s not a bil­lion­aire. What he is though, is a mar­vel of what the human body is capa­ble of. He’s the Ultra Marathon Man. He ran 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. That’s pretty impres­sive. In fact he had an episode of Stan Lee’s documentary-esque show about Super­hu­mans, and in it they revealed that his body has devel­oped such a strong sys­tem for trans­port­ing lac­tic acid (the stuff that makes our mus­cles hurt after exer­tion) that his body main­tains or low­ers its lev­els while he’s run­ning. That’s insane!

I love that quote, because it’s so true. I love being com­fort­able, and for 27 years it’s made me happy.

And it’s what made me weigh 360 lbs.

Yep. I had a pound for almost every day of the year. While not quite mor­bidly obese, and given that I am rather tall, it’s not the num­ber that would get me on Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edi­tion, I’m still very unhappy with the con­di­tion my body is in.

I’ve yoyo’ed numer­ous times, I’ve tried gym mem­ber­ships, I’ve bought equip­ment, I’ve trained with the wife, etc. I’ve done lots and lots of wrong things and fallen off the bal­ance beam every time.

And it sucks.

So I’ve taken to yet another strat­egy, this time key­ing off my buddy Doug, who has been train­ing in prepa­ra­tion of a triathlon. And it’s done amaz­ing things for him! (Look­ing good Doug!)

How­ever, I’m not train­ing for a triathlon (not yet at least.) I’m train­ing for:

You only fail when you give up. If you don’t give up, you have not failed, you just haven’t suc­ceeded yet.

I’m train­ing to race three races in Jan­u­ary, Feb­ru­ary and March of 2012.

• Jan. 21–22 — War­rior Dash Cen­tral Florida (3 miles + obstacles)
• Feb. 25th — Spar­tan Race Miami (8+ miles + obstacles)
• Mar. 10th — Spar­tan Race Atlanta (3 miles + obstacles)

Now’s the point where I tell you, I’ve never run a mile in my life. Despite hav­ing played foot­ball, and rowed Crew dur­ing high school. I was lazy even then! I did the least amount of work required and often less while mak­ing it look like I had done my part.

So, hav­ing never run a mile in my life, I’m going to do a 3 mile, an 8 mile and a 3 mile race within 6 weeks of each other. But that’s not all. These races have things like this:

I have no mis­con­cep­tions. I know this is going to be hard. And I’ve already heard from sev­eral peo­ple that they don’t think I can do it. Or that they think I’m insane.

But also, I’ve found a grow­ing num­ber of friends who think this is awe­some. Who think I can do it. And of them, a small hand­ful who have decided to take on the races with me. That’s the really awe­some part. Not only am I being dri­ven to suc­ceed, but I’ve got a group of friends who want to share this experience.

So the race is my end goal, but what about the in between? Where do I want to be when it comes race time?

You have to earn your body, nobody gives it you.

Well, based on my body fat per­cent­age, and esti­mat­ing mus­cle gain and tar­get body fat per­cent­age I’m look­ing to be around 275–290 lbs. I’m not look­ing to be mus­cle­bound, less Vin Diesel and more Jason Statham. Mus­cled, but not over­whelm­ing, to be so would make my life nearly as dif­fi­cult as being fat has.

Ath­let­i­cally, for the 8 mile race I’d like to be able to run 10+ miles by then, because the obsta­cles will absolutely require higher sta­mina and energy.

Now for another admis­sion: I’ve never suc­cess­fully down a pull up in my life. Maybe in ele­men­tary school but even then I don’t think so. So the obsta­cles will absolutely require upper body strength, not just fan­tas­tic sta­mina. So between the siz­able weight loss, and the gained mus­cle, I’d like to be able to do 20 pull ups.

So where does this leave me? I’ve got 205 days as of this pub­lish­ing for the first race. That one is test­ing the waters. Then a month later I’ve got the 8 miler. And assum­ing that goes well, we’ve got a 3 mile to do just two weeks later.

I’m stu­pidly, naively, heart warm­ingly, ter­ri­fy­ingly excited about this. I’ve got a can­dle burn­ing, and with the work­ing out and begin­ning to see results it’s turn­ing to kin­dling that will soon become a rag­ing inferno of… AWESOME!

And now is the time I tell you, this is hardly the cra­zi­est thing I plan to do in my life. So be excited to see what else is in store!

There comes a time dur­ing any work­out when your mind says, “Okay, we’re done. Let’s go home.” Strength and power is when your body smiles and turns the other way.

Some­times I fancy myself an artist, so I took a blue pen to graph paper to try and sketch my week­end to do list. It came out okay, included a text tran­scrip­tion below in case you can’t read my chicken scratch. I won’t explain any of the sketches though…

1. Go to SCG Open, shoot some video?
2. Code side projects
3. Write
4. Read more of Bill Sim­mons’ book
5. Rewrite project code for GatheringMagic
6. Edit Pod­cast

Happy Mother’s day mom.

Today I joined a fra­ter­nity. A proud fra­ter­nity. A fra­ter­nity of like-minded men, who bear a sin­gu­lar badge of honor.

Tonight, 2 days before Christ­mas, I bought a Christ­mas card for my wife.

In fact, I bought the last card the CVS had in stock with the label, ‘Wife.’

When Katie read the card, and my note inside, she said, “It’s so you.” And it was hon­est, as well as true. It so hap­pened that the only card left was the per­fect card for her.

Though I am part of the fra­ter­nity, I am the black sheep. This card wasn’t pur­chased in a panic. I didn’t sprint in in a cold-sweat fran­ti­cally toss­ing cards aside as I looked for one to take home to a wife.

I have her presents already; I had not planned to get a card for her. I looked at the card sec­tion on a lark on my way back from the Men’s room. And there it was, alone in the des­o­la­tion. A card meant to be taken.

This fra­ter­nity is casual, I’ll miss the meet­ings, and I’ll turn down any Face­book friend invites from my fra­ter­nity brothers.

Next year, I plan to let the mem­ber­ship lapse.

I’ve started and stopped writ­ing after the wed­ding about a half-dozen times. Life has con­tin­ued on. Money con­tin­ues to be needed, so I and K con­tinue to work.

The truth is that noth­ing has really changed. Sure, I wear a ring now. I feel naked with­out it. But oth­er­wise our lives are largely the same. We already lived together. We already were com­mit­ted to each other. We already shared and relied on each other.

What has changed though is the future. Where our time lines might have, at some point in the past, spun off in sep­a­rate direc­tions they have now become insep­a­ra­bly entwined, wrapped around each other in a helix to eternity.

We have always said that this is for­ever. I believe it.

Yes­ter­day was our three week anniver­sary. Pretty soon we’ll stop track­ing the weeks, but for now we’re enjoy­ing the count. Aim­ing for 80 years mar­ried, it means we’ve got some­where around 4,156 to go.

I can’t wait

This is how I see mom in my head every day. Today it really hurts to not be able to call her on the phone, and to not be able to hug her on her day.

Right now my back is sore. My knees feel like they’re a few short steps from buck­ling. And my ankles are def­i­nitely on the sore end of the scale.

And you know what?

I’m happy.

This isn’t the post work­out plea­sure I feel, but it is one of a sat­is­fac­tion for a good hard work. This week­end I moved dozens and dozens of boxes. Shelves. Books. DVDs. Clothes and more. We’re 90% into the new house. All that really remains is the garage full of stuff that largely we haven’t used in over a year (with notable exceptions.)

The house is awe­some. It has a shower with lots of hot water (as opposed to the buck­et­ful in the last one) it has a fenced yard and it has a great lay­out for host­ing peo­ple over.

I hurt, but it means I’ve done good work.

She is at rest.

When we stop learn­ing, we start dying. So here is what my trip to Atlanta has taught me for this Christ­mas in 2009.

1. Dri­ving to Atlanta from Orlando with a packed car can be mis­er­able and uncom­fort­able at times.
2. The Jar­rett Law of Travel holds: “No mat­ter how far, or how long the trip is, you will find a way to fill up the car.”
3. It takes nearly a whole bot­tle of Chivas Regal to really get me trashed.
4. I’m pretty awe­some at poker when I’m drunk.
5. It takes WaffleHouse’s Steak + Eggs with lots of water to quell the result­ing hangover.
6. I love spend­ing time with my fam­ily. Mostly.
7. Awk­ward times are still times with fam­ily. Push through them.
8. No one is per­fect. But those who are annoy­ing are less perfect.
9. Nieces and Nephews are way too much fun to play with.
10. Always check direc­tions. Don’t trust some­one knows where they’re going. Even if that some­one is you.
11. It’s the moments in time rather than the things in space which really matter.
12. Vegan food can be yummy. Meat is not required in food. But it is still yummier.
13. There is no greater sport than football.
14. See­ing my mother’s grave will always make me cry. Damn do I miss her.
15. Grand­moms can still kick butt at poker no mat­ter their age.

Much more was learned, and these lessons will give you a snap­shot of what hap­pened this trip. I’ll be writ­ing more as time allows. For now it’s off to bed. We’re on the road in 6 hours.