2-12-08: Stamina and the little things...

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The Sunday before the infamous Tuesday when I had my life-altering experience, I had ridden my yellow two-wheeler 67 miles. As I had done so many times before, I was training for yet another cycling event, intending to increase the mileage each succeeding weekend leading up to my birthday. It wasn't an organized event sponsored by an organization that required an entry form and fee, complete with water and nutrition stops along the way for all participating riders. This event was personal... just for fun... because I could. This challenge to myself was to ride my two-wheeler double my age on my birthday, something I started when I turned 50. It would've been 106 miles in 2007.

Stamina, in one sense, is the ability to sustain long periods of physical and/or mental activity. Something I have always had in abundance... something which I am now at odds with, because the little things that were no big deal before have become big things... making coffee, taking out the garbage, turning over in bed, signing my name, etc. Stamina can be lost a lot quicker than it can be regained. Hence, my exercise regimen is now configured not to maintain stamina, but to get it back so that much of my life will once again attain "little thing" status. For some, stamina is obviously not on their list of priorities!

With my walking stick, I was recently ambling along in the grocery store. It was the first of the month, paychecks had been dispensed, and there were lots of people, young and old, cruising through the aisles stocking up their provisions. Well, I'm looking around and am observing a lot of "body types" with a low amount of stamina. Many are quite flushed and breaking a sweat as they lean on their carts, stopping frequently to take a breather. Now, of course, I realize that I should know their whole story before I am quick to judge... until I take a quick look at the contents of their carts and can see that they are only compounding their stamina and health problems.

If you have good stamina, you have a strong heart, strong lungs, strong muscles and bones to better enjoy life for all it has to offer. Yet through a pervasive media, society advocates all those passive forms of entertainment which can dissuade us from getting out there to seize the corporeal moment. "Life is too short," I always say. Okay, enough preachin'...

Slowing down has also compelled me to consider other little things that I never seemed to have time for before, because I was too busy riding my two-wheeler. I'm not whizzin' by to only see the rose. Now I'm slow enough to stop and smell.

Then there's things like these little muses I keep throwin' at you... a little mental therapy I suppose. Things like realizing my own mortality and how lucky I am to be still alive and not paralyzed. Things like being humbled and knowing how important true friends are. Things like wondering if I can (or should) walk to the store and back, and then accomplishing it for a little gratification that my stamina is getting better...

Little ventures and little gains to accomplish the little things...

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And on another note. Having been a computer and media teacher for a number of years, the position has been a perfect compliment to my creative bent. Using computer applications like photoshop, powerpoint and the iApps from Apple (no offense pc people), I have over the years given shape to that which my mind (and body) has envisioned (BunceMan Productions)... and shared it with students, teachers, rotary clubs and those who have expressed an interest. Some recent examples include...

A powerpoint presentation I've shown to classes at Agnes Baptist with regards to my accident. With pics, diagrams and other related graphics, the students were entertained and educated (the x-rays are always a hit). And as I've done since '98, I've watched the SuperBowl, not for the game, but so that I could record the commercials to, again, educate and entertain my students about the pervasive media I mentioned above. And, of course, I write... have always written. Decades ago, I wrote a children's story and talked an artist friend of mine into illustrating it. Then we both got married, had kids, pursued our careers and only managed to create part of the book. Well, he's still my friend and still creates some wonderful and engaging art. So anywayz, he's not workin' and I got in a debilitating wreck and we're determined to finish it...

Check the SuperBowl '08 commercials that my MultiMedia students at Prescott chose as their favorites. AND check out the original incomplete version of the children's story that is currently being finished and greatly enhanced... of which you will have to have a copy when it's published... and then you will anxiously await the new Pixar animation entitled...