I first saw this photo several days ago, and I’m still laughing. Seriously, I’ve had the blog post as an open tab in my browser for days, just because it cracks me up when I happen to click on it. So that’s why Leen is this week’s Friday Friend.
(The photo links directly to her blog post; if you link to it, please do the same thing.)
Leen’s been posting a photo a day this entire year, and it’s pretty impressive. I’m a sucker for fall colors, but she can really capture the season properly. But through her lens, sunrise also takes on a new look, as do Coke and daffodils and snowflakes.
I’ve known Leen for 10 years (whoa, really?!), thanks to the wonders of the Internet. And, also because of the Internet, now everyone can see her photos, too.
As I blogged earlier this week, I spend a good chunk of Sunday following the online updates of friends running a couple marathons. One of those people, however, was not just running the 26.2 miles of the Portland Marathon. Nope, Deb was adding another 9.8 miles for a total of 36 miles — one for every year, for a birthday celebration.
Seriously, this was Deb’s idea of a way to celebrate her own birthday (which fell on 10/10/10 this year, an extra-awesome thing, if you ask me). Also, she did it in Vibram five-finger shoes. She had a birthday hat for the make-shift toilet paper finish line, too.
I met Deb through Twitter, and I met her in person at the Operation Jack 7-hour run, which she helped organize in Portland. I attended a dinner for the runners/volunteers the night before the run, and I showed up at the same time she did. She and her husband were busy getting their three small children out of the car, but she happened to look up, saw me, and instantly recognized me. I shouldn’t be surprised, because runners really are that friendly, but it was a great way of breaking the ice as I showed up to a random house 700 miles away from home.
Though we communicate most frequently in 140-character tweets, she’s become a good friend and has also voluntarily tried to help me to next step in my life — for which I’m very grateful. One of these days we’ll actually run together!
Deb with her family, after a 34.2-mile run in September.
As soon as my friend Deanne started a blog, I knew she’d be my next Friday Friend feature. It launched a week ago with the hilarious URL of AnnoyedCrazyWoman.blogspot.com. Deanne’s my best friend around, and I can’t wait to watch her blog develop, because she’s funny. The bracket around her license plate reads, “Don’t annoy the crazy woman.”
She’s currently focusing mainly on her weight loss mission, but I don’t expect it to all be about that, since Deanne also has a funny, energetic kid and a goofy fiance. I predict bits of wedding jabber, gripes about jobs and who knows what else. It’s worth checking out.
I couldn’t decide which friend to highlight for my second Friday Friend installment (introduced last week), but then Aron celebrated her 500th post on runnersrambles.com, so my decision was made. Why not link to one of my favorite runner’s blogs?
I’ve been following Aron’s blog for quite a while, and she has since done things like qualify for the Boston Marathon. We met in person at a trail race last spring, which worked out well because we happened to park near each other at another trail race a few weeks later. Then she was sweet enough to invite me to a Bay Area run/meet-up, and even invited me to a couple! I can’t always make them, but the drive is worth it because they’re a great bunch of gals, and it’s so fun to run in new places with nice people.
Another bonus: Aron’s one of the most consistent bloggers I’ve ever seen, so I know I can always look forward to a new post from her. So, congrats on the blogging milestone, Aron!
Some bloggers do themes on certain days, such as Three Things Thursday and Friday Favorites. Well, I’m going to do Friday Friends — similar to Twitter‘s Friday Follow, where people list some of their friends. I’ll highlight a blog or website that belongs to a friend, or that I think is worth sharing.
I’m starting with OperationJack.org, a non-profit run by Sam Felsenfeld, father of an autistic son. In 2010 he is running 61 marathons (it started as 60 marathons, but he’s an overachiever) to raise money for autism research. All profits go to Train 4 Autism. When he’s not jetting off every weekend to run 26.2 miles or more, he’s working full-time, and he’s a doting husband and father of three. I follow him on Twitter, where his Friday and Monday updates are usually concerns about squeezing in time for his kids and wife, or flying home in time for the family’s Sunday dinner. I’m not sure how he manages to blog every day and keep up with a whole bunch of people online.
I met Sam (yep, my picture’s in there) in September, when he was doing a seven-hour run in Portland. Yep, he really is as funny, crazy and cool in person as he is online. He’s doing just about anything to raise money, and his heart is clearly in the right place. I know people with autism, and they are some of the smartest, sweetest people I’ve ever encountered — but we definitely need to figure out how to prevent autism, because it’s so sad to see them struggle when they shouldn’t have to.
