I find myself more thankful with each passing year.  My contentedness is no doubt influenced by age.  And Ferguson notwithstanding, I live at the greatest time, in the most unrestrained society, in the history of the world.  Assuming you like all things unrestrained.  My gratefulness though is focused on my personal experiences this year.  I’m blessed with a loving wife and two beautiful, charming daughters.  I could stop there.  That is more than enough already.  But I also met up with some of my best buddies from high school for a week-long backpacking trip along the Continental Divide.  We hadn’t all three been together in twenty-five years.  That was a big chill moment.  My work has become more fulfilling.  I work ten hour days, so liking what I do helps.  And seriously, what’s cooler than cyber security?  I beat cancer and am fully recovered.  And I’m thankful my mother is still around to make coffee for me in the morning.  Now that should be enough but at the risk of revealing my shallowness, this year’s highlight is that I ran a 3:31 marathon in October.  At altitude.  Booya!  The year still has another month to go.  Looking forward to it.

After starting the turkey and stuffing this morning, I headed down to the corner for the neighborhood 3 mile Turkey Trot.  Speaking of unrestrained, Jabe organizes this unsanctioned event.  No permit.  No street closures.  Just Jabe out early with her stick of chalk posting turkey signs at every turn.  Fred Beavers won again, virtually unchallenged unless you consider my hopeless chase a threat.  Without a warmup, I was heavily taxed by a 7:04 pace for the first mile.  Fred already had a sizable lead by this point.  I started out in third place but soon passed the little boy who sprinted off at the start and tried to hang with Fred.  I maintained my distance behind Fred on mile two with a 6:57 pace.  And I dare say I gained a few seconds on him in mile three with a 6:35.  I finished second with a 6:53 average pace in 20:37.

Our food is all coming together.  My next task is to prepare the deviled eggs.  Happy Thanksgiving.