Team Zoey Spin-a-Thon

On Sunday, February 9th, I'll hop on a spin bicycle and pedal for 4 hours straight to support research to find a cure for the rare and fatal "rapid aging" disease Progeria.  Children with Progeria typically die of a heart attack or stroke in their early teens.  I learned about this disease after a friend's niece was diagnosed.  She is 4 years old, and her name is Zoey.  

I will ride as part of "Team Zoey" and hope to raise $1,500 for the Progeria Research Foundation, founded by two doctors dedicated to discovering a cure.  They made history last year in the first-ever Progeria clinical drug trial, which identified the first known, effective treatment of symptoms for children with Progeria.  They hope to use knowledge from this trial to push research forward to find a cure.

You can help by making a donation (any amount, no matter how much or little) here: 

Donations

Thank you!

Expedition Everest

Some people seem to care only about themselves, seek only to remain comfortable, have no interest in learning about cultures other than their own, and are afraid to try new things.  I had lunch recently with a guy who is precisely the opposite.  

Toby Storie-Pugh has made a documentary about the life of street kids in Delhi, India.  He has taught a range of people, from executives to at-risk youth, about the joy of climbing mountains and exploring nature.  He founded an orphanage in Kenya.  And now he is in the final two months of preparing to help Steve Obbayi become the first Kenyan to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest.  Click on the logo below and check out his website.  I love the website's tagline: Never. Stop. Dreaming.

 

Toby (right) and I at Path Cafe in NYC

Dad 2.0 Summit

On January 31, I'll give a talk at the Dad 2.0 Summit in New Orleans, an annual conference that celebrates men who take an active role in parenting.  This is a subject dear to my heart, and I can't wait to go.  

I've completed my presentation, and thought I'd share a few teasers.  Here are six partial lines from the talk.  Can you guess how I finish them?

1. Describing my thoughts just before my first child was born:

  "I genuinely did not know how to be a father and, at moments of weakness, I looked in the mirror and said..."

2. On turning 40:

  "When I turned 40, I decided to make a list of life goals.  I might have written, 'Make VP at Intel' or 'Manage a group with over 1,000 people.'  But instead, at the top of the list I surprised myself by writing..."

3. On trying to convince Intel to let me take off 2 months to cycle the length of Japan with my 8-year-old son:

  "My boss said that taking time off to ride bikes with my kid didn't seem like a good career move.  I said..."

4. "Too many people go through life dissatisfied, knowing that they should make a change, but are afraid to.  If you feel a nudge, it means you need to..."

5. "We all grew up with adults telling us what we cannot do.  Some of that was good advice designed to keep us from getting hurt, but I suspect that a lot of that advice was..."

6. "Our society would be greatly improved if more men..."

Casio Photo Shoot on Bear Mountain

The watchmaker Casio recently selected me to be a Pro Trek Adventurer.  I wore their Pro Trek watch while cycling 1700 miles of the Lewis & Clark Trail with my kids this past summer.  It's a cool watch that displays info on altitude, compass, temperature, sunrise/sunset, barometric pressure, etc.  The barometric pressure reading was particularly useful on our trip, because I could predict when bad weather was coming.  

Casio will make a few videos about me.  Here are pics from a photo shoot we did in Bear Mountain yesterday, about 45 miles up the Hudson River from NYC.  Pretty cold, but Bear Mountain is gorgeous, and I felt privileged to spend all day there.  We saw an eagle circling overhead and beaver swimming in a lake that was partially covered with ice.  Made me cold just to watch them.  

I kept warm by running on trails while the three photographers, Alex, Lauren and Larson, staked out interesting angles for their shots.

Here are some pics:

Cycling while being filmed from the back of a car