Take a look at the domain name. Combine that with one of my personal mottos: "Work hard, play hard". You now have a pretty good picture of my Thanksgiving!

Here's the short list:

• Dislocated shoulder (right side)
• Hyperextended knee (right side)
• Dislocated hip (right side)
• Massive swelling/bruising of knee (right side)
• Bloody cleat marks on the face

Let me explain.

Turkey Bowl

I'm not sure if this is a tradition in your parts but we keep it alive and well in the family. Things get even more interesting when family is involved in the actual game. We had just such a Turkey Bowl game this year: a perfect storm involving 3 brothers-in-law and a bunch of former high school team mates.

I won't give you a blow-by-blow but the highlights are necessary. First, we were playing full-on tackle football. It's like two-hand touch without holding back, somewhat akin to Rugby (in case you were wondering). Alex (one of the brothers-in-law) setup a game at a local high school stadium, called a few former team mates from the football team, and we got cracking. It was a good set- solid quarterbacks, receivers, and even a couple of linemen. All-in-all, a good setup for a great game.

A great game it was- I was on the team opposing both Jesse (brother-in-law) and Alex (the other brother-in-law). This was both fortunate and unfortunate: Jesse and I have an ongoing rivalry. I've challenged him to a wrestling match this year- one in which I intend to beat him soundly. He's an excellent wrestler, outstanding athlete and all-around great guy. Still, he's a superb target: 6'7", 220 lbs., lean, extremely strong, and a highly skilled wrestler. You can't make it any more of a stretch for a 170 lb., 6'1" scrawny whelp like myself.

I choose to guard Jesse. He's a fast mover but, due to the physics, has a harder time accelerating than I do. I didn't think this was a concern until:

Ouch.

Jesse was on a roll. Checkout the bulldog takedown:

Then it was my turn. I can't emphasize enough how glad I am that my wife took these shots:

If you can't tell, the little person tangled up in Jesse's legs is me. And yes, he's about to go down - hard.

In the end, Jesse, Alex, and Ben (all on the opposite team) won- by a single point. But, thanks largely to my efforts, they paid dearly for every point. I made several tackles, scored one touch down, and kept Jesse from getting more than that.

Unfortunately for me, I also paid for my heroic efforts. Toward the end of the game, I made a very poorly aimed tackle- throwing my arm in the path of the receiver's legs. It's not a strategy I would recommend and not one I would take, had I been in pads. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I would be able to take him down. This indecisiveness and poor execution left my arm out of the socket and me writhing in pain on the ground. With cleat marks on my face, just to salt the wound.

There wasn't anything for it but to get back up and play out the game. Still, to this day, my right arm is only semi-functional. It is, after all, quite painful to dislocate a shoulder.

Wall Walking - or Plain Idiocy

I don't think anyone would be embarrassed by an injury obtained in a tackle turkey bowl game. I wish that had been the source of the rest of the damage. Alas, it simply isn't so. If you refer to the list above, you'll note that the following remain:

• Hyperextended knee (right side)
• Dislocated hip (right side)
• Massive swelling/bruising of knee (right side)

I could spin some heroic tale to justify these injuries - I frequently rescue babies in strollers from drunk drivers, after all - but there wasn't anything glamorous in the true origin of these particular ailments. In a sentence:

I tried to take a large step up an unstable rock wall and slipped.

That's it. That's all it was. That single step hyperextended my knee, pulled my leg almost clean out of the hip socket, and gave me a worrisome, swollen, disfiguring bruise just below the knee. To top it all off, that knee is still giving me trouble when standing and walking, let alone while running.

It's frustrating to realize the price of stupidity. Remember that.

Wrapping Up

(That was a pun, by the way!)

This blog is not for the faint of heart. There's a mix of geekery, athletics, and, above all, living life to the fullest. The by-product of the latter is described in the domain: Accident Prone. For those who dabble in the sedentary lifestyle, I would tell you this: the scars are better than photographs for reminding you of the thrill of living. The pain fades with time and, with enough experience under your belt, pain itself can be little more than a distraction to the life you're living. Get out there and give it a try.

(That has to be the weakest and least effective invitation evar. Still, I recommend it.)

As you no doubt are aware, my family consists of 2 adults (well, at least one responsible adult and another that looks like one) and 5 children. Scroll down a bit to get a refresher course on the family (with pictures!). Feel free to jump down there now.

Back? You'll remember that our 5 children are ages 7 and down. This presents some unique challenges when the family chooses to do something like hiking, especially when that hike is somewhat challenging. This, as you'll have guessed, is precisely what we decided to do with our 4th of July: a bit of family hiking.

I won't disparage those sadly deluded persons who think that the pinacle of the outdoors is a well-maintained asphalt path that spans a completely level stretch between the parking lot and a small waterfall visible from the road (here's to you, Bridal Veil Falls!). Suffice it to say that we like the challenge and the beauty of the mountains, preferably away from the rest of human civilization. Given that we have 5 children, it isn't strictly possible for us to galavant around the raw wilderness, so we settled for a decent middle ground: the Aspen Grove Timpanogos Summit trail.

That trail is a tough route, if you follow it all the way to the summit. This time of year, it's not only physically demanding, it's extremely technical. We obviously didn't summit with 5 kids ages 7 and under; we simply went to the lower waterfall that sits below the first steppe on the approach to Emerald Lake.

Having taken young kids hiking before, we knew that this would be a pretty slow approach and, as we contemplated this, Elise and I came up with an idea to help us kill time on the way: give every child a digital camera.

The Setup

To be fair, we weren't exactly sure what would happen if we gave cameras to kids ranging from 2 to 7 years old (sorry, 11 months is a little young for this). We actually didn't have 6 cameras to go around. Instead, we scrounged my old iPhone (2G), our nice camera (Kodak Z712), and two iPhone 4s (mine and Elise's). Initially, we gave the iPhone 2G to Gini, my iPhone 4 to Thomas, and Elise's iPhone 4 to William. I kept the Kodak.

The Rules

Since we didn't have enough cameras for everyone, we setup a sharing regime- when we felt like someone had had enough time, we asked them to pass it along. This went surprisingly well and there are pictures from each of the cameras taken from every child (minus Jonathan).

We told the kids to take pictures of anything they found interesting- things that were different or unique, including plants, animals, and the like. We also asked them to take pictures of the family. Beyond that, we let them run loose.

The Experience

Of course, there are several pictures of plants right outside the van where we parked and there are a number of pictures from the first quarter mile of trail. Every so often, we would have to tell the children to "Lock the phone and keep walking!", though it was less prominent than you might think. The pace we set was pretty comfortable.

After the first quarter mile or so, the kids got down to business. Every 30 seconds or so, they would take a camera out of their pocket and snap a shot at something they found interesting. We tried to keep sharing up, but Thomas and Gini accounted for the bulk of the photos taken by kids. William took his fair share, Peter took just a few.

When they had settled into a rhythm of walking, snapping a picture, and returning to a walk, we made pretty good headway on the trail. There were a few fun spots: we crossed a raging stream on a wet and rickety bridge and we spanned a couple of fairly long and treacherous sections of snow. Of course, these were picture-worthy and we gave opportunity for both the kids and ourselves to take pictures.

Overall, the hike was fun and successful. The kids were in surprisingly good shape by the end. As you'll see in the album below, even our 2-year-old Peter was running and giggling at the end. As a hike and a family activity, it was fantastic.

The Results

What about the pictures? You just had to ask. We uploaded most of the pictures to Google last night and this morning, just to let you see how things went. For the most part, I think they're what we all expect: a few out of focus pictures, many pictures of nothing in particular, and a few beautiful gems. Those gems and the wonderful experience we had gathering them made this one of the best family hikes - and even general activities - we've ever had.

You can view the entire album with all of the pictures (unedited!) here:

Timp Independence Experiment Photos

Here's a simple slideshow for those who want to simply kick back and see what happened:

The Family: A Refresher Course

Just in case the names and ages are foreign to you, here's a quick refresher on the family (as it stands today):

Gini (Virginia), 7 years old	Thomas, 6 years old
William (Will), 4 years old	Peter, 2 years old
Jonathan, 11 months old

The two adults (one adult aged, one adult in truth):

Elise: The beautiful adult	Me: Adult-aged

Every now and again, especially as I lay my head down and attempt to put myself to sleep, I will listen to my favorite NPR podcasts. Topping my list of favorites is, "Wait, wait, don't tell me!". A close second is, "Car Talk". A not-so-distant third is, "This American Life". I'm not an avid listener of the latter, but there are some precious gems among the archives.

Last night was one of those nights- I was trying hard to get over a cold, had spent the entire day in bed, and was having a hard time sleeping. I had exhausted my thin supply of other NPR bedtime favorites, and "This American Life" had published an episode the week prior that caught my eye- "20 Acts in 60 Minutes". They departed from their normal format of publishing a few stories on 2 or 3 themes, choosing instead to publish as many shorts as humanly possible. I enjoyed it- it was (to me) a very successful experiment.

One story in particular caught my attention. It was regarding a man who recognized a woman, could remember emotions and the importance of the prior relationship to her, but could not place the face, the name, or any of the circumstances. He spoke of the void into which memories had fallen and continue to fall.

This strikes a chord with me. I dare say that I am much younger than the man in the story- I stand still shy of 30 years- but the faculties of memory left to me are slim at best, growing leaner by the day.

Last week, my father put out a plea to us, his children, to come up with stories about Christmas' past. I was excited to participate, to give new life to those old memories, but I couldn't remember.

Anything.

At all.

Do you understand how disturbing that is? Those memories were and are important to me, but seem just beyond my reach. I struggle so hard and get no farther than fleeting and disjointed images that must somehow be associated with those events, but whose strings are cut.

I have never put these thoughts to paper before and I have shared them with precious few people. It is difficult to explain both the challenge this presents as well as the empty pit it leaves in my stomach to consider. For years, I considered my memory on par with the populous, yet for at least the past decade, my memories have been fleeing far faster than any other's I know of, including those of advanced age (and no, Mom and Dad, you don't count as "advanced" yet).

I used to have memories rich with color, smells, and emotions, yet when I look back now, I find a stale and sparse landscape with little but broken images. When my wife speaks to me of the first steps of our daughter (our first child, only 5 years old), or compares the antics of our current younger set, I struggle to find and latch onto the memories they touch. Sometimes, my wife will push and try to help me remember, only for us both to find that some memories are full and truly gone. Disappeared. Vanished into... some kind of Void.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the loss of long-term memory, as I have struggled nearly my entire life with a poor short-term memory. Just a few days ago, a conversation with a friend at work was interrupted. He grabbed me a few minutes later and mentioned that he had thought "it" was a good idea. I honestly had no idea what "it" was all about. He proceeded to explain that I had made a suggestion that he had though wise. Even after the ensuing (and interesting) chat, I had absolutely no recollection of the idea. None whatsoever.

I would assume that most of you have experienced walking into a room, knowing you had a purpose, only to find yourself meandering around, lost as to why you are there? This happens to me 5 to 10 times per day. At least 5- I've counted that high before, but always forget what I'm counting things for before noon.

You may think I exaggerate, but I assure you that I do not. If anything, the truth is under-represented due to the simple fact that I do not remember it all. This obviously skews the results, but if 6 hours counts as a representative sample (and it is all that I have), the numbers I've cited must be low.

Fortunately, I do have compensatory methods. I have a toolbox full of ways to prevent forgetting important things. Over the past decade or so, I have tried desperately to hypothesize exactly what is wrong and how to fix it. As a programmer, I gain some comfort and success in treating my brain like a computer with some flawed parts. Here are some of my findings, and some of my tools:

• Finding: 3-5 minutes is the upper bound for the majority of all of my thoughts. If I do not take action to preserve them, they will be completely gone and irrecoverable by the end of that period of time. Generally speaking, it takes ~30 seconds for a stray memory to disappear forever.
• Tool: I can encourage retention of a memory through sufficient associations- meaning if I can tie a thought or idea to enough of the surrounding circumstances, images, etc., there is a much higher chance I will remember it in 3 minutes
• Tool: I can encourage retention further by repetition. It raises the upper bound to something on the order of an hour or two, but the memory is doomed unless I take further action.
• Finding: The "Void" is real. I have tried so hard as to the point of tears to recover some vital thoughts, ideas, or memories. I have tried for literally hours to salvage some things. The end result of such extended effort has always been failure.
• Finding: Some memories, especially those that make it to what people like to call long-term storage, seem to persist. It appears that the *references* to those memories are damaged or removed, making it nearly impossible to bring those memories back.
• Finding: It's getting worse. While I don't remember much, I do remember being able to do some things that are currently impossible to me. I remember being able to retrace my steps, mentally, to recover some lost thought. This process no longer works.

It is depressing to write of this- and depression, for me, is extraordinarily rare. Solemnity is equally rare (just ask my family). My natural disposition seems contrary to both. In fact, if my memory serves me well, my transition to an almost entirely depression-free disposition matches quite well with the degradation of my memory. In fact, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to call them related.

If you can imagine, it is very difficult to remain depressed when you can't remember what got you there. This may also be one of the many items of saving grace for those I call friends- offenses pass either unnoticed or soon forgotten (though I can't remember being offended by any of my friends... I suppose that may represent "case and point").

As it boils down, I have learned to live life as it comes. Fortunately for my family and myself, we have been extraordinarily blessed as to make that possible.

We'll start with a bit of catch-up, rapid-fire-style:

• Running sucked. Knees hurt.
• Broke back. Back hurt
• Started physical therapy. Knees and back still hurt.
• Ran. Hurt more.
• Doc said stop running. Stopped.
• Knees stopped hurting, back got excruciatingly painful.
• Started running again. Back got better, knees got worse.

In case you are wondering, I've been sticking to the letter of the Doctor's orders, running when he tells me to, resting, icing, heating, electrocuting, stretching, the works. I've been a good boy for a change! Let's continue.

• Therapist says, "Get a cortisone shot".
• Finally get around to going to the Doc, got cortisone shot.
• Run some more. Knees are better.
• Back still hurts, but not as bad.
• Yay.

That brings us up to speed in preparation for today's [mis]adventure.

Fun in the Sun

I wish. We've had snow coming down almost daily since the beginning of the week (it is Friday today, in case you were wondering). I can't really afford to take any time off the training schedule, as it's the only thing holding the pain in my back to a sane level (on a scale from 0-10, 0=no pain, 10=passing out, I sit at a 3 consistently when working out. Shoots up to 8 or higher when I'm not. Yes, I've nearly blacked out from it before, but don't tell my wife :) ). I ran on Monday, just after the first snow of the week. We had about 2 inches at the house, about 4 on the mountain a few hundred feet up from us.

Set the Scene

I am not a typical road rat when I'm running. We live on the foothills of some beautify (albeit desertish) mountains, slashed by ATV, game, and foot trails. When I run, I run trails. The experience is so much the better for the scenery and the mountains offers an unparalleled challenge.

I have several "favorite" routes- ranging from 2 to 13 miles. I've been running a 4 mile route for the past month as I've struggled to let the knees and back heal. This route takes me about a mile into the mountains then cuts North for another mile until it butts up against the fence line of Camp Williams (an Army facility). The terrain is pretty rough- field and wild hills with a swath of a path cut by farmers and base personnel. Apparently, it gets a fair bit of snow too.

Monday's run was great- the weather was clear, the snow on the ground was crispy and offered fair traction, and it wasn't too cold. Things started to change on Wednesday, though I was still able to get a good run in without too much of a weather impact.

Then there was today.

At Least I Had My iPhone

I left the house and headed for the mountains with broken clouds and a weather report calling for a "chance" of snow". We had some snow flakes floating on the breeze as I stepped out the door, but not nearly enough to detract me after my 20 minutes of stretching. It was cold (25, wind chill bringing it down to sub-twenties), but I had three layers. I was prepared!

When I hit the mountain (350 yards from the house), I noticed that the snow was getting deep. Looked to be about 6" on the ground, drifts upwards of a full foot. I tried to keep to where I knew the path would be, which actually proved to be less of a challenge than it may sound. I had tire tracks to follow for the first quarter-mile. After that, I was cutting my own path.

If you've ever trained by running in sand, you have an idea what it's like to run in the now. Take that and multiply that by 3 and you've scored the difficulty of running snow without the appropriate snowshoes. Add a 4% grade and difficult terrain... you should have the picture.

The weather held until I reached the base fence line. It's the two mile mark and my turnaround location and I had kept a decent time, regardless of the conditions. As I turned the corner and started heading for home, a large gray mass began gathering over the fence behind me, moving my direction. I started making good time as the wind picked up and pushed me down the hill toward home. Then the clouds began closing and the features of the distant landscape slowly began disappearing. Ever more quickly, closer artifacts began fading into a white mist until all that was left ere the footprints in front of me. Finally, those were gone.

It took about 5 minutes for things to go completely white. When the footprints disappeared, I knew there was some potential for serious trouble. The path was unmarked, I was at least a mile from home in an area only snowmobiles could access. I had less than a hundred feet of vision, closing at times to 10 or 15 feet. Although I had put on three layers, they consisted of two technical shirts and a fleece- not nearly enough to hunker down and weather it out.

Two options remained: I had my iPhone and my (hole-ridden) memory of the landscape. I'm not directionally challenged, but I am certainly not gifted, so I settled on a compromise:

• I would use my (potentially) flawed memory of the landscape, plus a little feeling around with my feet for footprints (they might be covered, but they were still there) and see if I couldn't make it to the tire tracks leading to home.
• If, after 10 minutes of running, I couldn't find the tracks OR lost the footprints at any time, I would whip out the trusty iPhone, pray the battery hasn't frozen to death, and use Google Maps and it's "Locate Me" feature to navigate my way home.

And no, I didn't stop running to figure this out. I kept going, feeling for footprints where I thought they should be.

After nearly exactly 8 minutes, I stumbled into soft powder of a tire-sized trench. I kept to the trench (which sent powder into my shoes straight away) until I broke out onto the roadway, which took me all the way home. As I rolled in the door, I checked my watch. I posted a better time than Wednesday, despite the rather poor conditions. Wow. And phew.

So, here's the post-mortem, the things I've learned from this experience:

• Age makes you feel guilty about doing adventurous things that, not so long ago, would have been an adrenaline rush.
• I'm still not old enough to make that stop me from doing it again.
• Running actually is a pretty good way to keep warm in a snow storm.
• It's also a very good way to get you more lost.
• Two technical shirts and a fleece isn't enough to weather a small blizzard. Not by a long shot.
• The 10 Essentials really are essentials. All right, so I've know that for a while. I've always broken my 10 down to the 3 that could make all 10 (can you figure out which three?), but sometimes, conditions make all 10 absolutely critical.
• This cortisone shot seems to have done the trick.
• Snow is cold. Snow + wind + clouds is colder.
• ...and so much more.

Enjoy the winter months. Be smart and don't do what I write about doing here. If you're a Metge, or related to one, expect things to go wrong in the worst possible way. That way, you will never be surprised when they do.

Copyright law is not my specialty (and I thank my lucky stars every single day) nor have I ever had much care for it. Until now. If old ladies aren't safe from the intricacies of intellectual property laws, when we can do such a thing as copyright ideas, I think I can make a case.

The Metge web presence is right here!!! It's been here for years. What's this nonsense about Metge Family Life created by this guy Mark Metge. So he's my father. What makes him think he can lay claim to the whole of the Metge family anyway?

I personally think it's time to bust out the lawyers and throw this down in court. I'll be drafting a cease-and-desist with legal council ASAP. Dad, you can expect it in short order.

Until then, enjoy his blog. I promise, it's time is limited.

We have just announced that we will be bringing another child into the world via the Metge household. While thrilling to us, we understand the terror that strikes in hearts across the world. Just remember, Metge's are born hardy. Seriously. You think I would be around if it weren't true? It may have been a close call, but my parents survived raising me. You wouldn't call that durable?

Regardless, the baby is on the way, due toward the end of September (21st is a tentative due date). We do not have an inkling as to the name for the child, though we have held a couple in reserve. We're looking for suggestions. So fire up that brain (if you still can) and post some comments.