Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do.” R.W. Emerson
So I’m very action-oriented. I moved to Mexico by myself with my horse and my two dogs. If I’m not riding my horse, I’m jogging with my dogs or training my pup Beau, who is just starting agility. He’s already won a Novice Trick Dog title. My old dog Chuy is a retired therapy dog, in his day he comforted people in nursing homes and hospices. Both are rescue dogs from the streets of Mexico.
I’ve gone skydiving three times, the first time tandem and other two Accelerated Free Falls from 13,500 feet. I am a certified advanced nitrox scuba diver, and have dived around the world. I lift weights, walk or run 10,000 steps every day, and ride my horse many miles each week.
Don’t dare me to do something! I went bungy-jumping a few years ago but it took so long to climb up the ten stories, only for a second or two to get down. It was hardly worth the trouble. I have a video of me not jumping, then finally jumping. There are also things I’ve done that I wouldn’t do again-rock climbing (I liked rapelling down but climbing up was not fun), maybe biking. Okay, I might bike and swim for a triathalon perhaps, but not all by itself.
I love airplanes. I love cars and motorcycles. I was a track junkie for about ten years, going to Russell Racing School three times, for basic, advanced and oval car racing schools, did Porsche Club of America and NASA driving schools for about four years and rented a race-prepared racecar for my first car race. I also got my motorcycle license and did a motorcycle racing school. To feed my track habit I became a track instructor for a couple of Porsche clubs and private track clubs, you get almost unlimited track time in exchange for a few hours of instructing. It was truly addicting.
I got to dive the Great Barrier Reef from a live-aboard boat with a girlfriend of mine. She actually won the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week Sweepstakes. I was sure she was being scammed, but it actually happened. She had just broken up with her boyfriend, so she invited me to go! It included airfare to Australia and the five-day boat trip, everything for diving and island-hopping on a small plane. It was a trip of a lifetime, including the trip back in severely choppy waters where we were rocking so bad we couldn’t even get out of bed. My girl friend injured her head when she tried to go from the bed to the bathroom. I just clung to my bed like a starfish.
Getting my certification as an advanced diver was great! I went to Maui to do it. The course included diving to over 100 feet down, a night dive, boat dive at Molokini crater, a search-and-rescue dive, and multi-level diving. The night dive was the scariest–that’s when predators feed! But it turned out to be like being in an aquarium, but with the lights turned off. Even deep diving was just like being in an incredible giant aquarium in the daytime. Saw all kinds of wonderful things–eels, fish, plants. I had to do an exercise to show the effects of nitrogen at deep levels. You know the baby toys where the baby pushes the different shaped blocks into the right holes in a big hollow block? They made me do that, and it took me twice as long to do that at 100 feet down as it did at sea level. But I felt as if I was humming along at the same speed, or maybe even better! That’s what nitrogen does to you. Still, it was nice to know that I didn’t try to kill my diving mates or anything like in The Abyss. And I’ve been to 80 feet down since then, and other than having a hard time telling the passage of time (I just check my diving watch frequently), I am fine.
I also got to swim and frolic with a rare Monk Seal, so called because they are solitary rather than pack creatures. There are now only 1500 of them left in the world, most around Hawaii. This lonely guy was desperate for anything that looked remotely like a seal, and hugged me with his big flippers and tried to get, well, very friendly with me and our whole group. I wouldn’t believe it really happened except that I got the video!
And I love to ski! When I stand at the top of the mountain and look down at the steep hill, I get the greatest thrill of adrenaline and I want to go fast, faster. I have to constantly balance my desire for great control with my desire to get down the hill in the least amount of time. At one time I had done all the hills at Taos, but I think it was much smaller at the time.
I finished a marathon too! 26 miles and change. Finished! I did it through a great program called Team In Training, sponsored by the Leukemia Foundation. They get Olympic and world-class coaches to help you prepare for a specific marathon, and then you run to raise funds for the foundation.