It occurred to me yesterday that tomorrow marks 6 years online of my grandfather’s website, Wild Bill Guarnere.com. The site, as many people know, was in response to the HBO Mini Series, ”Band of Brothers.” Once the series hit HBO, everyone wanted to know the real men behind the story. So who had the idea for the website, you ask?
Well, that honor goes to my father, Gene, Bill’s son. He thought it would be a good idea to give the website to my grandfather as a Christmas present. It was kind of funny, actually, that at some level my father and I both thought my grandfather would be excited by having his own website. Well, he wasn’t. In fact, he looked at me and my father, shook his head and said “we’re a bunch of internet-NUTS.” Nonetheless, we launched the site on March 29th, 2002 and it has become one of the largest internet repositories in the world pertaining to information on WW2. The site, to date has 183643 unique posts by over 4200 members from all over the world. There are usually several hundred users on the site at any given moment, and we have over the years had visits from the actors, producers and historians who were part of the original HBO mini series. The site has also become an online community of friends who call each other on birthdays from different countries, send each other Christmas cards, and have provided other members with places to stay when members are traveling.
Wild Bill Guarnere has hosted 3 Community Dinners, all in Philadelphia, and have brought together several members to South Philly from as close as Pennsylvania and as far away as Australia. My grandfather has done a few “live” chats with guests over the years, which gave the opportunity for his fans to ask him questions via the internet and get his responses. Wild Bill’s website has made donations to disaster recovery efforts in the Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in 2004 and has made many charitable donations of Wild Bill Guarnere hand signed merchandise and memorabilia.
Wild Bill Guarnere.com has mostly, however, raised awareness about the sacrifices made by our allied forces and has educated the young and old alike. If you’re a history buff, educator, enthusiast, military personnel or just interested in one of the most significant periods in world history, then Wild Bill Guarnere has probably been a stopover in your internet travels.
Wild Bill Guarnere is 84 years old as of this writing and still is active as a guest speaker for many schools and corporations around the world. He’s been an inspiration to his family and to the world alike. I’m proud to celebrate 6 years online!
Well, like I mentioned in my past post about running, I’m planning on running a marathon each year until I’m dead. That’s quite an ambitious tradition, and of course, many things can happen that can destroy this idea at any given moment. However, I think what I really mean is that I aspire to commit to a healthy lifestyle in such a way that a marathon each year is possible. Chicago looks like a great run: it’s flat, fast and a city that celebrates food. For all these reasons, it marks the destination of my second-ever marathon.
After having seen Spirit of the Marathon with my father-in-law, I decided the Chicago Marathon was next on my list after having gotten my butt kicked at the Philadelphia Marathon in November, 2007. I knew it was important not to press my wife too much in allowing me to go to Chicago while we were still waiting for our daughter to arrive, but now that she’s here, today was the day to do the pressing! My secret weapon was to take my wife out for a full sushi lunch, a food she’s been craving the entire 9 months of her pregnancy, and we ordered piles of the fleshy delicacy today. While the food was coming out, I said, “...So, hey, ya know I really want to run the Chicago Marathon if that’s ok with you...” As she was pouring the soy sauce in her little dish, she said, “Ok, that sounds great...go ahead.” I didn’t hesitate.
Immediately after returning home to the house, I hit the Chicago Marathon website and dutifully signed up for another 26.2 in the Windy city. I’m planning on taking Kathi as well for moral support, and of course my FIL loves an adventure, so I’m guessing he’ll be along for the ride.
What a ride! The birth of our 3rd (and final) child was an amazing experience in more ways than one. I thought I would try, for posterity, to recollect as much as possible, as we went in the hospital on Tuesday, February 26th, gave birth on the 27th, and didn’t leave the hospital til the 29th. I think I can say that the easiest part for my wife was actually giving birth. The issues that developed after, however, had me frightened, perhaps more than ever, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the fine doctors and caretakers at Paoli hospital for their pro-active approach to healthcare and getting my wife the attention she needed with no hesitation whatsoever. When things go perfectly, you tend to forget how skilled these people are. When things don’t go perfectly, and a doctor is asked to bring out more of his or her skillset than you ever want to see, well, that’s when you realize that most of us can’t be doctors.
Tuesday Evening
Kathi and I went to Paoli hospital on Tuesday evening for an 8:00 PM appointment. She was about 1/2 cm dilated and that’s not enough to deliver a baby. As she was almost a week overdue, the doctors decided that we were going to make this baby come out whether she was ready or not. I was introduced to a medicine called “Cervidil,” and apparently this is the way to get a not-ready-for-prime-time mother to dilate so she can be brought into a stage of active labor. Our doctor did some voodoo that I mostly couldn’t watch and walked away saying “we were all set.” Then, I unfolded the amazingly uncomfortable hospital chair into its makeshift bed form and cracked open a bottle of Yellow Tail Chardonnay, which would serve as my sleep aid, while my wife was utilizing more conventional forms of sleep aids per her doctor’s orders (Ambien was the order of the evening). I took tons of snapshots of my wife and the general condition of the room, and we were, for the most part, ready to tuck in for the night without much fanfare. I’m not sure what worked faster in the end, the Ambien or the Chardonnay, but we both ended up asleep, which was the plan in each of our respective-yet-highly-different-cases.
Wednesday Morning
Through the night we had a lot of visits from nurses checking vitals, etc, and I slept horribly, but I woke up anxious to see how the Cervidil worked. It took a while for a Dr. Sheila Kambin to bounce through the door, but when she did, we were happy to hear that Kath was 3 centimeters, and the prediction was we should be able to have active labor by 2:00 on Wednesday afternoon with the help of a wonder drug called Pitocin. I was familiar with this drug from our last 2 babies, and recalled that it threw my wife into labor fairly quickly. The nurse came in and said, “Ok, looks like you’re 3 centimeters. No problem. We’ll just relax, crank up the ‘pit’ and you’ll be ready to give birth.” That was at about 9:30 AM. My father-in-law showed up with his wife shortly after and I gave the two of them a run down of the events thus far. My FIL brought me some “Zeps” (a Norristown hoagie) from a great Italian deli and by the time we went to eat them, Kathi was 6 centimeters along. The Pitocin was working as advertised. We all hung out and just talked about the great event that was about to take place…
Fast Forward about 30 minutes
Around 11:30, my FIL and I went to a room outside the Maternity Ward to eat our “zeps.” About 5 minutes later, we got a call on the cell phone..."Kathi is ready to deliver. Get back here right now!” I charged back through the labyrinth of hallways and pushed open the door. Kathi had gone from 6 cm to 10 cm in less than an hour, and she looked at me and it was clear that now was the time. Dr. Kambin came in and said we were ready, and that’s when Kathi asked her father and stepmother if they wanted to remain in the room for the birth. While she was asking, the nurses were breaking down the bed for a delivery, lights were coming out of hidden areas in the ceiling, and I’ll never forget the look on my FIL’s face as the room went from what looked like a hotel room to a birthing room in less than 60 seconds…
Anything in the name of Education...
Our nurse had been shadowed by a Villanova University nursing student all morning, and this would be the first birth the student nurse got to witness. Somehow, a bunch of other student nurses were in the nurse’s station with little to do, and they, too, got wind of what was happening in Room 247. As we were about to start pushing, they all crashed through the door (about 7 of them) and asked if they could watch. The scene was quite funny, as I was holding my wife’s left leg and the nurse was holding her right with the doctor in a catcher’s stance tacked onto the end. By this time, we already had at least 5 people in the room as part of the delivery team, so my wife graciously agreed to let the students see their first birth and we went from 5 people to around 12 people in the blink of an eye. It was cool to watch the students, all females in their 20’s, witness a birth. You could tell that they were marveling not only at the site of birth from a clinical perspective, but they were watching it as females who would no-doubt go through something similar in the not-too-distant future.
12 Pushes and you’re done.
Kathi rode the wave of 3 contractions, pushed about 4 times at 100% for each contraction, and our daughter came into the world on approximately the 12th push. Dr. Kambin knew exactly when to tell Kathi to push and when to hold back, and when our daughter’s head appeared, Dr. Kambin grabbed it with both hands and started to gently help our baby through. I’m always amazed at how something that big fits through something that small, but when her shoulders cleared the area, she came through and was placed right on top of Kathi. I’m 3 for 3 on the cord-cutting, although for the record I asked my FIL to do the honors. He passed…
Our daughter weighed in at 8 lbs, 7 oz, and was 21 inches long. She came at 11:41 AM, several hours before we anticipated.
And then this.
A few hours later, I could see that Kathi’s nurse wasn’t liking the amount of bleeding that was going on, and I could see some concern in her face. When the doctor was called and came through the door, I knew something was not exactly as it should be. Kathi had delivered so quickly that her uterus was apparently not “bouncing back” to it’s normal state, and the doctor began to do everything she could to find the source of the bleeding right there in the room. I was sitting in a chair feeding my daughter, and Kathi was mostly writhing in pain from what was basically a highly invasive exam to figure out where the bleeding was coming from. After the Dr. did some cleaning out of the area, she said she’d be back in to check on Kathi’s progress. 20 minutes later, Kath was being unhooked and the bed was being rolled to the OR.
A short stopover, but an important one
Kathi had a tear in her cervix from the rapid delivery. Dr. Kambin needed to get Kathi into a anesthetic situation so she could take a proper look. Since Kathi had eaten just after birth, they had to opt for another local spine anesthetic instead of putting her under. I was so upset that she had to go through a minor surgery completely awake. I sat in the room alone, as I asked the nurses to take my daughter back into the nursery in case I was needed. The 1 hour procedure seemed to take days, but I called my FIL on the phone and told him what was happening, as well as Kathi’s mom. My FIL decided he was coming back to the hospital, and I told him to bring a few bottles of wine! He showed up just as Kathi was coming back to the room, and she was surprisingly alert given everything that just happened. One of the highlights of the entire stay was Kathi, her father, and myself chatting until around midnight, while Paul and I tugged on our wine to keep the edge off. I was really scared that night, and Dr. Kambin knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Kathi’s nurse as well was the one who initially noticed the anomaly, and I’m so thankful we had this particular set of folks on call that evening. Things could have really gone differently depending on who was there. I really believe that. From then on, the concern was that Kath lost a lot of blood, and we were fearful that she might need a transfusion. That step never came, and we were thankful for that.
A day of monitoring and rest
Kathi had a good day on Thursday, but they wanted to keep her until Friday to monitor blood counts. Since they had stopped the bleeding, it was anticipated that the blood counts should stabilize, but they wanted to be sure. Kath was weak as expected, but she had our baby for large parts of the day and was doing very well. She seemed happy and the doctor was confident we were going home on Friday…
Friday
I sent Kath a text message on Friday morning, and didn’t hear right back. Then I sent another asking if she was ok and didn’t hear right back. Now, a nervous wreck, I called her cell and she answered. “I have an infection from the surgery,” she said. I was thinking, “Man, I just want her to have a win, here.” They gave her an IV drip of antibiotics and some painkillers, and the doctor said he wanted to monitor the effect of the antibiotic on her condition, which resembled flu-like symptoms. It was expected that they might keep her yet-another day, but by mid-afternoon, Kathi was completely transformed, and it was clear that the antibiotic was doing what it was supposed to do. Her blood counts were stable and although she was weak, the doctor said he could administer the antibiotic by prescription drug instead of keeping her in the hospital any longer. By 2:00 on Friday, we were packing up to go home.
On the mend
Kathi is feeling pretty good, and it’s clear that she’s getting her strength back. Our daughter, by the way, was perfect from the start, so forgive me if she hasn’t been the focus of this post. I’m thankful, however, to Dr. Kambin and Maurina for their kindness, skill, and compassion. They acted in the right way at the right time, and, as a result, we’re back home with our daughter safe and sound.
My short motion graphic on my grandfather, Wild Bill Guarnere has recently been posted on You Tube and is starting to garner some attention. The short was created as a celebration of my grandfather’s numerous accomplishments while an enlisted man and has become a favorite of the folks over at his website (built by Pixeldust Films, of course)!
The motion graphics were created entirely in After Effects, and, I’m proud to say, the music is being used by permission of the late Michael Kamen, who composed the soundtrack to Band of Brothers. I’m proud of this piece, and I’m placing it here directly from You Tube. To see the original, head on over to my portfolio page and check it out in the Multimedia Player under “Motion Graphics.” It looks better on the Pixeldust Films site, as it’s less compressed. You Tube compresses everything yet-again to help them with their obvious bandwidth issues…
I am, for the sake of posterity, reporting that on this day, 25. January, 2008, my wife officially threw away my daughter’s “binkie.” This is a milestone, as my daughter has been chomping on that thing for 3 years. We “misplaced” it 3 weeks ago, and have been sweating it out ever since. Given the fact that we’re expecting our third child very soon, it won’t be long until she spots her old standby, but this time being chomped on by her younger sibling.
My son dumped the binkie at 10 months, but for my daughter, it was such a staple. It was like George Burns with a cigar in his mouth. It became a hallmark of her existence, and we kept staring at the trash over the last 3 weeks thinking, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t ditch it just yet...”. Today we decided that after 3 weeks off the sauce, there’s no turning back. She’s going to have to find a new hobby, like torturing her older brother, which she seems to have chosen as her alternate. Congratulations, Bella! Now onto the Barbie dolls, I guess.
On October 3rd, 2007, my grandfather and Babe Heffron went on the Michael Smerconish show to promote their new book. The interview was typical of one featuring my grandfather: lively, no regard for the FCC, and a tell-it-like-it-is approach. Smerconish loves Wild Bill and has him on the show quite a bit.
On this particular morning, I was driving into work while listening, and I decided to call in. I happened to have Michael’s producer’s phone number programmed into my cell, and I was able to get right through. She graciously gave me the phone number to dial and I was immediately placed into the caller queue. Michael put me through a few calls in, and it was a hoot to speak to him via my cell phone while driving into work. The interview is great, and I’m posting this because my grandfather is awesome. I’m simply another one of his admirers.
Well, it’s the first post of 2007! I thought I’d start it off with a great story about my trip to that most magical place on earth. The idea started as a seedling, and then grew like a brush fire. After all was said and done, I had, under my belt in just 2 days, a stomach virus, 9 miles of running, 4 cigars and about 2000 miles of air travel to show for it.
Anyway, this year, my wife and I decided to bag the 2007 Disney Half Marathon. You know, it’s just after Christmas vacation, it was a “money” thing, a “time” thing, a “kids” thing...all those “things” that preclude you from doing something at any given time of year. We told my father-in-law that we’d simply go next year. And that’s what we were prepared to do (and we are going next year...we’ve already signed up).
Ok, so on December 26th, coming home from my father-in-law’s house, my wife and I start joking in the car of how cool it would be if I flew down there and actually surprised him on the course. He’s the kind of guy who appreciates such things, and I’ve been playing gags like this with my father-in-law (let’s just call him Paul from here on out, shall we?) for 15 years.
I proceeded to call Disney from the cell phone while still in the car, and was told I could only get a room at the Pop Century resort for Friday night, January 5th. My wife and I looked at each other, and she said “go for it,” and so I did. I basically was figuring I could stay in Paul’s room on Saturday night. I was counting on the euphoria of seeing me in Florida would far outweigh the fact that he and his wife would have to endure my snoring on Saturday night...anyway back to that later.
Ok, so we made some quickie flight reservations, I had a room for at least one night...now to start planning the surprise and simply wait to depart…
Day One: Arrival
Ok, so after a great flight on US Airways, I took Disney’s Magical Express, which turned out to be easy, free, and luckily, my hotel was the first stop. I still needed lodging for Saturday night, and continuing with my winning streak, a young lady who worked for the hotel was passing through the line at check-in asking if anyone needed anything. I raised my hand and told her I had a magical tale to tell. I then proceeded to tell the story of how I was down there to surprise my father-in-law and I thought this was what Disney Magic was all about. She agreed. Then I sprung the trap: “...but I have no place to stay tomorrow night.” The runners who were in line around me were regaled by my tale of woe and started chiding the employee for not getting me a hotel room. After considerable pressure, she picked up a walkie-talkie, said something cryptic to somebody “in the back” and and just a moment later reported that I had secured a room at the Pop Century for Saturday night. Disaster averted. We all cheered and I took a picture of my hero with my cell phone.
I threw my bags down, changed into my running gear and ran a nice 3 miles right away. I was reminded of that sneaky Florida humidity. Paul was calling me and sending me text and pix messages most of Friday in order to “rub it in” that I wasn’t down there with him. Of course, I was receiving these messages while sucking down a Heineken at the Pop Century. I laughed at my cleverness and saddled up for dinner at Fulton’s Crab House. As I sat smoking a cigar at Jack’s Marina in the Downtown Disney area, I was reminded of my family, and how much I wished they were there with me. Of course, had they been, I wouldn’t have been neither smoking a cigar nor going to Fulton’s Crab House for dinner! I went back to the Pop Century with my belly full of raw oysters, Dungeness Crab and Bass Ale and smoked yet another cigar poolside. I crashed at 10:30 and hoped for the best in the morning. I had a lot on my mind, as this whole trip was riding on one simple premise: I had to make sure Paul was not only surprised, but that he didn’t run past me without me noticing him in the the throng of runners. The anxiety mounted. Would I get up in time? Could I get to mile 7 before the roads closed? What if the cab was late? You see, I had to get to the Grand Floridian by 5:45 am, as they were closing the roads for the runners. All this anxiety kept me up until 2:00 am, and I thought, “I’m going to have trouble running tomorrow.” Eventually, I passed out in some weird haze. The wake-up call came as scheduled: 4:30 AM. I jumped out of bed, dialed the front desk and ordered a cab to the hotel at once. I then hit the shower, put on my running gear and went to wait for my ride to the hidden rendezvous point.
The waiting is the hardest part
The cab showed up as scheduled. Eighteen dollars later, I was at The Grand Floridian in what was still a pitch black morning. I saw a few traffic cops, and wandered over to reassure myself that the runners would be passing by this checkpoint as the map had stated. I also told one young lady of my intentions, and she proceeded to cover her ears (and before everyone starts to protest on the whole “bandit” thing, I didn’t run the whole race, nor did I take any resources in the form of food or fuel from any of the runners). Anyway, I thought it best to cut my story short, as it was clearly more information than she wanted to hear. I decided to walk back to the Grand Floridian for some breakfast. After all, it was not even 5:30 AM, and the race wasn’t even scheduled to go off for another 30 minutes. It would indeed be some time before I saw Paul, who was planning 10 minute miles the entire distance.
Let the games begin!
At approximately 6:00 AM, I heard a traffic cop say “the race has started.” I was pretty pumped, and I started trying to find, in the dark, a good place to hang on the roadside so I could spring the surprise on my hapless father-in-law. I wandered up and down the road, observing the Dasani water folks, who were sponsors of the event and were setting up the water tables at mile seven. I was in a good spot: there were no other spectators where I was standing, just a marching band about 100 yards up the road. They were practicing for their big moment, and I was reminded of how great it is to hear music on the course. It helps the runners in a way that’s difficult to describe unless you’ve been out there.
About 35 minutes into the race, the first wheelchair sped by. I yelled something along the lines of “way to go,” but it was so quiet, so serene on the still-dark road, that I felt I might be interrupting his state of mind. Athletes don’t always want to be yelled at on the course. I didn’t realize that until mile 12 of my first half marathon. I really wanted everyone to just be silent while I figured out how I was going to run the remaining 1.1 miles.
About 5 minutes later, I saw the first runner, a male, go flying by. There was nobody near him, which is pretty unusual. I wondered just how much of a lead he had over the thousands of other runners. It turned out that this kid is one of the top triathletes in the country, and was also down there to get married. I can’t imagine having that kind of lead in a race. I mean, he was totally alone. Based on my previous interaction with the wheelchair athlete, I decided to let him pass with no comments from me. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to say to somebody who was destroying the competition to such a degree. He sped off into the darkness, and it took almost 4 minutes until I saw the next runner, a female, race by my position on the course.
At about 7:00, I started dialing Paul’s cell phone. I realized he was going to be later than I anticipated, because the pack was only starting to thicken at mile 7, and I could tell I was still watching 6 and 7 minute milers go past (I later learned that Paul’s later-than-expected arrival had to do with Disney’s newly-implemented Wave-start, which nobody seemed to like. Paul was in Wave B). He answered and said, “I’m dying over here! It’s so hot down here.” Of course, being down there as well, I realized that he was right. It was going to be a tough race. Florida humidity is pesky, and you don’t realize it’s there until you start moving, and then it’s magnified 10-fold.
A few cell phone calls later, Paul was getting within striking distance of my checkpoint. I felt I needed to start watching the passers-by, as it was crucial he didn’t get past me. Then, it happened: I spotted him. Luckily for me, Paul was literally running up the road side, almost on the grass where I was standing. I took a breath, giggled, and jumped out onto the course into a slow, slow jog. You know, the kind of jog that would eventually force him to go around me (which is pretty normal for me!). Anyway, about 5 seconds into this whole affair I hear him yell out an expletive that approximately rhymes with “grass mole.” It was then I realized he spotted me. He apologized to the distance runners around him, as they were all staring at him wondering if they were the target of the on-course profanity. He laughed, they laughed, and I laughed, and I spent the next 6 miles explaining how Kath and I had concocted this whole affair. The miles just fell away, as we talked the entire time. Later, when I asked him how he spotted me so quickly from behind, he told me that he recognized my gait, and the fact that I was wearing a shirt that said “Fortunato” on the back, which Paul has come to call himself.
Mile 12
One of the all-time milestones of the trip, second only to Paul calling me an expletive, was his wife’s reaction. We knew she’d be at mile 12, as that’s where she was last year. Paul and I decided that I’d hang back a little, so she didn’t see me right away. Once we spotted her, Paul ran up to her and she lifted her camera for a picture. He stepped away, and I jumped in front of the lens. She almost threw the camera down on the ground, looked at me in utter disbelief, and yelled, “GINO!” I laughed and said, “gotta run!” And off I went, pacing Paul towards the finish.
We met up after the race, and I gave them the full rundown of when I got down there, how I stayed out of site the day before (not exactly hard to do in Disney), and how I spent the time waiting. We spent the rest of the day in Epcot drinking beer from country to country, and Paul looked at me at least 25 times and just started laughing...occasionally reminding me once again that not only am I an *expletive-goes-here,* but that I’m his son-in-law, and that he’s proud of it.
My 4 year old son received a "timeout" the other day for various small-but-normal infractions. I think his sentence was 2 minutes in his Spiderman chair, and the chair happened to be facing the staircase. He sat down and faced the stairs with his little hands on the armrests, silent.
My 2 year old daughter noticed his predicament and dragged her Cinderella chair over and placed it next to the Spiderman chair, where my son dutifully sat. She reached her hand across her chair and placed it on top of his, said not a word, and faced the stairs quietly, mimicking my son’s behavior while offering solace in the form of sharing his fate.
After a minute, my wife noticed and of course was saddened to not have the camera with her at that moment. Timeout then officially ended for both and they were sprung free.
Most people know that I’m the proud grandson of William “Wild Bill” Guarnere. Something pretty special happened last night. My wife and I were watching the companion episode of ”Band of Brothers,” entitled “We Stand Alone Together.” Well, my grandfather is featured quite a bit in that episode, and my daughter, who just turned 2, has never seen it.
Anyway, she was playing with her toys in the vicinity when she must have recognized my grandfather’s voice emanating from the television. She wandered over, pointed to the screen and said “grandpop” in her little voice. She watched for a moment, and then moved on. That she recognized him onscreen, and especially in that context reminded me of how proud I am of the entire Guarnere family, and I was also reminded that had it not been for my grandfather, I wouldn’t be here today.
On this Veteran’s Day, Thanks, “Grandpop,” for all your sacrifice, and to all the vets who helped secure our freedoms.
It occurred to me yesterday that tomorrow marks 6 years online of my grandfather’s website, Wild Bill Guarnere.com. The site, as many people know, was in response to the HBO Mini Series, ”Band of Brothers.” Once the series hit HBO, everyone wanted to know the real men behind the story. So who had the idea for the website, you ask?
Well, like I mentioned in my 
I am, for the sake of posterity, reporting that on this day, 25. January, 2008, my wife officially threw away my daughter’s “binkie.” This is a milestone, as my daughter has been chomping on that thing for 3 years. We “misplaced” it 3 weeks ago, and have been sweating it out ever since. Given the fact that we’re expecting our third child very soon, it won’t be long until she spots her old standby, but this time being chomped on by her younger sibling.
My son dumped the binkie at 10 months, but for my daughter, it was such a staple. It was like George Burns with a cigar in his mouth. It became a hallmark of her existence, and we kept staring at the trash over the last 3 weeks thinking, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t ditch it just yet...”. Today we decided that after 3 weeks off the sauce, there’s no turning back. She’s going to have to find a new hobby, like torturing her older brother, which she seems to have chosen as her alternate. Congratulations, Bella! Now onto the Barbie dolls, I guess.
On October 3rd, 2007, 
Ok, so after a great flight on US Airways, I took Disney’s Magical Express, which turned out to be easy, free, and luckily, 
The cab showed up as scheduled. Eighteen dollars later, I was at The Grand Floridian in what was still a pitch black morning. I saw a few traffic cops, and wandered over to reassure myself that the runners would be passing by this checkpoint as the map had stated. I also told one young lady of my intentions, and she proceeded to cover her ears (and before everyone starts to protest on the whole “bandit” thing, I didn’t run the whole race, nor did I take any resources in the form of food or fuel from any of the runners). Anyway, I thought it best to cut my story short, as it was clearly more information than she wanted to hear. I decided to walk back to the Grand Floridian for some breakfast. After all, it was not even 5:30 AM, and the race wasn’t even scheduled to go off for another 30 minutes. It would indeed be some time before I saw Paul, who was planning 10 minute miles the entire distance.
A few cell phone calls later, Paul was getting within striking distance of my checkpoint. I felt I needed to start watching the passers-by, as it was crucial he didn’t get past me. Then, it happened: I spotted him. Luckily for me, Paul was literally running up the road side, almost on the grass where I was standing. I took a breath, giggled, and jumped out onto the course into a slow, slow jog. You know, the kind of jog that would eventually force him to go around me (which is pretty normal for me!). Anyway, about 5 seconds into this whole affair I hear him yell out an expletive that approximately rhymes with “grass mole.” It was then I realized he spotted me. He apologized to the distance runners around him, as they were all staring at him wondering if they were the target of the on-course profanity. He laughed, they laughed, and I laughed, and I spent the next 6 miles explaining how Kath and I had concocted this whole affair. The miles just fell away, as we talked the entire time. Later, when I asked him how he spotted me so quickly from behind, he told me that he recognized my gait, and the fact that I was wearing a shirt that said “Fortunato” on the back, which Paul has come to call himself.
