Daily Archives: July 27, 2009
Single Mom Seeking
If you’ve spent some time wandering around this blog, you will notice that one of my links to the left is the blog for Single Mom Seeking. Our paths intersected last year when I was on the television show Must Love Kids that ran on TLC. She wrote about the show and hyped it up a bit, trying to solicit reader’s opinions on the premise.
It was through that and from another blog-Body, Lips and Facial (which Lynn has essentially moved everything to Misfits R Us now) that I had even more fun by interacting with those who were watching the show (while the show was still on!) TLC tried to kill the show (they moved it from Prime Time on Tuesdays to noon on Saturdays!) so at this point, we were just happy that anyone was watching still.
Rachel did an interview with both Kristin (the “mom” I dated on the show) and with David (one of Kristin’s other “suitors”). They were both good reads and her and I became each other’s friends on Facebook. We’ve kept in touch and over the past year, I’ve contributed witty remarks to and handful of her posts.
After reading my donation solicitation email, she decided to do a little write-up on her blog, which you can read here. She sent me 250 stickers, which you will see below. They are pretty awesome.
So, what I did for giving me some free publicity, is I sent her 3 calendars-1 autographed just for her, and 2 autographed for her to give away…plus my special, bonus pics as well (two other poses).
Now, the pub hasn’t resulted in an influx of donations or anything, but I still think it might (call me crazy, but I hold out hope). Anyway, I’m very grateful to Rachel for trying to help me out. It’s a good blog (not just the entry that has to do with me), you should read it, there’s definitely some interesting topics of discussion there.
The stickers are good-sized, so what I figured would be good is putting a business card on them and passing them out wherever I can. That sounds like a good use for them. Thoughts?
Do My Kids Know?
One of the things that people sometimes ask when they find out that I was semi-nude in a calendar was “do your kids know?” The answer is “yes”. I don’t tend to hide things from them.
Did I tell them right away? No, just like I didn’t even tell my mom right away (she found out when the calendars arrived at her house in my name, and when she opened them she saw me-they were sent early and I didn’t get a chance to warn her because they arrived several days earlier than I had expected them to). I knew, however, that I couldn’t keep it from them forever, nor did I feel inclined to.
When I was in Michigan, and selling the calendars and they saw the “Mr. December” sash, they caught on that something was up. So, I told them when they asked (first Justyce, then Colbi Lyn). I did not make a huge deal about it, nor did I show them the actual picture that’s in the calendar. I did, however, show them the back of the calendar where there are previews of the picture. They were both like “ok” and it wasn’t a big deal (I’m a firm believer that if you just tell kids most things straight up and don’t make a big deal of it, they will just accept it and not make a big deal of it.) Neither went “ewwwww, gross, dad’s almsot naked!” or anything like that.
What did my mom think? Well, she started selling calendars to the people she worked with. What did my ex-wife think? She didn’t say a word, which either means she didn’t care or she was being nice and showing some restraint. Keep in mind, it did not interest me one way or the other whether she approved or disapproved-I just felt compelled to tell her before she found out from one of my Facebook or Twitter status comments. My step-mother, on Facebook, seems to have made the biggest deal of it out of anyone I know (I think she’s mostly joking). Obviously, my girlfriend rather enjoys it, and her sister has even bought a calendar (and her mom is going to as well). She’s even trying to get some of the girls at work to buy them. Everyone has been very supportive of it.
I’m not sure if my daughters have even told their mom that they know-that’s how little of a deal they’ve made of it. They know it’s for a good cause, and they know that I’m passionate about this cause, and they support me and are proud of me for what I do. They even do the smaller, 5K walks with me (Walk for Hope, Making Strides for Breast Cancer) because they feel strongly about it as well.
If you had done something like this, would you tell your kids or would you try to hide it?
Train with Mr. December!
If you’re in San Diego doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day and would like to train with Mr. December, here are the next two Training Walks I’m leading (I am awaiting the Navy Chief results and will try to post more once I know if I make Chief and have to spend some time going through an “Induction” period).
Here are my walks during next week (I’ll post more to this blog when I have them scheduled):
3 Mile Walk with Mr. December
08/04/2009 7:00 PM-9:00 PM PST
Murphy Canyon Youth Center
4867 Santo Road
San Diego, CA 92124
5 Mile Walk with Mr. December
08/06/2009 7:00 PM-9:00 PM PST
Murphy Canyon Youth Center
4867 Santo Road
San Diego, CA 92124
Some general rules from Training Walks: most of the same rules of the walk apply (no pets, no children under 16, no headphones, etc.); Walking in the Tierrasanta area gives a great opportunity to train in an area with hills, not that we deal with many hills during The Walk, but if you train to hills and then mostly have a flat walk, you’ll be golden; I will have my radio attached to my backpack/fanny pack-no headphones allowed, but if someone carries a radio, that’s more than welcome. You are allowed to bring other adults and/or children over 16 to the training if you are so inclined. Also, please remember your hydration rules, and bring snacks for the walks longer than 5 miles or so (there are opportunities to purchase snacks on our route(s) as well). Train as you plan to walk in November.
Out-of-towners are very welcome as well!
