December 2016

Its a wrap

December 29, 2016 admin Comments 0 Comment

What an amazing year that 2016 has been as things wind down and we prepare for a new year of possibilities, opportunities, and chances.

I started out 2016 with some amazing climbs throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. I served as a second year ambassador to the Scott Firefighter Stair Climb for the L&LS and had a huge successful fundraising campaign to push to VIP status with some major help from MANY people! I HONORED to be one of two honoree climbers at the inaugural Big Climb Philly for the LLS and spent a lot of time pushing their new climb that’s closer to home. It was unexpected to be called out during the ceremony to read my bio. 9/11 stair climbs out the wazoo, and I helped with numerous climbs behind the scenes, marketing …marketing …marketing… I finally made the Tunnel to Towers Run in New York City, running in full gear with around 25,000-30,000 new friends…and ran Brother Siller’s steps in full gear. The 15th anniversary nonetheless!!!! It was an amazing race and if you’re on the fence about it, get in contact with me, hopefully i can change your mind about it…you won’t regret the trip!

I’ve spent most of the year not only in my normal training routines and competitions, but this year taking up a life dream of training in martial arts. Its once again forced me out of my norm, but also been an amazing way to meditate, focus, and train the body with some great HIIT. What started out with supporting my son and watching him compete and train has turned into the two of us competing and both bringing home some amazing hardware. If you’re looking for an amazing new way to challenge your body, lets talk about this…hopefully in 2017 I will.

You may have noticed that the amount of writing up here the last few months has been lacking, but the work behind the scenes has been pushing 110%. This year I had an unexpected setback, but that doesn’t even begin to describe what has transpired in the second half of the year. In actuality I still don’t have words for it all. While this post is a wrap-up of 2016, it wouldn’t be right to miss the opportunity to speak about Brian. In fact as I sit here blogging this morning I opened the laptop, tagged to several videos from June/July that have been reposted which were a reminder of just what can be accomplished.

Run after run after run, I took back to the road in the later part of the year to challenge myself and keep pushing the cardio that I let off of. Times are coming down, endurance is going back up, with work this will continue into the new year!

The later half of the year, while a confused whirlwind, has provided me with a reminder of the amazing support that exists, not just locally, but reaching worldwide. The phonecalls, text messages, IM’s, emails, and everyway that you have connected has been amazing and helped myself and others through it.

Thank you for blessing me with your continued support and assistance as I share what we are doing to push, promote, support others, make a difference, PAYFORWARD, and FIND CURES!!!!

The new look

December 20, 2016 admin Comments 0 Comment

This has been a long time coming. The first real major overhaul and revamp of not only the blog, but also the logo and branding of Firefighter4Cures. Its been on the radar, but just something that I couldn’t accomplish and something that I was very selective of who touches my project of the heart. They say that everything happens for a reason, people come into our lives for a reason, and that there is much meaning to this…. whomever the “they” is…they are absolutely correct.

After five very hard months of pondering life, direction, meaning and where this was headed I was ready to make it happen. I turned to an amazing friend and alum that I’ve known for years and handed Sabrina perhaps one of my prize possessions, a project of my heart. The original design, the core pieces, the meaning, and the whole project were handed to her with full trust and I let her work. If you know how protective I am this, who represents, touches this, and works with it, you understand what this means. The creative juices flowed and she added dimension, style, flair, and even helped place new elements into it. Some that we worked through, and others such as the smoke that were an unexpected meaning to me.

I was blown away seeing this come together and as a creative myself, learning new things. She took what I could not see with my own eyes and brought it to life where I feel the logo as a part of me. There are no words that can completely describe how pleased I am, nor how much this means to me. Thank you will never be enough…

FIGHT – “We Fight Together”

CONQUER – “We will conquer battles together” “We will conquer cancer.”

STRENGTH – “We will be strong when others cannot” “We will show our strength to encourage others.” “When you don’t have the strength, let others pick up and fight for you.”

PERSEVERE – “We never give up, we keep on fighting” “Carry on” “Be persistent” “Be tenacious”

Be looking for this more in 2017!!!