The Rowe Family Blog

Last night (4/25/2006) I was planning on going to the gym and doing a leg workout. Mary however wanted to try running outdoors. We decided to go for a long run outdoors. Our goal was 6.0 miles. We ran at a slow pace being more concerned about distance and fun rather than time. We did not know the length of the loop we were running when we ran it. After completing 5 loops the sun was going down and Mary and I were getting tired. We came home, stretched, ate some food, and then hopped in the car to measure the distance. The loop is surprisingly almost exactly 2.0 miles in length. We also ran a couple tenths of a mile from our house to the edge of the loop (once on the way out and once on the way in). We measured this using a car with a fair degree of accuracy to be 10.5 miles. This is a huge accomplishment for Mary who never ran longer than about 32 minutes prior to this evening! We ran for just a couple minutes shy of 2 hours. Our pace wasn’t anything incredible but we really were more concerned with distance than pace. We’ll be improving our pace over the next couple of months.

We’re considering running with the Fleet Feet group at Cobbs Hill to get some training on hills. We might also run with them on Saturday mornings for their long runs.

I wanted to title this “Metlife issue resolved” but really the issue hasn’t been resolved.  The issue was that Metlife Bank incorrectly rejected electronic transfer rights to me for an account that I own.

After speaking with a “banking consultant” over the phone I learned that they rejected access to the account because the address on the voided check that I sent did not correspond to my current address.  But so what?  I use these checks all the time and simply put a return address label on them.  The banking consultant recommended that I send in a current bank statement that includes my name and current address.  I’m not going to bother because it’s not worth my time for this particular account.  I certainly hope that Metlife Bank uses more than just a printed check to determine the ownership of an account.  I hope that this is just a secondary measure.

In other Metlife Bank related news I received a phone call recently from Metlife Bank (or someone affiliated with them somehow).  They have invited my wife and myself to a dinner in the near future.  I didn’t ask but I’m pretty sure that they are going to try to sell us on other investment products.

Today Mary and I registered for the 2006 Boilermaker. This will be our first 15k race. We will be joining Donna for the race. Donna has even offered to slow down to our pace for the event just to encourage us to race!

Mike’s funeral was incredible. There were hundreds of people there including around 120 bikers. Many of the bikers brought flags with them and displayed them at the cemetary. My Uncle Dave led the procession on his motorcycle. The procession was 3.5 miles long! We had police escorts and they closed a major highway for the procession. They didn’t allow any traffic on the highway as we went through. Even people who had stopped at rest areas were not allowed back on the highway until we had passed. It was awe inspiring to see the number of people that came to show their respect for Mike’s life.

A number of people took photos. If you have any please send them to me. I would like to post a few of them.

Fox Gourmet started spamming me recently (rather heavily).  At first I couldn’t figure out how they got my real address.  Then I realized that I had dealt with the company for a warranty repair of a Black and Decker steamer.  They did a good job in handling the warranty.  In fact they replaced the unit with a better unit than the one we had purchased.  However, I never once opted to get further email from them.  I hope that they will honor my request to be removed from their annoying mailing lists.

Not long ago I did a free annual credit report.  This isn’t some sort of scam; there is a law that requires credit reporting agencies to provide a report to people once per year.  Luckily I didn’t use my real address for this task.  Unfortunately I used the same address for the three major credit agencies and so I don’t know who the spammer in the bunch is.  The spam is to purchase a credit report from True Credit but I know they aren’t one of the major agencies that you can access from annualcreditreport.com.  They claim that I requested this email but I was very careful to ensure that I did not opt-in to any future communications.  I’m getting rid of the address that I gave them.

This past Tuesday my cousin Michael Rowe was killed in Iraq. A roadside bomb detonated alongside the humvee that he was in.

I hadn’t seen Mike in a very long time. His family moved to Florida when we were young. Before he moved he and I spent many weekend afternoons sledding together at our Grandma’s house. He and I always had a good time.

I never knew Mike as an adult but it’s clear that he continued to be a great person. He joined the army because he felt a duty to do so. He died for something that he truly believed in and there’s nothing more honorable than that.

Tampa Bay’s 10 did a nice piece on Mike. You can view the video.

There are a number of articles as well:

Miami Herald.
Orlando Sentinel.
Sun Sentinel.
Tampa Bay’s 10.
Tampa Bay Live.