Oliver Gonzalez Blog

Justin and Jenn are having a baby thus Rachel threw them a Baby Shower in Atlanta.

Yesterday I did a reality check with my wardrobe’s situation. I’ts not the first time I purge the closet since I started loosing weight but this one has been the most drastic and bittersweet.

Sweet because of what it means, I’ve been able to completely change my body into a completely different one and bitter because there’s I’m letting go of thousands of dollars in clothing and I’m not the kind that loves spending in clothing. True that some things have more than 15 years with me but some other have at most a year.

All in all I ended up “decommissioning” 6 suits, 4 jackets, and about 20 shirts in this single cleanup.

There’s plenty of space available on my closet now but I really don’t pretend to fill it up again any time soon. I did some shopping this weekend, taking advantage of the Easter sales and now have some shirts and polos that fit me well but it would take way too much money to replace most of the stuff. I’m glad that I don’t need as many suits as I used to because that would be particularly forgiving.

Not to brag but I’m proud of my achievement. I went from 17 inches on my neck to 15.5, from L to M (some cases S) on my shirts, from 9 to 8.5 on my shoes and from 36 to 29 on my pants.

I throw these numbers also in case someone wants to collaborate with the “Refill Christian’s Wardrobe Foundation”. Only kidding as my birthday is too far away… jeje

Most of these will go to charity unless someone lets me know…

Vanessa baked some cupcakes with Mom and took some for her teachers. She was really excited to be cooking and that the teachers “ate them all”.

Last Saturday we had the traditional Egg Hunt around the neighborhood. Patrick and Vanessa enjoyed it a lot.

Rafa came to Atlanta for a conference. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see him much.

Today is El Universal’s 100th anniversary. I’m a proud alumni of El Universal and I’m happy to remain involved in its development. We are working hard to get this company through this transformation era into another 100 years of quality journalism.

For the occasion I wrote a piece which can be read in Spanish at eluniversal.com  

Congratulations to everyone in the family of El Universal in Venezuela.

This is the intro to my article:

“Rather than submitting the same contents in each kind of media, the contents should fit in each possibility of supplying information. The challenge is big indeed, because the current change involves the media, the audience and the world. The information is here and users are either active or passive with regard to the news”

Continue reading…

El Universal has an English version of the Anniversary edition, which can be found at the Daily News Section:

Here is an English version of my article: From the newspaper to multiple platforms

I can’t believe it myself. I beat my target time and finished the Marathon without a hitch.

This was my first Marathon and my second race in general since I did a 5K before I decided to run the Marathon. Given that I’ve been a runner for less than a year, I can’t be happier with my results.

The experience was amazing, the course is very beautiful and the cheering was really encouraging. I think I’ve fallen for running, real bad. Can’t wait to run my next one and run in different places.

Seeing my family get excited along the way was beyond description. Unfortunately they didn’t make it in time for the finish line but just thinking they would be there helped a lot.

This Marathon is very hilly, one of the those with most elevation changes in the US. Yes, more than NY or Boston and I really felt it, specially because there are many long hills along the last miles. It did affected my pace substantially so I’m hopeful that I can make a better time at a flatter course.

Getting there. Woke up at 5 am.

Along the way…

The official results

You can check these results and find other people here

Trying to steer away from getting too cheesy, this is my Oscar speech part:

I thank Valois, José Espinel and Franco who got me on this “doing a Marathon” thing.

To Titi whose support really made this possible in many respects. To my kids, both for inspiring me as for passing time without me while I trained.

To my parents and sister for always believing in me, always supporting me and always being there, even if some couldn’t physically be.

To Meme, for teaching me so many things, specially about enduring, which is what this race is all about.

To the rest of my family and to my friends for your friendships.

Nuf Said

UPDATE:

This is my actual performance chart. As you can see, the elevation chart is scary!

In fact, the total Ascent were 6.378ft., more than twice the elevation of doing 20 miles at Columns Drive. Ouch!