How I Got Ordained As A Minister And Officiated My Friend’s Wedding

I spent this last weekend in Panama City Beach, which thanks to several spring breaks and family vacations I’m very familiar with. It’s been a few years since I’ve been there but it’s just how I remembered it. Hot weather and some of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen.

I love me some PCB and it’s a great place to party but this time around I was going for a different reason. This trip was all about Ryan Mollenkopf (I call him Mellonhead). He’s one of my best friends who was getting married and I was going to be playing a bigger role in the wedding than I’m normally used to.

Will You Marry Us?

Let’s rewind things a bit and listen in on a phone conversation I had with Mellonhead a few months ago. We hopped on a call after he had sent me a text telling me about an awesome idea he had. If you know him like I do this would both excite and scare the crap out of you at the same time. After catching up with some small talk he let me have it.

“So what’s this idea you want to tell me about?” I asked him.

“Well, since the wedding is in Florida we don’t have a minister to marry us we were thinking that you could do it. Would you be up for that?”

As with most decisions I make it didn’t take me long to think about it before saying yes. I mean, how many times will I get to marry one of my best friends? When I agreed to doing it I felt a funny feeling in the bottom of my stomach and I have to admit that I love that feeling. It usually means what I’m doing is a little crazy, but awesome and I’m more than OK with that.

A Secret Surprise

The only stipulation I had after agreeing to be their officiant was that it had to be a surprise to everyone else at the wedding. The best men (there was two of them), the family and our friends would have no idea I was going to do it. Me, Mellonhead and his lovely wife-to-be Stephanie would be the only other people who knew about the plan.

I would be a normal groomsman up until the wedding and at the last minute when we realize there’s no minister we’ll do the reveal. Me being the officiant would be pretty sweet but being able to surprise everyone at the last minute would be epic.

Minister Hupfer and Planning the Wedding

About a month before the wedding I did some research about how to become an ordained minister online. I’ve known several people who have done it before but I didn’t know exactly where to go online to do it. After doing a little bit of research I used American Marriage Ministries and in a matter of minutes I was officially a minister that was able to be perform a marriage ceremony in Florida (each state has different rules, so be sure to check them out if you’re want to do this).

Getting ordained online was even easier than I thought it was and I didn’t even have to pay for it. It’s totally free to be ordained and once you’re official they try to upsell you on some things which you don’t have to buy. You’re emailed a confirmation and just like that you have the power to marry a couple. God bless the internet.

After I was officially ordained the only other thing I had to do was put together the script that I would read during the ceremony. This actually took a lot longer than I thought it would but after piecing some things together and adding in some feedback from Mellonhead we had a great looking script that they were happy with. Even though it took me 3-4 hours to get the initial draft of the script on paper the process was actually pretty fun.

Keeping The Secret

Once all of the logistics were done all I needed to do was show up at Panama City Beach and keep the secret for one more weekend. It’s pretty easy to keep a secret like this when I’m in San Francisco but being around all of the people who were there for the wedding made it way harder.

I had to do some sneaking around in order to make it work and my cover was almost blown a few times. But thanks to the hectic nature of the time leading up to a wedding no one figured it out.

Almost Busted

The craziest thing that happened was when one of the bridesmaids in the wedding and her husband happened to sit across from me on my flight in. Mellonhead, his wife and most of their friends are from Nashville and I ended up flying through there on the way to Florida. I met some bachelorettes on my connection flight from Denver into Nashville who were also going to PCB with some friends they were picking up along the way.

Once all of them were on the flight out of Nashville we were talking about how I was going to be the minister in a wedding and that it was a surprise to everyone. By that point I had drank a couple of beers so I’m sure I was being a loud talker.

After landing in PCB I headed to the house that Mellonhead and his family was staying at and not long after I see a couple that looks awfully familiar. Before I know it the husband of the bridesmaid notices me and starts talking about how we were on the same flight and that I’m going to be marrying the couple.

I freaked out and rushed over to talk to them before anyone else knew what he was talking about. I said hi and once they were away from everyone else I told them how it’s a surprise to everyone and that they can’t tell anyone about it or I’ll kill them. (I’m kidding about threatening to kill them but I did tell them to keep it to themselves) What are the odds, right?

Enjoying the wedding

Somehow my cover was never blown and we were able to surprise everyone during the wedding. It was one of the coolest moments I’ve even been part of and I felt very privileged to marry two people I love and care about so much. I didn’t screw anything up and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. We laughed, we cried and an amazing man and woman dedicated their lives to each other in front of my eyes.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever officiate another wedding ceremony but it felt oddly natural to me so who knows. In the meantime two of my favorite people are now a married couple and my signature is on their marriage license. Awesome.

Stopping My Heel Striking By Changing My Gait

Now that I’m training for another marathon (that’s in less than a month) I’m starting to get back up in mileage. I’m running around 20-25 miles a week right now and my long runs are over 10 miles. My runs during the week are getting longer, too — I went out for 7 miles this morning before work, which is just under an hour of running.

Getting to double-digit mileage in one run is a big change compared to going out and running a few miles. The longer you run the more you start to notice the need for good form, a good warm-up and good nutrition. Neglecting any of these can result in some type of weird injury that will stop anyone from running.

I say this because after running this much there’s one thing that’s become clear — I’m a heel striker. It’s not the worse thing in the world when you’re running shorter distances but as I ran more and more I could tell that things were hurting that shouldn’t be. My gait is way off and it was causing some pretty serious pain.

These weren’t muscles that were hurting, they were knees, hips, IT band, arch of my foot and top of my foot. All things that can kill any hopes of running a marathon faster than I can eat a tub of hummus.

For the past week or so I’ve been figuring out a way to battle these types of pains I’ve been feeling but it never hit me that my heel striking was the root of the problem. After thinking more about it and talking to one of my buddies who is a running maniac I put it all together and decided to do something about it. I decided to completely change my gait and go from heel striking to mid-foot strike.

I didn’t really think about the fact that changing my gait is a big deal and that my muscles were going to hate me for it and I just went and did it. On my longest run so far. Yeah, that wasn’t the best idea.

For the next 4-5 days my calves were as sore as they’ve even been in my entire life and I was a little worried that I had done some serious damage. But, after time went on they healed up, became less sore and at this point I’m back to my old pace while running without much, if any, heel striking.

I can tell that putting the pressure on my calves instead of my joints is the much better way to go and ever since changing my gait I’ve had no other types of pain that I need to be worried about. I can tell my calves are still getting used to me running on my mid-foot but it’s only a matter of time before they’re used to it.

I’m really happy I made the change to my gait and if you’re heel striking you might want to think about changing yours, too. Just take it easier than I did and change it gradually. Your calves will thank you for it.

Being Mature Enough To Know I’m Immature

There was a point in my life not too long ago when I realized I was being immature. Not pick my nose and you’ve got the cooties immature but something much worse. I was immature in how I interacted with the world and what I expected from it.

From the outside I looked like I had it all together but on the inside I was floating along, doing what I thought I needed to do to live a successful life. Good job — check. Plenty of friends — check. Going to church — check. Muscles and a tan — check (lame, I know). Women — check. If you knew me around this time you would have probably thought I had everything going for me or at least I looked like I did. But what I started to realize was that I had everything I thought (and what other people thought) I wanted but nothing that I actually needed.

This is the point in my life where I was mature enough to know how immature I really was. Like my junior year of college when my metabolism changed there was something going on much deeper inside of me that needed my attention. I had been going through my life doing what I thought I should be doing but there was something missing. I had so many amazing things going on around me but I still felt empty. It was all about me but living like that only made me realize that there was never enough out there to fill me up.

From that point until now I’ve been working on being mature and it’s been a several year process up to this point. Yes, there are still times when I act stupid and have some fun, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about becoming the type of man I really want to be. Someone who has one foot planted in the present while the other foot is moving me into the future where I’m more mature in all parts of my life.

It’s not been an easy path but I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by several men (and women) who have put an investment in me that’s worth more than I’ll probably ever realize. They’re my role models, the vision of the man, father and husband I really want to be and they know what it takes for me to get there. It’s a daily struggle to focus on what they’re telling me but I can already tell it’s totally worth it.

Being immature is the easy way out and it’s not a good way to live. True maturity in all parts of my life is something worth working on and it’s never too late for anyone to start. And don’t worry, you can still pick your nose — just try not to do it in public.

Why I Owe Money On My Taxes And The Importance Of The W-4

I’ve been paying my taxes for a long time now but to be completely honest I never had any idea how it all actually worked. My tax information isn’t very complicated. It’s me and Stephanie’s W-2s and a couple other minor things so there’s not much to them. Most years I punch in a few numbers into TurboTax and like magic it shows me a couple of green amounts that end up being refunds. It usually wasn’t that much, like around $1,000 or so but over the years I’ve grown to really like refunds.

What Are Those Red Numbers?

But unfortunately this year’s taxes were a little different. After punching in the tax numbers into the assigned boxes the upward scrolling numbers on my screen weren’t green, they were red. Not good and first I thought there was something wrong with TurboTax. I changed a few of the numbers that I thought might have been the problem and the scary red dollar amounts didn’t budge.

Was it possible that we owed money on our taxes this year? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me but like I said, I didn’t really understand how taxes worked at this point. I just punched in the numbers TurboTax told me to and like magic it would tell me how much money I was going to get back. It used to be like Christmas in April but this time around it wasn’t going so well.

After the shock wore off I decided to do some research into why we owed so much money and how this could have happened to us. After searching around on the internet for a while I quickly learned why we were into the situation in the first place and the mistakes we had made to get us there. I thought it would be good to share some of these learnings so that if any of your are ever in the same situation you can make better decisions than we did.

It’s All About The W-4

When you first get a salaried job you’re given a W-4 form to fill out. It’s probably one of the most confusing forms you’ll ever see and the more you read it the more confused you will become. I’m not sure what robot was assigned to write the copy for this thing but it’s a doozy.

However, believe it or not the purpose of a W-4 is not to confuse you or make you feel stupid. It’s there to help you tell whoever’s doing your payroll how much money to take out of your paycheck each month for taxes. The money they take out is called withholding allowance and what you choose on your W-4 will determine how much they withhold each time you get paid. The amount that is withheld eventually ends up on your pay stub under the taxes section (always our favorite part).

The most common way to determine your withholding is by choosing exemptions, which you can select on the W-4. These include single, married, kids (dependents), low wages and so on and the more you choose the less you’ll be taking out of your check each payday. These exemptions are then added up and the total number of exemptions you have will then determine how much you’ll be withholding each time you’re paid.

The more exemptions you choose, the larger your paycheck it going to be but the less you’re going to be paying in taxes during the year. This is great short-term but it can come back to bite you later and this is what happened to me and Stephanie. We both filed as married on our W-4s which meant we were withholding less taxes than we should have. Mix that and a few other factors like getting paid more this year than last year and we still owed Uncle Sam a good chunk of change (and Uncle Sam always gets what he wants).

Understanding Your W-4

I guess what I’m saying is be sure to do the right thing on your W-4 and you should be ok. Now that we both know this neither of us are claiming any exemptions which should help even everything out. Who knows, maybe we’ll get another refund next year?

If you need an easy way to figure out how much you’re withholding simply divide your total taxed income (do it for both Federal and State Taxes) by how much total income you’ve brought in year to date. For example, if you have earned $10,000 and have paid $1,000 in federal taxes then you’re withholding 10% of your earnings on the federal side. Do the same thing for your state taxes and you’ll know your the total amount of withholdings.

The next thing you need to do is figure out what federal and state tax bracket you’re in and if your tax bracket percentage is higher than what you’re withholding from your earnings each month then you’re going to owe the tax man at the end of the year just like I do. On the other hand if you’re withholding more from your earnings than what’s required by your combined federal and state tax brackets then be ready for Christmas in April because you’re going to get a refund.

Let’s Go Over This One More Time

Just to be clear let me go over this one more time. If you’re withholding 10% of your earnings for federal taxes and you’re in a tax bracket that’s 20% then you’re going to end up owing back 10% of your total yearly earnings to the federal government at the end of the year. Believe me, you don’t want to do this. It’s not a lot of fun.

The easiest thing to do, even if you’re married, is to claim yourself as single on your W-4. That way you’ll be withholding more than enough from your earnings during the year and you won’t have to worry about it. If you’re making an obscene amount of money you might want to take out even more but if that’s how you’re rolling you’ve already hired a good CPA to take care of this in the first place.

I hope this is helpful because the last thing I want to happen to you is what happened to me. No one likes to owe taxes and if you follow this advice you should never have to. If you have any thoughts, questions or corrections on this topic of taxes feel free to let me know, I’m learning just like you are.

I’m Running The San Francisco Marathon (For Real This Time)

I’ve decided to run the SF Marathon this year and I have two months to train for it (that’s enough time, right?). I’m hoping that the third time’s the charm since the last two times I had intentions of running the 26.2 I ended up getting hurt before I could actually run the race.

One year it was my shoulder and last year it was my poor, little pinkie toe. Both times I was just a couple of weeks away from the race but I never made it to the start line. I’m sure it’s possible for me to run a marathon without hurting myself beforehand but there’s really only one way to find out.

So yeah, I just spent $145 to basically run myself to death which I guess makes sense if you’re into this kind of thing. I’m feeling pretty good about running a full marathon at this point but I’m not gonna lie — the fact that I only have nine weeks to train is freaking me out juuuust a little bit. Although saying nine weeks does sound a lot better than two months. Hey, every little bit helps at this point.

The good thing is that I ran a trail half marathon a little over a month ago and for half of that I was literally running up a mountain. I finished feeling good and it didn’t take that much out of me so that gives me hope that I can get myself into the kind of shape I need to be come June 16th. I can totally do this, right?

So you heard it here, kiddos — I’m running a marathon and training started today.

Getting Back Into Working Out? Take It Easy On Yourself.

I’m going through one of those times when it’s hard to get back into the groove of a routine I want to do. That routine for me is getting up in the morning and running and it’s been tough for me to make it happen.

A year or so ago this situation would have really taken a toll on me mentally. The mornings I wouldn’t run would consume my day and give me an excuse if I didn’t feel like doing something. “I didn’t get my run in this morning.” would become my catch-all for being irritable and for not getting as much stuff done during the day at work.

In situations like this I also used to go to my backup plan of not getting my run in — drinking more caffeine. That would give me a temporary fix of the natural energy that running usually provided but it didn’t last long and I would end up drinking more and running less. Not good (which is why I quit).

Now I have a much more easy going attitude toward getting back into my morning running groove. I look at it with more patience and less pressure on myself in bouncing back into where I was before I got off track. For instance, I was out of town for most of March and even though I got some runs in here and there I was totally thrown off my normal schedule.

Now that I’ve been back for a couple weeks I’m starting to get back to where I was but I know it’s going to take at least a month to get back to running consistently. My entire schedule was thrown off and I’m staying up much later which means I’m not getting up earlier and not running. But, little by little I’m getting back there and it’s going to happen, I just need to keep chipping away at it.

So on one hand I want to always be running in the mornings and doing it consistently. Deep down it’s what I love to do and it gets me ready for the 60+ hour workweek I put myself through on a regular basis. But I also need to cut myself some slack when I know I need some time to get back to where I want to be.

Running and working out consistently is a mental game more than anything and the last thing I want to do is go through unneeded and self-inflicted mental pain while on my way to physical gain. I just keep moving forward and soon enough I’ll get to where I need to be once my mind, body and schedule is ready. So take it easy, you’ll get there.

Getting To The Airport Early

I’m standing in the security line at the Austin airport after nearly a week at SXSW and something feels different. As I notice people getting all anxious about missing their flight I realize, for once, that I actually have plenty of time. I’m pretty sure this has never happened before and I have to admit that it feels pretty good.

Even though I’m not one to stress out about things it can get kind of crazy when you’re literally the last person through the gate before they shut the doors. As I’m standing here this morning, already checked in and still over an hour away from my plane boarding, there’s a sense of calm about me that I’m not really used to. I continue to zig-zag my way through this seemingly never ending line of people prepping to go through metal detectors and body scanners and there’s no doubt in my mind I’m going to make it with plenty of time to spare. It doesn’t make for nearly of an exciting morning but damn does it feel good.

Being places on time (or ahead of time) is something I could definitely get used to. There’s nothing wrong with not having to run to wherever I’m going and in fact it’s kind of nice. Thanks to my ridiculous focus on getting up early making it to things ahead of time is only getting easier and here’s to it staying that way.

I’ve never written a blog post on my mobile phone and this was my first shot at doing it. It wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be. 

I Love Hotel Fitness Centers

There’s just something about hotel fitness centers that make me happy. Figuring out if there is one and where it’s located is usually one of the first things I do after checking in and getting into my room. I find the information book with all of the stuff in it and somewhere between the room service menu and the emergency escape map are the details on where I can get my workout in.

Part of the fun of finding and using a hotel gym is seeing what all is does (or doesn’t) offer. Depending on where you’re staying this can be vary a lot and just because you’re spending a lot for your room doesn’t mean you’re going to have the top of the line equipment to work with. I’ve been to a lot of different hotels and have seen it all — anything from one broken treadmill and a pull-up bar to rooms full of top of the line machines, saunas and robes to put on after your warm waterfall post-workout shower.

What I like the most about hotel workouts is the feeling of being somewhere new and having to figure out how I’m going to get in what I need with what’s available. It’s also fun because I’m usually in there by myself most of the time. This means I can crank up the ESPN on the TV and do my thing without anyone bothering me. It’s like having my own personal gym for the hour or so I’m in there and for some weird reason I really like it. With only a few exceptions the equipment’s always new, the water’s always cold and there are always plenty of clean towels to go around.

If you never use the hotel fitness centers when you travel, I highly suggest you try one out next time. It keeps you in your workout groove and gets you up and ready to take on the day no matter where you are. I’ve had trips to Vegas where working out was the only thing that kept me awake and moving. Nothing keeps me going like sweating out the night before on a nearly-new hotel treadmill. It’s not fun at the time but I always thank myself for it later.

In other words, Hotel fitness centers are the bomb so be sure to take full advantage of them the next time you’re staying somewhere out of town. I always do and you should, too.

photo credit: boulderlodging.com

The 15 Minute Gap

I’ve got a 15 minute gap problem and I’m not sure what to do about it. The 15 minute gap is the time between when I should start doing something and when I actually start doing it. It’s usually created by getting distracted by something, sleeping in for another few minutes or some other non-productive procrastination.

Instead of moving when I need to I wait until the last minute, which results in all kinda of stuff I don’t want. Things like having to run to the train, being late to meetings and unneeded anxiety. I do this to myself and I do it way too often.

You wouldn’t think that 15 minutes would mean a whole lot in the scheme of things but it does. There’s a big difference between being on time or being 15 minutes late. There’s an even bigger difference between being 5 minutes late (which is usually acceptable) and being 20 minutes late (which is just plain embarrassing). The 15 minute gap bites me every time but it’s still hard to overcome.

I guess it all comes down to willpower and the ability to trade a little bit of temporary discomfort for longer term gain. It’s easy to say that now but for some reason in the moment it’s a lot harder to actually do it. I guess I’m glad that I recognize that I’m doing it and soon the 15 minute gap will be hopefully be something I never have to deal with again.

Thoughts On Learning To Snowboard For The First Time

This past weekend I was in Tahoe for an isocket offsite and after spending two days inside working me and the rest of the team were excited to go hit the slopes at Squaw Valley. Seeing as it was the first time I had ever been to Tahoe I was really looking forward to trying out snowboarding, even though I had been told it was really hard to learn.

Snowboarding vs. Skiing

While renting my gear it was decision time — am I going to go skiing or snowboarding? I hadn’t done either up to this point so I could have gone either way.

“If this is your first time on the mountain you should definitely go skiing.”, said every single person I talked to. They all told me that snowboarding for the first time is hard an painful. If I was to ski I would pick it up much faster and would be able to get more time on my feet and not my butt.

I had already made the decision of what I wanted to do way before getting to Tahoe. I was going to learn to snowboard. I could tell the decision even surprised the younger guy in the hoodie who was helping me pick the right gear to rent. He was a long-time snowboarder and me going the snowboarding route seemed to put a smile on his face. As he was getting my board ready I asked him every possible question I could in an attempt to better understand what it took to ride a small piece of fiberglass down a really big mountain.

Everything Is New

When I made it to Squaw it was like landing on another planet. Huge mountains with people sliding down them, big machines that were taking them to the top and an overall style and culture that I had never experienced before. A few things I noticed were awesome looking snow pants, lots of dreads and a parking lot full of Subaru Outbacks. “Welcome to Tahoe.”, I thought to myself while walking around the ski resort.

At the bottom of the slopes we followed the rest of the herd into the tram station that was being fed by a handful of turnstiles. All of us made our way into one of the cable cars and before you know it we were practically on top of the mountain. I had my snowboard in hand like I knew what was going on but I had no clue where we were or what I should do next. Everything was new and I was figuring it all out on the fly and thanks to the rest of the guys who were with me.

Stand Up, Fall Down

Me, on my butt after falling again. 

Then it was time to get down to business. I was all good with the whole “just look like I know what I’m doing” for a while but things got real once it was time to strap my boots to the board. I wasn’t even sure how to do it but even then I figured I would be able to snowboard with no problem once I was ready to go. My friend Dom showed me how it was done and before you know it there was nothing standing between me and my first run down one of the easiest trails at Squaw. I think it was called Golden Flower or something like that.

I remember my first fall being on the softer side as I was still in the area where everyone locks in their boots before carving down the mountain. I had no speed and I had barely even stood all the way up before falling all the way down.

Over the next couple hours I fell down more times that I can remember. In fact, I don’t want to remember them at all because they really started to hurt. A lot. Dom being the awesome friend he is stuck with me through these first two hours and helped me as much as anyone could. But I just kept falling and getting up. Falling and getting up. It was tiring, it was embarrassing and I was only a few shoulder, wrist and butt plants away from giving it up completely. Dom was nothing but encouraging but every man has his limits.

In those couple of hours we only used the lifts twice. It was exhausting and painful for me and had to be just as bad for poor Dom.

The Breakthrough

It felt good to finally figure it out. 

Just before lunch there was a magical moment that happened. Something Dom said finally stuck and from that point on I felt like I had control of the board and started going faster and faster without falling down. I still caught an edge here and there or lost balance while trying to get started but I was able to snowboard down the entire path that once took me an hour in less than ten minutes. I guess you could say it was my Neo/Matrix moment and it felt incredible.

For the next few hours after lunch I was on my own and things only got easier. I even got to the point to where I could snowboard straight into the entrance of the lift and didn’t have to unclip my bindings to make it in there. It’s the little things.

It Was Worth The Pain

I rode the lift many more times after that and had an amazing time. I was finally able to snowboard on my own and even though it took me falling down more times than I would have liked it was totally worth it.

Getting to the point to where I could feel the speed of the mountain was awesome and I can’t wait to do it again. From here on out it’s only going to get easier and if you’re thinking about giving snowboarding a try I say go for it. I have some ideas on how to make it even easier (and less painful) to learn for first timers but I’ll save those for another day.

Photo credit: My fantastic instructor, Dom