Aaron Scheidies :: What a Guy! What a Year!

Well.... Let me start this entire Journal Entry section of my Thailand trip by saying that Aaron was a wonderful travel companion!

For those who don’t know how this trip came about... Aaron Scheidies was asked to speak at the Young Presidents Organization family conference in Phuket. The reason they selected him is because they thought his story would be interesting for both adults and kids at this event. Because Aaron is blind, he requires a guide for a trip like this. Aaron is one of our C•Different Athletes — here is his write-up:

Aaron, at 24 years has overcome more obstacles already than many conquer in a lifespan. Born with a hereditary eye condition that slowly deteriorates his central vision, Aaron now has 10% of the vision of a fully sighted person. After battling through hard times in his early teens, Aaron found the sport of triathlon and turned his life around.

Beginning with sprint distance triathlon and continuing up the triathlon pyramid, Aaron is now a three time triathlon World Champion and has traveled around the world competing in over 70 triathlon races. In 2005, Aaron teamed up with four other blind individuals and their athlete guides through the C•Different Foundation and traveled to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. There, they conquered the world's most grueling triathlon event: the Ironman, which consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile run. Aaron, along with the rest of the CDF athletes, became the first blind athletes to complete the Ironman.

Just as Aaron is a multi-dimensional athlete, he also excels in all aspects of life. In college at Michigan State U Aaron had a perfect 4.0 GPA. He is a leader with in the community there, serving as president of the MSU Triathlon Club. Aaron volunteered over 100 hours of his time, helping other students with disabilities; and was later inducted into the Athletes with Disabilities Hall of Fame. He graduated with a BS in Kinesiology from MSU and is currently enrolled at the University of Washington where he plans to earn a Doctorate of Physical Therapy.

In 2005 Aaron added modeling to his resume. He has been featured in a 2005 Levi's national ad campaign. His likeness has appeared in GQ, Esquire and Men's Health magazines. Aaron was also recently named the 2006 USAT PC Athlete of the Year.

Aaron and his story are being featured in the documentary film Victory Over Darkness.
Click or more about Aaron and other C•Different Athletes.

JW Marriott Phuket & the YPO Conference

This hotel is just so nice. I think the nicest I've ever stayed at. Dinner reservations are required for the restaurants here. At 6pm they do a sunset firedance show with traditional thai dancing girls walking on the far side of the fire dancers. The whole show is performed over an infinity pool that is the central area of the resort.

When you arrive at you table for dinner, there is a sign there welcoming you by name. Last night we ate at The Grill, and our table said “Mr. Oakes”. Everything in this country is geared toward the man to pay and be in charge. If Aaron and I are standing there with luggage, they take his luggage; if I hand over payment, they hand him the change or the bill to sign..... It’s more funny than anything, but sometimes we laugh and say, “Are you kidding??!!”

Anyway, back to the JW — this morning Aaron and I went out for a run on the beach (not together, he is too fast for me) but we both happened on three elephants taking a bath in the ocean at the same time (they were being cleaned by their trainers). It was soooo wonderful to see and I am so very sorry I didn't have my camera with me to capture it! They were dunking their heads and coming up and shaking out their ears. I can't be sure they were enjoying it, but I like to think that they were.

After the run we got ready for our day with the YPO. We checked in and did a media check for Aaron's speech. It looks like things should go smoothly. Then, we enjoyed the most amazing breakfast at one of the restaurants — the spread included every sort of food you could imagine. I had waffles with berries and chocolate syrup and fried noodles. Aaron had passion fruit, pancakes and stir fry noodles.

We took a walk after breakfast around the resort — checking out the different pools. There is the main one which is the longest and accented in shades of orange and yellow, and the blue pool which is all done in shades of blue and with gray towels. The blue pool has a swim up bar under a waterfall. Then, there is a pool all done in taupe and browns.

That afternoon we attended a conference session by Michael McManus who was the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agent whose story was told in the Johnny Depp movie Blow. He scared the room with his stats and videos on drug use and drug users, telling very interesting and scary stories about his experiences with drug culture.

After that, we spent some time at the blue pool — it was very peaceful and perfect outside. Hot, but not roasting — and the loungers were super comfy. We saw over to the pool bar for a mai tai and a pina colada and then soaked up some sun. Also, we’ve been talking basically non-stop for many days now about Aaron’s speech.... practicing... going over what he’ll say...

Following our escape at the pool, we cleaned up and re-joined the conference activities. This time we attended an amazing Self Healing seminar. Dr. Jaime Licauco took us through self-healing visualization exercises. Everyone in the class was interesting and interested.

It’s New Years Day too >> and everyone was getting excited about the nights festivities. They planned an enormous feast on the beach for us as well as all kinds of entertainment like puppet shows, music, a performance band, kids games & activities and finally a big fireworks show to mark the final moments of 2006. Aaron and I browsed all there was to see and made ice cream concoctions right there on the beach, and lounged in gigantic loungers before sipping a glass of champagne on the beach under the fireworks. I recalled that spending New Years on a warm tropical beach under the open sky and fireworks had been something I always wanted to do — and that moment lived up to all expectations in the white soft sands of Phuket and the Andaman Sea.

After Midnight rang in, we lazily headed back to our room. I feel asleep about 1, while Aaron stayed awake working on this speech until about 2. We had our final day and most important day ahead of us still.

Game day. 6:30a was the wake-up call. Aaron went for a swim in the huge resort pool and I tweaked the presentation. I was really nervous now, while Aaron seemed calmer than he'd been about the event. We had a quick breakfast and two cups of coffee each (not great for my nerves) and then headed to the keynote conference hall. Everything seemed in place, and people were milling around and happy to meet us.

Aaron did an amazing job! The audience seemed riveted and the presentation slides and two dvd's we showed went over great. Aaron spoke while I forwarded the slides and gave the queues to the audio/visual crew for the dvd's. It went very smoothly! And, man was I relieved when it was over!!!

We hung around for the next two speakers, had some lunch, had a massage on the beach, and then ran off for an elephant jungle trek! The day was jam packed — when we got back to the hotel, we changed into as close as all-white as we could for the all-white party on the beach.

We sat on these indian style platforms that were decorated with white cushions and draped in white linens and enjoyed indian foods and conversation with our fellow guests (a family from New Jersey). It was marvelous. Then, we were asked to write our hopes and dreams on a slip of paper with a ribbon attached to tie to a thai lantern and to release into the sky. Very cool effect with the fire lit white lanterns heading into the nights sky.

Wow. What a trip and what an adventure. We went to bed happy and excited and sad that the roller coaster was about to come to a stop. We had a 4:15a wake-up call.... And, then, by 5am, we were on our way back home: Phuket to Bangkok to Taipei to LA (and then aaron to Seattle).