To Ponder...

Here I sit in the dining area of the Copper Center Lodge (thanks for rural wireless) enjoying a bowl of beef barley soup and half a chef salad. Today I rented a 2006 Chevy Silverado with my company credit card and headed north to bring the long awaited pool table slate to the Native Village of Kluti-Kaah and to interview some potential employees. As I left Anchorage, it was raining incredibly hard and although I was driving a big, heavy truck, I could feel the powerful wind gusts pushing against the vehicle. During the four hour drive I was once again marveling at the amazing vistas as I climbed above the Matanuska River and somewhere around the third hour I spotted something dark in the bushes along the side of the left side of the road and as I looked in my rearview mirror, a black bear ran across the road. It was a nice surprise and it yanked me out of my introspective daydream.

My thoughts as of late have been jumbled up more than the Beastie Boys remix of Intergalactic. The primary reason is not the fact that my hair is heading south faster than October geese that will never return... It has three letters, starts with a "J", ends with a "B" and has a vowel shaped like a circle in the middle. Anyhow, I had a great summer and with the support of my family I kept myself busy (distracted) riding and racing my bicycle, though the times in between have been a challenge for me. My family is as good as it gets but too many times lately I have a furrowed brow, act like a jackass-jerk and take them for granted - which is the highest crime because they are my life and will always be there for me. I've been having trouble keeping my apparent inability to effectively deal with my personal issues away from how I treat the ones I love. This has to change. I have to change.

This brief time away from my daily routine affords me some perspective and in this public (global) forum, I will say to myself and whoever is reading that I will make an honest effort to learn from mistakes I have made and grow stronger as a husband, father, sibling, and friend. I feel fortunate that I have been the one to call myself on my own bullshit (this time) but I know that the loved ones in my life won't hesitate to provide the proverbial looking glass for me to see the man in the mirror and keep me from steppin' out of line. Now you're in: You catch me assin' out and I'm counting on you to set me straight because sometimes I really need help getting back in line.