Road 199

I have been struggling with some issues lately in my life. These issues range into a few facets of my life and I might clear some of it up in this post. Thought I think it will take a lot of time to work though all the issues and I wonder in a sense if it is partially mid-life crisis. One thing I know is I don’t have any desire to buy a new sports car. It is more than just filing these desires and wonders with monetary items. When talking and thinking about all these items though I have found for the sake of comparison that I use different items to describe my thoughts.

I been looking back at the last 15 years or so of my life and in depth the last 4 years keep making me think in depth. I know the last 4 years or so I have been subconsciously starting to look at my life. Now I seem to think I am at some cross roads in my life and that some choices I will make in the near future will affect my life for the next 60 years (Yes I plan to live to be 100).

Some of my thoughts and questions I have are where am I going in life? What have I accomplished? Am I living my life the way I want? Am I going to make changes in my life for the future of my health and happiness? Can I find happiness? What makes me happy? Who cares in the end? Should I be doing things in my life in different ways or with different people?

This weekend I decided to kind of run away and take a look at my life a bit. The idea was to think a lot about the path my life is on and see if I could look ahead on a couple of paths and see if I could see where they lead. Here is a bit of the story and some of my thoughts along the way. I headed out Friday night with my truck packed for the weekend of camping in the mountains. I had no goal, or direction but to head basically west. I would camp, buy food, whatever as I needed on the trip.



I drove Friday night up to an area above Red Feather called Dead Man. As I reached the area and dusk was setting I looked for a place to pull over and put up the tent in the waning light. I had a fire and drank some beer and stared at the stars. They are truly beautiful to stare at when away from the city lights. I had a good night sleep and laid there for once with no hurry to get up. When I did I packed up everything and then went for a run. I ran up Dead Man hill climbing 700 feet in 2.5 miles. In the end I covered 5 miles in 51 minutes. Yep still had to get my run in to keep the mind as sane as I can at least.



I then headed west again in search of whatever I could fine. My motto was hmmm I wonder where that road goes as I turned off and headed on a new trail. I was driving along this one trail when I saw this tail disappear under a bush. As I got closer I saw it was a bird. This was the strangest acting bird I have ever seen. When I got close to the bird he got into the road. He criss-crossed back in forth across the road in front of my truck. As I kept moving forward the bird did also never moving from the road. I had to get out and scare it to the side of the road only for the bird to try to get back in front of my truck. I wonder did this bird have suicide thoughts by jumping in front of a moving truck. I finally got the bird to move to the side and I got by but then found this bird running along the side of my truck. He would bounce his head into bush branches but still keep running along chasing me. If I stopped the bird would again jump in front of my truck. Finally I did get by the bird and left it behind me, and as I looked out my rear view mirror only to find the bird chasing me still down the road.

I later found that this road was a dead end and turned around to head back out. As I did I encountered the same bird again going the other direction. The same thing as before happened just going the other directions. So the questions I have are who is the strange acting suicidal bird in my life? What did this bird and his actions tell me? Will I end up watching in my rear view mirror of life this same thing happen to someone? Will the bird die anyway and all that is happening is just prolonging the inevitable?



I continued along wondering where each road went and trying them. As I found many times that they all lead to a dead end. This hits me as a bit depressing wondering how many times I am going to run down a dead end road before I fine one that goes through to a path I need to be on. I think in my life I have bounced along a bunch of dead ends already especially in the last few years with both jobs ending and with other areas as I looked around in my life.

I was on the road labeled 199 which is now becoming an important part of my thoughts. Let’s see if you can follow all the pieces to this road as you read and associate it to life and what you know from my writing above.

It was a good road. One that seemed well traveled and showed signs of being the right road. It looked like many people had traveled this road ahead of me though I didn’t see anyone on this road at the moment. In fact I have seen more people lately on a different road and one that I might really be on and not this one. In any case I continued on 199 and soon there became a few problems in the road. I got out of the truck looked at the first set of problems and did some assessment. I finally determined that if I maneuvered correctly and aimed everything at the right angle I could fix this problem and continue on the road. I was right and I was able to maneuver going this direction but I knew that if the road dead ended like so many had before I was going to be in trouble. If I got through it going this direction would be fine coming from the other direction I would not get through it.



Well as you see I made it and then the next obstacles in the road hit me. I don’t have pictures of them but I handled them the same way as the first one. I first stopped the truck, got out, looked over the problem, walked down the path and assessed the issue the best I could. Each time, I looked back up the path I had just traveled to this point. I thought of what was behind me and I felt stuck. As each problem went behind me it made the return journey less and less a viable option. At one point the option was posed to me as continue on this path/road in hopes that the journey ends with me getting out or try and return to face the problems behind me again. I continued on with some of the problems causing damage as I drug a tail pipe on rocks and put a dent in my tail gate of my truck.



Suddenly all hope arose and I opened up into a field. I could see a cabin in the distance and I thought wow someone else out here with me. The road looked open again and the problems were all behind me. I was feeling pretty good and I came to a fork in the road. One fork lead up and the other down. I thought to myself I should take the high road as that is what should always happen. So I did and as I drove along the two roads ended up merging again. So did it matter if I took the high road or the low road will I just end up in the same place?



I continued on enjoying the view for a while longer when suddenly my heart sank when I then pulled out of some trees to find what I feared, the dead end. The road seemed to end where this ditch and washed out the road. I was going to have to turn around and go all the way back and figure out problems again. I am beginning to get upset and worried that I won’t ever find the path of happiness for me and get out of this predicament in 1 piece. I did notice though that across the ditch there was a section I could get out IF I could get across the ditch. I cannot see myself trying to go backwards so I rolled up the windows and took the stream at speed. I made it across and climbed up out of the area.

I am still traveling down this road. Where I am going to come out is still in question but I am still moving. The next obstacle I encountered was a bridge. The bridge sign read. “Cross at your own risk weight capacity unknown”. As you can see I put the truck on it as I kept moving forward down this road.





This ended up being the last of the problems and since I am now writing all this it shows I made it through. I ended up coming out into an area I knew and was able to make it home. This road seemed to show me a lot now if I could only make sense of it all. I know I am on some path in my life now. I know some things I want to happen in the future. I am not sure who, how, when, or where.

Will it end in a dead end or will it come out like road 199? What problems will I still encounter? What forks in the road will I take? Will I make the right decisions for me? Will I end up living the life I want and be happy or will I end up stuck in the problems never moving forward? Will I have to travel this road alone or will there be someone with me that will support and help me through it? Anyone else find themselves in this same positon?

If anyone has any answers to any of this or comments I am always anxious to listen and hear different points of view.

What is it?

The other day in the office I went to this guy’s desk that has a jar of M&M’s for people to have when they NEED A LITTE sugar fix. The jar sits at the end of his desk and you just step in the office and take A FEW. The drawer under the desk was slightly a jar and as I GOT SOME M&M’s out I noticed the Pink object in the drawer. I took Cubed back and when he looked he had the same reaction I had.

Take a look at the picture below and tell me what you think it is? I will post what it is later.

Who is Tired?

Here is a small synopsis of my life in the last week. I thought I might share just to show you all what NOT to do.

Thursday 19th – Worked all day 7-5 and then worked for a private client 5-8pm

Friday 20th – Worked all day 7-4 and then to a private client 5-10:30pm Ran 4.2 miles at noon.

Saturday 21st – Up at 5 to Denver for Softball games back to work at private client 3pm to 1:30am Sunday morning

Sunday 22nd – Ran 10 miles in morning, Movie and then played 1.5 hours of basketball with only 10 guys.

Monday 23rd – Ran 5 miles at 6am, worked from 7-4:30 then to private client to work from 6pm to 5:30am Tuesday morning

Tuesday 24th – Slept maybe a restless 1 hour and then back to work at 7-4. Back to a private client at 5pm today. I am looking at having 1 hour of sleep in 41 hours of being awake.

The Question is will I get a run in today still?

Yes/No List

I was in a conversation the other day and was associating words and what they mean. Here is the way I see these words and what they mean. When someone asks you a question you can answer with these words and here is what you are meaning. For example if someone asks you "Would you go camping with me? You can answer absofuckinlutly." OR use a different word listed below. I would recommend printing off this list until you become familer with it. :)

Here is the list for your convience.

Nope = 100% No

Improbable = 10% Yes and 90% No

Unlikely = 20% Yes and 80% No

Questionable = 30% Yes and 70% No

Conceivably = 40% Yes and 60% No

Possibly= 50% Yes and 50% No

Maybe = 60% Yes and 40% No

Sure = 70% Yes and 30% No

Perhaps = 80% Yes and 20% No

Probably = 90% Yes and 10% No

Definitely (Absofuckinglutly) = 100% Yes

Steamboat Springs

We are in Steamboat Springs for a softball tournament for my daughter. We drove in on Thursday evening with beautiful weather and the Yampa valley is tremendous for scenery. I love this place in the summer.



We began softball play on Friday morning with 2 back to back games. This picture is one I took via a cell phone from the bleachers of my daughter. She batted a 1000 in that game and it was awesome to watch her. In this picture you can see the ball at the top flying out and she got a double on that hit. I am a happy dad. We have a lot of turmoil on this team with parents and the coaches so it is kind of rough sometimes with all the politics involved but truly watching your daughter play like that is one of the best things a dad can view.

On Saturday we had to drive to Craig Colorado for games. This posed a bit of a problem for us as our son also was re taking the ACT tests at a local high school here in Steamboat. So we gave him the car to go take the test and we looked for rides to Craig. We ended up with my daughter riding with one family, my wife riding with another family and I was to ride with yet another family. Since we are out of town everyone only had 1 spot in their cars to get us all to Craig.

Well this worked out great and due to construction on the road here where we are staying I arranged to walk out to a main street to be picked up by my ride on their way by. I watched as my daughter and wife both left in their cars with the rides they caught and my ride was not quite ready yet and so I sat on the side of the road with a bag I packed (I was going to run 4 miles in Craig with another person) and the cooler for the games we were headed to watch. As I was sitting there on the cooler some jeep with Nevada plates stopped backed up to me, rolled down his window and said “Hey, dud you need a ride somewhere?” I replied with “Yea, but my ride is coming along here in a bit, but thanks for the offer it was appreciated.” He said “no problem, take care” and pulled away. My ride showed up right after.
My wife soon after texted me and here is pretty close what transpired.
Wife: Did you get a ride yet?

Me: Yes, they were running a bit late. Some guy in a jeep though stopped and asked if I needed a ride.
Wife: Gees, well you waited and are with the family right?
Me: No, I called them and they were going to be late so I took a ride with Dan (Name made up by the family I am riding with), strange smell in this Jeep also?
Wife: You are kidding right?
Me: No, Dan is pretty cool guy. We should be there soon.

At this point the texting stopped and she called me. While on the phone I hear the people in her car laughing. She said if you’re not joking I am going to kill you to which a guy in the car with her is laughing and says you won’t if Dan kills him first. It became a big joke the whole day of hey where is Dan? You riding with Dan back home? On the other side of that coin my wife was not happy and pretty upset with me. I can’t understand why as families I have only known 6 months through this softball team knew immediately I was joking but she took it serious. So guess my little joke was not funny to her but hey the rest of us had fun.

Cheer for a Cure

How is it I didn't win with that cheer?

Re-GRAND OPENING

I have decided that all seems clear now and I am reopening my blog to not need logins. I want to say thanks to everyone for your understanding while I worled through that time.

Buggy

Happy Birthday Cubed

Well for Cubed’s birthday some people picked him up a gift that they knew he would like. Cubed got his new Chia Pet today that is one of Homer Simpson. Cubed is now going to shave his head and plant the Homer Chia Pet and then the race is on to see which will grow their hair first. Please feel free to ask him on his site to post updated pictures on the competition. You might to look closely though as they look a lot alike.

This Raised $205 to fight Cancer!

Ever since he was a small child, our own Buggy B has had a dream; Buggy has always wanted to be able to enter the Mr. Relay Contest on behalf of our company, dressed as a cheerleader.

But alas, the years come and they go, and it hasn’t happened yet.

That’s why the Relay Team is asking you, (yes, you,) for your support. Please go online today, www.relayforlife.com, and pledge now. Only you can send Buggy to the Big Leagues, dressed as a cheerleader.

Don’t let another day go by without letting Buggy know you care, by pledging, $5, $10, or whatever you can spare.

Think of the children. Think of Buggy.

We need to raise $100 by Wednesday night in order to make this dream a reality- again, visit www.relayforlife.com, selected Team Our Company, follow the instructions until you find Buggy's name and pledge. Pledge now.

Thank you for your support.

What a Weekend

About a week ago a friend of mine called up and asked if my daughter would like to play in a few basketball tournaments over the summer. I of course said yeah and signed her up. Yep I love basketball. If you remember I played with the girls at practice last Wednesday and was a bit sore the next day. Well this weekend we had our first tournament in Colorado Springs.

On Saturday morning we got up at 5am and were on the road at 5:30 am for the 2 hours drive. We got to the springs by 7:30 where we were able to practice till 9am. We did and then found out that we were going to be missing a bunch of girls. We were supposed to have 18 girls to fill 2 teams. We had 10 show up. So that meant the teams had 5 each and they would have to play the whole game. Since we were in the tournament for free and was there because the tournament director was out coach he went and got the other teams coaches to allow us to merge all our girls and play all the games as 1 team. What this meant is we played 6 games instead of 3 for Saturday.

We were creamed in every game by near 50 point spreads. The teams that came were great teams and our girls having been a mix of bad news bears setup just could not compete at that level. We held on though and ended the day with some very tired girls and got to the hotel around 10:30pm.

This morning I got up early and went out for a run. It sucked and I hurt throughout the hour run I was going to do. Yes I decided on an hour run instead of a mileage. I ended up finding this really great trail and running along it. This picture is from that run. Though it hurt it was great being out at sun rise seeing the area.



We went up and started our games at 8am this morning again as a mixed single team. The tournament director that is the official coach came to these games and coached. HE was fun to watch how he handled the girls and you could tell he talked to them at their level yet he didn’t talk down to them in basketball terms and treated them as adults. It was fun to watch and he was so motivational to the girls that we actually led a game for 2 minutes until losing it. Even when things were bad he had something positive to say. Like when he heard they lost 56 to 11 he cringed and then said well look at it this way you all made 11 points double digits and then smiled at them.

We lost both games which meant that now the 2 teams we had in the tournament had to play each other for 7th and 8th place. So we split the girls into 2 teams of 5 and let them play. Again I think we wore out the girls playing so much but they all earned a lot and will be better players in time. It is still court game time that counts for learning.