Changes a coming?

For many years now, my favorite song has been "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" by U2. It's summed up how I've felt for as long as I can remember. I'm not sure why I often feel that way. It has nothing to do with my relationship with my beautiful Jan - God knows - that's the only thing in my life that I've done really well. Why she tolerates my restless nature - I can't begin to guess but I'm so happy that she does.

Frequent readers of my blog will recall that I'm always worried about living my life 'right' - and not missing any part of it that I can live the way I think I should.

Recent visits with reality and mortality have me really thinking about it even more lately and the restlessness seems to be kicking-in stronger. I'm having problems when wondering why we work so hard some times to just acquire more crap and plan for that future day of retiring - while the whole time possibly not spending the best years of our lives more focused on the things we really want to do.

I think we have our class systems all screwed up and I sometimes buy into it. I get disappointed in myself sometimes when I realize how much I've bought into the class system myself. I think I'd rather retire to a funky trailer with wonderful memories of all I've done with my wife in the locations I want to do them in - in the situations I want to do them in - than have a great house and nice cars for the rest of my days.

I've accomplished a lot of things in my life and I'm proud of that, but now, as I spend many hours alone in hotel room after hotel room, I wonder really why? Of course the answer is to make money - pretty decent money actually - but it takes me away from my wife and the things I want to do and the situations I want to exist in. I can certainly live on less money in situations that I'd rather be in.

Now, don't get me wrong - our current house in Florida and our current daily routines is not the way I want to exist either. Just not being "on the road in pursuit of money" is not the answer I'm looking for. Of course, it takes money to make some breaks as well and what I should really do is formulate the plan and then put it into place over time. Just not too much time - the sand is falling through the hourglass.

Kenny Chesney has just come out with a new album and it has a wonderful, wonderful song on it called "Spirit of a Storm". I recommend downloading it on iTunes or buying the CD.

The lyrics are below...

There's a spirit of a storm in my soul
A restlessness that I can't seem to tame
Thunder and lightning follow everywhere I go
There's a spirit of a storm in my soul.

There's a hurricane that's raging through my blood
I can't find a way to calm the sea
Maybe I'll find someday the waters aren't so rushed
Right now they've got the best of me
And oh, it's been a long, long time
Since I had real peace of mind
So I'm just going to sit right here
In this old chair till this storm rolls by.

Oh, maybe it's just the way I am
Maybe I won't ever change
So I'm just going to sit right here
In this old chair and just soak up the rain.

There's a spirit of a storm in my soul
Every time I think it's gone away
Dark clouds gather, that old wind begins to blow
The sun's going to shine someday I hope
There's a spirit of a storm in my soul, in my soul.

Jan's Birthday on the Outer Banks

Jan and I have been away from the Outer Banks - which is where we consider home - for 3 years now. With Jan's 40th birthday coming up, I asked her what she wanted to do for it - and she said she wanted to go home and see her friends.

So on Wednesday morning, we flew to the Outer Banks and moved into a house that I'd rented for the week. I rented a super-nice house with 5 bedrooms and 4 baths so that we could have folks come from out the area and spend the Jan's birthday with her.



It was great to be back on the Outer Banks. We joined one of our old groups of friends - Steve (from the Pit), Trey and Samantha (who we met through the Pit), Chris Hess (who we met through the Pit), his girlfriend Dee (who used to be our banker) as well as others for Dinner Club on Thursday night at Megan and Jason's house. It was just awesome.

We dined at most of our favorite restaurants at least once (and Tortugas 3 times).

On Saturday night, we had all Jan's close friends and many of mine over for a good party. It was a great time.


Sunday, we had brunch with our great friends Ben and Alyson at their house. A great week!!

Bike Rides & Old Florida

I had to lay off of riding for a couple of weeks due to the combination of working - plus being sick. I'm well now and so I rode 28 miles on friday and 23 on saturday.


The photos in this post are all from saturday's ride through the Tomoka State Park area. It's how I imagine Old Florida was.


My Friday Ride:


My Saturday Ride:

What can you do regarding the financial crisis that we're hearing about right now?

I just sent an email out to my close friends. It's pasted below:

To my friends,

Please take the 2 minutes needed to finish my email. It’s not a forwarded ‘copy and pasted’ email. These are my own written words - some are gathered from media sources, but I put this email together myself.

I am not one to ask other people to get involved with things that I believe are important politically – because I know that I certainly don’t have the answers to much. This is not a political message. It's an American citizen message.

I have to tell you that I think that it’s important for us to let our opinions be known to the people who are about to make the decisions on bailing out these financial institutions by loaning OUR money to the tune of 700 billion dollars.

Once all of this financial ‘crisis’ info got intense in the national news, I decided it was time for me to find out for myself (not just get my info from the big news channels) what was going on.

I turned to my financial guru – Dave Ramsey. I got the quick simple rundown (as Dave is very good at) and got his opinion of what to do about it. Once I decided to contact (by email) my Senators and Congressman – it took me a total of 8 minutes to get my view to them. I streamlined it and made it even simple for you to do this – IF you agree with my opinion (the same as Dave Ramsey’s opinion). I don’t want to convince you of anything – rather – if you’re like me (and most Americans) you don’t know enough to form a complete opinion.

First of all – listen to Dave Ramsey’s simple breakdown of what’s going on by clicking below:
Here


After listening to that, if you think you can spare 8 minutes to try to keep your government from overspending your money, then follow my simple instructions below.

Find your Senators by clicking below and follow the links to send them an email form.
Here

copy and paste the message below: (as Dave said in the audio link above - this is already on the table in Washington and they'll know what it means- you're just not likely to hear it on the nightly news. It's not a new and 'unheard of' concept to your Congressmen)


Change the mark-to-market accounting law and extend insurance but extend no loans. If you extend loans - if you borrow the money on the national debt in order for us to all go into the mortgage business to the tune of a trillion dollars – I’m going to fire your butt and send you home.


Find your Representative by clicking below and doing the same thing:
Here


Contact the Senate Committee that’s dealing with this by clicking below and doing the same thing:
Here


A lot of crap that government does affects us in small ways. Of course all those small ways add up - but this is a BIG deal. Please form your own opinion - I'm not trying to convince you of anything - but if you've wondered what you can do about this mess - here's a easy chance for you to use your voice.

Feel free to use this in any way you want. If you want to send it to someone else, that's fine. If you have a blog and think it's important - chop it up and use it any way you want.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I promise that I won't make a habit of this.