So I’m like that. I’ll start one place and be lead or lead to another. I was sitting down to do some work so I popped on the headphones and fired up iTunes. The second song that came on was Jeff Johnson’s “Navigatio”. My wife and I heard this song on a tape we bought while on our first wedding anniversary. It’s one of those floaty dreamy songs. We loved the chords and about wore out the track as we’d rewind it to play it over and over again. Well, as I listened this time I got curious as to what the lyrics were. I could understand most but not all. A Google search turned up the following:

I’ve earned my sin

nearly spent my soul

I’ve lost my way until now

On the world’s edge

I have found a door

On the world’s edge

I can see again

So let my ship sail like Brendan’s

let it carry me home

May the three guide my passage

towards the Island of Light

So let my ship sail like Brendan’s

let it carry me home

May the three guide my passage

towards the Island of Hope

I’ve earned my sin

nearly spent my soul

I’ve lost my way until now

On the world’s edge

I have found a door

On the world’s edge

I can see again

     Something else that was on the page was the story behind the song. Come to find out it’s based on a story by a Saint Brendan. Further investigation into the story reveals there is a story about an Irish monk sailing to what may have been the America’s in the early to mid 500’s . . . not 1500’s, the 500’s. I have known that the Vikings discovered American long before Columbus, but this take would predate the Vickings by centuries! Critics stated that the ship could not have survived the journey so in 1976 a man by the name of Tim Severin built a duplicate of the boat they would have used to see how far he would get.
     In 1977 he landed in New Foundland after making stops at Iceland and Greenland, there are interesting artifacts that point to a Christian influence on the region that date to anywhere from 500-1000 AD. The article doesn’t cite how these tests were done so who knows. But how interesting is that to learn that the Irish (potentially) discovered America!!! LOL
     All of this, from a tape that my wife picked up via a little shop in Gatlinburg!

     I was in Wal-Mart buying a bag of Pedigree for my dog and was in line to checkout. The woman behind me asked if I had a dog…Duh!!

     I was feeling a bit cranky so I told her NO. I was starting the
Pedigree Diet again, although I probably shouldn’t because I’d ended up in the hospital the last time, but that I’d lost 50 lbs. before I’d awakened in the intensive care unit with tubes coming out most of my orifices and IV’s in both arms.

     Her eyes bugged out of her head. I went on with the bogus diet story and she was totally buying it. I told her that it was an easy, inexpensive diet and that the way it works is to load your pockets or purse with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The package said the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

     I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was now enthralled with my story, particularly the tall guy behind her.

     Horrified, she asked if something in the dog food had poisoned me and was that why I ended up in the hospital. I said no….
I’d been sitting in the middle of the street licking my butt when a car hit me.

I thought the tall guy behind her was going to have to be carried out….

     And man does it feel good. I am disturbed at times how quickly I can get thrown off track. It isn’t so much that I didn’t care, as much as my schedule was not ‘normal’ so I didn’t do a lot of things. A few posts back I spoke of my list; well so these past five to seven days we’re just not going to mark on the list! I didn’t do any part of my list, none at all.
     I’m excited though about this upcoming weekend. Wife and I are to start our battle with the IRS. Well, we’re actually fighting our lack of daily record keeping. I simply didn’t make time to do the day to day. I spent the better part of July catching up to June, now I’ll spend the better part of Jan-Feb to catch up to December. I bet bookkeeping wouldn’t be as bad if I didn’t do it six months at a time! This is a big reason why I’m a fan of the Fair Tax. If you’ve not heard of it then take a read about it at the FairTax website. Lot’s of useful information there. Lot’s of people that don’t pay a penny into certain services people enjoy get those same services. FairTax would increase revenue and level the tax burden.
     And finally, the last thing that has me really stoked can be found here. Daughter started her ballet classes last week. The link will take you to a YouTube video of her doing her Princess Dance. It’s great! Can’t wait for her recital. It’s awesome to watch her grow-up, I still wrestle with the fact that I’m investing so much in her and who she is only to give her away one day. Next to her mom she’s the most important person in my life. To think that some punk is going to come along and benefit from all my hard work . . . but I suppose Wife’s father had the same thoughts. Daughter’s a bright little girl; she is an amazing little girl and she’ll be an amazing woman some day.
     One more thing, for those who are keeping up I did my S.O.A.P. today, part of being off the wagon meant that it suffered, but I’m back at it now. Getting up early helps me so much. Click the link to the right to give it a read!

So the past five days or so have been kind of trying.  I missed two days of work last week, church on Sunday, life group Sunday night, and work yesterday because of an issue that seems to not go away.  I’ve got pretty weak ankles and over the years the pounds have slowly piled on; there was that amazing time of losing close to 100lbs in 2-3 months; but that involved a divorce and some oral surgery so we can’t do that again, LOL.  Anytime I’m on my feet for more than 10 minutes I start losing feeling in my leg; longer than that then I’m guaranteed a good bit of pain with my ankles.  Annoying to say the least.  But my point of this is I’ve not done my S.O.A.P nor any other of the things I wanted to do daily these past few days.  I’m hoping to get back on track tomorrow.  For now though it’s out the door to the Office, been out of work for 3 days, I’m guessing I have a few hours worth of e-mail to go through!

     Which I think is always the best place to start! First off I would like to point out a new blog that should show up under the roll. It’s a good read; called Samuel’s Soap. Anyway, my point. Through reading the Samuel Soap blog and coming to terms with a few things, and thanks in part to speaking with Brother and Mr. Sinister I’m getting my mind back. There’s more work to be done but at least now I know where to go at least in a sense of where I’m headed. Memories are stronger than you think, be careful where you trod.

     Well, I think anyway. I mean knowing the . . . well it’s not even the source . . . but having the knowledge that I now have does make it a little easier to put it in a box and deal with what’s going on. I did turn in rather early last night. I went upstairs and laid down around 2000; wife had been after me to go through some boxes that were next to the bed so to help bore me to sleep I dug in. The first box wasn’t my stuff to start with it was hers! The second was full of stuff that I want to do but can’t seem to find the time. The third was full of old tapes. Yea tapes, the things that we had before compact disc!
     It was a bit odd to sift through the box. Most of them came from the mid 90’s. Some of them were one’s I had made, others were ones that I had picked up because I liked a song on one side or something. I found a tape that played in the first truck I bought when I drove up to Greenville and it played on the way back. I found another that I had made for a special occasion. It was perhaps the perfect bookend to the kind of weekend I’ve had. The good thing was that in the midst of rewinding and fast-forwarding I figured out what or why I was feeling what I was feeling. Knowing the “why” helps remove the guilt a little. At least it’s not what I was afraid it was.
Now I’m off to start my day and track my list. We’ll see how it goes.

     I’ve made a list of things that I want to get done in a day. Each day as I get them done I’ll mark it with an X. Hopefully over the course of the next 30 days I’ll start to get an idea of what I need to change when. I think I’m coming to grips with my situation. I think, perhaps yes that it’s best to go about this alone. Relying on others is dangerous and leads to an easy out if there is failure. Going it alone leaves only myself responsible. So I think yes, that’s the way to go.

Off to bed early tonight.

     I don’t seem to be myself as of late. I like to live by the edict that I am a spirit, I reside in a body, and have a soul. If any of these are out of sync then the other three are greatly effected. For some reason . . . I don’t know if it’s my body or my soul that is causing this. As the body pertains to the physical and “physically” I am experiencing nothing other than the aches that go with anxiety. This makes me think that the issue is spiritual or related to the soul. As my spirit is in check I am left with my soul. Deep down I know that is the issue.

     I dare not go into too much detail in such a public forum. What makes this difficult seems that I have no one to talk to about this. No person that I can reach out too for understanding or guidance. I despise being in this place. Typically I am better than this, I am in control of things. I am trying to control my mind and focus my thoughts but it’s not working. In writing it is suggested that you stop, write down the thought, play it out, and then get back to your work. That’s something that I can’t do in this situation. Can’t talk to my wife, my brothers, my friends, . . .

I despise being here. This is not who I am . . .

     Odd, good, odd, great, odd, fun. I think. I’d like to say I got tons done, but I got about half done what I wanted to get done. The cool thing is I got to see a friend of mine today. She shared some great photo’s and great stories. Only hope we can do it again sometime to hear some more. The rest of the day found me distracted though. It was hard to focus on some tasks that I had to do. I jumped in to WoW to see if that would take care of it and for the most part it just got my mind off things. There are times I wish my mind did not run 100mph, that I could turn it on and off at will. But that’s not the mind I was given and I suppose I have to be ok with that. My head is still a little out of sorts. What makes it bad is the inability to really talk about it all. Eh . . . a few days and I’ll be over it I’m sure. Working on wife’s pc now. All is back and running and soon enough she’ll be slaying Kobolds and defending Stormwind with the best of ‘em.

No not really, but it is great to start off a blog heading like that.  Actually, all I’ve done is give Wife something to ‘relax’ with.  There’s more to this story and in time I may go into it but for now let’s just say that one of my gifts for Christmas was WoW (World of Warcraft)  Rather than me go into any great detail about what it is, just check out their site here.  Anyway, now she’s been playing the game!  It’s funny.  One of the things we used to do together was game.  We played UO (Ultima Online) for year’s . . . but budget crunching and with Littlefoot Time crunching . . . we just stopped.  We tried to go back a year or so back but it never panned out.  Now we have friends on there to help us get started and Wife has the time to play.  I’m on a new schedule now that allows for us to have better time together.  She’s been playing for the past couple of hours . . . well it’s 23:19 now and she started a little after 20:00.  But I’m glad for it; let’s us do something together (she’ll play from her pc and I’ll play from mine) that we both love.  This has also been great for her to de-stress by.  More on that later!

Good night!