I saw my family back in December and while it was a good visit, I’m reminded at how many challenges they have. Years of drug abuse, and lack of strong leadership have left our family with a lot of problems. I don’t want to get too personal here and start spilling crap about my family, but there’s so much disfunction it’s not even funny. I love my family, but I’m glad I don’t live close enough to get sucked into all the garbage.

The other thing that’s been kind of sucky is just that I haven’t been to church or bible study in over a month. I think that’s having a big effect on me. On one hand, church is different for me now. I think having my wife work there and having to hear all the back end stuff that happens on a day to day basis is really getting me down. When I go on Sunday it’s hard to concentrate. Maybe I should start going to a different church just so I can focus again. lol.

Anyway, on an up note, the post Christmas Detox is going pretty good. Have to work back up to daily workouts again and get back to eating right. My weigh in is tomorrow and I expect at least 3 pounds, maybe 4 lost. So that’s a good start. If I can keep that up, I’ll be down to 200 in 30 days with no problems.

Still trying to figure out where my Epic Ride 2012 will be going as well. Thinking Sturgis, but then again, the ride there is going to be awful. Flat and boring. It would be cool just to be able to say I went to Sturgis, but it doesn’t seem like a great ride. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just do a long tour through Northern Cali and southern Oregon. Last time I was up there, there was a ton of stuff I wanted to see but didn’t have time. I think I need more of a leisurely adventure this year instead of doing 500 miles a day.

Well, that’s all that’s going on. Peace.

The talk I hear is this: Christians are claiming that God is winning football games for them and Tebow’s success if proof there’s a God. The other side counters that God must be pretty shallow if he lets Christians suffer in other parts of the world while he wins football games in America.

Both arguments are completely idiotic.

Here’s my take. I don’t think God gives a crap about football. What I think God really cares about is bringing his creation, people, into a relationship with him. God wants us to know him and he wants to love us and us to love him. And if God is doing anything through Tim Tebow right now, he’s making his presence known. Not by winning football games, but through the words and actions of one of his creations.

I think when you look at it that way, then it becomes clear that God is also working every bit as hard in places where Christians are having a tough time. When I went to Ethiopia a few years back I saw this first hand. People in absolute poverty having their spirits lifted and hope instilled in them because they were learning about Jesus.

So my fellow Christians, if you’re gloating over won football games, knock it off. You’re totally missing the point and screwing up the message. Take this opportunity not to say “believe in God and you’ll win the playoffs”… but take the time to share what the gift of Jesus really means. It means a relationship with our Creator. It means forgiveness, personal fulfillment, peace, compassion and love, in all circumstances.

Seriously though, I feel like I’m just surviving lately. I’m kind of walking through life and not really doing anything cool. I sit in front of the TV or computer and just watch what everyone else is creating and it sucks. So 2012 is going to be about stripping out the noise and creating instead of just consuming.

Therefore, here are my 2012 New Years resolutions:

1.  Spend less time consuming. Didn’t I just say that? I’ve already started this one by making this blog post, killing my twitter account and killing my Google + account. I’ve also deleted about a dozen “friends” from Facebook.

2. Create music. Bob from SOS and I are going to write some tunes and today I’m going to re-string and re-wire my guitar and start recording ideas again. I was listening to some old stuff Frank and I did with Smoke This and I really dug it. I have a lot of ideas, I just need to get them on tape.

3. Create art. I haven’t done any serious sketching in decades. I’ve been kicking around starting my own clothing company but I’m not happy with other people’s art. So I think I need to just put in the time and make my own. I’m gonna do it.

4. This is a professional resolution. I’m going to earn my first certificate on my way to becoming a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer. Here’s why; I’m getting old. The young guys coming up have time to spend doing open source stuff and living for code. I don’t. I have a family, a house to keep up, and other hobbies that bring me joy. Also, I don’t really fit in with the new brand of coder. I don’t like fancy coffee, or listen to John Mayer and I don’t really like talking about coding (or any technology) socially. What I do know is that I have 20 years of corporate IT experience. I think this certification will bolster that experience and also give me a much needed skills and confidence boost.

So there you have it. It’s all about creating and being productive this year. Yes there’s the usual stuff like keeping in shape and continuing to foster my relationship with God, which is not trivial, but i’ve already managed to work those things into my life. I don’t need a resolution to continue them.

I hope everyone has a productive and exciting 2012! God Bless!

Every year I do a post on my anniversary and try to pass on a little information about how the heck we’ve lasted so long. It’s kind of mind blowing every year to look back on everything we’ve been through together. It’s also interesting to see the responses from other people.

I think people were more amazed at how long we’ve been married when we were around year 16 or 17. That blows people away. If you get divorced within the first 10 years, I don’t think anyone is really surprised by that anymore. They just assume you didn’t try. If you get divorced between year 10 and 15, it’s really sad, but all too common. So if you make it to years 15 to 20 or so, it’s really amazing to people. The funny thing is, once you pass 20 years of marriage, it’s no longer amazing to people. They just expect you to be married forever now. It’s old news.

I think marriage in a way works like that too. Once you’ve been with a person for so long, hopefully you’ve worked out all the kinks, and that person just becomes an extension of you. I think that’s where I’m at now. Michelle is such a part of everything I do, that I could never imagine her not being there. Or worse, somebody else being in her place. We’ve learned to deal with each other’s quirks, we’ve learned to work together and depend on each other, and so even the thought of starting over and dating and all that just completely preposterous. Besides, do you know any single people in their 40′s or older? I do, and generally speaking there are good reasons they are single. Not all of them are messed up, but most of them are. Just saying.

Anyway, the longer I’m married and the more I watch my younger married (and divorced) friends makes me realize a few things about how to stay married. And I think it comes down to how you approach your relationship in the first place. On my Facebook account I have several female friends that go through a new relationship about once a month. And their attitude when they get a new guy is all about how good they feel. I think people who approach relationships with the attitude that they are doing something to make themselves feel good are always going to fail.

Marriage is not about making you feel good. If you want to feel good, go buy a freaking car, or some new clothes or something. Relationships are about being part of a unit, a team. Let that sink in. If you could play football pretty good and you went to a coach and said “hey coach, I want to play football because I think your team will make me feel good”, the coach would kick you off his field. Each player is chosen for a team strictly because of what they can put back into the whole. I think that’s the secret to marriage. Marriage should be entered into with the idea that you have something to offer to the team, and you’re going to give 100%. If both people go in with that attitude, that relationship can’t fail.

So there you have it. A football analogy for the success of marriage. This coming from a guy that hasn’t watched a game in 10 years. I must truly be getting old. I was going to use a rock ‘n’ roll analogy, but all bands are dysfunctional so I couldn’t make that work. Sorry.

Anyway, here’s to 23 years of marriage to my beautiful and loving wife. I could not imagine my life any other way.

Today though I got some bad news from the doc which is going to make this season even suckier, and it’s bumming me out. All my blood levels are out of whack again, and at over 200lbs I’ve put on quite a bit of weight from being in the 190′s a year or so ago. *sigh*.

I’m telling you man, maintaining my fitness has proven to be a ridiculously hard endeavor. It shouldn’t be because all it takes in 60 lousy minutes of jumping or running a day and not putting garbage into my mouth, but never the less, the discipline escapes me. It probably hurts me too that I don’t look fat, and nobody would call me overweight, so that makes it easier for me to justify skipping a workout or having an few extra beers here and there. But my bloodwork says I’m not as healthy as I need to be, and so to get there I need a sustained focus and work ethic.

The Doc says to lower my carb intake and cut the alcohol. That sucks because I really, really, really love my beer. A lot. And I suppose I could try just cutting back, but that never really works for me. If I cut something completely out of my life, it’s much easier to know when I’m cheating.

The bad part of all this is not that I’m a few pounds heavier, it’s that it’s a continual area of failure in my life. This is one of the few things that I really have a hard time making permanent. And I really, really hate sucking at stuff.

So here’s to a renewed focus on fitness. Again.

America is selfish. We’re like spoiled children constantly stomping our feet and screaming about things we think we deserve. And when we feel somebody else has something we want, we will do anything to get it. We slander each other, we cheat, we bend the rules, we make back room deals, and if that doesn’t work, we sue each other. And often we don’t seem to care what the fallout is. We don’t care who will be hurt, because we “deserve” to be “happy”. We’ve “worked for” it. This selfish attitude threads itself through all economic classes, all races, all political parties, and even religions.

Why is this? I think it’s because as a society, we simply don’t know who God is and what he planned for us to be. Many of us claim to know, but often we just twist that knowledge to suit ourselves. I think if we really cracked open the bible and just read the simple teachings of Jesus, just as they appear on the paper, and then put that into daily practice, the world would change dramatically.

Here’s a passage from the Bible that I think sums it all up:

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Which of us can say that we are truly loving? This is the world view we should be striving to imbed into the American culture. And if we can do that, everything else will sort itself out.

Here’s the link to the article in the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/us/24iht-currents24.html

The project is our fireplace upgrade. Our fireplace was still as it was when we bought our house 16 years ago. Gold trip on the doors, crappy tile surround, and a flat tile hearth. Not bad way back en, but clearly dated today. So Michelle designed a new one, and I put it in with her help.

It shouldn’t have take so long, but after finished in the hearth, I just dreaded actually putting it in. Moving a 200lb slab of concrete and laying it in place is not easy and I had to do some research to find out how to deal with a nasty crack in our foundation. That and summer vacations, etc, just pushed us way behind. But with time this weekend, and some help from my friends, We finally laid that sucker in place. Tiling the surround was fairly easy ands we knocked that out quickly.

So it’s finally done and i have to say I’m thrilled with the result. And the fact that we designed, built and installed the whole thing ourselves makes me very pleased with the outcome.

Here’s a phot of the before and after, and here’s a link to a photo gallery detailing the entire process from start to finish.

Sad.

It’s just so freaking hard to keep fit. But It’s hard not because of society, or genetics or any of that. It’s because of simple lack of discipline. I know what I need to do to stay fit, but I make tiny exceptions here and there, and then over time those exceptions congeal to become large problems, like 10lbs of weight I don’t want.

Take today; I went to the cafeteria and even though I work at a hospital the options were fried fish and chips, pizza, calzones, BBQ’d something or other, and a weight watchers chicken wrap. Now, I could have eaten the chicken wrap, but instead I told myself that one calzone is not going to hurt. Damn it.

That may seem like a petty example, but I sit here wondering, if I can’t even control something simple, like what I stuff in my face, how many other areas in my life am I making exceptions in? My spirituality? My work life? My personal relationships? And how long do I have before they pile up and become trouble?

My 2010 ride was all about reaching a goal. I wanted to ride from one end of the country to the other, and I wanted to really experience some of the differences in culture throughout the country. For 2011, I wanted to go to a different country, taking my bike across the border. But also I wanted to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen for a while. So this trip was much more about people, than setting a mileage goal. This trip was also much more about family than just bikes. My wife and daughter tailed me in the car. That was really nice because I didn’t have to leave them for a week. It took a little of the “thrill” out of riding to be honest, but it was great having my girls with me.

The first day I left early with my sights set on Eureka, CA. It’s about 500 and some odd miles so it was going to be a long day. The girls left a few hours after me since they had to drop the cat off at the kennel. I rode up 99, crossed Manteca and Tracy and picked up the 580 toward the bay area. I followed it up through Oakland and then over the San Rafael Bridge. Most of this riding was uneventful highway riding. Once on the other side of the bridge though, the cities start to thin and the scenery opens up, and the ride got pretty nice. I stopped at some small town and had a coffee while waiting for my girls to catch up. Then we went to Santa Rosa to hook up with an old musician friend of mine. We had lunch with him and his family in Healdsburg and it was a really nice visit. That is such a great town. Cozy, clean, and full of great restaurants.

From there we headed up 101 to Eureka. Eureka was pretty disappointing. It’s an old town with some nice parts, but by and large it’s very run down and there’s bums everywhere. On top of that, AT&T had a trunk or something down in the area and so the entire town was without cellphone, internet, and landline service. Really pretty ridiculous.

The next day we left early and headed up the coast on 101 and this is where the trip got really nice. There is so much beauty in the Northern California coast and the Oregon coast it’s amazing. Just one amazing vista after another, and one quaint little town after another. I honestly could have spent my whole week just exploring this area. And in fact, I’m tempted to do that for Epic Ride 2012. We ended the day in Newport, OR, and had some great micro-brewed beer and fresh seafood. And outstanding day.

The third day we continued up the coast for more of the same. Beautiful scenery and neat towns. We stopped in Astoria and this is another city I could have spent a week at. It’s such an cool old city with a vibrant downtown with so much to explore. We cut inland from there, crossed over the river to Washington and picked up the I5. As we were crossing the state line there are huge lumber yards on the other side of the river and I was completely amazed at the sheer amount of lumber stacked up and waiting to be shipped to who knows where. Amazing. We finished the day landing in Bothel at Michelle’s sister Melisa’s house.

Three days of riding over 1000 miles, so day four would be spent relaxing and visiting with family. Melisa took us to breakfast at this cool restaurant that is built into the basement of a school gym that was built in the early 1900′s. They had fantastic food and my diet was shot right then. We hung out at home playing with the kids that day and then in the evening we all went out for sushi in downtown Seattle. Seattle has many unique little neighborhoods and in that way it reminds me of Chicago. It was a great time hanging with my in-laws and enjoying some fantastic food.

On Day 5 Deanna and I suited up, jumped on the bikes, and headed to Canada! I took some relatively remote roads and it was a beautiful ride wandering through Washington farmland to the border. Once there, we passed through relatively quickly and were on our way to Harrison Hot Springs, about an hour and a half east of Vancouver.

Harrison was nice, though I was really disappointed at the restaurant selection at a resort area. Most were closed at 3 in the afternoon and the one we found open was pretty awful. Harrison Lake however was beautiful and surrounding area lush and green. After eating we decided to ride to Hope, BC, and check out something called the Othello Tunnels. They are a series of tunnels blasted through solid rock for the train line. They were built in the early 1900′s and the area is so treacherous that the train line only ran about 60% of the time and now only 4 of the 14 tunnels are open for people to walk through. Very cool place.

The following day we rode to Mission, BC, which is a small town about 30 minutes west of Harrison, and we had breakfast and did a little shopping. All in all, I enjoyed Canada. There was really nothing fantastic about it other than the scenery though, but then we spent most of our time riding through farm country, so it’s hard to expect to find any fantastic restaurants or anything.

On the way back to Seattle, we stopped along the way to meet up with an old buddy of mine from high school. It was really great seeing him and seeing that he and his family were doing so well.

Our last day in Washington was spent with my daughter in downtown Seattle, exploring the market place. We had some fantastic seafood, did some shopping and exploring. Great times, just me and my kid.

The next day we packed up and got an early start home. The plan was to head straight down i5 and travel as far as we could in one day, hopefully making it to Redding, 610 miles south, before I crashed from exhaustion. We made it in 12 hours. That was my longest single day of riding I’ve ever done, and actually, I felt pretty good. We visited with Michelle’s mom for the evening and then once again hit the road the next day.

I decided to leave before my wife and daughter so they could stay and visit a while longer. I made may way down the worst road in the entire United States; Hwy 99. It’s boring, it’s hot, and it’s in AWFUL shape. For all the money this state spends, you’d think they could at least keep the darn roads paved. Anyway, I made it down to Ripon, CA where I again hooked up with some old high school buddies. It was nice seeing these guys even though with all the grey in our bears and hair and all of us wearing glasses, I realized that I’m not a young man anymore. *sigh*.

A few hours later and I was home and it was good to be home because the Fresno heat was wearing on me. Only one problem, I didn’t have a house key. I called Michelle and they were just passing through Sacramento so I had three hours to wait. Luckily I had cigars and my iPad on the bike, so I went to the store for a few beers and some peanuts and spent the next three hours relaxing on the porch surfing the internet and enjoying a smoke and a brew. Not the worst way to spend a day.

So that’s the trip! It was a fantastic ride, not only for the scenery, but for seeing so much family and friends that I don’t get to see often enough. It was a great reminder that when it comes right down to it, those relationships are the most important thing in life.

Here’s a link to my ride pictures. Time to start planning Epic Ride 2012!

For the last 4 years I’ve been doing what I like to call Epic Ride. It’s a long distance motorcycle ride consisting of at least several hundred miles, often thousands, and several days to someplace I’ve never been. It’s an adventure. It’s me, a machine and nothing but road. It’s interesting people and beautiful landscape. It’s quiet time with the Lord. It’s therapy.

This year I’m headed to our neighbors up north; Canada. I’m leaving very soon, and as I sit here in the garage getting my bike ready and all my gear laid out, I’m getting giddy thinking about LONG days on the bike with nothing but the rumble of the engine and the roar of the wind in my ears. It’s going to be fantastic.

Most people don’t really understand the appeal of long distance riding. They think it’s dangerous, risky, boring, whatever. That’s the routine of life talking. For me it’s bliss. It’s a time to turn off the world, and just enjoy time racing through God’s creation, completely exposed. The only better way to experience God’s amazing creation would be to walk, but unfortunately I don’t have that much time. But when you’re on the road, nobody can interrupt you. Nobody call call or email you or walk into your office. The road is mine. I stop when I fell like it, I eat when I feel like it. It’s my time.

So there’s a very private aspect to it, but there’s also a very social aspect to it. When you do stop, the people you meet are fascinating. We swap stories of where we’ve been and where were going. Theres a camaraderie.

So I’m just completely stoked. Epic Ride 2011 is going to be awesome. Stay tuned because I’ll be posting pictures and writing about my experiences as I head into the beautiful northwest.