16 (+1) Things We Should Have Never Stopped Doing

Hi!

I'm a pretty big fan of Mark Sisson and his website. Today's post was about the 16 TWSHNSD (see my post title.)

I'm all over this one!

Climb - anything.

I still love to climb trees. When I am running through neighborhoods at night on training runs, I always look for library stairs, etc, up and down, just for kicks. Trees are the best, though. One of our former FAs, Holly, climbed a moose with me on an overnight in Providence, RI. If you can climb it, you should. Climbing is fun.

Jump in puddles (or snow mounds.)

I remember coming back from dropping off a fuel slip on a DC-10 that I had just fueled, and I hopped from puddle to puddle in the rainstorm that was abusing us at ORD. Both feet at a time, like I was a ten-year-old (I had to be at least 28.) It felt great (still does!) On an overnight in Cincy, we were walking back from dinner in a snowstorm, and my friend Newton, one of our FOs, was in only the 2nd snowstorm of his life (He grew up in Jamaica.) So, I jumped into a snowbank and showed him how to make a snow angel. He said "If you think I am going to lay down in this white sh*t and flail my arms around like a madman, you are out of your mind!" I said "oh, legs, too!" Snow is wonderful. When is the last time you just ran around in the rain or looked up catching snowflakes on your tongue?

Play in the sand, dirt, mud, creek, lake...

Let yourself get messy! We used to be in nonstop contact with the earth, and we were probably better off for it. Jump in a lake, play in the mud, get dirty, the works. When my son wants to play in the sand, in I go! It's sand!!

Eat food right off the plant, out of the dirt.

Thomas walks up to our small forest of kale plants and just grabs a leaf and starts munching. We pick the white raspberries right off the plant and eat them standing in our backyard. I remember when we used to spend summers in Kentucky, the neighbors across the street had this great blackberry bramble; we would just cross the street and help ourselves. Don't be afraid of dirt, don't be afraid of getting a little on your food. (yes, yes, yes, wash for pesticides, but if you are using them in your backyard, then shame on you anyways.)

Tell the Truth.

Of course, sometimes we should sugar coat it. Kids just blurt out the truth, because they have not learned that sometimes you can hurt someone's feeling (Does this make my ass look big? No bigger than it already looks, honey!) Obviously, you don't want to offend anyone just for the sake of offending them (in this context... YES, offend whom you want to offend. Mixed signals? Sure, but life is funny that way.)

Let go of grudges.

Yes, some things are unforgivable (deliberately hurting a child, etc...) but really, we get so wrapped up over small things, we forget we only have limited time. Bury the hatchet, relax, find a way to laugh together... but for cryin' out loud, let it go eventually!

Test Limits.

Have you ever tested your own limits? Do you even know where they are? Go for a run... and when you run, take a quick sprint to see how fast you can go. Afraid of the water? Take a swimming lesson, maybe. You don't have to go hog wild, but every now and then push a boundary back... do something different, even if it won't mean anything to anyone. Other than you.

Daydream.

Stare at the clouds, watch them make shapes. This is a great thing to do WITH kids, because at the right age, they are all over it. Plus, bonus, if they are doing it with you, then they see that it is ok to daydream as an adult. Who would want to lose that? Stare at the wall. Have you ever actually watched paint dry? IT kinds of dries in weird patches, and spreads unevenly... give it a go!

Move Spontaneously.

Dance, leap, boogie down. Take dance lessons. DON'T take dance lessons! Thomas like having our 'kitchen dance party.' We play a fun song (Milow, Little In The Middle, is great,) Then we just hop and dance around in the kitchen. Be silly. Always dance with kids, they are great! Even try verbally. A good friend of mine and I were talking about our theater experiences whilst we were flying together, and we did the rest of our checklists singing melodramatically (aviation is serious stuff, so it was like flying as Faust.) (low baritone voice-- Descent checklist, pleeeaasseeeeeeee. Yes, we're dorks...lol.)

Go to bed early.

Your body starts the recovery process while you are asleep. Lack of sleep is well known for pushing ghrelin levels slightly higher. Ghrelin promotes the retention of fat. Sleep more, lose weight (isn't that great?!?!) Sleep also lets you de-stress. Mucho Importante.

Laugh Early and Often throughout the day.

Giggle, be silly, find humor in many things. Like Mark says, spend a day around kids, and the "chicken butt" joke will make them laugh... and laugh.. and laugh. Laughter suppresses cortisol (stress hormone,) epinephrine, dopamine... it enhances the effectiveness of T cells (strengthening the immune system.) Why be sour? Find a joke... Some study said kids laugh upwards of 400 times a day, adults, more like 15 (and probably more chuckle chuckle, then all out belly laughing.) Read DamnYouAutoCorrect and laugh till you want to pee your pants.

[o.k... that just distracted me for... oh.. 15 minutes... and I laughed a LOT.]

Read.

Read anything. It doesn't have to be soul searching for answers every time you pick up a book (or magazine, or newspaper, or whatever.) Read fiction. try some hard fiction, or try some non-fiction. I read bits of everything. Reading helps activate those synapses that keep the brain functioning properly. Interesting, in that we didn't have a proper written language until very late in evolution, and yet it makes such wonderful changes to the brain.

Play Games.

I think this is part and parcel to getting dirty. Run around a bit. Kick a ball. Throw a frisbee. Go ice skating. Play Monopoly, and make up your own rules (make it a drinking game!) Don't be afraid to lose, lose gracefully, and win gracefully, too. Be a good example. Go to little league games, they're great.

Create.

Thomas loves stacking things up. He likes to draw. He likes to "play 'tar." Nurture their creative side, and have fun with it. Do the same for yourself. Bored? Grab your child's play dough and see what you can form out of it (I make great perfectly round spheres... like meatballs.) Sit down at a friend's piano and just kind of plink along... notice the relationships of the keys (symmetrical 'forms' when you depress the keys (not octaves) produce minor chords. There, bet you didn't know that!)

Skip meals. (When there is something more exciting going on outside.)

We survived famines, we survived millions of years of evolution not knowing where our next meal was coming from. We foraged, we hunted, we ate. Sometimes... we didn't eat. There are interesting studies about intermittent fasting... after all, when you wake up, you just went 8-10 hours without eating, right? You're not dying, right? As long as you are otherwise healthy, (and even, for the most part, if you are not,) skipping a meal because you are watching the little league team play is not such a terrible thing. Skiing? Keep on going!!

Stay outside until the last possible minute.

For us, growing up, this was when the streetlights came on. Then again, as long as we were safe, that was not enforced that much (1970s/80s Chicago, on the far SW side.) But we stayed outside, playing, and having fun. Go for a walk at night, enjoy the smell of the air. Get the heck out of your house (or out of your hotel, for my airline friends. Yes, some areas are unsafe... there is only so much we can do, but if you have local knowledge, take a hike.)

I will add one more that is close to my heart....

Hug your friends.

Yes, really, give them a big hug when you can. Compliment them (they are your friends for a reason... you should be able to compliment them regularly, and not falsely.) When you miss them, tell them you miss them. Take time to visit. You will hate yourself if you ever have that point where you could have, but cannot any longer.

Smile.

Simplissimo.

Cheers!

Scott


 

Debt made simple

So I saw Rick Santelli on CNBC, and he took his 'easy method' of understanding the US debt by looking at it as a household budget. Yes, the Fed Gov't is not a household (it can do things like print $$ and void debt, but both of those would devalue our currency, and we'd be most likely in a worse spot of bother.)

So, here are the numbers as of Jan 7th, 2013--(in all their trillionny glory)

US Tax Revenue--       2,459,000,000,000
US Fed Budget--         3,540,000,000,000
New Debt this year--   1,081,000,000,000
Planned cuts (annual)--    38,500,000,000

So, let's just do as Rick did, and simply chop off the last 8 zeroes, and we'll have a variation on that we can use as a 'household' budget.

Net Income (Post-taxes, etc...) --   24,590
Annual spending/Budget--             35,400
New Debt this Year--                     10,810
Credit Card Debt (carried over)-- 164,330
2013 'cuts'* --                                       385

Does anyone see what the problem with this house is? Is it just me?
btw, the * in 'cuts' is because most of those cuts never seem to happen. They are actually
reductions in rates of increase. For instance, instead of the Department of Energy getting a 4% budget increase, they get a 3.5% budget increase. This is from Baseline Budgeting 101.

According to the latest tax data, all income from taxpayers making more than about $66,000 adjusted gross income came to $5,100,000,000,000. In the above household scenario, that would be 'boosting' our wage earner's income to $51,000. Ok, we could beat our budget and put almost $15K against our credit card debt. Excellent.

And, we can add all corporate income in the US. That came to $1,600,000,000,000, or another $16,000 in household budget. So we could put nearly $30K against the credit card debt.

That would mean... I cannot stress this enough... the Fed Gov't would have to confiscate [strong language alert] Every fucking dollar made by everyone making $66K or more, plus every single penny of corporate income.

...and... we're not even close to 'paying off' our credit card debt. So after completely destroying the economy in this example, by confiscating every penny anyone made over $66K, plus all corporate income (not profits, income,) we would still be broker than broke.

Here is the elephant (actually, it is a whale, and a big one at that) in the room that seems to be left behind whilst our Congresscritters fiddle away and Rome burns--

Unfunded liabilities (Medicare, SocSec) total 81,300,000,000,000. That means we for all practical purposes in our homeowner example, we owe the mob $813,000.

Those unfunded liabilities are not in the Federal Budget because it would put the GLOBE into bankruptcy. We have more unfunded liabilities in Medicare ($42.8T and climbing) than money has ever existed in the history of the world in all of time all put together. Social Security ($20.5T) is just half that. Piece of cake!

No wonder China is drawing down buying our debt, we're a BAD DEBT RISK. (We were downgraded based on our projected abilities to pay our debts.)

If we had a proper S&P credit rating (like your FICO,) it would be NEGATIVE.

Just a little news to lighten everyone's day.

Cheers!!

Scott

Discharged!

Did my past day of Physical Therapy today.

Since I started doing Triathlons 2 years ago, I have run into (ha ha) a problem running.

That is the runner's knee pain that I have written about before. It was explained to me as being from my hips, and an assessment of my body proved that to be true.

So, I went to my appointments (with Maria at Accelerated... good friend, too.) and did my homework pretty regularly. I also did some of the additional exercises, and tried to focus in running style, going for smooth, good cadence, and slowly increasing distance.

So I was in PT a little longer than planned, but with a pilot's schedule, that is no surprise at all when I could not make 3 appointments a week... are you kidding, we're lucky if we can make 1!

But I have been good about exercise, and at my appointment today, we did an assessment, and I have a great deal more strength in my hips than previously. Excellent movement all around, so with a quick once over I was done. Shazaam. Free to run!

I am still mostly doing sprint workouts, but tomorrow on my overnight I have a good 5 mile or so run planned (and the weather will be perfect!)(Last time I ran in ROC I missed the turn I was looking for and accidentally made my 5 mile run a 6.5 mile run. All good.)

Sweet!

Scott

The Flu Shot, why I don't take it, and why I don't think anyone else should.

I've never gotten a flu shot.

It just seems contra-indicated that for something so basic, as long as you are a healthy individual, there really is no reason to get one. This includes the "Great Pandemic" year caused by H1N1, or the Swine Flu. HERE is the data list from the CDC "Estimates of Deaths Associated with Seasonal Influenza - 1976-2007"

Full disclosure-- I am not a medical specialist, this is not medical advice. I am very much for vaccinations.

First, to knock the "Pandemic" year off of its perch--

According to the data linked to above, here are the major numbers with regards to total deaths attributed to flu across all age groups [USA totals]--

Average -       6903
Minimum -       961
Maximum - 14,715

In the year of the Swine Flu Pandemic, there were 3,433 (Not included in the above study, but the data is from here, which has a nice summary state by state.)

3,433

That's it. That's not even pushing the average.

So those are confirmed cases. Even going hog wild and saying they are off by a factor of 2, that puts us right at the average. Doubling that doesn't even get us to the Maximum number year in the study period (2003-2004 season, which is associated primarily with the H3N2 strain. Actually, taking a fast mental snapshot of the data, that strain is generally associated with the highest total deaths per year. Hm.)

So, call me a pessimist.

I am a regular reader of Chris Kresser's blog www.Chriskresser.com. It used to be titled "The Healthy Skeptic," so you can see I would fit right in.

Here is his transcript from his podcast on the flu shot. I'll break down the interesting parts here.

The money paragraph is his adding up all the pieces towards the end--- I'll just quote him.

"So, let’s summarize everything that we’ve covered so far.  Number one, in general, flu vaccines are not effective for adults.  You have to treat between 33 people when the vaccine and infecting strain are well matched, which is rare, and 100 people when they’re not well matched, which is much more common, to prevent a single case of flu.  Nor have vaccines been shown to prevent complications or transmissions.  Vaccines have not been shown to be more effective than placebo in kids under 2 years old and may have significant risks that are not yet well understood.  As for the elderly, the most recent Cochrane review suggested that there’s no evidence vaccines are effective, and randomized clinical trials are needed to clarify the issue.  So, almost all of the evidence in the case of the elderly is epidemiological in nature, which as we know, is not sufficient to prove the safety or efficacy of a drug.  The FDA could never come out in public and say — You know, imagine for a drug like an antidepressant or something for heart disease that they would just take two groups of people and give one group the drug — or just let the drug out in the general population and then 10 years later do a study and see, did the people who took the drugs fare any better than the people that didn’t?  That’s not how drug approval works.  That would be a disaster for all the reasons that we already said.  And yet that’s exactly what’s happening in the case of flu vaccine and the elderly."

Here we have an nice study published in 2012 on Vaccines for Preventing Influenza in Healthy Children. I've read through the study, and if you want a real 'barn burner' of a study (Guaranteed to Put you to Sleep in 15 minutes of Your Money Back!!)

They included data from 75 studies covering about 300,000 observations. They included studies funded by industry (They have drug company $$ pushing the results,) and independent studies also. Here is some of what they find (My running commentary is in brackets such as this - [comment,] and the things I consider important are in bold. )---

"Evidence from RCTs shows that six children under the age of six need to be vaccinated with live attenuated vaccine to prevent one case of influenza (infection and symptoms).

We could find no usable data for those aged two years or younger. [This was in the drug company controlled studies.]

Inactivated vaccines in children aged two years or younger are not significantly more efficacious than placebo. [Doctors, Pediatricians, are pushing for vaccinations for children under 2 and as low as 6 months... but there is zero evidence that it has any effectiveness. WTF, docs?!?!?]

Twenty-eight children over the age of six need to be vaccinated to prevent one case of influenza (infection and symptoms). [28 need to be vaccinated to prevent a single case. This is when the vaccine matches up perfectly with the virus, which is exceptionally rare. Statistically speaking, it is closer to 100 need to be vaccinated to prevent a single case. Remember, these studies (showing 28-1) are on a specific known virus... after all, they are injecting the virus into the test subjects to begin with.]

Eight need to be vaccinated to prevent one case of influenza-like-illness (ILI).

We could find no evidence of effect on secondary cases, lower respiratory tract disease, drug prescriptions, otitis media [Ear aches/infection]and its consequences and socioeconomic impact.

Extensive evidence of reporting bias of safety outcomes from trials of live attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIVs) impeded meaningful analysis. [The people/groups/financiers running the studies monkeyed around with the results.] One specific brand of monovalent pandemic vaccine is associated with cataplexy and narcolepsy in children and there is sparse evidence of serious harms (such as febrile convulsions) in specific situations. [In addition to no serious benefit over placebo, they can hurt your kids. Awesome.]"

 Here is a bit from the conclusion--

"If immunization in children is to be recommended as a public health policy, large-scale studies assessing important outcomes, and directly comparing vaccine types are urgently required."

Basically, if we are going to recommend immunization in children in general, more large-scale studies are needed to see if it is worth the outcome, given the cost and possible side effects.

But they are already recommending immunization for everyone over the age of 6 months. Yet, there is little (seriously little) to no evidence that immunization will prevent the flu in anyone.

I heard a Pediatrician from University of Chicago recommending (AM Radio, on my drive to work,) that all children 6 months or over through all adults thru all elderly should get vaccinated.

Show me a non-industry funded study that recommends that, honestly.

What is amazing, is those above results include studies funded by industry... and... even though they tended to have by far the most reporting bias, those were the studies most cited in the public realm.

No, I do not think it is an attempt by the Star Chamber to take over our lives. I know that 99% of the docs out there, especially the pediatricians, are doing their best, and using their best talent, to help our children stay healthy, and heal them when they are not.

But they don't have time to actually read all of the studies that are out there. I flew with a youngish FO who had been a pharmaceutical sales rep. He had told me that when they went into the doctor's offices, or from office to office, they had the studies proving what they were trying to push the doctors on ready to go. He had no idea what was even really in the studies, just that they backed up whatever it was he was supposed to convince the doctors to use. All those studies, of course, are generally funded and run by the pharmaceutical company, and in a number of cases (like in the study I cited above,) they are known to monkey (fuck around with) the results. It is hardly the doctors fault that they are pressed for time in the office... they have patients to see, paperwork to fill out, everything that is involved in their doctoring.

We need to be able to make informed decisions about the health of our children as well as ourselves.
I am a big believer in simply asking a doctor (or anyone else, for that matter,) for proof.

What studies are cited that show this is an effective course of action in this case? What are the complications, and what circumstances appear to drive those complications? Are there alternative courses of treatment available that have proven to work with fewer complications? 

I'll leave with this quote from Chris--

"As always, you have to make your choice.  But it’s important that you have the right evidence before you do make a choice.  And unfortunately, I just don’t think that that’s happening.  I think a lot of the people have the wrong impression about what the evidence actually says about the efficacy of the flu shot."

Stay healthy, my friends....

Scott

I had so many great posts!

It's funny how everything works sometimes;

I have a bunch... dozens, of great ideas to post about.

Some I am avoiding because I don't want to let this turn into an explicitly political blog. I am sure to post a few of them, but I don't know how hard I want to head off into that direction.

Even though... well, it is my blog.... I can do what I want... lol.

I was moved from my walk through Arlington National for quite some time afterwords. It is just shocking to walk through fields of graves of soldiers. It makes you think. What do we value?

I went out in DC with Kim and Jamie, two of the sisters I wrote about in my blog post from Christmas day. We had a fantastic time at dinner. Jamie's oldest is a big airplane/airline fan, and we had some great exchanges about flying. He's a big fan of LiveATC.net, and I told him our flight number and times in Zulu from earlier if he wanted to hear me on the radio. Ended the evening with Kim and some of her peeps at a bar in DC watching the Vikings lose to the Packers.

It was a sad way to meet my new friends, but what sweet friends to make, and how much fun. So glad to get the chance to know them.

Funny how life works.

More to come....

I hope we are worthy enough...

So, continuing a not-quite-lighthearted series of posts...

Our hotel in Washington, DC, is right next to Arlington National Cemetery, the Pentagon, and the Air Force Memorial.


Since I had a bit of time on the overnight, I went out a-walking... This is a picture from Arlington National Cemetery. The rows of graves just go on... and on... and on. The cemetery itself is quite massive. It has a beautiful layout, it really is a beautiful place.

There are 400,000+ graves here.

I did not have a lot of time, since I would be meeting friends for dinner a little bit later, and it took me quite a while to walk around the cemetery to the entrance. I read a lot of names on tombstones.

Each of those names is linked to someone who had a family, was a son, was a daughter, a father, a mother. They had dreams.

Our country called them up to serve, and they went. They paid the ultimate sacrifice. They gave everything so that we can remain free men and women.

I hope that we will be worthy of the honor of their sacrifice.

back to working out

Yesterday, I did my first 3000 yard swim.

That is quite a distance. Took about 90 minutes, so that is not bad at all. Casual-like, in the pool, not pulling too hard.

It felt so good, that when I went home, I spent 2 hours chopping wood with my new 5 lb maul.

It is not big as far as mauls go. Mauls get quite heavy. And axe is good for chopping down trees, or chopping trunks into managable segments, but to split wood you really need a maul. It has a wider bevel on the blade, and when you chop downgrain, sometimes the wood just explodes apart (Thomas was very impressed by that !)

So, axe for chopping, maul for splitting.

Well, swinging this thing properly overhead has made me work some muscles I had forgotten I even had (even with working out regularly again.) And that was after my 3000 yard swim.

<owie> -- says the back.

So, rest tonight, and then meeting up with new friends (who are more like old friends) in Washington DC tomorrow. Looking forward to it!

Scott

Why I fly on Christmas

I was lucky this year to have Christmas Eve off, and Christmas morning off.

Christmas Eve is the night normally celebrated by the Germans, so Thomas got a full dose of that with the Christkind arriving and giving gifts while we were playing upstairs. Funny, Nicole was downstairs, you would think she would have seen something, but she says she did not.

So we had a nice dinner, and then Christmas morning we woke up as a family and I made my patented omelet with peppers and cheese, and we had bacon with it (of course) and milk and.... well... it was a good breakfast.

All I had to do on Christmas Day was fly the 1450 flight to Baltimore and back.

We were an hour and a half late getting into Baltimore. I went upstairs to use the bathroom and find out if we had any delays going back to ORD. When I was standing at the podium, a woman came up to me and we had this exchange--

"Excuse me, are you the pilot flying us to Chicago?"

"Why, yes I am."

"I need you to fly carefully."

"Ma'am, I am flying this flight home to my 3 and 1/2 year old son and my wife, I will be flying carefully."

"My sisters and I are flying to Chicago where our brother is on life support, They are keeping him there until we can get there to say goodbye."

<longish silence... slow intake of breath>

--in a much lower tone of voice----
"Well, Merry Christmas. There is nothing that I can say that will make the next few days any better for you, but believe me, I will get you safely to Chicago."

How often do we go about on our days and have no clue what the people around us are going through?

When I broke my collarbone skiing (way back when,) and could not fly for 2 months, I took a job in customer service at FTD.com. Basically we took orders, but we also did some troubleshooting, etc, when people invariably screwed something up with the online order system.

The coworker who was sitting next to me had just had some terrible news about her brother, and that he might not make it through the night. I was still fielding calls (I was Easter and Mother's Day help,) on the service exchange, when I had a caller (who, btw, had ordered everything online, so the only way to screw this up was if he did it himself) who said that the flowers he sent to his mother did not make it there on Mother's Day, and it was a tragedy for his mother.

I told him "No, sir, a tragedy is my coworker, whose brother is possibly dying right now, and will probably not make it through the night. What you are going through, is just a Bad Day."

And then I hung up on him.

But really, what if Mother's Day had a special meaning to them? What if his mother had escaped death on Mother's Day, and this was how they celebrated every anniversary?

How often do we see people who are short-tempered and we think the worst, when the reality is that they are having a horrible run of luck, or just lost their job, or received bad news and are not acting normal because they head isn't quite screwed on straight at the moment? It happens to all of us.

Or, on the flip side, what if they are just... well.. assholes?

Scott

p.s... I managed to be at the airport when 2 of the 3 sisters were leaving to go back to Washington, so I saw them off at their flight. They really are lovely people. We had a great chat, and are keeping in touch. Such is the way that lives get woven together....

Musings on New Year's Resolutions

How long do you keep a New Year's Resolution?

There are a couple of layers of thought here. Personally, myself, I made a N.Y.R. to stop making N.Y.R.s about 10 years ago. I've done really good at this one! Congrats me!

But I was thinking more about this after reading a blog post from a new dad. He had been writing about 2 friends of his that had real tragedy happen to them, and how it hit home with him.

Of course, now, I can't find the blog to link to it....

But it kind of goes like this--

One close friend had dropped her 3 year old son off at the father's house, and the child was battered to death.

The second was a friend since grade school, who had been diagnosed with cancer. They had promised to get to a Lakers game together for years, but time got away from them, even with the cancer warning, and the game never happened.

How many of us make these promises to ourselves? Not just New Year's Resolutions, but promise /I'll start working out; I'll eat less; I'll love my spouse more; I'll finally manage to take my father golfing/ Whatever it is. We all have promises that we make that for some reason we just cannot follow through with.

As I pondered, this kind of grew. How intensely do we live life? Are we living in the moment as those moments go by? I read a very interesting article about awareness (not online as far as I can see,) and basically we only have a 3 second existence. We have full awareness of the moment we are living in, We have about 1.5 seconds stretching into the past, and we have around .5 seconds we can barely see into the future.

How intensely in the moment are you? Are you living right now, or are you thinking about the future? Are you stuck in the past?

Maybe your resolution is to have a little boredom in your life. Can you be in the moment? Really, intensely bored? (I guess...)

So Sal Khan, of Khan Academy fame, Gave a commencement address at his alma mater, MIT. It really is a great talk. Give it a watch. Here is my rewrite of the end---

So imagine we are in the future, 40 years from now. We are all retired, President Kardashian is speaking to us from the Hologram Tube, and we are reflecting on our lives. Looking back, none of us say 'Oh, if only I could have one more board meeting, shareholder vote, or hour in front of the TV!' Of course not. Looking back, the things we might regret would be 'Ah, I wish I could tell my mom and dad how much I appreciate how hard they worked for me, I wish I could see that one good friend one more time, hug them a little bit harder, just because I never got to hug them again. Hear that stupid old joke from another friend, because even though we were all tired of it, it was his favorite, and I'm the one who got to say it at his wake.'

We would want the experiences with our friends, with our loved ones. We would want that quiet moment on the hillside at sunset, or just to cuddle with your child as a baby again, to hear your son or daughter say "I love you," even though they don't know the full extent of what it means to you.

And then... *poof!* a genie appears.

That genie says to you "You know, I've been listening in on your thoughts, and I agree. Wouldn't it be great to be able to live your life, exactly as you have, but to cherish those moments just a little bit more? To live in the moment just a little bit more? Well, as it happens, I am a genie, and I can make that happen for you. You can have everything in your life that you had before, only this second time around, you can really live in the moment. Live in the moments. Hug that person, say thanks, express love. Hell, even have a board meeting!"

Of course, you say "Sure, let's do it!"

*poof*

You already have that second chance. You are already living that second chance. Next time you talk to your friends, tell them what they mean to you. Yes, I know, more than enough people are just not that interested in getting all mushy. That's ok. You can still tell them. Why not?

A little quote?

You will never regret more the things you did, than the things you could have done, but did not.

Well, that took no time at all!

Sigh... lots of time between posts!

Welcome to 2013!

Goals for this year--- Post more than once a fortnight.

A great deal more to come here. I have had a couple dozen blog posts rattling around in my head, and for some reason, I just have not been inspired to let them out. Go figure... normally you can't get me to stop talking, and here, I can't get myself to start. Sheesh.

A great deal more to come for sure. However, I manged to sneak this one in before midnight, so there is that!