Sometimes I wonder where my get up and go, got up and went.
It seems like just a few short days ago I was feverously working on the truck project, anxiously anticipating the completion of one phase after another, pressing on despite the heat and any sort of aches, pains or tiredness.
Lately though, while I know I need to get back to it, I’m finding I have less, and less, extra energy for it.
I could blame it on the additional (household) work I’m doing while my wife continues to recover from her surgery. In all honesty though, it really hasn’t been that much ‘extra’ work. Sure I’m doing a little laundry, cleaning the litter boxes for the cats, some vacuuming and, on occasion, mopping a floor or two. None of this explains my absent energy levels.
I’m beginning to worry that I could be getting depressed, again. Last time I had absolutely no energy, nothing seemed interesting to me, and I’d be perfectly happy vegetating in front of the TV for hours. About the only difference now, is that I’m happy sitting here in front of this ‘tube’ for hours.
While I like my job, the current contract, the people at the job and generally everything about my ‘professional’ life, it just doesn’t have the same “zing” it had years ago. When I first started in the IT/IS business, I was 100% wrapped up in it. I literally ‘lived’ the job.
There was so much to learn, and I felt like I never had enough time to learn all I wanted to learn. I was like an old, dried out sponge being reintroduced to water. I sucked up everything in sight, couldn’t get enough. These days, I have to force myself to ‘hit the books’ and learn new things (computer-wise), the ‘old ways’ just feel so damn comfortable!
I think part of it is I’d like one more ‘career’ before I retire from full time employment, something decidedly less ‘techie’, yet somehow as cerebral. Writing is certainly something I’ve often wanted to do, and with my first two ‘opinion’ pieces being published this year, I’ve taken one small step in that direction. Making the step to sufficient gainful monetary reward from it is yet another matter indeed.
I’ve been like this most of my life. Forever moving from one new experience to another, as soon as the current one feels ‘old’ od stale. Most folks, who don’t know me well, think I’m somehow ‘talented’, when the hard truth of the matter is, I become incredibly bored.
Yes, there I’ve said it, programming, once a source of endless fascination for me, has become, at times, stale. Not because there aren’t new challenges, there are 100’s, 1000’s even, but because I no longer have doubts about my ability to meet the challenges. In the last 20+ years, I’ve been told on countless occasions that what I was promising to do, was not possible, or that I couldn’t deliver, on time, as promised. Not once, did I ever fail to meet the challenge.
I need a new challenge… something that will give me a little ‘fear’, make me sharp again... it’s been far too long since I smelled the fear of a new challenge, one I have no clue about how to achieve. There’s an adrenalin ‘rush’ that accompanies running headlong into a new arena, not knowing how the ‘game’ will turn out.
My choices are a bit limited these days. I’m not so young as I once was, corporate doors tend not to open quite so quickly for someone past 50 looking to ‘break into’ something new. It’s expected you see, that I should be happy, just doing what I do, and to coast the next 10 or 15 years into retirement.
I just don’t know as I can do that.
No, I know I can’t.
It’s the loss of the dream I think that’s bothering me most. You see I’ve always had some kind of seemingly ‘impossible dream’. A dream that was certainly achievable, to some folks, but one that felt nearly impossible, to me.
First it was the garage, I dreamed about that all through High School, and my time in the military, then, one day, there I was standing in front of my own shop.
Next it was going back to college and getting my degree. It certainly looked impossible at the onset. There was little money, and a ton of bills. Yet, once again, eventually, there I was walking across the stage and receiving a diploma.
My first full time job out of college was teaching at a post secondary school in Syracuse. The first semester I taught primarily introductory accounting, and one flowcharting and logic class. During that semester I became enamored with computers and set my sights on learning and teaching some programming classes.
The next thing I knew, I was the lead programming instructor at the new branch location.
However, by the time that came to pass, I’d set my sights on developing applications for these new “IBM PC’s” everyone was talking about. My first project was for a trucking company, in a programming language I’d never seen, or even read about. I delivered that project, on time, and on budget, and my new ‘consulting career’ was launched.
Soon I was developing applications for a broader market, expanding, ‘making a name’ for myself in the little world I lived in.
Yet, once again the dream had shifted. I wanted to be a ‘hired gun’, the guy who came into town to build the tough projects. Soon, I was doing just that, in Tennessee, Georgia, California and then North Carolina.
I settled in once I got here. All of a sudden I was making ‘contract’ money, on a steady job, with benefits… I thought I’d finally arrived. But soon, that same old ‘call’ was back, I was uneasy, restless, looking for another challenge.
It arrived in the way of a contract with USAir to link the call accounting systems in their reservation centers with the payroll system on their mainframes. I took a sabbatical from my ‘perfect job’, risking the loss of that steady deal, just to prove I could do it. I did, and went back to the ‘job’, for another 6 or 7 years.
The restlessness has been back for a while. I thought, at first, that contracting again would feed the hunger, ease the longing, and it did, for a while.
I’m even having some fairly good success at it, more than I expected, and everyone seems very happy with the quality, and quantity, of my work. Still, this feeling there’s something else I should be doing, that haunts me.
The worst thing is, there’s no ‘dream’ this time. No clear vision of what’s next on the horizon. It may just be that it’s missing that bothers me most. I don’t know, if having a dream, that’s always just a little out of reach, is a good, or a bad thing. I just know, it’s something that’s always been with me, as far back as I can remember.
It’s entirely possible I’m simply mourning the loss of an old ‘friend’, an ally that was always on my side. It could be that this is simply part of the process of life and it took me longer than most to stop dreaming about what’s next.
I’m not ready to stop dreaming.
I’m not ready to stop finding ways to make life, and living exciting and new, everyday.
For now, I’ll keep writing, it gives me a lot of pleasure to do it, it always has. Writing, for a living, is the one, long term dream I’ve had, I’ve never pursued. I hate rejection, and I know writing can be a life filled with rejections, which is probably the one reason I’ve never gone after it.
Writing, like every other dream I’ve gone after, is also something I can work towards without giving up my ‘day job’.
Maybe, just maybe, I’m already living my dream. I’m writing and you folks stop by and read it; all that’s missing is the ‘money’. Truthfully, money has never really motivated me to do anything; I’ve always done everything because I loved doing it. Money was always secondary to me (which explains why I’ve never made a ton of it), it was the ‘work’ that got me out of bed in the morning.
So here I sit, having come full circle. Feeling lost, directionless, when I sat down and now actually smiling in the realization that I’m doing, exactly, what I’ve always wanted to do.
Thank you all for making it so much fun for me to do it!
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Friday, September 09, 2005
Enjoying the moment....
I was talking with my Mom yesterday, she’s been having some medical problems and I like to check in on her when I can. In the course of that conversation she said (as many older folks do) “I’m ready whenever my time comes, I’ve had a good life”. I shocked her a little when I said, “You know what Mom? Me too!”
She started telling me I was too young to feel that way… I stopped her and said… “Wait a minute… I said I was ‘ready’… I didn’t say I wanted to leave a minute before my time!”
We went on to have a conversation about enjoying each day. I reminded her (not that she really needed to be reminded) of my ‘close calls’ with death and said “Every day, since then has been a bonus, a gift, I hate to waste even a minute!”
But I did, for many years; I never took the time, to just enjoy the day.
So often we’re all wrapped up in what’s wrong with our lives that we forget all the things that are right. (or at least I was)
It’s not hard, in fact it’s all too easy, to get wrapped up in our problems. After all, it’s the problems that are demanding our attention. There’s a whole list in all of our daily lives:
I hear folks say, “everything in my life is screwed up”… however, when I start asking a few simple questions, it turns out that not everything is a problem, but the problems are all they’re thinking about.
Somehow though, all of that has been obscured, covered up, by the problems they’re experiencing and perceive as all important. The trick is to get out from under the cloud of the problems, realize that despite whatever might be going wrong, there’s generally a lot more going right, and find a way to keep that fact in the ‘front’ of your thoughts, and let the problems drift to the back.
One way I’ve found that works for me, is to put the problems (like the household repairs) on a list. That way every time I take more items off the list, than I put on, I feel better about everything. Even when I’m adding items to the list, the simple process of writing it down means I don’t have to think about it again until I’m ready to spend some time on resolving it.
In July of 2004, I got laid off, made a career change, parted ways… what ever you want to call it... It was an emotionally devastating event for me. I’d been thinking about making a change, I was totally unhappy where I was, wanted to do something else, hated going to work and was developing a fairly solid dislike for my employer… all very ‘unhappy’ making ingredients…. The one thing that kept me going was coming home each night and spending time with my wife.
No, we didn’t have perfect harmony, but even when we’re in the middle of a major disagreement, I still prefer her company to nearly anyone else’s. She’s almost always in my corner, supports every passion I have, and when I’m really down, she’s like a breath of fresh air for me.
When she wasn’t capable of dealing with my depression (and let’s face it, who wants to, or can, deal with it nearly everyday), I’d take the bike for a short 20-30 minute spin to clear my head and remind me “why” I work.
I work, for a living. I do not, any longer, live for work.
Even with both of us trying to pull me out of my funk… I wasn’t budging. I’d given over 10 hard, long years to the company, with a promise of “you’ll have a job until you want to retire” … and in the previous six months I’d seen all the same signs, pointed at me this time, that were there whenever this guy decided he no longer needed someone… I was feeling like a fool, I’d believed his promises… well, no, it was more like I wanted to believe and turned a blind eye to anything that didn’t fit my ‘picture’… The reality was so bad I could make it fit any more.
Despite all of that, when the time came for the formal parting of the ways, it was like being hit with a bat. I stayed pretty stoic in the actual meeting and managed to squeak out a few extra tidbits in the settlement package, but as I was walking for the door, the emotions began to hit.
It was the whole range too, in the less than 90 seconds it took to walk from the building I went from angry, to sad, to hurt, to fear, to anger again… On the drive home… the tears came… mostly tears of self pity... feeling sorry for myself that despite all the work, I’d been cast out anyway… I eventually gathered myself up enough to call my wife’s cell phone, as I really needed her to talk to when I got home, as luck would have it she was already home.
We spent all of 20 minutes after I got home discussing what a raw deal I’d gotten, and then began to look for a ‘bright side’. It didn’t take us long to find it. She refused to let me have any self pity. She reminded me of all the work, the nights, weekends, promises made to me and repeatedly broken… that this was meant to be… it was just another step in the road.
We talked about the debilitating effects of the two ruptured disc's in my neck, the pain, the surgeries, the long recovery periods... and how if this had to happen, at least we were past that period.
The brightest spot of all? It was that I’d never have to work there again, period. No more late night and weekend phone calls, calls disrupting our dinners, vacations and holidays.
We celebrated my ‘liberation’ that night by going out to our favorite restaurant for dinner, staying up late and sleeping in the next day. By that next afternoon though, I’d made some phone calls, and set up a small project in Greensboro that would start the following Monday.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week. You see there was a time in my life where all I was able to focus on was what was wrong. Never taking the time to enjoy the various things I’d accomplished, just moving it to the ‘done’ column and moving directly into the ‘next’ thing.
I was lamenting my fate one day to a fellow a bit older than I was then, and he said to me “but look at all you’ve accomplished”. That stopped me dead in my tracks, and actually caused me to ask him what he meant. He explained by listing off about a dozen things that he knew I’d done, and that had impressed him. I tried to play it off by saying “Anyone could have done those things”… to which he replied.. “But ‘anyone’ didn’t do them, 'you' did, you should be proud of the things you’ve done.”
Well, all these years later, I still remember that talk, and every time I start to thinking about what’s wrong, I hear his voice, and try to start thinking about what’s right.
For the record, there are plenty of things wrong in my life, an uncertain employment future, that leaky roof, most everything on the list and on and on... but, that’s just a part of life, there will always be things wrong, the challenge is, to keep them in perspective, especially when they’re screaming at you for attention.
The trick is, enjoy the day, it’s only here for a little while, and when it’s gone, it’s gone forever. Don’t waste your days being angry, depressed, or doing anything other than trying your best to enjoy every moment.
You’ll be glad you did!
She started telling me I was too young to feel that way… I stopped her and said… “Wait a minute… I said I was ‘ready’… I didn’t say I wanted to leave a minute before my time!”
We went on to have a conversation about enjoying each day. I reminded her (not that she really needed to be reminded) of my ‘close calls’ with death and said “Every day, since then has been a bonus, a gift, I hate to waste even a minute!”
But I did, for many years; I never took the time, to just enjoy the day.
So often we’re all wrapped up in what’s wrong with our lives that we forget all the things that are right. (or at least I was)
It’s not hard, in fact it’s all too easy, to get wrapped up in our problems. After all, it’s the problems that are demanding our attention. There’s a whole list in all of our daily lives:
- dripping faucet
- the leak in the roof
- the lawn needs mowing
- the car needs brakes
- you're not making enough money
- gas prices are too high
- how are we going to pay the power bill
- groceries cost how much!?!
- the raise/promotion you didn’t get
- A boss who doesn’t seem to understand you have a life, outside the office
I hear folks say, “everything in my life is screwed up”… however, when I start asking a few simple questions, it turns out that not everything is a problem, but the problems are all they’re thinking about.
- The first thing I often ask is how’s your health?
- Are you eating 2-3 times a day?
- You’ve still got your house right?
- Your wife (or husband), y’all are still together?
- Still got the car you bought last year?
- How’s the job, you are still working right?
Somehow though, all of that has been obscured, covered up, by the problems they’re experiencing and perceive as all important. The trick is to get out from under the cloud of the problems, realize that despite whatever might be going wrong, there’s generally a lot more going right, and find a way to keep that fact in the ‘front’ of your thoughts, and let the problems drift to the back.
One way I’ve found that works for me, is to put the problems (like the household repairs) on a list. That way every time I take more items off the list, than I put on, I feel better about everything. Even when I’m adding items to the list, the simple process of writing it down means I don’t have to think about it again until I’m ready to spend some time on resolving it.
In July of 2004, I got laid off, made a career change, parted ways… what ever you want to call it... It was an emotionally devastating event for me. I’d been thinking about making a change, I was totally unhappy where I was, wanted to do something else, hated going to work and was developing a fairly solid dislike for my employer… all very ‘unhappy’ making ingredients…. The one thing that kept me going was coming home each night and spending time with my wife.
No, we didn’t have perfect harmony, but even when we’re in the middle of a major disagreement, I still prefer her company to nearly anyone else’s. She’s almost always in my corner, supports every passion I have, and when I’m really down, she’s like a breath of fresh air for me.
When she wasn’t capable of dealing with my depression (and let’s face it, who wants to, or can, deal with it nearly everyday), I’d take the bike for a short 20-30 minute spin to clear my head and remind me “why” I work.
I work, for a living. I do not, any longer, live for work.
Even with both of us trying to pull me out of my funk… I wasn’t budging. I’d given over 10 hard, long years to the company, with a promise of “you’ll have a job until you want to retire” … and in the previous six months I’d seen all the same signs, pointed at me this time, that were there whenever this guy decided he no longer needed someone… I was feeling like a fool, I’d believed his promises… well, no, it was more like I wanted to believe and turned a blind eye to anything that didn’t fit my ‘picture’… The reality was so bad I could make it fit any more.
Despite all of that, when the time came for the formal parting of the ways, it was like being hit with a bat. I stayed pretty stoic in the actual meeting and managed to squeak out a few extra tidbits in the settlement package, but as I was walking for the door, the emotions began to hit.
It was the whole range too, in the less than 90 seconds it took to walk from the building I went from angry, to sad, to hurt, to fear, to anger again… On the drive home… the tears came… mostly tears of self pity... feeling sorry for myself that despite all the work, I’d been cast out anyway… I eventually gathered myself up enough to call my wife’s cell phone, as I really needed her to talk to when I got home, as luck would have it she was already home.
We spent all of 20 minutes after I got home discussing what a raw deal I’d gotten, and then began to look for a ‘bright side’. It didn’t take us long to find it. She refused to let me have any self pity. She reminded me of all the work, the nights, weekends, promises made to me and repeatedly broken… that this was meant to be… it was just another step in the road.
We talked about the debilitating effects of the two ruptured disc's in my neck, the pain, the surgeries, the long recovery periods... and how if this had to happen, at least we were past that period.
The brightest spot of all? It was that I’d never have to work there again, period. No more late night and weekend phone calls, calls disrupting our dinners, vacations and holidays.
We celebrated my ‘liberation’ that night by going out to our favorite restaurant for dinner, staying up late and sleeping in the next day. By that next afternoon though, I’d made some phone calls, and set up a small project in Greensboro that would start the following Monday.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week. You see there was a time in my life where all I was able to focus on was what was wrong. Never taking the time to enjoy the various things I’d accomplished, just moving it to the ‘done’ column and moving directly into the ‘next’ thing.
I was lamenting my fate one day to a fellow a bit older than I was then, and he said to me “but look at all you’ve accomplished”. That stopped me dead in my tracks, and actually caused me to ask him what he meant. He explained by listing off about a dozen things that he knew I’d done, and that had impressed him. I tried to play it off by saying “Anyone could have done those things”… to which he replied.. “But ‘anyone’ didn’t do them, 'you' did, you should be proud of the things you’ve done.”
Well, all these years later, I still remember that talk, and every time I start to thinking about what’s wrong, I hear his voice, and try to start thinking about what’s right.
For the record, there are plenty of things wrong in my life, an uncertain employment future, that leaky roof, most everything on the list and on and on... but, that’s just a part of life, there will always be things wrong, the challenge is, to keep them in perspective, especially when they’re screaming at you for attention.
The trick is, enjoy the day, it’s only here for a little while, and when it’s gone, it’s gone forever. Don’t waste your days being angry, depressed, or doing anything other than trying your best to enjoy every moment.
You’ll be glad you did!
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Imagine if you would all of Great Britton… totally destroyed.
I’m listening to the radio on the way into work yesterday morning and heard an estimate of the area of total devastation from Katrina; the guy put it at approximately the same number of square miles as the entire country of Great Britton. That’s right the entire country!
A country comparable in size that while damaged, wasn’t totally destroyed, despite the persistent aerial bombing efforts of the Nazi’s during WWII.
A place similar in size leveled in a matter of hours by Katrina, that, in and of itself is a stunning reminder of the power of nature.
Going back to the ‘blame game’ that’s been circulating, (and once again, you my readers, were able to discuss the issue calmly and rationally!! Kudos to you!!) it seems there are a couple of issues that ‘stick out’ as potential items for improvement.
The mayor of New Orleans didn’t call for a mandatory evacuation soon enough. In retrospect, certainly true enough. However, if he had called for it, say a day sooner, and the storm had missed New Orleans (as so many have) can you imagine the crap he’d be dealing with as a result? Seems in this country acting too soon, is nearly as bad as not acting soon enough.
The governor of Louisiana called out the National Guard and got them on stand by ahead of the storm. Somehow though, the specific order(s) that would have enabled them to act as a police force, take control of civilian equipment like buses, and in general do much except ‘stand by’ were never given. I’m guessing she’d never ‘called out the guard’ before, and no one told her she had to grant them ‘rights’ to do things. I know I would have assumed that calling them out would be sufficient… seems it’s not.
The white house offered to ‘take over’ the rescue and recovery efforts in Louisiana on the 2nd day after the storm. The governor said she needed 24hrs to decide what the state wanted to do. At the end of that time, the answer was “No”, we’ll handle it ourselves. I’m not quite sure what the reasoning was there… I know I would have taken all the top level help I could get!
Another item; it seems FEMA has been under a bit of fire this week for not ‘rescuing’ folks. For the record, FEMA is not a ‘responder’ agency (that’s what police, EMT, Fire and National Guard folks do). Their (FEMA’s) job is to get the stuff there. Food, water, medicine, doctors, nurses and portable medical facilities and those types of things, not, to be out performing rescue and recovery. From all reports, they got the stuff there, and quite quickly.
Last item… and this one I really don’t understand. Seems this mobile hospital, complete with doctors, equipment etc… was not allowed to set up shop in Louisiana, as the state officials could not decide on ‘what services’ they should be allowed to offer (for who knows what reasons)… Mississippi however, said, “Hey we’ll take it!!” So it’s up and running there now.
The scope of this tragedy is ‘off the hook’. Until now, we here in the US have, for the most part, been spared this type of event. It was something that happened in some 3rd world country, on the “other side” of the planet, not here.
Well, now it’s happened here. Like terrorism, while it went on elsewhere and not in our ‘back yard’ we felt safe, insulated, protected.
This time it’s an area of the US, as large (or larger), than some entire countries, that has been leveled, washed, or blown, away.
If you want to get a sense of the size of the damaged area, go here.
Someone said to me yesterday, in discussing the “who did/didn’t do what fast enough” issue that seems to continue to grow and be the primary ‘water cooler’ topic around this tragic event… “If we can do it abroad, we should be able to do it at home”.
Let’s examine that for a moment, and use the tsunami (it was her example, not mine) as a yardstick against which we can measure our ‘homeland’ response.
You can see a timeline here, and what you’ll see, is that supplies began arriving a couple of days after the event, but even 5 days later on January 1st, were just beginning to reach areas where they were needed. On January 6th, (10 days later) world leaders met to determine how to get aid to people as the logistics of getting to the people was still an issue.
You can also go here and get a look at the Red Cross’ view of the timeline. Another, from Singapore’s view point can be found here.
Even 30 and 60 days later there were still ongoing problems. I’m not saying it’s right, just that it’s an issue (response to major catastrophic damage) that no one seems to have ‘just right’. I hope that on the back side of all of this, we take a much bigger step towards “just right”.
The bottom line in all of this is that, organizing and properly providing relief efforts, takes time, and a massive effort of coordination. Its one thing to help a small town hit by a tornado, it’s an altogether different matter when that kind of destruction involves the same type of destruction multiplied 1000’s of times over.
We all want everyone saved, and yesterday, myself included. However, the sad fact in all of this is that not everyone can, or will be saved. Part of the tough choices that are made in triage situations is how to save the ‘the most’ people. In making that decision, it’s an almost certainty the folks in charge will have to let some folks die.
It happens on the battlefield, in burning buildings and at accident scenes around the world everyday. No one likes having to make these difficult choices, and no, it’s not ‘fair’ that they have to be made, but it’s a critical component to every emergency response. First, don't get the workers hurt or killed, do what's required to save the most people, that's the deal.
Unfortunately, life is not fair. It’s hard, cold and unforgiving. Fortunately, for the most part we here in the US are insulated from that fact as a result of our culture, affluence and lifestyle. We’re not (well the vast majority of us anyway) struggling to find the next meal, or to find a warm, dry place to sleep… we’re much further up Maslow’s hierarchy than that.
This kind of catastrophe, serves to remind us that the lives we lead are very fragile, and we simply do not like facing that reality. So we ‘rail against the light’, finding; people to blame, reasons for the occurrence, all in an attempt to understand how it could happen. Underneath it all is our fear, that if we fail to understand it, we too could be a victim and not simply a bystander.
Our society does the same with many things. We try to blame the victim of a crime… they shouldn’t have been where ever they were, doing what ever they were doing, they put themselves in harms way… when in reality, it was the perpetrator’s “fault”, they after all chose to commit a crime against the victim.
Some will even explain that the perpetrator wasn’t really at fault, that society had failed that person somehow… when, in fact, that person simply chose a life of crime. Many studies show that it’s not, inevitable, that criminals come from high crime areas. Some live side by side, in the same building, one person chooses crime, another picks a different path.
In affluent neighborhoods, where there is ample opportunity and no one would “need” to choose a life of crime, some still do. It’s a choice.
Sometimes, and more often than not, the realities of the universe we live in are not what we want them to be. Nature is just nature, it’s our challenge to learn to live with her.
Our not wanting things to be...
The way they are
Will not change...
The way they are.
All in all, it seems to me that there should be some sort of “response study” done when this is all behind us. I’m certain there will be some lessons in here on what to do and not to do, both before and after a storm of this magnitude.
I for one am glad the Army Core of Engineers have repaired the levy, are bringing the pumps back on line and already the water is dropping. It may be weeks before it’s all pumped out, but we’re headed in the right direction.
Evacuees began arriving in North Carolina yesterday, they’re being processed in shelters in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro with Winston-Salem already hosting about a 100 or so people who managed to get here on their own.
Every story I hear about folks opening up their hearts to the folks from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana reminds me of why we live in the greatest country in the world!
We may not be perfect, but when the chips are down, we step up like no where else I know!
A country comparable in size that while damaged, wasn’t totally destroyed, despite the persistent aerial bombing efforts of the Nazi’s during WWII.
A place similar in size leveled in a matter of hours by Katrina, that, in and of itself is a stunning reminder of the power of nature.
Going back to the ‘blame game’ that’s been circulating, (and once again, you my readers, were able to discuss the issue calmly and rationally!! Kudos to you!!) it seems there are a couple of issues that ‘stick out’ as potential items for improvement.
The mayor of New Orleans didn’t call for a mandatory evacuation soon enough. In retrospect, certainly true enough. However, if he had called for it, say a day sooner, and the storm had missed New Orleans (as so many have) can you imagine the crap he’d be dealing with as a result? Seems in this country acting too soon, is nearly as bad as not acting soon enough.
The governor of Louisiana called out the National Guard and got them on stand by ahead of the storm. Somehow though, the specific order(s) that would have enabled them to act as a police force, take control of civilian equipment like buses, and in general do much except ‘stand by’ were never given. I’m guessing she’d never ‘called out the guard’ before, and no one told her she had to grant them ‘rights’ to do things. I know I would have assumed that calling them out would be sufficient… seems it’s not.
The white house offered to ‘take over’ the rescue and recovery efforts in Louisiana on the 2nd day after the storm. The governor said she needed 24hrs to decide what the state wanted to do. At the end of that time, the answer was “No”, we’ll handle it ourselves. I’m not quite sure what the reasoning was there… I know I would have taken all the top level help I could get!
Another item; it seems FEMA has been under a bit of fire this week for not ‘rescuing’ folks. For the record, FEMA is not a ‘responder’ agency (that’s what police, EMT, Fire and National Guard folks do). Their (FEMA’s) job is to get the stuff there. Food, water, medicine, doctors, nurses and portable medical facilities and those types of things, not, to be out performing rescue and recovery. From all reports, they got the stuff there, and quite quickly.
Last item… and this one I really don’t understand. Seems this mobile hospital, complete with doctors, equipment etc… was not allowed to set up shop in Louisiana, as the state officials could not decide on ‘what services’ they should be allowed to offer (for who knows what reasons)… Mississippi however, said, “Hey we’ll take it!!” So it’s up and running there now.
The scope of this tragedy is ‘off the hook’. Until now, we here in the US have, for the most part, been spared this type of event. It was something that happened in some 3rd world country, on the “other side” of the planet, not here.
Well, now it’s happened here. Like terrorism, while it went on elsewhere and not in our ‘back yard’ we felt safe, insulated, protected.
This time it’s an area of the US, as large (or larger), than some entire countries, that has been leveled, washed, or blown, away.
If you want to get a sense of the size of the damaged area, go here.
Someone said to me yesterday, in discussing the “who did/didn’t do what fast enough” issue that seems to continue to grow and be the primary ‘water cooler’ topic around this tragic event… “If we can do it abroad, we should be able to do it at home”.
Let’s examine that for a moment, and use the tsunami (it was her example, not mine) as a yardstick against which we can measure our ‘homeland’ response.
You can see a timeline here, and what you’ll see, is that supplies began arriving a couple of days after the event, but even 5 days later on January 1st, were just beginning to reach areas where they were needed. On January 6th, (10 days later) world leaders met to determine how to get aid to people as the logistics of getting to the people was still an issue.
You can also go here and get a look at the Red Cross’ view of the timeline. Another, from Singapore’s view point can be found here.
Even 30 and 60 days later there were still ongoing problems. I’m not saying it’s right, just that it’s an issue (response to major catastrophic damage) that no one seems to have ‘just right’. I hope that on the back side of all of this, we take a much bigger step towards “just right”.
The bottom line in all of this is that, organizing and properly providing relief efforts, takes time, and a massive effort of coordination. Its one thing to help a small town hit by a tornado, it’s an altogether different matter when that kind of destruction involves the same type of destruction multiplied 1000’s of times over.
We all want everyone saved, and yesterday, myself included. However, the sad fact in all of this is that not everyone can, or will be saved. Part of the tough choices that are made in triage situations is how to save the ‘the most’ people. In making that decision, it’s an almost certainty the folks in charge will have to let some folks die.
It happens on the battlefield, in burning buildings and at accident scenes around the world everyday. No one likes having to make these difficult choices, and no, it’s not ‘fair’ that they have to be made, but it’s a critical component to every emergency response. First, don't get the workers hurt or killed, do what's required to save the most people, that's the deal.
Unfortunately, life is not fair. It’s hard, cold and unforgiving. Fortunately, for the most part we here in the US are insulated from that fact as a result of our culture, affluence and lifestyle. We’re not (well the vast majority of us anyway) struggling to find the next meal, or to find a warm, dry place to sleep… we’re much further up Maslow’s hierarchy than that.
This kind of catastrophe, serves to remind us that the lives we lead are very fragile, and we simply do not like facing that reality. So we ‘rail against the light’, finding; people to blame, reasons for the occurrence, all in an attempt to understand how it could happen. Underneath it all is our fear, that if we fail to understand it, we too could be a victim and not simply a bystander.
Our society does the same with many things. We try to blame the victim of a crime… they shouldn’t have been where ever they were, doing what ever they were doing, they put themselves in harms way… when in reality, it was the perpetrator’s “fault”, they after all chose to commit a crime against the victim.
Some will even explain that the perpetrator wasn’t really at fault, that society had failed that person somehow… when, in fact, that person simply chose a life of crime. Many studies show that it’s not, inevitable, that criminals come from high crime areas. Some live side by side, in the same building, one person chooses crime, another picks a different path.
In affluent neighborhoods, where there is ample opportunity and no one would “need” to choose a life of crime, some still do. It’s a choice.
Sometimes, and more often than not, the realities of the universe we live in are not what we want them to be. Nature is just nature, it’s our challenge to learn to live with her.
Our not wanting things to be...
The way they are
Will not change...
The way they are.
All in all, it seems to me that there should be some sort of “response study” done when this is all behind us. I’m certain there will be some lessons in here on what to do and not to do, both before and after a storm of this magnitude.
I for one am glad the Army Core of Engineers have repaired the levy, are bringing the pumps back on line and already the water is dropping. It may be weeks before it’s all pumped out, but we’re headed in the right direction.
Evacuees began arriving in North Carolina yesterday, they’re being processed in shelters in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro with Winston-Salem already hosting about a 100 or so people who managed to get here on their own.
Every story I hear about folks opening up their hearts to the folks from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana reminds me of why we live in the greatest country in the world!
We may not be perfect, but when the chips are down, we step up like no where else I know!
Monday, September 05, 2005
Arrogance…
Is that what it is? Or, is it just that we like to ‘stick our heads in the sand’ believing’ that somehow, the problem will be avoided, averted or not actually materialize?
I’ve been watching the reports coming out of Louisiana, Mississippi and surrounding areas for a while now. While it’s obvious there has been a massive movement of equipment, materials, supplies and manpower to the area, what’s not so obvious is that there’s any sort of cogent plan in place to utilize all the resources at hand.
I read that New Orleans had run a disaster preparedness drill about a month before the storm hit, and yet, the magnitude of the storm, and the materialization of the worst fears of the planners seemed to have stunned the agencies and also their efforts subsequent to the storm.
Unless you've lived through an actual disaster, where everything you've known, come to rely on, people, places, resources, is wiped out over night, it's very difficult to understand the extent of the impact. The local rescue workers, and when I say local we're talking about folks from an area of 1,000's of square miles, have all lost homes, friends and family members. How difficult would it be for you to jump in and know exactly what to do at a time like this?
There are a lot of folks jumping on the ‘Blame Bush’ bandwagon. I’ve heard him blamed for virtually everything that’s gone wrong there. From the fact the levies weren’t high, or strong, enough, to the fact that not everyone in every shelter was evacuated. He may be to blame for some things, but the fact is, 'Katrina' is to blame for the mess, no one else. We humans seem to think we can 'control' nature, we can't. About the best we can do is attempt to prepare for it, and then do our best to recover from the effects after the fact.
It’s pretty easy I think, to sit in our air conditioned living rooms and point a finger at the recovery efforts, spout off about what we would have done, what should have been done, or how the plans were flawed in the first place.
It’s a disaster area; nearly every single evaluation of the destruction that’s occurred there has included some reference to it being of ‘Biblical Proportions’. The coastal area of Mississippi has been leveled, as in totally destroyed, over an area over 250 miles long and 2 to 3 miles wide. Power outages and significant damages are spread over a much wider area.
What we’ve been seeing, over the past several days is triage at work.
For those of you who don’t know, "triage" is defined as:
I’ve been watching the reports coming out of Louisiana, Mississippi and surrounding areas for a while now. While it’s obvious there has been a massive movement of equipment, materials, supplies and manpower to the area, what’s not so obvious is that there’s any sort of cogent plan in place to utilize all the resources at hand.
I read that New Orleans had run a disaster preparedness drill about a month before the storm hit, and yet, the magnitude of the storm, and the materialization of the worst fears of the planners seemed to have stunned the agencies and also their efforts subsequent to the storm.
Unless you've lived through an actual disaster, where everything you've known, come to rely on, people, places, resources, is wiped out over night, it's very difficult to understand the extent of the impact. The local rescue workers, and when I say local we're talking about folks from an area of 1,000's of square miles, have all lost homes, friends and family members. How difficult would it be for you to jump in and know exactly what to do at a time like this?
There are a lot of folks jumping on the ‘Blame Bush’ bandwagon. I’ve heard him blamed for virtually everything that’s gone wrong there. From the fact the levies weren’t high, or strong, enough, to the fact that not everyone in every shelter was evacuated. He may be to blame for some things, but the fact is, 'Katrina' is to blame for the mess, no one else. We humans seem to think we can 'control' nature, we can't. About the best we can do is attempt to prepare for it, and then do our best to recover from the effects after the fact.
It’s pretty easy I think, to sit in our air conditioned living rooms and point a finger at the recovery efforts, spout off about what we would have done, what should have been done, or how the plans were flawed in the first place.
It’s a disaster area; nearly every single evaluation of the destruction that’s occurred there has included some reference to it being of ‘Biblical Proportions’. The coastal area of Mississippi has been leveled, as in totally destroyed, over an area over 250 miles long and 2 to 3 miles wide. Power outages and significant damages are spread over a much wider area.
What we’ve been seeing, over the past several days is triage at work.
For those of you who don’t know, "triage" is defined as:
- the process of sorting victims, as of a battle or disaster, to determine medical priority in order to increase the number of survivors.
- the determination of priorities for action in an emergency.
If you think about the expanse of the damage and devastation, the near total destruction of infrastructure (including major traffic conduits) in many areas, it takes some time to evaluate the actual situation and begin to direct activities appropriately.
In this situation, as hard as it is to watch, the folks already in shelters are not the primary focus.
Initially the rescue workers have to determine safe routes in, and out of, the area, While it might be safe to drive a car, van or light truck over certain roads and bridges, driving heavy equipment over those same routes could be disastrous for heavy equipment and troop carriers.
Communications have to be established, command posts, local government liaisons, essentially, in this case, an entire temporary infrastructure. It takes time folks. It can not be done over night, at least effectively.
Plans must be drawn up to begin searching those areas that are accessable for survivors, as those who may have survived, and are not already in a shelter are the 1st priority.
We’re beginning to see now, what appears to be a much more organized rescue effort. Everyone is being removed from the worst hit areas. The levies are being repaired, and once that’s done the pumps will be turned back on and the water removed from New Orleans.
When the water’s gone, those areas that were submerged will be searched, bodies removed and the areas secured.
I suspect, that once that initial pass through is complete (and that alone could take weeks) a decision will be made as to the disposition of those buildings, homes, businesses. Some may be deemed habitable, some uninhabitable, and many will be deemed unsafe and will be torn down without the owners ever being able to return before that’s done.
This is, in my opinion, very likely to become far more tragic, before we begin to see the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.
Why didn’t the city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, the country as a whole, do more to protect the citizens there? In short, it boils down to money. The cost of preparing for a ‘worst case’ disaster like this was probably deemed to have been ‘too high’. The odds of it occurring were small, and the elected officials, at every level determined taxpayers would not foot that kind of tax burden.
We all do similar things in our personal lives. How many of you have flood insurance? It’s available to nearly every home/business owner, but only about 1 in 20 actually has purchased it (including me). Why? Cost I would imagine. Flood insurance can cost as much as, or more than the Homeowner policy you already have, and unless you live in an area known to flood, why spend the money?
Could the Gulf Coast region done a better job of preparing for this type of disaster?
Certainly.
Would everyone who was asked to shoulder a portion of the cost, that didn’t live in the immediate area complained about spending money to prepare for something that had ‘never happened’ and 'might never happen'?
Most likely.
We’re at half time here folks. We got it ‘handed to us’ in the first half. It makes no sense to look back and say ‘what could have been done’… it’s time now to look forward, deal with the damage done, decide what needs to be done and get everyone back in the game that is capable of playing.
One of the things I love about this country is the way we all pitch in and do what we can in times of need. States all over the country are sending money, people, equipment and supplies, offering housing, and other services, to displaced residents.
One of the things that always saddens me though is all of the ‘second guessing’, by the politicians, the media, and even us ‘regular’ folks while all of this is in play. In my mind, this is the time to get ‘on the team’, do what needs doing, make all the efforts we possibly can to get that area back on its feet, until that job is done.
Then, ‘after the game’, when all the facts are in; when what went right, went wrong, or could have been improved on, is known, that’s the time to re-evaluate the over all strategy ‘pre-game’ plan. Not now while so much needs to be done.
We simply don’t have all the facts, and neither does the media. The folks with the facts, well they’re too busy doing what needs to be done, to be talking to us, or the media right now!
Anyway… the point of all of this, is, let’s just do what needs to be done, now. Later, months from now there will be plenty of time for finger pointing, name calling and appointing an ‘unbiased’ commission to investigate the entire matter. For now, let’s just get in there and get the job done.
Let's let the folks on the ground there determine what is the best course of action, for the situation. We can disect their decsions later.
Friday, September 02, 2005
I’ve been *busy*!!
In July of 2004, when I made the move to ‘restart’ my contracting career, I have to admit I had a lot of second, and third, thoughts.
I’d had a consulting company of my own from the early 80’s until 1995 when I took the full time job here. It had always been marginally profitable, at best. There were years when things ‘boomed’ and I had as many as 5 people working for me, but there were also a lot of ‘lean’ years, where after all was said and done I would have been better off financially had I worked part time at a convenience store!
So, despite wanting to do this, I was more than a little concerned about our financial well being.
Fortunately, that’s not been a real concern over the past 15 months. Things have gone at least as well as I could have hoped, and we’re clicking along quite nicely. That’s despite my wife not being able to work for the past year due to her back problems, and me having no client base. To say I’m surprised would be an understatement.
Along the way though, I’ve had a chance to reflect on how different I think about things today, as opposed to when I got started in this business.
Its funny how a steady, reliable paycheck, of sufficient size to allow you to be comfortable, ‘changes’ your attitudes. When I took on my first contract with Bill Beck and his trucking company I had a ‘day job’ teaching at a local post secondary school. The money was not all that good, maybe $16K/year at the time, but, for the most part I either worked Monday, Wednesday, Friday or a Tuesday, Thursday work week depending on the schedule that quarter.
So finding a sideline (or two) really didn’t interfere with the job, and added some much needed cash to the household funds.
As the client list grew, from that first client, to 10 or 15 clients, it became increasingly difficult to provide them with the services they wanted, and continue to teach a ‘full load’ at school. When I talked to the school about cutting back my hours, their answer was either teach the course load you’re assigned, or find another job.
So when Omnifax came calling… I bailed on the teaching gig in a New York nanosecond… I never considered the possibilities of it not working out, I just jumped at the chance.
When it didn’t work out at Omnifax, and I made the move to APA, again, no second thoughts, no concerns, I just hit the door at APA, ready, willing, and able to crank out the projects once again. However, when things weren’t going as ‘planned’ at APA, I jumped ship there and began to concentrate on ‘my’ clients full time.
Never once, in all of that did I consider the possibility I wouldn’t make enough money. You see I'd been making so little, I was certain I'd be able to "make eats" as we used to say.
Fast forward to now… I spent 1993 – 2004 working essentially for the same company, getting promoted, earning raises etc… and in all that time, they never missed a paycheck. It was also the 2nd best paying job I’ve ever had, all of a sudden in ’93 I wasn’t worried about questions like: “How is the mortgage getting paid this month?”, “Do I have to eat soup or is a steak in the budget this week?”. I'd been, for the first time in my adult life, and for more than 10 years, financially 'comfortable'.
Freedom from those ‘basic’ decisions changes you, or at the very least, it changed me. For the first time, I found myself actually worried that I might not ‘make it’, that the world had changed and there wasn’t the ‘work’ out there for me there had once been. THat I'd lose that comfort level I'd worked so hard to achieve, and once again be back to "making eats". I wrestled with these worries through many sleepless nights, and in the beginning, it seemed on more days than not that I was entirely justified in my worries and my fears.
I picked up a small gig here, another there, but was barely making enough to cover the mortgage, let alone to cover health insurance, food, power and the other bills. Each month our savings dipped as we used the money to cover the monthly ‘nut’, but, each month the dip was a little smaller and I got a little busier.
Then, in November I got a shot at the contract I’m still on. Once again, the money has been fairly steady and they’ve kept me very busy.
I never stopped marketing my services though, and in the past several days I’ve been swamped with potential new clients, and requests for additional work from the few new clients I had in the beginning.
I’ve settled in on three of them, the first (a new client) is an automotive engine re-builder, the second (also new) an engineering firm, and the third is the insurance company I did the call reporting package for in late 2004.
I’m meeting with two of them today to finalize things, determine the ‘scope’ of what they’d like done, at least initially, and also to get some ‘start dates’.
Why did I ‘settle’ on these three? Well, the insurance company is an easy answer, I enjoyed the last project, and it was extremely well received. I’m making some final changes to one report and in determining some final details they mentioned they would like some additional work done. So essentially, for me, it’s a no-brainer.
The automotive guys, well, my love of things automotive is well documented and I know I’ll enjoy the project just from my initial conversation with the owner. It’s also the same deal with the engineering company, my initial conversation with one of the owners left me with the feeling they know what they want, and their wants, tie into my interests.
The bottom line is that I feel comfortable with all three. All three are also very open to my working ‘off-site’, which, in the current ‘gas’ situation is a real bonus! (oh.. and before I forget to mention it, the project manager at the current gig told me yesterday to work from home whenever possible over the next few weeks/months until gas supplies/prices stabilize).
While I’m not exactly looking forward to the long days, and possibly working weekends to get the work they'll need done, I am looking forward to expanding the client base a little. I’ve decided that if I pick the right clients, and manage the work properly, I can make a decent living with somewhere between 5 and 10 clients total.
I have no desire to ‘ramp up’ this time and attempt to have the volume a much larger operation could have. Instead, it’s my plan to have a small client list, that relies on me for IS knowledge and program development. Clients that are not concerned about me being ‘on-site’, but rather with the quality of the work.
So, the point, and yes once again there is a point, to all of this, is that there is life after a change. Just as there was life after my Dad died, after my divorce, there’s life after leaving a job I’d planned on retiring from. It’s not exactly as I’d pictured it, the new clients have not exactly been beating the door down, but rather showing up at about the same time I’m ready for them.
Don’t be afraid to dream and to take chances. Sure, this could have been, and still could be, a dismal failure. However, in the final analysis, regardless of what the eventual outcome is, right now, at this moment, I’m feeling like it was the best decision of my life!
I’m still working on the stories I mentioned the other day, I’ve got to scan pictures, so, if you have a preference as to which story you’d like to see first, be sure to let me know!
Thanks again for stopping by, if you have thoughts, comments or an experience of your own to share, I’d love to read about it!
I’d had a consulting company of my own from the early 80’s until 1995 when I took the full time job here. It had always been marginally profitable, at best. There were years when things ‘boomed’ and I had as many as 5 people working for me, but there were also a lot of ‘lean’ years, where after all was said and done I would have been better off financially had I worked part time at a convenience store!
So, despite wanting to do this, I was more than a little concerned about our financial well being.
Fortunately, that’s not been a real concern over the past 15 months. Things have gone at least as well as I could have hoped, and we’re clicking along quite nicely. That’s despite my wife not being able to work for the past year due to her back problems, and me having no client base. To say I’m surprised would be an understatement.
Along the way though, I’ve had a chance to reflect on how different I think about things today, as opposed to when I got started in this business.
Its funny how a steady, reliable paycheck, of sufficient size to allow you to be comfortable, ‘changes’ your attitudes. When I took on my first contract with Bill Beck and his trucking company I had a ‘day job’ teaching at a local post secondary school. The money was not all that good, maybe $16K/year at the time, but, for the most part I either worked Monday, Wednesday, Friday or a Tuesday, Thursday work week depending on the schedule that quarter.
So finding a sideline (or two) really didn’t interfere with the job, and added some much needed cash to the household funds.
As the client list grew, from that first client, to 10 or 15 clients, it became increasingly difficult to provide them with the services they wanted, and continue to teach a ‘full load’ at school. When I talked to the school about cutting back my hours, their answer was either teach the course load you’re assigned, or find another job.
So when Omnifax came calling… I bailed on the teaching gig in a New York nanosecond… I never considered the possibilities of it not working out, I just jumped at the chance.
When it didn’t work out at Omnifax, and I made the move to APA, again, no second thoughts, no concerns, I just hit the door at APA, ready, willing, and able to crank out the projects once again. However, when things weren’t going as ‘planned’ at APA, I jumped ship there and began to concentrate on ‘my’ clients full time.
Never once, in all of that did I consider the possibility I wouldn’t make enough money. You see I'd been making so little, I was certain I'd be able to "make eats" as we used to say.
Fast forward to now… I spent 1993 – 2004 working essentially for the same company, getting promoted, earning raises etc… and in all that time, they never missed a paycheck. It was also the 2nd best paying job I’ve ever had, all of a sudden in ’93 I wasn’t worried about questions like: “How is the mortgage getting paid this month?”, “Do I have to eat soup or is a steak in the budget this week?”. I'd been, for the first time in my adult life, and for more than 10 years, financially 'comfortable'.
Freedom from those ‘basic’ decisions changes you, or at the very least, it changed me. For the first time, I found myself actually worried that I might not ‘make it’, that the world had changed and there wasn’t the ‘work’ out there for me there had once been. THat I'd lose that comfort level I'd worked so hard to achieve, and once again be back to "making eats". I wrestled with these worries through many sleepless nights, and in the beginning, it seemed on more days than not that I was entirely justified in my worries and my fears.
I picked up a small gig here, another there, but was barely making enough to cover the mortgage, let alone to cover health insurance, food, power and the other bills. Each month our savings dipped as we used the money to cover the monthly ‘nut’, but, each month the dip was a little smaller and I got a little busier.
Then, in November I got a shot at the contract I’m still on. Once again, the money has been fairly steady and they’ve kept me very busy.
I never stopped marketing my services though, and in the past several days I’ve been swamped with potential new clients, and requests for additional work from the few new clients I had in the beginning.
I’ve settled in on three of them, the first (a new client) is an automotive engine re-builder, the second (also new) an engineering firm, and the third is the insurance company I did the call reporting package for in late 2004.
I’m meeting with two of them today to finalize things, determine the ‘scope’ of what they’d like done, at least initially, and also to get some ‘start dates’.
Why did I ‘settle’ on these three? Well, the insurance company is an easy answer, I enjoyed the last project, and it was extremely well received. I’m making some final changes to one report and in determining some final details they mentioned they would like some additional work done. So essentially, for me, it’s a no-brainer.
The automotive guys, well, my love of things automotive is well documented and I know I’ll enjoy the project just from my initial conversation with the owner. It’s also the same deal with the engineering company, my initial conversation with one of the owners left me with the feeling they know what they want, and their wants, tie into my interests.
The bottom line is that I feel comfortable with all three. All three are also very open to my working ‘off-site’, which, in the current ‘gas’ situation is a real bonus! (oh.. and before I forget to mention it, the project manager at the current gig told me yesterday to work from home whenever possible over the next few weeks/months until gas supplies/prices stabilize).
While I’m not exactly looking forward to the long days, and possibly working weekends to get the work they'll need done, I am looking forward to expanding the client base a little. I’ve decided that if I pick the right clients, and manage the work properly, I can make a decent living with somewhere between 5 and 10 clients total.
I have no desire to ‘ramp up’ this time and attempt to have the volume a much larger operation could have. Instead, it’s my plan to have a small client list, that relies on me for IS knowledge and program development. Clients that are not concerned about me being ‘on-site’, but rather with the quality of the work.
So, the point, and yes once again there is a point, to all of this, is that there is life after a change. Just as there was life after my Dad died, after my divorce, there’s life after leaving a job I’d planned on retiring from. It’s not exactly as I’d pictured it, the new clients have not exactly been beating the door down, but rather showing up at about the same time I’m ready for them.
Don’t be afraid to dream and to take chances. Sure, this could have been, and still could be, a dismal failure. However, in the final analysis, regardless of what the eventual outcome is, right now, at this moment, I’m feeling like it was the best decision of my life!
I’m still working on the stories I mentioned the other day, I’ve got to scan pictures, so, if you have a preference as to which story you’d like to see first, be sure to let me know!
Thanks again for stopping by, if you have thoughts, comments or an experience of your own to share, I’d love to read about it!
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