There's a Reason They Call It a Trial and Not a Kegger

Today was a very long day, and unfortunately I have to report that tomorrow's early start will  begin with a great deal more uncertainty than I would have liked. There are a series of trials in the process of bringing a ship to like, and there are good solid reasons that these events are called trials and not keggers. In fact, should you ever find yourself involved in any activity described as a trial or a test, you're probably in for an expectation shattering experience. I guess it wouldn't be a testimony without a test.

As always, I'm looking forward to whatever tomorrow my reveal.

Midwest Rambling

Today has been a long travel day that started too early, ended too late, and covered four states. The day started in Maryland, progressed to Illinois, dawdled in Wisconsin, and wrapped up in Michigan.

Austin Straubel International Airport - Green Bay, WI

Along the way I picked up a haircut, went to work in a shipyard, got in a walk of reasonable distance, and viewed the Great Lakes for the first time in my life.

Michigan Sunset

I am tired, so I'm going to keep this brief. Days like today make me grateful for the opportunities that present themselves and give me another boost of curiosity to see just what will unfold tomorrow.

Never Say Never

Sometime life gets a little out of hand, and you might find yourself engaged in activity that you promised yourself, at one time, that you'd never take part in...never get near the stuff. I find myself in just such a predicament, but before I confess all, I'd like to report a pretty good day.

Capitol Building on a Gray Spring Morning

Monday is a later start day at work, and I took full advantage of the lull to get down the Capitol Building. This used to be a daily trek for me, but since my foot injury it's become a relatively uncommon occurrence. Today was the outlier, and I was reminded why I liked this walk so much. It's a beautiful building atop the highest hill in the immediate area. The Capitol is both solid and airy, evoking a sense of stability and freedom all at the same time. I lingered a little longer than I'd planned, and I found myself hot footing it back to make my morning meeting until...

Spring Flower - Washington, DC

This flower brought me up short, and I had to stop and capture a few shots. After five days of rain this little spot of color in a sea of gray was a welcome respite and a reminder to remain ready to be surprised.

A couple of years ago, I told myself that I'd never travel to Wisconsin. I suspect it was in the middle of one of those eighteen inch snowstorms in DC, and I was thinking what it would be like to visit a place that had up to eight feet of snow in a year. Tomorrow, I find myself bound for the land of the cheese heads. After landing in Green Bay, I'll hop in my rental and proceed north to just south of Michigan. In fact, I believe my hotel is actually in Michigan. Never say never.

On the way back several days later, I'm scheduled to fly Delta through Detroit on the way home. Based on a past experience with a corpulent gentleman occupying the middle seat adjacent to my aisle and the less than festive reaction of the flight attendant when I brought this unacceptable condition to her attention, I promised that, if I lived to be five hundred, I'd never fly Delta Airlines again. Never say never.

Based on the next six days, I suspect it's in my best interest to stop ruling things out. I'm looking forward to the antics one way or another, and I'm sure it's all part of the plan the universe has laid out for me tomorrow.

 

Cutting Expenses - Step Two In Tackling the Twenty Six List

Today, instead of outsourcing to a tailor, I pulled out the old sewing machine and made some simple alterations to a uniform blouse and cover (hat) that I need for my current day job next week. All in all, I'm not a very good seamster, but after some fits and starts I made a passable job of the effort.

It's not a lot, but it's the first step in cutting my expenses as part of my efforts associated with the twenty six list. I've also made plans for some additional daily cost cutting that I plan to realize by changing some of my purchasing habits. These are going to be a little tougher, but I suspect that if I can manage a week of changed behavior (one day at a time), I can capture another $300-$450 per month.

College Creek During a Brief Stop in the Incessant Rain

The picture of College Creek is about as large of a non sequitur as possible, but during my walking today it was heartening to finally catch a break in the nearly incessant rain that's been happening for the last week. I spent some solid hours getting soaked this weekend, but I got the photo that I've been waiting to get during a brief dry spell. I'd have taken any photo at this point, and this is the one that I captured.

Back to cost cutting. The challenge of financing the N2N-TCP sits on me like a foggy elephant. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to swing it in the way that I'd like so cost cutting now is something within my ability to influence. I suspect it will also lead to a series of habits that will prove beneficial going forward, and I'm not quite sure why I didn't start much earlier. Actually, I do know.  I got caught up in materialism, and I have not been disciplined for the last twenty years. Like many other problems, this one will not get better with age so addressing it now, while not ideal, must be done in order to have a chance of pulling off the pilgrimage. 

One of the many things I've learned over the past decade, the hard way of course, is that the path to wealth in America mostly consists of keeping the financial resources that you've earned. Making more money certainly helps, but if you're spending what you make you're pissing away an opportunity. I'm sure I must have been told this lessons numerous times before the last several months. For irresponsible reasons, I chose to ignore the advice of wisdom. 

No longer. Cost cutting it is, and because I've waited so long it's going to have to be drastic. Much better to have started a bit earlier because the effort would have been far less drastic. C'est la vie.

I'm looking forward to continuing this one point trent that I started today first thing tomorrow morning. A new day will bring new and exciting challenges so wish me bon merde.

Meditation Experiment - Interim Report

Today, a vigorous mist in the afternoon followed a robust rain in the morning, so I failed to capture any images for this missive for the second day in a row.  Unlike yesterday, I did manage to achieve a fair bit of walking today.

Mostly out of an interest in keeping up with what has become my daily writing habit, I thought I'd provide an interim report on the meditation experiment I started last year. The initial thought behind the experiment came from a blog that suggested that practicing some form of meditation for one hundred days held a host of physical, spiritual, and mental benefits. It seemed like a pretty easy thing to try so I gave it a shot.

Before I even considered practicing what I've come to think of as "sitting quietly," I started the journey of daily deliberate walking. When I first started walking, I found that settling my mind and moving with a more conscious pace proved to be quite difficult.  My mind raced. Thoughts of doubt crept in, aa littnd I actually remember thinking about what other might think of my walking.  After only a few walks, my mind settled into the pace, the committee in my head was held in abeyance, and I began to live more deliberately and richly in the meter that surrounded my body.  Walking became a form of meditative practice.  It remains so to this day.

I observed some of the same racing of thoughts and inability to settle when I first started the practice of meditation.  I'm not sure it's accurate to even call what I was doing meditation. I found it almost impossible to sit still for longer than two or three minutes.  The time seemed interminable, and I stayed in a place mentally where I could only think about when the session would end.  This inability to sit and just be continued for about a month, but I kept at it.

When one hundred days had passed, I found I could sit quietly and clear my mind for about twenty minutes with some regularity. Thoughts still flashed through my mind, and resisting the temptation to render a judgement and continue the train down whatever rabbit hole it might head to was still not an easy task. Even given those circumstances, I'd gained a level of discipline that allowed me to recognize when that happened and return back to my breathing. I felt calmer when meditating and I believe I felt calmer in day to day interactions.

Having finished one hundred days, the experiment had become a habit, and I'm happy to report that I'm coming up on the two hundredth day in a row tomorrow. I have not made a great deal of progress since the first one hundred days, but I noticed about half way through the second hundred days that I took less time to settle. I also don't follow the thoughts that flash through my consciousness nearly as far as I did in the past. Returning to just being is getting easier and more natural.

While the heavens have not opened and angels with trumpets and swords haven't appeared, I believe that the practice is having the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits in my life that the proponents promised. Meditation has not evolved into a "burning bush" style miracle cure, and the practice has been far more work than I imagined in the beginning. The impact is more subtle, but I sense a tangible improvement in my ability to remain in a moment, to be calm and remain grounded in the present, and to relax into discomfort more readily than I did in the past.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and the ability to capture something a little more colorful than the words on the page that have appeared the last two days. I'm not sure if photos will appear in the cards, but I hope that they appear in the cards that the universe deals my way.