Pummelwagon - USS Alabama

Just when you think you've missed the sunset, if you're lucky mother nature will throw you a curveball...the good kind that gives you a chance to make solid contact and maybe get in a couple of extra bases.

Pummelwagon - USS Alabama - Mobile, AL

Walking has taught me that beauty appears when you're least likely to suspect its presence. This scene crept up on me, but I was fortunate enough to catch a hint of it out of the corner of my eye.

I don't know where beauty will appear tomorrow, but I know that it will. I only have to be observant enough to touch the moment when it rolls around.

Evening Colors

Beautiful sunset this evening.

Evening Colors - USS Alabama - Mobile, AL

In the cloudless sky this evening, I didn't think any sunset pictures would be any good. I'm pleased to say I still haven't developed any real skill as a fortune teller. Tomorrow will certainly bring another adventure or two, and I'm looking forward to uncovering them.

Long Day Wrapped Up

Today was a pretty long day, but it ended in the same place that yesterday ended.

End of Day - Mobile, AL

It was a little earlier, a little more colorful, and compared to yesterday it was similar. That's life. Similar but never the same. Every moment is an act of creation, and realizing that through the last year of daily practice is one of the most mind opening experiences I've ever encountered.

I hope it doesn't take you six thousand miles out on the trail to come to this realization, but if that's what it takes it's worth it. 

Till tomorrow and the next fourteen hundred and forty minutes of creativity.

Never Underestimate the Power of Resilience

I'm just wrapping up a pretty long but productive day, and my current bill paying job managed to stretch itself to thirteen hours.  When I first got out of school and entered the workforce, I'm pretty sure I would not have considered a thirteen hour day on a weekend a stunning example of successful living.

Productive Day Finale - Mobile, AL

I've been seasoned by life a bit since then, and part of that seasoning involves recognizing the value of tenacity, resilience, and good old fashioned grit when it comes to being successful.  Thirteen hour days on the weekend are success in the making sometimes, and being able to appreciate those moments for what they are and what they represent will make up for all manner of talent, smarts, and ability advantages of other folks who just aren't willing to grind quite as hard as you might be willing to grind.

Hard, disciplined work is not a great equalizer. It's a great advantage. Hard work is success going through the crucible, and it's facilitated by appreciating and enjoying what you do.

Sometimes, at the end of the grind, the universe will send you a sign that it's all been worth the sweat and focus that you've put toward the task.

I'm not sure what's going to be revealed by the new day tomorrow, but I know it's gonna start early and I'm ready for the grind.

Holding Pattern

Occasionally, I find that my life gets into a holding pattern.  I'm doing the daily practice.  I might even be hitting some elements of the practice better than I have at other times during the journey. For whatever reason, during these time, it feels like my progress has stalled.

I haven't been able to correlate these episodes to anything in particular, and I've come to assume that they are really just a normal part of existence. I like to think of them as time when the universe is just consolidating. If I'm fortunate, and I often am, I still find the beauty that I'm seeking in the daily rising and setting of the sun.

Night Shatters - Spanish Fort, AL

When I get into one of these spots, I find it best just to relax a little.  Great experiences sometimes take a little time to put together, and the world is an infinitely complex place. Forcing the issue or trying to get ahead of the way things are meant to be often just leads to frustration. Better to keep pressing on with doing the next right thing and enjoying the ride.

Sol Beats a Retreat - Mobile, AL

I'm a little impatient, but I've seen this movie before. I don't know if the dam will break and things will start happening tomorrow, but I know if I'm lucky the answer will be revealed.  Until then, keep walking.

Caught Up in the Sunset

Posting has been light the last several days. Truth be told, I'm in a bit of a rut. Part of the trouble is weariness. I need a change of pace to refresh my creative spark. I suspect twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep would do me a world of good as well.

Be that as it may, I was talking on the phone with Rory this afternoon when I dropped off the line to take another call.  During the second call, I went on a mission to spot alligators, and eventually found myself in the back parking lot of a gas station overlooking Mobile Bay. Reading that last sentence, I understand how strange it sounds, but I assure you the experience was quite a bit more pedestrian than it sounds on the page.

My second call ended, and the sunset arrived. It took me twenty five minutes to call Rory back as I'd promised.

The beginning of the end of the day - Mobile Bay

I've probably mentioned this before, but if you want to capture a really good sunset it helps to have some broken cloud cover on the horizon. The clouds add texture and reflective surfaces and play with the light in a the way that a clear sky just cannot master.

Sunset - Mobile Bay

The twilight deepened, and the fiery display played out it's natural course. My imagination was hooked. The call back to Rory was swept away by the explosion of colors in the sky.  No filters here, although I did manage the exposure a little.

It's been a tiring week, but I continue to be blessed by the beauty that surrounds us all each and every day. As always, I'm looking forward to what tomorrow has in store.

Airborne

Through a series of events that were beyond my control, I found myself taking the long way 'round to Alabama today. To be perfectly honest, I met this new earlier yesterday without a great deal of glee. Interestingly enough, as Anna Kendrick points out in "Cups" the long way round proved to be one of the routes with the prettiest of views. A couple of years ago, I would have boarded that plane with a chip on my shoulder, the window shade closed, and my nose buried in a book or perhaps, even worse, an extended round of Angry Birds. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently wrong with Angry Birds (particularly the Star Wars series which is quite entertaining) and reading is a great thing to do, but I would have missed out on seeing this view.

Airborne - Somewhere between Baltimore and Chicago

I was reminded today how large the world is and how small I am.  Within a couple of thousand feet of the highest I'm ever likely to get from the surface of the earth, the climate stretched for as far as the eye could perceive. All of this, is contained in the miniscule dust mote as seen from the Voyager Spacecraft from beyond Saturn. The worst thing that happened to me today was I had to spend about four hours in Washington, DC followed by four hours in Chicago.

What a gift. Today was spectacular. I'm looking forward to seeing what tomorrow will create for me to enjoy.

Last Night in Mobile

I dearly wish my last night in Mobile (Alabama) for an evening or two had a dwarf, a beautiful blue-eyed brunette with alabaster skin, and a Ducati racing machine. I didn't even see one of those things today, much less have a tale to tell of them.  This quick snapshot of the skyline presented itself to me about half way through the morning, but that's about as exciting as things got over the course of the workday.

Mobile, Alabama

The wind was clipping along out of the north, and it was blowing all the water right out of the mouth of the bay and raising small whitecaps on the river. The weather was the primary reason we stayed in off the Gulf of Mexico today, but I was grateful for a short day in the office and the chance to take a little pause in the torrent of activity we've been riding for the last couple of weeks.

Although my wanderings failed to produce a story worthy of weeks of fantasies, today was  a solid day. Stout like a thick wood table, I believe I'll look back on the day as the anchor point of the week. I'm also quite keen to experience tomorrow and the new adventure that will likely unfold.

They Call It a Trial and Not a Kegger for A Reason

Today proved to be a long, tiring, and thankfully, productive day.  I hit the trail early and put some miles under the soles of my feet and welcomed the dawn toward the end of my walk.

Sunrise over Spanish Fort, AL

Bringing a ship to life and demonstrating it the an independent inspection team in a process known as acceptance trials consumed the rest of the day up until a bit after nine pm. I guess there's a reason they call it a trial and not a kegger, although I think that a party might be a better way to go about the task.

Late in the afternoon, a series of thunderstorms rolled across the area.

Mobile, AL skyline as the storm tapered off

The rain broke through the oppressive humidity about thirty minutes before sunset, and we wrapped up the day bathed in the cool beauty of the air freshened by the rain.

Clouds Breaking as the Sun Sets over Mobile

Mother Nature in all Her Glory - Mobile, AL

Fire Mingling with Water - Mobile, AL

I managed to keep up with the daily practices and still put in a pretty full day's work tackling problems. I'm looking forward to what tomorrow may reveal.

Returning to Normal

Getting back into the swing of things really started to kick into high gear today. For the first time, I interacted with two colleagues who apparently didn't realize that I had not been promoted.  The first one congratulated me on making the cut. That was a bittersweet revelation because I really respect this guy and it seemed that he was a little surprised things had broken left when he thought they'd broken write.  The second one was a well meaning but clueless gent whom babbled on about the most recent decisions without acknowledging I might have even been in the mix.  I kept my tongue and moved on with this lad.  Not advertising my apparent misfortuned seemed the best course of action for him.

All that aside, today was the first day that the recent state of events did not linger at the forefront of my mind. I found enough action afoot to manage to lend a hand without being overbearing or inserting myself in situations that did not require my input. I believe that's the course I will chart going forward. I'm finding that not pursuing things that are outside my scope of responsibility feels like quite a relief.

I also got back to thinking about walking, calisthenics, and photography.

Foggy Sunrise - Mobile, AL

This evening, I headed back into the office to pick up my items for the daily practice of minimalism, and while on the road came across this vista that begged to be captured.

Mobile, AL Skyline with Austal Ship Assembly Bay in the Foreground

This picture doesn't quite to justice to the scene that I stumbled upon, but it gives some idea of the stark industrial beauty of the riverfront landscape in Mobile, AL after the sun has set. After stopping to take in the sights, I picked up my candidates for divestment and headed back to the hotel.

Minimalism Day 5 - Alabama Edition

I left five books in the business center of the hotel. After a bit of arranging, I got them to sit a little like a miniature library. I caught myself imagining that this might become an informal version of the Little Free Library concept. If you see something you like, take it while you're on the road. If you finish something while you're here, drop it off for the next traveller. Perhaps we can all save ourselves nine or ten dollars at the airport when we've exhausted our reading material just before catching the next plane to wherever we're headed.  

I'll track it for the time I'm here, and if it lasts or changes let you know.  This little book exchange hasn't been sanctioned by the hotel, so it would not surprise me to see it disappear entirely in relatively short order, but perhaps it will remain. If it does, I look forward to observing the ebb and flow of the reading material of my fellow travellers. One way or another, my pack got just a little bit lighter, and I now have something to look forward to observing, my own little literary experiment if you will, as the day unfolds tomorrow.

Back on Land

Got back from about three days out in the Gulf of Mexico. Quite a bit of work and not to terribly much sleep, so I'll keep this short. The day we headed out was clear and cool and generally gorgeous.

Moblie, AL Skyline - Heading down the River to GOMEX

During the trip I saw the sunset twice and the sunrise once out at sea. Going out on a ship again sparks a bit of nostalgia. The hard decks do a number on the knees and ankles, and there's nothing quite like the night sky in a place with limited light pollution. Dolphins swam in our wake, and a birt caught a ride on the anchor. She used her perch as a hunting stand to stalk flying fish, and her two catches that I saw seemed to prove the wisdom of this approach.

Back in the sky tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to what the day sends my way.

Thinking on Oneness, and a Trip South

I skipped a dedicated walk for exercise today. Travel took up a good part of the day, and frankly, I am tired.

The day started early with fellowship with a good group of folks where the topic of discussion centered around resentments and how they work against healthy living. If I'm honest, I sometimes struggle to keep a sense of oneness at the center of my relationships with both people and institutions, so resentment may be an issue for me address. I don't perceive myself as bitter, but my suspicion is that like eating and exercise the fruits of the way I approach life is an incremental and cumulative process. I don't want to be a bitter or resentful person. I believe that capturing that sense of oneness may prove critical to that vision.

In other news, I headed back down to the land of alligators and fried pickles with a brief stop on the way in the land of early presidential primaries.

Charlotte International Airport - Concourse B (on right) and Concourse C (on left)

Charlotte-Douglas International Airport serves as a major hub for American Airlines since their acquisition last year of US Airways. A friend of mine used to live in Charlotte, and I'm pretty sure I spend more time here than have over the last year. The USO in the airport has the largest collection of challenge coins that I've ever personally witnessed. One of the volunteers told me today that word on the street is that Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport owns a bigger collection, but Charlotte was working to catch up. I'm happy to report that I added two coins to their collection over my last two trips. I picked up a ham sandwich and bottle of water and headed on down the road.

An afternoon arrival in Mobile, Alabama led to a relatively late night in the office. By the time the end of the day arrived, the lights of the city were shining in all their glory.

Mobile, AL Skyline at Night

The colors displayed on the building have shifted from the Mardi Gras theme of purple, gold, and green since the last time I traveled down here, and I welcome the change. The picture really doesn't do justice to the grandeur of a big city infrastructure with a small town feel. If it weren't for the heat, humidity, and alligators I might imagine myself living here one day. Even those aspects have their charm. As another friend of mine likes to point out, "You don't have to shovel heat." This phrase seems to pop up just after the Mid-Atlantic region falls on the receiving end of sixteen inches of snow. Tough to refute that logic. 

Habit coerces me to admit that I'm looking forward to reveling in astonishment when the day after today is revealed.

Confronting Change

The truth of the matter is that no matter how hard we might try, avoiding change is impossible. The seemingly never ending stream of unique sunrises and sunsets, often of the same general geographic area, that I bombard my audience of almost no readers with every day should act as a testament to the fact that every month we endure, every week we put in the record books, every day that we face, and every moment that we live is a unique creative event.

Sunrise - Daphne, AL

Our brains seem to be wired to gloss over these vast differences and constant churn of ever changing events by finding patterns that give us comfort in the illusion of habit and stability, but the fact of the matter is that sense of stability is a fiction of our own making.

I got a book for Christmas last year titled Everything that Remains by Joshua Fields Millburn (with interruptions by Ryan Nicodemus) that I've been putting off reading since the moment I unwrapped it. The subtitles is "A Memoir by The Minimalists," and I put off reading the book because I was fairly certain that the story that they lay out regarding the value of minimalism would hit too close to home for comfort.

I was not wrong in that assumption.

Even though change is constant, and its definitively observable in the spectacular differences that I seem to be less and less able to dismiss at a whim, deliberate change is more difficult for me. The challenge for me is to heed the call that I've been building toward for more than a year now. My walking has been part of that path toward a less consumer driven existence. I first started the practice because I could not get the thought of how good it would be to slow down a little and live in each moment a little more out of my head.

The walking was a mechanism to address a sense of grown unsettledness in my life. Walking was the mechanism by which I literally took the first steps that have led me to this point.

Clouds - The Manifestation of Change - Mobile, AL

It is a point where my discomfort with maintaining the status quo has been balanced with my discomfort in pursuing a more deliberate path. The scaling back of materialism is something that I know in the very pit of my stomach that I'm going to have to try. At the same time, it was painfully difficult to leave the hardcover of David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell laying on a chair in the passenger terminal at BWI Airport after I finished reading it on my flight in to Charlotte, NC today. I wanted to save the book because it had impacted the way I viewed the world, but I know that I was unlikely to ever read it again.

The desire to keep a piece of that experience near me by keeping the book led me to carry it another 800 miles from where I'd finished receiving the benefit of reading the words.

If you want a copy of the book, I left it laying on a chair in the airport where it might change the way someone else views the world. I did what I knew was right but still felt like a difficult thing to complete. It felt good walking away from the book. Much better than walking up to the chair to set it down.

With the release of the book, I took another step on a journey where the path seems to be finding me. It's a different experience, and I look forward to seeing what road rises up to meet me tomorrow.

Wrapping Things Up in the South, Evicted from Alabama

Today marks the last full day I'll spend on the Gulf Coast this trip. It's been a pretty good run, and it's time to wrap it up. I saw the first alligator of the season yesterday, and this evening Rory Conlan spotted the first copperhead of his own spring training season. The cherry blossoms have come and gone, the pollen is waning, and the trees down here are fully leafed. I even managed to catch the sun setting behind the Mobile skyline.

Last Evening in Mobile...Till the Next Go Around

I'm grateful for the sunsets I've seen, the miles I've covered, the opportunity to "work the problems," and the laughter of friends. It is hard to imagine that my regular sojourns down to this part of the world are wrapping up. It's been quite a run for a six month temporary assignment that's managed to stretch to eighteen months running. It just goes to show that you can never tell what will be revealed around the corner tomorrow, but you shouldn't worry about it to very much. It's going to be spectacular.

Twilight

I'm pretty sure that I'm nearing the twilight time of my current position at work. I did not seek this position, and when it was presented to me as an excellent opportunity and a choice, I didn't really get the impression that I had much of a choice at all. It was presented as temporary. A position that would last for six months or so. That was eighteen months ago, and I've settled in and really grown to love the people that I get to work with on a day to day basis. The job, well, I could take it or leave it, but the people are fantastic.

I mentioned today at lunch that my departure this summer was a likely scenario. That announcement resulted in some conversations this afternoon where truths were told and appreciation for some great people were voiced.

Twilight Skyline and Austal Assembly Bay - Mobile, AL 

Those conversations were a bittersweet exchange. I feel simultaneously closer to people and the pull of the loss that I'll feel when the situation finally changes and we move off in different directions. It's a surprising development from a job position that I never sought to get and had no real expectation of keeping for any real length of time.

While the twilight has come to this time in my life, the sun has not completely set on this chapter, so as always, I'm looking forward to what tomorrow may hold. I wasn't expecting what happened today, but I'm glad that it happened and I'm grateful for the time that led up to this moment.

Checking in from the Gulf Coast

Tongue in cheek, it was a bit disappointing just how easy it was to leave my house and travel over 1200 miles just to check in at work at 1040 in the morning. We live in incredible times, and I'm grateful for the opportunities these times present.

One of the things I really enjoy about getting out on the road is the opportunity to experience a slightly different sunrise or sunset. Today, the nuclear fire that gives us life from 92.96 million miles away did not disappoint as it wrapped up the day.

Sunset in Mobile, AL

On the walking front, I put in more miles today by a factor of three than I have since returning from the foot injury. I feel pretty good, although it's clear that I'm not fully recovered quite yet. It will be good to get back out to sea for the next several days, and I'm looking forward to whatever tomorrow may hold.

Airport Boogaloo

Today found me sitting in an airport waiting to catch the freedom bird from where I was to where I was going.

Mobile Regional Airport

It was a pretty lonely tarmac when I left, and it was raining at my final destination. For reasons that I don't understand this struck me as a little sad, and I fell into a it of a melancholy state of mind. I did get a chance to walk and to read.  

The walking is pretty routine at this stage, but reading has become an increasingly rare luxury.  I got about halfway through The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (warning...plot spoilers). It's a book about a long walk that touches on a number of themes that have a personal familiarity that are a little unnerving. It's been a great read so far, and I'm grateful to have been introduced to it. I'm also grateful that at least I know someone else can imagine some of the things that I believe I've experienced out there on the trail.

If you're thinking about walking distances, I recommend this book because it captures what I've come to believe may be some of the more universal aspects of walking for a semi-spiritual reason. On the other hand you could just strap on some shoes and see what materializes. It's probably better to read a little and do a little because neither one of those activities will be entirely whole without the other.

Midday Flying

Flights that are early in the morning or later in the evening seem to be the most conducive to producing decent pictures in the airports.  Early, the day hasn't started, so planes can pretty reliably counted on to run on time.  Later in the evening, the chaos of the day has unfolded, planes are running late, but somewhere in the airport you can usually find a vista that provides a pretty good view of the sunset with some relatively interesting things going on in the foreground.

Midday travel didn't work out that way today.  Flights were late which led to rushing across the airport to make connections.  The sunset was missed by about an hour or so, and slightly washed out pictures were the result.  Even some of the backdrops that appear in the beginning and the end of the day (airplanes at the terminal) were busily employed elsewhere.

C'est la vie.

Here are the panoramas that resulted from midday flying.

Empty Gate - Mobile International Airport

The Aircraft Arrives, Late - Mobile International Airport

Mechanical Issues Being Resolved - Charlotte International Airport

Too Early to Capture the Sunset - Charlotte International Airport

It sounds a bit like there is some whining afoot.  That's probably a little true.  It was a bit of a hectic travel day, but I'm grateful I'm home and I'm grateful that I didn't have to drive the 1200 miles or so that the air travel saved me.  At the end of the day, my expectations of safe and mostly reliable scheduling have been met.  There was also the opportunity to consume two airport sandwiches.  They were actually pretty good...if you ignored the cost.

And So Ends a Week on the Road

Sunset. Mobile Regional Airport

Putting yourself in the way of beauty is a very fulfilling way to live.  Tiring, yes, but definitely fulfilling.

It's Been Quite Awhile

Ironically, just after I posted about my intentions of posting more frequently (once a day if I recall correctly), I took about 11 months off.

There are plenty of excuses I could use, and I did pick up my walking quite a bit shortly thereafter, but suffice it to say that the intentions while good were insufficient to keep me headed in the right direction.  C'est la vie.  I have had some fantastic experiences during that time, and I'll leave you with a photo to whet the appetite.  As mentioned, my walking picked up quite a bit, and that effort to shrink the world and slow down a little has become quite paradoxically one of the more expansive efforts that I've ever experienced.  It's been a great trudge, and I'll leave you with a picture from the time that I've been away.

Sunset over Mobile, Alabama