Yslexdia

Well, I thought I’d briefly share a Friday funny, if you’ve got some time there are more to be found here: Snorg Tees.

Graduation, Kayaking, and Yoga…My oh My

There’s been a lot of happenings around our casa as of late and I figured we might be due for an update. Sus has finished grad school with her Masters of Science in Counseling with a k-12 certification. What that means is that she can work as a counselor from K-University. Nobody in her program has ever accomplished this, let alone with a perfect gpa. Normally one selects a track and then tackles just that and they end up with a Masters of Education. It pretty amazing, the mere fact that she took every course offered in her program. I mean I could go on and on, but let’s just say I’m super proud of her.

We’ve also been enjoying the kayaks whenever the weather is in our favor. Mostly paddling on creeks and lakes, but we’ve got a camping trip planned for mid-July to go down to MD and paddle across the Potomoc to Mallow’s Bay. It is there that a bunch of old WW1 wooden warships have been left to rot and you can paddle around and check things out. We are going to be going with a kayak group that we’ve recently become involved with.

We had a great day yesterday, full of activities, from morning yoga to a two hour gym weightlifting work out, a visit to the dog park with Chloe and then a 1 hr paddle on a lake. Ending up with a great dinner of mussels, burgers and pints with our great family friends the Always. It was a great day!! Now, I’m a bit sore, but nothing to much.

Let’s see what else…our summer is filling up pretty fast though, we’ve got a few camping trips on the books and a couple of weddings to attend, no brisks though. I’m still fishing and at this point not even a nibble. Don’t know if it’s something I’m doing wrong or if it’s the damn fish! Either way it’s still a ton of fun. Once I get a bit more comfortable in my ‘yak I plan to do some fishing from it. Maybe that’ll help to increase the chances. We’ll see.

Lastly, if any of my loyal readers, know of any counselor work in any school districts or with any universities/community colleges, please give me a heads up.

If you haven’t already checked out my Grateful Dead photos from the recent show here, then please check out my sportsshooter page, link on the left.

One last thing to mention, it has been officially a year since we quit smoking. Just thought I’d share that as well. It’s just another something something that we’ve accomplished that wasn’t easy. Ozzy Osbourne once said something like quitting smoking was harder than quitting some of the hard core drugs I’ve done in my life. It’s been a wild road.

Contradictions

Chasing down an elusive dream can sometimes wear one down, yet the passion is the fuel to keep it going. Many times we find ourselves in a place in time that runs perpendicularly to the direction we believe we should be. Mix in a bit of rapid fire tangents and a world you once knew will shift the continuum. We can learn to deal with it, or learn to accept it with the later of the more difficult. There also comes the self actualization that destiny does not manifest itself in a sense of utter lack of control, or rather we can affect our outcome, based on decisions we make. Sure there are things I’ve or we’ve needed to learn along the way, but each time life does what it does, we have a choice.

Life really isn’t difficult, if we break it down to it’s essentials. Really. Examine your own and search within. I think you’ll see it’s clear. The problem lies within our minds which cloud judgment and complicate things. I’ve really been living in a fog, feeling battered down mostly by my method of earning an income. It’s unfortunate that so much of how we as a society define ourselves is through what we do. I don’t have a career, what I do have is a job and I treat it as such. Now, the way I can control what it is that I need to do is explore various avenues because my head is filled with so many ideas and I tend to over think these ideas, thereby making them seem unattainable.

I’m a farmer in some ways. I cultivate ideas, nurture them and hope that one of them grows to fruition. Many times though I find myself spraying my own ideas with verbal pesticides in an effort to keep the weeds of doubt down to a minimum. When in reality I may have already killed off a perfectly good idea. There are two things I believe are going on here; a lack of permission from myself to explore an idea because it may not be the ‘perfect’ idea, and the other is due to as of late I’ve hit a stint of blockage. The perverbally plateau known as a slump.

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If you’ve just got done reading the above post on our recent updates, I must say that the one yoga class we attended really helps with a general sense of cleansing and calming. I’ve never really practiced it before and figured I’d give it a shot. I will try it again, if anything it’ll help my body get a bit more in shape and help with my paddling skills. The mind/soul part will be an added bonus.

I also must admit, that the slump I’ve been in has been a struggle for me, from a creative and working standpoint. I’m not going to harp on that again, if you’ve read any of these posts you’ll get the gist, but I’ve been fortunate enough to start two new activities in my life, one is for me and the other is for us. Fishing and kayaking. Both are water activities and I’m a cancer so it just seems to make sense. The calming qualities of water and playing in and around it, help me to relax and find my center. I work hard each and every day to plow ahead, never giving up and always seeking out new opportunities to explore myself, my relationships, my craft and from those opportunities I grown and learn. I guess that’s where the whole wisdom thing comes from.

Corporate Clicks

I’ve learned a few things about corporate America over the past almost three years, that maybe are insightful, maybe not. The biggest thing is that if corporate America was a TV show, it would be a merger between The Office and Real Housewives of the OC. Seriously. The drama and middle school clicks of professionals is mind blowing. I believe the only thing missing is that I don’t get my lunch money stolen and we don’t get a recess. While I draw from TV pop culture, I also realize that there are also perceived parallels with Hollywood, various roles and those who do those roles get typecasted. Those who know me, may think that’s because of my personality. Although this extends well beyond just myself. A company this large chooses to not really promote and move people around from within, instead they hire/fire contractors to fit the needs. So really, this company and all 250,000 of their employees are stuck. Before I get chastised for making such sweeping accusations, there are a few small handful of folks that work their way up, but they always stay in the same department. They just go up the management chain, yet they type of work they do doesn’t really change. They just get paid to deal with the previous stated drama.

This is not a caustic attitude I have, or some depression. Really! it’s how it works. Ask around to other people you know who’ve worked for really large corporations, or just watch the telly. I think The Office is more of a reality show than anything else, just written under the guise of fiction. What really blows my mind though, are the super dedicated people to ‘THE’ company. That said, ‘THE’ company doesn’t really give a warm steaming dog squeeze pile about you. You are replaceable, so let me cut your benefits, and so on. I don’t need to travel down that path, I’m starting to sound like I should belong on Survivor, the paranoia has set in.

Now, If only I could find my red Swingline…