CrossRoads Blog

With age comes wisdom (I think anyway) and one thing for sure the older you get the more you realize how precious time is. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish half the things you need to do let alone the things you want to do. So my wisdom with age – screw it, if I’m not going to get to all the things I need to do anyway, I might as well allocate more time to the things I want to do! Seeing for me, nothing is more important in life than health family and friends, those are the things where all my ‘wants’ are focused.

I got the long, long overdue chance to spend some of that ‘want to’ time this week when younger brother Dominic left the Big City (NYC) to visit us desert dwellers. I’ll stay away from giving him grief like ‘bout’ damn time, and just say: I really, really enjoyed his company, and we darn sure will not go so long between visits anymore. I mean, we don’t have the ‘busy raising the kids, cats in the cradle’ excuse, and he doesn’t have the working on my ‘whatever’ degree one – I mean how many more educational credentials can you get? See brother Dom is the academia man of the family. Yeah, he got the brains, I couldn’t get the looks and the brains of the family too right? (as a quick aside, in case our Sister Kerry ever reads this post – errr ummm Sis you got both brains and looks !

Anyway, where was I… oh yeah, so he came to visit and we all got to hang for a few days of reminiscing and waxing poetic about the fun and trials and tribulations of our youth – and of course the rock stardom of our now adult lives. We didn’t get anywhere per se other than a quick little hike (sorry Sis), simply because it was so nice just shootin’ the breeze and catching up. Amazing how you find you share so many similar passions as your family isn’t it? I think he is even more nutrition crazy than me and Kimberly if you can believe that one!

The good news is we will all hook up again soon - it looks like this Thanksgiving in OK will be a big family get-together. And other news, brother D may even be moving out SoCal way soon. That would be way cool, as much as it is nice having a free place to hang in NYC, we get over to San Diego much more. In fact brother D, errr umm, don’t make plans for the extra bedroom the months of July and August okay?

Oh, one last thing just for my Brother: Dude, the haircut. Umm I can share because I love you and I’m family. Unless it’s some fancy fashionista New York City thing, I’m thinkin’ a short sleeve white button up shirt and a pocket protector and you got the “IRS Agent circa 1954′ thing nailed…

Last week I was able to test and pass for advancement to Blue Belt level at my Tae Kwon Do Studio. I felt like I had a pretty good testing, with the exception (seems like as always) of a couple of the specialized Self Defense techniques that I mixed up. Everyone else seemed to have a good testing as well. One of the better overall efforts I have seen by our team. It turned out to be a long day for both students and the judges with testing beginning before 9:00 and we didn’t leave until near 3:00 in the afternoon. I need to remember to bring a little something to eat next time.

I am proud that I have so far managed to maintain (for the most part) my commitment to Cho’s and my teachers (and friends). It is not easy some weeks with trying to maintain the passion for running and get my butt up to the Dojang on the nights I am dog-tired. The good news is I have so far, the bad news, it won’t get any easier as I increase my run miles in anticipation of Zane Gray 50, and as I advance and have more responsibility to my Dojang. Alas, trying to stay young as you get old is so much fun isn’t it? ….