Over the course of the last few weeks, I feel like I've had very little time to decompress. And for the most part that is true. The rain has kept me from riding, work and transitioning to a new position has filled the tank to a maximum level of stress, and the future state of my family’s residence have kept me in a sullen state of confusion and left me with no time to formulate any synthesized thought about the aforementioned topics.

So I’ve been hoping at least one thing would settle in my reality so that a slight bit of normalcy, or whatever my altered state of reality defines as normalcy, would return and I can substantiate something of some interest to scribble in the electronic byte-like walls of this blog.

You ask and you shall receive. Well, maybe it’s not so cut and dry. But what I’ve found over the most formative years of my life is that I don’t like making single life making decisions. They seem meaningless and trivial. I like having everything completely in disarray and fucked up so that I can ultimately stress out about the manic convergence of life changing decisions on top of me at that moment. I perform best when everything is on the line. Never have I been risk averse.

So now my family joins me on the quest to discover where my professional career will take me. Philosophical questions like “What do I want to be when I grow up?” they are now entertaining. At work I have come to the realization that I am no longer challenged intellectually so I am shaking every tree to see what fruit of opportunity drop. But we don’t stop there. Son #1 is rapidly growing up and just graduated pre-school. Now this isn’t a miracle so to speak. But given the fact that his father was kicked out of his pre-school graduation, it concerns that father that no good can come of this. Needless to say, he graduated but not without drama. That is an entry in and of itself.

With his graduation, we launch in to the next educational phase of his existence. The public school system. We are in the precarious position of deciding where we want him to go to school. The neighborhood we live in sucks balls. So we decided a few months ago that we would sell this house and move into a better school district where we felt that Son #1 had a chance to be taught by real teachers who give a shit. We decided to sell our current home out right and risk living out of a box until we found our next residence. That would give me the greatest financial leverage to negotiate rather than navigate the murky uncharted waters of contingencies.

Those are the two marquee situations that we are currently evaluating. But as I said, I have a penchant for making all of my life changing decision all at the same time.


In my current professional role, my technical aptitude has been buried and I was continually being passed over for new opportunities. In the recent past, there has been the old cliché of when it rains it pours. I am in the fortunately unfortunate position of having multiple interviews for new intellectually challenging positions and will be able to choose my course. In the next week, I will begin my new challenge as a product manager for the work horse and best seller of our product offerings. It has the most threats in the market and is the most dynamic in the form of innovation. A great challenge.


As my wife once told me, the house situation and the work situation were interdependent and when one settled the other was soon to follow. Needless to say, one week after I committed to my new position, we had a second showing of our house to a couple that made as a competitive offer that was within our range of acceptability in a degraded market. To formally enter a contract to sell your home, you need a successful inspection. We were very fortunate to find only two minor things needing to be addressed. With completion of those, the rest is up to the buyers to get there financing in order with a visit from the appraiser. This still can provide a hitch in the process but we are hoping for the best.

Now we are on the clock to find a new home in the area of our choice, with the configuration we desire, and the future of memories we're going to create. We've been out three times now to look and are pretty excited to get the process going. This will be the third house we have bought in the last seven years. With any luck, we can stay in it for awhile. This decision is based on the greater good of the family and our future so I’m sure it will be perfect.




While it is stressful to do everything at once, sell a house, buy a house, change jobs, and protect your family from adversity, I welcome the adverse challenge. My life has always been like a snow globe. When the snow settles, I shake the shit out of it again.

And now for an angry non-conformist post….

There’s a policy at my place of employment which outlines that social networking should not be used to misrepresent the company. Every year we go through ridiculous training classes to remind us that the company doesn’t like social media and its employees disseminating information in an uncontrolled medium. So I’m hesitant to post anything here which may infer bad press. The idea here is for it to be a friendly reminder of ‘who’ owns you.

I’m fine with the training and the recommitment to ethics. I’m all for corporate morality and helping HR check off a box in an effort to successfully avoid litigation from some executive’s inescapable fall from grace. But what I’m not fine with is the hypocrisy of an enterprise which routinely reminds its employees of ‘doing the right thing and you will be recognized.’ Gone are the days where people did things for the greater company good. Instead, it’s the ‘me-first’ attitude. Granted, I’m seeing this from my knot-hole and such a broad generalization of culture is not necessarily true.

My general state of malaise comes from this over-arching re-organization happening in the workplace. It’s the corporate version of musical chairs. With corporate downsizing only barely in the rear view mirror, we’re now reorganizing with limited or no discussion of organizational strategy and goals to measure this new performance by. What do we hope to achieve with this? No answers. But we’re hiring like crazy and people are changing jobs at a frequency inversely proportional to Son #1 changing his chonies.

Before all of this transpired, I had grown increasingly uneasy with my job. I was under utilized, I wasn’t intellectually challenged, and my talents and experience were being swept under the proverbial rug. That being said, I took this position years ago to be an agent of change for the perception of the businessman (a tattooed freeride mountain biker CAN sell airplanes). While my position isn’t intellectually challenging, it’s hugely stressful and I’ve proven my abilities through my hard work, persistence, and work ethic that I can accomplish an inordinate amount of work with a limited amount of resource. I’m effective and play well in the corporate sandbox with others. However, despite all of that, my skills and talents routinely are lost in the position. It’s widely known that I want to try new intellectual challenges around the organization but apparently hard work and effectiveness are not wanted.

This has left me with little choice but to consider moving on. The opportunities here are much more visible but are few and far between and heavily anchored in politics. Unfortunately for me, I don’t subscribe this level of bureaucracy. I’ve found over the last few months that hard work, persistence, leadership, and customer satisfaction are only a small part of the bureaucracy pie being served. The other annoying piece is that of self-promotion. I’m finding that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The loudest and most gratuitously self promoting individuals earn the advancements. In my current position, I’m fighting perception of it being non-technical. Combine that with the lack of volume projecting how cool I am, all the sweet things I can do, and my kick ass designer suits, and I’ve been lost in the shuffle.


So as the cliché goes, if you can’t beat them, you might as well join them. Let’s not say I’m ‘falling in line’ with these blatant self promoters. What I’m doing is taking a proactive approach to a business condition which I can’t control. With a little control over the messaging about me, I’m able to shift perception. Truly, this is entirely out of my hands yet I can at least work towards a convincing level of commitment to my background and experience. Interestingly enough, I’m starting to see some positive results. Nothing has stuck yet and there are no new sure-things. But at least the message about my abilities is now being heard and being positively responded to.

Now back to your regularly scheduled posts with positivity. Ha.

Opportunities to learn more about yourself always seem to crop up at the most inopportune times. I suppose that’s what makes these moments the most poignant. They stay with you longer when attention is brought at the moment of inconvenience. For example, if you like to drive with no pants on while texting your Uncle Bob and get in a car wreck doing it, the next time you’ll probably consider wearing trousers so that when you get out of the car to inspect the damage in your ill-contrived desire to be temperately ‘cooler’ when driving, you will not be embarrassed by your bare white behind in plain sight.

I digress. Now I don’t drive without pants nor do I have an Uncle Bob. Regardless, I had one of those moments today where I was educated by the universe on what matters.

A typical Saturday in my house is usually triple booked. There’s never a shortage for activities and obligations. This was the final weekend of operation of the Whistler Bike Park before winter. Wanted to hit that one last time. It was Homecoming at my undergrad Alma Mater. Despite my college football team’s inability to field a successful squad, I still held on to the hope of making the trip to Pullman. Beer flavored water. Lastly and most importantly, Son #1’s weekly ‘soccer’ game was on the schedule.

In the essence of full disclosure, I wasn’t too excited to head to the Panda soccer game today. I didn’t get too much choice in the matter. For one, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Son #1. In fact, he was concerned this morning that I wouldn’t be back in time from my bike ride to make it to his game. And second, I’m the assistant coach on the Pandas’ team. You see, the Pandas haven’t been real competitive over their three games. But the head coach and I continue to work with them on learning to dribble, pass, and score goals. I keep telling myself that they’re only four years old. This point alone has given me an unwanted lesson in learning patience and the appreciation for the purity of fun while playing sports long before winning, losing and statistics.

We’ve taken some beatings. Last Saturday we were trumped by a score somewhere close to 6-0. But we don’t ‘keep score.’ Today no bike jump or keg could have satisfied the unparalleled joy experienced while helping coach the Pandas to their first ‘un-scored’ victory. We saw our team mark their opponents, steal the ball, save goals, change directions, and score literally a dozen goals. There’s a kid on our team that you watch and just know he’s going to have a ton of success in whatever sport he chooses. He’s a great little kid who plays hard, takes instruction, and always gives you the thumbs up for approval. Today, he came uncorked and scored seven goals.

Four year old kid soccer is more like a swarm of bees than a soccer game. All of the kids, minus the ones who are dancing, singing, or not paying attention, create a scrum around the ball with elbows thrown, shoving, and body blows. But today, there were break away goals where our team decided that wrestling for the ball was passé. It was a break through. Son #1’s teammate had those seven goals, but he made many great ‘team style’ plays. Defending and passing to his teammates. But the big picture was that EVERY Panda wanted to play and participate. My position is on the sideline making the substitutions and keeping the kids who are not playing energized. Today, took very little effort to keep them fired up. All of the kids were ready and were constantly asking me to put them in the game. A complete team playing well and having fun is infectious and breeds more fun and excitement. The kids played so hard and had so much fun. As a coach, and a father of a player, I don’t think I could be more proud of our team’s success today, scoring or not.

That leads me to the lessons today. Son #1 had a rough morning. His latest thing is to try and negotiate when he ‘should’ do what he is told. That, getting him to eat his lunch, and getting him to get dressed were all challenges. My wife and I asked him, “Who is going to score a goal today?” God forbid we put too much pressure on our unfocused child. He responded with a despondent, “I’ll try but it’s just so hard.” That remark made me wonder if he was even having fun. I was worried that I was ‘that parent’ focused on pushing his child too hard to ‘ensure’ that the kid was having fun. Pushing to have fun is not right. Lesson #1.

We all wondered what the 7-goal Panda was eating at home to cause this. But he wasn’t the only one that surprised us. Son #1 scored today. As a matter of fact, he scored three unanswered goals and was the second highest scorer on the team. This is the beginning of Lesson #2. No matter what’s going on, when the unreal expectations you have set for your child are beat like a pack mule and are completely blown away, you feel totally throttled with emotion.


After stepping into the scrum and liberating the ball from its oppression, Son #1 broke free at midfield and headed toward the goal. All by himself, he booted in his first goal of the game and the season. Watching this happen was surreal. I wish time would have stopped for me to just cherish that small moment. It happened so fast. That first goal. I was on the other end of the field with the rest of the team but I saw the play develop and was beside myself. As he headed toward the goal, I worried he’d stop dribbling and start dancing. That’s his thing. But he kept on and booted the ball into the goal with authority. When the ball rolled over that line and hit the back of the net, my arms raised high and my eyes welled up with the largest tears of joy. For the next few seconds, I struggled to wipe the tears from my eyes and remain composed. There was cheering but I was so lost in my son’s action that I heard nothing but the silence of a smile all the way across the field. Absolute, undeniable joy and pride.

Son #1 went on to score two more goals today. After that third goal, he ran over to me during the game to inform me of his feat. Three goals. While I haven’t written too much about how I felt, know that no alternate activity could have compared to the purest sense of pride a father can have in his son. Yes, it was only soccer and only three goals, but his actions blew me away today. Lesson #2 is there is nothing more valuable than seeing your child succeed and knowing that he is enjoying that moment in his success. I will always love that.

As my stress level boils over and my blood pressure peaks at levels unsafe for mortal man, I am sitting here and attempting to wrap my arms around a topic which suits this entry. What struck me was that some days require so much strength and resilience to just get through. That idea seemed like something I could address here. I must disclaim now that you should not read on through this entry if you (1) are offended by my harshness and colorful descriptions of life or (2) are opposed to inspirational thought mustered through courage and sacrifice. This entry runs the risk of offending someone, hurting feelings, and having people question my sanity.

So onward I press. Those that know me know that I have lived with a chip on my shoulder feeling there is a common thread in this universe that believes I am inadequate. It is a simple underdog type mentality if I had to categorize it. I have always felt that this was a common denominator I shared with some of my closest friends and family. We have felt less than desirable, like we are the forgotten sons and daughters. This small generalization is the combustible oil which has fueled my burning desire to go farther, work harder, be better, and set expectations to near unachievable levels. As a result, at times I have fought depression and introspectively wondered if I really was what ‘they’ thought.

I guess my message here is to those just like me that are struggling to find direction and strength when constantly being dealt haymaker blows across the chin. It’s for those who have choked back tears and swallowed lies. It’s for those whose lives have been unexpectedly rearranged by loss. It’s for those who work for a better tomorrow for their children to give them a landscape where they can create and follow their destiny with the greatest of success. It’s for those who feel they are an audience of one and no one is listening. You are not alone. If you listen closely, you can hear other angry voices coming from garages around the world. It has never been as easy being a grown up as it seemed when you were young. It seems that the setbacks and disappointments occur at a steady frequency. The feelings of helplessness surround you like sharks ready to converge on their prey. Even now, there seem to be so many things going on in our lives ranging from the shitty global economy, to the loss of loved ones, to the uncertainty in our future. I think it is easy to lose sight of the power of one’s self. I am sure that ranges from person to person. But at the end of the day, I think your spirit being intact is the same with us all.

I have been knocked around quite a bit these last few years. However, I have always managed to stagger back on to my feet. Never be a defeatist. Never give in to not being exactly what you define yourself as. I have always felt that the greatest strength is being able to find your resolve and step back up after a debilitating knock down. It’s the core attribute that will carry you through the darkest of hours and the most unfortunate of times. It’s a mix of faith and hard work packaged into a neat little word that means so much. People will talk about fate and destiny and the path chosen for you. I am a believer in creating your path and direction based on the waypoints you read along the way. There are obstacles and setbacks throughout life. There is adversity that is unavoidable but it is less about fate and ‘that’s the way things are.’ It is more about a gauge of character and how you find that inner strength to rise up, respond, and overcome defeat. Nothing is so bad that it can not be overcome by believing in one’s self and summoning that resolve. Don’t get me wrong, I always have thought things happen for a reason. But to me, it is less about fate and more about ‘how am I going to respond to this?’ and ‘what can I learn from this and learn about myself?’ The great thing about belief is that it is personal and my ideas may not mesh with yours. However, I don’t think you can deny that having inner strength and continuing to believe in your self is different in anyone’s eyes. We all want to be strong and know we are going the right way. Some call it faith, some call it resolve. Brand it however you like to help you sleep at night. Whatever you call it, find it and hold on to it tightly like Linus and his blanket.

Along the way, it will feel like everything and maybe even everyone is against you and has a hidden motive to destroy your worth and your dreams. The setback and disappointments are nothing more the lessons to dig deep and find the resolve to push on through the fear and pain. Those that stand in your way, let them continue to believe that we are failures, we are forgotten, we are lost, and we are unworthy. Our truth is what we design in our soul not through the discussions of our professional contributions or who ‘they’ think we are. We have resolve and our engines may sputter but will never die. Our days are so precious and so few that it makes no sense to not believe in your self and push to near impossible limits. Find comfort in knowing that you have the ability to rise up at any time. Your heart is like an emotional-bomb proof vault holding the fire of your soul. That fire never dies or burns out. It is your engine.


This entry has taken several days to write because of setbacks. So I have had to really dig in to be composed. But as I conclude, I am very grateful to know my soul knows no defeat. Those of you reading this entry also have it. If you have read this far, you must be intrigued or know that we all have this undying engine. In the end, I am a punk rock dad. So inevitably I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about my abilities, personality, behavior, or what I believe in. My acceptance or approval rating can be negative with the rest of the world as long as at the end of my days here, my two sons can look back on their father’s life and say, “He did it for us.’ That is the approval I cherish. Don’t ever forget how much you mean to someone and your value is judged more in spirit and servitude to them rather than in ROI, job classifications, and core competencies.