A Dad Update

For the bunches of you that have asked, yes, my dad is doing lots better, thanks.

Yesterday, he excitedly asked if Lindsey (my girlfriend) and I noticed what was missing from his room... It was his wheelchair. "They gave me my pilot's license," he boasted, sitting in his four-legged chair.

Yes, therapy has done him wonders, as have nearly two months of no smoking or drinking. He's tooling along fine - mostly with the walker, but also without.

He has no computer or internet access in the nursing home (and his Bresnan email address is now defunct), so you're stuck writing cards and letters the old fashioned way. Send them to my address for now:
4680 Craftsbury Cir Apt B
Fort Wayne, IN 46818
His writing, while much improved, is pretty bad still, so don't be offended if he doesn't write back.

Also, I snapped a picture of him yesterday for you all. Sorry that the image quality looks like I've placed him in a Russian orphanage...



Thanks for your prayers!

Climb Another Hill

It started raining today - a good hard rain. Cloudbursts have erupted several times this afternoon - those flash flood kind of rains that fill the building with deafening sound. The kind of downpour that practically forces you to stand up and go look out a window.

I'm in my apratment now with a dull headache, sitting at my desk and looking out a large window. Outside one of these hard rains is diminishing to a mere sprinkle. It's darker than it should be, but just from the overhang of clouds. There's still plenty of daylight left, even as 8pm approaches. I notice for the first time this year that the greenery has all come back. All the trees are at various stages of budding out with new leaves.

Everything is wet and dripping, reminding me very much of Oregon. Making me think of all the directions I could have steered my life when I was young and first out on my own. Looking back over the last twenty years, and all the crossroads I've faced. It's a little painful - not depressing necessarily, but it is quite solemn.

As I reflect on such things, I wonder what the reason is for my melancholy. After all, I had an amazing month at work. Without divilging the details, I basically had expected to score a 9.5 for April, and instead finished at 26.6 (higher is better).

But that kind of success is fleeting here. It's gone with the turn of the calendar page. It reminds me of playing a show in front of a great crowd - a concert where every song's finish produces its own climax of cheers and whistles. A show where the most beautiful woman in the room falls for the rock star...

But then, the show is over, the woman is gone, and all that's left is the teardown, the aftershow headache, and - as Bob Seger put it - "the echo from the amplifiers ringing in your head." It's the worst sort of post-success syndrome. Everything here resets on the first of the month, and the uphill climb starts again.

Too many things in life are like that. Way too many things.