Oct 1st Is Still A Hard Day

October 1st. Eventually I think this will once again be an ordinary day for me. Not today though. Today I still thought of John and the events of four years ago.

It's easier now, time has lessened the pain a bit. A loss is a loss though, especially when that loss is of a friend close enough to be a brother.

This particular October 1st I was fortunate enough to meet one of my personal heroes. However, thrilling as that was for me, it was still overshadowed by the anniversary.

So again I paid a visit to the rock, and again I said:

Ride on, Cosmic Cowboy, ride on.

A Toast To The Royals

No, not our royal cousins across the Atlantic, the Royals in Kansas City! Tonight I watched one of the best baseball games I've ever seen, Two good teams, the KC Royals and the Oakland A's, battlin' it out over twelve innings. 

It looked bleak for the Royals all game - they had to overcome an early two-run deficit, then being down by four, then knotting it up in the 9th only to go down by one in extra innings until tying it up again...until the bottom of the 12th...and blam! Ned Yost's crew wins it!

Apologies for the vague summation of the game, but that whole accounts and descriptions of the game proviso that MLB throws out to protect their property...don't want to have to hire lawyers.

Rain, Hail, Better Grab A Pail

It's been a wet summer in Colorado. Rain has fallen at least 

3 out of every 4 days since Memorial Day. All the water has been great, but the hail & extreme winds, not so much.

This afternoon a storm blasted through the south Denver metro area, assailing anything and everything in it's path with heavy rain and large hail. Being inside a large building sounded like being inside the drum kit during Ron Bushy's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida drum solo.

The television news tonight opened with pictures of hail damage in the areas of south Denver known as Englewood and Centennial. Patio furniture had been torn up and strewn across decks, Neighborhoods were shown with homes that looked as if a machine gun had raked over them, pock- marking the siding and blowing out the windows. Car dealerships along Arapahoe just off I-25 looked as if their entire inventories had been parked on the driving range used to warm up participants at the BMW Open Championship.

North of Denver some of the smaller communities experienced heavy flooding due to the amount of rain that fell. The water-level, while high and an inconvenience on the roads, was not a threat to homes and infrastructure as last years were.

Kick It!

You know those moments when you think you're going to just collapse in a boneless pile of muscle, fat, and flesh, unable to move, and certainly not able to get up? Yeah, those times when you are just out of it, weak, completely spent - but it's not a physical fatigue, it's more of a mental thing, it's feeling emotionally drained.

Those are the times when you feel like giving up, throwing in the towel. But those are the exact moments when you cannot give up, must not.

That's when you need to stare at yourself hard in the mirror and find your inner strength, that part of you that does not allow you to accept mediocrity, that doesn't quit. The part of you that knows you are indeed a badass and will not back down from any challenge.

It's in there, it just has to be pulled out every so often, brought back from that little hideaway known as "comfort level."

That's how you get things done, that's how you succeed.

All You Need Is Now, All You Want Is Then

The Distinguished Gentleman's Lesser Ability

                    "Take that, rock!," yelled the sea as it pummeled the boulder mercilessly.

Well, he'd always been regarded with a certain amount of awe

A golden child, a golden teen and then platinum as an adult

No witness could be found who had ever seen him sweat

Every move he ever made always produced the predicted result

He was regarded by all as either very lucky or incredibly good

He always said the words that you always wish you could

Until the day came when he found himself on the losing side

Found himself on the losing side

Life hadn't prepared him for such a downturn in his fortunes

When the accounts were emptied and the good life went belly up

It took everything he had to get used to living on meager portions

Now he spends his days trying to repair all that was broken

Sketching People In An Airport