Wheel in motion, weekend, a brush with…, unbelievable bravery

This week the wheel started to very slowly move in the direction of us selling our place. On Tuesday after a long day we were on our way home and ran into a huge backup. It was creeping along. After a few minutes realizing this was going to be a long delay, I swung a u-turn to go the only other way there is to get to our place, although it is significantly longer, at least we would be moving. WRONG. On that road traffic was snarled due to a head on collision where both vehicles were destroyed and incinerated. It took us over an hour and a half to get home. During that time I turned to Ali and expressed how “Sometimes, I really HATE where we live” It’s true. Although I love our house, I love the normally quiet neighborhood I hate the commute. I hate sitting in traffic every damn morning, I hate spending over an hour to go 23 miles. The roads in our area are the most dangerous in the county. They are 2 lane roads with no medians with vehicles going in excess of 60 mph. People get frustrated and do dangerous manuevers like swinging out into oncoming traffic in attempts to pass a slow vehicle. All it takes is one maniac, one drunk, sleepy or distracted driver to cross over the line and take you out in flash before you can even react. All these things have been pushing me along for quite awhile towards ideas about relocation. We spend 40 hours a month commuting for cripes sake. So I got a rough idea of value of houses in our area. The downside is although our property has appreciated greatly in the 3 years we have been there, so has everything else so even if we clear a big chunk of change in the sale, chances are we will be lucky to move anywhere and keep a similar mortgage. So who knows what will go down, I just know I am thinking about the possibility more and more. The idea of living in a development where there is little to zero maintenance and is close to my workplace is sounding like where I want to be.

This weekend Alison has to work Saturday. I have yet to be able to time it that on days she has to work on a weekend I can just be a bum and enjoy myself. Instead I have a plate full of stuff I would like to do. I need to clean, mow, pickup, trim and even go over to my mom’s place to do a landscape project I have been putting off for too long. I just can’t get off that treadmill.

Today we Naples folk had a brush with the president. He was in town for a 25,000 DOLLAR a plate fundraiser among other things. However his motorcade went right by the building where I work. All traffic in the area was blocked and it looked like an impromptu parade. A lot of people standing by the street hoping to catch a glimpse. Needless to say with my views of his administration I wasn’t one of them. However I did wonder how it would be received to be standing out there and then suddenly shooting the moon as the prez rolled by. Of course I could never do such a thing in real life but damn would it be sweet. Some of the women in our office were out there and came back inside near hysterical because they SAW him and HE WAVED to them!!! Oh my.

To me the true definition of a hero is through actions not words. I was shocked to hear that Pat Tillman was killed on duty in Afghanistan. For those not sports oriented, he was a pro bowl caliber defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals. After 9/11 he walked away from a multi-million dollar contract to join the Army. Not a cushy job either, a ranger. I can not fathom the conviction this man had. He had what would be my dream situation, a successful pro athlete and he turned his back on it to serve the country. Although his bravery was no greater than everyone else’s that joins the service, the situation he left to display that bravery is incredible. And now he is gone. I can only aspire to be the type of person that he was. He didn’t go out and buy a flag to hang from the window of his car like most of us. He gave up a dream job that would have set him up for the rest of his life and now at 27 it’s over before it began, very, very sad.