Follow your own path....

It was one of those days when traffic on the Turnpike was moving really well, which was good because I had less than two hours to cover the 180 miles left between me and my meeting in Clermont. I had left the house a little later than I had planned, so I was really hustling to avoid being late, especially since I had forgotten to get gas last night and had to swoop into the Circle K and fill up. When I went in to pay - the dadgum pay at the pump thing wasn't working, again - I let myself get drawn into a conversation between the cashier and a state trooper about whether or not widening the Stretch and replacing the drawbridge at Jewfish Creek with a fixed span was going to make a difference in the number of wrecks there - the trooper, who's worked this area for a long time, said she didn't think there was anything that would stop the speed freaks and shitheads that blaze down from Miami from finding ways of ending up upside-down in the mangroves or running head-on into Winnebagos full of innocent tourists from Ohio.

So, I was running late, and happy that traffic was light and what cars were on the road were really moving out. I had just topped an overpass when the left rear tire blew out, and that comment by the trooper about knucklheads and upside down vehicles replayed itself vividly in my head as the Jetta did the 90 mile an hour drift towards the median. Luckily I was going fast enough that my forward momentum carried me past the concrete barrier on the overpass, and the grass in the median was wet and fairly smooth. It's amazing just how big a difference anti-lock brakes make for stopping a sliding car on wet sand, you know?

Anyway, I didn't hit anything, and I was able to get the car out of the median and stopped on the left hand break-down lane with a minimum of excitement. Of course, the spare was flat so I had to call AAA to come out with an air tank and fill it up. As I was waiting, a trooper pulled up to check and see if everything was OK, and he, of course, made a comment about how lucky I was, judging from the skid marks in the grass, to not have ended up upside down in the mangroves or head-on with a Winnebago. I thanked him for his endorsement of my exceptional driving ability.

I got to Clermont eventually, and did the walk-through of the site. The hospital there is wanting to add a new bed tower and outpatient imaging center, and our company is one of the construction firms that's been invited to present a vision of how the proejct could be done and how much it might cost. My task was to survey the site with one of our superintendents and put together a logistics plan and schedule based on the hospital's "program", a one-paragraph narrative we've gotten from the hospital describing what services they wanted included in the new addition. We spent an hour or so walking the building, and developed a fairly detailed schedule and logistics and phasing plan based on nothing more than some notes indicating the number of patient rooms to be included and the different flavors of radiology equipemnt to be included. We made our best guess about where the tower should go based on the locations of the various departments in the existing hospital, and came up with a plan for routing the power, chilled water, etc. from the existing CEP into the addition without disrupting occupied spaces too much. Cool stuff, but I wish there was more time to do a really thoughtful evaluation before having to finalize our view of how this project needs to get put together.

And that's how it goes, I guess, making decisions on the fly without knowing all the facts or having enough time to really consider all of the options or be able to contemplate the impacts of the occasional unexpected blowout. What really puzzles me is how or why sometimes things turn out really well and sometimes things turn out really whacked. A wise man I know pretty well once said that everything is highly unlikely, but is it really just an endless chain of random chance events that has gotten the world to be exactly the way that it is today? That's a question that's occupied far greater minds than mine, of course, and I would guess that there are as many opinions on it as there are people on the planet today.

Regardless of how and why things happen, whether guided by destiny, god, physics, chance, or some combination of those, we all end up following a unique path, don't we? Right now I can't honestly say whether or not I really like, or understand, where my path has taken me. And don't get me wrong - there's a lot of good stuff in my life right now. Having been handed $85 million bucks with instructions to go live on an island and build something really cool has been OK. I've got an amazing family, with nieces and nephews that I adore. Y habia esta chica hermosa! So it's not like it's been all gloom and doom, you know, but more and more lately I've been contemplating how or why I've ended up here and where I'm headed next. If it's all up to random chance I guess there's no sense sweating it too much, but if personal choice and preference can at least in some small way affect where we end up, I better get my shit together and figure out where I want to be next. I should probably figure out what's in my "program" first, and then put together a schedule and logistics plan....

I stumbled across this little clip a few minutes ago, and it occurred to me that it illustrates the idea that there are many ways to get something done, and that we're all going to find our own way and our own style to to do what we do. This is a reminder to take some joy in the getting it done, too.


Amazing - video powered by Metacafe

Good morning

There's a hole in my head that the coffee goes into, but I'm not sure it's draining to the right spot because there just ain't no waking up this morning. Maybe a colada from the cuban cafe will do the trick.......I'll go check that out in a minute, but first I want to share this:



Oh yeah, I added a few new links over there in my favorites list.....

Peace out till later on, friends.

Up for air...

Dadgum, has it really been almost two months since I posted last? What a freakin' slacker.....

I have been busy, though. Thanksgiving with the clan in Elkin was a lot of fun. Here's a link to some photos from the gathering (plus two bonus shots!).

I've been spending lots of time at the jobsite, too, of course. Things are coming along pretty well there, but there's still a lot of work to do before we'll have the entire building ready to turn over to the hospital folks. Here's a link to some recent shots from the building.

Oh yeah, and it looks like the thing with Susie isn't really working out the way I hoped it would. Guess that's the way it goes, huh?

Well, at least I've broken the ice here by getting something posted, and now I've gotta scoot.

Eat a peach for peace.....

Sunshine, flowers, & smiles.....

I wandered the neighborhood this morning with my camera and a cup of coffee, nursing a bit of a headache from yesterday's Iron Bowl celebration and looking for something to catch my eye so that I'd have a good excuse for not heading to work first thing. I felt obligated to take pictures of something, and after taking a couple of dozen half-assed shots I decided to call it quits.

Of course as soon as I did I came across this....

There's a morning glory vine that wraps itself around the fence at the front of the house, competing with a purple bougainvillea to overtake the fence and phone pole. There aren't many blooms now, and this one was hiding under a canopy of foliage and just catching the faintest glow from the sun. The framing's off a bit, of course, and the focus isn't quite right, but overall it's not too bad.

Not perfect, but pretty good. Lots of good and important things in life turn out like that, don't they?

The sun hid behind a blanket of clouds today until around noon, a chilly north wind pushing whitecaps across the sound. When the sun came out it was like god had turned on a switch, and the sky turned that south Florida gas-flame blue. Someone must have given him flowers, and he was suddenly happy and smiling.

I had forgotten what an effect the arrival of unexpected flowers could have on someone, and how the return of a beautiful woman's smile could shift my world on it's axis.

Look closely, and you'll see everything.

Trust

Hello? Yeah, it's me, Shitforbrains. What's up? Not much, just hanging. Missed you yesterday. Yeah, I got tied up in a meeting. Oh. Sorry I didn't get to see you. I thought you were avoiding me. What? Yeah.....look, I gotta go....I'll call you later.


Dammit.


Why is this all so hard?

Library porn

Honest, it's not what you think! Check it out.

Weather report

It's raining idiots.

And in other news....

Hey friends. Tomorrow begins another week of fun and excitement at work. Another peer review - three days of intense scrutiny of everything we're doing and how we're doing it - starting Monday afternoon. A state inspection Monday. A come to Jesus Monday with one of the major subs that's being a major dumbass. And the bosses are all here Tuesday for an executive summit to go over ISSUES. At least what issues there are perceived to be at the executive level. Owner, Architect, Contractor meeting Wednesday. PM, sub, and staff meetings Thursday, and the bi-weekly schedule update and review meeting is Friday. Oh, and we've got a job to run. Nice!

I spent a lot of my weekend at the jobsite doing paperwork and missed getting to Selma for Zeke's birthday and the "Living the Dream 2006" nonviolence orientation and march across the Edmund Pettus bridge. I have got to work on rearranging my priorities.

I went out with Susie Friday night, which was really cool.

I spent Saturday night on the boat, and dreamed about bigdogs, blue skies, and brown eyes.

Looking up at the stars through the companionway hatch Saturday night I wondered when I forgot the sweet pain of waiting for a phone call.

I made cuban coffee, cafecito, Sunday morning, and for the first time in my kitchen it came out really close to the real thing. I sipped it in the backyard in the company of a family of what I think were indigo buntings.

A few minutes after midnight on Friday I sat on the front steps, picking out a tune on the guitar and thinking about how lucky I am to be here.

Ella es tan hermosa

Ella quita la respiración cada vez yo la veo. Su risa vuelve mi alma a mi cuerpo, y su toque manda el corazón a las estrellas.

Good morning.....