A Day in the Life of Chaos

  Sometimes when I think about life and the journey we take, I think about it as made up of many signposts. Each one is unique to ourselves and our lives but as we look back over time we find many have become beacons of life. A point in time when we changed in some way and found the path that has led us to the present. It can be a dangerous recollection because we are at risk of allowing our minds to wander into the unknown. The world of what might have been can be enticing however, it can also be risky as a mode of thought.  This is largely because there can be no resolution.  We can't change or re-live the past, only move forward from the decisions we made. The summer of my nineteenth year I was eager to find myself. I wanted to break out into the world and make my own decisions. I wanted to leave the protective custody of my parents but like most young kids, I subconsciously wanted to find independence without fully losing the security of parents and family.  When a ch

The King is Dead! Long Live the King.   The King of Thailand just passed.   He was eighty-eight and has been sitting on the throne since 1946 making him the longest serving monarch in the world.  I guess it is now up to Elizabeth to best his record.  He was a good king and very much beloved by the Thai people.  It is difficult to imagine having a focal point in a society like a monarch for 70+ years.  Very few Thais lived before him, making him all they have ever known.  Much of the world knows something we don't.  They know how to have institutions that unite societies rather than divide them.  America has no equivalent.  In sport it is the World Cup.  A once every four year tournament that is made up of national teams.  In America we think only of our regional favorites.  Go Cowboys... love you Gamecocks!  The Olympics is the only thing that comes close and for the most part it is a tournament of individuals.  Names we don't really know until they poke their head up

Freshman Orientation The older I become the more circles I see in life.  Really it is the consequence of time and living.  Both intertwine and the result is the definition of a pattern once invisible to the mind.  Nothing brings this home like being a parent because in your child you see a shadow of your own life.  Not only do you re-live the stages of life through the eyes of your child they become a reflection of your own life and experience. My son recently began study at a university yet his course is quite different from most.  Rather than follow in the footsteps of his friends and attend college in the place he was raised he has followed his nomadic father on an unconventional journey through life.  I have tried to give him everything I had, because in truth I regret little about the path I have followed. My parents gave me a home in Alaska.  It was a place for me to bloom that was not to big to breath. A small city where I could learn to appreciate life, friends