How Did I Get Here?

No, we're not going to talk about THAT. If you're too young to know then stop reading now and go ask your parents if you're allowed to read this or not ... if it's iffy, I recommend erring on the side of caution and coming back in 15 years. It's the internet. This will all still be here (remember that before you email that questionable photo of yourself to your BFF!).

How did I get here? I was born on a hot July evening back in 19.... No, I won't go back that far. It's not important. What is important is why I'm bothering with a blog and what you might actually find here should you choose to spend a few of your life's priceless and irretrievable minutes here.

I believe in truth in advertising. WYSIWYG, for my middle-aged but still young-at-heart software colleagues. I also type amazingly fast. As in, if you close your eyes you might find yourself crouched under the coffee table, convinced that you're hearing machine gun fire, not just the rapid clicking of the keyboard. What that means is what I type is what I think - almost verbatim, and while the world Outside the Radius can be scary, trust me when I say its got nothing on what's inside my head ... and what comes out my fingertips. Take heed of the warning I gave to the youngsters above: Enter at your own risk.

That said, this blog isn't about EVERYTHING inside my head (that would just be wrong, there are places no man should ever go) ... it's about just what the title says: my adventures 'Outside The Radius'. I live in a fairly large mid-western USA capital city. I'm sure at some point I'll give it away, but let's call it suspense for now (No, It's not Springfield, and the Simpsons aren't my next door neighbors). I have a house and a family and a job just like the rest of the world (well, except on the job thing right now, given the US economy, but I won't go there). I like to do stuff. I run. I ride my bike. I swim. Put them all together and yes, I do triathlons. They're fun. If you haven't tried them, you should. Even if you stink at them they're still fun (trust me on that). I like to go places but with aforementioned house and family and job (with finite vacation time) I don't go nearly as many places as I'd like. The universe, knowing this about me, appears to stuff, without fail, as much adventure as possible into my limited adventures. I call that Karma. Or the Universe's Sense of Humor. Either go down better than 'rotten luck'. There's also not a damn thing I can do about it so why not just roll with it.

Let me give you an example ...

Several years ago I got the brilliant idea to drive across the country from the mid-west to the promised land: the west coast. Being of reasonably sound mind, however, I realized this probably wasn't the safest thing for a person to do alone. I promptly got my concealed carry permit (yes, my state allows it, go add that to your list of clues) thinking it would be better if I drove across the country alone, armed. Yet, it still seemed a fairly lousy and unsafe idea. Plan B: Take an Amtrak Train across the country instead. Finding no immediate flaws in Plan B, I executed it.

I took a short flight to a nearby train station with one outrageously expensive precious gem (an unexpected delivery that I agreed to before thinking it through), my golf clubs (the train trip ended in San Diego, home of Torrey Pines, Best Public Golf Club in the US), and my Nikon (all Amtrak trains have Observations Cars - all glass). I had several meals with a famous NY playwright who was petrified of airplanes but could tolerate trains, an extremely friendly diabetic accountant and his wife who loved traveling by train, chatted for hours in the observation car with an extremely wealthy Texas Rancher (who kindly explained exactly how long each parcel of cows we passed in Kansas had left to live based on what they were being fed and how they were being corralled), was almost robbed by an elderly female homeless person who boarded at one stop and was quietly, but promptly, removed by police at the next (there are no TSA agents or security checkpoints on, near, or around trains, FYI), and was stopped on the tracks for 4 hours in a New Mexico cactus field while Life Flight and several fire trucks removed a person from the cabin car in front of mine (no, I'm not making this up, yes, the windows of trains DO come off in an emergency, such as to extract large immobile masses, and sadly no, they did not get the man out in time - an important note about train travel: in the dining car they stuff you full of food, lots and lots and lots of food, and then you sit, and sit, and sit some more. It's not healthy. It was the diabetic accountant - he had gone back to his cabin car to lie down, and never woke up. I would have sat on that train for 40 hours if it could've saved his life. Poor guy.)

I arrived in San Diego the next day, on schedule - the conductor made up the 4 hours by breaking the speed of sound in the wee hours of the night when no one was looking. I still have the bruises from being bounced around my sleeping cabin like a pinball (and video, of the NY playwright taking video of me as we laughed nervously trying to record the phenomenon, in the narrow sleeper cabin hallway at 3am - the NY playwright sent the footage to his agent, who got his entire trip comp'd). Other than the dead guy, and the bum, it was an incredible trip and here I am, years later, still telling the stories.

Outside the Radius, things just happen. I think it's called 'living'. If you just stay on your couch nothing is all that frightening ... but if you want to go out in the world you have to deal with a little horror.

Had I thought to write these things down before now this blog would be much bigger ... but since I'm a little slow at these things (I've had a jam-packed several years in my not-yet-to-be-named hometown) I'll just move on to present day .... maybe if things get slow I'll fill in with some of my other past adventures ...