This time of year the sun sets just past the trees in my backyard, and it's at just the right angle to render my right eyeball completely useless. It comes charging in through the door to the backyard and stands inches from my face in all of it's 8-minute-old glory, pompous, knowing full well I can't do anything but deal with it for another 10-15 minutes.

I was driving back from a client in Wilmington, MA just last week when I saw a license plate frame on the back of an Audi S6, all seventy-five thousand dollars of it, that said, 'Success is the best revenge.'

And yea, I've heard that phrase before but most people say it without actually being able to back it up. And yea, this guy could just have a $75,000 car and a $1,500/mo car lease, but for some reason I seriously doubt that.

I loved it. I hope he (or she) gets to drive around their home town frequently as their classmates from high school look on from the drive through window of a shitty fast food joint and say to themselves, 'Man, I shouldn't have been such a dickhead to _____'

I hope that this guy (or girl) frequently shops at the retail stores that those idiots from town work at. I hope that he gets to buy expensive clothing and ring up bills of more than those rotten bastards make in a month.

I hope, that at least somewhere in this world, all the cool kids from the popular cliques in highschool are getting the 21-gun, King Hell, FUCK YOU salute that they've deserved all along, and I hope it comes in the purest form of satisfaction from those who may not have been as cool.

My eyes have stopped seeing red, at least for the moment. I'm not sure if it's because the sun went down or because I've spent the last 400 words ranting about karma.

Like Bringing a Screwdriver to a Nail Gun Fight.

My To-Do list is daunting at the least. Each time I think I knock something off, I take a step back to admire my accomplishment, and then an immediate step forward - head down - to make note of two more items that need to be added to the list.

Priority right now is getting a video together and preparing (see: cleaning) for my Grandfather's 71st birthday on Saturday.

There's a lot to do, but as I am shuffling through nearly 200 photos of his life something came to the front of my mind. It was a small amount of sadness, disbelief, and a fair amount of regret.

200 photos? Is that all? We have contacted nearly every family member in the country to send in pictures and few people had any.

My Grandfather is a strong, stubborn man. I spent a lot of time with him when I was young. He's hot headed, a poor loser, and easily aggravated. After I looked at these pictures from year ago, I wonder when these features set in. During his earlier years he seems to be the ham in the pictures. What I've also seen in these photos is that he's experienced quite a bit in his life time.

What I've noticed, most of all, is that I don't really know my Grandfather. Up until recently I had never spoke to anyone about his young adult life, where he came from, who he grew up with, what he did, or what he wanted to be. I don't know stories about him as a boy, he's never shared his life experiences with me, we didn't play catch or cards.

I love my Grandfather with all my heart - but I regret never really being close to him. I guess I regret never really being close to any of my family members. But I'm working on that. I have to believe that it's never too late to learn.

I think that I need to readjust my priorities to things that are really important. I need to spend more time with my family. I want to learn about their history and their lives. I want detail. I want to know how their lives help me identify myself as a person. I want to know the events they experienced that identified them as a person. I just want to know anything and everything.

So each time I can remove something else from my list of tasks, I'll remember that one thing will always remain - family.

A word on weddings.

It's starting to happen. People I know are getting married. Each year there's more of them, and usually I don't give it much thought. I guessed that they liked each other enough to put up with one another's shit for the rest of their lives, I would assume that they can deal with what they like and don't like about the other person well enough to say, 'Yea, we can spend 24 hours a day together for the next 50 or 60 years, sure.'

But recently something has changed. I received a wedding invitation for my friend Rich's wedding to his fiance just a few days ago. (Is that a dangling participle?) Whether it was the way the invitation was written, or the greater message it delivered, it moved me. Two people are going to vow to be completely devoted to one another for the rest of their lives. Thick and thin, good or bad, angry, happy, or hungry, they're willing to commit to each other unconditionally.

And that to me is romantic. It's love in it's purest form. Joviality washes over me, and I'm happy for these two people.

Anyway, to prove that I've not gone soft: I got into a fist fight with a black bear yesterday and I broke his jaw. Then I kicked him in the ribs while he was down. His cubs attempted to swarm me from all sides, but I picked one up by the face and dug my thumbs into it's eyeballs, then swung it around like a baseball bat, crushing the other two small bears.

Then I ate their hearts and wore their guts as a necklace while I climbed on top of the highest hill I could find to pronounce my war cry - letting all the other creatures of the forest know that I am all that is man.

Then I cried when I got that bears wedding invitation in the mail.

God, and all it’s implications.

I was fortunate enough to see Keeping the Faith a few nights ago. For those who aren't familiar with the film, it stars Edward Norton and Ben Stiller, who are a priest and a rabbi, respectively. Religion was a small undercard in the movie, but it got me thinking..

What do I believe? Organized religion has always bothered me. The idea that people put all of their faith and will into a God (that they've never even seen before) to do things for them is just absurd. I see signs in front of churches like, 'P.U.S.H. - Pray Until Something Happens' and my mind is blown. Does no one take charge of their own life? Do they just expect something to happen for them?

I work towards everything I have. If I don't like something, I'm the one who changes it. I take charge, I'm in control. I run this ship. I don't pray to some invisible Jewish zombie to help me out. That's about as effective as using the Bat Signal or calling the Power Rangers, and just about as foolish.

But I cannot think for one second that there isn't another power or entity that helps or effects, at least to some extent, our lives. Too many strange things have happened in my life for me to think that we all have individual paths that we walk, and sometimes they cross. There has to be a reason they cross, right?

So I think that my idea of God works as follows.
-It's not a being, a person, or a single object.
-It cannot help you achieve anything unless you are willing to work for it.
-It is not leading you on a life path.
-Nothing is 'part of Gods plan'
-It does not work in mysterious ways.

These are all just bullshit lines the church feeds people so that they can deal with the life that they've run into the ground.

God is the collective will of a group of people and the desire to help others succeed. God only exists if you want it to. God is the power of the mind, and it's a powerful thing. God can exist to one person and be completely unique. God is your personal ambition, will, and drive.

And this theory can come full circle. If one can create and destroy their own personal God, who is God? Is it you? Me?

I'd like to think that there is a small part of every human that wants to help others in a time of need, to be good people, to be honest and work hard. And that small part of every person can be combined to create something huge, something that is bigger than all of us.

I'm still not a fan of organized religion, and I'm still very young, so this theory might change. I am, however, entitled to believe what I want, and this makes a lot of sense to me.

At least a lot more than praying to some holy avenger to off my enemies or make me rich..

Double booked.

What are you up to?

Nothing.. just finishing up these photos for my Grandfathers birthday party.

When is that again?

Two weeks exactly.

Aren't we going camping that weekend?

...

Times like these seem to be a recurrent event in my life. A carousel of bad planning and crushed hopes. I was really looking forward to camping. I had built it up in my mind to be a mixture of good friends that I've had for a while and new people I really enjoy spending time with. It was a reciepe for new memories that I could capture with my new camera. It was to be the kick off of a good summer, a good year.

I hadn't really put that much thought into how much I was looking forward to it until I realized that I couldn't go.

I'm reminded of a time when I was a child and I had lost my temper while building Legos. Nothing was fitting together as it should and I finally got sick of the god damned thing and smashed it. It was only then that I realized how much I wanted to keep it.

My epilogue is a story of short temper, while my main idea here is not. But you get the idea.

Time gets spread so thin. And it only seems to be getting worse. I get so caught up in my own life that I feel like I'm missing out on some of the really important parts. But I'm trying my hardest to make everything balance out, and I think that's important. Thompson once wrote, 'Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.' He was never much of a philosopher, but if he was talking about life, and not luck (which could be argued) then at the very worst he'd be a strange man to take advice from, but at the very best you can learn a bit from what he's said.

Sometimes we simply cannot balance on this wire. Most of the time we're struggling to stay upright and we never really move forward. Other times we're charging forth so blindly that balance means nothing and we just want to get to the other said, which inevitably never comes and we're left looking backwards at what we could possibly have missed.

I don't want to miss much, but there are people in my life that I don't get to see much of while I'm spending my time balancing on this wire. Work, studying, and errands take a heavy toll. If I get a chance to put these down, I like to rest.

When I rest, I close my eyes and I think about leaving everything behind to live my own life the way I want it. To be able to do what I'd like when I feel like it and not have any real responsibilities. Life would be easy, slow, clear.

But that life wouldn't be fullfilling to me, not in the least. So I'll keep double booking, I'll keep struggling to stay balanced, and I'll keep moving forward without any real direction or indication as to where I'll end up.

Wherever it is, I know that I'll be home.