Life is a Transition

I look back over the past two years and I'm amazed by how dramatically my life has changed since I left my position at the Web Hosting firm that I originally came to Atlanta to manage. Now, 21 months after starting Patrick D. Gaul, Inc., I find myself headed for another adventure and I must admit that I'm more than just a tad excited about the opportunities that having my own company have provided for me. Do I miss the stability of working for a firm with all the benefits? Yes, sometimes, especially when I write that check every month to Blue Cross/Blue Shielf to cover my company's health care plan. And I definitely often wish someone else was buying the ink cartridges and paper for my printers, not to mention the other stationary and office supplies that one needs everyday to run a business. You don't think about those things when they are provided out of a stationary cabinet, but when you buy them yourself day in and day out they suddenly become a fairly large item on the annual expense budget.

Anyway, I was thinking this morning about transition and how we experience transitions our entire lives. We transition from children to adolescents, from adolescents to teenagers, to young adults, to adults and then on to middle age and beyond. Live is a constant series of transitions and intermixed with these chronological transitions are all sorts of life experiences including college, the miltary, marriage, divorce, marriage, divorce, marriage (I may a tad unique in this area), children, grandchildren, etc. Life is just a melting pot of experiences and transitions and through it all we are suppose to maintain some sort of balance and perspective. I don't about you, but the whole process seems a bit buggered to me. I'm still grappling with the concept of maturity! Someone recently asked me "when did you become an adult?" How do you know if you've actually made that transition? Is it based on marriage, children, financial security? Heck, I'm headed hard towards 60 and I still find the concept of maturity difficult because so much of me is still drive by a youthful attitude and spirit! I like life and I love to have fun and to be a free spirit. I think if I did not have so many responsibilities with my family and my life I would be living somewhere quite remote, very distant from the urban sprawl that I now inhabit. Buckhead is so not the real world! I don't know how we ended up there, but I think it had something to do with the schools, especially Sarah Smith, which is quite close to where we live........great public elementary school! And Sutton, the middle-school isn't really that bad; unless of course you are one of the middle-schoolers attending classes each day, in which case it is probably horrible. I remember middle-school and they aren't happy memories. So many things happen between the ages of 11 and 13 and most of them are not fun..........it's an awkward time in a young person's life.

Okay, so I'm rambling a bit. I guess I don't really have a major point to make here. I'm trying to stay away from the politics for the moment and don't even ask me what I think about this bailout. $700B! Amazing and the more our government leaders warn about doom and gloom the more the markets respond. Doesn't anyone remember how to pitch a positive spin on things these days? Why couldn't there be reassurances instead of all of these guys (who should have been watching the shop all along) spinning the darkest scenarios possible? Like I said, I need to stay away from it for the moment. My blood pressure might just spiral out of control if I deep dive the details of this latest plan.

Dallas Cowboys lost yesterday. Now that's a disappointment! Not only will I have my brother giving me grief (you know, the one who roots for the Redskins), but I'll have Daniel on the line in gleeful spirits, which is more than I can stand on a Monday afternoon.

Is Anyone Else Bothered By The Noise?

Have you noticed that the more the Obama/Biden - McCain/Palin teams say, the less we know about what they hope to achieve if they're elected? Obama/Biden have clearly decided that the high road isn't going to get them to the White House and so it seems that they too are settling comfortably into a "war of slurs and innuendo" rather than a substantive debate around the issues facing our country and the global community.

Let me ask you this.........if you were a political leader in another country watching and listening to the noise around this election, would you be impressed? Would you think America is once again ready to take the helm and assume leadership around such critical issues as Global Warming, Terrorism, Finance, Nuclear Disarmament, etc.?

And no, I'm not going to pick on Governor Palin. The Lord knows that there are far better equipped political pundits capable of slinging mud her way. I will say that I think she is seriously unprepared for the road ahead and if I were John McCain, she would be doing quite a bit of studying over the next few weeks and very few interviews. I said that she would be the "difference that makes a difference" to a colleague right after the announcement and by that I meant that she would cost John McCain the election. After listening to her speech at the convention I offered that perhaps I spoke too soon, but after listening to the interview she did with Charlie Gibson I'm fairly certain my initial observation was correct. Can you really gear-up for a Presidential election in less than two months and be credible? Even if she is as smart as some folks have made her out to be (and I think there is a difference between being smart and being politically savvy), she was no more prepared to accept McCain's offer than John was to make it in the first place. He should have had Charlie Gibson vet her and he wouldn't be in this predicament. Oh well, if only he had hired me to advise him.

Sorry folks, but are we really going to go through all of this crap again; i.e.: the mudslinging, attack ads, negative publicity, dirt digging kind of politics that have defined the past two Presidential elections? How do we actually take some measure of control in this election? Aren't we "the people" that these men and women are supposed to be representing? How do you take a guy who was raised by a single Mom and had to use food stamps to feed her kids and turn him into some elite "uppity" character? How do you take community service and turn it into a negative. Dr. King has be rolling over in his coffin right now.

What can we do to start a grass roots movement to take back the political process around the Presidential election? I have a thought..........let's call it "Americans Decide.Org". Let's make it more about the process and less about the pundits. Force a debate around the issues and force platform presentations that clearly define what one would do should on be elected to the post. Heck, you wouldn't hire a top-notch consultant and not ask for a proposal of some sort. Would you? Why should we treat the Executive Office any different? Anyone can run as long as they have a serious plan to take the country forward. Let us decide who we think is serious and who is the fool. Makes sense to me, but then of course I'm just another one of those lost conservatives struggling to find some meaning in all of it. I still well in Obama's camp, but my goodness he needs to get back on track.

Meanwhile, a photo from Uncle Joe's over Labor Day. Joe just got his first "Air Soft" in honor of Governor Palin!