Four things I have learned while Mountain Biking

I started mountain biking as a part of my job.  Last summer, my sergeant called me one day to tell me that I they needed more people in the police biking class in order to hold the class.  I was not reluctantly to agree to be one of the students.  The class was perfect.  I stretched my body so much that at the end I had basketball sized bruise on my stomach.  My love of mountain biking was cemented in my psyche.  As the riding season draws to a close, I am reflecting on what I have learned.  I love to push my body as part of both physical and spiritual wellness.  I wanted to share some of the little things that I think I have overlooked previously.

1.  Enjoy the ride don't focus on what others have.  As a man I am not immune to gear lust.  I was blessed with my bike, and I worked hard to earn it.  So it stands to reason that as soon as I get it on the trail and see someone coming down with a more expensive bike I become dissatisfied with my own bike.  I have had this same problem with other pass times.  I have made a commitment to myself that I will not buy bike magazines to save myself gear lust and gear envy.

2.  Riding alone gives me a chance to find out who I really am.   I ride alone because most of the time I cannot find a riding partner.  I enjoy riding alone as a way to recharge my batteries.  As I stated earlier I love to push myself, but recently I have also discovered I can give up pretty easy.  Why?  There's no one to push me further.  I also think it's because my body is still getting used to this new activity.

3.  Riding with friends is extremely enjoyable.  I like to ride with others because they push me to keep going.  I also enjoy going out afterward to wind down with a meal.  I don't think there's anything more enjoyable then a mountain bike adventure with friends.

4.  Passing my love of biking on to a new generation strengthens my relationship with my kids.  My enthusiasm for biking helped me teach two of my children how to ride a bike without training wheels in little over 24 hours.  Since that time my children have enjoyed riding with me and with their friends.  They could not have those experiences without my help teaching them to ride.

This Blog was Brought to you By the Committee for the Other Guy

When my fireplace began to fill up with all the political fliers that had been mailed to my house I began to wish we never had elections.  I even wish that we could elect our politicians to longer terms so that their political debates would not interrupt an episode of "The Good Guys" (my current favorite).  I am not a political moron.  I listen to the "Political Junkie" on "Talk of the Nation" whenever I can.  I just don't want to hear another junk ad on why Bennett shouldn't be re-elected.  I knew who was going to get my vote even before the year started.  What I didn't know was how I was going to vote for County Coroner or for Colorado University Board of Regents. 

I want to hear for those candidates.  I want to see a debate from candidate A and B about why they would be the best city councilman for my district.  Maybe in your city this kind of things happens.  But I doubt most of us know who's running for county sheriff unless we work closely with that agency.  These politicians have the most impact on me.  My state congressman or senator could vote to take away my job or do away with the funding for my patrol cars.  This year as I voted my Queen told me about the two candidates for county coroner.  The incumbent is a medical doctor with years of experience doing the job of a medical examiner.  His opponent is a politician without any medical credentials.  That would have been nice to learn in a debate or simply a get to know the candidate. 

I want to hear from the candidates that matter to me.  The ones who might examine my corpse when I die or the one who makes decisions on how many cars I can park in front of my house.  Let's hear from you guys and gals.  Let you candidacy by heard so that next time I have to vote between you or the name below you I don't have to flip a coin.

Letting go can take a few years

I have had to deal with a lot of difficult situation in my life such as: getting my queen pregnant before our wedding, having a son with autism, and being reprimanded for dereliction of duty.  I lived through these life experiences, but I have not always dealt with them on an emotion level in a timely manner.  It was years till I apologized to my queen for having sex before marriage.  My oldest son was in first grade before I would acknowledge that he had a problem and agree to the school testing him for services.  Finally, tonight on the car ride home my queen helped me realize that it's time to deal with one more life experience. 

About five years ago, I was working in the detention facility as a jail guard.  My queen was pregnant with our youngest, a daughter.  My queen was having a lot of health problems during this pregnancy.  She was hospitalized once with stroke like symptoms that were attributed to complications of a migraine headache.  My queen was also going through several emotional trials that made being alone with three very young kids difficult, next to impossible.  She would often call me at the jail in tears over the stress.  I started calling in sick on the Fridays and Saturdays the first two days of my shift.  My sergeant was not pleased.  I began to run through all the sick time I had available.  Soon, I was using sick time as soon as I earned it.  To cut it short, I was reprimand for calling in so much without a "legitimate" excuse.  Basically, I was told I was derelict in my duty at the jail by leaving other to cover my shift when we were short handed or so I was told (realistically we had plenty of guards).  I have often looked back and asked myself why I couldn't give them something that proved that my sick time was legitimate.  I cannot answer that question all I have to say is all the time I used was legitimate.  My queen was not doing well in her pregnancy and need my he

I have not been able to move past the reprimand go for all these years.  I am angry about it.  I know that I am angry as stated in my previous post.  I think part of that angry comes from my emotional issues around the reprimand and whether I felt it was legitimate.  I felt I had dealt with it, but really I only experienced it then tried to forget it.  I having been consciously and subconsciously driving myself not to make any mistakes or be absent from work.  It has been slowly killing me.  I cannot let it go.  There is nothing to do about it now.  I cannot change anything.  I need to let it go because after having been home for two weeks taking care of my queen I want to find myself.  I want to find the me that I was before all this.  I want to forgive me.  I am praying to God that He would help me let this go and forgive myself.