This is my second time posting a blog, and I am still winging it. I find it amazing the amount of "stuff" I can cram into any given day. I hope it isn't too boring, but I wanted to type out a day's activities. Almost to get it out of the way and so anyone reading this will have a bit more insight to my philosophies.

Today being a typical day, more or less, I was awakened by a call from my wife Nancy. She calls every workday from her car on her way to work solely to wake me up. Sometimes I get up and sometimes fall back asleep. Today I woke up. I got up and ten minutes later the morning babysitter came. Every weekday she comes, gets the kids up, and takes them to school. Now, before you pass judgment and think of how spoiled I am to not get the kids to school myself, consider that I don't get to sleep until 3:00 AM most nights and I start my work day around 8:30 AM. However...The kids are definitely spoiled. School is about 200 yards away. The elder daughter likes breakfast in bed and gets it most mornings (not by me). By 8:00 they are all gone and I get started.

Today I had a meeting at 8:00 with my architect and contractor. Putting an addition on the house is fun to plan and just heart-wrenching to go through the work. I have been told I am a perfectionist. I guess I don't understand why people can't do what they say they will. Or, why a contractor can't build a room the way the plans are drawn. Maybe I ask too much, I don't think so.

After the meeting I went to work. I work in town as an electrical engineer. I am an independent contractor so I am free to come and go as I need to. I work as much as I can - given the other responsibilities I have. Aside from my real job, I had a meeting this afternoon with one of the people working for the same firm that I work for. Four of them got together and decided to spin off their own firm doing a very similar thing... Including the President and both sales managers. They want me to be a partner and fill the gap on the technical end. This meeting took about 3 hours. During which my kids came home from school (the meeting was in my house), the cleaning girl / 2nd babysitter came in and did her thing, and another of the kid's friends came by. It became a very busy place.

Then, as the meeting was winding down, my wife walked in. She arrived from work and then we started the evening routine, with the meeting ending just in time to transport one of the kids to another friend, pick up a few things from the store and get some more money from the cash machine.

Homework help and a little AutoCAD work, and a quick bite to eat, and here I am relaxing while typing one long run on sentence.

During the day, I received a call from the West coast. The tenant in a building I manage for the family (my Mom), had a leak and was frantically trying to get the air conditioning firm to fix a leaking pan. We just replaced the unit a month ago so you can imagine my anger. I dealt with it through the magic of e-mail. One to my building manager and another to the firm that did the work. A few calls from my friends and a call from one of the banks, about a meeting tomorrow morning - in between a doctor's appointment and work, and that's about it.

You can't make this stuff up. This is a fairly normal day for me, so I wonder why I lose touch with people. But life is a series of choices. There's never enough time in the day or days in the life. So we all make choices of what we do first and what gets done only if we have a little extra time. Unless we decide to use the extra time to take a nap. It may sound as if I am complaining about everything I need to do. I find that the things I complain most about are also the things I am most grateful to have.

I always wondered if people ever really read the millions of blogs people like me write on a daily basis. I think most of them are just excercises in exorcising your own demons.

This is my first blog so I'll keep it short. I expect to write about who I am and some of my thoughts on various topics and a few descriptions of inventions I have had and think of on daily basis.

I am a grown man - child of 52 with two daughters and a wife. I am a kid at heart who is delighted to find new discoveries each day. I have been around the seamier side in my past and have lots of experiences most people never have. Don't get me wrong. I am no tough guy. I am middle class all the way. White bread with a little flavor you might say. Normal, average, clean record and all around average guy on the outside. It's just that I have had some tough times and have been into various things in the past.

I am not your typical reborn or second chancer or sobered up druggie. I have a matter of fact attitude about life and in a down to earth manner of lifestyle, I rarely try to impress. I dress in jeans to work and to business meetings and let my mouth gain my respect. Not the clothes. I get a lot of smirks and eyeball rolls when people meet me in a business setting. That all works to my advantage because when I finally open my mouth there are lots of red faces around the table. No, I am not the dope you thought I was. And, I have a photographic memory for conversations.

I am on a new kick lately that I hope will last. I have never been good at staying in touch with friends. Lately I have been given new opportunities to reconnect with old friends I let go. Now I try to stay in touch because I finally realize the value of a good friend.

Too many people go through life as loners. Yeah, they have the core family and a few friends - acquaintances of parents of the kid's friends. Maybe a few buddies from work. I am truly blessed to have a handful of people I can call at any time and say "I need you" and they will be there. No questions asked. It's nice to be able to look them in the eye and say that I would be there for them too.

So much to say, so little time. Today I went to a meeting. Yep - one of them. I went for a few years without the meetings with no real ill effect except some anger and frustration build up. But now I started going again and you would never guess that I actually relax there now. Not too worried about if someone is going to like me or what I say. I speak a lot more now too. Uh-Oh.... someone's growing up.