Hi everyone.  First real blog in a long time.  I'll cut right to the chase now.

I have been thinking about choices in life.  Choices similar to what you would find in a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.  If you choose differently, you wind up with an entirely different result.  I have been reflecting on the ones I made that definitely would have changed things.  For instance, what if I had chosen to go away to school instead of commuting from home?  Would I still have the same friends from high school or would we have grown apart as distance did?  Not likely since I am away from home now.  What job would I have now?  That one is widely open to try to guess.  If I had gone away to college, I would not have become a manager at Hoyts.  If I hadn't become a manager at Hoyts, I wouldn't have likely stayed there for 10 years and made managing a career.  I wouldn't have met Tracy.  I wouldn't have gotten married to her.  What if I had become a manager but actually tried really hard at the teaching thing instead of expecting it to be easy like I felt school was?  I'd have a teaching job, would not have left home, would not have met the people I have met now, and same thing with Tracy.

Changing subjects because I do that midstream often - the chance of Tracy and I meeting in our lives was actually very very low.  I suppose the same can go for any one person meeting any other one person but I can highlight the choices I made leading to our meeting very distinctly.  She only lived in Niceville (near Destin) for a total of two years.  That was her plan all along.  I was only in Destin for one year.  That does not even account for her coming to Destin and us being able to meet.  The chances were minuscule and yet we did it.  What is even more interesting is that I need her and she needs me.  We do not always realize that, especially when we get upset, but it is definitely true.

I say dumb things sometimes (read: often).  I say things before I really think about what they could be taken as or without thinking what others feelings may be on the subject.  One such thing is regarding Bucket Lists.  I think they can be a neat idea but my thought on what a bucket list should be differs from what other people think a bucket list should be.  Should I have expressed that?  Probably not.  I am not even sure if I upset Tracy when I expressed it, but that isn't the point.  I do it a lot.  I say things, then realize that it sounded terrible to say, and once you say it you will never get it back.

I don't know why I keep thinking that I want to be an actor.  First of all, it is a very very very hard profession to get into (at least on a professional "I make stupid amounts of money" level).  Making movies would be so much fun.  You get to pretend that you are someone else and then thousands of people get to watch your work.  Having that many critics sounds exciting.  Obviously, if I actually became an actor I'd be a failure not because I am a failure but because I cannot actually act.  It is still fun to think about for me, though.

Back to bucket lists.  I told Tracy the other day what I thought a bucket list should be (for me personally - not necessarily for anyone else).  I felt that a bucket list should be filled with something that you have to really really work to do.  For instance, I think running 10 miles would be a good bucket list item.  I think learning to fly a plane is a good bucket list item.  I think writing a novel is another one.  I personally do not think something I can do on a whim should be able to make my bucket list.  I am not going to list for instances for this side because, like I said, I have no filter and would offend someone.  It's just my opinion just as everything I write is.

I feel like I should write a bucket list now that I have talked about them.  I hadn't really felt like writing one until now.  I should probably put some thought into it before writing it.  Maybe that will be my next blog or two or ten.  I actually included items that would make my bucket list in my comment on bucket lists so those are my first two items.

1. Run ten miles without stopping.
2. Learn to fly a plane.

OK, it has started.  I will try to include two items every time I post, regardless on if I have other things to say or not.

I feel like it is time for us to leave Alabama, but there are no job openings for me to go anywhere else right now.  I want to get Tracy into school.  I feel terrible that we are still here because I am hurting her future because of my selfishness.  I want to get promoted so I can support us more comfortably and pay for her schooling.  I did not feel it unrealistic for me to leave by now but here I am - still here.  We will leave eventually, but I want it to be soon so I can get Tracy going and I can get going at a busy theater for the summer.  Every day there is not a job posting, I feel like I am letting her down.

The end.