This blog and its name...

After a few posts I figured it is time to explain in more detail the idea behind this blog. I want to be a writer and as Stephen King once said if you want to be writer you need to do two things: read a lot and write a lot. So, this is one of the avenues in which I am writing more. I have also recently started a series of short stories that I hope will turn into a book one of these days. Obviously, it is tough to spend the time I want writing between work, coaching, running, and of course living. It has taken me six weeks to get three stories written; needless to say it is going to be a process. In the meantime I can try and get some readership here.

Why Running Independently? First, the running aspect. Even though I run with people on occasion and train a few days a week with the kids I help coach, the vast majority of my training is self-motivated and lonesome. The Tallahassee chapter of the BK Alum Track Club has moved on to other things in other cities, but I remain in the Capital City...Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials. Like so many things in life, running is important for me to do by myself--it is part of the challenge, part of the grind. If you cannot get out there and do it when no one else is then it might not be worth your time...this is especially true if you are more than just a casual runner. Think Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own: "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."

Just like my running, I do not believe in labels or parties when it comes to politics and current events. Everybody's worldview is unique. Everybody's. The kid who was born on the same day as me in the same hospital who happens to live next door is going to see things a little differently than I am. So, how is my pale Anglo-mutt worldview supposed to tell someone who was born in New Jersey to a pair of immigrants that the way he or she lives is better or worse than the way I live? There is no better or worse--only different. Tolerance is about taking the good and the bad. No matter how odd, original, or offensive I find the rhetoric of the Tea Party or the Democrats or the New Black Panthers or Pat Buchanan I do my level best to accept it as what it is: a unique worldview. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, what I cannot get behind is when someone takes their message to the people with violence or as the sole way of life, but that is a different blog post altogether. I just wanted to let you know what you might be reading when you take a look and read my worldview... You do not have to like it, but I hope you try to accept it.