Here we are on the edge of a new year. Hope next year is alot like the last three months and nothing at all like the nine that came before that. It is going to be pretty good. I can feel it. I need to make a better effort in my classes next semester and I have got to quit being so scared. What is the worst that can happen.

Today is December 26 and I am ready to go back to Cleveland. Don't get me wrong. I love being at home and hanging out with the family. I just want to get started back with school. Im so excited for where this next semester is going to bring me. There is so much stuff going on. Im just ready to get it started. Part of why I am so ready to head back is that I miss people. You get used to being with people everyday and then you arent together any more. It hurts. It'll be okay. There isnt a whole lot of time left.

Five years ago tonight I experienced on of the greatest things ever. Some people may think this is pretty neat and others may say that Im a redneck but I don't care. My brother Justin, (J.B.) and I were out driving around our podunk little town looking for something to do. It had been rainy, much like this week, so we took his '85 Jimmy up on the mountain. This was the infamous 'Toy Box'. This was a S-10 style and not the full size, but it was a 4X4. So we get up to the top of the mountain and start driving back towards the top entrance when J.B. has this genius idea. We are ripping down the road, mud and water everywheres, when he sees this fairly large and deep mud hole on the side of the road. "I think we can take that hole". That's what he said. I, being the smart older brother that I am told him no and that he was a moron for thinking that. Well, that did not stop him. He cut a U-turn and went back to the mud hole. I told him it was a bad idea. I honestly tried to stop him. He pulls up to the hole and puts the Jimmy into four-wheel drive. I told him that if he was going to do it to go hard and stay right. There had obviously been a much larger vehicle to go through that hole recently. He guns the truck and we get about half way, mud flying. Then we stop. Then water starts running in under the doors. We sat there, not knowing what to do. All I could do was say 'I told you so'. We called everyone we knew to come pull us out. No one was available. We tried to get every body, anybody. Finally after about an hour of sitting there pondering what to do we decided to call Dad. My dad is a great man and I consider him one of my best friends. The only deal is that the man can not stand stupid people. At that moment we felt pretty stupid. So we call home and tell dad about what happend. He says 'O.K., I will be there in a bit'. That was it. All he said. So in the meantime its freezing. Spittin snow. Cold. water every where. Its dark. Finally at about 8 p.m. I hear my truck coming down the road. Its Dad. He pulls up next to us and just smiles. I really was not expecting that. So we hook the Jimmy up with a come-a-long and try to slowly pull it out. The come-a-long snaps. So then again we are out of luck. We have to load up in my truck and drive all the way to town and buy a tow-strap. Finally, two hours later we get back up to the Jimmy, which is still firmly planted in the red clay. Fifteen minutes later we are out. Dad walks up to the mud hole that we attempted to conquer and he just laughs. That was it. He laughed. We were waiting all night to get 'when I was your aged'. What we did not realize at the time was that he couldn't do that. He was us. He busted the front glass out of his Bronco when the chain snapped. He was 18. Stuck in a field not too far from where we were. He cut gates and wires down when people were trying to restrict public use of Pigeon, which is public land. He did things we never dreamed of doing. He climbed his 6'2" 270 pound self onto the top of the high school gym and painted God knows what. He had been there before. I was 20 and for the first time in my life realized that my dad was so much more like me than I knew. Other than coming home frozen and with red clay up to my arm pits it was a pretty good night.

I am sitting here thinking about stuff and how this year has gone. I am in a much better place right now than I was a year ago. Life has been pretty good here lately. I have found friends that never existed to me until last January. I have removed people from my life who only brought me down. I do not worry nearly as much as I used to and that is a good thing. I am still working on things, and life is not perfect by any means. I have found it hard to care about what others think of me. I am me and if you do not like it then that is your problem. I like who I am and who I am becoming. People can't get me down any more. There are very few things that I can not handle right now.

What causes a man to decide that life is not worth living anymore? How can you say 'okay, well, I'm finished'. How can life be that bad? Suff does suck at times but that does not really give a reason to end your life, does it?

Its been a long time

I used to have another blog. It was called 'Slightly Right of Center', and it was pretty good. I worked on it for the two years I was in college in south Georgia. I gave up on it when I came home. I got to thinking that I miss this. I miss getting to just put my thoughts and ideas down. I do not nessescarily do it for others to read, but if the do thats fine. I just want an outlet to write about what is going on or what is running through my head. It is now 1:36 in the A.M. and I have things to do tomorrow. Peace, Love, and Hand Grenades.