I roam

I am destined to roam

A weapon at my side


What home can I find here?

Alaska Airlines 1st rate service and employees

To whom it may concern,
During a recent flight from Billings to Portland, I had an opportunity to experience something rare these days. Excellent customer service.
Your team members Salvatore and Melanie in the cabin crew were exceptional. From the start of our boarding process and safety briefing, Salvatore brought gentle humor and a very human approach to his briefing. It was refreshing to hear it given in the same tone as you would normally talk with someone rather than a chore or reading a dusty script.
Furthermore, while our flight was in route, we encountered rough air on several occasions. On one such bump, a passenger toward the rear of the aircraft made use of your air sick bags, or rather, should have, but didn’t. Both Salvatore and Melanie reacted professionally and with the utmost care. They cleaned things up, and made sure the passenger was OK.
As the rough air continued, so did their professionalism. They did have two very short opportunities to make quick runs through the cabin with the beverage cart. They were quick, clear, and managed to take care of the group prior to the seatbelt sign coming back on.
As the flight drew to a close we were again treated to a rendition of your Alaska Airlines Visa card pitch as only Salvatore could give it. I would attempt to regale you with it, but it would pail in comparison. Had I not already been carrying my own Alaska Airlines card, I would have grabbed an application forthright.
This cabin crew reflects great credit upon your company as a whole, their respective teams, and your training team. Thank you, and please do pass along my thanks to both Salvatore and Melanie!

Relationships as windows

The other day I grew a year older, and someone who I am connected to through a loss we both felt in very different ways sent me a nice message. It made me stop, yet again and think of the great person we both shared a loss for.

I thought of this and wanted to share it here...

Relationships are windows in our life and heart.
I see a large white open room, big like your schools gym when you were little.
But all white, and quiet and clean.
It's impossibly tall, and has windows all over it. As we look around the room we see that the windows all have different views of out them.
It's incongrous and disorienting, but not unpleasant just the same.
As we look at each window we know, just know that each of them is a relationship we have with someone in our life.
Some are closed and locked against the storm, others are just dusty and rusty with lack of use.
Some are near, and opened, and we see that one in perticular makes us feel for the one we lost.
We recall that in the last this window was full of sun, and joy, and we could hear... no... actually feel joy coming through it.
But now it's differnet, it has been since he was lost.
Initally, some of us closed that window, against the storm and rain and cold.
She couldn't, she had opened that window and hapily given up the ability to close it years ago.
She kept it opened through the storms, and rain, because she knew that there would always be sun, and joy eventually.
She stood at this window happily for years.
Now since he has gone, she still keeps it opened.
She stood there in the rain and cold that chilled her to the bone over the last year and more.
She wouldn't leave... she needed to feel the loss, the pain.
And from time to time, the sun would come out, and the warm wind would blow the curtans in that loveley lazy way a summer breeze does.
She lives for these times.
As time went on, the sun stayed longer, and the breeze kept it's warmpth through the nights.
It was getting better.
She did notice that while the storms had passed, that now too, even the sun began to seem somehow hazy, and distant... but not in a painfull or sad way, rather in a comfortable and reassuring way.
It was many months before she relized she was no longer standing directly at the window, but was beginning to look at, and indeed through others again.
Her children could be heard through some of them, and close friends through others.
She looked back, frightend for just a moment that the window of her love would be gone, or closed, or something terrible.
But it was there, as she rememberd it, opened, with a warm sunny breeze.
She had weatherd the worst, and could now feel free again to walk around the room, knowing that she could always come back when she wanted... or needed to.


We all have these windows,
we choose which ones to open, and when. Some open to sun, and others to storm and rain. Sometimes we do what others call silly or even morose, and stand there with the rain coming in the window, and we just let it come in. We stand in the puddle, getting chilled to the bone, just as she had, but still we can't leave. We won't leave. Then sometimes the storm lifts, and we see sun, and beauty, and a warm breeze moves the curtains lazily, and we bask in this joy.

When we loose someone dear to us, I imagine we walk close to the window initally uppon hearing the news and gaze at it in a new way, seeing the small bits of paint missing, and the notes we have stuck to it in the past, or in some cases the cobwebs across it,  All in a new light. the light of loss.
It starts as a cold blue light, but over time can become warm again.

Opening these windows is taking a chance, so some of us keep them locked up, closed, we hope it protects us, but really we just isolate ourselves.
I urge us all to open them, and try it out.
See just what adventures await us.
It won't always be sun, but remember,
It can't rain all the time.

It drives me

I'm going to add this personal post to a mostly vanilla web-page. Funny as I type this, I'm thinking it's a good analogy for what I'm about to discuss.

Some songs I keep around be cause they make me happy, some because they make me remember. The one I'll share with you today does something I'm going to try to explain, but I may fail miserably. Wish me luck.

The song: Head Downby Nine Inch Nails

First I'll try to explain it, then I may share along with the lyrics what is going on in my head as I listen to the song.

The two very different sounds during the song play at picking the edges of a scab I don't think is ready to come off. Sometimes I really do wonder if all of this is real. What do I mean by this? Well... During my deployments I knew in no uncertain terms that it was VERY real. there were zero layers of bullshit. War, is as real as life can be. Here, and now, as I listen to this song while running on a treadmill at a hotel in Rawlins, WY I get goosebumps across my sweating body as I really wonder just what the hell I'm doing here. As the song progresses, there are two very opposing sounds. Chaos, and metallic tones of something dirty, gritty, and raw. While in the refrain a silky soft melody settles in as we ask ourselves if this is real...

Now, all that being said, there is a silver lining. There are a few, OK, three people who know either some of the real me, or in the case of one, all of me.

This is new

This is real

I have never been able to be this honest with someone in my past.

This has given me hope that the scab I mention may some day fall away on it's own

This has given me hope that even if it doesn't, that's OK, and I'm OK.

So it's a tough song to listen to. I only listen while running, and it drives me. I'm not sure why, but it does. I choose to keep it on my playlist for the same reason we tongue a sore tooth. It hurts, but for some reason, we like that, even crave it once in a while.

So as I ran on that treadmill, I thought, I wonder if this would be helpful for anyone. Or perhaps helpful for me to share. Hell I dunno, but why not.

Something I read the other day just popped into my head as I'm finishing this up, something like this:

If you act like you, then you will meet and be with people who like YOU. Not a fake idea of you, or some image of you, but actually YOU.

Great advice I think, and for some reason in today's world hard advice to follow.