This (home made) picture is of the decals that Lance Armstrong had on his bike on the day of the last time trial. I tried to find a picture of this on the Internet but had no luck so I took this picture of it on TV. All of the stickers mean something in Lance's life. On Friday night's coverage Al Trautwig and Bob Roll were talking about the decals and Al asked, sort of rhetorically, what decals would go on your bike?
That really is kind of a call to look at who you are. I don't have any GIF art to make decals but I think I can still do this little introspective study without the artwork. The above picture has six decals, it seems to me that he has six every day so I will work with six.
One decal would be for our dogs. We have three dogs. Two of our dogs from early in our relationship, Stimpy and Dinky, have passed away. We now have Kramer, Toodie and Tater Tot. Having dogs is one of the many things that Joellyn brought into my life. Dogs are great companions. Funny that most of my family are not dog people and I am.
Another decal would pertain to everything that Joellyn and I do with the Walker Fire Department. We are both firefighters, I am the VP of the board and Joellyn is a day chair for one of the events for our Walker Day annual fundraiser. We love our little community and by living in such a tiny town we have a chance to really make a positive impact here. There are very few places where we could live and be so involved.
A big, big part of my life is my work as a money manager and all the things I do that goes with that. I help clients navigate capital markets with their money. With that I also write my primary blog which lets me help a lot of people via email in addition to the folks that read the site. All the media attention tells me that I am making inroads to helping people become more knowledgeable. In addition to the blogging I do a fair bit of TV work which has let me meet some very interesting people that I would never otherwise meet.
From my past would have to be some sort of decal to acknowledge my history of playing and watching sports. I played some serious basketball and beach volleyball in my time. Throughout my life I have watched almost every sport except nascar and golf. My hometown Red Sox World Series win last fall was a very big deal to me.
One decal would have to be for my wife. I won't go too much into detail here but she has done a lot for me, does a lot for others and is a great person for me to share my life with. We have done some very interesting things together and have more adventures planned.
Somewhere on this list needs to be my experience as a cancer survivor. It has really motivated me as to how I live my life in terms of where I live, the work I do, our financial situation and the types of things we are involved with. We have a life that is exactly what is right for us. I can't imagine our life is right for anyone else which is just fine. As a matter of philosophy people need to find their own path not walk on someone else's. I knew ten years ago that I wanted to live in a cabin in the woods and manage money and live the type outdoorsy life that goes with living in a rural area.
So that is my six for now. Maybe this will change later but I still think this type of look at yourself can help with checking what your path in life is and checking to make sure you are on it. I am not usually this zen, but every now and then...
Lastly, Bob Roll's answer to Al's question about the decals was that one of his decals would be a martini glass.
I watched an interesting Real Sports on HBO. Cyclist Tyler Hamilton is in the middle of a strange dispute over whether he took someone else's blood or not to enhance his performance.
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