35

It's my 35th birthday today, I'm not a big celebrater of birthdays - but it's just like a new year or something.  Time to look back and think about the future.  It's hard for me to believe at times all the crazy things I've had happen to me, some of them my own fault and others completely out of my control.  For the most part though my life has been pretty enjoyable, but for the last seven years I have always been contemplating how to make it better.  My search has lead me to do things I would have never thought possible, being a teacher, farmer, pharmacist, toxicologist, getting married, and a new father again (that's right my wife is due in June!).

I've met so many amazing people in the last seven years - an alcoholic bar owner who sold his bar so he could devote all his time to a charity which sends food to hungry people all over the world.  He is so concerned about putting as much money as possible into food, that he bought a minivan, cut it in half to make a car that would get better gas mileage.  I've met a US congressman that turned out to be one of the nicest people (I don't care a whole lot for politicians).   Another - Earnie Larson - who recently passed away due to pancreatic cancer - showed me how fulfilling helping others really can be.  I could go on for pages and pages, I'm just happy to have known these people, to get to learn something from them.  There are so many people who are so pessimistic about the future of this country and the world, I can say with some certainty that if they knew these three people like I do they would change their minds.  If the nightly news focused on the good that these people do I think that attitude wouldn't even exist, but for now the world focuses on all the bad.

Well anyway - I have to get back to celebrating, I think this year is going to be a good year.