...on the toilet. Oh, my rides certainly rank up there too if I am not concentrating on ensuring I reach channel zero when the teeter totter is all out of whack, but the porcelain throne is absolute peace and focus for me.

Take my session this week while on the road. 5 weeks in a row. 5AM and I start the day with a think-session. That in itself is good news as I am usually bound up like a cement plant when I get in the aluminum tube out of DIA and get my game on in some other city. Nerves? Not enough water? I'm becoming an old fart? Lack of activity to keep the system churning? Those are the typical variables preventing , um..regularity, but Wednesday AM the factory was moving out the product very productively. So the thoughts rolled in.

Oh, back to the porcelain-inspired thinking. Even in the wee hours the hyperactive brain is on overdrive. And whence it use to be with inspired thoughts ranging from software product design to Ren and Stimpy, i got sucked into the teeter totter imbalance problem. So, what does that mean to you, my reader? Instead of speaking all in abstract and whatnot, I'll boil it out: It's side 3 of the 3 sided teeter totter imbalancing everything....and it has for some time (as you know). Why can't I just move on? 12 years. Started there before I met my wife and got married; we grows-dup some kids during this time; lived lives in the family of the company in SF before we even had a brain-fart about Boulder. We partied together, worked hard together, struggled together and crushed the competition together. What is it about me? Why can't I just move on? Why can't I take leaps of faith? As I kept on thinking, I kept on numbing and before I knew it I was crippled and could barely walk. The thoughts were deep and the session was good but I was late for my meetings. I left too many dangling thoughts there on that porcelain Wednesday morning.

Back home midnight Wednesday. Up an at it at 7 bells today with every input firing off rid lights, bells bleeps and buzzes. I shut them all down. Had coffee at the table with my lady and boys and helped get them out the door for school and for their days to begin. I get in my office chair and the thoughts flood in again. I can not focus on anything else. Why can't you do it man? This is not an issue of anyone in particular, the company or otherwise doing shite things at me to/me. I think it is just the beginning of a chasm. A very natural and gradually diverging chasm not unlike when an ice sheet breaks apart in the Arctic after naturally wearing away a part of itself. 12 years. Crispy around the edges.

The lunchtime training ride helped anesthetize. It's always temporary though. Tangentially, what was fun was dropping some full kitted-out roadie up Sunshine on my 29'er. Hmm. Maybe I'm not so bad off after all. But that smile was short lived as the thoughts got pulled right back to: what do I do?

Real focus on the root of the problem started to materialize the more altitude I gained on the bike. While I had these realizations before, or sort of stub thoughts about them, this trip to the mother ship spoke to me about distance between them...and me. My experience was different this time. I have been working 967 miles away (according to United mind you as I know that mile accrual intimately), isolated as one of the people trying to keep this company as successful and driven as when we were tiny and obscure. The core of executive team have circle wagon meetings at will....and decisions are made in real-time. Except for my input of course. It's not intentional, it's just reality. I'm not there. The decision to move here in 04 and the conditions of my situation were absolutely different at that time. Now, more than ever, my A game and the influence it can have is...limited. And that is a pain that is extremely tough to bear when you have as much self pride as I do. I try to do the best, but it's neutered.

So, all the rants you hear me go off on about teeter totters and such....it's all rooted here. the Family (side 1) and health (side 2) sides sing in harmony and are rock solid. But side 3's challenges lie at the epicenter of the fire in my brain. I do not expect many of you to understand, but those that know me will find this all fairly typical. I do not give up. It's like 'crossing for me. I race against the best Masters in the country and refuse to give up race after race until I meet my personal goals. They began with just get into the top 20, then top 10 then top 5 and as God as my witness, I want to have that feeling again of raising hands over my head having overcome the challenges of racing against the best and training through all my drama to make it so.

So that is the personal conundrum, kids. To do all these things, at least in my tiny experience of mine, is to have absolute balance. Harmony. My instinct is killing me, which is to not let go. Not give up. Not yield and keep at it. Not let business drive my family's geography, to ensure we still keep driving towards quality of our lives. I need my time to come to the conclusion so I may have to drag you through more vetting. But Spring's coming and with it clarity.

God, the ride was killer today. I'm lucky.