What is strength?

We all have our ups and downs. That's life. You deal with it and you move on.

I've always been a strong believer that strength is weakness, at least in the traditional sense. Strong people can roll with all of the punches and never let life phase them, at least in the eyes of those around them. It matters little that inside they are crumbling to the very foundation, as long as externally they appear to be handling life's storms the way water rolls off of a ducks back.

In my view, true strength comes from being strong enough to recognize your weaknesses, admit them to the world, and get it behind you. True strength comes from being able to show that something has rattled you, and that it's ok to be rattled, because we all get rattled. True strength comes from being brave enough not to care when you appear weak. In my view, the only way to improve upon your weaknesses is to hang them on a wall for all to see, and then attack each one with vigor until that weakness is no more.

This morning I had a moment of weakness, and it hit me very hard. I made a mistake that could've had very dire consequences, and I got called on it. At the heart of the issue is my forgetfulness and lack of focus, symptoms of my adult ADD. This is an aspect of my life that has gone untreated for 12 years, and I fear looking back that it may be a very large factor in the things in my life that have crumbled into oblivion.

But it's one thing to recognize this in yourself.

It's another entirely to have those who matter most recognize it in you and call you on it.

I learned a valuable lesson from a book (well, a movie made about a book) that has helped me to get through a lot in life, and I don't give it enough credit. Tuesdays with Morrie, where Morrie is allowing himself to feel sorry about his situation. He says it's human to feel sorry about a situation, and he allows himself to feel it because to feel is human. But he gives it only a moment, then puts it away because it's useless for him to wallow.

Too many people don't allow themselves to feel very real human emotions because they are too afraid of appearing weak to others. This is classic weakness at work, as there is no man who can carry on a perfect persona every minute of every day. Instead, I allow myself to feel what I feel, and I allow it to overtake me. I acknowledge it, share it with Laura, and try to work past it because wallowing is useless.

But storing it up inside without any real resolution could be catastrophic. With special needs daughters, life can get very frustrating at times. I need to keep my cool in situations that would send some people screaming and breaking things. Believe me, it's FAR from easy, and I get quite frustrated myself. But like other human feelings, I allow myself to feel it then try to move past it so that I don't waste time wallowing.

One of the ways I move through these negatives is to share them. I post my dark moments on Facebook, often when I have no physical person to share it with. It helps me release it so I can begin to work through it.

But an odd thing happens from time to time. I get the occasional person uselessly trying to cheer me up, not understanding that I don't want someone to give me advice because I'm trying to simply vent. But I also get someone who tells me things that I don't feel I deserve. They tell me about how I give them strength. They tell me about how I give them inspiration. And occasionally they say something profound that tells me that by sharing my victories and failures, I'm doing someone else some good. They remind me that when I relish in my victories, and share it online, it's doing good not just for me. At that point, it's about someone else entirely, and I get reminded that I should embrace that and remember that my words for some reason are being paid attention to by others. My words evidently hold some motivational weight, and I'm confused about that, but at that point it's not about me. It's about someone else needing to read what I've written to help them get through their own struggles.

Earlier today, I posted on Facebook the foliowing: "the more I let my thoughts get the better of me, the more I just want to run away from life for a day…or more."

In response, from Selena Davidson, I got the following comment: "Most everyone can relate I'm sure. You, however, always stay so motivational, especially about the girls, that you have to fight off the negative just for the sake of the rest of us…"

wow.

I'm humbled. I'm not sure I deserve to be a motivational mouthpiece for some, but I'm extremely flattered. I'm really not sure what to make of it…

Thank you.

My Experience "Camping"

My first "camping" trip was in my front yard. My dad set up what seemed to be a GINORMOUS tent (cause I was so small) in our front yard when I was knee high to a grasshopper, and my sisters and I all slept in the front yard…at least until I couldn't sleep from all the noise from the bugs around us. The sound seemed almost deafening, and I went back inside the house to actually sleep. The sound was too distracting.

I grew up camping with my grandparents. We'd haul a trailer camper out to Shawnee Forest and set up by Lake Roosevelt, roast hot dogs over the fire, swim in the lake, bike around the camping loops, and "creek crawl". We had some fun times, but it all seems so luxurious and typical of a modern camper. I'd take along every modern convenience I could fit, including battery powered racing cars that I inevitably left out in the rain to ruin. We weren't "roughing it", we were sleeping outside surrounded by modern convenience. I didn't learn a thing about being an outdoorsman from these trips.

I would also camp with my dad in various locations, usually outside of amusement parks we were visiting. I learned a little more from him, but he still did most of the work. I was a teen, and totally didn't mind that arrangement.

At one point when I was 22 years old, I moved into my (then late) grandfathers camper for two weeks. I would rather have lived in a camper than in the situation I found myself in at that time. I stayed there til I could find a place in Columbus, 2 hours north, and escape Scioto County once and for all…

But through those experiences, I never learned to start a fire, or how to live in the woods if need be.

Over the next decade, I'd take a dozen or more camping trips with my then-significant-other. We bought a tent at Walmart for around $40 that fit two people, and we got some hardcore use out of it. We camped in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, at various places in Ohio and Indiana, quite often at Twin Knobs and Zilpo at Cave Run near Morehead Kentucky, once in Salina Kansas on our way through to Colorado, and the most memorable was camping in Yellowstone National Park.



Our (now deceased) golden retriever pup Olive was our shipmate on the Yellowstone trip (photo on the left taken at our Yellowstone campsite), but her yapping got us kicked out of the campground. That's ok, because we had both contracted swine flu and needed to not spend another night in temperatures below 20F. It was fun and totally worth it getting caught and nearly trampled in a bison stampede late one night. It was also the only time I've camped where food had to be put in a steel lockbox to deter bears. It was an intense feeling to think we could be visited by a bear in Yellowstone, and I hoped we wouldn't become a late night snack.

Through my camping experiences with my ex, I learned a lot that I didn't learn as a kid. How to start a fire, how to quickly pitch a tent, etc. We had camping down to a system, and had a big grey tupperware tote always at the ready in case we (she) decided to take a spur of the moment camping trip (they were always her idea, I never planned our trips).

We had a lot of cool camping gear, including a camp stove, the aforementioned tent, a small grill, lanterns, flashlights, and other necessities. But all of that somehow went with her when she left. Not dwelling on the past, this all has a point. Read on.

I'm experienced enough now to know the basics of camping, but have never really challenged myself at it. I've always done what I now see as a modern bastardized version of camping, where you pull your car into a concrete pre-designed lot that is 30 (often less) feet from the nearest neighboring camper (who was often loud and obnoxious). We had plenty of running water, showers, flushing toilets, and many camp sites had electricity. I've never truly experienced life in the woods in its primitive form…and I want that.

I find myself now fantasizing about taking a trip camping in complete isolation from society, where I can truly be alone in the woods for a few days and just take it all in. No modern distractions, nobody's stereo playing fucking Lynard Skynard for the zillionth time, no motor boats on the lake, no engines at all unless it's a plane overhead, and if I don't see another person at all while I'm out I'll be perfectly ok with that…ecstatic even.

Why? It would seem that since I moved away from the natural paradise of the Rocky Mountains, my love for the natural world has grown thousandfold. Not to mention the influence of people like John Muir and Stephen Mather, the Sierra Club, and others, I've found myself finding something in nature I've never really found in a church and have only otherwise found in the arms of the woman I love (my fiancé Laura). What I've found is a spiritual connection that goes deeper than any other connection. I've never found that connection in a church or brick-and-mortar manmade institution. I've only ever found it in the things that come naturally to us as humans. This includes the deep love I have for Laura, the deep love I have for our two daughters, and in getting back to the natural world and away from distractions and stresses.

I find myself desiring some time away from the world as a whole. I have some big decisions on my plate to wrap my head around. After my exit from the label I founded, and with the possibility of closing my studio, what is to come next? Who am I? What do I want? I know where I want to go, but that's a long term goal. How do I want to get there? Do I even still want it, or am I just clinging to a perceived goal and telling myself to push forward without analyzing it to see if it's still logical? If not, what DO I want? How do I get there?

I also need a break. I'm far from the point of being stressed out and frazzled by my girls, but with teenagers on the autism spectrum life can get stressful. Although I don't equate the two, some studies suggest that the stress level of autism parents is paralleled by that of combat troops. While I'm not facing bullets, I am always needing to be on the ready and act at a moments notice. I've got to triple check locks to ensure they can't get into things that could hurt them, or escape the house and be lost to us forever. A lot is riding on my shoulders, and if I screw up it could be a HUGE deal.

So we've both opted to try to keep something for ourselves that we can use as a decompressor, a hobby, or something to work toward that doesn't revolve around the girls. We have to be on guard all the time, and it's nice to have an escape. For Laura, it's the gym and figure competitions. For me, it was supposed to be the studio and the label. The label is gone, and the studio may be next. This has me trying to latch on to things quickly, and moving on from them quickly, while I scramble to find something for me to occupy my time and my brain.

…which is what led me to camping. After discussing it with Laura, we decided that I should have my little weekend oasis trips to escape life and refresh myself every once in a while. I need the chance to decompress, think, and reset my psyche. After all, I need to be on my A-game for my girls, but the A-game starts playing like a C or D-game if you don't take a break from it now and then. Nerves can be pushed HARD by autism, and if nerves are already pushed hard it can wear a person down.

So we've decided that I should go ahead with my idea of camping by myself for a few days. We talked it over, and since this would be my first ever backcountry camping trip, we decided it shouldn't be somewhere drastic. For example, I wanted badly to go to North Manitou island in Michigan, but the area I wanted to camp is on the west side of the island and the ferry goes to the east side. This would mean I'd have to walk all of my gear across a sandy island, and be completely cut off from society for two days as the ferry only runs every two days, and I'd be 10 hours from home. There would be absolutely nothing I could do if something happened at home and I needed to leave, and I'd have no way of knowing.

So we picked Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Laura and I took a cave tour there earlier this spring as a mini getaway before the girls started a stressful behavior plan. It's less than 5 hours away, they have plenty of backcountry options, and the terrain is similar to where I grew up. Despite the fact that the worlds largest cave system would be hundreds of feet below me, odds are good that unless a new opening sprouted right under me in the form of a sink hole, I'd likely not fall into the cave and die. The wildlife there is pretty tame, just the typical Kentucky stuff. The park tells me no bears are in the area, but they have had very rare reports of big cats. They say they are so rare, they don't consider them an issue in any capacity, and they implied that the likelihood of me seeing a big cat would be less than winning the lottery.

Combine that with the peace and quiet I experienced there this spring, and you have a perfect environment for my first ever backcountry camping experiment. So now I'm planning, and training myself for carrying a backpack over a long distance (cause I've been quite lazy as of late), and am piecing together a new camping rig. I got a single person air mat for $8, and tents are cheaper than they were a decade ago! $25 will get me a decent two person tent at Meijer, and I'd prefer to get a two-person tent so that now and then Laura could join me on a camping excursion.

But this one will be just me. I don't know what I'll experience yet, but I'm looking forward to it pretty hardcore. I'm starting to walk on our treadmill while wearing a weighted vest, looking up all the backcountry camping tips I can absorb, and trying to figure out the right fit for me.

The biggest challenge I'm facing is coffee. I have an adult case of ADD, and I'm not on any medication to treat it. This is something that I've been self medicating with caffeine, as the caffeine acts like a stimulant in my brain to keep me focused. Because of this, I've accustomed my body to obscene amounts of caffeine, which leaves me feeling lethargic and prone to headaches if I don't get my fix.

"So boil some water and make some coffee!"…yeah, but I'm seeking isolation on this trip. The fire rings are only in designated areas, and I don't wanna be around people, so I'm doubting I'll be building any fires. This means the prospect of brewing coffee on site might be challenging. So I'm trying to devise a solution, and I've come up with the following…

The park as a whole isn't a vast array of hundreds of miles. The surface area of the park as a whole is 82.63 Sqare Miles, but lets face it, I'm not gonna be covering near that amount of space. The place to park the car is not a horrible distance from the place designated for backcountry camping, and walking through the woods is a pleasing enough prospect. According to the map, the places to park are within 2-5 miles of the backcountry camping areas. So at the very least I plan to have backup supplies that are kept in a cooler in my car. This should allow me to travel light to my campsite, meaning I can take enough water, food, and cold-brewed coffee concentrate to last a day and go get more from the car the next day. I'm only planning 2-3 days after all, and I'm admittedly a novice, so having backup supplies at the ready in the car will help me avoid miscalculating and carrying more weight than is necessary.

So to summarize, it would seem that Backcountry camping at Mammoth Cave will be a great way of getting my feet wet with regards to backcountry camping. I'm planning a backpack hike through Hocking Hills with Laura later this week to help me prepare physically, and to help give me an idea of what to expect. We'll see what happens, but I'm pretty stoked about the whole prospect. It's a chance to test what I'm capable of, and embrace a new hobby, while giving myself a chance to clear my head without distractions.

Happy camping.

The future of Skyline Sound Studios?

My dream for years was to be a record producer. Technically, it was to be a famous record producer. I decided that the best way for me to do this was to own my own recording studio. Now I'm not so sure that was the right path. The studio has been a tool, but it's also become a major liability. I'm seeing now that I could still work as a freelance engineer now that I have some work under my belt and a name that has some respect to it. I could do all of this without the overhead of owning my own recording studio.

The other factor: My daughter's have autism, and have begun a behavior plan. This means that I'm now needed at home to care for them and ensure the success of the plan. At any given moment a behavior could happen that needs my attention, and that's impossible to predict. They've been doing great on the plan, and I'm proud of them!

But if family comes first, and my family needs my full attention for the foreseeable future, then where does Skyline Sound Studios fit in?

It really doesn't. I do use it on rare occasion for Project DIVIDE, and for the occasional client (that I no longer have time to hunt for). It even serves as a great place for Laura and I to hang out and get away from the house for a bit. But for the most part, it's sitting there, eating a decent chunk of my monthly income.

I've discussed this with Laura many times, but this is the first time I've made a public statement about this.

I'm giving the studio until Halloween this year to pay for itself. If it hasn't, then I'm closing it. The amount of money I'm spending to keep it open, and the amount of stress it causes just sitting there…neither are worth it.

Project DIVIDE can happen anywhere. If it came down to it, I could rent a rehearsal space to record in for the day at $10-hour locally and block off a day every few weeks for a recording session. This would be much cheaper than paying the rent at my studio.

So if I can't work at my studio because of family commitments, then how will it pay for itself?

My plan is to search for engineers to work from the studio for a cut of the hourly rate. I've already begun searching, and have interviewed at least 1 HIGHLY qualified engineer. I'm looking for engineers who already are getting clients on their own, and perhaps are looking to branch out of their home studios and into a better facility.

I had a couple in mind off the bat. One, a good friend, lives too far away to prospect for clients. He said he'd run sessions for me if I needed coverage, but he's not able to find the clients himself. The other person I had in mind doesn't value his craft enough to charge people what I charge. So those two prospects are out.

I'm going to begin the search this week for engineers. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing in the mean time to give this a chance to bear fruit. And if I don't find enough engineers who can bring in work, I'm closing Skyline Sound Studios this fall.

This may be temporary. This may be permanent. This may be a chance to re-brand my studio and open it after my family's needs have been tended to with a different image. I did take a major credibility hit thanks to the flack I receive on Craigslist. But one thing is for sure. I don't see any of this as a failure on my part. This is a chance to focus on my priorities and re-tool my operation. I'm going to focus hardcore on freelance work as a producer, rather than as a studio owner. After all, I may find myself in stable financial footing for the time being, but that's temporary. It's time to step in the direction I always wanted to go, and the path is becoming more and more clear.

We'll see what this has in store.

War Games:

For privacy reasons, I will not go into detail. However, I will say that life at home is about to become a little more stressful. This is not a bad thing, but it will be frustrating at times.

What I will say is that there are certain behaviors that my step daughters with autism both have. The behavior specialist has observed these behaviors, and indicated what the solution will be. While we're waiting for the formally written behavior plan, I already know what's in store. It's going to be all hands on deck, and potentially very frustrating.

But this is what is needed, so I've got to bring my A-game. This is for the good of my girls, and I will do what is needed. Time to work.

The more you know...

When I started my 5.5 year plan almost 2 years ago, I had a long way to go. I've come a long way, but the further I come the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I evaluate. I thought I was so smart then with my plan, although looking back I didn't really have a plan. I merely had a destination, and was guessing along the way how to get there.

I now have some of the tools needed to make this a plan instead of just a destination without direction. I don't have them all, I'm working on that though. For instance, I'm in school.

About that. The more I learn about money and interest rates, the more I feel like I'm wasting my time taking out student loans to get a second degree in what I'm already doing. I own two small media businesses, and I'm bored in school already. I haven't even made it to the media labs, but the storyboarding class just has me not interested.

But in one class I've been a very attentive student. This class has me geeking out on the course topic in ways that I used to geek out about media production. This is because the information learned in this class can help me and my family in the long term, and it just seems like a good direction to go in considering my current interest level.

I'm talking about Finance. The class is Personal Finance 101, and it has me absorbing finance materials outside of class. I've even become a regular listener to the Dave Ramsey show!

So I'm considering changing course to get a Finance degree. After all, if I learn more about finance, it can help me with my business endeavors and help me learn how to grow my finances for my family. It just seems like a no brainer right now.

So I've got some thinking to do. Time to discuss it with Laura in depth and make a decision together about what I should do, as that's the way I like to make decisions in this relationship. We're in it together, so my new ventures impact her. We're equal, we're family. It's for this family that I consider this change. So we'll see what happens.

No Place To Hide...

I'm finding myself overloaded. No one to take the load from me, they have too heavy a burden themselves. No one to tell me where to put it, they don't understand it to know what to do with it. No one to give me any direction whatsoever. There is someone who I know would give her everything to help, but as I said, she has too heavy a burden herself.

So what effect is this having on me?

I'm scatterbrained. My Adult ADD is kicking it up into hyperdrive. I can't focus. I find myself pacing the house trying to get my brain to work, which reminds me of a child with autism pacing the house because he can't think of anything better to do. I have things that I get really excited about, and when I get my brain able to focus on them, my brain goes into hyperdrive on them. But then when my brain is distracted from them, it can't grab hold of anything else coherent. So I turn to netflix and Xbox 360 to give my brain a chance to unwind and decompress…

Problem is…that kind of downtime is detrimental to a father of two teenagers who have autism, a full time student on academic probation, a former business partner in the midst of an ugly contract dispute, a full time caregiver to two young adults who have autism who are not my children, and an owner of two small businesses.

…and that only compounds my scatterbrained-ness. Add the pressures of the above lifestyle to my brain wanting to detach, and you have a person longing to get away for some serious decompression. My brain just doesn't wanna do it anymore. My brain is craving a few days to just get away from everything that troubles me and relax in the woods. But I can't have that. I need to bust my ass right now to get to the other side of this trench…and while I'm here, my brain is making the challenge even more difficult.

Fun times, for sure. We'll see how long I can keep up with myself here.

Lost

I'm feeling overwhelmed and confused.

I can't exactly explain it. But then, that's why I write blogs. They are an attempt to sort through my baggage, after all, so what better place to figure out what might be bugging me than here.

I made a visit to a mental health facility in Central Ohio today. My intent was to seek treatment for Adult ADD that has been self medicated by caffiene for 12 years now. I also wanted to see if there was anything else going on, as I feel like I may be suffering from anxiety and depression issues that have gone unresolved.

So I go to the clinic. It's a free service that is designed to ensure the community has access to mental healthcare. Wow, what a fun place to be (sarcasm). I won't talk about what I saw, because that's someone elses privacy, but since the facility also offers drug counceling it's a pretty safe bet that some of those in the waiting room had some severe problems they were trying to address. It just makes me worry about the segment of the population that ISN'T seeking treatment, and how bad things might be for them.

So I'm waiting, and waiting, and waiting...then my name gets called and I go back to speak to someone about why I'm there. They do a 20-30 minute questionaire, then send me back out to the waiting room to await a 2 hour assessment. But by 1:00 I knew I couldn't stay for it, so I left and told them I'd be back the next week.

This seems like a bad system. It seems really difficult to get treatment through this system. If those who need treatment but can't afford it themselves have to go through a ton of hoops to be treated, then no wonder the rate of poor people who are mentally handicapped is so high! It was very frustrating. Think of all those who have gone as far as I did today, then left and never came back?!

So I'm frustrated about that. But I'm also frustrated by other things. Laura's in pain in her abdomen. We suspected kidney stones, which she was diagnosed as having, but they determined that her pain was not caused by kidney stones. She's feeling worse and worse, and her spirits are dipping down as it takes longer and longer to get answers.

Meanwhile, my own puppy-dog like need for approval kicks in when I see her in a bad mood due to her pain. My head knows she's in pain and doesn't feel well. My brain tries to tell me lies, like that she's closing herself off to me and that she's mad at me. I know these things aren't the case, but the worry is so real that it's getting me pretty down. My worries go as far as making me feel that there's a division between the two of us, and all because she's not been open and receptive to my demands for affection.

This tells me that I've got other issues to settle with regard to my own mental health. I know logically that her seeming distance is indicative of her pain level and not indicative of how she feels about me. But I also am going crazy and on the verge of locking myself in a dark room while playing emo goth music like I did as a teen when I was down, and my brain is screaming for her to come and comfort me. I know I can't have that right now, so my head panicks and worries that she's drifting away from me.

It's an endless cycle.

Then there's work. CLMastering.com is off to a slow, albiet profitable, start. The studio, meanwhile, is a money pit that causes me stress. I get stressed at times at my job as a PDP provider, as it can easily be a place where one minute things are fine and the next minute all hell has broken loose.

The prospect of working 30+ hours each week while going to school and trying to run two small businesses seems daunting enough. Factor in me trying to control my frustration when dealing with an unruly teen who has autism, and upcoming obligations of my time from a business deal I am trying to get out of, and you can see that things aren't all that pretty on fantasy island right now.

So maybe that's why I feel lost. Admittedly I've taken on quite a lot, and perhaps I've taken on too much. But at 32 and being broke with two special needs teens to look after, I don't feel that I have any other option. I have a lot to do to get where I want to go.

 Celest asked me recently to take her to see mountains.

 As soon as I can sweetheart. As soon as I can.