My Parents.

Personal rant that I've been avoiding posting because of the sensitive nature of the rant. But it needs to come out. Please recognize that this is a part of how I cope with my baggage. I release it for the world to read. Even though I'm not looking for anyone to comment with sympathy, or for anyone to try to help, it is helpful for me to own up to it and put it out there in black and white.

Mom.

She passed away when I was 9. She had Lou Gehrig's Disease. According to my birth father (dad is the man who raised me, father is the man who gave me dna), she showed her first symptoms while I was in the womb. I never knew her when she wasn't bed ridden. I never knew her when she wasn't eating baby food or using a bedpan or having her children help her balance her checkbook because she couldn't write. In many ways I never knew her. I knew who she was after her diagnosis, but she had limited communication skills and could barely talk so I never really got to sit down and have a heart to heart talk with her and get to know who she was as a person.

I remember watching an episode of ALF where there was going to be a new baby in the house who would be growing up with ALF and how ALF being there would always just be normal for that baby because they didn't know any different. I remember identifying with that after mom passed. She was always in that state since I was a very young child, so I never knew any different. In what I can only describe as an act of intended kindness on her part that went horribly wrong for me, she never told me she was sick. That's just how she was. She never told me she was going to die. Everyone else knew, even my sisters. But she couldn't bring herself to inform her youngest son that she would be passing away from a horrible disease that no one could cure. I'm positive her intentions were good. The result was disastrous for me.

Imagine being the only person kept out of the loop on something huge that will inevitably impact your life. It's a betrayal, and an enormous painful lie. I harbored a lot of resentment toward her for a long time over that. Unlike everyone else, who had some time to mentally come to grips with the fact that she was going to be passing away soon, for me it was as though she had passed away in an auto accident unexpectedly. I had no time to come to grips with it, and no time to understand what was going on while I still had her in my life.

One day in April of 1990, she could tell apparently that if she went to sleep she wouldn't wake up. She stayed up for two days, and on April 26th kept my two sisters home. She sent me to school. I was furious. I didn't understand why I had to go to school if they got to stay home.

Around 10:00 that morning, she passed away. My sisters were there. My grandparents were there. I was at school and completely oblivious.

I held on to some resentment toward her for most of the years that followed. About two years ago or so, my fiancé Laura told me that she understood mom's actions from a parental standpoint. How could you look at your child and knowingly rip their heart out? She was trying to protect me because I was her youngest son and unspoiled by all of this so far. That perspective put me at peace with it finally after 22 years. That peace didn't last long.

My father wasn't there to raise me. I was the result of my mother and father being unfaithful to their spouses, and when I was born my father went back to his family and I never saw him. Mom told me a couple of years before she passed that he existed, and that the man I called dad wasn't my biological father. I was still too young to understand this, but maybe I'd have been mentally better off if I'd have not known of him. I don't know.

I made contact with him when I was 15. I met him over pizza and he told me I had siblings. He told me briefly about his life, and then I didn't hear from him for a few years. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was let down.

I met my siblings through an accidental encounter with a musician in town who said that I looked just like them. I was 17. My father still wasn't really a part of things though.

I tried a few times through my 20's to get his attention, but to no avail. Finally, I decided that I was going to move on with my life. I moved to Colorado, and just before my 28th birthday I receive an email from my father. He tells me he doesn't expect me to forgive him, but he wanted to apologize for having never taken the time to get to know me. He recognized that his actions were unforgivable, but if I was willing to try he would like to get to know his son.

I struggled with this for two weeks, trying to decide whether or not there was room for him in my life. I finally decided that if he wasn't going to be a part of my life it wasn't going to be my fault. I called him, and over the next year we spoke on the phone semi regularly.

I went home that christmas. I lied to my job that he had just been found and that I wanted to go and meet him. Truth is that I wanted to go and confront him and get more information about who I was and who he was and why he was never there. This was the only way I could think to get the time off of work to do it, and it worked.

So I drove to his apartment in Marietta Ohio. I sat outside his apartment for what seemed like an eternity, but was likely only 5 minutes. Then I asked myself what the fuck I was afraid of and went inside.

We talked for about 5 hours. We talked about his life, as well as my own. He explained to me some of the circumstances surrounding my birth, and how he never believed that I was in fact his until he had seen me when I was 17 and I looked just like his son Ryan. He said he realized then that he'd made a big mistake, and that he didn't know how to fix it so he just stayed away.

I left somewhat satisfied. I called him a day later after reflecting on it at mom's gravesite. I told him that I was forgiving him. I meant it. I've forgiven him for not being there when I was a child. The wounds don't go away when someone is forgiven though. You just realize that you can't stay mad forever, and it's a part of the process of moving on. I was initiating that process.

When I moved back to Ohio in 2010, he was living in the Columbus area. I stopped by to see him now and then. When things went south for him in his relationship, I spoke to him and worked out a plan for him to stay with me for a while. He agreed to it, and I started prepping a spare bedroom. The time came, and he stopped answering his phone. Two days later, I see a status on Facebook about him moving back to Marietta. Everything came flooding back to the front. All the resentment and mistrust that I'd tried to squash came flooding back like a tidal wave, and I lost any respect I had gained from him. Was it too hard to just pick up his phone and call me to tell me he'd changed his mind about moving in? Why did he need to keep that from me?

I decided he was a coward. I stopped contacting him. He'd email me and the other siblings now and then to tell us about his life in general terms, but he made no efforts to reach out to me either.

Then I got a call in July. It was 1 day after hearing that my friend Joseph Moore had passed away, and I was coming to grips with that. He told me that the doctors had found a small cancer that he was going to be treated for, but it was likely nothing to worry about and that he'd keep me posted. I didn't hear his voice again.

In october, my sister Laura was going through some of his pictures and ran across one he had of my mother. She sent it to me asking if it was her, and we got to talking. I realized that if she was going through his old pictures, then things must've taken a turn for the worst. I asked her to level with me, and she told me that she thought I knew. According to the information I received from her that night, they had given him 12-15 months and there were about 12 tumors. He'd lost a lot of weight and was in a decent amount of pain. The official diagnosis wasn't given to me that night.

Thinking I had 12-15 months to make peace with this and try to make one last attempt to get to know my father, I decided to take two weeks to think things over and sort out my feelings just like I had done when I turned 28. I wrote to him and told him that I had heard of his diagnosis, and he gave me his new phone number and told me to call him when I got the chance. I held off on doing that til I had sorted things out.

A few days later, I get messages from my brother Mike and my sister Laura that they'd just moved him to hospice and things weren't looking good, and that they were calling the family in. I had received a call exactly like this one month earlier when my grandmother Jackie passed away, but I couldn't make it as I was out of town and she passed before I got back in. Getting a second call of that nature in the span of a month is hard enough. When it's involving someone who is associated with so much personal baggage within you, it's even worse. So I get in the car and drive to Marietta. I'm numb the entire trip there. I'm not sure what I'll find, and I'm not sure what I'll say to him. I did expect him to be coherent when I arrived. He was not. He was in a great deal of pain and had been given a healthy dose of morphine.

I asked my brother to leave the room, and I told him that I wasn't mad at him and that I loved him. That may be the first time I ever told him that. I told him about my beautiful children, and I told him that I was going to do ok. I was preparing myself for his passing, and saying goodbye.

When my sister and my other two brothers showed up, we were all hanging out in the room with him. I was trying to keep calm and just sort through the oncoming loss, when I heard Laura asking the nurse what had happened. She mentioned that she knew it was stage 4 lung cancer…and the rest of the sentence she said is lost in my memory. Those words hung around in my head echoing a painful reminder to my past.

I was not told this. It's hard not to make comparisons to my childhood, when yet again I'm the only one in the room who didn't know what was going on. At least this time I was given a heads up that he was dying, but it was too late for me to have had time to come to grips with it in any way. And now I'm the last to know the specifics surrounding what he has that was taking his life.

I became flooded with anger. He didn't bother to pick up the phone. I became enraged and extremely emotional. I had just been hit by a truck that dug into an old wound with a rusty ice pick.

I said my goodbyes to him again and left. If I stayed, I was going to turn it into me processing my wounds in front of everyone, and that moment needed to be about them saying goodbye to our father. I couldn't be there, so I said goodbye and walked away. To walk away from someone who is alive and know that you will never lay eyes on them again for the rest of your days is a very surreal thing.

I drove home slowly, and just thought. I was again rather numb.

The next night, I was told that he was given only another 3 hours or so. I hopped in my car and went for a midnight meal at Steak And Shake while watching my phone for updates. While I was eating, I got a message that his vitals were slipping. I wrapped up my meal, and started to drive. I drove through the streets of Columbus that night while staring at my phone for any word. At one point, thinking that it had likely happened and that they were too emotional to call me (which would be understandable), I call the hospice and got an update that he was in fact still alive. So I decided to go home.I tried to get some sleep, and had just fallen asleep when my brother Ryan called with a choked up voice to tell me that he had just passed away.

It was 3:20am.

Numb. I went back to sleep and tried to ignore all of this for a few days. I went about my normal life and routines, while not letting my brain go anywhere near the subject of my now deceased father unless it had to. Finally, I broke down. I was angry. I was furiously pissed off.

How could two parents deny their child the knowledge that they were going to leave this earth, while making sure that everyone else was informed? How could two parents die of terminal illnesses and purposefully not brace me for impact? How could they both have done this?

I broke down crying in my fiancé's arms that night. It wasn't a mournful cry, it was a rage filled cry.

To feel lied to and cheated when it comes to someone's death is the hardest betrayal feeling I've ever had to come to terms with. And I've failed so far.

But now all that is left is me and my emotional wounds yet again. So over the next 48 hours, I'll begin the processes of analyzing my anger at both of my parents so that I don't bring any extra baggage to the funeral of the father I never really had a chance to share my life with.

Red Bull Does NOT owe you money!

Why Red Bull may not owe you money.

A few days ago I saw links on Facebook to the class action lawsuit against Red Bull that has gone into settlement negotiations. A lot of people were talking about how Red Bull owed them $10. But they don't. At least not yet. They may not ever. Let me explain.

1. Saying that they owe you $10 implies a guarantee of payment. But if you go to http://evergydrinksettlement.com/faq#Q7 it says in plain english that the court has not yet approved this settlement. That hearing won't even happen til May, so even if they do approve it you likely won't get anything out of it for another year.

2. Saying that they owe you $10 implies guilt on Red Bull's part, when no litigation against them has brought forth a ruling or judgement against them. This is a settlement, not a court ruling. Red bull didn't lose a court case against them, they decided to settle out of court. That is not an implication of guilt. It outlines that pretty clearly here - http://evergydrinksettlement.com/faq#Q3

The articles circulating around Facebook with headlines like "Red Bull Owes You Money! Here's How To Claim it!" are written as click bait. They are written in a misleading fashion that is designed to get people to click their links and drive traffic to their own web pages where they discuss the settlement. Those links go largely unread by many, who merely share the link and it's misleading headline. Then mass misinformation spreads about the nature of this case.

At that point, if the court decides not to approve the settlement and nothing happens, people will think Red Bull are being dicks. But it is not their fault that misleading information was perpetrated by click bait headlines trying to get a share on Facebook.

If you want to know the facts, go to http://energydrinksettlement.com/faq

One final note, I titled this blog post with a definitive on purpose. I said that "Red Bull Does NOT owe you money." That was designed to grab your attention with a definitive counter point so you'd pay attention. The same tactic is being used by these click bait articles to say "Red Bull OWES you money!" This is why you shouldn't believe everything you read online. Someone is distorting the initial message for some benefit to them, be it web traffic or otherwise. I did this on purpose so that I could drive the point home. But every article out there is sharing the same misinformed headline and people are falling for it left and right. This clickbait "journalism" is dangerous at best, as it completely distorts perceptions of the facts.

Thanks for reading. I'm going to file, and if in 2 years I get a check for $10 I'll put it in my savings account.

Don't Stop Me Now

Hello blog, my long lost friend. You've helped me through some very tough times in my life, and always been there to allow me to explore myself when I've needed to. On this morning, as I sip my daily breakfast smoothie and listen to Fiona Apple, I call on you again to help me sort out a new thought pattern circulating in my mind.

I'm a stay at home dad. This means that my life revolves around the care of my girls, who have autism and are both teenagers, and that I have little time for going out to hang with friends or seek mental stimulation. I have very little interest in going out to do most things these days, truth be told, so this suits me fine. But I would still seek certain things to stimulate the mind and rejuvenate the body and soul. These things included spending time outdoors, as that remains one of my favorite ways to get the stimulation I seek. This would usually be a quest for solitude, intending to place me in an environment without the challenges of kids on the spectrum, but also getting me away from people who mostly can't relate with a double-minority like myself (stay at home dad to two teens on the spectrum…how many of those do you know?). Honestly, I have other interests that are relatable to people, but most people are unable to see my side of life because they don't live it. I'm always feeling like they don't fully understand or comprehend unless they are somehow in the same boat. So this makes me feel less and less relatable to other human beings.

The natural consequence of this, of course, is that I've become pretty socially awkward. I never was a social butterfly. However, if you put me in a room with a stranger I get uncomfortable. It's not a setting I find myself in often these days, and I have no idea what to talk about, so I begin babbling. That never ends well, at least from my perspective.

There are a few adults in my life consistently. Laura, my ever loving and ever patient fiancé. The other caregivers in the house, whom I spend more time with these days than I do with Laura due to her busy work schedule. The faculty and staff at the girls' school, with whom I keep an open line of communication to make sure home and school are a unified front for the girls. A small handful of music friends, as well as my partner in crime in Project DIVIDE…other than that, I'm pretty much by myself most of the time. There's my sister, who adopted a special needs daughter over a year ago, and since we both took on roles in special needs families we've attained a new level of understanding and camaraderie with and for each other. However, outside of my own household and the adults surrounding the lives of the girls, she's one of the very VERY few that really get the challenges I face.

And so I'm mostly alone. I'm mostly at home. Over the last 6 months or so I've had the overbearing feeling that something was wrong. I'm mostly these days very bored. I've blamed many things, unable to see what I see today. I've blamed my recent ADHD treatment regiment of Strattera. I've blamed the weather. I've blamed not being able to go out hiking. I've blamed depression. I've blamed stress. But this morning, I'm seeing things differently. I have always had a little trouble seeing things within myself for what they truly are, and have always overanalyzed my life (usually to a negative result because I've overblown a situation and worked myself up). But this morning it seems clear. I'm bored. I'm a bit lonely because of it. And I need to find some new ways of stimulating my brain. The old ways are unproductive and lead to laziness, and the newer interests I've explored over the last few months always seem to wane in and out of my focus. I look forward to my Saturdays, which are my once per week reprieve away from home to focus on my musical endeavors. But lately, as a happenstance, other people have been requesting my production abilities on that day. Who am I to say no? But this makes down time wait for yet another week, and then another artist calls, and so it waits for another week, and the cycle continues. The work with clients is mentally stimulating, and always fun. I'm by no means complaining. I am however thinking that, since this pattern is in place, I may need to focus yet another day for Me-stuff. Either that, or I just need to start saying no to new projects. That's hard to do though. I know that I need Me-space though.

So perhaps the reason I've had so much trouble coming to grips with myself over this past super-long-super-cold winter is because I've become bored with little outlet for stimulation. Maybe it's time to change that up a bit. Don't stop me now!

A moment of me.

Optimism.

I normally have it in spades, coupled with the crippling downturn of anxiety that I always inevitably cycle through, only to find myself reeling back up toward optimism again.

It's a fun ride at the top, and I enjoy the view.

At the bottom, it's not a very fun place.

Welcome to the bottom.

As 2013 comes to a close, I sit here typing in a  dark house. My girls are in bed, and I hope they stay there through the night. Laura's in bed, and I hope SHE stays there through the night. I sit here awake, and alone.

This morning I was feeling so optimistic. I hate these cycles. But here I am, at the bottom of the wave. I'm sure I'll be heading back up again just as soon as I can get my head in a different space.

But for now, all I can think about is being lonely.  The one person I really want more than anything to spend time with is sequestered in bed with what appears to be a 60 day migraine (the chiropractor visit this morning didn't do anything either, so 2014 comes in on day 60). I've been picking up slack at home, and I'm trying to relax, but what I want is for her to feel better. The selfless part of me wants her to feel better so she'll be happy and vibrant again (she'll balk at the suggestion that she was ever that way, but I see it in her). The selfish part of me misses her. While she's in bed trying to suffer through what can only be indescribable pain, I'm downstairs being Mr. Mom (dinner, playing, supervising, intercepting meltdowns, doing housework). I don't mean to imply that I wasn't doing these things before she was smacked in the head with a migraine that will not stop no matter what doctors throw at her.

I know she'll read this, and she'll feel guilty for being locked away tending to her pain instead of being an active part of the household, and I can't help that. I hate that, but I have no one to really talk to at the moment about it. So here I am, posting my dirty laundry for the world to see.

Fact is, I want nothing more than for her to be better now. I'm more than willing to pick up the slack, and do anything I can to make her more comfortable. We're in this together, there is no I in this family. When one is down, we lift them up. So I'll do what I can to help, even if that's something simple to make her more comfortable.

Happy new year.

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.