Working at a job you don’t like and you want to quit? Being unable to quit because of bills is the usual reason for not quitting when you are at a job you don’t like. Why else would anyone stay at a job they hate? Sadly this is often because somewhere along the way, the person that feels trapped in the job they hate is because they were saddled with bills that required them them to make payments until the debt is repaid. So often, the payments are set up so that the debt will take what feels like an eternity and at the same time, the bill can cost more than the original loan. This is a scenario where as a worker, you are “owned” by your creditor(s) and this empowers your employer over you and the job becomes something you cannot simply walk away from if you hate. All for the “ease” of the access into credit trap. With no bills, you can save money rather than giving it plus interest to a creditor. If you save enough, you become freed of being “owned” by the banks and your employer.
General Ramblings
Been watching a TV series lately and it’s more like a soap opera for guys. Guns, motorcycles, good looking women and MC club drama…get the point? I picked it up last year before I left for the desert and I found it on an internet service with a monthly fee now that I am here. I watched the episodes of the 2011 season and have been picking up the previous seasons. I have watched the end of the available series and I found myself wanting to see the entire story line and at first I thought about going back and re-watching the whole thing all over again. This was in an effort to relive the time I spent at home with my lady watching it there. This was where the revelation came to me. I have been hanging onto the past for some time lately and desperately wanting to relive the past because I know how it plays out. It’s been this way for me for a long time and I think it’s why I have had such a difficulty moving along when it’s time to do so. It’s so easy to try to cause the past to repeat itself for the purpose of knowing what will happen. The truth is that it really isn’t easy to cause it repeat itself but it’s easy to hang onto it. This is not how to live life to it’s fullest. In fact it’s the exact opposite.
When I first came to this job, my office was in a place that was noisy and poorly lit. The lights were fluorescent with no diffuser. We were forced to move to a new location with even worse lights akin to the old street lights I used to play under at night as a child. I requested the lights be replaced with something less harsh so I could see my screens better. This was met with the typical response of an agency that cares nothing for the people who serve it. If it doesn’t affect them directly they were too foolish to see how it affects them indirectly. Typical.
I have since been moved along with the rest of the crew I work with and the lighting where I am is far better than before but it still kinda sucks. It’s like working under grow lights in a warehouse rather than real office. Ahh…to be back in a real office setting with decent lights, normal hours and access to lunch that doesn’t taste like crap. I guess that’s in a past life for now. Trying to alter my current working conditions is like shoveling sand against the tides of the ocean. I can only adapt or get out. The pay keeps me adapting for now but there will be a day where I finally have reached my goal and at that time I can re-evaluate my situation and decide if I want to continue. The working conditions have improved slightly but the work has become more or less routine and rather humdrum. We moved after I came back from a vacation and since then, I find myself walking past the old orange lit desk I sat in and it reminds me that things move along and going back is anything but progress.
I keep thinking about going back to my home when this is over and I can’t help thinking about what I will do for work when I return. There’s always for work for people with my skills but the pay just seem to be less and less each year. Only just now do I realize that much like the cost of technology keeps going down. The paycheck of the worker also goes down…unless, just like the functionality of the technology increasing to keep the price up, the skill set of the technology worker must increase to maintain the current income rate or the location of the work must have requirements that are outside of the realm of pure skills. For example, hard to get to places, uncomfortable places or special alternate backgrounds.
Once such problem for many people is that while the economy takes a dump and jobs continue to pay less and less, the banking industry must keep getting the money that was originally agreed to when the workers had more of it. Now the pressure to keep paying has begun to crush many people. This is the way of the downturn. The only way is to be free of the obligations of the debt. there are a few ways and each has its own repercussions. To not pay the bills off will certainly result in lesser job opportunities and the ones that are available will not pay as well as the ones requiring decent credit. I am close to my goal of debt freedom and close to returning to start a new life. Will I buy new stuff? Not unless it’s an investment and not a liability…meaning if it can’t be sold for at least what I paid for it after I use it or more than I paid for it if I don’t use it…it’s not an investment. I think I may sell some of my liabilities and use that cash for investments.
Many people I know are confused and think that things like cars are investments. I can tell you from experience, they are not. I hear some people say, “I’m gonna fix my car up and sell it for more money”. This thinking is all too common with people who think the wrong things are investments. I’ve been just as guilty of that thinking. This isn’t progress.
So….back to progress. It’s time to start thinking about investing in assets, dumping liabilities and realizing that while you can never go back, you can remember how you got where you are, be open to the changes that come as we simply live life.
Today is Thursday. It’s Ramadan here in Kuwait. I just got up a few hours ago. The internet connection is crappy as usual. The weather is nice and warm. Not to hot but but clearly summer. I am at the 6 month mark and I am ready to leave this place. It’s one thing to get away from home for a while but it’s another thing to move away for such a long time as to start feeling like you don’t really have a home. That feeling…..no “home”, it’s partially brought on here by being displaced from my real home but that feeling can be intensified by working for the very organization I followed to the job away from home. It just depends on how connected I feel at work that can define part of what might be called “job satisfaction”. It’s the same reason that soldiers have a certain esprit decor. A sense of not being the “only one” but belonging to a cause.
People are the same on the inside no matter how much they are paid. This experience I am going through goes to show that you can be paid well and still not be satisfied. While it may be true that you can purchase a certain amount of entertainment, the fact still remains, happiness isn’t for sale. True satisfaction doesn’t come directly from accumulating cash. I know this because while I am able to save my pennies, I really cannot do as much with them for either myself or others when I am so far away from my real home. I have had more joy from being able to help someone than I get by simply counting the pennies used to do the deed. Some people will jump up and say well you can feel good by helping me. It’s deeper than that. Don’t get me wrong though I get the request when it happens.
I have had to learn to separate the job into it’s own unconnected facet of my life and not look to it to be part of where my joy comes from, at least in the case of this job. There is a reason that certain jobs pay more than others. Some are because of the amount of study and skill required to perform the work. Others are based on a level of convenience or lack thereof and some are based on a combination of both skill and inconvenience. My current role is a little of the latter.
Having come to this realization, I should be able to complete my tour here and not drop everything and just walk away. I have considered it many times but I keep hanging on to my goal. That goal…freedom to enjoy the things in life that don’t come with a monthly bill and requirement to pay it off each week or month. It’s the idea of being able to find other enjoyment in doing something that I don’t have to make a living at but could if I wanted to. If I could change the field I work in to be less demanding and more able to be pursued at a pace I wanted instead of full speed all day every day, it might be a place where I could enjoy it again. Currently, my position isn’t like that. It’s go go go go all the time on the most boring of computer work and it borders on making me insane. It’s directed by people who do not truly understand IT systems. They approach it with no creativity and no room for making alterations to streamline and simplify how the overall system works. Instead it’s about following strict inflexible guidelines with a change management division that bends to nothing. It’s about expansion and money. It’s not as much about finding the awesome way to do something cool.
Large organizations like those that write the most popular operating systems in the world are flexible. It is part of why they are world class organizations. They give creative license to the employees and as a result, they create some of the most popular software in the world. It is this freedom that has been crushed in many organizations and it makes for incredibly dull work. It has become a drag to go to work for these stifling agencies and that dear readers is where I want to escape from. I used to be in the creative world but have found myself trudging to the lockstep drone of inflexibility. I will return to the creative side and it should make for better blogs in the near future.
I hope that if nothing else, the things found here will help you but if it doesn’t. I will still serve as a place for me to look back at and remember where I have been and also where I am going.
My you find your happy place in the job market and may you never find yourself working a job that appears to have no end and no place for enjoyment.
– C.R.
Let’s face it, being debt free is awesome! You don’t have an obligation to hand your hard earned money over to someone else every month only to be charged a fee for doing so. You don’t have to purchase the things you really do need on additional credit because you can save enough to buy them outright.
It’s freedom from what is often called the financial hamster-wheel that you can’t just step off of. It’s having the ability to go to sleep at night and not worry about what you will do if the furnace fails or the hot water heater dies or your car has a major repair requirement. It’s a step closer to living with less stress in your life.
I have read many web bits of information on such things with a pitch to tell you how to get out of debt and so often I couldn’t help feeling like what I was reading was a scam….just another way to separate me from what money I had managed to save. For me, this was because the very idea of freedom from debt sounded like a fairy tale and the persons pitching the idea just didn’t seem trustworthy for no other reason than my lifelong experience of being in debt as a way of life and feeling like it was natural.
Using credit aside from buying a house to purchase goods and services unless you pay off the purchase at the end of each month, really says, I have no means of buying said goods and services with my current savings because I really don’t have enough cash saved for the purchase. It also says I didn’t plan to buy what I now want to purchase with credit. It speaks volumes about a person’s focus. It is an indicator of someone who insists on a standard of living that is more than they can afford without planning. On a side note….Being a Gold Digger by the way, isn’t a plan and supporting one isn’t much better.
It’s easy to step onto the financial hamster-wheel of borrowing money but it’s very hard to step off and the very best advice I can give to anyone considering hopping on and going for a run better think twice before making the leap.
Some people will tell you that one way to step off the hamster-wheel is to go the bankruptcy route and if you have nothing to loose and everything to gain, I could see the logic in that choice if you never intend to buy a house or take on a job that requires good credit. It’s fine line that one must carefully consider before crossing. I also think that once you have crossed that line, it could become habit forming and a bad habit at that. I don’t recommend it even if you never intend to use credit again.
To all my friends, I say this, if you aren’t on the wheel but you have been, congrats for getting off and to those considering borrowing, please think long and hard before you do and realize you can’t just “quit” when it starts sucking. For those who are on the wheel going for a run and you want off, I am sure you know the way out. Just stay focused, pay more than the minimums if you can and reduce your standard of living to a level that you can afford and get the bills paid. Once you are done then you can move back up a bit. You will be happier I can assure you.
To those who are criticized for scaling back on their expenses, know this…you have a plan and a goal that you are sticking to to become free of financial burdens. The criticism just means you are doing something about it to a degree that even your friends will notice even if it’s not for them.
I have been criticized for saying I cannot afford something or another but had actually saved enough cash to make the purchase. Some call this “poor mouthing”. It’s anything but “poor mouthing”! It’s saying I don’t see the value in spending money on the goods or services without seeing it as wasteful spending, therefore, I cannot afford to waste my money on the goods or services that I have been suggested to buy. Or simply put, I cannot afford that item. It’s a waste of money and I am saving what I can for a more useful purchase.
Looking forward to being able to come home, debt free and less stressed.
-CR
Ok, I had a busy week. A couple days in Dubai for some work related stuff and I am back home resting on the couch whilst surfing the net for home flavored Internet info and reminders that this is temporary and that I haven’t lost my friends but I have just taken a long term business trip away. Been on nights and I am waaay outta whack. Can you actually be “In Whack”? Anyway, I was kinda feeling a bit displaced this week and it caught up with me a few days ago. I’m good now as I have beaten the feelings of what am I doing here down with a quick look at my bottom line. There’s more to my makeup than that but I see a goal of being able to couch surf or do cool stuff when I get free of my bills.
Today is a day in limbo. Kind of like a time out for being “bad”. What’s that you ask? What did I do…well….I bought things. Mostly things I don’t need but really wanted and some stuff I did need. I was a victim of my own desires and the costs of living. I watched the TV ads for the cars and other cool gadgets and thought I could use a cool car and a new fridge….actually I love cool cars and that hasn’t changed but the fridge…it was dying anyway. So here I am paying for the cost of the purchases of those things and a few more and a chance to regain my handle on the American dream. I know the economy is rough right now and the thought of the “American dream” sounds a bit hokey to most but I do think that while we have a lot to learn and repair in our collective thinking, I might be able to manage with no bills and a fair paying job. I will just have to shift my house payment money to buying gasoline and compensating for the additional cost of products because the oil industry is out of control. I mean come on, we are not stupid and when oil companies post record profits and people are out of jobs in record numbers because of the cost of commuting, it’s kinda obvious. We are getting screwed by the free oil market and have no real choice but to drive to the fuel station and buy more of the liquid gold so we can keep working to pay for our house and other needed items like….food and heat. Collectively as a nation we are too stupid to actually find a true common ground and unite and take a stand against much of anything because we just fight each other. We are truly a disorganized Army that is still a cash rich resource to the oil industry and until they distill every dollar from us that they can it will not stop because to them, we are a Folgers nation…good to the last drop. The fighting has caused the demise of so much of what we once were as a great nation. We don’t produce much of anything of any value that doesn’t get regulated to death by our own peers. They would rather stop successful product production. We are buying so much of what we have by countries that actually realize that you must do certain things that may not be in harmony with the green movement in order to get things done.
That being said, I have confirmed for myself in my time out on the couch (and then some) that since I cannot convince the right people to do things that would actually bring back jobs to this country and put a lid on oil costs, I must adapt. So I am here working in a place where I can earn enough to pay my bills off and become free of the banking industry that is master to so many. Did you ever wonder why that little plastic card is labeled “Master Card”? Once that part of my plan is complete, I can then use the money I save to pay for the fuel related expenses that are part of the cost of living. It’s not going to change and we can cry about it forever but it is not going to change. There is no magic bean or oil reserve in existence that will save us all. The Strategic Oil reserve is for the Military in time of war anyway. It’s not to be the “Poison pill” to the oil companies. “Poison Pill”? We could have one but we are too earth friendly/human-unkind and the Oil nations to rich to feel the much of the effects anyway. If we did it might not be too hard to do. We stock up on our own oil by working against the market. When it gets to expensive, we release our own oil into the U.S. Market ONLY. None of this giving it to other countries crap…no! we dug it up it’s ours. Period. But alas…I am but just a working class peasant, what do I know?
I just watched the movie “Convoy”. It was rather campy but it was fun. There were the classic elements of good guy being pursued by bad cop and the audience is drawn into cheering on the good guy. Some jokes are tossed out there that today would be taboo but they are still funny if you realize that life doesn’t always have to be politically correct. Once such line comes to mind when “Black Widow”, a black lady trucker takes a sharp turn too fast and dumps her truck on its side. She is helped out of the truck and she yells at the truck and says, “Stupid White Truck, I knew I shoulda bought a black truck!”. There is trucking manufacturing company by the name of “White” and they were the makers of her truck. Her truck was also painted white. That was funny in the 70’s and it’s funny now.
We have become so obsessed with being careful not to offend others and we creep around on eggshells because we wouldn’t want to offend anyone and we might end up with a lawsuit slapped on us for saying or doing something offensive. I was flipping through some pictures on the web and a coworker saw that one of the pictures had nothing on it and it was black. He looks that and starts laughing and says “That looks like it’s a picture of a room full of black people and they have their eyes closed!”. I started laughing…that was funny! I know you are reading this and are probably thinking Oh no, that’s not funny, that’s offensive because what if a black person were to have heard it and it made them uncomfortable? He went on to say that the only way you could see anybody would be if they smiled or opened their eyes. More hilarity. Truly funny material right there. If I had been drinking a soda it would have come flying out of my nose. Are you still with me? Think I am a bad person for laughing at a joke like that? Well he was black. See? Most people are conditioned to respond to certain things and many people have been conditioned to respond rather than think for themselves. Another incident that once happened is that I bought a very nice cowhide that had been tanned and it was designated to be hung on a wall for decoration or used as a floor covering. It is beautiful. A young person I know saw it and said that’s a terrible thing and should not be sold as this hide had been..as decoration. She went on to say it’s horrible to kill animals for their skins and fur…this is a programmed response from someone who had not learned to think for herself. There are a lot of people out there who don’t believe in killing or eating animals but these same people don’t think it through when it comes to quipping off about how cruel it is to use a cow hide for decoration or how bad using a sheepskin to make a blanket. I always ask what would you rather see when killing the animal? Throw the pelt away or keep it and use it because the animal is going to be slaughtered either way. That question usually is one that causes them to stop and think for a moment and they usually say “I guess if you can’t stop people from eating the animals, maybe using the pelt is a good thing”. This is especially true when they think about the hamburger they like so much.
Our society has become programmed in a manner of speaking to the degree that we often don’t get anything done because we are afraid of making some people unhappy or we are afraid of being sued. I once bumped my head on an equipment rack at work and I went home (Using sick leave) because I wasn’t feeling so good after that. My employer had a fit over that after they found that I had injured myself at work. The real issue wasn’t that they had a concern for my well-being and in fact they didn’t care about me personally but rather that if I had gone home and died they would have been sued. I just needed to rest and I felt fine the next day. I would have found it more obnoxious to be prodded and tested to make sure I wouldn’t have a possibility of bringing legal action.
Yesterday, I asked the caretaker of the Apartments I live in to see if he could fix my window latch. It wasn’t staying closed and sometimes the wind blows enough to force it open. I live 15 stories up and the only higher floor is the building owner’s flat…it’s up there. My window has a ledge outside the window that can support a person standing on it. This guy comes to the apartment, climbs up on the ledge and proceeds to attempt an adjustment of the window. I am standing there ready to grab the guy if he starts to fall but there was no need. He was just fine and it appeared that the heights didn’t bother him at all. In the U.S. he would have probably been fired for not using safety gear. Truthfully, I don’t think he has any and he keeps his job.
The place where I live is different but I think I have the beginnings of an idea of where they are. They have modern technology available to them, they have money to buy it, they have a natural resource to sell to continue to bring in revenue and the cycle continues. I think the key differences in the successes they enjoy here is that they are where the U.S. was in about the 1970’s when it comes to environmental impact and litigious behavior. I’m not suggesting that we throw out the true progress we have made but let’s start applying some common sense to what we are doing.
A good friend of mine worked for the last lead manufacturing company in the U.S. They were being heavily regulated over the impact they had on the environment to a degree that they had to cut back on production. The lead they produced was some of the highest quality in the world. From a non-thinking person’s viewpoint the immediate response might be that’s great, they were producing enough pollution to be regulated and they have been stopped from damaging the environment. Some questions if you don’t mind. 1. Did they stop producing lead and stop damaging the environment? 2. Does the demand for lead get curbed along with production being curbed? 3. Does the production simply get moved to China where the same damaging effects are still present but jut not visible to the regulators in the U.S. ? 4. Does this regulation displace more workers? 5. Will we now get an inferior lead product from China at an inflated rate because we don’t produce yet another product because of over regulation? The last question, How does this help our economy? How is it OK to let someone else do what we ourselves won’t do?
In life, the saying “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” has just been a metaphor that we used to say, we want what we cannot have because it somehow is made better by its exclusivity. Cuban Cigars somehow might be one of those forbidden pleasures if you care for such things. I had not considered the Middle East as a place of greener grass and to tell the truth about the actual green grass here…..there isn’t any. Or if there is, it dies in the very hot sun, quickly. As for the greener grass of life, I am sad to report that when I was living in the U.S. it started out as the land of opportunity. However, In the last 10 years I had really come to a place where I started thinking that maybe I should go to some other country where they will give me free or cheap health care and free education and allow me to become a citizen that can get preferential treatment because I am at a disadvantage because I don’t speak the language very well if at all. Maybe i should go work for people that will pay me far better than I can earn in my homeland. This would enable me to pay off my bills and help my family. Maybe I would be able to build a better life where I can one day retire without dying in debt. This would be the life of an Expat with a few differences. Expats generally have a skill that they bring to the table and can provide services that cannot be found locally. Being an American Expat doesn’t mean that we aren’t sympathetic to the American cause it just means we live abroad as U.S. citizens. Expats can be from any country that they are not currently not living in but typically are American. I think this is because we have skilled workers but there are so many of them that companies can pay less for their knowledge.
It is a shame that America is the only country that imposes a Tax on it’s citizens EVEN WHEN they DON’T LIVE in the U.S… unless you stay out of the country for all but 35 days out of the year. If you are fortunate enough to work in a country that has no tax, and you stay out of the US for almost a full year you can reap the benefit of no federal tax. Would you believe they still impose a Social Security Tax? I just hope it’s there when I can draw it.
As I continue to write my blog and share my views and experiences I hope you might somehow be encouraged to see that there are excellent opportunities out there but sometimes you really have to stretch to make it happen. In my case, I traveled literally halfway around the world and while I do miss family and friends dearly, I know that to go back too soon would be to throw away my golden ticket.
So im wandering around a local grocery store and exploring. Trust me, its different when you don’t speak the local language. There is something to be said for businesses that use specific colors and design. As a consumer we don’t realize just how programmed we are until the words and letters don’t have any meaning to us. I could recognize a bag of Cheeto’s because of the colors and of course “Chester the cheetah”. Chilli’s restaurant sign is written in both English and Arabic so I was sure it was a Chilli’s and let’s not forget McDonald’s…The Golden Arches…This is a common occurrence all over. This brings me to a new discovery on my grocery store adventure…Tang, yeah we’ve all seen the brightly colored orange container and are familiar with the basic design of the logoized writing. But imagine for a second…you’re walking along, you see something that looks like a Tang product but is the wrong color, yet has a bright color in the same color schema and has the right font but isn’t orange or orange flavored. I found about six different flavors of the stuff. Of course I didn’t even acknowledge the Orange as you can get it by the bucket in the states. But I found Mango, Pineapple, and Apple so I bought a couple different ones to try. This discovery led me do some digging around the net… I found we are being short changed by our very own Kraft company on flavors and while some sound nasty to me, I included a link listing more than just simple American orange.
How long will we tolerate giving the farm away?
I am living in a place that produces about 10 percent of the worlds oil exports and chances are, if you drive a car you have burned some of the oil from here. This is a product that has a strong demand if only because the world is addicted to it. At this point, it doesn’t really matter when it comes to the country’s financial well being. What does matter is that there is a big demand for it and like it or not, that demand pays the bills, end of story.
America used to be a great nation that produced things that the world wanted. We still could if it weren’t for the costs associated with the production. In the place I live now, you can’t really outsource oil production so the income is almost a guarantee. That is, unless, an alternative for oil is discovered and until then, it isn’t going to change.
In the middle east, I drive by the oil refineries every day as I go to work and the refining towers used to crack the oil generate waste vapors that are burned off and you can see the fires from the fifty or so stacks. It’s an amazing site to see indeed. The liberal tree huggers would have a heart attack if they saw this and sometimes I think it might not be a bad thing. I truly believe that there are processes used to produce certain goods that are going to create a certain amount of pollution and there isn’t a way to stop it. It’s the old saying, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omlet. This thought brings me to my next thought. We in America used to produce many goods that we and the rest of the world want. But these days we are over regulated and we can’t break any eggs so to speak. By that I mean, the ecology passionate people (Freaks) have turned the act of “saving the earth” into a religion and it makes it it near impossible to make some of the things we used to make. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has the sense to realize this paradigm and thusly continues to make those goods we all need.
One way to stop some of the problems of job loss is to impute an import tax on goods that would make them cost the same as what they would cost to produce in the U.S. Take that tax and use it to aid in education for U.S. residents ONLY. Other countries tariff imported goods and it works. We are too touchy feely and are afraid to offend anyone. I say you do what you need to in an effort to protect your own country first. If other countries don’t like it, too bad. We cannot afford to keep giving ours away but the bleeding hearts want to do exactly that. Problem is, there are less tax paying citizens every day as jobs dry up and go to other countries. I am in a unique situation but I in fact have exited the country because of a lack of good paying jobs at home. I reap the benefits of working in a place where they don’t give away the farm. In some ways they can’t…they produce oil and it comes from the ground of the country. Can you imagine the economic effects on the world oil market if the ecology freaks had their way and were able to stop oil production in the middle east? In a way, they have had a bad influence on at least the U.S. market because they have slowed or blocked oil drilling in places like Alaska at the expense of the people. How long will we be so tolerant of this kind of self defeating behavior? How long until we find ways to make it too expensive to import cheaply made crappy goods so that the jobs will be brought back home? How long will it be before America wakes up and collectively says ENOUGH is ENOUGH!?
Sounds like a strange post doesn’t it..I mean there’s no such thing as a square goldfish…is there?
Some fish grow sizewise to fit the environment they live in…to a degree. As a kid, I thought it would be funny to put a goldfish in a small aquarium with pictures of aquatic plants all around the tank. I thought the fish would grow to accomodate the perceived larger tank size and become square…yeah I had some free time.
These days I have been feeling like a square goldfish. Most of my life I had moved around a lot and never before had I stayed in one place for so long as where I live now. I have worked in many unique places and have enjoyed a satisfying career working for some major corporations but the hometown life has been a bit difficult. Living in a small town has some advantages but after a while it can feel as if the walls are closing in. In my case, my town is surrounded by water and it starts feeling as if there is no where to go and not much to do sometimes. Couple that feeling with the need to commute a good distance to make decent money and suddenly life becomes too focused on getting to work and back to make the commute worth it. But there is a balance though. Find a job that pays well enough to afford to enjoy life and have a few hobbies while not spending too much of your time getting to and from the job.
These thoughts have brought me to a new view on how to resolve my feeling boxed in. Recently I have been afforded the opportunity to spend some time in another part of the world working on an ongoing project that I think may be the breath of fresh air I need. Time will tell…quickly. If all goes well, I hope to shed that boxed in feeling and gain a new and improved perspective of the world. Maybe when I return, home will be a place of rest before the next adventure.
Rowland Ramble - 