Man On a Mission
2005-11-04, 09:17

Friday morning, remarkably the office is nearly vacant because most co-workers came down with the eighty degree fever. Amazing how the virulent strain rapidly spread throughout the office striking those with seniority, vacation or sick days and leaving those unaware of the weather forecast unscathed to carry-on the daily operations. Yes, others are laughing and basking in the warm sunrays while the fluorescent glow grays my complexion as I look out my office window at the static roof line across the street. However, I feel the fever bug invading my body as I'm sure I'll have to perform a site visit later in the day to check the progress of my construction projects. Perhaps, this will enable an early run in the park during daylight hours?

With daylight savings time, my runs in the park are becoming challenging because the meandering crushed trail is unlit: causing me to use the "Force" and memory to recall the dips, holes and lose gravels areas. Last night, another near disaster skunk episode almost occurred again. Luckily, as I rounded the corner I thought the small creature to be a dog but as I approached the distinctive white stripe initiated my inherent instincts to avoid the offending creature by circumventing it by one hundred feet. Once he/she determined, although dark, it was still too early to come out to graze in the field as an occasional predator jogger is abound.

With darkness in the park, my pace quickened out of fear and to finish the run before the temperatures begin to plunge. Now, I find my fear of the dark strange. Back in Colorado where I lived directly adjacent to the National Forest, I had no fear of taking a midnight hike and running into wildlife but in the city, I'm more afraid of getting jumped. In confronting wildlife, I know what to do to ward off an attack, but humans...it is the 'human factor' that throws me. I'm not 'scared' but just aware. Humans are unpredictable.

Big weekend planned! Oh, yea. I'm hip. Yep. Saturday morning, I'm running through the woods for paintball wars with teenagers and grown adults who are nearing fifty years old. I'm considering this as a cross-training for marathon. Yep, that's it...cross-training.

I surprise the Desired Girl on Sunday by showing up at her house and telling her how to dress for our day long date. She has no idea of what or where we are going. I'm excited to be flying to Chicago to visit the Art Institute, Jackson Park and a few other site seeing ventures. More importantly, I'm happy to see a cosmopolitan city again. Something with breadth and substance. A downtown area where people actually live, shop and be entertained.

Lastly and most important, I'm going for Chicago Dog and a Gyro. It's been nearly ten years since I had one of these artery cloggers but damn it, I got to live! What's life if, once in awhile, you can't indulge on things 'bad for you'? Maybe, I'll find that my tastes have changed over the years and I don't crave these as I once did - mainly, post drinking at a bar. Nonetheless, I'm a man on a mission!

Yesterday - Tomorrow