Have you ever thought about how much trust we put into people? I don't mean your best friend, or parents or co-workers (although you actually may not trust those people), but how must trust you put in total strangers? People you have never met, know absolutely nothing about, and would never strike up a conversation with have been given your life in the palm of their hand every day. Think about this next time you're on your way to work. How many cars do you pass on that 25.1 minutes journey? With each car you pass, you are putting complete 100% trust in that driver that they will not plow head-on, right into you, killing you both instantly. I know that's a bit dark and graphic for this blog, but frankly it's true. When you go to the grocery store, you're trusting that the producers of the food you eat didn't poison it. When you open a package purchased from an online retailer you're counting on that package not exploding in your face.

Now I know what you're thinking, there are laws that keep all that from happening. Crazy people aren't allowed to drive, food is tested before it hits the stores and your packages are scanned at the post office. But again, you are trusting that all those people do their job to keep you safe. In fact, it could be argued that your existence this very second is solely due to the absolute trust you unknowingly give to the rest of the world during 99% of your day.

Luckily, the majority of us remain unaware of that trust we give (unless of course you are a paranoid schizophrenic). Why then is it sometimes so hard to place trust in another person knowingly when it doesn't even involve a human life? Just another action to chalk up to that thing we call, "Human Behavior."

In one hand we hold our lives as they are now. And in the other we hold a possible future. If we decide to continue living our current lives we can, yet if we dare to unlock the doors of the unknown with the key in our other hand, we can do that as well. But we eventually have to choose one or the other; and once we choose there is no going back. For once we pick the life uncharted, we become strangers in a foreign land and the only hope we have to return, is to become at peace with our new destination. And at that point, our old lives have vanished behind our new selves.

It's a hard choice sometimes. A choice consisting of more that one right answer. Of course the easy choice is to always pick the hand that holds the most happiness. But sometimes the happiness is unknown within the hand that lies the keys. So we drop the keys and opt to continue living our current lives. But sometimes we need to take that step of faith. We need to be curious and find out what Life potentially has in store for us. In the end, can we truly be happy with a hand that holds certainty, contingency, and apathy? There are times in our lives when I think we can, yes. But there are also times when we need to venture out of our comfort zones and into the shadows of ambivalence. And guaranteed, down that road lies turmoil, emotion, hesitation, zeal, fear and utter confusion and discontentment. But ultimately is that not what makes our lives real? Is that not what makes our lives worth living?

What hand will you pick? What hand will I pick??

It's the end of an era. We all come to them. Call them whatever you want. End of an era, the next chapter, a new path, they're all the same. Yet your end is so much more final than mine right now. It's all new for you now. But I know you'll prevail. That's all you've ever done is prevail, that's obvious. So much now comes to its finale, but there is so much that will begin anew. Who knows what's in store for each of us. Life can never stay constant. It never will stay constant. Those that expect such things are ill-considered. But sometimes it sure would be nice if it did. But you're a dreamer and your aspirations have now taken you into uncharted waters. And while it may be scary and stressful, you're not alone. The world is filled with people like you! People starting new chapters, ending old eras. We'd never grow as people if that weren't the case. And it's my guess that soon I'll be in the same boat, that's just the way Life goes. So don't ever look back. Don't ever lose hope. Don't ever give up on your dreams. Ever!

I think it's safe to say that we all have free will. That's what I believe anyway. I hate thinking that I'm not in control of the choices I make. I mean really, what's the point of living if everything has already been determined? Predestination just doesn't do it for me. We're given free will for a reason.

I think of Life this way. When we're born, we pretty much have one path to walk, er crawl. We can't make decisions yet on our own so we just go with whatever Mom and Dad decide. Then as we get older we acquire the gift of choice. We have the ability to determine how our lives will play out. The more we live, the more our Life path forks and splits and veers and at time's we'll want to just get off and other times we'll want to go back and walk the same path again! Every path we take, has purpose. Every path we take has direction. Higher-ups show us our options and say, "All right, go to it kid!" Then it's up to us. What's amazing is that The Man With The Plan is not concerned about our choices. He has set it up in such a way that no matter what path we chose, we will make a difference on this planet (if that is out desire). Sometimes our own paths will cross and we'll wend up in the same place even if we had chosen a different route. Sometimes we'll end up in no man's land with what initially seems like no way out. In the end though, all paths lead to the same destination, unless of course we give up and take the easy path to nowhere. So we start out on a single path and end on a single path, but in between that there is a huge web of trails to take! In the end, it's up to us to chose. We have been given that freedom. We can ask for help and guidance and then just sit around all day long for a response, but sometimes, I think, our choice doesn't matter, there is no guidance. Sometimes we fail to see it, but this annoyance, this difficult wall we come across time after time, this choice we have; it's a luxury, because in our walk of Life, all roads ultimately lead to the same end. A luxury that at times definitely seems like a huge dilemma.

So what do you do when you're in that situation? Yogi Berra (the baseball player, not yogi bear, the picnic basket stealing cartoon bear) said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." That's exactly right. Make a choice and have faith that it's the right one. If you do what you think is good and right, you'll be taken care of. No matter what you chose you'll have suffering no doubt, but you'll also have times of great joy and happiness. Difference decisions, different time lines, different lifestyles. Same result! It's amazing isn't it? Nothing about our lives here on this planet is simple, yet at the same time nothing about them is complex.

The best advice I can give when needing to make a choice is to just pick something that you will be at peace about. If you're going to be concerned about whether or not you chose the right way, choose another. No matter what your choice, it will be fantastic. And it will be scary. Probably very scary. But like I said before, you'll never be alone. Ever.

"Get busy living or get busy dying. That's goddamn right" - Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding (Shawshank Redemption [1994])

I can't comprehend where you could possibly be right now. How will you come back from your deep dark thoughts and emotions? How will you possibly survive when you're entire world is taken away? How will you hold back the anger? How will you possibly find peace? How will you ever find your way, when you think your Light and path have been stripped away forever? Life can give us such joy and happiness and then take it away again in the blink of an eye. To you, there are no reasons anymore. There is nothing anymore that is fair, nothing that is right, nothing that is true. And in this deep disparity, there are no words. No words that will comfort, console, or caress. For there is only us, and our thoughts and our prayers. And while it may seem worthless now, it's not. Because while lost in your anger and fear and confusion it will be that Light that guides you back. It's a Light that can never be distinguished ever after being abandoned. And in time you'll come to find and rely on it once again, for you'll be lost forever if you don't. You'll never forget what Life was before, and you'll never forget what it will be to come. All will be made right. The only words I can muster now are, "I am so, so sorry for your loss." And in all honestly, what good does that really do you right now?

I’m having some issues in life right now. If you care to hear what they are, continue reading.

• If it’s cold enough for the schools to close, then it should be cold enough for The Workplace to close, especially when the geothermal heating is not working.
• The Super Bowl in 56 inches of high def, absolutely amazing! A 3 second plus delay between audio and video, nothing short of bewilderment.
• Snow falling from the sky day after day after day could be the most wonderful thing that has happened this winter; however the fact that there is less snow on the ground in the evening than in the morning day after day after day just irritates the crap out of me!
• If Cingular used to be AT&T, and is now becoming the New AT&T what will it be in another 2 years? The New Cingular? What kind of sick f’in game is this? Its times like these I’m glad I’m a Verizon customer. At least the Death Star AT&T logo is back.
• “Secret secrets are no fun. Secret secrets hurt someone.” So does my bed board when I walk into it!
• Why does there always have to be a reason for someone nearly passing out when giving blood? Why can’t you just accept the fact that sometimes I do it, sometimes I don’t? I don’t try to do it purposefully. Does it look like I’m having fun to you, sweating and turning white? I eat, I drink, I give; let’s just leave it at that and call it a day.
• Did I mention the wind chill is 30 below? Flip that’s cold!!
• Drinking 72 ounces of water and eating a doughnut or two in 1.5 hours can make you gain 6 pounds in, well, 1.5 hours. Drinking 72 ounces of water will also make you pee at least 5 times in the 1.5 hours that follows. This is not good when you’re half a building’s length from the bathroom. Your pants also get a little tighter after the 9 cups of water.
• If you had my Luck and all the Colts had to do was kick an obvious 30 yard field goal on fourth down with a few minutes left in the game to absolutely seal a Super Bowl victory and win me $120, you wouldn’t have won $120 either. Why wouldn’t you kick the field goal?!!! WHY?!!!!!!!

Well, it’s 2007 and the excitement (or lack there of) of the holidays is finally over. Another year has come and gone and with that, unfortunately another birthday. This is where I express to my readers how depressed my birthday makes me. Of course just like last year the question of the day was, “If your this depressed at [insert age here], what will you be like at 50?” And once again, just like last year, I’d answer, “Be even more depressed.” I’m not sure I can out-do last year’s post with why one should be depressed, but make sure you haven’t missed it by reading it here. It really was a piece of work I am quite proud of. As for this year, I’m thinking I’ll just tell you how unbelievably lifeless my life is with:

Captain Jimmy’s Favorite Moments of 2006, Being 25

My quarter century year started off really well. I can’t tell you how excited I was to see all that snow! And I can’t tell you because it didn’t happen. And while I said I would never get another season pass to The Knob, guess what, I did. And guess what? IT STILL ISN’T SNOWING!

The Stillers pulled off one heck of a Super Bowl XL victory. It may have been the highlight of the year. Of course once all the excitement was over, well that was exactly it. The excitement was over.

There were those two beach volleyball tournaments I won in Rehoboth beach this summer. Those were nice. Of course there were countless, countless others that I lost in the playoffs, mostly in the semi-finals. And by countless I mean the number won’t all fit on my extremities.

Ah Easter with the family. Between that and trips to Buffalo, NY, I’m not really what sent my heart into cardiac arrest.

Another good friend from college got married. While I couldn’t be more than happy for them, weddings are nothing more than a slap in my face at yet another failure in my life. I like to call that The Inability to Attract the Like Age Opposite Sex. Nothing like keeping the record strong!

Let’s not forget those fabulous 2 weeks of camp where I coached a swarm of hormone raging teenage girls that wanted nothing more that to get my attention. I think I had some kind of Mutant Eye disease there this past year too. At least Kelly Clarkson made up for that.

Of course I can’t skip over the family vacation to Kiawah Island that I didn’t miss out on this year. I also didn’t miss out on the week’s worth of depression that came after I got home. Not depression because I had a crappy time, definitely not! Depression because, well I don’t know really. Sometimes Life just likes to show you what you don’t yet have, but really do because you’re there. Does that make sense?

Another friend moved away. Far away. I hardly speak to her anymore, but we still remain good friends. I hope she learns as much as she has taught me about Life!

Jamesapolooza was a gigantically awesome hit! Too bad for those of you that missed out. The guest list is getting pretty long but I can almost guarantee that Barley Fest ’07 will be even better. Although honestly what could get better than yards of beer and hot chicks making out in your bathroom??

Something not to overlook here is The Booze Bus. Probably the most wild extravaganza I’ll ever have on a Workplace trip but hey, everyone should really experience something like this. I can’t recall if it was the alcohol, or the sheer amounts of alcohol but I told our host to sign me the eff up for next year!

Penn State games, Stillers games, and Jars of Clay concerts. Oh my!

I think my favorite highlight of the year was the camp out for the Nintendo Wii. My family thought I was crazy, people at The Workplace called me “One of those people,” but it was a really interesting experience where I froze my keester off and paid $250 for a piece of hardware that people still cannot get a hold of and in the meantime I am having the time of my video game life getting Wii Arm every other day!

The final month of the year threw me a wonderful Christmas gift of Luck. However is was short-lived and soon replaced by my original lack there of as is evident with the rising temperatures and countless other unlucky events that have happened to me since The Workplace Christmas Party.

So that is it. That was my year of being a quarter century old. Just like in those previous years people have come and gone, lifestyles have changed, and Life in general has evolved. Now that I have it all typed out though, I guess my life really isn’t all that depressing. In fact it seems somewhat interesting and fascinating. That’s probably because I’m the one proofreading it right now and I like to do all the stuff that I wrote. Maybe the majority of you look at The Captain’s list and think, “Wow, what a dull, sad, unfortunate little life.” I don’t see that at all though. Sure my life is pretty darn insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, but it is mine. And just the sheer fact that I can share all these experiences (or lack there of perhaps) with other people is really all that I am here for.

Have you ever noticed how much we as humans mimic Nature? Or maybe it’s more along the lines of Nature mimicking us. All you have to do is look to the trees. During part of the year they are filled with a thick display of impenetrable green. They are so full and lustrous, but no one really takes notice. That is until they begin to change. We begin to see something we had missed before, color and indifference. Then suddenly they are bare, fully exposed to the world and all its intensity. And they are criticized and ridiculed. However, over time they begin to grow, stronger than before, and they become covered, content and magnificent yet once again. All this only to occur again and again throughout their entire lives. Until they die. And for a while, they are remembered for all that they had done. But over time their presence slowly wilts and decays until they are nothing but a minuscule void within a see of existence. Fear not though, because some day from that void will spring new life and once again the cycle will repeat. Isn’t it amazing what the world has to teach us, if we are willing to learn?

On a side note, I find this pretty ironic. My Quotes of the Day RSS feed from The Quotations Page today read, “All is in the hands of man. Therefore wash them often. - Stanislaw J. Lec (1909 - 1966), ‘Unkempt Thoughts’”

**NOTE TO FRIEND**

We all go thru these rough times in our lives when it’s just not even worth getting out of bed in the morning. If it’s not your job, it’s your friends, and if it’s not your friends, it’s your family and if it’s not one of those things it’s all of them. I’ve had days like that; many in fact. More than I’d like to remember and I can almost guarantee that I’ll have more in my life to come. Time’s when there is no light, only darkness. Times when there is no joy, only sorrow. Times when there is no somebody else, only loneliness. And it’s rough, really rough when you’re halfway thru the tunnel and still can’t see the light at the end. And it’s in times like this that it seems that there is no hope for the world, no hope for humanity, no hope for you. But fear not. For if you can persevere and find that glimmer of light in the pit of despair, if you can track down that droplet of hope frozen in the endless stairwell, Peace will eventually find you. And when it does you will no longer worry about the past and all that it entailed. All you will see is a clear horizon ahead of the crystal clear clam ocean, ready to sail you off to wherever you want to go. All you have to do is seek and never stop. For there will always be someone there for you.

I feel like my life is currently in some sort of limbo these days. To be perfectly honest, it’s going no where fast. Not that that’s a bad thing. I mean since I moved here and started this blog I really haven’t had too many major life changes in that time. Sure there have been some changes at The Workplace since I started, and I’ve made (and lost) some good friends along the way, but really, I’ve gotten no where, done nothing great. My life these days pretty much revolves around work, and volleyball and the people I know within each ring. There has been no attempt at moving, no attempt at trying something new (like a new career, not that I want one, but I do enjoy learning about whatever I can), some attempts at relationships of course, but definitely no attempt at any major change. I guess in the grand scheme of things three years of my life is a pretty short time to expect change (a mere 3% of my personal total life expectancy), but I’m still in the early post-college era and am used to all the change that occurred in the four years of college life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty darn satisfied with my life right now. I come and go as I please, I’m not tied down by anything or anyone, physically I’m in the best shape of my life, but most importantly I’ve got some really great friends that would do anything for one another. I’m slowly becoming the big fish in the pond, which I like. I’m familiar with that (as that is the whole point of the big fish/small pond analogy). But sort of like college, when I get to be the big fish, will I again seek out (or stumble upon in my case) a bigger pond? I don’t know. Life sort of has a way of taking care of Itself. At least in my experience it does anyway. It’s the quote I live by, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi Berra the baseball player said that by the way, not Yogi Bear, who loved to take peoples’ picnic baskets (who is probably best known for his quote, “I’m smarter than the average bear.” Most often than not however he seemed to overestimate his own cleverness). And if the Road I’m on right now happens to be going in circles in the middle of the woods then so be it. The Road will lead me out eventually. And until them I am quite satisfied listening to the birds chirp, the wind rustling thru the leaf-filled trees, and the afternoon sun slowly making its way towards the horizon while glistening thru the timber.