Of New Projects and Chupacabra’s

A quick Yahoo News link before I get to today’s post.  Apparently they have found a dead Chupacabra…..They must not pay attention because the real Chupacabra lives in my garage?  HERE IS THE LINK

 Now back to regular programming.

I’m not a big quote kinda guy, I have a few quotes I like but hardly ever get a chance to use them in the course of normal conversation.  I don’t really like to interject them usually and the quotes I do like I keep all to myself and run them through my head like a silent mantra when the situations call for them.

“There are no great men, only ordinary men who overcome extraordinary challenges” this quote was told to me by a crusty and gruff Company Officer on my first day in the fire service.  The original quote was yelled over a radio during the Battle of Midway by Admiral Bull Halsey.  It was meant to inspire me to face every challenge in life with zeal and determination.  So far,  some 15 years after I heard the statement,  it still works I don’t tend to look at challenges the same way as perhaps I did when I was younger.  For every seemingly impossible challenge there is a solution or a victory.  Right now I am rapidly closing in on completing a challenge, not a challenge someone laid out for me but one I invented myself.  The challenge at one time was nauseatingly daunting, it seemed impossible.  Some days or even some weeks I was discouraged and depressed, countless were the times I wanted to quit and relinquish myself to my old habits and surrender to them…..”Only ordinary men who overcome extraordinary challenges”….it would drum on and on through my head.

 This year I found and fell in love with something I never thought I would…cycling.  Sure I rode bikes when I was young, I raced BMX, I rode half pipes and raced trials…but that was nearly a lifetime ago.  The closest thing I had come to cycling in the last decade was a few miserable trips into the woods with friends for short trails on my mountain bike.  I had never even rode on a road bike until this year.  I have had my road bike for about 3 years though.  My friend gave me his bike when he upgraded…I know now it was a hint, not a subtle hint, but one that I missed altogether.  And when I got to the point where I could ride a fair distance without collapsing or vomiting I realized I loved that feeling of cruising down the road regardless of the weather outside.  It’s the feeling of the extraordinary challenge, and how I am rapidly approaching the finish….to this particular challenge.  I have already set my next one though as arrogant as that may sound.  I am internally wired for a challenge, my entire profession is one giant challenge after another, and I relish it and grow bored if I don’t have the constant shadow of abysmal failure looming above my head. 

 I am finalizing the details of the next one and as promised before I will be detailing just what “Project: 100” will involve.  Why Project: 100 you ask?  Well Project Mayhem was already taken.