In honor of the 2009 Atlanta Breast Cancer 3-Day walk, this is my theme song for the weekend.

By the time this video appears on my page I will be in the midst of Day 1 of my first Breast Cancer 3-Day journey, walking 20 miles each day of this long weekend to raise money to put an end to breast cancer once and for all.  I dedicate this song to each of my fellow walkers.  One day we will all be able to say “I Was Here”.

It’s not what people call you, it’s what you answer to that matters.

Twenty-Four hours from now I will be getting out of the car at Lake Lanier Islands ready to embark on my first ever Breast Cancer 3-Day journey.  I chose to make my walk this year a metaphor for those who are newly diagnosed with the disease and while my approach may be unorthodox I felt that it had value.  That’s why I did not physically train for this 60-mile journey.

You read that right, I didn’t train.  When someone is diagnosed they haven’t gone through weeks of training to prepare them for it, it just happens.  It happens and they immediately feel alone and isolated, which is why I opted to not sign up for a team prior to the event.  My rationale is that I will meet many new people over the next three days and if invited to I will likely join a team at that time.

No more fitting a dramatic backdrop could I hope for than to have potentially heavy rainfall for the first day of this event when we are expected to walk our first 20 miles and sleep for the first night in tents.  Walking through the storm, emerging on the other side a little worn, blistered, but still walking.

My hope is to send short updates each day via Twitter and Facebook.  If you’re not a friend on Facebook you can follow the updates in the right-hand column on my website.

My love and appreciation goes out to those who have donated to support my walk this year and if you haven’t yet done so there’s still time.  Donations are still being accepted through my Official 3-Day website so give what you can.

If the only way to conquer this asshole of a disease is to keep walking, I’ve got two new pair of shoes broken in, waterproofed and ready to go.

Welcome to the first mid-day music break post! Every weekday at noon Eastern I will share another musical break. Enjoy!

"Thank God they found balloon boy, I was afraid that Michael Jackson was ordering take out from heaven."

Source: Facebook

Note:  This is a reprint of a blog post I wrote  for another blog just over a year ago.  I felt that it bore repeating.

The sheer brilliance that is these words – taken from the Declaration of Independence – has been on my mind quite a bit lately.  As a nation we have already failed miserably when it comes to the earlier part about all men being created equal but thankfully there are steps that have been put in place over the decades that bring such lofty ideas into the realm of possibility.

The part that I think about on a near-daily basis is that last portion about our certain unalienable rights.  I don’t think that people really know what they are reading when they see those words or as seems to be the case all too often, they just don’t want to understand because understanding takes too much effort and dare I say it… responsibility.

Those certain rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The pursuit.  You don’t have a certain unalienable right to be happy, you only have the right to pursue your own happiness.  In other words (and forgive my bluntness), when it comes to you being happy, no one owes you a damned thing.  It is all – 100% – up to you whether you are happy or not.

I don’t feel entitled to a damned thing if I am being completely up front.  I don’t think there is anyone on this planet who owes me.  I am here for as long as I am here and I will work for as long as I can work.  I think what has hurt our society more than nearly anything else is the Entitlement Attitude that causes some people to give up their pursuit of happiness in favor of being miserable because they feel entitled to more than they have.

Guess what, folks?  You’re entitled to a few certain unalienable rights. 

That’s it.

You can do what you want with yours; I’ll be pursuing my happiness.

Ask yourself a question: How is it that we have become so technologically advanced that we can do nearly everything in our lives faster than ever before and yet we have less and less time?

I have come to the conclusion that it is far too self-important of me to truly believe that we have any real need to be that busy and if we are indeed so time-impaired then it is of our own doing whether consciously or otherwise. 

Case in point is yesterday’s news when a weather balloon went airborne, presumably with a 6-year old inside.  The world news media sat transfixed until it was revealed that not only was the child not inside, he was hiding away in the attic.  Now it seems that it may have all been a hoax and yet the news media can’t stop talking about it.  Remember when newscasts talked about news?  I guess that’s gone just like the days when MTV played music videos.

Why is this the case?  Because it is what we as consumers allow the news media to feed us.  When we start getting our news from local news outlets the way we used to, the national news channels will be forced to drop the conjecture and hype and give us something that is truly newsworthy and beneficial.   The days of the news media feeding us shit have got to stop.

In the news of the day, a Ralph Lauren model unwittingly becomes a caricature of herself when someone gets a bit too Photoshop happy and now claims that she was fired for being too big to fit into the sample clothing.  The kicker?  She is a size 4.

That news story slapped me into the reality that my own weight issues are not nearly as big as I’d like to imagine them to be.  In fact, it made me feel pretty stupid because I know exactly what to do to get my weight under control and get my body back where it used to be.

We have a health crisis in this country that is even bigger than the health care crisis that’s getting all the press.  We as a society are terribly obese – we’re fat – and the saddest part is that the simplest ways to combat our hefty problems will never happy because of politics and the power of the political lobby.

Corn syrup is killing us.  A diet of fast food is killing us.  Soft drinks are killing us.  In high school we did an experiment wherein we placed a steak in a bowl and poured a Coca-Cola® over it.  Guess what happened?  In short order, the acidic liquid started to destroy the meat.  Imagine what it is doing to our insides.

After the news about Filippa Hamilton being fired from Ralph Lauren I started to get serious about cleaning up my act.  I replaced unhealthy meals with salads, fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh juices.  In just over a week I flushed 8 pounds from my body and I don’t plan to stop until  I have regained the balance I once took for granted.  I plan to look and feel better and to be healthier at 40 than I have ever been and if that’s going to happen then I need to get started now.

What in your life makes you unhappy?  What are you doing about it?

Remember one thing always: You are in control.

FAIR WARNING: This excerpt includes harsh language and deals with crimes of a sexual nature. If you are in any way offended by or may be hurt by frank discussion on that topic please don’t continue reading. Further, if you are unaware that such a crime was committed against me not more than a few years ago, consider this your notice that if you read on you may find out more than you want to know.

This excerpt is from my upcoming book 100 Stamps; letters to the most influential people in my life. It is the letter I wrote to convicted murderers Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson who were found guilty of killing gay college student Matthew Shepard.

Continue reading An Unhappy Anniversary