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.