New Dimensions

This is what happens early in the morning when most people are snuggled up in their cosy beds. I go out for a refreshing ride on my mountain bike. It rained through the night and there were delightful puddles of water to splash through, a blessed relief from the awful drought. I followed a different route this morning involving fast downhills and tortuous uphills - no boredom there! In May of this year I had a scary episode with my heart. The doctor recommended that I go for an angiogram and then have stents implanted in my arteries. Well I survived without that and was determined to recover naturally. After my return from Parys I was all pumped up to get fit and ready for another race, but the episode with my heart was a huge disappointment causing me to change those ideas for a more sedate life. But deep inside of me that isn't who I am. I am the never-give-up-never-give-in kind of guy - nothings going to get me down. So eventually I am getting back on track to where I wan...

So here we are on Black Friday - something I had no knowledge about until I Googled it. Yesterday I was doing the rounds visiting some clients when my scooter suddenly cut out under me. This was far from home. What to do? I lifted up the seat to access the battery where the fuse was questionable in the past, but I had forgotten to keep the screwdriver in the bike for emergencies. Slowly pushing the bike (like paddling) whilst sitting on it I continued with the road I was on, my mind trying to come up with a solution to my predicament. From previous posts you will see that this bike was a tricky lady and the mechanics that worked on her were not the best. They usually made all sorts of claims about how good they were but never delivered 100% on their promises. Anyway, continuing down the road I stopped opposite a small business operating from a home - they fix things like industrial polishers and floor scrubbers. I explained my predicament to the owner and he delegated ...

Life is full of opposing circumstances: poverty and wealth, despair and joy, naïveté and wisdom, failure and success, fear and faith, illness and health, ignorance and knowledge, loneliness and companionship, death and life. What meaning do we find in these contrasts? It’s nearly impossible to journey through life without encountering such dualities. Despite growing up in a poor family, I was surrounded by the comforting love of a wonderful mother who always saw the best in me. Her words of praise laid a foundation of confidence that shaped my outlook. I believe her exceptional example profoundly influenced the person I became. Thanks to her support, I excelled both in the classroom and on the athletic field. However, I remained naïve about the world and was unprepared for the disappointments caused by those driven by manipulation and self-interest. As a young boy, I was often sick and was hospitalized at the age of three. Doctors eventually discovered a rare blood disorder—hereditar...