Today, a new baby is born

After nine months, a new baby was born today. The baby wasn't planned and as strange as it may sound, born out of necessity.

Nine months ago I became a government statistic. I was laid off. Having been in the mortgage business for the last fifteen years, it's been a little tough to find employment. Partly because of the economy, partly my location and partly because of the demonizing of the banking and finance industry. Specifically, those of us in the mortgage business rank somewhere around lawyers, used car salesmen, repo men and Bart Stupak in the public conscience. But we are really not all that bad.

So for the last nine months I've searched for jobs all around the state of Florida. Not wanting to limit myself to the tri county area of South Florida. I've had some good feedback outside of this area. Even had a face to face interview in Tampa. I felt that with the glut of unemployed professionals in this area, I would have better luck elsewhere. I have no family ties to keep me here, so re-locating was definitely on the table and I was actually looking forward to a change of scenery. But alas, no job offer.

So in the summer to early fall, I did some re-hab on my home. Interior painting, a new wood floor, etc. Just kind of catching up on some maintenance around the old homestead. But inside my head knowing that if things didn't improve for me, I might have to sell my home. So I might as well make it look attractive. Things haven't improved, so I listed my home on the market in February.

Still searching the job boards, not every day but most days during the week, you run out of new positions to look at quickly. No problem finding jobs to apply to but there a thousand other folks applying to that same job. It's got to the point now I don't pray for a job anymore. I just pray for an interview.

So since I have so much free time, I've caught up on my reading, surf the internet (do people still say that) and watch endless hours of cable news. One thing I've always been interested in is news, history and politics. Well, I get all of that and then some every day with the health insurance, err, health care reform being in the news every day. The shenanigans of President Obama and his merry band of Bolsheviks, along with Madame Pelosi and the "Dear Leader" Harry Reid, has been very entertaining to say the least. It's also been frustrating, sad, sometimes comical but never a dull moment. Kind of like my years spent watching Guiding Light.

So after the whirlwind of Congressional activity over this past weekend. Hours and hours of hand wringing, gnashing of teeth and fretting over whether Health Care Reform will pass or not, I decided to put my thoughts down. I certainly read enough political commentary, watch enough news and listen to enough radio to have an opinion. But not just about HCR but about life in general. Life as I see it. As Don Imus is fond of saying, "we're just commenting on the freak parade as it goes by".

So after nine months of unemployment, endless amounts of cabin fever and looking for a way to be productive, this blog was born. My baby. I thought it would help keep me sharp, entertained and be able to do something productive. You may find it witty, insightful, enlightening, humorous, dreadful, boring, meaningless and/or a complete waste of time. But it's my time to waste. And if you have positive thoughts, then my efforts were worth it.

My perspective on the world is a little difficult to describe. But in thinking about it, I thought about the difference between sitting in the grand stand or sitting in the infield of a racetrack.

Now you're probably thinking, Bucky what the hell are you talking about? Life isn't like a car race. No life isn't like a car race. Well? What I'm talking about are two groups viewing the same event from different perspectives. You see, when I was ten years old my dad took me to my first Daytona 500. Dad had been going for years. Been going since the track opened in 1959. When I was growing up in the 1970's, my parents had a motorhome and when dad went to the races, he went with all of his buddies in the motorhome and stayed in the infield at the speedway. Finally in 1976 my mom relented and I was allowed to go. It was the most incredible experience. The speedway is huge. The track is two and half miles around.

We always parked on the inside of turn one. During the race, we would climb on top of the roof of the motorhome with our coolers and chairs. We would sit or stand to watch the race. I had a headset on that tuned into AM radio so I could catch the race broadcast on the radio. That's when I fell in love with racing on the radio. But that's for another time.

Anyway, I would look at the grandstand on the front stretch (there was no back stretch grand stand in those days) through my binoculars and think, "wow! Wouldn't that be cool to be sitting up there". You see, you're not that high standing on top of the motorhome, so you can't see the entire track. But from the grandstand, I thought you could probably see all the way to the ocean from there. To me, sitting in the grandstand was the place to be. I felt as if we were relegated to the infield. But some day, I'll get there. I'll get to that grandstand.

But what I could see from the infield was still spectacular. We were on the inside of the track. So turn one was right in front of me. The banking is 31 degrees. From my perspective, it looked like a five story wall. Years, later a bunch of us kids jumped the fence and "climbed" up the turn during the night. Also a story for another time.

The perspective from the infield was exciting. The cars were right there, very loud and very fast. And I could watch them going down the back stretch and through turns three and four over a mile away through my binoculars. We would lose sight through most of the front stretch but pick them up again as they entered turn one.

But that was during the race. When the race was over on Saturday afternoon, the grand stand people all left the speedway. But you see, in the infield we were there for the weekend. We would walk around the entire infield. Technically, once you were in, you were a captive audience until after the 500 on Sunday afternoon. So we would walk over to the garage area. Look at the garages and the crews working on the cars through the fence. Mingling with the folks around us in the infield and of course the party throughout the night. Now this was the 1970's and NASCAR was a vastly different experience than what it is today. Those parties in the infield on Saturday night may not have been for a ten year old boy but that's a series of stories for another time.

We stayed in the infield until various and sundry circumstances, forced us to buy tickets and attend the races in the grandstands starting in 1992. It wasn't until then that I realized that the people in the grandstand all wish they could be in the infield. The motorhome, the party and all that comes with the experience that I took for granted. But the sight line isn't as good as it is from the grandstand I would counter. So? You see enough and you're in there for the whole weekend. Now not everyone can have an RV. I get that. But the experience is more than that. Today the infield is very expensive. It's filled with million dollar RV's and very antiseptic people, living a very antiseptic life. But in my time there and what has formulated my view of life, from inside the infield, is the fact that I may not be able to see the whole event from where I am. But I have the ability to catch up with my radio headset. And when the event is over and most folks have left the scene, I'm still there. Taking in a different experience, after the main event is over. Learning an interesting lesson, from the infield.

Now I may not be posting every day. And certainly, every post will not be on a singular topic as this is. This is a getting to know you piece. Most days it will be a disjointed, rambling, compilation of random thoughts and observations. But I want this to an enjoyable and interactive experience. I want to know what you think. I'm rarely at a loss for words. I don't know everything but I do have an opinion on everything. I'm not always right but I'm rarely wrong. I'm no Hemingway, Mickey Spillane, Charles Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker or SE Cupp. I don't have a gift of prose or the best sentenence structure. But I'll try to keep in interesting. I'll be looking at news, sports, weather, traffic (sounds like a morning radio show) politics, entertainment and whatever the hell walks across my mind.

I hope you'll come back often and join me for walk through the infield.