believe in miracles. and vinegar water…

As time goes on, and life goes on, our experiences begin to pile up. Some good. Some bad. Some happy. Some sad. Some happen on a train. Some happen on a plane. [ ok, enough Dr. Suess ]. All of our experiences impact us, in profound ways. Some impact us in a positive way, and others impact us in a negative way. The beautiful thing is the sum of those experiences get us to where we are right now. I don’t know your physical location, or what day it is that you are reading this, but your experiences have led you here – now. As for me, as I write this I am sitting in my bed, on a seemingly endless conference call, with people both in the states and not, trying not to fall asleep and passing the time by writing about my miracle – and vinegar water… Regardless, my life experience has led me to this place in life. On this conference call. Writing a blog post. Let’s take look back to get a glimpse into the miracle(s) that got me here.

The first glimpse is one into my younger days, and my first miracle. My mom.

She raised me, basically on her own. My dad was great, but he made decisions which meant that I saw him on Wednesdays and every other weekend. I don’t remember my mom and dad ever being together, except when I graduated high school and when I got married. It’s a thing, an experience, it happened. It had impacts on me that I am sure my wife and kids can describe better than anyone, including me, but life keeps on keeping on. Mine has been no exception.

Back to my mom. She is one of the strongest people I know. She has been living in pain since 1995, but keeps on going. She has a bionic knee. She bought a pile of a house and turned it into a home, nearly single handedly.

She put me first, in everything. She gave me room to live my life. To become me. She pushed me to succeed, which I did once in a while. She let me make mistakes, and I made a lot.

Like when I was in kindergarten and I karate kicked my teacher.  Pretty sure it was in her face? Back then, I was wearing cowboy boots – I am sure the school staff gave my mom an earful…

Or the first day of first grade, when I threw a fit and ran away from school. I can’t remember the details, but I think there was a crew of people trying to track me down, including my aunt. Turns out, I had run home. Instead of killing me, my mom took me back to school. I’m not sure that at the time I thought one was better than the other, death or first grade – but we wouldn’t be here now if she had chosen the violent option… And I am thankful.

Then there’s all the crazy non-sense that happened every time I got on a bicycle. She may not know much of what happened in my bicycle days, so we will leave it that way, but many of the mistakes led me to the ER. Leaving with a cast. And a mischievous grin.

And then there is the call she got from the principle, or vice principle, or whoever, of my high school saying that I was getting suspended from school. For forging a teacher’s signature. To drop a class. How dumb was that?!? Like the teacher wouldn’t know that he was not the one who signed the drop-slip thingy. Dumb…

So I had this friend… And I had this Jeep. A black, 1978 Jeep Cherokee, Levi Edition. It was sweet. Without saying too much, we made the speedometer on this Jeep come all the way around and back to zero. Chasing a Jaguar. Down mountain passes. In the winter. More than once. Talk about a miracle. I will never know how that thing stayed on the road. It was shaking so bad. I’ve never experienced an earthquake, but I imagine that it would feel similar to how that Jeep felt chugging down those hills. Going faster than the speedo had the ability to show. Fortunately, my mom never got a call from those expeditions.

Things didn’t get better in college, when she got a call from the fine folks at the place of higher education I attended saying that I was no longer welcome. After one semester… One. In my defense, what would she expect. I didn’t go to college to learn after all. I went to play baseball. Thinking about it now, maybe she was expecting that I went to college to learn. Not sure how I missed that…

I am sure there are many great accomplishments mixed in there somewhere, but I cannot think of any. Maybe she can remember a few. But through it all, she was my biggest fan. And I love her for it. And I will never be able to communicate to her how much I love and respect her for who she is.

Which leads to my next miracle.

Ms. Kari Kristine Anghis. The platinum haired, crazy clothes wearing, fireball breathing, large pizza eating, change for Pepsi giving, young woman that changed my world. Kari was, and is, the most unique, authentic and beautiful creature I have ever encountered.

A Christian, and not afraid to tell you about it.

An animal lover, and not afraid to have conversations with said animals at any random time. Any random time.

An expert in finding hair and lint on clothes, not afraid of picking it off at any random time. Any random time.

A music lover, not afraid to go to hippie concerts by herself. Not afraid to put drunk, hippie concert goers on their back for trying to put the moves on her.

A food lover, not afraid to eat with both hands. And both feet if necessary. And when it came to Noa Noa, not afraid to order enough food for herself to fill our table. And not afraid to ask me to go to another table to eat my food if I got in the way.

A dreamer, and not afraid to dream bigger. And tell others to dream bigger. Including some long hair (bleached with real bleach), bad attitude, Pepsi drinking, Copenhagen dipping, Taco Bell eating, NIN listening, baggy pants wearing, college kicked-out punk that pulled his hat down so low he didn’t have to look at anyone and who figured that working in a warehouse forever was good enough.

I don’t know how, or why she gave me the time of day. Or what she saw in me. But she did, and I thank God for it.

If I drove her anywhere, it was in a 4 door Dodge Colt ( http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dodge+colt+4+door ). This Dodge Colt was no ordinary Colt. It was purchased from a tow lot. Because someone abandoned it. For $300. It had features. Like gold paint. And when you turned right, the passenger door would fly open. I imagine that the sticker price ballooned when that feature was added. On top of all that, the back seat came loaded with rotten food and big sub-woofers. I eventually drove the Colt to the junk yard, and sold it to them. In fact, I have done that more than a few times.

In the 5 years we were acquainted, before I asked her to marry me, I made roughly… wait for it… $20k. I know I didn’t finish college, but that is something like $4k/year. Not a lot of security there. As a bonus, I had a nice bit of credit card debt.

These are definitely qualities I tell my daughter to look for in a man.

NOT.

When I finally asked her to marry me, I didn’t have enough money for a ring. So I weaved her a bracelet. I think that is what it was called. Those things you safety pin to your shoes, that are made of three or four strings max,  that you tie in knots, that are made from the same stuff you cross-stitch with ( http://lmgtfy.com/?q=easy+friendship+bracelets+for+beginners ). And then I sung her a song, which had to have sounded pathetic. Did I mention that I cannot sing?  To this day, neither one of us are sure she ever actually said yes. Until our wedding day. But the papers are signed, she can’t leave now!

The reality is, she led me to Life. Which forever changed my life. Then she willingly accepted the woven bracelet, sappy song, and forever changed my life again as my wife. I’m pretty sure we lived the Brad Paisley song – “It Did”.  I thought it couldn’t get better, but it did. She encouraged me to take a chance on a job far, far away. Which I did. That job gave us the confidence that we could add lives to our life. Those two whippersnappers changed my, and our, life again. For a guy who had no real example of how to be a husband, or daddy, this life change was and has been an experience.

I will leave the daddy days for later, but know this. We have two kids that are full of life. Full. And for a only-child, single-parent raised kid, these miracles have been an experience…

All of this led to the next miracle. The miracle that has given us the opportunity to create epoch48. In the 15 years I put in at the company far, far away, I have had opportunity. I can’t explain how it all happened, but over the coarse of those 15 years, we went from a household income that was half the median to, well, not that. I went from grunt, to not so much of a grunt, to manager, to director, to CTO. Again, unexplainable. A uneducated punk from Englewood, Colorado as an Executive of a $100M company?!?

Without getting into the details, the miracle is this. Shortly after becoming CTO, we decided to sell the company. I was part of the team who made the pitch to potential buyers. Less than a year later, we sold. It was a whirlwind for sure, quite an experience. A year and a half later, an epoch was born.

All of this rambling, and we finally come to the final miracle. And vinegar.

First, the miracle. It’s simple really. The miracle is that I realized that life is bigger than a paycheck. Job titles don’t mean and have never meant anything to me, but the money is great. Especially for someone who never really had a lot. But over the final year or so, work became a grind. The drive became a grind. I wasn’t happy and my wife suggested that I had become a suit ( https://epoch48.com/2018/01/03/nothing-but-a-suit/ ). At the same time, we were, and are still, living a life that I really never imagined was possible for me. There was this high/low, push/pull thing happening and it wasn’t healthy.

On one hand, we got to take amazing vacations as a family. On the other hand, there was work. On one hand, I got the Jeep of my dreams. On the other hand, there was work. One one hand, we live on an amazing piece of land in Sedalia, Colorado. On the other hand, there was work. The question became bigger and bigger. Did the end justify the means? Or the bigger question, what was the end? If I couldn’t define the end, how could the means justify it? Maybe if I could have finished college this would be easier?!? How ungrateful could I be? To have the opportunity that I had, and not feel content? Push, pull. High, low. Up, down. Maybe the answer was in some vinegar water?

One of the “wonderful” things that my wife (my little helper) has taught me is that soda kills. And I was a Pepsi-holic. This was a problem. As such, I eventually, through many years of trial and error, found Live Drinking Vinegars ( https://drinklive.com/ ).  Make no mistake, they are no Pepsi. But they are the best alternative I have found. Almost no sugar, super fizzy and healthy. More importantly, they come with the added bonus of what I have seen hashtagged as #capwisdom.

#capwisdom is much like what you might get from a fortune cookie, but you don’t have to eat Chinese food to get it. PTL! One of the first caps that I remember getting, was the one I still carry around to this day. I got it at the perfect time. At a low. At a point when something had to change, for my health and the health of my family. To quote a song from my long hair era by Smashing Pumpkins, “despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage”, I felt like a rat in a cage. Then, I popped the top on this blessed bottle of vinegarry goodness and found three simple words underneath. “Believe in Miracles”. That is some timely #capwisdom.

Like I said, I have been carrying this cap around for a year or so. Not as something that I think will magically change my life, but as a reminder. A reminder that there is something bigger. That my never ending question of, “what’s next?” has an answer. And then, when a low came again, the plan was born.

The suit came off! Not literally, because that would have been awkward. And because I really didn’t ever wear a suit. But figuratively. It came in the form of a zany idea. It wasn’t a new idea, Kari and I had talked about it for years. Forgive the expression from my heathen days, but the idea was to “flip off the world” and take a road trip. Then, a Ford 450 showed up in the driveway. Then a 40 foot 5th wheel showed up in our driveway. Then, everything began lining up.

And the rest is TBD. As of this writing, we have about 6 months ’til lift off. There is still a ton to do, and a ton of things that still need to fall into line. But we have faith. And it will all fall in line.

In the end, while experiences impact our lives, we cannot let them derail us from believing in miracles. Miracles are everywhere, if you decide to look for them.

How could I quit a great paying job at the peak of my success? When I have a family to take care of? Bills to pay? It’s simple.

Because we believe in miracles… and vinegar water. Do you?