Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

Returned back to NH Saturday night after 2+ weeks on the island of St. Croix. Did you miss me? Some of you may have thought I just would not return, but this is not the case. As much as I love an island lifestyle, and could absolutely live there, we have bigger fish to fry at the moment my friends. Onward with the search.

A vacation like that is refreshing; I almost always come back from one rejuvenated and ready to embrace whatever there is to embrace back in normal life. And some of you are probably thinking, "He's been On Sabbatical for over 3 months now, what does he need to be rejuvenated from?" Good point, Utley, however a break is needed every so often from the monotony of everyday life, and the challenges in which every day life entails. Mission accomplished.

On top of getting plenty of sun, beach time and eating and drinking very well, the most memorable or effective aspects of the trip were the books I read. Now, at home, I occasionally read books, but don't have a super urge to get through them. At home I'm more of a newspaper and magazine reader. And TV watcher. And for those keeping score, I regularly read The Union Leader (NH's statewide newspaper), Men's Health, Esquire and Playboy. Great articles and overall useful stuff for today's male. And typically on vacations I will read some type of self help book, in hopes of gaining some new found enthusiasm to bring back to a job I don't really care for. Most of my reading is nonfiction, however there has been plenty of fiction sprinkled in there throughout the course of my days.

Along the "self help" lines, I read The Last Lecture, by Prof. Randy Pausch. Pausch was a tenured prof at Carnegie Mellon, who one day found out he had pancreatic cancer and only a few short months to live. With a wife and 3 young children, he had to decide to how to spend the rest of his days and how to leave things behind for his family. What he chose to do was create one last lecture to share with whomever chose to listen, but mainly for his kids to remember him. Inspiring reading and I recommend the book.

However, the reading that really effected me were two books by Allan Weisbecker. Some of you may or may not be familiar with Weisbecker, but he has kind of developed into a cult hero. The first book, Cosmic Banditos, was a gift from mi Peruvian amigo, who highly recommend it. It is an absurd comic romp, I'd say loosely nonfiction based. It was a short read, not terribly deep material, but what it primarily did was get me very intrigued into Weisbecker's other works. I finished Cosmic Banditos in just 3 days, and immediately ordered his second book, In Search of Captain Zero via Amazon. This book came a week later, and wow was it amazing (In between reading these two I read The Last Lecture and half of The 4-Hour Workweek, which was OK, but not ready to go there just yet...)

I began reading Captain Zero last Wednesday, hoping to finish it on Saturday, the day of my departure. Once I picked up the book, I really couldn't put it down, reading it on the porch overlooking the lush green hillside of St. Croix, the beach at Cane Bay, and finally at the airport in San Juan and the whole plane ride back to Boston. Finished it as the plane was landing, which provided a unique state of emotion, finishing the gripping story as well as ending my vacation and the thought of what's to come in my life. I won't say too much about the book, but its basically about a middle-aged surfing expat who partakes in a journey down through Mexico and Central America in search of an old friend. I don't even know how to describe the overall emotion of the story, however judging by the huge cult following of these books (aweisbecker.com) many have felt the same way. And the day I returned to NH I went straight back to Amazon and ordered his third book, eagerly waiting it's arrival.

So here I am, back in the States, in hopes of becoming a better person, a more directed person, and ready to embrace the newest stage of the "job hunt" for lack of a better term, head-on. About f'n time, some might say.

In the mean time, I will continue to live my life like a song, and see just what the future holds for one Mr. Utley...