My Back 9

On my way home last night I heard the song, Carolina In My Mind , by the great James Taylor. As I was listening to this sweet and soft melody my mind started drifting into a deep and contemplative place, and the thoughts have been jostling about in my own Carolina mind for quite a few hours. Typically, when this happens to me, it ends up here in the Back Nine Chronicles , I hope you enjoy. I started thinking about the last 17, almost 18 years now ( wow ) that I have lived in North Carolina, and I realized that I have actually lived here almost as long as I lived in NY growing up ( 19 years ). The other 12 years of my life ( please put your calculators away ) I have lived in Florida, the other beautiful state that I am moving back to in less than two weeks. Pondering over my years in Carolina actually brought me to tears last night, as I have so many great memories ( and....yes...some not so great ) of living here in the diverse landscape of North Carolina. For those of you who hav...

Summertime greetings to all my family, friends, and colleagues. My message comes to you on this beautiful Sunday afternoon from my office. Yes, that’s right, working on a Sunday afternoon, but as many of you who know me well can attest to, I am at my absolute best when I am the busiest. Also, my kids are not around, as they have already moved to FL. I just spoke with them, they are off to the beach ( jealous ), really miss those kids. Glad I will be seeing them next weekend, and will be moving myself ( to Fleming Island, FL ) in September. Another reason I am working on a Sunday is because I am just coming off the heels of “ kind of-sort of ” my first week back to WORK in quite some time. I just spent my first week as VP of the Dealer Network for a company called Anti-Fog Systems, a fairly new organization that has just introduced a revolutionary new anti-fog film into the marketplace. My task will be to set up a National Network of Window Film Dealers throughout the US, and n...

Greetings my dear friends. I hope this message finds you all well, getting ready for the nicer weather, and most of all; enjoying life overall. After all, isn’t that what we are all looking for? A happy, peaceful, joy-filled, and fulfilling life!! Easy to say and read on paper, a bit more difficult as we tread through our daily grind and try to identify perhaps just a few nuggets of joy, right? For me, I have been able to get my head in a good place most of the time these days, but as we all know, there is constant pressure from all sorts of places that seems to creep in at the most inappropriate times and invade our space. Pressures that really have become just part of life, and the better we prepare ourselves for these pressures the better off we are, and the quicker we can get back into that peaceful and serene head space we all strive for. In fact, my next book ( have no idea when it will completed ) is about this exact notion; fine-tuning the characteristics that one needs ...

Well, it's been a few months since my last piece. For those of you who have followed my writing over the last several years, my sincere gratitude. I embarked upon this writing journey about five years ago, and it’s my desire to continue to get better in an attempt to help myself through life as well as help others who may be experiencing similar challenges. What I have found is that it has also become an escape for me, and more importantly an opportunity for me to replace some of my prior bad habits with good habits that add value to my life and the lives of others. To set the stage for this topic, I am going to start with a reoccurring personal flaw, follow that up with a recent and timely remedy I've used to help me through the process of overcoming some current objections, and ultimately put it bow around it as I circle back to the meaning and intent of this piece. After all, as the great Socrates once said; " The stone doesn't get polished without friction, no...

I awoke last night with a vision for the New Year that has held me captive since 3AM this morning. The way I see it, the only way to break free is to write about it, and share my vision with YOU. The two words that penetrated my mind last night were Journey’s Desire . I have a strange habit of putting words together that usually don’t go together, because for some reason it helps me find the point of the arrow on a particular topic. Once I had the words down, I was able to get some much needed Christmas Eve sleep. You see, I am getting my five children later today, so I need to be prepared for Christmas at Dad’s (something I will talk more about later.) As soon as I woke up, the thoughts poured back in, so here they are in written form: This morning, my thoughts came into focus about the concept of Journey and the fact that “making the effort to live” our journey is truly the secret to life. As I thought about all that is going on in my life, I soon realized that I was actually ...

As we head into this Thanksgiving week and as I ponder over the tragedy happening at Penn State University, a deep feeling of gratitude has swept over me towards the team of people that watch over my children on a daily basis. So much so, that I feel compelled to communicate this note to all faculty members of Pathways Elementary, Stanford Middle School, and Orange High School . All five of my children ( yes 5, that’s not a typo ) have gone through Pathways and two of them are still there. I have two that have gone through the middle school ( one is there now ) and two that are currently at Orange High. Due to some extenuating family circumstances ( which for the most part have been self inflicted by me ), I have lost touch with the school systems that watch over my children on a daily basis. My message today is a heartfelt message of appreciation, gratitude and admiration for the job you do each day educating and protecting my children. Teachers and faculty members who work tire...

A friend of mine sent me a text the other day about some current events happening, more specifically the earthquake in Turkey. My radar is usually on high alert when it comes to world events, especially when so many people are involved. When I went to my computer to get an update on this tragic event, I was hit by the stark contrast of the TWO top stories of the day. Interestingly enough, the other top story of the day was that Snooky ( of Jersey Shore fame ) had recently published a new book. Forgive me that I don’t remember the title of this new Top Seller. You see, publishing a book is quite a difficult endeavor, and I wondered how Snooky seemed to have an easier time than I did getting her book to print. I guess I could look up the title of her new book like a detailed and thorough writer should, but I think I will pass. Trying not to get too caught up in myself, my second reaction was to quickly overlook this potentially very important and exciting event ( sarcasm ), and I q...