FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Life is all about changes. Everything changes. Nothing stays the same very long. The only question is how are you going to deal with change? In his book "Who Moved My Cheese?" Spencer Johnson portrays dealing with change as either mice named ‘Sniff' and 'Scurry' and two friends named ‘Hem' and ‘Haw'. The book tells the story of what happens when their supply of cheese is moved. It is a great book and I strongly recommend it. Anyway, since life is about changes, I am making some changes myself.

As most of you know I decided to go back to school to get an engineering degree. Well, the semester is finally finished and I can now put out a few blogs on my profile before the Summer semester begins. But that is not the whole story.

Now for the rest of story.

You can be cruising along the highway known as life just happy as a clam. You don't worry about much because nothing drastic has happened and you're thinking life is just grand. Then BAM! It hits you like Sheriff Buford Pusser - a  2 X 4 right between the eyes. Then you come to your senses and realize, dang, this is for real. Your first reaction is to look back and see where you took a wrong turn only to realize that you did so many things wrong that you just don't know where to begin. All you can do is drive a stake in the ground and say, "From this point forward, it changes."

I'm driving the stake in the ground and from this point forward it changes. My "profile" blogs are going to take on a whole new meaning. They are still going to be sportically active(1), but I am going to inject some reality into it to keep it real. In short, I B4 E is just an online persona and over time you are going to get to know the man behind the curtain a bit more. I am going to talk about life and about lessons learned while trying to raise my sons to be "Modern Day Knights".

(1) Kp Kahder

So, what led to this defining moment in I B4 E's life? Well a few weekends back I was on a father-son campout with my youngest son sponsored by my church.  One of the speakers was giving a lesson and he told us that his son just turned 11 and that he only has 7 or 8 more years with him. BAM!!! Out came the 2 X 4. My oldest son is 12 and is in 7^th grade. He will be 17 when he graduates HS. That means I only have 5, maybe 6 years left to teach him to be man before I turn him loose on the world. All of his previous 12 years of life I have only been going through the motions hoping I did a thing or two right. This also means I have only 7 more years with his brother. Talk about reality setting in.

In the process of deciding what I want to do for blogging I struggled about whether or not I want to even keep it up. I thought about stopping. I even considered leaving FanNation all together. In the end I have decided that I need to keep blogging (unfortunately for most of you) but I need to keep it real.

Just before I started writing this blog, it hit me that my sphere of influence extends beyond my family. Like it or not, people are influenced by what is said on here. There are only two ways to influence people through words - positive or negative. I see a lot of negative influences and only a little of the positive. Being a father in his forties, my words influence people on FN whether or not it is realized and I need to be careful with what I say. Going forward I need to make sure the words I choose provide a positive influence. So, I want to apologize in advance if my future blogs and comments sound too fatherly. I am just trying to make positive influences in those lives that I come in contact with during my short journey on this rock.

Another change, which I hope to stick to, is to be online more on the weekends.

There are, however, some things that will remain the same. I will still be picking games once the season starts and I will still have my Top 11 list. I will still be blogging about football. It's just that my blogs will have more meaning and hopefully some life lessons for my sons, myself, and my friends out there on FN.