Of paperwork and adventure

Paperwork ate up most of my day. Too bad as it was a really nice one too. It's almost as bad as those poor kids who are back in school now. I bet we all were looking out the window wishing we were doing something else.

With any luck all the head scratching will save me grief later on in the year when my lovely wife and plan on traveling. Being foot lose and fancy free can take a lot of planning. We aren't planning our trip in the sense of knowing what we'll do every day. What we are doing is setting things up so we'll have options. Part of that is putting as much of our business on autopilot as possible.

Basically I'm trying to accomplish what we attempted to do last year. I was working towards simplifying our financial life and then our credit union got bought out by a bigger institution. It took months to sort out the mess that caused. They did things like set up a whole new on-line banking system, then totally scrap that and start with something else -including all new passwords and bank cards. Things that one week were impossible to do became mandatory.

It did get me thinking about all those people who've gone off and had adventures. How much mind numbing stuff did they have to deal with before heading out? Anything requiring a bit of money and manpower must have been a nightmare. Personally I'd rather deal with crocodiles and bears.

Then I think about Joshua Slocum who was the first to sail around the world single handed. He had very limited funds. The guy rebuilt an old derelict yawl and set out with no support. He sailed around the world and wrote a darn fine book about it. It's amazing what he was able to do with such limited funds.

On the other hand, while his funds were limited, he had a vast store of knowledge to draw upon. His skills encompassed all things nautical, from boat building to navigation. He even had pirates to contend with. Slocum was a fine example of the value of skills and mental toughness.

So when I get a bit overwhelmed with mundane things, I think of what the old sea captain was able to accomplish. There's no sense in letting the little things get in the way of grander schemes.

-Sixbears