More about me??? Okay, I'll try, but don't expect much.

I've lived in San Diego, CA since the summer of 1986...Whew! There, how was that? It's difficult for me to talk about myself, but I said I would do it and I did. Trust me, it wasn't easy.

Wow. I've never opened up like this before. I feel so vulnerable, and yet so exhilarated at the same time. I'm really living life on the edge here. You're not going to use this against me right?

---

Perhaps I've beat around the bush a little too much here. I'll offer one deep thought that reflects something about myself.

One of my friends once pointed out that I refused to let the pitfalls of life bring me down. Whenever life took a wrong turn, I would somehow take pleasure or at least find relief in the fact that something could be learned from whatever it was that had taken place. This much is true. Learning and discovering are among my great passions. I felt a sense of pride when my friend called me a "glass is half-full" type of person. I had been respectfully cast into the ranks of the optimists.

Sometime after this meeting, I reflected on the compliment of being a "glass is half-full" type of person. Still feeling warm and reassured (and perhaps a bit thirsty) I began to wonder what it was that half-filled the glass. I imagined a person drinking a sweet delicious glass of juice. As the liquid was slowly consumed the individual stopped and peered into the glass to see how much juice remained. At that point, she could have thought "Oh wonderful, I've already had this much delicious juice and see how much more there is left. I truly am a lucky person." On the other hand, she might also have said "Drat! I can't believe that this is all the delicious juice I have left. I am so miserably cursed."

So then, I must consider myself lucky if I am a "glass is half-full" type of person. I am tickled by the fact that there is another half-glass of sweet delicious juice all for me. But then I couldn't help thinking "what's in the other half of that glass." The other half of the glass has stuff in it too, even if it isn't delicious juice. Just because it isn't filled with the sweet nectar that everyone seems to crave, doesn't mean it isn't filled too. Does anybody even realize that there is half of a glass here getting no attention at all? For Peter's sake, the glass is entirely full and nobody seems to care!

In a sense, I felt an attachment to the forgotten half of the glass. Not that I could associate myself to the airy half of a glass, but instead that I wanted to somehow defend it. I could think of a thousand analogies of how this example related to life and to society, and I'm sure that you would too if you tried. One that stands out to me is that we often tend to notice the sweet delicious half of life. Or, say the glass was half-filled with cod liver oil, we would notice the bitter distasteful half of life. Whatever the case, there is a third "half" to life that hardly ever gets noticed and I think it's a shame.

Beauty is found in discovery, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. It doesn't have to be a new discovery, but maybe a deeper one. I often look at my wife and see things about her that I've never seen before. There's beauty in her that everyone sees all the time, but there are also an infinite number of facets that have yet to be discovered. It's easy to love the good things about someone and, surprisingly, even the bad ones can help strengthen a relationship too. But there is beauty in discovering that other half. I take pride in my friend's compliment of being a "glass is half-full" type of person, but I aspire to be one who sees that the glass is entirely full.

---