What is it with guys leaving their jobs to “spend more time with their family?”  The other day a local government administrator announced he was leaving his six-figure job to “tend to family matters.” General McCrystal, Tiger Woods, some guy from the Walmart corporate office…and the list goes on.

I’m not knocking legitimate issues for some, and maybe most, of these people. Family illness, kid problems - these are legitimate reasons I think for not working full-time. And if you find out your life expectancy just got shortened before your bucket list was complete - by all means, spend your last days with the people you love.

But really - leaving a job that pays more than the GDP of some third-world countries without one of those reasons?  Tiger Woods salary could pay down the national debt in about 3 years - he’s giving that up to spend more time with family? A little advice Tiger - the last thing your wife wants to do with you after learning of your filandering escapades is to spend ANY TIME with you. I guess she let you know that when she took you for 850M.

What ever happened to integrity in your own self-evaluation? If you as a general or a CEO or public servant know you are a total screw-up and didn’t fulfill your contractual obligations, if you sank the international company into the financial toilet, if you opened your big mouth and let the whole world know you are an intellectual moron sometimes — why don’t you just man-up and say it?

We are a fairly forgiving society for most events - example, that umpire who publicly admitted he really messed up the baseball history books by making a bad call. We all sighed in unison and held out our collective arms to give him the “we’ve-all-made-stupid-mistakes-in-our-lives-too” hug.

Stop hiding behind the commonly-used-today excuse of becoming a “victim” of your circumstances. Give us a chance to believe that MOST people do have integrity, and restore our faith in the “I made a mistake, and I’m sorry” explanation. So that we, too, can recognize the value of admitting mistakes and making it right in our own personal worlds.

Man-up, or woman-up as the case may be, and let’s bring back the integrity of personal ownership and responsibility for our actions.

PS -If you are leaving a position because you were just pronounced with a date-to-meet-your-Maker, my prayers are with you. Go hug your family a lot.

The view from Grand Mesa

I took a drive up on Grand Mesa yesterday. It’s been a while since I ventured up on the big flat-topped mountain that we used to spend just about every weekend camping, fishing and just getting away from the heat of GJ.

Normally, we would have been going up in a pickup with either a tent, a camper or a trailer behind. But my little red sports car took me up the Delta side very well. (Well, okay it isn’t REALLY a sports car, but it cornered just fine at 70 mph on the mountain roads )

As is usual this time of year, the top of Grand Mesa is green, green, green and the lakes are the clearest blue you can imagine. As I topped the switchback and drove up to Ward Lake, I remembered all those times of making the trip with kids — in the back of a camper, in the back of a pickup (yes, back in the old days it wasn’t a big deal!), or just in the back seat.  Most of my nephews and nieces have made that trip at least once in their lifetime, and some are still making the trip as adults.

Some new generations of fishermen/persons

All the boys made the trip too many times to count -  for camping, fishing and even skiing during the winter. Kaiser creek, Weir and Johnson, Eggleston Lake…all have memories of kids and fishing poles, and cooking hot dogs on an open fire, and smores, and ….rain, and mosquitos and skunks. Boy, have we had some adventures!

Makes you wish you were there!

One time the pickup broke something on the way up, and we literally pitched a tent on the side of the dirt road; another time the mosquitos were SOOOOO bad we actually had to pack up the tent and go home, we couldn’t even be outside for 5 minutes!

Most of the trips were uneventful, from the serious side, and tremendously eventful-ly full of memories - at least from our side. Kids remember things so differently, I’m not sure they could tell you much about it.  We have a picture of Alex camping at Vega Lake at about 3 months old, which is probably why the mountains are his favorite place to be.

Of course, kids grow up and other priorities in life take over - baseball, band, FFA, etc. and little by little camping on a regular basis went away. But driving up there yesterday by myself gave me time to ponder about life’s joys - and Grand Mesa certainly is one of those great joys! So thanks to all our kids, nephews and nieces for making it so much a part of our lives!

Ward Lake on the biggest flat-topped mountain in the world

There is a stretch of about 30 miles of land between Grand Junction and Delta that is know “affectionately” as the Stinking Desert. It’s always humorous to hear how surprised people are to see the barren land on the far west side of Colorado. Most people assume that all of Colorado looks like the pictures of Maroon Bells (the famous mountains outside of Aspen, that appear on all the postcards!)

We live at the edge of the high mountain desert - where the desert and the mountains meet. Because of that, anywhere that does not have a constant water supply (by a lake, river, irrigation canals, etc) is mostly dirt and scruffy greenish/brown bushes.

Except for about 3 weeks in spring - if we had a good, wet winter, and some spring rain - when the desert is “green.”  That is the desert this week - greener than usual, and more pleasant to view when driving the highway between the two above-mentioned cities.

And we have been doing a lot of that driving in the past few days and last 2 months. We are moving back to Grand Junction, where we lived for many years. Having been in Delta County for the past 10 years, we have made the decision to move back to the most western city in Colorado, so we can expand our business and do a few more things on our “bucket list.”

We opened an office in March, and have the opportunity to lease out our house while it is still for sale. So we are making the journey back - and probably not surprising if you believe old Indian lore.

The story has something to do with the Ute Indians, original occupants of the area, who claim if you don’t take some of the dirt from the area with you, it will draw you back. So, guess we did it wrong! Forgot the dirt!

We are excited about our next big adventure - you know, things like this either keep you young, or wear you out faster, either way we are ready!

We are opening a bigger office at same location that Marc worked for 8 years - he says his office will be in the same spot he was in 18 years ago when he first went to work at Pyramid Printing. Probably has something to with the dirt, too!