My soul is directing my learning, for I never stop self-education. Currently, it's focusing on how to allow myself to be human and make mistakes, how to connect my creative self with my daily-mundane self, how to tap into my soul's desire for what I really want in life, how to tap into my own special talents to reach the rest of the world that hungers for knowledge.

I was invited by Elese Coit to attend The Big Chat conference in LA. It starts today, but honestly, the gas and food money won't come through until today so I'll have to start driving after the money is ready!

I was contacted by Social Media Group to see if I'd like to test drive a Mercury Mariner Hybrid and blog about it.

Both of these opportunities came through around the same time, so I asked for the Hybrid to drive to CA with. I drove it on Wed for about 8 hours and used half a tank of gas. I hope it will save us money on gas during the trip, although high speed driving uses the gas engine, and slow speeds use the electric motor.

But, I've made the drive from Denver to LA CA about 8 times, maybe less, in the past 12 years. We know it takes about 18 hours and usually costs about $600 in gas.

I blogged earlier about The Big Chat. I think I'll be doing some soul-searching to uncover or reveal the things that I'm really passionate about and learning or exploring how in the world to make a living from those things. Or maybe not. I don't exactly know what we'll be doing; it will be a surprise. Perhaps we're just going to talk about how to make positive change in the world; what conditions need to arise in order to foster change in myself or in others. I don't yet know at this point whether it will be about practical applications for my dreams, or theoretical explorations about what's possible.

Cross posted from my featured member thread on Gaia Networking.

I am grateful for my father. He's a molecular spectroscopist. He's quiet, soft spoken, intelligent, and caring. I told him about my upcoming trip to the big chat and mentioned it might be about how to be happy. He quipped,
“Happy? I know the secret to being happy.”
“What's the secret?”
“Take spectra.”
That's his job and he loves it. To take spectra means to use lasers to inspect a molecule enough to identify its various atom components. You find out what colors are absorbed and reflected and somehow can tell what atoms are there.

He went on, “I've taken spectra all my life and I'm always happy.”

Ode to my dad! He had a shirt and passed it on to me when I was a teenager. It said, “Spectroscopists do it with frequency and intensity. The Coblenz Society.”

He makes googoo faces to newborns through to toddlers in the grocery store. He quacks like a duck to them. He walks the golf course every day, not to play golf, but to walk his dog and collect stray lost golf balls. He has a collection of thousands of color sorted golf balls stored in five gallon buckets in his garage. If he ever gets his own business going, it could be called, "Bob's Balls." He re-sells the balls to the golfers in his community. It brings him joy to search for golf balls through the tall grass and shallow streams. 

Thanks, Dad, for everything you are. I love you.