Bored?

Motorcycle racing is a glorious sport. If I had known then what I know now I would have never married, never had children, never bought a house, and probably never joined the ranks of civilized society. No, I'd be living in the back seat of a pickup truck spending all of my money on racing.

You see, racing is an addiction and I've been told that I have a thrill-seeking, addictive type personality. If I was growing up today I'd be labelled an ADHD kid. But, we didn't know what that was back then. I was just a hyper kid who was too smart for his own good who got bored really easily. Boredom defined my life growing up.

"Allan, how are you."

Me: "Bored."

"How was school?"

Me: "Boring."

"How was church?"

Me: "Booooooriiiiiiiiiiiing." (Eyes rolling up in my head)

Very few things kept my attention unless I could get totally lost in them. I read a lot of books and I played in the woods. Hunting grasshoppers with a bb gun was a favorite pastime as was blowing things up with firecrackers or simply burning thing up. You wouldn't think that burning ants with a magnifying glass would be engrossing, but the ants keep on coming and the fun never ends until the hot summer sun goes behind a cloud or drops too low on the horizon.

I was too smart for school. I didn't need the endless repitition and homework. I just picked things up easily. Still do. But, schools back then didn't have talented and gifted programs or allow kids to skip grades. At least mine didn't. Programs for exceptional kids meant kids that were exceptionally below average or exceptionally disturbed. Kids like me got straight As, never caused problems, and were basically ignored.

So I hated school. I was yanked kicking and screaming, quite literally, to my first day of public education and finished 12 years later with an internal scream of relief. Imagine my suprise to discover that I loved college. I chose my own classes. I loaded up on so many classes that boredom was out of the question. Plus the classes were challenging and interesting. In four years of school I completed 175 credit hours of classes spanning the required electrical engineering curriculum plus philosophy, history, Russian, Spanish, and literature. I loved it. Funny what freedom did to my educational experience. Transformed it from a mind-numbing chore to a constant quest for more knowledge.

That's carried over to my life today as a doddering, 41-year-old engineer. I still constantly search for the new, the stimulating, and the exciting. I know I'm getting older and I guess I've gained some maturity, but I still feel young and I'm still trying to discover everything that life has to offer me. Sure, life sucks sometimes, but it's amazing what freedom has done to remove the boredom from my life.

So, does a blog need a general topic or theme? What can you look forward to if you drop in every now and then? Well, I'm here for me. To get my feelings out and put down in words what's going on in my life. So, I'll probably be writing about motorcycle racing, computers, relationships, and my ongoing exit from the clutches of the beast, the abominable church, the so-called-church (TSCC), the cult that is variously referred to as the Mormons, the LDS, or more concisely, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Later.