The Quote

Thursday, October 6, 2005

I should have gone to Chili’s.

But then, if I had, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this second rate food place surfing the web. I suppose that’s supposed to make up for mediocre food?

I had good intentions when I sat down here, thinking to work on preparing an outline for class and the four practice exams that I’ll be taking on Monday.

Practice exams, because for the most part, all of the courses here give you only one shot, a three hour for real exam.

But that’s Monday and right now I’ve got a few moments to write while I wait for the tire store to remove a nail from one of my tires.

And I suppose, it’s a good excuse to throw in some images from the two events that we’ve attended so far this week, the first “mass ascention” on Saturday morning and the “balloon glow” that was held Sunday night. (The balloons are kept on the ground and the idea is to light them up like light light bulbs in the darkness - way cool.)

(First day, pre-dawn launch to test wind conditions)
The whole balloon fest weekend has given fertile ground to reflection, because it was a year ago that we flew into Albuquerque and attended my first ever “International Balloon Fiesta,” all linked to Mrs’s interviews.

And now here we are, moved in, and living here.

I walk around the house at times and say to myself, “I can’t believe I live here.”

And then there are the times I walk around on campus and say to myself, “I can’t believe that I go to school here.”

There sure have been plenty of times when I wondered if going to law school would ever come about. First I got rejected, then I got accepted to ASU, then I appealed and got accepted here. And then there was that afternoon in July, when it all came to within one hour of being flushed.

One hour.

I look back at that day and as I relive the moments in print I still get the same sinking feeling in my gut that I had when I picked up the phone at 5:00 pm.

It was a Monday, July 18, just a couple of days before my birthday. Law school was scheduled to start less than 30 days away, August 16.

Just over a week prior, we signed the offer on the house in Albuquerque. I flew home and was confronted with the idea that I had less than 30 days to make it to school, and my house in Michigan had still not sold.

I stressed.

Then I stressed some more.

I remember doing laps in my pool on Thursday and coming to a conclusion. That evening I called my wife and told her the plan. “I’m dropping the house price by another 20K and if it does not sell by Monday at 5pm then I’m going to book a flight to Europe so that I can join you and the kiddies on vacation. I can’t go to law school and try to keep this financial ship afloat.”

I told her that first I would call the seller and see if I could change the closing, which I knew they would be only too happy to do, seeing how we were kind of rushing them out of their house.

I did show the house on the weekend, twice as a matter of fact. I even wrote about it. Get Your Bunz Over Here

Then came five o’clock.

I thought about waiting just another day.

I pulled up Orbitz on the computer, picked the flights to Venice and had the screen set to “buy this ticket.”

Sick to my stomach, I dialed the seller’s office.

Voicemail

I tried her cell phone.

Voicemail.

Although I could have called the law school, I was just too distressed to make the call. I got up and decided I couldn’t stay in the office one more minute. I decided that I would call the law school in the morning.

I could drive you to the place where I was when my cell phone rang.

The time was 6:05 and it was my realtor.

“Hey NSR, I think I have some good news for you.”

The rest, now, is history.

Oh yeah, and my realtor, he really knew at 5:00 but since he was out of town, he didn't call till 6.

As I told this story to one of my best clients he related the following to me, which I want to share with you.

Pulling out his planner, he turned to a section where he kept important thoughts. I want to tell you a quote, he said.

The quote, from Brian Simo, race car driver and one of the founders of No Fear Gear . . .

“The thing about failure is that you never know how close you were to success."

Keep trying.