I have had the strangest day.

Waking up in a strange bed usually doesn’t throw me the way it has today, but for some reason, I just feel a little bit off. I woke up feeling groggy and stiff and forced myself into 25 minutes of cardio at the gym. (cute new Doctor thinks I’m fat) I was shooting for 30 minutes, but after 25, I was bored and my right foot was just a tad bit numb, so I called it quits and headed home.

Nothing of consequence happened until I started to get dressed for work at like 1:30pm. As I was standing there in my Ted Baker suit, trying to decide upon which tie would best bring out the blue stripes in the H&M dress shirt, my fingers floated across a tie I picked up on my travels to Kyoto, Japan. Its a very simple tie done in dark blue with a very famous Buddhist prayer in white Kanji script. My favorite tie. I chose this tie and took a moment to remember when I bought it.

I was in Kyoto on my own. At the time, I had an amazing boss who allowed me two weeks in Asia on a business meeting. While I was there, I phoned home and added a week in Japan for vacation since I was already there. She told me to contact the office in Kyoto and she’d allow me to expense the whole damn week. I was only too happy to oblige her request.

So this morning as I was tying my tie, I thought back to that trip and how happy I was to be traveling, and seeing the world and I said to myself that I wish I had an opportunity to travel again.

Fastforward to the arduous commute home. I called Double D’s friend Miss Cleo to take her up on her offer of a psychic reading. We talked for over an hour and a quarter while I maneuvered my way home thru the crush of traffic and stop-lights. She brought up some very good points and made some very dead on observations. But the thing that caught my fancy more than anything else was her mention of a “walk-a-bout(tm)”. She told me that within a year, I’d be leaving Chicago to go on a world-wide trip. I’d finally get a chance to see the world and better yet, I’d be given an opportunity to share my truly unique view of things with others. So now that Miss Cleo has spoken… the task is mine to take upon…