Date: 2016-03-01
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Miles today: 0.0

Continued...The Spirit of Radio (Live) ¢ This song was released by Canadian rock band Rush towards the end of my 8th grade year. I had a room to myself down in the basement in our Dover, Delaware home and I would listen to Rush and Cheap Trick at Budokan (¢I want you¢¦to want¢¦ME!) on my totally cool 8-track tape player. I played air guitar and air drums while singing along with Geddy Lee¢s high-pitched voice. Years later The Spirit of Radio would become an ¢insanely hard¢ song to master on Guitar Hero. On the trail, I will focus on just hiking and singing the song, but will imagine my friends Jeff Hernandez and Jonathan Smith right behind me, deftly handling the air guitar and air drum portions of this song, respectively. If I make it to the halfway point (approximately Harpers Ferry, WV), I will replace this song with Rush¢s Limelight and/or Tom Sawyer for a little variety.Counting Stars ¢ A second One Republic song made the cut for two reasons. First, it¢s got a great rhythm to it that makes you want to hike fast. Second, I love the opening lyrics¢¦ ¢Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep, Dreaming about the things that we could be. But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard, Said, no more counting dollars¢¦We'll be counting stars, yeah we'll be counting stars.¢ For me, it¢s a reminder of a process that Janet and I worked through a couple of years ago, and a decision that came out of it. We were comfortable, making okay money, buying increasingly nicer homes, and accumulating material possessions. I guess you could say we were living the American dream. Most of my military peers retired and then returned as well-paid contractors, with the potential for double pensions down the road, tremendous wealth, and an even more comfortable retirement. We made a conscious decision to divert from that path, sell our house, and unload most of our possessions. Rather than work another two decades accumulating wealth and things, we decided to travel the country by RV, serve others, and accumulate experiences/memories. Metaphorically speaking, we¢ve chosen ¢counting stars¢ to ¢counting dollars¢. While that decision is not possible, practical, or desirable for everyone, it has worked out well for us so far and we have no regrets.Lose Yourself (Radio Friendly version) ¢ Rapper Eminem wrote this song while filming his first movie, 8 Mile, and the song is featured in the movie. The movie is based on his life growing up in a poor Detroit neighborhood, dreaming of rap stardom.The first time I heard the song, I had no clue what he was talking about. The best I could tell, a Globetrotter named Rabbit was throwing up his mom¢s spaghetti on his sweater. Over time, I have come to appreciate his passion and borderline anger in the song. Elite runners and other athletes, of which I am not, often use anger or a ¢killer instinct¢ to succeed. As strange as it may sound, you can get ¢angry¢ at the runner in front of you, generating a little extra fuel to catch him, especially at the end of a race. In the movie, the young rapper is trying to succeed and make a name for himself in the highly competitive rap world, and he¢s facing a once-in-a-life opportunity. He realizes the magnitude of the moment, and he is, quite simply, all in. His passion, anger, desperation and focus combine to help him achieve his dreams.Like the previously mentioned song Mirrors ¢fueled¢ the training for my second marathon, Lose Yourself did the same for my first. I¢m hoping I will find it just as inspirational going up and down the 400 mountain ranges of the AT. The last 10 words in the song are perhaps the most inspirational..."You can do anything you set your mind to, man." Powerful words. Like Rabbit, I feel like I realistically have one shot, one opportunity, to thru-hike the trail. Will I capture it, or just let it slip? Yo.Crazy Train ¢ This heavy metal offering from Ozzy Osbourne is supposedly about the Cold War and learning to love in a world gone mad. For me, it¢s just a fun song with a lot of energy. I picture a bunch of us crazy thru-hikers getting up to head out each morning aboard our own ¢crazy train". I imagine the guitar player from Mad Max Fury Road out in front of the pack, and I¢m in the back yelling, ¢All aboard! Hahaha!¢Fun Fact: The sound at the end of the song is a studio engineer saying "An Egg" through an oscillator. Ozzy had asked him what he had for breakfast that morning.   Now you know.What Goes Around¢¦Comes Around ¢ This second JT song to make the cut is about a relationship that collapses because of cheating. Specifically, JT¢s friend Trace Ayala was dating the actress Elisha Cuthbert (known as Kim Bauer in the television series 24). Ayala let a friend crash at his place, and the friend took up with Cuthbert, which Ayala found about later in a tabloid. The lyrics ¢Don¢t want to think about it. Don¢t want to talk about. I'm just so sick about it. Just so confused about it¢ were actually spoken by JT to Trace as they discussed the sad situation.The closest connection I have with that situation was my relationship with Karen R. in 5th grade at Reilly Brown Elementary School in Dover, DE. She was the prettiest girl in our school¢¦long brown hair with a darling Michael Strahan-ish gap between her front teeth. She was way out of my league. Still, I had the guts to call her and ask her to ¢go steady¢ with me on a Monday of Spring Break week. Amazingly, she said, ¢Yes¢. I think it might have been my 8-track tape player. Anyway, she called me back on Wednesday to tell me that she thought we should see other people. It had been two days, folks! I hadn¢t even seen her that week! Am I still bitter? You bet I am! I told my best friend, Jeff Ensslin, about it as we headed to the creek behind Fiddlers Green to go fishing. He said something to the affect, ¢Don¢t want to think about it. Don¢t want to talk about. I'm just so sick about it. Just so confused about it.¢As for the song, though, I mainly like it because it has a good hiking rhythm to it. It¢s also a song that reminds me of my two awesome sons, Jason and Kyle, as together we have jammed to that song hundreds of times since it came out in 2006.To Be Continued...