What's Another Word for Thesaurus?

Who built the Egyptian pyramids?

Are we alone in the universe?

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that even He couldn't eat it?

Until recently, I'd long considered these to be the most unanswerable questions facing mankind. Then my wife got pregnant. Now, after five months and four hundred and seventeen iterations of "So, are you ready for the baby?" I'm changing my tune.

Forgive my frankness as well as my French, but how the f#@k * should I know if I'm ready for this baby? If by "ready" you mean that I've purchased a crib and I'm not running a meth lab out of my basement, then yes, by all means, I'm ready.

But if by "ready" you mean I'm prepared for the myriad of lifestyle changes and overwhelming increase in responsibility the birth of my son is sure to bring, then, well, there's just no answer for that one. After all, this is going to be a rather big shock to my system.

Baby's have never really been my thing. The next diaper I change will be my first. To the best of my knowledge, I've never even held a child under the age of two. And I'm pretty sure a few of my cousins were in high school before I realized they had joined the family. Does this make me a bad guy? Well, probably. But does it make me any less "ready" for my baby than the next guy? N....yeah, you're right, it probably does that too.

But so what? I've got to believe you will never be less prepared for anything in your life -- save for perhaps your first prostate exam -- then the birth of your first child. What can I possibly use to gauge my likelihood of success? The only thing I've ever been responsible for is my dog Maci, and she's best known around these parts for having consumed an entire carbon fluorescent light bulb I inadvertently locked in her crate with her. Whoops. That resulted in one of the three emergency room visits she's had in her two years under my watch. I realize these are not good omens.

But that is the most beautiful -- and terrifying -- fact about procreation: there are no minimum skills requirements. You've got to muster a GED before you can be trusted with the deep fryer, but any asshole can make babies. As a result, people far dumber and more irresponsible than me have been pumping out kids for centuries, and the human race has still managed to evolve to the point where the global economy is thriving, modern medicine has made pandemics a thing of the past, and technology has become so advanced, with the click of a mouse I could tell you what Ashton Kutcher is doing RIGHT NOW.** So most people must be getting this child rearing thing right, right? And since most people shouldn't be trusted with anything more complex than a ball of string, how hard can raising a kid be?

Here's the basic blueprint as I see it. As infants you feed them, clean up after their messes, and slowly indoctrinate them into hating the things you hate. As they grow older you nurture their inquisitive side, encourage them, and force them to walk home from the Little League field if they don't get three hits. And finally, as they mature into adults, you love them unconditionally, support their dreams, and if all goes well, they'll repay you by shattering your heart and moving 2,000 miles away. Then you're done. That doesn't sound that bad, does it?

Look at it this way. Lauren's been preparing for this her entire life. From her role as babysitter to kindergarten teacher to my wife, she's garnered more experience dealing with infantile behavior than most. And SHE'S freaking terrified of what's to come. That shouldn't make me feel better, but it does.

So to answer every one's question, no, we're probably not ready. But we'll be OK. Sure I've almost killed my dog on several occasions, but I also love her to an unhealthy degree. And I'm confident Lauren and I will love our son exponentially more, provided of course he takes to playing fetch as quickly as Maci did. That should keep him sleeping through the night.

And if nothing else, having a son will provide years of material for writing annoying songs on my guitar. I just finished one for Lauren titled "I Like the Way Your Feet Taste in the Morning," but apparently it infringed on an earlier copyright.

Butch Walker’s Five Minute Songwriting Challenge - More amazing videos are a click away

*F#@k not actually of French origin

**first two evolutionary accomplishments may not have happened

One Year

As I sat down to write today, it dawned on me that this post might come off as a touch self-congratulatory. But then I realized that an entire blog devoted to oneself is, by definition, rather self-congratulatory, isn’t it?

One year ago today was the single worst day of my life. If you’re reading this, it’s rather likely you know why that was, so there’s no need to rehash the facts.

I was convinced life was over. For the first time, it was reasonably possible that I would die, my misconceived veil of immortality having been ripped from me with just a few words from my neurologist. And if I didn’t die, I was certain that life with an inoperable brain aneurysm – or life after surgery if it were operable – would leave me a shell of my former self, both physically and cognitively.

While many of the events of that day have been mercifully blocked from my memory, one thing I remember quite vividly was a phone conversation I had with my dad. Ever the blind optimist, he assured me that one year from that day, the aneurysm would just be a memory. Impossible as it may have seemed at the moment, life would again be exactly as it were before my diagnosis, he promised.

I thought he was full of shit. This wasn’t a problem with my knee or ankle or shoulder. It was my brain. Injure your brain, and you’re impacting the fundamental core of what makes you, you. I use my brain for a living, and it’s a living that’s gradually earned me the flexibility to reside in Aspen and enjoy the kind of life I’d always dreamed about. And that life is anything but sedentary. Here was my father, promising me an uninterrupted career and a return to a life of hiking, running, climbing, skiing…all at altitudes in excess of 8,000 feet. As much as I appreciated his positive attitude, it simply wasn't meshing with what Lauren and I were finding in our research. We quickly learned that the majority of aneurysm stories ended very badly, with 70% of ruptures dying within 24 hours and those surviving surgery to repair an unrputured aneurysm left with a lifetime of physical pain and neruological deficit. For obvious reasons, I left that conversation doubting the wisdom and dismissing the confidence of my dad.

As usual, I was wrong. And my father, as usual, was right.

Though to be fair, my dad’s prediction wasn’t entirely accurate. Life isn’t exactly the same as it was once was. It’s much, much better.

While cognitively and physically I’m the same person I once was, enjoying all the athletic pursuits I had written off as gone forever, I’ve also spent the past year learning to play the guitar. While that may not sound like much when compared to say, walking and talking, it had been a lifelong dream of mine to achieve the modicum of skill necessary to annoy friends at a campsite. With the recovery from surgery providing me ample time to learn, I can now rest assured that I’ll someday have the joy of embarrassing my children with a slightly off-key version of “Brown Eyed Girl.”

As you might expect, I love my wife much differently than I did a year ago. I believe that an experience like this will either strain a relationship beyond repair, or forge a bond of love and respect so strong that a husband and wife can handle anything that life may throw at them. I’d like to believe our experience has been the latter. Lauren is my hero, but there’s more on that later.

And of course, Lauren and I are due to meet our first child in roughly seven weeks. That, more than anything, puts things in perspective for me. One year ago, we were facing eight hours of brain surgery and an uncertain future. I kissed my wife goodbye that morning not knowing if it would be our last. Thirteen months later, we’ll be welcoming our son into the world. Miracles do happen.

They say the only value in an experience is what you learn from it. And that, more than anything, is what I wanted to write about. My intention is not to pat myself on the back for the miracle I’ve been blessed with but to share some of what I’ve gained from the past year of my life.

So what have I learned?

First and foremost, I’ve learned that I know nothing about strength. Prior to this experience, I’d fancied myself as strong in a mental and emotional sense.

It’s funny which life experiences people who haven’t faced adversity use to measure their fortitude. By overcoming challenges at school, or work, or in the last five miles of a marathon or final 1,000 vertical feet of an ascent, you begin to perceive yourself as “tough” or “strong.”

Then life deals you your first real hardship, and you quickly discover just how weak you are. Despite all the blessings I’ve experienced since the surgery, the predominant theme in my life for most of the past year has been fear. Fear of dying. Fear of widowing my wife, or of never getting to meet my son. Fear of never again being the man I once was. That unrelenting fear made my recovery infinitely more difficult that it needed to be, as I’ve experienced first-hand the debilitating physical and mental repercussions of stress and anxiety.

Meanwhile, my wife, who I initially feared would struggle with the pain of watching her husband face his mortality and the burden of nursing him back to health, has shown me just what strength is. What she has been through has been unimaginable. While others would look at me in September, with my scar healed and hair re-grown, and assume the worst was over, Lauren’s struggle had just begun. For a year she’s had to deal with my panicked response to every ache and pain, every anxious wait for test results, and each bad dream that’s raised me from my sleep. As a consequence, her first pregnancy, while not an afterthought, has not received nearly the attention it deserves. And for that I’ll feel guilt for the rest of my life.

Admittedly, much of my fear has been the by-product of pushing the physical side of my recovery. There have been countless days where I’ve been running or skiing while a silent war waged in my brain between the excitement of “It feels amazing to be out here doing this again!” and the fear of “Should I be out here doing this again?”

Over time, I’ve resolved this conflict by realizing that the answer to this question is an unequivocal “yes.” Life doesn’t stop; certainly not at thirty-three years old. While the natural inclination after something like a brain aneurysm might be to completely reconfigure your value system and give up on much of your old life in favor of self-preservation at all costs, you have to resist that urge.

There are many people, some very close to me, who feel the things I used to do need to stop. No more endurance racing. No more backcountry skiing. The risk simply isn’t worth the reward, they say. But that’s faulty logic. We take risks in all we do in life, from negotiating traffic on the Garden State Parkway to eating sushi from the supermarket. And if there’s one thing I learned last spring, it’s that none of us are promised tomorrow.

Perhaps by avoiding risk we can live to see ninety. Or maybe we’ll get mowed down by a drunk driver while crossing the street, with nothing to show for it but a lifetime of overly-cautious decisions and missed experiences. But one thing is certain: by avoiding all risk, we also willingly forsake one of life’s greatest feelings: that moment when you redefine your self-imposed limitations and surprise yourself by what you’re truly capable of. Not to sound cliché, but we do only get one shot at life. How much do you want to leave on the table?

My sister is running her first marathon this coming weekend. She's got three kids, two bad knees, and not one compelling reason to run 26 miles. She's doing it solely because she wants to know if she can. To experience it, regardless of the inevitable pain and suffering it will inflict. Many people will never understand that way of thinking. But after next weekend, Karen will never have to wonder again. She'll have learned something about herself that she may otherwise have never known. How do you accomplish that without risk?

I can’t change the fact that physical pursuits bring me a joy and sense of being alive that I find difficult to duplicate. And while I’m fairly certain having a child will relieve the need to do some of these things and forever alter my risk tolerance, I’m also fairly certain that my children would rather not see their father sitting on his ass on the couch all day. What kind of message would I be sending them if I used this experience as an excuse for all things from this point forward? If I never moved on from the one bad experience in my life? Who wants to explain to their son, “Daddy had to quit living out of fear of dying?”

Earlier this week, I had a moment of doubt about whether I’d been irresponsible with some of the things I’d been doing post-surgery, so I called my mom to get her opinion. Midway through my question, she interrupted by telling me, in a way that only an Eastern European mother could pull off, that she would “kick my butt” if I didn’t get back to living my life to the fullest. And I love her for that more than she can ever imagine.

But if you take nothing else away from my story from the past year, take away the understanding that happy endings do indeed exist. Sure, life can seem cruel and unjust at times, but every once in a while, it can go the other way too. Life can be beautiful. Life can be just. Life can smile upon you, handing you miracles you never thought possible.

The One Where I Meet Joan Cusack

I must say, April 15th has a nasty habit of getting in the way of my little hobby here. Though to be fair, not much has happened since my last post.

While Lauren spent her spring break traveling back to New Jersey to be showered with tiny, baby-sized gifts in a pre-birth ritual whose name escapes me at the moment, I stuck it out in Aspen hobnobbing with the likes of Joan Cusack (ski trip), Lance Armstrong (baby mama drama), and disgraced Yankee Alex Rodriguez (laying low from steroid/prostitute scandal under guise of hip rehab). Mrs. Cusack seemed particularly friendly, though several things she said left me suspicious that she may have mistaken me for a certain Sixteen Candles castmate with whom I share some physical characteristics, which may explain her gregariousness. Very hot! Very hot!




Once reunited, Lauren and I set out to begin preparations for the arrival of as-yet-unnamed-baby Nitti. Rooms were painted, furniture built, and impulsive purchases made. (A Patagonia puffy vest for a one year old? And it's on sale? We'd be stupid NOT to buy that!)

Lauren's pregnancy has been progressing nicely, free from physical ailment, and with only the rare emotional outburst or sign of impatience. Fortunately for me, the cosmos have a way of evening things out, and when my wife goes against her natural instinct and gets a little cranky, it usually backfires on her.

Case in point: we're in the grocery store the other day, and I'm quickly growing miserable, as tends to happen whenever I find myself in a grocery store. I'm trying to rush Lauren through the process, and she's growing increasingly annoyed. She stops by the deli counter to order some lunch meat, but rather than wait with her, I continue on, grabbing everything I can to speed the whole ordeal up. After a couple of minutes, I'm really getting frustrated that Lauren hasn't left the deli counter yet, so I yell to her from 15 feet away and ask what's taking so long. Now, this is probably the third time I've asked her, and she's seven months pregnant, so basically she's a race car (palindrome!!) in red at this point. Her frustration mounting, she yells back to me, within earshot of many fellow Citymarket shoppers, "I'LL BE RIGHT THERE. I'M JUST CUTTING THE CHEESE!!"

You probably think I'm embellishing this story or subtly changing the structure of her response to make it more incriminating, and as much as I'd like to tell you -- for Lauren's sake -- that this is the case, it simply isn't. That's exactly how it went down. Now, to her credit, as soon as Lauren realized what she said, she broke into laughter, but the damage was already done. We both learned valuable lessons that day: Lauren learned that yelling at your pain-in-the-ass husband in public can have unintended consequences, and I learned that a nonsensical colloquialism for flatulence can still make me laugh my ass off. It was win-win.

The impending arrival of baby Nitti really started to hit home this Monday, however, as Lauren and I began that parental rite of passage known as Lamaze Class. We've only been through one class, but it's proved quite valuable so far. In just two hours of classroom time, many of our preconceived notions of childbirth have been forever changed. For example, did you know that the average labor for a first-time mother lasts 15-18 hours, the typical hospital stay is two days from the moment of delivery, and much to my surprise and dismay, in today's modern hospitals you can expect little to no stork involvement?

Who knew?

America's Uphill

A big weekend here in the mountains. On Saturday, I returned to the scene of my medical de-pantsing, the America's Uphill Race on Aspen Mountain. Last year, this race was followed by a panicked trip to the emergency room, kicking off the month long comedy of errors that finally led to the discovery of a brain aneurysm in late April.

I don't really care to get into all the reasons why I felt it was important to get back out there this year and do the race again, so let's just leave it at this: if 10 months after surgery I could climb the 3,260 vertical feet from the bottom of Aspen Mountain to its summit, it would go a long way towards feeling like this experience was (at least physically) behind me.

The race started at 7 AM, and thanks to the early March changing of the clocks (selfish farmers), it would begin in darkness. My wife was kind enough to resume the role of team manager and snap this pre-start photo.

A close up just minutes prior to the gun going off. To my right is eventual race winner Ricky Gates, who nearly set a record by running the full height of Aspen Mountain in a shade over 41 minutes. For the third year in a row, I opted for the "Heavy Metal" category, meaning I would be skiing up the mountain with my touring setup.

Lauren snapped this photo just after the start, as the competitors start making their way up the steep face of the Little Nell trail.

Once the race began, Lauren embarked on the most expensive gondola ride in Aspen history. Back in September, when Baby Nitti was just a twinkle in her eye, Lauren laid out $400 for a season's ski pass that has remained unused courtesy of the sudden change to Lauren's center of gravity. Today, she finally got some return on her investment by enjoying the 14 minute ride to the summit so she could wait for me to finish. Once on board, she snapped this photo of the race unfolding a couple hundred feet below.

Lauren's quite proud of this shot back towards town. Red Mountain, home to many of the uber-wealthy, in the background.

My girl waiting patiently at the summit.

Skiing to the finish line, 1 hour and 17 painful minutes from the start.

Here I am posing alongside a big mountain. And those peaks behind us aren't too shabby either! HEY-O!!! I kid, I kid. My wife is more beautiful than ever; I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to make a semi-forced, poorly-crafted play on words at her expense.

At the risk of getting a bit mushy, I'm damned proud to have pulled this off so soon after a life-threatening event. Saturday's race now sits atop my list of greatest accomplishments, easily supplanting the previous #1, having lived 33 years without once wearing jean shorts, typing LOL, or utterering the words "party foul."

The Fog is Getting Thicker. And Leon's Getting Larger!!!!!!!

I know what you're thinking. How do I do it? How do I drag myself away from that face and that growing belly filled with promise and go ski every Sunday morning? It ain't easy, I'll tell you that much.

But life as a CPA has sort of forced my hand. From January until April 15th I'm required to spend six days a week in the office. That leaves only Sunday morning for a foray into the surrounding mountains, and for the sake of my sanity amidst all those hours of labor, it's probably best that I do it.

In some of my weaker moments, I grow concerned that people may be getting weary of seeing photo after photo of skiing and skiing-themed landscapes on this here website. But then I remind myself, this IS a blog about Aspen, after all. Skiing is just sort of what goes on out here from November through May. You wouldn't go to TMZ.com and expect to see anything but an endless string of images featuring a tubby Jessica Simpson, would you? I think not.

The goal for today was a bit more ambitious than the previous Sunday. With temperatures expected to rise into the high 40's, we needed to get high in order to find the goods. Enter Green Mountain, with a summit elevation of 12,054 and a north face capable of holding mid-winter quality snow while the east through west aspects get cooked.

Today we had the privilege of skiing with Aspen avalanche forecaster Brian McCall. Brian is a veritable wealth of knowledge about all things off-piste, and having him join on a tour means that even by accident, you're bound to end the day more knowledgeable about your surroundings than you were when it started. Here's Brian working his way up Express Creek road, which would serve as our access to the foot of Green Mountain.

The skies were a brilliant blue all day, and even with a hut located nearby, we didn't see another human throughout our trip. The meadows of lower Green Mountain looked undisturbed, save for a solitary skin track put in by skiers on some day previous.
Sarah during a brief break under a sweltering sun.

This might well be my favorite photo of the year. It's a shot of Brian leading up to the saddle that would grant us access to the east ridge of Green Mountain. I'm no photog, but there's something rather cool about the fact that he appears to be shadowed while everything else is so well illuminated.
A view from the saddle back towards the valley. These shots always give perspective of just how far we've come.

The summit of Green Mountain afforded us the most inspiring panoramic views imaginable. Here's a shot of the rarely-seen north face of Star Peak.

Mace Peak in the foreground, West Pearl back center, and East Pearl in upper left-hand corner.

The east face of Castle Peak.

Cathedral Peak, including the begging-to-be-skied Pearl Couloir in the right-hand side of the photo. This was on my to-do list last spring until, uh...plans were changed.

A shot of yours truly on the summit. Not much to look at behind me.

Sarah getting it done. My tracks to the left.

Brian enjoying the fruits of his labor.

Halfway finished with our descent, a view of the Markley hut. If you click on the photo to enlarge, you can see a group packed up and ready to depart after a night at the hut.

From there, it was only 800 vertical feet to Express Creek Road followed by a 10 minute gradual descent back to the car. Thirty minutes later I was back at home, reunited with my girls.

A Walk in the Mountains

Like any good husband with a pregnant wife at home, I decided to spend my Sunday morning cavorting around the woods with two unmarried women.

Our goal was to climb and ski Williams Peak, a small, low-angled mountain near Glenwood Springs. A tour on Williams is really more about getting out into the mountains for a scenic walk and avalanche-safe descent, as the terrain simply isn't big enough or steep enough to offer a thrill or pose a threat.

Lori and Sara working the skin track along the ascent route. Lori previously taught with Lauren in Pennsylvania and made the move to Aspen at the same time in August 2006. My wife and I are still repaying a Karmic debt to Lori from that summer, stemming from a glowing recommendation Lauren had given Lori of some movers we were planning to use for our cross-country relocation. They had given Lauren an estimate that was $2,000 less than the competitiors, and my wife, God bless her, had apparently never been taught the age old adage, "If something appears too good to be true, you're probably getting mixed up with the Russian mafia."

Luckily, Lori took the bait and was the first to use the movers. I think she's still waiting for her kitchen table to arrive.

Nearing the wind-blown summit of Williams Peak. Cool Donnie Darko-esque cloud formations hovering above the peak.

Once on the summit, a couple of shots of the surrounding peaks. Here's a view of the Crystal Couloir on the western flank of Mt. Sopris. I skied from the east summit of Sopris in May of 2007, chronicled in great detail here, but have yet to make it to the west summit.

A shot of perhaps the Elk Range's most famous summit, Capitol Peak. By my best count, it's only been skied six times. Perhaps it's because the approach looks like this?

After a victory shot of the three of us standing on the summit (photo ommitted due to boogie issues on the only male member of the group. these things happen at 11,000 feet), we enjoyed six to eight inches of light powder on the northern flank of Williams. Here's Sara getting her tele-turn on.

/pulling out my best Chris Farley as interviewer impression.

Remember that ocular-illusion photo from the movie Mallrats? And remember how that guy from My Name is Earl becomes obsessed with it because he can't relax his eyes enough to see the hidden sailboat? And remember how at the end of the movie he gets so angry he kicks the picture and inadvertanty saves the day for that other guy from My Name is Earl? That was cool.

/ends impression. Sheds tear for Farley's early demise.

Well, this is just like that, except completely opposite. Somewhere in this photo is a big-ass porcupine. Can you spot him? No? Loser.

Moments of Clarity

Life's a rather funny thing. One minute you're a single guy on the prowl, boozing until 2AM, sleeping through noon, and generally leading a life of sloth and decadence. The next thing you know, you're pushing a shopping cart down the aisle of a suburban Denver Babies R Us, having an impassioned discussion with your wife as to whether the many uses of Butt Paste warrants its inclusion in your ever-growing registry.

I'm fairly certain every father has that "Come to Jesus" moment when the reality of their soon-to-be-irreversibly changed existence kicks them squarely in the ass. For some, that moment may come at the sight of the first + sign on some hastily purchased, self-administered pregnancy test, while for others, that moment may not arrive until they're slapped with a paternity suit while enjoying a light lunch at a local Denny's. Either way, it's coming.

For me, that moment undeniably arrived this past weekend, as Lauren and I made the three-hour journey to Denver in order to take part in the expectant parent rite of passage that is registering at Babies R Us.

Saturday also doubled as Valentine's Day, so I wanted to put on my best performance for my wife. The way I looked at it, she's shown infinite patience with my constant complaining about every ache and pain I've experienced for the past eight months. The least I could do was grin and bear it through a marathon effort in a crowded retail establishment, which if I understand my Dante correctly, is one of the seven levels of hell.

The first thing I had to overcome was the vernacular. If I spontaneously decided to take up cricket, the terminology wouldn't provide as great a hurdle to comprehension as the stuff I heard on Saturday. Pack and Play? Breast pump? The aforementioned Butt Paste? Look...individually I'm aware of the definition of each of those words. Hell, the majority of them have made me giggle like a schoolgirl for the better part of the past three decades. But put them together and I couldn't be more lost as to their meaning or their potential impact on my impending fatherhood.

My only source of solace was that Lauren was learning as she went as well, so we took the day slow and steady, emphasis on the slow. Like four-and-a-half hours in Babies R Us slow. And by the time we were finished, with 60+ items of varying price and practical application scanned and added to our online registry, Lauren and I were both physically and emotionally spent. After all, shopping is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, aside from soccer.

That night, as we rested in our Denver hotel, it dawned on me that somewhere in the seemingly endless string of bottles and strollers and blankets had come the stark realization that baby Nitti is fast approaching. And I couldn't be more excited.

Sure it's intimidating. And nerve-wracking. And more than a little bit terrifying. But damn if the exciting part doesn't win out more often than not. Lauren and I are going to be parents, and while we have absolutely no idea what that means, we're going to find out, and we're going to find out together.

I'd like to think I'm going to be a good father, and if I'm not, I really have no one to blame but myself. I've spent thirty-three years learning how to be a man from the ideal role model, and if I can find a way to be half the dad my father is, my son is going to be one lucky kid.

And I've clearly hitched my wagon to the right partner. I think anyone that meets Lauren walks away pretty certain that she was meant to be a mother, and a special one at that. There are some people that you cross paths with and for whatever reason, you just can't shake the feeling that perhaps it would be best if they didn't procreate. Maybe I'm biased, but from the day I met my wife, I've believed that the world would be a worse place if she didn't pass on her genes and raise children. That's why I knocked her up.

I am sure of one thing: Lauren and I will do everything in our power to encourage our son to lead an extraordinary life. And by "extraordinary" I don't mean by the standard idea of extraordinary as reality television has come to define it-- the accumulation of fame, fortune, or power -- but rather by the willingness to dream and the determination to pursue those dreams.

My parents have always encouraged me to chase my dreams, nonsensical as they must have seemed to them. Now at 33, despite being fairly anonymous, relatively broke, and as powerless as a Nevada boxing commissioner, I believe my life to be extraordinary. I'm living exactly as I daydreamed it throughout college and my twenties: a simple mountain-town existence with my soul mate and my faithful dog, free from the shackles and monotony of corporate office life. It's not for everyone, but to me it's extraordinary. And as my son grows and develops his own definition of extraordinary, I'd like nothing more than to help him see his dreams to fruition.

After all, at the end of the day, isn't that what I'm here for?