Leap of Faith

Cool day so far...ever so timely, ever so!!!...Just got done reading one of the most inspirational books I've ever read, Beyond Belief written by Texas Rangers baseball player Josh Hamilton (with Tim Keown).  This was a very in-depth and honest book.  I do mean honest and upfront.  J. Hamilton discussed his life being known as "the one" as a can't miss prospect in, as crazy as this sounds, little league baseball.  He then goes on to chronicalize his life through high school and being a the #1 draft pick of the Tampa Bay Rays (Devil Rays at the time).  And then, Hamilton goes on to discuss his battles with drugs, alcohol, cocaine and when I say I tells the story, I MEAN this brother tells the story of his battles including names of pushers, how he made the coke rocks, his mindset and letdown of family and friends.  Really and truly a must read.  He then discusses his faith in Jesus Christ (which I totally didn't expect to read about).  It's just a crazy read.  Bro man talks about his 26 tattoos and why he got them, especially when he was going through his time of struggle.  Inspired me big time, indicating how the script seemed to be written in a way he couldn't even fathom at the time...."Piece by Piece"...the triumphs of small victories in life, just the little things like an encouragement by someone or being able to wake up in the morning are aspects we all shouldn't take for granted.  Powerful book of how the good Lord can use ANYONE as a testimony of how we shouldn't give up on anybody. No matter what they have done in the past.  Also, saw the power of forgiveness, huh, get into that in a moment.  Good stuff.  Needed to hear his words....not now, but RIGHT NOW!

Also, boy this may...matter of fact will go down as a gamechanger type of day...Hamilton's team the Rangers did make the World Series this year (author's note)....but also on today heard a podcast off the ESPN Los Angeles website.  It was Brian and Andy Kamenetzky's podcast which is usually about the LA Lakers, but on this episode they had Shawn Ryan who was the Writer and Executive Producer of the TV show, The Shield. Talking about some great talk about how television and sports are related.  The mindset of making a good product, how u cannot control what critics say about ur show and u have to like the product, the enthusiasm of Chicago sports, how stories don't always have good endings (though they claim The Shield's series finale was a classic...they cited Seinfeld's last episode as being not up to par...there's a few others, although I did cry during A Different World's last episode with Ron standing at the door and Dway....let me stop) Also talked about self-prophecy and how it can hinder success.  Mentioning the Chicago Cubs and their fans during a playoff series a few years ago against the Dodgers and how he sensed the Cubs loyalists just felt like something bad was gonna happen to them.  He used the example of how if u flip a coin 50 times and it keeps coming up heads, there's still a 50/50 chance that the next flip will come up tails!"  Oh how I LOVE that analogy.  Risk taking vibe I get and also how u must...forgive and forget.  The present is not necessarily determent on what happen in the past.  Whether that's from family, a teacher who called u a "nothing" in grade school, or a breakup gone haywire in college.  A black girl dissed u in Junior High School, so u say that u'll never date a black girl again...naw man...that's not how u move on.  That's one judging events in such a negative way that it'll influence the blessing that may be waiting for u around the corner.  I know I can speak on this, cuz we've been through that stuff.  It's tough to move on, but u have to Mya ur way through it!...anyhow...another great lesson from that interview was him discussing how he wrote one of the characters in show...and how sometimes it's not important to be "likable but be watchable"...I feel like I can run just off of that.

A special day of interviews and first person reflections...Saw interview (about 30 mins) with NBA commish David Stern with this lockout.  Its interesting.  Big market vs. Small market is how I see it.  That's life in a way isn't it.  More doesn't always win though.  Does more money get the best players?  Best employees?  Not all the time, all players don't wanna play for the Heat or Yankees or work for Microsoft or Apple... It's personal a lot of times location, market, family, some folks like farm life, like spotlights, it's all personal.  Which is why we write in our diary.

Woke up with two dreams today while I slept.  One involved being in a locker room with some of our friends and us singing this "Cheat" song by Marques Houston.  And I mean cats singing like the Temptations on the street corner.  Another involved this beautiful musician, like being in town and hanging out with us and she was falling all over us, like sitting in our lap and stuff.  Not a wet dream or anything, but just some wild things.  Girl was really digging us .  Dreams are important and can be foreshadowing of things to come, can write a book just on those.  Getting personal now, it's eerie but it's like the dreams of yesteryear, has I look back on some as slowly been coming into fruition.  Especially from a social life sense.  Weird...guess we've been prepared.  I know others have had some crazy dreams as well.  But they may not be crazy and actually mean something like a prep for the future...boy this is some deep talk.  I'm determined to keep it real and honest as possible about our life.  It's unique...it's wild...and it's all real.  I keep saying one day it's gonna jump off like never before.  Hey, but one day...one day...we just might rule the world...u never know, anything's possible! ANYTHING...

Austino.