Introduction

I’ve always been one to harbor a certain amount of rage and until a few years ago that rage had been completely balanced by a healthy obsession with hockey. Whether it was dropping the gloves on the ice, attacking the net in the gym, or yelling profanity at the television; I have always used hockey as the perfect rage therapy. Then the unthinkable happened: an NHL hockey lock-out.

It was fairly easy to deal with at first, I just found other interests - such as writing. but then the winter seemed to drag on and on, and between the lack of good hockey on TV and the damn cold here in Canada I started to go a little crazy. The rage was building and I had to do something about it before I went all bitchcakes.

As a matter of pure happenstance, I stumbled upon one of the greatest ideas I have ever had: I would take my newfound interest in writing and start to chronicle the comings and goings of all the things that were driving me nuts and sending my blood pressure through the roof. But what good was a written rant if there was no one around to read it, sympathize with it, empathize, laugh, disagree, argue or simply feign interest? I needed a suitable conduit for my rage; one that wouldn’t get me fired from my job. I just had no idea what it should be.

In a twist of true karmic proportions, I started reading these new fan dangled things on the Internet called Web Logs or (or BLOGS for shortas they are commonly known). Basically they’re just running commentaries or diaries that people write and post online for friends and family (and random Internet readers like myself).

The answer was now clear. The vehicle that would carry my rage to the world would be a BLOG.

What you are about to read is a collection of stories written over the span of over a year, shelved for a while, and later ressurected so the ideas could receive another kick at the can. So while these stories have appeared in some form online before, this time they are more refined and have seen a couple re-writes and some creative editing. They are all my stories so I can take such liberties. The subject matter is the same, the messages are still clear, and most importantly of all, they are the truth; or at the very least, my version of it. Plus, someday soon I hope to have all these in print so it would be in my best interests to tidy them up a bit.

Now, this is where things start to take an interesting turn. Throughout this whole journey of ranting and raving and blogging, something strange was happening. After I completed each rant I felt a little bit better. Each time someone replied to one of my posts with a comment I felt a little bit better. Each time I tried to brew a rant; it took a little bit longer to write. It was as if day-by-day I was actually getting starting to feel a little bit “better”. Was I losing my mind? If so, that would certainly be a giant step backwards. No, I was pretty sure that something good was happening.

I was healing.

So what I have done now, so that you may receive the same therapeutic benefit from reading these entries as I did from writing them, at the end of each one I’ve written a summary - some “hindsight healing” if you will - of what I’ve learned from that particular experience and how it has changed me for the better. I spent years figuring out all this stuff and with any good fortune it will only cost you a few minutes of your day (and if I can get this damn thing published maybe only a few bucks out of your wallet).

Enjoy and happy healing.