Welcome to Highland Park in Portsmouth, Virginia

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Welcome to the home page of Paul Ford, Jr., and Joshua the Husky Dog. Development on this site began in early '98 just before being terminated by my employer at the time when they claimed they were going broke; I never believed them. What followed, though, was Koyaanisqatsi: (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for a different way of living. 6. one of my favorite movies but never did I expect to live it. Abruptly and without recourse my "life's objective" became to salvage "my career" and still provide home care for my father stricken with Alzheimer's. Consequently, the original web site and concept residing on my computer at the time languished, then transited from one upgrade to the next for nearly three years.

Alas, my career as an embedded microprocessor design engineer was lost; age discrimination being illegal is nonetheless practiced. Yet I credit one young man for whom I had performed a "good deed" by my tutelage in his effort to design a microprocessor device for school remembered me some years later as a positive influence in his life which led to the offer of a job at the very company of which I speak.

John Burroughs, a naturalist of the late 18 and early 19 hundreds, proclaimed that a man can fail many times in his life .... but a man is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

With this thought in mind, I proclaim my failures; in my admissions I am humbled - and if one cannot be humble, be silent. In the action of casting blame outside of our lives for our actions, we fail ourselves - yet there has been a redemption, of sorts, in the epiphany of the magnitude of the unrequited gift from that young man after my countless hours of "experiential education," reflection, self-examination, understanding, and healing during the ensuing years to this very day. This is the redirected purpose of this website, trying to offer for others an example of what to avoid and what one can do to fill "a-void" left in life's wake.

So in late 1998, with the concerted, persistent effort of my best friend and less than a handful of people, a new structure to "existence" emerged. Some might call it "a life" where others might say he finally got one! I say, your place is where your dreams are; don't let fear stand in the way of your dreams.

This is Who I am NOT - "conservative" - by virtue of my agreement with the following author:

~~Ralph Waldo Emerson

My name is Paul .... Paul Ford, Jr.
I was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and I've lived here all my life.

For twenty-five (25) years I designed computer equipment for broadcasting and energy management, for museums, and upstarts. And early on in '98, the company I worked for, for about a dozen years gave me two weeks pay in lieu of notice ... human resources don't see talent when you get to be my age, just numbers.

Hey! Don't count me out just 'cause I'm not a kid!

I got a job as a maintenance technician/video engineer at a local ABC affiliate. I've been in T.V. one way or another since I was fourteen (14) .... it's a team effort and takes a lot of diversity.

God I love TV!.

I work out 3 ... 4 ... 5 days a week. I like ... bicycling, weightlifting - for a hobby can you believe this I pick things up and put them down - bodybuilding .... I'm a bodybuilder .... bodybuilding, - I've got trophies to show for it! I was in a major athletic study at a university. Videography, photography - I did all this on my computer. I write poetry ... I'm a hopeless romantic! I combine my photos with original poetry to make video essays, mostly about my feelings.

The last ten years has largely been defined as a primary caregiver. I took care of my dad until he died last August .... he had Alzheimer's, dementia, vascular disease, coronary artery disease, diabetes, no thyroid, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, ... a congenital heart defect ... and I had a lot of people telling me what I should do ... but no one helped! I took care of him to the exclusion of my life ... alone .... up until the end.

And then I found this big hole where my dad once was ... where my life once was ... and I started probing. And I found out that I'm adaptable, and expressive and versatile and sensitive and compassionate ... I mean, look what I did for all those years that I worked out of the house ... and then I was thrust into a new life-style, a new job, ... and I still had to be true and unchanging for my dad!!

I've survived monumental change over the last few years ... why would I make the "ultimate survivor?" A question of fate? Fate can only be viewed from the future looking back ... fate is what will happen because it will be written not because it has already been written.

So then, do I possess some quality or qualities that would make me the ultimate survivor?

Let's find out!

That was not bad .... I need to keep my eyes open, though.
[which is to say .... never ask a poet a question of fate].

Some of "what has already been written" is here in essay form with the intent that mistakes may serve to sow a seed of inspiration or to divert others from similar unfavorable outcomes.

Let me bear not my pride to the world for pride holds my head up and my body erect while shadowing my constituents. Pride does not bear the adverse decisions in life. Pride knows not my friends and would stand above them. Pride does not know the anguish of a friend's resting-place nor his memory as healing.

Let me bear only the scars that others may know life's journey is fraught with obstacles great and small, poignant and dull, insurmountable and avoidable.

--- paul ford, jr., Pride, revisited, August 25, 2001

The NOLS Experience: "A Shadow on the Land"

The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Wind River Wilderness expedition .... a two week wilderness backpacking/outdoor leadership skills course. Follow our trek right up to the NOLS web site (if you wish) and see what *simple* life in the great outdoors can do to awaken your spirit and impart a notion of exactly what you have become and where you can go from here!

The NOLS Experience: "Backcountry Snowboard"

In the days leading up to the NOLS Backcountry Snowboard expedition, transformations of psyche and mind seemed commonplace; the momentum of Snowshoe gathered force as I drew near to the departure date and time. Never had I anticipated the extremes the expedition would impose; never had I been so ill prepared, yet driven to completion despite numerous physical challenges and a fleeting desire to give up. Those "challenges", interpreted as problems I would find, can be overcome when identified, confronted, and dealt with realistically. NOLS didn't show me how to accomplish that task, but did provide a platform from which weaknesses could be identified, and a choice to ignore them or to set my mind upon them to make them strengths. The objective: the pursuit of an open mind, an open heart, an open spirit, free of the encumbrances of perceived limitations. This is the story of a person seeking Common Ground.

Fun - To Snowboard!!!

Imagine that you've just "awakened" from a nightmare - actually, more like a "coma," as though your life had been put on "hold" for almost a decade. What would you like to do, besides wanting to do everything? This is an "epic" recounting of a half-century old kid learning to snowboard - from first fall to first love! There are some good pics of my friend who taught me to snowboard doing some of his tricks embedded in this story about dreams, passions, obsessions, "do what you want to do .....," and self-talk.

For the 2002-2003 season, we secured lodging above Elk River Snowboard Shop just at the base of Snowshoe and managed by Gil and Mary Willis of The Elk River Touring Center.

Activities

There are a host of activities to do if you are trying to become physically active and there are tons of reasons not to do so! Pick something from the list below and explore reasons to try!

• Rock-Climbing - "Hang on to dreams"
• Skydiving - "Let go of fear"
• Bicycling - "Turn into the wind"
• Bodybuilding - "Some people give, fewer give back"
• Weightlifting - "Keeping in touch with your purpose"
• Backpacking/Hiking - "A healing search for normality"

On Being Physically Active

Understand this: for being physically active and for the most part very healthy, you will be penalized by the insurance companies and health maintenance organizations, because they are based on couch potatoes seeking medical intervention from neglect, not from athletic use. So then, why would someone want to get out of the house, lift weights, ride a bike, spend time with the kids, or do anything other than watch TV? Why would anyone want to give up a "sedentary" life-style, in which doctors will tell you what you will and won't do according to rules dictated by insurance carriers, in favor of a physically active one?

Just about everyone desires to "exercise and do things" and most even try, for a time. The "trick" is, you can never give it up; that's why it is called a physically active lifestyle. One can only be Changed For Good

Proceed as if there were nothing to do at all for the next 186 years because you are traveling in hyperspace with your dog and neither of you age but will have fun when you get to where ever it is that you are going. Needless to say, this essay is about my Siberian Husky, AKC "Bright Eyes Mischief Joshua," born November 5th, 1995 - died May 24th, 2007. Perfect dog, perfect life, perfect passing ........

"Time, it passes much too fast. Time, I want to make it last." As long as time can be filled with intensity of being, intensity of thought, intensity of purpose, intensity, period. This is my dad from a time his sense of being was the father I almost knew. Then why did I squander much of the time I was given with him. Gain an insight into values associated with selflessness versus selfishness, honor, duty, and love. The very long good-bye.

People who have a guilty conscience exhibit their guilt by the perpetration of the acts that have made them guilty. For someone to chose to believe that a simple-minded and harmless individual would or even could cause harm to them when they themselves caused intentional, irreparable harm to that individual typifies the manifestation of a guilty conscience. In the end, their guilt is so overwhelming as to manifest a paranoia and successive breakdown in their thought process. It is by their choice that they are guilty. It is by choice that they chose to do harm. It is by choice that they ultimately defeat themselves. This is a story about choices we all have to make.

This is a story about decisions we all have to force upon ourselves - and how our perceptions are colored can determine just exactly how we act or react in return.

This is what you want to know about: "tif" or "t/i/f" which stands for "Truth is Freedom." This is the story of a liar, and a very good one at that, who met his match one day when God snatched what all liars need most: a good memory! Not that his memory was good by any stretch of the imagination, it was excellent. And like all liars, the first lie to himself justified every subsequent lie. Fortunately, his memory was rendered inconsequential by a massive concussion and he learned just exactly what living in truth was like.

I am the shape of a cloud on the prevailing wind. I am the rain as it strikes the earth and disappears, mixing with the soil. I am the butterfly emerging from the time it spins a cocoon as a caterpillar. I am the light as the sun sets, the moon's face to mark time's passage. I am the image on film when first exposed. I am the ocean rumbling on shore as a breaking wave; I am the ebb and flow of tide. I am a sand dune migrating on the beach. I am a tree's leaves turning from the dew; I am the tree as it falls. I am an oxbow lake as it shrivels from drought. I am a hurricane that lashes without mind, a tornado seemingly unkind. I am the earth's breath thrust as lava from a volcano's throat. I am an idea first conceived, a revelation first believed. I am a newborn when it first cries, first sees the world when it opens its eyes. I am the dead as they die. I cannot escape myself. I am what all men fear and fear most, for I am the ultimate discomfort to host.

Who Am I?

(If you do not have a Java enabled browser, mouse over the picture to find out!!!

his is a stunning sunset from right outside my house in November of 1997, shortly after a friend was shot in the head; he died 18 hours later. This was the stage that was set for "the year of November," when what I knew as my life would begin to change, and would conclude with the Koyaanisqatsi alluded to at the beginning of this site. What comes around, goes around.

This is "heavy" stuff. It is largely a collection of introspective observations about relationships and friendship, death and dying, life and living, emotions and feelings, and coming to grips with the reality of such a moment. From the almost hourly entries of a log during a six-week period of a very lonely grieving; a time when I could no longer run from death, because I got my "foot" caught in the door. There is some good poetry associated with time as well. Had it not been for my refusal to turn from this encounter with unrelenting grief, I doubt if my father's death would have been "bearable."