It’s been tough to get back to sleep, and needing to be on a phone conference late in the afternoon Seattle time did not help matters. I had a look out the window of my rather swanky hotel room, while wearing a very plush robe and saw this. Yep, the sky has a little light at 1:15 in the morning (the camera does not show it well). It’s a long time since I’ve been to Scandinavia, I think it was maybe 15 years ago when I went racing in Norway in the middle of the summer, Lillehammer if I recall correctly.  Because the nights are so short in the summer you could drive by day light at 2 in the morning. Linkoping is a decent distance further south and the longest day is still a four weeks away, but it does not get much darker than twilight. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunities I’ve had to travel the world, and perhaps more importantly the wanderlust to do it. I feel so fortunate to be in the position I am today with such an exciting future ahead of me. I don’t care if I’m a nice hotel room in Sweden with a plush robe or a hostel in Cairns listening to the guy in the bed next to me slurp his noodles, it is all spectacular.

The time I spent traveling in the early 90’s was spectacular, it was a wonderful experience that is right at the top of everything I’ve ever done. As I repeatedly said in my diaries at the time, it’s not just about the trip it’s the people you meet and share the time with. And from all my travels the most memorable, the ones at the top of the list was months spent traveling Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia with Lili. No journey I’ve done since has come close to matching that one in ’92.

Wanting to see the world was inspired by my parents, especially dad, and I will never loose the desire to see what’s over the next hill. I love my life, and today it seems very rich and full.

People I know spend months in Africa, another is cycling through central America right now and another learned Japanese so he could live there. I visited 8 countries last year, and like these people I feel so damn fortunate.

I awoke with a start to a very vivid and somewhat disturbing nightmare. It’s rare that I recall what I dream about, actually very rare and that this was so vivid tonight. And after waking it took me a few seconds to adjust to the fact I’m in a strange hotel room, it’s past midnight local time and  I’m on the second day-is-the–worst jet lag. It was quite the start and 20 minutes later as I post what I’ve just written my heart is still racing.

OK, onto something else, last night over dinner a couple of us were discussing going home to the place of our childhood and how we act. When I head home to Guildford it gets a little scary how far back into childhood I can regress, and perhaps more importantly how quickly I regress.

It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be when mum was around, there are no “You should not be…” conversations, I’ve had them about rallying, motorcycles, how regular I am, going out in the cold with wet hair, people I’m dating (or with one infamous conversation about who I’m married too, I’ll share one day), dental health, cats, where I live, doctors visits and going mountain biking on a Sunday morning. These were all conversations I had in my 30’s and briefly before she passed my 40’s too.

And they usually end with “Da Vid, I just want you to be happy…” I miss mum every day.

I’ve said before about how my parents were always about 40 in my mind. Dad has a full head of dark hair, youthful broad shoulders and so on.  Every time I arrive at Heathrow I want to ask this old man that’s come to get me where dad is.  I never do because as soon as I see him I start revert back to the role of being his child. It’s very strange.

It only takes a couple of moments and I’m over the surprise of being greeted by a man in his 70’s rather than the father who used to throw me over his shoulder (try that today and we’ll see just how good that hernia surgery really was).

My friend Min thinks he has about the sexiest accent ever, thick Scottish gracefully diluted by over 50 years in England. She once described him as “Sean Connery, but sexier”, I still don’t think he knows how to react to a woman close to 40 years his junior hitting on him.

The flip side of me seeing my parents as 40 year olds, is they still saw me as a 8 year old some times.  While time passes the roles we each see ourselves in have not changed in quite the same way, it’s a nice excuse for me and my brother to be immature and make fart jokes over at the dinner table and, I’m rather OK for that.

There has been some changes and revisions to the tried and tested Father-Son relationship, there is a certain amount of denial on my part (and my brothers) about how old I am, and therefore how old he is. This is a denial that’s easier to keep going when I’m in England, it’s not like I get my washing done and all my meals cooked, but I do have way fewer responsibilities when I’m there. Typically there is something that needs doing, minor jobs like laying some vinyl floor or trying to open up a slow draining sink, but even then I’ll be told dad will get round to taking care of it, but some how I’ll take care of it when I’m there.

I think with mum this regression went even further. Despite that fact that both my brother and I are only a couple of years apart and he has a wonderful daughter and awesome wife, while I don’t. Mum still expected me to be the boring, sensible one out of the pair.

While my brother has not exactly used the license that mum gave him to rave it up over the last decade or so. But I don’t think mum would have shown much surprise at Stephen coming home from a party at dawn, while I would get the Spanish inquisition for getting in 20 minutes late from the pub. Growing up my brother was the wildest one of the pair of us, but that’s fairly relative. I was the boring Dungeons and Dragons player on a Saturday night, while he went to the roller disco and stayed out all late.

OK, I admit that “roller disco” does not exactly bring up images of all night raves and dropping piles of ecstasy, but this is Guildford in commuter belt Surrey we are talking about.

It’s relative, my brother had one or two parties at the house when my parents were away, but that was about it. We were both pretty good and did not give my parents much strife. However mum always said he caused them far worry than I did growing up, but I took over later in life.

I think it was my racing was the one that scared here the most. She knew a couple of my friends that died racing and never understood why I would ever do something like that. She once said “I’d expect Stephen to do that, but not you”, I asked why that was and she never really answered clearly. There was something about me being the sensible one, but she never elaborated on that.

After work today we went for a visit to one of those places that I’m pretty sure most people have visit at some time on a school trip. An area of Linkoping that’s called Gamia, it’s a collection of old houses and the Scandinavian version of the sort of turn of the century (19^th to 20th that is) feel good tourist attraction that’s sold to schools and parents as “educational” but is little more an a few old buildings full over overpriced tat. I think they are all over the world, including Linkoping.

Yes that all sounded very cynical, but as a kid I recall being taken to these places on school trips rather than somewhere cool like the Tower of London or the Science Museum.

The one in Linkoping has two big positives over the usual “Living village” type of set up. First it’s free, and that’s always good.  Secondly it has a real live chocolatier where they make the stuff while you watch.

OK, the shops selling various crafts were overpriced, but it was well worth 30 minutes of our time as we wandered about.  Another interesting little part of Sweden, Linkopin is not exactly a tourist destination, but it is a pretty little town with a few things going on.

Now it’s time to head out into town and find something to eat.

Last night before bed I went for a wander around the town center. The rather good hotel is right in the middle of a very pretty town center, it’s a very attractive place. It’s a small town and I suspect it’s not a place on too many tourist itineraries, but has a lot going on. If it were not for work travel I’d never see places like this and that would be a loss.

And now a couple of the town square from my hotel room window early this morning as my jet-lagged mind is wide awake at 4am, I ended up doing a couple of hours of work.

I picked up my rental car at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm and and had about a three hour drive to Linkoping. I got a very nice complementary upgrade to a fast Mercedes. To see how good it was it really needed something other than motorway, so I had the satnav take me the final 30 kilometres the scenic route, that had the additional bonus of avoiding roadworks.

It was 30 KM of beautiful tarmac weaving between the trees, with roads like this I fully understand why Scandinavia produces so many great rally and race drivers. And the Merc is quite the car.

Two long flights today, Seattle to Chicago, which of course ran late which led to a full on run from one terminal to another across that outer ring of hell known as ORD. It could not be easy, but I made it with a few minutes to spare. While waiting to board I saw this. A lone passenger waiting with the window behind him dominated by a United 747. I liked it.

Barcelona in the book and Vettel has made it four wins out of five this season, a dominance reminiscent of Schumacher at is best. Today he did not have it all his own way and worked hard to fight off a great effort by Lewis Hamilton.

Clearly the Red Bull is the class of the field, but McLaren can be encouraged by their showing and for a time Hamilton did something I don’t think anyone else has done this season and took the battle to Vettel. The Red Bull driver did what the greats do and responded with faster and faster laps in what turned out to be a great duel in an entertaining race.

The Red Bull car was at it’s best on the fast, sweeping parts of the track and able to pull out enough of a lead in the final corners of that Hamilton had no chance under braking into the first turn. It would seem that once we get past the lottery of Monaco the following two races in Montreal and Valencia could suit the Red Bulls very well.

Barcelona is not a track renown for it’s overtaking, and after the record number of on-track position changes in Turkey it was going to be interesting to see what the Drag-Reduction-System (DRS) did here.

DRS is complex, but essentially if the second driver is a second behind the leading driver at a certain point on the track (Activation Line) they are allowed to open up a rear flap, reduce their drag along a designated straight and gain a little speed to challenge for the corner.

In the second half of the race Hamilton was almost always within a second as they crossed the DRS activation line, by the time they went through the big sweeper onto the start-finish straight the gap was always too large for Hamilton to have a run on Vettel into the first corner.

While DRS was not as big a deal as it had been, the new Pirelli tyres were the dominant story and this led to a number of 3/4/5 pit stop strategies. As always this made for a very interesting race.

This is home turf for Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari. He was fourth on the grid and made a lightning start. Overtaking Hamilton with ease and taking a run down the inside at the two Red Bulls into the first turn. He gave absolutely everything on the start and it was fun to watch Alonso have a go at the Red Bull’s over the first 8 or 10 laps.

Alonso could not keep that sort of pace up for long and did not have a spare set of the faster soft Pirellis after being forced to use an extra set in qualifying. His tires were done by lap 10, the first of his four stops.

Button on the other hand did a great job with preserving his tires and stopped only three times. After a bad start Button was 10^th at the end of the first lap. His fight to get back to 3^rd was a great drive and his run at Alonso down the outside of turn ten to take third was just superb. Today a three-stop strategy looked like the right call, but such was the speed of the Red Bulls and McLarens that they were the only four cars not to be lapped.

In the standings Vettel has a 41-point lead over Hamilton, that’s a big lead, but there is a lot of racing still to go this year.

And as good as Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Buttons drives were (and they really were) I think the best performance came from Nick Heidfeld in the Renault. He had a big fire early on Saturday and never completed a flying lap in qualifying so was last on the grid. He finished a superb eighth, behind the two Mercedes’s drivers.

It was a fascinating race, next weekend is the race everyone should visit once, Monaco. It’s a special place and a total lottery. It seems the McLarens are good on the slow, more technical sections, could it be their turn? It’s a place that occasionally throws form out the window and as ever it will be fascinating and qualifying could be an exceptional battle around the streets of the principality as everyone looks for a clear track.

There was going to a wonderful in depth look at a fascinating Spanish GP with a couple of very acute observations in to the strengths of the Red Bull and Vetter, and where Hamilton may have a chance. There still might be (it’s a long flight), but right now I’m going to talk about something else.

I’m going to touch on the feeling of being alive and when some of those moments are. It all started with an interesting discussion over a couple of IPA’s with friends last week that had led in a rather circular route to where we are today.

We talked about those moments where the adrenalin surges through you.

In my life there are only a couple of times I’ve been involved in a fight, typically I try to avoid it for any number of good reasons, most notably they tend to hurt and I’m a wuss when it comes to that.

I’m not suggesting you go out and hit someone, but if you’ve never actually landed a punch you may want to consider it, it’s really a quite incredible, life-affirming thing to do. For a few moments you will feel like the sort of man that appears on aftershave commercials. Yeah it was that powerful.

First one I’m going to talk about was my clearest of clear victories. Somewhat egged on by friends I’d some how got into a strange feud with a redhead geek bully Johnny at school. Now looking back I see Johnny as a very sad character and would only pick on those he felt were bellow him on the school food chain. As bully went, he was not very good.

I’m not even sure what started it, but one day after school I got hit a couple of times by him and ended up walking away, totally humiliated. The only advice I got from mum about it was to stop being stupid and if I get hit again to hit back.

The next opportunity did not exactly go my way but I’d like to claim some level of moral victory. I found myself in a similar situation, surrounded by a group of kids looking for free entertainment, and it’s not hyperbole to say Ghandi would have been proud of my desire not to be involved. I got pushed to the ground, got up and walked away a grown up arrived and the kids that collect for these things all ran away.

Afterwards one of the tougher kids did come up to me and say I did the right thing and was impressed, I think the shaking and working hard to hold back the tears may have taken the edge off the admiration. While I’d never claim victory, it’s clear I was the moral winner.

Round three was a few days later, we were walking home from school along a back alley and there he was again, I don’t recall a large group of kids standing around, but again I was planning on ignoring him and not getting involved when he swung his school bad around and tried to hit me with it. Something went in me and I swung at him. Pretty sure I did not come close to connecting, but I was now committed.

What followed seemed like minutes of pushing and hitting, but I asked Adrian last week, who was there, about his recollection and he swears it was over in seconds. It ended when I grabbed his ginger hair and drove his face into my knee and that was that.

By the way, Adrian insisted I use the word “drove” in that sentence, he tells me that is how it was.

With Johnny on the ground clutching a bloody nose I turned around, picked up my bag and walked off unquestionably the victor.

I’m sure I was shaking like a leaf with massive amounts of adrenalin coursing through me. Seriously for a moment, if you’ve never done it before getting into a fight is an incredible rush, I understand why people get into the boxing ring.

I’ve had my fair share of adrenalin filled moments since then. Rolling rally cars, the starting grid of a Formula Ford race and getting a phone call from the ex that her daughter told her dad that I hit her (therapist “I’d not hesitate for a second to stand up and say there is no chance that it happened”). All had huge rushes that go with them, today I know how my body reacts to the sudden release of adrenalin. A lot of shaking and 15 minutes later I want to vomit.

But for that incredible few minutes it’s an extraordinary feeling. And nothing has ever produced a rush like driving my knee into a bullies face when I was 13.

I’m not saying the feeling of that moment drove me on a life long quest to recreate that first high, but it does explain a few choices I’ve made and hobbies I’ve chosen.  Having said that, hitting myself in the face with a cricket bat would less painful that some choices I’ve made.

So far we’ve not discussed where I was going today, but it’s all to do with the rush that comes with it. I do regular blood work and last week it came back a little squirrelly, we talked about the stress in my life, both in my personal life and in changing careers.

We did a scan and that never showed up anything. Puzzling, but we did more blood work and it was still here. A couple of nights ago I was doing my self exam and felt a lump on one of the boys. OK, a quick phone call to James’s office said it could be any number of things, cyst, perhaps an infection but come in as soon as you can.

That was Thursday morning, I saw James that afternoon for the third time in a couple of weeks (ear infection is still not going away after even more antibiotics). After a quick discussion and feel he furrowed his brow and set up an ultrasound exam for the boys on Friday morning.

Tomorrow I will know more. The radiologist would not share the results with me Friday, and I get that’s normal, but when the phone rings and I see James’s number pop up it will be a rush that will bring me back to being 13 again and walking up the alley on the way home from school.

By the way, I understand Johnny is still a rather sad character and lived with his parents into his mid 30’s and they finally told him to leave and take his collection of ex-military Land Rovers he was buying and selling with him.

One last aside before I go, there is only once I’ve really hit anyone and actually landed the punch and knocked them down, and that was my brother when he was 16. He deserved it (and my parents were not exactly supportive, but let it go with no further mention) and that’s a story we will save for another day.

They left it late, and despite having a majority of the possession never really looked like much of a threat for most of the evening. Alonso had a great strike go over the bar in the first half and that was really about it until deep into injury time.

Despite not really making Nielson in the KC goal work too hard tonight Seattle came away with the win. The only really sustained pressure on the KC goal came in the last 15 minutes. Fucito came on as a substitute and almost immediately had two open shots blocked, Seattle followed that up with a number of corners in the last 10 minutes or so and the goal came in the last minute of injury time. Wahl hit a wonderful in-swinging corner, the keeper did not come for it and Parke got onto the end of it and headed it into the corner of the net. It was a well taken chance, not taking anything away from Parke. Up to that point the feeling in the stadium was not good, restless is a good way of putting it. Seattle never really threatened, and this is against the team with the worst defensive record in the league. Not to win tonight would have raised a lot of questions, questions that still need to be asked despite a defender scoring from a set piece.

Again Jaqua looked awful when he came on, no pace, no first touch and created nothing.  Levesque as an out and out striker was anonymous and I don’t recall a real shot from Montero all game despite all his running around. The team has problems going forward, it looks very similar to the first part of last year. They seem to run out of ideas in the last third, take too many touches waiting for something to open up and as a result, nothing happens.

The game was not helped by some atrocious officiating tonight, very inconsistent and it affected play. It seems there are a number of officials in the MLS who feel that the fans came to see them. It’s a real issue across the league and needs to be addressed.

There are positives; another clean sheet kept by the defence is top of the list. Keller was perhaps a little busier than usual, but was only seriously tested once a few minutes in when he made a good stop on a breakaway and controlled the rebound. Kansas City did look happy to sit back and give Seattle the midfield for most of the game, they absorbed a lot of pressure and did a decent job at hitting Seattle on the break.

Continuing what worked; Fucito came on and made a difference, he was willing to have a shot, something that had been largely missing all evening. Fernandez again had a good game, he was a little squeezed for space at times, but worked hard and his distribution was excellent. Alonso was superb again, every attacking move seems to go through him at some point, he is so valuble to this team.

Not a great game, and three very important points. But KC are a side that other teams have happily put to the sword this year, they came out to keep the game tight, but Seattle’s offence is in desperate need of something to get them going. They really miss Zakuani, that’s clear.

Friday turned into a very long and rather brutal day. It ended on a high note and I’ll get to that. First was another visit to the doctors to run a few tests, I keep getting told nothing to be concerned with, but it’s my third visit this week and I believe James when he tells me that, but three times?

Then to the chaos of work which has led to some short notice travel next week, while I enjoy the site visits and production audits, there is so much else that needs to be sorted over the next month or so.

To the fun, an evening in Fred’s Alehouse in Snohomish with my friend Lisa and a really good IPA, some great food and no talk about doctors visits. Actually it was rather fun and even though I was not in a great mood I got a few laughs out of it and the cats got treats. Tonights discovery was that the Boulevard Brewing Single Wide IPA was almost as good as the Ninkasi Total Domination (my current gold standard IPA).