The Good: Top Ten Style

Last shift starts in less than 3 hours. I leave with an abundance of gratitude for being employed in a time many are not and ten good memories.....

10. Cash. When it rained, it poured. Five bill Friday nights do not suck. And making a mortgage payment in one shift during the World Series was ok too.

9. A note I received from a very strange, rough-looking customer who was passing through a small town near Eugene, Oregon. It read: "Not even my friends and family treat me with the kindness and respect you gave me. What makes you so humble? You could have the whole world if you wanted..."

8. Closing down and handing out gloves and hats while serving free Thanksgiving dinner on the 16th Street Mall to the people that are normally asked to leave on any other day...

7. All the people I saw make healthy and positive changes in their lives. Ironically, it seemed to always involve a two wheels in some way or another...

6. A ticket to Barack Obama's acceptance speech at (then) Invesco Field during the Democratic National Convention (Thank you, Mr. McKeever!!)

5. Passionate local musicians working for peanuts just to play....I, too, feel the fire burn for what I love...We are cut from the same cloth.

4. Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeroy Jenkins.

3. Smoking ban in Colorado. I had just moved from Oregon and had never had to work in a place that allowed smoking. I had to endure a month of people's disgusting, wretched, putrid, gut-wrenching, deathly sidestream smoke before it passed. Had it not passed, my time in the industry would have been shorter. Guaranteed. Hmmmm, isn't life funny?

2. The fact that I still believe in humanity. I have a million reasons and stories to make a case for the opposite, but I have a million and one that help me leave with the belief that there is light in everyone somewhere.

1. The people. Those I worked for, worked with, served, or just randomly crossed paths due to this industry. I hope many are reading this. I have made lifelong friends whom I respect, cherish and love. I wish I could list and personally thank everyone who I have met over the years that has touched my life, but I do have to work my last shift tonight. You know who you are and I love you all.

It's only appropriate (especially if you know me):

to say Cheers!!

And now its back to bikety, bikety, bikety, bikety blogging. Back on the bike tomorrow. I have the "Hell yes, I'll ride that" vigor back in my heart, big plans and a new structure to support them.

Ok....Once more....Cheers!