20 Random Thoughts

When I was a teenager we used to play a game, similar to Truth or Dare, we called Random Thoughts.  Someone in the group would call out a topic and everyone would have to share the first thing that popped into their head about that topic.  It made for some lively conversations and more than just a few arguments.

I was remembering this awhile back and created a note on my facebook where I put a few random thoughts about me.  I decided to update that list and post it here.

If you have any random thoughts you'd like to share or if you have other topics you want to discuss I'd love to hear them.  Share in the comments, share @fredcannon on twitter, or you can friend me at http://www.facebook.com/fcannon and we can talk at length.

Anyway here are my 20 random thoughts: 


I lived in Alaska once for about a year. Wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

I read Tolkien's Trilogy "Lord of the Rings" for the first time when I was a freshman in high school, then waited 35 years for technology to advance to the point where they could properly make it into a movie.

If I could be anywhere right now it would be on a remote lake somewhere in Canada either fishing or sitting around a campfire enjoying a beverage with a group of buddies.

The haunting sound of a Loon's cry stirs something deep in my soul.

I love to go on canoe trips, but a bad knee makes it too painful to sit in a canoe for any length of time nowadays.

I'm a man dammit, and I'm not to supposed to cry, but sometimes when I'm by myself and I've been hurt, I do.

I love Indiana and I no longer have any desire to live anywhere else.  There's still plenty of places I want to visit, but I will always call Indiana home.


My mother told me once, that as a baby the only baby food I would eat without spitting  back out at her was banana baby food.  As a result she fed me a LOT of banana baby food.

I can't watch the shows on Animal Planet that deal with cruelty to animals.  I rage against the people who do those terrible things to animals and it makes me want to do horrible things to them in return.

I think my favorite thing in the world is fireworks.  I think they're gloriously beautiful and breathtaking.

I'm 57 and still plan on learning how to play the guitar before I die.

My favorite homemade meal is meatloaf, mashed potatoes and fresh or frozen peas, dining out I usually order seafood. Favorite appetizer is calamari or smoked salmon and my favorite desserts are my homemade pineapple pecan upsidedown cake and if I order dessert when I'm  out, it's usually creme brulee.

My favorite color is red.  When I was younger I wanted my favorite color to be blue because that was my grandfather's favorite color, but it's definitely red.

I love wood.  I love the feel, the look and the smell of wood.  If I were ever to become an artist, wood would be my medium.

Heineken has always been my beer of choice but nowadays if an establishment has Amber Bock or Leinenkugel, I'll order it instead.

Over a space of about 5 years, I lost my 3 closest friends and my fiancee.  Deep, deep inside of me something has been broken or lost and I don't know how to repair or replace it.

I love the smell of woodsmoke. In the fall, if I smell leaves burning and I close my eyes, I am momentarily transported back to my youth.


 I've been told I have a dry and wicked sense of humor.  One of my friends says it's "British" and another one likens it to David Letterman's sense of humor.

I love to sit out on my porch during a thunderstorm, or at dawn with a cup of coffee and watch the sunrise. I want to build a covered patio or deck in the backyard for the same purposes.

 My favorite candy is black licorice.  It was also my grandfather's favorite and it's the first candy I can remember eating.

My biggest fear is that the crippling National Debt and the disconnect between Washington DC and the rest of the country will fracture the United States. Hairline cracks are already beginning to appear.

The 20 year journey.

The title of this blog "Back Home Again in Indiana" refers less to an actual physical presence and more to an ideological state of mind.  I do live here in Indiana, more specifically, in the small town of Saint Joe in DeKalb county.  I was born in Garrett, another small town in DeKalb county, and was raised in Fort Wayne until the seventh grade when we moved back to DeKalb county.  I still think of Fort Wayne as my hometown.

I have lived in other states at various times in my life.  When I graduated high school, I moved to Michigan to attend college and lived there for seven years before moving back to Indiana when my father became ill.  Later, I lived in Minnesota for a very brief period of time when my supervisory position at a small company that made parts for International Harvester was eliminated after Harvester left Fort Wayne.  A friend who owned his own business asked me to move back to manage that business.  Then in 2001, I closed a business I had owned and operated for nearly five years and moved to Alaska.  I lived and worked there for nearly a year while the psychological scars of having failed in business healed.  After getting turned down for a promotion and raise at the company I worked for, I decided it was time to come back home.

So I have lived in other areas only to eventually return home to Indiana.  However as I stated above, this blog is less about being physically present in Indiana as it is about the mental state of being home in Indiana.

I bought my first PC sometime in the mid 90's and went online immediately.  I was amazed at the power of the internet that allowed a person to make connections all over the world.  I remember that one of the first people I chatted with online was a fellow who lived in Australia and how excited I felt about that. Here I was sitting in the middle-of-nowhere, Indiana chatting with someone on the other side of the globe.

I found this fascinating and went on a quest to create a network of friends in every far-flung location of the world that I could.  While friends and family were creating local connections and  networks, I pretty much ignored them and sought out more exotic fare.  I was able to boast that I had friends on every continent of the world including Antarctica.  I feasted on this international banquet for years.

Slowly though, the realization built up that this international network served no real purpose other than an occasional ego boost for me.  I had no real connection with these people, mostly we just drifted in and out of each other's online lives.  We spoke hollow words, displayed false emotions and made empty promises to one another.  This might be a little harsh, because often I was genuinely happy for them when something good happened for them, and genuinely sad for them when tragedy touched their lives

But the truth is none of us had a genuine emotional investment in each other.  We mostly just said the right things and tried to be supportive in the limited capacity that the internet allows, but in reality we were just isolated islands of humanity casting messages in a bottle out into the ocean of the internet.  Strange how you can be connected to thousands of people via the internet and yet remain more alone and emotionally isolated than ever before.

Then one day something strange and amazing happened.  I was checking twitter deciding who to follow back and I realized that one of my new followers only lived about 2 miles away.  I was oddly excited about this.  I follow and am followed by thousands of twitterers worldwide, yet I was more excited to get a follower from nearby than I was from the any I got from anywhere else in the world.  It took awhile, but I finally realized I really wanted to build a community of people where I could create real connections.  I wanted real and solid friendships, people I could connect with both on and off line. I wanted to be able to make a difference to someone and to support and be supported by my local community.

So begins this new phase of my life.  I have (figuratively) been all around the world only to realize, like so many others, that what I've been seeking is in my own back yard.  So here I am,  back home again in Indiana.

I feel a little like I have a somewhat tainted online reputation now.  No I haven't done anything bad, really.  I don't spam or endlessly promote my online businesses and I've never hacked anyone's account.  I don't flame people, gossip or do anything malicious, but I have been seriously short on commitment and follow through.  I mean, how do you trust someone now who, until a short time ago, placed more value on quantity than quality.  Someone who recently would have preferred to spend an hour online talking to someone he didn't know to walking across the street and spending ten minutes chatting with a neighbor. (But then again you'd have to know my neighbors)

It's a journey, one I'm fully committed to making.  And if I seem a little awkward at times I hope you'll forgive me.  I'm still learning some of the etiquette surrounding this, trying to find my voice locally, trying to learn the ropes and not put up any false fronts.  I'm trying, I promise you I'm trying.