Date with the Date Line

7:28am Today I’ve got a date with the International Date Line. I’m going to the other side of the planet, so far from home that I’ll be crossing into tomorrow before I get there.

I should be excited - and I am. I also have butterflies in my stomach.

Last year I walked on fire. This year - we’ll see.

It hasn’t become completely real to me yet. Maybe that’s because I still have much to do. Charge my camera batteries. Go to the bank. Get all the information to my accountant that he needs to complete my tax return while I’m away. Pack. Call my parents. Visit them.

Visit them? I won’t even have time for that today.

8:16am Correction - I won’t be traveling into tomorrow, I’ll be traveling into yesterday. My first stop over is Los Angeles which is three hours behind. When I cross the date line I’ll be going back a day. Either way I’ll be traveling through time.

8:52am I have some twenty hours of flying ahead of me. That should allow me to get a good start on the next installment of That Warrior Spirit.

9:14am Accounting! The numbers swim before my eyes. There are so many of them. Each number tells part of a story. But which part of the story is the one that my accountant needs? Giving him the wrong one could mean the difference of hundreds or thousands of dollars on my tax return.

I only hope that the story those numbers tell turn out to be a heroic epic rather than a tragedy - or rather than the comedy they speak of today.

11:03am Most of the numbers are in now. Not fully crunched yet, but partially chewed and somewhat compressed. It turns out that I won't owe on my tax return and that buys my accountant time to file my return.

11:30am That's all the attention I'm giving to my accounting today. The numbers are packed, now it's time to pack my suitcase.