Ingredients:

1 4-5lb Pork Roast, the cheapest you can find
2 bags dried of white beans
4-6 Fresh Jalapeno peppers
12-15 Fresh green Anaheim Peppers
1 large onion
5 Cloves of chopped garlic
2tbsp Sea Salt
2tsp Ground Cumin
2-4tbsp Corn Starch

Preparation and cooking:

Cook the beans per the instructions on the bag, drain in a colander and set aside
Boil the pork roast in 2 quarts of water for at least 2 hours, or until very tender
While the above are cooking chop the onion and place in large skillet with the chopped garlic. Add some olive oil and sauté. Cut the ends off the peppers and slice them in half. Remove the seeds, then chop the peppers, fairly coarse is OK. Saute the peppers with the onion and garlic for another 15 min or until tender.
Remove the pork from the liquid and slice and cut the pork into small chunks, then return it to the liquid. Season with the salt and cumin to taste. Add the onion & pepper mixture and the beans. The last step is to thicken the green chili a little or a lot with corn starch. Mix a couple of tablespoons in a coffee cup with cold water and add to the chili. Repeat until you have the right thickness.

Yummmmm………….

Back in Boulder.  Well, not just yet.  Headed in that direction.  Took a job where relocating to the Boulder area was a requirement.  Are you kidding me???  Who would not want to live here.

in·teg·ri·ty

[in-teg-ri-tee]  Show IPA

2.  the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.

So integrity is the state of being whole, entire or undiminished. WoW!!!

Ok, some may say you skipped over #1.  What about the moral and ethical principles? Well, what about them?  Morals and ethics have to do with societal standards right?  There is no doubt that as a society we must have moral and ethical standards.  However I am an individual and I need to find the pieces that make me whole.  In fact, I think that societal standards sometimes get an individual off course.   Of course there is nothing wrong with “love thy neighbor”.  But what about creating standards for what it meand to be successful?  My idea of success might e very different than my son’s or daughter’s.  Is my idea better?  Is it right?  It may only be right for me, but society looks for conformity.   I say integrity is individual, which is why I like definition #2.

The reason I love the word integrity is that is is about being genuine, or being true to yourself.  The state of being whole is about being true to yourself.  Of course it implies that you know you you are and are in touch with your inner being, your core.  Your inner being speaks to you and provides guidance.  If you are Christian, this might mean accepting Jesus Christ and allowing the holy spirit to provide you with guidance.  How you get there is not important.  If you value being whole and want to live with integrity you will find this guidance system within.

So to be clear, I believe in eternity, I believe that we all re-incarnate and I believe that we progress from one life to the next.   Sometimes, we get into a situation where we regress.  When we live without integrity, we regress.  If we murder or hurt people or live with hate we regress.  If we live with love, with integrity we progress.

In any case, the key to evolution  and progression is living with integrity.   However, integrity by definition is about creating a whole person and clearly each person is different.   And therefore what is integral to one may not be to another.  Why?  My belief is that we all have different things that we must work through in order to progress to the next life.   My challenges and issues might be different than yours.  Therefore the pieces that make me whole night be different than the pieces that make you whole.

Ok, it has been a log time since my last post.   but hey, I have been filling out the other pages.  My favorite mountain biking spots and write ups on some of the recent concerts I’ve been to.   So it is June and hotter than heck already in Florida.  I have been fly fishing a lot.   I enjoy it, especially in my kayak or wading at sunrise or sunset.  I also love to surf fish.  I love the beach and I love fishing, so I love surf fishing double!    Next weekend will be fly fishing for tarpon in Boca Grande.  The locals on the west coast call them poon.  But hey everyone has picked up on “poon” now.

OK, so no big fish were caught last weekend, but we had a great time.  Getting a bunch of middle-aged  guys together for guy time is a good thing, just like women need girl time.   I was dragged to the “Sex in the City” movie recently and actually found it quite enjoyable.   The sets and the costumes were amazing but the story about four women going on a girl trip and talking about things was very interesting.  Women enjoy doing that, and so do guys, except that guys don’t talk much, they just hang out.

It is a new day, a transformation, a metamorphosis…………..

Of course every day is a new day, but only occasionally are you afforded the space which creates the opportunity to become completely renewed.   There have been two such times in my life when the opportunity for renewal has been so trans-formative that I really do consider it akin to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.  The first was after my two years of junior college at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, CA.  It was spring and I was still hanging out with old friends from High School.  My years of school leading up to that had a been somewhat traumatic.  Since third grade I had been teased for being overweight, and no matter what I did and how hard I tried, I could not seem to shake the stigma.   It was not all bad, there were plenty of good times too, but I didn’t have the confidence to seriously date and I was very shy and unsure of myself.   There are three bright spots – I was good at baseball in my junior high years, I became a scout leader and an eagle scout in high school and  I also got a varsity letter on the tennis team.   In retrospect, these were nice accomplishments, however I would have traded them all for either being a rock guitar god, or being thin.  Because even in high school there was a senior calling me jumbo almost every day.   All that did was make me want to go home and eat.

So you are probably thinking, OK, what changed in junior college?  Well, first off I started working out regularly and I was at an age where it was easy to put muscle on.   So I got a little lighter but a lot more buff.  But my transformation was more complicated than that.  I had applied to and was accepted to UC Santa Barbara.  My parents were very supportive of me going there.  My mom even went back to work to earn extra money to help out.  That was huge!  Another thing that happened was my best friend from high school who was also a drug dealer got arrested.  It was odd, but I was on my way over to his house to hang out and as I drove by, I saw him and his house mates led out of the house in handcuffs!  My first thought was “what if I had come over an hour sooner”?   Would I be in cuffs too?    Although I felt bad I also was very clear that my friend had created his own destiny.  Immediately after, I was thinking about my Zen training and the Koan, “Who am I”.    From that point forward it was all about creating a completely new persona in Santa Barbara.    I worked out, I lost weight, I joined a  volleyball league and prepared myself for being a butterfly….   and it all worked out beautifully.