How often do you sit back and question your station in life? Are things going the way you had imagined they would and if they are not, where did you go wrong and can you still make the changes to do what you dream of? These are the questions I'm asking myself today.

At my core I'm an adventurer, an Indiana Jones, a dreamer and a hero. So if this is what I am, then why have I settled with a desk job, which has given me nothing more than twenty extra pounds and more gray hairs than I would like to admit. This is certainly not what I had aspired to become while crafting my knowledge of the sciences. I always saw myself in a much more active position.

Now that it seems to late to embark on wild adventures and travel to distant lands, it depresses me. I feel that I will never be the tech hand on a research vesicle at sea, studying the migration patterns of the Blue Whale or perhaps indexing items found in a wreck. I won't be casting sail off the coast of New Port Beach as a grinder on an off shore racing yacht or leading a development team in the building of a new data storage system in Hong Kong. The month long subatical to Eurasia designed to learn the cultures of its indigenous peoples and hang out in their pubs, will not happen.

I feel forever stuck, as if I have been weighted down and am now dependent on my biweekly paycheck. The adventure to Eurasia will never happen, mainly due to the fact that I could never squeeze that agenda into a weeks long paid vacation. How could I possible request the eight months off of work to participate in the Volvo Ocean Race around the World?

Of course there is always the option to leave my job and seriously pursue these extravagant day dreamt adventures. But then there is the question of funding. How would I be able to afford these ideas? I suppose if I wrote the next great American novel, then I could research my follow up book any way I wished. I could spend three months living in Newfoundland, in a fishing community, eating seal flipper pie and growing an extra thick beard. I may opt to spend those three months of research in the tropics discovering my inner Hemingway.

This is what I think about during the day. Is this wrong of me? Am I losing focus on what is real and really important? Truly these imagined items can't be completely far fetched because others have done them all.