Introduction

Life is an adventure. That's something that my short time in this place has taught me. Like any good adventure, there are good times and bad times, villains and heroes, disasters and recoveries.

My life has been good; actually, my life has been excellent from beginning to end. Yes, I've had failures, but I have strived to learn what I could from each so I would not repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Successes have come my way more often than not. Sometimes I've had to work hard for small reward, and other times I've simply looked at something and it came my way. Lately my power, determination and self-control has grown to the point where, more often than not, success looks for me.

This is the story of Richard Lowe, a human male born in 1960 on a beautiful ball of rock, magma and mud called Earth. I have attempted to pass along some of my knowledge in these pages so that others may benefit from what I have learned.

Primarily, I have come to realize how wonderful it is to be alive. We live in wondrous times. During my short lifetime, I have seen many things that were unbelievable. I have witnessed men walking on the moon, the fall of the Berlin wall, the triumph of the mapping of the human genome and the phenomenal growth of the internet. I watched in horror as the twin towers collapsed and gasped in awe as a robot drove around the surface of Mars itself. I cheered when the first black man was voted in as president of the United States, and I cried as I saw the failure of the grand attempt to free Iraq from the clutches of a bloody dictator.

I have experienced the love of a wonderful woman, my late wife Claudia, for over twelve years of marriage until she passed away in 2005.

These days, in addition to my "day job" managing a gaggle of computer geeks, I am a professional writer, web designer and photograper, I produce bellydance shows, I hike all over the local scenic areas and I visit every Renaissance Faire I can find.

One fact I have learned is to experience life to it's fullest. When I have been in pain, I have striven to experience the agony; Pain, after all, is merely another sensation. It's the same with love, grief, and all other emotions. I simply allow them to happen, enjoy them to the fullest, then let go of them when their time is done.