A Voyage to Mars

I bet there's no snow on Mars, which makes it a better place to be right now than here. Here being Norway. In January. During what feels like the start of a new bleedin' ice age.

(Actually, there is snow on Mars, or at least ice, which is just as bad. It's actually carbon dioxide ice, or 'dry ice', which means it's not the kind of snow you can make into snowballs or ski on.)

This journal is called 'voyage to mars', and at first it was simply a name I came up with because I needed a name. And so I, uh, came up with...it. So to speak.

But I've been thinking about it, and the truth is, this journal is about a voyage. Perhaps not to Mars, not really, but then again - that's exactly what it's about. A really, really long journey (no pun intended) to a place I can see, but which I can't yet reach. Just like Mars. We can see it, study it, dream about it, and we know that some day soon we (as in the human race) will go there, walk on it, plant a flag on it and call it ours. But not yet. Not just yet.

My voyage is to a far-away-but-close Mars; a place I want, need, to go. It's about ambition and drive. It's about hopes and dreams. It's about growing and learning. It's about a deeply embedded desire to tell stories. It's about a little kid who loved to make things up.

It's about me.

This voyage begun in earnest twenty-six years ago - perhaps even before that - and it's time now to go beyond looking through the telescope, to go beyond dreaming. It's time to take the next step.

Whatever this journal may be about from day to day - trivial stuff, important events, jokes, diatribes, weather-reports, reviews - it's all part of my voyage. And I intend to document every single step of it.

I'm being vague, and that's fine, because my voyage is, for the time being, vague. It's the nature of the beast.

It's 2003, folks, and that means it's a new year, a new beginning, a new chance to make good, to not repeat old mistakes, to pick up on what was good about 2002 and run with it. Let me take your hand and bring you along on this voyage to my own Mars. Keep reading. You'll be happy you did.  ¶ 02:46