So why the Adventures of Arista's Dad for my title? Well I have had many roles I have played in my life. But the role that most radically redefined my entire life was becoming a father. Before my daughter was born life was filled with seeking new random adventures most everyday. And while that led me on adventures all over the parts between The Netherlands, Alaska and Hawaii, I never really built any kind of life for myself. I was a vagabond who easily found jobs cooking or doing construction work. When I traveled, and that was often, I would curl up under a tree in  my bivy sack and sleep most anywhere. That all changed when I found myself living in Alaska and in a love affair with a certified crazy woman. I was living with this girlfriend when she started being nauseous all that  time, I prayed desperately that she had the stomach flu. But that flu turned out to be our first inkling of the little girl I have seen evolve over the last three and a half years. The truth is the idea of being parents was scary beyond words for Arista's mom and I. We were independent people who loved to party. But once that littlle girl came into our lives the nature of every facet of life changed. Life became about doing the things that would provide for our baby. The day my daughter was born I stopped living life for myself and started living for her. This self less feeling has enabled me to see toiling for hours in a tiring job as a means to an ends for taking care of Arista. The winter before her first birthday saw the start of the end for me and her mom. I found myself a single dad with a fifteen month old baby girl. I worked out babysitting and worked as a cook in a cafe. Life is not easy in Alaska, but life as a single dad was brutal. So I found myself with no better option than to punt. I shipped or sold everything we owned and caught a plane to a place I had never been before. I arrived in Eugene with a backpack, a guitar and  no idea other than to somehow build a stable, beautiful life for my daughter and I. My daughter visited my mom in Colorado for five weeks, while I stayed in a tent at the Whiteacker Hostel. I found a job at a catering company and searched for a nearby apartment. But seeing the way the world is changing I realized there isn't much of a future for me in cooking, so I enrolled in Lane Community College. After exploring a few options I am now enrolled in studying water conservation. In the course of the last year I have found my way into working full time at a restaurant close to my duplex in the suburbs. I am busier than I have ever been in my life. But I find myself feeling like a super hero every day. And why? Because I wake up wanting to be as awesome as Arista's Dad should be. She deserves a Dad who is working to provide for today and tomorrow. Through that lens I find a strength to see myself through anything. From braving fourteen hour days in a hot kitchen to intense final exams in school, I will get through anything that will be good for us. The point I see in all of it is that I spent a quarter of a century having adventures. But none of those meant anything. Since my daughter was born my adventures are much different than before. Now I am spending everyday living for something. It makes me feel a bit like a superhero at times. I am Arista's Dad. Until the next adventure...