So my work visa for 2013 has been approved and I will have the opportunity to once again coach football/soccer in Seattle this year.  In just over a week I shall be heading back, and getting back into working and earning a living doing what I greatly enjoy.

Seattle, WA is truly a wonderful city.
Of all those places I have been to this remains one of the most enjoyable. Being able to partner that with Bainbridge Island is a pretty neat combination of what I call home, or 2nd home, not sure which.

18 months ago I ran a half marathon for charity on behalf for the Pike Place Market Foundation ~ I have a constant liking for Pike Place market; I’m sure like most, it is such a special place. What I didn’t know about the market until a couple of years ago was how many impressive social welfare services exist there – housed right within the market itself.  Across the street from The Pink Door Restaurant… is a medical clinic.  Down the hall from the Market Magic Shop… is a child-care center  …or centre, if we are doing this in English !!  These services, and more, are what make the market and Seattle such a diverse and special community.

Bainbridge Island is an idyllic place to live, just a 35 minute ferry ride from the bustling city of Seattle, but a million miles away. People in the know will often say “you have the best of both worlds” … which is pretty much how it is.   Of course in the Washington winter I get to head off and go travelling to find new adventures.

A week or so ago was the Major League Soccer draft, and it was especially pleasing that a player that I coached and set on the soccer path made it into MLS; Dylan Tucker Gangnes was drafted by Portland Timbers.  Dylan is a brilliant lad and soccer player, always has been.  I was very proud to have played just a small part in setting him on the road. He has worked very hard as he has reached to achieve, but talent is a wonderful thing… obviously I wrote a poem about talent!

TALENT

Talent is a wonderful religion,
Sometimes fact, sometimes fiction.
If word of mouth be true be told,
Talent is often over-sold.

A figment of my imagination,
No train or buses or tube way station.
No need for the minor life
When talent is your wife.

God’s gift maybe laid to you,
Or maybe passed by to you,
The success of talent is success itself,
And wrongly counted in amount of wealth.

Talent used is mistrusted,
Talent missed is disgusted,
Talent doesn’t always shine,
Talent sometimes takes it’s time.

If your talent is not here
Look elsewhere to find it,
Sometimes it’s in front of you,
And sometimes you’re behind it.

To do what is difficult,
Or to give to those that haven’t,
Well sir ….That’s the mark of talent.