The past six months have been crazy. I’ve had to devote an extra 20-30 hours a week to my city council responsibilities and to do that I’ve had to overload what was already a pretty crowded calendar. It hasn’t been easy but I feel good about the job I’ve done and I’ve never lost sight of what is most important in my life… my family.

But something had to give and several things that I used to enjoy were lost in the shuffle. In the snippets of free time I had before taking office I used to read, blog and play guitar and lately those times have been nearly nonexistent.

I’m not complaining. I knew what I was getting into and I don’t regret it. But Alpharetta is an exciting place to be with a lot going on so there has been much to do. It has been great to work with our new mayor and city council setting bold new goals while looking for better ways to serve our community.

One of the biggest challenges I faced over the past few months was the decision to approve a mixed use project proposed for Alpharetta. I attended meetings with city staff, fellow council members, developers, attorneys, friends and constituents. I spent hours researching the proposal and trying to anticipate all of the possible positive and negative consequences of my vote. For weeks I agonized over numerous aspects of the issue and after all of that I cast a vote which cost me some very dear friends. That project was named Avalon.

So I was elated to discover a little free time the other night and decided to download a new book on my wife’s Kindle.

The book is titled At Any Cost by Cara Ellison and you can download it here if you are interested. Ms. Ellison is a brilliant writer who I have followed online for more than a decade. She lived in Washington, DC during the September 11th attacks and wrote incredibly powerful short stories about the days which followed and how they affected her life and her nation.

So I settled into bed with my new book. It felt great to relax.

I knew from Cara’s blogging that she was familiar with the world of the Secret Service so it seemed quite natural that the protagonist of the book was a Secret Service protectee. I quickly became engrossed in the story and after a few pages a Secret Service agent began calling the protagonist by her protectee code name…

Avalon.

God really does have a wicked sense of humor doesn’t he?