Do you remember the moment you decided to change the world? I mean really act, when you finally looked at the situation and decided enough is enough.

            Life is change and we all change the world with each breath, sometimes for the better and sometime not. Every good teacher, every good parent, changes the world for the better in a small way each day. We all can do some good.

            It is not about ego, despite Freud’s ranting. There are those who change the world and are known to billons – Christ Gandhi, Luther, for example. There are those who change the world and we never hear of them, such as the guy who distilled the first scotch whiskey.

            What it is about, is seeing something wrong and working towards fixing it.

            I made my choice in February of 2004, while under subpoena to testify before the grand jury and waiting outside the courtroom. I opened up my notebook and began to think about my life, especially the two years preceding.

            I wanted to write a book, I always wanted to write a book. Until about age thirty, my ambitions were to teach and write. I taught at the University of New Mexico, and perhaps now it was time to write.

            Chalk one to Freud, part of my desire that arose that day to change the world originated out of my selfish desire to write.

            Chalk another one to Freud, as I thought about writing it occurred to me that there was a successful book in our story and even a movie. There might be gold scattered among the mess we had made of our lives. And the subsequent events just add to this conviction.

            Another thought entered my head, a testament to my children to allow them to see these events of their childhood from my perceptive. The first words I entered into my notebook were the words I told Judge Jewell several months earlier.

Your Honor, Ten years from now the children will look back at these events and how they impacted their lives. The will not look to yourself, the Guardian ad Litem, the mental health professionals, or even their mother. They will look back to me, their father, and decide if I protected them, if I did all that could be done to bring them through this mess. I alone will shoulder the burden of their judgment.

            A family history then, I hope when my brother Thomas sought to explain this part of the family to his new fiancé, Ruth, he just pointed her to the website.

            The final thought, I might argue the crowning thought, pointed toward the Beast Machine. I was not angry at Patricia for seeking my death, she was crazy. I was angry at the people who accompanied her on this path of Chaos.  The lawyers, the Judges, the mental health professionals, the advocate groups – The Beast Machine, the many headed hydra Patricia mounted and pointed toward us. She never realized she was the first victim of this monster.

            During his term as the children’s Guardian Ad Litem, John Romero listened as I complained about the system, about the Beast Machine. He agreed with my comments, and sounded like Churchill talking about democracy. “The system is horrible, but it is the only one we have”.

            I took this as a challenge to change, a challenge to find a better way, a challenge to do what I could to make sure other children did not fall victim to the Beast Machine.

            And thus my decision to change the world was made.