The Heat Is On

This past week has been a hot one here in Arkansas.  I definitely haven't been spending much time outside lately.   Thursday I mowed the lawn.  There was a storm a brewin'  which cooled it off quite a bit.  Don't get me wrong, it was still hot.  It doesn't take me very long to mow our grass, but it was by far the most time I had spent outside in over a week.

Lately I have been sitting in the AC and watching a lot of sports.  We have the world cup going on, last week was the NBA finals and the US Open golf tournament.  Now Wimbledon has started up, and next week will be the first stage of the Tour de France.  For some strange reason I feel the need to follow all major sporting events.  It isn't even that I necessarily enjoy watching it.  I didn't watch any NBA games all season, but I felt compelled to watch the finals.  I have never played, nor expressed an interest in soccer my entire life.  However, I am checking on world cup standings and looking forward to when matches are on in time-slots I can watch.

Back From Vacation

Each year I get two weeks of vacation.  A couple weeks ago I used one of them.  In normal fashion, Amanda and I made the 12 hour drive up to Indiana to spend the week with friends and family.  It was a good time; a nice relaxing week.

The week started out on Sunday with the high school graduation of my nephew Nick.  It was so weird being back at East Noble.  We grilled out that evening and had a bonfire.  It can't be a trip home without having an evening bonfire.  The week flew by, but we got in pretty much everything we wanted to do.  I got to hang out with Justin and Steph a couple times and see their great new house.  We went up to Amish-land and got some good food at the flea market.  Mainly I got to relax and spend time with family.

Nine Years

Yesterday I returned to my high school gymnasium for the first time since I left it after my graduation 9 years ago. It was bizarre how recent the memories seemed. It was staggering to think that it has really been 9 years. At the same time it is crazy to think how far removed I am from that time. Standing there in my cap and gown I had no clue what I was going to do. Now looking back it is difficult to imagine things going any other way. I have lived one third of my life post high school graduation. It seems like a blink.

The passage of time is such an enigma; impossible to grasp or understand. Yet, it is also so very basic. It is constant. Each second that goes by is the exact same length as the one before it. However, even the concept of "a second" is something man-made and arbitrary. We have tried to apply something concrete and measurable to something that defies understanding. Time is the one thing we can't have enough of, yet we struggle to know what to do with what we do have.