I'm at work and getting plenty done, but I took a moment to read a little news, as I do from time to time throughout my day. On one of my favorite pages was this gem:
Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo
I know the folks at the AP are sometimes a bit off, but were did the editors put in the 4th string to write the headline for this one?
Holy cow!!! Microsoft going after Yahoo? It's not often you see this sort of blockbuster corporate merger, especially among two high-power tech companies. And of course, this merger would seek to sink Google, perhaps the greatest tech company in terms of growth, power, and ethics that currently exists. Speaking of Google, they've realized what so many of us have known for so long: Oklahoma is a wonderful state and deserves some business love.
So my daughter Katie turned 12 this weekend. It's a bit bizarre to have a 5-week-old and a 12-year-old, both of whom are my biological children. I can honestly say, when I was younger, I never expected to be here in this situation. Having Owen has made me reflect quite a bit on the roads I've traveled down and how I never expected to travel the roads I have traveled. I can still remember my 18th birthday. It was the day before I was to leave for the University of Chicago, where I was going to study physics. I was going to become a well-known physicist. In fact, my secret dream was to come up with some sort of physical law that physics students would study for years (perhaps while cursing my name). I mean, Einstein had relativity, there were Boyle's Law and Charles' Law and Avogadro's Number, so why not Mallow's Law, or Mallow's Superstring Theory? I was so hopeful, so excited, so ready...and so shallow and unprepared and naive. My beliefs haven't changed much; if anything, I've moderated some since then. My goals are completely different. I've had at least four different career plans since that day, at least three different dreams. I see dreams, plans, goals, so much differently now. I see dreams as a luxury I can no longer afford, indeed, something that indicates my inability to be content with what I have. I see goals as realistic destinations, actually attainable and not overly optimistic. I see plans as the means to the end, but always tempered by so many other considerations. Interestingly enough, my goals are also much shorter in term than they used to be; I see any goals over five years as another luxury I can't afford right now. All of these things have been tempered by the trials I've faced and the paths I've taken.
Sometimes I long for the simplicity of those earlier times, when plans could be straightforward and unencumbered by other outside considerations like "family" and "money" and "reality". Does this mean I'm unhappy with where I am or with the direction life has taken me? Not at all. I'm happy where I am today. I have a good job in a good career, I have an incredible wife who is a perfect match for me, and I have a wonderful family. It's just interesting to reflect on how much of an academic exercise those things were when I was younger, as compared to the reality I live in today. Back then, it was a given that I would have a life like this, but it was so far away then. Maybe I'm just getting older. Here's hoping I can dodge the mid-life crisis; theoretically, it should be along any time now.
My sincere regards and condolences to the poor folks in Greensburg, Kansas. Folks in Oklahoma know what it's like to get hit by an F5 tornado, too. Our thoughts and prayers are with you as mourn, rebuild, and recover.
Speaking of weather, what an amazing spring it has been so far. Tornadoes everywhere, rain like crazy...oh, and we're supposed to get snow here in Colorado, IN DENVER, sometime in the next day or so. Now, this doesn't astonish me; we get a little bit of snow around here every May. I joke with Heidi about it every time: "Every year, everyone says how odd it is to get snow in May, but it still happens EVERY YEAR." At the same time, though, this has been pretty crazy. We had all that snow back in late December through January, and it seemed like it would never end. Then things started to warm up, but we got a day where we got rain equal to the entire month's average precipitation. I don't mind rain or storms at all, and I've said so on many occasions. But we do seem to be having a much crazier weather period so far this year than we've had in a while. I'm not ready to scream "global warming" just yet, though, so don't even bring that up.
I'm still working on the mandolin. I don't know if I talked about it before, but I manually adjusted the string height on my cheap little mando (via filing the grooves in the nut and on the bridge). It certainly plays easier, but I'm still working. I hope to have something good going so I can play more with my Dad when we head back for July 4th. Wish me luck!
Thanks for reading along.
1 comment:
If you know the meaning of Jordan/Kirk and Cate Center- have enjoyed a trashcan punch while living in the Rebecca Lanes apartments- or once aspired to be a MLB umpire, then I send greetings from Soonerland! I'm not sure why, but your name came to mind as I was doing a Google search and here you are. It seems hard to imagine that Katie is almost a teenager. The last time I remember seeing her she was watching the activity of the El Chico wait-staff from an infant carrier. I have went back and read your archived posts and am saddened to learn about the hardships of the last couple of years. It was good to read from most current and working back to the older posts as at least I knew of the happy ending in advance. I'm glad that you have been able to find comfort in God and that he has brought much happiness in your life with Heidi and now Owen (named after Steve???). And as for the impending mid-life crisis, since I'm a little further along the age curve I'll be sure to give you a heads-up. You've come through enough already!
-drmjlbmc@cox.net
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