Mexico City or Bust!

In approximately sixty hours I will board a plane headed for Mexico City, crossing the border into our southern neighbor for the very first time. It is a business trip, of course, but I am eager to see what awaits...what should one expect from a city of 25 million people?

To help prepare for the trip, however, I've been visiting my local Wal Mart as much as possible. The language barrier is tough to overcome. But it should be interesting, with two full days (read: twelve hours each) of business meetings, IT systems discussions, and the like. I don't think I'll get to do any real extra-cirricular activities but that's okay. Should be fun!

In other news, I've done a few other things this month I've never done before: play cricket, use a leaf blower, play competitive Scrabble in person (punched my geek card on that one), go on a thirteen-mile bike ride, hit a softball about 500 feet straight up in the air, installed a dishwasher, ran cable underneath a house, set up a regular telephone that operates for free over the internet, achieved a level 55 druid in World of Warcraft (punched my geek card again), and finally got a cubicle at work that I can sit in and not feel claustrophobic. What a month! I'm currently having a lot of trouble trying to cut back on things I enjoy in life, because I'm trying to do way too much and burnout is looming on the horizon. Hopefully I'll hold it off as long as possible.

As I mentioned, the new house is still coming along very well, aside from a five-year old refrigerator that hates us. We've fully painted four rooms, bought several new pieces of furniture, and have a large outdoor grill thanks to my over-generous father. I mow the yard once a week, Kelly whacks all of the weeds into oblivion, and best of all we have a mailbox that doesn't need a key. Life's pleasures, right? Now all we need to do is hang the last few things on the wall and start throwing massive parties. The kind that always happen in the movies when Mom and Dad go away for the weekend (only to return unexpectedly early!). Hopefully we'll have many of you over at some point in the coming months--you're welcome anytime.

I hope all of you are doing well out there, soaking in the sun and 140% humidity that can only come with August. Can't wait for that crisp feel of a fall football weekend...

The Return!

Okay, so I know what you're thinking...but everyone needs seven months off now and then, right? School teachers take three, football players take five, and retirees take as many as they can get before the Grim Reaper says, "All right, all right. That's enough." Be while many endeavors lose strength and never return, I do not. At least not this time.

So, my dearest friends, I will welcome you back with open arms if you will would do the same for me in return. Let us take a journey together. We will explore both light and dark, reflection and shadow, and Georgia and Georgia Tech. And I may even have a surprise or two up my sleeve.

Before we begin, however, let me offer a quick life update: things are pretty good! They're also a little frustrating because I constantly find way too many endeavors to attach myself to (which was the reason why I haven't posted since January), but I'm trying to hold onto as many as possible. Life is too short not to aspire to something, right? But work is going well and the new house has come along very nicely...Kelly and I will post pictures very soon, as we are putting the final touches on a few of the rooms. And no more painting is left to be done, praise the good Lord Jesus. But to celebrate this, not only will we provide pictures to you, but we are also planning three separate gatherings for friends and family to stop by! The first is September 10 for our family-- a Sunday brunch not unlike those we usually spend at my grandparents'. The second and third will be for Baptist and UG people, respectively. If you don't fall into those groups, you can reserve a weekend slot by calling Ticketmaster ($8 surcharge may apply). At any rate, we will be publishing the dates for the last two events shortly. We're looking forward to it! Homeownership is a lot of work (and education) but is well worth it.

Onto the future: to me, the most important requirement about this blog is that it must always be entertaining. If I find myself writing a heartfelt post to tell you what an intriguing Scrabble play I had four nights ago, well, I think we've entered a territory none of us wants to venture into. But I think such territory can be avoided easily enough, which is why I alternate from humor to life to hobbies to observations to movie reviews to conversations about the future. But this time I have a couple of additional ideas to bring to you, the best of which is a sharing of things that I have found inspiring. I think inspiration is one of the most driving forces possible, and it's one we could all use a little more of. So while different things inspire us all, I felt that somewhere along the line we might have something in common, and that in that common ground I might be able to create a little inspiration for you as well.

My first offering in this regard will come in the form of music, which I have taken particular pleasure in listening to over the years. Following that will likely come novels, movies, and other sources of material. You will always be free to do with this as you like, but I hope you will find some of it useful. Life is potentially the most complex maze we will ever see; for this reason, any tiny pieces of the map can often be appreciated. You will find a few of these pieces intertwined with the normal posts on the site as time goes along...and of course not all of these will speak to you, but I hope that some will.

With that said, I will leave this to the future, and we will see where it takes us. Thank you for reading, as always, and for the many kind comments this blog has received over the past couple of years. Fortunately its road has not ended just yet.