Seek The Substantial

A wonderful and happy birthday to my wonderful and happy wife.

Last night Miranda and I went to Randy and Ann’s for dinner.

This is why you should always take your camera with you. This is just driving along and taking a couple of quick pictures.

Me and Olive

Miranda and me. She’s singing here.

This is Curly, Randy’s new dog. It’s really hard to get a picture of him because he’s constantly in motion. I was lucky here.

Curly attacks.

I believe I am the world’s worst in regards to the news. I don’t read it and I generally don’t watch the world news because I don’t need to be depressed. I am trying to change that by trying to read some select items on the internet. The first one I’ll throw out is a weekly email from Activate. It’s a nice compilation of the weeks news and with it being sent to me in an email form I’m more likely to read it. This news group also sends out a bi-monthly edition related to books called Boldtype, and one related to music (but I think it’s only electronica, which is not exactly up my alley).

I’ve also been reading Slate and it’s a really nice review of the days’ news. I initially started reading this site while I was in Austin and I had so much free time to waste on the internet. I decided early on that the least I could do is educate myself and this was one of those sites that helped me do that. Slate additionally does a nice job of linking all of the major newspaper articles so if you want to visit those pages then you have that option.

This is my grandmother along with my cousin, Charlie.

Things are quiet on the homefront. Miranda and I are going to San Antonio this weekend for a wedding reception (the wedding took place somewhere in the Caribbean). I’ll try to take plenty of pictures and I’ll try even harder not to delete any of them.

Miranda starts school next week and she I don’t think she’s looking forward to waking up early after such a long break. I have complete confidence that she’ll recover.

I’ve been meaning to discuss a post in Mark Cuban’s blog about making money in basketball. I’ve often thought, although I never expressed it in writing or verbally, that starting a league as Cuban suggested is really an ingenious way to start basketball. I’ve often thought that there are certain individuals who were really interested in playing basketball and interested in going to school as well. It would also stand to reason that there are just as many folks who have no interest in school, but would love to expand their game at an early age. If the schools are provided for the children who are signed, more than likely with private tutors, then what would be the problem with this? Additionally, what would stop a kid from going to public schools and then practicing the rest of the day? I think it’s easy to try and kick Cuban for some of comments and/or actions, however, he is one thing, a forward thinker. There is no such thing as 100% success when it comes to ideas, but the key is to actually have an idea to communicate to the public and I truly believe that this is what he does. I recommend that you read his blog, Blog Maverick. Don’t get me wrong, there’s many days that I really don’t have a clue as to what he’s discussing, but that shouldn’t ever stop anyone from reading it. Eventually you’ll catch on, on.

I’ve often been obsessed with uniforms and I think that most people who enjoy sports also enjoy critiquing uniforms as well. For instance it is universally known that the Oregon Ducks have the worst uniform in the history of ever. I’ve been turned onto UniWatch, via Mavs Moneyball.

To answer Duk’s question, yes, I’d be more than happy to help with fantasy football, but I’m not about to reveal all of my secrets here. Some of my best friends/worst enemies in regards to fantasy football read this blog and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I allow them a peek into the type of preparation that produces a last place finish last year.

Finally, I’ve stumbled upon a website called Rocketboom which is a three minute videoblog from New York. The stories are touch on a range of subjects and each night when I hop on the computer, it is one of the places that I always visit. I’ll be honest, it’s a little quirky, and it sometimes leans on the liberal/artsy side, but it’s really well done.

I’m so disappointed. This is the only picture that I was able to salvage from the one night trip to Randy’s Farm. When I was downloading the pictures, I should have zigged when I zagged and they are all gone. I’m so disappointed.

Despite that, I arrived at 9:00 on Friday night and was asleep by 10:30. The next morning, we got up and started splitting wood. Randy had a number of hickory trees die over the course of the summer and needed to be cut down and split. Gary and his son, Cody, cooked breakfast and we ate at 9:00. After breakfast Randy, Chuck, myself and Blue went on the four wheelers around Randy’s property. After driving for an hour Blue started barking and it was evident that she was extremely tired. So we had to put her on the back of Randy’s four wheeler and she couldn’t have been happier.

We got back to Randy’s house at 10:30 and Gary and Cody were splitting another tree and we started to help until we took a break for lunch. After lunch we finished splitting the second tree and it was time for me to get home. I think I left around 2:00.

This was the first time that I had ever had Blue outside without a leash and the “parent” in me is so nervous to let her go. I experienced this with Rage and I’ve always been afraid that she’ll run away or not come back and the thought of letting her go, which makes her extremely happy, is terrifying. I imagine that parents face this question all the time and I never truly get over the fear of letting something go. It is different with children though, you like to think that you’ve taught your child to know right from wrong, good from bad, etc. With a puppy dog there’s no guarantee that she’ll do the right thing or stay close to the house, or not wander off too far. Trust is such an amazing feeling. Nevertheless, I let Blue go and she couldn’t have been better. She knew to stay near me and she also knew to come when I called her, which is something that she doesn’t always do at home. She kept up with us and she’s always good in the car. She was a really good puppy dog this weekend.

I am only writing the following for posterity:

Since Miranda’s been at home during the summer she has been an absolutely wonderful wife. She has literally had dinner ready when I got home from work. I don’t tell her how much I appreciate what she’s done, but I really do, I realize that I’m lucky and this fantasy world will end when she school starts back.

Nevertheless, the other day she cooked meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Miranda’s recipe for mashed potatoes: potatoes, salt, and pepper. She asked how the mashed potatoes were and I said that they were good but a little dry. She then responded that she cooked the potatoes for 30 minutes. I asked her about the milk and butter that I thought were also ingredients. She had no idea what I was talking about. It was funny and priceless all at the same time.

So I’m back in the real world, no vacation time until Christmas. I noticed that before the vacation, weeks were dragging by, but now they seem to be going by quickly. It is amazing how the mind can affect what we believe is a long time when in reality it is no longer of a period of time than anything else.

I came across a neat website, What I Should Read Next. The concept is simple, type in the name of the book and this will spit out books that you may enjoy. This is handy for me because there are certain books that I really enjoy and I can be a voracious reader at times, but if nothing piques my interest then I really could care less about reading anything. For example, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is my all time favorite book, so perhaps I should be reading these instead of guess what I would like or not like.

By the way, this site also has a music and movie equivalent.

Have you ever thought about your life in terms of a timeline? I’ve often thought that seeing your life relative to where you are and what you’re doing now would be a pretty neat experience. Somewhat out of body if you will. Dandelife will plot your life on a timeline. This is my next internet project, behind trying to keep up with publishing a book of the first year of my little project, and of course, I’m sure there will be a link at sometime.

I’m beginning to think that the point of all of this is that we have to keep doing, don’t be complacent, don’t just sit there.