Run the Earth; Watch the Sky

I love looking at the stars. I honestly know very little about them, other than what I've picked up from Bill Nye, PBS, and an Earth Science course at TCC, but truthfully, I'd prefer to keep it that way. There's something beautiful and enticing about looking up at the night sky and enjoying it for its mystery. This is why I was very excited about the email I got that said on August 27th, Mars was to appear as large as the moon, "A great night for stargazers." While Diane, Jenna and Kenley played a rousing game of Monopoly- realtor's version (They make it far too complicated for any normal human being to play. There are timeshares, rentals, managers of properties, financing available, leases and all sorts of other nonsense involved), Leah and I grabbed a sheet and a bottle of bugspray and made for the grassy part of the yard near our hammock. We never saw Mars. I'm sure it was there in all its red glory, but sadly, we never caught of glimpse of it.

All was not a loss, though. The moon was particularly beautiful. (I hear there was a lunar eclipse early this morning, but we missed that one as well.) One of my favorite things about laying on a blanket and looking at stars with people is that looking towards heaven generally steers conversation in that same direction. Some of the best talks I've had with people have been while looking at stars. So thanks for the company, Leah! :0)



"Sometimes I think of Abraham, how one star he saw had been lit for me..." - Rich Mullins

My last first day...

Today was my last first day of school. Last first day... Now, see, yesterday evening that thought brought about a sort of melancholy feeling, but after walking a mile up a hill through the rain at at way too early in the morning it morphed into a thought of comfort. Like most college campuses, FSU has far too little parking, and what parking it does have is confined to the outskirts of campus where it is really not convenient to anything or anyone. I parked in a parking garage around a mile from where I work and started trekking up Jefferson Street in the pouring rain. But then- a bus! It was so close. I took off running towards it, but as soon as I was close enough to read the numbers on the license plate it took off to rumble towards the next stop. Lucky for me, traffic was horrible, so I knew if I ran I could cut it off and get it at the next stop. So I did. But then, as I sprinted towards the finish line my shoe broke and I had to run back and pick it up. I was a pitiful case, soaking wet, standing on the sidewalk with a broken shoe and a sad excuse for an umbrella, watching my only hope of walking into my office with some bit of dignity left to me head towards Southgate to pick up the rich freshman. Ah well, such is life. Thankfully, my last first day is over and I can move on to my last second day.

T minus 3 days until college football...get fired up.

Rest in Peace, Back to the Future

I am not really a theme park person. I mean, they're okay and all, but somehow waiting in a line for hour to be thrilled for 45 seconds just doesn't seem like the best use of my time. However, I have always wanted to go to Universal Studios. During my, Carli and Derek's reunion this past weekend I was presented with the perfect theme park visiting opportunity- completely free with no travel time. Who could pass this up? So it was off to Universal. One cannot be too careful about losing their car, so we took a picture.

I was so glad that I remembered my sweater that day.

We first went to Islands of Adventure and Carli asked what we would like to do. I told her that we could do anything that everybody wanted as long as we made sure to get to the Back to the Future ride. My whole life I had wanted to ride it.

Imagine my complete dismay when we followed the map to the Back to the Future ride to see it completely torn down, preparing for some monstrosity known as "The Simpsons Ride." How could Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd even be compared with the Simpsons!? Back to the Future is a classic! One of the greatest movies ever made! I can't even make it through 3 minutes of the Simpsons! The store was still there, the DeLorean parked outside, but a horrid pink sprinkled donut was all that stood in place of the greatest ride of all time.


Fortunately some other great movie rides remained. We got to see Terminator in 3-D and Carli almost got us kicked out with her flash photography. (She is hardcore.)

And we took our picture with the greatest vehicle ever not made.

The third time I got stuck in this very seat my self esteem started to fall...

We even managed to take in some great waves.

Me and Derek doing our best Bubba faces.

red said it best

i miss fountain drink stops at places with dr. pepper and diet pepsi

i miss roadtrips to the georgia (the state, not the country ;0) line at 3 o'clock in the morning.

i miss late night bunkbed talks

i miss celebrating april 4th every year with seafood

i miss drawing the lyrics to songs on computer paper

i miss trying out hair braiding skills before youth on sundays

i miss splitting shrimp and scallop meals

i miss not having to finish my thoughts out loud

i miss rocking out to petra

i miss the tale of the three trees

i miss speeding down fred george with the sunroof open

i miss hanging out on todd's couch

i miss eating cereal for dinner

i miss walking down the hill...

...onto the white stones...

...between the two trees...

...through a couple spiderwebs...

...to a perpetually locked door

i miss drama practice

i miss the seals at seaworld

i miss watching the shawshank redemption and quoting all of morgan freeman's best lines

i miss opening christmas presents way too early

i miss singing american pie from start to finish on the way to church

i miss being read max lucado books

i miss being in the same time zone

i miss being on the phone until 2 in the morning when i used to think it was late

I miss messing up all the words to "into the woods."

i miss being four houses away

i miss sharing a room

i miss grocery shopping

i miss agreeing on all essentials- sour cream, pelmeni, cheap toilet paper and coke light

i miss 8 episodes of boy meets world a day

i miss sharing everything

i miss planning what to do with a newly bought delorean

i miss looking up the lyrics to songs on google so we can make sure we've got it right

i miss cinnamon-sprinkled coffee

i miss dead deer

i miss walking home from the bus stop

i miss sneaking away from maria ivanovna

i miss the jeep

i miss trying to figure out how many grams of cookies we need

i miss singing big fish in the car

i miss sharing headphones on the marshrutka

i miss celtic festivals

i miss playing at the coast

i miss giving toasts at shenanigans

i miss playing christmas music in july

i miss educating our generation on how great cheers is

i miss having to buy half as many cd's

i miss putting up my christmas tree

i miss taking it all for granted and thinking it would always be exactly the way it was

i guess i just miss my friend