Backflip

Memorial Day weekend. A time to remember those who’ve served our country and to pay them respect.

It’s also a 3 day weekend which is great for going on trips, hanging out and gettin’ a lot o’ stuff done. Which is precisely what I did. I headed up to Lake Loramie with the guys for a 2 day stay at Steve’s Cottage. It was great to get away and relax. There were boat rides, swimming, kayaking, movies, food, Dairy King, Bud’s Pizza and most importantly quality time spent with my brothers in arms. While most of the trip was not very ’spiritual’ (I didn’t go in search of my power animal) there were those great moments when topics would shift, bonds were created and life was shared. They are little boosts that keep me goin.

A big thanks for Steve for opening up his cottage and to all the wives that let their husbands go (a rare occurrence to be sure).

It was interesting that there were 10 married men and only 4 of us left still free (heh heh). This also made me think about my 6th grade class (small Christian School, we were pretty close) and how most of them are married as well. I can’t speak for any of those marriages but it’s quite obvious there a pressure in our society to get married as quickly as possible. Marriage is fine and I’m sure I’ll be married someday but I want to get married because it’s what I want, not because everyone around me thinks it’s what I should do. I’m no sociology major but it seems to me that people would be a lot better off not marrying so quickly/casually. These marriages seem to lead to divorces which are especially difficult if kids are involved. From my view if people just chilled out and made sure marriage is what they want then more of them would hold strong.

Anyway, the Lake was x-cellent as was the food and company.

You may be wondering why the title of this post is completion. Well wonder no more. On Sunday I finally got my Priest (in World of Warcraft) to the highest level, level 80. Some people say the game actually starts one you reach the level cap. This maybe true. However it’s also a good place to end. I haven’t quite decided yet what I’m gonna do but it sure is temping to drop WoW and it’s 3 year stranglehold on me to pick up some other games I’ve been missing out on.

I also finished Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It was a very interesting book. She presents some really refreshing ideas. The one major theme that I enjoyed could be termed proactive. The hero’s in the book are the people who know what they want and take steps to achieve their desires. This seems like a no-brainer, but it was flushed out quite a bit in the book and it made a lot of sense to me. The villains in the book are constantly talking about generalities, vague truths and overall ideas without having any action or direction behind them. This makes for wishy-washy people who aren’t going anywhere but don’t seem to care as long as they can make themselves think they are moving.

The book is discussing extremes but it was pretty refreshing to see how naked honesty could be put into practice and that valuing my time and energy isn’t evil or wrong. It spoke to the philosophy in life that if you want something then go out and get it. Which struck a note of truth for me. I get annoyed with people who talk about how they wished they were here or wish they could go there or how they hate where they are right now and want a change, then they never do anything about it.

One very apparent example is weather. People in Ohio (and I’m sure everywhere else) complain about the weather all the time. It’s too cold, too hot, too snowy, too blah blah blah. Well if you don’t like the weather so much, then get out of the state and let those who do enjoy it live in peace. Yes, there are complications. Yes, there are circumstances. But if they really hate the weather that much then they would make it possible to get out. Instead they just like to complain about it without taking any actions to resolve the situation.

I like to rant and rave about this type of behavior mostly because I see myself doing the same thing and I don’t like it. It can be difficult to match actions and talk. But I want to build that honesty and trust. The book gave some neat situations and examples of fictional characters standing up for the truth and it was neat to experience. If you have time to read 1000+ pages I’d recommend the book.

Speaking of long, this post turned out a log lengthier then planned. On Monday I had a cookout at the church with the fam and got to hang out with all the kiddies. There was me and about 8 or 9 of ‘em playing cornhole, on one set o’ boards, at the same time. It was pretty sweet.

’twas a great weekend. Lots of food for thought and food for the belly to boot. I’m also lookin’ forward to a short week and hopefully gettin’ sold to a new client. Keep your fingers crossed.

Work and Play. These two activities take up most of my time on a daily basis. Usually work is from 8-5 and play is the time after 5. There are other sub categories within these (such as sleeping, overcoming, helping others, eating, etc) but I’m gonna lay those aside and focus on the two above.

I’m coming to the realization that play can be mixed with work but that work should not be mixed with play. I enjoy having some laughs and some fun at work while staying productive and on task. Humor is essential to any work environment and I’d hate to work in one devoid of it. I also strongly feel that work should be left at work and that is shouldn’t interfere with play time. Before I sound like a huge slacker (which isn’t far from the truth) let me say I’m all for putting in extra time at work if needed. And even doing work at home if the occasion calls for such. However when there is nothing more to be done then work should be left at work.

This past week there were some delivery issues at a client in which a miscommunication on my part sent the project into a frenzy. The client was ticked, time was running out and it was a situation where I couldn’t just do more work to have it resolved. As a result I was under some stress (in comparison to other work related issues this one was actually pretty minor but it was still stressful) and had a hard time relaxing after work hours. Which is when I came to the conclusion that while I take pride in my work I shouldn’t let it rule my life.

There is a point where I have to let work go. When there is nothing more I can do I need to set it on a shelf and pick it up again in the morning. Thankfully I was able to stop worrying about work and have fun this past weekend. I think this is very healthy. Especially when a situation at work is out of my power to complete.

I had a great weekend watching Wolverine, playing Tennis, having lunch with Lis, Brian and Hind (where Lis and Hind got to practice their French, it was very interesting), seeing Scruff graduate, hanging out with the Shively clan and with the parents for a bit o’ Mother’s Day.

It was fabulous to have work suspended and to spend a weekend of fun and relaxation without the crushing worry that could easily have plagued me. I know as I become more experienced and tackle increasingly difficult projects this stress will increase. While I can’t say how I’ll handle those situations it was great to see that I could hold up under some stress yet still enjoy my life after work.

It’s such a simple thing, yet at times very difficult to achieve.

As a result it’s my goal to mix work and play but not play and work. Haha, guess that means I’ll have to give up WoW. We’ll see how that goes.

This weekend officially kicked off my summer. I had been feeling quite lazy and unmotivated to get back on my bicycle or to do anything which required physical exertion. I guess you could say I was still hibernating. But this weekend I finally awoke.

Saturday was a nice Hike at Brukner with Jordan and Hind (a friend from work:Teradata). Highlights of the trip included watching the Bobcat in his cage (cats are so cool), unsuccessfully hiding from Jordan while he stopped to take some pictures, making the perilous crossing of the boardwalk which sank into the water and was prone to moving (reminded me of Mario), and overall having a great time. I took some pix but don’t have them with me currently so they are gonna have to wait.

After the hike we headed out to the church to help prepare for the Mexican Dinner. Not as if we needed an excuse to have a huge horkin’ dinner but Cinco De Mayo is just around the corner so it’s somewhat appropriate. The dinner was a smashing success. I was in charge of heating the nacho cheese and making sure it tasted excellent. As a result I had to test it about every 10 seconds which was awesome. That stuff is soooooo good.

Funny occurrences during the meal – my friend Hind (she is a native of Morocco, living with her husband in Rhode Island) was helping (she diced about 30 tomatoes which was sweet) and my church is a pretty tight knit group of people so people were introducing themselves to her since they knew she was a visitor. Well on 2 seperate occasions people asked who she was visiting with and when she said “Luke” they were quite shocked. Now I can’t really tell if the shock was from me inviting a female to hang out or if they were shocked I actually had friends. But it came as a surprise to myself. I’m still mulling it over. I can’t even argue that Hind is the first visitor I’ve brought to a church event, it would have been nice since it would have fit in with the title, but it’s not true.

The rest of the night went very well, the dinner was great, breaking of the pinatas was fun (watching little kids is very enjoyable, which I’m guessing is because they aren’t mine), and hanging out over at Matt and Bob’s with the guys was pretty interesting. We were watching the Bulls v Celtics game, I wasn’t too interested so I took my laptop over and was playing some WoW. It was a decent mix of hanging out + playing.

Sunday is when the firsts began. After church I had my first tennis match of the year against Matt. I joined a tennis league that plays once a week and it just happened that Matt was my first opponent. We were both pretty rusty but it turned out I was less rusty and I ended up winning 6-2, 6-2. Anyone watching would have found the game quite boring since it pretty much came down to who made the least amount of mistakes. I think we play again later in the year so that match should be more exciting.

After tennis I ran around in WoW a bit with my sister and hit level 79. For those of you who don’t know, level 80 is the highest level in the game. So once a character reaches that level the “game begins” or some nonsense. I’m kinda dreading it since it means you have to put in about twice amount of time as before to get anything decent. But Lis, Brian (Lis’ hubby) and their friends Tom and Rachel are all lvl 80 so I guess we could start running around with each other again which can be fun.

Then came another first, I went with Matt and Bob on a 16 (or was it 17?) mile bike ride. It was pretty enjoyable. The weather was great and we rode south to Tipp City on the recently completed bike path that connects the two cities. I hear it’s possible to get all the way down to Dayton from Troy but haven’t found the right path yet. That’ll be a nice challenge for the summer. The path is mostly in the woods along the river so it’s secluded and the scenery is great. I got to test out my new bike seat which was neat. I think I’m gonna like it (as much as one can like a bike seat).

After the ride I hung out at Matt and Bob’s and we resurrected some great stories from our college days at Miami where we all hung out. There were some great laughs, some ice cream and some beer. Root beer.

All in all it was an amazing weekend. The best part was that it seemed to last forever and it had a good mix of hanging out with people as well as computer playing time (which is essential).

Now I just gotta sort out what is so crazy about me bringing a female friend to an event. Perhaps I have a skewed perception of myself. This will take some looking into.