Ridiculous

On the left, my pile of books for Tues/Thurs classes. On the right, my
pile for Mon/Wed/Fri. Ridiculous.

Thunderific

In case you haven't heard... the NBA in OKC announced it's official name today: The Oklahoma City Thunder. The news stations were all in a thunder about it tonight on the 6:00 newscast, covering this thunder for almost as long as typical okie tornado. The worst part? All the "thunder" puns we are getting out of this. I've never heard that many bad jokes in a news cast. We've got Thunderwear, we've got the Thunderdome, Thunder sound effects going into commercial breaks, even Mike Morgan segued into his weather report on a thunder joke. Now don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about having an NBA team in town. I'm a huge sports fan, and I'm really excited to go to games. I'm just starting to hear a new thunder in town... this one created by all the groans in reaction to yet another bad Thunderpun. I'm just wondering who the mascot will be... Thunderman?

Last day of summer...

Today is my last free day before classes start tomorrow morning. This would be nothing new, except for the fact that my roommate brought up. He said "enjoy tonight, it's the last night of summer for the rest of our lives". Now obviously, we'll have the season of summer in the future... but he is right, we both graduate this year, today is the last day of summer break I'll ever have. Kind of a scary thought, change is definitely in the winds.

Recognition

The human brain has an amazing ability to recall faces. Even if you can't always place a name with a face, it is usually unmistakeable when a face looks familiar. I've looked the same for years and years, and I've had people who I haven't seen since I was 12 or 13 come up to me and recognize me. Until recently that is... I've made the first major change in years to what I look like, simply by letting my hair grow out. I haven't had a hair cut since May, and I now slick my hair down with gel every morning instead brushing it with a towel. Oddly enough, I've had people that I've known as long as I can remember not recognize me. I was walking down the sidewalk here at school the other day, and a professor here that I've known for years had no clue who I was when I said hi. Granted, I had sunglasses on too, but this has started to become a common occurrence. Amazing how such a simple change can make a person look so different.

Blog posts

Earlier today I had two blog posts in mind that I wanted to make when I got home tonight. Now, I can't remember what either of the two topics were. So instead of deep thought provoking material, you get this post, a post about the post topics I can't remember. I'll probably remember them as soon as I shut down my computer and get in my bed. But at that point, I'll no longer be in a posting mood, so they probably won't make it up here. Oh well, maybe I'll remember them tomorrow.

Settling

The past few days I've been moving back to school and trying to get settled in. Today, I'm finally starting to feel like this is my apartment and home for the next school year. Both my roomates are here now, and we went grocery shopping and decorated our living room today. We also cooked our first meal in the apartment tonight - Mexican stack/Mexican pile-up... an excellent way to break in the kitchen. I still felt a little lost because I'm not used to the cabinet layout yet, and it took me several tries to find the cooking utensils I was looking for. But, the meal turned out quite nicely. Still one more week before school starts, so I'll be starting to feel even more settled by that point. Maybe one of these days I won't be relocating every few months. :-)

Restless

My friend Lara graciously told me I needed to update my blog again, and since I never do what she tells me to do, here is an update. I began my packing for school this afternoon, because I'll be gone most of the day tomorrow playing in a fund raising golf tournament. As the result, I'm now living out of my suitcase here at "home". I'm again in that transition period between two "homes", and I'm a bit restless awaiting my departure. On the one hand, I'm excited to head back to school, on the other hand there are definitely things I miss here in the NW when I'm at school (namely, friends and family). I haven't moved as much as some people in my life, but in the last few years, I haven't spent more than a few months in one spot. Sara Evans' song "Restless" came to mind as I was thinking about this. Here are a few of the lyrics -

"Oh, to hold somebody close that cares
Oh, to finally find some roots somewhere
I know someday I'll find it; it's out there
But until then, I'll just keep movin' and ramblin'

What do you do, where do you go
When nowhere feels like home 
I'm restless
Just ramblin'
Oh, I'm restless"

I do have some roots... but in recent years, those have been uprooted quite a bit. I'm a bit mixed up as to where I belong and what location is home. On the one hand these lyrics make me think of someday settling down into a "normal" life, raising a family, etc. But on the other hand, the whole situation makes me a bit restless for heaven. I could be more settled than I currently am here on earth, but in reality, I'll never be home here. "Oh, I'm restless."