Living a Dream

Traveling is good. Traveling does things to you that staying in one place cannot. But traveling poses one of the most difficult questions that a person can be faced with: Where do you want to go? Most people have a list of places that they'd like to go. Depending on your station in life, that list might include Paris, Tokyo, Disney World, Bora Bora, or Branson, Missouri - all of which are fine choices, if given the right set of circumstances. But that list is probably longer than one place, and you're almost certainly not spending an unlimited amount of time in whichever place you choose, so how you do decide where to go and what to do while you're there? The truth is that it's hard. I'm lucky, I know it. I've been a lot of places - more places than were originally on my "I have to go there before I die" list, if I'm being honest. And yet, I still want to go places. Every time one place gets crossed off the list, another place gets added. Wh...

For a little while now I've been feeling a bit empty. Part of it is the overarching malaise of living in 2018 America. Part of it is being at a crossroads in life and not knowing which way to turn. Part of it is because it's been 90+ degrees outside for most of the past month. There's not really a great answer to all of it, but it's happening. But one of the things that I keep thinking about is how I think I'd like to start drawing. Or painting. Or something. I want to make visual art, but I'm completely terrified of it. What's more, I don't think I consider my own artistic pursuits to be "good" enough to actually pursue. I explored this idea a little bit on an Instagram post where I edited a photo, and it has kept me thinking further about this. With words, I don't have any issues with confidence, and that means I don't second-guess what I said. Even if I say something that pisses people off, I have confidence in the fact that I (...

Jenna and I spent a chunk of this week in Northern Virginia, in the area around Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah (which it turns out I've been pronouncing incorrectly for my entire life) was great. There were hikes of all levels and lengths, varying difficulty, varying crowd-levels, and lots more. The park wasn't in full-swing yet, as some of the camping areas don't open until "summer," but there were still plenty of people out enjoying nature, which is nice. Being in nature gets me thinking. After a day of driving along Skyline Drive and doing several small hikes, we hiked a trail called Bearfence . After an incredibly fun scramble up the rocks to the actual peak, we were greeted with what I can only imagine is the best lookout point in the entire park. Sitting on top of a mountain - looking over dozens of other mountains - is a special feeling. As tiny houses in tiny faraway towns fill your vision, you start to think about how those are just people. From...

Sometimes you read things online that can't be true. Sometimes those things turn out to be true. About a year ago I read that the hyrax is the closest living relative to the elephant. The hyrax is roughly the size of a domesticated rabbit - maybe smaller - and looks like a mix between a capybara and a rat. Here is its wiki page . It's amazing. The genetic similarities (if you don't read the wiki page) are because they have similar testicle situations (great band name), their mammaries are patterned in a way that's similar to manatees and elephants, and their "tusks" come from the incisors (same as elephants) whereas almost all animals have "tusks" from their canine teeth. How can something that maxes out at about 10 pounds be nearest relative to something that weighs about 200 pounds at birth? Science is amazing. And while I do want to explore how the above question can be answered, I'll do that on my own time or read about it on the intern...

Boy, it's been tough to catch my breath this week. This week saw a LOT of words go to NBA articles of mine. Two ended up getting published - this one and this one - and a third one hasn't yet seen the light of day because it needs to be reconfigured after the NBA trade deadline. The three of them were about 4500 words total, so that's something. Additionally, we've been dog-sitting for a german shepherd who spent her first 18 hours in our home strengthening every negative connotation I had of german shepherds. She effectively didn't stop whining even once the first night, while also occasionally barking like a lunatic and keeping us up all night. She's also super-high energy, which is fine if you're not used to having a dog that's part dog and part ottoman, like this angel. At any rate, the week has turned into waking up earlier than normal, throwing a ball 20x in the backyard, going for a 2+ mile walk, throwing the ball again as soon as I get...

At some point in college, it dawned on me that my group of friends from home was unusual. Yes, we were all weirdly close an did some objectively strange things to each other (and with each other, but mainly to each other), but apparently it was weird to stay so close to people from your hometown. We all thought nothing of it, because that's just the way we were. Others, however, were surprised and often confused. Some of them were "adopted" into the group of us from the Chesterland area, and it's hard to say how much they still stayed in touch with people who didn't go to high school with us, because they sure assimilated into our friends-since-early-childhood clique. But still, that was only college. Later, I moved to Chicago and found that there were people who I hadn't seen in years who would gladly, willingly, almost eagerly bail me out of I was in a pinch or needed a place to stay. These were people I wasn't even necessarily close  with when we were...