September 26, 2011

Where has the summer gone?

I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is an opportunity for me to sit and dump some of this extra cruft I have built up in my brain onto paper. Maybe it is because I have at least a half dozen people who read this and really want an update (Sarcasm). Maybe some things are best not analyzed. The fact of the matter is I'm adding a post!

I have about a hundred topics I'd like to talk about, but I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. I'm going to tell you a story. A true story.

This past weekend I was driving in my S.U.V on a country road that had enormous power lines next to it which went as far as the eye could see. Forget the fact my truck is spitting out exhaust, I have the gall to say, "This view sure would be nice if it weren't for all those power lines."

My wife quickly responded, "That makes you sound so old. You need to embrace the necessary and sometimes ugly things in life and look past them."

I took that bit of advice to heart. That afternoon I went on a bike ride. I brought my camera with the intention of capturing beauty in man made objects. While on my ride I was thinking to myself, "I need to look past the ugly..." and no sooner did I think this when a really fat grasshopper tried to cross the road at an inopportune time. the grasshopper jumped into my spokes where he was quickly blended into a grasshopper puree, which was then sprayed onto my leg. It honestly felt like a glass of water hit my shin.

The moral of the story: There is a lot of ugly in the world and not all of it is man made...

OK, maybe that is a bit dark.

The moral of the story: Whether the ugly is a power line or a blended grasshopper; if you don't focus on the ugly and focus on the big picture, things are a lot less ugly.

I looked past the power lines and I saw beautiful mountains. Similarly, the minced grasshopper on my leg didn't keep me from having a great ride!
"Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth."
~Margaret Thatcher