joshmorton.com

I was in New York Thursday and Friday morning, and I even managed to go a whole 30-some hours without my laptop. Thus, no post on Friday morning.

And now it’s Saturday night, and not just any Saturday night, but ‘Spring Forward Saturday Night’–and I feel the urge to write something even though I have to get up in just a few short hours. But I don’t have anything really pressing that I want to share with you tonight. No theological implications, or life lessons, or anything of the sort. So instead, I’ll share with you some of my goals for the year of 2007. This is by no means a thorough list, or even a well designed, heavily pensive list. It’s just some of the things on my mind that I want to do this year. Not passing things, but things that really count as goals even if they’re not on a list somewhere. Problem is, most of these things are proving to be not cheap things, which doesn’t fit well with my financial consultant. So how many of them actually happen is dependent on the federal government approving the special financial request I submitted to the house budget committee (which is to stop charging me income tax, thus increasing my take-home salary by some 35%).

At the top of the list:

I say it’s at the top of the list not because it’s the #1 priority, but simply because I started the process today. I’ve been inline skating for years and years, but have only a handful of experience on the ice. So I can’t just start playing hockey right away, I have to transition to the ice first. So I’m taking skating lessons. They’re public classes of 8 or 10 people, and so far I can’t say the instruction has even been all that fantastic, but it’s a path to taking adult learn to play hockey classes, which is my ticket into adult hockey leagues which happen year-round in Arlington, on top of the Ballston Mall parking garage. They just finished a 40-million dollar ice complex, complete with two rinks and tons of public skating. It also hosts the Washington Capitals’ practice sessions (D.C.’s pro hockey team). I miss playing team sports a lot, especially now that I’ve grown up and know the value of teamwork and practicing till you drop. I hate how terrible I was playing baseball in high school (and I’m not talking so much talent as all the other things, which are really the ones that make the big difference), and maybe it’s me wanting to vindicate myself and participate in a team sport as a hard-working guy who never complains, who plays through the pain, and who works hard to see the payoff instead of just waiting to get lucky one game every season. Or maybe it’s just me wanting to smash some people into the boards. That sounds like fun.

I want to actually learn how to play the guitar. I started this process about 6 years ago when I went out and whimsically bought a guitar which I couldn’t even afford. (I had to go borrow money from my dad so my check didn’t bounce). But I’m finally starting to embrace the fact that I’m talented musically, but not without lots of practice. Same thing as before… in high school I never practiced, I just sat back and hoped I got lucky once in a while. But four years in Chorale taught me a lot about practice–especially that just when you think you’re ready, you’ve only done about 10% of the practice that you actually need.

One of the things I’ve become highly interested in is photography. Now, I’ve always been interested in that, but I’m thinking about it and learning about it more and more. All of the sudden my digital camera has become inconvenient; it doesn’t do the things that I want it to anymore. And while any great photographer will tell you that what matters is the photographer, not the camera, you also don’t see any of them walking around with a $300 kodak digital. There’s a reason for that. Couple with that, you all know that Photoshop has become a big hobby of mine, and I would love to really delve into the professional photography world. At least partially.

Finally, I want to punch every global-warming-touting writer, politician, and public figure in the mouth. Right square in the teeth. This global warming thing is so utterly ridiculous, and yet somehow it seems the entire world has bought into this piece of pseudo-science which has not a single empirical shred of evidence to support it. They’ve somehow convinced the general public that the earth is in a warming trend, even though thermometers have only been around since the 19th century (technically, Galileo invented a thermoscope in 1593, but there was no standard of measure, they could only make subjective measurements. Daniel Fahrenheit wasn’t even born for another 100 years, and it was really in the 1800s that standards of measure, and thus temperature records, even became available). That’s like measuring a pot of boiling water for 10 seconds, and then declaring that you have a complete record of the water’s temperature, from the time it left the faucet until the present. Scientists have no idea how hot it was in the 14th century, the 2nd century, or in 2000 B.C. In our ten seconds of temperature readings, it is possible that the earth’s climate has warmed slightly. But there’s absolutely no way of proving empirically that this is different than the entire rest of the Earth’s history. Everything else in nature is cyclical, and it only makes sense that the Earth’s temperature would be as well.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work harder to protect the environment. I think it’s great that we’re considering being conscious about protecting the environment. That’s really all we’re doing is considering, because if we actually were being conscious things would have changed by now. But you have to start somewhere. I just fear the day, which I think is probably inevitable (unless Americans manage to piss off the final 10% of the world and they all team up to kill us, which given the current state of our foreign politics seems increasingly likely), when Democrats and their big government dictate to us what we can and can’t drive, can and can’t own, can and can’t do. It could even be Republicans, seeing as how they don’t seem to really stand for small government anymore, either. But it will probably happen some day. And in the words of Padme (that’s Princess Leia’s mom) in Star Wars: Episode III,

“So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.”

I got a call from Eric Jones tonight. One of my all-time favorite people. It’s always good to talk to him and know that there’s at least one person out there who’s more of a loser than I am.

That was a joke.

Anyways, we got on the subject of taking time off work and vacationing and visiting people. This has been on my mind a lot the past couple of weeks, as I try to plan an actual vacation where I actually intend to take an entire weekend off, not to mention several days surrounding it. Originally I was going to go home in March, but then work popped up and decided I shouldn’t go home any time soon, so now I’m looking into the April or May time frame. But my original plan was to spend a week at home, split between a few days in Marion and a few days gallavanting around the midwest, trying to see as many people as possible. This would have required a large amount of sacrifice on my part, my family’s part, and many friend’s parts. If I flew home, then my gallavanting would require the use of a vehicle, which means either renting one or borrowing one at the expense of my family. Then there’s impossible amount of planning that goes into the trip, where people have to juggle schedules and rearrange plans and do all sorts of crazy schedule juggling that was so easy in college and is now impossibly difficult in the real world. Then there’s trying to get back to Marion, back to the airport, and finally back home to Arlington in time to be back at work so I can break my back and make enough of a living to fix my broken back that I broke so I would have the money and insurance to fix it.

Then in the course of my phone call with Eric, and our scheming on how I could possibly join him and his brother in-law for a week of Appalachian Trail hiking, that it hit me. Really I had already figured this out, but my moment of full-realization epiphany happened during the phone call.

I have no desire to take part in the rat race of seeing as many people as possible in the limited amount of time I have to see them all. I tried this approach in August when I went home, and all I learned was that there isn’t enough time to see everyone. So by trying to see everyone, you end up spending quality time with no one, and at the end of the whirlwind week I had at home, I came back east feeling like I hadn’t really “seen” anyone. Including my family, which was the whole reason I went to begin with.

Now what I’m learning, as my friends and I begin to settle into our adult lives, is that you just have to make priorities and go with them. I’ll be honest, if you’re in the middle of a trip, and in order for us to see each other we have to completely inconvenience each other to spend 30 minutes at a McDonald’s eating lunch, I’d rather not do it. Hey, if you came out to Virginia to see your family, then see your family. As much as I enjoy seeing old friends, that half hour at McDonald’s really isn’t worth the trouble and pain it will cause. Conversely, if I decided I’m going to take three or four days off and go see my family, I want to see my family. Okay, let’s say they’re working during the day–fine, I’d love to come hang out while the ‘rents are working. But come evening, I want to go back home. I mean, it’s my family.

What I’m not saying is I want to completely do away with the random visiting. For instance, say your flight is connecting in DC (not likely to happen, but go with the illustration). You call me and find out Tuesdays are great for me, it’s like my Saturday, and I would love to drive out and see you at the Dulles McDonald’s while you’re waiting. That’s cool. I love those random meetings. But I’ve decided I’m done with the “work you into my schedule” mentality. That’s for business executives who are trying to avoid interviews from Forbes magazine. Coming to DC for a weekend? Awesome. Let’s try and plan ahead so we can hang out for a few hours. Driving through DC on a tight time table? Sorry it couldn’t work out. That would’ve been awesome to see you, but keep on headed where you’re going. Oh hey, we should get together some time when we get the chance.

I’m looking forward to building some tenure up at my job now, because it means more vacation time. I have two weeks to use between now and September. In my second year on the job, I get three weeks vacation. In my third year, I get four. Four weeks of vacation sounds awesome to me. That’s enough time to see the family just because, spend time with them at holidays, take a week to see a few friends, take a week to go backpacking, and take a weeklong vacation somewhere (second week of backpacking, anyone?). Money to do that all is another issue. But having the possibility to do it is a good start.

So if I’m planning on seeing you, I’m making a conscious choice and concerted effort. Whether that means reworking my schedule so I can catch you on your day off in New York, or postponing my trip home to a later time that works better for everyone, or planning 8 months ahead to make sure it works. So there it is, my “visiting family and friends treatise.” I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Seriously.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

No one ever comments on my posts anymore.