who knows... my clock says it's 4 mintues into today, blogger says its still 3 minutes away. who knows...
the point is - whenever midnight arrives, i'll reach another milestone. it's happened 3 times before in my life, and it's happening again today.
i remember the first time it happened. my father patted my back and said "Son, it now takes 2 digits to show your age." (i went from 9-10 years of age) my son turned 10 last year and i think i said the same thing to him.
the second time it happened i was in college. i had met the girl i wanted to marry, we were in love. we still are. i turned 20 on september 18, 1984.
the third time it happened, i was working at computer design, i had 2 small kids, mortgage payment... i didn't think things could get any tougher. busy taking the kids to day care, my wife and i both had to work. it seemed like we were running endlessly to catch hold of the rope that we were once "at the end of". we were young, healthy, but i guess we weren't actually at the end of the rope.
today i turn 40. the father of 2 wonderful kids; a daughter turning into a teenager tomorrow... a son that turned 11 a few weeks back.
seems like yesterday i'd plop down on the couch and watch cartoons after spending the day in 7th grade. responsibilities were a little homework and boy scout meetings. where did those twenty some years go?
well, this day is finally here. where will i be in another 10 years? what will i be doing? i hope i'm happy.
saturday evening was another visitors night at the veen observatory. this time we left our telescope at home and went with the intent to help the club in any way we could. we didn't actually help out very much, but we did see some awesome things and learn a little at the same time. using the telescopes at the observatory we saw many deep sky objects and learned a bit about the night sky in mid-september. for me, the highlight of the evening came early. not long after we were seeing distant planets like neptune and uranus, it was announced that the international space station (ISS) would be passing over in about 10 minutes. i've seen various satellites before, but i've never seen the ISS. it was quite amazing to see, well rather think. it was only a bright dot in the sky. it was moving north-north east at a steady rate. not fast, not slow. the thing that was amazing was thinking about the people that are living in it. it was just another bright dot in the sky, but it was full of human life.
there has to be other life out there. all those beautiful dots in the sky are there for a reason. they're not just there to make us wonder.
a bright dot in the sky was the home to life. i wonder how many other bright dots in the sky are helping support life.
lately i've been intrigued with letterboxing. if you've never heard of letterboxing before, check out this site http://www.letterboxing.info/
in short, letterboxing is like a treasure hunt. you get clues from the internet, then you need to be able to navigate yourself to the specific area where the letterbox is hidden. if you can find the letterbox, you stamp it with your rubber stamp and stamp your journal with it's rubberstamp.
today i purchased the supplies i'll need to make my rubber stamp along with a pad of paper to use as a journal and a royal blue ink pad. i plan to design my own stamp using stars and guitars.
i hope everyone had a happy and safe labor day. i spent my labor day at home with a funky little red machine. this morning, first thing, i went to our meijer store in search of something that could help our carpets and rugs. their solution was rugdoctor. apparently i needed a rug doctor to help me celebrate labor day. unfortunately, there was no such thing as a "rug nurse" to accompany the good doctor. i think all i really needed was the help of a good nurse.
at any rate, it's back to work tomorrow. so long from the clean rug captial of the world.
