New House

So far in my life it has been exciting every-time I’ve moved. It looks like I’ll keep that streak going.

The lease at my current apartment is about to come up and its been nice but I need to move closer to work. So it was time to start looking for a new place. After waiting too long and missing a nice town-home, my future flatmates and I just today signed the papers for our new house! It is sooo exciting. Its brand new, the sod isn’t even in yet! Its a nice 2 story, 3 bedroom, 2 bath and 2 car garage place near Nicholasville RD and Man O War. It should take less than 20 minutes to get to work, less than ten to get to church and they’re putting in a new movie theater nearby. Jason has been real productive and already put in orders to get the DSL, water and electricity set up.

Race Day

Ahh, the big race is today. The Haggin Hospital Sunset Run 5K at Shakertown, starts at 6 tonight. It will be my first race since high school, which has been a long time. I don’t know what time to expect, haven’t really been timing myself in training, and this is a very hilly course. My personal goal is just to finish the race strong and at the end feel like I had a good run. Right now I’m starting to get excited and nervous all at the same time. I’m not fully excited or nervous yet, but just ask me again at 5:30.

Wish me luck!

Big Fish and things that matter

Coughed up 3 bucks to see Big Fish at the Carmike, I know its on DVD but it was just one of those movies I thought would be better to see for real.

I saw the movie Big Fish this weekend. A very good movie, “fantastic” in that the stories in it are so over the top. (If you haven’t seen it yet, go read someone else’s blog cause I might ruin it for you.) The father is always telling people, he’s son in particular, about all these life adventures that can’t possibly be true because the stories are just so over the top. I kind of thought about my own dad and how good he is at telling stories. I have always loved sitting at a table late at night surrounded by his siblings and in-laws as they reflect of some of the great things that have happened since last time they talked or reflecting on adventures from when they were younger. I know my father better though sitting in on these story times. I know more about my aunts, uncles and grandparents as well. Unfortunately, theses stories would have no occasion to be simply told to me. Adults know kids probably don’t care about getting carded when trying to buy diapers. It is such a treat to hear about the lives of those who have came before you. This really all goes back to my blog a couple weeks ago on what Ecclesiastes says is really important in life. It is all about our relationships, especially our relationship with Christ, that’s why communication is so important. Whether it be through stories or prayer it is so good to get to know people. More than just how their day was and what their job is.

Its a shame when the memory of people is lost. How many of us don’t even know the name of our great grandparents or where our great-great-great-grandparents came from. Recently I and some other relative were able to sit down and video tape a conversation with my grandparents about their lives. About their brothers, sisters, parents and how they met. My grandpop was shocked when I asked basic questions that he might have thought were common knowledge. We don’t know what those who came before us had to deal with in their lives. I have a copy of Band of Brothers on my desk right now, an incredible miniseries about World War II. Being from the generation I am, I knew almost nothing about how much of a strain on life that war on the world. I am so glad I did not have to live through it. I am so much more appreciative about what our grandparents did now that I have seen it. I have heard almost nothing about my granddad’s own time in the army.

I think this might be changing though, thanks a lot to consumer photography. Right now I am scanning hundreds of pictures for Steve’s memory video that will be shown at his wedding. There are just so many pictures. I know what he looked like after his first hair cut. This was something those 100 years ago didn’t have the advantage of. Hopefully with the advancement of affordable photography my grandkids will see pictures of my on the wall from 2004 and ask me what that was like. What will we do with photos once their owners pass on? I hope we don’t just throw them all away. My poor kids (if that day ever comes) will literally
have thousands of pictures of themselves.

Big Fish leaves the viewer with two possibilities for the larger than life stories. Either the storyteller exaggerated everything, or the young listener made up his own size for a giant. That’s going to be one of the disadvantages of having pictures of everything, kids won’t have to leave things up to their imagination. They’ll know that the giant you traveled the country with wasn’t really 15 feet tall. Secondhand Lions was another really good movie I saw not too long ago. Both are about lives who’s stories seem bigger than reality. As each movie draws to a close we learn that for the most part the fantastic stories are true, and its believable because as my dad says “truth is stranger than fiction”.