The Feeling

Dustin's graduated. It's pretty crazy to think that my brother has finished up his undergraduate college education. I spent this past weekend in Gainesville, Florida in order to attend his graduation ceremony. They split up the college of liberal arts, since it would have been about 2000 people total going in one ceremony, so we had the early session. Now, I don't know exactly how many people graduated at Harding during my walk, but I figured this had to be just about comparable, and I felt like my graduation took about 3 hours. Well, they defied my expectations...and managed to do everything they needed to do in 2 hours. I was impressed. I hadn't heard names read that quickly as students walked across the stage at any graduation I've been to before. The students all had a card with their name on it, getting rid of the need to have a specific list and order to go by, and they simply handed the card to the reader who would spout it off as quickly as possible and move on to the next one. The ceremony started at 2, and we were out the door by 4. I think more graduations should subscribe to the auctioneer style of reading off the names.

Today we drove back down to Atlanta to drop Dustin off for his final national frisbee tournament. He was flying out to Boulder for the week before college nationals kicks off next Friday. He won with Florida in 2006, but they lost last year at some point around the quaterfinals I believe. He's fairly certain that they've got a good shot again this year, but of course they'll have to play well as always. We'll see what happens when next weekend rolls around. Speaking of frisbee...I need to go and vote about captains for the team for the upcoming club sectionals...in September...since when did we do stuff early?

Since we were in the area, we went to the Georgia Aquarium, located in downtown Atlanta. This is the only aquarium in the world to hold whale sharks, and it has 4 of them. They are housed, along with a number of other fish and small sharks, in a tank that contains about 6.2 million gallons of water. The wall of glass holding this in is 2 feet thick, and consists of 6 panels about 50 feet high that were molded together by heat once they were brought on site. It really is a pretty spectacular place to go see. It was even featured on the Today show a number of months back, so if you're ever in the area, I would certainly recommend it. Plus, just across the street, you can go to the World of Coca-Cola if you so desire.

I'm fairly pumped about the next few months of music, as there will be a number of releases which I am looking forward to (in case you hadn't seen the ever-growing listing on the right). Right near the top of that list is the new Kutless cd which releases in about a month on June 24. They released a single for download for free on their website yesterday, so off I went to get it so I could get a little sneak-peak at the album. I'm a fan of it, so check it out if you've liked any of their stuff before. It'll take about 2.5 minutes of your time...or probably about as long as it took to read through what I've written today.

The European soccer season is quickly drawing to a close, with many of the final round games being played either this weekend or next weekend. In Spain, Real Madrid has already clinched the title, and they were applauded on to the field by the arch-rivals Barcelona. As if that were not humiliating enough, they were trounced 4-1, allowing Real to sweep them for the first time in about 20 years. Ouch. The English Premiership also has a day of tense games tomorrow, with the title and relegation teams being decided over the course of hours. Manchester United and Chelsea are tied on points, with United having the lead based on goal difference. Should United win, they will retain the title they won last year. Any other result would require Chelsea to not win in their final game. At the other end of the table, 3 teams are battling to keep from being relegated, or sent down a division. There are 2 more relegation spots left, with each team needing a win to keep from going down.

I would like to see something similar to this in American sports. There really isn't any drama at the end of a season, except for who will/will not make the post-season. Sure, it's disappointing if your team doesn't make the cut for the playoffs or whatever, but there's always next year. There's no threat of being sent down a league and having to play your way back up, you just are humiliated for a season at not advancing out of the regular season, and come back again next year on level terms with everyone. I know nothing like that would ever happen...but I think it does make for a better over-all season, knowing that every result counts, and that not getting the results can see you demoted.

At any rate, it's nice to be back home, as it's been an incredibly long week. It was non-stop at work from Monday at 7 through about Friday at 3:30 or so...and I'm just worn out. It's time to just kick back and relax for the night, which is quite an inviting proposition.