I Just Finished a Great Book

I just finished a great book - Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. It's a true story about a 1996 commercial expedition to climb Mount Everest that ended up in the death of six climbers. I won't go into a bunch of details, but after reflecting on the story I'm struck by two things. All of the characters were extremely focused - to the point of being obsessed - about getting to the top of Everest. So much so that they let their ambitions kill them. In addition, although they were all surrounded by such a magnificent and majestic location and in continually dangerous and challenging conditions, there is not one mention - not even a single tiny reference - to God, His creation, or asking for His protection.


I was at Second Mile again yesterday and I had some serious fun. My boss, Tom, was on vacation so I didn't have my recently typical easy job in one of the air conditioned offices. One of the warehouse guys was out with the truck making pick-ups and the other warehouse guy wasn't in, so I put myself in charge for the day. As the day progressed it became necessary for me to move some stuff around, so I actually drove the fork lift. I mentioned in an earlier post that several weeks ago I received about 90 seconds of training on the fork lift, which I of course by now had totally forgotten, but which of course didn't stop me. With my crew of two community service boys we had lots of work to do. I made sure they were both far from my path, which wasn't a problem after they witnessed me knocking over a few boxes and having a low-speed collision which some furniture. I also loaded some furniture into an Egyptian lady's minivan, which was quite interesting. I don't usually have too much trouble communicating with the Spanish-speaking clients, but Egyptian is another thing. The only words I know in Egyptian are Pharaoh and pyramid. But, things worked out okay and she got her furniture. And, I'm fairly certain that she was very impressed with my fork lift driving.


Later today we're driving up to The Woodlands to visit with Bethany for a few hours. As part of her nanny gig she'll be there taking care of her young charge while his mom attends a meeting of some type. I'm looking forward to breakfast and lunch with a one year-old. I'm sure we'll bond. Speaking of Bethany, she had a job interview yesterday for a speech and debate teaching postion at Hayes Consolidated ISD in Buda (Texas), which is about 3o miles south of Austin. I can't wait to hear how that went.


I have now officially given up on my front yard and accepted the fact that it will not rain again in my lifetime. I'm considering putting a lethal dose of weed killer on the entire yard and just being done with the whole thing, and then spray painting the dirt green, which will save me hundreds of dollars each month on water. Actually, the decision now seems easy - continue to spend money watering the yard and end up with dead grass, or don't spend money watering the yard and end up with dead grass? Hmmm.