2 Degrees of Separation

My coworker forwarded me a link to his friend's PalinAsPresident.com site a week ago, and said: "let me know...if you have any ideas or builds, I think he’ll be launching in a few days."

Naturally, in my too-busy fashion, I never looked at it. Today, my coworker asked if I had checked it out, and mentioned it had incredibly received over 9,000 Diggs. Not only that, but today's VSL Web even highlighted PalinAsPresident.com.

Talk about two degrees of separation...

(By the way, spend your time clicking around -- it's pretty good)

Never Again

This past weekend my best high school guy friends and I headed up to Bjork's cabin for our semi-annual guys getaway trip. It was an awesome time full of food, beer, more food, lots of laughs, video games, and paintball. But the unexpected highlight from the weekend happened in a flash. We were out in the boat and I brought a tennis ball thinking we might play catch and dive off the boat or something. It was my turn to water ski and I jokingly told James that he should throw me the ball while I was skiing. After getting up and stabilized on the skis, James motioned to me with the ball. Figuring what the heck, I gave him a signal to throw it. And he did. And I reacted. And I made a shoestring catch, next to my left foot. I couldn't believe it. They couldn't believe it. It was amazing, and will never happen again.

Slacker

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've been slacking lately on the dot com.

I'm pretty sure I should blame it on summer -- spending time outdoors late into the night, road trips (Badlands and Black Hills!), gardening, summer sports...you get the idea.

So in the meantime, while I continue to slack, why don't you check out my friends' blogs listed to the right, or the newest blogs that I've been too lazy to add:

My friend Kris bought an AmTrak rail pass and took off for the summer.

My friend Katie found a nanny job in Turkey and is living the dream.

It's Good to be a Guy

Had a guy's getaway this past weekend over in Hayward, WI. The highlight for me was playing hockey out on the freshly shoveled (thanks Achter) patch of frozen Sand Lake with two broomsticks, a squeegee, and a shovel. Halftime consisted of peanuts, beers, and a discussion on the finer points of playing hockey without knowing how to stop. Good times.

5 Minutes of Your Time

My friend needs your help -- he's been dreaming of seeing SNL in person for as long as he could stay up past 10:30pm. Every year he sends out this email to all of his friends, asking for their help in requesting tickets to the show. The email needs to be sent before the end of August -- just 10 days from now. Please take the 5 minutes to do so, and if you are so lucky, it would seriously make his year:

---

Aloha!

Hi, it's that time of year again when I have momentary hopes of finally seeing sketch comedy performed in Studio 8H of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. I'd like to see a taping of Saturday Night Live and I would love 1 minute of your time to assist me. The tricky part is that tickets are distributed for the whole season by a lottery system and ticket requests are accepted ONLY in the month of August for the coming season.

What I ask of you is to copy and paste the brief message at the bottom and email it to:

snltickets {at} nbcuni.com
(I removed the @ sign in hopes of deterring spam-bots)

Please remember to add YOUR NAME at the end of the message, send in the request only once, and don't send this email as a forward to the NBC address.

If your name is drawn for two tickets, you'll get an email in September or October informing you. Then, you'd let me know and you will receive a very big thank you for your help and a New York souvenir of your choice. Thanks for your assistance!

Hello-

Please enter me in the 2007-2008 Saturday Night Live ticket lottery.

Thanks,

YOUR NAME HERE

Minnesota Majestic

I watched my friend Matt play in the Minnesota Majestic this weekend (never mind the outdated graphic, but notice the semblance to the Masters logo).

It wasn't his best tournament, but it was still enjoyable on my end. I'm a decent disc golfer, but watching pros makes me feel like fool. I'm pretty sure the top pros can throw nearly twice as far as I can.

What Happened to all the Weddings?

For a period in my life it seemed every summer weekend was filled with wedding activity. Here a friend, there a friend, everywhere a friend of a friend was getting married. It was like going to dozens of mini reunions. Everyone was happy and all had a bright and promising future.

I don't know what's happened since then, but that pace has dropped dramatically. Perhaps I'm getting older. Perhaps the early bloomers in my group have all said their vows. But lately my reunions have come from less fortunate circumstances.

One of my good friend's mother passed away this past week. Today was the funeral. It was a sad occasion, yet good to see my lifelong friends. It still amazes me to this day that I could go a year without speaking with one of them and pick up as if we had a beer together the day before. My friend's mom suffered from Alzheimer's disease, just as her mother did.

I'm not really a poetry person, but I was moved by the poem included in the funeral bulletin today, and wanted to share...

Heart Memories
by Louise M Eder

I remember you with my heart
My mind won't say your name
I can't recall where I knew you
Who you were
Or who I was.

Maybe I grew up with you
Or maybe we worked together
Or did we bowl together yesterday?
There's something wrong with my memory
But I do know you
I know I knew you
And I do love you
I know how you make me feel
I remember the feelings we had together.
My heart remembers
It cries out in loneliness for you
For the feelings you give me now.

Today I'm happy that you have come.
When you leave
My mind will not remember that you were here
But my heart remembers
The feeling of friendship
And love returned.
Remembers
That I am less lonely
And happier today
Because of the feeling
Because you have come.

Please, please don't forget me
And please don't stay away
Because of the way my mind acts.
I can still feel you
I can remember with my heart
And a heart memory is maybe
The most important memory of all.

Mr. Peepers

Remember this post from way back in October when Robbie, Amanda, and I took a trip to the local apple orchard? I dug into my archives and pulled out the "lost" video of Robbie giving me his best Mr. Peepers impersonation:

Austin Kayaks Rock

If you've been following any of my posts for the past month, then you would have read about my dear friend Katie's unfortunate accident.

I was just informed about Austin Kayaks, and the benefit auction they are running on Katie and John's behalf. It's definitely worth a read...and a bid.