Deep Thoughts

Finally done

I finally finished replacing the railing on my deck this evening. This project was supposed to be a three day project that I was to start and finish over the Memorial Day weekend. Needless to say it took much longer. There were a few hiccups along the way but overall I'm happy with the results. That said, I probably won't tackle the rest of the railing until next year.

I sat on my deck and watched the sun set behind the city. I heard a plane overhead and watched it turn away from me. As it banked, the colors of the sunset reflected off the bottom of the plane. It was a beautiful sight that I've never seen before. Has anyone else ever seen a sunset reflect off a plane in flight?

Another goodbye

Sharon left Seattle today, on her way to her new life in London. I think I'm equally excited for her as I'm sad that's she's moved away. I've never been to London but a number of friends have told me it's a great place to live--albeit very expensive. Jim, who has lived several places abroad in Asia and Europe, once told me that London would be his first choice of places to live abroad.

Start of Wedding Tour 2004

Candice and Joe got married this past weekend at Rosario, a beautiful location on Orcas Island. The ceremony was on a bluff with a backdrop of the ocean and hills. It was probably the most beautiful setting of all the weddings I've attended over the years--and it's been a lot of weddings. The ceremony was outdoors and it was raining but it didn't matter at all once the ceremony started. If anything, it showed how their marriage will weather any storm.

I wore my tuxedo that evening--the only person in a tux that wasn't part of the wedding party. The flyer that came with the invitation said it was formal attire. Was I the only person who read it? Was this perhaps some cruel joke?

Wedding Tour 2004

The wedding season begins for me this weekend with the first of five weddings between now and the end of July. Four of those weddings are out of town. I thought I was past the age where I had to attend a lot of weddings. One of the other weekends is my softball tournament so that leaves not a lot of weekends to myself.

With most of my weekends already scheduled, I won't have a lot of time for house projects. One project I really need to finish is replacing the railing on my upper deck. I started that project over the Memorial Day weekend (I was expecting to finish that weekend) and I'm still only about 60% done after putting in one more weekend. Like most projects, it's costing twice as much and taking about three times as long. If anyone wants advice on building or repairing a deck, I have lots of lessons learned that I can share.

Decisions

Pressure washing my deck the other week, I started thinking about the many decisions I've made in my life. I think it's fair to say that we are the sum of all the decisions that we make in life. Most of these decisions are fairly small, while others we recognize as important decisions when we make them. But even the small ones can result in monumental changes in our lives. Like the time I decided to dive into first base in attempt to beat a throw. It was a meaningless softball game for our terrible team but I ended up rupturing my ACL. That split second decision cost around $15K in surgery and limits my activities 11 years later.

So the big question becomes, have I made more good or bad decisions in my life? By nature, I believe that we remember most of the bad decisions in our life but only remember the very best of the good ones. It's our bad decisions that haunt us (okay, maybe they're just an annoyance) for the rest of our lives. I know we shouldn't dwell on the past since we can't change it, but it can be hard not to wonder what our lives would be like if we could change some of the decisions we've made.

If you had a chance to go back in time and change one decision, what would it be? Sell high? Pick a different career path? Ask out that one person? And based on what type of decision you'd like to change, what does that say about you and what you value in life?

I'm not going to say which decision I would choose, but I do wonder how different my life would be now...