It's days like today when I kind of feel like a lucky punk.

Today Joe and I went out and played golf for the first time this year. (My mom is jealous - she really wants to play.) It was great fun. It was about 55 degrees, sunny and there was no one else on the course.
Ok, there were a couple other people on the course. We did see someone on hole 8 when we were coming off the 4th green. Still, it was nearly completely vacant. This enabled us to take a somewhat relaxed pace and not worry about getting in other people's way. The grass on the fairways and greens is still a bit hard, but it was a great time. I par'd two holes! I'm not sure if I've done that before...

In other news, I got a call from Sam a while ago saying that tickets for the Decemberists' show in Knoxville on the 4th of April were being ordered for me, Sam, Larry and Nick. I'm really excited about this. I've never got to go to an real concert for a band I've actually wanted to see before. Not really, anyway.

Not that any of this stuff is important - and that's kind of the point. It's one thing to have big important things go your way and be happy about it (and I've had my share of those too), but it's another thing to be able to be quite excited and happy about little things that would seem stupid and trivial if the more important things weren't there.

Seems the big important things in my life are, for the moment, going well. Let me point out that I am immeasurably thankful for this. It's just 'icing on the cake' (so to speak) that important things go well enough for me that I can be excited about this stuff.

~PS

I'm currently sitting in a room at the Holiday Inn Express at exit 38 on I-75 in Ohio.

My grandfather (on my mom's side) passed away sometime last friday. I'm up here with most of the rest of the family for his funeral.

Grandpa's condition had been steadily worsening for several years - especially within the last few months - so this was pretty expected, and probably for the best given his situation. Still, it's sad to lose someone.

This is the first funeral I've been to in... ...a very long time. I don't exactly remember how long. I've been to a couple of viewings since, but...

Unfortunately, I hadn't seen him much over the last several years and, since his health began to decline, even less frequently. Still, even though I've been fairly disconnected from him for that stretch of time, he is still the closest person to me who has now died.

This has again brought to mind thoughts about how well I will be able to handle death around me - with just a little more urgency. Just a little more close-to-home. I've not had anyone who is very close to me pass away yet - and I sincerely hope I won't for a long time to come - still, that is something of an inevitable circumstance. I hope i'm ready for it when it happens.

It has been nice to see friends and relatives that I haven't seen for a long time though. Wish we had a more cheerful reason to gather.

~PS

has this been a mostly bad week, with some good places or a mostly good week with some bad places?

haven't really done much lately - that is, i haven't worked much on the games (i've only got a little of Europe done for Earth) and i haven't written any songs in quite a while. I've mostly just gone to work and come home (which is bad, because i find that toward the end of the day i start to think in php). At present, i'm waiting to see if flightless birds of questionable alignment and quadrapedic beasts of burden bring me yummy tacos...

anyway, sheri's mom was visiting since last thursday (for anyone who may wonder, this was one of the good things). basically what this is means is that i got to lose a bunch of card games this week. i did get to win half a game of scrabble though.

tomorrow is friday, this is always good. don't know what i'll be up to this weekend, but, even though it probably won't be anything worth talking about, there's a good chance you'll hear about it anyway. really, though...it's your own fault.

~PS