sleepless night

I am really unsure what happened last night. I have been waking up at 3 am for many nights now. Last weekend I did not feel very good so I took a 2 hour nap on both Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday I took another 2 hour nap and that energized me to finally finishing editing my book around 3 pm. I then raced around the yard finishing the mowing in a record time of around 1 & 1/2 hours. Today I will have to go back over it and collect the extra grass clipping spread all over the yard, but at least it is cut! Last night my middle son and I went out to eat Indian food at Udapi. I have no idea what happened but after chatting with my son in California for a while about his MacBook "x" battery problems, I finally told him around 9:30 pm that I was tired and needed to go to bed. I am not sure I ever really feel asleep last night and finally at 4 am gave up and got out of bed. Maybe it had to do with my wife and two youngest kids returning home this evening. I have no idea but will definitely be taking a nap this afternoon after my Sunday morning cricket match.

These are some of the things I kept thinking about last night:

1) I really like this thought provoking comment about the Taj Mahal in India: "The typical was used to create the outstanding"

2) Somehow this thought kept coming up "I firmly believe that each of us has a unique reason to be alive, part of our pilgrimage on earth is to find it."

3) I have talked more with my middle son while my wife and other kids have been gone than we have ever talked in his whole life, which is a great thing. We were talking about what makes a skilled laborer when we thought that my oldest son, who is a wonderful artist when the urge hits him, would be a great tattoo artist since he has been getting many tattoos lately.

4) somehow I thought of this list of sports activities I have done in the last year at work either at lunch or after work:

Cricket, Volleyball, Wallyball, Racquetball, Sqash, and Tennis

In the past I have also played the following at work:

Basketball and Flag Football

The only sport I want to try one day at work is:

Ultimate Frisbee

Stone Mountain

While my wife and two younger kids are having fun on a Princess Cruise to Scandinavia, my middle son and I decided to go hiking. I have always wanted to visit Hanging Rock State Park or at least hike up Pilot Mountain State Park next to it. Yet again I did not go to one of these as we decided to visit Stone Mountain State Park instead as we heard it had some waterfalls. Once on the park trails it reminded us both of the area where we last saw waterfalls earlier in the summer. Just when we were getting tired we decided we had to see the actual Stone Mountain while in the park. When we reached the grassy open field to see it we did not to expect such a huge granite rock mountain. As we looked closer we saw people at the top and some tiny little people climbing up the side. We went to the very bottom of the rock face and saw ropes that people were using to go up the 600 ft rock face. When I looked at the park map, I saw there was a trail that crossed the top of the mountain. Since we had to backtrack to get back to the car I suggested we try the trail so we get on top of the huge rock. The trail map said it was a strenuous climb but all we saw was a series of never ending steps. The more we walked up the steps the harder it became until we had to stop a couple of times to rest. It was all worth it when we reached the top as we had a full view of the Blue Ridge Mountains in all directions. I wanted to stay on the 2305 ft mountain top forever and just soak in the beauty that GOD created. We did not have a camera or else I would have taken a whole roll from that point. I did not find any posted on the internet either that fully captured the scene. I included a couple that I did find. I need to move back into the mountains and forget the city life.