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

wallyball

Yesterday during lunch I ventured into the exciting world of wallyball. That sounds very close to volleyball when you speak it in public conversation. I had heard about it for several years and finally found someone who would let me play. We played two-on-two inside a racquetball court with the next tied to the walls at the half way point within the court. At first I had no idea what to expect after I had the rules explained to me. Besides the fact that a racquetball court echoes like crazy, I was not sure I heard the rules correctly. Once we started playing it was pretty obvious how I should be playing, but it was another thing all together on how to actually do it. The ball has a rubber outside and is slightly smaller than a volleyball and bounces like a huge racquetball. I quickly learned that I should not try to block shots at the net as that left the court wide open for my teammate, which was too large an area to cover for one person. It was hard hitting the ball just right so it bounced off our opponent's side walls but not our opponent's back wall. This was especially true of serving. The surprising thing to me was how quickly I was sweating and I got a great work out. This is an interesting video that shows how the best people play wallyball.

sports day

Yesterday was one of the most athletic days of my life. I played volleyball on my company team during lunch and since we lost the match and I did not do very good, I decided to go for a 3 mile run to "cool" off. When I got home my youngest son wanted to play tennis so we took off for the courts and played for over an hour. On arriving at the tennis court, he noticed the Indian cricket equipment I had in my trunk, so I had to show him how to play after we finished playing tennis. I decided to take off today and not do any exercise as my old body needed a break.

volleyball

Yesterday I participated in my first volleyball game in the competitive league at work and had so much fun. Of course is helps when you are on a really good team. Two people are really great setters and make it easy for me to spike the ball. Two of the other people on the team are great at spiking and in general excellent players. Most points I just enjoy watching them make great shots. It is more fun for me than playing basketball or football as it is not a contact sport! It seems like I get injured when colliding with others is involved, so this is a safe sport for me that can enjoy and get exercise. Of course today I have to return to running as I cannot give that up and on Sundays I have to play cricket.

B & B

That title could be interpreted in many ways. It could mean Bed & Breakfast, or Balled & Burlap, but for this me now it means Beach & Basketball. Every time we go to see my wife's parents at their house near the beach we pass Kenansville as an exit off the interstate highway. For everyone else that means nothing, but for me it always reminds me of visiting them when they lived in that small rural eastern NC town. I played basketball every time we visited them as they opened up a local high school for free play on the weekends. I would show up as the only white guy to play and they would make fun of me until they saw me play as I was very fast on the court from my endless days of running. I would just blow right by them and then they would understand that I was not the typical slow white guy that knew and hated from rural NC. Oh the good old days. I would also meet a bunch of doctors who played at a local middle school and they were fun also but in a different way. They were pleasant to talk to and get to know while playing with them. After playing basketball for over 30 years I gave it up, but that story has already been shared. Now I run to keep fit like I did this morning. It was very nice out this morning as I ran to the sunrise. I would like to play basketball but at the company where I work I tried playing with a team and got hurt the first game. I tried playing in the company football league last year and got hurt they first game there as well. This year I am going to try volleyball, hoping for a different end result.