I went on vacation. (Everybody always gets a huge sendoff and welcome home from Ironworks when they go on vacation, and I missed mine!)
Oh well...
I went to Galveston during last week (August 1-4). It was the first vacation I've had since I've recovered from gallstones (since 1999, actually). I had forgotten how important it is to get away from everything.
It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful. Everyone there was so friendly...Galveston really is a wonderful little city. My wife and I spent an entire day at the beach. I got sunburned, and didn't care a bit! (That's what lotions are for, anyway.)
I had a neat insight while I was in the ocean. I looked up and saw a helicopter flying over the ocean, giving tourists a birds-eye view of the coastline. I looked up and waved, and thought about how I would appear to the passengers from way up there. I realized, humorously, that I would probably be little more than a speck in that blue water.
Now, I could have chosen to get really gloomy and existential about this, being a pathetic little speck awash in a vast ocean, my life meaningless, blah, blah, blah...the kind of stuff that poets and philosophers spew. However, I looked around me and realized that I was in this vast body of water, whose drops touched every other continent on the face of the world, and I was connected, by proxy, to every land mass in the entire world by being in the Gulf. The sense of connectedness was overwhelming, and I felt as a being of absolute power, beauty, and wonder sharing in the great Lifeforce that powers every living being.
I guess it's all just a matter of perspective, isn't it?
On our last night there, my wife and I climbed up on a huge concrete plinth overlooking the gulf (it was a memorial to the victims of the great hurricane of 1900). We sat there and watched the full moon as it rose over the waters and became brighter and brighter.
Overall, I'd say it was a terrific vacation...one of the best I've ever had.
Cheers, and I hope you guys had a great time while away from IW as well!
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