Time to get ready for the tournament

 It turns out I'm the only follower of this blog. Which is fine. I'm sitting in my friend Hannah's apartment, it's 11:49am on August 30th, 2023. I say this because looking back I always like to know the exact minute I was writing something. What it was like outside. In this case it's cloudy, not too hot, not too cold, kind of humid. Nova is lying with his hind legs against the wall, sleeping, twitching, one of his favorite positions. In 10 minutes I start an ACW non-ranked tournament on GeoGuessr. I'm stoked. I'm going to record it. I hope it goes well. 

Then after that it's off to meet Adi for coffee with the dogs. Falkor and Nova will get to hang out. Nova likes Falkor, wants to play with him, but I'm not sure Falkor likes Nova. I'll probably get a matcha latte at Santo. I haven't eaten anything today. I can't till 12:35pm. 

Mostly I'm writing this blog to kill time before my GeoGuessr tournament. I guess I could tell you about what I'm thinking of doing this fall, but I'm not really sure what I'll be doing. I'm moving out the marina where I've had my boat for the last four years in just over a week from today. Sailing up to Bellingham via the San Juans. After that I have a trad course in Squamish on Sept 16th, basically the only obligation I have. Then I have to figure out what I'm doing with the boat. Am I selling it? Keeping it in the San Juans? Somehow sailing south? I feel a little bit manic from the coffee I had earlier. Last night I was having a stressful dream and Nova woke me up in the middle of it. I wonder if he could sense I was having a bad dream and wanted to come comfort me? I wonder if I smelled different since I was stressed, and he smelled it, and came over to see what was going on? Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Who knows. 

OK, time to get ready for the tournament. 

Gratitude Journal #1

 Here I am in Vancouver, August 4th, 2023. I'll be 40 years old in 12 days. Damnnnnnn. Where have the last 20 years gone? An easy thing to say -- to just write off the last 20 years like nothing's happened in them. Like I've accomplished nothing. Done nothing. Met no one new. Not really lived.

But actually, I have done those things. And I realize it when I think about things I'm grateful for.

But today I'm just focusing on this morning. I've only been up for a couple hours, but I can already think of at least three things I'm grateful for. 

I'm grateful for the cold brew sitting on the table next to me, how it's stimulating me. The nice cafe experience getting it, the landscaping dude who was chatting up the baristas. The fact that afterward he went outside and said to some older guys, "That's a mighty big umbrella." And they said to him, "And that's a mighty big oak tree. That's why this place is called The Mighty Oak."

I'm grateful for the GeoGuessr duels I've won this morning. Reading a sign and seeing the word Yucatan and knowing just where in the world to guess. Seeing Swedish road lines and recognizing them. Seeing a sign that just says the first half of the word Coyhaique (Coyh--) and knowing to guess in southern Chile. I'm grateful for all I've learned from GeoGuessr. 

Finally I'm grateful for planning ahead, the fact that I'm already mobilizing as if going to Squamish even though I don't know if I'm going to Squamish today. But if we go, I want to be prepared. And if we don't go, we'll probably go tomorrow, and I need to be prepared for that too. Being proactive about it makes me feel good. 

These are easy things to be grateful for. The real wonder of gratitude lies in finding things you're grateful for about situations that seem bad on the surface. A breakup. An injury. A tough situation at work. Can you find things you're grateful for even in those situations? This is the great secret.