Hey everyone! Here I am again. I have been really busy lately (good busy) and I though I’d relate a little of what I’ve been doing. Tuesday has become bowling night :) Jim, Tiffany, and Robert are part of a local bowling league and I have been going most weeks to cheer them on and watch their games. I have always enjoyed bowling, but it is never something I did very often, nor did I really appreciate the whole “culture” of the event. I know that may sound silly to many of you, but as a social event it is unique in the experiences I have had.
The bowling league brings together a whole different cross-section of people that I would never run into socially in either my school or work life. Especially working in a technical field, I have found that one gets surrounded by a very small group of people who share the same interests as you. Computers have taken such a prominent role in society over the last 20 years that those of us who work with them are looked upon almost like practitioners of magic. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not implying that we are somehow better or special, if anything we are looked upon as odd and a bit scary. Which is what makes this bowling thing so cool; it pulls together people from all walks of life into a common interest that is amazingly supportive.
The game lends itself to one of support. You are in effect competing far more against yourself than you are against any of the other players. As such, everyone is rooting for you all the time. It is just cool.
This past Tuesday however, I got to be a participant. Robert was sick, so the team needed a pinch-bowler. Now I haven’t bowled in many many years so I was a bit nervous. Watching Tiffany and Jim is intimidating; they have finesse and style and use bowling words I don’t understand. When they bowl, the ball does all this funky curvy stuff to hit the pins that I knew was far beyond my skill. So I went for what I thought I could do; the direct application of as much energy I could to the pins. E = 1/2 mv^2!, baby! (That would be the equation for kinetic energy for you non-physics geeks.) And I will say that it worked pretty well. I did not embarrass myself overly much and I’d like to think I contributed.
So I had a great time. I look forward to the next opportunity I get to play.
That’s all I got for now. Have a great day!