The little things

In many ways, living down here is the same as living any other place: I get up, go to work, come home, have dinner with my wife, spend the evening working on projects (or playing on the computer), go to bed, wash, rinse, and repeat. That's not to say it's boring, though it may sound uninteresting. Far from it, in fact. I enjoy living in Oklahoma, I like my job, and I like finding joy in little things as well as big things. But recently I've become keenly aware of how different things can be just based on location alone. To wit: it's been cold and snowy up in Minnesota, whereas down here we've had weather in the 70's with a bit of rain on the side. As such, I have continued to bike to work, which I have not been able to do for a long, long time. My wife and I also went on a nice 3.5-mile hike yesterday, with a blanket of yellow leaves underfoot and a big lake just to the west of the trail. After we got home, we spent an hour or so doing yard work--nothing entirely too interesting, but very different from the environment I have been used to for the past five years. And it's not necessarily better or worst, just different, and a difference I'm learning to appreciate. While my Northern counterparts have wintertime ameneties like skiing, snowmobiling, and white Christmases, down here we have...I'm not sure. Because this is my first winter as an Oklahoman. :) So whatever it is, I'm looking forward to it.

I spent a while playing Rainbow Six 3 the other night, and I realized it was the first time I had sat down to play a video game in months. I enjoy video games, but find it difficult to keep up with the newest trends and games mostly because of the amount of money it requires (one game is about the price of three months of Netflix, and we still have the same DVD player we've had for years) to not only buy games, but buy the newest hardware as well. But my old Xbox is still alive and kicking, even though I don't play it that often, so when a new friend offered to let me borrow his copy of RS3 I was pretty stoked. I also realized how not-good I am at games that require a learning curve, as I prefer the Halo-style of game where you run around, guns blazing, and take out all the bad guys in sight as quick as possible. RS3 is pretty cool though, and it's a nice change of pace from the usual, so I'll probably give it some more time before going to bed tonight.

Ok, time to hit up some internet tubes and maybe read some Dune before heading to bed.