Death of the Dream

Before I move on to the subject of today's post, I just want to point out that I've finally activated my homepage link over there on the left. My homepage is really what I would consider a "beta" at this point, but I wanted to activate it so people can at least look at some of my vacation photo albums. I recommend the galleries of Japan 2005 and California 2003.

Death of the Dream

For those of you that know me, you know that I like all kinds of sports. Back, oh, about 10 or so years ago a friend of mine, Don Bolton, got me to go out bowling with him. I wasn't very good then, but we were both extremely competitive so it became a kind of competition between us. We started meeting up every Thursday night at a local bowling alley, Tampa Lanes, and we would bowl a couple of games before going home. Before long, we had most of our friends coming along with us and it became a kind of excursion. Not everyone bowled, but we were all there together to have fun and enjoy each others company. It pretty much became tradition that we would all meet up for bowling Thursday night at Tampa Lanes, and this continued until we all dispersed out to college and on with our lives.

Once I had graduated from UF and moved back to Tampa, I joined with a new group of friends and it wasn't too long before I brought back the bowling tradition. Just like before, not everyone bowled. It became a chance to catch up with people you may only get to see that one time a week, since we all worked now and didn't see each other in school. It would be rare that you would not see the likes of myself, X, Badstar, JerseyStrangler and others at Tampa Lanes on a Thursday. In fact, I think in the last 5 years I may only have missed about 10-15 bowling nights. On our best night of attendance I think we had about 12 people and we had taken over 4 lanes. Some might consider this sad, but I've been to Tampa Lanes for so long they reserve lanes for me on Thursday nights (without me even asking) and I know most of the staff on a first-name basis. But as time has passed, people have gotten busier and busier and now pretty much no one is left to join me on Thursday nights. I would stop going, but I have promised myself that as long as I stay in Tampa I will continue to be there on Thursdays. But the times of getting the my whole gang of friends out there, they seem like a dream. So much, that I adapated a Tenacious D sketch for the end of this rant. I've already gone through all the stages. Anger, Denial, Door-to-door Rocking, Temp Job, and finally Acceptance.

The whole bowling mythos is a lie! It'll lead you nowhere. It's like when you believe in the Easter Bunny or the Sasquatch. Let the dream die! LET THE DREAM DIE!

Let it die ...