Last Friday our kickball season started. We got off to a good start, I think the final score was 24-7. I know what you're thinking who plays kickball. I have to admit it's pretty fun. Even when we lose I have a good time. After the game I had to umpire the following game. One of the teams that was playing hadn't lossed in over two years. I'm not a big fan of them. They are kind of cocky. And they can be bad sports. For example they were killing this poor team 30 something to 4. The game was almost over and they were arguing a call I had made. I wanted to say come on give me a break, can't you just let it go. It got me thinking that sometimes people can be so consumed with winning that they can forget to have fun. Sure I love to win just as much as the next guy. But ultimately I just want to have a good time. It's such a shame some people can ruin it for everyone else.

Every once in awhile I will stumble upon a record album in my collection that I think the masses need to digest. Once again I found a little ditty that I absolutely loved when it came out in 2006. Just recently I re-visited it for the first time in over a year and it felt new and fresh allover again. Andrew Osenga is the artist I speak of. He is an intelligent song writer that has gone virtually un-noticed. Andrew showcases his excellent story telling through out the disc. Song after song continue to draw you in, refusing to let up.

Andrew Osenga- The Morning 
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Over the weekend I managed to watch to very powerful movies. I don't watch too many movies, so it's always a pleasure when I get to. The first of the two was the Sean Penn epic Into The Wild. Probably the better movie, but not my favorite of the two. The movie is based on the real-life experiences of 23-year-old Emory University graduate Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch.) Who leaves the privileged life he has known to become a self-styled vagabond. On the road, he complains about the evils of ''society,'' and he nurses family wounds: the father (William Hurt) who was a materialist, and violent to his mother (Marcia Gay Harden) who enabled him. What happened to him on his journey transformed him into an enduring symbol for countless people. A fearless risk-taker who wrestled with the balance between man and nature.

   Into The Wild: Movie Trailer 

The second movie was the post- 9/11 Reign Over Me. Adam Sandler plays a traumatized widower who lost his wife and children in a 9/11 plane crash (Charlie Fineman.) Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle), a successful Manhattan dentist, finds himself overwhelmed by his responsibilities toward his family, including his beautiful wife Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith), their children and his demanding business partners. Feeling increasingly detached and discontented, he's almost grateful for the chance to focus on someone in far worse shape, that of coarse being Charlie. The two were once roommates back in college, who have lost contact with one another over the years. Both are now hurting in different ways. In fact that's the major thing that ties both of these movies together. They both deal with the pain of life and the brokenness of man. Everyone of us is broken in someway or another. Most people are just really good at hiding it, like myself.

    Reign Over Me: Movie Trailer 

Both movies managed to make me tear up. Especially Reign Over Me, during that one I found myself really wanting to let it out. I really wanted to cry. But for some reason I couldn't. In fact I can't remember the last time I cried. I have carried this guilt with me for over a year now since my Father Arden died. I never cried when he died, why I don't know. I loved him, he sacrificed a lot for us. Unlike himself I am a pretty happy person. But just like him I have an ever-evolving struggle with sadness that chases after my soul, day after day. Some days, some weeks I manage to outrun it. But as of late it's running side by side with me. Making me evaluate life and the people that I share my life with. For some odd reason I have been focusing on the brokenness of man. And I'm finding it everywhere. So I don't find it weird that my friend Tim suggested we watch Into The Wild. Or that after viewing many choices to choose from I stopped on Reign Over Me. I truly believe that focusing on positive things in life is the way to go. But why do I always end up at negativity's door-step? Now that I have once again recognized this struggle I have. Things will go back to normal. I will slip back into my happy positive ways. Until negativity slowly creeps back. It could take weeks, usually it's many months, before I fight that battle again. Now I will rid myself of the guilt of not crying when my father past on. I envy women for being so in touch with their feelings. Men are sometimes so detached from our feelings. I wonder why that is?

Today I have the lucky privilege of being invited to a wedding. Why is it that whenever you mention the word wedding, women seem to always get a smile on their face. I?m just a typical guy born and raised in a conservative Caucasian family. And let me tell you when I hear the word, I don't smile. Not because I don't like weddings. Even though I do think they are overrated. I'm not sure why I don't smile. Maybe it's the fact that I'm 33 single and have no wedding plans insight. In fact I don't even have a girlfriend in sight. At this point in time, I have just about decided to completely give up on finding that right person for me. It's such an endless struggle. Just about everyone I known says I'm too picky. But I don't think that's the case. Maybe I'm just way too cautious. I have seen a lot of divorce all around me. And I'm really afraid of being just another divorce statistic. So I want to make sure the person I chose to spend the rest of my life with is the right girl for me.

Maybe I don't really like weddings because they are a reminder of the fact that I am still single. I always kind of had my future mapped out in my head and I'm not at that very place in time, I thought I would be right now. By now I always thought I would be married and have a couple of kids. Now I'm to the point where I don't even know if I want kids anymore. I guess it's not that I don't like weddings. Because I usually have a good time at them. It must be, I don't like the reminder of where I'm not at in my life. So one wedding today and one in a few weeks. May the wedding couples be blessed with marriage bliss. I hope they both end up with the story book wedding. Women always dream of. And cheers to myself, may I find much to smile about know matter what those weddings may remind me of.