Sad news..

when i started this blog, the goal was to keep things light-hearted and fun and talk about the various things going on in my life.

my life, apparently, has other plans for me.

i just found out today that an old high school friend passed away tragically over the weekend. his name was rob and we sang together in the school's choral group. he was hiking with friends and apparently lost his footing and fell. he was only 26. he was in the middle of law school, had recently gotten married, and had so much going for him. i can't even wrap my head around how tragic this whole thing is.

rob was this hilariously weird dude with a great sense of humor. he had this amazing old van that he called the "shaggin' wagon" and it had a loudspeaker broadcast system installed in it. so we'd drive around springfield on weekend nights shouting things on the loudspeaker and fuck with people walking by on the street. i distinctly remember driving around neighborhoods at midnight on the loudspeaker announcing things like "attention citizens: this is the emergency broadcast system, there is a wild boar loose in the neighborhood. please stay in your homes. do not panic."

we used to hang out on top of this random hill right off the fairfax county parkway where a bunch of us would sit and watch traffic go by and talk about our lives and joke and be stupid teenagers. my memories of rob are all the ones that i associate with the good times of being in high school.

i lost touch with rob over the years and haven't seen him in maybe six or seven years. but it's just one more reminder, in a growing collection of them, telling me that life is short and you only get one chance to live it. so i gotta make this count. there's so much i want to do and things i want to accomplish and places i want to see. and i'm only getting older.

the big loudspeaker in my brain is telling me not to waste another minute.