May 28, 2008

sidetracks: two great reading pieces, crafting your own early retirement, evernote invites and last call for t-n-t donations

I come across so many examples of great storytelling in my travels every day that there’s just no way to pass all of it along, I’d never leave my computer. But once in awhile the writing is just so fantastic I feel like I might explode if I don’t share it. Below are two such examples from the past few days.

“I filled the pickup with four-fifths of my books, at least those I hadn’t given away in the previous month, and coaxed that overloaded truck over the mountains and into the desert. 420 miles of heavy wind and awkward center of gravity, an ungainly migration, and it had daunted me Thursday morning as I carried the boxes. Flinging yourself into the abyss is a scary thing to anticipate. I needn’t have fretted. Rolling down the east slope of the Tehachapi Mountains I felt it leave, this stale and cloying sadness I have carried in me the last months. It evanesced, blew off toward Harper Lake in shattered wisps under Mojave’s constant wind, and I was free.”

– from “Exfoliation”, over at Creek Running North

“You imagine, with shameless arrogance, that when you depart a place that’s been yours for so long you will be missed as much as you miss it. And you are. For a bit. But Africa is used to transience; people come and go all the time. No point in wasting emotion on those who’ve gone. Chuck a rock into a pond and notice the splash, the lingering ripples. Some people make bigger splashes than others. But pluck the rock for the pond’s murky depths and its surface will remain intact. Quite unperturbed. You can’t make a hole in water. That’s what leaving is like.”

– from “Home”, over at Reluctant Memsahib

other good stuff
Chris Guillebeau over at Art of Noncomformity offers some pretty fun-to-think-about, better-to-do advice about creating your own early retirement — not in 15 years, not in 5 years, but now. Check it out.

Chris was also kind enough to send me an invite for the beta version of Evernote.com. Therefore I, too, have a bunch of invites to offer so if you’d like one just leave a comment (and make sure you use the email address you want the invite sent to) and I’ll send one.

Lastly, but most importantly, it’s last call for donations to Shane’s mom’s Team in Training ride happening this Saturday. She’s almost there, only $625 more to go! If you’d like to make a donation in honor of someone you care about who was lost to or is battling cancer, please consider supporting her ride.

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