Just plain "Up"

Really nice 4-day furlough is wrapping up.  Back on the chain gang tomorrow. 

(Hey!  I just learned something.  Tony Butler, bass player for Big Country, played bass on that big Pretenders single linked above.  Dolberry remembers really resenting that single as it outraced "In a Big Country" on the U.S. charts in early 1983.  It's not a bad song, but I hated it at the time.)

((Speaking of "In a Big Country", which I did not start this blog intending to do ... Spinner magazine lists that song as #7 all time in best gibberish lyrics.  Specifically, the "SHA!" or "CHA!" exclamation that abounds throughout that Spartan classic.  I don't see the Pretenders on that list."))

(((Went ahead and added video of IABC on the DCV sidebar, since I'm pretty much done tweeting.  You younger DCV readers would do well to watch it a few times and rue that you didn't live in the unadulterated glory of the mid/early 80's.)))

But I digress ...

Watched "Up" last night w/ the Youth Group.  (Thanks to C-Lo for the APD gift.  Watched w/ a crowd of nearly 20 which was cool.)  The theme of that excellent movie, near as Dolberry can tell, is how a life can be happily and substantially meaningful filled w/ "the boring stuff", the basic day-to-day stuff that makes up life.  Until the end, the protagonist unfortunately views his life as incomplete, because there was big "Stuff I'm Going To Do!" that hadn't been done.  Dolberry agrees w/ the movie's moral ... at least as I understood it ... but there are two big things that I want to do w/ tbKMD before we move on from this life:

1) Hike the Appalachian Trail
2) Go to Australia and watch the Australian Open.

Am in no rush to age 25 years and retire, but this time of year always makes me think of the Australia idea.  The AO is, by far, my favorite tennis tournament of the year.  Mostly because the games are shown late at night here in the U.S.  But also the surface seems fairer than that of the French or Wimbledon ... and the players seem fresher than by the time the U.S. Open rolls around.  Anyway, I'm cheering for both #4 seeds Caroline Wozniacki and Juan Martin del Potro.

I promise that will be the last tennis-related post of 2010.