Extreme Planets

I woke up this morning with every intention of going bike-boating. For those of you who don't know what bike-boating is, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out...let your imagination run wild and you'll probably be right. Anyway, I went to print off the awesome deal I got from Groupon only to find that I would not be able to use the tickets until tomorrow. Tomorrow?! I have to work tomorrow! After pouting for a sufficient amount of time, I decided to find something else to do, and turned to the world wide web.

I've always been amazed by astronomy and love visiting planetariums. Now, I had heard that San Antonio College had a great one, and I'd been wanting to check it out for some time. So, I did what anyone does who needs information on something, I googled it. I was brought to a website for San Antonio College Planetarium and located the calendar of events to see that not only was there a show tonight, but it was a Magical World of Wizarding show (for any witch, wizard, or muggle over the age of 6). Perfect. Julie looooooves wizards, and I loooooove stars. I thought it was too good to be true.

I was right....sorta.

I quickly purchased the tickets which said "absolutely no late seating", and we were late-by about 10 minutes. And we had no idea where on campus the planetarium was. It was 8:40, and the show was to start at 8:30. So, we ran into the closest building and asked a kind gentlemen to direct us. After he pointed us in the right direction, we ran (sprinted) across campus, dodging trees and jumping off brick walls, until we found it: the dome. To our surprise there was a great big line still out the door! We high-fived each other for making it in time and tried to catch our breath as we waited, sweaty and hot, to see the Harry Potter-inspired star show.

Upon reaching the door, we looked at the line-up for the evening and noticed that the schedule was totally off. Extreme planets? 9:00? This makes no sense. Once we reached the doors, the man took one look at my tickets and made a lot  more sense of the situation. Apaaarantly there is a San Antonio College in California, at which we had tickets to attend a Harry Potter show at 8:30. He kindly informed us that even with the time difference, we would inevitably be late. Ha. Ah well. We were about to turn around, brokenhearted when the gentlemen gave us free passes to watch the show (which started at 9-no wonder we made it on time), "Extreme Planets".

It was no Harry Potter Star Show, but we were grateful nonetheless. We got to see an awesome display of some of the crazy findings of planets and the search for life in outer space. THEN we got to go out and see Jupiter through their massive telescope. After being sufficiently humbled (I always feel small after attending the planetarium), the emcee handed out some beautiful gold coins in red velvet bags to a few lucky attendees in celebration of the planetarium's 50 year anniversary we just so happened to attend. So, after giving one to a little boy who got 100% on his science test during the week, he gave two honorary coins to the two crazies who had tickets to see the show in California, and would not be able to make it.

Awesome.

Now I gotta go check out that website and see if it was completely obvious that the college was in Cali. Maybe it's better I don't look.

Less is More

One of my favorite sayings goes as follows:

“Too often we buy things we don’t need,

with money we don’t have,

to impress people we don’t like.”

I’m not sure who said it, but whoever it was knew a thing or two about people, especially American people, especially the rising generation, American people.

Too many of us have WAY too much debt, too many toys, clothes, and gadgets we can’t afford and all-in-all just way too much “stuff”.  I’ve always known this to be true, but I (like so many others), have fallen prey to the notion that you need to have more to be more; more popular, more respected, more successful, more happy. ..etc. How untrue that is. And how especially untrue that is when we have to move.

I don’t hate a lot of things, but there's nothing in this world I hate more than moving. “Easy enough,” you say, “just don’t move”.  No. Not that easy. You see, I love to move. Ha ha, let me rephrase that.  I love to be new places. I love to meet new people. I love to see new things. I love to sample new cuisine…and there’s no better way to experience a place than to live there. That’s just one of the things that have brought me to the conclusion than less may very well be more.

I’ve also come to realize that I’m much happier with fewer things that I really like, than loads of things that are okay. I care for them more, I use them more, and overall, I end up getting more of my money’s worth out of them.

There are a few things that spawned this way of thinking, one being an awesome Ted video that I watched this afternoon. So, I’ll end my little thought with this…

http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happiness.html