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Summer

posted at 1:17 pm
on Jul. 24, 2010

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Long car rides with the window down, music loud, one arm hot.  Feeling like you’ve had your hair blow dried except it’s just from riding your bike.

Thinking it’s 6:30 when it’s really 8:45. The slow creeping cool night spreading like a melting ice cube. Outlasting mosquitos on the patio.

BBQ tang, BBQ tongs, BBQ pineapple slices soaked in coconut milk and ground cinnamon.

The stickiness of clean cotton sheets on damp skin.  Pillows that you have to turn over and turn over and turn over in search of the cool side.

Movies. Seeing them once, seeing them again.  Hearing the people around you cheer in the darkness.  Fireworks, a green and purple and red imitation of nature’s Northern Lights.

Between work and more work, vacation. Reading a book, cover to cover, in one sitting.  Ordering a coffee, cold.

Throwing your graduation cap in the air, and then trying to find a job before it hits the ground.

Dubious glances in the mirror at your body in a bathing suit, then saying ‘What the hell’ and jumping into the water.  Water in your nose.  Water in your ears.  Water dripping through the slats of the plastic chair that you’re sitting in, thinking about jumping in the water again.

A cold snap of beer from a hard glass bottle.

The feeling of the back of someone’s head leaning on your stomach and a rustic blanket underneath you.

A springy branch snapped back in your face as you make a short cut through the woods to a vantage point that looks out over a stream, a forest, a valley, a mountain range, the earth, the sky.

Fresh berries in your breakfast cereal instead of a banana.

Tote bags filled with cheese and crackers and towels and sunscreen.

Changing out of shorts and into a dress shirt and tie to sit in the sun and watch someone you care about marry someone they care about.

Summer.

Overheard

“Oh boy! Another great opportunity for personal growth!”

...who said it?

“I’m not bitter about what happened to me as a child, and my mother was instrumental in keeping me from being so. ... She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us. What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain—it’s that the pain is actually a gift. What’s the option? God doesn’t really give you another choice.”

...who said it?

After over a decade of user testing, it is clear that the way we search the web is similar to the way we would search our home for valuables as it was burning to the ground. Frantically.

...who said it?

“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value ... The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders.”

...who said it?

“We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”

...who said it?

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