The Stars Above

I am always amazed at some of the things that go through my head on my drive in to work. This morning I started to wonder about the origin of cemeteries. Who starts a cemetery? Yes, I realize that someone buries a few people and it becomes a cemetery, but who says where to bury in the first place? Who says that this will be where we will put our dead? Is this something that people take into consideration when a town is formed?

I imagine that a century ago finding places to bury people was probably less of a problem, because there were less people and more land. Now it has to be more of a problem or I would think that at least in urban areas it would be a problem, because the sheer amount of land that we devote to our dead is amazing. I'm not saying that everyone should be cremated to conserve space. Nor do I want to see an explosion of real life incidents like Poltergeist happening everywhere. I just think that it is strange to be moving around so many dead people on a daily basis.

The temptation to not go to work this morning was so strong that I nearly gave in to it. Brenda had left for work before me and it was such a nice day outside. I showered at the usual time, but decided to get some computer time in before work. Then I left the house later than I have ever done before and drove to work a completely different way. I felt like exploring and taking my time. When I got to work, Tony told me that he didn't think that I was coming in today. I told him that he was almost right.

Most of this week at work has been very stressful and less than rewarding for me. I am seriously running out of ways to justify my staying where I work. Quite simply it is no longer worth my time and I am disappointed with myself for letting the job get to me as much as I have been lately. I know that I can do better and I need to start working on finding a new job again.

I have said it before, but I am going to say it again. My boss is a petty pathetic person who has no grasp of what goes on in the company. Now I know that I am not alone in my beliefs about my boss, but I am the only person who is speaking here so you have to take my word for it. If you could speak with them you would find out that both Nick and Tony would agree with me.

For most of this week I was on call for jury duty. I was a reserve juror and I had instructions to call in to see whether or not they needed me. Well, it seems that they didn't need me and I guess in some ways I am relieved. It might have been interesting, but I know that my workload would have been worse when I got back.

I wonder how much of my life is lived in cycles. What I mean is that some of my interests come and go. Something will really hold my attention for a time and then I'll abandon it for some reason only to return to it years later.

Astronomy would be a good example of one of my cyclical interests. I must have been ten or twelve years old when I got my first telescope. This was accompanied by a subscription to astronomy magazine for kids called Odyssey. When my great uncle saw that I liked astronomy he gave me his three inch refractor and about four years worth of back issues of Astronomy magazine.

Soon I had memorized the names of constellations and the individual stars that made them. Meteor showers and lunar eclipses were special events for me. Anything that had to do with space captured my attention. I even remember having a poster of the space shuttle on my wall at one time.

I would spend hours in the backyard trying to see as much as I could of what I had read. My parents had moved us to the country so there was very little to obscure my view and the light pollution was minimal. Sometimes I would stand and other times I would get a lawn chair and just lie there looking up at the night sky. The seasons didn't matter to me, because the winter sky is not the same as the summer sky. It was a year long hobby of mine that I did for a number of years.

Now a decade later I am getting back into astronomy. The governments sites on the web have certainly played a part in my renewed interest. Of course, I have yet to set up the telescope again, but it could happen.

I ate at the park this afternoon and its hard to leave it to go back to work. Just lying on the grass watching the clouds go by is summer for me.

If anyone cares to look, I uploaded the fragment of an entry that I had written for the eleventh of June.