Living Rarefied

This week finished strong! Thank you God!

I was able to spend some time with some of the older guys from Young Life.. I hadn't been able to connect with them as much as I would have liked this year because of a ton of other new young pups coming to hang out with us. The previous 2 years was me and these 2 guys, all the time! I was able to spend more time with them, focus on them and really get to know them… But this year it has been difficult to keep that going and I have realized it on days like Thursday when I get a chance to be with them. You realize there is new stuff going on that you had no idea about, girfriends, new sports, etc. So I got a chance to go to one of these new sports events thursday night.

Ultimate Frisbee.. Oh yes, it is a HS sport, although not a varsity sport, but a club sport. I joined about 40 other spectators to watch Breck/Blake play Eden Prairie… Rivals Breck and Blake had to form one team becuase they couldn't fill a team alone. Sitting outside was wonderful, but making to the first sporting event my buddy took part in, was even better. I had been to almost all of his plays and dramas but never to a track meet.

Friday, I was able to have a great day at the office and out of the office. Some of our brokers were in town from Chicago, so they took us and a client out to Rush Creek to play golf for the day and have dinner at the Hard Rock. But, the way the day was started set the tone for a great day of fun.

Fridays, I show up to Perkins on 394 and Louisiana. I invite any of the guys who come to YL and their friends to join me. So far, I haven't eaten by myself which is cool, but I thought I was almost going to have my first solo mission yesterday. But one of the sophomore guys called and asked who was coming, I didnt know, thats what I like about it, kind of a surprise who comes. I have a general idea, but when it comes to waking up at 6:00 as a high schooler, things change right at game time often.

We had a great time, I was able to ask him some questions about what he thinks of what we do with YL, what he wants to get out of YL, what his vision for YL at his school was. Along with some other questions. The cool thing is that my YL leader Brad asked me these same questions 9 years ago. He challenged me and some friends to take it up a notch in the school, to invite those you didn't expect to ever come to YL. We went from 40 kids to over 100 about a year later. It was cool to see that from a group of 6 students, working with the same goal in mind could make a change like that. (With the help of our Father)

Off to work, where I had 1 task to do, price out a fund from a secondary source to benchmark our pricing… I got that done right at 9:45 and it was off to the golf course.. Now it was cloudy and 45 degrees yesterday with gusts over 30 mph.. Not a pretty day to go golfing, but they say the worst day on the golf course is always better than the best day in the office. I believe it.

Good day at the course with Tim and Jim from my office, I didnt play all that great, first time since Thanksgiving in California. We then headed to Hard Rock Cafe downtown, but I had a stop to make first. I had to get a backup of a database for a fund we are taking over. Which is why I am here in the office on Saturday morning. I felt like I was in a movie, stopping to get data and then I slid it into my backpack and went to dinner like nothing happened. Kind of like Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible. Dinner was sweet, got to talk with people I hadn't seen in awhile and meet faces to match those voices and email addresses I encounter on a daily basis.

I then went home to watch a movie, Kill Bill 2. I have a bit of a cold still and being outside yesterday took a lot of energy out of me! So I was content watching a movie and getting to bed by 10:30..

Tonight I am off to Maroon 5 at the Xcel! Got the tickets a few months ago and forgot about it until 2 weeks ago, so I am very excited!!!

What a good week…

Ethan Living Rarefied