Blogging has taken a bit of a back seat …

Blogging has taken a bit of a back seat these days, but I can still find time to punch out the Monday update.

Beachin’ it. As mentioned last week, the weather around here has been amazing. It has been sunny and the temperature has been consistently in the low to mid 20s. That might not seem all that great, but it feels downright hot in comparison to the average day in Aberdeen. We took advantage on Saturday by going for a long run and then heading to Balmedie, a long and wide beach of clean golden sand bordered by an extensive 14 mile long dune system. While the North Sea was still a bit cold for swimming, we enjoyed time spent with our friends the Stalder’s, watching some kitesurfers, throwing around the football and eating some McFlurries. Will and Courtney are actually heading back to the US for the summer, which is very sad. They have become very good friends of ours, and we will miss them a lot. It was good to spend one last day with them.

Yesterday was also a great weather day, and we decided to do the Aberdeen Beach walk with our destination being the awesome soft serve ice cream place. We came home to rest a bit, and then watched the epic Wimbledon final while we ate supper. We were cheering for Andy Roddick because he had not won before, but Federer is just too good. We also spent some time Skyping with my parents, which was nice.

Travels. Lauren and I will be heading to Holland on Friday. I’ll be driving to Edinburgh on Wednesday to pick up Lauren’s grandfather, who is coming to Aberdeen for a couple days and then taking us to his homeland for a week. We are very excited about that. As of yesterday, we have been in Aberdeen for 10 months, and considering I am in a one year Master’s program, it would appear as though our time here is almost over.In light of that, we have also begun planning our post-Aberdeen adventure by booking a flight from here to Dublin to Milan. We are going to travel around Italy and into Switzerland, and then … not quite sure yet. But it will be awesome.

Recommended viewing. On Friday night, Lauren and I had a Mad Men marathon and finished off season 2. I would say it’s up there in terms of quality shows for me, my second favorite drama after LOST. We also watched Gran Torino on Saturday evening.

Bridging The Gap. I have spent some spare time recently reading some of the blogs from the btg project, and have commented on wonderful posts by Nathan Colquhoun and Jason Locke. It’s funny because there is this satellite radio show called Under_Score that I listen to every day, and last week they had a segment on homosexuality in sports. In response to that, I sent in the following email:

I have really appreciated the recent segments on homosexuality in sports. This is something I have been thinking about a lot these days … not necessarily in regards to sports, but just life in general. Dave Zirin hit it spot on when he was talking about how personal experience affects how you view any given issue. Coming from a Christian perspective, this is obviously a contentious issue that is being wrestled with in all too often non-constructive ways. Recently though, there was a blog initiative intended to bridge the gap which was quite interesting and very moving. I have no idea of this would interest you, but I just wanted to draw your attention to it for you to look at when you have the time.

Here’s the link to the main page: http://btgproject.blogspot.com/

This email was read on air last Thursday, which came as a pleasant surprise to me. Perhaps listeners of Hardcore Sports Radio might now read some great blogs that they otherwise might never have heard of.

Better tackle the dissertation before heading to work.

Grace and peace,

Ian