Ten years ago today / Tomorrow has a spot waiting for me.

This week I planned on writing a retrospective of this blog's most viewed posts, starting with the first Lone Star Rambler post, but a brief email exchange I had with an old friend made me change my mind.

It started with a simple email to my friend Mark, who spearheaded our climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro ten years ago June 21, 2006.
"Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." Our last view of Kilimanjaro. Clouds part. The mountain emerges.

Ten years! A decade. What? Time flies. I wrote him an email that read exactly like this:

And he responded exactly like this:


While I was wistfully drinking coffee on a Saturday morning and giving in to nostalgia, my friend is pressing forward, planning his next adventure, and saving a spot for me. From this a new thought arose: there is a time to reflect on the past, but not if it impinges on the present or the future.

While I'm inclined to revisit these old memories, such as my first days at L'Abri in Switzerland, I'll simply embed them in my posts the next few weeks and move on. Feel free to click on them if you haven't read them. But me, I'm headed to Santa Monica tomorrow to make music with one of my college roommates. And my third book has gained needed momentum the last few weeks, as has my involvement with the folks at Writespace.

So how can I best celebrate 20,000 blog views this week? By quoting my good friend:

Amazing. Good times. Good times.

Now it's time to throw my laptop and some jeans in a bag. Andy and I are rocking his garage this week.

Like Mark, he has a spot saved for me.