This past weekend I met up with an old friend from college who I haven’t seen or talked to in many years. Back in the day we took a two hour road trip together to see R.E.M. on their Document tour, and another time saw The Replacements on their very last tour. I credit him for getting me into other bands that remain favorites to this day like The Smiths (<3), The Cure and X. Now he’s living in Amsterdam covering soccer for a website, and loving life. He came back to visit a friend in Chicago last week, he’s in St. Louis this week, and will be in Italy in a few weeks before heading back home from there. At one point he bemoaned that, “…at this point, I don’t know if I’ll ever have kids”, but everyone is different, and needs to find their own way in life. I think he’s carved out a really interesting one while staying true to what is important to him and in the end he’ll have kids, if that’s what he wants out of life; that he’s made it this far assures me of that. Very cool to see him, makes me smile.