July, July, July! Never seemed so strange

I just found out that my sister is having twins, which means I'm going to doubly be an uncle. There was kind of a joke this Christmas because there was a good possibility that my sister would be having twins, but we didn't want to jinx anything, so we never brought it up. But as things would turn out, many of our relatives and friends would call her up and congratulate her on having twins (although nothing was official, and the news of the possibility was supposed to be a secret). She even got a card congratulating her, but it was a week before she actually knew.

Christmas was pretty fun. I spent it with my family up in Oregon, although I think I spent more time in Portland International Airport than I did with my folks. Everyone seemed to get what they wanted. I got the Seinfeld DVDs and other assorted goodness. I think I spent the whole 2.5 days indoors, mainly playing tennis on my brother's new X-Box and playing Texas Hold 'em for money with my brother-in-law, dad and brother.

I've gotten in the habit lately of dropping emails to friends that I haven't kept up with as well as I should. These mainly have gone out to old high school friends. The entire message reads:

"Dear______,
How the hell are you?"

So far, everyone that I've sent this to has written a nice little synopsis of what's going on in their world. It's nice. I then throw back one to them letting them know what's up with me.

So I sent one of these emails to my old friend John. I had heard through the grapevine that he was getting married sometime soon and I wanted to check up with him. He sets me back an email with his new contact information, and I give him a call. We chat about what's going on with each other and his future nuptials, and he says he read this site and basically has been keeping up with me that way, which is interesting and pretty cool. He also asked me to be one of his groomsmen, which will bring be back to North Carolina for the second time for a wedding.

It amazes me sometimes how with good friends you really don't have to communicate a lot in order to stay close. I used to be bummed out having to call people up and playing catch up every six months, but now that just seems normal, that that's how things are supposed to be. And with the internet, you don't even have to talk to anyone anymore and still they know who you are, where you've been, and where you're going.

And they also still know you have excellent taste in music.