10 years, 5 years, the future is still to come.

This month is a milestone, or at least something I note, of sorts. 

The Abilene High School class of 2001 had its 10 year reunion this past weekend. Rather than fly home to reminisce about glory days over high school football then dinner and pints the next day, I took a gamble that the Texas Rangers would make the World Series again. It would be nice to get back home and chat with some folks about yesteryear, but I feel the gamble is worth it. 

While I actually graduated in May 2001 from Abilene High School I did move to North Carolina the first week of October in 2006 after graduating from college in May. While the girl and dream I came here with didn't work out I truly believe I have emerged with such an abundant amount of blessings it is ridiculous, even in the wake of the heartbreak which follows telling the girl you dated for five years you don't love her anymore. 

You see, it would be simple to just put up a status saying " ... wishes he could have gone to his 10 year high school reunion but man has he grown in the decade since. And he's been in NC for five years now? WOW!" But this would simply put a decade into two brief sentences most of the FB world will look over if they don't have me hidden already. 

While it often seemed to crawl I must say the past ten years have flown by, or at least it is seems like yesterday I got my first computer with - get this - fast dial-up internet all of my own, headed off to junior college and first met some band named Cross Canadian Ragweed. I found music that changed me and meant something, friendships that didn't and made other friends who became family. I went to class often enough, didn't apply myself nearly as hard as I should have (which is one of the few things in life I regret), drank a few beers at the Ponderosa Dancehall and listened to amazing Texas country music (think country-rock/Americana stuff) and shot at a lot of dove with my padre and assorted male role-models. I received an education, earned a degree and made some lifelong friends, helped by some silly website I didn't to join called Facebook. I found Potter, re-discovered or dove hard into Star Wars, got lost in L O S T, drank a Bradarita, discovered my geekiness and watched the University of Texas win it's first national championship in my lifetime. I began writing for a newspaper, first out of an interest in motorsports and then music. 

None of this, I think, really compared to the life I found after college when I moved north of Charlotte. And while the Carriage Club Apartments are still hard to turn near because of the memories held there, the life I found after the breakup, in my church and with the friends I have made has maybe been the greatest part of my life yet. 

It boggles my mind to think I am "assistant youth minister" at St. Therese. Sure I always went to Mass but I still think, "Whoa!" Was spring 2007 really that long ago when I invited the high schoolers to a screening of the Invisible Children documentary? I find myself constantly in awe of what I do there. The people who have become my family and the teens I have worked with are some of the greatest blessings I could ever hope to discover, not to exclude the family of friends I have made outside of church too.  

I have loved, been heartbroken and felt the hope of finding love once again. I found a true honest-to-goodness full-time professional job as a newspaper reporter, and lost it because of poor management decisions. Liverpool FC became a passion and the Texas Rangers made it to the World Series, which I was able to attend and experience. This alone was one of the greatest days of my life. And I get to go again! I gained weight from the stress and sedentary lifestyle and now have shed it since July to probably match what I weighed in college. Death and sickness arrived too often, enough to where a random phone call from madre made me immediately ask what was wrong. Tears were shed and there were quite a few funerals I was unable to attend. But they are Home and I remember them here. Some songs will always be hard to listen to. 

What I lack in money or a career I more than make up in blessings and friends. And I am ready to take care of that career part thanks to those same friends'-who-are-becoming-family encouragement. 

And so I will soon be 30 years old. It's a little of a JD from Scrubs meets Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother feeling.

Life is happening and it is exciting yet terrifying at the same time to think of the age mark, especailly since I don't feel 29.  I have felt compelled to create The 30 List, a to-do list of sorts to work on before approximately 4 am CST on June 29. Some I will be able to do and some I won't, but it's a realistic goal I will post later. 

There is much to be done and even more I don't even about that know will happen. I know one thing. It is going to be one heck of an experience. 

"Cause everyday the world is made

A chance to change, But I feel the same

And I wonder

Why would I wait till I die to come alive?

I'm ready now

I'm not waiting for the afterlife"

- Jon Foreman/Switchfoot "Afterlife"

Thank you, Jo (or: The final thoughts of a high-functioning Potter aficionado)

'Whether it's by page or screen, Hogwarts will always welcome you home." - Jo Rowling

(Minor spoiler alert: Photo of Neville near the bottom)

Dear Jo, 

Thank you. 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your story. Thank you for Harry.

In it I - we - are lost in an excitement that always presents itself each time we open "Philosopher's Stone" to start a re-read of the series. An excitement that takes us on a joyride of emotions as we turn the page and find friendships, heartarche, pain and sorrow, the bliss of a Quidditch victory for Gryffindor and the first kiss of a beloved character.

We lose ourselves in laughter at the twin's antics or another backfired spell of Ron's in "Chamber of Secrets." At the same time, we shed tears of pain and sorrow and suffer as a beloved character dies a tragic death; as Harry suffers on the written page. 

We even get a whole new genre of music out of this book series ... and some of it is really brilliant!

Ministry of Magic is great wrock

(example of brilliant wizard rock) http://youtu.be/6q7i_cBLzYA, http://youtu.be/JybrDuxRN78, http://youtu.be/6tWIlXDTMLw)

Throughout we learn lessons about doing right rather than what is easier. That what someone does is greater than what they were born. The importance of friendships and love. That sometimes there is something bigger than just you that needs to be stood up for. And that carrying your wand in your backpocket risks the loss of a buttock. 

But the story has been told already, it was finished in 2007. 

In the films, however, the world is brought to life before our eyes. So much so that we critique and nitpick the most finite of details, characterizations and plot points to where it stands in comparison to the written word of canon. 

We are able to see Quidditch played in real life and match it to what we always envisioned in our imagination. We see Sirius Black before our eyes, the Marauders Map used, owl post, the Ministry of Magic and most amazingly itself, Hogwarts.

Seriously, who doesn't want to play Quidditch?

I came into the story late, but I am grateful that I came into it at all. 

If it were not for my younger sister's interest and working the book release for "Half-Blood Prince," I may not have decided to read six books in a fortnight simply "to see what the big deal is." I had seen the first three movies on DVD so I may have found an interest later in 2006 when "Goblet of Fire" came to theaters.

My saster and I being awesome. 

But I did read the books in a fortnight. And then I read them all over again. Three times that fall. 

I admit it is easy for me to come across as "that guy" really into Harry Potter, especially with the ease of posting to Facebook. We all are into things. Some can tell you about an engine or a tree. I can tell you about a book and TV show, amongst many other things. I don't like to feel mis-represented. It would be easy to just say, "Haters gonna hate" and move on, but that would still leave odd thoughts of my own self for the outsider. Let me just state that yes, I am a fan of the Harry Potter series. I feel lucky to have experienced this story in my life as I also experienced the greatness of of L O S T and, later, Scrubs. Yes, I love Star Wars, but these three things impacted my 20-somethings like noneother. I learned much from them and grew with their aid. In them I found a wonderful story that grabbed my imagination and heart. 

I also found friendship outside that matched the friendships within, simply because of a new social website and an idea to create a group within it for Potter fans at my college. I never imagined the friendships I developed with four others (plus a lovely girl named Larkin afterwards but through them) would carry me so far, even if one has faded outright. And then there were other friendships, much later, that were discovered because of this simple interest in Harry Potter. Geekdom in Potterness can bring people together and create friendships out of the spark of a common interest, and it is a wonderful thing to have experienced. 

Friends, in my fat Elvis years.

The films have always been a love-hate relationship in some regards. As I mentioned, they create on film what only existed in our imaginations. Sometimes it is a perfect creation and others, well, others can drive you mad with changes to the plot or characters.

There has always been a foreboding finality with the movies still in production after book 7's release. And, after two hours and five minutes later there is left only bittersweet finality at the end of an era. 

Bloggy blog on Part One:

http://bit.ly/oR7m9R

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" was great. My heartcage was warm right where I wanted it to be the most impacted (Chapter 34: The Forest Again). I feel the outstanding acting found in part one was just the same in this one, as it should be. The Second Battle of Hogwarts was as I always envisioned it, as was so much more of this book put on the silver screen. 

It would be wrong of me to nitpick this film, and its prior penultimate edition, to kingcome come and not like it. Because with all the changes made to it they marks were perfectly met where they needed to be met at the most important times. This truly was a character driven film balanced with an epic battle film. There could be one, or the other, which meets the marks and risks the other faltering. That is not the case here. It is truly the perfect way to mark the end of an era. 

The music of composer Alexandre Desplat was excellent yet again. I am eager to listen to it on the OST in fact. The bits where the only sound was that of the film itself without the addition of a slow piece in the background shows great decision making on both Desplat and the filmmakers. Often music is filled in to fit a void but in this motion picture the lack of sound during key points was brilliant. The silence was the most noise that could be met to fit the scene. 

Everything David Heyman and David Baron have helped build for the past decade into an eight film saga of The Boy Who Lived concluded in the most perfect way possible. Sure there were major changes and tweaks, but it was wonderful and in the case of the "Deathly Hallows" films, the changes fit. 

(Funny story: I nearly hit publish with it reading "an eight part film sage of The Bot Who Lived)

I admit, this could be the honeymoon stage of a bittersweet ending to something very dear to me. But I think I will always feel this way about the final movies. 

It has been an outright pleasure watching the Trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson grow up on screen and as actors. I am sincerely grateful they and the rest of the cast devoted their youth to the creation of true movie magic and I bid them all best wishes in their future endeavors. This won't be the last we hear from some of this cast. 

Friends forever, both on screen and off. 

Hombre finally gets his moment! 

And so, I must close. 

I am truly grateful for this saga and what it has done for me in my life. I am but one of many whose lives have been touched by Harry James Potter and his friends. I will always remember and cherish what I have taken away and in turn, I shall use those lessons in life. 

Thank you Jo, for everything. You truly are a hero of mine, who has overcome quite difficult obstacles to enlighten the minds and hearts of the world via the written word. 

Let me close not in my own words but yet again, with the words so perfectly crafted by Jo. 

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

- Dumbledore