Congratulations, college graduate

April and I are flying to Ohio for the weekend to see my brother graduate from college. Here are the top ten reasons that I'm excited for this weekend:

1. Cheap airline tickets from Southwest. They turned what is usually a 9-hour drive into a 1.5 hour flight for not much more money than it would take us to drive.
   
2. I haven't had real (as in not from a can or frozen package) Skyline chili in almost 7 months. That drought will be broken this weekend. Three way, cheese coney plain, and a root beer please.
   
3. We get to hear Bill Clinton speak at Ohio State's graduation. I hear that he's a good public speaker. The guy who spoke at my college graduation put the entire college of engineering to sleep, so Old Bill won't have to do much to exceed those expectations in my mind.
   
4. I will get to see lots of my family at Randy's party, including some that I haven't seen since our wedding, and at least one cousin that I haven't seen in years.
   
5. I still get excited about flying. There's something about being able to look down on the world from a completely different perspective that turns me into a little kid, peeking out the tiny window to see as much as I possibly can.
6. I get to see all the places that I grew up in. They're still so familiar to me and always bring back floods of old memories. Just having the chance to spend a couple of nights in the house I grew up in (from 5th grade through high school) is cool for me.
   
7. Because April doesn't like Skyline, I'll include our planned pre-graduation Sunday lunch at Chipotle. It is definitely the greatest burrito place in existence, and for some reason they decided to skip Philadelphia when they started making restaurants. Somebody needs to teach these Philly people how to eat something besides cheese steaks so we can get a Chipotle.
8. Just because weekend road trips are lots of fun, especially when you get to travel with your wife!
9. We've been trading off weekend dog-sitting duty with our friends Sarah and Seth and their dog Snoop, so Mabel gets to hang out with good friends in West Philadelphia for the weekend. I'm so thankful that we make it easy for each other to get away even when we have dogs to worry about.
   
10. I get to see my little brother graduate from college and celebrate with him before he moves on to exciting times in Nashville. I'm very impressed that he had the intelligence and patience to finish college (with an engineering degree, none the less) when what he really wants to do is pursue a career in music. He's definitely prepared for life in the real world - not just with an education and rock-star-like musical skills, but he is also kind, level-headed, and responsible. Those are the kinds of things that make me know that he will be a valuable member of whatever community he is in after college.