"Thirster" (Triple-Triple) for 144 points

The advantage to any quantifiable pursuit -- be it golf, making money, or Scrabble -- is that it can provide a sense of progress where none actually exists. One can live a fairly consistent, unchanging life, but as long as you have some number to watch -- a bank balance, a score sheet, whatever -- you get to pretend that you're actually going somewhere.

Leila and I were commiserating last night about where we're at in our lives. It was talking to her that I finally put my finger on something. "It's not that there's anything bad about my life. I love my life. But my life isn't going anywhere right now. When I worked with the SKS, or for RGI, there was a sense of mission, that we were progressing towards something big, something life-changing and important. My life now is so much better than back then . . . and yet I miss that sense of going somewhere."

Many friends have told me that when you've got young kids, you're pretty much parked, and that's the way it should be. It may be purely an ego-desire, to have a sense of every day in every way getting better and better. But somewhere down there I sense a vocation . . . or, at least the need for one. And no amount of bingo plays is going to fill the void.