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Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I remarked to Genuine. that I missed high school - not the institution itself, or the classes, or the people, but the idea of it. That's strange, since I loathed my last year of high school, since I'd been uprooted and transplanted in Oregon for just one year. It wasn't pleasant. I just had a memory of listening to Sarah Slean, playing Mancala, and watching the rain hit my window and feeling terribly melancholy.

Anyhow, I certainly don't miss it after the dream I just had.

In the dream, I was coming back to high school after being absent for a month or so. All of my classmates knew I had been absent (I was at some other school, or something, for the month), but they couldn't understand that I didn't remember where any of my classes were, or even who taught them. I kept telling them I didn't know where I was going, but I lost them in the halls, and couldn't find my math class. I knew it was taught by a Mr. Armstrong, but I wasn't entirely certain on the name. The building was gigantic - sort of like an airport, but if it were done with the floors in tile and with classrooms everywhere instead of terminals and gates. I wandered around what I thought was the math wing but couldn't find my teacher, which made me angry and frustrated, because I knew if I showed up late, he would make me read from the packet even though I didn't have one. I just kept looking and looking and couldn't find the room and saw some punk kid loft his boom box into a different class and it was so frustrating. I tend to get lost a lot in my dreams.

Anyway, I never found the math class. I don't really miss high school anymore.

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A co-worker introduced me to a social networking site called Geni today. Essentially, you can create a family tree and connect all of your relatives. It's surprisingly fun. I spent a couple of hours today working on my own family tree, and many relatives are pitching in with information I wouldn't have known on my own. It's a real kick. You should take a look at it.

And if that's not your cup of tea, then you should go watch some more of the Olympics. Don't watch the TV coverage, though, unless you're looking to see athletes from the US and only the US. Go online if you want to watch things like water polo, equestrian, and archery. Man, that's where the excitement is. I love watching the Olympics for what it really is - a celebration of athletics and international brotherhood - rather than NBC's idea of an ultrapatriotic America-first bonanza. Visa has taken up a slogan of "Go World," which I've really liked. Let's see some more global friendship.

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In honor of the Olympics, but also for those of you for, whatever reason, haven't seen it yet:

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I always look forward to the Olympics whenever they roll around. I spent time yesterday thinking about my favorite way I'd seen the torch lit (definitely from Barcelona, when they shot a flaming arrow into it) and my favorite Olympic moments (Michael Johnson outrunning the camera in 1996 as he broke the 200m world record). I convinced friends last night to watch the nigh-eternal Parade of Nations for a couple of hours as we waited for the torch to be lit. And wow, was it worth it. The Beijing opening ceremonies were something to be remembered for a long time. Gymnast Li Ning appeared to run along the outer rim of the stadium as a scroll unrolled, showing the torch relay. (Absolutely amazing, if you didn't catch it.)

And this morning, I was up at 7.30 to watch a women's team handball match between Brazil and Germany. I've never seen a team handball match, and I don't have any particular connections to Brazil or Germany, but man, I was hooked. It looks like it's going to be a fantastic few weeks. If you're not watching it, I strongly recommend it.

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Since Facebook took down their Scrabulous application (which was most of the reason I spent time on Facebook), I've been spending a lot of time playing Scramble, which is essentially Boggle. You can play ladder mode, which shows you how you do against your friends' top scores. I really like it, even if my highest scoring friend has 247, and I could never get closer than 218. (I average around 130.) Then today, I was given the ultimate Boggle board, and notched 270 in three minutes (out of a possible 2037). Behold!

Can anyone top it? Scramble gives you a more generous point system, so 4-letter words are worth 2, 5-letter words are worth 4, 6-letter words are worth 6, and so on, which should make higher scores much easier.