cob-o-lob-o-dob-o

I love my friend, COB. I learn a lot from him - a whole lot. He is wise and kind hearted and humble. I think one of the attributes I most enjoy in him is how completely different he is from me on some things and how the same we are on others. W are both relatively bad basketball players - but I lean to the competitive nut-case and COB leans a bit shy. I experience feelings of beauty and peace in the park when I smell the roses in the air. I am compelled almost to stop and enjoy the moment. Yet COB can reach out and feel such deep empathy and compassion that amazes me and softens my heart when I see it.

COB is confrontational by nature and I am rarely so. (I usually have to put on my work face on in order to get that way). At home I usually like to worry about each day as it comes. COB is a clean nut and I tend messy. We both love beer.

COB sides with my wife in the statement “real men cry” - I dream about things exploding. Or at least of spies and stuff. Or maybe flying or saving the world. I digress.

And we both like computers though I am more embarrassed by the geekiness of it all. We are both seasoned engineers, though good COB has traded in his military nuclear training for nursing.
I am the professional programmer - why me!!

I celebrate our differences especially as I pick up things from our friendship. Like the crying. I love our contrasts and the life in them. I like that I can sit back and have peace in the turmoil of an emotional assault and I love that COB encourages me to press into the fray and feel the urgency of the emotions and not ignore such things. COB loves to blog and process emotions this way. I must force myself to blog things or journal them privately. The exercise is good for me though - I can feel it.

It seems that some people can make other people into more of themselves, this is a rare quality indeed. When I am around COB I feel more myself than I was before. And that is good.

Thanks COB.