Amazing timing. When I wrote yesterday’s post I wasn’t planning on making these public. I was going to post privately. But after encouragement from a friend who started her own hilarious blog, I proceeded to spend more than two hours being convinced by Pink Floyd to ‘tear down the wall’. So here they are.

Profound and fascinating. Last night for one night only theaters around the country played Roger Waters live concert ‘The Wall’ intermixed with clips of his visit to the grave sites of his father and grandfather - both killed in action before their sons had a chance to know them. The film starts in a military graveyard showing a stone wall. Etched in it is a list of the names of men and women who have died. The live concert begins and there seems to be a sobering message: No matter who you are or where you come from we will all eventually become just another brick in the wall. ‘Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend, we were all equal in the end.’

As the concert goes on a crew dressed in black slowly builds a gigantic wall across the stage brick by brick until it is 35 feet high and more than 200 feet wide and completely blocks the stage from the audience. You quickly realize the message is not just about war between nations but war between people and battles we face in our own daily lives.

Our whole life is a wall built brick by brick of our experiences stacked one on top of the other and side by side. Do the walls protect us or trap us? Do they keep us safe or keep us isolated? Do they free us from perils the world or do they blind us to them? Do we even know the walls are there?

Just as you are getting sucked deeper into the metaphor the crowd begins to cheer ‘TEAR DOWN THE WALL!… TEAR DOWN THE WALL!’… And suddenly a 100×35 foot section of the wall collapses to the ground and reveals the stage again. It is a challenge. Look at your life and the world around you. Is it possible to transcend the walls?

Today I got the news. My teammate and friend just succumbed to cancer. We played volleyball together 2-3 time a week for two or three years. But I had not seen him since my shoulder surgery took me out of the game a few years ago and we had barely kept contact on Facebook.

In the weeks before he died his wife reached out to those who knew him for a few words on where he fit into our lives. At the time it was something we were doing for him, for her, and for their daughter. But now I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to let him know he was important to me while he was still here. It his hard to imagine that huge grin and boisterous laugh not being out there in the world anymore. Alex you will be missed.

I started this site in 2010 when I decided to sign up for the Body For Life Challenge which eventually lead me to compete in CrossFit. During all the time I was writing I never knew the extent to which my teammate Alex King was a major contributor to the system I post with. WordPress is used by almost 25% of the top 10 million websites in the world and my volleyball buddy’s name is apparently all over its code. So what better way to pay a tribute than to start using it again?

From time to time I used to write a page about someone who has inspired me. So Alex King, today that person is you. You have inspired me to pick up where I left off with this thing and see where it takes me.