Ozymandias

By, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Here is a more up-to-date version.

Sunday, the whole day spent watching the French Open

Saturday I got burned: I intended to watch the woman's final, but between my wife having to leave early for a girl scout encampment and having to procure goods from the store for breakfast and having to make said breakfast for the other two girls. I turned the TV on at around 10:30 and the match was OVER!

Sunday, I got the match on in time and watched the first two sets. Incredible tennis! We planned to go to Mt. Monadnock and hike it since it was a rare weekend day when nobody needed to be anywhere. Surenna needed to get some homework done, so I got to view the first two sets and I had the DVR record the rest for later.

6 hours later: 1 hour each way to the mountain and four hours of hiking and we were home. The plan was for everybody to get cleaned up and then we would go out and grab some dinner. I showered last and managed to see Federer make a good run at the third set, though it was not over when I had to tear myself away again. Federer had been up early in the first set but then lost game after game to loose that set, then set number two came down to a tie breaker. Really, he could have won both of those sets and now he was up in the third. So what could I think? He could still blow the 3rd and the Open is done, or he is finally seeing his efforts pay off and he could take the whole match.

Dinner took a while, but the delay did not dampen my desire to see how it all came out. Federer did go on to win the third set, but he was really never in the fourth and Nadal wrapped the match up in good order.

It was a great match, but somehow it wasn't that aspect of it that made such an impact. On a very eventful Sunday, the match intervened between each part so I was sort of mulling it over or actually watching it all day long. It became the unifying theme for the day.

Great pix from the hike, but I will post them once I get the chance.