the sun also rises

So my beloved Florida Gators lost to Georgia tonight. We have owned Georgia over the past 18 years winning 15 of 18 matchups. That isn't a bad record but I still hate losing. You can say I am a tad competitive. I yell at the TV, second guess the coaches and throw things when the game doesn't go may way. Watching the game today involved all three of those bright spots in my character. As soon as it is over I get over it quickly but how I dread going to work on Monday. Why we treat the success of our favorite sport teams as an extension of our own persona is a topic for another day.

Instead, I have two more shots from South Africa that I planned to talk about. This is the first of the two. I was thinking about what I wanted to tell viewer about this shot and thought I had it all figured out. This shot came on my last evening in South Africa. My wife and I went to Camps Bay to watch the sunset then have dinner at a restaurant called Paranga (excellent by the way but make sure you wait for a table outside). I took a few sunset shots in a more traditional way, but this one was more interesting to me. In particular I enjoyed the colors, the movement and the sun moving straight along the horizon.

After Florida lost, this photograph became representative of our season this year. Our team is beautiful in that we have wonderful athletes, but we are as shaky as this technique I used to capture this sunset. Our defense lost 9 of 11 starters last year and that is hard to replace. They are young and it shows. The sun so very close to disappearing beyond the horizon reminds me that Gator fans likely said goodbye to the SEC championships (but you never know in the SEC).

I will be over this tomorrow and will look at this picture as a pretty picture again. The great thing about every sunset is that tomorrow brings a sunrise and the Gators will be back.