It's that time of year again.

When hurricane predictions lead the news? Nope. When we all complain about the humidity? Nope. When their is unrest in the middle east...again? Well yes but I'm not talking about that this week.

Of course I'm talking about the time of year when local high schools conduct their graduation ceremonies. I have developed quite a pessimistic attitude related to these festivities. I was invited to my nieces ceremony last Thursday evening. I entered the stadium prepared to surrender 3 hours of my life to gallons of sweat, annoying cat calls "Woohoo! Johnny!", and speeches conducted by people you never new existed let alone wanted to hear speak for 15 minute...EACH.

As I perused the program for the evening I immediately assessed the torture I was about to endure. Would I hear from the school board secretary? Would I hear from the class President, VP and Secretary ProTem? Surprisingly...no. There appeared to be a short list of speakers. I would not be deterred from my bitterness and pessimism so as the ceremonies began I whipped out my cell phone to time the speeches. While they were few in number surely they would rob me of at least 15 minutes each.

Again I was...disappointed? The speeches were no more than 7 minutes. While they weren't captivating they were minimally invasive. As the ceremony wound down I checked the ticker...1 hour and 30 minutes. Hurray I had escaped with an extra 90 minutes to spend how I chose. So I promptly left the ceremony to use my time to expand my horizons, climb every mountain...ford every stream...follow every byway til I found my dream, er, I ate a mountain of ice cream covered in a stream of hot fudge to expand my waist line.