On how the birth of his child showed him what matters:

If you’re born without an emotion chip, this part can be installed at a later date. If you choose not to order this part, it will be forcibly installed upon the birth of your first child. Systems calibration will not be offered, and is not available anywhere. Systems may overload unexpectedly and without warning. No recalls will be made, and no improvements made on this faulty part. No apologies, The Management. …

It is in part because you have something depending on you, but also because this space and time just became more finite and precious. It is the first bite of fall in the air of an endless summer, the hint that you have crossed into something else, something with falling leaves, a chill in the air, and a gradual shortening of the literal and metaphorical days.

Camus makes a guest appearance here again:

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Summer’s never been my favorite season. Fall, however, is. I don’t have a clue what will happen with John Brantley, or the Florida defense, or to Alabama, or Georgia, or Michigan, or USC, or Western Kentucky, or any other team. There are depth charts, and rosters, and points spreads and buses and planes headed to various points to play on various fields. Everything but those is filling the space between diversions staged to liven up the otherwise dull expanse of a working week.

I do know, however, that like everything else this experience, this randomness we do each fall means so much more to me now than it did before. It is not enough to admit that your seriousness becomes that much more serious when you reproduce. Your arbitrary passions, your silliness, your distractions become that much more intense now, if only because you understand how limited a resource they are. The whistle blows.

So. Pumped.