Thoughts de Mike

Becoming a cranky old man

2009-03-13T16:15:00.007-05:00

I've been feeling a lot older this year. I used to fight my age and stay up as late as possible Friday and Saturday night, shop at American Eagle, and eat chicken fingers 5 days a week. I still eat chicken fingers 5 days a week, but I find I'm more rested if I go to bed about the same time all week long, and I don't like shopping with 14-year-olds for shirts. I think it's important I'm away of my "getting older" and that I consciously shape the kind of old man I'm becoming. I don't want to be the grumpy old guy who's always yelling at kids (which is anyone younger than him), walking to get the paper in his underwear, always frowning, and muttering curse words from 60 years ago.

This is why I'm concerned about my new habit of walking away from people when they're talking about something stupid. This isn't something I used to do. I would stand there politely and listen to whatever they were going on about. I'd give some non-verbals that it was time to end their talk, but if they didn't I'd usually just stand there and think about something interesting until they stopped.

I recently had a liberating experience.

I was returning my snowboard to the Big Sky rental office and after chatting with the rental guy for a few minutes, started to walk out. As I turned he said something, "If you pronounce c-r-e-e-k 'crick' then what does c-r-i-c-k spell?" After I turned around I realized he wasn't talking to me directly, just posing a question for anyone within earshot. Feeling obligated to not walk away from someone talking to me I stood there for a second trying to figure out what he was even talking about. Before I knew it a very know-it-all guy was in front of him reciting what must have been the introduction to an informative speech on the difference between cricks and creeks, going so far as to list specific widths, in metric, that constitutes a crick and creek. I found this guy to be really annoying. And then it hit me! I don't have to stand here!! I don't know any of these people, I don't care about his speech, and I'll never see any of them again. While this guy was only in section IIa of his talk, I silently (but in plain sight) turned around and walked out the door.

FREEEEEE!!!!

Oh how great it was. Why should I have to stand and listen to some jerk? I don't. And now I don't.

But I'm afraid I'm doing it too much, or too easily. I don't want to be the bitter old man who scoffs and walks away when you say something he doesn't like. So I guess I'll just have to be conscious of it. Look out jerks of the world, I'm not going to humor you any more!

Academy Awards too early in the year?

2009-01-23T10:28:00.003-06:00

Nominations for the Academy Awards (Oscars) were announced last night. Having worked at a movie theater in my high school years and being an avid movie-goer, I was kind of sad to realize I hadn't seen a lot of the movies up for nomination. I plan on watching them, just not till they're released on DVD (or bluray).

Hence the problem. There's been a shift in recent years to rent movies instead of seeing them in theaters. Netflix lead the charge and blockbuster is helping with their mail-order rentals. Why pay $8.50 a ticket and $10 for popcorn and a drink when you can get a movie from netflix for roughly $1 per movie, make popcorn for $0.30 and drink a pop for $.050.. and watch the movie when it's convenient. It's still fun to go to the movies for some things, like seeing an action movie on the big screen or dressing up like harry potter (if that's your thing). But I think the general feeling is, "I'll just wait till it's on DVD" for most movies these days.

That brings me back to the Academy Awards. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (13 nominations), Slumdog Millionaire (10 nominations), Milk (8 nominations), Doubt (5 nominations), Frost/Nixon (5 nominations) and others with fewer nominations are all in movie purgatory between the silver screen and the home screen. I wonder if the Academy Awards will ever move the award show to a later date to accommodate the home viewers?

Ma'ma always said

2009-01-09T10:44:00.003-06:00

Laundry has always plagued man. And by man I mean men. Clean just isn't in our genes and I'm going to forgo any "dirty jeans" puns. Too easy, not my style. What IS my style is being in a perpetual state of doing laundry. I don't mind putting dirty clothes in the basket but once they're clean it takes me about 10 days to fold the clean clothes and hang things up. I iron once a year in the fall. When shirts get wrinkled I put them in a cluster in the top left corner of my closet and don't wear them until the annual ironing day - which happens to coincide with "I don't have any work clothes that aren't in the closet cluster" day. I wish I never had to wash clothes. Unless they're visually dirty or smelly, clothes should be fair game. Febreeze came along and eliminated half the reason to wash clothes in the first place, and I don't spend a lot of time rolling in the dirt.

The one thing I put my foot down on is undergarments. I won't wear t-shirts or underwear twice. Underwear is really what determines when I need to do laundry. I used to have many weeks worth of underwear, but underwear is sneaky, if you take your eye off it for one second it'll make a move. I was packing for a trip a few weeks ago and I found out I only have 6 pairs of boxers left. I think I used to have 10 or 15 others but for the life of me I don't know where they went.

One time in college I came up with an amazing prank - once a week I was going to steal a pair of my friend' underwear. This was a long prank mind you, but imagine a month or two down the road when suddenly he realizes he's down to only a few pairs of underwear... what do you do? You can't go around accusing people of stealing your underwear and there's no good way to casually ask if someone has seen it around. It would have been funny but after 3 or 4 weeks I forgot about it. The last day of school I was packing up and found the loot. Whoops. So I went to his room and hid it under the futon mattress when he wasn't looking. Years later I told him about it and he yelled, "THAT'S HOW THEY GOT THERE!" I like confusing people, so in a sense the prank won.

Anyway, back to my lowly 6 pairs, I guess it's possible someone stole 10 or 15 pairs of my underwear, but I don't think anyone's that weird. I have a feeling I'm really good at throwing away old boxers but really bad at buying new ones. Let that go on for 4 or 5 years and suddenly you have 6. That means I've been doing laundry every 6 days. If you recall I said it takes me 10 days to fold my clean clothes, hence perpetual laundry.

Also, since I'm doing laundry every 6 days I don't have enough clothes to justify separating clothes by color, weight, size, style, ethnicity, etc. I separate into two groups, clean and dirty. Dirty clothes go in the wash, clean clothes stay. I know this breaks all the rules but honestly, those rules are outdated. If we can experiment with stem cells and crash robots into mars surely detergent and washing machines are smart enough to wash whites and colors together.

The other day I diligently separated the clean clothes from the dirty and put 6 days worth in the laundry. Our washing machine has a couple dials but as far as I know they don't do anything. I put my clothes in, dropped "about that much" detergent in, and pressed the "clean my clothes" button which is labeled something else for marketing purposes. A couple days later I came to get my clothes out of the dryer and I noticed everything looked more like Easter than when I had last seen them. I checked those dials on the washer but there wasn't anything about Easter so it clearly wasn't anything I did. I dug into the clean clothes a little more and found one of my new t-shirts. Apparently it has it's first wash. It's a pretty nice color, imagine royal blue combined with turquoise and then splashed with florescent pastels. The shirt looks bright as ever! Unfortunately, my socks and white t-shirt joined the bright blue party as well. It's actually not a bad color, and I'm going to stick it out. It's news to me that no one fixed the whole color bleed washing problem. I guess science was more concerned with crashing billion dollar robots into mars :( Live and learn, live and learn.

Winter

2009-01-07T10:10:00.005-06:00

I posted this years ago on my MYSPACE blog, those were the days. I love Calvin and Hobbes, it's worth re-posting. Enjoy the laugh! Sorry some of the text is really small... I blame blogger for only allowing pictures to be 400 px wide.

The Original Snow Goon must be making his OWN Snow Goons. I'll bet he's making an army! In a few days, he could build a hundred snow goons! If each of THEM built a ANOTHER hundred, and then THOSE all built a hundred MORE, why... that would be pretty cool, if they weren't out to kill me.

I'm looking for something that can deliver a 50-pound payload of snow
on a small feminine target. Can you suggest something? Hello...?

--- Calvin

Calvin: This is going to be the biggest snowman ever built! People will come from miles to see our gigantic snowman!
Hobbes: This won't go any more. It's too big to push.
Calvin: OK, leave it here.
Hobbes: I'm exhausted!
Calvin: Well we can't stop now! We need nine more of these!
Hobbes: NINE MORE?!
Calvin: Sure! This is just one of his toes!

Snow, Snow! High and Low! Wherever we go! Let it blow! To and fro! H-DE-HO! Snow! Snow! Snow!

Calvin: It snowed last night! Turn on the radio! Maybe they closed school. Maybe the school buses froze up! Maybe the principal can't get out of his driveway!
Mum: Get dressed, Calvin. It only snowed an inch.
Calvin: Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.

"Snowgoons on the horizon... Hobbes, load the CALVINATOR!"

I should be doing my homework now. But the way I look at it, playing in the snow is a lot more important. Out here I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life.
Such as?
Procrastination and rationalization.

Calvin: Dad, if you threw a snowball at someone, but deliberately missed, would that be "bad"?
Dad: Well, I suppose that would be provoking, so yes, it would be a little bad.
Calvin: As bad as if you'd hit the person?
Dad: No, not that bad, but worse than if you hadn't thrown it at all.
Calvin: Suppose you just grazed the person. How bad would that be? Say maybe you knocked off his hat and his glasses or something.
Dad: That would mean instant death.

ANY dumb kid can build a snowman, but it takes a genius like me to create ART.

Note to Google maps

2008-11-19T15:48:00.001-06:00

The 35W bridge is fixed.

Stats

2008-11-08T00:37:00.002-06:00

Conclusions:
-Touching large body of water (gulf of Mexico doesn't count, it's not American) makes you blue
-States with the prefix "south" (even if they're in the north) are red
-States that used to have an underground railroad (not a subway) are red
-States that have a subway (not an underground railroad) are blue
-States that held the RNC and DNC (they paid more attention) are blue
-States just south of RNC and DNC states are blue too (it trickled down)
-States with the prefix "new" (sorry Old Mexico and Old Hampshire) are blue

Re: Christmas this year

2008-10-27T10:03:00.008-05:00

Santa's Workshop,
P.O. Box 56099
The North Pole

October 27, 2008

Dear Parent:

You're receiving this letter because our records show you have one or more children on our "nice" list. We haven't had to write a letter like this in quite some time - and believe me when I say it gives me no cheer - but it's important that you and your children's perceived expectations match the reality of what will happen Christmas morning.

As you're surely aware the US economy has been rough lately. A small portion of The North Pole (TNP on the NYSE) is publicly held and has dropped by 50% since August. While stock is only a small portion of the totally TNP economy, we are very dependent on Greenland the Nunavut territory of Canada's economies. Shipping, climate change, and the cost of plastics have increased costs. Surprisingly, even the relatively small price jump in clear tape has caused massive overhead. Imagine how much tape it takes to wrap 378M presents. Along with rising costs, roughly 86M Chinese children have stopped celebrating Ta Chiu and instead will be celebrating a western Christmas this year. While nothing makes us happier than new children believing in Santa, a 20% increase in demand has put huge strains on Santa's workshop.

We don't mention all this to scare you - Christmas has never been canceled and it never will be. We do, however, mention it so you can be aware of a few things:

1) Your child may receive fewer presents Christmas morning. Last year some children received one gift and some received two or three. This year every child will receive at least one gift but some who received two or three will find one less under the tree. This was not an easy decision to come to, but it's important that every child receives at least one gift.

2) The "naughty" list has increased by 3%. We have always been pretty liberal in adding naughty kids to the nice list. This year will be different. Truly naughty kids will find a lump of coal under their tree. If one or more of your children are on the naughty list you will receive a separate letter with more information. Remember: He sees you when you're sleeping. So be good for goodness sake.

3) When preparing a Christmas list please steer your children away from plastic based toys. This is not a hard rule but a courtesy. Plastic toys cost far more to produce so you'll be doing us a favor. Wooden toys would be much better. Also, last year there was a confusion and we accidentally made 140,000 extra basketballs, asking for a basketball would be good. Basketballs can also be used to make Kangaroo dolls if anyone is interested in that.

Again this is not to scare you but just to make you aware of these changes ahead of time so Christmas morning isn't a surprise or let down. This will also help you prepare your Christmas list accordingly. Our hope is to still have a joyful and thankful Christmas morning despite these hard times, but we need your help.

Ho Ho Ho,

Santa

RTRNR

free couch!

2008-09-22T13:10:00.003-05:00

I went to sell something on Craigslist and I forgot I had written this wonderful couch add this spring. I thought it was pretty funny and apparently so did people browsing the "free" stuff on craigslist. A few strangers emailed me to say I'm funny... which is a little weird, but not as weird as the girl who emailed to ask if I was single. Trust me, "free" stuff on CL is no the place to meet someone. I never posted the add on my blog but it's definitely worthy. Enjoy:

Lets not kid ourselves, this couch is free. If I thought it was valuable I'd be selling it. If you're looking for nice furniture to finish off your beautiful home, "free Stuff" on craigs list is the wrong alley.

What I do have is a sectional couch that's 1) Big 2) really comfortable and 3) not plaid/grandparent-y. I believe the two sections are 8-feet and 6-feet. I can't measure it right now because I'm doing this from work. That's also why I don't have a picture of JUST the couch. I know it's big enough for me to lay either way and not be cramped (I'm 5'11"). Upwards of 4 people have slept on this couch at one time. There's a strong correlation between BAC and number of people that can sleep on it, but I'd say you're safe with 2. It's really, really comfortable as a bed.

No one has ever smoked on it so it doesn't smell like ass. Well, I mean, it doesn't smell like smoke. All couches smell like ass. There are some stains and stuff but I guarantee they are all sanitary and are 100% from food and drink. Some of the wood is broken but it doesn't effect the usability and actually makes it more comfortable. I would NOT recommend standing on the top of the "back" though. You can stand on the armrests. I do it sometimes to get another perspective like in Dead Poets Society, you can too, it's strong enough.

Minus the stains, the couch doesn't look that bad. A lot of the "free" couches on CL look like 1976 threw up. This looks more like Miami Vice had it in their beach house but it got too old and spilled on.

I'm kind of sad to see this thing go, but alas, my new roommate has a nice leather couch and this one's gotta go. Email if you're interested. You have to help move it out of the house (not too bad) and you definitely have to take it away yourself. There's probably some change in the cushions that I'm willing to give away with the couch. It's possible you'll make a few cents on the whole transaction.

UPDATE: Sorry, the couch is gone! A senior in high school picked it up, so like a low-budget sequel, the couch is GOING TO COLLEGE! For the record, there was 46 cents in the couch and I kept my word.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2008-09-18T10:55:00.004-05:00

It's the hap, happiest season of all! Christmas? NOPE. Oktoberfest. It's harvest time and the best beers of the year are made! It's so exciting walking into a pub and asking what oktoberfest beers they have on tap. Even Sam Adams - which I usually don't like - is able to make a great tasting beer this time of year. Time to break out the liter mug and enjoy the season!

New funny video added to my "all time favorites"

2008-07-30T14:53:00.004-05:00

I used to be a bit of an internet video connoisseur. This is my all time favorite:

I haven't seen one that I found to be so completely amazing that it has the honor of my "all time favorites." Until today.

What makes a video one of my all time favs? Well, a combination of surprise, pain, crowd reaction, unbelievability and good ol' fashion "wow factor." Here's the video I'm adding to my favs:

Amazing Blob Jump Launch - Watch more free videos

North American Geography

2008-07-25T09:55:00.005-05:00

I've noticed some ideas American's hold to be true about geography that are just wrong. I blame our 4th grade social studies teachers (looking at you Miss Corgan) but the blame isn't' what's important. Let bygones be bygones and lets move forward intelligently.

Question #1: How many countries are in North America?

A) 1
B) 2
C) 3
D) 41

Think about it! Don't just keep reading, pick a letter.

Ok, if you picked "A," wow. Just the USA? I didn't realize any southerners read my blog!! If you picked "B," you're getting a little closer but don't forget our amigos to the south. Just because Mexico speaks Spanish doesn't mean they're South American. If you chose "C," CONGRATULATIONS! You're in the majority, but you're still wrong. The correct answer is "D." yep. North America reaches from Greenland all the way down to Panama and includes all the countries we would call "Central America" and the islands in the Gulf of Mexico we love to ignore. Trinidad and Tobago (that's one country not two) hates you for forgetting them. Check out the whole list under "Countries and territories" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America

Question #2: If you go to the western most point in South America (which is norther Peru near Ecuador) and go strait north, what US state would you hit?

A) California
B) New Mexico
C) Louisiana
D) Florida

It might help to draw north and south America on a piece of paper to help. I can would guess your map will turn out like this:

At least that's how I see it drawn all the time, even on TV when they're trying to draw a useful map. But google a map of the world and you'll see the correct answer is "D." The western edge of South America is strait south of Florida. Who knew? Not me, at least until I flew to South America with a layover in NY and thought that was so far out of the way to go East, then back West. Turns out you don't need to go back west, South America is East of MN.

Ok, time for recess!

WTF?

2008-07-24T11:04:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I see adds and think to myself, what did that meeting look like? The meeting where this was proposed and least one other person said, "I think this is a good idea." It'd be one thing if this came from a one-man operation, but it didn't. It came from a pretty big insurance company that will remain nameless. I imagine the person looking through stock photographs was hoping to find a crazy old man throwing a head of cabbage at a penguin or something, but this was the best he could find. Not the craziest man in the world, but the craziest man on the stock photography CD-ROM.

Or maybe this is marketing genius. I didn't just pass over the add like any other, I took time to copy the image and write a blog about it. Did they win? Well, I'm not quite they're target audience and quite frankly their target audience doesn't know how to "work that interweb the kids are on" anyway.

They lose, we laugh, crazy old man gets $2. End of story.

what would it look like if....

2008-07-07T16:58:00.004-05:00

What would it look like if church wasn't a place hundreds of people gather at once a week for their own good - to be taught and to be blessed - before driving back to their home which might be 30 miles away?

What if church was a series of neighborhood communities with the purpose of loving God, loving each other, and loving their direct neighbors? What if that was the emphasis? There could still be teaching in small groups, corporate worship in large groups from time to time, some sort of decentralized leadership. The point wouldn't be to be a church with small groups, but small groups being a church.

I don't have any plans to do this but the thought has been with me for a while and I figured I'd see what you (few) readers think?

At least I'm not breaking hips yet.

2008-06-23T12:03:00.006-05:00

The definition of stark realization is this: Me sitting at a computer reading the roster of camp counselors at my old camp and only recognizing one name. One person. And I barely know him. It's been 5 years since I worked there, but up until now I still new a lot of the counselors. I either worked with them or they were older campers-turned-counselors that I counseled while I was there. Five years. I didn't seem that long, especially since there was still a familiar cloud of people I knew there, but this summer marks it - I'm officially too far removed. Same goes for college, I recently spoke to graduating seniors at UWEC about "the real world" and played guitar at a college event and I hardly know anyone there. The little freshmen that were starting my last semester graduated a month ago. These two things that used to be such a part of who I am have turned over and I'm not a part of it.

I guess I shouldn't complain, it's not like I've been living in the past or trying to get back to the glory days. I love where I'm at right now and wouldn't go back to college or camp if I could. It's still sad, though, to know those chapters are officially closed.

I survived the mile!

2008-05-20T16:51:00.003-05:00

There I am! I think it's common running etiquette to make a face like you haven't eaten in 6 days to show exactly how hard it is to run, but hey, it's a mile! I ran it joyfully. My official time was 9:05. Back when I ran a lot I timed a mile and I did 6:45. I obviously haven't ran as much so I'm 33% slower.

The race was actually pretty fun! Here are 10 highlights in no particular order:

1) I got to be tagged and tracked like an animal on the verge of extinction. You can kind of make out a red piece of plastic on my right (MY right, left on the picture) foot - that's my tracking device. Good thing I had it because it took a minute and a half for me to get to the start line once the race started... I was the last person in a line of 2,000 people so it took a while to get moving. My time doesn't start till I cross the start line. Thanks tracking device!

2) Being last made the race fun, I got to weave in and out and pass people the whole race.

3) FREE cookies and Gatorade at the end

4) I had the longest shorts of any man... by 7 inches.

5) I ran in a corporate polo! Some people had intense moisture-wicking tank tops and 3" shorts. It was like 61 degrees and I'll say it again, It's a MILE.

6) My corporate team came in dead last!

7) I keep joking that a mile is so easy but 95% of Americans can't run a mile. One of my co-workers was in that 95% but spent weeks working up to the point where he could run/walk/jog a 14 minute mile. I'll never mock someone for working at getting in shape, it was fun cheering him on.

8) Brits was a business expense!!

9) There was an "elite" class of runners who came by at the end. They were all doing 4 minute miles and the winner was trying to break 3:50 but ended up with 3:52 or something like that. They FLEW. They basically run 15 mph for an entire mile. I can run 15 mph for about 20 feet. They were very gazelle-like.

10) We ran down Nicolet Mall and everyone on the street or eating outside restaurants cheers when you run by. It's great.

Great way to start a morning

2008-05-15T15:11:00.009-05:00

Some people like to wake up to the smell of coffee. Some people like to wake up to the smell of bacon cooking on a george forman next to the bed. Others, apparently, like to wake up to jumping though their alarm clock's maniacal hoops.

Jordan brought this first one to my attention:

I like to call this one "shapes." The idea is the alarm won't shut off until you put a triangle, hexagon, and star of david in their correct holes. Problem #1) The triangle will fit in the star of david hole. Problem #2) The system is probably based on the weight of the pieces so you can just push your fingers down in each hole and it wil turn off. Problem #3) The alarm requires an IQ of at least 30. This picture makes me happy too. Its 12 noon, clearly bright in the room, and this guy is fumbling around trying to bang the triangle sideways into the star of david's hole.

This next one I found in the SkyMall - the only catalogue where you can order a miniature golf course ($9,999), a corporate motivational framed poster ("perseverance", $59.99), and 30 different styles of ramps and stairs so your tiny dog can get on your bed ($29.99 - $109.95) all in one order. I call this one "hella-annoying." The alarm goes off and then literally flies around your room until you kill it with a tennis racket or wait for it to crash land in your dirty linens. I've never thought to helicopter-proof my bedroom but I imagine this would take out your precious Precious Moments if you don't surround them with chicken wire like clocks in a basketball court. It may also crush your tiny dog that just climbed M C Escher's stairs onto your bed. Once again, it's 12:34 pm and some one's just getting up! "Shoot, I'm 4 minutes late for lunch already!"

Even more annoying, I'm calling this one "screaming Segway." This one doesn't just make an alarm or radio sound, it's plays all sorts of annoying screechy sounds, peels out off your night stand and races around your house until you can corner it and slam it in a door 5 or 6 times. It may even shoot up your dog ramp and ram you in the head until you get up. It's hard to read the time, but it actually says 4:19 pm. Wow.

Do people really have this hard of a time waking up? Is there a market for this? If so, I've come up with my own product:

I call it "little kid slapping you in the face." When your alarm goes off a little kid slaps you as hard as he or she can until you get up and fight him or her. They won't be hard to beat up - I mean it's just a little kid, you can probably beat up one little kid - but the point is to get you out of bed. Also available in the "hit you in the crotch" version.

Hackers, like Velociraptors, just want to eat your data

2008-05-13T13:26:00.003-05:00

This is the description of a session on computer security I was invited to:

In the movie Jurassic Park, there is a depiction of security in the regular testing of the electric fences to keep the dinosaurs out of the tourist compound. However, as we all know, the electric fences eventually failed and the dinosaurs breached the compound. Too often, we guard the security of the information assets in our trust in a similar way, but with a very small wooden fence and an occasional visual check of that fence from a distance. As a result (and like the movie), dinosaurs have already broken through the fence and are snooping around to see what they can devour. Terry's presentation will cover the indicators of security breach, the upcoming onslaught of remediation requirements, and strategies to help you protect the compound in your Jurassic Park.

Awesome!!! I guess it's my own fault for building a cruddy wooden fence, now dinosaurs are getting in. I had a hard time following that analogy. It's hard to know what's literal when you're comparing intangible digital security to the physical security in a fictional book. Is the session going to talk about defending against the chaos theory and post-modernism? Against DINOSAURS? Against LIFE finding a way?? Inconceivable.

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite books so it makes me happy seeing it referenced here. The only thing is... the point of the book was that we can't control life (dinosaurs), no matter how hard we try, and that the amoralism of corporate genetics lead to its own demise. If I add that to our computer security analogy we get: No matter how hard we try, we can't control/stop hackers and the computer industry's zest for innovation without addressing the question of "should we?" will lead to it's destruction. "But come to our computer security class!"

Life will always find away.

Competetive running

2008-05-08T16:16:00.004-05:00

I used to be really into competitive track & field. When I was 10. And I had to be. For some reason all the elementary schools in the district have a competition in fifth grade. I remember two things about it 1) I couldn't have cared less. I think someone actually had to give me a pep talk in the middle and literally told me to try. 2) Throwing a frisbee was one of the events, and I sucked at it. It wasn't my fault, they used like 60 gram discs. They might as well have had us throw paper plates in a wind tunnel.

I also had to run a mile for 8th grade gym. Only three of us did that event and I came in second. I lost to a soccer player and beat a kid who had no business trying to run around a track.

Tonight I compete in an equally pointless race: "The Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon 1 Mile Corporate Team Challenge presented by PiperJaffray." I assume the title will be shortened because it won't fit on a poster that's less than a mile long. I'm not even sure who's paying for this, Medtronic or PiperJaffray.

RJS's dream team of runners is competing. A 70-something vegan who could easily run 30 miles tonight if he felt like it, me, and a handful of co-workers that wouldn't consider themselves "runners." We're up against teams like "Target Running Club" and "Lifetime Fitness." I looked at the winners from last year and every one of the team members finished the mile in under 5.5 minutes.

I checked out the coarse and it looks like we run from Loring Park to Brits Pub. I'm pretty sure I usually park a mile from Brits when I go there, so this night shouldn't be too different from an average night of going downtown.

Now you're asking, "Mike, what have you done to prepare for this race?"

Who me? Oh, nothing. I... umm... wore ankle length socks to work. I guess that's preparation, right? I'm not even wearing my running shoes and I'm going in a polo. My big decision is whether to put on shorts or go in my khakis.

It's a mile.

Maybe they'll have a frisbee throwing competition!!!!

Happy Birthday guy I don't know!

2008-04-30T15:23:00.004-05:00

I'm so thirsty right now. I just had a crumbly dry oatmeal/raisin/something yellow cookie and my water bottle has less than a drop of water left. I have a coke in the fridge and a water cooler with up to 5 gallons of water but I can't get to either because there's STILL a circle of employees in the break room!

I'd love, scratch that, I'm DYING to get something to drink but I can't go in there. You know what happens when you get a circle of 20+ employees standing around? You get awkward conversation. Nobody wants to talk about work during birthday-treat-time but there's no other common ground.

"I hear our local sports team made it to the semi-finals of a tournament."
"Yeah... mumble... used to play a sport."
"I saw a reality TV show that had a guy that used to play a sport..."

--awkward silence--

"It's finally nice outside"
"Yeah, global warming, mumble"
"I don't know about that, I don't believe in science because of my faith..."

--awkward silence--

"Looks like they're taring up the road near our office"
"Yeah I saw that too"

--silence--

If I walk in there right now to get a drink I'll be the only thing to talk about. Everyone will stare at me and someone will make an uncomfortable joke that will border on sexual harassment. If I get a coke someone will say something about how unhealthy it is. If I get water no one will say anything until it's done filling up. Then someone will harass me. I'd rather go thirsty. Or write a blog about it until everyone leaves, which by the way, still hasn't happened.

Electric Community: Second blog!

2008-04-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

Electric Community: allow myself to introduce... myself

There's the link to a second blog project I'm going to work on. It's specifically about playing electric guitar in worship bands. It will be much more niche and include a lot of topics I've though about posting here but realize it would be terribly boring for anyone who doesn't play on a worship team. Check it out if you're interested!

p.s. "Why Bleieve? Part 3" will eventually be posted. There is some sort of conclusion to to ramblings of part 1 and 2!

Why Believe? part 2

2008-03-27T14:00:00.005-05:00

The reason I believed 5 years ago.

Truth and proof have an unholy marriage in our modern thinking. I, for one, mistakenly thought they were synonymous 5 years ago. I was a sophomore in college, I had already come to believe in God but so far it was just a feeling. I wanted to know for sure. I wanted PROOF that I was right. I figured if Christianity wasn't true I didn't want to follow it for another day but if it was I was fully on board. I'm not sure if that need for proof was because I was 19-years-old or just because I was immature in faith. For whatever the reason I decided talking to atheists about faith was the ultimate show-down, whoever won the argument through reason, science, and history - whoever could prove the other wrong - would be the one who knew truth. I actually laugh when I think back to how epic I imagined this would be. In retrospect, I think each party's zeal for truth is major common ground and apathy is the true opposition to faith - theistic or atheistic.

I spent hours reading theology and apologetic books, finding the best arguments, and making up my own as I saw them. I'm sure my debating friends were doing the same thing on their end, and we make good points the other had to deal with and figure out. I didn't realize it then but I obtained an atheist's worldview along side with my own. I could think of a theistic argument and already know the atheistic response. My atheist friends took on a Christian worldview along with their own, then the conversation ended. Neither side had anything left to say. We completely understood the other's stance, fully had faith in our own, and had no evidence to prove anything differntly. When I look back, this conversation that took place almost daily for nine months has been one of the biggest influences on my faith and I'm thankful for everyone involved in it.

At the time, though, that conversation almost ruined my faith. I was so convinced that I just needed to learn more, gather more evidence, and I could prove my faith. But I couldn't. I can't.

Yet I still believe. Just not because of reason... or science... or history. I think God made it this way on purpose. Some say Darwin killed God, I think the opposite would be true, if we prove there WAS a God, God would essentially die. If God is love and love requires faith; removing the need for faith ends God. I'm convinced that's why there's a counter-argument to every argument for God's existence and why belief needs to be based on something other than just reason.

Some things are true but can't be proven. It was a hard concept for me to grasp, especially in the age of enlightenment where we practically worship science and understanding. I'm definitely not saying I'm against science, I've just come to realize that it's no good for helping me make sense of spirituality, and that some things will just always be a mystery for me. Being able to say, "I don't know" or "I don't understand" is a beautiful freedom. We don't have to know or understand in order for something to be true. There's something bigger than our understanding.

To be continued...

Why Believe? Part 1

2008-03-27T10:09:00.005-05:00

This is one of those times I write because I have a group of loose ideas that need some binding. Hopefully I can make some sense and bounce it off whoever reads this. Here's the main question:

Why do I believe in God, specifically the God of the Christian bible?

I think this is a question Christians ask themselves often and in my more vocally evangelical (lower-case "e" - see footnote) days, other people asked me as well. Most recently it came up in conversation with a friend over Greg Boyd's blog about the seeming dichotomy of the OT and NT God. Boyd says,

"My belief that Jesus is the Son of God isn’t rooted in my belief that the Bible is God’s infallible Word. Rather, my belief that the Bible is God’s infallible Word is rooted (mostly) in my belief that Jesus is the Son of God. I don’t believe in Jesus because the Bible says so. I believe in the Bible (mostly) because Jesus says so."

To paraphrase his next points, Boyd's reasons for believing in Jesus are 1) Biblical history of Jesus and 2) The way the NT resonates with his deepest intuitions about life.

To me, this is a chicken-or-the-egg question. Admittedly I haven't read the book Boyd co-authored (Eddy, Boyd, The Jesus Legend (Baker, 2007) about historical Jesus, but from my own research I was under the impression that there were only a hand-full of accounts of Jesus, by Josephus, that were debatably altered and the only conclusive extra-biblical history we have is "Jesus lived and was killed." In my opinion, even if you can give the NT historical credit, it only proves that we've preserved what the original authors wrote (and believed), not that Jesus was divine (as Boyd agrees with in the intro of "The Jesus Legend"). I would not go so far as to say I believe in Jesus' divinity for historical reasons. Saying you believe in Jesus for historical (mainly from the bible) reasons and therefore you believe in the bible's infallibility is dangerously close to circular reasoning. I'm sure I'm putting words in Boyd's mouth now but it's the line I feel he's walking. I DO also believe in Jesus for reasons other than "for the bible tells me so," just for different reasons. I'll come back to that.

I didn't intend for this to become a critique of Boyd's reasons for believing. Think of it as in intro to why I got to thinking about all this. Hopefully it makes you think too - why do you believe?

To be continued...

*By "vocally evangelical days" I mean the time when my main way of showing people God was to strike up a conversation with a stranger and talk about what we believe. Now days I prefer to show God by other means. I specified lower-case "e" because Evangelical is a movement which I was not referring to.

This is what I love about Minnesota

2008-03-11T13:04:00.004-05:00

It's only 40° but I just spent the last half hour walking around Burnsville with a light coat - no hat, no gloves, no boots. I love it! I got to stretch my legs while getting fresh air and sun. Plus I was productive! After eating some Leann Chin with Ryan, I walked to the bank, then to the library to get my tax forms.

It's convenient that everything is so close. It made me wonder if I could go without a car for most of the things I do. Sure I'd need a car to carry things or go more than 5 miles but everything else I could probably walk or bike to. This may turn into an experiment when it's a little warmer :) Everything would take longer and that would probably be the worst part. I kind of like taking it slow though. It's so much more relaxing when I don't have to speed in order to do the million things I need to get done. What if I just didn't try to do a million things? Instead I just did four. And I rode my bike to do them? If being ultra busy stresses me out, maybe I need to do less. I hear small country towns have a "slower way" about them. I grew up on the urban/suburban hustle and bustle. Maybe it's not the best way?

Maybe I just got too much sun and fresh air :) If I sell my car and get a bike I'll be sure to let you know.

100th blog extravaganza

2008-02-15T09:53:00.002-06:00

I went to write a blog today and noticed I had 99 blogs posted. I was actually reading old blogs yesterday and reminiscing. If it's not too conceited, I'd like to reflect on the 99 blogs I've posted in just under two years. In my first post I talked about how I often start journals but fall off the wagon after a few weeks. I was half assuming I would do the same thing with a blog but I'm glad I didn't. It's a fun record of at least some of the things I've done or some of the things I've thought about. I was just reading a post I wrote from Peru, exactly a year ago. I'm glad I have that! Here's a compilation of my favorites. I think now I AM conceited. Oh well, if you're killing time, check these out:

Most adventerous

Biggest Impact on me

Nerdiest

Most Meaingful to me

Rantiest Rant

Funny:
Dating, Grass, Walking, Aliens, Head-butting, Eulogy

What if Heaven is illogical?

2008-02-13T17:23:00.004-06:00

"Can God make a rock so big he can't move it?" If God can't make it, God's not all-powerful, and if God can't move it, again God isn't all powerful. This classic question is mean to twist your brain or prove that there's no such thing as an all powerful God, but what the question is really asking is: Can God be illogical?

The question passed my mind a while back but it crept up again today so I figured I'd flesh out my thoughts and start a conversation about it.

First, it's important to note that our idea of logic comes from the physical world. Math isn't inherently true, it's a description. Physical science is the same, it describes how things work in the world. We have a concept of gravity because there IS gravity. On earth things accelerate toward it's center at 9.8m/s^2 and we use that to make equations that can tell us the velocity of something dropped from a certain height with a certain friction and so on. The equations is true if it accurately describes what would actually happen. Our logic follows a similar token. If I let go of the pen I'm playing with it will fall. If there's no gravity it will float and if there's negative gravity it will rise. But it can't rise and fall at the same time, it's how things physically work. So our logic is true if follows the physical rules. Science, math and logic don't prescribe how things will work, they describe.

What if something happens in the world that doesn't follow the physical rules? We call it a miracle. Walking on water, healing from a disease everyone else dies from, whatever the case, we understand that the spiritual world met the physical world and the "rules" of the spiritual world won.

So if the spiritual world has different rules than the physical world, why do we describe God by logic based on the physical world? I guess it's ironic to make the conclusion based on physical logic, so maybe that's why we base theology on physical logic too - it's the only thing that makes sense to us. If that's the case, we should at a minimum accept that we're probably wrong about most of the things we think are true about God.

I have more thoughts on this, but I just want to open the dialogue for now, not monologue till I'm done. What do you think?

Really?

2008-02-07T09:38:00.000-06:00

You may have seen these guys before. Late 20's; bleach blond hair or darker hair with frosted tips; suspiciously well groomed - as if they get a haircut each morning and shower (and re-gel their hair) between each of their iCal events; often times wearing feminine colors but oh no, they're not gay, they just want to show how confidant they are. You may only recognize them from the 18+ nights at Stargate but I work in an office... I know them as the printer salesmen. They appear in pairs and their eyes always send mixed signals between "I'm trying not to look hung over on a Tuesday morning" and "I don't care about you losers, I just want your money."

After watching that "crash course to sales" VHS they picked up on just one point of selling - you need to look successful in order to sell. Maybe if that tape had been recorded at LP instead of SP it could have explained that this does NOT apply to selling printers. Trying to get venture capitalists to invest in your start up? Trying to find people to buy stock from you? Great, look successful, take them golfing and to a $400 dinner. Trying to sell printers? Not so much. Your success is directly proportional to the amount you over charge customers... like the ones you're talking to RIGHT NOW. So when you pull up in a Viper, I don't think, "dang these really know what they're doing," I think, "Someone spend $50k too much on an all-in-one printer/fax/copier."

You may be asking yourself, "What is Mike ranting about this for?" First of all, your grammar was all wrong and you ended your sentence with a preposition but I'll ignore that for now and I'll tell you why: Someone wrote "gay" on my passenger side window yesterday. Gay? I'll give you the address of my old dorm room and you can draw a penis on the white board too.

I'm friends with all the unprofessional people that work in my office and I know none of them would do this, the professional people definitely wouldn't, and all the middle-schoolers in Burnsville had school. Our lobby reeked of sex panther cologne yesterday which can only mean one thing - Printer Salesmen were here. Like the shot heard around the world or the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand...

This means war.

The Caucus

2008-02-06T13:46:00.000-06:00

For the first time in my voting life Minnesota has a relevant caucus - and by that I mean one that didn't happen after the primaries were already clinched from other state caucuses. I made it a point to take part and voice my vote, now I can complain all I want if I don't like the democratic nominee!!

It was really cool seeing democracy at work last night. I caucused at Apple Valley High School - a building I hadn't stepped foot in for quite a while. The parking lot of completely full so I parked on "sophomore row" the street where kids without parking passes park and walk in shame to school. It was a big to-do once I got in the school. I was herded around the lobby to a place I could find my neighborhood voting room. I ended up lying and saying I still lived at home so I could go to the same room as my mom, and yes, I always caucus with my mom. Once we made it to the choir room and put an X by who we like (Obama rulez) and put the paper on an envelope.

Maybe someone can explain this to me - the voting slip didn't just have Obama and Clinton on it... it had everyone who had ever mentioned running for president for the DFL even though they had dropped out of the race. I thought about voting for someone random so CNN would broadcast: 264,000 for Obama, 233,000 for Clinton and 1 for VILSACK. But I had walked too far in the cold to trade my vote for a chuckle.

Once the paper was in the manila envelope my mom and I checked out the itinerary for the rest of the caucus and decided we'd rather watch CNN than go over the caucus rules and vote for a district delegate.

On the way out of the school I saw a perfect picture of democracy. The line had extended out the front door and went for about 100 meters (yes meters, I don't know how to measure in your stupid system) down the sidewalk. Thousands of people were there to make their voices heard and have a say in government... and the government had formed a nice line so they could wait in the cold. Democracy :)

Get gmail working again

2008-01-17T09:24:00.000-06:00

This is for anyone who can't get gmail to open up in Internet Explorer 7. For about a week now gmail has just up and not worked. I assumed they'd fix it within a day but there's been nothing. It still works on firefox so I've just been using that, but it's still annoying and there are people who don't have firefox installed and still need their gmail! Here are some ways to get it working:

try the alt url https://mail.google.com/mail/s/
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2#inbox

or the old version https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1

*If neither of these work, try clearing your cache information. On how to clear cache: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=8840

Still not working?
download firefox http://getfirefox.com/

report it to gmail at https://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?ctx=%67mail&direct=1

Happy gmailing :)

Livin' the dream

2008-01-11T17:24:00.000-06:00

There's a time to be ambitious, a time to be busy, and a time to do nothing. I used all my vacation time last spring to be ambitions, busy, and see the world. By June I had -2 vacation days and knew I wouldn't be taking a day off for a looong time. Well, the time finally came in December and strategically placing a few vacation days among the generous amount of time my company gave off for Christmas/New Years, I managed to only work 4 out of 16 days.

I did nothing and it was great. It was delicious. It was much deserved.

Over my 5 day New Years weekend my roommate Kris and I watched three seasons of "Scubs" and played about 30 games of Desktop Tower Defense. I wore the same sweatpants and long sleeved t-shirt every day and at our laziest point we debated whether or not to order pizza (from our laptop sitting on my lap) because someone would have to get up and unlock the front door. It was temping to list our garage code under "special instructions" along with some special instructions as to where were were - on the couch.

I don't feel too bad about it either. I payed my dues and was insanely busy for months on end. I needed a slow break and I rocked at it!

At one point I went to target for something or another and realized I needed some random groceries. I put my grub on the conveyor belt - 2 bags of baked chips, a frozen pizza, energy drinks, gold fish (of course), and a TV dinner. Don't get me wrong, I eat slightly better than this on an every day basis, but I understand how it sounds, and how it must have looked to the 16-year-old checkout boy. His eyes widened and he gave the look of, "I can't wait till I'm out of my parents house and can get whatever I want." I smiled with a twinkle in my eye and said it all with my expression, "Just livin' the dream, kid. Just livin' the dream."

What Henricus Hondius and I have in common

2007-12-26T16:54:00.000-06:00

I found this map a few months ago and asked for it for Christmas. My parents picked out a beautiful black and gold wooden frame and now it's hanging proudly over my dresser. I didn't know who made it or when, and I didn't know what the Latin meant, so I looked it up today. It's a 17th century map by Dutch cartographer Henricus Hondius (1597 - 1651). The title, Nova totivs terrarvm orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabvla, means "New complete map of the geography of the earth and oceans."

Complete.

The Gulf of California goes all the way to Canada, Alaska is the size of South America, and Australia is part of Antarctica. For the day, this was actually an impressive display of geography, but the word "complete" sticks out to me. Not "so far," not "maybe." complete.

I think I tend to think like this too. Not geographically, but about life. I can't think of an age when I didn't think I had it figured out. It's actually scary to look back at how much I thought I knew vs. what I know now when I was 10... 18... 21... And I'm sure I'll look back in five years and add 25 to that list. I think life and faith will always be like this. We're never going to invent GPS and satellite images for life, it's always going to be a series of new discoveries and imperfect maps.

Each morning as I groggily put on my deodorant I'll have a perfect reminder in the background that this is my map. Always incomplete and always forming.

thoughts on stalking

2007-12-14T12:57:00.000-06:00

First off, sorry I haven't written for a while. No excuses, I just haven't done it. Good talk, lets move on to....

STALKING! Why is stalking ok now? It's fallen under the barrage of used-to-be-immoral-but-now-that-it's-on-the-internet-it's-a-ok. You wouldn't steal a CD from a store but you have no problem stealing it on your computer. In the same manner, you wouldn't stake out your crush's house to see when they get home and who they were with, but you'll refresh their Facebook profile 23 times a day to see if they're online and who's commenting on their wall. THAT'S NOT OK. Just because you're not sitting in a tree with binocular doesn't mean it's not just as creepy that you save his or her myspace pictures and zoom in with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer!

And what's with hitting on people over facebook and myspace? Really?! I will text-message deny you if you facebook-hit-on-me. It makes me sad to see the walls of my beautiful friends graffitied with sad attempts to get jiggi. What happened to they days of slaying a dragon to win the heart of your princess? I'll tell you what happened, it digressed into sitting in your underwear at 2am trying to come up with the perfect wall post. Not tooo revealing so it's obvious you like her, but still strategic enough to make her tell you if she's into you. Congratulations, you have no balls.

Now even I've regressed and lost the topic, stalking. I decided to chart out it's progress as technology advanced. I really don't know the finer elements of stalking, I guess I'd have to ask a stalker about those and I don't know any.... or at least don't KNOW that I know any. Scary. And speaking of scary, I find it scary that all someone needs to know if your first and last name to figure out where you're from, who your friends are, and what events you're attending. This is exactly what our parents were afraid of in 1994. Oh, and as I said, here's the chart of stalking in relation to technological advances. Click to enlarge. Freaky how big of a difference Dick Chaney made........

Good News!

2007-11-06T09:35:00.000-06:00

It's no secret I've been reading local, national, and world news and feeling quite depressed over the whole ordeal. Colleen says it's called "mean world syndrome." At one point I looked for "good news" for a few days strait and the best I could come up with was "fewer soldiers killed in Iraq this month" which is seemingly good news but in reality still terrible.

I'm not sure what was special about today but the news was great! Of course there was still bad news, but I found 5 "good news" stories that made me happy. I like sharing good news, so here it is:

Locally - a 15-year-old who was abducted in St. Paul on Oct. 28 was found early this morning unharmed.

Asia - North Korea's nuclear weapons facility started shutting down today. US contractors are breaking it apart and making sure it will take at least a year of work before it would be operational again.

Europe - Italy arrested 20 people suspected of recruiting suicide bombers who would go to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Religion - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (probably the most Islamic nation) is visiting the Pope in Vatican City (probably the most Christian nation). This is the first time in history the head of the Catholic church and a Saudi Monarch have met together.

Africa - The Lords Resistance Army (LRA) has asked for forgiveness from those in North Uganda and are seeking peace. The LRA has been engaged in a two-decade long civil war in Uganda. If you've heard of "the invisible children" documentary or child soldiers in general - it was the LRA who was doing all that. Lately they've been hiding the in the Congo and screwing things up there too. I'm not sure if they're asking for forgiveness because they're losing or if it's genuine - bu I hope it's real. Cycles of unforgiveness are ripping Africa apart so any forgiveness will be huge.

Jesus - Still Too Radical?"

2007-11-05T09:11:00.000-06:00

I thought this poster for a heavenly sanctuary conference was really interesting. Greg Boyd wrote a great blog about it, I recommend checking it out! What do you think of it?

Hope

2007-10-29T11:56:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of darkness going around right now. A friend of mine tried to take his life, a girl from my church was murdered last week a few miles from my house, and after months of learning as much as I can about Africa I'm starting to think it's hopeless. Mutual unforgiveness, greed, lust for power, drunkenness, rape as a terror tactic, young boys brainwashed to be killing machines, manipulation, people feeling so alone they don't want to go on, someone killing because they're bored, westerners superiority complex, diamonds sold to fund war with corporations looking the other way for profit, and genocide. These are the things surrounding me this morning. It's heavy and it's pressing on me. It's easy to think the world is bad. It's easy to think people are basically evil. But I have to have hope. I don't feel like there's any but these are times that take faith. When the feelings are all gone all I can do is believe that there are people out there doing good and making a difference.

I think this is why Jesus told his followers, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

I don't think Jesus meant for us to tell people abortion is evil or walk around with Jesus Saves t-shirts when he told us to be the light of the world. He meant for us to be a beacon of hope for those in darkness. To be the friend who stays up all night with someone in need, to be the person in Africa changing lives one person at a time in a refugee camp 1 million strong, and to be the one to comfort and cry with a family in mourning.

This is the light I want so desperately to see right now, and the light I hope to be for someone else. Sorry if this is a downer but I've recently found that writing helps me work through things. Even if no one ever reads this it still helped me out.

love and loss

2007-10-22T13:59:00.000-05:00

The cold metal bar will have to do as a back rest as I put my feet up to sit sideways across the chair lift. It took half an hour to walk from my house to the top of buck hill but the view is worth it. The sunset is fighting to shine behind some clouds to the west, the skyscrapers are glowing orange to the north, and to the west I can see Burnsville, Apple Valley and Lakeville. The trees are in full color but my favorite part of the view is the nostalgia. I can see where I grew up - my house, my high school and the places I went with friends. I wonder if that's why this is my favorite place to sit and think. It reminds me of who I am.

I don't have anything particular to think about this time, but I'm sure if I let my mind wander for long enough it will land on something. And it does. A little surprised, I end up thinking about my grandma. She could see buck hill from her bedroom window and since she knew I loved to ski, I'm sure the sight reminded her of me. But as she passed so did the moment and now the bright lights are just lights. As I sway in my make-shift bench and look back on her house it's hard not to be sad. I wish I could thank her for helping me though college and tell her I graduated. I wish I could show her how much music I'm making. I wish I could sit and talk with her and hear her story and what she's thinking about.

But I can't. This is life. This is how it works.

Relationships of love are a fragile thing and every one of them will end. I have to remind myself not to mourn the fact that it's gone but rejoice that it lived for 21 years. Alleluia. A loss that still hurts four years later can only be the result of a deep love. We're left with two choices: love little and lose little, or love richly and mourn painfully. I say love richly and let the pain of mourning be a reminder that we're on the right track. Learn from those you love and let them shape you. When they're gone you'll still be changed and that in itself will go on forever. Allow yourself to be loved and never withhold. Love God with bottomless depth, His will never end, and in that love find hope of a heavenly reunion.

Maybe I'm getting too sappy but there's one thing I know to be true - just thinking about my Grandma makes me want to love more. Thank you.

Don't browse the internet

2007-10-16T09:41:00.000-05:00

Mad props to my coworker Jordan who originally showed me this.

I used to browse the internet. I had a list of favorites that included a number of blogs, a bunch of news sites, some tech sites for work, and practical things like weather.com. My browsing days are over though. I've turned that mundane responsibility over to my friends at google. Now they browse for me and just let me know what's changed! What I'm talking about is iGoogle - which probably stands for "internet google" which is nonsense because google was already on the internet... but I'll leave them alone on that.

The backbone of iGoogle is RSS feeds. Ignoring all the technical stuff I'll just say that RSS feeds are a way for web pages to broadcast out to the world what has changed on their site. If you have a blog, a RSS feed tells when you write a new blog; for news sites their feed shows what the latest stories are.

With iGoogle you tell it which RSS feeds you want to keep an eye on and it organizes them and keeps up to date with what's changing. Here's an example of my "news" tab in iGoogle (click to enlarge):

Every time I open this tab I see the latest news from 9 world, national, and local new stations. Much easier than going to each of these sites and trying to figure out which stories are new!! I also have a tab that shows me a daily John Steward quote, the weather, and a new vocab word so I can build my supercilious (today's word) vocabulary. There was a facebook RSS which just fulfilled every need and desire in my life but now it's broken and I'm alone.

You can also add Google Reader to your iGoogle. Am I starting to sound like a snotty Mac-kid who can't believe someone else's iLife could be so weak? Sorry if I am. But google reader is great too. You tell it the web address of all the blogs you want to read and it constantly checks to see if they're updated. No more clicking through a list of blogs to see if anything's new - Google does that for me! Here's what it looks like today... Laura and Phil have new blogs:

So if you have a lot of pages to check and you're tired of browsing it yourself go to www.google.com/ig and let google do it all for you!

Happy Columbus day. Here's to Genocietal Idiots.

2007-10-08T17:19:00.000-05:00

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue... and lead the way to the slaughter of natives and the destruction of their culture. Woot.

515 years later we're still celebrating. Why? I donno. Maybe it's because:

1) Christopher Columbus was the first person to discover the US land. Well, if you ignore the indigenous people that already lived here... and the Vikings who had already found it... and the other Europeans who had already found it... then yeah. I guess that would make him the first person to discover the US. If by the US you mean the Caribbean islands. He came back a second time and found some more Caribbean islands and on his third time finally ran into Central America but never the current US land.

2) Because he was the only one brave enough to risk his life sailing off the edge of the world since clearly everyone thought the world was flat. Actually, almost no one thought the world was flat and no navigators or sailors thought this. The Greeks knew the world was a sphere over 1,000 years prior. It's true that Columbus couldn't get support for his voyage to India from the East but it wasn't because everyone thought the earth was flat, it's because everyone knew the earth was bigger than Columbus thought. He had used an Arabic estimation for the circumference of the world.... but he forgot to convert Arabic miles to Italian miles when he planned the trip. At the time a ship couldn't carry enough water and food all the way to India and each of the governments knew this when Columbus proposed his passage. Someone finally let him go and it's a good thing he hit land or the crew would have starved to death. Lucky.

3) Because Spain took over central and south America and got to write history. Diiiing.

Meh, I've already spent too much time thinking about Columbus today. I'm done.

Travel itch part 2

2007-10-05T15:16:00.000-05:00

As I started planning out the previously mentioned trips I realized they would all cost around $4,000. I shouldn't just spend that kind of money without saving up first and unless I want to work 55 hours a week for a few months, that's not going to happen. I have good intentions of saving a part of my paychecks to start a travel fund. Until that builds up, on to plan B, the cheaper trips :)

Option 1) Central America: Go to Belize and maybe head south to the pacific and check out Guatemala, Honduras and/or El Salvador. Oh, does anyone know details about the Upper Room trips to El Salvador? Maybe I could go on that and head north to Belize for a second week. That's a good idea!

Option 2) The UK. Flights are pretty cheap and trains are reasonable. We could see England, Ireland, and Scotland in the same trip. Not to sound all snobby but I was just in Europe and I'd kind of like to see other things before going back. This is definitely a trip I'll make one day, maybe this is the time?

Anyone have travel advice on these two?

Apples

2007-10-04T12:22:00.000-05:00

Seriously, I thank God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit for Honeycrisp Apples. How do they make these things so good?! I'm currently celebrating my three year anniversary of falling in love with Honeycrisp apples.

I vividly remember the day we met. I was just a mere intern living at home and working hard on a project that would never be used. My mom had packed me a lunch. Screeeeetch. What, your mom packed your lunch? Yes. She did. And I was 22 years old at the time. She likes doing it and I like sleeping the extra 5 minutes. Get down off your high horse, if someone offered to make your lunch you'd let them too! Ok, where was I, oh yeah, my packed lunch. Breaking away from my high school lunch of peanut butter crackers, pringles, a snack pack and a coke I was on to "adult" lunches. The contents of my lunch are completely out of focus in my memory - probably a ham sandwich and a granola bar - but my memory clearly shows a bright red apple. Having an apple for lunch wasn't new but this one was different. I could tell just from holding it. The skin was more taut and it felt alive. I bit into the juicy goodness and instantly thought to myself, "This is the best apple I've ever had." I didn't know it was a new kind of apple, I just assumed we got a batch of apples that were perfectly ripe. The next day I also had "the best apple I've ever had." When the same thing happened 3 days in a row I asked my mom why the apples were so good and she let me on tot he secret of the Honeycrisp apples.

Oh what a great time in my life that was... until the despair set in as I realized Honeycrisps are seasonal. Ouch! A stab to the heart with a 9 month twist. Each fall I check the stores weekly to see when these little balls of love will show up. When they finally do, I'm so excited I have to tell everyone. I practically tell everyone in the store that Honeyscrips apples are back and they should go get them before they go out of season again. It's a kind of summer love for me. Who needs a girlfriend in the fall, Honeycrisp apples are here.

Oh how I love these little apples.

Travel Itch

2007-10-01T13:40:00.001-05:00

So it's been 5 mo. since I left the country and I'm itching to travel again. This is bad. I don't, I don't, I don't want to be a person who travels till their broke and then gets a job just long enough to save for a trip. Buuuuut, there area lot of places I want to see and cultures I want to experience. If I buckle down, work some overtime, and don't buy anything extravagant I can do a trip next spring. I can't decide where to go though. Paces that come to mind are:

Volunteer work in Africa. A safari would be cool but I'd like to do some sort of relief work if I'm going there. The problem with that is I'd want to stay for more than just two weeks and the problem with that is I have a job. Pros: Helping a good cause, seeing Africa. Cons: Can't stay long, may die.

Middle East. Donno where yet, probably Israel and Jordan. I'm really interested in the middle east and I'd love to see some of the places in the bible. I'd have to do with a group since I don't speak Arabic so that costs a little bit too. Pros: Great history, I'm interested in the people and culture. Cons: Could die, more expensive.

Pacific Islands. I still know three people who live in Taiwan and Indonesia so I could go visit them. Pros: I'd have free tour guides and get to see friends I haven't seen in a while. Cons: I'd have to go sooner than I plan.

Hmmm. Asia? Maybe. I have some interesting Europe trips in my mind too but I want to try out some other continents first.

Any advice for me you well traveled blog readers????

Christian Dating

2007-09-26T10:13:00.000-05:00

This is one of those "it started as a blog comment and quickly became too long" kinds of thoughts. So as the chain goes - Adam (who I've never met) posted a blog about Christian dating, my friend Laura re-posted it, and now I'm commenting on it in the form of my own blog. Go read Adam's post first if you want some context.

Adam makes lots of good points. I agree that Christian men are too passive on the whole. I think it comes from pop-Christianity's mixed signals on what it means to be a man and what it is we're supposed to be attracted to in a woman.

Lets lay some ground work. The Bible doesn't get into dating much - at least not what dating is in modern times. If you're looking for advice on arranged marriages or the best way to send your servant out to find a wife by the well check out the Torah, it's got some advice. There's an important distinction between Biblical and "the way things were done at the time the Bible was written." I would say arranged marriages were just the ways things were done when Moses was writing things down, it's not specifically God's way of meeting a spouse. Now days we have this thing called dating.

People like Joshua Harris say dating is evil because it's what the non-Christians do so we should call it "courting." Courting is really just dating but calling it something else so we know there's a separation between Christian dating and non-Christian dating. Scareeeeew that. Why do we have to demonize people who aren't Christians? Even in Adams post there was a little bit of this in generalities like "When you are a non-Christian you don’t care about commitment and marriage." I know good people who aren't Christian and bad people who are. Instead of trying to distinguish the difference between Christian dating and non-Christian dating, why don't we just try to agree on "good" dating and hold everyone to that standard? I know I'm bordering on heretical but that's how I roll.

I saw a lot of bad dating in my years in the Christian bubble. Here are my Myths of Traditional Christian Dating:

1) The next person you date will be the person you marry. Sounds kind of funny but numerous friends have said that and I have to confess, at one point I said it too. The idea isn't that you'll miraculously marry the next person you date; rather, you will hold off dating anyone until you're sure you've found the person you're going to marry. It comes with good intentions but all it does is make you single for a long time! Here's the problem - you don't know if you can marry someone until you've been in a relationship with that person. That's the point of a relationship!! I think people get far too hung up on "is he/she the one" too early in a relationship... or before the relationship even begins in this case.

2) Dating is only successful if it ends in marriage. I would say "good" dating is dating to see if you have enough chemistry/spark/interest to get into a relationship. A good relationship will show you if you have enough teamwork/tenacity/companionship/etc. to get married. Therefore, dating is successful if 1) You realize you're right for each other and should get into a relationship OR 2) realize you're wrong for each other and should NOT get in a relationship. See the difference here? It's not a failure if you date someone and it doesn't work out. You successfully figured out you weren't supposed to go out with that person. This is never a bad thing.

3) Attraction is bad. The idea that attraction comes from some sinful desire and should be snuffed out is terrible. Choosing to date someone shouldn't be like comparing DVD players in a catalogue! There NEEDS to be attraction, the bigger issue is what qualities you're attracted to. Physical attraction is important, but I also keep in mind that when my wife is 75 she's not going to look like she's 25 and when we have to make hard decisions, get in a fight, or deal with death it's not going to matter how cute she is. Each person is unique and uniquely attracted to different things. As silly as it is I'm attracted to girls that can play guitar, drive a manual, and make me laugh. I'm also attracted to intelligence, faith, humbleness, open mindedness, and adventurousness (are these even words?) which I realize will matter more down the road. I wasn't always attracted to the same things. I'm not sure if it's my faith, maturity, or my hormone levels dropping... hard to say since they all happen at the same time! I guess my point is the same as Adam's, what we're attracted to should be transformed and refocused on deeper more meaningful things than just physical attraction. I still think physical attraction plays a roll, especially initially, we just need to keep in mind it's fleeting.

4) Things will be perfect. There's this idea that the ultimate dating experience is: you get introduced by a friend after church, a bright beam of light shines on both your faces from the cross above the alter, and a booming voice says, "this is the person you're supposed to marry." Two months later you're on your honeymoon and completely in love. Not even the movies are that far fetched! But we throw in this expectation that if it's right it will be God-orchestrated like when a wide-receiver makes an amazing catch and points to the sky. I suspect God doesn't orchestrate football games and I'm starting to wonder if he orchestrates dating either. I know, I know, now that this is published I can never teach at Bethel but it's what I think. I'm not saying God isn't involved in relationships I'm just saying I think he leaves part of it up to us. If you're sitting still waiting for God to tell you who to marry (before you even start dating) you may be sitting there for a while. Relationships will always be messy. Even if the person is right for you. If you're thinking of getting engaged and things HAVEN'T been messy yet, you should probably wait. Those moments will tell you more about your compatibility than 100 wonderful dates.

So why are guys to timid? Fear of rejection. Why are Christian guys more timid than others? Fear of rejections... coupled with the above myths. It adds a lot of pressure when you think things need to be perfect. Guys aren't even sure what they're supposed to be attracted to, if God wants them to date someone in particular, or if they could marry the person they're interested in. Each of these confuses him and give the perfect excuse to be timid.

Guys - Get off your butts! There are wholly beautiful women waiting for someone to sweep them off their feet. Take them on a date and do it with good intentions. If things go well keep dating them. If things don't go well stop dating them. Either way it was successful and as long as you treated them like a queen no one should be hurt. You'll learn things from girls you date even if nothing works out. Dating should be fun. Have fun!!

Gals - Sorry if we haven't dated you! Don't let your worth come from how many guys are asking you out and don't lower your standards. If a guy you're not interested in asks you out be nice! For the sake of women everywhere you don't need another guy wounded from rejection out there :)

Hangin out with my bad self

2007-09-14T13:56:00.000-05:00

That chill in the air serves as a gentle reminder - fall is here. Ready or not the seasons are changing. Summer's over and the world is on to new things. Part of me wants time to slow down till I'm ready, but I just remind myself of all the things that lay ahead. I think this is the first fall I haven't missed school. It was a constant for so many years, I wasn't sure what to do without it. I missed the excitement of starting new classes meeting new neighbors and all the changes that come with it. The real world has it's on set of changes, they're just not all at once like the back to school chaos, and I've learned to appreciate them as they are. I think I'm being overly sentimental so I'll make a jump to whatever point I'm trying to make: The changes are usually spread out through out the year now, not just a change in the fall and start of summer break.

Except this year for some reason. I feel like a lot of small changes have been stretching the perimeters of their proverbial bubbles and are about to burst into bigger changes all at the same time. Last spring as Left on Farwell was coming to an end I made a decision to try to play guitar for churches on a regular basis. I started that little snowball rolling and just last week realized I have only missed one weekend in the last two months. The next few months look just as busy in that regard and I'm realizing what a chunk of time that takes to practice on my own, rehearse with the bands, and get up early on Sunday. I absolutely love it so I'm not complaining, I just didn't realize how much of a change it was requiring until I stepped back.

I've also had a sudden influx of meeting people which begs the question, do I really need more friends? Now, I know that sounds terrible and snobby on the surface but there really is an upper bound to how many people you have have meaningful friendships with. I'm old enough that the goal of being popular doesn't matter anymore and I'd rather have a group of close friends than a slue of acquaintances. My problem is I just love getting to know people.

I also have good intentions of practicing guitar more and working overtime to get more stuff done. And I have an acoustic show coming up! I'm not even sure why I'm doing that or where it's going. I just seemed like something to try.

So the point of all this is... well, I guess kind of to vent about how life got surprisingly busy all of a sudden, but also for me to say I'm reinstating "hang out with your bad self" night. It's something I do when I get busy as a way of recharging my introverted half. I'm blocking off Mondays from all other plans. I intend to just hang out with myself and maybe run, read, play guitar, watch a movie, it doesn't matter. Just something by myself. I highly recommend it, and as I was filling up my calendar I realized if I didn't specifically block off a day I would never make time for myself.

So here's my message to you - I think this is my point in writing today - make time for yourself. Even if it means sacrificing something that's even more fun. In the words of Guns 'N Roses, "Everybody needs some time... on their own. Ooooooh. Don't you know you need some time...all alone"

For Sale:

2007-09-12T10:17:00.000-05:00

"Kyra likes the outdoors, more the open air of the beach or the desert than the woods. She would love to live somewhere away from it all. She is bright and funny and full of life and while she has little direct experience with the opposite sex we have made sure she is aware of everything she needs to know to be a good wife and mother."

This is a brief paragraph written by Kyra's parents. She's 14 1/2 and for sale for $27,995 on marryourdaughter.com. Colleen gets credit for showing me the site but I'm not sure she even wants credit for that! At first I thought it was weird. I read a little about it and it turns out it's a Christian site - of course :( They're going after the biblical tradition of arranged marriages and the "bride-cost" mentioned in Exodus. The site gets pretty gross when it says things like, "Don't mention your specific age, just say 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, etc." I grew a little sicker with each decade of age they wrote out. Eww. Is a 50 year old really going to marry a 14 year old?

Then the whole thing just made me mad. This is a site for men with a serious mental sickness. And I can't believe parents are putting their daughters on here and letting them marry into that. What's worse is the parents have raised their daughters to think this is normal. Some of the girls are described as not being interested in boys their own age because they're just kids, they want an adult to start having kids with. That is NOT normal 15-year-old thinking. That's a very warped mind that's been twisted by terrible homeschooling.

UPDATE: Phew, I'm pretty sure this site is fake. It better be fake...

feeling electric

2007-09-06T10:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a frustrating morning at work. I won't go into the details but as I drove home for lunch I knew I needed to do something to change my mood and work out my frustrations. The first thing that came to mind was to go to the basement and make some music - on my electric guitar. I purposely point out my idea to play electric guitar because that was new to me. I used to sit an play piano as a way to work through emotions the way a writer writes journals. I would just sit down, put my fingers on the keys, and see what came out. Sometimes I was even surprised by the mood I made, it's good to get those things out of myself and into the air. I don't so much play piano anymore but I can do the same thing on acoustic guitar. Yesterday was the first time I did it on Electric. It was like the first time a Spanish major dreams in Spanish, except instead of thinking in a new language I was feeling in a new instrument. This whole thing might sound abstract or just weird but it was a big deal for me. I use this as a bench mark for how well I can play an instrument - there's instruments I know how to play and instruments I can express with. I can now feel electric :)

White Flour!

2007-08-31T16:57:00.001-05:00

After a murder of two white folk in TN a group of KKK members and Nazi's gathered for a white power/recruiting rally. To their surprise over a hundred clowns showed up to protest. In one of the most creative forms of non-violent protest the clowns pretended they thought a clown rally was going on. When the KKK yelled "WHITE POWER" they clowns replied, "White flour?" and threw flower in the air. The KKK again yelled, "WHITE POWER" and the clowns said, "Tight shower?" and crammed under a shower. "WHITE POWER" the KKK yelled again and the clowns finally got it... "Wife Power!!" ...and exploded in joy. Instead of protesting hate with hate they protested hate with laughter - so much laughter that the KKK couldn't be heard over it and eventually left. The clowns marched into the city and celebrated. I love non-violent protest :)

Full article:
http://asheville.indymedia.org/article/107Clowns

Hi, I'm weather.com and I have no idea what's going on

2007-08-31T09:20:00.000-05:00

Why do we even try to predict weather? It's such a complicated system it's actually become the poster child for the chaos theory. I'm having some friends up to my cabin on Sunday so I've been checking the weather to see if it's going to be nice. For a week strait they predicted sunny skies and 80 degrees. Then yesterday out of no where isolated thunderstorms popped into the picture for Sunday and Monday. The funny thing is I really didn't panic because I somehow knew the prediction would change. Sure enough today they're predicting clear skies and 80 again and no rain for 5 days straight. What happened to the two day long thuderstorm? Did it change directions? Where did it go?!

Sometimes weather.com gets so bad at predictions that they can't even predict the CURRENT day's weather. I've seen numerous times when the current temperature was listed as 85 and right below it the high for the day was predicted to be 80. Now... I'm not the most experienced web page programmer but this should be obvious:

if (currentTemperature > predictedHighTemperature) then
predictedHighTemperature = currentTemperature
end if

it probably wouldn't be too hard to change the greater than sign to a less than sign for the "low" for those cold days too. Gah. Weather.com you made me so mad I resorted to writing code in a blog. I'm going to explode.

Tech stuff: Have gmail text message you

2007-08-22T14:15:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what I'll use this for, but my co-workers just told me how to set up gmail to send you a text message when you receive a specific email! Sounds nerdy and fun.

Step 1. Set up a filter in gmail by going to settings > filters > create new filter

Step 2. Enter the filter, by "from" address, subject or by a keyword in the email. I thought it could be fun to have anything from facebook texted to me, but then I realize I don't care THAT much about facebook. I'm going to set my filter up to look for the word "urgent" in the subject. If someone really needs me to read something (and doesn't just have my phone number) they can put the word urgent in the subject. This really doesn't make sense on any level but hey, it's fun.

Step 3. Tell the filter to forward these emails by clicking the "next step" button, then checking "foreword it to." For the email address, you'll have to figure out the email address your phone company requires. For AT&T is [NUMBER]@txt.att.net. Google "SMS email Sprint" or whatever your company is to find this.

Step 4. Send yourself an email to see if it works. Congrats, you're not getting text messages of whatever emails you set up in the filter. If you find an actual use for this let me know!

Don't take my internets!!

2007-08-21T10:56:00.000-05:00

It's kind of a parallel irony. The generational disconnect strikes again as baby boomers are managing GenXers in an office setting. The seasoned generation sits around the break room table, sipping coffee and chatting about how all the youngins in the office waste so much time on the internet. Meanwhile, 75 feet away the new guy, fresh out of college, is sipping a Mt. Dew while trying to keep up with the 46th message in his gmail thread - his way of keeping in touch with his friends trying to make it through office life as well. So who's doing more work? The older generation sitting around talking, or the young generation sitting at their desk chatting online?

This is the disconnect, my generation was in middle school when we first got the internet, we've learned to do life online. If I want to look up a phone number, read the news, check the weather, or find out where Baxter Wisconsin is, I don't turn to a paper source, I look it up online. If I want to keep in touch with an old friend I don't send a Christmas card, I check their facebook profile. For better or for worse this is how we are. The baby boomers, on the whole, don't rely on the internet for much and frankly - they're still a little afraid of it still.

My friends and I are still a little dumbfounded when someone prints off an email at work so they can read it. Isn't the point of email that it's paperless? We're also a little dumbfounded when we have rules like "Absolutely NO internet use allowed at work." I get the point, it's not necessarily work related so it's not allowed. If we're going that rout, I have a few additions: Absolutely no talking in the office - it's not necessarily work related. Absolutely no looking at the newspaper that the company provides for the break room - it's not necessarily work related. Absolutely no walking around - it's not necessarily work related.

Ok, here's the point: People need breaks. What does it matter if I use my breaks to talk to co-workers or friends in Chicago? I DO see the danger in the internet so lets set up these rules: Porn is blocked, no files can be downloaded without approval from IT, and general "shady" sites are filtered. From there, set up a program that only allows 30 minutes of browsing per day (I've seen them in hostels, they exist). Aside from the sites that are blocked, let people do what they want, shop, email, myspace, whatever - it's their time. Lets see some compromise.

I think we're going to see office life change as my generation takes over. We're so ADD and such good multi-taskers that we can often browse the internet WHILE doing our job. I think this may become more common place even though it sounds strange right now.

I also think we'll see required hours go away and required tasks move in. If I'm managing, I don't care how many hours you work or when you do it but you have to do this, this, and that this week. If you want to goof off for 4 days strait and work you butt off for 36 hours in a row, then go ahead. That IS what they taught us to do in college after all. Can you imagine a course where it didn't matter if you finished your project or not as long as you spend 40 hours working on it? NO. Ridiculous. We've literally never learned how to work slow and steady, it's always been fun, fun, fun, hyper-activity, sleep. I have friends at other companies who have a certain number of tasks to do each day. If they work their butt off they can get them done in three hours or so. It's not our style to poke at it for 8 hours and you can't work hyper-actively for 8 hours strait - ok, some people can, but not most - so why not have them just come into work from 1-4 each day. It's the most they're going to get done in a day anyways and they're probably do it better if they've slept in.

I don't know, maybe this is just my lazy bum pipe-dream. Maybe my generation is just a bunch of lazy bums. The point is - although I've meandered quite a ways from it - that the internet isn't evil and it's how we recharge, don't take it away.

Ladies and Gentlemen

2007-08-18T18:17:00.000-05:00

It's that warm sting of adrenaline. My mind goes blank for a full second as my senses refocus. Shit, this is really happening! His hands are empty, no weapon, no trigger. His loose shirt shows he's not wearing a bomb. He must not be the only one, someone else is protecting this pawn. All I can do is wait and see what happens next. My flight or fight response has kicked in and though I'm literally on a "flight" there's no where to run or hide on a 737. Thirty seconds ago a tall dark man stood up from seat 13C. Normally I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but this time was different. He didn't go for his bags or the bathroom, he just planted himself center aisle and scanned the rows behind him, making eye contact with each person letting them know something was about to happen. My headphones slid to my shoulders just in time. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, " he boomed, arms stretched out to the sides, "My name is Muhammed Sahir and I need your attention."

This is when the adrenaline hit. I waited.

"I'm a surgeon at the University of Minnesota"

What? Is there a medical emergency? I have EMS training. No, the steward would have made the announcement. I wait again.

"I've lived in Italy for 7 years and Syria for [didn't understand]"

Now I'm looking around, sizing things up. All I heard was "bla, bla, bla SYRIA"

"Now I'm looking for love. I'm looking for a wife. I'm looking for marriage."

What, what?! Huh? WTF! He starts pacing down the isle yelling something about wanting to find a wife. He yells at the stewardess with the drink cart, telling her people will have to be thirsty, this is important. My guard still isn't down... he seems pretty crazy. Eventually the steward tells him to sit down and thankfully he just stopped and sat down. An uncomfortable giggle washes over the rest of the plane as we realize he was just some lonely drunk spouting his mouth.

Lessons learned:
1) Don't drink too much in airports or on planes, the high altitude amplifies the effects.
2) I watch entirely too many movies.

This rant has been long over due...

2007-08-16T10:11:00.001-05:00

"Hi, I'm a Mac"
"And I'm a PC"

Macs don't need to shave, comb his hair, or put on non-denim pants - he's too cool. Well, it looks like Mac just realized that working part time in a hip coffee shop for $7/hour while drinking $8 worth of lattes/hour at the same time just doesn't add up. For a long time Mac didn't care - hell, he lives with his parents and his iPod is still at 0% interest for 9 more months, what's he got to worry about? He's better at "life" applications as the adds tote. "life applications" like listening to music and looking at pictures. HELLO! My game boy in 1987 could play music and display pictures.

The Macs come with a suit of software called iLife, a nice bundle of "not the shittiest software you can find" but still nowhere near professional or useful quality. The newest member of your iLife: iWork. The name it's self is almost an oxymoron and the implications are huge - Mac is going to do something useful. iWork has a word processor called "pages" a power-point-like app, and a spreadsheet designer called "Numbers." Reviews say that while these programs are far, far less powerful than the Microsoft equivalent, they do make spreadsheets and documents look "beautiful." FINALLY. Finally you can make a spreadsheet of your net income for the month and chose from 16,000 shades of red. And add a drop shadow. In my opinion, this fits perfectly into the iLife. Not quit powerful enough to really do anything, but looks really cool!

Ok, aside from not really thinking much of the iLife, here's my beef with Mac: It's the same as a PC. From the processor to the power-supply both Mac and PC are just computers. There was a time when I thought Macs were better than PCs. I was in second grade at the time and the Macs had the Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and Where in the world is Carmen Sandiago. The Mac wasn't REALLY better than the PC, but I was just a little kid and cared more about the flash than the quality. I guess the same holds true today, I've just grown up. Truth be told, I think WinXP is about he same as OSX, the only difference is the software. Eight years ago you could argue that Mac had all the good video, graphics, and sound editing software but those companies wised up and changed their programs to work on the PC as well. Aside from that, there's more software that works on the PC than the Mac, so why limit yourself? For the iLife? No, there are better audio players than iTunes - which are even free. I would guess that you could have all the functionality of the iLife on a PC for about.... $80? If you don't mind using Google's software you can have the entire iLife for free.

So why spend $500 more for a Mac than a PC? The answer the "intangible feeling of creativity."

Let me rewind a few years, back to the time when we didn't have iPods, back to a time when Mac almost went out of business. Microsoft was court ordered to pay Mac a large sum of money just to keep them in business as part of an anti-monopoly act since Microsoft would have been the only vendor of personal computers. Since that time we've seen what I consider one of the greatest marketing plans for the last 50 years: The intangible feeling of creativity. Just touching a mac or sitting behind it's glowing screen makes you feel creative, cool, and trendy. Dubayu. Tee. Eff!?! Look at that! There's nothing there! That intangible feeling is something that's been placed in your head by advertisers. You don't watch Axe body spray adds and think women are really going to jump out of windows to do you, do you? So why do you think that buying a Mac will make you cool, trendy, and creative? IT'S JUST A COMPUTER!

If I could make one point, just one point out of this rant it would be this: Macs and PCs are basically the same. Keep that in mind when shopping for a computer. Recognize that whatever is in your head that makes you think Macs are better than PCs is just an elaborate marketing scheme and recognize that there isn't much value in the iLife programs. With all that in mind, if you still want a mac recognize that you're probably over-paying and there had better be a "tangible" benefit.

This is good bye

2007-08-14T15:24:00.000-05:00

I just found an old song I hadn't finished. I'm sure it'll still change when I put music to it but here's the full thing... so far:

You hung back as they left,
Four weeks since we met,
Three weeks since that day,
That day we walked and talked and sipped and smiled,
with such care-free words, but tonight they’re staid,
the kinds of words you save,

It’s just us now, save for the TV talking down the hall,
Us and the quiet, the rest of the world our little joke,
Meant to be played with in disregard,
Guess it’s time; I’ll walk you out,
Out where the light shines off the night’s haze,
And the January air pulls our lungs

So this is good bye
Our last perfect night
We've come to this point
This is good bye
who knows what we'll be
or where this will go
This is good bye
This is good bye

It’s that lonely time of night,
Your heals echo, slow, so we can savor the seconds
Slow, so this doesn’t have to end,
climb on, I'll show you if you believe
You won't fall, I'll hold on
I'll feel you if you breathe, let your self believe

So this is good bye
Our last perfect night
We've come to this point
This is good bye
who knows what we'll be
or where things will go
This is good bye
This is good bye

The business trip

2007-08-08T18:52:00.000-05:00

It's a weird feeling, seeing that big bottle of water over by the ice bucket. It's right there waiting for me, but if I crack the seal I have to pay Marriot $2.50. That's dumb, I have a sink full of bottomless water. It's weird staying in a hotel by myself. Especially a nice one. Sometimes I feel like I'm not supposed to be here, like I'm just pretending to be businessy. I talked to one of the servers this morning at my American Continental Breakfast. Wait... American Continental? I ate Belgium Waffles, how is that continental America? Oh well. So I talk to the server who's been busy running around kissing the butts of the self-important tie wearing business folk who are up at 7:30 reading the morning paper. I had a morning paper too. I didn't ask for one, or really want one, but it was on my door step for two days and I figured it was rude to ignore such a nice gift. I couldn't remember how to work a "manual" news source. I couldn't find the search button so I just stared at the stories along the top of the page. One story sounded interesting -something about two mother's on a crusade to make school lunches healthier - but I couldn't find the story. It just said 1, 1D. No links, just a cryptic method I was to tired to solve. I looked for the story on the cover assuming "1" meant the first page, but it wasn't there. I guess the link was missing.

So the server who was kissing old man butt walks over as I'm building my own waffle in the waffle iron like I never missed a beat from the dorm's sunday brunch at the caff. I think he was surprised to see I knew how to work a waffle iron. I can only assume the VPs from the next table would just mumble something as make the staff cook their waffles if they wanted one. He asked how I was doing and I said I was good, then I asked how he was doing. He looked surprised I would ask... like I wasn't supposed to talk on the same level as the slaves. He said he was just trying to stay awake. He didn't try to kiss my butt or pretend he was the best server in the world. I think we both appreciated the honesty.

I just goes to show I don't fit in though. I'm driving a PT Cruiser, living in a nice hotel suit with a separate bedroom and kitchen area, tucking in my shirt, eating American Continental Breakfasts, and going to work at 8am. It feels weird.

It's also weird being by myself. I'm kind of introverted but going to restaurants by myself is a little anti-social even for me. There was I was reading "searching for God knows what" in a bar and grill, book in one hand, beer in the other. It was so loud I could barely concentrate on reading. People aren't supposed to read in bars.

The good news is I'm competent in the work I'm doing out here at a customer site. It's good to know I know enough about my job and the software we make to spend three days training and setting up a new system. I guess that's all that's on my mind for today. One of my best friends lives in Chicago and is on her way to visit. I'm super excited.

Take time to remember

2007-08-01T11:30:00.001-05:00

Today, take a little moment and remember two huge events that often get swept under the rug and forgotten: El Niño and the Y2K bug.

I need to blog about something

2007-07-25T17:08:00.001-05:00

but I'm not sure what. I have a lot of undeveloped thoughts that I'm not sure I want to flesh out yet. I think I'm just going to spew out my brain for a few minutes. Maybe this way I'll fall asleep when I get into bed tonight instead of sitting and thinking.

Guster was awesome but I don't think I'll ever buy a CD. My computer speakers sound significantly different with the grills on - acoustically transparent my ass. Royal Sloan Valve Company has a monopoly over urinals. I'm going to jump out of an airplane within the next 3 weeks. I think I like someone. It's not you. I take vitamins but they're past their expiration date - I'm skeptical that they do anything in the first place but probably do less expired. I'm playing a lot of acoustic guitar and singing, I can't believe how much I missed this. I'm going to play a solo acoustic show this fall and that's kind of scary. I always think scary has two r's but it doesn't. If one more person says they just finished the Harry Potter book. I think Dick Chaney is a bad person, but I'm not sure. It's trendy not to believe in hell but I think it's still there. I don't read enough books. I'm not going to read Harry Potter. The bulb in my lava lamp has been burnt out for 1.3 years. I'm not sure if people like traveling for the sake of traveling or for the prestige they get to feel. I haven't talked to a homeless person in 9 months. I haven't written a song for half a year. I'm going to Chicago to train people on software I support. It's my first time doing it by myself. I can do it. My family is going to Boston tomorrow. I have a friend in the Congo and it's really not safe there. I saw friends I hadn't seen in 4 year a couple weekends ago. One of my best friends from college is getting marries this weekend. One of BEST friends just got engaged. Judging Ronald is playing a show this weekend. I've been running a lot. My goal is to run 5 miles. A couple hundred dollars doesn't sound like much anymore. Three years ago 12 dollars was a big deal. There are a lot of good movies out right now. I finally had PF Chang's. Mongolian Beef and KUNG POW chicken are both good. I'm proficient in chopsticks unless I'm at Leann Chins where the rice is too dry. My bathroom needs cleaning. How does our body stay at 98 degrees? What's making all that heat? I've been thinking about that for 3 weeks and haven't bothered to look it up on the internet. I'd rather do nothing I guess. Or maybe I just like the mystery. That's a bad side-effect of modernity, there's no mystery. I think it frustrates people that God is a mystery. We really want to understand everything. Things we can't understand don't exists. Stupid modernity. That won't be true in post-modernity. Nothing will be true in post-modernity. You probably won't even be able to say, "We're in a post-modern era" because that would be a meta narrative which won't exist. It's also a meta narrative to say meta narratives won't exist. It doesn't make sense. That's because you're thinking in modern though. Once you shift to post-modern thought it won't make sense either but that's the point. I always think sense has a c in it. I need to go to my parents house, they leave tomorrow. I feel better. My brain is emptier.

Too little too late?

2007-07-13T17:06:00.000-05:00

"I LOVE THE SIMPSONS!!!" ... at least that's what I would have said in 1999 if you had asked me. But now in 2007 what do I think? Meh. I still like the show, but it doesn't have the same luster it used to. I'm convinced the show should have logically ended years ago. When they ran out of material. It's like that uncle who used to "steal your nose," if he came up and did it to you now you'd be like, "Oh yeah, that was awesome when I was a kid... you're still doing that?"

I really, really, don't mean to hate on the Simpsons. It was a phenomenal show and to run as long as it has is really amazing. But there's only so much you can do with the same characters who never get any older. I don't know of anyone who's waiting for Sunday nights to see the new episode anymore. I wish they would have gone out with a bang 5 years ago, instead they're like the Brett Favre of TV shows - they're past their prime but still going partially because they're waiting for a good season to end on and partially because they have nothing else to do.

It's sad and it hurts me to say, the show needs to end.

It's also interesting that they're just now coming out with a movie. I know there's been talks about it for a looong time. I predict it will be funny and do OK in the box office, but just imagine if they had made a movie in the early 90s - when they were selling simpsons TAPES and stuffed animals of Bart. It would have made an absolute killing.

I don't know what my point is anymore. It's a blog, it doesn't need a point.

One person in your car doesn't get the Sun

2007-07-10T17:01:00.000-05:00

One if Five Americans think the Sun revolves around the Earth according to a recent NY Times article. I'm really not sure whether I want to laugh or cry. Either too many people failed high school science or high school science failed us, one of the two. I guess I really can't saw why I think the earth revolves around the sun. I mean, I can't see us orbiting in space, to me it just looks like the sun is crashing into S. Dakota each evening but some how pops out of Wisconsin each morning. The reason I saw we do revolve around the Sun is because there has been lots of scientific research and consensus on this issue. And I trust it.

There's another scientific consensus being ignored by some according to Naomi Oreskes in his essay "BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change." For his essay Oreskes did some research by "analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords 'climate change'"

His findings:
"The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point."

It light of Oreskes' findings, it's strange to think that 75% of people living in the UK don't' believe pollution is causing global warming. I never realized it was that high. The only person I've personally talked to who didn't think humans are causing a huge spike in CO2 and temperature was 90 years old and "just thinks the earth goes through patterns of warming and cooling." I couldn't figure out what motivation she had to think that but I also realized she hadn't had a science class since 1933 so I left it alone.

Until today when out of no where someone (who's an intelligent person) said that the ice caps on Pluto were melting despite having no SUVs, so whatever was happening to earth was because of an outside factor affecting the whole solar system. I had never heard that argument so I didn't say anything. I checked on it and the ice caps on Pluto ARE melting. Holy crap. But, it's because of Pluto's elliptical orbit. The orbit takes 270-some years and takes Pluto closer and further from the sun depending on where it is in the orbit. Guess where it's been in the orbit for the past 20 years? The closest point to the sun. Every time it gets to this point the ice melts and forms an atmosphere that freezes again as it moves away. Maybe that just means the Earth has also formed a new elliptical orbit. Maybe.

I guess I just don't see why people would disagree with the consensus here. I can't see how it personally benefits anyone to ignore this problem. Is it really that we're so lazy we don't want to recycle or drive an efficient car? Or is it that we don't want to pay 2% more for goods to the can be manufactured in an environmentally friendly way?

I also definitely don't get why this has become so politicized. The US congress is pretty much split by party line. 98% of Democrats in congress agree that we're causing global warming while only 13% (4 people) of Republicans in congress agree. I honestly can't figure this out. Seriously explain this to me. The scientific community says we're causing a serious, dangerous, change in our climate and whether you agree or not depends on your politics. Where did I miss something?

If I were into conspiracy theory, and for the record I'm not, I would say this polarity comes from a flaw in our political system - political candidates raise private support for their campaign. I don't really have a solution, but the problem is that after someone gets elected their fundraisers expect a favor or two for all the money they donated. I doubt the Cut Foot Sioux Visitor Information Center or the Itasca Woodworkers Club is pressuring Democrats to pretend there's a global crisis. I guess I don't know who supports the Republicans. Do any of them have vested interest in... I donno, the auto industry, oil, or corporate pollution?

Like I said I'm not into conspiracy theories, but I'm serious, I don't get why people reject the idea of global warming. Leave a comment, even if it's just to play devils advocate. I want to know.

Analog man living in a digital age

2007-07-05T10:45:00.000-05:00

warning, I'm about to get nerdy on you. Might as well start with a bang: I went to see Transformers yesterday. Strangely seeing a comic book movie isn't nerdy anymore, what was nerdy was what happened before the movie. Marcus Theaters played this drawn out video about how their new digital projectors are better than their old film projectors. They showed a quick physics video on light refraction and how they use what appeared to be Superman's crystals to "make the screen come a live." I was pretty sure they were using the same plastic screen that has never been, nor will be, alive. The ridicuality climaxed as a they said, "Moving to digital projectors is like going from vinyl records to mp3's."

A general "ahhh" aura came over the popcorn eating hipsters with their new iPhones - except for me, and here's where it gets nerdy, I was laughing out loud at this statement. Didn't anyone else see the amazing irony here? Didn't ANYONE else know that records are better than mp3s??? Apparently not. I made a vow at that very moment to spend the next 36 hours letting the world know that digital projects are worse than film projectors. I've been pretty lazy about this vow so I'm writing a blog and calling it quits.

Let me put on my teaching spectacles and start the lesson on digitalizing analog signals. Analog: Basically a physical signal. Analog signals occur in the real world. An example would be talking into a microphone. The sound waves from your voice vibrate a little plate in the microphone which makes an electrical signal. That electrical signal is made louder and pumped out to speakers. The electricity makes the speakers vibrate and makes sound waves again. Another example would be taking a picture on a film camera. Light comes in the lens and exposes a piece of film. You can take that film, blow it up, and print it as a picture. Digital: Taking an analog signal and converting it to computer-speak... basically 1's and 0's (1001001001010). You can then take that digital signal and convert it back to analog to be sent to speakers or printed to a picture.

Digital is good: because it can be stored smaller. You can fit 1,000 pictures on your digital camera card the size of your fingernail. It's also good because you can send it around the world on the internet.

Digital is bad: because it's less accurate.
Here's a diagram for the visual learners. The first pictures is the analog line, nice and smooth, exactly as the original signal was. The next picture you'll see a bad digital signal. It's choppy and does a bad job or matching the red analog line. The next two are better (higher bit rate) digital signals. The last one is getting pretty darn close to the analog signal - which is the goal of digital. To get so close to the analog signal that you can't tell the difference. Digital can actually do this now, our eyes and ears are only so accurate and won't pick up on the minor differences. You might be able to see this with digital pictures. You camera phone is probably 1 mega pixel. That means there are 1 million little dots in the picture that can be different colors. If you took the same picture with a 12 mega pixel (12 million dots) camera you'd see a much more accurate picture. In fact with 12 mega pixels you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a film and digital camera. It tricks your eyes but at the very best a digital camera will only be "as good" as a nice film camera.

Ok, back to the record vs. mp3 comment. It should be obvious that a record will be better than a digital signal - in fact people with crazy ears that want to hear absolutely everything swear by records. If you get the original record (used to make all copies of the record), play it through an $800,000 record player with a needle that will pick up an earthquake in China, you'll get the best sound. The rest of us have CDs and our ears wouldn't know the difference. Whats worse though, is mp3s aren't just a digital copy of an analog source, it's a compressed digital signal. It means they purposefully made it crappier (like the first or second picture in the diagram) to make the file sizes smaller. What would they do that you ask? Because they were invented in the 90s when your hard drive was 400 MB and you connected to the internet at 56k. It would have taken 5 hours to download a song off napster and this way it only took 30 minutes. So now that we have faster internet connections and huge hard drives, why do we still use mp3s?? Because you stole 10,000 of the little buggers in college and you don't want to do it again with a better format. They're "good enough" for the car or working out and they were free, so we keep them around. If you listened side by side to an mp3 and a CD you would definitely notice the difference.

Let me rephrase "Moving to digital projectors is like going from vinyl records to mp3's" to "Moving to digital projectors is like going from the best possible audio in the world to a crappy version of a pretty-much-as-good digital copy." That's what I heard in my head and that's why I laughed. The good news is that digital projectors aren't like mp3s - they're not a crappy version of a digital signal, they're the "you won't notice the difference" kind, but they're still not any better as Carmike was trying to persuade. Maybe the bulb and lens are better but that means putting film through a good bulb and lens would still look the same or better. The reason theaters are switching to these is because they don't have to have 2 miles of film shooting through a projector. They don't have to pay the shipping and worry about film burning or getting dirty. Basically we won't notice the difference but it's more convenient for them (like putting your whole CD collection on your iPod instead of caring around a trunk full of cases and disks).

So my final conclusion is this: If the quality is no different (or unnoticably worse) but just more convenient for the movie theater, then I want a cheaper ticket. Not a ridiculous video trying to convince me that their new toy is better.

The Morning Person

2007-06-19T12:59:00.000-05:00

Dear morning person,

I don't get you. Actually, I do get you, but you don't get me, and I don't get that. There's a fundamental truth you need to understand:

Some people are awake while you're asleep.

My night owl posse and I understand this - you make it painfully obvious when we wake up at noon and you tell us all the things you've already done - but time and time again you've proven that you don't understand. Do you need me to wake you up at 3:30am some night and tell you all the things I've done since you went to bed? I'm convinced you think the entire world goes to bed at 10pm. No, I don't sleep 14-hours a night.

I go to bed at 3am and get up at 11am, you go to bed at 10pm and get up at 6am. We're both awake for 16 hours and asleep for 8, so why do you call me lazy for sleeping till 11? I think you're lazy for going to bed so early. Think about all the things you could accomplish between 10pm and 3am. You've just wasted 5 hours of the day. I know you may be thinking your sleep pattern is more in tune with nature and the sun. Well, I'd see your point is this was 1878, but I have good news, Thomas Edison is going to invent electricity next year and from then on it won't matter what time you go to bed.

I drew a diagram to help you understand (click to enlarge):

I've labeled the hours you think I'm being lazy and the hours I think you're being lame to help you understand. I suggest putting this in your pocket. If you're up doing laundry or solving sudoku puzzles at 5am and think I'm being lazy, just pull this out of your pocket as a reminder. Also, feel free to glance at it as you go to bed to remind yourself that I'll be up for 5 more hours and you're being lame.

Kill the infidels: Thoughts on the Death Penalty - Part 1

2007-06-14T17:06:00.000-05:00

I realized I've never put much thought into my stance on the death penalty - other than just thinking, "We probably shouldn't do that." A friends wrote a blog about an article titled "Studies say death penalty deters crime" which got my brain spinning and made me realize I needed to write down my thoughts.

For a minute here, I'm going to think about the death penalty outside of statistics and government, think about life as something other than economics or triage, and examine it from a faith lens. The first thing that comes to mind is a story Jesus told about sheep and goats. He's describing how people will be judged and says to one group, "

"'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Then Jesus turns to those on his left and says he doesn't know them because they didn't do any of these things to "these brothers of mine." When they ignored the hungry, thirsty, sick, naked and imprisoned, they were literally ignoring Jesus. This verse has always scared the crap out of me but I tend to trust that Jesus wasn't kidding when he said this. If I'm to love my neighbor as myself, see everyone through God's eyes, and treat the homeless, poor, sick, and imprisoned as if they're literally Jesus - I had best not go around killing them.

I'm also reminded of a time when Jesus was teaching and a group of people brought a woman caught in adultery to Him. They said, "According to the law we are to stone her to death, what do you think?" After a minute, Jesus stood up and said, "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone." We're also told that God will judge us by the standards we judge others. I'm not ready for the kind of judgment God would have on me if I were quick to tell people their sin is worthy of death.

Finally, I believe we're called to increase grace in the world - not death. If letting every inmate on death row live causes one person to understand grace, it was worth it. Actually, let me take that one step further, even if no one changes because of it, it's still worth it. Grace is grace whether it's recognized by the receiver or not and expanding grace will always, always be a good thing.

BUT.

Kill the infidels: Thoughts on the Death Penalty - Part 2

2007-06-14T16:46:00.000-05:00

BUT.

We don't live in a country who's laws are made based on Jesus' words. As much as some people would like to think, we definitely do not live in a Christian nation. No government, even the Roman Empire under Constantine or medieval rulers who married church and state have ever come close to being a Christian government. Read the Sermon on the Mount (matt. 6-8) and try to make a government out of it. If someone strikes you turn the other cheek, if someone sues you for your pants give them your cloak as well, blessed are the poor. The first church lived on these principles. Anyone who became a member gave all their money to the apostles who made sure everyone had enough, everyone shared everything, and no one was in need. That's called communism. Not a Marxist secular communism, a communism based on love and need. This will be a major pillar of a Christian nation and as far as I can tell, no one's done it.

Ok, so that was a little off track, but I wanted to say it. There was a point though. Although I consider myself first a citizen of the Kingdom of God, I do live in a country that separates church and state, in a good way, and often does things for the good of the country that go against my faith. On a personal level I stick to my faith, on a corporate level, I submit to the government. For example, I think abortion is wrong. I would never encourage someone to have an abortion (outside of rape, etc.) on a personal level. But, I realize that constitutionally, Americans have the right to do what they want with their body, even if it means aborting a fetus. I agree with the supreme court's interpretation of the constitution on a corporate level, but on a personal level I don't think people should do it - even though they can.

Here's where things get sticky. I definitely don't think we should have the death penalty on a personal level but on a corporate, government, level I'm not as sure. I know one of the government's jobs is to keep it's citizens safe but I don't think death is in ok means. Until recently, the US has always held war as a last result. We've decided that killing people is an extreme measure to keeping ourselves safe and tried to use it sparingly. Though war helps the economy and helps us gain natural resources or land, we've decided that it's not worth the cost of lives unless there's a major enemy to fight. I forget who, but a few years ago someone suggested that abortion helps reduce crime because, statistically, the majority of abortions are had in areas of crime. It was thought that these kids would statistically grow up to commit crimes or murders so it really wasn't that bad that they were aborted. I'm pretty sure everyone but Pat Robertson thought that was a bad idea. It's probably not fair to compare fetuses and soldiers to convicted murderers. But the point is: In general, the US thinks death is too great a cost.

I always get confused when it comes to making moral laws in a secular yet pluralistic government. Every American has their own set of morals and I guess the point of a democracy is to find a set of universal morals that fits the majority of people. Or at least upsets the least amount of people? I don't think it's right to make a theocracy, especially in the melting pot of America, even if the majority of citizens are Christian. If we're going to make a law because it's a big deal to Christians, than we should do the same for other religions. I no more want to give up cows and credit cards than people of other religions want to follow my rules that don't apply to them. Hmmmm. What a tangled web of thoughts I just wove. What was the main point? Oh yeah, capital punishment. I'm against it. Should the government be against it too? I guess I don't know.

The green beneath my feet

2007-06-12T11:51:00.000-05:00

What the heck is the deal with grass? Does the entire idea of buying and maintaining a lawn seem ridiculous to anyone else?

Fact:

-Grass is a weed
-Grass naturally grows to be long
-When cut short, grass requires more water than is naturally given from rain
-Dogs like to eat grass
-Grass makes dogs vomit

So why do we do this? We spend money to plant seeds or to buy sod, then buy a lawn mower so we can cut the grass unnaturally short, then we have to spend time and money watering the grass because it can't survive at it's cut length. Seems like a lot of work for no real reason.

Lets address the reasons we do use grass:

1) It's soft - kind of. It's softer than rocks or wood, BUT, Soft ground became uneccessary in 1,200 BC with the invention of shoes. If it's soft you're looking for why not just line the ground with cotton? It'd be cheaper.

2) It's astetically pleasing. I guess that's true in our world view, but really? Green spikes? We completely judge anyone who hasn't cut their grass for more than two weeks. Crazy low-lifes who don't care about pleasing us. What if we all decided that long grass was attractive? That would save everyone a lot of time. Think about it. If 1 in every 20 people spends an hour mowing the lawn each week, that's almost 43,000 hours per DAY or 300,000 hours a week. That's a lot of freedom we could earn by just not caring about long grass.

Finally, Why hasn't science made something better? And yes, I'm personifying "science" like a good modern-enlightenment worshipper. Can't "they" engineer grass that grows to be 2 inches tall and only needs rain water? I mean, if John Hammond can make Dinosaurs out of ambered DNA the should be able to fix grass.

How not to chill a pop

2007-06-06T15:06:00.000-05:00

(click to enlarge)

Nature has a certain order to things. Sometimes you try to speed up nature by taking shortcuts... like putting a Diet Mt. Dew in the freezer to you can drink it cold 20 minutes later. Nature finds this disrespectful and spites you for it. Any time you meddle with a force as powerful and man-made as a freezer you're asking for trouble.

This morning I meddled with such a force. I put a Diet Mt. Dew in the freezer so I could drink it faster. Somewhere in the 20 minutes of "chilling" I got even more impatient and went to the vending machine and bought a cold pop. I completely forgot about the pop in the freezer until 7 hours later when a co-worker said, "Do you still drink Diet Mt. Dew?" Apparently a mob had found the exploded can and went on a witch hunt to find the responsible party.

Now, this isn't the first time this has happened to me. The difference is, usually the can expands like a balloon or worst-case scenario the can breaks and gently sets some Mt. Dew slush on the ground next to the can. Not this time though. This was a faulty can - a true freak of nature - that exploded with the force of a 18-ton atomic bomb. Liquid Mt. Dew spewed from the can at hundreds of miles per hour and covered almost every inch of the freezer with magma-like, half frozen, nutra-sweet goo. The goo then dripped everywhere before finally freezing as light-green stalactites.

Now I have to figure out how to clean the freezer without turning off the fridge/freezer combo and ruining everyone's delicate cold storage foods. Maybe I'll just find a new job and save myself the work :)

workin' on the house

2007-06-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

You know those couples who get married, buy a house, and completely disappear. You ask them to do something fun on the weekend but they turn it down to "work on the house?" That's so lame, and what's worse - I think I'm becoming one of them.

In the past week I've been to Linens and things, Ikea, Joann Fabric, and the home and decorations sections of Target. I've bought 'fabulous' lamps, frames, curtains, rugs, candles, and fabric to re-upholster some furniture. AHHHH! I even skipped playing disc golf to look at fabric. I think I've hit rock bottom. The good thing is I'm almost done and I guarantee I'll get bored of this after a few weeks.

I plan on overcompensating for my emasculation by growing a beard and going camping. Not sissy camping by the car, not even "real" backpacking camping, I'm talking no tent and no food camping. I'll build a shelter out of earth and eat bugs and squirrels. I'll fight the urge to "work on my shelter" and decorate while I'm out there.

To all my friends I didn't see because I've been unpacking and working on the house: sorry.

If I'm going to visit your country the least you can do is speak American

2007-05-27T08:55:00.000-05:00

"Entschuldigung, haben Sie Wasser?" I said in my most polite German as I poked my head into a liquour store around the corner from my hostel in Berlin. An older woman turned and with a smile said, "Ya, [something I didn't understand] und recht." I got the gist of it, she had water somewhere on the right side of the store. I said I quick "Danke" as I headed right and knelt down to figure out which bottle to get. As I was reading the bottles the woman, excited to help me find a bottle, said a barrage of words I had never heard. I'm pretty sure she was explaining the different sizes but I wasn't sure. I changed the subject by asking which ones weren't carbonated since a lot of the world things drinking soda-water is a good thing. She showed me and I bought a nice 1.5L. I left the store SUPER excited. Not just because I got water for 0,50 Euro instead of 3,0 like it had been in Rome, but because she thought I was German! Or at least treated me like I was. Our hostel was out of the tourist area and she might not even speak English - as was fairly normal in our neighborhood.

I'm not sure what I was more excited about, that I haven't taken German in 8 years but can still fake it well enough to get by, or that she didn't treat me like a tourist.

I really don't like being a tourist. I feel like it intrudes on whatever culture I'm visiting and I think it's rude to visit a place and expect it to it/them to conform to my ways and speak my language. So I try to fit in, do it their way, and see what it's like.

I was also excited to know that I could get by on my German... especially after my terrible start. The first thing we did in German (two weeks prior) was take a bus to our hostel. We didn't know how to get a ticket so I walked up to a group of Germans and asked if they spoke English by saying, "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" Pretty good German.... except what I actually asked was if they speak GERMAN, not ENGLISH. I blame Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for putting such a strong pop culture reference in my head, but needless to say I felt like an ass as the Germans gave me a look of "Of course we speak German, we're in Germany." I didn't even realize what I'd said until 5 minutes later.

Finally got 'the internet' again!

2007-05-20T14:34:00.000-05:00

Hey,

We went through a dark period where we had no internet and I wans't able to blog about the travels. Actually, we could have had internet once, BUT, it would have been 6£ for HALF an hour. That's more than $15 an hour. Right.

So, since last time, we've seen more of Austria and headed south to Venice, Florence, and now we just got to Rome!

Vienna was really nice. We saw our first nice weather there, all the other days were overcast and a occasionally rainy. It's been great the past few days though. Italy is warmer... it might have been in the 80s today. We saw an absolutely huge cathedral in Vienna. I'm sure it will be nothing compared to Rome, but it was definitely the biggest church I've ever seen!

Venice was BEAUTIFUL! They had crazy streets that would just dead end or become 3 feet wide... very interesting. Our hotel overlooked a canal and we got to watch tourists float by in Gondolas all day. Venice also had a lot of Pigeons for some reason. There's not a ton to do there so we just wandered around on foot all day, found some outdoor places to eat, and sipped delicious wine. We got to see some 'off the path' parts of Venice just by wandering, I think it's the way to go.

Today we took a train from Venice to Florence, stayed there for 6 hours, and took a train to Rome. We had to keep our backpacks on the whole time in Florance which got annoying. The main reason we stopped in Florance was to see the Uffizi but when we got there the line was 3.5 hours long so we skipped it. Instead, we explored the city some and eventually stopped to people watch in a plaza.

We just got to Rome and haven't see anything yet. We'll get up early and go to Vatican City. I'm really excited to see all the sites here.

Well, that's enough for now. I'm warn out from walking in the sun all day. See you when I'm home!!

Translation...

2007-05-20T14:27:00.000-05:00

here, I'll fix the letters that were backwords FROM THE KEYBOARD. Not becaus I was drunk. enough.

Translated:

We're in Vienna right now and the keyboard is all messed up. I don't have time to fix all the crayziness so I'm going with it. [The Z#s are Y's and vica versa... go with it, I only have 15 minutes.] We made it here fine! The usual oddities on the airplane rides. Berlin was OK... I won't give them too much crap considering they lost WW2 and were occupied by 4 different countries for 20 some years. I's pretty much a brand new city and trying WAAAY too hard to be American. Everywhere we went there was a Burgerking, McDonalds, or Pizza hut. We got to Prague and it was AMAZING! Hard to believe it was made 1100 years ago! There were great sites to been seen. We've been sampling every beer we can try here... kind of our ''real'' world beer tour. Prague had a rich history and great views and architecture at every turn. We just made it to Veinna and maybe tried toooo much of their local beers. I'm at the hostel right now and the spirits are flying. The trains have been interesting too. It's fun for the first 16 mintues. We sat with some Hamburg(ers) the first time and some Germans the second train. My German is going pretty well and I'm able to communicate for the most part. Surprisingly a lot of Germans and Austrians don't speak English. Everyone in Prague did though. So so far--- Berlin is trying too hard to be American, Prague is beautiful-interesting, vienna is beer. Oh, I had a Wiener Schnitzel for dinner and Viennees Coffee and stuedel (sp_) for dessert. It was SUUUUUPER. Welll..... the beer is still coming, sorry to write in a 'late night and have had a bit to drink' state but I figured this would be one of the only times to blog. Hope your're having fun in the states! Here's to not working, here's to Vienna, here's to ''That's what she said''!!!

in.... vienna!

2007-05-16T16:46:00.000-05:00

Gruss Gott!!!

We#re in Vienna right now and the kezboard is all messed up. I donät have time to fix all the crayiness so Iäm going with it. The Z#s are Y's and vica versa... go with it, I onlz have 15 minutes. We made it here fine! The usual oddities on the airplane rides. Berlin was OK... I wonät give them too much crap considering thez lost WW2 and were occupied bz 4 different countries for 20 some zears. Iäs prettz much a brand new citz and trzing WAAAZ too hard to be American. Everzwhere we went there was a Burgerking, McDonalds, or Piyya hut. We got to Prague and it was AMAYING! Hard to believe it was made 1100 zears ago! There were great sites to been seen. Weäve been sampling everz beer we can trz here... kind of our ÄrealÄ world beer tour. (p.s. Ä = '). Prague had a rich historz and great views and architecture at everz turn. We just made it to Veinna and mazbe tried toooo much of their local beers. Iäm at the hostel right now and the spirits are flzing. The trains have been interesting too. Itäs fun for the first 16 mintues. We sat with some Hamburg(ers) the first time and some Germanäs the second train. Mz German is going prettz well and Iäm able to communicate for the most part. Surprisinglz a lot of Germans and Austrians donät speak English. Everzone in Prague did though. So so far--- Berlin is trzing too hard to be American, Praguz is beautiful-interesting, vienna is beer. Oh, I had a Wiener Schnitzel for dinner and Viennees Coffee and stuedel (sp_) for dessert. It was SUUUUUPER. Welll..... the beer is still coming, sorrz to write in a 'late night and have had a bit to drinkÄ state but I figured this would be one of the onlz times to blog. Hope zour#re having fun in the states!

Hereäs to not working, hereäs to Vienna, hereäs to ÄThat's what she saidÄ!!!

Wieder!!

Mike

The meltingpot of Apple Valley

2007-05-09T13:41:00.000-05:00

Lets cook a delicious, diverse meal. Here's the ingredients:

9 pounds of spaghetti noodles
1 tbs salt
3 grams of spicy tomato sauce
2 strands of Somen noodles (to mix up the textures)

There you have it. One diverse meal...

note: the ingredients are in no way intended to represent races or stereotypes.

All that she wants is another baby

2007-05-09T09:35:00.000-05:00

I fiddled with the dead-bolt in my usual hurried, groggy, manner. I was a few minutes late and ready to put my head down for a speed walk to the car. There would be none of that today though. I was almost stopped in my tracks by the warm summer breeze that met me on the front sidewalk. The smell of fresh cut grass perfectly matched the bright greens of the landscape that rose to meet the pure blue of a cloudless sky. The sun was only half way up the sky but I could already feel it's filling warmth. I drew in a deep breath, hoping that if I let it reach the very tip of the bottom of my lungs I could save its energy for the rest of the day. A carelessly slow walk ended with a windows down drive. I was in paradise.

As bright as this day started there was a gloom hanging over the northern horizon.... work. Not that I mind the work, I just don't want to settle into an office chair and stare at a computer for 9 hours while a day like this is passing by. I do have a window but some days I think it's more taunting than helpful.

I think my feelings can be best summed up by Ace of Base's "All That She Wants" which I will now recite from memory:

"When she woke up late in the morning light and the day had just begun,
She opened up her eyes and thought, oh what a morning,
It's not a day for working, it's a day for catching tan,
Just lying on the beach and having fun, she's going to get you."

Ok, maybe the very last phrase and the following chorus "All that she wants is another baby, she's gone tomorrow boy" doesn't make sense. But the rest is right on. Thank you Ace of Base.

Snapping out of surreality

2007-05-03T12:32:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of changes coming up pretty fast. On Wednesday my friend Sarah leaves for Taiwan for a year, on Friday I leave for Europe, and the day after I get back I'm moving. I've know about each of these changes for a while, but they always seemed like they were going to take place at some vague future time. This week I realized they're all happening, for real, and sooner than I thought.

Sarah had her going away party last weekend but that wasn't really any closure for me since I knew I'd see her a hand full of times before she left. I don't think it hit me that she was leaving until it hit her. Next week she'll be in Taiwan. Weird.

The Euro trip is coming up much faster than I thought too. Yesterday I went on weather.com and could see the forecast for our first day. Weird.

Since I'm moving the day after I get back, I need to pack up everything I own before I leave. I decided to start last night and actually figured out I'm only going to have two other days to pack. I got a lot of my room packed up and now I'm living in a half-boxed room with no pictures or anything personal. Weird.

I want John Edwards Job

2007-04-30T09:59:00.000-05:00

With just 17 short months left before the 2008 elections politicians are already flooding... the internets. I guess it's not a new thing to have politicians on the internet, in 04' and 06' everyone had a website but they weren't really a useful websites, they were more like "I've heard I need one of these" websites. This year, though, politicians are all over. Every time I open the MySpace front page I see a politician listed under the "cool new people" (see above). Obviously this isn't just random, they're actually paying to get the title "cool new people." Paying for MySpace friends, huh? It's like some kind of lame online fraternity.

I was curious to see what kind of MySpace page John Edwards would have so I clicked on him. I was half expecting blinking text, animated gif's, and a YouTube video of a cat running into a wall but I was pleasantly surprised to find a well laid out page. Someone cranked up the trendy knob because you can buy "gear" - as in bumper stickers and t-shirts, have John Edwards text message you updates, or listen to his podcast. Aside from that, you can join his group on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. Really? A chill ran down my spine as a I realize John Edwards is cooler than me on the internet. Seriously, he must spend more time on the internet than I do! Impressive. And when he's not updating his favorite music on Facebook he's text messaging his friends with updates on his campaign. I guess that means EVERY white collar job, all the way up to the executive branch of the government, breaks down to wasting time on the internet.

I'm well aware that John Edwards doesn't personally update his internets and I chose to ignore that for the sake of humor. But... that means someone in his campaign has the job of sitting on the internet all day. I want that job! I guarantee I'm faster than who ever's doing it right now. I've literally been training for this job for two years. And it would be nice to give the Alt+tab fingers a rest. "MIKE! What have you been doing all day?" my boss would say. I would confidently respond, "Just screwing around with MySpace, I ran out of things to do on Facebook." Hmmmmm.

Chuck bless America

2007-04-24T15:46:00.000-05:00

Chuck Norris and I are a different bread of man. Of course there are the obvious differences - I can't grow facial hair and my round house lacks snap - but today I found out our deepest difference. The whole thing kind of came about in a strange manner of events with precarious happenstance, but then again, that's how Chuck works. It all started with a little lunch rendezvous at Raising Canes in the Valley. We were waiting for our food, which by the way, why do we have to wait for food at Raising Canes? All they sell is chicken fingers, fries, cole-slaw, and toast. Tangent. So we're waiting for our food and I look up to see a glorious poster of Chuck Norris. His leg is propped awkwardly high and next to him are a list of "Chuck's Codes of Ethics."

(click to enlarge code of ethics)

I thought this was incredibly amusing and kind of random for a chicken finger restaurant, so I read it. Turns out Chuck Norris is a pretty ethical man. Plus he's really patriotic. Then I realized something... I don't think I'm patriotic. At least not how it's being defined in pop-culture right now. This is NOT to say I take my freedom for granted, but when I think about large issues, especially social issue, I tend to think of them in more of a global scope verses a national scope. I'm not even sure why I think that way, but after reading Chuck's codes of ethics I realized I'm definitely different. Maybe it's because I've seen how extreme nationalism can be bad. The Israelis, as a people, were much more peaceful before they became a country again and Germany didn't exactly have a stellar 20th century, nationalism being a big cause. I think having an "us vs. them" mentality is always dangerous but especially so when we think of "us" as better, stronger, blessed, or more righteous. Plus the global community has grown so much stronger recently. Global trade has become efficient, the United Nations has formed, and most recently the internet has blown the doors off global communication. Maybe it's because I'm trying to follow a God who loves the whole world and who cares as much about the AIDS crisis in Africa as he does the murder rate in Minneapolis. Maybe it's just because I'm a liberal hippy who needs a Chuck-chop to the collar bone. I donno. Is it a bad thing to have more of a global view than a national view?

Walking... bringing it to the burbs

2007-04-19T12:36:00.000-05:00

I was born in Minneapolis and lived there as a kid. I'm city folk. Even though I've lived in the burbs for the past 15 years I still get my city urges from time to time. Sometimes I just want to drink tea, put my little iPod buds in my ears, read hippie books, or sit in a coffee shop and edit youtube videos on my MacBook Pro. Ok, maybe not that last one since I could never justify spending an extra grand for the "trendy" option on a laptop, but the other one's are valid.

Lately I've been getting an old city urge: walking. I thoroughly enjoy walking places and I still have fond college memories of walking everywhere. Over the past few weeks I've been getting my walk on. And I have some major complaints about walking in the suburbs.

First, people look at you like you're crazy... or homeless. Since when did walking become a definition of social class? It's like there are two kinds of people in the world: those who have to walk and those who don't. What about people who like walking or like exercise? Actually, there's an amendment to the rule, it's acceptable to walk for exercise but only if you dress so others know you're walking purely for exercise. You've seen these people, clothed in moisture-wicking fabrics for maximum breathability, stabilizing walking shoes and an mp3 player strapped to their upper arm. Do you really need to put on a walking suit to walk around your neighborhood? People have been walking in regular clothes for thousands and thousands of years. Come on people. I'm also tired of people looking at me like, "Oh, poor kid can't afford a car, or a bike, or even roller blades or those shoes kids wear these days with the wheels built in." You think I'm being melodramatic but I walked to lunch today and a lady literally swerved off the road because she was staring at me. Another woman slowed down and shook her head in disapproval. I'm not making this up!

My second qualm with suburban walking is the ridiculous path you have to forge to get anywhere. If you want to just wander around meandering roads that's one thing but if you try to walk TO a destination... good luck. Roads will turn 90° or dead end, sidewalks will just end or switch sides of the road for no apparent reason. I feel like I need a compass, water proof shoes, and a topographic map just to walk to the library. Seriously, I'm not exploring the Oregon Trail here, though I may die of Dysentery before I get anywhere useful. I seriously think city planners just add sidewalks for aesthetics... like a nice boarder for a street. But I'm trying to walk here. How about you plan a sidewalk that goes somewhere.

I think people hate walking so much because it takes too long. You really can't expect someone who freaks out because they have to wait 45 seconds at a red light to go for a 20 minute walk By far the most ridiculous display of walk-a-phobia is at the YMCA parking lot. I've actually seen people cut each other off for a closer parking spot. Heaven forbid you have to walk an extra 30 feet to the tread mill. Ah, but I forget they're not wearing their workout clothes yet. It's not acceptable.

So what am I to do with my walking urges? I could drive to the city to walk around but I don't think I need to explain the irony there. No, I think I'll keep walking around, in my "regular" clothes to get places. So get used to it Burnsville, I'll be walking around. Maybe my walk will be an inspiration to others who want to walk but fear the judging looks. Wake up O sleeping walkers, wake up. Walk. Enjoy the spring.

Content in the real world

2007-04-14T18:22:00.000-05:00

I finally don't wish I was still in college. For the longest time I did wish I was still in college. Life was so good back then! I was surrounded by friends, had a leisurely schedule, got to learn all the time, and basically just did whatever I wanted. After graduation I got thrown into a new world that college never prepared me for. A world where it's harder to meet people, I have to work at least 40 hours a week, get up when I don't want to, pay expensive bills, and figure out what to do with life. For me, and I'm sure a lot of other people, this was a hard transition. I wanted to be back at college where I knew the rules and expectations.

My freshmen year in the real world was the hardest one. I was the first of my "cities" friends to graduate so I spent a lot of time alone and worked long hours since I had nothing better to do.

Sophomore year my friends were all back, I moved into an apartment, started doing more with music, and started to have actual community with people from church. While the sophomore year was socially better I ran into new problems as I moved up Maslow's pyramid - now I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and had to question whether anything I was doing was worth while. I wished boredom was my biggest problem and still wanted to be back in college where I knew the "point" was to get good grades, learn, and do as much with college ministry as possible. I also learned the hard lesson that faith looks a lot different in college than it does in the world.

Now I'm onto my junior year. I feel like I finally know my way around the real world, found some great back roads, and maybe some shortcuts along the way. I have great friends, found some contentment with working, get to make music all the time, am healthy, am getting to travel outside the US, and am generally happy. It only took 2.5 years, but I can finally drive through a college campus and not be jealous. I'm done with college, it was a different life, and I'm happy with where I am.

I think some of the biggest realizations have been:

1) I have to be socially proactive. College was great because you get thrown in with people your age all the time. You have tons of people in your classes (which change every few months), new people in your dorm or neighborhood, and friends of friends who you see all the time. The best part was if you met someone interesting, you would probably run into them again soon. The same went for someone you met and romantically "dug their chili" - you would probably see them again and again and again until you were good friends and could decide if you wanted to ask them out. Fast forward to the real world, you can meet some one and never see them again. One example that comes to mind is a girl I met at a party. We hit it off, talk a bunch, and I ended up being really interested in her. We both knew people in the same circle of friends so we left it as "see you around." I think I "saw her around" 6 months later when we both had new romantic interests. I've learned that if I meet someone I want to talk to again I have to actually get their number, and call. Weird.

2) I don't need to know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm not sure where that thought came from in the first place. I think college teaches you that. It's like the one thing college teaches you about the real world and it turns out to be completely wrong. Way to go college. It turns out what I "do" with life has much more to do with trying things out and making opportunities than it does planning anything. There are some exceptions, for instance I'm "planning" on not being broke when I retire so I'm setting money aside for that day, but in terms of vocation, the job I'll have when I'm 40 probably doesn't exist yet. Since I can't plan it all out, I'm learning about whatever I find interesting and whatever opens doors to new ideas. I'll try things out and if I don't like them I'll go a different direction.

3) The life I have is incredibly blessed and I can't take it for granted. I think I, and a lot of others in my generation, grew up a little spoiled. The economy's been pretty good our entire lives and we've gotten used to a pretty good lifestyle. We expect that now that we've graduated and have a real job that we should be able to live like our parents live. Lets jump back to our parent's 20's. There are exceptions, but most of them lived much more simply. Going to a restaurant (or fast food) was a big expense not a nightly expectation or normal lunch break. Go back another generation and our grandparents were living through WWII, grew up in the depression, and were thankful just to have a job. Now we complain because we want to be rich but not have to work. Hmm.....

So yeah, the point of this long blog is just to say that I'm getting used to the real world and loving it. I've had to make more realistic expectations, figure a lot out the hard way, and lose sleep to wrestle with a lot of these issues, but I'm getting there and finding contentment in a good way.

Good Friday

2007-04-06T14:54:00.000-05:00

Today's a pretty holy day for the Church. It's Good Friday, the anniversary of Jesus of Nazarus' death. It's seems a little strange that Jesus has been one of history's most influential figures. He was a Jewish teacher who, in his 30s, spent three years preaching a new Jewish faith until the point where he was killed for being too rebellious and for claiming to be a king. There were other Jews who claimed to be messiah, other revolutionaries, and other leaders who ruled for much longer and had a larger following - but we're not spending our weekend remembering their lives and deaths. The difference with Jesus was his message, the power behind it, and the sacrifice to go with it.

I watched Passion of the Christ last night to help wrap my mind around today's anniversary. It's a pretty gory movie and I kept thinking to myself, "Jesus being tortured isn't the point." Many people were tortured, beaten, and crucified by the Romans but it seemed like the point of the movie was to show how mercilessly HE was scourged and crucified. He was probably punished more severely than most but I'm sure there were others punished even more viciously. Then it hit me, a truth I already knew that had slipped into a different part of my mind: That should have been ME.

By Jesus' own proclamation, He was here to restore. Here to restore a world that had fallen apart since it was first formed. Here to restore us to a God we had separated from, with the hope that one day we'd be close enough to call him father. Here to restore people to each other. To replace hate with grace, envy with love, and war with unity. His parting words were to forgive those who were killing him, a prayer that the world - the people he was dying for - would be united as He and the Father are united, and that we would remember Him.

And that's why we remember Him. Not just for his revolutionary love but for His sacrifice. For receiving the punishment we each deserved for even our smallest of evils. For being beaten, dragged down a path carrying the very cross he would be hung from, and being left to die. Even the goriest movie couldn't do justice to the last crushing punishment: being separated from God. Yelling, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" with some of his last breaths. Then it was over.

That should have been me.

77° in March!!!

2007-03-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

In light of almost reaching 80 degrees today I decided to repose my short story from a year ago. Enjoy the day!!!

'Twas the first day of spring and all through the office,
Not a person was working, not even the bosses;
The meat was thawing in the fridge with care,
In hopes that the grill master soon would be there;
The workers were nestled all snug in their chairs,
While visions of leaving danced through their prayers;
My co-workers with their projects and me with my smirk,
Had all settled down for a long day of work;
When all of a sudden there arose such a clatter,
I looked over my cube wall to see what's the matter;
I looked left I looked right and way down the hall,
I saw nothing.. except that huge hole in the wall!
I thought to myself, could this mystery be richer?
Then I looked up and saw a ginormouse pitcher!
Cool-aid man, I thought you were dead,
He just smiled at me with debris in his head;
Then from his gut, bellowed out, "Oh yeah,"
That's the end, 'cus nothing rhymes with "yeah."

Planning, planning, planning

2007-03-16T12:36:00.000-05:00

May is going to be a ridiculous month. So ridiculous that I already have to start planning. Our lease is up for the apartment the end of May. The three of us plus our friend Kris are going to start renting a house somewhere in the south metro after that. We found a bunch of houses, including one with a urinal, but we have to go visit them all and negotiate move in dates. I'll spend the first half of May packing all my stuff into boxes because I'll be in Europe for 16 days in the middle. After Europe I'll have 5 days to jet-laggedly move all my belongings into a new house and clean the apartment. That'll be fun.

The good news is we figured out which cities we're going to in Europe! We're flying into Berlin with a few hour lay over in London. We unfortunately won't have time to leave the London airport but I'm really hoping I can find some Fish & Chips!! We'll stay in Berlin for a few days, then head to Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; and Venice, Florance, and Rome in Italy. We're spending most of our time in Rome and Berlin, just passing through Florence for a few hours and spending a day or two in Prague, Vienna, and Venice. It should be great. Now we just have to figure out Hostels, train rides, and sights to see.

Windows Vista is stupid

2007-03-07T10:36:00.000-06:00

Sick all week

2007-03-04T13:24:00.000-06:00

This has been an interesting week. I started feeling sick on Tuesday and by the end of the work day I was sitting in my cube, all packed up, my computer turned off, just staring at the wall. I even left work a few minutes early which I've literally never done.

On Wednesday I didn't get out of bed til 6:00p. I slept about 14 hours and spent the rest of the day groaning. Now it's Sunday and I'm still not 100%. I stayed home from work Wed.-Fri. and and didn't leave my apartment from Tuesday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. I don't know about you, but for me that's just too long to be in an apartment by myself. I think I started to go a little crazy by the end, but I made a few interesting observations along the way:

1) Country Music is having an identity crisis. I love music videos and since VH1 and MTV stopped showing them years ago I stop on CMT every once in a while when a song catches my attention. I actually found out I like Keith Urban which is a big deal for me since I never liked country. Don't worry, he's the only one I like. There were a few times I watched a music video and just laughed out loud at how ridiculous the band/singer looked. Country's apparently evolving and not just a bunch of "country" folk anymore. Country is lame and they know it. Now they're trying to be both pop and rock but they're not sure which one or how to go about either. I watched one video where there were a bunch of cowboys singin' a song but the background looked like a rap video. Actually, it looked like they took the ELEMENTS of a rap video and dropped them in someones Alabama back yard. There was a hot tub full of models, people humping on a dance floor, and the standard lights. Set nicely on the grass and mud of this backyard. I laughed. Another video featured some cowboys dressed up in black leather trying really hard to look "rock." It looked more like Halloween costumes than anything. Or like someone studied rock video fashion and tried to copy it. It ended up looking more like your uncle wearing tight leather pants doing his best Aerosmith impression. Again, I laughed. I don't get why Country is trying to copy these genres. Why not just become a rock star instead of Country star?

2) Pillows. I changed my sheets when I started feeling better because, of course, germs can live in your bed and keep making you sick. I took my pillow cases off and realized my pillows look really old. I have no idea when I got them. For all I know they were my parents before mine. I made me wonder how long pillows last and when you get new ones. I really like my pillows and I don't want to get new ones because they won't be the same thickness or fluffiness or the hundreds of other factors that make these the perfect pillows. Do pillows just last forever?

3) I realized how nice it is to be healthy. There's so much I would have liked to have done this week but it all takes energy and the ability to move around. I'm especially bummed about all the snow. If I was healthy I would have gone sledding, cross country skiing, and snowboarding. But instead I laid on my bed and watched DVDs (and even a VHS). It's nice being healthy. I can't wait till I'm healthy.

Sometimes you have to say what you think.

2007-03-02T23:21:00.000-06:00

1 Cor 1:9-11:
"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

This thought has crossed my mind several times so I'm writing it down: Why do some Christians blow homosexuality up out of proportion? It's mentioned twice (I believe) specifically and maybe three more times vaguely, yet it's risen to the top of the "evil" list in most Church circles and right-wing politics. I baffles me why the issue of greed, which is list oh, maybe, 50 times in the New Testament alone, is an almost non-existent issue compared to homosexuality. Why the disproportion?

I'm not saying sins should be ranked based on the number of times they're mentioned, in fact I don't think sins should be ranked at all. All sins (disobedience towards God) are equally terrible. So again, why is homosexuality at the top of a human-invented ranking of sins?

We should make an amendment to the constitution that doesn't allow greedy people to get married. That maybe comparing apples to oranges, a closer example would be not letting non-virgins get marries since they're technically adulterers. That would protect the sanctity of the whole thing.

I donno, call me a liberal "love everyone just because God created them" whack-job, but that's my thought for the night.

The rest of the trip

2007-02-21T16:17:00.000-06:00

Whoops, I kind of pooped out on blogging in Peru. It was taking a long time to write and even longer to upload pictures so I decided to spend my time actually doing things in Peru!!

Lets see, I left off at Thursday. Bridgette and I took a bus to Pisac to go to a market. I had to use the bathroom at the bus station which was an experience in it's self. There was a urinal outside... basically in the middle of a bus station so I decided to opt for the slightly private stall. I had to walk down a short hallway past a man who was sweeping "water" toward me. It was pretty disgusting and I wasn't sure how to navigate. On my way out they man said I had to pay to use the bathroom. I have him one sole (60 cents) but it actually only cost .30 soles (10 cents). He started making change but I was really grossed out by where his hands has been so I just let him keep it. Pisac was cool. The market was huge, and there were vendors everywhere. I bought some nice (cheap) stuff there. They were having some soft of festival that involved men dressing as women and getting hit by water balloons. I never did figure out exactly what was going on.

Thursday night we met up with Bridgette's classmates again and went to a fun bar. A really entertaining band played salsa, then the club played dance music which often consisted of American music remixed with a latin beat. I danced till I was too tired, then headed home.

Friday we went to some more local markets and some smaller museums. I hung out by myself for a bit in the evening and caught an amazing sunset. Luckily I was by my hostel which is up the hill and got some cool pictures. That night we tried to go to a salsa club so I could get lessons but after 4 clubs ended up at the same place as Thursday night but with a new group of friends. It was just as fun the second time around.

Saturday I had to check out at 9:30a which was really early especially since I had been out late. I hung out in the city by myself for a while in the morning and ran into a guy I had bought a painting from earlier in the week. He couldn't believe I was just sitting in a park for my last few hours in Cusco so he showed me all over the city. He was able to get into one of the museums I still hadn't been to and told me all about the Inca artifacts. He barely spoke english and I barely spoke spanish but we managed to understand each other. He's a 25 year-old art student who sells his painting to pay for school. He's lived in Cusco his whole life and knew a ton about the town. I kept wondering if he was going to sell me something or ask for money for the sweet tour, but he didn't. He was just being a friend.

The 25 hour journey home was way "better" than I thought it would be. I wasn't looking forward to the 7 hour layover in Lima but I was really into Jurassic Park (the novel I'm re-reading) and time flew. I got a window seat on the plane and slept for almost 5 hours on the way to JFK. I was surprisingly awake and energetic when I got home!

I know I was only in the culture for a week, but when I got home I kept thinking I had to try to speak in spanish! It only took a day to get over, but it was a weird feeling.

I made a collage of pictures you can download here.

That's it for the Peru trip! I'm on to brushing up on my German and planning the Europe trip!!!

dias cuatro y cinco

2007-02-15T11:35:00.000-06:00

Hmm,
I missed a day in there. Got the pictures though? I finally had cusquañan food! It was good. Apparently they put french fries on everything. Last night I had trout and french fries! Weird. The food is so cheap! My fish and fries plus a coke and a corn soup came to $3.30 Haha.

On Tuesday we visited Qorikancha, an old Incan temple that was converted to a cathedral when the spanish took over. It was amazing to see how well the Incans construct! They take a rock and shave it down until it fits perfectly with the ones around it. There have been at least two earthquakes in Cusco and each time the incan buildings withstood. It was also cool to see the Catholic part. I think I´m one of the few protestants that likes catholicism! They had great artwork - both paintings and sculptures. My favorite was a sculpture of Jesus carved out of an elephant tusk. His head, body, and legs were made from one tusk and his arms from another. The thick part of the tusk was his head and the thinner part was his feet. It was a crucifix so Jesus was on the cross and arched like a tusk is arched. Very cool.

Yesterday we took a horse ride to some old ruins. It was great! The weather wasn´t cooperating though... it was gray and rained off and on. I did break two personal records though... longest time on a horse and highest altitude. Speaking of altitude, I´m finally acclimaged and feel fine again.

Last night we met up with Bridgettes friends from Spanish class and went to a bar. They had live music which was really good. It was basically rock but lead by a nylon string (classical) guitar. Things were cheap there too. $1 for 4 classes of wine. The wine came in a liter mug, like a beer mug, and you pored it into glasses. Strange.

I take back what I said about all the kids being annoying. It´s just the kids in the plaza that are selling things. I´ve met some adorable kids! I´ve also met a lot of locals selling their own work. There´s a woman who sits in the plaza by my hostel. She makes scarfs, belts, and carves wood. She showed me how she makes the belts and we spoke as best we could in each other´s language! In the same plaza I met a teenager who´s going to art school and selling paintings as he goes. We talked a lot too and I ended up buying something from each. The people in the shops are much better than people selling on the street!

There are no super stores here. Everyone has their own small business... some smaller than a shed, where they sell their own product. Restaurants are the same, each one only seats 10-15 and there are tons of choices.

Well, that´s all for now. It´s sunny out and I think we´re going to more ruins!

Pictures!

2007-02-13T16:40:00.000-06:00

Not too happy about the Sbarro in NYC...

My hostel!

The view from the second story of my hostel

An Incan wall in town

Cusco at night from up on the hill

The Plaza at night

And old Incan temple converted to a Catholic church... I forget the name right now

Same temple

Same temple

A Lama from WAY up the hill

Cusco from the top of the hill

Cusco from the top of the hill

Cusco from the top of the hill

Cusco from the top of the hill

Christe Blanka (white Christ) and three crosses at the top of the hill.

Dias tres

2007-02-13T11:10:00.000-06:00

Update for yesterday´s blog. I found my way home! A little ¨Donde esta Plaza de San Blas¨went a long way. Turns out I was like 2 blocks from my hostel. I spent half an hour trying to find an internet cafe near my hostel, then I finally found like 4 in a row not to far away!

Yesterday was all about the views! Cusco is in a valley so the further you get from he center the higher you get and the better the view. Yesterday Bridgette and I hiked up the North side of the city which is kind of where she lives anyways. We kept going until we were way up there. We stopped at three places to check out the view and each one got better! Plus the sun was setting so each view was a little darker. It started with normal sunlight but by the last site it was dark enough that we could barely make out the silhouettes of the mountains on the far side of the valley and the town was all lit up. It was amazing!!!

We also met up with two of Bridgette´s Peruvian friends at a cafe in the afternoon and again for a late dinner. They´re really fun! One of them is a hippie with huge dreads. The hippie, Ram, speaks english and Spanish but our other friend speaks about as much English as I do Spanish. We still managed to communicate... mostly bu ad hock sign language! It was fun, except for when they all talked in Spanish and I had no idea what they were saying, then they looked at me and laughed. Haha.

I´ve taken a bunch of pictures but this computer doesn´t have a USB port on the front and I don´t want to dig around in back. Hopefully later today I´ll get some up!

I feel kind of sick from the altitude. I walked around a ton yesterday, especially up hill, and I think it wore me out. I didn´t take my altitude sickness pills because they make me feel weird but I started up on them again last night because I´d rather have the weird feeling than the even weirded feeling of altitude sickness.

I still haven´t had any Peruvian food!! We had Indian food for lunch and pizza for dinner. I had never had Indian so that was new!

That´s it for today. I´ll try to get pictures up soon!

Dias uno y dos en Cusco!

2007-02-12T09:45:00.000-06:00

Hola! Gracias. Una agua sin gas por favor! Si. No gacias. That´s all I´ve had to say so far :) I´m officially in Cusco chilling at an Internet cafe and completely lost. Bridgette, my translator, tour guide, and of course friend, is in class this morning so I´m on my own for another 2 hours. I decided to find an internet cafe and just wondered around for a while. I eventually figured out I was lost but as that exact moment I found an internet cafe. So my lostness is delayed by an hour. I´m not too worried about finding my way home. Wost case scenario I´ll walk to the center of town to the Plaza De Armes which I can´t miss, then go home since I know my way from there. So far Peru is great. It´s BEAUTIFUL and warm. I forgot what fresh air is like since I´m outside for about 2 minutes a day when it´s -18f. I don´t know the temp but it feels like the 70s. I´m in a t-shirt, flip flops and rolled up light weight pants. LOVE it. Here´s what´s happened so far:

Saturday I flew out of MSP with no problems. We were delayed an hour though, so I got to JFK an hour late. I had been planning on taking the subway into Time Square for a slice of real NYC pizza but since I was late it wouldn´t work. I settled for Sbarro (any office fans should remember that that´s Micheal Scott´s favorite NYC pizza place). I saw they had NY style pizza so I was a little excited, but it turns out they were out. Wow. So I had my regular Sbarro´s pizza. Strangely it was my first time at Sbarro´s so it was new to me! I hung out in Terminal 4 which is apparently the international terminal. It´s cut off from the rest which are connected by monorail. I sat in the food court because that´s really all there is to do there and read. Good times.

Next I got on my flight to Lima, Peru. I flew on LAN air and apparently S. America flies like the US did in the 90s. Everyone got their own blanket, pillow, eye ´things¨to block out the light, and ear pluggs. I few from 10:30p to 6:30a so I figured they wouldn´t feed us... but I got Dinner and Breakfast!! In the US you´re lucky if you can buy a bag of pretzels for $2 but here I got salad, bread, entree, dessert, a drink, AND wine. Yum. For breakfast (at 5am) I got fruit and a turkey sandwich. Weird but I was thankful.

Lima to Cusco was the same airline and even though it´s a 50 min flight they still fed us a snack! They´re great. At Cusco we took stairs down to the runway or whatever you want to call the ground in front of the terminal and I was blown away by the mountains all around us. It was soo cool! I got my bags and met Bridgette who knew how to get a taxi and a good price. Mucho gracias!

Yesterday I felt weird all day, mostly because of my altitude meds and because I only slept 3 hours the night before. I took a nap and felt better after that and dinner. I slept 11 hours last night and not I´m fine! Yesterday we went to a soccer game (Cusquoña vs. a southern peru team) and ¨we¨won 3-0. Got some dinner and hung out in the plazas.

The kids are really annoying here... they sell finger puppets for 1 sol which is like 33 cents. They bug you and bug you and bug you. ¨Miiii ameeeeeego. Miii ameeeeego¨ they say in their whineyest voice with puppy eyes and rub their belly like they´re hungry. Then they follow you and after a block if you still don´t buy they say f&%$ you. It´s not terrible... but they kids don´t leave you alone and a different one comes every 5 min. It makes it hard to have a conversation or enjoy the plaza. Adults sell things too but move on when you sake your head or say no gracias.

Everything else is great. Everything´s cheap. 3 soles is 1 dollar and everything costs the same in soles here as it would be in dollars in the US. So everything is 1/3 the price. My hostel is nice. I had my own room with a bathroom. They cooked my breakfast this morning (eggs, tea, bread) and the atmosphere is cool. There are two sitting rooms upstairs with beautiful views of the mountains. The hostel is up on a hill so you can look down at the city or up to the mountains across the valley. I´m right around the from the Plaza de San Blas which is a courtyard around an old spanish cathedral. There are fountains and flowers and places to sit. It´s nice.

Well, I should get going so I can find my way home!

Leaving on a jet plane

2007-02-06T10:25:00.000-06:00

I think 2007 is going to go down in history as my traveling year. I traveled a good amount when I was young, we took a family trip at least once a year, but when you're in college you really don't have time or money to go anywhere. Well, now I have a job and I'm going!

Next week I'll be leaving the US for the first time (not counting that time I walked 100 yards into Mexico) and staying in Peru for a week! I can't tell you how excited I am. I brushed up on Spanish just enough to embarrass myself but hopefully well enough to understand what's going on around me. I'll be in Cusco - a city way up in the Andes that used to be the capital of the Incan Empire - seeing the sights and visiting my friend Bridgette. She's currently living there learning Spanish and getting ready to volunteer at an orphanage, so I'll get my own personal tour guide and translator! Cusco's way up there (10,900 ft), which isn’t the highest place I've ever been (yay for skiing in MT) but will be the highest place I've lived. We'll see if I go crazy. I've also never lived in a non-English culture, so we'll see if that drives me crazy too!

After Peru I'm home for 3 months, then it's off to explore Europe. I'm going with some friends and we really haven't planned our trip yet. The only plans we have are to find the cheapest flight to Europe, wherever that may be, and eventually meander to Germany so Brett and I can sprechen our Deutsch. That should be amazing too. The oldest cities I've been to are in New England (or possibly FL, not sure what's older) but are from like the 1700s. I'm really excited to see cities from say... well, I guess if I make it to Rome it'll be like... BCE. I can't even imagine that. I think of 1890 as really, really old. Haha.

I might be traveling more for work too. Depending on how things go I could be flying out to customer sights to do training. They'd be US and Canada with the possibility of the Bahamas, ohh! I've seen 44 states so maybe I'll make it to the last 6. Even if I don't I'll take free travel!

I'm off to see the world.

Simply live

2007-02-02T14:11:00.001-06:00

I was sitting at JFK airport a few weeks ago waiting for my flight home. MSNBC was playing on the TV and since I had nothing better to do, I gave it some attention. One story kept grabbing my attention. I guess it wasn’t really even a story, just an add for a story that was coming up, but it was talking about how the middle class in America is so poor that most families need two incomes to just barely scrape by.

Do people really think that? The problem isn’t that we make too little money, it’s that we try to live a lifestyle that exceeds our income. Any family that thinks they’re just getting by should find someone in section 8 housing and explain to them that they can’t find a way to make due on $100,000 a year.

I recently heard someone comment on America, “I’ve never seen a group of people work so hard to make their lives easier.” I completely agree. Why are we so obsessed with living beyond our means? We have this idea that life will be so much better if we could just live one grade higher in social class. If we could just get that slightly more expensive car, the one with the halogen lights and iPod built in, we’d finally be happy. The problem is, once we get that car there will still be that better car, and we’ll still want it. It takes so much work and so much pressure to live at the next grade of social class, it makes me wonder if that’s even a better life. What if we just became content with where we are? Or further yet, what if we became content with one grade lower than our income? Would it be so bad to have a smaller house and an older car? If we didn’t mind living that next grade down we could even work less and in turn spend more time with friends and family, volunteer, or spend it as we please.

Another myth that’s snuck into our minds is the idea that we need to provide our kids with a life monetarily better than our own. It’s like we’re trying to build a dynasty and 10 generations down the road someone’s kid will finally be rich and therefore happy, and we played a part in it. That’s not true though. Our generations will keep getting richer and richer and still won’t be satisfied with their class. I see why people think this and it’s honestly not a selfish idea to try to make your child’s life better than yours but if the trade off is you working 70 hours a week and missing out on their life, it’s not worth it. Your child will grow up to follow your example, working hard for their kids, and miss out on their lives as well.

I believe love provides more wealth than money and what kids need is to spend time with their parents. Even at the expense of better toys, a private education, trust funds, or the most expensive sweet 16 party.

As for us, we need to ignore advertising, which has had an enormous effect of our idea of happiness, and pursue our true happiness – whatever that may be. Personally I love music and would gladly live a simpler lifestyle if it afforded me the chance to play more. Last summer I stayed with a group of people in Philadelphia (the reason I was at JFK in the first place) who put a huge value on volunteer work. They each work part time jobs and live simply, cheaply, and communally to free themselves up to volunteer their time. I guess that’s when I really started thinking about all this. The biggest thing I took away from that trip is that you can chose how simply you want to live and in turn chose how much you want to work and what you want to do with your time.
I’m not sure what the news show concluded about the American middle class being poor even with two incomes but my conclusion is this: If we’re always dreaming of living in the next class up we’ll always feel poor, but another way is possible and if we pursue it we just might find a new way to live richly.

Pimp my ride

2007-01-30T16:12:00.001-06:00

This week I stopped neglecting my car and had some overdue maintenance done. I got my 15,000 mile check up (at 21,000 miles), an oil change, and today got my cracked windshield replaced. As much fun as I was having watching the crack explore new parts of my windshield, it's good to have a new one. Auto glass replacement companies are a strange thing. If you have insurance it's free so there's really no point in shopping around for the best price. I just asked my friend, google, to show me a list of companies and chose the first one I recognized. I chose... drum roll... "Auto Glass Specialists" (they're the guys in the little red trucks). Why? Because I remembered the jingle from their adds and every year at the 4th of July parade they hand out little cardboard trucks filled with candy and toys. Superior marketing for the win. I had to be really trusting of them today. They don't replace the glass on site (at my office) if it's below 15 degrees, so I had to turn over my keys and let them drive it to their garage in Bloomington. I'd say only 3 of 4 people have ever driven my car and none of them were strangers. I got over it and let my car go. Got it back a few hours later with a brand new windshield, crackless and clean. I had to chuckle though because they decided to pimp my ride with a tinted windshield. It's not tinted much... maybe 5%, but it's noticeable. Also, the very top of the window is a darker tint. I've never had a tinted window. Looks like I'm a few grades cooler these days. They must have known I was a rock star or something. The guys in the little red truck left me with one piece of advice: Don't wash the car for 24 hours. It's like 0 degrees, no problem.

testing... 1... 2... 3

2007-01-24T09:17:00.000-06:00

First post on blogspot.

Hmm, I feel like I'm moving into a new apartment. Figuring out the floor plan, where I'm going to set things up and organize, maybe add some decor in that corner over there. I've been blogging on MySpace and I've decided I like it. I like it too much to limit it to MySpace where you have to be my "friend" to read. Either my self-worth has inflated, I got bored of MySpace, or maybe I just have too many thoughts to keep to myself. Whatever the reason, here I am. I'm going to copy my old blogs into here, arrange them, find a place for each, and make this my new home. Check back for more thoughts.

Ben Stein on Christmas and idol worship

2006-12-15T09:37:00.000-06:00

My friend posted this on her blog and I decided I liked it so much I would post is as well. The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on a CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.
"Herewith a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?

I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.

I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to."

Suicide - A Chipotle Story

2006-12-08T09:38:00.000-06:00

Every week Brett and I go to Chipotle. I walk a 1/2 mile from work - even in the cold - and Brett drives 10 miles from Eagan. It's always stressful for me to meet people for lunch. If you know me well you know that I spend most of my time at work on the phone and can get a call at any time and never know how long it'll be. It makes it hard to meet at noon because I could get a call at 11:59 or take a call at 10:00 that takes four hours. So I always sit in anticipation for the last 20 mintes before I have to leave, just hopeing I won't get a call. Sometime I hide in the bathroom or walk around the office so I can't hear my phone. Sometimes I leave 15 minutes early and go to Barnes & Nobles on the way to kill time. People can't call me at Barnes & Nobles so it makes for a good buffer.

On a really random tangent I found a bunch of cool magazines at B&N. For some reason they were $15 and that's just too much to pay for a magazine. I'm planning on going back to B&N to read them but I'm not going to buy. If I buy the mags it proves there's a demand for a $15 mag. If I boycott it proves there is not a demand for $15 magazines, thus lowering the S/D curve in the micro economics of magazine prices. Once the S/D curve lowers the fair-trade price to $5.50 I'll buy one. That seems like a fair price. Maybe I'll buy one out of every three but read them all. That averages out to $5/mag. That's fair.

Speaking of fair trade economics, and moving back to Chipotle, I like to steal pop. Paying for pop at a resaurant or fast food joint is a gigantic rip off. It costs the restaurant about 7 cents for a glass of pop but they charge us $1.75. Back to economics, the only reason they can charge that much is because we willingly pay that much. If we the people one day said, "NO! That's just too much. I'm going to drink water instead." The price would go down. But we don't. We like our fruity, sugary, syrupy soda-pop soft drinks. For a few years I didn't drink pop at all, I liked water, milk and the occasional OJ, but now that I work at 8am I'm always tired and started up on caffine again. I found a new way to affect the market. I steal pop. Not all the time, that would be stealing. I buy a pop about one out of ten time and fill my beautiful water cup with coke the other nine. I average 17.5 cents per glass and I think that's a fair price. Chipotle gets 7 cents for the pop and I throw in 10 more cents for their time. You may think it's immoral but you'll be thanking me when I change the eonomy and you get cheaper pop. I'll buy pop when it's down to 50 cents or less.

After Brett and I finished eating and talking about the usual - work, politics, religion, etc - I went to get a pop for the road and got stuck behind someone else with a water cup. He must have had the same idea as me because he didn't fill his with water either, he filled it with... well, I guess you call it a suicide. Remember doing that when you were 10 years old? You take your cup and fill it with every kind of pop available and mix the flavours. And it always ended up tasting like orange soda. Weird. Anyways, this man wasn't 10, he was in his 30s. After he finished mixing his suicide he plopped a lemon on top - a LEMON ?!? - and ran out the door. It was the most rediculous thing I'd seen in days. Actually, no, I can't back that up. I went to Minneapolis last night and saw plenty of rediculous things, but this was the most rediculous thing I'd seen in the suburbs for days.

This blog was a good way to end a Friday. Have a good weekend!

Why recording electric guitar is a pain

2006-12-05T09:40:00.000-06:00

Listen to a CD of your favorite band. Hear that electric guitar? Some where, some time a while ago a guitarist played that song so it could be recorded. When he or she played that guitar part it sounded like twang, twang, tink, vrrrrip, twang on their guitar but now it sounds completely different to your ears as you listen. I wish it was as easy as taking "twang, twang", putting it through a magic box, and having the perfect sound hit your brain but unfortunatley there are about a bajillian different factors that come between "twang, twang" and your brain. As a guitar player and sound guy I decided it would be a good idea to write out the MAJOR factors that effect guitar tone in recording. I was a little surprised at just how many things effect the sound. There are lots of other factors, but here are the 30 main things that come between "twang" and brain:

1) How the guitar is played (how hard the sring is pressed, strumming, pick weight)
2) The brand and "freshness" of strings
3) The tone of the guitar (wood, size, weight)
4) The pickups style (humbucker, single coil) and placement (brige, neck, blend)
5) The Guitar's tone and volume settings
6) The brand, thikness, and type of metal in the cable
7) The FX pedals tone settings
8) The order of the FX pedals
9) The power source of the pedals (bateries, wall wart, power block)1
0) The amp's tone/EQ settings
11) The amp's preamp (tube, solid state, handwired)
12) The amp's power amp (tube [type and freshness of tube], solid state, wattage)
13) The speaker cabinet (number of speakers, size, wiring)
14) The speaker (brand, power handling, position)
15) The room the amp is in (size, wall material, floor)
16) The Mic recording the amp
17) The position of the mic recording the amp
18) The chain after the mic (cable type and thickness)
19) The mic preamp
20) The rack effects (compression, EQ, reverb)
21) The analog to digital converter
22) Software processing of recording
23) Mastering of the recording (more effects, eq, and volume added)
24) The format of the recording (CD, mp3, radio, DVD)
25) The CD player you play the recording back on
26) The receiver and it's EQ, wiring, and brand you play the recording back on
27) The speaker cables, speakers, and position of the speakers you play the recording back on
28) The room you play the recording in (size, walls, floor, ceiling)
29) Where you sit/stand in the room
30) Your own hearing and perception of sound.

If that made sence to you, you can share in my astonishment. If that didn't make sence, that's ok, just note that it's a gigantic list of things that effect the sound.

Nerdy tech blog over and out.

Finding My Place

2006-11-20T09:43:00.000-06:00

all these years left,
but where to spend them,
with who, on what,
for who, for what,
time's rushing by,
or stopped completely,
either way it's wasting,
either way I'm spinning

so I take a break,
and look around,
find my context,
in a story lost and found,
the only where I want to be,
is always where I need to be,
waiting at the cross,
of the one who's creating me

Mid-day I want to run,
go and leave everything,
leave nothing but the sound,
as the wheels hit the road,
convert savings into miles,
just to see how far they'll go,
say hello to impulse,
and good bye to my plans

so I take a break,
and look around,
find my context,
in a story lost and found,
the only where I want to be,
is always where I need to be,
waiting at the cross,
of the one who's creating me

Aliens in my bedroom

2006-11-12T09:53:00.000-06:00

7:02amI wake up with a weird sensation. I'm awkwardly awake (I don't usually get up till 7:35 and even then I lay in bed for another 10 min until I'm so late that I HAVE to get up), strangely warm, and lying in an uncomfortable position. Do you ever wake up and your hand is frozen in a weird fist until you can stretch out the tendons? That's how both my hands were.

I couldn't figure out why I felt so weird, then it hit me: aliens abducted me last night. The very next thought that went through my head was, "Gosh, have I really gotten THIS nerdy?" If you look at a sample of people who claim to have been abducted you'll notice a huge trend - they're either from the Pacific South West, or they're NERDS. I live in the North-Central-Mid-West so there's only one reason I could believe I was abducted. I'm a nerd. I tried to figure out why only nerds believe in abduction, and then I remembered Occam's Razor - the theory that the simples explanation for a phenomenon is likely the correct one. It just hit me. The reason only nerds believe in abduction is because aliens only abduct nerds! Brilliant. Then I got a little annoyed. Who are these aliens to judge me? Why did they think I was a nerd? Sure I used to watch Star Trek in middle school, I may have read most of a Star Wars book in high school, and I get my news from Slashdot.com but does that make me nerdy enough to get abducted?!?

After the initial terror of realizing I was abducted (and a nerd) my little brain did a star wipe to a new idea: maybe they gave me super powers! Ya know... like for an experiment or something. I can't explain why, but the first two powers I hoped I had were 1) Super extreme speed and 2) Superior brainpower. Stupid. Those are lame. First of all I already have superior brainpower and it's not that great. And extreme super speed? I believe that's called a car. Everyone knows the two best powers are invisibility and flight. Then I got to thinking, what if you had the power of flight, but you could only fly 2 miles per hour. How annoying would that be! It's like, hey look... I can slowly hover over there. I picture myself in the superman flying pose but being passed by casual pedestrians on their way to work. Or the market. I'd never use that power. I'd just pretend I didn't have it. Unless I needed to change the light bulb at the top of the stairs. Then it would be convenient.

I was starting to second guess whether or not I was really abducted. I checked myself for probe marks but didn't see any. I really don't know what probe marks look like, or if aliens even leave marks, but the fact that I didn't see any big bruises or surgery scars was good enough to put me back to sleep. I realized I wasn't abducted... but I am a nerd :)

Time

2006-10-29T09:52:00.000-06:00

I like when daylight savings time ends in the fall.. but only for a day. I love getting that extra hour of sleep and having an extra long day. It was great, I went to Perkins (for a Chicken Tender Melt, yum) at 1:45am and got back at 2:05am thanks to that "gaining" an hour at 3:00am. I don't like when DST ends, though, because it's an hour less of light each afternoon. When you work till 5:00 it's really depressing when the sun sets at 4:45. Anyways, I only changed some of my clocks today so I kept thinking it was an hour later than it actually was. Take right now for example, my car said it was 10:35 when I got home from church but when I got inside I found out it was only 9:30, now I get to write a blog!

It got me thinking about time and how I wish there were more hours in a day. Sometimes I feel like I'm just wasting time and sometimes I feel like I wish I had more.

Lots of times I feel like I'm just waiting for time to pass. Waiting till I have more years of experience at work, waiting for a raise, waiting to save more, waiting for the weekend, waiting for the next holiday, waiting for my birthday, waiting till I meet that "special someone", waiting till 5:00, waiting for it to snow, and so on, and so on. I hate waiting. I'm too impulsive and I want things now. I hate that some things are arbitrarily measured by years or age. As if I be such a better driver in three months that my insurance will go down or that I'll be more qualified for jobs after a certain number of years. Some people could learn nothing in three years of work and others could learn vast amounts in a matter of months. Sometimes I wish I could just fast-forward days, months, or years but I know I'd miss out on a lot and I need to Carpe Diem - "Seize the day." There are things that are better with age but in this fast-food, microwave, internet age I want everything now!

Then there's the other part of me that wishes there was more time. If there were unlimited hours in a week I'd be working out, learning German, practicing music hours a day, reading books upon books, learning new programming languages, spending time with friends and family, doing ministry, traveling, making more studio recordings, writing, and camping. The problem is I only have time for about two, maybe three, of those. And that's with the freedom of being single. Add a girlfriend or family in there and there's probably time for one. Now I'm not saying relationships and family are bad because they take up time... because they're totally WORTH the time. It just adds to my point that there's not enough time. This is the part of the "real world" that I'm having the hardest time adjusting to. I want more free time. Why do we have to work 40 hours a week for a living wage? I wish I had a job that paid $100 an hour. I work 5 hours a week. That's why I'm realizing that your job has to be something you really like doing. It takes up too much time to be something that "just makes money." I hate giving up things I like. I had to narrow down my interests after college and I think I'm going to have to do it again. Blah. Maybe I'll just stop sleeping. I'll let you know how long that lasts. I wish I wasn't so ambitious to learn new things. It'd be nice if I was content to work full time and watch TV on my off hours but that's not me.

Hmm. It felt good to finally complain about this. I guess I'm looking for some feedback. Do you feel the same? Am I being spoiled and selfish? Any advice?

Thanks.

Hallelujah

2006-10-11T09:55:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it snowed today. It's too early to be this cold. I almost spun out on my way home from Brett's tonight crossing the Cliff Rd. bridge over 35E. The snow ices up on bridges faster since the ground doesn't keep it warm. The four cars in front of me started sliding around, my ABS breaks started thumping and the car behind me did a 180. Luckily no one bumped into anyone.

I headed down 35E and there was a not so lucky pile up on the bridge over CR-11. I couldn't see what happened but the police blocked off the freeway and there were ambulances. Everyone had to take the exit ramp which was fine by me, I wasn't in the mood to go fast anymore.
My new rout took me right past my Grandma's old house. She passed away almost three years ago now. Her house is only two miles from my apartment and I drive by her turn all the time but tonight I went down her road and rolled by her house. The new people have a humming bird feeder on the front window and had taken the trash out for tomorrow. I would have stopped by in the morning to bring in the garbage cans for my Grandma if she was still there.
I was listening to a Jars of Clay CD and when I drove by I was listening to the end of "The Valley Song" which repeats Hallelujah over and over with some pretty amazing harmonies. I love the word hallelujah. It's actually two Hebrew words Hallelu and Jah. Hallelu means praise and Jah is short of Yahweh which is as close to a name for God as the Hebrews come. I don't think there's a word in any language that exudes more joy than Hallelujah.

I decided to listen to the whole song over to see what it's about. I was blown away. I don't think I've ever heard a more appropriate song for a situation than "The Valley Song" was for mine. It was so disarming. As much as I don't understand God, and philosophy, and how Christians can act, this moment was a prefect reminder that above all God is love, is real, has been there, and is here right now.

The walk to my front door wasn't bad at all. I can't believe I thought it was cold out today.
Here are the lyrics to "The Valley Song" if you're curious:

You have led me to the sadness
I have carried this pain
on a back bruised, nearly broken
I'm crying out to You

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

when death, like a gypsy
comes to steal what i love
I will still look to the heavens
I will still seek your face
but I fear You aren't listening
because there are no words
just the stillness
and the hungerfor a faith that assures

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

hallelujah, hallelujah
hallelujah, hallelujah

while we wait for rescue
with our eyes tightly shu
tface to the ground using our hands
to cover the fatal cut
though the pain is an ocean
tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
higher mountains have come down

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy
I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

hallelujah, hallelujah
hallelujah, hallelujah

looks like I just hacked the internet

2006-09-22T10:02:00.000-05:00

Warning: techie, nerdy blog ahead:

Ok, all politics aside I want to comment on this week's "security breach" of the Mark Kennedy (running for MN senate) website. The story goes, a 24 year old (just like me!) watched the most recent Mark Kennedy political ad and decided to do some research on the ad company. He went to the ad agency's website (http://www.scott-howell.com/ - not mark kennedy's) he clicked on the "Net View" link to look at political ads. The next page asks for a password, on his 18th try (according to scott-howell.com - the 24-year-old doesn't say if it took more than one try) he found one that worked, viewed an unreleased Mark Kennedy ad and shot a link to the communications director of Amy Klobuchar. The communications director watched the ad and wanted others at the campaign to watch. Amy Klobuchar found out about it, didn't watch the video, fired the communications director, told the 24-year not to send things like this, and notified the FBI of possible fraud.

Here's the sticky issue with the security breach, the ad he watched was accessible on the net even without the password he typed in. Every webpage, mp3, picture, flash game, video, etc. is a file saved somewhere on the internet. There are two ways to get to these files, 1) follow links or 2) type in the web address of the file. For example, Judging Ronald has pictures of us playing on our website. There's a picture called JR1.jpg. The way you would get to this is by going to www.judgingronald.com clicking on the pictures link, clicking on the New Years 06 link and viewing the images. When you look at this picture you're really looking at a file called JR1.jpg. It on our webserver http://www.judgingronald.com/ in a folder called slides which is in a folder called photos, which is in a folder called images. Think of it like your computer. Instead of C:..images..JR1.jpg it's saved at ..images..Photos..NewYears..slides..JR1.jpg. If you know where the picture is saved you can just go to http://www.judgingronald.com/images/Photos/NewYears/slides/JR1.jpg. Now imaging you're looking at our webpage and you see that there are 4 pictures called JR1.jpg, JR2.jpg, JR3.jpg, and JR4.jpg. Is there a JR5.jpg?? Well, not on the webpage, but there might be a JR5.jpg that's not linked to anything. You can type www.judgingronald.com/images/Photos/NewYears/slides/JR5.jpg. into your web browser and *zing* there it is! You just found a picture that's technically not shown anywhere on a webpage. Did you just breach our security?

The fact is most if not all web sites have many files on their server that don't have links anywhere. There's no way to search for these files so the security is just the hopes that people won't randomly type in file names on our website. This is basically the security the ad agency had. The unreleased video was accessible to anyone who knew or could guess the file name. But what about the password the 24-year old had to guess? That was just a different approach to get to the same file. The ad agency wanted some people to be able to easily find this file on their website, so instead of making people memorize the link to the video file, they make a link to page that asks for a password. If you get the password right it brings you to a webpage that has the video file. This way any joe schmoe on the internet has to know the exact path and file name to the video, know the password, or guess the password (which was the last name of one of the politicians). The problem is that's still crappy security.

I just thought of an analogy. It's like hiding treasure in the middle of nowhere Montana. The security is that it's really hard to find because Montana is big. Now imaging they also make a map of where the treasure is sitting but put the map in a safe. And the password is 1-2-3-4. If someone types 1-2-3-4 into the safe, looks at the map, and finds the treasure, did they really break security? Technically the treasure was just sitting in MT where anyone could have grabbed it. Someone just found a shortcut to finding the treasure, which was sitting in plain site (in the middle of nowhere) the whole time. Hmmm... it's a sticky one. How this could have been avoided. 1) USE GOOD SECURITY in the first place. You can make folders inaccessible to the public. On the Judging Ronald site I can make it so the folder "slides" which contains JR5.jpg is password protected. Note this is different from the ad companies password. They left the folder open to the internet but made it so you needed a password to find out the link. If you password protect the folder, anyone who types in the file name will be asked for a password. That means that even if someone knows the file name they still need a password. And of course this means if someone randomly types in file names they will be asked for a password. 2) Use good passwords. Don't use people's last names!! Come on. I honestly think the ad agency should be held responsible for their terrible security.Funny Extra:

I went to the Mark Kennedy website (markkennedy.com) which is now completely shut down with the following message:

We were informed last evening of a serious security breach of sensitive Kennedy campaign information by a senior member of Amy Klobuchar's campaign. Due to the fact this information was accessed via the internet, we are taking precautionary measures to protect our campaign information. We apologize for the inconvenience. The full features of our website will be restored once this matter has been resolved.

One page we are absolutely confident remains secure is our contribution page. You can access this page via a security enabled site by clicking here.

I almost peed my pants when I saw that the donations page was still up. The mark kennedy website wasn't even breached, it was the ad agency. Next funniest thing, I clicked on the donations page and I was taken to the following link: https://www.online-donation.com/kennedy/index_temp.asp. Notice the file name is index_temp.asp. Knowing that most webpages start with index.html or index.asp... I tried typing that in... index.asp. All I had to do was delete the "_temp" and hit enter. Where did this take me?? To the freaking web page that's supposed to have been taken down for security reasons. That's the worst security I've ever seen. Wow.

Sooo motivated for work today!

2006-09-21T10:07:00.000-05:00

You know how sometimes you wake up and no matter how much sleep you've had you're just dead tired? I think it has to do which part of the sleep cycle you're in when your alarm goes off, that's why I'm a fan of sleeping in till my body naturally wakes up. This morning I must have woken up at the PERFECT part of my cycle because I was just ready to go!

I woke up 20 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. I thought about going back to sleep for 20 min but I was just so awake I decided to get up. I figured I'd get ready and pick up a Chi Tea before work (which I've never done but seems like fun). I got ready, put on dress pants and a nice sweater which is a lot dressier than I'd usually dress for work but hey, I was feeling extra motivated today. I got in my car and still just couldn't believe how motivated I was today! "It's going to be a good day I," said to myself.

As I started to back my car out and head to Starbucks my pocket started to vibrate. I looked at my phone and it was my office calling. My cube mate doesn't have a car so I figured they wanted me to pick him up (I still would have got my tea first!). I pick up the phone and my co-worker says, "Do you have something going on this morning or something?"

"No... I'm actually... (I look at the clock in my car) ... crap, it's 8:45 isn't it? I thought I was 20 minutes early!"

Yep, I forgot to set my alarm last night and I woke up 40 minutes late, not 20 minutes early. I'm so used to JUST looking at the minute hand that I completely ignored the hour. No wonder I was so motivated, I slept for 9.5 hours!

Oh well, still a good start to the day!

summer's Over

2006-09-05T10:09:00.000-05:00

Ohhhhh, back to school, Back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool. I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight. Ohhhh, back to school! Back to school! Back to school!

Hmm, the day after labor day, does it feel to anyone else like it's time to go back to school? Ok, for you youngens it IS time to go back to school but for us real-worlders it's a weird time. I went to school every fall for 18 years (not counting pre-school because I don't know what time of year I went to that). I think going back to school is built into my biological calendar now. This is the second fall I haven't gone back to school and to tell you the truth it feels weird, like I'm forgetting to do something. I miss all the excitement and energy of the first week of class, seeing the friends you hadn't seen all summer, and meeting new ones.

I'm still getting use to the monotony post-college life. Nothing changes. Well, ok, some things change but it's more like a fine tuning than an uprooting. I got used to college where every four months you live in a different place and take new courses with different classmates and different teachers; classes are 50 minutes, then you get a break before you go and learn about something different for 50 minutes; you stay up as late as you want and if you stay up too late you just don't go to class the next morning, knowing that the only consequence is a slitly lower grade (or not) which you find out after college was arbitrary and made no difference.

It's strange working with older people now. I figured out that there's some point in your life when you stop staying out late (in fact you can't physically stay awake past 10:30), stop hanging out with friends, and just start going to work where you quitely do as little as possible. That sounds like no fun. That's probably why I still stay out too late and ever say no to socializing. I feel like moving or getting a new job, or moving abroad just for the change of pace. I think I just need to figure out what I really like to do. It's that same question that haunts you in college "what do I want to do with my life?" after college the question turns into, "It this really what I want to do with my life?" Ironlically I'm good at business and know how to succeed. I'm confident I could work my way up in a big company, be a big deal and make a lot of money. The problem is I don't want to go through the means to the end (working looong hours and making it my life) and I'm pretty sure I don't even want to end. So with no motivation I put in my 8 to 5 and work hard enough to earn my free time. That's no way to spend 40 hours a week.
Welcome to my first depressing blog. I thought about just closing my browser and losing everything I wrote but I figured I'd be true to my blog and post whatever's on my mind. Welcome to my quarter life crisis :) On the plus side I have great friends and love what I do outside of work. Here's a question, does anyone feel this way about their job? Hmm, I know I can't keep doing this so I either need to rekindle my passion for my current job or figure out what I like better. Wish me luck ;)

I don't know how I got on these topics, I started by thinking about going back to school and I ended up complaining about work. One other exciting fact: I think I'm learning more on a weekly basis than I did in college. Maybe I should qualify that by saying I'm learning more relevant and useful things on a weekly basis that I did in college! Wikipedia for the win.

The biggest controversy EVER

2006-08-26T10:12:00.000-05:00

Warning: Don't read this if you're from the south, from Wisconsin, Mormon, or easily offended in general.

Soft drinks. Sure they cause diabetes, make you morbidly obese, lazy, unattractive, smelly, shrink your special parts (yellow #5), make kids fat, and if you go diet they cause cancer; BUT it tastes so good and keeps you awake. The crazy thing is that this ISN'T the controversy. The controversy is: What do we call this stuff?

Pop

Soda

Coke

Soda-pop

Dope (apparently old people in the south call it dope. Hmm)

Some may say, "Who cares mike, call it what you like." Hogwash. That was ignorant, who just said that?! Post-modern relativity is not the answer. There's right and wrong, true and false. We can't all be right and you can't call pop whatever you want. I'm not alone in this thinking either. America has put up fiercely defended social borders on this ideology. Eau Claire Wisconsin is one of those places where the borders collide. On one hand you had the intelligent Minnesotans who came to Wisconsin for the cheap reciprocitied university who call pop pop. On the other hand you had the WI natives who walked into the metropolis of Eau Claire from the stables to get "more learned." They eat their cheese, watch their fireworks, drink their beer, celebrate that one win the packers had last year (couldn't have happened with out them since theyre all part owners of the team due to taxes) and drink their SODA. Did I mention they also call drinking fountains "bubblers" and ATMs "TIME MACHINES"? Those two terms alone cause a default win for those fighting to call pop POP. I found a map that shows what every county in the US calls pop, here's the map:

Click here for the full size

We can draw several conclusions from this map:

1) Southerners are idiots. It absolutely blows my mind that the same people who have a huge influence in voting are the same people that can have a conversation like: "Hmm, I'm thirsty, I think I'll have a coke" "What kind of coke ya'll want?" "Diet Pepsi"

2) If you're intensely liberal you call it soda. California, New England, Miami, Hawaii. I guess you can conclude that Soda is the immoral way of saying pop and calling it Coke is a family value.

3) Mormons call it Soda. The first promise land was St. Louis (the blotch of yellow in the middle of the US) but they got the boot from St. Louis and had to find a new promise land - Salt Lake City (the yellow county in north central UT) If you don't know where Utah is, go get me a coke.

4) Nevada, Virginia, and N. Carolina don't know what they're doing or how they got there.

5) There's a war brewing. I hate to be a war-mongerer but it's inevitable. The south is coming back from the slumber of its temporary retreat in the ongoing civil war. You can see how they've invading the Carolinas and are trying to surround the St. Louis soda-speakers from the east and north. This should be an interesting fight. St. Louis will clearly fall first after making the same mistake as the Nazis and spreading itself too thing. After that there could be a little stalemate. The Soda-speakers are smaller but can easily defend their boarders from the ocean and mountains. The Pop-callers are the largest and smartest but the southerners have all the vigor to reestablish slavery and Coke-saying. We'll have to see how this pans out.

Well, time to go home from work. Gosh I'm in a weird mood. Sorry.