Greetings, all of you, on this fine Earth Day. Not only is today significant in terms of saving the planet, but it also happens to be a Wednesday, a.k.a. Hump Day. Put those together and you get Hump Earth Day.
While that revelation is certainly worth a gratuitous blog post in and of itself, I wanted to bring glad tidings of renaming my blog (the whole "make-the-title-so-long-that-you-fall-asleep-reading-it" bit had run its course) and adding a cool photo header! (I feel so 21st century!) Kathryn and I snapped some cool pictures in Corpus Christi last weekend, ultimately inspiring the makeover. (Our new digital camera is so cool!) So "JoeZone" is back and as cool as ever, just like these guys.
Anyways, you've got things to do, and I've got a t-shirt to bleach before 12:01 am tomorrow morning, so I'll blog atcha later.
Showing posts with label I did this because of peer pressure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I did this because of peer pressure. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Friday, September 26, 2008
In response...
I made a deal with my friend Cory that if he got back on his blogging-horse, that I would post a response to whatever he wrote about. Here are some of his thoughts on the financial bailout. And following are some of mine.
Honestly, though, before I start, I have to say that he could have picked a better topic (better for me, I mean). Economics, along with math, government, and science, is something I last studied in high school. Meaning I'll probably make quite the arse of myself trying to sound educated about all of this. So bear with me. Better yet, you'll enjoy this post all the more if you go ahead and agree with me that education itself is overrated; at least, my $120,000+ undergraduate liberal arts degree certainly was. ;) Well, at least I'm qualified to give my two cents as it concerns bad investments. (Although, I probably should be throwing every pair of pennies I've got towards paying off those student loans...)
One of my biggest hopes in this whole financial crisis is that, having some of our flaws exposed in our national culture, we might be more open to fundamental change in the way we understand our way of life.
Consumerism blinds us to the larger realities of life. Instead of thinking about my neighbors or a kingdom that brings true peace, I'm concerned about my daily ration of premium coffee or whether the flooring I bought for my house is going to crack or warp because I should have paid someone to level the house from the outset.
Capitalism promotes a free market where we're free to jostle and step all over each other (it's called competition and it's great because it lowers the price and increases the quality of that premium coffee) in our rush to be the vendor of choice for all those consumers out there with their heads in their wallets (or the headphones of their iPods, ignoring all the people passing within a few feet of them).
Lest I be a hypocrite in my criticism, I want to be clear that I certainly share the blame in a culture that values people based on their knowledge of and attention to machines and materials over and above that of people (by and large, anyways). I'm caught in the cycle of buying and selling, too. I'm often more likely to be concerned with what a person's job is than what their relationships are like. I've spent a disproportionate amount of time in the past several months obsessing over an orderly (quasi-) assemblage of wood, paint, nails and electrical wires than I have showing consistent concern for the people in my life.
How much of that is going to matter when everything that's now broken encounters the Great Fix? When I get to that point, which of my "investments" will truly pay off? (Isn't it wonderful that we sometimes use financial language to refer to "spending" time and attention and energy and empathy on people? Even the word "spend" there - wow, it's just really hard to say anything in English if you want to truly affirm the "value" of humanity and not "diminish" it. Oh well, I tried.)
I doubt that we'll stop building on shifting sand. But perhaps our days of building skyscrapers on top of skyscrapers there are nearing an end (which is how I envision the whole enterprise of investments stacked upon investments in risky mortgages, which are basically ways of getting things now that we just can't live without, even though we really can't afford it, nudging us to make assumptions against the future about what our lives and financial situations will be like down the road, as if we could predict or guarantee that somehow - hey, I've got a mortgage, too... it's tough). Perhaps. It's hard to tell. Let's not wait around and see before we start seeking a better vision of building whatses (and whoses, especially) that will last.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Recent highs and lows of life (rescued from the draft pile...)
(QUICK EDITOR'S NOTE: I INTENDED TO PUBLISH THIS POST WEEKS AGO, ACTUALLY JUST A DAY SHY OF A FORTNIGHT SHY OF A MONTH AGO, TO BE KIND OF EXACT. THAT'S BECAUSE THERE ARE PICTURES I WAS HOPING TO INCLUDE, BUT WHICH I HAVE NO WAY OF GETTING OFF OF MY PHONE. SO MAYBE LATER I'LL FIND A WAY TO GET THE PICTURES ON HERE. OKAY, I'LL STOP CAPS-SHOUTING AT YOU NOW SO YOU CAN READ THE POST...)
Pre(r)amble
Well, it occurs to me that there are basically two ways to start any blog post, assuming that you're me (other than with the word "Well," which is always a good choice). It's either going to be, "Life has been crazy lately," or "Life has been boring lately" - and everyone knows, of course, that there never is an in-between option. So, without further mucking about in hyperspace...
Life has been crazy lately. I'd like to share with you, in somewhat random order, some snippets from recent Joe-history. When they finally make a movie of my life, this will be the part where you think you can get up and go get a refill on your popcorn without missing too much. But then when you get back and whisper to your movie neighbor, "What did I miss?", there's no possible way they could catch you up to speed without missing something themselves. So you'll just have to read on for now.
160/50
On a recent camping trip I took with some guys (including him and him and another, non-blogging guy) to Inks Lake State Park, we explored a swimming location called Devil's Waterhole. I think I know why it was so named. Like a casino, the place draws you in and gives you that kind of reckless confidence that nudges you towards making internal statements like, "I bet I could do more. Why the hell not?" (Such things are quite likely to be said at locations named for the devil.) Only, here it wasn't about spending money you don't have (or soon won't), but about jumping off of cliffs and rocks and risking the physical health that you soon may not have. It was awesome. In retrospect, of course.
The first challenge was about a 20-foot cliff. I don't know if you have much of a sense of distance when you hear numbers like that, but 20 feet is a long way up. Consider that, in the normal course of your life, you are not often likely to jump off of walls that are taller than your own height, or even perhaps twice that. Well, this was in the neighborhood of three Yao Ming's high. The worst part about it all was how slippery the rocks were climbing up to this height. My non-blogging friend who went has been to other places in Austin for cliff jumping that he says are much safer, and where the bottom is deeper closer to the cliffs. Here you had to be sure to jump out far enough, or else you're hitting part of the rock formation closer to the cliff. Anyways, the place is fairly crowded, and kids probably less than a quarter of my age are jumping off this thing like there is a bed of puffy marshmallows below, so I couldn't make too much of an ordeal out of my first jump. So I jumped. A little while later I did it again, if for no other reason than I found myself trying to talk me out of jumping again. At times like this I just have to "man up" and silence my inner chicken.
Okay, now for the numbers. As you'll notice in the picture (that is, if I can ever get it transferred from my phone - anyone want to loan me a laptop bluetooth adapter?), one rock is significantly higher than the cliff I first jumped from. We estimated this at about 50 feet. Ay ay ay. (sp?) Two of the guys on the trip decided they were going to jump the tall rock, since we'd seen some other people doing it and not dying or exploding or anything. So they go up and jump. Great. Here comes the inner chicken again, clucking something about how I'd already proved enough manhood for one day. Stupid chicken. Yes, eventually I make my way over the rock. I start climbing. Right before I get to the top, there it is - BAM! That's the sound of my pulse kicking into high gear. I stop to check it. It's at about 160 beats/minute. FYI, btw - I rarely get up this high when I'm jogging. I step up to the top of the rock. Did the wind just pick up? I swear it did. I look down at my legs. They're shaking uncontrollably. I realize that the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to jump, and also the higher the possibility that I will lose my balance and blaze a new trail down towards the water. So I jumped. About a week or two later, I hit the water. As I come up, I punch both arms into the air for the whole "did that guy just win a teenage karate tournament?" effect. And then I swim gurgling and sputtering to a place where I can sit down and bask.
Joe, the (sheet)Rocker
I've also been working with a very different kind of rock at our new house. Sheet rock. I'd make some kind of official pronouncement that now I am officially handy, but in the current place we live, I've also fixed a leaky washer drain, so this is simply a status that I am renewing, not recently acquiring. Honestly, there's really not a lot to say about this, other than that I really don't enjoy screwing it in. Or cutting it. Or hanging it. Or squatting to get the really low-to-the-floor screws. I think that about covers it.
I think it's an ungrounded myth that guys like power tools. I would offer that, more accurately, guys like power in whatever form they can find it. Kind of like women with chocolate. But power tools are really just a way to do more damage, faster. Noisier. And I'm not just talking about the swearing that follows the router's excursion away from the straight line. Neither am I excluding it.
No use crying over spilled coffee; no use throwing a trash can over it, either
While I'm on the topic of angst, it would be interesting to note that recently, on a frustrating morning of dealing with a handful of housing "decisions" (in quotes because they're really little stinkbombs disguised as situations that people have to deal with), I thought I'd pick up some Chick-Fil-A breakfast on my way home to pick something up before heading to the office. I arrived at home after smelling dark coffee and various forms of heated lipids wafting through the car's recirculating system, ready to chow down. As I'm adding the finishing touches to my coffee and preparing to replace the lid, one of my fingers (investigation still pending) knocks over the cup. Spilling every ounce of the coffee. Onto the table, chair, and floor. Did I mention that this morning had already been frustrating? Swearing ensued. (Some of you may be of the opinion that such action is of minimal benefit to anyone. I would disagree. In my opinion, this blog would be much less interesting if the story continued with, "and I thought to myself calmly and rationally, Self, you know, this really isn't such a bad situation at all - take inventory of how blessed you are and you'll see that this is no big deal.") I think I strung some words together that made very little sense being together, semantically speaking. I went and got a towel to mop up the mess, placing it on the floor. Feeling as though the situation was reaching a resolution too quickly, I promptly picked up our kitchen trash can and sighted in the perfect spot on the wall where I should heave it. "Yes, that's just the spot. Too far left and this might not work at all." Thankfully, at this point my hippocampus stepped in and told my amygdala that it would handle things from here.
The moral of the story? Sometimes being calm and rational will save you from having to clean up extra mess. But not being so makes for good story.
Ten things I hate about summer
1. THE HEAT.
I have an uncle who moved his family to Washington state several years ago (maybe some time while I was in college). What I heard was the reasoning at the time was perhaps he did it to help his allergies. I can't say that I don't find that kind of thing extremely appealing. I don't know whether he really moved for that reason (in a recent-esque conversation with a cousin of mine, I asked about why he had moved, and I received a rather dramatic response about how they just wanted to get away from family), but finding a climate more conducive to not sweating and sneezing sounds really good to me (I realize that there would likely be tradeoffs, but who doesn't want to live in a place where there's a drive-thru coffee shop every few hundred feet?).
2. THE ROACHES.
Seeing as the Brazos Valley only recently seems to be getting some rain after more or less months of little to no rain, perhaps only recently have the roaches been driven out of hiding on a larger scale. Bad grief, they've been crazy at our new house. I had actually forgotten how big they could get (our current property owner does a decent job of keeping the pest service coming, it seems). Silly me. Oh, and did you know that at that size, they make noise on hardwood floors and concrete (in the garage)? Sooooo creepy. Give me a 50-foot cliff I can 'man up' on (over an army of roaches) any day. But hey - roaches - don't take me for soft. Those of you I haven't already decimated, your time is coming. And you'd better beg for the spray if I have a broom within reach.
3. SWEATING.
Really, this one is pretty much a corollary of no. 1. But I didn't think it should go without mention. I'm pretty sure that, whatever my particular mix of Scottish and English and Polish (and someone told me there may be some Cherokee in there somewhere, I think), it wasn't intended for a climate like Texas. I'd go into details as to why I make this claim, but I am at least aware of this much, that certain things do not make for good blog storying.
4. THE WAY THAT THE AFOREMENTIONED THINGS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO KEEP ACCURATE COUNTS OF THINGS, AND THINK CLEARLY IN GENERAL.
So I don't have ten things, but I do have a theory about summer. (Also winter.) Fall and Spring are my favorite times of year, being the seasons that the weather in Texas is most bearable and allows for that feeling that things are either cooling off or thawing out. It's those in-between times when the long hauls of sweating and shivering begin to fade from memory as they are eclipsed by times of refreshing, when you can walk outside and for a short time, breathe cool air and enjoy that kind of feeling that you want to make last as long as you can. I think of Fall and Spring more of transition periods. Obviously, Summer and Winter transition as well, but they feel less so since they lie in between the pendulum swings. Every second gets counted when pressure is applied. But who stares at their watch in those moments when you can simply be at ease? I think it's those moments that are like little peeks at the Kingdom. Brief glimpses of something that may not last very long now, but one day we won't have to settle for inevitable disappointment. One day, disappointment will be absolutely evitable. Come, Lord Jesus.
Reunions galore
Actually, this post is incredibly long already! I can tell by the fact that my own attention span is being stretched into some kind of funky yoga position. So this is a little taste of what I'll hopefully be posting soon. Tune in next time to hear a little about Kathryn's family reunion and my own 10-year high school reunion, both of which happened in the span of two weekends. There'll be laughs, wittiness, tangents, and of course, me taking every possible opportunity to magnify any of the stories which highlight my manliness. I can't wait, and neither can you! Blog atcha soon!
Pre(r)amble
Well, it occurs to me that there are basically two ways to start any blog post, assuming that you're me (other than with the word "Well," which is always a good choice). It's either going to be, "Life has been crazy lately," or "Life has been boring lately" - and everyone knows, of course, that there never is an in-between option. So, without further mucking about in hyperspace...
Life has been crazy lately. I'd like to share with you, in somewhat random order, some snippets from recent Joe-history. When they finally make a movie of my life, this will be the part where you think you can get up and go get a refill on your popcorn without missing too much. But then when you get back and whisper to your movie neighbor, "What did I miss?", there's no possible way they could catch you up to speed without missing something themselves. So you'll just have to read on for now.
160/50
On a recent camping trip I took with some guys (including him and him and another, non-blogging guy) to Inks Lake State Park, we explored a swimming location called Devil's Waterhole. I think I know why it was so named. Like a casino, the place draws you in and gives you that kind of reckless confidence that nudges you towards making internal statements like, "I bet I could do more. Why the hell not?" (Such things are quite likely to be said at locations named for the devil.) Only, here it wasn't about spending money you don't have (or soon won't), but about jumping off of cliffs and rocks and risking the physical health that you soon may not have. It was awesome. In retrospect, of course.
The first challenge was about a 20-foot cliff. I don't know if you have much of a sense of distance when you hear numbers like that, but 20 feet is a long way up. Consider that, in the normal course of your life, you are not often likely to jump off of walls that are taller than your own height, or even perhaps twice that. Well, this was in the neighborhood of three Yao Ming's high. The worst part about it all was how slippery the rocks were climbing up to this height. My non-blogging friend who went has been to other places in Austin for cliff jumping that he says are much safer, and where the bottom is deeper closer to the cliffs. Here you had to be sure to jump out far enough, or else you're hitting part of the rock formation closer to the cliff. Anyways, the place is fairly crowded, and kids probably less than a quarter of my age are jumping off this thing like there is a bed of puffy marshmallows below, so I couldn't make too much of an ordeal out of my first jump. So I jumped. A little while later I did it again, if for no other reason than I found myself trying to talk me out of jumping again. At times like this I just have to "man up" and silence my inner chicken.
Okay, now for the numbers. As you'll notice in the picture (that is, if I can ever get it transferred from my phone - anyone want to loan me a laptop bluetooth adapter?), one rock is significantly higher than the cliff I first jumped from. We estimated this at about 50 feet. Ay ay ay. (sp?) Two of the guys on the trip decided they were going to jump the tall rock, since we'd seen some other people doing it and not dying or exploding or anything. So they go up and jump. Great. Here comes the inner chicken again, clucking something about how I'd already proved enough manhood for one day. Stupid chicken. Yes, eventually I make my way over the rock. I start climbing. Right before I get to the top, there it is - BAM! That's the sound of my pulse kicking into high gear. I stop to check it. It's at about 160 beats/minute. FYI, btw - I rarely get up this high when I'm jogging. I step up to the top of the rock. Did the wind just pick up? I swear it did. I look down at my legs. They're shaking uncontrollably. I realize that the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to jump, and also the higher the possibility that I will lose my balance and blaze a new trail down towards the water. So I jumped. About a week or two later, I hit the water. As I come up, I punch both arms into the air for the whole "did that guy just win a teenage karate tournament?" effect. And then I swim gurgling and sputtering to a place where I can sit down and bask.
Joe, the (sheet)Rocker
I've also been working with a very different kind of rock at our new house. Sheet rock. I'd make some kind of official pronouncement that now I am officially handy, but in the current place we live, I've also fixed a leaky washer drain, so this is simply a status that I am renewing, not recently acquiring. Honestly, there's really not a lot to say about this, other than that I really don't enjoy screwing it in. Or cutting it. Or hanging it. Or squatting to get the really low-to-the-floor screws. I think that about covers it.
I think it's an ungrounded myth that guys like power tools. I would offer that, more accurately, guys like power in whatever form they can find it. Kind of like women with chocolate. But power tools are really just a way to do more damage, faster. Noisier. And I'm not just talking about the swearing that follows the router's excursion away from the straight line. Neither am I excluding it.
No use crying over spilled coffee; no use throwing a trash can over it, either
While I'm on the topic of angst, it would be interesting to note that recently, on a frustrating morning of dealing with a handful of housing "decisions" (in quotes because they're really little stinkbombs disguised as situations that people have to deal with), I thought I'd pick up some Chick-Fil-A breakfast on my way home to pick something up before heading to the office. I arrived at home after smelling dark coffee and various forms of heated lipids wafting through the car's recirculating system, ready to chow down. As I'm adding the finishing touches to my coffee and preparing to replace the lid, one of my fingers (investigation still pending) knocks over the cup. Spilling every ounce of the coffee. Onto the table, chair, and floor. Did I mention that this morning had already been frustrating? Swearing ensued. (Some of you may be of the opinion that such action is of minimal benefit to anyone. I would disagree. In my opinion, this blog would be much less interesting if the story continued with, "and I thought to myself calmly and rationally, Self, you know, this really isn't such a bad situation at all - take inventory of how blessed you are and you'll see that this is no big deal.") I think I strung some words together that made very little sense being together, semantically speaking. I went and got a towel to mop up the mess, placing it on the floor. Feeling as though the situation was reaching a resolution too quickly, I promptly picked up our kitchen trash can and sighted in the perfect spot on the wall where I should heave it. "Yes, that's just the spot. Too far left and this might not work at all." Thankfully, at this point my hippocampus stepped in and told my amygdala that it would handle things from here.
The moral of the story? Sometimes being calm and rational will save you from having to clean up extra mess. But not being so makes for good story.
Ten things I hate about summer
1. THE HEAT.
I have an uncle who moved his family to Washington state several years ago (maybe some time while I was in college). What I heard was the reasoning at the time was perhaps he did it to help his allergies. I can't say that I don't find that kind of thing extremely appealing. I don't know whether he really moved for that reason (in a recent-esque conversation with a cousin of mine, I asked about why he had moved, and I received a rather dramatic response about how they just wanted to get away from family), but finding a climate more conducive to not sweating and sneezing sounds really good to me (I realize that there would likely be tradeoffs, but who doesn't want to live in a place where there's a drive-thru coffee shop every few hundred feet?).
2. THE ROACHES.
Seeing as the Brazos Valley only recently seems to be getting some rain after more or less months of little to no rain, perhaps only recently have the roaches been driven out of hiding on a larger scale. Bad grief, they've been crazy at our new house. I had actually forgotten how big they could get (our current property owner does a decent job of keeping the pest service coming, it seems). Silly me. Oh, and did you know that at that size, they make noise on hardwood floors and concrete (in the garage)? Sooooo creepy. Give me a 50-foot cliff I can 'man up' on (over an army of roaches) any day. But hey - roaches - don't take me for soft. Those of you I haven't already decimated, your time is coming. And you'd better beg for the spray if I have a broom within reach.
3. SWEATING.
Really, this one is pretty much a corollary of no. 1. But I didn't think it should go without mention. I'm pretty sure that, whatever my particular mix of Scottish and English and Polish (and someone told me there may be some Cherokee in there somewhere, I think), it wasn't intended for a climate like Texas. I'd go into details as to why I make this claim, but I am at least aware of this much, that certain things do not make for good blog storying.
4. THE WAY THAT THE AFOREMENTIONED THINGS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO KEEP ACCURATE COUNTS OF THINGS, AND THINK CLEARLY IN GENERAL.
So I don't have ten things, but I do have a theory about summer. (Also winter.) Fall and Spring are my favorite times of year, being the seasons that the weather in Texas is most bearable and allows for that feeling that things are either cooling off or thawing out. It's those in-between times when the long hauls of sweating and shivering begin to fade from memory as they are eclipsed by times of refreshing, when you can walk outside and for a short time, breathe cool air and enjoy that kind of feeling that you want to make last as long as you can. I think of Fall and Spring more of transition periods. Obviously, Summer and Winter transition as well, but they feel less so since they lie in between the pendulum swings. Every second gets counted when pressure is applied. But who stares at their watch in those moments when you can simply be at ease? I think it's those moments that are like little peeks at the Kingdom. Brief glimpses of something that may not last very long now, but one day we won't have to settle for inevitable disappointment. One day, disappointment will be absolutely evitable. Come, Lord Jesus.
Reunions galore
Actually, this post is incredibly long already! I can tell by the fact that my own attention span is being stretched into some kind of funky yoga position. So this is a little taste of what I'll hopefully be posting soon. Tune in next time to hear a little about Kathryn's family reunion and my own 10-year high school reunion, both of which happened in the span of two weekends. There'll be laughs, wittiness, tangents, and of course, me taking every possible opportunity to magnify any of the stories which highlight my manliness. I can't wait, and neither can you! Blog atcha soon!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Fives Are Wild
My friend Ross tagged me and seemed to think I might respond to this. Heck, yeah! I'm totally in my element when I'm doing things that many people find awkward or beneath them. (I've got blue face paint and I'm not afraid to use it.) Besides, having been tagged by a rock star/teen idol, how could I resist the chance to take a shot at, as he puts it, "revealing how insecure I am"?
Here goes everything.
Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to post THE RULES:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.
What were you doing 5 years ago?
Let's see, what was I doing 5 years ago today? (As we all learned in junior high essay tests, it really helps your answers look a lot more solid when you first restate the question before totally B.S.ing the "meat" of your answer.) I know one thing was just starting to breathe again as my wife finished the first of her three final years of school at A&M (after the year off she took to join me in California, which followed her first two years at A&M), and thinking how long the next two years would be until we could get the hay out of College Station. The better question here is, what are you doing today, five years after that time five years ago? The answer then becomes: Watch, and Learn.
What are 5 things on your to-do list today
(NOTE: I started this Saturday. I'm finishing this Monday, but I'm leaving the to-do list intact. Saturday's was much more interesting than today's.)
1. Wake up - check. (Starting the day out slowly and with attainable goals allows for greater momentum going into loftier and more blog-worthy goals.)
2. Help make coffee and quiche for the in-laws in town - check. (Pretty sweet deal, huh? I'm available for private parties, and also I'm a lot of fun on karaoke.)
3. Go look at potential houses - check. (We sort of are and aren't looking at this point in time - today was more of an "are" day than one of the "aren't"s.)
4. Help a friend from our ComGroup move to a new apartment - check. (Get really sweaty while carrying the things that people have to have in all rooms of their house and actually use on a daily basis - also check.)
5. See the new Indiana Jones movie - unchecked at this point in time. But the tickets have been purchased.
What are 5 snacks you enjoy?
1. Tortilla chips with dip
2. Fritos with dip
3. Potato chips with dip
4. Bagel chips with dip
5. Paint chips (plain)
What 5 things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Pay off the national debt.
2. Go back to school and take a class in economics.
3. Pay off my own debt.
4. Pay off my friends' and families' debts and probably the debts of a bunch of other people who came up to me and played the sympathy card (I'm such a sucker for these types of people, it's sickening).
5. Go to random stores, on occasion, and say with glee in a loud voice, "I'll have one of everything."
6. Give gobs of money to my church and other Kingdom-minded causes (in a much less showy way). And I'm not just saying that because this guy and this guy said it first.
What are 5 of your bad habits?
1. Loving shock-value attention
2. Eating way too many chips
3. Wow, five is a lot of bad habits to have to list
4. I kind of feel like that first one was worth at least two or three because it was so honest and motive-baring, but okay - I'll list one more:
5. Suddenly quitting a game because I want to, even if other people are still playing (if you've ever played mini-golf or Guesstures with me, you'll know what I'm talking about).
What are 5 places you have lived?
1. Crappy house in Pasadena, TX (a.k.a. Stinkadena)
2. Nicer house in Pasadena, TX (this location smelled a little better)
3. Malibu, CA (if you haven't heard my celebrity stories, I've got a few good ones I can tell sometime)
4. Agoura Hills, CA (through "the Canyon" - this is where Kathryn and I had our first apartment! 500 sq. ft., $670/mo.)
5. Bryan/College Station, TX (hullabaloo connect the dots)
What are 5 jobs you've had? (These will appear in chronological order)
1. Grocery sacker (I was pretty spickin' good at keeping cold items together and totally dominating the canned vegetables, back in the day)
2. Lifeguard (I wasn't actually very good at this)
3. Chick-Fil-A customer satisfaction artist (actually, I don't know what my official job title was, and I only worked there a month because my parents wanted me to focus more on school, but this was a pretty sweet job because you could eat the "employee meals" for $1, which basically consisted of as many of those nuggets and fries as you could fit on a plate)
4. General student worker (I paid my dues for all four years of college...)
5. Various office jobs/Research Assistant (something about wondering whether people noticed that I'd already paid those dues in college - but somehow you continue to pay them long after. I have to be pretty vague here because I'm actually the first name that comes up when I google myself, and most of my current co-workers are either web-savvy or outright techie. Actually, the job I'm at right now is pretty sweet, so it's not like I have a lot to vent about out here in Cyber-topia.)
What 5 people do you want to tag?
1. My wife (seeing as she's working on one of these posts but hasn't published it yet, I'd say this timing works out well; hers will be quite a formidable post, seeing as she's hilarious in her own right, but I can almost bet money on my post being way longer, so I'm not too worried)
2. Thad (he can't ignore the impatient crowds forever)
3. Danny (seeing as he's recently gotten back into blogging, I thought I'd be nice and send all my incredible scores of web-traffic his way)
4. Britt (who is currently suffering from major blog-frost)
5. Cory (another blog-frosty, but ought to be able to craft something hecka interesting)
Here goes everything.
Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to post THE RULES:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.
What were you doing 5 years ago?
Let's see, what was I doing 5 years ago today? (As we all learned in junior high essay tests, it really helps your answers look a lot more solid when you first restate the question before totally B.S.ing the "meat" of your answer.) I know one thing was just starting to breathe again as my wife finished the first of her three final years of school at A&M (after the year off she took to join me in California, which followed her first two years at A&M), and thinking how long the next two years would be until we could get the hay out of College Station. The better question here is, what are you doing today, five years after that time five years ago? The answer then becomes: Watch, and Learn.
What are 5 things on your to-do list today
(NOTE: I started this Saturday. I'm finishing this Monday, but I'm leaving the to-do list intact. Saturday's was much more interesting than today's.)
1. Wake up - check. (Starting the day out slowly and with attainable goals allows for greater momentum going into loftier and more blog-worthy goals.)
2. Help make coffee and quiche for the in-laws in town - check. (Pretty sweet deal, huh? I'm available for private parties, and also I'm a lot of fun on karaoke.)
3. Go look at potential houses - check. (We sort of are and aren't looking at this point in time - today was more of an "are" day than one of the "aren't"s.)
4. Help a friend from our ComGroup move to a new apartment - check. (Get really sweaty while carrying the things that people have to have in all rooms of their house and actually use on a daily basis - also check.)
5. See the new Indiana Jones movie - unchecked at this point in time. But the tickets have been purchased.
What are 5 snacks you enjoy?
1. Tortilla chips with dip
2. Fritos with dip
3. Potato chips with dip
4. Bagel chips with dip
5. Paint chips (plain)
What 5 things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Pay off the national debt.
2. Go back to school and take a class in economics.
3. Pay off my own debt.
4. Pay off my friends' and families' debts and probably the debts of a bunch of other people who came up to me and played the sympathy card (I'm such a sucker for these types of people, it's sickening).
5. Go to random stores, on occasion, and say with glee in a loud voice, "I'll have one of everything."
6. Give gobs of money to my church and other Kingdom-minded causes (in a much less showy way). And I'm not just saying that because this guy and this guy said it first.
What are 5 of your bad habits?
1. Loving shock-value attention
2. Eating way too many chips
3. Wow, five is a lot of bad habits to have to list
4. I kind of feel like that first one was worth at least two or three because it was so honest and motive-baring, but okay - I'll list one more:
5. Suddenly quitting a game because I want to, even if other people are still playing (if you've ever played mini-golf or Guesstures with me, you'll know what I'm talking about).
What are 5 places you have lived?
1. Crappy house in Pasadena, TX (a.k.a. Stinkadena)
2. Nicer house in Pasadena, TX (this location smelled a little better)
3. Malibu, CA (if you haven't heard my celebrity stories, I've got a few good ones I can tell sometime)
4. Agoura Hills, CA (through "the Canyon" - this is where Kathryn and I had our first apartment! 500 sq. ft., $670/mo.)
5. Bryan/College Station, TX (hullabaloo connect the dots)
What are 5 jobs you've had? (These will appear in chronological order)
1. Grocery sacker (I was pretty spickin' good at keeping cold items together and totally dominating the canned vegetables, back in the day)
2. Lifeguard (I wasn't actually very good at this)
3. Chick-Fil-A customer satisfaction artist (actually, I don't know what my official job title was, and I only worked there a month because my parents wanted me to focus more on school, but this was a pretty sweet job because you could eat the "employee meals" for $1, which basically consisted of as many of those nuggets and fries as you could fit on a plate)
4. General student worker (I paid my dues for all four years of college...)
5. Various office jobs/Research Assistant (something about wondering whether people noticed that I'd already paid those dues in college - but somehow you continue to pay them long after. I have to be pretty vague here because I'm actually the first name that comes up when I google myself, and most of my current co-workers are either web-savvy or outright techie. Actually, the job I'm at right now is pretty sweet, so it's not like I have a lot to vent about out here in Cyber-topia.)
What 5 people do you want to tag?
1. My wife (seeing as she's working on one of these posts but hasn't published it yet, I'd say this timing works out well; hers will be quite a formidable post, seeing as she's hilarious in her own right, but I can almost bet money on my post being way longer, so I'm not too worried)
2. Thad (he can't ignore the impatient crowds forever)
3. Danny (seeing as he's recently gotten back into blogging, I thought I'd be nice and send all my incredible scores of web-traffic his way)
4. Britt (who is currently suffering from major blog-frost)
5. Cory (another blog-frosty, but ought to be able to craft something hecka interesting)
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