I am much too young to be writing a blog under this title. Aren’t I? Mere months away from the big 3-0. That point doesn’t actually bother me. It seems a milestone, but that’s merely a human contrivance based upon nice round numbers with zeros. The truth is that any day of any year is the same as any other day of any other year except for the titles and values we as people assign to them.

Point in case, people living in third world countries could care less whether it is Tuesday or Wednesday. They don’t even care if it’s January or August. Time effects them as the seasons change and the moon moves in it’s cycle. When every day isn’t marked by such auspicious responsibilities as “meeting client X at 10am on Thursday”, Time really isn’t so important.

The more activity one deems necessary to perform in a given day or time period, the more one cares about the clock. Time is important because it enables me to meet you at location X on January 13, 2007 at 3:15pm. We will both arrive at the same place at the same time (assuming we’re “responsible” people). It enables us to fit more tasks into a shorter period of time because we can schedule meetings with other people and not spend our time waiting for them to arrive.

Imagine what it must have been like for people back in the day to be expecting a visit from friends or family and not know which day they will arrive! Nearly impossible for us to conceive. Our schedules are too demanding. If you come to visit and I don’t know when you’ll arrive, I have to rearrange my life on a moment’s notice. All the other people and/or activities I’ve scheduled will be put off at the last minute because you arrived.

Having said all that, turning 30 drives me to consider my position in life, in career, in relationship, and in purpose. I am compelled to evaluate my position in regards to my goals and desires, and to make a fair and accurate judgment upon my rate of progress. Turning 30 means no more young adult. It’s family time and transition time. What was excusable for a newbie is no longer acceptable behavior. Part of maturation is knowing better.

Time becomes a little more important. When you start to measure life in decades, you realize that you might have put as many years behind you as you have in front of you. Of course, I could live another 50 years, so I’m not predicting anything just yet. But one should be aware of the possibilities. If my life were half spent, I would want to spend the second half making a difference where before I was too shy, too embarrassed, too insecure, too lazy, or too naive.

Childhood, teenage years, and 20s. Three decades. Wow. I don’t feel old, and most people will remind me that I’m not old. But there is something to be said by marking one’s life in decades and to have more than two to remember.

I suppose the question now is, what will I do from here?

Â

Popularity: 1% [?]

Is it so wrong to wish that everything in the house would function properly for at least one uninterrupted year? This time it’s a leak between the toilet tank and the wall. I’ve purchased some new parts which, of course, do not fit. It took me a week just to make it to Home Depot after hours. Now I’ve got to go twice in as many days. Not good.

Historically, I’ve not been known as a handyman (though I did work for Handyman Matters…briefly). Each time something goes wrong around the house, it’s like reality is banging on the door, demanding that I participate in more than just the little sphere I’ve carved out for myself.

That brings up issues concerning technology, civilized society, and a whole slew of others. We won’t discuss those just yet. I’ve been reading Jacques Ellul’s book, The Meaning of the City, and it sparks all kinds of questions. I’ll discuss these more later.

Popularity: 2% [?]

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. That is what they say, right? Yesterday, the Christmas cards started piling in. It’s a shame, really, that we all don’t find excuses to communicate more often. Still, it’s heartwarming to receive them, and probably more so because of the Christmas season.

A few couples including my grandparents (Howard and Judy Dessinger), David and Caroline Shorter, and Russ and Christy Hemati have gone a step further by writing a Christmas letter. I love the Christmas letter. A year-end summary tells me what I’ve missed, and reminds me why even great distances cannot keep me from caring.

In light of the heartwarming effect Christmas letters have on me, I am inspired to write my own. Most of our friends and family don’t spend much time on the Internet, much less reading blogs like this. In order to keep in touch with most of the people we love, emails and/or conventional letters are still more successful.

So this year, we will send out our first family Christmas letter. It’s exciting to begin traditions, especially if you can recognize them as such from the beginning. It is a husband’s privilege to feel he has contributed to the formation of traditions within his family.

I am grateful, and pleased to know that many years from now, we will have a tradition in place which will be treasured for years to come by friends, family, and our children.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Is there any doubt that Dale Hansen is the most annoying sports columnist in the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex? There can be no doubt that he dwells on a level of suck all his own. Once upon a time, there was a radio guy named Randy Galloway who really got on people’s nerves. He was belligerent, obnoxious, and unwilling to consider anyone else’s opinion. Mr. Galloway was famous for his “idiot alert,” with which he would blast good intentioned callers whose opinions differed from his. That was annoying to say the least. I only ever enjoyed listening because I enjoyed disliking him.

My sports radio attention span is fairly weak, and months if not years went by without my listening to a single minute of sportstalk radio. It was probably the success of the Dallas Mavericks last year and the fact that I couldn’t watch many games that led me back to the radio to catch the day-after summaries and opinions.

To my surprise, Randy Galloway had transformed into this humorous, good natured guy whose insults had grown so mellow as to make his show entirely digestable. The personalities on his show added to the mix. Little Ball of Hate - Jennifer Engle - and Chuck “The Coop” Cooperstein were two personalities who brought a satisfying mixture of disagreement and a degree of logic. They disagreed with Randy enough to keep him honest. The infamous Idiot Alert was nowhere to be heard. To top it all off, Randy Galloway is actually funny.

ESPN Radio then made the mistake of following the three hour Galloway and Company show with the Dale Hansen Hour. What a pathetic excuse for radio. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Dale Hansen is famous because he’s a decent looking guy? It’s definitely not because of his personality.

Words cannot express how disappointing it is to get into the car after working out in the gym, turn on the radio, and realize that I’ve missed GAC (Galloway and Company). Dale Hansen’s voice is torture to my ears.

He has nothing to say. I’ve listened a handful of times, and he always has one big complaint against Bill Parcells or the college football bowlgame setup for the evening. He rants and raves over the same thing for the entire hour, asking the same questions over and over again. He repeats his points over and over as though he expects us to be total flipping idiots who could not possibly understand what he’s trying to say within the first five minutes of his hour-long show.

To be forthright, Dale Hansen is a television sports figure because he’s better looking than Randy Galloway. He has no business whatsoever on the radio or in print, where Randy Galloway dominates the DFW Metroplex. Everyone else is a Galloway wannabe.

Â

Popularity: 4% [?]

Blogging, as most things, can become an obsession that steals away one’s life and time. There have been times when, despite the lack of anything important to say, I feel I must write to reward those regular readers (how precious you few people are) out there.

Days like today, I question why I ever started blogging. I had journals before this, and those took less time to design and update.

There are days when nothing seems to go right, and it feels like the world is against you, and you wonder why you waste your time writing down your thoughts when they aren’t good enough to keep you out of trouble.

On days like today, it’s not worth writing. It’s not worth it.

Popularity: 3% [?]

For a mellow, even-keeled person such as myself, this has been a perfect evening. My wife and I spent the evening together. She is making a Christmas gift for my grandparents while I deal with the mess that has been my CultureFeast blog.

The Lord of the Rings has been playing in the background. Just a nice quiet evening of hobbits, elves, wizards, blogs, and my wife. What could be better, other than a new epic trilogy?

Popularity: 1% [?]

You will note that the new WordPress version of CultureFeast is lacking photos. Being the technical genius that I am (not), I have yet to configure the blogs to allow photos without causing stylistic damage to the right column on your screen. Once that is achieved, we will do our best to put some color back into the blog. For now, the only way to add visual appeal is to create separate blog posts for for each photo.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Since we began the switch to WordPress two days ago, we’ve decided that I know just enough to be dangerous. A couple of wrong clicks with FileZilla and all my hard work disappeared. We’re starting from scratch yet again, hoping to re-post all the previous blog posts soon.

Thanks for your patience.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’ve been toying with a few blog ideas. I’m still not sure whether to create new blogs or add sub-blogs to one of my existing blogs. The ideas are solid, but they require time to develop and expand just like everything else. Time is a precious commodity.

CultureFeast is in the process of switching to a Linux server as we speak. It may or may not become inaccessible for a few hours sometime today. We’ll have to upload the new content management system to the server as soon as all the current files have successfully transerred over.

I’ll keep you updated

Popularity: 1% [?]

What makes you tick? What makes me tick? Other than some really poor jokes about parasites, I’ll venture to say that we don’t often know ourselves as well as we might think.

I am notorious for insisting that people think about the “why” of everything. After all, it’s probably a waste of time if you can’t explain why you’re doing it, whatever “it” is.

One question we rarely ask ourselves: “Why am I craving this particular style of music or song?” Now, some things are just plain obvious. We listen to heartbreak or angry songs after a breakup because we either want to wallow in our misery or we want to lash out in anger for the pain we feel.

But what about the hip hop, the rap, the trance, the acid jazz, the trip hop, the what-the-heck-ever-is-out-there-these-days? If it’s not a ballad or a country song, do we know why we’re listening? Do we ever stop to consider it?

Driving to play basketball, I notice that I am more prone to listen to egocentric rap/hip hop. When I want to write I listen mostly to world fusion. When I want to sleep, I don’t listen to music.

And there are at least a dozen musical styles which I’ll enjoy once they’re playing yet would never select them given a choice. They simply aren’t what I crave.

I have to credit my wife with the original thought on this topic. She first noticed that she enjoyed certain types of music, and that it fed certain predispositions within her.

Another truth: you become what you behold. Very simply, that means you are always becoming like whatever holds your attention. In music, a person listening to rap is most likely to behave in an egocentric, show off, hero-complex sort of way. A person listening to country music is most likely to behave in a practical, slightly depressed way. A person listening to classical music is most likely lying to themselves about their musical taste. People don’t often crave classical music because cravings come from the need to drown something else out. Classical music doesn’t really possess the raw emotional power to tune out other life issues. The only people I’ve noticed listening to classical music are those who are hiding from confrontation in the world or are simply looking to escape it all if only for a few minutes.

Popularity: 2% [?]

It’s something we either never talk about or trivialize in order to forget. It is the reason why many men are so pathetic at talking to women during their teenage years. Whether insecurity or heartache, we cannot decide how best to handle the pain.

Pretending makes us feel awkward, as though we are out of step with the rest of the world. Admitting makes us feel weak, ashamed, and disrespected by those whom we have trusted and have not taken our hearts seriously.

We find no middle ground. Not really. We cope as best we can; some with food, others with work, some with alcohol, others with drugs, still others with sugar and/or tobacco. We do what we can, compensating ourselves for the loss by allowing ourselves whatever it is that makes us fine.

But somehow we have to learn how to forgive. It is true that the act of forgiving doesn’t really let the guilty go free; it lets the victimized go free. Holding onto the pain from an insult, offense, or betrayal only means that the person refusing to forgive cannot leave the pain and trauma behind.

God, grant us the grace to forgive, and the wisdom to choose it.

Popularity: 3% [?]